1985-05-09

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ALLOTTED DAY, S.O. 62-CANADIAN ARTS COMMUNITY Ms. Lynn McDonald (Broadview-Greenwood) moved:
That this House condemns the Government for its failure to support the Canadian arts community, specifically by,
(1)	cutting funding to independent cultural agencies, leaving artists in poverty;
(2)	compromising the arm's length principle in relations between Government and funded agencies; and
(3)	increasingly bringing arts funding under direct ministerial control, and making partisan appointments to cultural agencies.
She said: Mr. Speaker, this debate we are holding today on the failure of the Government to support the arts community reflects a growing recognition of the importance of the arts community to Canada. It reflects a growing strength in the arts organizations which came en masse to Parliament Hill to lobby for the arts, and it reflects a growing disgust on the part of the Canadian public at Government policies, at broken election promises and at the unmitigated gall of this Government in its appointments to arts agencies.
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Today we are launching a historic debate on the situation of the arts and the plight of artists in Canada. For the first time, Government policy with regard to the arts is the subject of a full day's debate in the House. The New Democratic Party moves that the House condemn the Government for its failure to support the arts community. Specifically, we condemn the Government for its budgetary cut-backs; we condemn the Government for failing to live up to its election promises; we condemn the Government for interfering with agencies which are supposed to be independent; we condemn the Government for its policy under which reductions are imposed to independent agencies with a view to giving the Minister greater control over the purse strings; and we condemn the Government for outright patronage in appointments to agencies. On the contrary, we advocate the appointment of artists and public representatives of every political stripe who are knowledgeable in the arts, not only those of the Progressive Conservative Party.
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We have in Canada an arts community of which we can be proud. In all parts of the country music, dance, visual arts,
theatre, writing, film, cartoons, crafts, are flourishing in the sense that good work is being done. It is increasingly being appreciated by Canadians who buy the works and attend concerts and performances. The paradox is that while the arts are thriving, very few artists are. They are still living in poverty. Why?
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When the Canada Council began in 1957 it had enough money that roughly an eighth of the applicants could obtain grants. It was not a large number, but it was very competitive. A large number of artists could expect, fairly often, to obtain grants from the Canada Council. Now the odds are one in 40 or one in 50 that artists will obtain support. The Canada Council is just not supporting the vast majority of our artists due to lack of funds.
The money available to the Canada Council has decreased in real terms over the last number of years. This decrease began with the Liberals, but the point here today is that the Conservatives have continued this trend, indeed entirely contrary to specific promises to keep up funding at least with the cost of living during the election campaign. Instead, money is going into funds under the Minister's control. If we look at the proportions, they are very large; over $30 million in arts funding. This is not much for national defence but a great deal of money for the arts under the Minister's direct control without specific criteria, without guidelines, without accountability to the arts community, with a jury system. The Canada Council itself has roughly $70 million. The amount of money available for patronage expenditures is increasing and is sizeable, compared with what is available to regular cultural agencies.
This Government in opposition promised support for traditional agencies and the arm's length relationship. Let me quote what its Members said at the time of the election:
We are committed without question to the arms length principle ... The cultural agencies and councils are more able than politicians and bureaucrats to assess the needs identified by the cultural sector, and must be assured adequate resources to respond effectively-
We say "Amen". They continued:
We are convinced that the agencies and councils must be independent from shifts in political perspective ... We are prepared now to translate our efforts in opposition into action, through implementation of five-year financial plans, formal structures for advice from agencies and councils, and legislation which embodies the arms length principle without question.
However, what has happened? The arm's length principle has been eroded. The lottery money which goes into cultural initiatives is at the discretion of the Minister. It does not come
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May 9, 1985
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from general tax revenues; it is from lotteries. How could it best be spent? I proposed that it go to the Canada Council directly so that it would come under the jury system and there would be some accountability.
Let us look at the proposal which the Conservatives made while in opposition. They said:
We will consult with the agencies, councils and cultural community to determine whether there is a better way to allocate these funds.
Yet when I raised this matter in committee only last week, the Minister said that it would be undemocratic to have more funding go to the Canada Council because it was not under his control. He got elected, he is the Minister responsible, and therefore somehow that makes it democratic. In other words, respecting Conservative election promises would be undemocratic. That is how ridiculous that is. Surely the essence of democracy is that voters know for what they are voting and that there is respect for promises after the election campaign. The Minister tells us that he has a different plan. It is not that he is against the arts or artists; he has another idea on how to make it work, that is, the private sector. Unfortunately we have no evidence to believe that the private sector will ever give away enough money. There is not that philanthropic tradition in Canada which other countries have. Unfortunately, if we give it more tax incentives, it means the public would be paying indirectly but the private sector would be getting veto power over what is actually produced.
I suggested that the Minister ought to be advancing the promises and finding more funding as was recommended in the Applebaum-Hebert report. These were discussed subsequently in committee. The Minister's response to these positive recommendations was: "Well, they are not in the Bible. Election promises are not the Bible". One would hope they would have more respect for their own election promises. To continue with his notion that the alternative is a better one, that the election brought in a Government devoted to the private sector, and that that is really what counts, I will quote what the Minister said in committee last week:
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Under the new course we are recommending, there would be more measures designed to promote and spur private sector investment in arts and culture.
It is quite clear what they want. Let me point out that this investment in the private sector has been tried. It has been the response over the decades. A lot of money has gone into capital expenditures. We have had tax incentives for films. People have certainly made money. We have had lousy films. Canadian performers have received very little of that money which comes out of general tax revenues. The quality of the product has been bad. They have not been Canadian films. They have been money-making schemes.
In broadcasting, we have an average of 33 per cent returns, according to the CRTC, in the private sector. They are making money. The plant is there. The artists are still starving. The majority are still living under or at the poverty line. We have
had an enormous expansion in the capital plant for culture in Canada. Let me quote George Woodcock from his book on the arts and Government called Strange Bedfellows:
Often the arts, as distinct from the artists, seem to be flourishing financially. The last 20 years have seen the building of fine theatres and resplendent art galleries in many Canadian cities, so that the performing and the visual arts often have palatial house-room.
That is true. We have palaces. A lot of that has come out of public funds. We have palaces for the arts and the artists have been reduced to beggars.
Those who make a living in the arts are the investors, administrators and art consultants, not the artists. The corporate investor buys a piece of art when it is cheap and the artist is starving. It accumulates in value. The investor gets the money, not the artist. Technicians make more than the writers and playwrights whose works are being performed. All of the people in these industries depend upon the creative work of artists. They live off of it, but where do the profits go? Not to the artists. We have not had concrete measures from this Government to address the problem of the poverty of artists, their desire to work and make a contribution. Artists in Canada are poor while the arts are thriving.
Canada Council appointments, as other Conservative appointments, have reflected an even greater concern and devotion to the patronage principle than the Liberals had, and that was a tough act to follow. We have seen some scandalous appointments. There have been very few appointments of artists. Recommendations from the Canada Council have not been respected and have not gone through. 1 might point out that I put in my own recommendations from the arts community, non-political people with a lot of experience. They did not go through. Instead, political supporters of the Minister and the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney), Tory bagmen, people with political connections, have been appointed.
The Canada Council chairperson was not even consulted on the appointments. To add insult to injury, in the case of some appointments, she found out second-hand who they were. The result is that we have members who are not sufficiently knowledgeable about the arts. In some cases they are hostile to the agencies. They are not advocates for the arts but are defending Government policy and not speaking up for the artists, something they should be doing.
I do not say that the Canada Council is perfect. I would like to see its theatre programs changed. I would like to see Canadian theatre promoted and more money going to individual artists. Roughly 12 per cent of the budget has been allocated for individual artists. All kinds of changes could be made. These are not the questions being addressed. New groups are not being funded. 1 suspect if they had more funding, they could be addressing and solving the real problems of artists instead of having to figure out where to make cuts that will cause the least hurt.
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In a sense, the arts are an industry which provides employment for an ever increasing number of people. An investment in cultural endeavours will create six times as many jobs as the
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same amount invested in manufacturing. Even at that, the arts cannot be considered only as an instrument of economic recovery, for one needs the arts to gain insight into oneself and enjoy living. Chances are some arts will never be financially self-sustaining, just as financial success will never be known in certain arts fields and by certain artists. Even those artists who are now in the limelight had a hard time in their lives when their works did not sell. Mozart was destitute when he died, but today's musicians and record stores are making money because of him.
Financial success therefore does not reflect the merit of an artist. We must face the fact that certain things will never be profitable, yet humanity as a whole cannot do without them. The arts need our support, but not for commercial purposes. Unfortunately the Government has shown an almost total lack of understanding in that respect. We do not live by GNP alone.
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My call today is for an end to crass political patronage appointments, an end to ministerial empire building and an end to ministerial control over important arts funds that should go through the traditional agencies with their systems of accountability. My call today is for vigorous new policies of support for our artists and arts agencies. We do not live by GNP alone. Justice for artists and support for the arts must continue to be a concern for the Government and the House.
Mr. St. Germain:: Mr. Speaker, first I would like to clarify matters by saying that I am absolutely certain that our Government is not hostile to the arts. The Hon. Member for Broadview-Greenwood (Ms. McDonald) made reference to the private sector. She said that she did not feel that the private sector could provide what is required in the way of assistance to the arts. The private sector has traditionally played a role in supporting the arts and I am thoroughly convinced that the private sector, which gains so much from this country and is prepared to recognize the benefits it receives from our resources, just to mention one particular sector, is prepared to put something back into this country by way of supporting the arts, the sciences and the varied cultures of this country.
Several artists have appeared at my constituency office. They have said that the form of assistance they want is for the Government to create tax incentives in order that people will buy art so artists do not necessarily have to live on what they call government hand-outs. I think this is the way we should involve the private sector. I believe that the Hon. Member should not exclude the private sector from supporting the arts. I honestly believe that as we evolve as a nation and as we deal with the economic plight of meeting the needs of the poor, we are going to have to look to the private sector for more participation in supporting the arts.
Very early in this debate, I would like to set the stage by saying that the private sector has an important role to play in supporting the arts. There are numerous ways of attacking this
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question. I am sure that the Hon. Minister who is responsible can speak for himself. However, I think the Government is saying that the private sector has a role to play.
From the Hon. Member's presentation this morning, 1 felt that she was excluding the private sector. 1 would hope that she would be prepared to recognize that it most likely has the largest role to play in the future development of the arts in Canada.


Ms. McDonald:: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the chance to clarify that point. In a 20-minute speech, one does not have the opportunity to deal with everything in detail. Certainly there is a role for the private sector to play. I am concerned, though, that it is used as a cop-out for public expenditure. When the Conservative Party was in opposition, it made it very clear that it would stimulate private donations for one thing but that it would not hold back public expenditures. It indicated that public expenditures on the arts would at least keep up with the cost of living. Now we have seen cut-backs and the excuse is that the private sector should do more.
Of course the private sector should do more, but it should not do so by way of grants which, in effect, mean a reduction in taxation which in turn means that the public is putting a great deal of money into this, thereby giving a veto power to the private sector. We should not have additional incentives for that to happen because that is already a factor. We should not be moving in that direction because it gives control to companies, and this control would mean that companies would not have to support something that they did not like. In effect, it would give them too much interference in the artistic decisions which would be made. I believe that would be wrong.
I would very much support tax measures which would not involve government interference, but would provide a means of obtaining public expenditure. One proposal suggested that there should be a tax credit for the purchase of Canadian concert tickets, books and periodicals. That would leave the decision as to which ones were worth buying with the public and not the agency. If there was a measure to provide a tax incentive for the purchase of Canadian products, I believe that would be good.
Another measure which I have proposed a number of times is that the Government should engage in a more vigorous purchasing program. Both federal and provincial Governments should purchase books, periodicals and films for school systems, public institutions, hospitals and other places in which they could be used. If that were done, there would not be a need for subsidies. If the sales were adequate, a book publishing company would not need a subsidy to pay for the run. It could count on those sales. I believe that that measure would be very welcome to the arts community.


Mr. Schellenberg:: Mr. Speaker, I would like to compliment the Hon. Member for Broadview-Greenwood (Ms. McDonald) on her impassioned plea for Canadian culture. However, I do

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not agree that a cut of 2.9 per cent to 3 per cent across the board means the end of culture in Canada.
Her attitude seems to be that if we did not cut the funding, everything would be well. We could look at it on a per capita basis. In the United States, approximately $10 per person is spent on cultural funding. In Great Britain it is approximately $20 per person, and in Canada it is approximately $30 per person. Could the Hon. Member tell us what is the magical figure in Canada? How many dollars per person should we be spending on Canadian culture before we see a Canadian Dickens, Hemingway, Alexander Korda, Cecil B. de Mille or Mozart? How many dollars will it take to achieve the goals which she has outlined?


Lynn McDonald: Mr. Speaker, I would not want to put a dollar value on how much it would cost. I would suggest that in some fields, particularly writing, we certainly have people of the calibre which has been mentioned and we do not have to wait for them to appear.
The cuts in percentage terms, depending upon what denominator we use, are not very large. But to a community which has been starved for a long time and has not received real increases in funding for a number of years, those cuts are very significant. That cut in a big budget would not mean the same thing. I believe that it is unfair for the arts community to be cut back in a time of restraint when that community never enjoyed the times of non-restraint. The people who profited from expansion are the people who should be cutting back. The arts have not profited. Those people are still at the same poverty level at which they were 20 years ago.


Mr. Gormley:: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Hon. Member a brief question. I would like to echo the thoughts of my colleague with respect to the comments on culture which the Hon. Member for Broadview-Greenwood (Ms. McDonald) raised.
I noted with some regret her comments about the nature of political partisanship and appointments. I think the House would agree that the Minister of Communications (Mr. Masse) has been renowned thus far for his appointments of competent and capable Canadians to positions within the arts community.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Kenneth Gormley: I believe the Minister should be lauded for that. I can think of his appointment which was made yesterday and the announcement of the broadcasting task force. He appointed one Gerry Caplan. In the Member's opinion, is Mr. Caplan another Conservative at the trough?


Lynn McDonald: Mr. Speaker, I did not say that all the people who were appointed were incompetent and that all the appointments were political patronage appointments. I said too many are. I said that is a tendency which is increasing. Let me point out in the case of Mr. Caplan, who I think is a good
appointment, that to have one member out of seven members of a task force-


Mr. Masse:: Give us one name.


Lynn McDonald: -as a New Democrat-one out of five Canadians vote New Democrat-is not excessive. The record of the Conservative Party with respect to appointments is atrocious.


Marcel Masse: One name?


Lynn McDonald: I have asked the Minister to specify the political affiliation of the appointments so that we can see the percentages.


Marcel Masse: Give us one name which is not good.


Mr. Keeper:: Mr. Speaker, if the dogs would stop barking perhaps I could put a question.
I would like to have the Hon. Member's comments with regard to the economic impact of the cuts in the arts. Clearly that has had a devasting impact upon arts in Canada and upon artists. For every public dollar which goes into the arts, there is a creation of employment. I understand that dollars invested in the arts create more employment than dollars spent in other sectors of the economy. The Government said it was committed to employment when it was running in an election campaign, and then it cuts funding to the arts, which is also having a detrimental effect upon the economy and upon the employment of people. I wonder if the Hon. Member could comment on that.


Lynn McDonald: Yes, Mr. Speaker, investment in the arts is a very good way of creating jobs because-and this is a very sad fact-wages and salaries in the arts are so low that a job can be created for very little money. With most of the arts it does not require a great deal of capital expenditure. There is a ripple effect from the cut-backs we have seen. For example, Radio-Canada fires people but it also cuts back on its contracts. So that free-lance artists have been very badly hit by these cut-backs and that is not quite so visible because they are not in actual positions in an agency. We have had a terrific outcry from artists because they are suffering as a result.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are over. Debate. The Hon. the Minister of Communications (Mr. Masse).


Marcel Masse: Mr. Speaker, I am particularly anxious to speak to the motion before the House today because, and this will come as no surprise, I intend to deny the allegations made in the motion moved by the Hon. Member for Broadview-Greenwood (Ms. McDonald). The substance of this motion is to condemn our Government for failing to support the Canadian arts community.

May 9, 1985

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I cannot agree at all with the three allegations which I find exaggerated and unfounded, the very shaky foundation, as it were, of the motion before the House today. However, I do find some satisfaction in the realization that this motion marks the first time the issue of the arts has been placed on the agenda of the House for an Opposition day.
I sincerely hope it is not just a premiere, and that in future, the Opposition parties will contribute further by giving more consideration to the arts and that in doing so, they will follow the example of this Government and show that they are prepared to use the means at their disposal, in other words, to bring the debate into the House of Commons and give this question the consideration we believe the arts and culture community deserves.
Mr. Speaker, to get back to the substance of the motion, the argument used by the Opposition to buttress its motion is the allegation that this Government has reduced funding to cultural agencies, leaving artists in poverty. I agree that on the face of it, nothing would seem more logical than to proceed along the lines of cause and effect, especially to the New Democrats whose causes, as we all know, are many, their effects earnestly hoped for but fortunately, in the opinion of many Canadians, the results are very scarce.
It is of course accepted practice to accuse the Government of breaking its promises, and when no attempt is made to look at all aspects of the question and to judge fairly, as is the case with the motion before the House today, Mr. Speaker, it may seem easy to shout "haro sur le baudet", to look for a scapegoat, but of course my hon. friend opposite is not La Fontaine far from it. Must I remind him, Mr. Speaker, that as in the fable, the pest was wiped out last September?
Mr. Speaker, the New Democratic Party has raised the issue of election promises several times. Well, we know what the New Democratic Party's election promises are worth, because in any case, there is a very wide gap between what they promise and what they can deliver, if they are ever in a position to do so.
When the Progressive Conservative Party made its commitments during the election campaign, in my sector as in others, it made commitments to be met within its term of government, and that is the spirit in which these commitments were made to the people, who knew perfectly well that after the election, the government would have the usual term within which to govern, that is four or five years, according to our parliamentary tradition. The people know perfectly well that a government needs a certain amount of time to apply its policies, that it needs a certain amount of time to prepare legislation, and that it needs time to introduce the technical and administrative measures that will implement its election promises. It was with this in mind that the Government, the Progressive Conservative Party, committed itself, and I can give the House the assurance that at the end of our term, the people of Canada
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will realize that the Progressive Conservative Party was able to deliver on the commitments it made to the Canadians.
Mr. Speaker, it really takes the mentality of a socialist party, and we in the Western world know what that means, to believe it is possible to turn Parliament upside down, to upset bureaucratic traditions and to impose-as I am sure they would if they ever came to power in Canada, which would be a catastrophy for this country-to impose their dictatorship on this country's government and administration. That is the vicious philosophy behind the motion of the Hon. Member, that smacks of the habit socialist parties have of wanting to impose their ideology on a population that refuses to accept it, Mr. Speaker.
We know that the socialist party, with its grand speeches in support of the union system . . . show me a country where they did not abolish unions as soon as they came to power! It has been like that everywhere in recent history, and Canadians know exactly what to expect from the proposals, projects, programs and ideology of the socialist party, Mr. Speaker. That is why in a country like Canada, they object to bringing in the private sector to help the arts community.
The barking dogs are on the other side now.
They are part of an ideological tradition that most Western countries will not accept because they know full well that to apply their socialist theory would diminish our freedom, and Canadians know that, Mr. Speaker.
The Government has made commitments to the people of Canada, and it will respect those commitments, and it will do so for the benefit of the people and not in order to diminish their freedom as the case would be with the New Democratic Party's program if that party ever came to power in this country, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, this Government set its priority from the very beginning, and Canadians knew what that priority was, and that is why the Progressive Conservative Party was able to obtain such a high percentage of the popular vote. The Government's first priority was to regain control over the budget deficit. Our ever increasing indebtedness has taken alarming proportions and is a load which the Canadian people can no longer carry. Barely ten years ago Canada's public debt service cost only one-eighth of each dollar collected by the State. It has since soared to one-third. The budget deficit is growing so fast that expanding our whole economy would and will not by itself solve the problem. The public debt went up 22 per cent last year, whereas real economic growth was barely 4.7 per cent. Such administration of public funds is therefore irresponsible. Getting a handle on the deficit is not an objective in itself, Mr. Speaker, it is only a way to reach our goal, which is the sustained creation of jobs and wealth. All Canadians must do their fair and equitable share to set the economy back on the right track. Mr. Speaker, all of us have benefited from the fallout of the higher deficit, so all of us must now make fair and equitable sacrifices to restore order in public financing.

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Over the past few months I explained what I intend to do in those sectors which fall under my Department's jurisdiction. I am firmly committed to promoting the development of artistic and cultural activities. But as Government policies must be fair to all Canadians, we also have to come to grips with economic realities. In my opinion, the State must nurture the arts community and do its share to create the climate and infrastructure which artists and creators require. More specifically, Mr. Speaker, we are trying to create an environment in which the cultural sector will thrive, thus supporting the development of an economic environment where the arts will indeed rest on a sound base. Mr. Speaker, I can assure you that I will take every initiative to make better use of public funds.
It was therefore in the challenging context I have just described that budget restraints became the order of the day, including everything within my responsibilities and under my jurisdiction. Anything less would have been unfair to all Canadians. I want to explain the full scope of those budget reductions.
While during the 1984-85 fiscal year cultural agencies had a total funding of $1,347 billion, for the 1985-86 fiscal year the Main Estimates will allow them a total of $1,317 billion. This is a $30 million reduction, or something like 2.2 per cent of the total funding for cultural agencies. I have had no pleasure implementing those cuts. However, I must indicate to this House that on the average, these are much smaller than the cuts applied generally to other Government services and portfolios. Again, I have felt no pleasure implementing those cuts. I am aware that the impact on the cultural community will be severely felt, just as implementing budget cuts where farmers are concerned has been severely felt in the farming industry. It is the same story throughout Canadian society. Indeed, the vulnerability of the cultural and artistic industry was taken into account when I asked agencies to cut overhead in order to reduce as much as possible the impact of budget reductions on their programs.
Agencies do not exist for their own sake. The cultural bureaucracy does not exist for its own sake, but first and foremost for the purpose of satisfying the needs of the artistic and cultural community. It is in that spirit that I have undertaken, in co-operation with my colleagues and my provincial counterparts, a number of initiatives likely to bring a significant and sustained improvement in the opportunities for the future and the development prospects of the cultural community because of our national make-up. Ours is not a centralized or monolithic nation. We are a nation which is made up of provinces and with a national government. If there is one industry in which the dialogue is essential, in which cooperation is essential, it is first and foremost the cultural industry. I have always recognized, and maybe the NDP never did, that Canada is a nation made up of provinces and that the latter have an essential, important, basic and specific role in
the area of culture. This the Canadian Government must recognize not only in speech but in deeds. It is in that spirit that as early as September, we entered upon a positive dialogue with the Provinces, because within the very principles of the Canadian reality, compounded with the current economic difficulties, it is essential that we improve our own management of cultural activities, and in that sense, the Provinces are a basic component.
I do not believe there is any need for me to try and convince you of the importance to this Government of the artistic and cultural community, because you are aware of it, Mr. Speaker. For each and every Canadian, the collective, cultural life is essential to the very existence of this nation. Modern technology enables us to transmit in a few seconds thousands of data, and this is also a part of my portfolio which I have to look after. But that transmitting speed can never outdo the wealth of the message that may lie in a poem, a novel, a painting, a concert or a play, for instance. And I have stressed over these last few months the economic impact of artistic and cultural activities. In terms of income, culture is the eleventh largest industry in Canada. It is the fourth largest supplier of jobs, it also has the fourth biggest bankroll. On the basis of the most recent statistics, between 1971 and 1981, according to the latest census, the number of jobs in that industry had even increased by 74 per cent, nearly twice the growth of the general labour force.
I am quoting those figures to prove two things: first, the economic significance of the cultural industry, and, second, the fact that the Government recognizes it. When the Prime Minister convened the Economic Conference Summit in this country, we made sure for the first time that the cultural and artistic community would be represented, because in this Government's view, that industry does not rank second in the nation's activity, but is at the very heart of the nation's activity and thinking.
The artistic and creative community already is considered by this Government as a full-fledged partner in our society. Such an approach has always been productive. There was the Cultural Affairs Ministers' Conference, which had not met for years because of the frustration and distrust that existed between the Provinces and the Canadian Government. That conference was held; there will now be another one in Halifax. That conference went along in an absolutely normal way in a spirit of co-operation, but we have agreed on the importance of the economic aspect of artistic and cultural activities, and we have shared the cost of an in-depth study of the issue of economic spin-offs with my provincial counterparts.
Several ministers and government members have agreed to take part in the dialogue and to have some input in cultural activities, either in the area of tourism, in the area of employment and immigration together with the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Miss MacDonald), in the area of
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taxation together with the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Beatty), or in the area of regional spin-offs together with the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion (Mr. Stevens). We have made sure that members of our cultural community can avail themselves of the whole range of government programs and are not limited to a definite sector of the government bureaucracy, that for all practical purposes they can participate fully in a multiplicity of programs, because I feel very strongly, contrary to the socialist party, that the multiplicity of sources in the cultural area increases creativity. I am not sure that the New Democratic Party believes in this approach to the organization of the state, and that is why we have opened, multiplied and will continue to multiply the provenances and sources. It is with this objective in mind that we are going to review the Canadian tax system, for I believe that such a review will allow us, through imagination or comparison with other countries, to make the necessary improvements to our tax system which will make it possible for Canadian creators not to depend entirely upon a single source, but to count on a multiplicity of sources throughout the provinces, through governmental departments, private corporations or individuals, that this multiplicity will increase freedom and reduce red tape in the area of subsidies, so that our creators will spend less time filling out applications forms and more ensuring the development of culture in this country.
Mr. Speaker, I want to assure the House that this government is very much interested in the cultural and artistic sector, that this government has been elected to bring about changes, that this government will make sure that changes do take place in co-operation with the provinces-as the reality of this country will have it-and private corporations-as the reality of our economic philosophy will have it-while respecting existing institutions, something to which the Prime Minister has committed himself. I would remind my hon. friend opposite that the Progressive Conservative party created the CBC as well as the Canada Council.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments. The Hon. Member for Broadview-Greenwood (Ms. McDonald).


Lynn McDonald: Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of comments and a question to put to the Minister of Communications (Mr. Masse). I noticed that most of his speech was rhetoric. He moved quickly from defending the arts, without spending much time there, to spending most of his time on Conservative ideology.	.
He made remarks about the multiplicity of funding sources and quite misrepresented the position of my Party and myself. We are entirely in favour of using Employment and Immigration, Tourism and Taxation so that there will not be bureaucratic control. Where we differ is that these should not be in
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place of funding for the traditional agencies but in addition to it, which was the promise of his Party.
He made very rude remarks about socialist governments. Let me note that we have one in Canada at the provincial level in Manitoba. It increased its spending for the arts, even though it is going through the same tough times as every other province. It made promises in its election campaign to the artists and kept those promises. We have had the experience of NDP Governments in Saskatchewan as well. Saskatchewan would be a very good model for the Minister who is so concerned about the deficit. We had the pioneering of social programs in Saskatchewan and arts programs operating in Saskatchewan without a deficit. We have shown that it can be done and we can show good government.
The Minister did not reply to one of the major parts of my motion concerning appointments. He did not deny that the Canada Council proposals for appointments and proposals from the arts community and other persons have been refused. Would he confirm that he has refused all of the appointments coming from the Council and from the arts community itself? Will he undertake to consult the Canada Council and make a substantial number of appointments of artists who represent the arts community and are nominated by arts agencies?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Minister of Communications (Mr. Masse).


Marcel Masse: Mr. Speaker, obviously, we have not been able to deal with all the issues during the 20 minutes or so set aside for our reply. Naturally, I would have preferred having more time to show how the Minister of Communications answers for the agencies. The Hon. Member keeps saying that the agencies are everything in the arts world, but the provinces have also an important role to play, as well as the Department of Communications, which has to establish contacts with the arts world and promote a continuing dialogue because its first responsibility is to develop the policies of this Government. I feel that the Hon. Member finds it hard to distinguish between a democratic system and an agency, which is a bureaucratic body. The Government has the democratic responsibility to develop policies. The agencies are responsible for implementing the directions and policies developed by the Government and the Department of Communications.
The Hon. Member also praised those government appointments with which he agrees and generally commented on them. 1 would like to inform him that the law of the land, which we must respect since we live in a democracy, provides that the Government shall make those appointments. It is in this spirit and in compliance with the law that the Government makes those appointments. Since this debate started, the Hon. Member has had a great deal to say about Government appointments, but I would like him to mention a few cases where he disagrees on the ability of the appointees to do their job.

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We took steps to appoint people from all sectors and all regions in Canada, and I hope that they will be able to fulfil their responsibilities on these boards, which are, first, to act for the Canadian population in managing these public funds, and second, to make recommendations to the Department and the public on behalf of the cultural sector. The system works both ways. The agencies are not lobbies putting pressure on the Government. They are part of a system of public funds management, and to my knowledge, the directors of these agencies act within their responsibilities and with great ability to protect both the cultural sector and the tax dollars of the Canadian public.


Mr. Malepart:: Mr. Speaker, I was not in the House, I was in my office when I heard the Minister of Communications (Mr. Masse) make his astonishing speech. I am not here to defend the New Democratic Party, the socialist party, but I must say I found the Minister's attitude more than a little amazing. The Minister comes from one of the old parties which Quebec has banished from the political scene, the Union nationale, a party of which Quebecers were ashamed. He was a member of a party that was declared corrupt and he has now come to the Progressive Conservative Party to help make it go the same way.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister said that he would meet his commitments. Earlier, the Minister asked the author of the motion to name names, in referring to the appointments. The Minister hid hypocritically behind the laws of this country, saying that the appointments were perfectly legal. May I also remind the Minister of Communications and all Hon. Members that it is absolutely shocking to see how the Hon. Member for Lac-Saint-Jean (Mr. Cote) and the Hon. Member for Drummond are walking around to make sure they are on TV. They are not even in their seats. In fact, it seems to be their sole occupation in this House.
I wish the Minister would inform the House why he has not asked the Right Hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) to keep his promise that a committee of the House would make these appointments. And I also want to ask the Minister why he is so reluctant to have Mr. Sherman appear before the Committee on Official Languages. After all, as a Member from Quebec, the Minister is well aware that the directors of the CRTC are very important people. He also knows there was a time in Quebec when there were more licences for English-speaking radio stations in the Montreal area although the majority of the population was French-speaking. He knows perfectly well what the consequences could be of appointing a person who took the position that he did on the language question in Manitoba, considering the potential impact on the province of Quebec. I wish the Minister would tell us why he is so reluctant. If he has nothing to hide, if he is being honest with himself, the Minister would have to answer: Yes, Mr. Sherman will appear before the Committee on Official Languages; yes, you may question him and you will see his views are not what
everyone believes them to be. However, if the Minister continues to say no, I will maintain what my colleagues, the Hon. Members for Saint-Denis (Mr. Prud'homme) and for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier) said, which is that Mr. Sherman is prejudiced against Francophones and that, nevertheless, the Minister appointed him to that position.


Marcel Masse: Mr. Speaker, there are two points in my colleague's statement which I would like to bring out. In the first place, in connection with the political history of Quebec, I would like to remind him, in case he is unaware of it, that historians think the most corrupt political party ever in power in Quebec was the Liberal party under premier Taschereau. That is what I was taught.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Marcel Masse: Unity was made in the province in order to get rid of that corrupt party which was in power during some 20 years. You should know your history better before throwing mud. The Union Nationale Party, although this may be neither the time nor the place to defend it, had an autonomist, constitutional, social and economic position which allowed the Liberal Party under Jean Lesage to build on a good budget and a sound economic policy which allowed it to adopt a certain number of policies, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: This is the end of the period for questions and comments. The Hon. Member for Saint-Denis (Mr. Prud'homme).


Mr. Marcel Prud'homme (Saint-Denis):: Mr. Speaker, for a Government that talks about national reconciliation, I must admit that I am very disappointed at the tone of the debate, especially the tone of the reply of the Hon. Minister to the Hon. Member who proposed today's motion.
I cannot do otherwise but recall that in 1958 to 1962, under the very great Prime Minister, the late Right Hon. John Diefenbaker-and I say "great" Prime Minister-the Province of Quebec sent 50 Members to this House. The tone of the debate I have heard today is exactly the same tone I heard then when I was student president at the University of Ottawa.
I watched from the gallery, and I remember very clearly how apprehensive and how almost devoid that group of Quebeckers were of anything that had to do with the arts. They used to be called leftists. They were all leftists.
The unbelievable speech I have just heard against the danger of socialism in Canada has made me very sad. 1 am not a socialist. I am a man of the centre. I cannot defend them but I must object categorically to that kind of tone on the part of a Minister of a Government that talks about reconciliation in this country. I am sad, I am disappointed and I am sure the Minister did not address the real question today of what his
May 9, 1985

role is as a Minister responsible for culture in Canada. I see the Minister is leaving, probably for a smoke, but it is all right.
Is the Minister's role to communicate to the arts people, to the cultural community of Canada, the messages of gloom and doom of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson)? Or is the Minister's role to be a defender, a hero? The Minister talks about his great past. We all know he is highly cultured. I give him credit for that. He always quotes people such as Pope Jules II, Francis I and Louis XIV of France. That is not what the people of the artistic community want to hear today. They want to know if they have in this House a spokesman, a defender-

... a champion, as we so aptly say if there someone in that government understands what the Canadian culture is all about? I know that the minister understands quite well what is involved in the survival of the French culture in Canada. However, does he really understand the fear, the distress of the Canadian artistic community, more especially of the Englishspeaking artists? Does he understand the great danger which our English-speaking friends and compatriots have to face as much as Quebecers-

-as well as our English-speaking compatriots who have to face the danger of Americanization. The role of the Minister is to defend in this House and to fight in Cabinet to make sure that those who contribute the most to this country, those who cost the least to this country, will have a spokesman in this Government. We believe that is the role of the Minister.


Mr. Scott (Hamilton-Wentworth):: We have, Marcel.


Marcel Prud'homme: We only received this motion last night, Mr. Speaker. We worked all night and this morning. We could quote what the artistic community is doing for our Canadian identity. We could be on the same level as the Right Hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney). We could be a friend. He wants to create jobs, jobs, jobs. The Minister of Finance wants to reduce the deficit. He wants to have less unemployment. But don't the Conservatives realize that in this country those who cost the treasury the least are the artists? Those who produce the most and those who create the most jobs are the people who work to make us proud to be Canadian-

-artists, authors, ballet and theatre companies that create jobs, those people take almost nothing out of the Canadian economy and they want an advocate, they want someone to defend them within the cabinet, because they are almost helpless. Surely, the Canadian bankers are quite able to fend for themselves, Mr. Speaker, because they have a lobby.

Surely the oil and gas people have their champion and their lobby. The very important Chamber of Commerce of Canada has its lobby. The Chamber is well defended. But who can speak for these little people in the Maritimes? Who can speak
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for these people in Halifax who wanted a spokesman, a defender? I have letters here. I will not read them, but I could put them at the Government's disposal. 1 have received over one thousand letters. I have not had time to reply to them and I apologize publicly to those who have written to me. I have taken samples from Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Alberta, Quebec, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, B. C., Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Newfoundland. These were not only from the CBC but from playwrights, the national president of the music for children association, the president for the western Canada Art Association-

-the general coordinator concerning the cuts, Mrs. Helene Dumas, from Quebec, the President of the Saint Thomas Aquinas Society, our friends from Prince Edward Island who need every day the little amounts which are cut off. Mr. Speaker, those are the people who create jobs. 1 wish I could read these letters, but I will not.
My hon. friend-I am trying to respect the dignity of the House-said a while ago: What is 3 per cent, a mere 3 per cent? It is not much.
Yet it was easy to find $50 million in new money to deploy an additional 1,200 soldiers to Germany. If it was not new money that money could have been directed to the arts. It was easy to find $50 million this year.

-$100 million next year and every year after that. This year, $50 million to increase by 1,200 the number of our military personnel in Europe. That is very important.

I believe in defence. I believe in what we stand for in the western world. They found $50 million. My hon. friend, the exMinister of National Defence, fulfilled his promise. I stand by saying "my hon. friend" because he is a friend. He said: "We will fulfil our promises". He fulfilled his. He found the money for new uniforms.

Hon. Bob Coates, the former Minister of National Defence, once said: "We fulfil our promises". They have found the money they needed. It will cost $35.1 million this year. It will cost $22 million more next year. Some $55 million for new uniforms to satisfy a number of individuals who feel nostalgic about the past. Well, Mr. Speaker, if they could find money for that, I wonder why a colleague of ours asked: "What is a mere 3 per cent?" That is what I am trying to understand and to convey to the Hon. Member as politely as possible under the British Parliamentary system which encourages sharing, listening and trying to convince. It is not an all-out attack against the Minister. I regret his attitude. I regret his inability

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to understand. I am sorry that what he said is the repetition of what I had heard as a student.

Do you know, Mr. Speaker, who answered these 50 members from Quebec who arrived here and started saying: "Cut the CBC"?

-they are socialists or leftists, as they were called when I was a student.

It was the late George Nowlan. If my memory serves me well, he was the then Minister of National Revenue. He was like the tutor of the CBC. He turned around to his own people and he said: "Don't ask me to be the censor of the CBC, do you hear?" He understood the concept. He understood what the words "arm's length" meant. They mean hands off. Is that clear? That was the spirit. I am talking about a great gentleman, the late George Nowlan. I hope the Conservatives will at least agree with that part of my speech. He was a gentleman. I was a friend of his. I used to spend a few evenings socializing with him. He was the father of our distinguished colleague, Mr. Pat Nowlan.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. It is "the Hon. Member for Annapolis Valley-Hants".


Marcel Prud'homme: Thank you, Mr. Speaker; I should have said the father of the Hon. Member for Annapolis Valley-Hants. He understood the words "arm's length". He understood that we must not intervene. 1 will not deny the right of the Hon. Minister to know what they do with the money. Certainly, certainly, but he should not go as far as to say that he will appoint someone to tell them what to do. Jacques Lefebvre was appointed as the new vice-president of the Arts Council. Instead of defending the arts and defending the rights of these people, what did he do? I repeat again that these people do not cost much. They give me my pride in being Canadian. I say it in English, and I will repeat it in French.

It is thanks to these artists that I am proud to be a Canadian and to maintain my French identity in this country. Helping these people would cost almost nothing. There is a Mr. Jacques Lefebvre whom I do not have the pleasure of knowing. No sooner was he appointed to the Canada Council that he acted as a spokesman for the Minister of Finance and told us to lower our apprehensions. If cuts have to be made, they should be made at the right places, Mr. Speaker. The government should not claim that a 3 per cent cut across the board is fair, that it is not much, that every Canadian should do his or her part to help our economy recover. That seems logical.

It seems logical to say that it is only a little 3 per cent, that it is only a little amount. However, it is only a little for artists who cost so little and create so much. They create many jobs. I would like to have the time to read all the letters, pathetic
letters, which ask: "Do you understand what we are trying to do for the country?"

To conclude, Mr. Speaker, I should like to emphasize two points which people do not seem to understand: at a time when the Right Hon. Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Mulroney) is advocating closer economic ties with the United States to create more jobs-

Canadians have chosen a new Government. The new Government says that we will have a very close relationship with the United States, that that is the only way to recover and to have jobs, jobs, jobs. I respect the point of view-and Canadians have spoken loud and clear-that it will give us a chance to renew ourselves. However, they must understand that the closer we are economically to the United States, in the hope of possibly having jobs, the more careful we should be culturally. The closer we want to be on one hand, the more careful we have to be on the other hand.

The closer we get to the United States, and this is the choice made by this newly elected, strongly elected Prime Minister, and I respect that Canadian choice because I believe in democracy, but I urge the Minister to realize that he has a mission, which is in the first place to use his influence with his colleagues, with the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) and with the Prime Minister, to be doubly cautious because our culture and identity are threatened.
Mr. Speaker, as I said in committee when the Minister appeared on May 3, I urge my colleagues to think twice. 1 have no inclination for partisan politics, but I want us to reflect together on this. The average Canadian watches television 23.4 hours every week, the average American 40.4 hours. The average Canadians spends more time before his TV set than in the movie theatre, attending sports activities and so on. Are we aware that a child between the ages of two and twelve over his lifetime will be watching TV for 12,000 hours? Of those
12.000	hours, 10,000 will be spent watching American programs. How do we expect to create a Canadian identity that will be different?

Children from two years of age to 12 years of age will watch
12.000	hours of television, 10,000 hours of which will be American programming. I have nothing against American programming. I watch it. It is well done. However, there is a danger of Americanizing our culture in Canada. For English children from two years of age to 11 years of age in Canada, 80 per cent of the drama they watch is American. French Canadians are privileged. I know the Minister is a great protector of the French culture. He will understand that we are more protected because we speak French. Only 50 per cent of French Canadian children from two years of age to 11 years of age will watch American programming.
May 9, 1985



Mr. Speaker, I think I have ... I realize 1 have been carried away, but I have so much faith in Canada. And why am 1 sitting here as a Member? And why is the Minister here in his capacity as a Minister responsible for protecting, sponsoring culture? I want to help him not to fight the Government, for fighting achieves nothing, but to convince the Government that culture is different from agriculture. The Minister has referred to onions and other things. Culture is important for its art, its influence. This must be understood by the Cabinet, by this House and by Hon. Members. If not, why are we fighting to build a country?

Why am I so proud to have voted for the Canadian flag which was raised for the first time on February 15, 1964? My first vote as a young Member of Parliament was on the Flag in 1964. I was proud because it was a Canadian flag. I am proud of the Canadian identity. When Mr. Pearson was Prime Minister, I sat on the committee to choose a national anthem. We recommended O Canada. The Hon. Member for Dart-mouth-Halifax East (Mr. Forrestall) and I are the only two survivors of that committee. We recommended that in 196566. It was proclaimed in 1980. Why did we fight vigorously and democratically under the British parliamentary system, which I like, respect and will defend? Together we defended a new Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the right of having our Constitution amended in Canada. I wish the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) good luck in getting Quebec in.
Why are we doing all that? Because we believe we are Canadian. I am not here as a French Canadian or an English Canadian. I am a Canadian.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Marcel Prud'homme: However, I am proud of my French culture.

I am French-Canadian, but here I am a Canadian. And what is in my view the first duty of a Canadian? It is to have an identity. How can we have an identity? By having a culture. And how can we have a culture? By protecting it, fostering it, Mr. Speaker.
Therefore, it is my hope-


Mr. Crosby:: There are 1.5 million unemployed.


Marcel Prud'homme: My friend says there are 1.5 million unemployed. If he does not understand that we have to protect the arts, we will have more unemployed because these people create the most. The facts are there to prove that. These people cost less-


Howard Edward Crosby: Put the facts on the table.
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Marcel Prud'homme: I do not want to quarrel with the Hon. Member. I want to try and convince him. If I yell at him, I will not convince him. I will try kindly to convince him that he and I should join our efforts to convince this Minister to be the champion, and not the Minister of Finance. We should convince him that he will have our support. He will have my support, and my colleagues in the Liberal Party better follow me on that or they will have to find another critic on culture. He will have my support if he wants to become the champion and tell his colleagues that the little bit of money that it costs for keeping our Canadian identity is nothing compared to the good it will create to save these people.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments. The Hon. the Minister of Communications (Mr. Masse).


Marcel Masse: Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a few minutes to comment briefly and say at the outset that I thank the Liberal Party critic for his support and co-operation. I hope both of us will be able to look favourably upon certain aspects of the cultural policy so as to improve this sector of our national and economic activities, and even to a certain extent, of our civilization.
I should like to remind him that, on February 5, 1957, the House was considering the creation of the Canada Council and I said earlier that our Party then had supported Prime Minister Saint-Laurent's proposed establishment of the Canada Council. The Leader of the Progressive Conservative Party at the time was also Leader of the Opposition-he became Prime Minister a few months later-and he had this to say:

I certainly am in favour of the setting up of this council. It is needed. The work it will do is necessary for Canada and its prestige; but there is no need, however beneficial the organization may be and will be, to set aside parliamentary control.
This is very important.

Then as now, the Conservative Party gave its full support to the creation of one agency among many others, namely the Canada Council. I might remind the House that the same Party had also created the CBC. But we do not see parliamentary control in the same light as the Liberal Party.
The Liberal Party now has words of praise for the agencies, but perhaps it has no more faith in its future than memories of its past, Mr. Speaker. Indeed, the same Party was then under the direction of Prime Minister Trudeau who, not at all pleased by certain remarks made by the CBC, had publicly threatened to lock up the place and show a Chinese urn on TV screens as the symbol of the CBC.
I have the impression that the Hon. Member forgets the history of his Party. He forgets that, last June, the most vicious attack against cultural agencies was launched by the

May 9, 1985
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Liberal Party and that, thanks to our current Speaker, to the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Beatty), the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Miss MacDonald) and others, the Government was forced to backtrack, and we now have a system which remains independent while still being accountable to Parliament. It is within this framework that, as Minister of Communications, I intend to make sure that agencies will be accountable to Parliament while remaining autonomous, Mr. Speaker.
I might also add, if need be, that the Minister of Communications is the person responsible for and, whichever way you want to put it, the defender of the cultural sector.


Lynn McDonald: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I understand that this period for questions and comments is to allow a number of Members to take part. It seems that we are getting another speech.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: When the Minister rose there was only one other Member that I could see.


Lynn McDonald: I rose.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. The Parliamentary Secretary rose at the same time. I recognized the Minister because I thought the exchange would be proper. I will recognize other Members. There are still three or four minutes remaining. I am sure the Minister will allow questions and comments.
[ Translation]


Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Speaker, the fact is you said that when you recognized the Member, only the Minister of Communications and the Parliamentary Secretary had risen, but I want to confirm that I had risen and the NDP Member-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: That is not a point of order. The Minister has the floor. If he would like to complete his comments and ask a question, I will recognize him.


Marcel Masse: I am trying to come to a speedy conclusion, Mr. Speaker, and in doing so I will ask a question as provided for in the rules.
Does the Hon. Member not believe that a Government is first and foremost a team rather than a coalition of interests? In that spirit, as Minister of Communications, I am just like the Minister of Finance, of the same team, and in that sense we decide on Government policy and we implement it in our respective departments. We are a Government working as a team rather than a coalition, and does he not agree that this is the way any Government should do? Within that mandate, I can give the Hon. Member the assurance that I have acted and that I will act to the end of my responsibilities as a champion,
the champion of those I have a responsibility to serve in my portfolio.


Mr. Tobin:: Mr. Speaker, I would be remiss, and I know that all Members of this House share the feeling I am about to express, if I did not state that I have just witnessed the most eloquent and passionate speech by my colleague, the critic for the Liberal Party on communications, that I have ever heard in this House.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Brian Vincent Tobin: I have not been here that long, only five years. What was particularly appealing about the Hon. Member's speech is that somebody spoke to us not from a script, but from his heart. We had somebody talk about the importance of the arts not from an economic point of view. That is where the whole matter has got off the rails. The artists themselves, perhaps with good intentions, tried to communicate with this Minister and this Government and talked about their value from an economic point of view, $7 billion in 1981; but that is not the issue. It was refreshing to hear somebody speak in this House of his passion and his identity as a Canadian, his love of this country and his appreciation for the people who communicate what we are as Canadians, those who do it every day of their lives, those who work eight hours so they have enough money to live and then work eight hours at night so they can portray and paint the image of this country. Those are the artists of this nation. Their value cannot be measured purely in dollars and cents. That is why we rise today in their defence.
I would like to say to the Hon. Member that I appreciated his comments. They indeed moved this debate beyond a debate regarding dollars and cents and beyond a debate regarding how many jobs will be created, to a debate regarding the fundamental understanding that if we do not have a vibrant, healthy, alive artistic community in this country, then we do not have the kind of identity and pride in being Canadian that will allow us to distinguish that border that runs from the Maritimes all the way to Vancouver. We do not deserve to feel the pride that comes with being a citizen, the pride that comes when we see the flag going up and hear the singing of our national anthem. That is what our artistic community means to us. The Hon. Member has said that in such an eloquent and passionate way that I myself, seldom eloquent and passionate, was moved to rise to express my thanks.


Mr. Duguay:: Mr. Speaker, I wanted to react to the concept of national reconciliation. I am a Manitoban and a Franco-Manitoban. I would like to point out to my colleagues opposite that their constant reference to the appointment of Bud Sherman does very, very little for national reconciliation.


Cyril Keeper: What did Bud Sherman do for national reconciliation in Manitoba?
May 9, 1985


Léo Duguay: We in Manitoba have entered a period of healing and of national reconciliation which is not at all helped by the reopening of old wounds.
The gentleman opposite has referred to Manitoba. Perhaps he would like to talk about Manitoba's contribution to the arts. The deficit of the Government of Manitoba has increased incredibly in the last four years and the appointments to the arts in the Manitoba community are such that that Party opposite has no lessons to teach anyone when it comes to patronage.

Mr. Speaker, when the Hon. Member opposite refers to the community needing a hero, a defender of the arts, let me make it quite clear that this Government and this Minister are so convinced of that that we refuse to waste today's money to ensure the future failure of the arts.
To conclude, Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question. As we know, in the United States direct Government per capita expenditures in the cultural industry are much less than in Canada. A few estimates suggest indeed-they are not perfect estimates-that in the United States in 1983-84, those expenditures amounted to $3.00 per capita while on the other hand, in Canada, in 1981-82, they were $32.00. Looking at this, I certainly believe this is due to the fact that in the United States the private sector is contributing tremendously more than in Canada, because over there they get income tax credit. I wonder if the Hon. Member for Saint-Denis (Mr. Prud'homme) has any practical suggestion for encouraging Canadians to support the arts themselves rather than always relying on their Government.


Geoffrey Douglas Scott: Mr. Speaker, I would like to put on the record that I have not heard a speech from any Liberal Member that I appreciated more and with which 1 agreed more than the remarks of the Hon. Member for Saint-Denis (Mr. Prud'homme).


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Geoffrey Douglas Scott: I listened for the second time with great interest in committee the other day to the statistics regarding the number of hours that children spend watching television. I do not believe there are any greater defenders of Canada's distinctive cultural identity in this House than the Hon. Member for Saint-Denis and my Minister. I feel exactly the same way.
1 hope the Hon. Member will remember as far back as yesterday when the Minister set up a task force to review the whole system of Canadian broadcasting. One of the prime mandates of that task force is to preserve and protect the Canadian cultural identity. I hope that the Hon. Member, along with his colleagues, will participate in presenting their views to that task force to ensure the kind of distinctive Canadian cultural identity that we all wish to see and will cherish.
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Marcel Prud'homme: Mr. Speaker, may I first say that 1 was very happy to receive a question from my distinguished friend, the Hon. Member for St. Boniface (Mr. Duguay), because when 1 was young 1 served in the Canadian Armed Forces COTC in Shilo, Manitoba, as a cadet officer in the provost corps.

I think that you have asked an excellent question. The public sector obviously has a role to play, but I am very apprehensive about your always harping on about the private sector, but God knows that it suits your Government! It has gotten to the point where my hon. friend, the Minister for Fitness and Amateur Sport (Mr. Jelinek), says that the private sector should do more. My hon. friend, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise), says that the private sector should do more. We could discuss this at length, but everything cannot be left to the private sector. With regard to cultural matters and Canadian identity especially, the Federal Government has a role to play, and the Provincial Governments certainly have also, but they all have the same approach and want to cut back on everything. What I want to tell the Hon. Member is this: Why not co-operate on a national information campaign for the Canadian people who readily make scapegoats of artists without seeing all the consequences of such an approach? I would be willing to co-operate with the Hon. Member and all those who would like to come with me and my hon. friend, the Parliamentary Secretary, whom 1 want to thank, which happens rather rarely in this House. However, this is the type of politics that I like and 1 would like to thank him very sincerely.

I wish to thank him very sincerely for his good words.
[ Translation]


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I am sorry, but the period for questions and comments is over. Debate. The Hon. Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow).


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, 1 would like to begin my comments by dealing with a point made by the Minister of Communications (Mr. Masse) during his speech. Unfortunately, I was not present to hear it as I was at another meeting. However, I was given a summary of one of the points he made and I think it is incumbent upon me to set the record straight.
The Minister apparently accused my Party of being a socialist Party and I accept that as a fair definition of our position. However, he went on to imply that socialists believed in controlling everything and that if we were in office, we would insist on controlling all or most facets of the arts and cultural activities. I do not know about what kind of socialist the Minister was thinking but I would like to tell the Minister, in case he does not know, that there is a Labour Government in Australia and a Labour Government in New Zealand at the present time. There is a socialist Government in Spain, a

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socialist Government in France and a Social-Democratic Government in Sweden. There has been a Social-Democratic Government in Germany recently and many times there has been a Labour Government in Great Britain. Those Parties are all socialist or Social-Democratic Parties and the Governments which they lead or led administered their countries and dealt with arts and cultural communities without imposing their will on them and without giving them orders. Those Governments that are not now in office but will be in the future will not do those things.
1 say to the Minister that when there is an NDP Government in Canada, as there has already been in three provinces, the arts and culture community will be free. It is free under those provincial Governments and has received a great deal of support from them. I do not mind that the Minister criticizes or attacks us when he feels there is a legitimate reason, but I would hope that he would at least be fair.
This Government said before it took office, and continues to say, that the people of Canada ought not to depend entirely or to a large extent on Governments for the support of arts and other activities. The Government feels that we ought to expect and receive more support from the private sector. I wish that was possible.
In many cities in the United States there are museums, concert halls and art galleries which were built by a private individual, or some foundation such as those established by the Gettys, the Rockefellers or the Fords. I must ask the Minister: Where can we find a comparable situation in Canada? We have the Roy Thomson Hall and one or two others, but that is about it. I have to say that I would not count on as much support from the private sector for arts and culture as does the Minister, because we are getting very little from the private sector.
I would like to put on the record what is happening in the United States and quote from an article which appeared in The New York Times on April 22, 1985. The headline is "Private Contributions to the Arts Increase", and the article reads in part:
Eugene R. Wilson, president of the Atlantic Richfield Foundation in Los Angeles, said, "The endowment is a benchmark for us to help establish quality"-
It continued:
-his foundation had decided in 1979, when it gave a total of $13 million, to substantially increase its philanthropy. His foundation's expenditures showed a steady growth-with $35.8 million given to various organizations in 1984, including $6.1 million to the arts-
The article continued:
Chemical Bank estimated recently that such total private giving, which includes some for the humanities as well as the arts, had doubled from $2.7 billion in 1979 to $5.4 billion in 1984.
1 could go on citing examples from the article, but I would say to the Minister that if he and his Government believe that the private sector should do more, then I wish the Government
would convince the private sector in Canada that it is not doing enough.
It is the view of this Party that it is essential for a country like Canada to give special consideration and assistance to arts and culture. Canada has a population of 25 million people. Canada is situated next door to the largest and most powerful country in the world. The United States is ten times our size in population. Fortunately, or unfortunately, we speak the same language in Canada as they do in the United States. Consequently, what is done in the United States flows over the border into Canada. I am not saying that is bad, but U.S. television, radio, newspapers, magazines and books pour into Canada. Unless the Governments of Canada, federal, provincial and municipal, do a great deal more than they have done, we will drown in American production and become a country without a culture.
There is another problem about which the Minister knows better than I. Canada has a substantial francophone population. There are six million French-speaking people living on a continent which has 250 million people. Unless Governments are ready to support, maintain, develop and improve the francophone culture and arts community, it will not survive. The Government must do much more than it has done in the past.
Canada has lost much of its economic sovereignty. That appears to be accelerating as the advocates of free trade with the United States gain ascendancy in the federal Government. As free trade develops, the free flow of arts and cultural activities will come with it. If that happens, arts and cultural activities in Canada will be in peril.
I would like to compare the promises of the Conservative Party when it was in opposition to the actions of the Conservative Party now that it is in government. In the years preceding the last election, the increase in assistance which was given to arts and cultural activities in Canada by the federal Government was less in real dollars than earlier increases. The increases for culture and arts never matched the increase in the cost of living. The arts and cultural organizations were getting less in real money, in the three or four years before the last election, from the Liberal Government.
What was said by the Conservative Party about that during the election campaign? 1 remember attending a forum in Winnipeg at which the present Minister of State for Multicul-turalism (Mr. Murta) spoke on behalf of the Conservative Party. He said that a Conservative Government would maintain the funding at the current level and that the funding for arts and culture would be increased each year to match the increase in the Gross National Product. Speaking for the NDP, I said that was not good enough. However, that was the commitment which was made by the Conservative Party during the election campaign.
The Conservative Party also said that cultural agencies would be free from government interference. It also said that a five-year spending plan would be developed for arts agencies, and that separate incentives would be developed for private investment in the arts. Those promises sounded good. They
May 9, 1985

were modest, but positive. The linking of the increase in arts funding to the GNP, for example, would not break the private banks, nor would it break the Government's bank.
Let us look at what has actually happened since the Conservative Party won the election and formed the Government. Let us look at the present spending estimates for the cultural agencies which the Government has under its direct control and see how many of them received increases for the coming year equal to the projected rate of increase in the Gross National Product as promised. The Canada Council budget increase is close to the GNP projected growth. The Canadian Film Development Corporation's increase is well above the GNP projected growth. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation had its budget decreased from the 1985-86 GNP growth rate. But we know that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was cut by $75 million and I think another $10 million for a special fund. So instead of getting the same money plus the increase in GNP, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation received a very substantial cut. The National Film Board, the National Museums, the National Arts Centre and the CRTC received decreases. So in fact, Mr. Speaker, of the eight agencies which the federal Government funds directly, five will have either cuts or very small increases in their 1985-1986 budget. This is hardly what the Canadian Council of the Arts had been led to believe would happen and, further, it sets the example for small increases or cuts to other arts activities.
i know the Government tells us it has a huge deficit and we cannot afford that but, Mr. Speaker, the deficit was not unknown at that time. The Conservative Party knew that the Government of Canada had a deficit. The Conservative Party had task forces working in all of these fields and if it believed that the deficit, which it knew about, was so serious that funding for arts and culture would have to be cut or its increases minimized, then 1 say that it had no right, and it was, to say the least, less than honest, to make the kind of promises and commitments which it did in every part of this country.
The second commitment made by the Conservative Party was that it, as the Government, would not interfere with the day-to-day operations of the cultural agencies. That is a worthy principle. The Conservatives were right in espousing that principle along with Hon. Members of the New Democratic Party when both of our Parties were in opposition. We attacked the former Government very strenuously with respect to a Bill which was going to change the system so that Crown Corporations and agencies were administered much more closely by the Government, along with the Canada Council. When representatives of the arts and cultural community mounted a very strenuous attack on that proposal by the then Liberal Government, they were joined in that criticism by Hon. Members of both the Conservative and New Democratic Opposition. They were right and we were right then, Mr. Speaker. But what has happened now? What has happened to the principle espoused by the Conservatives now that they are in government? As I have said, the Conservatives joined in
Supply
opposition to Liberal attempts to control more directly those Crown Corporations which were involved in cultural activities. But that was when they were in opposition. It has proven more difficult for the Conservatives to keep to that commitment now that they are in government.
There is scarcely a day goes by where there is not another example of the Government's interference. Today we learned that the Government no longer consults with the head of the Canada Council on senior appointments. This has already been roundly condemned by those in the arts community and by my colleague, the Hon. Member for Broadview-Greenwood (Ms. McDonald). We have as Chairman of the Canada Council one of the most distinguished artists in this country, Maureen Forrester, who has an international reputation. She has been acclaimed in almost every part of the world, not just for her ability to sing but for the work she has done in support of artistic endeavours and for teaching younger people. Does Miss Forrester deserve the kind of treatment she is apparently receiving? I am told that her advice is not only ignored but is no longer even sought. I don't know what words I could use which would adequately convey the feelings of so many Canadians, particularly those who are involved in the arts in this country, when they learn that such a wonderful human being is being treated in the way in which she is by the Minister in charge of culture. I say that that is a disgraceful situation.
We might ask ourselves, Mr. Speaker, what this means, because the snubbing of Miss Forrester is not the only example with which we are dealing here. We have seen questionable appointments which dramatically shorten the arm's length relationship which was promised by the Conservatives when they were in opposition and which should exist between the Minister and the cultural agencies. We are seeing grants being made out of the Department of Communication's cultural budget which would be much better handled by the Canada Council. For example, the grants for the Stratford Festival tour of the United States is a perfect example of the Department of Communications serving as the patron to the company when really this should be a function of the Canada Council.
What this says to me, Mr. Speaker, is that the Minister of Communications (Mr. Masse) really wants to do exactly what he suggested and implied we would do if we were the Government. He suggested that we would want to control the arts and communications efforts. But it is pretty obvious to me that what the Minister wants is to be the czar of culture in this country. It seems to me that it is no accident that the cultural affairs budget was increased by more than 4 per cent, and I suspect that it will be much larger by the time the supplementary estimates for 1985-86 are in. He will then have the personal power and resources to fund the cultural causes in which he happens to believe, not what the arts and cultural community believe in and desire.


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

May 9, 1985
4560_______________________________
Supply


Mrs. Champagne:: Mr. Speaker, since the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-North (Mr. Orlikow) referred to me in his speech, I would like to comment. I do not think anyone would deny my attachment for the arts in this country, anymore than I could ignore a career of nearly 30 years in this field.
I have always stood up for the rights of artists, and I think they realize today that they have both rights and responsibilities. As the Minister said earlier, this Government is trying to make available to artists funding never available to them before through other departments. 1 can name several. We are working very hard on this.
I realize I have very little time, but I would like to take this opportunity to say that in my department alone, during international youth year more than $2 million will have been distributed to cultural groups across the country, whether francophone, anglophone or multicultural, but in any event, cultural groups, and I think that is one example of what the Minister of Communications (Mr. Masse) has in mind. After all, culture is not the preserve of the Minister of Communications. It involves every single one of us, as human beings, as Ministers, and as Members of this House. We have been here for less than a year, and I think that instead of constantly criticizing the tremendous efforts being made to give artists access to funding they were never eligible for before and to open new doors, the Government should get credit for its efforts and be given a chance to implement all its plans, and I think that in the weeks and months-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member might want to reflect on the Minister's comment and reply to it when we resume debate. He will have eight minutes left as far as questions or comments are concerned.
[ Translation]
Order, please. It being one o'clock, I do now leave the chair until two o'clock this afternoon.
At 1 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, a United States Senate Committee has voted to cut up to $175 million in grants to municipalities bordering the Great Lakes for the construction of sewage treatment facilities. Mr. Gotlieb, our very capable ambassador in Washington, has protested the committee's action and stated that the change "could jeopardize the U.S. ability to meet its commitments under the 1978 Canada-U.S.A. Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement". But that is not enough. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) has boasted about his special relationship with President Reagan. Therefore, he should personally intervene by calling the President with a strongly worded request that the Senate Committee proposal be rejected.
The Great Lakes are not a septic tank. They are a vital resource for 35 million Canadians and Americans. The proposed cuts by the Senate Committee are a threat to the health of people and wildlife who depend on clean water. The time has come for the Government to fish or cut bait in protecting our natural environment, since any cut would lead to greater water pollution. That in turn means there may be neither fish nor bait for the Government to deal with, if it continues to dither.
It is an accepted fact that the U.S. is the greatest contributor of pollution to the Great Lakes. It is up to this Government to make it clear, in the strongest possible terms, that Canada expects our shared waters to be protected.



MINES AND MINING


Mr. Bill Tupper (Nepean-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, recently the first thousand ounce gold bar was poured at the Hemlo gold mine in northwestern Ontario. This was an historical occasion for the Canadian mining community. When the mine reaches full production, one of these thousand ounce bars will be produced daily.
This new mine, discovered just three years ago, with construction and development starting two years ago, is coming on stream with state of the art plant, equipment, and mining techniques. From discovery to production in three years for a world class mine is a feat rarely achieved. This mine is the biggest gold discovery ever made in our country. Ore reserves are estimated at 23 million tons, grading 0.3 ounces per ton. Within the year the Teck-Corona mine will come on stream, to be followed later by the biggest of them all, the Lac Minerals mine.
May 9, 1985

What is of particular importance to all Canadians is that the Hemlo mine will be among the most efficient gold producers in the world. Some 3,000 new jobs will be created, and all of this has been done without government funds or subsidies.
I join my fellow Canadians in applauding Noranda's initiative and Canada's mining expertise. It is a splendid example of free enterprise, and is what Canada is all about.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



MARINE TRANSPORT


Mr. Ray Skelly (Comox-Powell River):: Mr. Speaker, last November the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazankowski) assured the House that CN Marine would build another three vessels in Canada which it needed for Atlantic service. Now we understand that CN Marine officials, including President Rupert Tingley, are in Europe considering leasing existing vessels. The Canadian shipbuilding industry is facing its worst crisis in half a century, with plunging order books, so the Minister should stick to his word and guarantee these vessels will be built in Canada.
CN Marine and the Tories must be taken to task. They pulled the same stunt under Joe Clark when several Swedish-built ferries were imported into Canada rather than being built here. This Crown corporation has a duty to seek Canadian-made vessels and not slip foreign vessels in through the back door. The Government must make good on its commitment to the Canadian shipbuilding industry, and the promises the Tories mouthed during the last federal election.



POLITICAL PARTIES


Mr. Paul Gagnon (Calgary North):: Mr. Speaker, during the past 10 days this House has heard much about the liberation of the concentration camps and the termination of the European war. It is interesting to listen to the pious statements of the NDP. However, historical accuracy demands that the true record be stated.
Mr. M. J. Coldwell and Mr. J. S. Woodsworth both spoke against the 1939 declaration of war. Mr. Woodsworth was the leader of the CCF Party, the Co-Operative Commonwealth Federation, predecessor of the NDP. His associate, Mr. Cold-well, would have supported the declaration of war if Canada's assistance was limited to economic aid only.
When one listens to the NDP today, one feels that they were leading the fight against fascism and oppression. But the record shows that they did not want to fight; they wanted to
allow Hitler to ravage Europe. That, Sir, is the hypocrisy of the NDP.


Raymond John Skelly: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, what rubbish! Have that man sit down.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Saint-Michel-Ahuntsic.


Mr. Domm:: History hurts.



ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS


Mrs. Therese Killens (Saint-Michel-Ahuntsic):: Mr. Speaker, last week, several Quebec residents of the Stanstead and Sherbrooke area went to West Charleston, in Northern Vermont, to advise the American Energy Department representative that they do not want nuclear waste to be buried in their region.
Mr. Speaker, the problem is that those responsible for the American project cannot guarantee that there will be no danger for the neighbouring population. They have tried to calm down the public by telling them that the project will not begin before the year 2002. However, as early as next November, the number of possible sites will have been reduced from 236 to about 15. In 1991, the selection will be made from a short list of three sites and the President of the United States will make the final recommendation. The governor of the state selected will have a right of veto which may only be overruled by a majority vote in both Houses of the American Congress.
Mr. Speaker, we of the Liberal Party ask the Government to follow closely all the steps taken by the American Government to locate a nuclear dump in Vermont. The Canadian Government must oppose any project likely to threaten the life of Canadians in this and future generations.



CANADIAN ARMED FORCES


Mr. Tom Hockin (London West):: Mr. Speaker, the London, Ontario, International Air Show, held each June, is one of Canada's biggest air shows. It brings together displays and aircraft from all over the world, and especially from Canada. It serves as a showcase for skill and science in the air.
For many years the Canadian Armed Forces crack air touring team, the Snowbirds, have been one of the major features of this show, impressing everyone with their skill and precision. There have been concerns that they might not fly at this year's show, and I want to thank the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Nielsen) for his assistance in assuring that they

May 9, 1985
will be flying. This is great news for all of us in southwestern tion disruptive tactics, and work with us instead to tackle Ontario, and a symbol of our Government's commitment to problems plaguing native communities, the Air Command and to the London Air Show.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



LABOUR RELATIONS


Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak about the tentative agreement between Eaton's workers, their union, and the company. Many of the workers in that company are middle-aged women who are underpaid, who receive unfair benefit packages, and who face retirement with inadequate pensions.
I think this House, regardless of political affiliation, should congratulate the workers at Eaton's stores for finally obtaining a chance to have a say in their own future so they can ensure that the middle-aged workers and part-time workers of Eaton's will not have to face the problems they have faced when dealing with a family run firm which has shown absolutely no concern for the future and livelihood of its own employees.



NATIVE PEOPLES


Mr. Thomas Suluk (Nunatsiaq):: Mr. Speaker, the recently leaked document, so called, dealing with native programs is being treated as gospel by our communications networks in the Northwest Territories. I find it disturbing that the opposition Parties would use the native people to try to undermine growing understanding and co-operation with the present Government, thereby creating an indirect form of racial tension.
Having recently returned from South America and a convention on trade in endangered species, I have seen how pampered we native people, indeed all Canadians, are by our Government. This attempt to exploit the ignorance and gulla-bility of some people is, to me, repulsive, and something which was rejected by the Canadian people last September.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Thomas Suluk: Coming from a region of Canada where the majority of the population is supported by government programs and services, and listening to accusations based on leaked documents alleging cut-backs in services to native people, is like telling your children that you are cutting off their candy supply. In the end, it causes tooth decay. This is what too much government has done, not only to native people but to many Canadians who make a living by biting the hand that feeds them.
1 urge all native people in Canada to change with the times; ignore figments of radical reporters' imaginations and opposi-



FEDERAL DEVELOPMENT BANK


Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard-Anjou):: For the past week, Mr. Speaker, various Quebec newspapers have been reporting the Quebec people's concern about the possible dissolution of the Federal Development Bank. The government would have a hard time justifying the dismantling of the Bank. As of March 31, the Federal Development Bank had granted some $85.3 million to 4,571 customers.
Moreover, the Bank will be holding a series of six seminars between April 30 and June 4. These seminars, which are intended for operators of small- and medium-size businesses, are very practical in nature and deal with business administration, personnel hiring and tax issues. As Jean-Louis Roy was commenting in the April 22, 1985 issue of Le Devoir daily, and I quote:
Those who favour the dissolution pure and simple of the Federal Development Bank will have to establish clearly the connection between this dissolution and the economic objectives of the Mulroney government. They will have to provide alternative solutions to small- and medium-size businesses which, for whatever reason, cannot secure financing from the private sector, and make sure that they are not left high and dry, doomed to stagnation and extinction, and forced ultimately to lay off their personnel.



PENSIONS


Howard Edward Crosby: Mr. Speaker, our Canadian society and Parliament will be judged by how we treat those in need who deserve assistance. I want to take you back to 1917 when there occurred in the City of Halifax a gigantic explosion which caused the deaths of some 2,000 people and injured 9,000.
The world responded by creating a relief fund, which was then used to assist victims of the Halifax explosion. But shortly thereafter, in 1920, a young lady was asked to sign over her rights to relief for the gigantic sum of $400. The Halifax Relief Commission then went on to provide thousands of dollars worth of housing assistance and other kinds of assistance to victims of the Halifax explosion.
Today, that lady, Mrs. Bertha Robar, lies in a nursing home bereft of all government assistance. She is 97 years old, and was partially blinded in the Halifax explosion. Our government officers in the Canada Pension Commission will not

	
May 9, 1985

move to help her. If that isn't a deserving case, I don't know what is. So I enlist the assistance of all Members of the House of Commons to come to the aid of Bertha Robar and insist that the Canada Pension Commission seek changes in the law that will allow such a person to be helped, notwithstanding that she signed over her rights as a young lady in 1920. If we can't solve a case like that, we can't solve any cases.



AIR CANADA


Mr. John R. Rodriguez (Nickel Belt):: Mr. Speaker, Air Canada's ticket agents are currently walking picket lines as the airline is attempting to replace full-time workers with part-time help.
The airline is claiming that it must destroy people's lives as a cost cutting measure, yet at the same time that Air Canada is crying poor it is giving out free first class airline passes to any part of the world where Air Canada flies, to failed Liberal hacks and flacks and party bag persons appointed by the previous Liberal Government.
This Government has reached new heights in patronage and it has given new meaning to severance pay arrangements when free air flights are also included when these hacks are booted out. The Government has failed to clip the wings of the high flyers on the Air Canada board of directors, and has instead chosen not to ruffle a few feathers. I urge the Government to suspend the free passes, and instead give these hacks free "Rat Pack" T shirts.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Donald J. Johnston (Saint-Henri-Westmount):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Deputy Prime Minister refused to reveal the recommendations made by his task forces. In fact, he himself invited me to submit our own ideas and suggestions on how the Government could save money. Well we have lots, Mr. Speaker, and it will be a pleasure to submit them. [English]
Since he has invited these suggestions, why does the Deputy Prime Minister not arrest the haemorrhage of hard earned taxpayers' dollars in Ministers' offices; $3 million to $4 million on the Chiefs of Staffs which have been put in place; $2 million to $3 million on the Prime Minister's office; millions of dollars in patronage, and millions and millions on ministerial
Oral Questions
jet and Challenger air travel. These aircraft are plying the skies not only of Canada but of the entire world.


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


Donald James Johnston: Today there is an expensive investigation by the RCMP into a leaked secret documents which the Deputy Prime Minister himself could not recognize yesterday as even existing. If the Government spends this kind of money on non-existent documents, what will it spend on real documents?
Will the Deputy Prime Minister use his legal and moral authority to arrest this haemorrhage, to rein in his colleagues, and stop this shameful squandering of millions and millions of taxpayers' dollars?


Hon. Erik Nielsen (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, indeed we do intend to replace with moral judgment that area which was left in a total vacuum by the previous administration.
The $3 million to $4 million that he mentioned with respect to ministerial staffs-I can recall the Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry having reached that amount almost entirely by himself in one Minister's office.
With respect to the use of jet aircraft, that which had been totally out of control is being brought under control. At least it will be our sincere endeavour not to have the same situation arise as did under the previous administration when three Ministers arrived in three separate aircraft, within one hour of each other, in the city of Winnipeg.
With regard to the matter of routine inquiries that are made with respect to documents, the Hon. Member, who is a former Minister, knows that that process is routine. When he speaks of a specific document, I still have been unable to decipher the mish-mash that was passed to me yesterday, the quality of the reproduction of which-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Could questions and answers now become shorter, please?


GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURES
Donald James Johnston: Mr. Speaker, the skies were never as dark with JetStars and Challengers as they are today.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Donald James Johnston: Even grounding le courant d'air national, the Minister of Communications, would save taxpayers hundred of thousands of dollars.
Perhaps the Deputy Prime Minister will not ask the Minister of Communications to explain that waste-

May 9, 1985
Oral Questions
[ Translation]
-I would like to ask him myself. The Minister of Communications, who, for instance, roundly criticized the National Arts Centre for buying flowers for performers, a custom that is much appreciated ... In fact, the Minister took a JetStar or Challenger to I do not know where, and that cost us $60,000. So how does he intend to justify this waste of taxpayers' money?


Some Hon. Members:: Fly, fly away!


Mr. Speaker:: I am not quite sure what everybody had for lunch today.


Marcel Masse: Mr. Speaker, this morning I had occasion to say, in another debate, that the party opposite is a party that has no memory of the past and no hope for the future. I think the same comment is appropriate at this point, since their references are irrelevant to the story, which I could tell when circumstances permit. Now seriously, on January 24 of this year, Mr. Speaker, the vice-president of Northern Telecom asked the Canadian Government, through the Department of Communications for which I am responsible, to accompany them on a trip to promote Canadian trade and industrial interests, which meant travelling to Algeria and Saudi Arabia. The projects in these countries included an Algerian request to the CBC for an investment-


Mr. Speaker:: I appreciate the interest of the Minister but his answer is now becoming a Statement on Motions.
Does the Hon. Member have a short supplementary question?


PROGRAM REVIEW TASK FORCE REPORTS
Donald James Johnston: Mr. Speaker, the answer was totally irrelevant to the question. But in any case, yesterday I put a question to the Deputy Prime Minister.


Marcel Masse: You do not want an answer!


Donald James Johnston: He said in his speech, which I have read three times: "Canadians have a right to know that these programs are administered to the satisfaction of the new Government".
In the name of open government and accountability, those things in which the Deputy Prime Minister believes, are Canadians entitled to know what are in those recommendations? Are they not entitled to know, unless of course the recommendations are so extreme that national security is at stake, which is suggested by the RCMP investigation into the non-existent document of yesterday?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, with respect to information in the form of advice to Cabinet, the Hon. Member, who is a former Minister, knows the answer to that question.
With respect to a definition of the programs themselves, there is a very excellent publication put out by the Department over which my colleague, the Minister of Supply and Services, has jurisdiction, listing all of the government programs that are available. I am sure if the Hon. member would take the time to read it, he would find it extremely interesting.
In addition to that, there is a further publication put out by FBDB which lists all of the programs that are available to small businesses and others in the country. If the Hon. Member wished to seek the information, all he has to do is a little more reading. If he wants an index, I would be very happy to supply it to him.


NATIVE PEOPLES
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. It concerns the important matter of openness and frankness in government. The Party now in government promised change, if elected, and to put an end to the old cover-up practices of the previous Liberal administration.
For the past three days we have been trying to get the Government to admit, specifically the Minister to whom I am putting this question, that his Department was responsible for a certain document. Considering that for the past two days, including, during that period, the submission of the document to the Minister himself, the Government has done nothing but evade the truth, and considering that now the RCMP has begun an official investigation into the documents in two Ministers' offices at least, will the Deputy Prime Minister come clean and acknowledge that the document in question was produced by his Department, and acknowledge that he himself is certainly responsible for it?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member and his colleagues are past masters at the art of evading the truth.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Erik Nielsen: Perhaps he has expertise in that. They have another skill as well, that is, total distortion of the facts in any given instance and in any given case.

May 9, 1985

With respect to what he calls "the document", I presume the Hon. Member means the document which the Hon. Member for Skeena brought across here yesterday.


David Orlikow: Right.


Mr. Parry:: Everyone else has one.


Erik Nielsen: I still have been unable to decipher it.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Edward Broadbent: Get the original.


Erik Nielsen: If the Hon. Member would have a look at the quality of reproduction, he would agree that it is indecipherable.
As to identifying that document, I am unable to do that for him.


John R. Rodriguez: That is why you have the RCMP. Call in the boys.


Erik Nielsen: The Hon. Member mentions an investigation. As I responded to the Hon. Member for Saint-Henri-West-mount a moment ago, if there have been any documents that have found their way into unauthorized channels, it is a matter of a routine inquiry that follows any such event-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I invite the Deputy Prime Minister to complete his answer under Motions.


IDENTIFICATION OF DOCUMENT
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, the Minister once again is evading the truth. I say to the Deputy Prime Minister that the Conservatives promised change. It is about time they delivered it. It is about time they delivered some openness.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: The Deputy Prime Minister said yesterday, and I will quote with reference to the document that was given to him by my colleague, that he would "have to take the opportunity to examine it". Does the Deputy Prime Minister seriously want the people of Canada to believe that in the interval between yesterday and today he was unable to read that document, and unable to verify whether or not it was produced by his Department?


Erik Nielsen: Yes, indeed, I do expect the people of Canada to believe that, Mr. Speaker-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Erik Nielsen: -notwithstanding the fact that I get rid of routine business in my office and other business which still keeps me here until the late hours of the evening. I can tell the Hon. Member, despite the fact that I arrived here at eight
Oral Questions
o'clock this morning, my entire morning was taken up with a Cabinet meeting and other urgent matters of business. I have not yet had an opportunity of examining in detail the document which was supplied to me yesterday. If the Hon. Member cannot understand that, he cannot understand a damn thing.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, if the Minister expects the opposition Parties on this side of the House to believe that, he would also expect the people of Canada to believe that the moon is made of green cheese. That is how much credibility the Minister has with that answer.


REASON FOR INVESTIGATION
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Deputy Prime Minister another question. Considering he has just said that a document that in a fundamental way really cuts into the rights of the native people of Canada, that says it has been endorsed by eleven Departments within the Government, has not been investigated by him, all I can say to the Deputy Prime Minister is that he has been ignoring his responsibilities-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Does the Hon. Member have a supplementary question, please?


John Edward Broadbent: Yes, Mr. Speaker. Since the Minister has not taken the trouble, so he tells us, to examine the document himself, why was an investigation ordered by the RCMP into this document if there is no such document missing from the Minister's office?


Erik Nielsen: I guess the Hon. Member was not listening, Mr. Speaker. He mentioned blue cheese and the moon. It is not the moon that is made of blue cheese; it is his mind.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Erik Nielsen: If he cannot understand, and he has been around here long enough to understand that it is a matter of routine procedure-


Mr. Crosbie:: His mind is curdled.


Erik Nielsen: -if any document gets into improper hands-


John Edward Broadbent: Oh,- there is a document?


Erik Nielsen: The Member says "Oh, there is a document". I am not saying that at all.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Erik Nielsen: When any document-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!

May 9, 1985
Oral Questions


Erik Nielsen: I am trying to explain to the dense Leader of the New Democratic Party that it has been procedure around this place for years that when any document finds its way into unauthorized hands or improper channels, routine inquiries are made in every instance.

[ Translation]


THE SENATE
Mr. Raymond Garneau (Laval-des-Rapides):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Justice.
Having introduced his motion aimed at turning the Senate into a reading club, the Minister of Justice told the media that the Government would push ahead with Senate constitutional reform before launching discussions with Quebec with a view to having the province sign the 1982 Constitutional Agreement.
Mr. Speaker, that is an insult to Quebecers whose Government has publicly indicated it intends to unveil, before the end of May, its proposals designed to straighten out its constitutional position within the Canadian Confederation.
Here is my question. Considering that job creation is the first concern of all Canadians, what emergency prompts the Government to proceed so quickly with changes which strike at the root of Canadian institutions, even before negotiations have begun with Quebec to set its constitutional status straight?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, the complaint from the Province of Quebec is the insult which they suffered from our Liberal predecessors in 1982 when the Constitution was adopted. There is no complaint from the Province of Quebec with respect to any of our constitutional discussions. They have engaged themselves in discussions on aboriginal matters. I believe them to be sympathetic to our position on the Senate resolution. They are not for an unelected group of Liberal hacks in any other legislative body being in a position to checkmate the elected House of Commons.
The Government of Quebec has no sympathy with the hon. gentleman's position, but it does not wish to take part in the constitutional amendments because of the way it was treated by the Liberal administration of Mr. Trudeau, whom the hon. gentleman also represents today.


POSITION OF MINISTER OF JUSTICE
Raymond Garneau: Mr. Speaker, I put that question to the Minister of Justice knowing full well the answer he was going to give me. It is too easy. The one thing which the Minister of Justice forgets is that, last January, the Quebec Government made a complete about-face and now wants to set aside its separatist option and sign the Constitutional Agreement. I want to know whether the Minister of Justice shares the view of his colleagues, Senators Asselin and Flynn, who claim that the proposed reform is quite superficial, and that no negotiations or discussions should take place before the Quebec constitutional problem has been settled.


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, I might remind the hon. gentleman that the constitutional resolution in 1982 was adopted unanimously by the House.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Carnell Crosbie: The negotiations were conducted by the hon. gentleman's Party, which apparently trampled on the rights of the people of Quebec, according to the Parti Quebecois Government. With respect to this resolution, because of the fact that the Senate majority wilfully, and with no reason whatsoever, caused a long delay in a borrowing authority Bill, made necessary by their profligate ways when they were in government last year, before we took over, costing the people of Canada $15 million, we have to meet the issue now. We cannot wait any longer to deal with this question of senatorial Liberal obstruction.


PUBLIC SERVICE
Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the President of the Treasury Board. It concerns the early retirement incentives which the Minister is offering to senior managers and executives in the Public Service. Of the 400 retirements which the Minister is seeking, only 200 positions will be filled. The other 200 will disappear. Does the Minister have quotas for these new appointments-so many from the Public Service and so many from outside? Is this program another Tory job-creation program for Tory sisters, brothers, aunts and uncles-relatives? Is it the Archie Bunker program All in the Familyl


Hon. Robert de Cotret (President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, I am amazed at the question of the Hon. Member, amazed that it would come from someone who has been around the House for so long. It accuses the Public Service Commission, the agency of Parliament which is
May 9, 1985

responsible for staffing, of becoming a patronage institution. No, Sir. The jobs which will be filled will be filled according to the normal policies of the Public Service Commission, not by the Government as the Hon. Member would like all Canadians to believe. This is a management initiative which will follow the law.


REQUEST THAT OFFER BE EXTENDED TO OTHER GROUPS
Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, the Minister just told us that there will be no Governor in Council appointments. I do not believe that.
[ Translation]
The Minister is holding out a carrot of $25 million to senior officials in the Public Service. Is he prepared to extend the same program to public servants in the administrative support and professional categories, so that these people will have a chance to take early retirement, or are they going to have to wait until May 23 when the Minister wields "the big stick" and eliminates their jobs.


Robert René de Cotret: Mr. Speaker, I am not going to answer the Hon. Member's hypothetical questions. But I do want to respond to the statement he made in his preamble. Just so everyone ... Why don't you listen? You might learn something ... The program applies to 747 members of the senior management group and to 26 employees appointed by order in council. For those Hon. Members who were not aware of the fact, deputy ministers are appointed by order in council and will continue to be appointed by order in council. I can inform the House that the program is a management program, that it is fair and that it was introduced to open up new horizons to many of our younger employees in the Public Service.


NATIVE PEOPLES
Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. It concerns his memorandum to Cabinet, which on page 9 indicates:
The analysis was carried out by a mixed study team, with input from program managers, federal economic development co-ordinators, deputy heads, and the Private Sector Advisory Committee to the Task Force. Additional input came from limited consultations with selected client groups and with senior deputies in selected provincial Governments.
Is the Deputy Prime Minister expecting the public and the House to believe that this document was prepared with the involvement of those officials and not a single member of Cabinet?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, to which document is the Hon. Member referring?
Oral Questions


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Erik Nielsen: Let me explain the process. As the Hon. Member for Skeena goes at it, and as his Leader, the Hon. Member for Oshawa, goes at it, I would urge them to harken-


John Edward Broadbent: Tell the truth.


Erik Nielsen: I will tell the truth. I always tell the truth, and I cannot say the same for that Hon. Member.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Erik Nielsen: The inference behind that sort of a heckle, which was sufficiently loud to be heard by Hansard, is repugnant and repulsive to me.


John Edward Broadbent: Touching.


Erik Nielsen: He would do better, as he plays his imaginary violin, to listen to the words of the Hon. Member for Nunat-siaq who put his Finger directly on the motivation and the purpose of this kind of question by those Hon. Members.


POSITION OF MINISTER
James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question. Referring again to page 9, it indicates: "The purpose of this Memorandum is to ask Ministers to approve recommendations". There is one Minister in the House who has in fact already approved the recommendations, and that is the Minister of National Health and Welfare. I would like him to rise because he is quoted in the document and is known around the House as being an honourable person. In part the document reads:
-Mr. Epp has concerns about the means supported to control costs of noninsured medical benefits.
The Minister has dealt with it. Will he rise in the House and tell Hon. Members, members of the native community, and Canadians generally, whether he has seen this document and whether he has been involved in it? Yes or no.


Hon. Jake Epp (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, I will tell the Hon. Member that Cabinet documents which come to me are just that; they are confidential to me as a Cabinet Minister. Until they are made public, that is how they stay.

[ Translation]


IMMIGRATION
Mrs. Lucie Pepin (Outremont):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Solicitor General of Canada.
We have learned today that the RCMP has prosecuted and laid charges against an immigrant who had taken advantage of

May 9, 1985
Oral Questions
the amnesty made available to illegal immigrants under a program in effect for two years. Now, there is a contradiction between the statement made by the RCMP that it has acted upon the request of the Immigration officials and the statement made by an official of the Department of Employment and Immigration who assures us that the RCMP has acted against the instructions and recommendations of his department. Now could the Solicitor General explain how such a blunder could be made and what orders are given to those officers investigating illegal immigration cases?


Hon. Elmer M. MacKay (Solicitor General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I can tell my colleagues that if this is the case of which I believe she is speaking, the charges will be withdrawn. The information did not emanate from a program that would be affected by the amnesty. I believe my colleague, the Minister of Employment and Immigration, may wish to elaborate.


REQUEST THAT HARASSMENT OF IMMIGRANTS GRANTED AMNESTY BE STOPPED IMMEDIATELY
Lucie Pépin: I should like to put a supplementary question to the Minister of Employment and Immigration, Mr. Speaker.
I think that the situation reported in the newspapers this morning shows that the Progressive Conservative government has betrayed the immigrants who have filed in good faith their applications under the amnesty program. Can the minister assure us that the harassment and proceedings against amnestied immigrants will immediately come to an end?


Hon. Flora MacDonald (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member is totally wrong in her information, as she so often is. I would like to inform the House that the individual in question, Mrs. Ellis, had her case come before the illegal migrants program during the time the Liberal Government was in office. It was this Government that granted amnesty to Mrs. Ellis. I can also assure the Hon. Member that there was no information that was passed from the illegal migrant program to the RCMP. That is the policy of this Government.


NATIVE PEOPLE
Mr. Ian Deans (Hamilton Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. Earlier in the Question Period, with regard to the document that we provided to the Deputy Prime Minister yesterday, he stated that it
is routine when a document falls into the wrong hands for the RCMP to launch an investigation.


Erik Nielsen: That's not what I said.


Ian Deans: Whether he used those exact words or not, that certainly was the intent of what he said. I ask the Deputy Prime Minister whether in fact the RCMP would launch an investigation into a leaked document, attempting to find the source of the leak, without first determining whether or not that was a Cabinet document.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, I suppose that would be a first step. The hon. gentleman, when he puts this question to me, should not do me the disservice of assuming what I said is what he intended I should say. What I said, and I said it three or four times already, was that it is a matter of routine inquiry whenever any document finds its way into unauthorized hands or finds its way out of the system. That is routine. It has been going on around this place ever since I have been here, which has been a few years.


ORIGIN OF DOCUMENT
Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, far be it from me to try to misquote the Deputy Prime Minister. Is it reasonable now to conclude that the document that the RCMP are investigating, with regard to where the document came from and how it got into the hands of people in this Party and others, is in fact a document that belonged to the Government of Canada and that was in fact a Cabinet document? If the answer is no, why then are they investigating?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, it is the hon. gentleman and his colleagues who have been telling the House that the RCMP is investigating.


John Edward Broadbent: The RCMP announced it.


Erik Nielsen: Well, if the RCMP have announced it, I have not heard that announcement.


John Edward Broadbent: We did.


An Hon. Member:: Where have you been?


Erik Nielsen: I am asked where 1 have been. I say, for the fifth or sixth time, that I would expect the RCMP to make an inquiry. It is a routine inquiry with respect to any document that finds its way into unauthorized hands or outside of normal channels.
May 9, 1985


THE AUDITOR GENERAL
Mr. Jean-Guy Guilbault (Drummond):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the President of the Privy Council. It was reported yesterday in La Presse that the Auditor General of Canada had hired Mr. Pierre Deniger and Mr. John Evans to make a study of the format for submitting Government financial statements. Those are two former Liberal MPs who were defeated in the last election. Can the Minister give us some information on such an incredible story, can he provide further details?


Hon. Ray Hnatyshyn (President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, this is somewhat incredible in my view. To continue in English, Mr. Speaker-

-I am surprised at this revelation. I know nothing of this. The Auditor General, of course, should be able to carry on an independent operation. He should not only be independent, but be perceived to be independent. I find it passing strange that these people would be employed. I will inquire of the Auditor General and report back to the House at the earliest opportunity.


MARINE TRANSPORT
Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely incredible to witness the spectacle of the Deputy Prime Minister wasting the taxpayers' money by having the RCMP investigate his staff.


Some Hon. Members:: Louder.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Some Hon. Members:: Louder.


Mr. Speaker:: I do not know how much louder I can say order. 1 do not know what has happened to the House today. It seems appropriate that I at least, if nobody else wants to, should be able to hear both the question and the answer. Question?


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, my constituents did not send me here to be a meek and mild mouse like the back-benchers on the government side.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Brian Vincent Tobin: The Government is engaged in a policy that deliberately and soberly seeks to destroy a way of life that is unique and distinctive in this country. My question is directed
Oral Questions
to the Minister of Transport. The Minister knows that, effective May 1, CN Marine has cancelled passenger and freight service to five isolated communities on my provinces' south coast, Hermitage, English Harbour West, Belleoram, Pool's Cove, and English Harbour East. Did CN make those cutbacks, that cancellation of passenger service and freight service to those five isolated communities, with his approval?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, it is true that there has been some reduction in services in the area to which the Hon. Member has referred. On examination, and I am sure the Hon. Member will want me to point this out, some of these points are served by provincial ferry services. In fact some 90 per cent of the traffic in some cases is handled by provincial ferries. In other cases these services can be provided by highway. I also want to inform the Hon. Member that there is a re-examination of some of the services, particularly the one respecting Hermitage. That is under review at the present time.


REQUEST FOR RECONSIDERATION
Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, the Minister's answer indicates that he is beginning to understand the very severe hardship that these cut-backs are imposing on these communities. He knows that the so-called road service to those communities is impassable in winter, and nearly impassable in summer under the best of circumstances. He knows that the provincial Government cannot be counted upon. In the name of avoiding a forced resettlement out of those communities and a forced abandonment of a way of life that is unique in this country, will the Minister reconsider and instruct CN Marine to restore passenger and freight service to the people who live in those isolated communities on Newfoundland's south coast? I ask him that in good faith.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I hope the Hon. Member will not ignore some of the facts that I presented in response to his earlier question. 1 think they are accurate. On the second part of the question, I will take his question as a representation. As I have indicated, there is reconsideration of the service to Hermitage. We are taking a second look at it. However, I do not want to create any false expectations, because the fact is that most of those areas are well and adequately serviced by provincial service.


Brian Vincent Tobin: No way. We won't be quiet until you restore the service.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Furthermore, this Government just signed an ERDA highway subagreement which will do very much to improve the highway service within the Province of Newfoundland.

May 9, 1985
Oral Questions DIVORCE


PROPOSED CHANGE IN WAITING PERIOD
Mr. Bill Attewell (Don Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Justice concerning the proposed changes in divorce legislation. I wholeheartedly endorse many of the excellent proposals, such as stronger enforcement of support and custody orders. My question, however, concerns the proposal to reduce the waiting period when there is a marriage breakdown from three years to one year. Would the Minister consider meeting with interested groups about this one major area of concern so that other alternatives could be examined?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, if the House adopts the legislation proposed at second reading, it will be referred to the Standing Committee on Justice. I know anyone interested in this subject will be able to make their views known there.
The principle of the legislation is not to make divorce any easier but to make it easier for the parties involved, and particularly their children, who are innocent parties, to bear the consequences of marriages which have already broken down irretrievably, and to allow them to sever their legal relationship with as little stress and acrimony as possible. I think that is a very worthy objective for the legislation.


NATIVE PEOPLES
Mr. Jim Manly (Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. The code name used in the report prepared by the Deputy Prime Minister's task force was "Operation Buffalo Jump of the 1980s". Is the Deputy Prime Minister aware of the meaning of this term and its symbolism? Could he tell the House whether or not he thinks that this term is an appropriate one for a paper describing government policy for native people in 1985?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, to my knowledge there are no code names used in any of the work that I and my ministerial colleagues are undertaking regarding program review. Any code names are the product of the rather overactive imaginations of the members of the Party opposite.


MINISTER'S POSITION
James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. Is he denying categorically that the term "Operation Buffalo Jump of the 1980s" was used in the
report? I would like to read the following and ask the Deputy Prime Minister whether or not he would confirm it.
The analysis was carried out by a mixed study team, with input from program managers, federal economic development co-ordinators, deputy heads, and the Private Sector Advisory Committee to the Task Force. Additional input came from limited-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Order. The Hon. Member has asked his question. I simply cannot allow him to read into the record a great deal more material. The Hon. Member has asked his question.


James Douglas Manly: May I ask the Deputy Prime Minister whether or not he will categorically deny that that phrase was used?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, that sounds suspiciously familiar. I believe it was included in the terms of reference that were made public preceded by an over-view to the terms of reference which were given to the study team which we asked to undertake the work. Again, the Hon. Member is reading from a document, a copy of which he might wish to provide to me so that I could make the same kind of comparison in which I said I would engage, in my response to the question put by the Hon. Member for Skeena yesterday.


CANADA POST CORPORATION
Mr. Barry Turner (Ottawa-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, I will try not to be too meek or mild, and I will not shout either. My question is addressed to the Minister of National Revenue who is responsible for the Canada Post Corporation. As we all know too well, the country is continually plagued by postal disruptions. Last Friday's wildcat strike at the Alta Vista postal terminal was no exception. Is the Minister prepared to investigate what disciplinary action may be taken against those who were involved in the strike?


Hon. Perrin Beatty (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, I too will try not to be too meek or mild, nor will I shout. I can indicate to the Hon. Member that the people who did not report for work at the Atla Vista plant will be docked a day's pay for not appearing. In addition to that, I can certainly indicate that from the Government's point of view all parties in the Post Office, both labour and management, have a responsibility to the people of Canada to provide a service. The Government is deeply disappointed whenever that service is not provided.


MARINE TRANSPORT
Mr. David Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport
May 9, 1985

and concerns the reduction in service by the Bluenose ferry from Yarmouth to Bar Harbour. As the Minister is well aware, this reduction in service impacts negatively on the economy of Nova Scotia, so much so that the Premier has used the figure of $30 million. Could the Minister indicate to the House whether or not he has done a cost benefit study and, if so, will he be tabling that study before the Standing Committee?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, yes, there has been an assessment done by a party commissioned by Transport Canada. It certainly does not bear out the figure to which my hon. friend alluded. I should also inform the House that I met with the Premier of Nova Scotia this morning to discuss this very important issue, and I am quite confident that there will be a satisfactory conclusion brought about with respect to the future of the Bluenose ferry. The Premier of Halifax-of Nova Scotia-


Brian Vincent Tobin: You got it right the first time.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: The Premier of Nova Scotia has indicated that together, in the spirit of federal-provincial co-operation, we will be able to ensure that adequate service will be maintained.


IMPACT OF SERVICE REDUCTION
David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I remind the Minister of Transport that this reduction in winter ferry service will be harmful to fish processors, textile manufacturers, and Christmas tree shippers. Is it fair that the citizens of that part of the country must sustain further economic hardship when the Government has piled in excess of $1.3 billion on the multinational oil companies?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I am indeed aware of the economic impact and that is why we are taking all these matters into consideration. The fact of the matter still remains that we should not be precluded from trying to be cost efficient and cutting out waste in order to provide a sustainable, viable, and economic service. That is precisely what we are determined to do.


ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE
Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops-Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Solicitor General. Earlier today the RCMP announced that they are carrying out an investigation into the ways and means of a document being routed into unauthorized hands. I would simply ask the Solicitor General who requested that this investigation take place.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, under the circumstances I intend to follow the suggestion made by the Leader of the Opposition last Novem-
Oral Questions
ber when he reminded me that it was a tradition in this House not to comment on details of investigations unless and until changes are laid.


INQUIRY OF DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. Did the Deputy Prime Minister request that this investigation take place?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, the same answer pertains as that which has already been given. I do not think that it would be in the public interest to be announcing to the House of Commons every single investigation that is undertaken. If results of any investigation-


John Edward Broadbent: You're hiding.


Erik Nielsen: I am not hiding anything. It is simply common practice in this place to make any such announcements if and when charges have been laid as a result of any investigations.


FISHERIES
Mr. George Baker (Gander-Twillingate):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Prime Minister my question is directed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. On Monday, May 6, the Prime Minister advised the House that he took a very strong position in discussions with an EEC member country concerning blatant overfishing under the Canada-EEC fishing agreement, on the East Coast of Canada. In view of the fact that this overfishing is still going on and that these boats were still there as of yesterday, I would like the Secretary of State for External Affairs to tell the House what strong words were used, and what strong position was taken that had such little effect.


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, I hope the hon. gentleman will not mind me answering his question as the Acting Minister of Fisheries. I am delighted that, after eight years, that hon. gentleman is finally speaking up and asking questions in the House of Commons about fishery matters in Newfoundland. I congratulate him on his new-found awakening.
The Minister of Fisheries met yesterday with Mr. Kiechle, who is the Minister of Fisheries for the Federal Republic of Germany, and underlined to him the very serious way in which Canada takes the overfishing that occurred on the nose of the bank. Unfortunately, the nose of the bank is not within the Canadian 200-mile economic zone. So, we have no legal powers to act on the nose of the bank. But we have left no doubt in the minds of the German authorities that this kind of action, if continued, will have serious consequences with

May 9, 1985
Business of the House
respect to fishing inside the Canadian zone. I would also tell the Member that under-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


FRENCH AND BRITISH LICENCES
George Baker: Mr. Speaker, the Minister should know that, before the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans left to meet with the EEC, he issued another licence, this time to the French fleet. They started fishing today in the same zone, and under the same quota. The U.K. has applied for a licence and it has been told that a licence will be granted. Where is the strong position which this Government is taking? Or does it have a magic formula to multiply the fishes, something which has not been done in 2,000 years?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, as a fellow Newfoundlander I am proud of that dramatic performance. Erie Stanley Gardner would have been proud of you, lad.
The United Kingdom and France have quotas remaining which total 1,530 tonnes. The United Kingdom is not Germany. France is not Germany, unless something has happened lately and they have amalgamated. Therefore, we will have to deal with the Federal Republic of Germany and hold it responsible for its actions.
When it comes to negotiating European quotas, we will certainly keep that in mind.


CLERK OF PETITIONS' REPORTS
Mr. Speaker:: 
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Government House Leader the customary question about the business which he is proposing for the coming week.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, as the Hon. Member will know, I have been attempting to sit down and identify what items of business we can make progress on. There have been certain discussions and, 1 understand, undertakings with respect to progress. We were a bit disappointed yesterday that we did not get as far as 1 had been led to believe. I think we will continue with those discussions. There are still some matters which I must discuss with my colleagues.
We have a requirement to deal with a number of Allotted Days to give the opposition Parties an opportunity to consider and put forward resolutions which may be on their collective minds. For the present time, and until further notice, I would designate Monday as an Allotted Day. I will bring the business for the rest of the week to the attention of the House at the earliest possible date, once we have been able to obtain a clear understanding of our ability to make progress.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Bruce Halliday (Oxford):: Mr. Speaker, 1 have the honour to present the second report of the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs, in both official languages.
[Editor's Note: For above report, see today's Votes and Proceedings.]


WAYS AND MEANS TABLING OF NOTICE OF MOTION
Hon. Barbara McDougall (Minister of State (Finance)):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 64(1), I am honoured to table a Notice of Ways and Means Motion to amend the Income Tax Act.

[ Translation]


PETITIONS
Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased at this point to table a petition that is very important to all Canadians. It is signed by a very important group, the Executive Committee of the Canadian Action Committee on the Status of Women.
Mr. Speaker, all the members of that group representing all Provinces of Canada, all regions and all walks of life are
May 9, 1985

urging the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Epp) who is in this House to extend the spouse's allowance benefit to all persons living alone whether single or separated.


Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition signed by the students of Laval University. This petition deals with the first part of the auditor General Act, Chapter 34: the Auditor General has the right to audit all the public accounts of the Government.


William Tupper: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition which was signed by some 7,000 Canadians, many of them constitutents of the riding of Nepean-Carleton, encouraging Government support for On the Rise Association Inc., an organization which designs and manufactures clothing for handicapped and physically disabled persons.


Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition from the great riding of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, from the citizens of Clarence Creek, Ontario. The petition was signed by 77 people-
[ Translation]
-and this petition expresses the disagreement of the population of Clarence Creek with the discriminatory provisions of Bill C-26.
Mr. Speaker, I also have a petition signed by the electors from the village of Casselman. It is signed by 61 residents of the village of Casselman who also protest against the discriminatory provisions of Bill C-26 as imposed by the government.
Mr. Speaker, 1 have a petition signed by 33 residents of the senior citizens club, Le Reveil, of Fournier, Ontario; those people also express their disagreement with the discriminatory provisions of Bill C-26.

Mr. Speaker, I also have a petition which was signed by 15 residents of Lefaivre, Ontario. They, as well, are expressing their extreme displeasure with the discriminatory provisions of Bill C-26.

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by 22 residents of the village of Curran, in the federal riding of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell who, like the others, want to express their disagreement with the discriminatory provisions of Bill C-26. You have guessed it, Mr. Speaker.
Petitions

I also have a petition which was signed by 52 people from the great village of Cumberland, in the riding of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell. These people, as well, would like to express their displeasure with the discriminatory provisions of Bill C-26.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I believe the Hon. Member now knows the tradition and I suggest that if he has any other petitions on the same matter he may want to table them. He may, however, have other petitions which he wishes to present on different subjects.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, all the petitions come from different villages; therefore, 1 will present the others some other day because they are not all the same and, as I said, they are clearly indicated and come from different communities; it is not the same petition. However, if you think that no more than a certain number of petitions should be presented every day, I reserve the right to present the others another day.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member knows full well that he has the right to stand in the House and say that he has petitions from a number of counties, and simply read the names of the counties, and table the petitions. That is one way of presenting them.


Mr. Norman Warner (Stormont-Dundas):: Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege to present a petition on behalf of over 200 concerned parents, students and teachers of Rothwell/Osna-bruck School, Ingleside, Ontario. The petitioners are expressing their regret over the proposed CBC cancellation of the valuable program Reach for the Top, which has become an example of educational excellence for the participants, the school body and the entire community.


Mr. Alain Tardif (Richmond-Wolfe):: I also have a petition which a group of residents from the riding next to mine, the federal constituency of Drummond, has presented to me to protest vigorously against the present provisions of Bill C-26. Those people too would like to see the provisions of Bill C-26 extended particularly to those people between the ages of 60 and 64 who are single, separated or divorced.
I have a second petition from the riding of Drummond, signed by some 40 people who draw my attention to the fact that it is totally unfair and definitely unjustified to exclude single, separated and divorced people between the ages of 60 and 64 from the provisions of Bill C-26, and who would like to benefit from those provisions.

May 9, 1985
Petitions


John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour and privilege of presenting a petition signed by hundreds of individuals in the Windsor and Toronto area, in which they protest the severance pay changes which will affect their collection of unemployment insurance benefits. The petition calls upon this House to make sure that all laid off employees who receive severance pay will be able to keep their severance pay and also collect their unemployment insurance benefits without the one affecting the other.


Miss Aideen Nicholson (Trinity):: Mr. Speaker, I too have a petition signed by residents of Ottawa Centre dealing with the effects of the proposed changes to the unemployment insurance contributions which will treat returned pension contributions as income for the purpose of determining eligibility for unemployment insurance benefits. The petitioners point out the hardship this would cause and request that this action be reconsidered.


Aideen Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, I have another petition which concerns Bill C-26. It is also signed by residents of Ottawa who would like to see the extension of spouse's allowance to all single persons in need. They point out that it is discriminatory to limit it to widowed people and that there are many people between the age of 60 years and 64 years who are also in need of similar provisions.


Aideen Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, I have a further petition signed by Ottawa residents which concerns the recent administrative changes which treat severance pay as income for the purpose of determining eligibility for unemployment insurance benefits. The petitioners point out that this causes severe hardship, particularly in areas where laid off workers have no hope of finding work easily and they request that this decision be reconsidered.
[ Translation]


Mr. Fernand Robichaud (Westmorland-Kent):: Mr. Speaker, once again today, I have the privilege of presenting a petition from the people of the towns of Barachois and Scoudouc, in New Brunswick, who are requesting changes to Bill C-26.



THE CONSTITUTION


[Stage Direction]
On the Order: Government Notices of Motions:
That:
Whereas the Prime Minister of Canada is committed to convening before the end of 1987 a constitutional conference composed of the Prime Minister of Canada and the first ministers of the provinces to consider proposals for the reform of the Senate;
And whereas it is expedient, at this time, that the powers of the Senate with respect to bills that are passed by the House of Commons be limited;
And whereas sections 38 and 42 of the Constitution Act, 1982 provide that an amendment to the Constitution of Canada may be made by proclamation issued by the Governor General under the Great Seal of Canada where so authorized by resolutions of the Senate and House of Commons and resolutions of the legislative assemblies as provided for in section 38 thereof;
Now therefore the House of Commons resolves that an amendment to the Constitution of Canada be authorized to be made by proclamation issued by Her Excellency the Governor General under the Great Seal of Canada in accordance with the schedule hereto.


[Stage Direction]
1.	The Constitution Act, 1867 is amended by adding thereto, immediately after section 54 thereof, the following sections:
"54.1 (1) Where a money bill, having been passed by the House of Commons, is presented to the Senate at least thirty days before the end of the session but is not passed by the Senate without amendment within thirty days after it is presented, the bill shall, unless the House of Commons directs to the contrary, be presented to the Governor General for assent, whether or not Parliament is then in session, and when assented to shall the same force and effect as if passed by the Senate.
(2)	There shall be endorsed on every money bill when it is presented to the Senate and when it is presented to the Governor General for assent the certificate of the Speaker of the House of Commons signed by the Speaker that it is a money bill.
(3)	A certificate of the Speaker of the House of Commons given under subsection (2) shall be conclusive for all purposes, and shall not be questioned in any court of law.
(4)	In this section and section 54.2, "money bill" means a public bill that, in the opinion of the Speaker of the House of Commons, contains only provisions dealing with the following:
(a)	the imposition, repeal, remission, alteration or regulation of taxation;
(b)	the imposition for the payment of debt or other financial purposes of
charges on the Consolidated Revenue Fund or on money provided by
Parliament, or the variation or repeal of such charges;
(c)	supply;
(d)	the appropriation, receipt, custody or issue of public money;
(e)	the raising or guarantee of any loan or the repayment thereof; or
(/) subordinate matters related to any of the matters set out in paragraphs
(a) to (e).
54.2	(1) Where any bill, other than a money bill, having been passed by the House of Commons, is presented to the Senate at least forty-five days before the end of the session but is not passed by the Senate within forty-five days after it is presented, the bill shall, unless the House of Commons directs to the contrary, be presented to the Governor General for assent, whether or not Parliament is then in session, and when assented to shall have the same force and effect as if passed by the Senate.
(2) Where any bill, other than a money bill, having been passed by the House of Commons and presented to the Senate, is passed with amendments by the Senate, and the House of Commons does not concur in the amendments within fifteen days after the bill is passed by the Senate, the bill, in the form in
May 9, 1985
[Stage Direction]
which it was presented to the Senate but with such amendments made by the Senate as are concurred in by the House of Commons, shall, unless the House of Commons directs to the contrary, be presented to the Governor General for assent, whether or not Parliament is then in session, and when assented to shall have the same force and effect as if passed by the Senate.
54.3	(1) In every bill presented to the Governor General under section 54.1 or 54.2, the words of enactment shall be amended by striking out any reference to the Senate.
(2) Any alteration of a bill to give effect to this section shall be deemed not to be an amendment of the bill.
54.4	Any law made pursuant to section 54.1 or 54.2 shall be deemed, for the purposes of any other provision of the Constitution of Canada, except Part V of the Constitution Act, 1982, to have been made by and with the advice and consent of the Senate and House of Commons.
54.5	For greater certainty, nothing in sections 54.1 to 54.4 shall be construed as amending Part V of the Constitution Act, 1982.
54.6	Nothing in sections 54.1 to 54.4 diminishes or qualifies the rights and privileges of the House of Commons."
2.	The said Act is further amended by adding thereto the following heading
and section:

[Stage Direction]
148. A reference to this Act shall be deemed to include a reference to any amendments thereto."

[Stage Direction]
3.	This Amendment may be cited as the Constitution Amendment, year of proclamation (Powers of Senate).
['Agreed.']
Mr. Speaker:: Pursuant to Section (2) of Standing Order 25, the Notice of Motion standing on the Order Paper in the name of the Minister of Justice is transferred to, and ordered for consideration under, Government Orders later this day or at the next sitting of the House.



[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. Paul Dick (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, Question No. 235 will be answered today.


Mr. Howie: Since January 1, 1984, did the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs make any grants to persons in New Brunswick and, if so, to whom and in what amounts?
Hon. Michel Cote (Minister of Consumer and Corporate
Affairs): The Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs does not award grants to individuals but rather to consumer organizations at the beginning of a given fiscal year. For the period January 1, 1984 to January 24, 1985, which encompasses two fiscal years, grants were awarded to the following consumer organizations in New Brunswick:
1983-84	Supply Comite d'action sociale. Projet de justice sociale, Brantville, N.B.	$3,000
	Oromocto Information Service Centre, Oromocto, N.B.	$4,000
	Family Enrichment and Counselling Services, Moncton, N.B.	$10,000
1984-85	Comit6 d'action sociale, Projet de justice sociale, Brantville, N.B.	$4,000
	Oromocto Information Service Centre, Oromocto, N.B.	$4,000
The UFF1 Assistance Program make payments to home owners in respect of dwellings insulated with urea formaldehyde foam insulation. For the period January 1, 1984 to January 24, 1985 a total of 2,535 home owners in New Brunswick received assistance payments. The average amount for an individual claim in this province is $4,939 and the total amount of assistance paid for the period in question is calculated to be $12,503,026.
Metric Commission Canada
Metric Commission Canada had no mandate to provide grants. However, under the Commission's Assistance Program-Worker's Metric Tools, contributions were made to 353 individuals in New Brunswick, for a total of $155,418.04, during the period January 1, 1984 to January 24, 1985.


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


Mr. Speaker:: The question as enumerated by the Parliamentary Secretary has been answered. Shall the remaining questions be allowed to stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Ms. McDonald:
That this House condemns the Government for its failure to support the Canadian arts community, specifically by,
(1)	cutting funding to independent cultural agencies, leaving artists in poverty;
(2)	compromising the arms-length principle in relations between Government and funded agencies; and
(3)	increasingly bringing arts funding under direct ministerial control, and making partisan appointments to cultural agencies.
Mr. Speaker:: I am given to understand there are eight minutes remaining in the question and comment period. 1

May 9, 1985
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believe the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) is replying at this point to a comment or question.


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, in the course of my short speech, I made reference to the Minister of State for Youth (Mrs. Champagne). 1 want to make it clear that nothing 1 said or intended to say should be taken as any criticism of the Minister of State for Youth. I mentioned her name because in the previous Parliament when you, Mr. Speaker, and myself were part of a sub-committee looking at the problem of the taxes of artists, writers and musicians, the present Minister of State for Youth was one of a delegation which appeared before us. I knew that before she became a Member of Parliament the Minister had worked in the artistic field. So what I was trying to point out was that she understood the problems of artists and writers.
The Minister of State for Youth suggested that not all of the funds available for arts and culture came through the Minister of Communications (Mr. Masse). That is true. She suggested that, for example, her Department was responsible for the funding of some artistic and cultural activities. I know that is true. And I say to the Minister that when we have all of the reports and have seen the final figures, if the allocations for arts and culture from all Departments and agencies actually equal the amount expended last year, plus the increase in the Gross National Product, I will be the first one to stand and congratulate the Government for meeting the pledges it made. But 1 do not believe that will happen and 1 think all of the figures we now have prove that that is not going to happen.


Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, I know the Hon. Member was not here when the Minister of Communications (Mr. Masse) made his speech, but I was here and the Minister of Communications went into a tirade about socialism. He criticized the New Democratic Party and said that the NDP in government, or socialism, would lead to a loss of liberties.
1 would like the Hon. Member to comment on the history of this Party as it affects civil liberties; for example, with regard to the Japanese. Could he comment on which Parties in this House stood up for the Japanese historically with respect to the War Measures Act? It was this Party which stood against the War Measures Act and a piece of legislation which, when activated, did great damage in the Province of Quebec, the province of the Minister of Communications. It was a piece of legislation which was used in an arbitrary fashion to harass people from all sectors of society. I would like to hear my colleague's comments with regard to the Minister's claim that our Party represents a loss of civil liberties.


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, I have already dealt with the charges of the Minister when I pointed out to him that Parties such as ours in Great Britain, Sweden, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Australia and New Zealand, are social democratic Parties, and they, like ourselves, belong to the Socialist International. Freedom is alive and well in all of those countries in which Parties such as ours are the Government or have been the Government.
It is easy now to wax eloquent about what happened to the Japanese in Canada during World War II. The fact is that it was a Member from Vancouver-I cannot remember the riding-Mr. Angus Maclnnis, who, despite the fact he knew about the feelings in British Columbia against the Japanese, made it very clear that they were being mistreated, harassed and moved just because they were Japanese and their colour was different from that of the rest of us.
In so far as the War Measures Act is concerned, there are Members on the Government side who I am sure know better than I do that hundreds of people were arrested and incarcerated on the orders and by the direction of the then Liberal Prime Minister. They were not permitted to see a lawyer and not one of them was ever charged, let alone convicted, of having been disloyal to this country. We were the only ones who spoke up against that.


Mr. Stackhouse:: Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the remarks of the Hon. for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow). Early on he referred to the erection of Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto as an example of what the private sector can do. However, he looked upon that as a rare, even isolated example, and invited us to suggest others.
Taking him up on that invitation, I jotted down a few which are within walking distance of the Roy Thomson Hall, and which have been constructed either partially or wholly with private funds. For example, the O'Keefe Centre; the St. Lawrence Centre, which received public money but also contributions from a very large number of private donors; the Gardiner Ceramics Museum which recently opened in central Toronto; the Sigmund Samual Canadiana Museum and the Sigmund Samual Library. These are examples of what the private sector can do.
Again, we need to recoginze that, properly stimulated and encouraged, the private sector can be a source of much vitality in the arts community, as it has been in the past and can be in the future. Many of the institutions to which I refer represent a combination of public and private money, and surely that is demonstrated in the policies of the present Government. In spite of today's debate, which implies that there will be no money given by this Government to the arts community, massive contributions will be made. On top of that, surely it is right that we encourage much more participation in the development and encouragement of the arts by private donors.


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


Ted William Schellenberg: Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a great honour to follow the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) in the debate on this motion. Although we share a table in the Standing Committee on Communications and Culture, I have not yet had a chance to tell him that when I was growing up in Winnipeg in the 1950s he was my Member of Parliament. So that makes me either very young or him very old, I am not sure which.
May 9, 1985

The motion put forward by the Hon. Member for Broad-view-Greenwood (Ms. McDonald) suggests that our Government is cutting funding to cultural agencies and leaving artists in poverty. That is based on the assumption that we may be throwing out the bath water and leaving the baby struggling to survive. Well, if one wanted to agree with that assumption, one would have to assume that the baby, the Canadian cultural community, is healthy in the first place, and I submit that it is not.
In my earlier intervention this morning, I mentioned that we in Canada spend more on culture per capital than the British and Americans combined. What is the result? A strong publishing industry with a gallery of artists of international renown? A thriving motion picture industry which dramatically reflects our nation's identity? Plays and poems and artists who can stand on their own? Or simply survive on the Government teat, continually demanding more and more money just to survive?
The situation is ridiculous. We have to send 40 CBC employees to the Cannes Film Festival to peddle our cultural product. That tells you a lot about the quality of that product. I submit that the world Film community would come to us if we simply produced a better product.
In my view, the reality of restraint gives us a unique opportunity to address afresh, systematically and creatively, the issues which face us in the broad arenas of communications and culture. As a fiscally responsible Government we cannot afford to throw money at the problems. It did not work in the past and it will not work now. Most important of all, we owe it to the people of Canada to give them value for their tax dollars. You do not necessarily produce a better product by throwing more taxpayers' dollars at the cultural community of this nation.
Right now in Vancouver, British Columbia, a movie called "Rocky IV" is being produced. They have recreated Russia in the PNE Agridome. There is absolutely nothing Canadian about that production except for the fact they are throwing a few dollars our way. It is a ridiculous situation. How many times have we seen a Canadian film or television program where they change even the licence plates on the automobiles so that the poor viewer does not confuse Vancouver or Toronto with New York or Los Angeles? Our theatres are owned and controlled by Americans showing excellent films which are not Canadian.
We had our chance to change that 40 years ago. The Liberal Government of Mackenzie King saw the problem and decided to act. It wanted to restrict the number of American movies which were coming into our nation, and try and build up, in the National Film Board, our own national film industry. But they were wined and dined by the Hollywood moguls and the decision which was eventually arrived at was if Gary Cooper or Jimmy Stewart every now and then mentioned Canadian geese in a western flick, then it was all right and the film could be shown in Canada. We sold ourselves short. We sold our National Film Board short and we sold our artists short as well. That was a watershed in Canadian culture, the
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1940s, and that was when the bath water and the baby were thrown out, in my opinion.
So we have a 2.9 per cent cut in funding to Canadian cultural agencies, and Pierre Berton is going to starve. That is absolute nonsense, Mr. Speaker. The real shame, the real crime, is that we have so many good stories to tell and we are not telling them. The intense drama and tension of the life of Louis Riel; the incredible discoveries of Simon Fraser, David Thompson and Alexander Mackenzie; the saga of our Indian peoples, or the miracle of Steven Fonyo's run. From the struggles of our forefathers to create this nation, to the high level adventures of an astronaut, our first astronaut being Marc Garneau, we have so much to share with each other and we are just not doing it through Canadian cultural activities.
The lack of a distinctive Canadian culture is particularly evident, as my friend the Hon. Member for Saint-Denis (Mr. Prud'homme) mentioned earlier, in English Canada where I come from. English Canada is threatened, and it is a real threat, with inundation by American culture. The simple and straightforward solution is to cut along the 49th Parallel and float away. Or we could jam the skies and keep out those alien satellite signals which are inundating our homes in Canada. The most difficult solution for us as a government and people is to create some sort of incubation system to help our artists along, to learn from the best and to create the best. I do not care if you call the agency Culture Canada or the National Film Board or the Canadian Identity Agency, but what we have been doing up till now has not been working and we have to change the mechanism. We have to involve the public and private sector and the artists of Canada in order to produce a better product.
Let us acknowledge right here that the Beachcombers cannot compete with Dallas, so let us not try to compete dollar for dollar. Let us try and do what we do well: animation, documentaries, television drama. We cannot compete with American or British productions dollar for dollar. Therefore we should try to Find a way to tell our story well and not prop up an inferior product with more and more money that has to be borrowed in the first place.
Time is critically important. The skies are full of satellite signals that are entertaining and informing Canadians. They are entertaining and informing my children and others. But the majority of those signals are not mirroring the interests, the concerns or the desires of our fellow Canadians.
As the mover of this motion stated earlier, we have artistic palaces all over the country while our artistic community struggles to survive. Therefore, I suggest that we must change the delivery system. That is why our Minister of Communications (Mr. Masse) has criss-crossed the nation to learn the best way to bring about change. The same kind of Conservative Government that created the CBC is now going to initiate a new mandate for the Canadian cultural community.
It will not do so at any cost. It is not doing it in the old way by throwing money in the hope that it will stick somewhere.

May 9, 1985
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Rather it is doing it through a new incubation system to do what we should have done decades ago. We should fertilize the field and build a better product that people will buy, and we will encourage our best to create the best. Only then will our artistic community as well as our national culture survive.
One suggestion from the Applebaum-Hebert report and from some independent producers as well is that CBC drama production should be taken over by the independent production centre. That is an interesting idea that has not been acted upon.
Another concept of which I am more aware is the Shakespeare Plus Festival in Nanaimo. This concept came from the grass roots when someone thought it would be a good idea and acted upon it. Local artists are encouraged to take part, and now that festival provides a fair monetary return to the community in tourism.
This was not an idea of CBC in Toronto, but simply a case of a group of people from my community who saw a cultural need and answered it. That is the kind of cultural endeavour that we should be encouraging as a Government.
With these kinds of opportunities for our artists, people like William Shatner, Robert Goulet, directors like Norman Jewison and Ted Kotcheff, actors like Margot Kidder, Lome Greene and, dare I say, Leslie Nielsen, and writers like Arthur Hailey and Bernard Slade would all stay in our nation.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: What was that name?


Ted William Schellenberg: Leslie Nielsen. You may recall the name, Mr. Minister. These people would stay in our community in order to produce the product that we need.
On March 20, the Hon. Member for Saint-Denis (Mr. Prud'homme) said in this Chamber, "I am convinced that the Government is prepared to preside over a massive erosion of this country's impressive cultural achievements". I submit that just the opposite will prove to be the case. To paraphrase the former Leader of his Party, "Just watch us".


Lynn McDonald: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member has made a number of apt remarks about the film industry and its sorry history in Canada. While I heartily agree with him, by and large he has not really debated the motion. Indeed, he has made throw-away comments that quite misrepresent the point that I was trying to make. He made allusions to the proposition in the motion that artists have been left in poverty by the Government's policy. I meant "left in poverty" very precisely and clearly. Many were in poverty before, and it is not that this is something new. Artists have been living in poverty under previous Governments' mismanagement and they are continuing to live in poverty. It is not that the changes are so radical that suddenly artists who were not poor before are now poor; it is that the Government has failed to act to improve their situation, having promised to do so.
I did not suggest at any point that all artists are poor. Obviously, that would be a preposterous assertion. Pierre Berton and a number of other artists do very well. Nevertheless, the average income of full-time writers in Canada is
$7,000 a year. That is an average which means that many writers are earning much less. For example, poets are earning very much less.
Is the Hon. Member satisfied with those results and content just to make the throw-away statement that Pierre Berton is not suffering, as if that were supposed to cheer up those who do not have the same kind of advantages as Pierre Berton?
Finally, the Minister of Communications (Mr. Masse) has not only criss-crossed the country to talk to provincial ministers of culture, he has criss-crossed Europe to go to Madrid, Athens, Algeria and many other places.
We are not entirely sure why he has visited those places but it has cost a lot of the taxpayers' money to send him there in a private jet. It is not clear if this has advanced Canadian culture or served the ends of consulting the Canadian arts community.


Ted William Schellenberg: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that my hon. colleague misunderstood my remarks. I was addressing the larger question. I was not agreeing with her supposition that the decrease in funding to the cultural agencies results in poverty or has increased the poverty of our cultural community. I am saying that we have an idea which will let us do what we can to build a better product that will sell so that our artists do not have to come continually to the government trough in order to survive. We would raise that $7,000 to the $20,000 or $30,000 that the American artists make because they are building a better product.
There are ways for the Government of Canada to encourage this. Previous Governments have done this by throwing money at the problem, and I disagree totally with that concept.
The Hon. Member commented on the fact that the Minister of Communications has travelled throughout the country talking to ministers of culture, Conservative or otherwise. May I remind her that he held the first meeting of ministers of culture in this country in over three years. That is something the previous Government could not even attempt to do.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Further questions or comments? Debate.


Mr. Roland de Corneille (Eglinton-Lawrence):: Mr. Speaker, when the Tories came to power in Ottawa last fall and slashed the budgets and grants to the arts and entertainment industry, slammed the CBC and intimidated the media, they did so under the guise and in the name of economy. They said that it was done in order to economize and cut out the fat. However, we know that there was far more to their agenda than that.
We know that what the Government did was grave and serious. It caused consternation, sorrow and confusion in every quarter of every province. We know that this has been so in the entire cultural and arts community.
After listening to the comments of the Minister this morning and watching his reaction of apparent surprise at all this concern in this resolution, as well as listening to the comments
May 9, 1985

of the Hon. Member for Nanaimo-Alberni (Mr. Schellenberg-er), one would think that we were debating something about mouse traps.
However, we know that this is far more serious than that because mass meetings have been held in a way that has never occurred in the history of this country in the arts and cultural field. Never before has there been such an expression of spontaneous outrage in place from British Columbia to Halifax. I suggest that the Government is playing at pretense when it acts surprised that there is some kind of problem here. It is not taking seriously the issue that has been put forward today, the issue about which the public is concerned and, above all, about which the industry and its people are concerned.
The outrage goes beyond the entertainment industry and to the public because finally it is beginning to dawn upon the average Canadian that what we are seeing here threatens each and every Canadian, not merely the people in that industry.
The more people realize what is happening, the more they realize that this is not just simply a discussion about fat cats, power struggles or a group of 40 people who went to the Cannes Festival. It is not about wealthy performers and dilettantes. Canadians are beginning to realize that what is increasingly at stake is not only the survival of a few jobs or even an industry, but our entire nation as a culture and its survival.
National survival is at stake. I suggest that successive Liberal Governments over the decades have worked arduously to free Canada from foreign captivity, to overcome the doubt and confusion as to whether we are American, British or both. We have had to affirm that proud though we are of our heritage from Britain and France, and pleased though we are to be friends of the United States of America, we are neither French, British nor American, but Canadian.
We have had to battle enemies from within and from without. We were able to defeat separatism from within our nation by a referendum. We assured a large part of the population that they were not part of Britain or the United States but part of a nation called Canada, free and independent, a country where francophones could play a significant role. While we are a small nation we assured them that they had a part in it, and a significant part in it.
We also had to beat the reactionaries who wanted to cling to the past. Over the years the Tories persistently personified that reaction with their constant and sometimes hysterical resistance. As my colleague said so well this morning, there was a flag debate and we were finally able to get a Canadian flag. Then there was the battle with the Tories over O Canada, which would become our national anthem. Bit by bit the Tories retreated, and finally as the forces of Canadianism advanced, they allowed a Canada Day after some resistance. Their last battle was the Constitution and the Charter of Rights, a battle that was interrupted by rather noisy bells at times. I happened to be part of that debate but while a real rear-guard resistance was made, we made Canada a nation that had its own Constitution housed in Canada and its own
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Charter of Rights. We established the principles of a nation based on multiculturalism.
I suggest that Liberal Governments fought step by step to move us toward a Canadian identity. It is what the people wanted.
A Canadian identity demands Canadian independence. Unless we are masters of our own economy, of our own environment and our own way of life, free from external blackmail, bribery and takeovers, we cannot call our souls our own. That is why we moved as Liberals, to try to encourage Canadians into the energy field and we increased Canadian ownership of the oil fields from 25 per cent to 50 per cent. That is why we established FIRA to set up standards to make sure that foreign investment would not be detrimental to Canadians and would encourage a Canadian presence in business conducted in Canada.
When you realize that Canada, as Mel Hurtig has testified and proven, has a higher percentage of foreign ownership than any other nation, it is no wonder that we took steps to try to correct that imbalance.
Yes, we are a small nation and we are vulnerable because of our size. That does not mean we have to succumb.
While Canadian independence and Canadian survival depend on our ability to prevent encroachment and subservience to foreign domination, whether it is military or financial domination, the most critical area of all is our ability to maintain our cultural identity. Culture means not only music and fine arts. It also means media, entertainment, radio, television, books, journals, cable TV, advertising, and everything and anything that reaches the ears, the eyes, the senses and the minds of our children, of our seniors, of our young, and of our middle-aged alike. That is where our identity and our national soul is reached. That is true today even more than before.
Some people think we are making too much of some cuts to the CBC and cuts in grants to the National Film Board and the Canada Council, as well as cuts in grants to individuals and groups of artists across the country, but these cuts are cutting into the morale, the infrastructure and the survival of an industry with a great potential for the future both here and abroad. Broadcasting, media entertainment, information, art and culture make up the fourth largest industry in this nation. It has an important export market as well, one that is highly labour-intensive.
Contrary to the stereotypes that people have of rich actors, directors, fat cat bureaucrats, what the Tories have hit are the lowest paid in the economy, our artists and entertainers. Two hundred and seventy-three thousand Canadians identified themselves as holding cultural arts related occupations in 1981. The number being hit by this Government's policy is far greater than 273,000. This Minister of Communications (Mr. Masse) has destroyed jobs, not created them. It is not only the jobs that are being destroyed, but the industry itself. If you tear away such basic structures as the CBC, you tear away the infrastructure needed to maintain a viable, modern Canadian

May 9, 1985
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system of communications. When this infrastructure starts to weaken, this solid base, individuals panic or despair. They look elsewhere for other occupations or they leave for other countries. They leave the industry. This creates still further panic. It has a terrible domino effect. One job loss creates the next job loss. Worse yet, the damage is not only to the present generation, but it menaces the future. Young people who are considering a career in communications and culture look at what this Government is doing and witness the trembling of this infrastructure. They consider either going to some other country or not developing their talents at all. We saw this phenomenon take place once before when the Tories pulled the plug on the Avro Arrow airplane. It also was billed as an economy measure.
Yes, many interesting things are done in the name of economy. That was billed as an economy measure. Not only were thousands of Canadians thrown out of work then, but those people went to the United States or to Great Britain. A large proportion ended up in the American space industry and were part of one of the basic groups that formed NASA, all because we economized on the Avro Arrow rather than developing our own aeronautical industry. You need to have foresight Mr. Speaker, to be able to see that an industry has value. You need to have foresight, and rather than cutting back on it, you should increase it. You should put more into it because it has a future.
There cannot be many Members of Parliament in this House, Conservatives, Liberal or NDP, especially those from the larger population centres, who have not had letters and phone calls in their offices from people concerned about their future. A young woman expressed doubt in a phone call to our office about carrying on in the field of music because she depends on part-time work to help her while she studies and further develops her musical talent. Another one doubts whether she can stay in Canada and study here because if she starts out in Baltimore or Los Angeles she can grow up in the industry and be where the jobs are. A middle-aged couple are worried because if they encourage their children to pursue their artistic talents here, it will mean the certain loss of their children to the United States.
Those cuts are not measures that affect some closed system of bureaucracy; those cuts are measures that have a domino effect that hit jobs in a very labour-intensive industry, shearing away the infrastructure of that industry. This destroys morale, causes hurt, creates confusion, doubt, and pessimism, and discourages the development of talent.
You cannot underestimate that, Mr. Speaker. While it is not something tangible and able to be measured, it is a very real factor regarding the future. This is a time when in certain sectors, especially entertainment, information, and the media, we should be going forward, expanding and believing in the future. We should be investing also in research and development in the technical end of the communications industry. Hand in hand with that our entertainment industry should grow. We will then have not only a domestic market, but also external markets. We should think of our great Canadian
artists, our bands, our orchestras, our painters, our television productions and our ballets. Canadians have excelled in many fields. We are proud of them. However, while we say we are proud of them, we allow the Government to cut back on the very forces which gave life to those institutions.
Tory times are times when we see regression. They are not times of venture or adventure. They do not have the minds of venture capitalists. They always want to shrink everything down to the size of their vision and mentality. It is regression, withdrawal and pessimism. Those are Tory times. As we lost the aeronautical and the space industries, we are now to lose the communications industry.
As I said in my speech in the House on February 1, 1985, the greatest danger of this Tory policy on communications is the loss of our identity, the loss of our soul. Three-quarters- and in large metropolitan areas it is as high as four-fifths-of our television time is taken up by American programming. The protection of FIRA is being ripped away by Bill C-15. The Americans will be able to invade not only our airwaves but will be able to take over many of our companies dealing in communications and culture. At a time when our identity as Canadians is most threatened, we should spend more money, not less.
It appears that the Tories have mesmerized many people with the seductive appeal that to obtain more jobs we should sell out, attract more American investment and more multinationals to Canada. They tell us that we should be more patient and quieter with the Americans about our ecology, our environment and our foreign policy, that today it is "in" to favour being part of the great American continent and enjoying the fruits of American continentalism. That is Tory policy.
As I said at the outset, a great deal is at stake. Down through the years, until now, Canadians of all Parties agreed that it would cost a premium for Canada to remain a sovereign nation. In the past there was always a temptation to sell out to the colossus to the south. However, we know that our history has been one of resistance to that seductive, simplistic solution. I believe Canadians are prepared to pay an additional $10 or even $20 each per year to invest in our culture and our communications once they understand what is at stake. When they understand what is at stake, they will be prepared to pay far more per person to stop the Tory policy of cuts to that basic industry. Canadians will believe that it is worth paying the extra price, a premium, to remain independent and free.


Mr. Boyer:: Mr. Speaker, does the Hon. Member for Eglin-ton-Lawrence (Mr. de Corneille) realize that he just advocated an additional tax of $500 million? Does he really think that Canadian citizens are ready, willing and able to pay that?


Roland de Corneille: Mr. Speaker, I was actually being facetious, in a way, in pointing out that the average Canadian, for the paltry few dollars required to make up the $80 million which was cut,-and it would really mean about $4 per Canadian-would rather have that than the kind of Tory
May 9, 1985

policy which is slashing away at the very infrastructure of Canadian culture and an industry which is Canada's fourth largest. That is my first point.
My second point is that Canadians must understand the gravity of the situation which has been created by the Tories. By undercutting FIRA, by eliminating the protections to our economy from foreign investments and takeovers, for example, the takeovers of some of our companies in the communications field, Canadians should realize that we are facing very dangerous times and that perhaps we require some extra investment to overcome what the Tories have done by their policies. They have handed over to the multi-nationals, to the seven sisters, that which was reserved as an opportunity for Canadians at last to invest in their own country. When Canadians begin to understand the ramifications, they would rather give a few bucks more than allow the destruction of their soul.


Patrick Boyer: If the Hon. Member was being facetious when he made that point with great vigour and seriousness showing on his face and in his words, was he also being facetious, or was he just misinformed, when he referred to the change in the foreign investment review legislation? He paraded before the House his view that there will no longer be any protection for cultural agencies in this country. Over the past many weeks has he not familiarized himself adequately with the new legislation our Government brought in which requires special protection in the case of communications agencies from foreign takeovers?


Roland de Corneille: I said that I was being facetious when 1 used the figure of $10 because $4 would do it. I am sure the people would be willing to spend quite a bit more per person if they realized that their Canadian survival was at stake.


Patrick Boyer: $20 per person?


Roland de Corneille: Regarding the Investment Canada Bill, Bill C-15, it does not guarantee any protection of the cultural industry. It indicates that the Government may review it. When we see the size of the loopholes, through which a truck could drive, for foreign companies to enter into the field and take over Canadian companies, it seems as though there was no sincerity in terms of trying to prevent foreign investment and takeovers of Canadian firms, which might result in the loss of huge numbers of jobs to foreign investors who might take them elsewhere.


Lynn McDonald: Mr. Speaker, I have a comment, followed by a question. Indeed there is a great deal of evidence that Canadians are prepared to pay more to support public expenditure in the arts field. However, Canadians underestimate what is needed in that field. Because they always hear about hand-outs, they think that in fact more is going to artists than is the case. When they hear how little it is, they are prepared to pay a great deal more. A lot more could be done along those lines.
The Hon. Member made a number of eminently sensible remarks in his speech, but I think he evaded one of the main
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points of the motion before us. I am very critical of what the Conservative Government has done for the arts, but let us be very clear that it is a slippery slope. We see the Conservatives behaving in a manner that is worse than the Liberals. The Liberal record is not very good either. Would the Hon. Member for Eglinton-Lawrence (Mr. de Corneille) care to comment on that? Under the Liberal Government, federal spending for the arts declined in real terms in the last 10 years. The Liberal Government did not do any of the practical things he suggested which might help artists. Now that he is in opposition he sounds very nice when he supports artists. But where were they when it counted?


Roland de Corneille: Mr. Speaker, I would like to add to the comments and the question of the Hon. Member for Broad-view-Greenwood (Ms. McDonald). If we calculate how much $4, $5 or even $10 per person would be, we would realize that it is the cost of a couple of movie tickets. We realize how much we benefit from the CBC and from Canadian artists. Canadians are prepared privately to pay quite a lot for a seat in a movie-house, a seat at a baseball game and so on. In fact, such a small amount to salvage or save our industry would be well worth spending. I believe Canadians will make it known to their Members of Parliament, especially to those on the government benches, as they understand more clearly what is happening, that they want better from them than cut-backs in an important industry which is so vital to Canada's identity.


Geoffrey Douglas Scott: Mr. Speaker, I have one brief comment and a question for the Hon. Member for Eglinton-Lawrence (Mr. de Corneille). The comment is that it is almost beyond belief that we have an Opposition Day today and we have one, two, three New Democrats present, one member of the Official Opposition present, the Member who has just spoken-


Mr. Angus:: Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that it is inappropriate for a Member to make reference to those in or out of this House.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. If he did say it, he should not have said it.


Geoffrey Douglas Scott: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I should not have said it.


John Edmund Parry: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I just want to point out to the Hon. Member that the count is four New Democrats and one Liberal.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. 1 have said this once before. Members should know very well, particularly those who have been here for quite a while, not to reflect on who is in the House and who is not in the House.


Geoffrey Douglas Scott: Mr. Speaker, I promise not to get into the numbers game in any further comments. I

May 9, 1985
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would, however, happily record the fact that the numbers have swelled in the last minute by about 25 per cent.
The Hon. Member for Eglinton-Lawrence said quite correctly that mass meetings concerning the arts have been held right across this country. He is absolutely correct. I would call them Marcel Masse meetings with the cultural community. I have attended such meetings. I am wondering if the Hon. Member for Eglinton-Lawrence will give some credit to my Minister for being the very first Minister in a long line of Ministers of Communications to sit down with his provincial counterparts and map out Canada's future policy on the arts and culture, or does the Hon. Member still adhere to the old Liberal Government philosophy that the provinces do not count and that they should not be consulted?
Second, will he agree that, while the arts and culture community in this country is extremely fragile and susceptible to any cut-backs in funding, no sector of the Canadian economy can be exempted from this necessary attack on the Government's deficit? It is fine when people say, "Let's tackle the deficit, but don't touch me. Anybody but me." I just wonder if the Hon. Member will realistically consider the fact that the message has got through to my Minister, to me and to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson). We know how susceptible and vulnerable the arts community is, and I would like him to explain how you can exempt any one sector of Canadian society when you have to launch an all-out offensive on trying to reduce this deficit.


Roland de Corneille: Mr. Speaker, I am very interested to hear that now through the eyes of the Tories they see a lynch mob as being a tea party. First of all, when the Minister visited, those visits followed mass meetings of protest. There was a need for him to find out and to show his presence. It was a good idea to let people know that he was actually concerned about the fact that in his own area there were mass meetings for the first tie in the history of that community at which people raised protests and expressed their anger at the situation that had developed. I would not call a lynch mob a tea party.
There is a second part to the question which has to be addressed. The Hon. Member asked whether we should be addressing ourselves to the future. I believe it would be a very good idea for us to address ourselves to the future, but the present cuts are cutting into the people. He asks whether every group should not have to suffer. Does the Hon. Member believe that those in the oil patch who are benefiting, the large oil companies with their sudden huge findings of windfall money, should not also pay through the nose? Why should the little people earning $7,000 a year or less have to pay when they don't have those profits?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret but the Hon. Member's time has expired. Questions and comments are now terminated.



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 Don Valley East (Mr. Attewell)- Young Offenders Act-Request for comprehensive review; the Hon. Member for Trinity (Miss Nicholson)-Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation-Committee study; the Hon. Member for Drummond (Mr. Guilbault)-Textile Industry-Government position.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Ms. McDonald:
That this House condemns the government for its failure to support the Canadian arts community, specifically by,
(1)	cutting funding to independent cultural agencies, leaving artists in poverty;
(2)	compromising the arms-length principle in relations between government and funded agencies; and
(3)	increasingly bringing arts funding under direct ministerial control, and making partisan appointments to cultural agencies.
Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, I am tempted to react to the Hon. Member opposite who pointed out the number of New Democrats in this House. I do not want to do that. It would be wrong for me to point out that percentage-wise there are-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: Order, please. I think that whole issue was dealt with by the previous Speaker a couple of minutes ago.


Cyril Keeper: I will not mention that proportionately there are fewer Conservatives.
I welcome the opportunity to enter this debate. It is good that we have Opposition Days in this House. Otherwise the question of culture and the arts would not come to the attention of the House of Commons. The priority that has been placed on culture and the arts by the Government is so low that the only way we can have a serious debate about culture and the arts in this House is through the vehicle of an opposition motion. The Government has moved to cut public expenditures in the field of arts and culture. We have yet in this debate to hear a credible reason for the cuts it is carrying
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May 9, 1985

out in culture and the arts. In the absence of a credible reason from the government side, I will have to pose some questions as to why the Government might be cutting in these fields.
For example, have Canadians been demanding cuts in the arts and in culture? Have Canadians been saying to the Government that we are spending too much on arts and culture? We should examine a few facts. We should look at the attitude of Canadians with regard to the arts. Something like 82 per cent of Canadians believe that it is important to promote, encourage and develop talent and artistic activities, and 78 per cent of these Canadians think that federal dollars should support the arts.
Does the policy adopted by the Government that means cuts in spending for arts activities reflect the attitude of Canadians? Quite clearly, no. This is sad. When the members of the Party opposite ran during the election and sought the confidence of Canadians, they promised to be more sensitive to public attitudes, to listen to people and to do what the public wanted. They contrasted their promises with what the previous Government did. Now that they are in office, they are doing just the opposite of what Canadians desire as it affects arts and culture.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: What percentage of the vote do you have?


Cyril Keeper: I had enough to get here, and I intend to stay here.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: By Stanley Knowles' skirts.


Cyril Keeper: In no way would I be ashamed of Stanley Knowles' skirts. I hear the heckling from across the way. I am tempted to react to it, but I will restrain myself.
The Government should realize that Canadians are strong supporters of the arts. They illustrate this not only in their attitudes and desires, calling upon the Government to spend and support the arts, but with regard to their activities and attendance at activities. For example, the attendance at cultural events from 1971 to 1980 increased by 121 per cent. That shows a broad support among Canadians for cultural and artistic activities. In fact, more people in this country attend cultural events in a year than attend sporting events. The Government should respond to the priority of Canadians rather than cutting back on it.
What other reason could there be for the Government to make cuts when it comes to arts and culture? Perhaps we are already spending too much on arts and culture. Perhaps the federal budget for arts and culture is too large and needs to be cut back. Let us examine a couple of facts in that area. In 1982-83, federal expenditures on the arts were 1.8 per cent of the total federal budget. That does not mean a great deal by itself, but when that is compared to defence spending which was 10.6 per cent of the federal budget, we begin to see that the priority the Government places on arts is much less significant than the priority the average Canadian would place
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on arts. Consider that we spend 10 times as much on defence than we do on arts and cultural activities.


Mr. Holtmann:: That's not a good comparison.


Cyril Keeper: I hear from across the way that that is not a good comparison. It is an objective comparison and these are facts. In the absence of a rational reason for the Government to cut spending, I present these facts and challenge the Hon. Member opposite to enter the debate and to put forward his reasons for cutting expenditures on arts and culture. Could he justify the feeling that we are spending too much on arts? I say that when we spend 10 times as much on defence spending as we spend on arts, there is no objective way we can say we are spending too much on arts.
Between 1971 and 1980, government support to the arts in constant dollars, taking into account inflation, declined each year. Spending on the arts over that decade has already declined. How can one put forward the notion that we are spending too much on arts? Why would the Government be cutting if we were not spending too much?
I would point out to my colleagues on the right that the years 1971 to 1980 were years in which the Liberal Party was in office. While I hear my Liberal colleagues rise in the House to criticize the Government sharply for cutting spending in the area of arts, and deservedly so, I must question the sincerity of Members who so recently were in office and Members whose own Government, throughout a decade, decreased public spending on the arts.
What other possible reason could there be for the Government to be cutting in the area of the arts and culture? Would it describe arts and cultural spending as being a waste or a mere luxury? When government Members were running for office, they said that they would cut the waste out of public spending. Is that what this means now? Does it mean that when cutting back on the arts and culture, they are cutting out the waste? Let us examine spending in the area of the arts from the point of view of its value and from the point of view of investment. I would make the argument that spending on the arts is a good investment rather than a poor one, and I will back that up with facts.
Spending in the arts sector directly increases government revenues. It increases revenues through sales taxes, property taxes, income taxes and unemployment and health insurance premiums. It increases government revenues in an amount which equals or exceeds grants to the arts. How could spending in the arts sector be considered a waste or a luxury when it increases government revenues?
Looking at economic activity in the arts, in 1982, for the 136 theatres which were related to the Canada Council, there were something like 5.5 million spectators and total expenditures of some $67 million. Keeping in mind that every time there is a dollar spent on ticket sales for artistic endeavours, at least another dollar is being spent on related items such as drinks, food, babysitters and parking, then public spending in the arts becomes a very good investment rather than a waste or a luxury.

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We should remind the Government that when it makes grants to the arts and culture, these grants result in local expenditures of up to 10 times the amount of the grant itself. By any objective measure, money spent on the arts is a good investment. It not only affects the domestic economy but it also affects our balance of trade. As our arts and cultural activities gain greater international recognition, there is then a greater capacity for exports in this area.
What other reason could there be for the Government to cut back on grants and public expenditures to the arts? If we look at the arts as being an industry, we have to realize that it is an important industry. When members of the Government were seeking the confidence of the public, they said they would deliver a new economy. Have they delivered such a great new economy that they can abandon the arts as an industry? We need to remind government Members that arts and cultural industries are very important. They accounted for something like $7 billion within the Canadian economy in 1981. Relative to the 20 largest industries in the country, the arts industry is largest in terms of employment. It is sixth in terms of salaries and wages and eleventh in terms of revenues.
It is very important for us to take care of the arts industry because the arts industry is an important sector of our economy and has a lot to do with the over-all health of the Canadian economy. Every time the Government cuts its own expenditures to the arts, it is damaging the Canadian economy.
It is important to remember that the arts are also important as an employer, because unemployment is still our number one economic problem and is still at historically unprecedented levels. Arts and cultural agencies spend most of their revenues on employment. Arts-related employment in the Canadian economy is nearly as large as the labour force in the agricultural sector of the economy. As an employment creator, it is very important to us as Canadians. The labour force in the arts sector has increased over the decade from 1971 to 1981 by some 74 per cent, and that is just about twice as fast as the increase in the labour forces of other sectors of the Canadian economy.
In the performing arts sector, 66 cents out of every dollar it receives goes to salaries and wages. Most of the money that goes into the arts goes to the creation of employment. In manufacturing industries, the comparable figure is 20 cents per dollar. The reason that most of the dollar in the arts field goes to employment as opposed to other aspects of arts activities is that artists are paid a very low wage. While it makes a great deal of sense for artists to be paid a more just wage, given the present circumstances in which artists find themselves in our community, it would make more sense to support artists by giving them grants so that they can carry out their artistic activities rather than to reduce the spending in this area, thereby forcing them on to public assistance. Since we pay so little to the artists to do their creative work, if one looks at it in economic terms, it makes more sense to support them in their artistic activities than to cut them off, by cutting back on public spending, and force them on to welfare. Welfare can be very debilitating to a person, but carrying on activities as a
professional artist can lead to personal self-fulfilment and a richer community.
I would like to talk about the impact which these cuts have had on specific Canadian agencies. For example, the Canada Council is losing something in the order of 5 per cent of its budget. That means that less money will be available for grants which could be given to individuals and different cultural agencies. We need more money rather than less money for Canadian artists.
The cut-backs are damaging the Canada Council in another way. A toll-free telephone service has been available through the Canada Council. With the cut-backs, that service will be gone. That means that it will be much more difficult for any artist who lives outside of the Ottawa area to deal with the Canada Council. It is unfair to most artists who live across the country.
The Canada Council has also provided fund-raising advice to various artistic organizations. The cut-backs have meant that a decreased amount of advice will be given to the organizations. Of course, that will mean fewer private sector dollars in the arts, not only the loss of public sector dollars.
In addition, the CBC has been hurt by the cut-backs. For example, the CBC has lost 1,500 jobs. As well, the CBC has lost in the order of $15 million in programming money. That money would have been used to produce Canadian programs. Canadian programs are crucial at a time when Canadian airwaves are mostly dominated by American programs which are very easily dumped into the Canadian market. It is very difficult for Canadians to compete with that.
There have been a couple of program cuts in the CBC which I find particularly disturbing. One of them is Our Native Land and the second is the program called Identities. Those programs have been very important to native Canadians and Canadians of ethnic origins. The programs worked to increase understanding and tolerance in our society. The cuts which the Government has made in the area of arts and culture have led to the cuts of these programs.
I do not know how the Government justifies the cuts. I do not know why the Government is making these cuts. The Government has said that it needs to reduce the deficit. That is the only argument which I have heard for the cut-backs in these areas. When cuts in the name of reducing the deficit result in fewer jobs in the economy and less revenue for the Government, I suggest that rather than reducing the deficit, the cuts in the arts area may lead to an increase in the deficit. The artists who will find themselves unemployed will be forced to go on welfare. They will be supported publicly. The reduced arts activities will simply mean that there will be reduced public revenues. Every time that a public dollar is cut, the private dollars which go along with that public dollar are lost. In the arts field there is a very high ratio between public dollars and private dollars. So a lot of economic activity and wealth is lost when cut-backs are made in the fields of arts and culture.
May 9, 1985

I could think of other areas in which the Government could choose to cut back that would make more economic sense and allow us to continue to support the artists in this country, that would allow us to benefit from their creative talents and the richness which they provide to our culture.
In conclusion, I would like to challenge Members opposite to explain why these cuts are being made. I have heard no rational reason that could be backed up with facts for making cuts in the arts field.


Mr. Caldwell:: Mr. Speaker, I listened very attentively to the Hon. Member's speech. Very near the end he mentioned the fact that he could suggest several other areas in which the Government could cut back. He said that 78 per cent of the people want federal money for the arts and culture. Of course, the majority of the people of Canada said that they wanted a cut in the deficit. Is the Hon. Member suggesting that we should cut into our social programs, that we should default on paying off the debt, or that we should not give any more money to higher education? In which areas is he suggesting the cuts should be made?
He also pointed out that 1.8 per cent of the budget goes toward culture. It should be noted that the agricultural area, although it employs more people than the arts and culture fields, receives a lesser percentage of the budget. Can the Hon. Member tell us where he would make those cuts in federal programs in order to leave the culture budget as it is?
I should also point out that $75 million of that money went toward the CBC cuts. The CBC indicated that 1,500 people would have to be laid off when the original cut was announced. However, fewer than half that number have been laid off. 1 believe the CBC has done a commendable job in ensuring that as few people as possible have been eliminated.
Where does the Member see the great gaps which are being created in our cultural mosaic? Where does he think we should make the cuts?


Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, I would like to deal with a couple of points which the Hon. Member raised. First, he said that Canadians asked for a reduced deficit. If I remember accurately what went on during the election campaign, the Conservatives said that the deficit would be reduced by cutting out waste. The Conservatives said that they would not cut any useful programs or worth-while activities. That is the kind of deficit reduction for which Canadians voted. Now that the Conservatives are in office, they are cutting into very valuable public spending which affects the quality of life in Canada and the level of employment. That is not what the Conservatives promised when they were running for office.
The Hon. Member asked where we should cut. We could examine the tax expenditures which take place in Canada. How much money goes out by way of tax write-offs to large corporations, in the name of economic development or job creation, which are effective and result in the corporations' stated objectives? We could examine that area. We could also examine the whole question of the oil industry, which continues to receive windfall profits and grants from the Govern-
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ment. What about the money which was spent on new military uniforms? Was that a necessary expenditure? Was that expenditures preferable over cuts in the arts?


Gerry St. Germain: Mr. Speaker, I have a great respect for the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Keeper), being a Manitoban by birth. However, it always bothers me when NDP Members rise in the House and fail to recognize fiscal responsibility. If the NDP and the Liberals had continued with their coalition programs of fiscal irresponsibility, there would be no arts in this country. There would be absolute devastation as far as the economy is concerned.
Those Hon. Members are continually saying that they want to tear down the successful to build up we don't know what. They advocate an equal distribution of nothing. The arts in this country have not and will not be neglected by our Party. We will stand front and centre in support of them, but we have to be responsible. The type of irresponsibility which has led us to the brink of financial disaster could totally destroy any possibility of a future for any Canadian, let alone the future of the arts.
I don't know why the Hon. Member-and I would like him to respond to this-and his Party are so afraid of the private sector, of private people becoming involved. This great country evolved and developed not because of socialistic ideas or government involvement, but because people had a hope and a dream.


Cyril Keeper: What about the CPR?


Gerry St. Germain: The Hon. Member cites the CPR. The CPR operates, as he well knows, on the basis of a free enterprise system.


Cyril Keeper: That was public funding.


Gerry St. Germain: I ask the Hon. Member why he and his Party are so afraid of ordinary Canadians, ordinary people, building businesses?


Cyril Keeper: Give me some time to answer the question.


Gerry St. Germain: I'll give you a chance to answer the question. I would love to. Why are you afraid of the private sector?


Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, I will deal with the question asked by the Hon. Member as to why we are afraid of the private sector. We are not afraid of the private sector. We believe in a mixed economy.


Ms. Copps:: That's us.


Mr. Nunziata:: That's us.


Cyril Keeper: Let me say this about public spending in the arts field: the reason that cuts in public spending are damaging both to the economy and to any deficit reduction is that

May 9, 1985
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spending in the arts is a private and public mix. Every dollar we put into the arts creates $10 in the private sector as it turns over through the economy. Spending in the arts is a statement of faith in the private sector. So we on this side of the House are saying, let the Government support private sector activities, and it can do so in the arts field by continuing public spending. But if it cuts back on public spending, it is going to lose the private sector activity in the arts field.
The Hon. Member talks about fiscal responsibility. How can it be fiscally responsible to cut back on valuable activity which is in fact an investment in the economy? If we cut back on public dollars in the arts field, we also lose the private sector investment which would otherwise be there. As a result, we lose revenues and we might end up with a higher deficit and higher unemployment than we have now. Fiscal responsibility means that we have to look at the over-all economy and not just at a balance sheet for the federal Budget.
The Hon. Member took a swipe at equal distribution of income. One of the ways we can have a healthy economy in this country-


Gerry St. Germain: I said equal distribution of nothing is what you advocate.


Cyril Keeper: The Hon. Member calls it "equal distribution of nothing", but he took a swipe at equal distribution, Mr. Speaker, and let me say that one of the ways we can have a healthy economy is to have a rough equal distribution of income in this country, in other words, that people have enough to meet their basic human needs. When we have that, we are going to have a stronger economy.


Geoffrey Douglas Scott: Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed the remarks of the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Keeper). I don't agree with them all, but I listened attentively. There is one thing I would like to make clear for the record. As much as I disagreed with the cutting of Our Native Land, and I hear almost daily from my colleague, the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Carleton (Mr. Turner), about the cutting of The Friendly Giant on CBC, neither of those programs was a victim of government cuts. The corporation had announced the cuts of those programs before the budgetary deficit manoeuvres made by this Government. I just want to make sure that the Hon. Member knows that it had been decided that those programs would be cut by the President of the CBC and his officials prior to the November announcement of the budgetary cut-backs. The President of the CBC said that before the Standing Committee on Communications and Culture last week.
I would like to ask the Hon. Member a question. Given the fact that somehow we had to trim the fat from these expensive Crown Corporations and agencies in this country, but that we could not tell anyone, particularly the CBC, where to cut back on their budgets, does the Hon. Member seriously suggest that we should now become involved as a government in terms of deciding about programming cut-backs? Does he think we should tell the CBC want programs to eliminate and what to
keep? Does he not consider that that would be a pretty dangerous role for the Government to play in terms of instructing a publicly owned corporation what it should or should not be able to broadcast?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: The Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Keeper) has 30 seconds.


Cyril Keeper: I would point out, Mr. Speaker, that the CBC managed to reinstate The Friendly Giant. Why could it not also reinstate Our Native Land? Thirty seconds is not enough time to deal with the complex issues raised by the Hon. Member. It is an important issue and I do not want to give it short shrift.


Mr. Charles Hamelin (Charlevoix):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to speak to the Opposition motion before the House today. In the course of the day, and especially this morning, I was able to listen to what my Hon. colleagues had to say, and especially the formidable speech made by the Hon. Member for Saint-Denis (Mr. Prud'homme), who styled himself the defender of arts and culture. In fact, the Parliamentary Secretary acknowledged as much.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Such talent!


Charles-André Hamelin: The Hon. Member has made himself out to be the great defender of arts and culture in Canada. In fact, he spent a lot of energy expressing his desire to promote our Canadian identity.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Excellent!


Charles-André Hamelin: He even accused the present Minister of failing to stand up for arts and culture-


Jean-Robert Gauthier: True, true!


Charles-André Hamelin: -so much so it made me wonder if this heroic role of champion of arts and culture was his and his alone. Surprisingly, as was in fact mentioned several times by the Hon. Member for Broadview-Greenwood (Ms. McDonald), in all the 20 years the Liberals were in power, the Hon. Member for Saint-Denis did not get his act together as the defender of the arts since, as the Hon. Member for Broadview-Greenwood indicated, the situation for artists had deteriorated during this overly long Liberal regime. It was rather astonishing to hear all this from the Hon. Member from iI>aint-Denis. Are we also supposed to consider today's motion, not its form but its substance, as a plea to defend arts and culture in Canada? I think that all of us here are defenders of arts and culture.
I am from a rural riding where arts and culture play a major role, where painters and writers and other artists have a
May 9, 1985

vitality all their own. Charlevoix has often provided a background, both literally and figuratively, for very substantial works of art and it has presided over the birth and development of some truly exceptional painters and artists here in Canada.
As Members of Parliament and representatives of our ridings, we are supposed to defend not only arts and culture but also health, agriculture, finance and regional development. We have those mandates as well. And we could expatiate on those subjects as well. We could do so and it would be our right to do so. All of us here, Quebecers and Canadians, are defenders of arts and culture, and we have all noticed how difficult it is to promote our identity and our culture. It is difficult for us Quebecers, and it is even harder for the anglophone community, against 220 million Americans who are also English-speaking. We understand. We also know that our governments have spent considerable sums of money to try and promote this collective resistance and affirm our identity as Canadians and Quebecers.
Like many regional Members, I represent one of the smaller, distant ridings. I suppose I could make a fuss and roundly criticize what is wrong with cultural development, regional development and health services. If we just consider our major Government agencies, for instance Radio-Canada, in my region, we do not have the resources, in spite of the Corporation's $800 million budget, to cover regional news adequately. We are being subsidized piecemeal, with a part-time reporter and a part-time team who work more or less freelance as events come up. For years we have been asking for a small fraction of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's $800-million budget. We have yet to receive it.
Often what our Government is asking us to do about communications, arts and culture is that a more rational use be made of the resources made available to these large agencies. It is a pressing issue, because in my riding, which covers a vast territory but has a population of only 75,000, we have not had what we feel we are entitled to in terms of communications, arts and culture. We would probably be the first among the Members of the Quebec caucus and in fact among many other Members in Canada to criticize and to ask for more. We are as much in favour of arts and culture as the next person. There is an insatiable need generally and especially in our region for resources which are unfortunately very limited. And our Government has asked the various departments to participate in an exercise to rationalize their spending, and this applies to all the departments, including Health and Regional Development, and this exercise in rationalization applies both to staff requirements and the way resources are used.
We are also interested in developing our culture and in safeguarding and affirming our identity. We certainly are. Unfortunately, we are faced with the very pressing need to reorganize Government finances. We are facing, as several Members said before, a deficit of astronomical proportions which, if left to grow unchecked, would leave us no arts or
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culture or communications or agriculture or health to talk about. We would be absolutely incapable of carrying out our responsibilities in these areas.
I think that we should consider this motion moved by the opposition as a way to re-affirm the important contribution of the arts and culture industry in Canada. I agree with the dear colleague the Hon. Member for Broadview-Greenwood and the other members who have insisted on the need to promote both arts and culture in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada, but I think they went a little too far when they blamed the government for not supporting the artistic community in Canada. They quoted some figures concerning the workers within this industry, indicating that writers apparently earn an average of $7,000 a year, poets of course earn even less, and some song writers maybe a little more or a little less, but we could quote other figures concerning other categories of workers, the tinplate workers for instance, and end up with equally distressing results. I think that the problems we are faced with in the area of job creation affect Canadian workers generally, both men and women, and not specifically those who are involved in the arts and culture industry. On the other hand, I think that the individuals who are involved in this industry and who demonstrate a very high level of creativity-the real artists and communicators-will usually resist excessive government assistance. They will insist on the need for them to protect their freedom, expression, initiative, leadership and creativity. Together with several of my colleagues, I feel that the very small cut which the government has decided to make maybe one of those that will hurt the least throughout all departe-ments generally. I think that this effort of rationalization must apply also to the communications and culture community. It does not mean that we are against arts and culture. On the contrary, during the forthcoming year, we are going to ask the Canadian people to make an extraordinary effort of rationalization in the best interests of arts and culture and all the other areas of economic life in Canada. Mr. Speaker, I suggest that we should not consider this motion as one of censure, but rather as an effort on the part of the opposition parties to emphasize the importance of the arts and culture industry in Canada. Such a motion I could heartily support. We, on the government side, also believe in the promotion of this industry. Some have insisted on the need to fight as Canadians and Quebecers to preserve our identity. I think it is a never ending fight. However, I believe that it is not a fight that can be won merely by throwing money at the problem or by having automatic or statutory subsidies. This is a responsibility we must assume both individually and collectively. And should we measure our interest in an issue on the unlimited amounts of money we are willing to spend on it? I do not think so, and that is the source of our creativity and strength in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada, I mean, the need to resist outside overwhelming influences and especially to promote the best and most beautiful things we have.

May 9, 1985
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I feel, therefore, that this motion of the opposition goes far beyond its objectives, and probably like most of my colleagues, I am not prepared to support this proposal.
To conclude, Mr. Speaker, may I say that state patronage in the area of arts and culture is highly desirable, but it will have to be critically examined in the best interests of those men and women it is meant to support.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: Questions and comments. The Hon. Member for Hamilton East (Ms. Copps).


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Charlevoix (Mr. Hamelin) said that the artists have insatiable needs. Could he tell us whether an artist who, according to what he said himself, earns about $7,000 has insatiable needs or makes insatiable demands? Considering how much we earn in this House, it is ridiculous to tell the public that an artist is insatiable if he wants to make $8,000 or $9,000 instead of $7,000. I would ask him to explain what he means.


Charles-André Hamelin: Mr. Speaker, of course, 1 said: when the needs are insatiable. I would like, my dear colleague, to tell you about the dozens of grant applications I personally receive from cultural groups of all kinds and from artists who ask my Government and the Department for all kinds of subsidies. 1 certainly do not think that $7,000 is enough for a writer, a poet, a musician, or another artist who tries to live on his work. That is not what I meant. What I want to say is that, in this field, like in any other, in spite of the best of intentions, we are short of resources. If we keep on borrowing on the future at interest rates of 12, 15, 20 or 22 per cent, as you did yourselves, we shall be mortgaging the future of tomorrow's artists, writers and other Canadian workers.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Charlevoix would also have us believe that he understands the problem of anglophones in Canada. As an English Canadian, I would not presume to say that I understand completely the language problem in Quebec. However, I can tell the Hon. Member that the province of Quebec, its culture, the French Canadian culture has a major advantage over English Canadian culture which the Minister of Communications (Mr. Masse) does not seem to understand. Our problem is that we are so close to the United States. I myself live about 45 kilometers from the border. There are six million people living around what is called the Golden Horseshoe in southwestern Ontario. These people are bombarded day and night with the so-called American culture. I do not know whether William Shatner and Lome Greene are true culture symbols, but people like them have gone to the United States to work on television, on radio, and so on. Because of the unique situation of Quebec, of which the Minister of Communications and the Quebec Members are aware, it is much easier to promote French culture and language throughout Canada because you are a tight-knit group,
and linguistically, you are the only ones who can protect yourselves in North America. English-speaking Canadians, however, have to Fight not only to protect their language, but also to put some distance between themselves and the United States. I would like to ask the Hon. Member for Charlevoix how he can claim to understand the situation of Englishspeaking Canadians who live so close to the United States when his situation is quite different.


Charles-André Hamelin: Mr. Speaker, I feel the same as you do. You know our problems as a French-speaking community. In Quebec, I would point out that we are just as much invaded. We are a just a tiny community of six or seven million people as against 200 or 250 million giants, and our own Quebec also is invaded by American programs because of the cable communication explosion, a normal and desirable phenomenon in itself. We have in Montreal, in Quebec City and elsewhere dozens of TV stations which night after night are bearing down on us and foisting a culture that is foreign to us. I easily relate the problems that are experienced, even though our language is helping us protect our culture-

I know that our language protects us against this powerful mass of an English community.

But you will admit that I can also claim to appreciate the difficulties faced by Canadians living very close to American cities, near the 40th parallel, and who are constantly under American influence. I also appreciate the importance to the English-speaking community of maintaining close links with the French-speaking and other communities because Canada is a mosaic and of course we should stick together. This attempt at rationalizing must also obtain on the fiscal level, so that Government agencies can redirect their objectives, reconsider their actions and ensure that they maximize the objectives we both share.


Cyril Keeper: The Hon. Member has suggested that the arts and culture sector is less affected by cuts than other areas of the economy. Is he aware that on the average, there are 5 per cent cuts in the arts, while in other areas, the figure is 3 per cent? How can he say that the arts are less affected than other sectors, when they have to cope with heavier cuts?


Charles-André Hamelin: Mr. Speaker, I think that an analysis of the figures and the new budget that should be tabled ... because actually, reference is made to a number of rationalizations that are forced upon some departments, I think the next budget will clearly establish the extent of the effort that will be requested from each department, in every area, and we can then make comparisons, favourable or otherwise, with the arts and culture sector.
May 9, 1985


James Eber Caldwell: Mr. Speaker, my question is more of a follow-up to those posed by the Member for Hamilton East (Ms. Copps). Does the Hon. Member's area feel threatened by the actions of the Government in the field of arts and culture?


Charles-André Hamelin: Mr. Speaker, I think that our area, under the previous Government, never did receive much of the Government's generosity in terms of arts and culture development. And even the CBC never carried out its mandate or played its role. But along with you, I will go on fighting with the Corporation, and I am doing so in order that finally, after that attempt at rationalizing its budget, its staff, it can provide a small permanent information team.
Of course there are other departments which helped me recently, with the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Miss MacDonald); very little seems to have been invested, some $70,000 in a music school that will operate all summer. And, of course, I also accept, my dear colleague, the rationalization effort that is requested from every level of this Government, so that later on we may in Charlevoix and elsewhere maximize Government initiatives in favour of arts and culture.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, I have hundreds of files. I believe a number of Hon. Members have spoken about the economics of supporting the Canadian cultural community but I can say that the question of arts funding and the question of cut-backs is far more fundamental.
The Hon. Member for Charlevoix (Mr. Hamelin) asked us whether we should mortgage our children for the sake of the arts. I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that if this Government continues to pull out the financial rug from under cultural organizations and individuals, there may simply be no country on which to take out a mortgage. That is the basic issue. It is an issue which has unfortunately escaped the Minister of Communications (Mr. Masse).
I would like to take a few moments to read from some notes for a speech made by the Hon. Minister of Communications when he was looking at his own Department's performance. Just read through the plan, Mr. Speaker. It says that the arts and culture sector investment strategy is an indicator of sound management; that support for artistic and cultural activities should take a new direction; that through regulation a climate favourable to economic growth can be restored; that a return to basic objectives is one of the Government's economic priorities. Throughout this discussion we have heard about the Government's economic priorities.
I would like to speak for a moment as an English Canadian living very close to the border of the United States. When I see suggestions in national newspapers by economists and others, whom I would have thought had a stake in this country, that
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we should sell our water to the United States to encourage the U.S. to get into a free trade deal, or that we should throw in our lot with the United States because, after all, we are all really one and the same, one big happy family, that makes me uncertain, uncertain not only about my future but about the future of my country. If there is one instrument, one tool, one resource to which we Canadians can look for the ability to fashion our own future, it is the cultural and the artistic community.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney), when he went to Bonn, sold himself as the great negotiator and spoke about the unique Canadian heritage which allowed him to speak to Mr. Mitterrand in French, to Mr. Reagan in English and to play the role of the third party as it has so often been played in Canadian international affairs. That kind of heritage and culture is under severe threat as a direct result of this Government's attempts to abort the kind of financial initiatives that we will need to secure the future of the artistic community, in particular the artistic community within English Canada.
I have had an opportunity to speak with artists from coast to coast. They have begged the Minister of Communications to look not only at the situation and the cultural integrity of the Province of Quebec but elsewhere. I believe the situation of Quebec is unique, and I think the people of Quebec are very lucky because their language allows them to provide a buffer between themselves and that most populated country to the south of us. We in English Canada do not share that buffer. One of the government Members stood up and cited Canadian culture through William Shatner and Lome Green. I thought I would have heard about Paul Anka and all of those other great Canadian artists who have made their fortunes through Americanization and who have gone to live in the United States. As a Canadian, I do not see our being in competition with Dallas. A reference was made earlier today in the House to the fact that the Beachcombers can compete with Dallas any day. I do not want my country and my culture to be in competition with Dallas.
I think we have a very unique culture which has been developed as a mixed approach of public and private sector intervention. We can get mired in financial arguments. I have made them and other Members have made them. We have said what kind of intensive job-creative potential the cultural industry has across the mosaic of Canada. We know through the development of tourism that this country has the capacity to compete on an international scale for tourism dollars. These dollars come into Canada because of our cultural mosaic. But it is more important than that. It is the very heart and soul of what has made this country great.
A reference was made earlier to the Canadian Pacific Railway and the lines that forge this country from coast to coast. Canada does have a unique history which has allowed us, through a mixed economy and a mixed approach of government intervention and private sector involvement, to build along the rail lines, along the lines of communication. But now we see a Government that says it wants to privatize. It says, "We do not believe the public sector and the Govern-

May 9, 1985
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ment have a lead role to play". We have a Minister of Communications who said in his own statement in his annual report that he is not interested in fighting for the people he should be representing, namely, the cultural community of Canada. He is too busy justifying the Government's initiatives in the area of deficit reduction, which was certainly not made clear to the Canadian people before September 4.
When the Prime Minister was the esteemed Leader of the Opposition, he was asked by the cultural community to comment on his Party's initiatives if and when the day comes that the Tories should form the Government. We heard then statements of cultural intent and principle, principle which, 1 believed as did other Canadians, the Prime Minister would stand by. I believe principles still mean something in politics. When I look at the principles endorsed by the Conservative Party before September 4, it is a shocking about-face.
The job of the Minister of Communications by definition, just as it is our job on this side of the House as Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition to oppose, is to speak first and foremost in Cabinet and to fight for his constituents. You saw the Minister in the House the day that the cultural communities from across Canada came to plead their case, Mr. Speaker. They asked and the Hon. Member for Saint-Denis (Mr. Pru-d'homme) asked the Minister whether he would speak for the cultural communities. In fact, the Minister refused to reply. I am not surprised that the Minister refused to reply. If you look at the statement and declaration of principles of the Conservative Party, it is clear, as it is clear with so many of its other "statements of principle" that they are not worth the paper they are written on.
The Tories talk about the Applebaum-Hebert report. What about their statement, "We will begin immediately to consult with groups and individuals in the cultural sector on all aspect of policy development"? Did the Finance Minister (Mr. Wilson) consult with the cultural community when he moved in with cut-backs that were going to justify the very survival of public broadcasting in this country? No, the Minister of Finance moved immediately in a wholesale and arbitrary fashion. Not only did the Minister choose to allow the major cut-backs to impact on the arts, but he also said that the art community was not capable of cleaning up its own house and that he was going to appoint his own hit men to go and clean up in organizations such as CBC.


Gerry St. Germain: Hit men? I do not remember the Minister saying hit men. Let us keep the record straight.


Sheila Maureen Copps: The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada believed in the arm's length approach to the arts community. The Hon. Member says he does not recall the Minister saying hit men. He didn't say hit men. I said hit men.


Gerry St. Germain: You said he said that.


Sheila Maureen Copps: The reason I said hit men was because the Conservative Party said it was going to maintain an arm's length approach to the arts, and directly upon the Finance Minister's cut-backs, he appointed his own team of hit men to
go in and clean house in the CBC. That was in direct contradiction to the expressed statement of principle in which they indicated that they were committed to improving the quality and quantity of employment in the cultural sector, in which they were committed to the arm's length principle for the arts, and in which they were committed, according to their own statement, to real growth in federal contributions to this sector. That was the statement of principle of the Progressive Conservative Party before September 4.
However, something strange happened between September 4 and September 5. We have heard it expressed in the House of Commons today. What happened, in the words of the Hon. Minister of Communications, was called economic priorities, departmental priorities. Rather than following through on its promise to maintain an arm's length approach and allowing the arts community to flourish with increased funding, the Government decided that it was more important to cut the deficit than to save Canada's culture. Its members moved in, without consultation, without the kind of discussion promised by the Prime Minister, without the promises which were made in the little PC promise book. One of its campaign promises was that the PC Party was committed to maintaining federal funding for the arts, agencies and councils in line with inflation.
We heard a very impressive plea today from the Hon. Member for Charlevoix who called upon Canadians to understand that it was not only the Parties in opposition who were interested in preserving and aiding the flourishing of Canadian culture, that it was also the government Party. I sympathize with him, sitting over here on this side of the House. Unfortunately, the voice of the Hon. Member for Charlevoix is not being heard. It is not being heard in his Party. It is clear that his own Cabinet spokesman is not prepared to speak out for that constituent group. I am sure the Hon. Member for Charlevoix must be feeling a little down and out, in that the promises which he and his Party made in the pocket planner of Tory priorities did not tell the Canadian people in advance of September 4 what they were telling the Canadian Council on the Arts and artists from coast to coast, that they would keep up their funding in line with the rate of inflation and that they would maintain the arm's length principle. But the moment they were elected they reversed all the principles they espoused with regard to arts and cultural groups across the country. The Hon. Member must be somewhat embarrassed to discover, to his own dismay, that they have succeeded in reversing all the principles espoused during the election campaign.
I am glad the Minister is here because I want to speak to him as an English Canadian, one who has lived in the most populated area of Canada closest to the United States of America. I feel extremely threatened by what his cuts will do to our culture, particularly the culture in the English speaking community in Canada. I am not sure the Minister has an understanding of the kind of assault on Canadian identity which occurs every day through the public airwaves, arts and literature, theatre and all forms of communication to which we
May 9, 1985

are subjected from the United States of America. In reconsidering his role, which he tends to see as one of fiscal manager, I want to indicate to him that we have a fiscal manager or an alleged fiscal manager in this House. We have the Minister of Finance who brought in his private sector buddies to try to tell him how to clean up his house. We need a fighter, a fighter for arts and culture in Cabinet. There are many people across Canada who are looking to the Minister to provide that leaderhsip. Unfortunately, what we see instead are statements like the one he tabled in the House of Commons Standing Committee on Communications and Culture wherein he indicated that his number one initiative was an expenditure plan reflecting priorities, government economic priorities, departmental priorities.
Does the Minister talk about what it does for Canadians to have a publicly financed, publicly accessible nation-wide broadcasting system? He talked about investment strategy as an indicator of sound management. The Minister himself, not only today in the House but on a number of other occasions, clearly showed Canadians that he is not prepared to apply sound management principles to his own travel practices, yet he expects the Canadians arts community to bite the bullet on $7,000, $8,000 or $9,000 per year. He expects the Canadian arts and culture community to apply for welfare so that its members can apply whatever abilities they have out in the cultural community. He expects the arts and culture community to stand back while Cabinet Ministers are flown from coast to coast and internationally at a cost literally of thousands and thousands of dollars. Yet that same Minister tells the arts and culture community that he will not speak for them.
Who is speaking for those people? Who is speaking for Canadians who feel that the very future of this country is at stake? Who is speaking for those Canadians who understand that it has been through a mix of private and public sector involvement that we have been able to develop national institutions of which this country can be proud? Who in Cabinet will be speaking for those people? Are we merely to follow the line we have seen expressed so ably by the Prime Minister of Canada? The Prime Minister seems prepared not only to sell out our economy but to sell out our culture because, after all, we can watch American television, we can buy American books, we can have that assault of English culture from the United States, we do not need an indigenous Canadian identity in which the Government is used as an instrument of public policy change and the Government plays the lead role in ensuring that Canadian culture not only survives but thrives.
A number of Members here from the Province of Quebec should congratulate themselves. I think they have done an incredible job against very great adds in ensuring the growth and the flourishing of the Francophone culture in Canada. That same capacity or same availability in the English Canadian community is not as apparent. I am frightened as a Canadian that if the Government persists in cutting back and in refusing to play the lead role in the development of Canadi-
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an culture in an ongoing process, we will in fact become mesmerized by our neighbours to the south.
The development of massive telecommunications within the last 20 years has played a vital role in allowing Canadians from coast to coast to see and hear each other. I love to listen to Cross Country Checkup so that I can hear what is happening, what people are thinking in Newfoundland and what people are saying in Victoria. That program allows me an access to the hearts and minds of Canadians from coast to coast. However, that is not a role which should be played by the private sector. The private sector does not have as its responsibility, as its raison d'etre, the development, the flourishing and the sustenance of the Canadian culture. The private sector has profit as its first motive, and more power to that sector. Profit is not a dirty word. At the same time, we cannot allow the institutions upon which the country was built and upon which it will flourish, the culture and arts of our community, to be thrown to the wind by saying that the private sector can carry it on. We need to work together. We have had a mixed economy approach and a mixed cultural approach, which I believe have been effective for all Canadians. 1 believe the Government should support that policy, not the policy of annihilation upon which it has embarked since September 4.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: Questions or comments. The Hon. the Minister of Communications (Mr. Masse).


Marcel Masse: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
First I would like to tell my colleague that, unlike most Members of the House, I admire her personality to a certain extent. She is energetic and dynamic, but I am not overly impressed by her intellectual honesty and her knowledge of history. I must point out to her that since about 1920, for nearly 50 years, her Party has been responsible for administering this country and I share the concern she has expressed today about the urgency of promoting the cultural interests of all Canadians. Today's concern stems mostly from the leadership of her Party over the last few generations, and if we now find ourselves in a difficult economic situation we owe it primarily to the economic mismanagement of the previous administration. In that context and regardless of the harm that may have been done by the Liberal Party at the economic and cultural levels, it is difficult today to make a fresh start towards more challenging cultural objectives. I can assure you that if our predecessors, the Members of her Government, had been as deeply concerned as I am about the future of Canada's cultural community, she would not have spoken as she did today.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: The Hon. Member for Hamilton East (Ms. Copps).
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Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, I would rather not comment on the integrity of this Government because it would take more than ten minutes. Unfortunately the Minister was not here when I mentioned the promises made by his Government this year and last year, over the last seven or eight months, and in their quest for the crown which they finally got with a majority of 211 Members. The representatives of the Progressive Conservative Party did make promises to the cultural community, but who cares about promises now! The Minister himself lacks the courage to speak up in Cabinet and remind his colleagues of the promises made to the cultural community.
I am a woman of my word and I will keep my promises. You have no right to talk about integrity, for I have kept my promises, but broken promises is all we have had from the Progressive Conservative Party since September 4.
I can assure the Minister that the Liberal Party is a new Party, but he is not aware of that phenomenon. I know he is old, Mr. Speaker, he is talking about events dating back 60 years, I know he is old. Well, I was born in 1952 and I will tell you about something that has radically changed the image of Canada-the age of telecommunications which began in the 1960-70 decade, that has changed the image of Canada, and it is in that respect that we feel threatened by the United States. It has nothing to do with literature dating back to 1920, as the Minister claimed. I could take it upon myself to suggest that he might review his historic facts before talking about an artistic revolution that began way back in 1920. Indeed the problem created by the American threat began with the advent of television, but I realize he is much too old to appreciate that.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, what encouraged us today to put forward this motion for debate, which has been an excellent debate from what I have seen and heard over television, was that it had become clear over the years that the state of the cultural community in Canada had been deteriorating. I am not prepared to point fingers at a particular Minister, but I do point them at the Government generally. In the economic statement of November and the general discussion, the cultural community has, by and large, lost any faith it had in the Government in terms of supporting it in any real way. Having said that, I want to direct my comments to the Hon. Member for Hamilton East (Ms. Copps) along the same lines as the Minister.
Over the last five years, I do not know if there would be hundreds, but there would certainly be dozens and dozens of groups of artists of one kind or another who came to Parliament Hill, lobbied and made the case that most of the members they represented were living in a state of poverty. That went on for years and years. I support many of the points the Hon. Member made, but what does she have to say about the fact that it was the Party that she represents today, when it was in government for many years, that had these delegations coming time after time, month after month, year after year,
explaining how their members were living in poverty as they tried to develop their artistic talents and to provide the cultural fabric for Canadian society. Does she not find herself to be a little bit hypocritical today by standing up and not accepting some of the responsibility for the fact that these cultural agencies are in such turmoil?


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, I think there are two fundamental issues that the Hon. Member is forgetting. First, the statement which was issued by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) deals with a direct cut to the artistic and cultural community which is almost double that which is being levelled at other communities across this country. That is the substance of the motion introduced by the Hon. Member's Party and that is the substance in part of what we must address today.
The second issue, one which unfortunately no government Member has had the courage to address today, is the issue of the arm's length relationship which was sacrosanct. Liberal Governments did not interfere with the arm's length relationship between the arts community and the Government. In fact, it was through the initiative of the Minister of Finance that the federal Government is now setting up a hit team to go into the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to determine where the cuts will be made. That arm's length principle is a principle which this Government guaranteed in its promises to the people before September 4, of which this Party is proud. That is the sum and substance of what we have to discuss today, the arm's length relationship and the Conservative Party's move to make cut-backs to the arts community that are double those he is making to other communities.


Gerry St. Germain: Mr. Speaker, I agree with the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) that it has been an interesting debate. However, it absolutely amazes Canadians right across this country when somebody like the Hon. Member for Hamilton East (Ms. Copps) gets up and says that her Liberal Party operated at arm's length. I question the integrity of anybody who would make a statement like that. That is irresponsible.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Put the facts on the table.


Gerry St. Germain: I was in this House. I saw what happened. I saw the appointments.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Put the facts down.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Put the facts on the table. Don't challenge my integrity unless you are prepared to put the facts on the table.


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


Sheila Maureen Copps: Don't challenge my integrity unless you are prepared to put the facts on the table.


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


Gerry St. Germain: Mr. Speaker, an arm's length approach is something for which this Party will strive. It will be seen in the near future. It is being seen right now. Let's go back-
May 9, 1985


Sheila Maureen Copps: The only arm's length you know is amputation.


Gerry St. Germain: The Hon. Member for Hamilton East alludes to the fact that whatever happened in the past she is not responsible for. The people you associate with-


Sheila Maureen Copps: I am proud to be a Liberal.


Gerry St. Germain: The people you associate with and organize with is what you are judged by. The history of the Liberal Party in this country has totally devastated the economy and that is why this debate is taking place today.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Tell Frank Miller that.


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


Gerry St. Germain: Obviously we have hit a sensitive spot. They know how badly they have destroyed the arts and the economy which has supported the arts to a degree and which we are prepared to continue to support in a reasonable-


Sheila Maureen Copps: He can't make a statement.


Gerry St. Germain: I can make a statement, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: Order. May I remind the Hon. Member for Hamilton East (Ms. Copps) that in this very specific case, while she made her speech, no one from either side of the House-


Sheila Maureen Copps: He's not asking a question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: No, nobody interrupted the Hon. Member.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mind your own business!


Mr. Rossi:: Those are partisan remarks, you have no right to say that.


Mr. Towers:: If you can't have respect for yourself, have some respect for the Speaker.


Carlo Rossi: Yes, that's very partisan what he is doing.


An Hon. Member:: He's the Speaker.


Carlo Rossi: Never mind, he's not allowed to be partisan.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: Order. Hopefully it is in everyone s interest that one way or the other, the period allowed for questions and comments is now over. We shall resume debate.


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise to support the opposition motion. I would like to touch on two areas. First, I would like to deal with the need for cultural services in the regions of our
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country, and, second, I would like to deal with the delivery of those services by radio.
Since September 5, we in this House have heard much about the deficit. We do have a deficit; we have a cultural deficit. That deficit is very predominant in areas like northwestern Ontario, the far North and all of the northern parts of our provinces where there are small population groups that do not have the wherewithal to support the kind of things that people in Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, Calgary and Vancouver take for granted. My home community of Thunder Bay is sometimes referred to as the "Hogtown of Northwestern Ontario" in relation to how Toronto is seen by others. Thunder Bay is ripe with culture. There is the Thunder Bay Symphony; Magnus Theatre; Kam Theatre; Cambrian Players, an amateur theatre group; the Lakehead Choral Group which I will be seeing tomorrow night; the Vesnyanka Dancers, a local Ukrainian group; and the Lakehead Mandolin Orchestra.
We in Thunder Bay have a lot of the same opportunities as larger cities but the problem that exists in northwestern Ontario, as can be attested to by my colleague, the Hon. Member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Parry), is that the small communities that are 60 miles, 120 miles or 240 miles away from Thunder Bay or Winnipeg do not have that kind of access to the arts. They do not have the opportunitity to see a symphony play. They do not have the opportunity to see a dramatic play or a musical unless they travel great distances and stay overnight in communities like Thunder Bay or Winnipeg.
Instead of cutting back on support for the arts and culture, we should, on the one hand, sustain what we have so that the existing groups and services remain available, and, on the other, we should provide the funding that will do some out-reaching. We need funding to take the Thunder Bay Symphony across northwestern Ontario. It has been able to go across northwestern Ontario for a number of years because of Ontario Government funding, but that funding has now been eliminated. Arts organizations should be brought to the schools in Atikokan, Fort Frances, Ear Falls and Red Lake. They should be brought to these places so that our children can be exposed to something other than country and western or rock music.


John Barry Turner: What about Friendly?


Iain Francis Angus: We will come to Friendly. We should bring our theatre groups, our painters and our sculptors to the outlying areas. Some of the static displays should be put on the road so that they can be made available to people throughout the regions. That is what is important and that is what we should be doing in order to promote our national identity and to make sure that we do not isolate ourselves in our own little bailiwicks.
That, Mr. Speaker, brings me to my second point, which is the question of delivery of services by electronic means. In northwestern Ontario, we have been extremely fortunate for the past 10 years to have had a radio station which is an arm of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, namely, Radio

May 9, 1985
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Station CBQ. This radio station is based in Thunder Bay but provides a regional focus. Prior to the Government's massive cut-backs and indirect interference in the operation of the CBC, the services of CBQ were reduced.
At one time, there was a program in the morning that was broadcast throughout northwestern Ontario by CBQ. Simultaneously, there was a program that dealt with the city and the immediate area of Thunder Bay itself. We were able to provide a regional information network that was truly regional at the same time as we provided a Thunder Bay focus. The Corporation, in its wisdom, decided that it had to make some cuts and it merged those two programs. There was a dilution of the services to the region. The time of the announcers, the research staff and the news people had to be spread so thinly that if something was happening in Ear Falls, for instance, it got covered only half of the time.
As a result of the $85 million reduction in the CBC budget, there have been serious reductions in service. These reductions may not equate the kind of reductions we saw in Ottawa, Windsor or Winnipeg, but for northwestern Ontario they are vital. We lost three full-time people and three part-time people at the radio station. In terms of numbers, as compared to 1,500 jobs as we were originally told or 700 jobs as was suggested today, the loss of those six jobs is not that great, but it meant that six services would no longer be available to northwestern Ontario.
In a community that has the only permanent international world-class sporting facility, we no longer have a dedicated sports editor. There are international events which take place in Thunder Bay like the Big Thunder Ski Jump. The whole world pays attention to us but CBC does not have a permanent news person in that community any longer to cover those kinds of events.
One of the things of which we in northwestern Ontario are proud is our ability as a broadcast centre to go beyond our own boundaries and to reach out across the country. We were able to do that through the personality of Arthur Black, an announcer who was not native to northwestern Ontario but moved there a number of years ago. He developed a style and manner that gradually grew to the point at which he was syndicated across the country, and then to the point at which the network finally decided that it made sense to originate network programming from a community like Thunder Bay. Thanks to the CBC cuts, Arthur Black's Thunder Bay and northwestern Ontario show was cut in half and, for a number of reasons, he was in effect forced to go elsewhere. Beginning this summer, he will be based in the Toronto area. No longer will the show have the northwestern Ontario flavour. The longer Arthur Black is away from northwestern Ontario, the less able he will be to continue picking up on the sense of the environment and the people of the area.
My colleagues, the Hon. Member for Kenora-Rainy River and the Hon. Member for Thunder Bay-Nipigon (Mr. Epp) and myself entered into a campaign designed to make sure that the CBC management, the Minister and the bureaucracy of CBC knew that we did not like this tampering with our
service. We had well over 1,000 replies to our campaign, and as all Hon. Members know, we tend to measure the importance of an issue by the number of pieces of paper that come across our desks. Very clearly we were gratified by the very wide regional response we received. I would like to read into the record some of the responses we received:
Keep fighting for CBQ, the CBC and Canadian culture. The moment we stop supporting our cultural identity is the moment we start becoming Americans.
We are very disappointed in the cut-back, we live in a rural area and this is the only radio station (Canadian) we can get all the time-
Arthur Black is excellent! Thunder Bay CBC is a well done program given the size or lack of-
Please do not foist a centralized CBC on us! I like to think there is sufficient Northwestern Ontario information to warrant continuing CBQ regional programming!
Over the years we have noted with interest and approval the improvement in CBC radio coverage of events in the Northwest. We are saddened, concerned and somewhat angered by the current cuts as they affect CBQ-
The new Government of Canada is turning into a destructive machine not a constructive unit as the Canadian people had hoped.
We are insulted enough in this area without this cut.
Notwithstanding the popular position Arthur Black holds in our spread out community, we don't want our CBQ station slipping at all! What good would a phone-in program be to us people (in the summer months when we move to our summer homes with no phones). That so-called $75 million saving will most likely be spent on some cock-eyed stunt that will never benefit the people in the North and all.
Those are some examples of what individuals have said to us. I would point out that copies of this material have been forwarded to the Minister, to the President and to CBC officials as well as to the station itself.
We also received correspondence from the Thunber Bay National Exhibition Centre and from the Centre for Indian Art. The letter reads:
We believe that these cut-backs will affect the quality of public programming in general, and as well, will reduce the opportunities which non-profit groups such as ours will have to inform the public of the Northwest about the many government-financed services which our institution provides for this area.
The Senior Citizens Intergroup Council passed the following resolution:
Whereas: CBQ Radio plays a major role in tying together Northwestern Ontario by attempting to provide local information and programming to all parts of the region, and,
Whereas: recent cut-backs in staff and programs at CBQ Radio will impair the ability of CBQ to fulfill this vital role as the voice of Northwestern Ontario,-
Therefore, they oppose the reduction of service. The Thunder Bay Multicultural Association wrote:
We believe CBQ Radio plays a vital role in bringing together small communities by broadcasting regional news, events and activities. Awareness of the history and uniqueness of Northwestern Ontario is increased through such programs as "The Great Northwest", "Radio Noon" and "The 4 to 6 Show" which features profiles of area personalities, histories of communities and other topics of local and regional interest. These cut-backs will hurt Northwestern Ontario by reducing or eliminating regional content.
The Cambrian Presbytery of the United Church of Canada wrote:
May 9, 1985

The reduction of Radio Noon and replacing this with a direct Toronto feed is contributing further to a feeling of isolation, and being resident of an unimportant part of our country.
The International Association of Business Communicators, a group of people who are not predominantly involved in any one of the communications industries, wrote:
We believe that CBQ Radio has a vital role to play in the geographically large and sparsely populated area of Northwestern Ontario.
We have received comments from co-op housing residents and the Thunder Bay Potters Guild. All of the correspondence we have received indicates clearly the broad-based support which regional radio stations have. We had a furore in the House over the whole question when we heard that the station in Gander, Newfoundland was being closed. We heard about the campaign which was launched to protect that station and to get it back on the air. That campaign was successful, and I am very pleased about that. But that campaign reached into Thunder Bay and northwestern Ontario. People followed that campaign with keen interest. They knew that there was a danger, should members of the Conservative Party who have it in for the CBC continue to get their way, that CBQ in Thunder Bay might become nothing more than a repeater station for network programming. CBQ would then lose the regional aspect and the news-gathering function which it has.
For example, in the recent provincial election in Ontario, CBQ did not do local reporting. It relied on network programming. It sent a person from Thunder Bay to Toronto to cover northwestern Ontario, which is anywhere from 800 miles to 1,500 miles away from Toronto. I realize that electronics are wonderful these days, but I think to have a number of people in a studio in Thunder Bay reaching out to northwestern Ontario for local coverage makes a lot of sense.
The people of Thunder Bay want to ensure that they can keep in touch with each other. By "each other" I mean the communities around northwestern Ontario. So much of what happens to one community happens to another. Therefore, it is important to know what happens.
For instance, five or six years ago the mines were closed in Atikokan. That is being relived today in Ear Falls. That situation will be relived in other communities as the years go by. It is important for those communities to hear what is going on. If there is only a network service with no local programming, the people will not know to the same extent what is happening at the time it is happening. They will feel much more isolated.
There is another danger. There is the danger of the influence of American radio and television which comes into northwestern Ontario. If we do not have the counterbalance of CBQ to ensure that regional programming and information as well as network information are available, we will become closer to the Americans and we will disappear as a nation.
There is a danger also within the context of provinces. A major portion of northwestern Ontario, particularly Atikokan which is on the Manitoba border, receives much of its information from Manitoba and the City of Winnipeg. We in this Party are quite pleased because most of the information that is
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received is about the NDP Government. However, in the context of Ontario, it is important for those people to know what their elected people are doing and what decisions are being made which affect them.
We know that there are those in the Conservative Party who would like to see the CBC totally dismantled. I hope they never have their way. I believe they are misguided. It can be compared to people who do not like a symphony. They say they will not spend any money on the symphony because they do not like it. However, those people forget that there are a lot of people who enjoy a symphony and need it for their own mental survival in society. I believe that we must recognize the CBC, in the broadest sense, as part of that mechanism which allows us to be sane and to remain Canadians. Private networks cannot do that. Private networks will not do that because they are in the ratings game. Every time the BBM is prepared to do a study, where do the electronic commercial stations turn? They turn to newspaper advertising in an attempt to entice people over to their stations in order to get their points up so they can sell advertising.
The CBC has never been in the ratings game. It is there to provide a balanced service to a cross-section of society. If it was not there for that purpose, we would not have French-language programming in some Ontario communities where the French population is small. However, it is seen as a necessity to provide those links.
We must reverse this trend. We must put the supports in place so that we have the kind of cultural milieu which we need. We must encourage it, not discourage it. Also, we must ensure that our communication tools in the public sector are there so that Canadians will know what is happening all across the land, while at the same time they know what is happening in their communities and regions.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this matter and I look forward to questions and comments from my fellow colleagues.


Thomas Hockin: Mr. Speaker, I share with the Hon. Member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan (Mr. Angus) his great admiration for Arthur Black. I like to drive my son to hockey on Saturday when Arthur Black's program is on the radio, and my son learns from it as much as I do. I hope that the Hon. Member is not suggesting that he would like to see the arm's length relationship change in such a way that the Minister of Communications (Mr. Masse) could bring Arthur Black back to Thunder Bay, back to the same program and the same format.
I would like to ask the Hon. Member whether he believes in the arm's length relationship? It seems to me that he is essentially asking the Minister to reach out at arm's length and put Arthur Black back into his previous program. That would concern me because that would not be an arm's length relationship he is advocating. So I do want to know the Hon. Member's Party's view on that question.
The previous speaker alluded to the same subject with comments which are far from accurate. I think of the Presi-

May 9, 1985
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dent of the CBC, Mr. Juneau, who was a Minister in Mr. Trudeau's Government and a great friend of his. Is that an arm's length relationship? The head of the National Film Board is a relative of Mr. Juneau's. Is that an arm's length relationship? One of Mr. Trudeau's major aides, Mr. Porteous, was put into an important position in our cultural life in Canada. Is that an arm's length relationship? The granting councils for culture were put on a very short time and planning budgetary cycle in order to keep them in line. Is that an arm's length relationship? I am suggesting to you, Mr. Speaker, that an arm's length relationship never existed with the previous Government.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Thomas Hockin: And if we are going to change it-and that is an interesting question, perhaps we should change it-we will at least be honest about it. I ask the Hon. Member what his Party's position is on this particular subject?


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Hon. Member's question. Let me respond in two ways; first, even if this Government were to put the $85 million back right now, Arthur Black is gone from Thunder Bay. That is one of the unfortunate realities. But I raised the whole aspect as an indication, given the arm's length relationship you talk about, that economic decisions made by the Minister and the Government do create programming decisions. I know that the Minister did not make the decision to cut Arthur Black's show in Thunder Bay in half. Nor did he make the decision that three full-time positions and three part-time positions will be cut. We have to recognize, however, that when decisions are made to reduce or increase budgets, those decisions do affect people. It is a fine line in terms of the arm's length relationship and I appreciate what the Hon. Member is saying. I would love it if the Minister had the power to put Arthur Black back in Thunder Bay, but that is not possible or practical at this point.


Mr. Belsher:: Mr. Speaker, I have a comment on the remarks of the Hon. Member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan (Mr. Angus). I believe the Minister should be complimented for the way in which he has adjudicated the cuts which he has had to make within his Ministry. The motion with which we are dealing today talks about the cultural community and the tremendous cut-backs which have occurred, but the Minister has definitely taken a very minor portion of funding from the cultural groups. I think that if the Hon. Member were to look at the principal budget for the arts council, he would find that the cuts are less than 1 per cent. Why would the Hon. Member not think that perhaps that is appropriate because he knows we are in a deficit situation and people are looking for a judicious way of spending one's dollars? I would like to hear the Hon. Member's comments on that.
I would also like to echo the remarks of former speakers with respect to the arm's length relationship. I am sure we would all applaud the Minister for his approach in not interfering with how the CBC makes its cuts.


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member's question relates in effect to the need for cuts. The Hon. Member pointed out the small reduction in terms of percentage. But I would suggest to him that his Government per se, and not just the Minister of Communications (Mr. Masse), has not looked at the areas it should have started from. One appropriate example, given the fact that we have been talking about the communications services in northwestern Ontario, and keeping in mind the price tag of the cuts, is that Great Lakes Forest Products Limited, a company whose major owner is Canadian Pacific Investments, owes the Government in deferred taxes $125 million. Surely some of those taxes could have been brought into the public Treasury in order to prevent, at the very least, the reductions in the CBC budget. I know the Hon. Member cannot respond to me, but I ask him rhetorically whether or not that would be a more appropriate way of getting our house in order?


Reginald Francis Stackhouse: Mr. Speaker, I have enjoyed listening to the Hon. Member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan (Mr. Angus), especially because, like other Hon. Members, I am a fan of Arthur Black. I want to point out to the Hon. Member, however, that Arthur Black is moving to Toronto. He is not really leaving Canada. Toronto is still part of this country. The loss is really not of the enormity suggested by the Hon. Member, and it is not unique. Larry Zolf is in Toronto and not in Winnipeg because he is another example of a success moving to a larger market. Pierre Burton is in Toronto and not in the Yukon. It is characteristic in any country that artists who succeed in one place may well move to where there is a larger market or audience for them.
Second, I want to say that the suggestion that members of our Party want to dismantle the CBC ignores the fact that the CBC was established by a Conservative Government. It has been substantially financed whenever a Conservative Government has been in office. The Conservative Party, under the Diefenbaker administration, for example, steadfastly defended the independence of the CBC in the face of many who suggested that the CBC was showing a political bias against the Government. All that is a part of history. The present Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) has recommitted his Party and his Government to the continuation of the CBC as part of the cultural fabric of Canada. But I think we should face the reality and the logic that it is inconceivable that the various institutions, Departments and agencies of the Crown should be asked to take reductions in their expenditures, so that we could at least begin to address the deficit crisis, but that we should not ask the CBC to take a modest reduction in its expenditure. Indeed, it was much lower than it might have been. I think that in itself, plus the fact that, under this Government, the CBC will be receiving a subsidy approaching $1 billion, indicates the commitment of the Government and of this Party to the ongoing work of the CBC and what it contributes to Canada. I respect the intentions of the Hon. Member as one who values the CBC. I join him in that respect. But let us face the facts and draw conclusions which are upheld by logic.
May 9, 1985


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: The Minister of Communications (Mr. Masse) on a point of order.


Marcel Masse: Mr. Speaker, I should like to take advantage of this point of order to thank those who took part in the debate, to acknowledge the quality of the speeches and to apologize for having been away during a few hours, because I had to testify before the Standing Committee on Communications and Culture. I had to introduce a government bill on copyright which is, you will agree, a very important question for Canadian artists and cultural industries.
1 hope that parliamentarians will have more opportunities of this kind to state their views on the Canadian cultural policy and that from those proceedings will emerge some directions which the Government will be pleased to follow.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Charest):: Order please. It being six o'clock, it is my duty to inform the House that in accordance with Standing Order 62(11), the proceedings on the motion have expired.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Bill Attewell: Mr. Speaker, on May 7 I asked the Solicitor General (Mr. MacKay) a question pertaining to the Young Offenders Act because I am concerned about some aspects of this legislation. As of April 1, 1985, the minimum age for trial in an ordinary or adult court was raised to 18 years. Previously, under the Juvenile Delinquents Act, the minimum was 16 years. One of the serious consequences of this revision is that a person aged perhaps 17 and a half years who killed a person would, under the Young Offenders Act, only be sentenced to a maximum of three years. This is indeed disturbing news. Not only am I concerned about this situation, but in conversation with law enforcement officers I find my concerns are shared.
1 am aware that Section 16 of the Young Offenders Act provides a safety valve for dealing with difficult cases, especially where public protection is the key issue. That section provides that, in limited circumstances, with the interests of society in mind, a young offender could face having his case transferred to an ordinary court. It is my understanding that a request for such a transfer could come from the youth court on
Adjournment Debate
application of the young person, his counsel or the attorney general or his agent, but not a private prosecutor. A judge may not initiate such an application on his own. The young offender, the parents and the attorney general must first have the opportunity to be heard. If the court was of the opinion that in the interests of society, and having regard for the needs of the young person, that young person should be proceeded against in an ordinary court, then the young person would be tried in an ordinary court and treated as an adult.
What disturbs me, Mr. Speaker, is what happens to those cases where the young offender should be tried in an ordinary court, yet no application for a transfer is made? For example, recently a woman was brutally and viciously raped by a 17-year-old. The offender pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentence. It is anticipated that, in accordance with the Young Offenders Act, he will likely be sentenced to the maximum of three years. Part of this process apparently includes a mandatory requirement for a review of the sentence every six months or every year. Therefore, it is possible that through such review the victim could be recalled. Is it really fair to the victim to initiate all over again the pain and suffering he or she experienced during the commission of the offence? I hardly think so. If this case was tried in an ordinary court, could there not be different results and a different process?
Another point I would like to raise concerns the young offender who is under the age of 12 years. According to the Act, a child under the age of 12 is not subject to prosecution. Let me illustrate my point with an example which occurred in my home city of Toronto. A 10-year-old was caught in a high speed car chase. Because of his age, and in recognition of the Young Offenders Act, there was literally nothing the law could do to him. Perhaps his behaviour could be attributed to a one time occurrence of mischief. However, just this morning the same "child" was caught pulling a fire alarm without reason. The child has admitted that he is aware that because of his age there is nothing the law can do to him; the most he will receive is a slap on the hand.
In Toronto, the Young Offenders Act has left the Toronto Police unable to deal with over 300 cases of burglary, arson, sexual assault and assault because the suspects are all under the age of 12. Apparently, the frequency of violence in this age group is increasing, according to police. This is most distressing. The police feel that their hands are tied.
I am not suggesting that impressionable under 12-year-olds should be detained with older youths, but my question then is how can we deal more effectively with these children without our hands being tied by the Young Offenders Act? It seems to me, though, that there is a great possibility that these child criminals can easily grow up to be hardened street-wise, vicious adult criminals if all they get now for criminal behaviour is a slap on the wrists.
I realize that some changes in the Act were necessary to achieve consistency with provinces where different age catego-

May 9, 1985
Adjournment Debate
ries existed. However, we must be concerned with protecting individuals in society against crime and violence.
We must also treat younger offenders with the greatest care and concern possible. That does not mean we should be too passive or indulgent. We all know what the overly permissive society of the 1960s and 1970s brought us, and I do not think we did that generation any favour.
In summary, my question is to the Solicitor General, asking him to agree to implement a review of the Young Offenders Act, taking into consideration the points I have raised now and the points that colleagues have also brought to his attention.


Thomas Gordon Towers: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the genuine concern of the Hon. Member with this very important matter and I congratulate him for expressing his interest.
The Young Offenders Act, proclaimed in force on April 2, 1984, constitutes a major reform of the juvenile justice process in Canada. The most fundamental reform, in my opinion, is its clear recognition that young people are responsible for their conduct and thus should be held accountable for their criminal transgressions. The Act also recognizes, however, that young people should not be treated the same as adults; that because of their immaturity and dependence they require specialized services and dispositions that allow for flexibility and compassion, if the situation necessitates it.
In establishing the uniform maximum age of under 18, the Act clearly recognizes that young persons can commit serious crimes. Although three years is the maximum sentence possible under the new legislation, Section 16 allows for the transfer of young persons aged 14 years or older to the ordinary courts where they are subject to the full sanctions of the Criminal Code.
The Young Offenders Act requires that the youth court consider a number of factors in determining whether to order a transfer to the ordinary court, including the seriousness and circumstances of the offence, the background and criminal record of the accused, the capacity of the adult system as opposed to the juvenile justice law and system to deal with the accused if a transfer is ordered and submissions made by the Attorney General. As such, the Act contains a "safety valve" for the handling of serious offences. In short, it enables the Youth Court Judge, with full knowledge of the circumstances surrounding a specific offence, to select court procedure which will most appropriately balance the needs of the community and those of the accused.
I believe that the Young Offenders Act is a positive, not a negative, step which has balanced the rights and responsibilities of young people with a full and clear recognition of the rights of the victim and the community at large. In stating this, I do not preclude the possibility that future changes to provisions of the Act may be required. In January 1985 the Solicitor General (Mr. MacKay) met with the provincial ministers responsible for the administration of juvenile justices. It was agreed that our respective governments would establish a continuing federal-provincial mechanism to carry out a variety of co-operative tasks, including the consideration of amendments to the Young Offenders Act which the Hon. Member requested.
To aid in this process, the Ministry of the Solicitor General is, on an on-going basis, evaluating the effectiveness of the new legislation.
As the Act is thoroughly tested and new provincial programs and statutes are fully implemented, the information needed to assess the effectiveness of our new juvenile justice legislation will become available. Where problems are clearly identified and solutions become known, amendments will be brought forward for consideration. In this way, the best interest of young people, the community and the administration of justice will be served. I am sure the Hon. Member for Don Valley East (Mr. Attewell) will continue to be a part of the process.


CANADA DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION-COMMITTEE STUDY
Aideen Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, recently I addressed a question to the Minister of State for Finance (Mrs. McDougall) about the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation. The Minister had appointed a private sector firm to review the corporation and to make some recommendations for change. I asked whether these recommendations would be in our hands soon, because with two recent financial institutions having made heavy demands on that corporation it seemed important that we get on with making whatever changes are necessary before we are further overtaken by events.
The Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation, which is generally known as the CDIC, was established in 1967. All chartered banks and federally incorporated trust, mortgage and loan companies must be members. In addition, provincially incorporated trust and loan companies can apply to be members. The main purpose of the corporation is to maintain an insurance fund as a protection of savings of Canadians held in member institutions.
At the end of 1983 there were 137 federal member institutions and 51 provincial member institutions. By law members of the corporation have to remain members; if they are undergoing a difficult time they simply cannot withdraw.
The CDIC now insures savings to a maximum of $60,000 per depositor per institution, that ceiling having been introduced in the last Parliament in response to failures of trust companies in Ontario. Since this enactment in 1967 the CDIC has stipulated that deposit instruments for periods of longer than five years are not protected by deposit insurance. One situation arose recently when some depositors who had certificates with a six or seven year term thought they were insured and found to their distress that they were not.
The by-laws of the CDIC stipulate that uninsured instruments should be clearly marked on their face; "This is not an insured deposit as defined by the Canada Deposit Insurance
May 9, 1985

Corporation Act". Unfortunately, the Act does not impose any penalty for non-compliance with the by-laws.
Member institutions contribute to the insurance fund based on the amount of insured deposits they hold. This has created some tension among member institutions in recent years. The banks complain that they make the largest contributions, while the trust companies create the problems that result in a drain on the insurance fund. For example, when the Government of Ontario took over three Ontario-based trust companies- Crown, Greymac and Seaway-the CDIC decided to wind the companies down slowly instead of closing them and liquidating their assets. As a result, some deposits were insured over the $60,000 limit. As I said earlier, the limit in fact went from $20,000 to $60,000 precisely in response to that situation. In the case of those three Ontario-based trust companies, the CDIC made loans of almost $950 million, and the losses from that were somewhere around $650 million.
On March 25 there were further demands on the CDIC because of the bail-out of the Canadian Commercial Bank. The CDIC contribution to that rescue package was $75 million. Because of the legislation governing the CDIC, there is no threat to its ability to guarantee savings deposits, because the corporation has what amounts to a $1.5 billion line of credit from the federal Government.
In winding up my remarks, may I say that I have pointed out two problems with the CDIC which need to be addressed rather quickly, the question of premiums and the question of membership. The Minister appointed a private sector committee in January which has been examining it, as well as the question of disclosure requiring member institutions to disclose accurately to customers what is insured. Since January we have also had the failure of Pioneer Trust with further demands on the CDIC.
The Minister has said that she received the committee's draft report and that she hopes to table it soon. I would like to express the hope that we have that report in our hands as we begin our study of the green paper on regulation of Canadian financial institutions. It seems to me that the two documents will have to be considered together.
[ Translation]


Mrs. Monique B. Tardif (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion):: Mr. Speaker, in answer to the question raised by my colleague from Trinity (Miss Nicholson) concerning deposit insurance, I emphasize that the Minister of State for Finance (Mrs. McDougall) has appointed a private sector committee to review the Act and the operations of the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation.
Mr. Robert Wyman of Vancouver, Chairman of the Board of Pemberton, Houston and Willoughby Inc., will head the committee. The other members are Mr. Colhoun, National Victoria and Grey Trust Company Vice Chairman, of Toronto, and Mr. Andre Bedard of Montreal, First Executive Vice
Adjournment Debate
President of the National Bank of Canada. Mr. Hugh Brown of Toronto's Burns Fry Ltd. will assist the members of the committee.
Mr. Wyman has many years of experience in the financial market sector. He is also Chancellor of the University of British Columbia. Mr. Colhoun is the former Chairman of the Board of the Trust Companies Association of Canada and outgoing Ontario Heart Foundation President. Mr. Bedard is quite knowledgeable in the financial market sector and sits on the boards of many companies.
The terms of reference of the committee will be to examine the current deposit insurance system with respect to the CDIC's increased workload and its relations with insured depositors, member financial institutions and provincial administrations. The committee will undoubtedly look into the matter of existing deposit insurance coverage.
As to Pioneer Trust customers who claim that they were aware their deposits were not insured, as it was mentioned in the House earlier today, the Minister of State for Finance has specifically instructed the committee to consider measures that might be taken to make sure that depositors are adequately informed.
The Hyman committee is expected to complete its final report within a month, and the Minister of State for Finance has given the assurance that it will then be tabled in the House.
In the meantime, the Minister has also asked the CDIC to give priority to the implementation of communications with member institutions and their customers so that depositors know which deposits are insured and which are not. I know that the CDIC has already taken action in that respect.
Finally, I can only repeat the remarks of the Minister, namely that every aspect of deposit insurance will be fully discussed once the Wyman committee report has been tabled.


TEXTILE INDUSTRY-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Jean-Guy Guilbault: Mr. Speaker, I seek the floor today on a question that was raised in this House on May 1st, 1985, during the Oral Question Period, and that was addressed to the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion (Mr. Stevens). It dealt with my concerns about the viability of the textile and clothing industry, not only in the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec, but in my own city of Drummondville. Right now, in May 1985, the primary textile and clothing industry is in a critical situation. It can even be said without exaggeration that the very survival of the industry is in jeopardy, as are the major investments made over the last ten years and the thousands of jobs in that industry.
The situation is extremely critical. Since 1974, Canada has lost nearly 35,000 jobs, of which 15,400 were in primary textiles and 19,000 in clothing. Over the same period, plant

May 9, 1985
Adjournment Debate
shutdowns were too numerous to be counted. This is due to the chaos in world economy, the structure of which is undergoing a mutation. There has been a significant redistribution of industrial power to the benefit of the Pacific Rim exporting countries. In brief, the race for competitiveness has accelerated, while global economic growth has receded.
To fight that kind of dysfunction, it is essential that there be a sound utilization of macroeconomic policies, in order to create an environment in which the private sector may confidently plan and invest. This is what the Canadian textile and clothing industry is in need of during these difficult times. The industry is asking for restrictive import measures. Let us not forget that each hour of each day of every year, 27,000 pieces of clothing are entering Canada. Such special border protection is needed to plan industrial reorganization in such a way as to lessen the problems linked with that process and to prevent exaggerated social and community disruptions.
Over the past few years, we can see the efforts made to negotiate a reduction of agreed levels of clothing imports, better control of import movements and a tightening of provisions concerning over-exports from the four major suppliers, China, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Although those efforts have failed, Canada is applying restrictions on imports from low-cost supplying nations under the international textile trade arrangement (AMF) negotiated under the General Agreement on Tarifs and Trade (GATT).
On the basis of that agreement, it has become possible to reach bilateral agreements or take unilateral action on reducing the disruptions on our domestic market caused by the influx of imports. That separate agreement, the Multifiber Agreement (AMF III), will expire in July 1986.
Mr. Speaker, after outlining the general problems, I would like to come to specifics by supplying factual empirical data.
First, let us point out that the textile and clothing industries are not declining, unproductive and obsolete industries. So much for the myths. These industries are interdependent. In fact, some 40 per cent of the total textile industry production is going to the clothing industry.
This sector has always been a key industry in the Canadian and Quebec economy at least in terms of employment. Thus in Quebec there are 22 communities where the textile and clothing industry provides between 20 and 75 per cent of all jobs in the manufacturing sector. In addition, there are 55 constituencies in Quebec where the textile and clothing industry is present. In 1983, some 170,000 persons had jobs in the textile and clothing industry. Moreover, it is estimated that those industries also indirectly provide some 275,000 additional jobs. In 1984, the production value was over $12 billion in both sectors. During the last decade, more than $2 billion have been invested in the upgrading of plants so that the textile industry
uses the most advanced technology. Indeed, the Canadian industry is as well equipped in that respect as any other textile industry throughout the world. Between 1970 and 1980, the productivity gains of the textile industry were higher than those of the manufacturing sector. Moreover, that industry requires substantial investments. To create one job in this sector now requires an investment of $250,000. In addition, every year except one between 1977 and 1981, investments per worker in the Canadian textile industry were higher than those in the American industry.
In closing, I would like to deal with matters related to the textile and clothing trade policy. The current system of bilateral restrictions has not been very successful in preventing low cost textile and clothing imports from entering Canada, even though 7 per cent of all textile imports and 80 per cent of clothing imports are subject to restrictions. Imports in these sectors represent over 60 per cent of the domestic market, in spite of the multi-fibre agreement. A major, efficient and productive sector of the Canadian industry is being threatened by uncontrolled imports from countries offering low wages which disrupt markets. Many jobs have been lost and others will certainly disappear if the present situation continues. The thing to do would be to stop the erosion caused by foreign producers in the Canadian textile and clothing markets, but also to recover the share of the market taken over by imports. To do this, we have to reduce present import levels immediately and in the short term.
On the other hand, I suggest that the Canadian Government take a firm position on extending the multi-fibre agreement after July 1986, improving it and including fibres such as silk, ramie and linen, as well as retaining the special protection measures until December 31, 1996, and I also suggest that, in the future, special protection measures be applied with a maximum of effectiveness to take full advantage of the international rights enjoyed by Canada in this matter.
Mr. Speaker, these are the conditions required to ensure the survival and the long-term development of the Canadian textile and clothing industry, which is very dear to my heart, as I worked in this industry for 13 years myself before becoming a businessman.


Monique Bernatchez Tardif: Mr. Speaker, to answer the question put by the Hon. Member for Drummond, I would first like to go back to the main instrument and measures that constitute the operational framework for the Government's present policy, which expires in 1986.
The GATT Multifibre Agreement, under which all restriction agreements are concluded, is now being reviewed by all member states, with official negotiations starting in July to determine the future form of this important instrument. A new agreement will inevitably have a vital impact on the development of our national industry. The financial assistance meas-
May 9, 1985

ures and bilateral restriction agreements now in effect will also expire in 1986.
In view of possible changes affecting the economics of these sectors, the Department of Regional Industrial Expansion has asked the Textile and Clothing Commission to review the situation in these two industries and to report by the end of October. The Department has also had meetings in recent weeks with representatives from the textile industry to discuss the present situation, to hear their views on the main aspects of the policy and also to prepare a development agreement aimed
Adjournment Debate
at promoting stability in the industry in both the short and long term. Since the present operational framework and implementation techniques will be reviewed and options for a new policy are to be considered during these discussions, the result will be increased co-operation among the main parties concerned.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: 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 6.31 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Friday, May 10, 1985