1985-04-02

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Hon. Ray Hnatyshyn (President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday I had indicated that today we would be dealing with the Bill relating to the Charter of Rights and with Bill C-19, which is a Bill with respect to the reorganization of Bell Canada. You will recall that I did mention the possibility of proceeding with Bill C-38, an Act to amend the Customs Tariff, on the basis of consultations with the Opposition Parties.
I am happy to report that discussions have taken place between the Parties and I think you will find a disposition on the floor of the House to deal with this Bill as the first item of business today. I understand that there is a disposition to deal with all stages of the Bill in the House, including Committee of the Whole, so that we can send this matter to the other place today with the hope that they will deal with it and we can have Royal Assent before Easter. Mr. Speaker, if you were to call Bill C-38 I think you would find an agreement to proceed at this time with all stages of the Bill.


Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to confirm that there have been negotiations and that we are ready and disposed to pass the Bill through all stages today. I would just like to ask the House Leader, if we do pass this Bill some time before the end of business today, will he then return to Bill C-27 or will he be calling Bill C-19?


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, the answer to my hon. colleague's question is that we will go back to Bill C-27. Only after we have concluded that debate will we proceed with Bill C-19.


Mr. Ian Deans (Hamilton Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, there were in fact discussions that went on into the evening last night with regard to this Bill. After having had those discussions we have decided that we will agree to pass the Bill during the course of today, recognizing that it is not everything we thought it might have been. Nevertheless, it is a temporary measure which will be superseded some time within the next 12 months by permanent legislation which responds adequately to two reports, one of which has not yet been tabled, on the subject of pornography and the distribution of obscene material in Canada.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Minister of State (Finance)) moved: that Bill C-38, an Act to amend the Customs Tariff, be read the second time and, by unanimous consent, referred to Committee of the Whole.
She said: Mr. Speaker, 1 am not only pleased but very anxious to speak today and move second reading of Bill C-38, an amendment to the Customs Tariff Act. This amendment has important implications for the importation of obscene material and hate propaganda into Canada. Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, and indeed all Canadians, are seriously concerned about the increasing flow of obscene material, particularly the more virulent forms which depict or describe sexual and other activities in a manner which is violent, degrading and dehumanizing.
Canadians find particularly repugnant the growth in distribution of obscene material involving children. This amendment, Mr. Speaker, responds directly to the heightened awareness and paramount concern the Government and all Canadians have regarding the insidiousness of child pornography. In addition, this amendment highlights the gravest concern the Government has regarding the dissemination of spiteful propaganda.
The Department of National Revenue, Customs and Excise, has the administrative responsibility to ensure such materials do not enter this country. The legislative provision, which enables the Department of National Revenue to carry out its duty is Tariff Item 99201-1 of the Customs Tariff Act. As Members know, on March 14, 1985 the Federal Court of Appeal ruled that "Tariff Item 99201-1 is not a reasonable limitation upon the freedoms guaranteed by Section 2(B) of the Charter (of Rights and Freedoms) and is of no force or effect".
The Government, of course, respects this ruling. Nevertheless, the ruling has created an appalling situation whereby the powers of the federal Government to protect the interests and wishes of Canadians concerning the importation of obscene and hate material has been seriously curtailed. This situation is simply not acceptable. Therefore, the Government has moved quickly to take appropriate measures to combat it.
As a preliminary step the Minister of National Revenue (Mr Beatty) immediately instructed Customs officials at Canadian points of entry to report to the local police any

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shipments of a commercial nature which are suspected to contravene the Criminal Code. With this stop-gap measure the Government hopes to head off any attempts by commercial interests to flood the Canadian market with books, printed paper, drawings, paintings, prints, photographs, movie film, video tapes, audio tapes and representation of any kind which depicts or describes sexual and other activities in a manner which is violent, degrading and dehumanizing.
The legislative proposal which we are examining today is of the utmost importance. It would amend Tariff Item 99201-1 to meet the objections of the Federal Court of Appeal by providing more specific and precise definitions of what constitutes obscene material or hate propaganda for the purposes of the item. This has been done by tying these definitions to existing definitions in the Criminal Code. Thus, obscene material will be defined according to the meaning of that term in Section 159 of the Criminal Code, while hate propaganda will be defined as it is within Section 281.3 of the Code.
We are confident that these steps will meet the concerns of the courts regarding the hate propaganda item. With the co-operation of all Parties in speedy passage of this Bill, Customs officials, under this amended tariff item, will effectively be able to prevent the import into Canada of obscene and hate material which is prohibited for sale and distribution by the Criminal Code.
On passage of the Bill, the Minister of National Revenue will, as suggested by the court, publish detailed administrative policy guidelines defining goods which are considered to be obscene or hate propaganda under the amended tariff item.
In introducing this legislation, the Government is asking that it be adopted for a period of approximately 15 months from the date of its passage. This relatively short time period, which will last only the 1986 summer recess of Parliament, has been established in anticipation of forthcoming proposals for changes in the statutory provisions which control the importation of these materials.
This Government regards the control of obscene and hate material as a matter of utmost urgency. In the course of human affairs, there is nothing more repugnant than the undue exploitation and the degradation of sex. This is made more despicable when children are involved.
Equally, in the conduct of human affairs there is nothing more destructive of the ideal and the values of our country than the propagation of hatred based on colour, race, religion or ethnic origin.
We will bring forward legislation which will more precisely define the types of material which are offensive to our society and which will give the federal and provincial Governments the necessary enforcement mechanisms to deal with them. This legislation will follow federal-provincial study of both the Badgley and Fraser reports.
Previous attempts have been made by the House to come to grips with this subject. For example, in 1981 the then Justice
Minister introduced legislation aimed at the control of child pornography, following a 1978 recommendation of the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs. However, this legislation subsequently died on the Order Paper.
On August 22, 1984 the report of the Badgley Commission on Sexual Offences against Children and Youths was released. It made 52 recommendations on the subject of child abuse, including the effects of access to pornography on children and the use of children in pornography. The Department of Justice and the provincial Attorneys General are preparing responses to these recommendations. We will develop and enact comprehensive and effective anti-pornography legislation as early as possible in our mandate.
Also, the Special Committee on Pornography and Prostitution, known as the Fraser Committee, travelled the country and made a wide-ranging study of this subject in 1984. The report of this committee will be available in the very near future.
Bill C-38, which we are examining today, will provide us with an interim measure for the next year while new legislation dealing with the current concerns of Canadians and the realities of the 1980s is developed and enacted.
There is clearly a widespread call by Canadians for tough leadership at the national level in combatting the sale and distribution of these dehumanizing and degrading materials that have no place in Canadian society. I urge all Canadians and all Members of the House to join with me in giving unanimous and speedy approval to this measure before us.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on the amendments to the Customs Tariff Act concerning the implication of pornographic material and hate literature. It is certainly well worth while undertaking to bring the definition in the Customs Tariff Act into accordance with the Criminal Code, and it is much appreciated. Certainly the Zundel case and the Keegstra case underscore the importance of this temporary sunset measure. As well, when the Federal Court of Appeal struck down the section of the Act which allowed Customs officers to seize immoral or indecent material at our borders, Members from all sides of this House urged the Government to take action to prevent access to our Canadian markets and to stop the flood of degrading materials depicting violence toward men, women and children.
[DOT] (MI5)
While I regret we are not currently debating substantial amendments to the Criminal Code on Section 159 dealing with obscene material or Section 281 dealing with hate literature, I am pleased that the Government has introduced this Bill as a stop-gap measure.
As the Minister of Justice (Mr. Crosbie) and as the Minister of State for Finance (Mrs. McDougall) has just commented, it is not surprising that the Federal Court ruled the
April 2, 1985

117-year old section of the Customs Tariff Act on pornography and hate literature as being too vague to be held as reasonable limit on the constitutional right to freedom of expression.
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms has forced this House to take a hard look at this important measure. As I have indicated in the Justice Committee and in this House, these amendments are necessitated by the imprecise wording of the Act.
Even judges disagree about the meaning of "immoral", or "indirect" despite agreeing that obscenity should be measured according to the community standard of tolerance. Since no one knows what material will be immoral or indecent in advance, Customs seizures have become nothing more than whims of officials, placing an unfair burden of responsibility on them by expecting the officials to be judge and jury.
As the Federal Court indicated, the Charter of Rights should not have whims when it comes to curtailing fundamental freedom of expression. As Section 1 of our Charter states, "freedoms can be restricted only by reasonable limits defined by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society". But as Chief Justice James Hugessen ruled:
A limit which is vague, ambiguous, uncertain or subject to discretionary determination is by that fact alone an unreasonable limit. Uncertainty and vagueness are constitutional vices when they are used to restrain constitutionally protected rights and freedoms.
It is this uncertainty and vagueness that must be eliminated to prevent the importation of violent, degrading material. This brings me back to my original point that as legislators we must address the issue of providing our courts with a clear, precise definition of pornography, as the Minister so stated.
Let us look at the evolution of this issue. Sexually explicit material is not a new phenomenon. It has existed in virtually every society in history. But it is evident that in Canada today, following the court challenge of 1962 on the right to distribute Lady Chatterley's Lover wich was found not obscene and acceptable by community standards, much more of such material is available than ever before. It is increasingly more explicit and more violent than in the past.
There is still some difficulty about the term "pornography". Police estimates have placed the annual Canadian market in pornography at $300 million. I have heard figures as high as $500 million, but the scope of the use of the term is not disclosed. Notwithstanding these definitional uncertainties, many believe that pornography that depicts violence or demeans the person is demonstrably harmful and should be controlled.
At present the main sanction relating to pornography is found in Section 159 of the Criminal Code. Central to these sanctions is the definition of what is obscene in Section 159(8). It reads:
Any publication, the dominant characteristic of which is the undue exploitation of sex or of sex and any one or more of the following subjects, namely crime, horror, cruelty and violence, shall be deemed obscene.
Whether there is undue exploitation is determined by reference to community standards. But this definition cannot deal
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with increasing virulent and misogynistic types of pornography. The current definition, with its emphasis on sexual explicitness, does not lend itself to clear application in the area of degrading material. Many women's groups have long advocated that the existing definition is unacceptable because it is targeted only at sexual representations in general, not at the more serious problem of representations which degrade the human person. There has also been criticism of the requirement that in order for violence, cruelty, horror and crime to be obscene they must be combined with sex. There is something wrong in one's thinking when that is the fact within our laws.
As I have noted, pornography is notoriously difficult to define. Clearly the existing Criminal Code definition does not cover the concerns voiced by many groups. There are few people who would say that all sex and all violence is pornographic. Generally speaking, people use the term "pornographic" to refer to material which causes offence or some other kind of harm. One of the problems is that people have different conceptions of offensiveness and harm. Whether or not certain material is offensive is clearly a personal and subjective assessment. It is a reflection of individual experiences, the thinking of common interest groups, as well as moral and religious values. Let us not confuse erotic or sexually explicit magazines, movies, videos and books which express human sexuality with what the reality of pornography is today.
As a representative of a group of French women in Quebec who put together a slide show on the impact of pornography with some clippings out of magazines which we picked up on the stands, I can say that my reaction was one of sheer horror. Pornography today is violent, degrading to men and women. It is often racist and certainly sado-masochistic. It uses children or nubile teens as models. Men and women are often portrayed as objects rather than partners. It represents bestiality, buggery and bondage and goes well beyond community standards.
There is great concern that pornography which contains explicit scenes of sadism, in which violence is condoned or the victim is seen or perceived to be enjoying his or her pain and suffering, is not the model and the role we wish to present to society about tender human relationships. I believe this type of material creates an environment in which violence is seen as a legitimate means of achieving ends or expressing feelings. Moreover, people become desensitized to violence and our collective will to oppose this behaviour is eroding.
Another concern is that much pornography is openly hostile to women. A standard feature of much of the material available today is the gagging, beating, chaining, raping and even killing of women. In addition, women are often depicted in this material as enjoying or at least tolerating such violence. The image of women conveyed is extremely negative, showing them subservient to men, masochistic and in a sense less than fully human.
Many other concerns have been expressed about the longterm effects of pornographic material on social values. The public needs to be educated about the harmful effects of

April 2, 1985
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material which depicts violence against men, women and children. Civil libertarians say no censorship. I say consenting adults in the privacy of their home can do and conduct themselves as they please, but community standards guidelines clearly defined and respectful of the general population are vital. Freedom and liberty do not mean licence. They mean and impose responsibilities and limits.
Pornography is seen to cause harm to society at large in three ways. First, exposure to pornogrpahy leads directly to an increase in sexual offences, violent crimes and aggressive antisocial behaviour. Second, exposure to pornographic material diminishes the dignity and status of women. Third, exposure to pornography undermines society's values.
The issue of child pornography is of great concern to me. The Badgley report on sexual abuse of children made extensive recommendations regarding the making, distribution, sale and importation of child pornography. This material is a direct product of child sexual abuse. It comes into existence, and can only come into existence, through the base and coldly premeditated exploitation of a young person's sexual vulnerability.
According to the report, and I quote:
The existing Criminal Code framework relating to obscene publications is inadequate to deal with the special circumstances attending the making and distribution of child pornography. The general definition of obscenity does not reflect the state's particular and more compelling interest in prosecuting and punishing those who promote the sexual abuse of children in this manner. The definition of an "obscene publication" in the Criminal Code pertains to the over-all content of the publications, rather than to the circumstances of its production. In reference to child pornography, it is the circumstances of its production, namely, the sexual exploitation of young persons, which is a fundamental basis for proscription.
Parliamentary action to expand the definition of pornography has been slow. In 1978 the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs recommended a new definition, one which would employ degradation as a separate basis, and which would also include reference to materials involving children. Criminal Code amendments in 1978, 1981 and 1984, which would have included similar provisions, and several Private Members' Bills, have died on the Order Paper.
In order to have a comprehensive look at the issues of pornography and prostitution, in 1983 the Liberal Minister of Justice, the Hon. Mark MacGuigan, set up a special committee chaired by Paul Fraser. The committee received many representations and listened to the concerns of many groups. This report has been submitted to the Government and I am most anxious to see its recommendations.
I am not surprised and women's groups are not surprised by the ruling of the British Columbia Federal Court of Appeal, a ruling that precipitated the introduction of this Bill, C-38, today, for it underscores and substantiates claims of women's groups for years and years about the inefficacy of the current law. Pornography is hate literature and is hate propaganda. Any material that diminishes men, women and children based on sex, race, colour, creed, religion or anything else is anathema to Canadians who are for the most part very fair-minded people.
While I support Bill C-38, it must only be regarded as a stop-gap measure until we have a comprehensive, precise definition that the court can uphold. With the Badgley report and the Fraser committee's recommendations in hand, I look to the Minister of Justice for swift, positive action to provide society with adequate protection against the degradation, undue exploitation and violence depicted against and directed toward men, women and children. I await with interest the Bill promised before June 30, 1986. In the meantime I welcome this temporary Bill which will cease and desist the importation of this material.


Ms. Lynn McDonald (Broadview-Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to address Bill C-38, a very short Bill before us today, of which we will certainly want to see swift passage. It addresses a problem in the enforcement in the Customs Tariff Act. It has been in the law for a very long time. It contains excessively vague wording which we have known about for a long time.
Recommendations have been made by women's groups and other organizations over the years to improve both the definition of obscenity in the Criminal Code and to bring in line the ancillary definitions in legislation designed to deal with pornography.
I am sorry that we are dealing with only such a stop-gap measure today. It would be an ideal opportunity to get a better definition in the Criminal Code. There are very serious loopholes dealing both with child pornography and violent pornography. Previous Governments have only entertained dealing with those things. For example, there was draft legislation introduced by the Liberal Minister of Justice, Mark MacGuigan, but it was never introduced as real legislation. It subsequently came before the House in an omnibus Bill and never even got to second reading stage. Governments have acknowledge the existence of the problem but have not dealt with it. I think the previous Liberal Government was quite negligent in not improving the wording and in not heading warnings of Charter of Rights challenges to the pornography, obscenity and Customs Tariff Act legislations.
The ruling of the Federal Court of Appeal on the Customs Tariff Act is that it is not a reasonable contradiction of the Charter of Rights because the definition of what is indecent and immoral is too vague, and that is quite correct. The wording is too vague and that has been admitted for a very long time. Bill C-38 will address that but only by referring to the legislation that is currently in the Criminal Code and that legislation is woefully defective.
I would have preferred to see the sunset clause in this legislation which has it going to June, 1986 providing for a briefer period of time. There is no reason why we have to wait a year and a half to get improvements. We have had the Badgley Committee recommendations since last Angust and
April 2, 1985

the Fraser Committee is expected to come back with recommendations for action on pornography any week now. I would have thought that legislation would have been brought in by the end of June of this year. Perhaps the Government will bring in the legislation before the summer recess if the Fraser Committee comes back with a good definition to be used in a Criminal Code amendment. We do need a very precise definition in the Criminal Code so that the other pieces of legislation can refer to it and be an effective barrier to the importation of pornography.
The importation of pornography is indeed the problem facing us. Most of the pornography that is circulated in Canada is imported, and that is particularly the case for violent pornography and child pornography. What appears in the Customs Tariff Act is extremely important for regulating pornography at the border.
Promises of legislation have been made and repeated since 1978. 1 think that it is high time that we actually amended the Criminal Code to get these definitions in place. I would like to point out to the Government that there is increasing agreement in Canadian society as to what those definitions should be, so it is not necessary to wait for this consensus to evolve. The Badgley Committee commissioned studies on public attitudes toward pornography and child pornography and it found a very profound abhorrence to it and a very important concern regarding the limiting of pornography and the use of legislation to do so. A recent court ruling by Mr. Justice Shannon included an extremely good definition of obscenity by distinguishing violent and degrading pornography on the one hand from what is merely sexually explicit on the other.
Court decisions are beginning to make the distinctions that women's organizations have been making and advocating to government and public opinion is beginning to coalesce around these distinctions. I do not think there is a reason for ongoing delay. The courts are beginning to move their interpretations in that direction. The public is moving in that direction and the women's organizations have led the way in offering precise definitions. It is really now up to the Government to act by including these definitions in legislation.
I would like to make a few remarks about the problem posed by hate propaganda in Canadian society. One part of Bill C-38 gives the authority to Customs and tariff officials to keep hate propaganda from entering the country. In this area we can be somewhat less smug than we are in the area of pornography because hate literature is indeed produced in Canada and Canada has been known to be an exporter of hate propaganda. We have no occasion to be smug in this regard. Courts have not upheld the banning of such literature because of the vagueness of the wording in the legislations. Because of this, we have made the Zundels and Keegstras of Canada very happy. I think we should be very unhappy when we see their pleasure at court rulings.
The Zundels and Keegstras of Canada argue on the basis of freedom of expression and I think we must look seriously at their contentions. Freedom of expression is a very basic value that we as Canadians hold dear, but I would remind the House
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that freedom of expression has never been absolute in our country or in any other country. There are reasons for limiting freedom of expression. We limit it on the basis of libel and slander, and on the basis of counselling a crime, threatening and extortion. There are all kinds of laws that forbid the expression of certain opinions because the expression of those very opinions would cause harm to other people. Freedom of expression cannot go further than respect for the life, security and dignity of other people. Hate propaganda very much violates the freedom, life and security of other people in our society.
Our laws on hate literature, as with our laws on pornography, are woefully inadequate as currently defined in the Criminal Code. Until this year there have not been convictions that have stood up to appeals and we do not know what will happen with the Zundel case because it has been appealed and it is possible that that verdict will be overturned. The hate literature sections of the Criminal Code are thoroughly inadequate.
The Canadian Jewish Congress and other groups have made recommendations for amendments. This is not the place to deal with the substance of those amendments but, very briefly, they indicate that the loopholes which exist regarding religious belief, wilfulness, good faith and the requirement for the Attorney General to prosecute these cases have meant that hate propaganda laws have simply not had any teeth.
I would like to read a very good statement of the problems that hate propaganda and particularly the Zundel case have caused members of our society. Bob Rae, the Deader of the Ontario New Democratic Party, while attending a Holocaust Remembrance service recently held in Toronto, said the following:
We have just lived through the bewildering experience of a trial of a West German citizen living in Canada who has for years used this country as a base for spreading hate propaganda, misinformation and lies about the past-
1 say "bewildering" because for some weeks what was on trial, or at least being tested, were not Mr. (Ernst) Zundel's lies and propaganda, but rather the reality of the Jewish experience in the twentieth century. One can scarcely imagine a court being asked to determine whether D-Day happened, or the Dieppe raid. Neither the defendants at the Nuremberg trials, nor Adolf Eich-mann himself in his own defence in Jerusalem, tried to argue that the Holocaust never happened, or was some kind of hoax. That would have been too utterly fantastic, too absurd.
But in Toronto in 1985 we saw headlines day after day talking about "rival theories" and "revisionist thinking" about what happened to the Jews in Europe between 1933 and 1945, as if these theories could somehow be placed on an equal footing with the fact of the Holocaust.
The Holocaust happened. Millions of Jews were killed as part of a policy of deliberate extermination. These are not theories. There will be many opinions on why this terrible event happened. But to deny that it did happen, or worse, to assert that it has been distorted and invented by people, is not "revisionism": it is hatred pure and simple.
A community has gone through the agony of seeing that reality denied and it has suffered again as a result of that.
It is ironic that the Charter of Rights, which was a promise of freedom and equality for all members of Canadian society, should be used to defend threats to and attacks upon fellow citizens who are not thereby equal and free members of our society. It is ironic that the Charter of Rights, which was

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supposed to guarantee freedom and equality to Canadian women, should be used in the defence of pornography, which degrades, humiliates and encourages violence against women. It is ironic that the Charter of Rights, which is supposed to guarantee equality to people regardless of ethnic origin and religion, should be used as a defence for the attack on the Jewish community and the people who have lived through the experience and have been survivors of the physical assault known as the Holocaust.
I am one of the people who takes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms seriously. The Charter is supposed to be a guarantor of freedom and equality. If it is to mean anything, the Charter must mean that the groups which are victimized because of religious or ethnic origin, and the females of our society, receive dignity and equality. There will not be equality and liberty when people can be degraded through pornography and attacked through anti-semitic literature.
I view Bill C-38 as a very necessary piece of legislation which is entirely within the spirit of the Charter. It is legislation which is necessary to promote freedom, liberty and security for members of our community. However, I am sorry that the legislation does not go further and address the substantive issues which remain in order to provide the protection from pornography which women need and the protection which other groups require who are being victimized by hate literature. At least it is a first step. I hope the Government will give us the assurance that there will be very speedy action taken to address the substantive issues and that it will provide good and workable definitions which will be upheld by the courts in actual cases.


Mr. John Nunziata (York South-Weston):: Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise to speak on Bill C-38, an Act to amend the Customs Tariff. As previous speakers have indicated, the legislation was necessitated by a recent decision of the Federal Court of Appeal which struck down a particular section of the Customs Tariff Act. The court indicated that the section was too vague and uncertain and that it contravened the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The tariff item which is in question is Tariff Item 99201-1. It reads as follows:
Books, printed paper, drawings, paintings, prints, photographs or representations of any kind of a treasoanble or seditious, or of an immoral or indecent character.
Any publications or documents which feel within that particular definition could be seized by Customs officials at the border before they were allowed to enter Canada.
Unlike the previous speaker, I applaud the decision of the Federal Court of Appeal, not because of the result, which would allow individuals to import pornography and hate literature into Canada, but because the court has given tremendous weight to the Charter which is the supreme law of the country. The court did not indicate in any way that it agreed with the importation of pornography or hate literature into Canada. It said that there must be some restrictions with respect to the
arbitrary decisions which are made by Customs officials at the border in confiscating certain material. The court indicated that that tremendous authority could not be given to Customs officials without providing a concrete definition.
Why did the court strike down that particular section of the Customs Tariff Act? It indicated that the section offended the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Section 2 of the Charter delineates the freedoms which Canadians have come to respect and expect in Canada. They are freedoms which make this country truly democratic. Those freedoms make us proud of our heritage and the values which our society holds. Section 2 reads as follows:
Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
(a)	freedom of conscience and religion;
(b)	freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of
the press and other media of communication;
(c)	freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d)	freedom of association.
The Court was specifically concerned about Section 2(B) which refers to freedom of expression. The court felt that it was an ultimate freedom and could only be restricted under certain circumstances. Section 1 of the Charter reads as follows:
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.
The court looked at the freedom of expression and felt that in the case of the Customs Tariff Act, which is 117 years old, the definition of pornography and the authority which is given to Customs officials was not a reasonable infringement on freedom of expression. Therefore, the court struck down the legislation and told Parliament to amend the Act and provide a better definition of what is obscene, immoral or hate literature.
I disagree with the NDP Member who criticized the decision and said that it was ironic that it should assist the hatemongers and those who import pornography into Canada. In fairness, the Court of Appeal said that the Charter was important; it did not say that we would open the floodgates so that pornography and hate literature could be imported into Canada. The decision was a victory for the Charter. The unfortunate side effect is that it will allow the importation of pornography and hate literature into Canada. However, it will only allow importation for personal use, which is an important distinction.
Once the decision was rendered, there was hysteria in certain circles across the country. Some people felt that all of a sudden the country would be inundated with obscene or immoral materials and hate literature. But under the Criminal Code of Canada, Customs officials still have the jurisdiction to confiscate immoral or indecent material if it is meant for distribution to Canadians. Even though this particular tariff provision was struck down, it does not leave Canadians powerless to deal with the importation of undesirable material. The legislation does allow people to import that material for personal use, and that as well could be a subject for controversy or debate.

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People may ask why an individual Canadian cannot import material for personal use. That is something which will have to be debated when new legislation is brought forward to address the Fraser report. The Hon. Member for Mount Royal (Mrs. Finestone) eloquently indicated that the Government has no business in the bedrooms of the nation and that people should be free to do as they please in their own homes. With respect to the importation of pornography or hate literature, it may be an area of controversy as to whether people can import that material for their personal use.
We agree that it is a very serious problem when the material is imported for the purposes of distribution and sale in Canada. We in the Liberal Party will support any legislation whatsoever which will deal with this very serious problem of all this smut coming into the country, finding its way into grocery and variety stores, and being available for children and others to see. I can assure the Government on behalf of my Party that we will support legislation which will serve to stop the importation of such material.
The court struck down Tariff Item 99201-1, and said it was too vague and ambiguous. In its decision it also gave some advice to us in this Parliament. It said that if you were to define what constitutes obscene or immoral material and hate propaganda according to the definitions found in the Criminal Code, then that would be sufficient and would not contravene the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, specifically the right of freedom of expression as found in Section 2 of the Charter.
We commend the Government for bringing in this legislation and have agreed to its speedy passage. Bill C-38 is a very short Bill indeed and simply refers to the definitions found in the Criminal Code of Canada. Whereas the tariff item which was struck down did not define what immoral or indecent meant, this Bill repeals that tariff item and replaces it with another which reads as follows:
Books, printed paper, drawings, paintings, prints, photographs or representations of any kind.
(a)	of a treasonable or seditious characters;-
There is no problem with respect to what constitutes treasonable or seditious, so there is no need for a reference to the Criminal Code. It continues:
(b)	that are deemed to be obscene under subsection 159(8) of the Criminal
Code;-
I would like to read that subsection of the Code for the benefit of Hon. Members. We have already heard that this definition does not go far enough and we hope soon to be dealing with recommendations from the Fraser Commission which will address the inadequacies of the definition of obscenity and pornography in the Code. The existing definitions are not good enough. We have to deal with pornography which exploits children and depicts violence. We have to come to grips with child pornography, which is a very serious problem in Canada today. Section 159(8) says:
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For the purposes of this Act, any publication a dominant characteristic of which is the undue exploitation of sex, or of sex and any one or more of the following subjects, namely, crime, horror, cruelty and violence, shall be deemed to be obscene.
This has been the cause of some concern to the courts. What is obscene? What may be obscene in Nova Scotia may not be considered obscene in Ontario. The courts have grappled with this problem. There was the case of Regina versus Brodie and Regina versus Dansky where the court dealt with the novel Lady Chatterley's Lover. The Supreme Court of Canada held in a split decision that there was no undue exploitation of sex in that novel. To quote Mr. Justice Judson:
It has none of the characteristics that are often described in judgments dealing with obscenity-dirt for dirt's sake, the leer of the sensualist, depravity in the mind of an author with an obsession for dirt, pornography, an appeal to a prurient interest, etc.
Referring to Section 159(8), the court said:
The section recognizes that a serious-minded author must have freedom in the production of a work of genuine artistic and literary merit and the quality of the work, as the witnesses point out and common sense indicates, must have real relevance in determining not only a dominant characteristic but also whether there was undue exploitation.
Another decision was that in the case of Regina versus Prairie Schooner News Ltd. It indicated that the test of undue exploitation of sex is to be determined according to contemporary community standards in Canada. In the case of Regina versus Goldberg and Reitman, it said that community standards are not those of an individual community, such as a university community, but are those of all segments of the community.
So we have a problem when we talk about community standards. It is that of trying to define what is acceptable in a free and democratic society. We agree that students on university campuses might have a different interpretation of what is obscene and what is immoral as opposed to what senior citizens living in a senior citizens' complex might feel. I have given two extreme examples, but somewhere in between there is a community standard with respect to obscenity. Now, Bill C-38 says that obscene material is as defined in the Criminal Code of Canada. I have indicated that we have problems with the definitions of obscenity in the Criminal Code. Therefore, I certainly encourage Hon. Members opposite on the Government benches to petition the Minister to bring in legislation quickly to deal with the question of child pornography and violence so we can clean up that particular section.
The Bill we are dealing with here today also refers to the definition of hate propaganda. The old tariff item which was declared unconstitutional was too vague and so the court said you had to be more specific. What the Government is doing here, with our approval, is defining what hate propaganda means. The section of the Criminal Code referred to is Section 281.3(8) and I would like to read that section for the benefit of Hon. Members. It defines what hate propaganda means:
"hate propaganda" means any writing, sign or visible representation that advocates or promotes genocide or the communication of which by any person would constitute an offence under section 281.2:
I will refer to that section for the benefit of Hon. Members. It says that everyone who, by communicating statements in

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any public place, incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace is guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for two years. The Crown can also proceed by way of summary conviction. Genocide is defined in Section 281.1, and we are satisfied that that definition is acceptable.
The hate propaganda section of the Code could be amended to deal with the Zundels and Keegstras. I note, Mr. Speaker, that you are indicating that my time is almost up. I just want to indicate in closing that the Government will have to take a hard, serious look at the Code provisions, including Section 281(8) dealing with hate propaganda, to see what must be done in order to address the Keegstras and Zundels of society.
In conclusion, I would like to indicate that we in the Liberal Party whole-heartedly support Bill C-38. We believe that it is necessary. We recognize that it is a stop-gap measure. There is a sunset clause in the legislation: the legislation will cease to have effect on June 30, 1986. That is about a year and two months away. We hope the Government will act more quickly than that to bring in legislation to deal with pornography. I understand that the Fraser report is about to be tabled. The Government will seriously consider the report and, no doubt, the committee will hear representations from concerned Canadians from coast to coast on this particular matter, and legislation will be forthcoming.
I urge the Government to speed up the process with respect to hate literature and pornography in the country because it is a serious problem. All Members in the House want to address the issue forcefully.


Lynn McDonald: Mr. Speaker, I have only a brief comment. In his address the previous speaker quite misrepresented my remarks. Contrary to what he said, I agreed with the ruling of the Federal Court of Appeal that the wording in the Custom Tariff Act was too vague. I did not applaud it. I do not know that one applauds court rulings, but in my opinion it was certainly a correct interpretation of the law.
At no time did I say it was ironic that the court had made that decision. My use of the word "irony" was to point out the irony that lawyers and defendants should be using the Charter of Rights in defending pornographers or hate propagandists. It is ironic that the Charter should be used by people who want to oppose the very freedoms and equalities which the Charter is supposed to be guaranteeing. It is very ironic that an instrument such as the Charter of Rights, which is supposed to be protecting us, should be used to promote pornography or hate literature.
I have a great deal of confidence that the courts will not allow this to happen and that any reasonably defined definition in legislation would be acceptable. The courts have shown a great deal of wisdom in recent decisions. I refer to one in particular which came up with a better interpretation of the current obscenity laws in the Criminal Code. It is actually in the wording itself. I think the courts are moving in the right
direction and I have a great deal of confidence that a well-worded definition in the Criminal Code and in the Customs Tariff Act will be respected by the courts and that the Charter of Rights will indeed have its intended function.


John V. Nunziata: Mr. Speaker, while the Hon. Member for Broadview-Greenwood (Ms. McDonald) would not applaud the decision, I applaud it. I think all civil libertarians, all those who believe in freedom of the country, all those who believe in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, should applaud it. The court is defining the limits of what the Government can and cannot do with respect to limiting specific freedoms. Although an individual may want to import pornography, what is important is the freedom of expression and the definition of that freedom. The courts are attempting to ensure that civil liberties are enhanced in the country. The courts want to ensure that people have those rights.
I do not think it is so ironic that individuals, even those who might import pornography into the country, should refer to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They have the right to refer to the Charter because it is the supreme law in the country. If the courts, in their wisdom, tell these individuals that they are wrong and that there are reasonable limits within which they can restrict freedoms, that is fine. However, if the courts say no, we should applaud the courts for upholding civil libertarian values in the country.


Mr. Ernie Epp (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Taylor:: Question.


Abram Ernest Epp: Is there someone with a question?


Gordon Edward Taylor: Yes, we want to vote on it.


Abram Ernest Epp: Just a few moments, my good friend. The last comments have further underscored the issues involving liberties which clearly arise at the basis of the kinds of questions we are dealing with in considering this particular Bill for speedy passage today. I do not want to speak for very long and in any way delay that action. Given the hour of the day that we are at, I am sure that we shall in fact complete our work here.
Surely it is worth recognizing that in the clarification of the principles of liberty, which has gone on in the English speaking world over the past couple of centuries, the argumentation which the last speaker was making in defence of his applauding a decision can bring us very close to boundaries which that great 19th century philosopher of politics and society, John Stuart Mill, recognized when he wrote on the matter in the 1850s. His memorable essay on liberty, which I am sure is familiar to many Members, made clear the far-reaching liberty which each individual must have. It also states as clearly as anyone could ever state that my liberty ceases where it impinges on the liberty of other persons.
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That particular principle can easily be lost sight of as we ourselves, in making the laws of this land, are pressed toward the limits that others are always exploiting. It is obvious, in one area and another, that what we have been observing in the last years in the area of pornographic material, as well as in the production of hate propaganda, is no progress. Material has become more and more explicit, more and more extreme, and more and more shocking in both areas in order to create any reaction and, presumably, in order to appeal to the buyer. We have incredible commercialization in both of these areas.
The fact that we have seen such degrading regress taking place only underscores the fact that, while we want to defend liberty, when that liberty impinges on other persons, denies their freedom to be full-fledged citizens in our country and reduces them to some lower state of life, that liberty ends.
The broad reality of the Nazi era goes far beyond the fact of the Holocaust. Nazism represented racism within the state policy. It was not just the destruction of the Jews in those horrifying numbers. It was focused on other peoples of a lower state of life as well. The Slavic peoples of eastern Europe were to be reduced to the rule of the Arian master race as the German armies pressed eastward and established a great imperial domain on the Eurasian continent. That endeavour of the Nazis is the larger reality that can be lost sight of if we focus only on the Holocaust.
The principle that, by reason of their race, people are to be given a lower, subjected, and degraded position is surely a reality of the 20th century that is not unrelated to the questions that face us when we consider the boundaries of what it is right to print or publish for people to buy and enjoy. The result may be that such enjoyment builds a desire to attack others. For example, the "Rapist File" is a publication that is currently causing controversy in Toronto. That controversy was also raised in the local Thunder Bay paper yesterday afternoon. It is questions such as when private enjoyment may lead to public attack that must be dealt with here.
As a member of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, I am somewhat sensitive to their traditions and views, and when we are concerned about advancing and tightening the values of Canadian society and Canada as a nation, I am somewhat undecided. 1 think what John Stuart Mill said about the limits on liberty in the 1850s is worthy of our consideration as well. I am confident that Members are willing and eager to support good legislation that is sensitive to the development and enhancement of Canadians about us.
Unfortunately, the previous Government, rather than introduce solid legislation, spent the time of the House dealing with an omnibus Bill. I share the view of my colleague, the Hon. Member for Broadview-Greenwood (Ms. McDonald), that we should soon deal with sound legislation addressing this issue so that Customs officials and law enforcement officials within the country can have a sound basis upon which to deal with these subjects.
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Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Questions or comments? Resuming debate.


Mr. David Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, I will attempt to be as brief as the Hon. Member for Thunder Bay-Nipigon (Mr. Epp). As Members of the Opposition, we have a tendency to oppose legislation, often with great justification. However, Bill C-38 provides us with an opportunity to applaud the Minister of State for Finance (Mrs. McDougall) for taking such quick and decisive action in introducing this particular amendment.
This amendment comes as a result of a decision by the Federal Court of Appeal. The Minister has attempted to make some changes by enhancing the wording with regard to the definition section contained in the Customs Tariff Act. In essence, the Minister is amending a piece of legislation which, in its entirety, is about 117 years old. Many of us who are speaking to this legislation realize that it was antiquated from the beginning. Therefore, it should not be startling to Members of Parliament or the public that this particular section is being amended.
I have some reservations about the extension which is implicit in the Customs Tariff Act as a result of this legislation. Clause 1(b) states "that are deemed to be obscene under subsection 159(8) of the Criminal Code". We support the amendment because it gives Customs officers the power to intervene on behalf of the Government of Canada to prevent the importation of this material. However, by extending the amendment in the words so used, it does not necessarily add to but focuses, I suggest, attention on the confusion.
Section 159(8) of the Act begins: "For the purposes of this Act, any publication, a dominant characteristic of which is the undue exploitation of sex". The Hon. Member opposite knows very well what I am referring to and while he is not an expert in this area, his familiarity with the subject perhaps would benefit this debate.
A review of past litigation with respect to this particular section will show that defence counsel, Crown prosecutors and various experts who have given a determination to assist the judge or the jury in making a ruling have grave difficulties with this wording. The words "a dominant characteristic" are very clear. It does not mean a little or a lot, but "dominant". What do we mean by dominant? Are we required to refer to the literal definition of "dominant" in the Oxford Dictionary in terms of exploitation of sex? What is the meaning of "undue"? Does that refer to the standards of a community or to what a university may stand for in that particular community? It is very confusing.
My purpose in drawing this confusion to the attention of Members opposite is certainly not to be disputatious or difficult. I simply draw to their attention the complexities and difficulties with this particular legislation, as amended. It will need further consideration and I am pleased that the Government has added a sunset provision with regard to the amendment.

April 2, 1985
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My second point concerns Clause 1(c) which reads "constitute hate propaganda within the meaning of subsection 281.3(8) of the Criminal Code". That particular section contains a definition of hate propaganda. Since this is a sunset law, why is the Government allowing accused individuals the opportunity to proceed by indictable offence as well as summary conviction, according to this amendment? Surely we are attempting to give a clear and unequivocal signal to those who wish to import such undesirable material into Canada that we in Canada do not want it and do not believe that it is in the Canadian interest to have it in Canada. Therefore, I would suggest that as a result of giving accused persons the option of proceeding under summary conviction, which carries a lesser fine and lesser penalty than the indictable offence which is much more serious, the Government has failed to grasp the opportunity that was before it.
In its amendment under Clause 1(c), the Government should clearly have spelled out that until 1986 all actions will be followed with an indictable offence as opposed to summary conviction. That does not prejudge in any way what future amendments may or may not be and I believe that Parliament would be giving a very clear signal to those individuals. 1 think the Government has missed its opportunity to give that signal.
Let me deal with the sunset provision. This provision, which states that the amendment will no longer be effective after June 30, 1986, is a good beginning. However, due to the Budget debate and a host of other legislative matters on the parliamentary calendar, what will happen if the Minister of Justice (Mr. Crosbie) is unable to introduce legislation by that time in order to make changes which are so necessary and demanded by the Canadian people? I am afraid that what will happen will be a continuation of that particular amendment both in substance and perhaps for another indefinite period of time. I had hoped that the Minister of Justice would be in his place today. I realize and appreciate that he is at a very important conference. I thought the esteemed and eloquent House Leader of the Government would have been able to stand in his place and clearly say that at a given time we will have given legislation before this Parliament to address the concerns which we as Canadians have with regard to this undesirable material.
Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, there must be a rift in the Cabinet. The House Leader of the Conservative Party has not stood in his place. There is still time for him to get up and wax eloquent before us that by such and such a date, within three months, there will be new legislation placed before Parliament and referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs so that Members of Parliament and the Canadian community will have an opportunity to review and assess where the Government stands on this particular material.
This was an opportunity for the Tories. Once again opportunity came and the Tories have missed that opportunity. I would hope, and I stand to be corrected by the Hon. House Leader of the Conservative Party, that he may yet later this
afternoon stand in his place, if he has received a memo from the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Nielsen) or the junior Minister of Justice, and tell us when legislation will be forthcoming. I know that in the spirit of parliamentary co-operation and parliamentary reform the House Leader for the Conservative Party wants to take his responsibilities seriously. He should forthwith take his responsibilities seriously and get a specific time undertaking from the Minister of Justice as to when he and the Government will bring in legislation that will address the matters we are now discussing.
It is not sufficient, I suggest, Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, to say in Clause 2 of the amendment which is part of Bill C-38 that by June 30, 1986 this amendment will no longer be in effect. I think we need more. I think the Canadian people who overwhelmingly supported the Conservative Party in the last federal election deserve more than that. They deserve more than just a pat on the head, if you will. I would hope that the very eloquent, distinguished House Leader of the Conservative Party would for once assume his responsibilities, in a responsible and serious way and stand in his place and give us that undertaking.


John V. Nunziata: That is wishful thinking.


David Charles Dingwall: I want to compliment the Minister of State for Finance (Mrs. McDougall) who is not in the House. No doubt she is in the Government lobby listening with great care to the views expressed by Opposition Members of Parliament-I am very certain of that-but I want to congratulate her for bringing this legislation forward. It may not curtail, it may not assist, but it is a sincere attempt by the Government, which we support and which the New Democratic Party supports, to try to tackle the issue. The Tories have gone only a very small part of the way, in my view. I think there is a great deal to be done. I would hope Hon. Members opposite will see this opportunity to raise their concerns when caucus meets tomorrow and come back some time later tomorrow and share with Members of Parliament the specific date when we will be discussing both the timing and the substance of the legislation.


John V. Nunziata: Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the previous speaker on his comments. I was listening very attentively to what he was saying. I agree whole-heartedly with his comment that the Government is not taking the bull by the horns and bringing in the necessary legislation. It is the Conservative Government's approach to governing in this country. This Government appears to be constantly shirking its responsibilities notwithstanding that it was given a massive mandate on September 4 to provide the necessary leadership in this country and to bring in legislation for the benefit of Canadians from coast to coast.
What we find time and time again is that the Tories are dragging their feet because they are afraid, because the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) is afraid to make the tough decisions that are necessary in order to govern properly. The Prime Minister is afraid to alienate any one particular group or individual. As a result we have had all this consultation going
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on, constant consultation for the sake of consultation, not for the sake of hearing the views of Canadians.
I am sure that, as a Member of the last Parliament, the Hon. Member is aware that the former Liberal Government introduced legislation last year that would have made it easier to prosecute those who publish or distribute hate literature or pornography. I am sure the Hon. Member is aware of that because he was in the House and was a strong advocate of that legislation introduced by the previous Government. I am sure the Hon. Member is also aware that the Conservative Party, while it was in opposition, stone-walled and obstructed that omnibus Criminal Code Bill introduced by the Liberal Party. Consequently no action was taken because of the obstructionist tactics by the Conservative Opposition of the day.
I would like to hear from the Hon. Member for Cape Breton-East Richmond (Mr. Dingwall), as an experienced and seasoned Member of Parliament and as a Member during those days, whether he can advise the new Members of Parliament, such as myself, why the Conservative Party in opposition stone-walled legislation introduced by the Liberal Government that would have addressed the issue of the importation and publication of pornography and hate literature.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Hon. Member for his complimentary remarks. It is in character with the disposition that he has demonstrated during his short time in Parliament, and I want to thank him for his complimentary remarks.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


David Charles Dingwall: I hope I can live up to the objective test that he has set for me.
I should point out to the Hon. Member that unfortunately this Government-who knows why?-is bent on the idea of consultation, which I think for many objective standards is a good thing. What the Government has refused to do, although it has tabled its consultation papers for the benefit of Members of Parliament and Canadians, is to table the number of polls initiated by the Prime Minister's office concerning public policy in Canada. The Government has refused, Mr. Speaker, to table the polls which the Conservative Party and its agencies have taken with regard to public policy issues and where the public stands.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Are there some pages missing from my Bill? It has nothing to do with polls. The Hon. Member must be reading a different Bill, Mr. Speaker.


David Charles Dingwall: Therefore, it is quite in character with the Conservative Government that it would not come forward in a very forthright, substantive way with regard to new law, new legislation, respecting child pornography. This Government is going to wait and it is going to consult. It is going to take more polls, so whatever the Government does the Tories will make certain that the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) will be loved in each area of Canada.
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Perhaps I could answer specifically the question raised by my distinguished colleague as to the motives of the then Government, but I do not think anyone in Canada would dare to question the intentions or motives of the Tories. We know by their track record what are their motives and intentions. They have been the same for 100 years. They are on the side of big business, on the side of big, multinational oil companies and on the side of vested interests. They do not care about the various regions.
To give a concise and concrete answer as to their motives is very difficult. I can only say that what they have demonstrated in the past by their stance on vavious issues and by what they have done in policy conferences on the national and regional levels indicates that their sole purpose in government is to perpetuate the class system in Canada, not the middle class or the poor. That is their ideology, motive and intention.


Lynn McDonald: Mr. Speaker, my point of order is that the debate has been rather lost, but since there is only a brief period for questions and comments, I want to make a comment at this point. Do I have the floor for that purpose?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Yes.


Lynn McDonald: I want the Bill to pass, so I will be very brief in my comments. However, I am afraid I have to say something about the hypocrisy of the two previous Liberal speakers.


Mr. de Corneille:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Hon. Member has declared that her intention now is to talk about some other speakers, not about the subject. Therefore, I would suggest that Your Honour rule her out of order.


Lynn McDonald: Clearly my remarks concern the substance of the remarks of the two previous Liberal speakers on pornography and the accusation of failure of the Conservative Government to act swiftly. The Liberals were in government for the last number of years, until September 4. They had many opportunities to bring in legislation. They were requested to bring it in. They were made offers of swift passage in the case of pornography legislation. They were told that if the clauses on pornography were taken out of the omnibus Bill, they would be given swift passage. But the Liberal Government was not prepared to move swiftly on the matter.
Further, the notion of applauding the Federal Court of Appeal because it discovered that something was wrong with the legislation is unacceptable, as that had been repeatedly pointed out to the Government. They could have brought in an amendment without the court pointing out what was wrong with the legislation. It was well known. They had been told that and had been asked to bring in amendments to the legislation so that it would not be unconstitutional. Instead they were slack. They just let it drift. Now we hear compliments to the court for finding out something which the Government ought to have known and ought to have acted on a long time ago.

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David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to respond to the Hon. Member's comments. She has a great interest in the subject-matter which we are debating. All I can suggest to that particular Member of Parliament is that we were the Party in government which passed the Charter of Rights that she so loudly applauds at this point in time.
Just for her own edification and so she will be able to sleep better in the evening, in 1959 amendments to the Criminal Code were brought in by the Conservative Party. There were further amendments in 1962, and in January, 1978 the amendments of 1962 were reflected upon. There were further amendments on March 22, 1978; on May 1, 1978; on January 12, 1981; on February 16, 1981; on April 17, 1982; in January of 1983; on March 31, 1983; on June 23, 1983; and in November of 1983. The list goes on and on. I do not wish to have the debate go on longer than necessary, but the record is there for everyone to examine and is very clear. I suggest to the Hon. Member that she is a little off centre.


Roland de Corneille: Mr. Speaker, it seems that all Hon. Members of the House who are present have thus far indicated their willingness to support the measure before us for consideration. Also I think we have agreed that this is a stop-gap Bill. It is something which was hastily put together in order to try to overcome what seemed to be shortcomings in terms of preventing the admission of various kinds of materials which incite hatred and violence. Since we all understand the ultimate fate of this Bill, that we will all work together to pass it today, I should like to use this occasion to reflect upon some of the important issues that in our haste about other matters we keep passing over.
Once again this Bill brings to our attention the urgency of dealing with matters relating to the whole question of violence, whatever form violence takes. We have seen over the years that the inciting of violence has been successful. We have seen wars and genocides internationally. We have seen the danger of terrorism which until recently we thought happened on the other side of the world. Now it has come home to roost, to Toronto and to Ottawa.
I have worked on conferences dealing with terrorism in an attempt to bring about some way of condemning it as a nation. Nationally and internationally we have noted a certain degree of apathy about the matter. Violence has also been recommended in this country against those who allegedly committed murder by bringing in capital punishment. Violence is part of our lives as we watch television and see people being massacred at an incredible rate of speed. We become almost immune and in fact somehow inured to the danger of violence in society.
Violence is something with which we have to deal not as an isolated matter or on a patchwork quilt basis. We have to take a comprehensive view of it and of course we have to deal with it as it emerges. I served on the committee on battered women which was a subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs in the last Parliament. It brought forth a report which needed to be acted on fully and was acted upon in part. The Liberal Government at that time
took certain steps to provide through CMHC homes for battered wives. We saw certain steps taken to deal with the concerns of those groups in terms of amending the laws and the ways in which we dealt with their concerns.
I suggest that these steps deal with the result, the violence itself. In my view it is important that we deal comprehensively with the cause as well, not in a patchwork quilt, unrelated way. Some comprehensive steps which were taken to deal with violence occurred as long ago as when Mr. Trudeau, Dean Maxwell Cohen and Mark MacGuigan began to deal with the hate literature Bill. They brought about a Bill which was successful and began to call to our attention as Canadians the grave problems which result from the promotion of hatred. That hate literature Bill was passed.
All people concerned about freedom of speech-and I am sure that would include everyone in the House-have to realize that there is a growing understanding that groups cannot be libelled any more than individuals. Hate literature is a way of libelling individuals because they are members of a libelled group. While there are still perhaps some who belong to civil liberties groups which oppose the idea of bans against hate literature, the vast majority of civil libertarians today approve of the steps that were taken to deal with hate literature.
Because we have begun to set those kinds of legal definitions which have taken years to evolve, they have become accepted gradually by the community. There are certain things that you cannot say against a group any more than against an individual. We are now beginning to grow in our culture and in our approach to civilization. At last we have passed rules and laws against hate literature. They must still be further refined. They must be strengthened. We still see that hate literature is being brought across the borders into this country which in fact incites hatred against people in our community.
The second thing the Liberal Government of the past did was not only develop the hate literature law gradually against opposition, against editorials in The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Star, but it nonetheless persisted in bringing in that legislation against hate literature. We also moved in the direction of bringing about a policy of multiculturalism. That policy tried to bring about better respect among Canadians each of the other, no matter what their linguistic background, the language they spoke, the religion they espoused, the culture group they belonged to, their sex or gender or what their background may have been.
We have a rich country because we have a multitude of cultures, not just one. They are the riches of the nation, the riches of the world. We have people who belong to many cultures, backgrounds, races and creeds. We respect one another. That policy of multiculturalism has been the basis for this country in fighting hatred and violence. It is a total policy which we must use to fight violence.
The third area to fight violence was to bring in a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I remember the time it took us to
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convince the provinces to agree to signing the international human rights Covenants. We had to carry on a petition campaign in 1971. We forget how recently this battle was against violence, genocide and hatred. We forget how thin is the veneer of civilization still. In 1971 Canada still had not yet signed the international human rights covenants because the provinces refused until then, and until some time later, to give their consent to Canada signing those covenants.
Why could Canada not sign them without the provinces? Those covenants included areas that dealt with matters that were of a provincial nature. In respect for the provinces, the federal Liberal Government was not able to proceed more quickly in signing those international human rights covenants. Through the persuasion of petitions we were able one by one to convince each of the provinces to sign those covenants. It was a long struggle.
Then came the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It was a further step to try and espouse those noble values and principles and enshrine them into our Constitution. We wanted to say that all men are equal, that they will be treated equally, that they have the right to be respected and not to be assaulted in their dignity and their right to exist in freedom in this country. That is why the Charter of Rights needed to be enshrined.
There are those who want to regress and treat these things in a light-hearted fashion. Canadians wanted that Charter. They have now seen that dream also, another step forward, step by step to combat violence. In the Charter of Rights and Freedoms we speak about the right of people to be able to conduct their lives without threat to their dignity, to their person, their family and their property. We cannot do enough to enshrine these values.
I am happy to say that this is one of the great Parliaments of the world, one of the few places in the world where we believe we can enjoy those freedoms, where we try to protect the dignity of our citizens. I am proud to be part of that kind of Parliament and to have served in that Parliament. I suggest that this Bill is indeed just a stop-gap measure, a small blip in a much greater challenge which we must face. That challenge is to face violence and deal with it, not merely with the rape that takes place or the terrorism that takes place, or the battered wives or children who are abused. Rather, we must deal with the causes of violence.
We must ask ourselves about the way in which the communication systems convey violence, particularly the manner of permitting into this country hate literature or pornography which enhances, spreads or incites a form of violence. Rape is a form of violence, as is child abuse, murder and terrorism. Denying the dangers of the Holocaust and its existence is indeed to deny the greatest and most horrible violence we have known in this century.
Right at this time, because our Bills still are not adequate and our protection is not adequate, hate literature and denials of the Nazi Holocaust can enter and cross our borders at will. I wish to bring to the attention of the House the horrors that existed for those who would deny that the Holocaust took
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place. It was not just this deformed mentality that has been entertaining, if you will, those who enjoy that kind of entertainment in a hard hat and in a courtroom. Others in this country who are perhaps more serious individuals are also hateful and have also spread the idea that the Holocaust did not take place. I remember someone from Quebec who ran for the Tory Party who was espousing that view. He ran in Terrebonne. He espoused the view that the Holocaust never took place, that the Jews in fact torpedoed their own ships to create martyrs in the last war. That came from the mentality of a Canadian, not one who is across the seas.
In case there are those pathetic minds who think that the Holocaust never took place for one reason or another, I wish to point out that I recently attended a rally at Queen's Park in Toronto. The rally was held in order to allow the German Consul General, Dr. Ernst-Gunther Koch, to be able to give a message from Germany about the Holocaust to counter this hate literature, this hatred being distributed throughout the country to cast doubt upon the integrity of the Jewish people and their honesty in saying that the Holocaust took place. These are the words of Dr. Koch:
I thank you very much for your invitation to be with you this afternoon. This gives me-as the representative of the Federal Republic of Germany-an opportunity to draw your attention to the following facts:
The conviction of my Government as well as the attitude of the German people with regard to the genocide of the Jews during the National Socialist Regime-
That was the Nazi regime.
-are based on the fact that it was the declared goal of the national socialist policy to persecute and annihilate the Jewish population in Germany and Europe for racial reasons.
As a consequence of this criminal policy, millions of Jews were killed, and the Jews were afflicted with terrible pain and grief.
These facts are absolutely evident for my Government. They are confirmed by the consistent results of research of all competent historians as well as by the sentences pronounced by German courts and by witnesses and defendants in these procedures. The great majority of Germans shares this view which has been held by all German governments since the chancellorship of Konrad Adenauer in 1949. My Government considers it an undeniable fact that a large number of Jews were gassed in concentration camps. German courts have regarded the claim that there were no gas-chambers in concentration camps established by the Nazi regime for the mass murder of Jews and other people as defamation and have instituted criminal proceedings in such cases.
The Federal and Land Governments of the Federal Republic of Germany have been endeavouring for decades to redress the crimes of the Nazi Regime. The Bundesrat and the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany have repeatedly stated that redress for the crimes of the Nazi Regime is one of the most important and urgent commitments of the German people.
That was a statement made by Dr. Ernst-Guenther Koch, Consul General of Germany, on behalf of his Government.
I bring this to your attention, Mr. Speaker, to show how, on the one hand, one can have the total submission of the German Governments and of the German people to clarify their own history and yet we have the bizarre situation of pedlars of hate defaming the Jewish people and those of us who had parents and relatives who were not Jews but died in the Holocaust. They are defaming the very existence of those people and

April 2, 1985
Customs Tariff
saying that they have made up this story in order to advance their ends. That is hatred. It fans the flames of hatred.
Indeed, we should be considering whether or not there should be laws in Canada, as there are laws in Germany, that forbid the dissemination of such hatred as to deny the existence of a Holocaust which swept away in its ranks not only the six million Jews who were gassed only because they were Jews but the gypsies, the mentally ill and, as well, the other 25 million people of Europe who died as a result of that Holocaust. That ultimate Holocaust was caused by hatred and the propensity to say that only one race was greater than all others, something which is exactly the opposite of the beliefs of this Parliament and all it has stood for and fought for over the decades.
This is a matter of fighting for civilization. When passing this particular Bill we must not feel as though we have achieved something great here today. It is merely a stop-gap measure. In the general thrust of this House, I hope we shall continue assiduously to try to promote and carry on a battle against violence in all of its forms. The idea of combatting such things as rape and violence against women in the form of pornography or hate literature, or any other thing such as the advocacy of capital punishment, should continue by this Parliament in order that reverence for human life be established and that this Parliament be able to set an example for other Parliaments throughout the world.
I thank you for your attentiveness, Mr. Speaker, and for the time of the House allowing me to be able to express my deeper concerns which go beyond this particular Bill. I hope they will be there for us to continue to use as guideposts for the future and for the great heritage of this Parliament of Canada.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Questions and comments? Is the House ready for the question?


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Ms. McDougall, seconded by Mr. Hnatyshyn, moves that Bill C-38, an Act to amend the Customs Tariff Act, be read the second time and referred to the Committee of the Whole. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the second time and the House went into Committee thereon, Mr. Danis in the chair.
Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.
Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I appreciate very much the co-operation again shown by the Opposition. Under the circumstances, I think we should take an extra five minutes for lunch. I believe there is an inclination to see the clock as being at one o'clock. After Routine Proceedings, we will proceed on the Bill relating to the Charter of Rights.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It being one o'clock, I do now leave the chair until two o'clock this day.
At 12.57 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS The House resumed at 2 p.m.


Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, the Government of Canada has sent a delegation of Members of Parliament to the U.S.S.R. under the leadership of that famous globe-trotter, the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark). The group is composed of the Hon. Members for Western Arctic (Mr. Nickerson), Kootenay West (Mr. Brisco), Calgary South (Mrs. Sparrow), Niagara Falls (Mr. Nicholson), Leeds-Grenville (Mrs. Cossitt), Temis-camingue (Mr. Desjardins) and, apparently, the Parliamentary Secretary, the Hon. Member for Dollard (Mr. Weiner).
Mr. Speaker, if you haven't noticed yet, all those Members are Tories. It seems that the Government cannot find anything else for the back-benchers on the government side to do, other than to send them on trips around the world. The action of the Government in sending only Conservative members to represent our country should please the Soviets immensely. They too are of the opinion that there should be only one Party.



ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS


Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg-Birds Hill):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the cuts in the Canadian Wildlife Service took effect, an appropriate day for them to have done so, because only a fool would still try to justify the terrible mistake the Tories have made in this area.
Witness after witness testified before the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Forestry that the research to be aban-donned as a result of the cuts would not be picked up by the private sector, the universities, or the provinces, and that is undoubtedly the case. Yet the Minister of the Environment (Mrs. Blais-Grenier) decided to have eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, and has stubbornly refused to reconsider.
April 2, 1985

We can only hope that when it comes to the many remaining items on the Canadian environmental agenda, the Tories will show more sensitivity to public support for environmental protection than they have when it comes to wildlife and national park planning. What about the promise they made during the election to make environmental impact assessment something required by law? Or will this conflict with the Deputy Prime Minister's (Mr. Nielsen) joint study team on regulatory program review, which has been asked to evaluate environmental programs primarily on the basis of whether they directly or indirectly constitute an obstacle to economic development or job creation?
Since that is obviously the case with some environmental programs, at least insofar as traditional forms of exploitative economic development are concerned, one can only conclude that the worst is not yet over. The Tories, like the Romans who persecuted Saint Paul because Christianity was putting the idol makers out of business, use the rhetoric of job creation to cover the fact that what they are really concerned about is the well-being of that idolatry represented by the values of the market-place, a form of sanctified self-seeking that has already done enough to creation, both human and nonhuman-


Mr. Speaker:: I regret to advise the Hon. Member that his time has expired.



REGIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT


Mr. Richard Grise (Chambly):: Mr. Speaker, on April 1 in the riding of Chambly, a group of business people from a number of municipalities that are particularly affected by unemployment have opened a door to job creation. Thanks to the program set up by the Department of Employment and Immigration, these men and women who, like the present Government, are aware of Canada's economic development needs, have set up an industrial and business recovery fund.
The new LEAD company will receive more than $2 million in financial assistance over the next five years. This recovery fund will be a source of risk capital, to be used not only to help existing businesses but also to attract new businesses that will create more than 50 permanent jobs in three communities in the riding of Chambly.
Mr. Speaker, by maintaining programs similar to the LEAD Program, the Progressive Conservative Government is clearly showing it is anxious to deal with employment problems in Canada, Quebec and more specifically in the riding of Chambly.



AGRICULTURE


Mr. Elliott Hardey (Kent):: Mr. Speaker, many of my constituents in the riding of Kent feel that the Farm Credit Corporation may never function properly or become the main lender of farm credit again unless an agri-bond or similar program can be developed and legislated. I realize the efforts which many are making to bring this about, and I call on all Members of this House not only to encourage this action but to encourage its expediency.
But there is another very important and immediate problem to be addressed in the farm community, and the Farm Credit Corporation holds the key to the solution. The problem is this. How do we deal with the many questionable bankruptcies facing many of our most aggressive and efficient farmers, in other words, the farmers we cannot afford to lose?
A recent special review board has indicated that many of these farmers may still be viable even though their net worth has shrunk due to decreasing land prices. The same escalated land prices that were involved improperly in the lending of dollars are now involved improperly, due to devalued land prices, in the "unlending", if I may use that word, of the same dollars.
1 call on the agency to be less rigid and to be the first to waive one-half of the actual dollars it estimates it will lose when it forces a bankruptcy sale. I believe the banking industry is ready to follow this course and is watching closely for the initiative to be taken by the FCC. With that action, this sensitive issue could be resolved sooner, and even the taxpayer would benefit.



IMMIGRATION


Mrs. Lucie Pepin (Outremont):: Mr. Speaker, when we mentioned the occurrences at Toronto detention centre for persons claiming refugee status a few weeks ago, the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Miss MacDonald) referred the matter to the Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration.
The House will recall that the RCMP questioned prospective refugees without the benefit of a lawyer or adviser. There was also a problem about the lack of information given these people on assistance available from humanitarian and professional agencies.
Mr. Speaker, the committee must now discuss how its members are to conduct their investigation. The Committee on Transport and Communications was allowed to travel far and wide, but it seems there are no funds left for the Committee on

April 2, 1985
Labour, Employment and Immigration. The problems discussed in the Committee on Transport are probably less embarrassing politically than those on the agenda of the Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration.
Mr. Speaker, this goes to show there is a wide gap between the Progressive Conservative Party's so-called resolve to govern by consensus and what is actually happening.



WESTERN ACCORD-REMOVAL OF OIL INDUSTRY TAXES

Mr. Ian Waddell (Vancouver-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, Ontario's Deputy Energy Minister, Duncan Allan, was quoted this morning as having said that he fears the federal Government "gave away the store", and is exhibiting "a lot of faith" that the oil industry won't simply take its money and run, under the Western Accord. Those are his words, not mine. I believe that at the minimum we should have a statement from the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and Premier Miller on the kind of language which the Deputy Energy Minister of Ontario used.
The Conservative's new energy policy removes five federal taxes on the oil industry, at a cost to the federal Treasury of $1 billion over the next two years. There is another $1.4 billion deficit in the oil import subsidy account. When it comes to oil companies, clearly the federal deficit is no problem. It is only a problem for ordinary Canadians whose programs and benefits must be cut back.
We have seen the catch phrases which have been used by the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Miss Carney) before. Catch phrases such as "engine of economic growth", "market-oriented prices", and "end to discriminatory taxes" have been used. I figured out where I had seen those catch phrases. I have seen them in the Gulf advertisements on television and in the newspapers in the last four years.
Why would a Government give a conservative company like Texaco such a windfall? It is a disastrous policy. I would suggest three ways to salvage it. One, Premier Miller must insist that Clause 9 of the agreement on consumer protection must be beefed up. One could sail a super tanker through that clause. Two, the Petroleum Monitoring Agency should be given more power to monitor in the upstream and downstream-


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



NEED TO MAKE RADICAL CHANGES TO EXISTING LEGISLATION

Mr. Gilles Bernier (Beauce):: Mr. Speaker, does the right to work exist in 1985? We live in a society governed by laws that often put constraints on that fundamental freedom that is the right of the citizens of this country to engage in employment.
As far as employment is concerned, I am astonished at the number of rules and regulations. In Quebec, work permits, qualification cards and OCQ regulations often penalize large numbers of workers. Our democratic institutions leave very little room for invention, creativity, freedom of choice and the right to work. I am convinced that thanks to technological change, employment will increase as a result of the creativity and energy of the individual.
Canadians and Canadian businesses must know they cannot constantly live off government handouts. I am sure there is a majority that wants to be free to go on working and developing their skills. Interventionism is not a panacea. We must reduce Government intervention in the lives and economic activities of Canadians. Government administration today is often too complex to be effective.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, thousands of workers are anxious to see drastic changes in our present legislation so that they can work freely without constraints. As far as federal-provincial relations are concerned, I suggest taking down the barriers that are preventing my constituents and Quebecers and Canadians in general from working where they want to work.

[DOT] (MIO)



SOCIAL SECURITY


Mrs. Pauline Browes (Scarborough Centre):: Mr. Speaker, the Progressive Conservative Party has long been the champion of effective and beneficial social programs. The Conservative Government under John Diefenbaker introduced some of the most progressive social assistance legislation in Canadian history. To quote the Hon. Member for Regina East (Mr. de Jong): "Mr. Diefenbaker's concern for the unfortunate, the weak, and minorities should be a reminder in future years to Members of Parliament and Governments yet to come." Yes, it is this Party and, indeed, this Government, which truly care about all Canadians.
The Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Epp) wrote in his consultation paper on child and elderly benefits that the concept of universality is a keystone of our social safety net. Its integrity must not and will not be called into question.
April 2, 1985

The Progressive Conservative Party is a caring Party for all Canadians. We do not believe that Canadians are ordinary; we believe that all Canadians are extraordinary.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, it was reported in the Ottawa Citizen that Pierre Couillard, an expert in wildlife disease, has been hired as a chauffeur for the national museums. I submit that no credible consideration of ways and means to reduce the deficit could seriously conclude that a saving of $3.8 million, roughly one ten-thousandth of the deficit, in the Canadian Wildlife Service would do anything to move the Government toward sound fiscal management. Yet, $3.8 million represents a 17 per cent reduction in the annual budget of the Canadian Wildlife Service, and will cause widespread disruption of research activities and human resources.
Canada gets a good return on its annual investment of $22 million in the CWS. Recent Government statistics about the importance of wildlife to Canadians indicate that industry, directly or indirectly related to wildlife, employs about 184,000 individuals, and generates about $2.9 billion in personal income. From this the federal Government receives about $737 million in income taxes, and another $269 million in import and excise duties. By comparison, the total revenues to be saved, or costs recovered, announced on November 13 for the whole of Environment Canada for the fiscal year 1985-86, total only $44.1 million, or 4 per cent of the entire revenue generated by wildlife related industries. Despite claims by the Government that the cuts were rationalized, no rationale besides restraint and sound fiscal management has been forthcoming.
We condemn the action taken by the Government which has led to Canada's top wildlife experts having to seek positions of employment which are totally unrelated to their qualifications, and to severe losses in the long term to Canada as a whole.



CULTURAL AFFAIRS


Mr. Barry Turner (Ottawa-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, we live in a world of rapid advancement, and it is sometimes with awe that we watch and experience the impact of these developments and how they affect our lives. It therefore becomes all the more crucial that we take time to reflect on our heritage and recognize the absolute importance of supporting Canada's arts and culture. It is unfair and unrealistic to expect Canadian artists alone to ensure the enhancement and future of our
culture. This process should be a collective effort, shared by our artists, the general public, and our Government.
Ottawa has the advantage of the National Arts Centre, an institution which gives us the opportunity to patronize artists from across the country. It is, however, equally important that we support the smaller groups in our communities. The National Capital region supports organizations such as the Great Canadian Theatre Company, servicing both the adults and youth of our community. In Vancouver, the Vancouver Playhouse not only produces shows but also has a mandate to cultivate young talent. In Toronto, Theatre Passe Muraille endeavours to exhibit Canadian works. In Montreal, Le Theatre de Nouveau Monde works to ensure the future of French Canada's unique culture. These are only a few of our organizations which represent thousands of Canadian artists who are dedicated to Canada's cultural development. But dedication is not enough; they also need our financial support.



CHARTER OF RIGHTS


Abram Ernest Epp: With the equality provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to be proclaimed on April 17, Canadians are again reminded of their right to freedom of speech and assembly, and to freedom from discrimination. However, many Canadians whose mother tongue is neither English nor French will be unable to understand those fundamental rights fully.
Although the Charter has been translated into some 16 languages, there remain some very significant omissions. Where, for example, is the Charter in Japanese, in Inuktittut, in Finnish-spoken in Canada by the largest population of Fins outside Finland-in Hindi, or in Russian? All these and others are spoken as the first language by large numbers of Canadians.
Now that the Liberal Canadian Unity Information Office has been disbanded, its functions with respect to distributing the Charter to Canadians have been absorbed by the Secretary of State (Mr. McLean). I am told, however, that the Department does not intend to have any other translations done. The Government has stated its intention to enhance multicultural-ism. In the rush to hack off government programs, it is forgetting significant portions of our society. I trust the Secretary of State and the Minister of State for Multiculturalism (Mr. Murta) will consider this unfortunate lapse and make the Charter available soon to all Canadians.

April 2, 1985
Oral Questions



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Right Hon. John N. Turner (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. He must have recognized that the recent oil deal certainly does not benefit the consumers who will be the real victims of that deal. The Prime Minister certainly did not reassure the people of Ontario yesterday when he refused to give a commitment that there would be no increase in taxes at the pump.
Will the Minister assure this House that there will be no taxes imposed at the pump? Will he give us his undertaking that that will not be part of his Budget? Will he at the same time explain to the House why he made that commitment initially and spontaneously to reporters, and then withdrew it?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I think it is very clear that the Western Accord does benefit consumers, particularly those who are out of a job today. There will be 250,000 or 300,000 of those people who will get work as a result of the Accord.
As to the other questions that the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition has put to me, he knows that those are matters which would be addressed in a Budget. I remind him that we will be addressing a very wide range of issues in the Budget which affect both the revenue and expenditures of the Government. He will have to wait until then, as will others, for those answers.


EMPLOYMENT FORECAST
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether that is the advice that his Deputy Minister is giving him, because it is certainly not the advice of the Deputy Minister of Energy of Ontario, Duncan Allan, who is reported today's Toronto Star as saying he is skeptical about whether the industry can create 250,000 jobs. He says if Ottawa imposes a gasoline tax to help pay for the energy deal, it will throw Canadians out of work. That is the official Ontario position.
Therefore, would the Minister be good enough to table the list of alleged jobs that would be created, and which was cited by his colleague, the Minister of Energy, and which seemed to be as full of holes as a piece of Swiss cheese, and show us where those jobs are coming from?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I am really quite taken aback by the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition. On the one hand he tells me that we should be addressing the problems of the deficit, and on the other hand he says we should not be doing certain things to address those problems. I do not have the list that the Minister of Energy is referring to, and I suggest he put that question to her when she returns to the House.


ONTARIO AND QUEBEC PREMIERS
John Napier Turner: 1
posed that question because the Minister was boasting about jobs flowing from the deal. Would the Minister tell the House whether, before that deal was signed, he had consultations with his counterparts in Ontario and Quebec to assure them that his officials were not actively exploring ways of levying a huge tax at the retail level on gasoline to compensate for revenues lost to the oil industry as a result of this deal? Did the Premiers of Ontario and Quebec agree in advance with the oil deal, knowing that in view of this potential tax increase, and, I suggest, forthcoming tax increase, their consumers would be footing a bill of somewhere in the range of five to ten cents a litre?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition is using scare tactics which are inappropriate for the House. He has written, in his own words, that the national energy policy was a disaster. For that reason we have moved quickly to make the changes in that policy that will create jobs, not only in western Canada but in the consuming provinces of Ontario and Quebec. I would think that the Premiers of both those provinces will be very pleased when those jobs are created.


NOTIFICATION OF ONTARIO PREMIER
Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. It is with regard to the oil deal as well. Last Thursday I asked the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources if the Premier of Ontario had been consulted on the details of the oil deal and its relative negative impacts on Ontario. In her reply the Minister said that she would be addressing that in her remarks the same afternoon, which of course was not the case. Can the Deputy Prime Minister now tell the House when the Premier of Ontario was notified of the details of the deal? What input, if any, did he have in the process of the signing of that agreement?


Hon. Erik Nielsen (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources when she made her statement. I recall her saying that she consulted with the Minister of Energy of the Province of Ontario all through the process. She assured the House that there were no negative impacts on the Province of Ontario.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: It has a positive impact.


Erik Nielsen: As my hon. friend points out, it has quite a positive effect on the Province of Ontario, including jobs and industrial spin-offs. I wish the Hon. Member would accept the explanation rather than running around, as the Minister of Finance has said, like his Leader and, through scare tactics, creating fear in the hearts of Ontarians.
April 2, 1985


PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING WITH ONTARIO PREMIER
Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, if there was no negative impact, why was an emergency meeting held between the Prime Minister and the Premier of Ontario, even if it was after the fact? Why did the Premier come out of that meeting empty-handed? Would the Minister not agree with the Ontario Deputy Minister of Energy, Duncan Allan, who said that the Government gave away the store to the multinational oil companies?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, that same question was put yesterday by Hon. Members of the Opposition. There was no emergency meeting. There was a meeting with the Premier of Ontario, and there will continue to be meetings with Premiers of other provinces, totally unlike the die that was cast by the previous administration. There is a new era of federal-provincial co-operation in existence now. You will have to get used to that.


STATEMENT ATTRIBUTED TO ONTARIO DEPUTY MINISTER
Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct my question to the Minister of Finance. The Ontario Deputy Energy Minister, Duncan Allan, fears that the federal Government "gave away the store" and is exhibiting "a lot of faith" that the oil industry won't simply take its money and run. Does the Minister agree with that statement? If he does not agree with it, is he accusing the Government of Ontario of using scare tactics?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Simply put, Mr. Speaker, I do not agree with that statement. I would suggest that the jobs which will be created by the Western Accord will be beneficial, perhaps even to downtown Vancouver. The Accord will be beneficial to the Province of Ontario, the Province of Quebec, and the entire country, because of the jobs that will be created by the new incentives that are now in place and which were taken away by the previous Government. 1 would remind the House that the Hon. Member did not like the last energy policy for the same reason, that it was cutting out jobs all across the country.


IMPACT ON CONSUMERS
Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, consumers and taxpayers in downtown Vancouver and elsewhere in the country are concerned that their taxes are going to be increased, either at the pump or generally, to pay for this windfall that was given to the oil companies. Will the Minister go on record telling Canadian consumers that their taxes will not be increased to pay for the windfall he just gave to the oil companies?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I answered an almost identical question about two minutes ago. If the Hon. Member did not hear me then, I will repeat the answer. Consumers, particularly those who are out of a job
Oral Questions
today, will be very pleased by the impact of this energy accord because it will create jobs right across the country. On September 4 we were elected to create jobs, and we will be creating those jobs.


IMMIGRATION
Lucie Pépin: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Employment and Immigration, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister.
Yesterday, the Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration tabled its report on future immigration levels. Could the Minister inform the House whether he agrees with the mainly economic focus of the report and especially with the fact that we seem to be attracting wealthy immigrants to ensure Canada's economic growth?


Hon. Bill McKnight (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member is referring to a report of the parliamentary committee. When the Government has had an opportunity to review that report it will be making its views known. The report, and the press conference following that report, in no way impinges upon Canada's ability to accept refugees.


TRUST COMPANIES
Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops-Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State for Finance. In the last eight weeks we have seen a major trust company in Saskatchewan collapse, and the near collapse of the tenth largest bank in Canada. We learned yesterday that Western Capital Trust has collapsed in Vancouver. It is important that the financial community know that the Minister is taking action.
When the Minister learns that a trust company or bank is in trouble, does she always take immediate action to ensure that the Government is doing everything possible to stop a collapse or near collapse?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Yes, Mr. Speaker.


MINISTER'S POSITION
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, today I learned from sources within the Department of Insurance that the Minister of State for Finance was given a report in December outlining the problems associated with Western

April 2, 1985
Oral Questions
Capital Trust in Vancouver, and laying out a course of action to stave off a collapse. The Minister refused to take any action. If the Minister was notified of the problem and given a course of action to stop the collapse, will she explain why she failed to take action?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, my officials met continually over the winter months with the people from Western Capital Trust. In January the head of Western Capital Trust was given the opportunity to come to see me personally, and he refused.


REQUEST FOR MINISTER'S RESIGNATION
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, we have a financial Nero here. The financial community is serious about the concerns of a variety of trust companies and banks. They have been getting into certain troubles. We have now heard from the Department of Insurance that the Minister refused to take action. This is a time when strong leadership is required. The Minister has admitted that she did not take action when she was directed to. Therefore, will she do the honourable thing and resign from that position?


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some Hon. Members:: Shame!


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, I will do the honourable thing. I am producing a paper on financial institutions for which the industry has been waiting for years. I have also instituted a report on the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation for which the industry has been waiting for years. That is the honourable thing to do, Mr. Speaker, and I am doing it.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


IMMIGRATION
Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. Yesterday's Conservative report advocating conditional increases in immigration based on an individual's wealth is completely immoral. It overlooks the tens of thousands of average immigrants who have come here and made themselves successful entrepreneurs and immigrants, who have taken jobs that Canadians did not want. All immigrants, regardless of economic status, are automatic consumers when they come into the country.
Is the Deputy Prime Minister prepared to reject this latest elitist proposal, in favour of a more balanced and humanitarian approach, given that traditional immigration policy has been built on family unification and humanitarian concerns?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, that is quite a bundle that is all wrapped up into what masquerades as a question. The fact of the matter is that what the Hon. Member refers to as a Conservative report is not a Conservative report. It is a report of the standing committee.
The Minister of Employment and Immigration informs me that she has spoken with some 160 organizations, including provincial Governments. The standing committee report is yet one other source of advice, albeit a very important one, upon which she is calling, as he knows.
When the standing committees report, the Government considers their recommendations and makes any decisions that might flow therefrom known in due course.


Sergio Marchi: I would indicate to the Deputy Prime Minister that it was a Conservative report. Only the nine Conservative Members agreed to the report. The Liberals did not, and produced a minority report.


CONSIDERATION OF REPORT
Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. How can the Cabinet and the Government consider a report that is based on the whims of nine Tory Members, when not one ethnocultural witness was asked to come, not one immigrant aid society, and not one economist was asked to come to correlate unemployment and immigration? Is he prepared to repudiate this very elitist, one track, and regressive policy, in light of these facts?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, perhaps it is a result of his inexperience with the practices and procedures of this place, but what the Hon. Member is advocating is a total dismantling of the committee system, regardless of the fact of numbers on the committee. I can recall when the position was precisely reversed and the Liberals held the majority on that committee. Nonetheless, it was a report of the committee, even though there are majorities on each of those committees.
With respect to the string of witnesses that he enumerates as not having had input to that committee, I would suggest that the Hon. Member has been woefully lacking in his duty as a Member of Parliament on that committee by not ensuring that those witnesses did appear.


TRUST COMPANIES
Mr. Simon de Jong (Regina East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State for Finance. Last week the federal Government participated in the bailing out of the Canadian Commercial Bank to the tune of almost $255 million, much of it interest free.
April 2, 1985

According to information I have received, the Saskatchewan Minister of Finance, through his office, has been telling uninsured depositors of Pioneer Trust that they will be fully compensated, or nearly fully compensated, and that an announcement will be made soon. Will the federal Government be contributing to the uninsured depositors' compensation, over and above what CDIC has already paid out?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, I have already indicated in the House that I am having discussions with the Minister of Finance in Saskatchewan. I have nothing new to add.


UNINSURED INCOME AVERAGING CERTIFICATES
Simon Leendert de Jong: Mr. Speaker, trust companies and other financial institutions are falling down like ten pins. Obviously CDIC has not the resources to fulfil its legislative responsibility properly. My supplementary question concerns the matter raised by my colleague, the Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville, about the uninsured guaranteed income averaging certificates that were sold by Pioneer Trust with CDIC approval. Was CDIC aware of this practice, and what responsibility does CDIC have in compensating those people who have been misled?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member's opening remarks are among the most irresponsible statements I have ever heard in the House.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Barbara Jean McDougall: I can tell you right now that financial institutions in this country are not falling like ten pins, and I am producing results.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. In view of the comments made by the Minister of Employment and Immigration yesterday outside the House that neither she nor her Department had done an impact study on the proposed changes with regard to unemployment insurance, does the Minister stand behind his comment: "That is not my responsibility. It is her Department that would have an impact study done on that particular matter"? Does he stand behind that comment?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Minister of Employment and Immigration and I had extensive discussions at the time these proposals were made back in November. During the weeks and months following that, she had extensive consultations with the industry about the impact of the measures. She proposed changes in the
Oral Questions
implementation of the proposals, which resulted in a phased in change, or transitional change, part of which took effect this Monday and part of which will take effect as of the first of next year. I think she has demonstrated that she is very much on top of the issue, aware of the impact that it has had, and has made the proper adjustments.


REQUEST FOR FREEZE ON IMPLEMENTATION OF CHANGES
David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, the Minister has given tax holidays and tax breaks to the multinational oil companies. Is he prepared to exercise his responsibility to the unemployed and poverty stricken by putting a freeze on these unemployment insurance changes, ordering an impact study and tabling it in Parliament, before there is any implementation of unemployment insurance changes? Is he prepared to do that?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, if the Hon. Member would step back and look at the direction of the changes we are proposing, he would see that we are saying that the unemployment insurance fund is just that, an unemployment insurance fund. Over a period of time it has been allowed to do other things besides insuring against the impact of unemployment. That is what we are trying to adjust. We are very sensitive to the impact of those changes.
However, I would ask him to address those same comments to the workers and employers, particularly small businesses, who support the unemployment insurance fund with their premiums. The premiums are getting very high and we are looking at ways of restoring unemployment insurance to its original purpose.


CANADIAN WHEAT BOARD
Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board. I am sure that he is aware of the need for cash for farmers in western Canada. He has also received representations from the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, UGG, the Farmers' Union, CAM and other organizations, about the possibility of a new program for spring seeding cash advances. Has the Minister had an opportunity to consider this proposal? Is he able to announce the date at which he could take appropriate action to provide a spring seeding cash advance for those farmers who need cash between now and spring seeding?


Hon. Charles Mayer (Minister of State (Canadian Wheat Board)):: Mr. Speaker, the Member raises an important issue. Indeed there was a problem with the crop on the Prairies in the previous year, and there is need for cash to encourage producers to put their crops in the ground.
I have had representations which we have studied. The Member should know that there is considerable difficulty with
Oral Questions
implementing the proposal, but I have not totally ruled it out. While I do not want to raise too much expectation, we are still looking at it.
I can say that we are very close to announcing a substantial payment under the Western Grain Stabilization Act that will be in their hands prior to spring seeding.


GOVERNMENT POSITION
Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, the Minister said that he is looking at the possibility of a spring seeding cash advance. Does that also apply to this year as well? Has he ruled it out for this year, or can the farmers expect the possibility of such an advance before May 1?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, I can say that we have to consider this year because the reason why we are talking about the problem is that we had a poor crop last year. If we talk about it for an upcoming season, it would mean that we are clairvoyant and would know what kind of crop we will have in the current growing season. Obviously, we do not know that. Therefore, in order to make it useful, we must consider it in terms of the coming year. As I said, we have not totally ruled it out, but it seems that it would be very difficult to administer, and in some cases could cause problems for farmers who need credit the most.


CLOSURE OF WABASSO PLANT IN WELLAND-PLIGHT OF WORKERS
Mr. Allan Pietz (Welland):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Labour. During October of 1984, 490 workers in my riding of Welland received employment termination notices from the Wabasso Textile Company. The Welland plant was the first Wabasso plant to close. The older laid-off workers received some assistance from the Labour Adjustment Review Board legislation. This legislation expires in five months' time. I would like, therefore, to ask the Minister how his future plans for LARB will affect these workers and other possible textile worker lay-offs.


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Mr. Speaker, I wish to inform the Hon. Member that although the LAB program is scheduled for review in August of this year, with a possible extension of three more years, I can also assure the Hon. Member and those individuals who come under that program that their benefits will be ongoing.
April 2, 1985


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Mr. Speaker, my question was for the Minister of Agriculture, but in his absence I will put it to the Acting Minister. Last week the United States slapped a countervailing duty of $12.50 a hog on our exports to the United States. This week there are three teams of U.S. investigators from the Department of Commerce combing through the books and records of the Provincial Marketing Board and stabilization programs of the provinces and the federal Government. In light of the U.S. investigation which is going on this week, is the Government continuing to support the Prince Edward Island Swine Incentive Program? I ask this question because this Program is very important to the viability of the new kill and chill facility in Prince Edward Island. Can the Minister clarify that situation?


Charles James Mayer: I am sorry I cannot bring the Hon. Member up to date on that program, Mr. Speaker. I will take the question as notice and bring him up to date the earliest possible time.


UNITED STATES DUTY ON CANADIAN HOG EXPORTS
Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question. It is about the countervail duty itself because it is having a devastating impact on Canada's pork producers, especially coming two weeks after the summit in Quebec City at which all these problems were supposed to have been ironed out. Would the Acting Minister make a commitment to the hog producers to have the Prime Minister telephone the President to ask him to call back these Department of Commerce investigators, and to lift this duty which is having a devastating impact on agriculture in Canada?


Hon. James Kelleher (Minister for International Trade):: Mr. Speaker, we are well aware of the devastating effect that these duties are having on the Canadian hog producers.
I want to advise that yesterday our government officials met with the hog producers in Canada and their counsel to assist them with their hearing that will be held in Washington later in June. I would also like to remind the hon. gentleman that the levies at this time are temporary. We have an opportunity to make further representations, and we are hopeful that we will be able to persuade the tribunal that the levies are not warranted at this time.


CANADIAN WHEAT BOARD
Mr. Vic Althouse (Humboldt-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board. He will know that plantings of the unprescribed short straw wheat varieties in western Canada went up over

April 2, 1985

500,000 acres last year and are expected to make up some 7 per cent of the total spring wheat acreage on the Prairies this year. There is real concern among farmers that the superior quality of Canadian wheat may be placed in jeopardy through the increasing use of these varieties. We also know that the Minister has established a committee to find ways of legitimizing the use of these wheats which are not now licensed. Can he tell us his personal experience with these kinds of varieties? Have they been grown in his area or on his farm? What is the Minister's experience with them?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, if you want to hear my experience, I have had a permit book for 30 years. I believe the Hon. Member who asked the question is the only farmer in the two opposition Parties across the way, and I would certainly be happy to swap yarns with him about farming if he wishes.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Charles James Mayer: Let me talk a little bit about what we have done. It is anticipated that acreage will go up this year. We announced a week ago Friday a system whereby we are not legitimizing these varieties. We are not encouraging people to grow them, and we are not discouraging them. We are simply acting as adults in recognizing that there is a potential problem.
If we continue to grow these unlicensed varieties, it can cause us to lose some of our reputation in the international market. None of us want to see that. We are not legitimizing their growing, we are simply recognizing that these varieties will be grown. We have sat down as adults and tried to use some common sense to develop a system that will avoid some of the problems to which the Hon. Member refers.


MINISTER'S POSITION
Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: I had asked the question quite specifically, Mr. Speaker, because there are some concerns among farmers in the grain industry that the Minister himself may have been growing such varieties.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some Hon. Members:: Shame!


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: If so, I thought it seemed unusual for him to have taken on this job since it generally falls within the purview of the Minister of Agriculture. Could the Minister assure us that he is operating at a full arm's length in this particular area, that he has not been involved in production of such grains, and that he is not leaving the impression in the farm community that he is finding a way to legitimize his own past practice?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, I plead guilty as charged. I am in all kinds of conflict of interest. I am a farmer myself, and I am trying to act in the best interests of farmers.
Oral Questions


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some Hon. Members:: More!


Mr. Speaker:: Does the Minister have an answer to the question?


Charles James Mayer: If the Hon. Member is telling me that he does not want me to fight for as large a payment out of the Western Grain Stabilization Act as possible, and if he is telling me that he doesn't want me to get the payment out as quickly as possible because that is a conflict of interest, then that frankly surprises me.
Let me tell the Hon. Member that I have grown semi-dwarf at my place, one of them a licensed variety called fielder. It is grown all over the Prairies. It is licensed, and it is grown particularly in the irrigation areas of southern Alberta.

[ Translation]


CONSUMER AND CORPORATE AFFAIRS
Mr. Francois Gerin (Megantic-Compton-Stanstead):: Mr. Speaker, consumers, small investors and small businessmen are delighted that the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs has started a thorough review of the Combines Investigation Act and the Bankruptcy Act.
Since the present Bankruptcy Act contains a number of provisions that are unfair to the consumer, small business people and small investors, I would like to ask the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs whether future bankruptcy legislation will contain specific measures to improve consumer protection.


Hon. Michel Cote (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned earlier in the course of various consultations and conferences on the Bankruptcy Act, the Government does indeed intend to do a number of studies with a view to revamping the Bankruptcy Act and protecting small investors and consumers.


CITIZENSHIP COURTS
Roland de Corneille: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Hon. Secretary of State. In view of the fact that his Leader, the Prime Minister, promised in the election campaign that he was going to bring in "new dimensions of objectivity and fairness in making federal appointments", could the Minister tell us how this criterion applies to his appointments", could the Minister tell us how this criterion applies to his appointment as a citizenship court judge of

April 2, 1985
Oral Questions
Giovanni Rocca, who worked as a full-time paid employee for the Tory Party and went down to thumping defeat as a Tory candidate in the last election in Davenport?


Hon. Walter McLean (Secretary of State):: Mr. Speaker, I would think the Hon. Member would be extremely excited-


Don Boudria: I am.


Walter Franklin McLean: -that a person who has not only contributed to the political process but who has also contributed to citizenship development in the area of the City of Toronto, such an important area of Canada, has been appointed, and he would be saluting him and wishing him well in his new responsibilities.


APPOINTMENT OF JUDGE SUZANNE WARREN
Roland de Corneille: Obviously he is not following the biblical policy, Mr. Speaker. Apparently the Tory policy is that they shall all be chosen.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Roland de Corneille: Many are called, and many are chosen.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The Hon. Member for Eglin-ton-Lawrence on a supplementary question.


Roland de Corneille: What about the Minister's recent appointment of Suzanne Warren as a citizenship court judge who, at the time of her appointment, was nothing more than a fulltime paid employee of the Tory Party and its chief organizer in Toronto? Isn't this a clear and unmistakable government policy of appointing Tory Party hacks, and proof that one more of the major election promises of the Tories has been broken?


Walter Franklin McLean: Mr. Speaker, it surprises me that the Hon. Member would start off by attacking appointments of Italian Canadians, and then move on to attack the appointments of those with social work and educational backgrounds. The Government has a determination to see that citizenship embraces an holistic approach and that people with wide experience will be included in these appointments.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS
Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina West):: Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of nice questions for the Minister of Transport. Is it the intention of the Minister, or of the Prime Minister, to
announce appointments to the CNR board of directors within the next week or two? If so, about when, and how many?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, it is possible that there will be some changes to the board of CNR. If the Hon. Member is making a pitch for his own candidacy, I will be very glad to receive his CV.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, the job I would have liked has already been filled, namely, that of Minister of Transport.


REPRESENTATIVE APPOINTMENTS
Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Before the appointments are announced, will the Minister assure the House that he and the Prime Minister will depart from previous Liberal practices and Tory practices to date, re the appointments to Air Canada and VIA Rail boards, and restore some reputation and credibility to government appointments so that the people who are appointed, even if they are Conservatives, come from a crosssection of groups and regions of Canada to represent the real owners of the company? For example, there could be one or two CNR pensioners, one or two from the agricultural sector, one or two from consumer groups, one or two from shippers and receivers, and if only one from the legal profession hopefully one who has not been a Tory bagman but who has some experience in transportation law. Would he assure us of that?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, 1 assure the Hon. Member that I will take his question as a serious representation.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: It really is.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: As for his own fortunes, I am sorry he missed out on the plum job he was after. Perhaps he should get a new campaign manager.


FINANCE
Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the spokesman for the multinationals, the Minister of Finance. Yesterday on television, it was obvious that the Premier of Quebec was disappointed by the Minister's decision to give him only $110 million when the Premier was actually expecting $263 million. The Minister will agree with me that, after cutbacks of nearly $1 billion and foot-dragging in the cases of Domtar, VIA Rail and the cartographic institute, Quebecers were expecting a lot more than that. Can the Minister tell us why the Government of Quebec is getting less than half of what it had asked for, whereas other provinces are getting more than half of what they wanted to have?
April 2, 1985


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I think the Hon. Member would be the first to agree with me when I say that, if the Liberals had been in power, they probably would have gotten nothing.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Let me remind him of the formula which I announced in the House yesterday. I said that we would be equitable in applying a 95 per cent floor to the three provinces which would not be receiving the same amount of equalization in the current fiscal year. Obviously that affected different provinces in different ways, because there are different variations from that 95 per cent floor. Since I think he is comparing the Province of Quebec with the Province of Manitoba, I would remind him that Manitoba, without any changes in the equalization payments, will see its amounts go from 480 to 408 to 367 under the formula which the Liberals introduced in 1982. This is why the Province of Manitoba is being treated somewhat better in terms of the absolute amount which has been provided under the supplementary payments.
[ Translation]


INQUIRY WHETHER GOVERNMENT WILL RECONSIDER QUEBEC DEMANDS
Mr. Jean-Claude Malepart (Montreal-Sainte-Marie):: supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. I might remind the Minister that he is the one who decided to slash $1 billion off Quebec projects. He is the one who decided to give Quebec only $110 million, and it was the Premier of Quebec on television last night who was quite disappointed by the Minister's decision. I would hope that it was not an April Fools' Day joke he played on the Premier of Quebec who supported him during the last election campaign. Is the Minister prepared to reconsider his decision and give the Quebec Government at least 75 per cent of the equalization payment it had asked for?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member refers to a billion dollars in projects which have been cut by the Government. I would ask him to table that amount and the specifics of it, and we will have a look at it. I think he will find that the amount is grossly overestimated, as is normally the case with the questions the Hon. Member puts.
I would have like to have done more but, as the Hon. Member for Saint-Maurice said yesterday, we had to look at our own deficit, and we cannot try to control the size of our deficit as well as provide the full amount of money-


Jean-Claude Malépart: How many new jobs in Quebec!
Oral Questions


Michael Holcombe Wilson: If the Hon. Member would care to listen, I would give him an answer.


WESTERN ACCORD-TAXATION INQUIRY
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to return to the Minister of Finance and questions on the energy deal which he has not answered so far. The Deputy Minister of Energy for Ontario correctly pointed out that the Government has given away the store. I should like the Minister to answer the question this time. Considering that he has given oil companies over a billion dollars over the next two years and that, if a tax increase is levied by the federal Government to make up for that billion dollars, it will cost Canada about 20,000 jobs, will the Minister make a commitment that there will be no tax increase to make up for it?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the New Democratic Party is throwing a lot of speculation out on the table here. He knows I will not speculate on matters which will be in the Budget. However, I remind him, as I reminded his colleague from Vancouver-Kingsway, that this energy accord will create a vast number of jobs right across the country. That is very clear, and we will stand on that record.


GOVERNMENT POSITION
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, the Minister knows that he is whistling in the dark. The Deputy Minister of Energy for Ontario, if not the Premier of Ontario, knows how ludicrous are the Minister's statements. Since it is correct that he cannot tell us in advance, in terms of his responsibility, what will be in the Budget, but can tell us, maintaining his responsibility, what will not be in the Budget-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Dick:: He can't do that.


John Edward Broadbent: He can do that. The people behind him can cheer the oil companies, but we are on the side of the people of Canada. Will he tell the people now, before the election is over in Ontario, that there will be no increases in tax as a result of this give-away to oil companies?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I think the people of Canada said on September 4 that the Conservative Party speaks for the people of Canada as well.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!

April 2, 1985
Petitions


Michael Holcombe Wilson: The Hon. Member comes from an Ontario riding. He knows what happened to the steel mills in Hamilton when the NEP came in. He knows what happened to the instrumentation companies in Ontario when the NEP came in. We are trying to reverse that. There will be a large number of jobs created in Ontario, Quebec, and all parts of Canada, as a result of that energy policy. That will be the test of the Western Accord that the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources announced last week.


CLERK OF PETITIONS' REPORT
Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that the petition presented by the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Keeper) on Monday, April 1, meets the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Raymond Garneau (Laval-des-Rapides):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition signed by a number of citizens asking for changes in the administration-


Mr. Speaker:: One moment, please. I cannot hear the Hon. Member.


Raymond Garneau: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition on the administration of public buildings.


Mr. Jack Scowen (Mackenzie):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to present this petition on behalf of some of my constituents who are opposed to the increase in radio licence fees.
[ Translation]


Mr. Vincent Della Noce (Duvernay):: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my colleague from Sherbrooke (Mr. Charest) and myself, I have the honour to present a petition signed by 7,207 residents of the Eastern Townships. This petition has been signed by people who, through the Opinion 63 open line show hosted by Mr. Roch Guertin on radio station CHLT, have
voiced their objection to the excessive increase in the price of gasoline sold in Quebec.
The petitioners humbly call upon Parliament to urge the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Cote) to intervene in this case as soon as possible and establish a national gasoline prices commission.
I present this petition and strongly urge the Government to act on it.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, 1 have the honour to present a petition signed by several dozen people from the Province of Alberta calling on the Government to institute a program to ensure that farmers in southern Alberta get a reasonable guaranteed price for the sugar-beets they produce.
*


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I was just wondering whether you have had an opportunity to review some of the previous decisions by other distinguished Speakers with regard to where petitions come in terms of Routine Proceedings.


Mr. Speaker:: I apologize; I misumderstood the Hon. Member. No, I have not. I will be back to the House as soon as I have. I assure the Hon. Member that the matter is under active consideration.
*


Mr. W. C. Scott (Victoria-Haliburton):: Mr. Speaker, it is my duty and pleasure to present a petition today signed by residents of the constituency of Victoria-Haliburton. These petitioners believe that the Government of Canada must not allow any further changes to Canada's abortion laws which would make abortions and the resultant loss of human life more readily available.


Mr. Fred King (Okanagan-Similkameen):: Mr. Speaker, the petition which I present to the House attests to the concerns brought to my attention by Fred Simpson, Director of Communications for the Penticton Radio Club and club member Mert Rawley, whose representation has the support of 153 general radio service operators who have attached their signatures to a statement asking that the Department of Communications reconsider its decision to license each radio, rather than the norm for other operators in which one licence fee is required irrespective of how many sets they own. The request asks this House to recognize the role which radio club mem-
April 2, 1985

bers assume by involving themselves in many community projects and-


Mr. Speaker:: With respect, I have to interrupt the Hon. Member. I think he knows that the presentation has to be brief.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition signed by several dozen people from southwestern Ontario in the Huron-Bruce area, calling on the Government to reinstate the funding for the Canagrex program to ensure that we continue to export our agricultural commodities abroad.



NUCLEAR POWER ACT


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: for leave to introduce Bill C-231, an Act establishing a moratorium on the continued development of nuclear power in Canada for the purpose of establishing a public inquiry into nuclear power that is followed by a national referendum.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to be able to seek leave of the House to introduce the Bill today and have it read a first time. I hoped I would not have to proceed with this Private Member's Bill calling for an inquiry into the whole nuclear field cycle. I thought that was a commitment that the Government had made when it was the Government previously in 1979. However, it looks as if we are not going to have that issue considered. Therefore, I would now like to put that issue before the House in the form of a Private Member's Bill.


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

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Paul Wyatt Dick: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 35, 36 and 236.
Order Paper Questions


Mr. Howie: Is financial assistance available for the creation of new transition houses or crisis centres for women and, if so (a) how is application made and to what body (b) approximately how much money was allocated for this purpose?


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: I am
informed by the Department of National Health and Welfare and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation as follows:
Under the Canada Assistance Plan, which is administered by the Department of National Health and Welfare, the federal Government is authorized to share in 50 per cent of the costs incurred by the provinces in providing residential care and services to needy persons. This includes the maintenance of battered women and their children in shelters commonly referred to as transition houses or crisis centres. Specifically, the Canada Assistance Plan enables sharing of provincial costs related to the operation of transition houses or crisis centres. Operating expenditures may include rental or mortgage payments or depreciation costs. It should be noted that the Canada Assistance Plan does not provide for sharing in provincial costs related to the purchase or construction of these facilities.
(a)	Those wanting financial assistance to establish a transition house or crisis centre apply to provincial or municipal authorities, who decide whether it should be provided. If those authorities provide assistance, the province may request that the federal Government share the costs under the Canada Assistance Plan.
(b)	While it is not possible to estimate the amount of Canada Assistance Plan expenditures for transition houses or crisis centres, the most recent information available (March, 1984) shows that the provinces have chosen to request financial assistance under the Canada Assistance Plan for 63 transition houses.
Transition houses or crisis centres for women may also be eligible for assistance under the Federal Social Housing Program whereby qualifying non-profit groups may obtain mortgage loan insurance for up to 100 per cent of acceptable capital costs and interest reduction subsidies under Section 56.1 of the National Housing Act.
(a)	Non-profit groups wishing to develop and operate transition houses may apply for financial assistance under the Non-Profit Housing Program by submitting a proposal to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Any group intending to apply should contact the nearest branch of CMHC for details on the application procedure.
(b)	In the past, resources under the Non-Profit Housing Program have been allocated in terms of subsidy units, not dollars. The actual amount of subsidy paid out is based on the capital cost of each project and the mortgage interest rate. In 1984, 11 transition homes across Canada have received commitments for funding and their operating costs will be subsi-

April 2, 1985
Order Paper Questions
dized by CMHC for a maximum of 35 years. These projects will provide 129 beds for women and children in crisis.
For more details, please refer to the answer to question No. 36 answered this day.


Mr. Howie: 1.	For the latest date for which figures are available, how many transition houses or crisis centres for women are in operation in Canada?
2.	Have any of these institutions been assisted by the Government?
3.	Is financial assistance available to them and, if so (a) what is it (b) in what manner may it be obtained?


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: 1.
The Department of National Health and Welfare advises that according to the latest figures collected by the National Clearinghouse on Family Violence in 1984, there are approximately 190 transition houses providing residential services to battered women in Canada. There are three projects which provide second stage housing to women who moved beyond the transition house and who are trying to re-establish themselves in independent living situations. In addition, a number of areas are developing safe-home networks.
There are no statistics available on the number of crisis services which provide non-residential services for battered women.
The following Departments have provided a response to Parts 2 and 3. In so far as the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation is concerned:
2.	In 1984, CMHC has assisted 11 transition homes providing 129 beds for women in crisis.
3.	(a) Transition houses or crisis centres for women may be eligible for assistance under the federal Social Housing Program whereby qualifying non-profit groups may obtain mortgage loan insurance for up to 100 per cent of acceptable capital costs and interest reduction subsidies under Section 56.1 of the National Housing Act.
(b) Through application to local offices of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the federal government agency responsible for administering the National Housing Act.
In so far as the Canada Employment and Immigration Commission is concerned:
2.	During 1984, CEIC was providing assistance to 56 transition houses or crisis centres at a cost of $1,524,210.
3.	(a) Assistance is available under the Canada Employment and Immigration Commission's Outreach Program and through employment development programs.
(b) Information concerning funding under Employment and Immigration Canada programs can be obtained through Employment Development Branch offices and Canada Employment Centres.
In so far as the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development is concerned:
2 and 3. Under specific arrangements, an agency may be reimbursed by the Department on a per diem basis for the care and maintenance of a battered Indian woman with reserve residency status. In 1984-85, the Department has entered into very few such arrangements and these costs are not identified separately but are part of the total social assistance funding of the Department.
In so far as the Department of Justice is concerned:
The Department of Justice has no core funding capacity. In response to a proposal in 1984, the Contributions Program has contributed to the following project: Saskatoon Interval house, (public legal education program regarding wife abuse-1984).
In so far as the Department of National Health and Welfare is concerned:
2.	According to the most recent information available (March, 1984), the provinces have chosen to request financial assistance under the Canada Assistance Plan for 63 transition houses.
3.	(a) Yes, through the cost-sharing provisions of the Canada Assistance Plan (CAP), the federal Government shares in provincial/municipal costs of maintaining needy women and their children in transition homes and residential crisis centres. These maintenance costs are rolled up in a per diem fee which is agreed upon by the home and the province/ municipality supporting it.
The Canada Assistance Plan also enables federal sharing of salary and related staff costs of non-profit agencies (such as non-residential crisis centres) providing welfare services such as crisis counselling/intervention.
(b) With respect to transition homes, cost-sharing is contingent upon the home being listed as a home for special care in the CAP agreement, the province/municipality making contributions on behalf of needy residents therein, and the costs being claimed by the province under the terms and conditions of the CAP agreement.
With respect to crisis centres, cost-sharing is contingent upon the crisis centre being listed in the CAP agreement as a provincially-approved welfare service agency, the province/ municipality contributing towards the agency's costs of delivering welfare services and the costs being claimed under the terms and conditions of the CAP agreement.
In so far as the Secretary of State is concerned:
2 and 3. Once the houses or crisis centres are established, the cost of different services can be shared by federal programs. The women's program will provide financial assistance to groups which assist women who are victims of violence. Projects are funded for staff training, information, public awareness, education and others.
From April, 1984 to February 28, 1985, $257,797 was provided in financial assistance.
Groups providing support for women who are victims of violence can apply for financial assistance under the women's Program at one of the regional offices of the Department.
April 2, 1985

In so far as the Ministry of the Solicitor General is concerned:
2.	The Secretariat of the Ministry of the Solicitor General of Canada is involved in funding a range of activities from research and demonstration projects to preparation of kits or pamphlets to assist local groups. It has funded a number of workshops and conferences. In 1984, the Secretariat has contributed $636,672 to assist battered wives.
Assistance is available to any community group either through consultative services, information services or funding.
3.	Financial assistance is available to any community group, voluntary organization, or provincial department for experimental or demonstration projects for a maximum of three years. These projects develop or test new concepts in criminal justice and are usually funded in co-operation with the provinces and are administered by private agencies.
Core funding is offered through sustaining contributions or grants to national voluntary organizations in the criminal justice system.


Mr. Howie: From January I, 1984, what amount was loaned by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation for construction of senior citizens' residences?


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: I am informed by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation as follows:
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation provides direct loans, representing 75 per cent of the capital costs, of constructing housing projects, including senior citizens' residences, under Section 40 of the National Housing Act. It also provides 75 per cent of the yearly operating losses on these projects. In 1984, there were some 584 senior citizens' housing units built under this program. CMHC's share of the capital costs of these units is estimated to be $20,470,576. CMHC's share of the first year's operating losses for these units is estimated at $2,980,956. Operating losses on these projects are paid for a period of up to 50 years.
CMHC does not provide direct loans for the construction of housing projects, including seniors' residences, under the current non-profit and co-operative housing programs. However, CMHC provides mortgage loan insurance and subsidies for these housing units under these programs. In 1984, current records show CMHC insured loans totalling $352,145,969 for the construction and/or acquisition of 7,062 non-profit and co-operative housing units for senior citizens. The subsidies to be paid by CMHC for the first year's operation of these units is estimated at $29,937,507. Final records should be available shortly. These subsidies are paid over the length of the mortgage.
Under Section 44, NHA, CMHC can subsidize the operating losses on provincially-owned senior citizens' projects by 50 per cent. In 1984, there were some 254 senior citizens' housing units provided under this arrangement, all of which were in Ontario. CMHC's share of the first year's operating loss is
Statute Law Amendment Act
estimated at $1,069,935. Operating losses on these projects are paid for a period of up to 50 years.
In addition, under the rent supplement program (Section 44(l)(a), NHA) CMHC can provide a 50 per cent subsidy on operating losses on provincially-leased private rental projects. Rent supplement units approved in 1984 totalled some 689 units; however, the distribution between families and seniors has not yet been reported by the provinces.
As of January 24, 1985, there have been no commitments for senior citizens' housing projects in 1985 under any program.


Mr. Speaker:: The questions as enumerated by the Parliamentary Secretary have been answered.


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


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Monday, April 1, consideration of the motion of Mr. Crosbie that Bill C-27, an Act to amend certain Acts having regard to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs.
Mr. Speaker:: Is the House ready for the question?


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


Mr. Speaker:: The question is as follows: Mr. Crosbie, seconded by Mr. Hnatyshyn, moves that Bill C-27, an Act to amend certain Acts having regard to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs.
3632
[Stage Direction]
April 2, 1985
Bell Canada Act
[ Translation]

Hon. Marcel Masse (Minister of Communications) moved: that Bill C-19, an Act respecting the reorganization of Bell Canada, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Communications and Culture.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to rise in the House to move second reading of Bill C-19, drafted following the reorganization of Bell Canada in 1983. The purpose of the Bill is to ensure that Bell Canada continues to meet its obligations to the Canadian public, and it establishes a number of regulatory powers so that the company's telephone service customers will continue to pay fair and reasonable rates. The reorganization took place as a result of the rapid changes taking place within the technological and economic structure of the telecommunications industry in Canada and abroad.
In recent years, the telecommunications industry throughout the world has been under tremendous pressure to adjust to the changes that have taken place in technology and the economy. The very foundations of this industry have been affected by developments in computer science, digital technology and radio and optic sciences. Consequently, the new generation of telecommunications products is faster, more innovative, more efficient but also less costly. At the same time, there is a growing number of users, especially large international businesses, that depend on these products for the efficiency of their operations. These businesses demand hi-tech products and services at relatively low cost.
Many countries have felt the increasing pressures of competition in providing the products and services of this new industrial era. In a sector that, at the beginning of this century, was typically a monopoly situation, we now see an increasingly competitive situation, especially in the United States, Great Britain and Japan.
We are also seeing many countries that are responding to the demand created by new technologies and their economic dimensions in particular, by bringing about tremendous corporate changes. Take for instance the privatization of British Telecom in Great Britain and the reorganization of AT&T in the United States which was obliged to divest certain activities. These are some of the most striking examples in the history of the industrialized world. Today, other countries like Japan are considering similar changes.
In 1983, Bell Canada was re-organized in response to the same sort of economic situation I just described. According to the new structure, Bell Canada Enterprises Inc. has become
the new holding company of the Bell group whose headquarters is located in Montreal. The companies belonging to the Bell group are now organized in such a way that Bell Canada and its monopolistic subsidiaries like Tele-Direct publications, Bell Northern Research Ltd. and Telesat Canada, are separate from the other subsidiaries that are either competitive or regulated by the provinces. These subsidiaries include Northern Telecom Limited, Bell Canada International Inc., Bell Canada Ltd., Tele-Direct (Canada), Bell Communications Systems Inc. and the telecommunications companies subject to regulation by provincial governments. The purpose of the new structure is above all to make a very clear distinction between regulated monopolistic activities and competitive, non-regulated activities, so that these groups can meet the increasing pressures of international competition.
As stated by Bell Canada, and I quote:
The continued success of the company will mainly depend on its ability to maintain its front-line position amid the rapid technological developments that are spurring on a number of its subsidiaries. If the company is to sustain the pressures of ever-increasing competition, it will also have to be both very flexible and very dynamic. The structure of the Bell group is intended to provide for the best possible utilization of all its resources. The re-organization was designed with these objectives in mind.
The need for innovation, competitive ability and new capital investment is in line with the objectives and vision of Canada's future as expressed in the Speech from the Throne and set forth in the agenda for economic renewal by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson).
The Department of Communications is preparing studies with a view to formulating a Canadian telecommunications policy based on these objectives. Consequently, the Government, and especially my department, supports the reorganization of Bell Canada.
Because of its major capital resources, research and development activities and human resources, Bell Canada has always been one of Canada's greatest assets. It has become more than just a company. It is a Canadian institution.
The Bell Canada group plays a major role in our industrial infrastructure: as an operating company in Ontario, Quebec and the Northerwest Territories and as a holding company with a minority interest in a number of provincially regulated telephone companies in the Atlantic region. The company also contributes directly to the Canadian economy. In 1983, Bell Canada itself had 54,423 employees, and its operating revenue totalled $4.8 billion, while the company had assets of $10.9 billion.
In addition to providing systems and services, the Bell Canada group has created in this country a substantial research and manufacturing capacity thanks to its very competent administrators and staff. The group of companies includes Northern Telecom, one of the largest manufacturers
April 2, 1985

of telecommunications products in the world, and Bell Northern Research, Canada's largest private research and development company. Similarly, Bell Canada International Inc. has the biggest international consulting services in the world in the field of telecommunications.
When it was created by an Act of Parliament more than a century ago, Bell Canada was given a mandate to provide public service-a mandate that is still in effect. Our concern today is to maintain this social obligation while at the same time making it possible for the company to respond, unencumbered by excessive constraints, to international competition.
Now for a short history of the legislation on telecommunications adopted by the Parliament of Canada.
In Canada as in other countries, legislating and regulating telecommunications goes back almost to the birth of the industry. The Government of Canada-as did the Government of the United States-decided to let the new telecommunications companies like Bell Canada operate as private businesses, unlike other countries that quickly proceeded to incorporate the new technology into existing state monopolies, usually their postal services.
On March 7, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received from the Government of the United States a inventor's patent for his telephone. The Canadian patent was given to Mr. Alexander Melville Bell, the inventor's father, on August 24, 1877, and the first telephone network started operating in Hamilton in 1878.
The Bell Telephone Company of Canada was incorporated on April 29, 1880, under an Act of Parliament. The new telephone communications technology was entrusted to a private company, an example of the traditional focus on free enterprise in North American society.
However, at the turn of the century, because of the economics and technology involved, the telephone seemed to lend itself to a de facto monopoly. While allowing those companies to corner the industry, Canada and the United States did impose regulations aimed at protecting consumer interests and preventing abuse of monopolistic powers. On various occasions, to take the development of the industry into consideration, the Canadian Parliament brought in legislative amendments to define regulatory powers and the respective responsibilities of the State and the industry.
Canadian parliamentary legislation on telecommunications stem from telegraph and telephone companies statutes and from general Acts on telecommunications regulation. Upon application filed by Alexander Melville Bell and associates, Parliament enacted federal legislation to incorporate Bell in 1880-an Act to incorporate The Bell Telephone Company of Canada. Under the Act, the new company was authorized to provide telephone service between two or more points anywhere in Canada and elsewhere. Two years later, in 1882, after a lawsuit in Quebec concerning the company's constitutional jurisdiction, the corporate statute was changed pursuant to BN A Act Section 92(10)(c) to indicate that the works of the company were for the general advantage of Canada. This
Bell Canada Act
was one way to make sure that Bell Canada would remain under federal jurisdiction.
Given the importance of such services and the changing socio-economic conditions, the statute of the company was modified on other occasions during the century so as to set forth certain obligations related to the quality of services offered. To comply with an amendment adopted in 1892, the company had to offer the most modern equipment available, within limits, and provide telephone service to any prospective customer.
Under a 1968 amendment, Bell was not allowed to apply for or be the holder of a broadcasting licence, but was required to act solely as a common carrier that would neither control the contents nor influence the meaning or purpose of the message emitted, transmitted or received, and the company could prescribe reasonable requirements concerning the connection to company facilities of equipment not provided by Bell. The CRTC was to determine whether such requirements were reasonable.
At the beginning, regulations governing the rates of telecommunications companies under federal jurisdiction, including Bell Canada, were part of the mandate of the Privy Council Railway Committee and took the form of changes made directly by Cabinet to company statutes. In 1892, the Canadian Parliament authorized the Governor in Council to approve increases in telecommunications rates. Under a further legislative amendment in 1902, the Governor on Council was authorized to increase or decrease rates as requested through applications filed by the industry or any interested municipality. Pursuant to the same Act, the Governor in Council had the new power to ask federal judges to consider rate change applications and make recommendations.
In 1906, considering the complexity of telecommunications rates, the Canadian Parliament empowered the Railway Commission to regulate the rates of Bell Canada and other federal telephone companies. The commission was also responsible for approving the amount, terms and conditions of capital stock issues, as well as the installation of telephone wires along public roadways. However, appeals to the courts were allowed on matters of rights or jurisdiction, and under the Act the Governor in Council had the power to reject or change any commission ruling.
As a result of developments in the transportation sector in this century, the Commission was reorganized several times. In 1938, the name was changed to Transport Commission of Canada and in 1967 to Canadian Transport Commission. In 1976, in order to achieve more harmonious regulation of both the medium and the message, authority to regulate telecommunications was transferred to the Canadian Radio-television and telecommunications Commission.
Canadian telecommunications are still governed by regulations that go back as far as 1903. The purpose of these regulations was, first of all, to safeguard the major principles of public utility and public transporter that had governed the field of transportation for many years. Applying these principles meant guaranteeing fair, equitable and reasonable rates

April 2, 1985
Bell Canada Act
and the concept of "first come, first served", in other words, a service offered without discrimination.
The same regulatory structure and perspective has remained practically unchanged during the last 80 years. How should they continue to direct Canadian telecommunications, in the context of Bell's corporate reorganization?
What was the Government's response? First, the report by the CRTC. After the company made known its intent to reorganize and considering the company's importance both economically and socially, the Governor in Council ordered the CRTC on October 22, 1982, pursuant to Section 50 of the National Transportation Act, to conduct a public inquiry into the planned reorganization with particular emphasis on the following points:
Rate increases for Bell Canada customers that might result from the proposed reorganization.
The possibility that the reorganization would compromise the CRTC's ability to exercise the mandate it has pursuant to the Railway Act, the National Transportation Act and the Act respecting Bell Canada.
The amendments that will be necessary to remove or attenuate any obstacle to the exercise of that mandate.
In the case of reorganization, the limitations, if any, that would have to be imposed on the activities of the Bell group.
In February 1983, the CRTC held public hearings in the course of which many interested parties testified and made submissions on the proposed reorganization and its repercussions.
On April 18 that year, the CRTC submitted its report to the Governor in Council. It was in favour of the reorganization, subject to certain legislative amendments that would reinforce and clarify its authority with respect to Bell and its subsidiaries. According to the CRTC, these legal safeguards were necessary to prevent the reorganization from undermining the Commission's power to regulate the company and to avoid any prejudice to the interest of customers.
The CRTC summarized its position as follows, and I quote:
According to the Commission, it is very important at this stage for Bell and its subsidiaries that its management be allowed this kind of flexibility. As Canada progresses in the information era, its future as an industrialized country will depend more and more on high quality skills in the management, technical and research sectors, the kind of skills we find, for instance, among the companies of the Bell group . .. However, the desire to achieve certain goals in the field of industrial development should not lead us to ignore the necessary aspects of regulating public utility services.
A regulated enterprise should have the flexibility it needs to innovate and improve its business prospects. However, this flexibility should not extend to subsidizing activities of a competitive nature from income drawn from the enterprise's monopolistic services.
The CRTC therefore recommended changing the legislation to provide that the Commission was authorized to obtain from Bell and its subsidiaries any documents and information deemed necessary; to empower the Commission to order that certain telecommunications activities had to be carried out within or outside Bell Canada; and finally, to maintain a
certain number of constraints limiting the type of activity the companies could engage in.
On April 23, 1983, the Government announced its intention to examine the Commission's recommendations without delay and to propose as soon as possible any amendments that might be necessary to prevent the reorganization from undermining the CRTC's mandate. A few days later, the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs gave Bell its authorization to implement the proposed reorganization.
Last December 20, shortly after my appointment as Minister of Communications, I introduced Bill C-19 in the House, an Act respecting the reorganization of Bell Canada. The purpose of Bill C-19 is to change the legislative structure governing Bell Canada so as to give the Government more regulatory powers over the public obligations of the company, while at the same time freeing the company from constraints which make it harder to compete on the international market. The Act confirms the basic obligations of Bell Canada, which are to serve the public, refrain from regulating the contents of messages, and continue to be subject to regulations derived from the Railway Act. The Bill is also intended to consolidate the CRTC's regulatory powers over the monopolistic telephone service offered by Bell Canada as a result of its 1983 reorganization, thus making it one element of Bell Canada undertakings. Bill C-19 guarantees that the reorganization will not prejudice company customers.
Pursuant to Clause 11 of the Bill, Bell Canada may not sell or dispose of its shares, nor of such facilities as are essential to its telephone operations without prior CRTC approval. As requested by the CRTC, it is authorized under Clause 12 to obtain from Bell Canada any information required to discharge its regulatory responsibilities with respect to the company.
In keeping with our objective to deregulate competitive telecommunications services, the two provisions in Clause 13 are aimed, first, at making a clear distinction between competitive and monopolistic, regulated and non-regulated Bell company operations and, second, at enabling the CRTC to decide whether certain operations ought to be regulated or not. Under the first provision, the CRTC may require Bell Canada to perform directly the operations of one of its affiliates should be CRTC rule that there is not enough competition to guarantee fair and reasonable rates.
The second provision means that, conversely, the CRTC may require the company to dispose of any operation which is deemed competitive enough not to be regulated. This will prevent Bell Canada from using income from monopolistic services to finance its operations in competitive fields.
In conclusion, two years after the adoption of the Act to incorporate The Bell Telephone Company of Canada in 1880, the Canadian Parliament declared that the works of the company would be "for the general advantage of Canada".
April 2, 1985

Ten years later, the same Government stipulated that "...existing rates may not be raised without the approval of the Governor in Council".
For more than a century, the Government has regulated Canada's telecommunications and made sure that the necessary resources would be used to set up one of the world's best systems, while guaranteeing that Canadians would pay fair and reasonable rates, and have universal and non discriminatory access to the services. Those major principles still hold sway today, but we have to keep in mind new economic and technological factors, particularly the reorganization of Bell Canada, and that makes it necessary to take a new and more flexible approach when it comes to regulations. Since it has become imperative to define the structure of the reorganization that took place nearly two years ago, I ask Hon. Members to consider the Bill before them, and I conclude by quoting Robert Browning: "Progress is the law of life".


Mr. Jacques Guilbault (Saint-Jacques):: Mr. Speaker, it gives me pleasure to take part for a few minutes in the debate on Bill C-19 respecting the reorganization of Bell Canada.
It is a well-known fact that the Liberal Government, through its then Minister of Communications, the Hon. Francis Fox, had already introduced legislation in response to the administrative changes made in 1982 to transform Bell Canada into a subsidiary of a holding company of Bell Canada Enterprises.
On February 8, 1984, the Hon. Francis Fox introduced in the House Bill, C-20, of which one of the purposes was to maintain the provisions requiring Bell to provide a telephone service and giving the CRTC authority to regulate the activities of Bell Canada. Bill C-19 is similar to that legislation in all respects.
We are happy that the Government has re-introduced the Fox Bill word for word.
While the Government is happy to take over this Liberal heritage, it has forgotten one of its major elements. While Bill C-20 introduced by Mr. Fox included amendments to the CRTC Act, this Government has tabled for this purpose a separate Bill, thus increasing considerably the extent to which Cabinet can give instructions to the CRTC.
The Official Opposition has already expressed its concerns over the interference of the Government with organizations such as the CRTC. For instance, what this Government has done in the case of the CBC is a cause for concern.
While Bill C-20 introduced by the present Government increases the authority of Cabinet to give instructions to the CRTC, Bill C-19 considerably increases the power of the CRTC to give instructions to Bell Canada.
In its reorganization, Bell Canada established a distinction between its basic telephone services and message communications service on the one hand, and the competitive research, manufacturing and operational activities in communication systems then being carried out by its subsidiaries on the other.
Bell Canada Act
The new powers of the CRTC affect not only telephone communications, but also all other operations where Bell Canada still has an active role.
The Fox Bill did not give Cabinet as much authority to influence Bell activities through the CRTC. In this regard, the respondent has every reason to maintain that Government interference could eventually undermine its operations since these are truly political interventions at the highest level, namely the decision-making power of the Cabinet. For a Government that brags about doing everything to promote free enterprise, to me this is quite a paradox.
Let us look at the effective thrust of this legislation. The first 10 clauses are but a rehash of provisions in the special statutes under which Bell Canada was established. They guarantee that the company will still be regulated by the CRTC under the Railway Act. Clauses 11 to 13 point to the new structure. Clause 11 provides that previous permission from the CRTC is needed for Bell Canada Enterprises to dispose of Bell Canada voting shares, and for Bell Canada to dispose of any asset vital to its telephone operations. Clause 12 empowers the CRTC to obtain from Bell Canada Enterprises information relating to its power of regulation. Provisions under clause 13 are aimed at reflecting and guaranteeing a clear separation between Bells' competitive and monopolistic activities giving relevant authority to the CRTC.
The question to be addressed, Mr. Speaker, is this: Are consumers ensured services at a reasonable cost? Is the user, whether an individual or a corporation, obtaining the same standards of excellence and efficiency we have been used to, and which the Government has a responsibility to maintain?
The Government must on the one hand resist the temptation to deregulate. Ours is a vast country, which has to have an integrated and efficient communications network. From the American experience we can conclude that our market being limited, with a smaller population and remote areas, we cannot afford such New Conservative ambitions, which are to hand out everything back to private enterprise and abstain from regulating vital sectors such as communications.
In Canada, access to telephone service traditionally has been considered tantamount to an acquired right or an essential service. Up to a point, this is indeed the case. Past investments and sacrifices must now be part of tomorrow's heritage. While a company such as Bell must be encouraged to do research work and to improve its network, and allowed to discover and develop new avenues, the consumer must be serviced at a reasonable cost. The American deregulation experience certainly does not guarantee quality and service at a cost that is reasonable to consumers, individuals, businessmen or corporations, and above all we doubt that the American experience could have positive results here, in a different environment and with Canada's limited population.
To conclude these brief remarks, I would first suggest that the Liberal heritage is a kind of heritage that sometimes deserves to be maintained. In this case, the Tory Government has provided the evidence. 1 would add that the Official Opposition will keep an eye on the kinds and numbers of

April 2, 1985
Bell Canada Act
guidelines imposed on Bell Canada Enterprises by the CRTC, but especially on the guidelines imposed on the CRTC by the Government. If the Government believes in free enterprise, this is a golden opportunity for him to show it.


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, in the introduction of this Bill we see proof of the old adage that the more things change the more they are the same. Bill C-19 is very similar to parts of the Bill C-20 which was brought in by the former Liberal Government and introduced by the then Minister of Communications, Francis Fox, in early 1984. On May 10, 1984 the then Opposition House Leader, the Member for Saskatoon West (Mr. Hnatyshyn), wrote to the then Government House Leader, Mr. Pinard, urging him to split the old Bill C-20 into two Bills, one to be called the Bell Canada Reorganization Act, which the then House Leader of the Opposition said "could receive a quick second reading and referral to committee".
Clearly the Progressive Conservative Government has done exactly that which it proposed then. It introduced Bill C-19, which we are now discussing, and its companion, Bill C-20, which has been passed by the House and is now before the Communications Committee. It is concerned with amendments to CRTC legislation and powers and to satellite broadcasting.
There are two main points which are worth making with regard to this Bill. This Bill is a shell, scarcely six pages in length, which simply outlines what already exists with regard to the supposed regulation of Bell Canada. It is not what the CRTC, consumer groups, or even the Government wanted. It only puts into legislation what Bell Canada wanted and is prepared to accept. Second, it is a testament to the power which corporations have in this country. Bell Canada took on CRTC, the Restrictive Trade Practices Commission, and the Bureau of Competition Policy in public hearings and fought them all off. In the end the Government backed off and, as a result, we have this Bill which only legislates what is already in place.
This Bill will permit Bell to do in the next few years what the CPR was able to do over almost 100 years. CPR started as a railway company funded, to a large extent, by grants of money, loans at very low interest rates, and grants of millions of acres of lands to induce the then owners and directors of the CPR to build a national railway. Over the years the CPR has used the assets given to it by the Governments and people of Canada, including the lands, forests and minerals. It has spun those off into CP Enterprises.
The railway remains as a regulated operation. It is a loser which requires massive help from the people of Canada to operate. But CP Enterprises now has a host of companies in various fields including communications, mines, forests and real estate. Those are extremely profitable and are not regulated by the Government. Those were built on the initial subsidies given to the railway company by the people of Canada. With
the passage of this Bill we are going to permit Bell Canada to do precisely what the CPR did in earlier years.
Bell Canada, like the CPR, was originally a heavily protected, government created monopoly which was able to earn a regulated guaranteed profit and build up its assets so that now it can diversify, acquire other companies in different fields, and become the conglomerate known as Bell Canada Enterprises, which will be a tremendously profitable corporation not subject to Government regulation.
As much as anything that the Conservative Government has done in this Parliament, this Bill is the harbinger of the deregulation concept and principle which the Conservatives believe in. In this case the word has a special meaning. It simply means "take the money and run". Bell Canada is now almost entirely free to do as it pleases in the market-place with assets it acquired when it was a monopoly. The existing Bell Telephone service still remains under CRTC regulation, but without the important financial support which had provided cross-subsidization in holding down telephone rate increases, and with increasing costs looming which will greatly increase the cost of basic telephone service for the people who are serviced by Bell Canada.
Bill C-19 should be seen for what it is, a genuine failure in the development of public policy in Canada. We fully expect that the analogy with Canadian Pacific will hold true. Bell Canada service will become progressively worse and cost increasingly more. Bell Canada Enterprises, however, will become the rich relation, just as Canadian Pacific Investments has prospered at the expense of the users of CP Rail.
This need not have happened had there been a federal Government with a will to develop and enforce a telecommunications policy. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) promised this to the people of Canada during the election campaign. We are still waiting to see that promise fulfilled, unless the Minister says that this is the promised telecommunications policy, in which case we will know that as of today the so-called policy is doomed to failure.
As a result of the failure of the former Liberal Government and the present Conservative Government to develop a policy, Bell has imposed its corporate will on the country and received everything it wanted.
It is worth examining this process over the past few years in order to come to grips with the failure of the present Government and the previous Liberal Government and the ineffectual actions of Bell's regulator, the CRTC.
Let us look at the record to see how we got to Bill C-19 which, in our view, is so seriously defective. On June 24, 1982, Bell Canada announced a planned reorganization which would create "a new non regulated parent company called Bell Canada Enterprises Incorporated". It was said by the Chairman of Bell Canada, Mr. de Grandpre, to provide a "purification of Bell Canada's regulated activities, in his words "making the task of the CRTC easier". It will make the task of Bell's owners and managers much easier.
April 2, 1985

In Mr. de Grandpre's words:
Bell Canada will remain the regulated utility, and it will simplify the regulatory process. Under the old structure. Bell controlled about 80 different companies, regulated and non-regulated, leading to distortions.
Others thought differently, including Andrew Roman of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre. He said, "It's an ingenious scheme to avoid regulation", and, "In football terms, it's and end run again, but around the other end". Gordon Hutchison of the Electronics Communicator magazine said, "It's a recognition that Bell is really in the investment business not the telephone business". One of the greatest problems in this country is that too many companies are interested in investments, moving paper and making paper profits, rather than concentrating on developing and improving the businesses in which they are involved. In this case it is one of the most important businesses for the people of Canada-that of telecommunications.
Boris Mather, Chairman of the Canadian Federation of Communications Workers, expressed the opposition of the workers at Bell Canada in a letter to me. I know that the unions have made similar representations to the Government. In a letter dated February 6, 1985, he said:
We are very much opposed to any form of splitting off unregulated subsidiaries of the telephone carriers to carry on competitive activities. We oppose that because "it lets the shark out of the cage".
In the same letter he said:
-we strongly object to power being given to the Commission-
-The CRTC-
-to establish separate subsidiaries to carry on activity previously done directly by the telephone company.
The Bell proposal, which essentially has been endorsed by the Government and the CRTC, was opposed by a large number of very important interest groups. But they lost the argument.
Bell Canada simply created Bell Canada Enterprises as its holding company, displacing Bell Canada. The profitable subsidiaries and the revenues for planned acquisitions went to the new company. Bell Canada became a regulated subsidiary with only three subsidiaries, a 30 per cent share of Bell Northern Research, and a 24.6 per cent share of Telesat Canada and Tele-Direct (Publications), a subsidiary to be transferred to Bell Canada Enterprises as soon as practicable.
The intent of Bell Canada was clearly to get the profitable parts away from Government regulation. In order to head off any interference, Bell referred the reorganization to the Quebec Superior Court.
Most Canadians are aware of how slow the court system proceeds when they have a problem, but that did not seem to affect Bell Canada adversely because, in barely two months, the Quebec Superior Court approved the Bell reorganization, rejecting a federal Government challenge that the planned reorganization required the approval of the supposed regulator, the CRTC. Judge Charles Gonthier, Justice of the Quebec Superior Court, said, "The arrangement is just and reasonable
Bell Canada Act
for the shareholders of Bell, since it was approved by an overwhelming majority".
The federal Government appealed, but Bell won the appeal in the Quebec Court of Appeal on March 25, 1983. Later I will show what that decision meant for Bell and the people of Canada.
On April 18, 1983, a CRTC investigation and hearing produced a 105-page report. Some of its recommendations, have been included in this Bill. Significantly, though, the recommendation most sought as a check against Bell Canada Enterprises was for a minority shareholding in Bell Canada which is now 100 per cent owned by Bell Canada Enterprises. According to the CRTC, this would be a significant incentive to conduct company affairs in the interest of both subscribers and shareholders. Creating minority shareholders is a well established device but one unacceptable to Bell. Therefore, that recommendation is not included in Bill C-19. In fact, the CRTC itself said that it should not be created in the immediate future.
Also omitted from this legislation were the very real arguments put forward at the CRTC hearings by the Consumers Association of Canada and others for some disposition of the capital gain which Bell had acquired as a federally chartered telephone monopoly. The CRTC had calculated the capital gain on the sale of Bell-owned provincial telephone companies and Northern Telecom to Bell Canada Enterprises as worth $560 million.
The Consumers Association of Canada proposed that $200 million should be returned to telephone subscribers. The value of these investments had quadrupled from an historical cost of $440 million. However, the CRTC saw no reason for subscribers to share in the capital gain realized by Bell. Should not the Government of Canada be ready to consider this issue now in Bill C-19? Do not all levels of Government have a duty to protect the larger public interest when they create monopolies in the public interest? It does not seem so in Bell's case and certainly not in the way the Government had dealt with Bell in this Bill.
On April 21, 1983, having been defeated in the courts and having seen its own regulatory agency accept the reorganization, the Liberal Government sued for peace. There would be no further court appeals and the restructuring should occur, according to the then Minister of Communications, Francis Fox, "because it has a favourable impact on the economy generally" Another way of saying this is, "What's good for Bell Canada is good for us", or in simpler terms, Francis Fox was saying in effect, "The public be damned".
The federal Conservative Government, through this Bill, has thrown in the towel on the issue of whether a publicly fostered monopoly had an obligation to protect consumers. We believe it does. It was similar in a very real way to letting the CPR go back on its statutory requirement for the Crow's Nest Pass freight rates in return for the huge land and mineral grants which it had received in western Canada. But at least CP had lived with the Crow rate until 1983. Bell got away with everything. Perhaps even worse was the absence of any gen-

April 2, 1985
Bell Canada Act
uine expectations of Bell in a regulatory sense. The service provisions in this Bill are scarcely commitments at all. Indeed, there is very little that commits Bell to staying in the telephone business at all, if it finds it profitable to get out of it.
On April 28, 1983, the Bell reorganization went into effect at the Bell annual meeting. The chairman was kind enough to hint only at future rate increases. He did not announce any at that time. The next announcement on July 27 was even better for Bell. The new company reported an increase in profits of 40 per cent for its first quarter as an unregulated holding company. With this kind of income the acquisitions of Trans-Canada Pipelines, Daon Development, British American Bank Note, Ronalds-Federated and Case Hoyt were not far behind. The year-end income in 1984 was $1 billion, the highest of any corporation.
We should ask ourselves, and I think the people of Canada have a right to ask themselves, what benefits do the telephone users of Canada get when Bell Canada buys a controlling interest in TransCanada Pipelines, Daon Development, or the British American Bank Note? That may be good for the shareholders and the management of Bell, but it really does nothing for the people of Canada.
On the telephone subscriber side it has been different, much different. A major campaign was started for user-pay charges on local calls and much higher basic telephone service rates combined with deregulation of long distance service. Those proposals have been put constantly before the public in a campaign to make these changes seem inevitable. We see that almost every day in the kind of campaign which Bell and other telephone companies are conducting.
Bell Canada Enterprises, according to its own executive vice-president, is "always willing to look" at a deal. The public is beginning to feel that in the deal-making they have been had. In sum, Mr. Speaker, what has the Bell reorganization accomplished? Let us ask ourselves some of the questions which must be asked on behalf of the Canadian people. Has it created more jobs? Takevers do not create jobs. They often result in their elimination as the company taken over is rationalized by its new owners. Bell has already cut jobs since 1980.
Has it resulted in lower rates or better service? Telephone rates have continued to rise. Phone centres and increased service charges mean that a visit from the telephone repair or a serviceman is a very expensive rarity. Bell is eliminating these jobs.
Has it created more research and development in Canada? This particular Canadian Holy Grail ought to be foremost on the mind of this Government. Yet, Bell's subsidiary Northern Telecom's record in Canada in recent years leaves a great deal to be desired. Between 1976 and 1980 Northern Telecom's Canadian workforce in Canada declined, although company sales doubled. At the same time, Northern Telecom's U.S. workforce grew from 2,940 in 1976 to 18,805 today. The new jobs by this Canadian-owned, Canadian-supported, Canadiansubsidized company are going to the United States, not Canada. Since the Canadian workforce is now about 23,500, there is strong speculation that this joint Bell Canada Enterprises and Bell Canada subsidiary is really headed for the United States, and Canada will ultimately be another small market to them. This is hardly what the Government has in mind when it talks about world product mandates and high-tech futures. Yet this Bill does not set down any research and development commitments for Northern Telecom because this opportunity was missed in the long inquiry conducted by the Restrictive Trade Practices Commission between 1977 and 1983.
Instead, we are stuck. We are stuck with what Bell Canada Enterprises will give us because the Government opposite has not ventured beyond the incentive agreements it makes with all large companies. We are stuck with Governments that have no sense of what a telecommunications policy should be and are prepared to let Bell escape while they think about one. In short, there is little in the history leading to this Bill that is far-sighted, visionary, or even commendable. It is truly a shell, a shell which legitimizes what Bell accomplished in the face of any regulatory or legal challenge almost two years ago.
This Bill is simply a recognition of how much Liberal and Conservative Governments defer to corporate power. The Government opposite, the one which said it has a mandate for change, has had every opportunity to examine and change this Bill. Bell Canada has given it reason to take another look at its operations with the provocative actions by Bell Canada International in acquiring subsidiaries of the Cable and Wireless Company in Britain.
Bell Canada International announced that it was its policy not to have a union representing the workers at one of these companies in Great Britain. This is a company with its head office here in Canada operating in a country for which the Prime Minister has so often expressed his support and friendship. In announcing that policy Bell invoked the first strike in the history of the company in Great Britain and gave Canadian companies an international black eye. Surely a Government headed by a labour lawyer who knows the value of consensus would wish to think again about Bell Canada Enterprises and how it operates. The Government is not really going to do it. It has simply done what it said it would do while in opposition and split the old Liberal Bill C-20 into two Bills, C-20 and C-19, this one. Only the most minor changes have been made.
We believe major changes should have been made. The changes should have awaited the statement of a national telecommunications policy which the Prime Minister promised while he was Leader of the Opposition.
When we have the opportunity, we will deal with some of the specific shortcomings of this Bill. I want to conclude by putting on the record what has happened to Bell Canada in the last few years. If we begin in 1981, Mr. Speaker, and these figures are taken from reputable financial reports Bell Canada had a profit of $555.5 million. In 1982, its profits were $615.4 million, up 10.7 per cent. In 1983, profits were $829.8 million, up 34.8 per cent, and in the first quarter of 1984, its profits
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were $202.8 million, up 33.5 per cent over the first quarter in 1983.
Bell Canada also has cumulative deferred taxes totalling $1.5 billion to the end of 1983. Bell Canada has had federal contributions to help it grow. In 1980-81, it received communications grants of $170,000 and a science and technology grant went to Bell Northern for research. In 1981-82, it received communications grants of $40,000 and part of a share grant of $330,000. It got a science and technology grant for Bell Northern of $924 million. In 1982-83, it received a communications grant share of $300,000, External Affairs export sales assistance of $179,000, an industry co-op project grant of $159,000, and a science and technology grant of $1.6 million. This permitted Bell, as I indicated earlier, to begin a very rapid program of takeovers.
According to the May 7, 1984 edition of The Financial Times, Bell Canada Enterprises was in the process of buying a United States printing firm, Case-Hoyt. Also, Bell acquired a controlling interest of 42.3 per cent in TransCanada Pipelines for $605.5 million. Further, Bell acquired a 95.6 per cent interest in Comae Communications in 1982, and acquired Alphatext through its subsidiary, Ronalds-Federated Ltd., in
1982.	Alphatext publishes Homemaker's, Madame au Foyer, City Woman and Western Living. It also acquired the B.C.-based Commercial Telephone Systems in 1982.
While Bell was making these acquisitions, it was also very generous to its senior executives. Again according to the May 7, 1984 edition of The Financial Times, the Chairman and President of Bell Canada Enterprises, Chief Executive Officer de Grandpre, received a salary in 1983 of $658,000, up 19.4 per cent from 1982. This excludes a non-cash benefit worth up to $25,000, as well as $290,000 as future retirement allowances. Just a few days ago it was reported that Mr. de Grandpre had received an increase for this year of 29.6 per cent, raising his salary to $853,000. The 1983 salary of its Deputy Chairman, Mr. Tropea, was $312,000, up 6.4 per cent, not including the cash benefit of up to $25,000 and the $90,000 expenses for future retirement allowances. Executive Vice-President Innes received $206,000, and the chairman and chief executive officer of Bell Telephone received $505,000 in
1983.	In 1984, compensation to Bell Canada Enterprises executives amounted to $3.63 million, for an increase of 30.4 per cent. While the company was being that generous to its chief executive officers, its unionized employees were held to increases for this year and the next two years of 2 per cent, 2 per cent and 3 per cent.
in our view this Bill does not meet the promises of the Prime Minister when he was Leader of the Opposition that a Government under his direction would work out and bring forth a real national telecommunications policy. In our view this bill gives Bell Canada everything it wants. It permits it to siphon off those companies or fields which do not come under regulation. There are an increasing number of them. As well it leaves to the communications system, the regulated part, a very small
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part of its business. It lets the company go on to bigger and better profits. This will be very useful to the officers and shareholders of the company, but it will be nothing but trouble for the people of Canada. Therefore, we intend to oppose this Bill here and in committee.


Mr. Tom Hockin (London West):: Mr. Speaker, 1 am pleased to participate in the debate on this piece of legislation. The Bill has been well explained by the Minister. The historical progress of the telecommunications industry and its effect on Bell Canada were well outlined in what he had to say. I do not want to repeat at any great length the points the Minister made, however I would like to give my perspective as a Member of Parliament who has in his riding a number of Bell employees and as someone who has taken a look at the difficulty in Canada of striking a balance between having highly competitive, strong international industries and protecting consumers.
In many ways this Bill is a litmus test of what a Government will do on matters of this sort. We want to encourage Canada to build large, effective and highly competitive industries in this modern age, especially in the telecommunications area where we are faced with fierce competition. At the same time, there are few utilities which are of more basic importance to average Canadians than telephone services. There are shut-ins who depend upon telephones. There are those living on limited incomes who, as one of their few luxuries, can afford telephones. They cannot afford expensive rates. We have the hotel industry and many others which depend upon reasonable telephone rates, not upon high or expensive charges. A balance always has to be struck between helping a major company and protecting consumers.
I trace the genesis of this Bill, to some degree, to the important sales of Bell Canada to Saudi Arabia some years ago. In the contract, billions of dollars worth of business was brought to Saudi Arabia through Bell Canada. The great expertise and experience of Canada in that field was used to assist that country. The contract was an extremely successful one for Bell Canada. It made the company more internationally important and competitive. It helped Canadians as well as Saudi Arabians. In the process of generating great revenues and indeed reasonable profits, Bell Canada found that the CRTC wanted to consider it as part of its ordinary revenue and to diminish somewhat its request for rate increases. I cannot go into the merits of the total request for rate increases which Bell made and the CRTC's injunctions to restrain its increases. However, what emerged in that instance was the fact that Bell Canada, to some degree, was being punished for reaching out and searching for an important international market. Somehow, if it made millions of dollars, it suddenly decreased its claim for a reasonable increase in telephone rates. The Canadian Government and the CRTC were faced with trying to strike the balance between encouraging Bell Canada to be internationally at the forefront of its industry and protecting Canadian consumers. I believe that particular market opportunity is what led to the reorganization of Bell Canada.

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What was the reorganization? It was complex but, as Mark Twain said, at the middle of anything that is complicated is something simple. The simple principle was that the regulated part of that telephone company should be continued to be regulated, but the entrepreneurial parts of Bell's various enterprises should be given some flexibility to compete internationally. I was disturbed when I heard the hon. member of the New Democratic Party speak on the Bill. He did not try to encourage that side of the operations of Bell. We want Bell to be a world-wide force in the telecommunications industry. We want to free it up to have the flexibility to do that. That is the aim of this Bill.
When Bell Canada Enterprises was allowed to turn itself inside out and become the holding company of Bell Canada, it was suggested that there should be a study of the powers of the CRTC. Those powers are outlined in the Bill before us today. Perhaps some changes could be made. Hopefully that will be looked at in committee. I support the Government in bringing this Bill before the house at this time. I support it in its attempt to strike a balance between international competitiveness and regulation in terms of protecting the consumer.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Questions or comments?


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Hon. Member. Does the Hon. Member not realize that Bell's ability to expand into the kind of operation it is conducting in Saudi Arabia is based on the profits that it was guaranteed as a regulated telephone company? Does the Hon. Member not believe that the Canadian subscribers of Bell should be able to benefit, subscribers who, through the payment of their telephone bills, contributed to that profit which permitted Bell Canada to expand and do the kind of business which he indicates it and other companies-I'll have another question about that-were able and are able to do in Saudi Arabia and other countries? Does the Hon. Member not believe that the subscribers of Bell Canada who contributed to the build-up of Bell should be able to benefit through part of the profits that Bell makes in these operations going to support the continued low rate for telephone service?


Thomas Hockin: Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to respond to those points. First, Bell's opportunity to do well in that Saudi Arabian contract was based primarily on its expertise, not on the cash flow from subscribers. Its great expertise allowed it to produce the kind of services that the Saudi Arabian Government was looking for. In terms of cash flow from subscribers, there was very little cash outlet that was needed by Bell Canada in Saudi Arabia. Everything was put up front essentially by the Saudi Arabian Government. There was very little need for cash flow from subscribers. There was never a better deal. Perhaps he points to an unfortunate example in terms of arguing that subscribers' revenues are helping in this particular contract.
The Hon. Member does have a good point, however, that there is a balance to be struck regarding the fact that revenues
that flow from the regulated monopolistic Bell Canada operations do not help excessively the other parts of Bell enterprises. That is precisely the balance that this Bill is trying to strike.


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, does the Hon. Member know that Bell is not the only company doing work in Saudi Arabia? In fact, other companies are involved. I know that the Manitoba Telephone System, which is a publicly owned utility, is also doing work in Saudi Arabia to upgrade the telephone system there. Any profits which the Manitoba Telephone System makes for the work it is doing in Saudi Arabia will go back to the system. Since the public utility is not a profit-making company, it will go to help subsidize the rates.
Let me ask the Hon. Member a second question. Does he realize that if and when the CRTC and the Government permit CNCP to compete with Bell and the other existing telephone companies for long distance business the profits of Bell and the other telephone companies will be sharply reduced? They have been making a substantial profit on their long distance business. That profit has been used to cross subsidize the local telephone rates and keep local telephone rates low. The experience in the United States is that competition for long distance business has driven the cost of local service up substantially. When that happens, Bell Canada's telephone profits will come down substantially and the telephone rates for subscribers in his constituency and the rest of Ontario and Quebec will go up very sharply. We say that part of the profits they make in these other businesses, which were based originally on the profits they made on telephone business, should be used to subsidize telephone rates in the City of London and in other parts of Ontario and Quebec.


Thomas Hockin: Mr. Speaker, the points made by the Hon. Member are worth exploring because I am sure that is what the consumers will be asking. I would like to say that his analysis is based upon a fairly uninventive, rather old-fashioned view of what Bell Canada is all about. I think the trade-off between long distance and local calls is not the only thing that will affect local call rates. There are many other things that Bell Canada would like to do and could do which could be profitable for it and which would help to make up for some of the lower profit margins that it might not enjoy because of the increased competition in long distance rates. I can think of mobile telephones and other things.
The key point is whether the Hon. Member is against competition. To bring in long distance competition is something Canadians have asked for and waited for for years and years. I am sure that the average low-income Canadian would be just as delighted to be able to call a relative on one coast or the other at a cheaper rate, thanks to this competition. When we look at the over-all mix of increased telephone rates in this country, we have to look at the long distance together with the local. They are all in a package. You cannot just look at the local rates. My answer would be that if you looked at the lower charges for long distance rates, if you looked at other fields in which Bell Canada might be able to become profitable, to-
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gether with their local charges, we will have just as strong a Bell Canada and reasonable rates as well.


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, does the Hon. Member not realize that if we have competition for long distance telephone business and if we achieve much lower rates for long distance telephone calls, the big winner will be the large corporations? The ordinary Canadian user such as the farmer or the old-age pensioner does not use the long distance system very often. Those people will not save very much money, but the large corporations will. Increases in local rates in the United States have reached 40 and 50 per cent and it is predicted that they will go to 100 or 200 per cent in the next few years. Therefore, they are the ones who will suffer from this sort of competition. We are not opposed to competition if it benefits the ordinary Canadian, but we are certainly opposed to competition if the benefits go to the large corporations which are best able to afford the kind of payments that they have had. I suggest that the Hon. Memer should be concerned about the ordinary Canadian whom he and others represent.


Thomas Hockin: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) juxtaposes large corporate interests and the individual paying his telephone bill. I say that the whole issue should be put in a larger context. First, if you take a number of industries that depend enormously on long distance for their livelihood, especially a large service industry such as the hotel industry, if you are able to moderate their rates and make them more profitable, efficient and competitive, suddenly you will create jobs. Therefore, we have to look at the fact that if certain corporations are able to benefit and become more competitive, that can create jobs. That is part of the answer. The other part of the answer is the direct level of rates that will be in store for the local telephone calls. There is no evidence that the CRTC will allow unreasonable increases to take place. The CRTC will have a mandate under this Bill as it has always had to moderate those increases. I do not think we should be scared by the spectre of huge increases to which the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North referred.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
[ Translation]

Mr. Deputy Speaker:: 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 Cape Breton-East Richmond (Mr. Dingwall)- Labour Conditions-Unemployment rate levels-Request that budget be introduced, b) Challenge '85-Wage subsidy component. c) Unemployment in Eastern Canada; the Hon.
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Member for Broadview-Greenwood (Ms. McDonald)- Canadian Broadcasting Corporation-Budgetary cutbacks- Request for details, b) Nature of consultations; the Hon. Member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria)-The Administration-Government appointments-Remuneration levels, b) External Aid-Government position.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Masse that Bill C-19, an Act respecting the reorganization of Bell Canada, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Communications and Culture.
Abram Ernest Epp: Mr. Speaker, the Bill before us dealing with the reorganization of Bell Canada is an interesting example of the realities of politics and power in this country. The Government is putting forward a Bill which is a part of what the last Liberal Government brought before the House. The other part of that legislation will be coming to us later.
The Official Opposition is missing this afternoon. Having done their pro forma bit in recognizing what the Bill was before, Liberal Members have now disappeared to do whatever other pleasant duties there may be this afternoon. We in the New Democratic Party who are concerned about the impact of Bell Canada reorganization on ordinary Canadians are here endeavouring to maintain the debate.
Let us think a bit about the Bill that is before us. The reality of Bell Canada is that it has made enormous profits in these last few years. The reorganization of Bell Canada Enterprises has made it possible to use that cash flow and the economic power it gives the company in order to become a major operator in various Canadian endeavours. It can buy into real estate, enter into publishing and so on and so forth. It is producing a company that is on the way to becoming an enormous conglomerate. That achievement has been made at a time when so many Canadians are unemployed and when in fact the Canadian economy is in dreadful shape. This makes one wonder what exactly is going on in various areas of the Canadian economy.
Why is it possible for this company to make such inordinate gains? How is it possible for the profits to rise so sharply? On the one hand, the company pays a certain amount in the way of taxes but, as one of Canada's largest companies, it is surely also a beneficiary of the morass of tax breaks from which companies can benefit. To have the company then setting out at the beginning of this decade to reorganize its business in order to ensure that what Government regulates will be quite

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neatly confined and controlled while profits can be used in other areas and the enormous cash flow can produce expansion and great gain from which the actual users of the telephone systems in Canada will get little if any benefit is an indication of the kind of capitalism that is triumphant in this country. It is the capitalism of which both the Official Opposition and the governing Party, more or less solidly, happily support.
It is fun to examine balance sheets and to watch annual meetings take place. It is fun to see the presidents, managers and directors of this company feel very, very happy. It is not so much fun to contemplate what that particular company is about as it presses its case against Canadian users of telephone services and keeps up the perpetual drive to increase its returns.
One can focus on only one aspect of that drive, Bell Canada's endeavour to move from the current flat rate rental to charges for the amount of use that is made of the telephones. The latest item in that area is the possibility of this charge being applied to businesses using telephone lines to exchange computer information. Of course, modern technology opens up all kinds of wondrous possibilities, and one of them is the possibility of monitoring those bursts of information which are flowing over the wires by counting how many bits flow by a whatever astronomical rate it may be and sending the business that is using the service a bill reflecting how much information it received. In this way, the companies with the most advanced equipment that are able to send information in the shortest period of time will not get a cheaper ride on the system.
That is an interesting application to business, but I am more concerned about the prospect of individual subscribers to telephone systems being faced with billing according to the amount of use that is made of their telephones. If that were to be applied, then instead of having a utility that is available to all Canadians on a flat rate rental, every poor subscriber still able to maintain a telephone will be doing his or her bit in making Bell Canada as profitable as it will be allowed to be within this stable of enterprises.
I suppose Members of Parliament, who can all too easily settle into their comfortable seats and live the life of the privileged that the Parliament of Canada gives them, are all too likely to forget the plight of individual subscribers. They are all too likely to forget that people who have been unemployed and people living on social assistance who need a telephone in order to maintain their connections and to pursue job hunts will find that Bell Canada, thanks to the possible acquiescence of the CRTC, is deterring them in their basic information-seeking endeavour.
At that point, I imagine that government Members who are happy about this now, as indicated by their composure, may not be nearly as happy to respond to what their constituents will say about this. They will more or less gracefully throw up their hands and say that that is the law of the land because a Bill was passed in Parliament. They may not refer to their part in helping that Bill pass. They will do this, instead of realizing that there are points at which those eventualities begin to unfold, and this happens to be one of those points. When a
Government, in the absence of the Official Opposition, allows that to happen, it is in fact making it more difficult if not impossible for my constituents and for all of our constituents to maintain telephones and to keep in contact. It is in fact putting a hindrance in the way of the flow of information that is so important to economic life. It is in fact driving people to think of telephone use not as a right, as it is now in a country with the largest number of telephones per capita in the world, but as a privilege.
When I was in Baltimore in the United States as a graduate student 20 years ago, I experienced that kind of telephone use. My landlady was quite anxious about the number of calls I might make and was even anxious about the number of local calls I might make because she had to pay per call for the calls that I made. That eventuality is one of the possibilities that surely exists as a result of the passage of this legislation and the acquiescence of the Government in what corporate giants wish to do in order to increase their wealth at the expense of Canadian people including widows and the unemployed.
I challenge government Members to be a little less pleased about the progress that this Bill represents and a little more anxious about it all. I suppose it is impossible to move them to vote it down, but certainly these are the kinds of concerns that give us adequate reason to oppose the Bill, as did the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) and as I know other members of our caucus will do as well.
I am pleased that I had the opportunity to speak on this Bill in defence of constituents of mine who are anxious about the ways in which Bell Canada will use its powers, and questions will arise about the way in which that power will be supported and strengthened by the Government.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Are there questions or comments?


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, it has been estimated by the Consumers Association of Canada and other organizations that about 97 per cent of Canadians are telephone subscribers. The reason there is such a high rate of users is that the monthly rate has been kept low. What does the Hon. Member for Thunder Bay-Nipigon (Mr. Epp) think the effect would be of sharp increases in monthly telephone rates, such as have been experienced in the United States as a result of the deregulation of the telephone industry and the competition which was created by the new companies to the American Bell system for long distance rates? That has led to very sharp increases in monthly rates and many more increases are predicted. What would be the effects of such increases on the users in his constituency, many of whom live in small, isolated communities?


Abram Ernest Epp: Mr. Speaker, the answer to that question must inevitably have something of conjecture about it. I do not think it takes any great amount of knowledge to realize that sharp increases in telephone rates are bound to have a detrimental effect. One of the difficulties with which my predecessors failed to deal in the Thunder Bay area with
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respect to telephone use is that of the people who live 20 miles or more outside the city who are not serviced by the department of the City of Thunder Bay which operates the telephone system. It is another example of municipal socialism that appears in various Canadian cities in which the telephone system is operated within the city limits as a utility, just as hydroelectricity is operated by a commission.
My constituents who live outside the city are in an unfortunate situation. As Bell Canada subscribers, they must pay long distance rates to talk to people in the city, to communicate with doctors, drug stores, and to do business. Whether those people are in the lumber or dairy business, they have to communicate with business people in the city.
I was recently at a public meeting in the small community of Pass Lake and that problem was brought to my attention. Some people were paying telephone bills regularly in the range of $80 to $150 a month. I was astonished that people could carry those costs. Those people have no choice. The farther they live from the city, the more important the telephone lines are. The charge represents an inevitable tax, given the present problems in getting sensible tie-ins between Bell Canada and the telephone department of the City of Thunder Bay. It is one of the taxes which people have to pay because they live outside the city.
I do not think that people who are living on social assistance rates as set by the Province of Ontario could afford to pay the costs. Some people are trying to manage on a few hundred dollars a month. Single people who are unable to find work have no choice but to try to maintain an apartment and have a telephone line available to them. If the CRTC were to allow the increases which Bell Canada could impose on Canadians, people in those circumstances would lose their telephones. That might well happen to people who are living on unemployment insurance and seeking work. In fact, in the City of Thunder Bay there is an unemployed workers' association which has sought a reduction in the bus fare in order to assist unemployed people in finding work. People who are hunting for jobs may have to depend on public transit, which represents a very heavy drain on their resources. Similarly, to charge for telephone calls by the call, and to allow telephone rental rates to rise significantly, would represent an unbearable drain on the resources of people who are in economic difficulty. Those economic circumstances are no accident. Governments helped to create those circumstances. The people who are already driven to the edge of despair would find themselves loaded down with additional costs. That is the human reality with which this Bill deals.


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member has graphically described the problems of his constituents who live outside the city limits of Thunder Bay. I wonder, has he received representations from senior citizens' organization? 1 have received representations which are very direct in expressing the feeling that the telephone service is a necessity for senior citizens and that the sharp increases, such as those which are occurring in the United States owing to the competition for long distance service, would mean that many senior
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citizens would have to give up their telephones. Has the Hon. Member received that type of representation? If so, what has his response been?


Abram Ernest Epp: Mr. Speaker, I must say in all honesty that I have not received that kind of representation. However, I have had representations from senior citizens in the City of Thunder Bay who are concerned about rental increases. In many cases the rent increases strike me as being inordinate. The rent increases seem particularly outrageous as they relate to non-profit housing. Non-profit housing is supposed to be social housing, but it is controlled by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation in such a way that rents are being driven upward significantly. Under those circumstances, I cannot imagine a senior citizen who is living on a pension being able to manage all of the costs. In the end, senior citizens may have to abandon their telephone service. I am an active member of the St. Paul's United Church Family Committee in Thunder Bay. The committee is concerned about the plight of senior members in the congregation. We recognized in that committee that the telephone service is one of the means of keeping in touch to ensure that people are in good health and have not suffered accidents.
Beyond the physical, of course, the regular telephone call is one way of ensuring that a good outlook on life is being maintained. It is necessary for mental health, if you will. We all realize, I am sure, although we forget the fact sometimes, that encouraging people to remain in their homes and carry on as long as possible is of enormous value to society. It saves the Government money. Again, this Bill is creating circumstances in which it is going to be more difficult for people to keep in touch and maintain a happy outlook on life. Telephones are essential to ensure that someone has not taken a fall and lain on the floor for two or three days before this person is missed at church on a Sunday which causes someone to go by his house to check whether he is all right or not. Again, those are dimensions which I appreciate my good friend from Winnipeg North drawing to my attention and thereby giving me the opportunity to lay them before the House.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, I would like to spend a few minutes this afternoon looking at Bill C-19 which is an effort to reorganize Bell Canada. I have some questions for you which I will come to just before my time is up this afternoon, but initially I would like to comment on the content of this Bill. It seems to be following a process we have seen in Canada before.
Historically, only a few large monopolies have developed in this country. That applies whether we talk about the fur trade, our transportation system or the telephone system. As we know, the telephone is believed to have been invented in the Brantford area by Alexander Graham Bell, whose name this company still uses. The CPR's development in Canada came about through its railroad operations. Subsequently it moved into other areas like hotels, tourism, ocean shipping, trucking, accumulating a multitude of assets, including real estate, until

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finally it got to the point where the railway part of the business was not the big money maker. Then CPR moved to split itself into many parts and pieces so that each one could be profitable, leaving the basis of the organization, namely the railway, which had as part of its mandate the provision of service to the public, somewhat short of assets because they were used to set up subsidiary companies. We contend that that is what Bell Canada is trying to do at this particular stage of its life.
Bell is doing a lot of research through a subsidiary and there are services it can offer which have the prospect of being more profitable than some aspects of the telephone business. Consequently, the company has proposed to divest itself of the responsibility for carrying through some services to the public, with the seeming acceptance of members of the Government and perhaps including members of the previous Government. The company has decided to hive off the telephone aspects of its operation, which are of a public service nature but which are beginning to lag behind the other technologies available for competing means of communications, and set that aside.
The company knows that because a lot of remote areas and less advantaged people require telephones there will be some public outcry if those people are not provided the service which is in some way subsidized by the Government. As a consequence we fear this Bill is an effort to follow in the steps of the Canadian Pacific Railway to set up small units of Bell Canada, particularly because, like CPR, Bell is subjected to scrutiny through a public body. So it can fall on its knees in front of the public body, insist it is losing money by only operating a telephone system, thereby creating the spectacle of the public body, in this case the CRTC, forcing it to raise the rates. People who are on pensions, welfare or people who live in remote communities will then have to pay higher rates for that service.
We fear this is an attempt to hive off the profitable aspects of the telephone business, namely long distance rates, as a separate entity so that each segment of the business can be forced to show a profit. If that is carried to its logical conclusion, people with a telephone will be charged for each call. If the charges remain on a monthly basis, they will end up being much higher because at the moment, if we can believe the representatives appearing before the CRTC, the telephone companies in Canada, including Bell Canada, use their very profitable long distance business to cross subsidize ordinary telephone service.
We have heard this argument for deregulation in the United States when it attempted to deregulate its airline business. It argued that the source of its business, the small towns and villages where feeder airlines were located, were not really very important. As a consequence, some of the airlines attempted to pull out of those feeder businesses and have people find their own way to the larger airports. A few of those companies found that they were in very great trouble after that. Once they took away the source of customers, there was not enough traffic left to generate profits. That is an argument that I think we should be aware of when we talk about deregulation of the telephone business. Without the widows and pensioners and
the people on welfare and those in remote communities, the prospect of a profitable long distance operation becomes virtually negligible.
As my time is about to run out, Mr. Speaker, there is a point I want to raise with you. I notice in Clause 14 of this Bill that all of the previous Acts which have set up the powers that Bell Canada operates under now were set up on the basis of Private Members' Motions. I would ask if, during the time between now and the next session, you would seek the opinion of the Law Officer of the House of Commons as to the appropriateness of this Bill coming in as a public Bill under those circumstances. Perhaps you can tell us whether this Bill should not have been introduced as a Private Members' Bill and, as a consequence, our discussion should then have taken place under Private Members' Business.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: 1 will certainly do that and report to the House as soon as possible.
It being five o'clock p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.



PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS-MOTIONS

["Order, please. That has taken care of the last minute. The hour provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired."]
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent of the House to proceed to Item No. 109?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



Mr. Howard Crosby (Halifax West) moved:: That, in the opinion of this House, in order to reduce Canada's massive debt, the government should consider the advisability of amending the Income Tax Act to provide that any Canadian taxpayer who makes a financial contribution to the government for the sole purpose of reducing the national debt shall be entitled to deduct a like amount in computing the taxable income of the taxpayer for the taxation year in which the contribution is made.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by offering a more simple explanation of the motion which I have brought to the floor of the House of Commons. First and foremost, it focuses attention on the gigantic national debt which is a burden for all Canadians. Second, it would allow the taxpayers of Canada an opportunity to participate directly in the reduction of this financial burden by making contributions which would be applied to the national debt, thus reducing it. I would like to make it clear that I do not expect the House to enact
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this provision. I think that is understandable. However, 1 do expect the House to recognize the need for focusing public attention on the national debt and to find some method, whether through the Income Tax Act or some other means, to take positive steps to reduce the national debt.
We have heard the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and members of the Cabinet indicate in the House day after day the necessity of concentrating our efforts and attention on the financial burden that is imposed on Canadians by the national debt and the annual deficit. The national debt is approaching $200 billion, now standing at $190 billion. The annual deficit may run as high as $36 billion for this fiscal year. There is some hope that that figure may be somewhat overestimated, but it would only be by approximately $1 billion. On a per capita basis, the national debt amounts to $7,500 for every Canadian man, woman and child. The per capita debt for the approximately 11 million taxpayers of Canada is $16,000. If all the taxpayers of Canada joined together to retire the national debt they would have to contribute approximately $16,000 each, which is an impossible burden.
It is relevant to note that in addition to that national debt burden on each taxpayer, we all live in provinces which in turn have debts as well. In my own case, in the Province of Nova Scotia the provincial debt amounts to $2.28 billion. The per capita share of that debt is $6,400. When the provincial debt burden, which must be shared by every taxpayer, is added to the national debt burden, in the case of the Province of Nova Scotia the total is in excess of $20,000. When Nova Scotians go home at night and look over their budget accounts and see what their car payment is, and what their mortgage payment is, and every other payment that is common to Canadian households is, they have to add that to the burden of paying off the national and provincial debt this year and in years to come. Through this motion I want to focus attention on this problem and to attempt to make people realize that if we go on with profligate spending we will simply increase the national debt and our annual budget deficit, carrying the problem into the future.
Let me talk about the provision specifically in the legal sense. I realize that there is now in the Canadian Income Tax Act a provision which permits taxpayers who make donations to the Government of Canada, specifically to Her Majesty the Queen in right of Canada, or to the Government of a province, specifically to Her Majesty the Queen in right of the province, to deduct that donation for income tax purposes.
One may ask how much this will cost taxpayers and whether it is any different from the provision which now permits donations to the Governments of Canada or the provinces to be deducted. I admit quite readily that that is difficult to answer. I have no idea what it would cost to implement a provision like this, but the statistics for the last taxation year indicate that Canadians in total contributed $1,360 billion to charities and deducted those donations for income tax purposes. I think that we can expect that the figure will not go beyond the amount given by all Canadians to all charities.
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With regard to the current provision in Section 110 of the Income Tax Act which permits deductions in the case of gifts to the Crown, I can say that pressure is not enough. I would like to see a procedure whereby Canadians can make a contribution to reduce the national debt and know that the money is being applied for that purpose.
We have had public response to the so-called cuts that the Government has been forced to make in spending for this and subsequent years. I think every Member of Parliament has great sympathy for Canadians who are affected by budget reductions, even though we all recognize the necessity of those reductions. I do not want to focus particular attention on any particular group or person that is affected by budget cuts, except to say that they have my sympathy. However, 1 would like to deal with one particular area which receives a great deal of media attention. Those are the cuts which affect the arts and the cultural community. In that regard I would like to talk about the Canada Council in relation to the duties of Government.
It is a matter of history that the Canada Council was created in 1957 as a result of the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences which was chaired by Vincent Massey. When the Council was established it was funded to the extent of $50 million. That money came from the estates of two very well known Canadians, Sir James Dunn and Izaak Walton Killam. Both of those Canadians had a special connection with the Province of Nova Scotia. I am well aware of their history and the contribution that they made to Canada and the arts and cultural communities as a result of the contributions through their estates.
The original purpose of the Canada Council was to use the revenues from those funds for its statutory purpose. That was in 1957. However, in 1964 things changed. The Prime Minister of the day, Mr. Pearson, recognized that the activities of the Canada Council had broadened in their base and that the Canada Council was spending much more than it received from the endowments which were conferred by statute of the Parliament of Canada. In 1964-65, Mr. Pearson contributed an additional $10 million to assist the Canada Council in carrying out some of its purposes. For the First time public funds were contributed directly to the Canada Council for its purposes.
In the fiscal year 1984-85, Canada Council's budget, including its grant from the Parliament of Canada, was $72.6 million. Of course, the great portion of that was public funds. This is what happens when one sets out to establish an activity, which is funded basically with moneys that have come from two taxpayers, through the tax system, in this case the Succession Duty Act which was then in force. It grows, with the end result being that taxpayers are spending money on a project- the Canada Council-that was never intended to be the responsibility of the taxpayers of Canada.
Indeed, the Canada Council Act demonstrates quite clearly that the Canada Council was to expend only these endowment

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funds which came from the estates of Sir James Dunn and Sir Izaak Walton Killam by way of taxation.
The suggestion to let taxpayers support public charities and then deduct the money will not solve the problem. 1 want to give the taxpayers the right to participate directly in the reduction of the national debt. I do not trust the Government to take the taxpayers' funds and use those funds to pay for other government services and at the end of that process reduce the national debt or the annual budget deficit. That may not happen, and I cite the Canada Council as an example of what happens when you set out to fund an activity separately. You end up spending over $50 million of taxpayers' money on the services provided.
Does this mean that I am not in favour of the work and activity of the Canada Council? Certainly not. My constituency, my province and my part of Canada benefit in great measure from the existence of the Canada Council, and I do not deny that at all. I just want to put the whole matter into focus. Once something gets started in government, it is not only hard to stop it, it is hard to bring it under any kind of sensible control.
Let me say in passing, however, that I find it rather annoying, as do other Members of Parliament, I suspect, that the Canada Council, through the arts and cultural community in Canada, has objected so strongly to the reasonable request of the Minister of Communications (Mr. Masse) to curb its budgetary requirements by $3.5 million, especially when the Canada Council is spending $15 million on its administration expenses and it could only reduce those by $1 million. In fact, as I understand it, the $3.5 million by which the budget was to be reduced has been watered down to approximately $2.5 million. The end result is that grants made by the Canada Council in the next fiscal year may be reduced by as little as $1.5 million. Yet, the hue and cry goes out.
I grant to any Canadian the right to make public whatever objection he can muster to Government about expenditure reductions that affect him in a direct way. However, as I said before, the whole matter must be put into context. On the one hand, we have a national debt approaching $200 billion, a budgetary deficit on an annual basis approaching $36 billion and, on the other hand, we have a group in Canada objecting to a cut of approximately $2.5 million in a budget that has grown, since its inception in 1957, to $72 million.
The Canada Council, in its inception, was never intended to expend taxpayers' money. This is what happens. You end up apologizing, as a representative of the people in Parliament, for something that should have been done years ago by a responsible government so that we would not have this situation today.
If I stand before Canadians and before the House of Commons asking for a change in the Income Tax Act that will allow Canadians to enter into the financial vaults of the Government, as it were, and put their money down to reduce the national debt, I do not apologize for that. I think that is giving Canadians an opportunity that they never had before. I
suspect there are some Canadians who would like to take advantage of that.
Let me consider that point for a moment. While the Government is going through the process of establishing financial responsibility in Canada for the benefit of Canadians, we receive a certain amount of support from organizations like the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and others concerned with the status of the business community and the state of the Canadian economy. They recognize collectively and individually, as groups and taxpayers, that measures must be taken to reduce the Government's expenditures that have led to massive annual deficits and have resulted in the massive national debt. Everyone recognizes that, but when the chips are down and the steps are taken, when the budgets are cut and individuals are affected, they back off. They do not support these measures.
I simply want to say in that context, that it is easy to break the will of a politician and it is easy to break the will of government. Why should we, as individual Members of Parliament or collectively as the Government of Canada, take the measures that are necessary and at the same time incur the broad criticism of important sectors of the Canadian population? Why should we do that? Why don't we just borrow more money at current interest rates and pile up a bigger deficit and bigger national debt in order to please everyone in Canada and have ourselves elected in four years' time?
We do not want to do that because that is exactly what the Liberals have done for 16 years. That is why they were not elected by the people of Canada in September, 1984, and that is why the Progressive Conservative Party was elected as the Government of Canada. We pledged individually and as a group to take the kind of action that was essential to deal with this financial problem.
At the same time we recognize, as concerned persons, that if we take that action the result will be an improved economy that will, in turn, benefit Canadians, because the major problem in Canada is, has been, and will continue to be unemployment. The plight of Canadians who are unemployed does not go out of the mind of any Member of Parliament. We see it on a day to day basis, in the food line-up in larger cities and in the line-ups at the Manpower offices and unemployment insurance centres. We never want to lose sight of our mission to assist people who are unemployed in Canada, the over 1.5 million Canadians and hundreds of thousands of others who are no longer counted.
We are not reducing the national debt simply for the sake of a financial exercise. We are doing it to get the Canadian economy in shape so that the engine of growth will create the activity that creates jobs and, in that way, lead to the ultimate goal of the reduction of unemployment in Canada.
When you introduce a motion in the House of Commons that, in simple terms, amends the Income Tax Act to permit and to encourage taxpayers to participate directly in the process of reducing the national debt, you have a lot of things in mind. What I have in mind is a subject that we seldom hear spoken about by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner) in the House of Commons, that is, unemployment in Canada. It
April 2, 1985

still is and will continue to be until every Canadian is employed the major issue for all Canadians. All of our attention should be directed toward curing that problem and providing the opportunity for every Canadian to work in his or her community.
I know from talking to Canadians that while they are concerned with interest rates and inflation rates, they are of very certain mind that if they can become employed and maintain their employment they will have the opportunity at least to pay their bills, pay for their food, housing and clothing and pay interest rates, however high they are. It is a burden but one that most Canadians can live with.
As I said, and don't mind repeating, the purpose of the exercise is to generate employment and reduce unemployment in Canada. That can only be done by reducing the national debt and allowing the Canadian economy to produce what it cannot produce while it has this financial burden. If a provision in the Income Tax Act assists in any small way to encourage Canadians to consider the national debt and to work toward its reduction, then I think it has merit and I submit it to the House.
Mir. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in this debate on this motion. 1 listened very attentively to the Hon. Member. Like him 1 an concerned about the deficit and the state of the Canadian economy. 1 am sure we all share the view that we want to create jobs in this country. Obviously we want more and more of our people to have meaningful employment. I am sure that government Members, members of the Cabinet, wherever they are, if they somehow get to view this on their televisions, will see the opportunity themselves to be informed of these wishes of the Hon. Member for Halifax West (Mr. Crosby). If and when they ever come back to this House, members of the Cabinet will be aware that we are very concerned with this particular kind of issue.
I have a few deficit reducing views of my own. I think the Government should start by reducing the size of the Cabinet by roughly one-third. That would not do much for the Tory employment strategy as it affects Tory Members of this House because they are supposed to be kept busy. A bunch of Tories have just been sent to Russia for a few weeks to try to find something to do. They may come back not having done much, but the fact that this Cabinet is about one-third larger than it should be is very expensive. I see some government backbenchers nodding agreement. That is only because they were not chosen to be in Cabinet. If they were, they might have had a different view. I am glad for the time being that some Members agree with me that this Cabinet is way too large.
We see outside the west door of the House of Commons the used car lot. There are 40 very expensive limousines parked there every day.


An Hon. Member:: Do you want one?
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Don Boudria: These limousines are for members of the Cabinet. Each limousine has a chauffeur who sits in the car waiting for the Minister who may show up sometimes. Then we have the chiefs of staff. There are 40 chiefs of staff. Each Cabinet Minister has a chief of staff. We pay them about $80,000 each. These $80,000 chiefs of staff, or political commissars as they are known in a more friendly manner by some of us here, are very expensive to this country. A proposition that I would favour as a cost-cutting deficit reducing measure is that we eliminate those positions right away, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Chartrand:: What about Stornoway?


Don Boudria: I am glad somebody raised the issue of Stornoway. I hear the Hon. Member across the way heckling. He probably does not know what he is talking about. But let me tell him that it was the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner) himself who canned the project on Stornoway because it was too expensive to the taxpayers. If some of the Tories had had that kind of initiative, things would be far better. Now that they know the facts, maybe they can check them out and apologize tomorrow in this House.
We were talking about deficit reduction. I was reading in today's business section of The Toronto Star-


Mr. Jepson:: The Liberal Star.


Don Boudria: -an article which writes about the changes in the energy policy. The effect of this will be a reduction of $1 million to the Treasury over the next two years and another $1.4 billion increase in the deficit in another area. This is a massive increase in the deficit caused by the breaks that have been given to the multi-national oil industries by the present Government.
I have here a copy of the annual report of Imperial Oil Limited. I would like to read some of it for Members on the other side. Imperial Oil, of course, is in dire straights, Mr. Speaker. Maybe with the money Imperial Oil has, that company would contribute to the fund which the Member from Halifax West is suggesting. Let me read to you the summary statement from this annual report, Mr. Speaker. There are just a few lines and in part it reads:
-net income was $221 million or $1.38 per share compared with $57 million or $0.36 per share a year earlier.
As you can see, Mr. Speaker, the folks in Imperial Oil really needed the breaks given by the Minister of Energy (Miss Carney). I am sure the good voters of Ontario and Quebec and all the consumers in this country, when they pay the increased tax which the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) is shortly to impose on them, as soon as the election in Ontario is out of the way, will realize what has been perpetrated on them by the Minister of Finance. It is no coincidence that the Budget will occur only a few days after the election in Ontario. If some of the Conservative back-benchers we see here today think that this Budget is pure and holy and everything else, why do they not convince the Minister of Finance to introduce the Budget in this House one week before the Ontario election? That is when we should have the Budget. That is when we should see

April 2, 1985
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the fiscal policy of this Government. I am sure all Members on the other side would want that just as much as I do because we want to know what the policies of this Government are.


An Hon. Member:: This is the House of Commons, not Queen's Park.


Don Boudria: The Member on the other side said that this is the House of Commons and not Queen's Park. That is quite true. Maybe the Government should also realize, when it presents its plans to bring forward its budgetary document, that this is in fact the House of Commons. Maybe the Government should have planned its Budget for the benefit of Canadians instead of for the benefit of the Ontario Conservative Party, which is what the Government did.
I have another suggestion for deficit reduction, Mr. Speaker.


Gilbert Chartrand: What was your first one?


Don Boudria: Today I placed question No. 319 on the Order Paper. You may want to read question No. 319, Mr. Speaker. It takes up about a page and a half. It concerns the Shamrock Summit. The Irish eyes were smiling, but do you know at what cost, Mr. Speaker? If I had spent $320,000 in Quebec City, my Irish eyes would be smiling too, but the Irish eyes of the taxpayers will not be smiling when they foot the bill.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Don Boudria: I say to them over there, do not think this is funny. I am sure the people of Quebec want meaningful employment.

My constituents of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell would like to get better jobs too. But the government will certainly not provide better jobs by squandering taxpayers' money on worthless programs to please our Prime Minister's boss, the President of the United States. Because you are quite objective and are not biased like PC members opposite, Mr. Speaker, you can understand that spending $320,000 over a weekend to entertain the President of the United States is a complete waste. All the while, of course, the Prime Minister of Canada claimed to be a head of state.

The Prime Minister, while he was in Quebec City, while he was spending all this money, increasing our deficit in doing it-this is so you don't bring me to order, Mr. Speaker, and so you are sure I speak to the Bill-was having delusions of grandeur pretending that he was a head of state. We could see the seal on the front of the podium. We could see him meeting the U.S. head of state at the airport. I do not mind the fellow having delusions of grandeur. All of us have them at one time or another. But sometimes he was referring to Cabinet Ministers as "my Ministers". Mr. Speaker, I think the man thinks he is the Queen. He is suffering from something which needs to be cured. He needs to be brought down to earth. This is just
terrible. In any case, the cost of that particular weekend in Quebec City to Canadian taxpayers was $320,000.
Let us have a look at the promises which were made during the election campaign.


An Hon. Member:: You can't say that with a straight face.


Don Boudria: I laugh at this, but actually some of those Tory promises are enough to make one cry. There were 338 of them. During the election campaign the Tories were going to reduce the deficit, and again we are talking about deficit reduction. Approximately 113 of those promises were to spend more money. How does one reduce the deficit by spending more money? There were five promises to spend less money. How does one reconcile those two points? Perhaps a Tory Member could tell us how Conservative mathematics work. In terms of raising money, they made two particular promises to increase the revenue of the country and 26 promises to reduce it. This is rather interesting in terms of deficit reduction and initiative on the part of the Government to reduce the deficit. It is symptomatic of the schizophrenic behaviour of the Government.
This particular Government may say that it wants to reduce the deficit. That is about the same amount of truth as when the President of the United States claimed that he wanted to reduce the deficit. Perhaps government Members want to change their spending priorities. They want to remove programs which have helped poor people and the needy. They clearly said that in their document entitled Expenditure and Program Review, also known as the blue book of cut-backs, introduced last November 8. On black Thursday, November 8, when this particular document was introduced, they said that they did not want to reduce the deficit but that they wanted to rearrange their spending priorities. They wanted to spend more on arms, on military uniforms, on limousines for Cabinet Ministers and on porkbarrelling, which brings me to another topic. They did not want to reduce the deficit. They wanted to spend money on things that were different. They wanted to spend money on the things which I have enumerated. They wanted to spend less on people who need it most. They wanted to spend less for farmers who saw many cut-backs in that particular document. They wanted to spend less on those who needed it and more on Tory friends.
Where is the deficit cutting measure when it comes to giving salary increases to Roy McMurtry and Lawrence Hannigan? We know how much money we should be paying these particular people. After all, Mr. Hannigan only had 20 strikes in 10 years where he used to work! They appointed that gentleman and gave him a raise which brought his salary to $135,000 per year. He was a defeated Conservative candidate, defeated by the Hon. Member for Laval-des-Rapides (Mr. Garneau). After being defeated, Mr. Hannigan got a big job at $135,000 per year. That is almost enough to make Tory back-benchers and the surfers on this side wish they had lost.


An Hon. Member:: Who are the surfers?
April 2, 1985


Don Boudria: Those are the Members who were elected with the tide. That is why I call them that. Those Conservative Members must wish that they had lost the last election so that they could receive big rewards like the ones given to Lawrence Hannigan and Roy McMurtry, another loser at the provincial level for the Ontario leadership. He went on to a plum job in Britain. None of the voters in my constituency received plum jobs in Britain at $135,000 or $114,000 per year. Many of those people are still concerned about the deficit, but they are more concerned about unemployment in my area. They are more concerned with trying to obtain jobs and ensuring that they will continue to receive unemployment insurance benefits because jobs are not forthcoming. The farmers of my riding are not worried about calculating how to invest $135,000 pay cheques. They are worried about keeping their farms. Those are the worries of my constituents. When I see their concerns and when I see some of the waste of the Conservative Government, which pledged on one hand to spend more and on the other hand to spend less, I really wonder about the sincerity of its members during the last election campaign.
Of course the Hon. Member for Halifax West was very sincere when he brought in this motion, but he needs to do a lot of lobbying with Cabinet Ministers about their own personal way of spending government funds and about the way in which the Government is handing out patronage appointments right, left and centre, to everyone. Once they start setting that example in the House of Commons and in the Government of Canada, and once we see the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) cut back that massive increase in the budget of his own office, that 57 per cent increase over the budget of the previous Prime Minister, we will believe that they are sincere. Only a few years ago Conservative Members criticized the previous Prime Minister because they claimed that his office was too large. This attitude of bourgeoisie on the part of the Government is totally unacceptable to my constituents and to other people of Canada. It is my hope that the Government will change its policies.
As much as I agree with the principle suggested by the Hon. Member for Halifax West, I think Conservative back-benchers on both sides of the House should be speaking with their Cabinet Ministers and telling them to reduce the size of the used car lot at the west door, their large fleet of limousines. They should tell them to stop spending money. They have spent almost $100,000 renovating the offices of Cabinet Ministers on the Hill. One particular Minister, the Minister of Mines, whoever that is, spent $18,000 putting new wallpaper in his office. The Government talks about reducing the deficit. It should take a mirror and look at itself and the kind of job it is doing. Government Members want to commit Canada to spending more on arms and in other such areas, to spend more on defence and military uniforms, to spend more on limousines and the lavish lifestyles of Cabinet Ministers and the Prime Minister, but they want to spend less on the poor. That is not deficit reduction; that is reorganization of priorities in such a way as to increase the deficit by taking away from the poor
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and giving to the rich. Those are the policies of the Government, and I do not agree with them.


Simon Leendert de Jong: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to participate in the debate on the motion of the Hon. Member for Halifax West (Mr. Crosby) which essentially asks us to make the Government of Canada a charitable organization. If that were the real intention of the Hon. Member, perhaps he should suggest to the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Beatty) that the Government of Canada be given a charitable donation number so that we could then solve the problems with which we are faced today. What a naive, foolish, simplistic approach the Hon. Member is introducing. Imagine making the Government of Canada a charitable organization!
Perhaps it is not all that far-fetched, given the track record of the present Government. It could very well run the country and the Government into a situation where the Government needs to become a charitable organization.
It is amazing to hear government Members talk, in their very simplistic way, about the causes of the deficit as well as the solutions that they propose. I suspect that the proposal in front of us today for reducing the deficit makes about as much sense as what we have heard so far in terms of serious economic policy which the Government has introduced.
When dealing with the deficit, you are really dealing with two questions: one, your expenditures, and two, your revenues. Unfortunately, government Members have been quite concerned with the expenditure side. All too often during the campaign, in the right wing rhetoric that we have heard in the last number of years, we have been told that the problem with the deficit is that we are living beyond our means, we have had too much government expenditure, essentially it is those people on welfare, those hangers-on who are sucking the system dry, it is time we put our house in order, cut those programs and lived "within our means". In that way economic recovery will occur, new wealth will be created, et cetera, et cetera. In all of the key words and phrases that one can use in this quite simplistic way their solution is to be found. Never do we hear from government Members and government spokesmen about the government revenue part of this equation. They never talk about the type of tax breaks that wealthy Canadians and large corporations have been receiving. There is never one peep out of them about that, just an attack on government expenditures.
A study of OECD countries has shown that as far as social expenditures are concerned, Canada is approximately at the bottom. Italy, Ireland, France, Germany, Holland, the Scandinavian countries, the United States, Great Britain, all spend more of their gross national product on social expenditures than we in Canada. To say that compared to other western civilized countries we are spending more or living beyond our means is absolute nonsense. Certainly compared to other western industrialized countries, we are not spending beyond our means. In fact, we have a pretty poor track record in this regard.

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Witness the situation in which many Canadians live. Witness the food banks in every major Canadian city in this country. People are lining up for a bloody sandwich and a bowl of soup. Witness the conditions in which native people live on the reservations. Witness the shacks and the rooms that hundreds and thousands of Canadians are living in, yet we still hear from the Tories that we are living beyond our means. What a bunch of nonsense! How sad it is, how sad it is.
It is of interest to me when I read the statement issued by the Canadian Catholic Bishops on January 5, 1983. I hear a lot of the rhetoric that has come from the government benches and the solutions that they are proposing, much of what the bishops were warning against in the 1983 statement. Let me place on the record what the bishops were saying at that time. They said:
Indeed it is becoming more evident that an industrial future-
I'm sorry, I will come back to that section because the bishops had a lot of very important points to make. In fact, I would suggest that this is one of the most important social documents that has been produced in Canada in the 1980s. The bishops described the economic crisis as follows:
The present recession appears to be symptomatic of a much larger structural crisis in the international system of capitalism. Observers point out that profound changes are taking place in the structure of both capital and technology which are bound to have serious social impacts on labour.
They then talked about some of the solutions that are being proposed. I quote from the section "Present Strategies". They said:
There is a very real danger that these same structural and moral problems are present in Canada's strategies for economic recovery. As recent economic policy statements reveal, the primary objective is to restore profitability and competitiveness in certain Canadian industries and provide more favourable conditions for private investment in the country. The private sector is to be the "engine" for economic recovery. To achieve these goals, inflation-
The bishops talked about inflation in 1983. I will substitute the word "deficit". The rhetoric is still the same, except the word "inflation" has been taken out and the word "deficit" is now used.
To achieve these goals, (the deficit) is put forth as the number one problem. The causes of (the deficit) are seen as workers' wages, government spending and low productivity rather than monopoly control of prices. The means for curbing (the deficit) are such austerity measures as the federal 6 and 5 wage restraint program-
That was the Liberal solution. By the way, there is not much difference between what the Tories are doing now and what the Liberals did then. I continue with the quote:
-such austerity measures as the federal 6 and 5 wage restraint program and cut-backs in social spending (e.g., hospitals, medicare, public services, education and foreign aid), rather than controls on profits and prices. These measures, in turn, have been strengthened by a series of corporate tax reductions and direct investment incentives for such sectors as the petroleum industry. In effect, the survival of capital takes priority over labour in present strategies for economic recovery.
Let us look at the statistics. Indeed we find that it is so. All of these figures came when the Liberals were in power, but I do not see the Tories changing it. I now quote from the January 1985 issue of Canadian Business, certainly no flaming socialist magazine. It reads:
In 1977 large corporations paid an average effective tax rate (after all possible deductions and deferrals) of 18.2 per cent,-
In 1981, the most recent year for which figures are available, the effective big-business tax rate had dropped to 14.3 per cent,-
That is not all. The article continues to explore some of the other tax dodges that exist. For example, it talks about the deferral problem and gives some example. I quote:
Northern Telecom Ltd. chalked up $3.3 billion in sales in 1983, showed $325 million in profit and yet managed to end the fiscal year paying no taxes.
TransCanada Pipelines Ltd., with $4.7 billion in assets and 1982 pretax earnings of $ 182 million, paid just 7 per cent in effective taxes.
Shell Canada Ltd., with assets of $4.7 billion and pretax earnings of $302 million, paid no income taxes in 1982.
The list goes on. When we hear government Members talking about reducing the deficit, do they talk about collecting revenues from Shell Canada Ltd., TransCanada Pipelines or Northern Telecom? No. As the bishops state, it is the big business guys and their profitability that has been selected as the engine for economic growth. They are the ones whom we bow to and scrape to. We never touch any of their special dividends or special tax concessions, no way. We cannot do that. Who does get cut? It is the old people, our education system, the people on welfare and those on unemployment insurance. They have to tighten their belt. They have to make their sacrifices. When was the last time that Shell Oil, TransCanada Pipelines or Northern Telecom ever made a sacrifice for this country? Never, and never will they.
Then of course there is this extra little thing called deferred taxes. In 1980, deferred taxes amounted to some $24.2 billion. That was more than the entire federal deficit was at that time. If government Members were really serious about solving the problem of the deficit, they would collect the damned deferred taxes. There is some $24 billion to $26 billion sitting out there. Will they ever do that? No. Will they ever collect that money? No, because these taxes are essentially written off.
We return to the statement made by the bishops. The bishops asked a very good question. They said:
Yet, there are no clear reasons to believe that working people will ever really benefit from these and other sacrifices they are called to make. For even if companies recover and increase their profit margins, the additional revenues are likely to be reinvested in more labour-saving technology, exported to other countries, or spent on market speculation or luxury goods.
Are the bishops speaking through their hats or are they serious? Do they have some facts and figures behind them? I believe that they do have some facts and figures behind them.
Let us look again at some of the facts and figures regarding these tax breaks. We find that the studies that have been done show that the companies that received the most tax breaks are in fact the ones that have the worst record of creating employment. Many of these tax breaks are justified by the statement that they will create jobs. Government Members say that we must allow these companies to earn more profits so that they can plough this back into the economy through new investment, and then the new investment will create more jobs. This is called the trickle-down notion. Put in another way which the
April 2, 1985

Hon. Member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor) will well understand, if one feeds the horse a lot of oats, eventually the sparrow will get some. However, I am sure the Hon. Member for Bow River knows that he is not to step in it. I am afraid that the Government of this country has stepped in it and has it all over its shoes. The unfortunate part is that that is something with which we must all live.
The trickle-down notion has not worked. It has not created jobs. Let us look at some of the figures to back this up. Again, I am reading from the January 1985 issue of Canadian Business, a document which is not a flaming socialist document.
Government figures show that companies that reap the most tax benefits give back the least in job creation. While the small-business sector is now creating 100 per cent of new jobs in Canada, the big-business sector (firms with taxable incomes of more than $5 million) has taken advantage of 77 per cent of the $26 billion in corporate tax breaks. Furthermore, while total corporate writeoffs grew an average of 84 per cent between 1975 and 1980, they escalated by 360 per cent for the top 1 per cent of corporations.
Again, we find that the guys who are getting all the breaks are not giving any breaks to the working people of the country. They are not creating the jobs. What gives? It is not the small-business sector that is getting the tax breaks. In fact, its real tax rate in 1977 was 22.6 per cent, while the tax rate of the big-business sector was only 18.2 per cent. In 1981, things had not changed that much. The effective tax rate of the small-business sector that year was 22.3 per cent. It is the small guys who are creating the jobs but it is the big guys who are getting all the tax breaks.
If government Members were really serious about creating some economic justice in this country and if they were really serious about reducing the deficit, they would attack the big guys. Why do they not go after the revenue that exists out there? These are the folks who made billions of dollars off the wealth of the country. Make them pay for it. Do those across the way dare to do so? I doubt it. I would suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that whoever pays the piper calls the tune. Who made all their political contributions and donations during the last election campaign? Government Members would not for the life of you, Mr. Speaker, bite the hand that fed them. After all, they are beholden to the oil companies, the banks and the people who get these tax deferrals and fast write-offs and who end up paying only some 14.3 per cent in an effective corporate tax rate.


Mr. Reimer:: That's nonsense.


Simon Leendert de Jong: The Hon. Member says that that is nonsense. What other rationale is there?
Let me return to the statement made by the bishops. From what 1 have read into the record, the bishops are essentially saying that the rhetoric of the right that sees that increasing profitability is to be the engine for economic recovery and growth is something that will not work and that has not worked. I believe that we can back the bishops up in that assertion with the statistics and facts that I have outlined to the House.
Income Tax Act
The big guys who get all the tax breaks do not in fact create the jobs. The bishops say that big business does not put the extra wealth it gets from tax breaks into creating jobs and that much of it is invested abroad. Again, there are figures to back this up. In the last few years, the amounts of money invested abroad have increased. From 1979 to 1983, an average of $3,688,000,000 was invested outside the country, whereas between 1974 and 1978, an average of $675 million was invested outside the country. That is an increase of some 646 per cent. We are seeing where the money goes.
As well, we can see that a great deal of this extra money that is received from tax write-offs and tax breaks goes into mergers. Again in the last few years, there has been a tremendous increase in mergers. An average of $520 million per year was spent on mergers between 1979 and 1983. This can be compared to the earlier 1970s. From 1974 to 1978, an average of only $343 million per year was spent on mergers. This extra wealth is not creating jobs. It is being invested outside Canada or it is being put into mergers.
Again, let me return to the statement made by the bishops. They said:
There is nothing "normal" or "natural" about present unemployment rates. Indeed, massive unemployment which deprives people of the dignity of human work and an adequate family income, constitutes a social evil. It is also a major economic problem since high unemployment rates are accompanied by lower productivity, lower consumption of products, reduced public revenues, and increasing social welfare costs. Thus, alternative strategies are required which place primary emphasis on the goals of combatting unemployment by stimulating production and permanent job creation in basic industries; developing a more balanced and equitable program for curbing inflation; and maintaining health care, social security, and special assistance programs.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I regret to interrupt the Hon. Member but I sense that there is a point of order on the question of time.
[ Translation]
Mr. Claude Lanthier (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister
of Finance): Mr. Speaker, thank you for allowing me to speak briefly to this motion. I believe I have only two minutes left. 1 simply want to say that the level of the public debt is the aspect of the economic situation on which the motion is focused. In his motion, the Hon. Member for Halifax West (Mr. Crosby) quite properly describes it as a massive debt. The level of the debt is very high. It is a heavy burden on the Government, leaving it with precious little manoeuvering room for the soundest possible management of its financial operations. It does hamper all economic activities. Hopefully, the Hon. Member for Halifax West does not believe that his proposition differs considerably from the existing legislative provision. I hope to show, or I would have hoped to show-


Simon Leendert de Jong: Mr. Speaker, is this a point of order?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: No, it is not a point of order. The point of order was the matter of time. The Hon. Member's time had expired. The Parliamentary Secretary is speaking on debate.

April 2, 1985
Adjournment Debate


Simon Leendert de Jong: I distinctly recall looking at the clock and 1 began speaking when it was 20 to six, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I am told by the Table that the Hon. Member started to speak at 5.39 o'clock.


Simon Leendert de Jong: Mr. Speaker, I would like to request the unanimous consent of the House to finish my remarks.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


Simon Leendert de Jong: You guys are not very nice or polite.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. That has taken care of the last minute. The hour provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, on February 8, 1985, I asked the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) a question concerning the unemployment situation in Canada, not only with respect to Canada as a whole, but with respect to unemployment in the different regions across Canada. It should be noted that in January, 1985, despite the rhetoric of the Minister of Finance and other senior Ministers, an additional 167,000 Canadians were added to the unemployment rolls. Certainly, that does not speak very well for the Government's policy with respect to reducing unemployment, and creating wealth and economic opportunities for Canadians.
The Minister of Finance said that he needed more time to introduce a Budget when I posed the question. I cannot understand why the Minister is waiting any longer. When I asked the question, the Minister of Finance stated, as reported at page 2144 of Hansard:
The Budget will come after we have had the opportunity to discuss with the First Ministers, next week in Regina, the ideas which they have on economic policy and which they feel should be reflected in our Budget; and also after the national economic conference.
Well, both of those events have been completed and, indeed, some of the participants have alluded that they were successful both in Regina and Ottawa. I believe that the Minister of Finance, in a very deceitful way, is reluctant to place the
Budget before the Parliament of Canada before the election takes place in the Province of Ontario. There must be serious consideration given to the motives of the Minister of Finance for not being forthcoming in putting a Budget before the Parliament of Canada.
The youth unemployment rate in Canada is in excess of 15 per cent. I believe that to be totally unacceptable. It is unacceptable to Her Majesty's Official Opposition, Canadians throughout Canada and those young Canadians in the various regions of Canada who want an opportunity to participate fully. Let me quote what the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) said when he was Leader of the Opposition at an East Pictou high school in Nova Scotia, adding insult to injury. The Prime Minister was speaking about youth in Canada and he said:
You are our most priceless possession-thoughtful and intelligent youth.
What has the Conservative Government done for young people in this country? I would suggest that it has done absolutely nothing to assist young Canadians, whether they live in Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario, western Canada or, indeed, the North, in terms of improving employment opportunities.
The Minister of Employment and Immigration (Miss MacDonald) had the audacity to come before the House of Commons and suggest that wage subsidies were the answer for creating employment opportunities for young people. That is utter nonsense. As of today, the Minister of Employment and Immigration has studies on her desk which unequivocally show that wage subsidy programs do not assist the young Canadians who live in the poor regions of Canada. Second, 60 per cent of those jobs would be created anyway with or without wage subsidy programs being initiated by the Government of Canada.
We need a long-term, thoughtful and meaningful strategy to attack unemployment in Canada. There is no strategy. The Government has adopted the buzz-words and the rhetoric used by the President of the United States, that somehow the private sector will create all the jobs that are needed in this country.
We have heard the Minister of Employment and Immigration stand in her place and say that she had commitments from some major Canadian companies on summer employment. Only 24 hours later that was denied by the private sector. Yes, they want to create wealth and jobs but they cannot do it alone. But this Government is acting on the basis of Voodoo economics, just as the U.S. did.
I suggest the Government is being less than candid with the people of Canada. The Western Accord! What a sham. We are giving $1.3 billion to the multinational oil companies but the Government cannot provide $13.5 million to the Maritime Farmers Council who are in desperate need of emergency funding. Shame on this Government. It refuses to table in this House an impact study in relation to the statement by the Minister of Finance in November of 1984. The Government refuses to tell us whether or not it has done such a study
April 2, 1985

regarding changes in unemployment insurance. But then the Minister goes outside of the House of Commons and says to the press, "no, I think it's the responsibility of the Minister of Finance". He in turn says he thinks it is the responsibility of the Minister of Employment and Immigration. So much for the compassion and concern echoed during the federal election campaign regarding poor Canadians.
I say the Government of Brian Mulroney will come to its day of reckoning during the next federal election. It will be voted out of office because it is not coming forward with policies which will decrease unemployment in Canada. If anything, the Government has added substantially to the unemployment rolls in this country, whether it be because of the vicious cuts in the CBC, which the Parliamentary Secretary has aided and abetted, or whether it be the refusal to give money to Atlantic Canadians, or come clean regarding a gas tax. Shame on the Government.
[ Translation]


Mr. Claude Lanthier (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, the statement to the effect that
167.000	more Canadians are now unemployed as compared to the previous month is based on a comparison between non-seasonally adjusted figures of January 1985 and those for December 1984. As a rule, employment figures are inflated in December as a result of temporary jobs created to meet rising consumer demand during the Christmas season.
Adjusted figures taking such seasonal factors into account do reveal, unfortunately, that the number of unemployed increased from December 1984 to January 1985, but by only
44.000	or roughly 25 per cent of the alleged increase.
An overview of statistics on gainfully employed manpower shows that 84,000 permanent jobs have been created since this Government was elected.
In early November, the Government unveiled a new strategy, a program of economic recovery. The main thrust of that strategy was: (a) to tidy up public finance; (b) to redefine the role of Government which is to create a better environment for growth and job creation; (c) to enact policies conducive to increased investment, stimulated innovation and enhanced international competitivity, and to the development of a climate suitable for the establishment and growth of new businesses; (d) to implement such changes in a way that will be fair, open and in line with the basic spirit of compassion, tolerance and justice inherent to our Canadian society.
Over the last three months, that strategy has been followed by the Government. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) met with his counterparts in Montreal in January. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) met on February 14 and 15 with his counterparts in Regina. And ten days or so ago, the National Conference on the Economy was held. All that was aimed at giving Canadians an opportunity to put forward the ideas they have on economic policy and which they would like in fact to be reflected in the budget. The Government will introduce a
Adjournment Debate
budget only after open and complete discussion and consultation.
In the meantime, the Government has announced a number of initiatives for job creation. Firstly, there was "Challenge '85", an array of summer employment programs with a total funding of some $205 million, which stresses the private sector's role in providing summer employment related to the field of studies of the applicants. Secondly, the Prime Minister announced in Regina that, in addition to the $1.2 billion already announced for employment and manpower training programs, the Government will add: an extra $125 million to facilitate the integration of young people and women in the labour market; an extra $350 million to improve employment opportunities for the chronically unemployed, the greater part of these funds being earmarked for joint programs with the Provinces; an extra $80 million to allow workers, especially those affected by technological changes, to acquire the needed skills; an extra $40 million to create opportunities for workers in regressing communities; $100 million to promote innovation, pilot projects and new experiments.
Consultation with the Provinces and the private sector over the next few weeks will ensure an immediate and concerted implementation of the new 1985-86 initiatives.


CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION-BUDGETARY CUTBACKS-REQUEST FOR DETAILS. (B) NATURE OF CONSULTATIONS
Lynn McDonald: Mr. Speaker, during the election campaign, the Progressive Conservative Party promised to consult with the cultural community on its cultural policy. The Government has now chosen to ignore this promise as it has ignored so many others. Instead of consulting, the Government has mercilessly and abruptly changed its cultural policy. It has cut $85 million from the CBC budget, $10 million for equipment and $75 million for programming.
The Government should not say the cutbacks will be at the discretion of CBC management, because that is just not possible. We hear rumours of funds being wasted by the CBC, but let us not exaggerate. The CBC is responsible for two television networks, the French and the English network, AM and FM radio in both official languages, the Northern Service, including native languages, and the International Service. It is a task vaster and more complex than that of other national services like the British Broadcasting Corporation.
As far as consultation goes, the Minister has failed utterly. He recently started to meet with groups from the arts community, but only after there had been a violent reaction to his new policy. And even then, he is explaining or defending his budgetary cutbacks instead of providing for genuine consultation.

April 2, 1985
Adjournment Debate

The English speaking people of Canada feel even more threatened by the Minister's cut-backs and his failure to consult because English Canadians are more vulnerable to American cultural take-over. It is significant that it took an advertisement in The Globe and Mail for concerned Canadians to get a hearing from the Minister of Communications (Mr. Masse). It is appalling that Canadians have to take out an advertisement in a newspaper to communicate with the Minister of Communications. Still he lectures rather than listens. When the arts lobby came to Ottawa on March 20 the Prime Minister refused to meet with it.
I do not want to make an unqualified defence of the CBC. Defending the CBC is like hugging a porcupine. Not only is it difficult, but you sometimes wonder why you do it at all. The CBC itself fails to consult. It acts a lot like the Minister of Communications. It is very poor in its treatment of women; its own employees and women in news and public affairs. It spends a lot of time and money fighting its own employees. I think of the case of the-
[ Translation]
-Syndicat des employes de production du Quebec et de l'Acadie-

-to name only one. It is top heavy in management and there have not been cut-backs in vice-presidents. Unions which have proposed economy measures have been told to mind their own business.
The CBC's mandate does need reviewing. We should have an open inquiry. We should understand that there are a lot of people who have constructive proposals to make, and they should have an opportunity to make them. The CBC is wasteful, but a major audit of the CBC, the McKinsey report, concluded that in operating in two official languages covering widely dispersed geography, the CBC faced more difficult and costly broadcasting challenges than any other public broadcasters. Yet it is substantially more efficient than other public broadcasters, as measured by hours of programming per employee and per dollar expended. CBC funding has decreased in the last seven years in real terms, but it has produced 300 hours of new programming in that period. Seventy per cent of its budget goes into programming, compared with 40 per cent in private broadcasting. The CBC provides more prime time Canadian television than CTV and Global combined.
The CBC is doing its job. If we replace it with the private sector, we would have less Canadian programming at higher cost. Unfortunately, it does not do enough in prime time in drama and entertainment and needs more money to do so. The audiences are there, as shown when the CBC is able to do a good job and put money into programs. It receives audiences from one million to two million for Canadian shows.
If the Minister had consulted, he would see what the surveys are showing; that people do want more Canadian programming. Features like "Charlie Grants' War" and "Chautauqua Girl" will be less possible after these cut-backs. There will be less arts coverage and the arts community depends vitally on the CBC. For example, arts directors of theatres cannot travel to see new productions in other parts of the country. They depend on the CBC to be that means of communication. Less of that will happen as a result of the cut-backs.
There have been cuts in parliamentary coverage. Of course, the need to improve drama and increase children's programs will not be met. It is not just the loss of jobs for CBC employees, the independents are hurt as well because they contract with the CBC. Regional centers such as Gander, Labrador City, Moncton, Rimouski, Vancouver and Winnipeg have been badly hit by the cut-backs.
Despite this criticism of the CBC and the mistakes it has made, it produces many good shows and the best television and radio in the country. I am sorry that the equivalent praise cannot be given to the Minister of Communications. The Minister needs to consult the cultural community. He does not know how fortunate he is and how fortunate we are with the quality and dedication of the Canadian cultural community. I hope he will begin the real task of talking with them, meeting with them and reflecting on what they have to say so that he may come forward with a constructive, independent Canadian cultural policy.


Mr. Geoff Scott (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, I could spend the next 40 minutes both debating and applauding many of the points raised by the Hon. Member. I think we should note at the outset that the Minister has stated that the promises the Government has made and he has made will be met during our four-year mandate. We are only six or seven months into that mandate.
I share the concern that the Hon. Member for Broadview-Greenwood (Ms. McDonald) expresses when she raises the question of the budgetary reduction in relation to the people who have jobs at the CBC and are concerned about their future. It is for the sake of CBC employees that I deplore the rumours and erroneous reports about alleged decisions having been made which would affect their employment. Given the complexity of the task and the inevitable review as far back as June last year of different options by CBC, any decisions attributed to the CBC would, of course, not be official unless formally announced by the Corporation.
Following the Government's announcement of budget reductions for the CBC and other publicly funded organizations, the Minister expressed the hope that the Corporation could manage the reduction in funding so as to minimize the negative impact on programming. The President of the CBC subsequently announced on December 11, 1984, that the CBC will accomplish the greater part of this reduction through attrition, early retirement and lay-offs. In this regard, the Minister announced in the House his approval of the CBCs request for amendments to its pension plan. The amendments
April 2, 1985

will facilitate early retirement and should minimize the loss of jobs.
The Hon. Member for Broadview-Greenwood also knows that the Minister of Communications requested the CBC to attempt to make the reductions primarily in administrative areas. In this regard, the Minister requested that the Corporation attempt to manage the cuts so as to minimize the negative impact on Canadian producers, creators and artists whose development the Government intends to encourage. The objective is to ensure that the public resources now devoted to support of artistic and journalistic expression are employed in the most effective manner possible and that the budgetary restrictions do not jeopardize the federal Government's investment in the cultural development of the nation.
Regarding consultations, the Minister specified that they take place with due regard for the respective responsibilities of the Minister of Communications and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and possible infringement on their respective mandates. The Hon. Member may be interested to know that only this morning all four Windsor area Members of Parliament representing each of the three political parties-two from the New Democratic Party-met with my Minister and me on the unique effect of the cut-backs in Windsor. That consultation is indeed going on.
We hope the CBC will be as effective in its use of public funds as it is creative in its programming.
In closing, I hope the Hon. Member shares my confidence that the fiscal restraint program as it affects the CBC and its employees will be managed by the Corporation with due consideration for personnel and will encourage the utmost use of the employees' creative talents and skills.


THE ADMINISTRATION-GOVERNMENT APPOINTMENTS- REMUNERATION LEVELS. (B) EXTERNAL AID-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, in this House on March 26, 1985, I asked the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark) how he could rationalize a salary increase to two Conservative appointees while at the same time everyone else in this country was asked to tighten his or her belt.

Mr. Speaker, that day I asked the Right Hon. Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark) why the salary of Mr. Roy McMurtry, our High Commissioner in London, had been increased and he was now receiving $105,000 per year, when his predecessor was getting only $75,000. I also asked how he could explain that Mr. Lawrence Hanigan, the defeated Conservative candidate in the riding of Laval-des-Rapides, who has now been appointed by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mul-roney), or should I say rewarded for having played the sacrificial lamb in the election, running against my hon. friend from Laval-des-Rapides (Mr. Garneau), I therefore asked what
Adjournment Debate
justification there was for paying Mr. Hannigan a salary of $135,000 for being the head of VIA Rail.
Mr. Speaker, I asked these questions in the light of the budgetary cutbacks that were made in this country.

I want to remind you and the House, Mr. Speaker, that on November 8, 1984, many programs were cut that affect people in my constituency. Two in particular come to mind at this time and I would like to draw them to your attention, Sir.
There was a $6.2 million cut-back in dairy programs involving the subsidy going to dairy farmers in my riding and elsewhere. The farmers in my constituency could not, and still cannot afford this kind of cut-back. There were also increases of $32.3 million in what the Government has called cost recoveries in agriculture. These cost recoveries are nothing less than a tax on such things as agricultural inspection of farm products. The farmers in my riding cannot afford that. The people in my riding now have to do with less than what they had before this Government came to power.
Do defeated Tory candidates have to do with less? No, Mr. Speaker. It is almost enough, as I said previously today, for the elected backbenchers of the Conservative Party to make them wish they had been defeated so they too could earn $135,000, like their colleagues, Mr. Lawrence Hannigan and Mr. Roy McMurtry.
This is particularly hypocritical in view of the comments made by the Leader of the Conservative Party during the election campaign. Let me read you a few of the commitments he made to show just how much certain commitments detract from each other.
In The Globe and Mail for May 24, 1983, the Leader of the Conservative Party probably best expressed his views on political patronage when he was reported to have said, "There will be jobs for Liberals and NDPs too after I have been Prime Minister for 15 years and I can't find a living, breathing Tory in the country". On July 16, 1984, the new converted Leader of the Conservative Party called the Liberal appointments "a fraud, a deceit, and a sham". Also on July 16 he was quoted as having told the press that the Conservative Party would only make appointments of the highest quality of people. Where is this high quality?
The Government hired an individual to run VIA Rail at $135,000 per year who had been in charge of the Montreal Urban Transit Commission which had 20 strikes in 10 years, one of the worst records in labour-management relations. By coincidence, this person was a defeated Conservative candidate. He was given a large salary, larger than what most people in my riding make in a year, in order to run VIA Rail. Not only that, but the Secretary of State for External Affairs told us that Mr. Hannigan received a salary increase because he had increased responsibility. If his predecessor was in charge of running VIA Rail and this gentleman is now in

April 2, 1985
Adjournment Debate
charge of running VIA Rail, how can his responsibility be increased? They were both in charge of VIA Rail.
The answers given in the House by the Secretary of State for External Affairs in terms of the running of VIA Rail by Mr. Hannigan and in terms of the salary increases given to him and Mr. McMurtry were totally unsatisfactory. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary can give us something resembling a satisfactory explanation for this extravagance on the part of the Government.


Mr. Len Gustafson (Parliamentary Secretary to Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat surprised the Hon. Member has again raised the question of remuneration levels for the positions and individuals in question. The Hon. Member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria) raised this question last week. The Right Hon. Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark) noted that the level of remuneration for Canada's High Commissioner to Great Britain was the same as that of our Ambassador to France. I do not need to remind the Hon. Member of the tremendous importance this country places upon our relationship with Great Britain and the Comonwealth. I do not need to remind him that this is traditionally one of the most senior diplomatic appointments Canada makes.
The Secretary of State for External Affairs, as Acting Prime Minister, was equally clear in explaining the position of chairmanship of VIA Rail. There is a greater degree of responsibility within the corporation than was the case before. The Hon. Member might refer to the press release dated
February 5 in which the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mazan-kowski) announced the appointment of the new VIA Rail chairman. At that time the Minister of Transport made clear that the responsibilities of the new chairman for the long-range planning of the corporation would be increased. He used the example of the Air Canada organization in which the chairman and the president share responsibility.
As a part of the Government's commitment to ensure better administration of Crown corporations, which was so badly needed, particularly in the transportation sector, we have undertaken various administrative changes. It is the greater responsiblity which will be carried by the new chairman of VIA Rail and no other aspect of this appointment that influenced the determination of his remuneration level.
I assure the Hon. Member that the Government will continue the commitment of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) to attract individuals of the highest calibre to positions of service both within Canada and abroad. I do not think I have to remind the Hon. Member again of people like Stephen Lewis, our Ambassador to the United Nations; Douglas Roche, our Disarmament Ambassador; Lloyd Francis in Portugal; and Sylvia Gold at the Status of Women. We have begun a new era of appointment and changes with respect to all regions and all Parties of Canada.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 2(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.30 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, April 3, 1985