1986-10-28

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS

[Stage Direction]
[Translation\

Mr. Doug Lewis (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it agreed?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Tuesday, October 21, consideration of the motion of Mr. Mayer that Bill C-12, an Act to amend the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
Mr. Jack Scowen (Mackenzie):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be able to address the House today on a Bill related to western agriculture. I have been a seed grower in northeastern Saskatchewan for the past 36 years. I am familiar with the subject and, as a farmer, am pleased with the progressive changes that have been made to the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act by the Minister.
These changes will allow the Minister to be able to implement certain policies that are more or less routine without having to go through an Order in Council. This will give the Minister an opportunity to act quickly when the need arises. Such things as eliminating the need for landlord signatures will be another regulation assisting the producer; interest rates for those in default will be more realistic; and emergency payments for unthreshed grain and others will make the Act less cumbersome to administer.
Producers who participate in both the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act and the Advance Payments for Crops Act will be eligible to receive a total of $30,000. A few honey
producers and maybe even wild rice producers in my constituency will benefit from this measure, as well as canola and flax growers.
The actual grain-on-hand rule change rather than prescribed tonnes per acre for the advance payment will be a help to high producing producers. Also, this change eliminates the need for a percentage of the Canadian Wheat Board initial payment to enter into the cash advance.
I was happy to see that there will be more flexibility in dealing with outstanding defaulted accounts. Maybe now a producer who is hospitalized with a serious heart attack, for example, and who cannot deliver when the quota is on will not be charged the roughly $2,500 in interest even though he is able to deliver before the end of the crop year. This shows some common sense in this area. The Minister will be able to approve emergency grain drying advances and emergency unthreshed grain advances without Order in Council.
Again, the Minister will be taking steps immediately as the situation warrants. However, I respectfully submit that the Minister could improve the grain drying clause and assist producers greatly by making the advance as soon as the producer requests it. If grain drying were done in the early harvest season there would be better quality grain for market and less left in the field unthreshed.
I come from an area in which we have a problem with great amounts of rain in September. Wheat harvested tough in August and early September will weigh 65 pounds per bushel and will Grade No. 1 or 2 when dry, while the same wheat harvested after the rains in late October will weigh 56 to 60 pound per bushel and will Grade No. 3 or feed. The same applies to all crops. Grain drying in August and early September is also two-thirds cheaper so the producer gains both ways. The Minister would encourage better quality with more bucks in the producers' bank accounts. I will be bringing this to the attention of the committee and will be submitting an amendment at that time.
I would like to congratulate the Minister responsible for the Wheat Board for putting forward an excellent Bill and for the leadership he has shown in his Department. I am sure he will bring forward further constructive recommendations.
Grain producers in Canada are suffering severe financial problems due to the price war that is going on between the EEC and the U.S. In spite of what members of the Opposition are saying, however, there are some bright spots in the agricultural sectors of Canada today.

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I have not heard one word from hog producers about supply management since the price started to go up. This tells me that there is a good dollar being made there. Beef producers and chicken and turkey producers are enjoying much better prices with lower feed costs. Milk producers have their own longterm agreement and now also have lower feed costs. Grass seed and other forage crop producers are experiencing excellent prices and good yields. Honey producers generally had a lower yield but prices were good. I also heard that wild rice producers had a good yield and that prices are good. This, of course, does not help the bulk of farmers who are grain producers.
Just to indicate how serious the situation is, let me tell the House where the producer stands today. In the 1950s when there was a surplus of grain, before the Hon. Member for Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain (Mr. Hamilton) sold grain to China, barley was trading among farmers and feed lots at three bushels for a dollar or 33 cents per bushel at the farm. This was because of a surplus in the system. All elevators were plugged. With that 33 cents per bushel, a farmer could buy 1.5 gallons or 6.8 litres of fuel.
Today's initial price from the Canadian Wheat Board is $1.40 to the farmer. This will not buy one gallon of fuel. It is more likely that it will buy 3.5 litres of fuel. However, if the farmer has registered his number, he will be able to buy one gallon of fuel with that one bushel of barley because the Government has taken steps to reduce the cost of fuel to the farmer.
The same applies to wheat. The Canadian Wheat Board's initial payment to the farmer is $3.20. With that money, he cannot buy two gallons of fuel. In the 1950s, combines cost less than $5,000 but now cost over $100,000. The comparison could go on and on and the answer would be the same. The cost of producing grain in Canada, even though there are better varieties and better yields, is far too high for the return per unit.
Some young producers who borrowed money to get started have paid interest to the amount of the original loan and still owe the original amount or more. Prices did not follow the inflation that was occurring at the time and all experts predicted that farmers would pay with the inflated dollar. Many producers are very good at what they do but they do not stand a chance if we carry on with the same old approach we have been using.
I do not think the federal Government can solve this problem alone. We must have co-operation from all segments of society. Each group connected to the problem is fighting to protect its own empire and will not give in to lower costs but rather is looking for ways to increase costs. In my opinion, these groups are fiddling while Rome burns.
Prairie pools and co-operatives have not dropped charges by one cent per bushel. Neither have they offered to pay any of their producers part of the money that is held back in dividends. Banks and financial institutions have not brought rates
down but rather have thrown other roadblocks in the farmer's way. Chemical and fertilizer companies still charge the maximum price. Each one is valiantly protecting his own empire but hollering at the federal Government to do something.
The federal Government has done many things, the latest being a distribution of $1 billion which the farmers will have soon. However, we cannot do it all if we do not get cooperation from the rest of those involved. The Farm Credit Corporation will have to show leadership and come up with innovative ideas to get us over this hump. Why not take 25 per cent of the crop as a payment? Why not lower interest rates to 6 per cent and readjust them when prices get better? Why not allow producers who take in family members as investors to do so without having to pay penalties on the loans? Why not have set-asides for those who have no alternatives? Banks and financial institutions should follow that example. Other innovative ideas must be there and all should be used.
Grain handling companies and chemical and fertilizer companies should do everything they can to bring down the costs to the producers. If every organization co-operated, we may be able to save the grain producers of Canada. If we do not save them, cheap food in Canada will be something of which we can talk when we talk of the good old days. We might even have to pass a law to make it illegal for financial institutions, Governments, Crown corporations and the like to own land. What happened to that pool of money that was supposed to be available to lend to farmers at 6 per cent? The empire builders are again protecting themselves and a good idea lies dormant.
Now that I have that out of my system, Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk about a more pleasant subject. Very briefly, I would like to take a few minutes to tell the House about my great constituency of Mackenzie in Saskatchewan.
Mackenzie is the largest federal constituency in Saskatchewan and is comprised of some 75,000 square miles in northeastern Saskatchewan. The people of my riding are a hardworking, aggressive, God-fearing, family-oriented mixture of races and religions who have all learned to live in harmony with the land in both the north and the south. The bulk of my constituents live in the agricultural area south of the tree line, about 30 miles north of my hometown of Nipawin.
Our type of agriculture is grown in what is called the parkland area of Saskatchewan. We grow over 100 varieties and kinds of crops including all grains, canola, flax, forage seed crops and faba beans. All the alfalfa dehydrating plants in Saskatchewan as well as a canola oil extracting plant are located in the constituency.
Honey is an important crop in the agricultural scheme of things with about 30 per cent of all Canada's honey production coming from the Mackenzie riding. This industry creates numerous permanent jobs and provides a great source of summer employment for young people who do field work and
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work in the extracting plants. All honey grown in the riding is Canada No. 1 and is shipped around the world.
Seed is a big industry in my constituency. Besides the usual grain and oil seeds, we produce many varieties of forage seed, mostly for export. Clover and timothy seeds are brought in from Norway, Sweden and Finland, countries with wet falls. My constituency has a climate similar to that of those countries but we have better harvesting conditions and are able to send back to those countries seeds which have not been mutated by different weather or soil conditions. This industry not only distributes many millions of dollars to producers, but also provides a very good source of employment to our people.
Our cattle and hog industry is well respected in Canada. We sell breeding stock to all countries in the world. Recently we sent Aberdeen Angus and Herefords to Scotland to improve their breeding stock. Their cattle were getting a little too small.
Our research station in Melfort, Saskatchewan serves 10 per cent of all the agricultural land in Canada. Over 50 per cent of Saskatchewan is covered with forest. The forest industry is very important and provides many jobs. There is a major sawmill at Carrot River and many other smaller mills for lumber and railway ties. There is a large stud mill, a chip board mill and a plywood mill at Hudson Bay, Saskatchewan. Many more people are employed in the pulp business all through the forest area. These products go to the pulp mill in Prince Albert which is now launching an expansion to produce paper. We have started a silica sand mining and refining plant in Hudson Bay. It will expand into all branches of industry where silica sand is used, and eventually employ 1,500 people. This is the only silica sand plant in the west. Canada imports roughly 250,000 tons of silica sand a year.
Tourism is a big business in my constituency which attracts people from all over the world to hunt moose, elk, bear, deer, and migratory birds. Saskatchewan has more lakes than Alberta and Manitoba combined-maybe not more water, but more lakes-and many of those lakes in my riding have good fishing and all summer and winter sports.
Mining is a big business in northern Saskatchewan. In my riding, we have the richest known deposits of uranium in the world. Key Lake and Rabbit Lake are producing now and others will come into production when these mines slow down. Key Lake produces more uranium than the rest of the world combined. There will be an even richer mine coming into production a few years down the road at Cigar Lake.
There are 13,500 square miles of gold producing rock in the La Ronge area. That is a lot of gold up there. As the man says, "There is gold in them thar hills". In the La Ronge area, Starrex Mine is a developing mine. It is 70 miles north of La Ronge. It will be in production in early 1987, and some other mines in the area will be coming into production. This year over 100 companies, mostly Canadian, are exploring and
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getting ready to start operations. They are spending over $25 million in my constituency.
Mining activities are also taking place in other areas in Mackenzie. At Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting at Flin Flon copper, zinc, and some gold and trace metals are being processed and have been for many years from the Saskatchewan side of my riding. Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting is now operating a new mine at Sturgeon Landing, which is south of Creighton, Saskatchewan. The main mineral is nickel, but there are other minerals and they are being processed at Flin Flon. There are also some platinum finds in the La Ronge area that look promising.
There is also a very interesting agricultural industry in northern Saskatchewan which is now employing a lot of natives as well as others, that is the wild rice industry. The lakes have been planted and I am told they have a good crop this year. That should bring many dollars into the North, as well as providing a lot of work. It is a very work oriented process to harvest wild rice since a lot of it is done by hand.
Many good things are happening in the riding of Mackenzie. The native people in the North are participating in most of these activities. They are building better schools, roads, homes, and places to congregate. The native people have become a strong voice in business in the North. They are forging ahead with the opening of the North. I am sure you will be hearing more from them in the future.
All this activity is going on in spite of the low prices in all segments of lumber, mining, and grain farming. They will work harder and times will get better. They always have that spirit that things will improve tomorrow.
I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for this time allotment and again commend the Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer). I call on all Members of this House to give speedy passage to the Bill to amend the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: Questions and comments.


Mr. Caldwell:: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to congratulate the Hon. Member for Mackenzie (Mr. Scowen) on his speech outlining the activities in his area. It is always important that other Members of Parliament explain their ridings and what they are all about, because we have a diversity across this country. I was interested in his comments regarding some solutions to the current grain situation in western Canada and, of course, across the whole region. Our area does not grow the type of crops his area grows, but we certainly have problems with our grain industry in Ontario.
I was interested in his comments regarding a possible set-aside program. Is the Hon. Member referring to a set-aside program in order to increase prices, to take crops out of production, or is he talking about possible benefits to the soil by taking crops out?
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Jack Scowen: I was talking about trying to get a lesser amount of production. There really are two parts to that set-aside program. One would be that part of the debt would be set aside until things return to normal. On the other hand, we should set aside some crop production in order to bring our surplus down and more in line with what we can sell. Our soil conservation has suffered because of continuous summer fallow crop in western Canada. It is time we added a little more to that soil with some forage seeds.


Mr. Gottselig:: I would like to commend my colleague, the Hon. Member for Mackenzie (Mr. Scowen), on the excellent speech that he delivered. I would like him to expand on a few of his points. He mentioned the Melfort research station and the work that is going on there. Is there some special work there that would relate to what he mentioned on the set-aside program in terms of production? I was also interested in his comments on the diversity of the economy in the constituency of Mackenzie. That probably is a reflection of the necessity to diversify from the strict agricultural production as we have known it in Saskatchewan. Would he agree with me that the main reason the Minister has introduced these changes in the Act, is to take the power out of the hands of the bureaucrats in Ottawa and give it to the Canadian Wheat Board officials in order that they can respond in a much quicker fashion to the needs of our producers? The primary producer in this whole equation is the one whom we are trying to help.
As a producer and also as an agent for several landlords, I am familiar with all the points he mentioned. The provision not requiring a landlord's signature is an important one for a producer who has three or four landlords perhaps scattered across Canada and even in the United States. With the mail system being what it is today, we know that it takes a long time to get letters back and forth. I think it is a very important part of the whole equation.


Jack Scowen: Mr. Speaker, I believe I mentioned that it would help producers in that particular case. I would like to refer to the diversity in agriculture in my particular area. Homesteaders came to the area from the Prairies. Most of them migrated there during the 1930s, but some settlement took place in the very early 1900s. That part of the country was mostly opened up as settlers were squeezed out of the Prairies and took up homesteading there. They found that they were able to plant alfalfa in small areas which they were able to break up. We must not forget that they had to break up little chunks here and there to prove up their homesteads. As a result they were able to obtain a very high seed yield.
Not knowing the circumstances, not knowing what was going on there, they thought that if they cleared bigger fields they would get more. That proved to be their downfall. There was a little insect called the leaf cutter bee and that fellow was tripping the seed very nicely for them. They killed him when they cut down the bush and cleared it away, so the alfalfa production dropped off substantially. Then they went into
alsike clover, red clover, various other grass seeds, and so on. This is what brought about seed production in Canada. Other countries discovered that we were able to produce these seeds and asked us to produce for them.
The northern and southern parts of my constituency have always got along well. The southern part of the constituency is what we call the farming area. People from that area have found jobs and have worked in the northern part of my constituency about which I have spoken.


Mr. Geoff Wilson (Swift Current-Maple Creek):: Obviously these massive subsidies offered by the EEC and the United States have substantially depressed world grain prices. It appears that each superpower is quite prepared to structure export deals at virtually any level in order to make sales. One can only hope that taxpayers in western Europe and the United States will eventually rebel at the massive amounts of money being thrown away.
Canadian farmers are no longer competing with their counterparts in the United States and the EEC on the basis of efficiency-a playing field on which Canadian producers would do very well. Farmers are now trying to compete with the Treasuries of these two superpowers. It is well recognized that we in Canada simply cannot compete with those Treasuries. Our problems are compounded by our dependence upon export wheat markets. As I mentioned earlier, 80 per cent of our wheat production goes to export, while in the European Common Market it is only 20 per cent. Our domestic market represents 25 million people, compared with 250 million people in the United States and over 300 million people in western Europe.
I should like to illustrate in practical terms just what impact the grain subsidy war, this international shoot-out, has had on our farming community. At this point I want to thank the research department of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool for some of the information to which I am about to refer. In the Province of Saskatchewan, net realizable farm income in 1984-and that is gross receipts, including payments from government programs such as western grain stabilization, crop insurance, and so on-less depreciation and operating costs averaged $15,000 per farmer.
In 1985 the net realized income per farmer was $10,000, and for 1986 it is projected to be $9,000 per farmer. This sum represents not only the farmer's labour but also the return on a capital investment of almost $500,000. Out of this net realized income, the farmer must not only provide for his living expenses but also try to make payments of principal and interest. Without government support programs, net realized income would have been a negative figure for 1985 and 1986. As a matter of interest, at the same time the minimum wage in Saskatchewan is $4.50 per hour. If that is projected over a year at 40 hours per week, an individual could receive $9,360 per year without any investment at all.
To make matters worse, the farm cost-price squeeze is eroding farm asset values, so that equity is decreasing and with it borrowing leverage. When farmers lose their buying power, the entire agri-business complex suffers-dealers, agents, manufacturers, and small businesses alike.
It is against this background that the Government has become heavily involved on two fronts-international and domestic. The Government has become involved internationally because of the problem of low farm grain prices resulting from unfair practices beyond our borders. We must do everything possible to discuss, negotiate, and encourage an end to the subsidy wars. That is why the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) raised the matter of the subsidies and agricultural
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trade at the Tokyo Summit. That is why in June the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) held a meeting of the grain exporting nations in Vancouver and why he participated in an international meeting in Australia and why he continues at every opportunity to lobby for a return to sanity in the world grain markets. That is why the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark) and the Minister for International Trade (Miss Carney), recently in Uruguay, were able to fight for and secure the inclusion of agriculture on the agenda for the upcoming GATT talks.
[DOT] (M40)
The World Bank has studied this trend of growing subsidies and cautions strongly against them. In its recently released World Development Report, the World Bank estimates that farm support world-wide will reach $100 billion this year. The Bank refers to these subsidies as an escalating vicious circle and notes that higher farm revenues resulting from subsidies are largely wiped out owing to rising land prices and rents.
The Government recognizes the importance of Canadian agriculture and the damaging effects of our competitors' subsidies. That is why our Ministers have been at the forefront of this issue on the international stage. Progress is slow. Clearly the process will take time. In the meantime, our farmers need support and they deserve it. Through no fault of their own they are suffering.
The name of the game today, Mr. Speaker, is survival. That is why this Government is also acting on the home front. This is why we are improving existing legislation, such as the Prairie Grains Advance Payments Act, to make it more responsive to the farmers needs. The Act is designed to assist producers of wheat, oats and barley in meeting their shortterm commitments by providing interest-free cash advances when sales opportunities are limited. Eligible producers are those who farm within the Canadian Wheat Board designated area and who hold current permit books. An individual farmer can receive up to $30,000 under the program. Bill C-12 will improve and streamline the operation of the Act.
The substance of Bill C-12 is, first, to delete several Order in Council requirements in the regulations under the Act. These requirements included approval of the application form, approval of emergency advance payments for grain unthreshed because of difficult conditions at harvest-time and the setting of the advanced rate for the crop year. Elimination of the necessity for Orders in Council will do away with potential administrative delays in implementing various aspects of the program.
Second, landlords who do not wish to participate in the advance program will no longer be required to co-sign an advance payment application submitted by a tenant. Until now a tenant wanting an advance had to have the landlord's signature on the application. Sometimes that was difficult to obtain. The amendment proposed would simply have the tenant sign an affidavit indicating he has clear title to the grain covered by the advance. This straightforward change will

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make the program easier and lessen the paperwork for those who are participating.
Third, a further amendment will ensure equitable treatment to prairie grain producers by basing cash advances on the amount of actual stored grain rather than on the present basis whereby an advance is calculated by the number of tonnes of grain prescribed per quota acre. Changing the method of calculation to actual volume in storage will enable a producer with high yields to benefit from the program also.
Fourth, another amendment has to do with interest rates on defaulted accounts which presently are set at the beginning of the crop year by Order in Council and remain unchanged until the account is settled in full. In order that participants might benefit from falling interest rates, an amendment will allow the interest rates for defaulted accounts to fluctuate in relation to current rates. At the same time, further proposals will provide the Canadian Wheat Board with greater latitude in dealing with producers who can show that extraordinary circumstances prevented them from being able to complete their repayment obligations.
I wish now to list briefly a number of other initiatives taken by the Government to support and help producers survive during this difficult time of unfair and cutthroat foreign competition, competition fueled by foreign government competition, competition which bears no relationship to the usual market forces of supply and demand; an environment in which the efficiency of our producers is being overwhelmed by offshore subsidies.
In grain farming there are basically three variables: input costs, volume and price. Volume is dictated in large part by the good Lord. It depends on decent growing conditions, moisture, wind, frost, insects and so on. On the other hand, input costs and price supplements are areas in which government can assist and, indeed, this Government has done so in a very big way.
The major input cost of many producers is interest, the carrying charges on loans for the purchase of land, machinery, equipment and operating money. We are told that at this time there is approximately $25 billion of agricultural debt outstanding in Canada. Therefore, a 1 per cent variation in interest rates has a potential, if upward, to drain some $250 million out of the farming economy. Conversely, if those rates move downward, it has the potential to enhance the farm community by the same $250 million. That is why the course of economic renewal laid out by the Government in the fall of 1984 remains so important, not just to agriculture but to all of Canada. The policies of economic revitalization through responsible deficit reduction, more efficient government and encouragement for the small business sector has not only improved job opportunities for Canadians but resulted in stable inflation and, most important, interest rates that are 3.5 per cent lower than when we took office. Interest rates that are 3.5 per cent lower mean that the farm community is paying out roughly $800 to $900 million less in interest costs each year than was the case previously. The prime rate and the
farm credit rates are at their lowest level since the spring of 1978, eight and a half years ago.
This spring the commodity based loan program was established. This was an innovative experiment for existing farm credit clients in financial difficulty. This is a program in which the principal will fluctuate in relation to the price of the borrower's main commodity and a program which provides up front assistance through lower payments when the farmer's cash flow is least.
Our Government amended the Western Grain Stabilization Act to permit timely interim payments in the spring when these moneys are needed most by the farmer. The Western Grain Stabilization Act is a program whereby the federal Government contributes $2 into a fund for every dollar put in by producers, the idea being to supplement farm income when prices are low. Last year some $522 million was paid out and this year already an interim payment of $580 million has been made.
A previous Government instituted the capital gains tax which for 13 years hung over the farm community and prevented many, many farmers from realizing their retirement ambitions because their moneys having been plowed back into the farm, were tied up in the land which it was impossible to sell without payment of a king's ransom on a gain which was largely inflationary. Canadian farmers know it was our Government that moved quickly to eliminate that tax for most farmers by immediately instituting the $500,000 lifetime capital gains exemption.
Our Government improved federal-provincial crop insurance by raising coverage from 70 per cent to 80 per cent without premium increase. Federal-provincial crop insurance is a program administered by the particular province and contributed to 50 per cent by the farmer and 50 per cent by the federal Government. This program last year paid out $375 million to Saskatchewan farmers alone.
Last year the Government responded to the disastrous drought conditions on the Prairies with the Prairie Crop Disaster Assistance Program which distributed $ 150 million to those western grain farmers hard hit by drought. There is more, Mr. Speaker, because our Government recognizes the predicament of Canadian farmers who, through no fault of their own, are suffering considerable hardship. The Government remains committed to helping Canadian grain farmers who are facing depressed incomes. The objective is to enhance their cash flow by approximately $1 billion. As the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) has said this will be new money and will be distributed to the Canadian grain farmer. The form of the assistance is now being determined in consultation with the provinces and the farm community so that the system of delivery will be fair and equitable to all concerned. It is vitally important that cash gets to the farmers' pockets with a minimum of administrative cost. It is equally important that it be seen by most to be done fairly and evenly.
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The Throne Speech made it clear that in meeting its commitment to Canadian agriculture this Government will spare no effort in seeking to continue to protect the interests of our farming community in the face of unfair pricing and subsidy practices beyond our borders. That is good news, not just for the producer but for virtually everyone else in Saskatchewan and the grain economy. It is well known that farm dollars are circulated many times over through the entire network of suppliers, agents, dealers, and merchandisers.
In conclusion, Bill C-12, will not of itself solve the problems facing Canadian farmers, but it will help. It is similar to a number of other initiatives such as farm debt review, rural transition, commodity-based loans, western grain stabilization, fuel rebates, help to cattle producers, improved crop insurance and drought assistance. Because it helps and because it is timely, it is part of the ongoing commitment of this Government to Canadian agriculture.
We are talking about survival, and every little bit helps. These common sense amendments in front of us today will result in elimination of potential administrative delays and will allow cash advances for harvested grain to be more readily available. These measures will assist cash flow when it is really needed. With the world grain market in its current precarious state it makes good sense to pass these amendments now to ensure that farmers obtain the maximum benefit. I therefore call upon all Members to give rapid passage to these proposals.


Mr. Speaker:: Questions or comments.


Mr. White:: Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague's remarks. I congratulate him on his continuing interest in and the work he has done on behalf of Canadian farmers. The economy of my constituency of Dauphin-Swan River in western Manitoba depends, for the most part, on agriculture, as does my colleague's. I believe, as does he, that this Government has proven its commitment over the past two years to western agriculture. He mentioned that the Government cannot compete with the Treasuries of either the EEC or the U.S. However, I believe, as does he, that we have gone a long way toward helping our farmers. He mentioned briefly the $1 billion pay-out announced by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) about three weeks ago and I would like to ask him if he could expand on the consultations and method of payment under that particular program.


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, my colleague is indeed right when he raises the significance of the $1 billion which has been promised to Canadian farmers in this time of need. It has been stated by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) that this payment will be forthcoming in consultation with the provinces and the farm community. That is vitally important because it is not for the Government to sit here in isolation in Ottawa and determine how money should be distributed to the farm community. That decision cannot be made in an ivory
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tower sort of atmosphere. It clearly requires the participation of the farm community. That is why it is significant that the Minister of Agriculture has had meetings with representatives of the farm community, and it is my understanding that further meetings will be held.
It is one thing to request a payment of $1 billion and another thing to point out the need for it. That is a well known fact and I think all of us in this House understand the plight that the grain farmer finds himself in through no fault of his own. However, it is also important that the system of delivery of this benefit be seen to be fair and equitable. It has to be structured in such a way that it is accepted by the farm community and seen by most everyone to be of assistance and not favouring one particular sector or group over another.
If I have one disappointment in all of this it is perhaps the reticence of the leading farm organizations to come forward publicly with concrete suggestions. They have been very quick to note the problem at great length. They have been very quick to request cash in the form of a deficiency payment. The problem is set out in many, many pages and the solution involves one sentence. However, I think they know, as do we, that there is a lot more to it than that. Is the payment to be structured as a per bushel payment? Is it to supplement the price? Should it be done through the price of domestic wheat? Should it be paid by the acre? If so, should there be a minimum or maximum number of acres? Should there be an export enhancement scheme? There are so many ways in which this benefit can be delivered and it is time, indeed I encourage farm organizations to come forward with some concrete suggestions, to assist the Government in its deliberations. I console myself with the thought that undoubtedly these proposals are being made privately, but I think it would be encouraging if the major farm organizations in the nation would have the courage to come forward with some concrete proposals rather than expecting Government to structure a program and then reserving the right to complain about it afterwards.


Mr. Riis:: Mr. Speaker, I am a bit perplexed this morning. I have been listening to a number of Hon. Members describe in graphic detail the plight of the grain farmer. The point of this Bill is to advance payments as quickly as possible to those farmers. We are trying to co-operate. I would like to hear an explanation as to why members of the Government are prolonging this debate. We want to get on and deal with this as efficiently, effectively and quickly as possible. I do not know why government Members keep prolonging the debate on this Bill.


Mr. Speaker:: Has the Hon. Member made a comment or asked a question? The Hon. Member for Swift Current- Maple Creek (Mr. Wilson).


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, be it a question or comment I certainly welcome the opportunity to respond. It is my understanding of the operation of this place that my constituents are entitled to have me express an

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opinion in debate. In doing so I have expressed the feelings of my constituents in southwestern Saskatchewan about this Bill. It is one part of a program designed to enhance the position of the Canadian grain farmer in light of the unfair and disastrous competition he is facing. If the Hon. Member for Kamloops- Shuswap (Mr. Riis) is perplexed once again this morning, I cannot do much about it because it is not the first time he has been perplexed.


Mr. Mayer:: Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is a question at all here of filibustering. It is a question of the Government talking about some important legislation in the House. This Government, as the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) will know, has made a major commitment to Canadian agriculture. We want Members on all sides of the House to have an opportunity to participate in this very important debate. Some very useful suggestions have already been made. I, as the Minister responsible, look forward to the study of the Bill at committee where we hope to take into account some of the suggestions that are being made here this morning.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, many members of the New Democratic Party, and I suspect of the Liberal Party as well, want to speak on this Bill.


Mr. McDermid:: Where are they?


Nelson Andrew Riis: The Hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for International Trade (Mr. McDermid) asks where they are. We are quite prepared to discuss all the concerns of the farm community at some length. However, we feel that it is important to deal with this Bill expeditiously. Members can relate their concerns in Committee of the Whole. We in the Liberal and New Democratic Parties want to proceed with this Bill. I do not know why members of the Government are prolonging this debate. We still have the third reading and Committee of the Whole stages in which to examine this Bill in detail. I find this very confusing. The New Democratic Party wants to have this Bill passed expeditiously in order to put money into the hands of farmers as quickly as possible. I urge members of the Government to move expeditiously as well.


Mr. Stan Schellenberger (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, I was beginning to think the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) did not want to hear my speech. I have listened for many hours to members of the New Democratic Party while wondering why they spoke on and on. I suppose it was because they believed in something very strongly and had some news to tell the Canadian people. I like to talk about good news as well and there is lots of good news with regard to agriculture because the Government has made a commitment to agriculture in western Canada.
I know it was difficult for the Member to listen to the excellent speeches made by the Member for Mackenzie (Mr. Scowen) and the Member for Swift Current-Maple Creek (Mr. Wilson) outlining the many programs and initiatives which the Government has put in place over the last two years to assist agriculture. I commend the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) and the Minister responsible for the Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) for the influence they have had on the Government and for the excellent legislation they are bringing forward to assist all Canadian farmers. This Bill is an example of that.
The Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act was introduced in the early 1960s and has been a great help to farmers. However, it is time to update and renew it. Members have already spoken eloquently on how the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act is being updated. Grain producers in Canada have been facing very serious problems, most of which are financial. The reasons for this are well known as costs continue to escalate and prices continue to drop.
I have always found it amazing that people will produce far more than the world is capable of utilizing. Although there are people in the world who require food, our systems are not adequate to get the food to the people who require it. I am amazed that the European Economic Community is now talking about dumping food which has spoiled in storage bins while people in Africa do not have sufficient food to sustain themselves. This problem in agriculture can be traced to the international markets which are affected by the subsidies which have been previously outlined. It is due to this that the Government has taken such an active part in the international community to attempt to eliminate the approximately $100 billion of subsidies which go to agricultural producers. That is in the interest of Canada.
We are low cost producers and low subsidizers of agricultural production. We have many natural advantages for the growing of crops. We have the best grading system in the world and a well evolved marketing system. It is, therefore, definitely to our advantage to ensure that the international community works toward eliminating these subsidies. That is why the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) was able to raise this issue so well at the Tokyo Summit. The word went out from there that the Government of Canada is interested in bringing common sense back to the world trading picture.
In Uruguay the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark) was able to convince his fellow GATT signatories that the time had passed for papering over the problems and that it is now time to get down to serious discussions, to move toward action and away from talk. These efforts were successful and the GATT nations have agreed, for the first time, that agricultural trade will be a priority item on the agenda.
The amendments to this Act are part of the Government's over-all approach to agriculture. We are moving to improve existing programs while bringing forward new initiatives which will be of valued assistance to agricultural producers. This commitment was made in the Speech from the Throne and it is
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one of the strongest commitments to agriculture that I have ever heard in a Speech from the Throne. We will work closely with the provinces and producers to ensure that the assistance offered by the federal Government is truly helpful and will enhance the cash flow of Canadian farmers. The assistance offered by the Prime Minister will amount to $1 billion. The Government will participate in the changing of agricultural programs.
Several weeks ago the Minister of State responsible for the Wheat Board signed an agreement with the Soviet Union whereby it will buy 25 million tonnes of wheat and feed grain over the next five years. The Soviet Union is a very important customer of Canada. I am very pleased that it will continue to buy grain from us and count on us to deliver quality grain at a fair price. In the past two years we have reached agreements with other valued customers including Egypt and Brazil. Canada has a fine reputation on the world market for efficiency, reliability and quality. This has allowed us to find markets for grain even in a world situation of substantial surplus.
The figures recently released by the International Wheat Council indicate that world-wide volumes of wheat and flour trade dropped by 17 per cent over the 1985-86 crop year. However, at the same time Canada was able to increase its market share by 1.3 per cent. We were able to solve the work stoppage earlier this year at the port of Thunder Bay through negotiations. The people at the port have returned to work and moved a record amount of grain over the Thanksgiving weekend. Approximately 700,000 tonnes were moved through that port during the Thanksgiving weekend. It is a fabulous record and farmers are truly happy that labour in the port of Thunder Bay is responding to a difficult situation. I believe they will catch up to any lost transportation which resulted from the strike and that we will not lose any sales because of this temporary stoppage of grain movement.
These instances of productivity and efficiency in the grain industry must not go unrewarded. Indeed, the Government is committed to seeing that the exact opposite occurs. The negotiations on the world scene and here at home that I have described are several of the ways that we can support our farmers in this time of depressed world markets and prices.
The Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act has worked in the past and it will work even better in the future as a result of these changes.
Many of us who are knowledgeable about agriculture believe that there may be ways to rebuild these programs so that they can be more advantageous to our farmers.
Some years ago I put forward a program that I called the assured market plan, which would have taken the moneys under this program of advanced payments and those of the stabilization Act and put them into a plan by which the Wheat Board would pay farmers at the beginning of the crop year to commit a certain amount of production to the Wheat Board.
Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act
This contract would allow the Wheat Board to call upon them throughout the year as supply or demand required. This would allow things like unit trains to develop and permit a change in the quota program which is now so important to western farmers.
The Wheat Board and the Wheat Board advisers took that plan and came up with something called MAP. It was not acceptable to western farmers and the Market Assured Plan has slipped by the wayside.
However, I believe a similiar if not better plan is being developed. The Wheat Board is now offering contracts to western farmers who produce No. 1 and No. 2 feed barley and oats because in 1984 there was a poor barley crop and concern throughout the Prairies that there would not be sufficient supplies to meet the kinds of markets that the Wheat Board could develop for export feed grains. Consequently, since we were worried about supply, I think we lost some early sales which could have been made.
In June, 1985, the Board had an open quota and found that there was a lot of barley in the system. Toward the end of the crop year, it had trouble finding sufficient sales to move the vast quantity of barley that was stored on prairie farms by farmers who were optimistic about receiving a better price. If the Board had known about those supplies sooner in the crop year, export markets could have been found for that barley, and at better prices. There is a problem in conveying the information about what is in the bins on the farms to the Wheat Pools and the Wheat Board so they can sell it into markets that they know are available. This is one reason why this year the Wheat Board is attempting to contract for barley early in the crop year so it will know what is in place and can make proper plans to move it to export positions.
I think it is important to explain this program so that some of the concerns that are being expressed by the community can be laid to rest. For instance, if a farmer does not take out a contract, will the contract barley be called upon before the quota barley, and will that farmer have to wait to deliver his supplies until all contract supplies are in place? Not only is that not the case, the opposite could be true. If the Wheat Board knew that it had signed for this contract barley, it might open the quotas to try to bring in new supplies early to determine what other supplies are on the Prairies and thus better gauge their export markets.
The livestock community also showed some concern that if too many producers sign up for contracts, they may bid up the price of off-board grain. I do not believe that will happen. I am sure that if the Wheat Board detects this, it will decrease the amount of bushels of grain under contract to make sure that adequate supplies are available to the domestic market. It is not necessary to contract in order to ensure that delivery opportunities are available. There is still freedom in the system and I personally hope that that freedom continues.
Let me use oats as an example. While there are fewer markets for feed oats, it is still an imporant crop in the

October 28, 1986
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northern part of the three prairie provinces. Many of the producers have been asking for more freedom to deliver oats into markets that they have found, such as double cleaned oats for the race horse markets of the western United States. They are competing very well with oats from Minnesota. We have the opportunity to put those oats into that California market at a lower price than our competitors, but those producers are having difficulty in getting permits from the Wheat Board to deliver to those markets. In fact, they have found it impossible in some cases.
We have the opportunity to produce oats for human consumption, which is done very little in western Canada. In fact, we import a good deal of that product into Canada at the present time. There are entrepreneurs in western Canada who are prepared to take the risk to produce that product in our own market and believe they can also market it into the United States. However, they are having difficulty getting permits from the Wheat Board to do so.
I believe it is time for the Wheat Board to open up to individuals who can find markets in the United States and to give them permits to see if they can succeed. I believe it will work well and the opportunity is here for the Wheat Board to be more lenient and open with the permits it offers to individual farmers and small producers who, on their own initiative, can find markets for oats in other countries. I believe it is time for the Wheat Board to take this into consideration.
This would be conducive to the growing and marketing of specialty crops and products from specialty crops. The Prairies have done an excellent job in diversifying and producing such commodities as canola, a rapeseed product developed through research, and finding excellent markets through the specialty crops system. Many producers are now growing lentils, birdseed and canary seed. I believe that the rapid expansion in the horticultural area means a great future for Canadian farmers. I hope our marketing system will bend to make sure that farmers can take advantage of any opportunities for their products.
I support the amendments to the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act. As soon as we hear the views of Members of Parliament, I believe we should pass this Bill because many farmers in the Prairies will take advantage of these amendments.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Questions or comments? Debate.


William (Bill) Gottselig: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in my place today to speak to the amendments to the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act. These amendments display the continuing concern of our Government. Our Government was elected in September of 1984 at which time we were given a mandate for reform. Revising the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act is one more indication of the concern we have in terms of acting in the best interests of western farmers in particular. The amendments to the Prairie
Grain Advance Payments Act indicate that we take our responsibilities seriously. I commend Hon. Members, particularly on this side of the House, for the ideas they have put forward. I think this indicates that we take our responsibilities seriously. It shows our concern for the economic well-being of our agricultural producers generally. We recognize the great place that agriculture plays in our country.
Canadians spend over $40 billion a year on food-a considerable amount of money. We have to thank our farmers for their efficiency in producing this food at a very low price. We do not always recognize the input of farmers when we open the fridge and take out some milk, or cheese, or when the meat goes on the table. I would like to pay tribute to those agricultural producers who are producing under sometimes adverse conditions but, nevertheless, very efficiently. They are showing that they can compete with anyone in the world when it comes to producing food on an efficient basis.
For us as prairie farmers 41 per cent of our cash receipts come from the sale of wheat. Wheat is king in Saskatchewan, particularly in the area I represent. However, there are many problems that exist beyond our borders, and other Members have dealt at some length with them. We rely on exports for the largest percentage of our sales. Over 80 per cent of our production must be exported into a world market, a market which is presently congested and in which granaries are overflowing. Many countries which used to import our wheat are now exporting wheat themselves.
The area which I have the honour to represent contains some of the finest farm land in the world. I am sure that everyone has heard of the great Regina Plains. This is an area of level, fertile and highly productive soil farmed by people who can compete with anyone in the world. My riding contains most of the irrigation in Saskatchewan which allows us to produce a wide variety of specialty crops as efficiently or more efficiently than anyone else in the world.
Grain producers across Canada are caught in a vicious cost-price squeeze, largely as a result of the shoot-out between the European Common Market and the U.S.A. We must provide support for these agricultural producers. We do not have the luxury of choice in the matter.
During the last recess and during the recent election in Saskatchewan I spoke to many of my constituents. Members of the Saskatchewan electorate recognize the support they have received from the provincial Government led by Premier Devine. They have endorsed the provincial Government's past record by giving him a new mandate. The deficiency payment which was first announced by the federal Government in the Speech from the Throne and which was later mentioned by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) in the House, as well as by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise), is a recognition by the federal Government of the need to provide some support to our agricultural producers. My constituents have indicated their appreciation for this announcement. They have also indicated their appreciation for the priority that agriculture is receiving from the Government. In simple terms it is a matter of survival
October 28, 1986

for our producers. The deficiency payment, as well as other program changes we have made, will lessen the strain on our producers.
I would like to mention some of these changes, beginning with the removal of the capital gains tax on farm land. This was a very positive step, one well received by the agricultural community. The drought program under which payments were made to livestock and grain producers as a result of successive droughts in western Canada was also well received. Changes to the Western Grain Stabilization Act to allow for interim payments, a change we had requested for some time, were made by the Government. Fuel tax rebates, shared-risk mortgages and commodity-based mortgages are but some of the changes our Government has brought about. They have been recognized and well received by agricultural producers.
All is not gloom and doom on the agricultural scene. We have been making progress in having agricultural subsidy programs discussed at world level meetings. Such a discussion took place recently at the Tokyo Summit. Such discussions will be on the table at the next round of GATT negotiations. Important steps have been taken by our Government to allow for these subsidy problems to be discussed at world level meetings and in order for some solutions to be arrived at.
I believe that more diversification is required on the Prairies. The recent work stoppage at Thunder Bay is a prime example of the vulnerability which exists in our grain marketing and handling system. At the time of the work stoppage considerable effort was put into having grain cleaned and shipped out of the Prairies on a unit train basis. I would like to see this concept improved even further. We should have cleaning plants on the Prairies where grain is grown. The screenings could be utilized for livestock feed. Grain would be shipped in unit trains and loaded directly on to ocean-going vessels. This would eliminate the cleaning and handling charge at the terminals. It would also create a good deal of employment on the Prairies where we have a steady supply of reliable workers available. It would also encourage and foster some of the new and innovative procedures which will be required in agriculture as we move into the 1990s and beyond.
I would now like to spend some time discussing the changes to the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act. Certainly, very valid points have been made this morning. One that I certainly support is the necessity of not having the landlord sign the cash advance for the producer. I look after several farms for nonresident and resident Canadian owners, and with the mail service being what it is today, particularly in terms of American landowners, there are great delays in having applications for advance payment returned. Most often farmers rely on the advance to pay up their day-to-day bills. Quite often they have large Farm Credit payments to make in the fall and interest-free cash advances assist producers who are going through very tough times.
Another excellent change being made is the current calculation for advances based on the number of tonnes of grain prescribed per quota acre. In the past, the high yield
Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act
producers could not benefit fully. The proposed amendment changes the method of calculating the advance on the basis of the actual volume of grain the producer has in storage. This will be of particular benefit to those in my area who irrigate and produce very high volumes of grain.
The interest rate problem was with us throughout the early 1980s. When interest rates fell, farmers were still locked in to paying very high rates. The Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act was no different. Interest rates on defaulted accounts were set on the beginning of the crop year and stayed the same until the account was paid off. This Bill will change that. To avoid this problem, the Bill proposes that interest rates for defaulted accounts be allowed to fluctuate in relation to current rates.
These amendments will allow for more flexibility in dealing with outstanding defaulted accounts. The Board will be granted more latitude in dealing with producers who show that extraordinary circumstances prevented them from completing their obligations under the Act. I have and I am sure other Hon. Members have heard stories of illness, accidents or other conditions that prevent farmers from delivering grain on time.
Several regulations, routine and administrative in nature, are altered by Order in Council each year. The Government believes that this process takes too much time and creates unnecessary paperwork. It has seen fit to delete these requirements from the Act. As recommended by the Bill, the application form will no longer require Order in Council approval. Instead, the Canadian Wheat Board will be responsible for the approval of the form. The advance rate for the crop year will no longer require an Order in Council. The rate is set by the Wheat Board and its initial payments are already set by Order in Council. The current process is redundant and time consuming.
With these amendments, the Government has yet again demonstrated its commitment to reform and its concern for farmers. I strongly urge all Hon. Members to adopt these amendments and to pass Bill C-12 quickly.


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague, the Hon. Member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Gottselig), on his contribution to this debate. I know the Hon. Member represents a vast grain growing area of south-central Saskatchewan and that he is a grain farmer himself. I am sure he notes with approval the strong commitment to the Canadian grain farmer in the Throne Speech and particularly the statement that the Government will spare no effort in assisting farmers and will work with provincial Governments and the farm community to develop a way of delivering a benefit of approximately $1 billion to grain producers in Canada.
Considering his expertise in the area and his farming background, I wonder if the Hon. Member would care to comment on his view of the best way to devise a method of delivering this $1 billion to the farming community.

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Mir. Gottselig: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for Swift Current-Maple Creek (Mr. Wilson) for his kind words. The key to this deficiency payment announcement was the method by which it was announced. It was first announced in the Throne Speech which indicated that we would spare no effort to assist those agricultural producers. It was later mentioned in the House by the Prime Minister. The Minister of Agriculture indicated that he would initiate discussions with the provincial Governments at the Deputy Minister level. Probably more important than that was the fact that we would involve the agricultural producer groups.
All too often in the past, we have seen programs announced from this great ivory tower without any concern for the people who are affected by them. The agricultural producer groups which have a grassroots level input can now enter into these discussions. This will provide a direct link with the producers and will allow us to institute the delivery of this program in a way that will be decided by the producers. I believe the key is that the producers themselves will put forward their ideas as to how this program should be delivered.


Mr. Gauthier:: Mr. Speaker, given the fact that we have heard 10 speakers on second reading stage of this Bill and the fact that we all know that farmers are expecting passage of this Bill, would the Hon. Member not agree that we should interrupt the debate now and put the question?


William (Bill) Gottselig: Mr. Speaker, as my colleague, the Hon. Member for Swift Current-Maple Creek mentioned, I feel that I am here to represent my constituents. They want to hear our position on this issue. I do not feel that expressing my opinion on behalf of my constituents is holding up the business of the House.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I was not questioning the Hon. Member's right to speak in the House. I am simply saying that the principle of the Bill is to be discussed at second reading stage. We all know that in principle, this Bill is a good one and should be passed quickly. Why are government Members filibustering the Bill?


William (Bill) Gottselig: Mr. Speaker, I do not believe that expressing my opinion on behalf of my constituents is filibustering the Bill. Perhaps the Hon. Member chooses to see it that way. His Party is well known for filibustering a great many things. I do not believe that we are filibustering this Bill.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, Parties decide to filibuster when they are in fact attempting to stop a Bill. If the Hon. Member is interested in representing his constituents, he would be well advised to take steps right now that would enable payments to get into the hands of farmers as quickly as possible rather than prolonging debate hour after hour.
It is not that the debate is not interesting. It is an interesting and useful debate. We are hearing various concerns from various parts of the country and that is fine. However, we are anxious to help the farmers and to put money into their hands.
Hon. Members say that they want to represent their constituents. Believe me, their constituents would appreciate being represented by Hon. Members who took action to see that the money got into their hands as quickly as possible.


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, just to set the record straight, the House Leader of the NDP knows that farmers presently receive money under the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act. This Bill has nothing to do with either limiting or increasing the amount of money available.
Last June, we very much appreciated the position taken by the New Democratic Party. Members of the NDP were in favour of passing this Bill at that time and if we could have done it then, all of the proposed amendments would have been in effect at the beginning of the new crop year beginning August 1. Unfortunately, it was the Official Opposition that held it up.
This Bill has been before the House this morning for an hour and a half and it was before the House for about an hour and a half a week ago. In total, it has been before the House for three hours. It is a piece of legislation that affects the agricultural community. A great many Members of the House directly represent farmers. This provides them a very good opportunity to rise in the House to speak on agricultural matters. Three hours is not a long time to talk about a Bill that will affect agriculture.
We appreciate the position taken by members of the New Democratic Party. If their point of view had carried the day, this Bill would have passed last June. We do not feel that three hours of discussion on an important piece of legislation will in any way hold it up.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, so that the record is perfectly clear, the Minister responsible for the Wheat Board indicated that members of his Party were concerned about agriculture and about their constituents and therefore wished to make some comments on this Bill. I want to make it perfectly clear that there are many of us as New Democrats who also represent farm communities. As we originally decided, it would be in the best interests of the farm community to treat this Bill expeditiously. As a matter of fact, I recall requests to do just that. In our efforts to be co-operative, helpful, and assist in the movement and passage of this Bill as quickly as possible, many of our representatives of farm communities have decided to raise their comments at the appropriate place, not at the debate in principle.
I have been listening to the debates carefully this morning. Quite frankly, we have gone far beyond the debate in principle. The members of the New Democratic Party say that we should get the Bill into committee where we can deal with the specifics. We will then have another opportunity at third reading, and so be it. Again, I urge the Government to be expeditious and get on with the passage of this Bill, as it requested us to do originally.
October 28, 1986


William (Bill) Gottselig: I would like to add my comments to this debate. I have had the good fortune to sit in the House since November of 1984. In connection with serving my duty days, I have been here many times on Opposition Days. If the New Democratic Party showed as much concern for holding up the business of the House on some of those days as they are indicating now, more would be accomplished.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Resuming debate.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, this House has proceeded with debating of Bill C-12 long enough. Knowing that farmers are waiting for this Bill, I move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Mount Royal (Mrs. Finestone):
That the question be now put.


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, I find this a very extraordinary procedure. We had a member of the New Democratic Party yesterday standing up and chastising the Speaker for not allowing him the privilege of debating what he considered to be a very important issue. As the Hon. Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) indicated earlier, this is an important piece of legislation from the standpoint of the agricultural community. On this side of the House, we have a strong representation in the agricultural community. We have a number of Hon. Members who want to speak out on this issue, not only in support of the Bill, but indeed to outline to the House and to the Canadian people the tremendous record that this Government has in agriculture.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I cannot help it that the NDP does not have enough Hon. Members from the agricultural community to make a point that its members want to make. I cannot help it that they are not interested in agriculture. I cannot help it that they were wiped out in the Province of Saskatchewan because of their supercilious stand on agriculture in western Canada, particularly in the Province of Saskatchewan.


Ms. Mitchell:: Let's comment on today's polls, shall we?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I am glad the Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom) is back, because he was literally whitewashed.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: What about today's polls?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: He lost.


Charles James Mayer: He was blue washed.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: He was blue washed, that is right. He lost every provincial seat in this federal riding, I am told. That has been a traditional New Democratic Party area. I guess that the presence of his Leader and himself did not help matters. I understand they took the Leader into Saskatchewan for a day and a half and they polled him, because they were
Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act
going down the tube. Unfortunately, the day and a half may have been the difference.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: What's happening federally is that you're going down the tube. What's happened to your polls?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Federally? We win in Pembina, we win in Saskatchewan, and the NDP loses in B.C. One of these days they are going to have to go back to the drawing board, which means that their policies are wrong on trade, their policies are wrong on job creation, their policies are wrong on economic renewal.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: That's not what the polls are saying.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Polls do not win elections, and you know that. The polls are wrong, and I am a Pole, as well. I am not only frank, but I am a Pole as well.


Charles James Mayer: You are the kind of Pole who wins elections.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: The NDP has the wrong stand on interest rates and economic renewal. It is the first time in eight years that the major economic indicators have been in the single digits. People across the country know that there have been some major changes and progress has been made. One of them is in the field of agriculture, both domestically and internationally. This Minister and the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) have done a tremendous job in promoting the interests of agriculture in the international arena. I would like to compliment them.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Just because our Hon. Members want to stand up and support these two excellent, competent Ministers who have distinguished themselves in the most exemplary fashion and who want to speak out on behalf of the farmers of Canada, they should not be denied that privilege by a silly manoeuvre by the Official Opposition.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Do they have a farmer over there? No. Well, they do not care. I do not know whether there is a farmer in the NDP caucus.


An Hon. Member:: One.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: One. Well, that tells you the story. We have lots of farmers and a lot of Hon. Members who are interested in the farming community. We have to have the opportunity to debate the issue. I know that good news is very hard for these people to swallow across the way. It is quite obvious that is what they are trying to achieve by cutting off the debate.
We are going to oppose this motion, Mr. Speaker, because we still have some Hon. Members who want to speak-


Nelson Andrew Riis: This will look good in the polls.

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Donald Frank Mazankowski: -in the event they have the opportunity to speak on this motion and say what they wanted to say originally. Then we will allow it to come to a vote. But we have Hon. Members who want to speak and the Official Opposition, or the NDP, will not deny the Hon. Members on this side the right to speak and the right to be heard on behalf of the people, the farmers of western Canada, and all of Canada. The farming industry is an important industry. It is in dire straits. It is in serious difficulty. This is the kind of debate that should be held in this institution. That is what we are trying to do.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Questions and comments.


Nelson Andrew Riis: I do not have a question or comment. What I want to suggest to the House Leader for the Government is, in fact, that the farmers of this country do not want to hear a lot of rhetoric. They want to see some action. What we said is, let us have some action in this House of Commons rather than have farmers sitting listening to hour after hour of Tories getting up and filibustering the Bill that is before the House which is designed to help the grain farmers across the country. We are saying, let us get on and handle this Bill as expeditiously as possible. I cannot believe that the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski) has stood here and said he wants to talk this Bill out. He is going to vote against taking action on this Bill.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: You are trying to deny freedom of speech.


Nelson Andrew Riis: I want to say very clearly that we are very concerned about the plight of the family farm. We see family farms being replaced by agri-business and corporate agriculture right across Canada. We see an opportunity today to take some action and do what we can in the House of Commons to deal with this. Not long ago the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Mayer) asked us to do whatever we could to assist him. What did the Minister ask us to do?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: You don't know what you are talking about.


Nelson Andrew Riis: The Government House Leader should listen carefully so that he understands how this place works.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I am listening.


Nelson Andrew Riis: A request was made of the opposition Parties to pass the Bill before us as quickly as possible. We were asked whether we would co-operate with the Government. At that time we said: "You bet we will". We also said that if the Bill helps Canadian farmers and provides support for farm families, we would support it and that we would do whatever we could. As a matter of fact, we said that we would pass it with the absolute minimum of speakers. The Government House Leader can sit there and laugh because he was not the House Leader at that time.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I am laughing at you.


Nelson Andrew Riis: The request was for our co-operation. We said that we would co-operate with the Government. We want to help family farms and grain producers. Assuming that if it was important to pass it in June, it would be even more important to pass it quickly today, we said that we should get the Bill into committee so that it could be dealt with as quickly as possible, get it back for third reading, and get on with other business of the country.
Perhaps the Deputy Prime Minister noticed what the polls indicated across the country today. The people of Canada have lost confidence in the Government. They have lost confidence in the leadership of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney). They have lost confidence in the Progressive Conservative Party. Quite frankly, in every region of the country the Conservatives do not have the support of the majority of citizens. I cannot believe that the Deputy Prime Minister and Government House Leader stood in his place today and said: "We are going to stop the movement of this Bill".


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I did not say that at all.


Nelson Andrew Riis: He said that they wanted to slow down the movement of this Bill, that they wanted to keep the people talking but not to provide action. We are saying that members of the opposition Parties want action. We want to move the Bill forward as quickly as possible.


John Horton McDermid: What a phoney.


Nelson Andrew Riis: The Hon. Member should reconsider the word "phoney". I believe it is unparliamentary. Presumably he will have an opportunity to make his speech. I guess they now want to prolong the debate on this motion.
I say to the Deputy Prime Minister and to the Minister of State for Canadian Wheat Board that if the request for speedy passage was valid in June of this year, surely to goodness the same request is valid today. We want to co-operate. We want to get on with other business of the House. We have other legislation in line. We have Bills which are awaiting passage.
Why is it that government Members want to filibuster and prolong debate unnecessarily-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. Could I ask the Hon. Member to conclude his comment?


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I forgot that it was a comment; I thought I was on debate. Rather than a comment, perhaps I will direct a simple question to the Government House Leader. They have the co-operation of the opposition Parties to deal expeditiously with the Bill. Knowing all the legislation which is awaiting passage, knowing the state of affairs in the country, and knowing what the people of Canada through today's polls think of them, why will they not co-operate with the opposition Parties when they say: "Let's deal with it now. Let's get it into committee where it can be properly dealt with, not at this stage where it is being debated in principle only"?
October 28, 1986


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to answer that question. The House Leader of the New Democratic Party has sort of toned down his rhetoric and emotion. If he is suggesting that three hours of debate on an important piece of legislation affecting western Canada, particularly prairie grain producers, is too long-


An Hon. Member:: Two hours.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Is it two hours? In any event the value which he places upon this institution and the value I place on it are different. The fact of the matter is that we have every intention of seeing that the Bill goes through to committee today. I appreciate the support of the Opposition in facilitating it.
However, I repeat that Parliament is a debating place. If Members of Parliament representing agricultural constituencies are to be denied the right to speak as a result of the tactics in which the Official Opposition and the NDP are engaged, I think it is an affront to this institution. It is an affront to Parliament. It is an affront to the people who sent those Hon. Members to represent them on the floor of the House of Commons. We are not filibustering our Bill. We are giving Hon. Members who are desirous of an opportunity to be heard and to speak on the Bill an opportunity to do so. I hope the Hon. Member, in his expression of goodwill, would allow that to take place.
I also hope that the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier would withdraw the motion because I can assure him that with a couple of more short interventions the Bill will be passed into committee.


An Hon. Member:: No.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: The expert on parliamentary procedure in the back row over there says "No". I understand that he is taking his cues from her. That is fine; that will be recorded as such. The record will show that the NDP and the Liberal Party combined to move what in effect was an attempt to close the debate or to move closure on debate affecting the agricultural community of Canada. That is the sum and substance of it.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: No, it is not, and you know it.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: That is the way it will be interpreted. The Hon. Member wants to deny western Members an opportunity to speak, and I regret that very much.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, we agree with the Government that the Bill is urgent. We agree that it should be passed quickly. If the Government is disposed to do so now, we would comply and the question could be put.
What are government Members telling us? Do they want to call it one o'clock? If so, that is fine with me. However, I say
to the Minister: "Please do not vote against your own Bill". That is what he is doing.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I have no intention of voting against my Bill. I have every intention of voting against the silly tactic of that Hon. Member. All I am saying to him is that we will prolong the debate so that all our Hon. Members can speak, and then we will vote on it. If he were a gentleman about the whole exercise, he would withdraw the motion in the spirit of goodwill and in the expression of goodwill advanced by the House Leader of the New Democratic Party. We will allow our Members who have not had a chance to speak to continue to speak, and then we will take the vote.


Mr. McKnight:: Mr. Speaker, I just want to make a few brief comments on this matter. With the representation found in government ranks and with the capable speakers found in government ranks who want to put forward to their constituents some of the good news and to explain a Bill which is important to the people I represent, I find it strange that the House Leader of the New Democratic Party would ask: What is the difference between June and now? I should not have to explain it to the Hon. Member who has expertise in agriculture. He knows the number of farmers who are represented by his Party and the great farm vote which his Party received in the Province of Saskatchewan last October 20. I think it was two ridings. The difference between June and now is what is called the crop year. The crop year ends on July 31. That is why it was urgent when the Official Opposition, the Liberal Party, denied consent to have this piece of legislation passed in June, in time for farmers to take advantage of it in the new crop year. The difference between now and last June is the fact that there is a crop year.
The actions about which the Hon. Member talked are evident to Canadian farmers. Those actions include the removal of the gas tax, the removal of the diesel tax, the removal of capital gains, and interim payments on western grain stabilization. I see that you, Mr. Speaker, are signalling that it is almost one o'clock. I would have liked to talk about drought payments, flood payments, livestock payments, and the $300,000 which was put into the dairy program. However, I see Your Honour rising, so I will take my seat.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The period provided for questions and comments is over.
It being one o'clock, I do now leave the chair until two o'clock later this day.
At 1 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
October 28, 1986


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, last November this House unanimously approved a motion to put an end to the practice of idling car engines within the confines of Parliament Hill so as to protect the environment. To this end, your predecessor, Sir, had signs put up informing all drivers to shut off their car engines when waiting. Unfortunately, infractions are taking place every day. Ministers' cars and, most prominently, the Prime Minister's (Mr. Mulroney) limousine and cavalcade are the regular "idlers". This is a small number of vehicles, true, but the attitude displayed toward the environment is symbolically very important. How can citizens take the environment seriously if the Prime Minister and his Cabinet fail to give a good example?
I call upon the Prime Minister and his Ministers to change their ways, respect the will of this House, and set a good example by please turning off the engines of their cars.



INDUSTRY


Mr. Guy St. Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, in the midst of a black spruce forest about 80 kilometers north of Senneterre, the Domtar company at Lebel-sur-Quevillon is celebrating its twentieth birthday this year. Domtar has created a municipality, schools, an entire community, where people have managed to settle a part of this planet that seemed particularly hostile to human settlement but was rich in space and resources.
The Domtar plant produces Kraft pulp from resinous wood at a rate of 800 tonnes a day or 260 tonnes per year. The plant employs 605 workers and annually pays $11 million in salaries and fringe benefits.
Mr. Speaker, initially, workers and their families saw coming to Quevillon for several years as a way to save a substantial amount of money, but they finally became attached to this part of the country where they found a great spirit of camaraderie and friendship.
Today, more than 900 people are employed by Domtar in the company's various departments, and this year, 100 employees will be celebrating their twentieth anniversary with the company.
We congratulate these workers and their wives and children on the life they have made for themselves in the Abitibi region.



MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT


Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby):: Mr. Speaker, stereotypical slurs on any minority in Canada whether racial, religious, ethnic, linguistic, or sexual are deeply offensive to all Canadians who value equality and human rights. Such attacks are particularly serious when they come from a long-time Conservative Member of Parliament. The words used last week by the Hon. Member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor) with reference to lumberjacks-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The Chair having already commented on the words at which the Hon. Member takes umbrage and the Chair having made those interventions in quite, I think, unequivocal language, must remind the Hon. Member that it is not the appropriate place under Standing Order 21 to carry on admonishments of Members when a Member has already been admonished by the Chair. I say this fully aware that the Chair has made it clear that the issue in this matter is a legitimate issue for this Chamber. The Hon. Member yesterday raised a point of privilege. There may have been some misinterpretation as to what the Chair said. The Chair has taken that matter under advisement and will return to the Chamber with it.
I would hope all Hon. Members will accept that the Chair feels that the continued use of Standing Order 21 for attacks on any particular Member, when that Member has been admonished by the Chair, is an inappropriate use of Standing Order 21.
With respect, the Hon. Member for Burnaby (Mr. Robinson) raised a point of privilege yesterday and was given a very full hearing. The Chair will be returning to the Chamber at the appropriate time, with sufficient notice to the Hon. Member for Burnaby, to make a ruling upon the particular matter which he raised.



NATURAL GAS DEREGULATION-IMPORTANCE OF ACCESS TO UNITED STATES MARKET

Mrs. Barbara Sparrow (Calgary South):: Mr. Speaker, I believe that full deregulation of natural gas can be completed by the targeted date of November 1, 1986, and I wish to congratulate governments and industry for their zeal in accomplishing this.
In my view it is imperative that the result of deregulation is free access to all markets, including the United States. Only by free access can the deregulated price reflect the true market value, and only by free access can the industry develop to its full potential.
*g
October 28, 1986

I would encourage government agencies to review the gas export surplus test and adjust the test so that it will encourage exploration, development, and production of natural gas. Long-term contracts will meet the need for security of supply and keep those much needed jobs in Alberta. The adjacent border price test needs flexibility so that the situation can be monitored and action taken only if a problem arises.



CANADA POST CORPORATION


Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard-Anjou):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to read to the House a letter from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business to the Minister responsible for the Post Office (Mr. Cote). It reads:
It is most distressing that the politics of rumour and innuendo have become the hallmark of a new session of Parliament. In this environment Canadians are now being asked to ponder yet another postal rate increase, which at this point you have chosen not to deny.
The Prime Minister and the Government, with much fanfare, have trumpeted the values of hard work and entrepreneurship through both the Throne Speech and Small Business Week.
With one hand offered to small business in congratulation for creating 70 per cent of the jobs during this Government's mandate, does the other hand wait to slap another unfair burden upon the independent business people of Canada?

Introducing further postal increases is not the way to deal with Canada Post's deficit. The time has come to show the will, courage and vision that are necessary to deal with the many problems facing this Crown corporation.
You may be certain that the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses will vigorously oppose any increase in postal rates and support all Canadians who have had enough of paying more and more for less and less as far as our postal services are concerned.



MULTICULTURALISM


Mr. Geoff Scott (Hamilton-Wentworth):: Mr. Speaker, I have good news and bad news about this Government's multiculturalism policy.
First, the good news. The Government, and more specifically the Prime Minister, has promised to increase the number of appointments of people from minority groups to sit on Government councils and commissions. Mr. Speaker, considerable progress has been made in the past two years. This
Government has appointed more people from various ethnic groups than the former Administration.
And now, the bad news. What we have done is not enough. We must do more to reflect Canada's ethnic and linguistic reality, but I have every confidence in the Secretary of State and Minister responsible for Multiculturalism (Mr. Crombie). We are determined to reach our goal, which is the same equality for all Canadians.



TAXATION


Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, today, the grand prize for untaxed corporations goes to Sterling Trust.
This company paid no taxes at all in 1985 and enjoyed tax credits for the years 1979, 1983, 1984, with profits exceeding $10 million. This was possible owing to lucrative tax rebates arising from measures introduced by the previous Liberal Government and to action taken by this Conservative Government.



GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURES


Mr. Gabriel Fontaine (Levis):: Mr. Speaker, this morning's Globe and Mail editorial appears under the heading: "The money machine".
Two years after the defeat of the Liberal Party, the Globe and Mail's, editorial writer urges us to remember that the Liberal Government spent more than any other Government for political and partisan purposes; that the Liberal Government abused the system; that it failed to observe Treasury Board guidelines; that the Government privately spent taxpayers' money; that under the Liberal Government, for the first 20 months the job creation program was administered exclusively by Ministers and a few MPs, with no consideration for objective eligibility criteria; that this profligate spending for partisan purposes was done with borrowed money.
Mr. Speaker, the Liberal caucus here in the House took part in and approved these infamous expenditures. As the Globe and Mail says, Mr. Speaker, "They bear remembering".

October 28, 1986



GREAT PEACE JOURNEY'S QUESTIONNAIRE

Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Mr. Speaker, 20 representatives of the Great Peace Journey from many countries around the world were here today and it was unfortunate that neither the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) nor any senior Minister of his Government found the time to meet and greet them. This group is visiting heads of states in 14 regions of the world to discuss five questions with world leaders. They have already met with Prime Minister Gandhi of India; the Foreign Minister of Australia, Mr. Hayden; and Prime Minister David Lange of New Zealand. In December they will meet with leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States. They have requested written answers to five questions and I wish the Government would at least study the questions and then determine how it wishes to answer.
The five fundamental questions from this group are:
(1)	Are you willing to forbid your country's defence forces from leaving your own country's territory if all other UN countries do the same?
(2)	Are you willing to forbid nuclear weapons and other-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I very much regret that the Hon. Member's time has expired.
* *
*



LABOUR CONDITIONS


Mr. John A. MacDougall (Timiskaming):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday statements were made in the House implying that no jobs had been created in northern Ontario since this Government came to power. In 1980 northern Ontario's unemployment rate was 7.7 per cent. By 1982, under a Liberal Government, it had jumped to 13.5 per cent. The Conservative Government reacted to this situation and created more than
29.000	jobs, bringing unemployment in northern Ontario down to 10 per cent.
In the last two years 19,000 jobs were created in northeastern Ontario, and 10,000 in northwestern Ontario. There are
7.000	less unemployed workers in northern Ontario, and this is significant progress.
Our Government's policy on job creation is successful, and it will continue to introduce policies and programs to benefit every region of the country. Our record of achievement in job creation is one that is clear. No Member who sat on his hands while the previous Government raised the unemployment rate of northern Ontario from 7.7 per cent to 13.5 per cent can lecture this Government on job creation in northern Ontario.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member's time has expired.



LABOUR RELATIONS


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, I have just learned that waterfront employers in Vancouver have announced that contract talks with the longshoremen's union have broken down. I am very concerned about this because there are still nine days to go before the end of the 30-day limit which the parties agreed to impose in order to continue negotiations. I also understand that the union does not want to go out and is willing to work all cargoes, including grain. On behalf of Members of Parliament I would like to appeal to the parties concerned to do everything possible to resume negotiations, in their own interests and those of Canada.



CROWN CORPORATIONS


Mr. Bob Hicks (Scarborough East):: Mr. Speaker, have you noticed that the opposition Parties have been extremely quiet lately about the sale of de Havilland to Boeing? Do you know why? It is because this is one of the great success stories of this decade. No jobs have been lost. In fact many more are anticipated. How about orders? They have increased dramatically. To quote this morning's Ottawa Citizen, "The roar of rivet guns, punch presses and lathes rarely stops at the sprawling de Havilland Aircraft of Canada Ltd. plant in northwest Toronto these days. They can't make airplanes fast enough".
I am sure all Canadians and all Members of this House will agree that the forward thinking, perceptive and timely action taken by the Government should be very widely applauded.



UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE


Mr. Jean-Claude Malepart (Montreal-Sainte-Marie):: This past weekend, Mr. Speaker, I had the pleasure of traveling to the Quebec City region where I met with people from Levis, Quebec East and Langelier. Quebec City residents are wondering why this Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and
October 28, 1986

this Progressive Conservative Government chose to waste $41 million of the taxpayers' money by relocating the Drummond-ville prison in the Prime Minister's riding. These people want to know why the Government did not take $30 million to give immediate refunds to the 50,000 early retirees who are penalized as a result of the profligacy of the Prime Minister and the Progressive Conservative Government.



SMALL BUSINESS


Mr. Jean-Guy Guilbault (Drummond):: To highlight Small Business Week, Mr. Speaker, I would like to pay homage to three Drummondville entrepreneurs who stand as a shining example for all small- and medium-sized businesses, the Lemaire brothers of Papiers Cascades, Bernard, Laurent and Alain. With their father Antonio and their sister Madeleine they set up a system to recycle old paper in Drummondville. Their company has expanded over the years and has now become a multinational concern. Among other achievements, Cartonneries Cascades now operate plants in Quebec, Ontario and the United States, as well as three more in France.
Established in 1964, Cascades now include 25 companies with 3,200 employees and have posted sales of $400 million this year. The shares of this group, issued in November 1982 at $5 and valued at more than $150 last July, reflect the outstanding success of Quebec's Regime d'epargne-actions. The Lemaires and other such entrepreneurs are the vanguard of a new generation of Quebecers whose efforts and endeavours strengthen the Canadian economy.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Right Hon. John N. Turner (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. The repeated cut-backs in vital programs for the National Research Council are a betrayal of the Prime Minister's promises during the election, a betrayal of our young people, and are making this country more vulnerable in our ability to compete world-wide. Will he overturn the extremely harmful cuts to the National Research Council made by his Minister of Science and Technology and re-establish the priority that he gave Canadians to understand would be paramount in his Government?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, as my right hon. friend will know, the Government of
Oral Questions
Canada inherited a situation where, over the previous 15 years, per capita contribution of GNP to research and development had declined to the point where it was the lowest of the OECD countries, I believe. We had to begin the process of improving that situation as a percentage of GNP because we believe that it is very important in enhancing our competitive position, aside from the obvious benefits that it brings to the country. We are committed to a strategy of increasing the per capita contribution of GNP to research and development. That has been our policy. We are in the process of developing it and we hope to achieve substantial results from it.


DEGREE OF PRIORITY ACCORDED RESEARCH
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister was inaccurate in his summary of the facts. In any case, during the election campaign he made a personal commitment to increase the National Research Council's budget by 20 per cent. Since he became Prime Minister, he has cut the NRC's budget by $120 million. Why does the Prime Minister think that spending a $41-million surplus on a prison in Manicouagan riding was a more important priority for this country than spending the same $41 million on research?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Liberal Party keeps picking on the people of Port-Cartier. Yesterday, one of his Members was picking on the people of Matane, after ignoring them for 15 years, and the Hon. Member would have us believe there is a connection with what we spend on research and development. We have announced a policy that is clear and that promotes research and development. We intend to work together with the private sector, universities and R&D institutions, and by the time we finish our term, I think we will have substantially increased the per capita contribution to vitally needed research in this country. Ours is a forward-looking and realistic policy which reflects not only our country's needs but also its economic potential.


STATEMENT ATTRIBUTED TO NOBEL PRIZE WINNER
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I could cite an authority that the Prime Minister might recognize. After learning of the cut-backs to the National Research Council our Nobel Prize winner, Dr. John Polanyi of the University of Toronto, was asked what advice he would give to young scientists in Canada today and he replied: "I think I would go to the United States". Can the Prime Minister conceive of a more damning indictment of his governmental policy than to have one of the leading scientists of our country recommend to the young people of Canada who are interested in scientific research that their only recourse is to go south of the border to the United States?

October 28, 1986
Oral Questions


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I would have to take a look at the records again, but my recollection is that not so long ago Canada's contribution had declined to 0.9 of 1 per cent of GNP during the record of the previous Government, which is, I think, the lowest of all the OECD countries. It has since moved up gently. When we took over I believe it was at 1.13 per cent.


John Napier Turner: Check your facts on that one!


Martin Brian Mulroney: The fact of the matter is that the Government of which the Hon. Member was a part drove scientists out of Canada into the United States. We are in the process of trying to bring them back. The Hon. Member should stand up and help us, as opposed to expressing the negativism in which the Liberal Party constantly indulges.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


GOVERNMENT POSITION ON CUT BACKS
Mr. David Berger (Laurier):: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister ought to check his facts or else he ought to reread his book. My question is also for the Prime Minister.
In trying to defend the indefensible cuts at the National Research Council the Minister of State for Science and Technology said yesterday: "Please, I do not enjoy this. None of my colleagues in Cabinet enjoyed what we had to do". Why did the Prime Minister and his cabinet colleagues have to do this? How can he justify cuts which are damaging Canada's ability to compete, and which are destroying Canada's preeminent research institute and the morale of scientists across the country? Why did he and his cabinet colleagues-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The Hon. Member will realize, of course, that he has repeated the same question.


Hon. Frank Oberle (Minister of State for Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, what I do not enjoy doing, and what my cabinet colleagues do not enjoy doing, is having to correct in the shortest time possible 20 years of deliberate policies of neglect in the area of science and technology.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


David Berger: Mr. Speaker, by his own mouth the Minister and his cabinet colleagues stand condemned.


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


REQUEST THAT MINISTER TABLE DOCUMENTS ON WHICH DECISION TO MAKE CUT-BACKS BASED
David Berger: Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Minister whether he is prepared to table in the House the studies on which he based his decision to cut the 20 million, as
well as a list of the groups he consulted and of recommendations made by members of the NRC.


Frank Oberle: Mr. Speaker, last night there was a meeting of the standing committee at which I tabled very important information. It is terribly unfortunate that the Hon. Member does not consider it important enough to attend such meetings.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


OLYMPICS
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of State for Fitness and Amateur Sport. As the Minister knows, some 85 per cent of the tickets for the 1984 Summer and Winter Olympics were made available to members of the general public who wanted to attend the most popular events. Considering that there is a report out which states that some 50 per cent of tickets for the upcoming Olympics in Calgary have been reserved for a small so-called Olympic family, can the Minister confirm that this is the case? Can he tell Members of the House why so many people in the general public are being excluded if such a policy is in place?


Hon. Otto Jelinek (Minister of State (Fitness and Amateur Sport)):: Mr. Speaker, I can confirm that the report is erroneous. The Hon. Member is misinformed. Seventy-five per cent of ticket sales for the Calgary Olympics will be made available to the general public and 25 per cent will go to the so-called Olympic family, including national organizations, sponsorship groups, the IOC itself, and others. That compares favourably with the Los Angeles Olympics and falls under IOC Rule No. 60.


PUBLIC'S ACCESS TO POPULAR EVENTS
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, the Minister will know that the reports were not about events in general but about the most popular events. It has been suggested that public access to tickets for the more popular events including hockey games, figure skating, and speed skating, will be considerably more restricted than he has just said. Will the Minister reassure the House that that is not the case and that the Canadian Olympics will indeed be open to the general public?
Hon. Otto Jelinek (Minister of State (Fitness and Amateur
Sport)): The Calgary Olympics will indeed be open to the
October 28, 1986

general public. I cannot confirm that each and every event will have 70 per cent availability. The Board of Directors of the organizing committee is currently reviewing the situation for specific events but I can guarantee the Hon. Member, the House and Canadians, that 75 per cent of total sales of tickets for the Calgary Olympics will be made available to the public.


REQUEST THAT MINISTER INTERVENE
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, with respect to the Minister, he knows that the issue is not 75 per cent of tickets in general. The people of Canada want access to the most popular events. Will the Minister take steps to ensure that the general public will have full access to hockey games, speed skating and figure skating, and that at least the same percentage of the general public will be able to attend these Olympics as attended recent Olympics? Will the Minister give us that guarantee?


Otto John Jelinek: Mr. Speaker, I can assure the Hon. Member that there will be an improvement over the sales that took place in Los Angeles. While I have the opportunity, I would also assure the House that the Olympic Games in Calgary will be the best ever Winter Olympic games in the history of the Olympic movement for Canada and for Canadians.


ALLOCATION OF TICKETS TO CORPORATE SPONSORS
Hon. Douglas C. Frith (Sudbury):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also for the Minister responsible for fitness and amateur sport. Canadian taxpayers are putting out $200 million in revenue for the Calgary Olympics. They put out $62 million to build the Olympic park and $35 million to build the speed skating oval. How can the Minister explain to the Canadian public that big business will have access to the best seats in the house while the ordinary taxpayer will get the leftovers?


Otto John Jelinek: Mr. Speaker, once again the Hon. Member is totally wrong. The taxpayers are not making any direct contributions to the Calgary games. The $200-million contribution made by the federal Government is non-tax-revenue dollars. I am glad to inform the Hon. Member of that.


John Edward Broadbent: Where does it come from?


Mr. Blackburn (Brant):: What did you do, print it?


Otto John Jelinek: Second, the best seats will be available to the public, but the organizing committee is abiding by International Olympic Rule No. 60 which ensures that 25 per cent of tickets go to the Olympic family. That is not only big businesses that are investing in Canada and in the Olympic Games for the sake of Canadians-


Mr. Speaker:: Order.
__________________________________________8L3
Oral Questions


SEAT ALLOCATION DISTRIBUTION
Douglas Cockburn Frith: Mr. Speaker, would the Minister not agree that the seat allocation to the Olympic family and corporate sponsors is greater for the Calgary Olympics than it was for the Los Angeles Olympics and for the Montreal Olympics? I will tell you what the average guy in Sudbury wants to hear from you. He wants to hear that you are going to go up to bat so that he has a better than fifty-fifty chance to get the best seat in Calgary-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The Hon. Member did ask a question.


Otto John Jelinek: Mr. Speaker, I do not have to go to bat for the public to get a fifty-fifty chance. I have already gone to bat for the public to get a 75 per cent chance and the best available seats.


TICKETS FOR HOCKEY FINAL
Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State for Fitness and Amateur Sport. Will the Minister confirm that what he is saying is that an elite is going to have as much as 50 per cent of the tickets to the final hockey game at the Calgary Olympics?


Some Hon. Members:: Shame, shame!


Otto John Jelinek: I have just made it as clear as I possibly could that 75 per cent of all ticket sales for the Calgary Olympics are going to the public, and 25 per cent are going to the so-called Olympic family. If the Hon. Member is asking me to look into specific events with specific cases, I will be very happy to do so. But I remind the Hon. Member that the responsibility for the ticket sales rests with the organizing committee. I will stay on top of the issue and make certain that the Canadian public, and indeed the public at large, are treated fairly and equitably.


REQUEST THAT MINISTER INTERVENE WITH OLYMPIC COMMITTEE
Iain Francis Angus: By way of a
supplementary question does the Minister know that according to the current policy only 8,200 of the 16,000 hockey seats for the final game will be available? Will he intervene directly with OCO and say on behalf of the Canadian people that they have to have 75 per cent of those tickets for the hockey game, for speed skating, for figure skating, and for the other major events? Will he make that commitment?
Hon. Otto Jelinek (Minister of State (Fitness and Amateur
Sport)): I repeat that the Olympic Organizing Committee is reviewing the whole process on a case-by-case basis. I will make representations to OCO to make certain that Hon. Member gets as good a seat as possible.

October 28, 1986
Oral Questions


CANADA POST CORPORATION
Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the Minister responsible for the Post Office. In their communication plan the Post Office Authority are instructing divisional directors how to manipulate Canadians in order to sell them postal rate increases and service cuts. How can the Minister allow Canada Post to manipulate Canadians instead of serving them with home delivery to new houses, better customer service, and lower rates?


Hon. Michel Cote (Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion):: Mr. Speaker, the Marchment Commission consulted Canadians across the country to find out about their concerns with respect to the postal service. Since then, these concerns have been examined by the Canada Post Corporation. We have received the Corporation's recommendations, we are studying them and we will make our decisions known in due time.


UTILIZATION OF HUMAN AND MATERIAL RESOURCES- REQUEST FOR EXPLANATION
Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is directed to the same Minister. How much does this public relations project cost Canada Post? Why are human and material resources available for advertising campaigns but none to ensure door-to-door mail delivery for new homes?


Michel Côté: Mr. Speaker, I think Canadians have expressed the desire to have better service and better management at Canada Post, and I can inform the Hon. Member that since this Government came to power, the Corporation's deficit has been reduced considerably, productivity has increased and absenteeism has gone down.
Mr. Speaker, all this reflects better management.


JUSTIFICATION FOR POSSIBLE RATE INCREASE
Mr. Cyril Keeper (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Minister responsible for the Post Office. Will he tell Canadians how he can justify a further increase in postal rates just after having gone through the process of cutting back on home delivery, and taking boxes off the street so that it is much more inconvenient for people to mail their letters? How can he justify a further increase in postal rates while he is continuing to cut back on postal service?


Michel Côté: Mr. Speaker, may I simply remind my colleague that there is absolutely no question of reducing postal services;
I believe I did mention that Canada Post have drafted a business plan. It was submitted to the Government, we took it under consideration and will announce our decision at the appropriate time.


INCREASE IN POSTAL RATES-PUBLIC OPINION-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, here is what I want to know from the Minister: When is he going to announce his higher price for postage stamps and, when Canadians tell him what they think, will he let ordinary people express their views that now is not the time to increase the cost of stamps, or will he simply and blindly follow the advice of Canada Post officials?


Michel Côté: Briefly, Mr. Speaker, I would remind my colleague that the Marchment Commission was set up to seek the views of Canadians with respect to postal services. It did just that, presented its recommendations to Canada Post and the Government, and they will be considered.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Robert Nelson David Hicks: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Defence. It involves the Canadian Patrol Frigate Program. We all know that unfortunate delays have taken place in this Canadian Patrol Frigate Program revolving around problems with steel. Recent press reports indicate that there are going to be further delays. Are there, in fact, going to be more delays in this program, and if so, why?


Hon. Perrin Beatty (Minister of National Defence):: 1
understand there was an article in The Halifax Chronicle Herald on October 24 which indicated that there might be further delays in the CPF Program. We are informed by the President of Saint John Shipbuilding Limited that they are on track in terms of timing.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF FINN ISH MIN ISTER OF SOCIAL AFFAIRS AND HEALTH
Mr. Speaker:: I wish to draw to the attention of Members the presence in our gallery of the Honourable Matti Puhakka, Minister of Social Affairs and Health of Finland.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
October 28, 1986


INDIAN AFFAIRS
Mr. Keith Penner (Cochrane-Superior):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, whom I welcome back from his visit to Manitoba. Will the Minister explain to the House now why he has permitted his colleague, the Minister of National Health and Welfare, to interfere in the decision regarding the future use of the CFB radar base at Beausejour? Why has the Minister yielded to the idea of building a prison there rather than following the Treasury Board recommendation of September 3 that this site ought to be used to help fulfil the claim for land entitlement from the Long Plains Indian Band?


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Mr. Speaker, without accepting the premise that the Treasury Board made a recommendation on September 3, which is not accurate, I would like to say yes, I did so have discussions with the Member of Parliament regarding the use of that. It is the long established policy within Indian Affairs to have discussions with the affected parties, with the province, and with the community. More important, there has not been any agreement on entitlement signed between the Province of Manitoba and the Government of Canada. The band in question has not entered into negotiations for entitlement.


SETTLEMENT OF LAND CLAIM
B. Keith Penner: I want to ask the
Minister if he allows the Beausejour site to slip away from him, where will the land come from to make this settlement and at what cost? Has Premier Pawley of Manitoba agreed to an alternate site? Do I have to remind the Minister about his trust responsibility?


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: No, Mr. Speaker, I will fulfil that responsibility at a par or I would hope better than my predecessors who were represented in the former Government of this country, not my immediate predecessor. But I will tell the Hon. Member that discussions have taken place between the band and the Government of Manitoba. But again the Hon. Member knows before entitlement can take place there have to be discussions and an agreement on how to fulfil entitlement.


CANADA-UNITED STATES NEGOTIATIONS-RATIFICATION OF AGREEMENT
Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. Yesterday the Minister of International Trade said of the freer trade talks,
Oral Questions
and I quote from Hansard: "At the appropriate time, these negotiations will be ratified in the House". Yet her press secretary is quoted as saying later "this was a mistake".
Whom do we believe, the Minister or her staff person?


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I will reply to the Hon. Member's question. Yesterday the Minister used the term "ratified" in the colloquial sense, in that all activities of the Government come under the scrutiny of the House and the trade negotiations are no different.


METHOD OF RATIFICATION-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, since the Prime Minister indicated earlier that this comprehensive deal, if it is to be established, had to be "ratified", could he explain exactly what is the policy of the Government? Does it intend to take this immensely important issue before the people of the country through the House of Commons or not?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I have responded to that question in the House. I have communicated in writing with the First Ministers with regard to that issue. There is no difference at all between the position taken by the Minister for International Trade and myself.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of the Environment. In March of this year he told the House that millions of dollars were committed in the United States to abate acid rain. Would the Minister inform the House how much money the U.S. has put into the abatement of acid rain since March?


Hon. Tom McMillan (Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, the answer is $400 million on nine major projects.


SULPHUR DIOXIDE EMISSIONS
Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, would the Hon. Minister care to translate that amount of money into tonnage reduction of U.S. sulphur dioxide emissions spewing over the border into the Canadian environment since March?


Thomas Michael McMillan: Mr. Speaker, I can only assume that that was yet another lecture from the Hon. Member for Davenport on the need for the Government to take acid rain seriously. This Party and this Government do not need any lessons from that Member or that

October 28, 1986
Oral Questions
Party, This Government has done more in two years than the Liberal Government did in two decades.


JOB LOSSES IN ALBERTA
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. Yesterday the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources described the situation-the tens of thousands of projected layoffs in Alberta-as being a catastrophe. Does he agree that the situation developing in that province is catastrophic? If so, what does the Government plan to do about it?


Hon. Marcel Masse (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, we have acknowledged this situation as being a fact and in the past several months the Government, my predecessor and 1 have taken a number of measures. I will be in Calgary later this week to discuss further steps to be taken by the Canadian Government, the Province of Alberta and the industry, this time in the field of gas.


REQUEST FOR ANNOUNCEMENT OF GOVERNMENT MEASURES
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. We have made proposals in terms of a negotiated floor price to protect small operators or small companies in the Province of Alberta and in other western provinces. Since the Minister has agreed that the situation has gone on for many months, when does he plan to take some specific action and make some specific announcements?


Marcel Masse: In recent months, Mr. Speaker, the Government has unveiled a series of supportive measures for the oil and gas industry, and we are monitoring the situation. The Government of Alberta has announced and will announce other measures. A federal-provincial conference on energy, the first since 1978, will be convened in January. This Government is concerned over the energy issue, along with all interest groups, the provinces and the private sector.


SEX EDUCATION-PREVENTION OF AIDS
Mrs. Lucie Pepin (Outremont):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Health and Welfare.
According to Dr. Everett Koop, Head of US Health Services, sex education is the best way to fight AIDS, which is expected to become twelve times as prevalent over the next five years. Could the Minister inform the House whether his Government intends to set up a prevention program?


Hon. Jake Epp (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, I know what the Surgeon General said with regard to the program in the United States. We have already taken similar steps. If the Hon. Member looks at the five-year plan of the Government, she will find that it was a plan not only to increase funding for AIDS research, but for education and for a very clear message in terms of the educative need so that people will protect themselves from the spread of the disease.


REQUEST FOR ADDITIONAL FUNDING
Lucie Pépin: Mr. Speaker, could the Minister give the House the assurance that new money will be earmarked for education programs and, more specifically, for sex education programs?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member is on that committee. The former Government brought in a small program. When AIDS first became known, there was a response at the time. Obviously the issue has grown bigger; there have been more cases. Thus we brought in $39 million in a five-year program. It is new money, as the Government has indicated, for education and research. I hope the Hon. Member starts supporting it.


SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State for Science and Technology. Both he and the Prime Minister have repeatedly said that it is the objective of the Government to double our efforts in scientific research and development. Given that commitment, why did we learn today that one of our world-class astronomical research observatories will be closed in the very near future?


Frank Oberle: Mr. Speaker, what the Prime Minister has indicated in his book, and what I have repeated many times is that we will spend as much as is necessary to position Canada and its industries in the new frontier effectively and in every possible way.


David Orlikow: The Minister did not answer my question.
October 28, 1986


ALGONQUIN PARK OBSERVATORY
David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the same Minister. Will he confirm that because of the cuts to the NRC the observatory at Algonquin Park cannot be expanded and therefore will be shut down in the next year?


Frank Oberle: Mr. Speaker, I can confirm that, as a result of reorganization or reallocation, the NRC expansion plans for the observatory scheduled for next year will not proceed.


FINANCE
Guy St-Julien: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State (Finance). The flow-through shares system in the mining industry is creating and sustaining employment and helping development in Abitibi-Temis-camingue and across Canada. The system provides the Government with an excellent source of revenue through all kinds of taxes, and the Abitibi region would like this program to continue. My question is as follows: Is there any truth in the rumour reported in a Toronto newspaper and originated by the Government of Quebec, that the Government of Canada intends to abolish the flow-through shares plan in the mining industry?


Mr. Tom Hockin (Minister of State (Finance)):: Mr. Speaker, 1 want to thank the Hon. Member for his question and his interest in the mining industry.

The Hon. Minister of State for Forestry and Mines and myself are very pleased with the increased activity in the mining sector. As for flow through shares, we are studying them and their use in the context of our broad tax reform. The Minister of Finance will be meeting on November 17 with The Mining Association of Canada on this matter.


CANADIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION
Hon. Bob Kaplan (York Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Justice. There are now two different versions of the resumes of recent appointees to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. One version has been laundered of all political references, and the Minister has denied any responsibility for that operation. As he is the Minister responsible for
Oral Questions
the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal and for his own office, will he undertake to look into the discrepancy and explain to the House why it happened and who did it?


Hon. Ray Hnatyshyn (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, there may be two versions, but there is only one version of the truth. It is simply this- there may be two different resumes which are in existence. The one I sent forward from my office is the copy of the resumes we had in my office, the only ones I have seen. There is another one in the Human Rights Tribunal. They are completely separate and they are not related.


REQUEST FOR EXPLANATION OF DIFFERENT VERSIONS
Robert Phillip Kaplan: I ask the Minister, as the Minister responsible for reporting to this House on behalf of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, to look into the discrepancy and tell the House why there are two different versions circulating.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, all I can tell the Hon. Member is that as far as I am concerned I went ahead with the people who have been appointed, the 28 recently appointed in addition to the 71 appointed earlier this spring, on the basis of competence. That is the only criterion I want to have for these people who are going to serve in this very important position. I understand that the Standing Committee on Human Rights will have an opportunity to go through the scrutiny process. I invite the members of the committee to ask whatever appropriate questions they think are germane.


OMISSION OF POLITICAL AFFILIATION NOTATIONS
Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-Walkerville):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Justice. Given that those resumes went intact to the PM's office, to the PMO and to the Justice Ministry and in the next step to the Human Rights Committee were purged of all political affiliations, somebody purged them. Who done it?


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An Hon. Member:: The butler.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, I do not think this is a humorous thing at all.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


David Orlikow: You finally agree on something.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: I am simply saying to the Hon. Member that if he is really serious about this matter-


John Edward Broadbent: We are.

October 28, 1986
Oral Questions


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: -he would be asking the question in the committee with respect to the competence of the people who have been appointed. We have scrutiny of appointments. The fact is, and I have explained this to the House many, many times, that the resume I have in my office is the one that I had and the one on which I relied for the appointments. How the other resume came into existence, I have no idea how that happened.


MINISTERS' OFFICE CHANGES
Howard Douglas McCurdy: Let me
ask the Minister, Mr. Speaker, whether it is possible that the resumes were purged when there was the office cleanup for the change of Ministers?


An Hon. Member:: Answer the question.


John Edward Broadbent: It is possible.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Regina East.


FINANCE
Mr. Simon de Jong (Regina East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the Minister of State for Finance. This morning we learned through a Globe and Mail report that the Cape Breton Investment Tax Credit is being manipulated by some of the same individuals using some of the same methods as were used in the SRTC scam. Is the Minister aware of the ability of some of these investors to inflate their costs to pay for overpriced consultants and to provide excessive commissions and benefits from the tax credit?


Thomas Hockin: Mr. Speaker, the Ministry of Finance and the Government have been very assiduous in trying to close loopholes and in monitoring matters of that type. I would like to tell the Hon. Member that the Cape Breton Tax Credit is monitored by the Department of Regional Industrial Expansion. All projects must be approved by that Department. Those sorts of things are monitored carefully.


REQUEST FOR INVESTIGATION
Simon Leendert de Jong: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. While the Government squeezes such organizations as the National Research Council, it is losing hundreds of millions of dollars through tax loopholes. Will the Minister guarantee that each project approved will be investigated so that we will not have the same problem as we had under the SRTC?


Thomas Hockin: Mr. Speaker, unlike the SRTC, this particular program requires
that projects be approved in advance by the Department of Regional Industrial Expansion.


BANKS AND BANKING
Mr. Guy Ricard (Laval):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State (Finance).
In his Budget, the Minister of Finance said that free zones and an international banking centre would be established in the Montreal area.
Recently, we heard that a moratorium was expected on these projects. I wonder if the Minister of State (Finance) could inform the House whether a moratorium will be issued and if so, why? Would it apply to the free zones or the international banking centre or both?


Thomas Hockin: Mr. Speaker, not at all. The Government has not changed its decision to promote the establishment of international banking centres. Discussions are continuing with representatives of the governments and cities concerned.


MULTICULTURALISM
Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State for Multiculturalism. In reply to my question to him concerning the leaked McCreath Report which concludes that the Canadian Multiculturalism Council is nothing more than an extension of the Conservative Party, the Minister said he had not read the report. Surely after 10 days he has seen and read the report and plans some meaningful action. If the Minister is interested in restoring the reputation and integrity of this national advisory board, why has the Minister not asked or received the immediate resignation of the Vice-Chairman, Mr. McCreath, and why does the Minister refuse to initiate a full review of the mandate and operation of this very important national council?


Hon. David Crombie (Secretary of State):: Perhaps the Hon. Member will be interested to know, Mr. Speaker, that I will be meeting with the Council next weekend. At that time that and other matters will be discussed.
October 28, 1986


REQUEST FOR VICE-CHAIRMAN'S RESIGNATION
Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, that is simply not good enough. The Minister should answer the question. It is no wonder that the Tories finished last in the Multifax ethnocultural poll conducted last week. It is no wonder whatsoever.
If the Minister cares about restoring the usefulness that this Board can mean for all ethnocultural communities, which is now wounded by the comments of its own Vice-Chairman, will he not do the honourable thing and ask the Vice-Chairman to resign, and initiate a full review?


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


David Edward Crombie: Mr. Speaker, as the Hon. Member I hope knows, the appointments were made two years ago. There were 60 people on that Council, all of whom have made an enormous contribution, and I will be meeting with them next week. If anybody is wounding that Council or the good name of multiculturalism, it is the Hon. Member.


TAX REFORM
Mr. Raymond Garneau (Laval-des-Rapides):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State for Finance. If the Government is truly committed to a fair and meaningful debate on tax reform, it must present a clear specific government proposal that can serve as the basis for public discussion. First, will the Minister table in this House the Government's specific recommendations concerning tax reform so that Canadians will know exactly on what they are to be consulted? Second, will the Minister undertake to hold televised public hearings on Canadian tax reform?


Thomas Hockin: Mr. Speaker, as I said last week, the purpose of this exercise is to begin with consultation, not to make up our minds before we consult. As for specifics, I will repeat what I said last week. The purpose of the consultations and of tax reform is to improve fairness, to simplify the system, to encourage Canada's economic growth and to improve the balance across our different sources of taxation. There are a number of other objectives. Those are clear. That is what we are consulting on.


ESSENCE OF PROPOSED REFORM
Raymond Garneau: Mr. Speaker, I have spoken to many people since the Minister of Finance made his announcement, and they keep asking me what they are being consulted about.
Oral Questions
That is why I wish the Minister would at least let us know whether, as part of this consultation process, the Government intends to find ways to increase the number of dollars it is getting from Canadian families. In another words, will the proposed tax reform remain neutral about the sums of moneys collected from the average Canadian?


Thomas Hockin: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance has said on a number of occasions that most Canadians will have more money in their pockets and pay less taxes after tax reform is completed. That is the Government's point of view and that is its objective.


LABOUR RELATIONS
Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Labour. Last night the B.C. Maritime Employers Council announced that it had broken off talks with the ILWU despite the fact that the 30 day cooling off period has still nine days to go. Will the Minister appeal today to the Employers Council to resume talks with the ILWU to avoid an unnecessary and very damaging lockout?


Hon. Pierre H. Cadieux (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Hon. Member's concern. 1 had the privilege of hearing the end of her statement a little earlier. I believe that the appeal has already been made by the Hon. Member. We are, of course, reviewing all our options in this particular matter.


REQUEST THAT MINISTER CONTACT EMPLOYERS' ASSOCIATION
Margaret Anne Mitchell: I will repeat my question to the Minister because he has not answered it. Will he contact the Maritime Employers Council today and ask it to resume negotiations?


Pierre H. Cadieux: Mr. Speaker, as in all these difficult situations, we will look into the matter, analyze our options, and act accordingly.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Hon. Donald J. Johnston (Saint-Henri-Westmount):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister and concerns U.S. support for the Contras. President Reagan says it is vital for America to intervene to prevent the establishment

October 28, 1986
Privilege-Mr. Gauthier
of a communist base as an outpost of Soviet power in Central America which will ultimately threaten North America. Does he agree with that statement?


Martin Brian Mulroney: That is clearly the opinion of the President of the United States. As my hon. friend knows, we have a different view.


CANADIAN POSITION
Donald James Johnston: Mr. Speaker, that question was put to the Prime Minister on the MacNeil-Lehrer report and I wish he had been a bit more forthcoming. Will he then say in this House what the real view of the Government is on that question? Does the Prime Minister agree with the position taken by the President?


Martin Brian Mulroney: I just said that I do not.


AGRICULTURE
Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board. Farm organizations have been quick to request funds in support of grain growers but slower with specific advice on how the money should be distributed. Have those farm organizations been consulted and have they provided input on how they feel the benefit can be best distributed fairly and equitably amongst the farm community?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member will know that this is the biggest farm aid package ever put together to assist farmers. He will also know that the Minister of Agriculture has deliberately put in place a process by which farmers and the provinces can have some input. I think that is a refreshing change from the previous Government which used bureaucrats sitting in Ottawa to hatch out programs.
I think this process will serve farmers well. There has been one meeting already with the-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The Hon. Member for Ottawa- Vanier on a question of privilege.


PRIVILEGE
Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I would like to raise with you a question of privilege which I think is of some importance to the House. It deals with
something that happened yesterday in the Standing Committee on Research, Science and Technology. This is not a reflection on the Chairman of that committee. I do not want at any time to reflect on his intentions. However, he ruled at the beginning of the meeting-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The Hon. Member is rising on a question of privilege, having given the Chair notice. It is a matter of considerable interest to all Hon. Members. Therefore, will Hon. Members please allow the Hon. Member to be heard?


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to quote verbatim from the transcript of that committee meeting last night. The Chairman of the committee said:
Members of the committee, I have given permission to the press to record this meeting and for the television cameras to be in the room behind the press table. Is there any objection to that?
I immediately said yes, I have objections to that procedure. I explained to the Chair that in my view he did not have the power to authorize televising of those deliberations. I sent you a letter this morning, Mr. Speaker, and I will not read the whole letter because I think it will be-


Mr. Prud'homme:: No, it is interesting.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: No, I think it would be unusually long. I want to make two points. No committee chairman has the authority to allow televising or broadcasting of committee hearings. Indeed, parliamentary immunity which accompanies electronic Hansard at this time would not, unless so authorized by the House of Commons, cover the proceedings of a committee. That last point is, I think, the most important one to which I will refer.
I was trying to protect not only my interests but the interests of all Members of this House. As of now, the House has not allowed broadcasting by radio or television of committee proceedings. Citation 16 of Beauchesne's Fifth Edition says that:
Parliamentary privilege is the sum of the peculiar rights enjoyed by each House collectively as a constituent part of the High Court of Parliament, and by Members of each House individually, without which they could not discharge their functions and which exceed those possessed by other bodies or individuals. Thus, privilege, though part of the law of the land, is to a certain extent an exemption from the ordinary law.
I will try to prove to you that last night my rights and those of all Members, and indeed members of the fourth estate, the press, were in jeopardy had the Chairman been allowed to proceed.
I must say, before I go on, that the Chairman saw the wisdom of my comments and withdrew his permission. Nevertheless, I felt threatened, and I say this with all generosity, by his arbitrary decision. It made me uneasy. I for one believe that certain committee meetings can and should be televised, and therefore I am in total support of any expansion of coverage of our deliberations by the fourth estate. On the other hand, I felt that had this happened last night it could
October 28, 1986

have prejudiced some witnesses as well as prejudiced the right of freedom of the press because they would not have been covered by immunity, in my opinion. Citation 21 of Beau-chesne says:
The most fundamental privilege of the House as a whole is to establish rules of procedure for itself and to enforce them.
I suggested to the Chairman last night that he should consult with the Clerk and with you to find out what rules and procedures would prevail if the House decided to televise these proceedings. I quote again from Beauchesne, Citation 41(1):
The control of the House over its publications is absolute. And,
44(1) Unauthorized recording or broadcasting of debates is not allowed.
It was put to me at the time that the committee could do whatever it liked by unanimous consent. I think if you go back to the precedents you will find that this is not true. Committees, including this House for that matter, cannot do what is illegal or unauthorized by constitutional law or by practice simply by unanimous consent.
I would like to quote a few more extracts from Beauchesne which I think reinforce my point that the privileges of the whole House were threatened last night. Citation 75 concerns the extensions of privilege. It says:
Committee reports and the verbatim transcripts of committee hearings are documents published under the authority of the House and are entitled to the same absolute privilege as House documents.
The decision to televise proceedings of standing committees has not been taken by this House as yet, as far as I know, and therefore the absolute privileges of the House were not protected last night. I ask that you seriously consider the transcript of the committee hearings last night. I would like to make the point that I felt somewhat intimidated by the decision of the chair. Not knowing what our privileges would be had this proceeded, I felt the arbitrary decision of the Chair was unwarranted. If a witness before that committee, or anyone making comments, had been reported by the press, those statements could have been the object of some litigation. I suspect there could be a court of law which would have said that the witness or the person making those comments was not protected by parliamentary immunity and could have been subjected to some legal difficulties.
If you find that I have a prima facie case of privilege, I would be ready to move that the whole question of televising debates in committees be referred to the Standing Committee on Elections, Privileges and Procedure for examination.
In conclusion, I would like to reiterate that I am not reflecting on the Chairman's judgment. Maybe the Chairman was trying to act in good faith, but I believe, in the spirit of trying to keep order and get things moving, that the Government should take action. I propose to the House that we extend media coverage to the committees of the House of Commons.


Mr. Speaker:: I thank the Hon. Member for his intervention. It is inappropriate to attempt to move a motion in argument on
Privilege-Mr. Gauthier
a point of order or question of privilege. The Hon. Member may very well want to move a motion at some appropriate time. That, of course, is open to him. I will hear other Members.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the good will with which the Hon. Member has raised this point. I do not think this is a question of privilege. I have not had a chance to review the committee proceedings in any great detail, but I find the Chairman did say: "I have made my point so there is to be no recording of this meeting". I appreciate that the Hon. Member was present, observant and familiar with the rules of procedure. I think he took the right position and that, as a result of the interventions of the Hon. Member, the matter was resolved in an adequate manner.
I think this issue is within your jurisdiction, Mr. Speaker, and that of the Board of Internal Economy on which all Parties in the House are represented. I think that is where the matter should be resolved. While it is timely to raise this problem, I think the solution to it should be reached within that forum.
Just in passing, I find it rather amusing that the Hon. Member referred to Beauchesne's Fourth and Fifth Editions. His House Leader suggested the other day that those rules were archaic and out of order. I just wanted to mention that.


Mr. Gerry St. Germain (Mission-Port Moody):: Mr. Speaker, I am the designated spokesman for the Board of Internal Economy. As the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski) has pointed out, the Board has representation from all Parties in this House. The McGrath Committee recommendations covered this subject. The Government has referred this subject to the Board and the Board has dealt with it and is in the process of attempting to implement a solution. We hope a solution will be found as quickly as possible.


Mr. Albert Cooper (Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make two comments. First, this is not a question of privilege. I do not believe that the Member's privilege would have been in any way affected by what happened last evening.
My second point has already been partially made. This issue is being addressed by both the Board of Internal Economy and the Committee on Elections, Privileges and Procedure. I do not think the House need be seized with a motion to act because it is doing that through its various committees.


Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, I think it is very important, at the very least, for you to confirm rulings of previous Speakers that the broadcasting of proceedings of committees is not subject to decisions of individual committee chairmen or unanimous decisions by committee members. Rather, I submit that, as was the case with the broadcasting of the proceedings of this House, there must be an order of the House in order to permit committees to have their proceedings broadcast.

October 28, 1986
Privilege-Mr. Gauthier
It is very important that we have such an order of the House. As my colleague, the opposition Whip, has made clear, that which happened last night illustrates the peril of not having an order of the House in place which sets down a clear and consistent set of rules. If the Chairman of the committee in question had prevailed, there may not have been equal access for all the media to the proceedings. Also, as the opposition Whip pointed out, there may well not have been immunity with regard to what was said, either for the witness or the media transmitting the remarks. And there would not necessarily have been equal treatment of all Members with regard to the broadcast of the proceedings.
If I am wrong in what I am about to say, I know I will be corrected, but I believe that in the Government's response to the recommendations of the McGrath Committee it accepted the recommendation that there be a system for broadcasting of committees. My recollection is that in order for this recommendation of the McGrath Committee to be implemented there must be an order of the House. Such an order must be presented to the House by the Government House Leader.
A number of months ago there was consultation about an order which would permit the broadcasting of committee proceedings. The Official Opposition was then and is now prepared to have that order put to the House and to give it speedy consideration and passage, likely by means of unanimous consent.
In conclusion, I would like to urge the new Government House Leader to consider this matter on a basis of urgency and present this order to the House to enable us to have a system of broadcasting our committees very soon consistent with the spirit of the recommendations of the McGrath Committee, which recommendations, as far as I recall, the Government accepted.
The observations of the opposition Whip will have been most salutary if they speed up the action of the Government to put before the House an order which would allow the broadcasting of committees. Such an order is long overdue.


George Albert Proud: Mr. Speaker, in the past, I once authorized broadcasting the proceedings of a Special Committee of the House of Commons and the Senate on External Affairs-I remember it was a special sitting on the occasion of a visit to Canada by Mr. Gorbatchev, who, at the time, headed a parliamentary delegation from the Soviet Union-and I am therefore inclined to take a very cautions stand on the question before the House today.
As Chairman of the committee, and like several Hon. Members who referred previously to the Committee on Management and Members Services, I realize the McGrath Committee looked into this matter. I realize that the Committee on Elections, Privileges and Procedure would also like to look into the matter, but I submit, with respect, that this afternoon, at 3:30 p.m., I intend to raise this matter at a meeting of the Standing Committee on Management and
Members Services, mainly to get a few more parliamentarians involved.
Second, and I think that is the beauty of the debate, we do not necessarily have to agree, even within the same party, on how fast we should proceed. I remember, Mr. Speaker-and I am delighted to see you sitting as Speaker of our House, since I said you were our Speaker-that there was some criticism, not of your election as Speaker but about the way we proceeded, because I think a number of the details of this election were not understood by most Hon. Members.
So I would submit, as, shall we say, one of the most senior Members of this House, that we should proceed with a great deal of caution. I admit I do not make a habit of being cautious, but I believe that instead of making a speedy decision in this case, our parliamentary committees should re-examine the question and draw their conclusions, and then we should have a debate in the House as soon as the Government decides to table the matter. But again, I would like to see everything done properly. I realize that the distinguished members of the press gallery have an important job to do. I realize that an I have been approached several times with the request that perhaps we could consider allowing the proceedings to be broadcast and televised. And I have done so in the past, on a special occasion. I created a precedent, but I made it clear at the time that it was not to be construed as a precedent according to the British system, where it practically has force of law.
I therefore submit, Mr. Speaker, that what we and what I personally would like to hear from the Chair is that all chairmen of parliamentary committees be given instructions that they are not to allow proceedings to be televised at this time until a decision is made by the House as a whole.
I hope that the Government House Leader will remind Members who are presently chairing the various committees that they cannot, on their own authority, allow such deliberations. We will have total chaos, where some committees will do so and others will not, without even giving the House of Commons as a whole a chance to deliberate on the subject and make a decision. I am very anxious to hear your decision, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Guilbault (Saint-Jacques):: Mr. Speaker, being one of those who in the past spoke in favour of televising the debates of the House, obviously I would not want to object to it in principle. However it seems clear to me that it can only be done on the basis of specific guidelines. The House must have given consent. In addition, hopefully when the House will soon agree to televise committee proceedings, I maintain that the House and those who will make the decision will have considered all aspects of television broadcasting.
October 28, 1986

First of all, are accommodations used in a rational manner?
I was told that yesterday there were more than 150 people in room 269, a small room where the atmosphere became unhealthy.
The high temperatures generated by lighting facilities required for TV cameras are one of the many aspects which the Board of Internal Economy will have to discuss before making their recommendations to us.
Indeed, I will go even further and quote a statement made before the committee yesterday by the Minister of State for Science and Technology (Mr. Oberle):

"Mr. Chairman, I am sorry. This is not my time to intervene, but if the cameras remain in the room, I would not want them to photograph my papers over my shoulder. So I want them 20 feet away from me". I cannot blame the Minister. He is there with classified documents and perhaps he remembers what happened to another Minister not long ago.
There have to be guidelines if the cameras are to be allowed into our committees. Personally, I advocate that committees be open to the public as much as possible via the electronic media, but this has to be done in a very standardized fashion. When this is brought before the House, I hope that a complete plan that considers all these aspects has been carefully drawn up before it is presented to Members of Parliament.


Gerry St. Germain: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Internal Economy Board I want to allay any fears. The Board represents all Members of the House, some of whom are seated here today. I want to assure Members that these considerations have and will be discussed and all aspects will be covered prior to the implementation, if implementation is the wish of the Board of Internal Economy, through the House.


Mr. Ouellet:: Mr. Speaker, I want to comment briefly to confirm the remarks made by the previous speaker and remind the House that the McGrath report contains very specific propositions concerning the way to proceed with the installation of TV cameras, not only in the House but in parliamentary committees as well. This was the object of many work sessions in consultation with press gallery representatives, and one proposition might enable us to implement the McGrath report recommendation which had been accepted by the Government. Therefore I would suggest that today's debate will make it easier for us to understand the situation and provide you, as Speaker, with an opportunity to gather all the necessary material to make a decision as soon as possible.
In conclusion I would say that this decision cannot be made by a committee chairman nor by one of the most important committees of the House, the Board of Internal Economy over which you preside. Basically the decision will be made by the Government House Leader who, after consulting with the
Privilege-Mr. Gauthier
House leaders of the two Opposition Parties, might introduce a resolution to be considered, debated and approved by the House.
Basically the decision must be made by the House as a whole and it cannot be the exclusive prerogative of any of the parliamentary committees. The decision must be made by all Members of the House and I, for one, hope that in the near future we will have television of committee proceedings, just as we now have televised debates here in the House.
I hope the Government Leader will respond quickly to these representations.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, the question we are discussing at the moment has actually been under deliberation for many months. I concur that the point being made by the Whip for Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition is a very appropriate intervention, considering what happened last night. I believe that what happened last night ought to cause some Members, at least on the government side, some consternation in terms of supporting this, considering the shellacking that the poor Minister received.
When it comes back to the House we will have an opportunity to evaluate the situation and I am confident that the majority will support the suggestion.


Mr. Speaker:: The Chair will carefully distil that which borders on irrelevant argument from the very cogent points which Hon. Members have made. I do not think it is necessary for the Chair to rule on whether this is a point of order or a question of privilege.
The Chair indicated when the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier) rose to raise this matter that it was a matter of very great importance to all Members in the Chamber. It would seem that the interventions that Members have made will go a long way to assist in the resolution of the matter.
The Chair takes note that the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier, in raising this matter, is not in any way taking a position against the televising of committee proceedings. I think that ought to be properly noted.
The Chair, having listened with great care to the Hon. Member for Saint-Denis (Mr. Prud'homme), nonetheless feels impelled to remind the House that a former Speaker has made it quite clear that televising of proceedings in committee is not appropriate until there is an order of the House.
However, the disposition of all Members seems to be to resolve the matter. Since this is a matter in which the Chair will also be involved, I think a useful purpose has been served in this discussion this afternoon and I thank all Hon. Members, especially the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier.

October 28, 1986
826 _______________________________________
Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Mayer that Bill C-12, an Act to amend the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee; and the motion of Mr. Gauthier (p. 807).
Brian White: Mr. Speaker, when we broke at one o'clock we were debating a Liberal motion to end the debate. I submit that had we spent that period of time debating Bill C-12 we would probably have finished the debate by now.
As a Member of Parliament who represents a rural Manitoba riding, I believe it is very important that I be allowed to join in the debate on Bill C-12 which has such an important effect on agriculture.
I disagree with the motion to end the debate because I want to say a few words on behalf of Manitoba farmers who are approaching me because of a lack of commitment to agriculture by the Government of Manitoba. Manitoba farmers are looking to the Government for leadership in agriculture, and I sincerely believe that they are finding that leadership.
I would like to take a few minutes to explain briefly to the House why it is important that all Members who wish to speak on Bill C-12 be allowed to join in the debate. My Party is a friend of the farmer. One need only go back to the Speech from the Throne to see that no other Government has given agriculture the type of priority we gave it in the October 1 Speech from the Throne. The Government gave agriculture top billing because we realize its importance to the economy- in fact, not just to the western economy but to the entire Canadian economy. We acknowledge with deep concern the tremendous difficulty our farmers are facing at this time.
In the Speech from the Throne the Government said it would stick to the course set over the last two years. Over the last two years the Government has channelled benefits to the farmers of our country in excess of $5 billion. That is a great deal of money in support of our farmers. Yet farmers are still not able to counteract the effects of huge subsidies beyond our borders.
It has been mentioned several times today that the Canadian Treasury is just not able to compete with the huge treasuries, the large populations and tax bases of the EEC and the United States. That is why two days after the Speech from the Throne the Government stuck to the course it set for itself regarding agriculture and pledged further help to our farmers.
While continuing to pursue every possible avenue at the international level aimed at restoring fairness and sanity to the
world grain trade, the Government knows that our farmers cannot wait for international solutions. Make no mistake, our Government is a world leader in attempting to solve the international problems confronting agriculture. While the situation is international in nature, nevertheless, it deeply affects Canada's producers.
On October 3 the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) announced that the federal Government had taken the lead and was putting together the largest aid package ever for our farmers. This package has been estimated to be worth over $1 billion. However, a price-tag cannot be put on the results this measure will have for our farmers, namely, security and peace of mind.
I said that the Government is a friend of the farmer. True friendship means sticking together when times are tough and doing everything in one's power to make tough times a little easier. The Government is such a friend. One need only consider the source of this Bill C-12, that being the Government of John Diefenbaker, to know that my Party and Canadian farmers go back a long way together. Not unlike that former Conservative Government, this Conservative Government has done much for our farmers.
In our first Budget we delivered a $500,000 capital gains tax exemption on the sale of farm property. Any Member of this House who opposes such a measure displays a real ignorance of agriculture in Canada. We introduced new flexible lending programs through the Farm Credit Corporation. We established farm debt review boards which give farmers in financial difficulty greater flexibility to negotiate ways of staying in business. I might note that such a system has been long sought after by the farmers of Canada. We amended the Western Grain Stabilization Act to trigger record pay-outs prior to spring seeding when farmers need the cash most.
There is more. There is the $1.5 billion dairy policy; the three-party stabilization scheme for red meat producers; a doubling of cash advances under the Advance Payments for Crops Act; and a rebate program which effectively removes all federal sales and excise tax on farm fuels. These are but a few of the matters upon which the Government has acted that have directly benefited our farmers. The amendments to the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act are just a part of the Government's over-all approach of assisting our producers; but they are a very important part. These amendments will make the Act more responsive to the current needs of farmers.
I would like to take this occasion to commend the Hon. Member for Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain (Mr. Hamilton) for his efforts to bring the Bill before the House under Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. The Act first introduced in 1957 has served farmers well. It was introduced to assist grain producers with their cash flow when their marketing efforts were hindered because of factors beyond their control. The amendments introduced in Bill C-12 will streamline the administrative process so that the program is more responsive to farmers' immediate market requirements. For example, landlords will no longer be required to co-sign advance
October 28, 1986

payment applications; high-yield producers will be able to obtain larger cash advances due to the method of calculation based on grain stored as opposed to acreage and quota; and interest rates on direct repayments and defaulted accounts will be set in relation to current interest rates.
I know that it has been said many times; however, it is quite true and worthy of repetition. Our farmers are among the most efficient and productive in the world. It is our duty to provide programs and legislation which support our producers through times of depressed international markets, something over which they have no control.
I urge all Members to give speedy passage to these amendments. The sooner we act, the sooner our farmers will benefit.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Are there questions or comments? The Hon. Member for Swift Current-Maple Creek (Mr. Wilson).


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate my colleague, the Hon. Member for Dauphin-Swan River (Mr. White), on a useful contribution to the debate on Bill C-12. I noted in his remarks that he outlined a number of initiatives that the Government has undertaken in support of western and, indeed, Canadian agriculture, a number of programs which will particularly assist grain producers over this difficult period. I think most Canadians would view these as, hopefully, short-term measures pending a return to sanity in the world grain markets. I am wondering if the Hon. Member has in mind any long-term solutions. He mentioned a number of what we hope will be short-term initiatives which the Government has undertaken on the home front. What does he envision happening in terms of a long-term solution to these problems?


Brian White: Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. He is quite right. Besides recently reducing input costs and developing immediate support programs such as the $1 billion support program, the Government has been working very hard on international solutions. One must look at three recent examples in this regard.
First, the Prime Minister placed agriculture on the agenda at the economic summit in Tokyo. Second, there was the meeting on the West Coast of grain exporters initiated by the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board. Third, there were the efforts of the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark) in placing the topic of agricultural subsidies on the agenda for the upcoming GATT discussions, which is something very important to Canadian agriculture. Most recently, there was announced a multi-billion dollar grain sale to the Soviet Union. I think we have proven that as a Government we have a long-term commitment to agriculture and that we are genuinely interested in the future of Canadian agriculture.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding the comments which have been made by the Hon. Member for Dauphin- Swan River (Mr. White), I wish to ask either the Hon. Member, or perhaps another Member, the following question.
Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act
Do I understand correctly that the Government intends to vote against the motion which is presently before the House? This was a commitment made by the Government House Leader and Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski) just before lunch. 1 am simply seeking clarification with respect to whether or not government Members will stick to their words. Is the Hon. Member for Dauphin-Swan River able to respond to my question?


Brian White: Mr. Speaker, my interest lies in the fact that my point of view on behalf of Manitoba farmers be set out before the House. I am interested in having this Bill passed as expeditiously as possible.


Philip Derek Lewis: So are we all.


Mr. Len Gustafson (Parliamentary Secretary to Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a privilege for me to speak on Bill C-12, an Act to amend the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act. To bring into perspective the importance of this Bill in relation to farmers, we must look at the situation on the Prairies and on the farm. I have just spent some time in the riding of Assiniboia, which is the riding I have the opportunity to represent. This riding produces 40 per cent of all the wheat grown in Canada.
We have had a history of problems in my riding. We have had drought. There have been problems of international priority which the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) addressed in Tokyo. However, particularly in relation to the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act, we have a surplus of wheat on the Prairies. There are piles of wheat on the farms. Our Government is trying to move in terms of legislation which will deal with this situation, that is, through advance payments to farmers.
This morning I was very surprised to hear members of the Opposition trying to play down the importance of the Bill before the House. It was not long after the Government came into power that it made a move to amend the Western Grain Stabilization Act, thus making payments available to farmers. It was not long before it made a move to increase the amount of the advance payments to farmers from $15,000 to $30,000. The importance of this legislation is that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) will be able to act efficiently and quickly to deal with the needs of agriculture.
I would like to speak about the record of the Progressive Conservative Party. Not since the days of John Diefenbaker have we seen a Government or a Prime Minister reacting to the needs of agriculture the way this Government and Prime Minister have. Members of the Opposition continually challenge the Government's record. Let us look at that record.
First, I would like to say that Canadian farmers can compete fairly with farmers around the world. However, Canadian farmers cannot compete with unfair competition on the part of the U.S. Treasury and the European Economic

October 28, 1986
Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act
Community. Canadian farmers have been productive and the Government has recognized that. The Prime Minister said to Canadian farmers through the Throne Speech that he will spare no effort in assisting the farmers through this difficult period.
What has been the record of the Conservative Government? We moved on western grain stabilization. We are now moving on advance payments. We moved quickly during the very difficult drought. I can personally attest to the fact that the Prime Minister asked me to communicate with him on a daily basis about the problems the farmers were facing with the drought. The Prime Minister wanted to know what the situation was on a daily basis. The Government responded. I believe the example of the Saskatchewan election attested to that in a very positive way.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Absolutely.


Leonard J. Gustafson: The Hon. Member for Saskatoon West (Mr. Hnatyshyn) agrees. The farmers know who has been their voice in Ottawa. The farmers know that the Prime Minister has stood in the gap for them. Members of the Opposition tried to say that the drought assistance and deficiency payments were not new money. They tried to defuse the issue and the more they tried to defuse it, the more it became an issue. The farmers of Saskatchewan sent a strong message to Regina and they are sending a strong message of support to Ottawa.
When dealing with this Bill today, we are dealing with priorities. As a farmer, as Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and as one who has seen the positive work the Prime Minister has done, I ask opposition Members if they are saying that food is or is not a priority. In the eyes of the Government, food is a priority. Agriculture is a priority in Canada and it must remain a priority so that it may become strong and help build this great country.
Certainly we are facing a difficult time. Agriculture is facing problems. However, the Government is taking up the challenge to meet these difficulties and face them in a positive way. The Government is facing them in a way that will benefit all Canadians, not only farmers.
We often forget that when a farmer spends money buying machinery, improving buildings, buying parts for implements or buying the many other things which are needed, the entire economy of Canada is stimulated. I have heard the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski) say many times in the House that money spent on agriculture benefits all of Canada some 25 times in roll-over benefits. It benefits Ontario, Quebec and the rest of Canada. Therefore, it is very important that agriculture be a priority.
Not only in Canada but in all of North America, as agriculture has been strong, the country has progressed in a positive way. We must never lose track of that. Agriculture must be a top priority. It was made a top priority in the Speech from the Throne and it was made a top priority in the Tokyo
summit where the Prime Minister laid out the importance of the situation relating to agriculture and its international sales before the nations gathered there. The Government and the Prime Minister will continue to lay before the international market-place the importance of agriculture.
We just signed a significant agreement with Russia for 25 million tonnes. This is a sale which will benefit not only farmers but all of Canada. These are the kinds of agreements for which we are looking and these are the kinds of agreements we must have in order to initiate the strength in agriculture that can help build this great country.
Before I resume my seat, I wish to say one more thing about agriculture and food being a priority. We in Canada have a large surplus of grain on our farms. We must give credit to the farmers for producing this grain. As well, we have been blessed with the moisture required to produce so much grain this year. On the other hand, there are places in this old world where there are starving people. I believe that food is a priority and this requires an educational process. Certainly every man, woman and child in this world has a right to eat. This comes from a farmer's heart. A farmer understands, as do all Canadians, that we have obligations but we also have some great opportunities.
I had the opportunity to represent Canada at the World Food Conference in Rome. I do not think there is a country in the world that is respected more than Canada, not only for the way we have responded in agriculture but certainly for the way we responded in offering food aid around the world. Through the Canadian food grain bank, the people in the Prairies are collecting grain right now to be shipped to underprivileged countries. This is a great challenge for Canada and we take no back seat in what the Government and the people of Canada have accomplished. They have realized that a great need exists to make food a priority. However, it can only become a priority if agriculture is strong and if the Government sees it as a priority.
We all must see the importance of the fact that everyone in this world has a right to eat. I suggest that it is an obligation not only of the Government but of the Opposition and every Canadian to see that food becomes a priority.


Philip Derek Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question of my colleague. He will know-


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Sock it to him!


Philip Derek Lewis: I intend to. This is going to be tough and I think
you may enjoy it.
During the Saskatchewan election, the Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom) made a lot of noise about the Prime Minister's credibility. He suggested that the election results would put that question to rest. In fact, he staked his meager reputation on that one question. I would like my friend to enlighten the House as to how the credibility of our friend from Yorkton-Melville stood up when he staked his reputation on the theory that the farmers of Saskatchewan would
October 28, 1986

soundly reject the efforts of our Party to help the western farmers and, in fact, the Prime Minister's credibility. How did our friend's reputation stand up to that test?


Leonard J. Gustafson: 1 would like to respond to that question very positively. That question was asked on Global Television. I think that the Prime Minister's record stands for itself. The Saskatchewan people have spoken. I can assure you that in speaking with many hundreds of Saskatchewan farmers, they are very appreciative of the direction that the Prime Minister and this Government has taken, and the direction that any Hon. Member gives when it comes to advancing the positive direction of agriculture in Canada.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Debate.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, it is nice to follow my good friend from Assiniboia. What he did not tell the House was that the Conservative vote went down in rural Saskatchewan by three or four points. The NDP vote went up in rural Saskatchewan by three of four points. In my riding, we ended up with our vote increasing by three or four points. We received 46 or 47 per cent of the vote. That bodes very well for the next federal election when we will sweep that riding and have nine or ten seats in Saskatchewan.
The Hon. Member for Assiniboia (Mr. Gustafson) is the only Member of Parliament from Saskatchewan to have a provincial Liberal member represent his riding. That is quite a phenomenon in Saskatchewan politics, but it happened in the riding of Assiniboia. For the first time in the history of Saskatchewan, we now have a majority Conservative Government that received fewer votes than the Opposition party. The NDP received more popular votes than the Conservative Party, yet, because of the redistribution of seats, and by some luck in certain areas, it ended up being the Government of Saskatchewan.


An Hon. Member:: A 12 seat majority.


An Hon. Member:: Statistics are for losers.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Maybe poles are for dogs, like John Diefen-baker said.
I agree with the Hon. Member for Assiniboia that this is a very important issue. We want to see this cash advance legislation go to committee as soon as possible. Farmers need this kind of legislation. It is a piece of legislation on which we can all agree. I think it should go to the parliamentary committee as soon as possible so that it can be passed and become law. After that we should address other important issues that affect farmers in Saskatchewan and across Canada.
As the Hon. Member for Assiniboia said, agriculture is the backbone of our economy. We are very fortunate to have the most productive farmers anywhere. Those productive farmers are facing a crisis through no fault of their own. They are in a crisis because of a trade war between the Europeans and the
Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act
friends of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) in the United States, Mr. Reagan and his administration. Because of that trade war prices for many commodities are now at the 1933 to 1934 level. Because of that, it is incumbent upon the nation as a whole to come to the support of the farmers with a major deficiency payment.
I know the Government is talking about a farm aid Bill of around $1 billion. We in Saskatchewan are hoping that about $400 million to $450 million will come to our grain farmers. That will be a help. I certainly do not criticize the federal Government for that. In fact, farm leaders and all politicians in the Prairies have been calling for a deficiency payment for farm aid. We do not know yet what form that farm aid will take. Will it be in terms of a grant, or will it be a combination of programs? Will it be based on marketing, or on acreage? We do not know those details. All we can say to the Government is that it should move as quickly as possible to make sure that there are cheques in the pockets of the farmers before Christmas because they need that money.
Another thing that is very important, and which I hope urban Members of Parliament realize, is that although $1 billion sounds like a lot of money, it is still not going to make up what the farmers are losing because of a trade war and bad international prices. I understand that a few days ago there was a study published in Ontario which said that farmers in this country need around $4 billion in support programs to bring prices up to where they should be in order for them to make a living and stay on the farm. One billion dollars is about a quarter of that. It is part way, but it is certainly not going all the way. I urge the Government to very quickly dispose of this Bill and send it to committee so that we can debate other issues of importance to farmers.
I believe there are a lot of things we can do. Agriculture is number one. When the farmer is better off, we are all better off, regardless of where we live. If the farmer is better off and making a few dollars, there will be a creation of jobs in the small towns and cities from one end of this country to the other. That will be good for Canada. It will be good for the creation of jobs in Ontario, the Atlantic region, Quebec, and western Canada. We had better start supporting the farmers more than we have in the past.
An interesting statistic about farm aid was released a while ago in The Globe and Mail. The business community in this country is supported by some $14 billion annually of federal government subsidies, tax write-offs, and assistance. If we can support the business community with over $14 billion a year, there is no reason why we should not put up a few more dollars to support agriculture in Canada. I hope that the Government will be receptive to that message and will increase the pot rather than contract and restrict the pot in terms of money to support agriculture.
I have said many times that we need a deficiency payment. We need a large deficiency payment and we need it because of the trade wars between the Europeans and the Americans. South of the border, the American farmer is guaranteed
830

October 28, 1986
Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act
around $6 Canadian a bushel for wheat. He receives around $3 from the international price and around $3 from the American support program, which brings it up to $6.08 a bushel. Across the border in the riding of the Hon. Member for Assiniboia (Mr. Gustafson), which borders Montana-North Dakota, farmers are producing wheat for not much more than half of what the Americans receive when they sell their grain to the same customers around the world. For that reason, the country as a whole must support our farmers at this time with a big deficiency payment.
Another thing that makes it tough on us is that it is not only the support prices in Europe and the United States, but the Europeans and the Americans are also subsidizing the export of grain to many countries around the world. Many of these countries are traditional Canadian markets. I do not have all my files with me today, but I can recall the ballpark figures in many cases.
I recall the American adminstration trying to sell wheat and barley, for example, to Saudi Arabia, Syria, Israel, India, Yemen, and Algeria with a subsidy of around one-third of the export price. In other words, they will sell grain at $150 a tonne and subsidize it by about $50 a tonne. We cannot compete in those kinds of sales with that kind of subsidy.
If we are going to find markets for our grain, we have to sell it to those countries at one-third of what the price should be. Because of that, the initial price for grain in this country has dropped by about 19 per cent. I believe barley has dropped by about 27 per cent. Again, it is the farmer who is suffering.
In the last provincial election campaign in Saskatchewan, I had a chance to visit around 20 different ridings. Approximately 15 were rural ridings. Everywhere I saw farmers in a worse situation now than they have been in since the 1930s. Those farmers are looking for leadership from all three political Parties. Those farmers want us to come up with the answers. They want to know that we are on their side. If we help farmers out they produce food and, if they produce food, jobs are created across the country, particularly for young people.
Let us look at unemployment rates. In the last four years unemployment rates have risen in the Province of Saskatchewan and in the Province of Alberta, primarily because of difficulties in agriculture and also in oil. I notice the Hon. Member for Pembina (Mr. Van de Walle) is in the House. I congratulate him on his win. I understand that his colleagues call him "Landslide Wally". Perhaps that is appropriate for Alberta, but I am sure he realizes the kind of reaction there can be among people when they are afraid of the future when it comes to agriculture and oil production. In that it means jobs, the country should be coming to the support of the oil industry and of the agricultural industry in a time of trouble.
Those are some of the things we must do. Canadian farmers are asking for leadership in the House and across the provinces. Regardless of our jostling back and forth in the House on whether we did better than the Conservative Party or vice versa in the Saskatchewan election, the reality of the matter is that farmers are looking for all politicians to come to their rescue and do whatever they can. They are now suffering through no fault of their own.
I should like to make another point. I mentioned deficiency payments and support prices. Of course we are debating the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act, so technically these things are out of order. However, we are speaking about the over-all problem, which is one reason I want the matter before the committee.
Another issue mentioned by the Premier of Saskatchewan in his campaign worth talking about is the production of farm chemicals in Saskatchewan or in western Canada in general. I support the idea. I am glad it was mentioned in the Saskatchewan election campaign. Last February, at the urging of a few dozen farmers, I introduced into the House a Private Member's Bill on generic farm chemicals. I hope the House will have a chance to discuss the idea of generic farm chemicals as soon as possible. There are large multinational companies such as Monsanto which are ripping off farmers by charging much too high a price for chemicals such as Roundup. The House should move to change the patent laws by reducing the patent from a 17-year monopoly to four years or five years, so that we can have production of generic farm chemicals in Canada just like we produce generic pharmaceuticals. If we could do that, we could entice westerners in particular to produce generic chemicals in western Canada.
Part of the solution was suggested by the Premier of Saskatchewan when he talked about chemical plants. However, I think the other solution can be determined in the House of Commons by changing the patent laws so that we can do this basically at cost for western Canadian farmers. I am not interested in paying high prices for farm chemicals. If we look at Round-up, for example, we find that Monsanto recovers its research and development costs every 24 days because of its sales around the world. Round-up is actually sold in Australia for half the price it is sold here in Canada. These are things which we as parliamentarians can change. We can do for farm chemicals what the country did many years ago for pharmaceuticals. We can change the patent laws so that big companies do not have 17-year exclusive monopolies, so that we can produce farm chemicals at cost and provide them at a much lower price to farmers across Canada.
A very thorough study of the issue was done by the Senate last year. The Senate is not full of radicals; it is a rather conservative institution, a conservative body. The Senate said that we should have generic farm chemicals, that we should get rid of long patents, and that if we did that chemicals could be produced at a much lower price. I think we should take it a
October 28, 1986

step further and produce them right in this country, particularly in western Canada. It would provide jobs for western Canadians in the process.
We require a vision of the country where farmers are in control of those factories and plants so that farmers themselves, not large companies or Governments, are making decisions about the production of farm chemicals. Perhaps that is radical. It is a bit of economic democracy, a bit of local control, and a bit of self-direction. However, we can trust farmers to be in control of their own business and in control of their plants. In the process they will produce jobs for people in western Canada and produce farm chemicals at cost.
For those reasons I hope we can wind up this debate very soon. We all agree with the particular Bill. Let us send it to committee and get on with other important issues like farm chemicals, deficiency payments, the future of agriculture in Canada, and the need to support it to ensure that farmers are given an even break because they are the most productive farmers in the world. They are doing a good job, but they are now suffering from factors beyond their control.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Mr. Gauthier, seconded by Mrs. Finestone, moves that the question be now put. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Mr. Mayer, seconded by Mr. Mazan-kowski, moves that Bill C-12, an Act to amend the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee. 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 a legislative committee.

Hon. Flora MacDonald (Minister of Communications) moved: that Bill C-13, an Act respecting the reorganization of Bell Canada, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
She said: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to move second reading of Bill C-13, the Bell Canada Reorganization Act. A similar version of the Bill was considered in a previous session. That Bill, Bill C-19, was drafted as a result of the corporate reorganization of Bell Canada in 1983. The purpose of the present Bill is the same-to ensure that Bell Canada
Bell Canada Act
continues to meet its obligations to the Canadian public in the provision of telephone services.
The reorganization of the Bell companies created a new parent holding company, Bell Canada Enterprises. Bell Canada, the telephone company, is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Bell Canada Enterprises, and Bell Canada Enterprises has become involved in a wide range of other unregulated activities and investments.
The Bill before us has been fine tuned as a result of considerable detailed examination of the previous Bill C-19 by the Standing Committee on Communications and Culture. When the Bill came before the House, it was debated at second reading, and then it went to the Standing Committee on Communications and Culture for detailed examination.
[Translation)
The standing committee began studying this Bill a little less than a year ago, in December 1985. Representatives of 11 organizations, including interest groups, labour unions, telecommunications companies, delegates from business circles, Bell Canada, Bell Enterprises and the CRTC, appeared as witnesses.
Committee members got to know different viewpoints on the Bill and heard a few suggestions concerning the consolidation of CRTC regulatory powers with respect to telephone services.
Of course Bell Canada and Bell Enterprises were fearful that the Bill might jeopardize their international operations or even impose regulations. CRTC spokesman Andre Bureau stated that he and his colleagues were supportive of the Bill. According to him the provisions related to access to information from Bell Canada and to the authority to make a distinction between monopolistic and competitive operations were of prime interest to the CRTC.

I turn now to a clause by clause examination of what has been done in general terms but not in any great detail. In its subsequent clause by clause examination, the standing committee considered a number of Government and opposition amendments designed to improve and, as I say, fine tune the clarity of the previous Bill. In large measure these amendments were based on the very thoughtful submissions of the various witnesses, and they have been carried over into the present Bill C-13. We wanted to respect what the standing committee had done in the previous session of Parliament. Therefore, the amendments put through at that time were also reproduced in the Bill now before us.
When I look at these clauses I can say to you, Sir, that the first 10 clauses of Bill C-13 restate the provisions of the Special Act of Parliament under which Bell Canada was originally established a number of years ago. Essentially what those 10 clauses do is define the nature of Bell Canada's

October 28, 1986
Bell Canada Act
responsibilities as a telecommunications carrier and bring it under federal jurisdiction.
The next clause, Clause 11, contains a provision requiring the CRTC to approve the disposal or sale of Bell Canada shares, all of which are now held by Bell Canada Enterprises.
Clause 12 will allow the CRTC to obtain information from Bell Canada Enterprises relative to the regulation of Bell Canada's operations.
Clause 13 contains provisions which allow the CRTC to decide whether particular telecommunication services offered by Bell Canada should be carried out on a competitive or monopoly basis.
The amendments adopted by the standing comittee during the last session affect present Clauses 6, 7, 11 and 13. In addition to these amendments, Section 6(2) was amended during report stage debate on Bill C-19 in the House. Section 6(2) is the section that limits the advance payment for telephone service that Bell Canada can charge to six months. The amendment allows the continuation of the historical six month provision but also gives the CRTC the flexibility to set appropriate terms of payment as conditions change.
Clause 7, Mr. Speaker, is the clause that contains the existing statutory prohibition against Bell Canada holding a broadcasting licence. The CRTC originally recommended that legislation be enacted to prohibit Bel! Canada and all other members of the Bell group from holding a broadcasting licence. However, during the standing committee's deliberation on Bill C-19 several witnesses stated that the clause would impose undue restrictions on Bell Canada Enterprises and its competitive subsidiaries.
Accordingly, at that time, Clause 7 was amended to specify that only Bell Canada and its subsidiaries may not hold a licence but that Bell Canada Enterprises and its other affiliates may apply to the CRTC for a broadcasting licence. That amendment was carried out as a result of the deliberations of the standing committee. The amendment put forward by the standing committee was accepted by the Government because of the wishes or the arguments of the standing committee. It may be that that clause among others, but that clause in particular, may want to be revised by the members of the committee when it is before them.
The third amendment adopted by the standing committee affects Clause 11 which deals with the approval or disposal of shares and facilities. As you know, Mr. Speaker, for many years Bell shares were widely held by thousands of shareholders. Now there is only one shareholder to Bell Canada, namely, Bell Canada Enterprises. Clause 11 would give the CRTC an opportunity to examine proposals which migh effectively transfer ownership or control of Bell Canada to a province, a foreign interest or to a Bell competitor.
Since the object of this section is to prevent a change in control of Bell Canada without regulatory approval, an amendment was put forward and subsequently adopted by the
standing committee to the effect that CRTC approval would only be required for share sales on transfers that would result in Bell Canada Enterprises ownership falling below 80 per cent.
The fourth clause which was amended by the standing committee is Section 13. It reads:
Orders requiring undertaking or divestiture of activities.
This section contains two provisions which are commonly referred to as the "in" and "out" power.
A major feature of the Bell re-organization was the intended division of activities that are subject to regulation from those other activities which are to be conducted in non-regulated subsidiaries of Bell Canada Enterprises.
To prevent cross-subsidization of competitive activities by monopoly activities, subsections 13(1) and (2) give the Commission powers to order Bell Canada to undertake an activity provided by an affiliate not subject to a sufficient degree of competition. This is what is known as the "in" power. On the other hand, the CRTC can also order Bell Canada to divest itself of an activity that the Commission determined was sufficiently competitive not to require regulatory supervision. That is known as the "out" power.
Amendments adopted by the standing committee do, I believe, clarify the fact that provincially-regulated affiliates of Bell are not affected by the "in" power. They also ensure that activities which would not otherwise be subject to regulation under the Railway Act, if conducted by Bell, cannot be the subject of an order. Finally, they require the application of a more restrictive test before the Commission may order the company to undertake an activity or to divest itself of that activity.

Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to commend all committee members for the outstanding job they did during the previous session. The document submitted today attests to the thorough study of the contents of the Bill and the basic understanding of the issues involved. Committee members will of course have a further opportunity to examine this Bill, and I can say in advance that I will be pleased to consider any recommendation they might make.
In concluding, Mr. Speaker, I believe the Bill under study takes fair account of the interests of Bell Canada subscribers as well as those of Bell Canada Enterprises and their shareholders. I stress the fact that the CRTC does need the powers provided under the Bill to continue efficiently to regulate telephone services made available by a monopoly.

I have studied the recommendations that were put forward by the standing committee when this Bill was previously considered by the House and by the standing committee in its deliberations. I think they did a very good job in analysing the various clauses in the Bill and in making recommendations that improved them over-all. It may be that they will want to
October 28, 1986

suggest other measures that will provide further improvement. I can assure them all that I will be willing to take into consideration any further suggestions they might want to put forward.
When considering this Bill for second reading, Sir, I would ask Hon. Members to keep in mind that this Bill is designed to maintain the excellent telephone system that has evolved over many years. At the same time, it is designed to allow the Bell group of companies to freely pursue a wide range of unregulated activities, both in Canada and internationally. I look forward to the work of the committee.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 66, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier)-Official languages-(a) Request that legislation be introduced, (b) Content of amending legislation; the Hon. Member for York West (Mr. Marchi)-Multiculturalism-Canadian Multicul-turalism Council-(a) Request for resignation of ViceChairman. (b) Request for investigation; the Hon. Member for Parkdale-High Park (Mr. Witer)-Human rights- Violations in U.S.S.R.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Miss MacDonald (Kingston and the Island that Bill C-13, an Act respecting the reorganization of Bell Canada, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
Sheila Finestone: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Minister for her comments on our Committee's activities, and I hope the same spirit of solidarity and interest in the subject at hand will be maintained, especially of our telecommunications system and how it affects Mr. and Mrs. Average Canadian.
Bill C-13, an Act respecting the reorganization of Bell Canada, has three objectives. First, to assure the CRTC's ability to carry out efficient monitoring and control of our
Bell Canada Act
regulated monopoly telephone system, Bell Canada. Second, to ensure fair and reasonable rates for subscribers with ongoing universal, affordable service to all users within Bell's area of operation. Third, to ensure that the regulation of Bell Canada allows it to grow to meet the challenge of the new technological era in which it finds itself, while not unduly impeding the profitability of Bell Canada Enterprises, its new parent. I believe the Minister acknowledged that to be an important aspect of the relationship as well.
Unfortunately the Bill, in its present form, does not ensure that any of those three objectives will be attained. The Bill contains major flaws. Its passage will not ensure fairness for Bell subscribers and may even facilitate unfair competition with our broadcasting industry. I bring to the Minister's attention that I expressed this concern when the Bill last came to the House as Bill C-19, when it went to committee and came back into the House. It is an ongoing concern not only of mine but of the broadcasting industry. I hope she will, as she has said, be open to an amendment in this regard. It is most regrettable that the Bill does not reflect the views widely expressed during the time when broad consultations took place.
Before embarking on an analysis of Bill C-13, it may be useful to review the legislative history which led to its introduction. In view of the importance of the Bell group of companies and the potential impact its corporate reorganization could have, the CRTC was directed on October 25, 1982, by the then Minister responsible, Francis Fox, to conduct an inquiry under Section 50 of the National Transportation Act into Bell Canada's proposed reorganization under the CBCA. The CRTC was directed to report its findings by March 31, 1983, so that the Government could take them into account in its over-all analysis of the reorganization. The Liberal Government also called for consultation hearings to be open to all interested persons. We were always a Government open and interested in consulting with other people before we took action.
Mr. Fox indicated that the general form of the reorganization was consistent with the Liberal Government's attitude toward increased competition and industrial development in the high-tech telecommunications sector. He stressed that the Government had been indicating for some time that all Canadian companies should make changes to enable them to be competitive, both here at home and in foreign markets. He said:
The Bell Canada group of companies forms a vital part of the telecommunications sector in Canada.
While Bell Canada is most readily identified with the provision of telephone services in Quebec and Ontario, the Bell group is also involved in many other activities. The most major corporate reorganization of this important group of companies is obviously of great interest to the Government.
He pointed out that the proposed reorganization had raised questions and concerns regarding the impact on Bell subscribers and on the ability of the CRTC to continue to regulate Bell's monopoly in the provision of telecommunication services.

October 28, 1986
Bell Canada Act
Mr. Fox said that the Government must be satisfied that the reorganization was in the over-all public interest.
The CRTC held its hearings in February, 1983, and many viewpoints were expressed on the issue. On the basis of the briefs and recommendations submitted to it, and taking its own study into consideration, the CRTC made its recommendations on April 18, 1983. It recommended that the proposed reorganization be implemented on condition that certain legislative provisions be adopted to strengthen and clarify the CRTC's power over Bell Canada and its affiliates, thereby protecting the interests of the subscriber.
On April 23, 1983, the Liberal Government announced its intention to study the CRTC's recommendations and draft the necessary legislative provisions to protect the interests of Bell Canada customers. That Bill was tabled, a subsequent Bill was tabled, and we are now speaking to Bill C-13. It has many of the legislative provisions initially recommended by my party. It should be noted, however, that the present Government has introduced significant changes to Bill C-13 which diminish the intent of that legislation.
During the last session, when the previous Minister introduced this legislation as Bill C-19, which by the way died on the Order Paper when this Government chose to prorogue, I had been speaking to my concerns involving many of the issues which had appeared after a long and arduous study and which formed part of the CRTC report tabled in 1983. It is a fascinating document which I think is well worth rereading. Many groups appeared with informed opinions to share with those interested in the improvement of both our telephone system and business systems in general. We are not fully satisfied that Bill C-13 in its present form will bring all activities of Bell Canada under the regulatory authority of the CRTC.
As I said, I have a number of areas of specific concern with respect to this Bill. These concerns include the furnishing of services, the potential for unfair competition in the broadcasting field, the lack of adequate safeguards for an indirect takeover of Bell Canada, and the impact of the divestiture clauses.
I will begin by considering the matter of furnishing service. My dissatisfaction with Clause 6 of this Bill stems from the fact that it fails to recognize that a customer has the right to be supplied with the most efficient and least costly telephone. We must not forget that the telephone is the outside line to the world and it is very important to shut-ins and our senior citizens. If they cannot afford the ever-escalating price of the telephone itself, let alone the service, it would be most unfair. I think the Minister would be the first to agree.
The Bill says that Bell Canada must furnish telephones of the latest improved design then in use by the company in the municipality or territory concerned. That could be anything from the newest of the high-tech touch tone to the fanciest of telephone answering systems. That is not necessarily what all people want. Many of the features are in excess of the
requirements of a basic telephone service. I recall trying to get a plain old black telephone as they were bringing the new telephone systems into this House and I was trying to figure out how to use all this fancy stuff. I would love to have the little old black telephone back in some instances.
I would like to bring to the Minister's attention that one must be mobile and able to go to a boutique to select a telephone. When you order a telephone service, they do not automatically come with a piece of hardware to plug into the wall once the wires have been installed. The consumer must go to the boutique and is often overwhelmed by an array of new fandangled equipment. I am sure this can be a very intimidating experience for a frail, elderly citizen who had enough difficulty getting to the shop and must now cope with the modern technology. The telephone boutique does not always have in stock the least expensive but most efficient and effective piece of equipment.
A member of my staff moved into a new apartment. Since the information was not volunteered, she inquired as to what kind of minimum cost telephone was available. She was told that only the most expensive telephone was available. Her choice was either to take the touch-tone telephone which was available or wait six months until the least costly equipment would again be in stock in that particular boutique. The difference in what I pay for my telephone and what this person was forced to buy through Bell Canada is $8.80 a month. That is a lot of money. It is close to the cost of purchasing cable television on a monthly basis.
I do not think that was the intention of the Minister or Bell Canada. However, those boutiques should carry enough of the least costly phones to service everyone. Consumers have the right to be supplied with the most efficient but least costly piece of equipment. The consumer needs better protection. I do not think that Bill C-13, in its present form, will be instrumental in ensuring a universally affordable telephone service.
The furnishing of services and prepayment is referred to in Section 6(2)(c). The Government has changed this section from the version which appeared in the former Bill C-19. The present version of Section 6(2)(c) provides that if the CRTC fails to prescribe an amount which the telephone subscriber must pay in advance to obtain telephone service, Bell will automatically be able to charge a six-month prepayment regardless of whether the customer is a good or bad credit risk.
The Government maintains that the six-month charge is academic, that the customer will never actually be charged a six month prepayment by Bell because the CRTC will always prescribe the lower amount. If the Government is so confident that the CRTC will protect the telephone subscriber, why does it persist in holding that six-month prepayment clause over the heads of customers? I do not know why that could not have been removed or made more clear.
October 28, 1986

The Government also maintains that even if the CRTC fails to address the issue of prepayment, Bell will refrain from exercising the right given to it in this Bill to charge a six-month prepayment. Why give a company the legal right to charge something and then say that you do not expect it to use that right? That does not make much sense. Sooner or later the company can be expected to act on its right. That is only normal. Telephone subscribers will be asking some very direct questions as to why the Government has failed to protect them.
There are many people in the country who do not have the funds to pay a lump sum, semi-annual amount in advance should Bell deem it necessary prior to fulfilling its own obligation of connecting a telephone. The monthly rate of $8 or $10 multiplied by six is a substantial sum. Is it fair for the average struggling student, who finds it difficult enough to pay rent, heat and everything else, let alone tuition, to be expected to provide a six-month advance payment? What about the sick and elderly? I do not think it is very clever to leave this clause in the Bill.
I believe that the amount of an advance payment, if any, is best determined by the CRTC on an ongoing basis in order to ensure consistency with the needs of the subscriber. The CRTC will, no doubt, take note of the fact that with a public monopoly utility such as Bell the customer will not decline to pay and run away. I do not think they have to worry about that. I suggest that they will pay their monthly bill. Bell does not need up-front money with the income it presently has.
I wrote this part of my text in June, anticipating that this Bill would come back before the House was prorogued. At that time I did not know the extent of the profits which Bell Canada was privileged to earn. We should all be very pleased that its profits are so high because it means it is a very well-managed and highly efficient company. This has nothing to do with the state of the economy but rather with knowing how to perfect management.
The recent ruling of the CRTC directed Bell Canada to return $243 million in surplus profits to its subscribers. Bell anticipates approximately $207 million worth of profit in 1986-87 and the CRTC has directed Bell Canada to reduce its long distance rates. I suggest that this substantiates my point that up-front money is certainly not necessary for Bell Canada to function effectively and efficiently. It is a detriment, an unnecessary cost and often a burden to the general population.
At times I may speak rather harshly of Bell Canada. I will take this opportunity to recognize that Bell Canada is a very fine corporate citizen. It shows leadership in many areas in the country. In particular, it lends the services of its personnel. There was a very fine demonstration of that when Rick Hansen was in Ottawa last weekend. Bell Canada's Pioneer Club has been very supportive of his efforts. I would like to salute Bell Canada for that effort.
Clause 7 of the Bill prohibits Bell Canada or any company controlled by Bell Canada from operating a broadcasting
Bell Canada Act
undertaking. This is a continuation of the prohibition contained in the 1968 Bell Canada Special Act. Parliament has consistently opposed allowing Bell Canada to enter into the broadcasting field. The Parliament of Canada imposed certain restrictions and obligations on this regulated public service monopoly for having such rights of monopoly. One restriction was that they should not enter the broadcasting field. The report states it much better than I could. On page 69 it says:
The Commission therefore recommends that legislation be enacted as follows:
2) prohibiting Bell Canada and other members of the Bell group from
applying for or holding a broadcasting licence;
I suggest that that included Bell Canada affiliates as well as Bell Canada subsidiaries. They have said:
The Commission is of the view that Bell and the other members of the Bell group should continue to be subject to the limitation prohibiting the holding of broadcasting licences, which under the Broadcasting Act includes licences to operate cable television systems.
At this stage of rapid evolution in the communications industry, the Commission would be concerned with the degree of concentration that could arise in the industry if the Bell group were allowed to enter the broadcasting field. In this regard it is noteworthy that, in 1982, the size of Bell Canada, as measured by the book value of its telecommunications assets alone, was in excess of $10 billion, compared to assets of approximately $1.2 billion for the entire Canadian private television, radio and cable industries.
I strongly recommend that all Members who have cable companies, television companies and broadcasters in their ridings pay very strict attention to this clause because there will not be satisfaction among their constituents if they decide now to put these companies into a competitive position with the very well financed Bell Canada, particularly its affiliate Bell Canada Enterprises. It had a net profit of $1 billion. The report goes on to say:
The Commission would also be concerned if the Bell group were to enter the cable industry, with the conflict of priorities that could arise in the group as between the development of the cable and the telephone distribution systems. The Commission considers that the public interest is best served at this time by the separate, and to some extent, competitive evolution of the cable and telephone distribution systems.
With regard to Bell's suggestion that the Commission's power to award broadcasting licences would permit it to consider telephone cable cross-ownership issues in the future, it should be noted that it is not certain that telecommunications policy matters can properly be taken into account in licensing decisions under the Broadcasting Act.
I hope the Bill will give serious consideration to this area. Due to the recent reorganization of Bell, the company-now Bell Canada Enterprises-will be in a position to circumvent the prohibition contained in Clause 7 of the current Bill. Let us consider the following examples. The new holding company, Bell Canada Enterprises, could incorporate a subsidiary such as "Bell Canada TV", and for very little cost connect the transmission facilities of such a subsidiary through its affiliate, Bell Canada, to virtually every home in Canada at a very reasonable rate. Such a transaction does not run afoul of Clause 7 as it now stands because Clause 7 only catches companies controlled by Bell Canada. They used to be controlled by Bell Canada as subsidiaries to the old corporation, but now they are subsidiaries of Bell Canada Enterprises,

October 28, 1986
Bell Canada Act
affiliates of Bell Canada. Bell Canada no longer controls them, due to this reorganization.
The most obvious endeavour for BCE to become involved in would be cable television. The Canadian Cable Television Association fears that this gap in Clause 7 of the Bill would have a major impact upon its members. The association has expressed its concern to the Minister, but she has obviously not listened. I recommended in the committee and in the House that the word "affiliate" be added in that clause. No such change has taken place and I suggest that the Minister look at that clause again.
It is significant that the CRTC, in its April, 1983 report to Cabinet on the proposed reorganization of Bell Canada, concluded that the Bell Canada group should continue to be prohibited by law from holding broadcasting licences. The CRTC's rationale, which resulted from an exhaustive review of the arguments on both sides at a lengthy public hearing, was a concern over the degree of concentration of control which could arise in the Canadian broadcasting industry if affiliates of Bell Canada Enterprises were allowed to hold licences. The Commission concluded that the public interest would best be served by the separate and, to some extent, competitive evolution of the cable and telephone industries as separate entities. I emphasize the world "separate". The commission's conclusions are as valid today as when they were made. I have already read those conclusions into the record.
It is regrettable that the Government has not seen fit to respond to the serious concerns which have been raised by broadcasting companies regarding Clause 7. I have often relayed those concerns in the House and in the committee. I believe that Clause 7 of the Bill should have precluded the entire group of Bell companies from holding broadcasting licences. It is not too late for the Government to change its mind by amending Clause 7. I will urge the Government to do so before many Canadian jobs are jeopardized.
Clause 11 of the Bill provides that any sale by Bell Canada Enterprises of more than 20 per cent of the shares of Bell Canada must receive CRTC approval. I am quite delighted to at least see that provision because there was no limit in the Bill at the outset. While I had proposed a 10 per cent limit, the Government countered with a 20 per cent proposal which is now in the Bill. At this time it is under 6 per cent of external holdings and I do not know why the Government has increased it to 20 per cent.
The requirement in that clause for CRTC approval can be circumvented if a company acquires control of BCE itself. I point out to the Government that as a result of this gap in Clause 11, a company can acquire control of Bell Canada itself, without having to receive CRTC approval. This sounds very far-fetched. I read it again and talked to the Ontario Securities Commission. I suggest that the potential of and control within certain types of bonds that have been issued should be rechecked.
There may be those who would scoff at the suggestion that a huge company like Bell Canada Enterprises could be taken over, thereby yielding control to the successful buyer of Bell Canada. However, an article in the Toronto Globe and Mail on June 11, 1986, points out that a group of Toronto stockbrokers is attempting to take over BCE. The article states that: "Bell Canada Enterprises of Montreal, one of the country's largest business empires, is worried that stockbrokers might have found an indirect way to control the giant utility holding company". The article points out that such a takeover may indeed be a possibility and that BCE is concerned. If BCE is worried about this situation, why is the Government not worried or prepared to block that loophole in the Bill?
There has also been a lack of effective mechanisms to obtain information. I bring to the attention of Hon. Members the important April 18, 1983 CRTC report on the proposed reorganization of Bell Canada. At page 33, it states:
It is the Commission's duty to ensure that the telephone subscribers of Bell Canada do not cross-subsidize the activities of the other companies of the Bell group. This duty requires that the Commission be in a position to determine the fair value of Bell's resources utilized by other corporate members having regard, among other things, to the value of such services in the market-place.
In the Commission's opinion, it will not be possible to ensure the fulfilment of this duty unless it has access to contracts between third parties and BCE or its subsidiaries in circumstances where these may be relevant to transactions between Bell and its affiliates.
It may be grand that Bell has the expertise to lend to other parts of the world, but that does not mean we should have to pay for it as part of our telephone operating costs and have it reflected in our subscriber rates. I believe that Bell Canada Enterprises should pay the full share, as they properly belong as part of its costs.
I return to page 33 of the CRTC report:
Another issue arising out of the proposed change in the status of Bell Canada within the Bell group relates to the Commission's power to require information from Bell affiliates to be organized, analysed and presented in the form the Commission considers necessary or desirable in order to enable it to discharge its mandate.
The CRTC stated further:
In the Commission's opinion, it will not be possible to ensure the fulfilment of this duty unless it has access to contracts between third parties and BCE or its subsidiaries in circumstances where these may be relevant to transactions between Bell and its affiliates.
Clearly, Clause 12 of Bill C-13, as I have said, should have provided the CRTC with the legal right to obtain such information, presented in an organized and readily-under-standable fashion, from Bell's affiliated companies. Unfortunately, the Bill does not so provide. Such a provision would have enabled the CRTC to properly fulfil its mandate.
In a presentation delivered on behalf of the Canadian Consumers' Association Dr. Myron Gordon told the CRTC:
If-for legal reasons-the corporate veils created by the reorganization cannot be pierced by the CRTC, then the CRTC's ability to set fair and reasonable rates for telephone services would be destroyed. This is a strong, but nonetheless true statement.
October 28, 1986

The views of Dr. Gordon and the Canadian Consumers' Association were directed to ensuring that the subscribers of Bell's monopoly services were not adversely impacted by the reorganization. I share those particular concerns. I suggest that in this Bill the Government has demonstrated its neglect for the interests of Bell subscribers and its failure to act on the report of the CRTC in the proposed reorganization changes and modifications that would be required to ensure that the monopoly part of Bell Canada be maintained and fairly assessed.
Again, I bring to the attention of Hon. Members the following words of the Commission:
With these considerations in mind, the Commission has concluded that, in order to ensure that its ability to exercise its mandate is not impaired after the reorganization, there should be legislative clarification of the power to compel the production of such documents and information from BCE and the other Bell affiliates as the Commission considers relevant to enable it to carry out its mandate. This power should also enable the Commission to require that such documents or information be organized, analysed and presented in such form as the Commission may determine.
These powers, and those already vested in the Commission must, of course, be used responsibly and with discretion. They are all, including the power of the Commission to determine what is relevant in any particular situation, subject in any event to the scrutiny of the courts ...
The Commission therefore recommends that there be legislative clarification of its power to compel the production of such documents and information from BCE and the other Bell affiliates as the Commission considers relevant to enable it to carry out its statutory mandate. This power should also enable the Commission to require that such documents or information be organized, analysed and presented in such form as the Commission may determine.
That is not unreasonable in helping to determine subscriber rates or activities. It would certainly not be in contravention of Section 321 of the Railway Act.
With respect to the divestiture section, Clause 13(1) of the Bill ensures that a telecommunications activity of a Bell affiliate cannot become dominant in its market without attracting regulation. Clause 13(2) provides the CRTC with the means to prevent Bell Canada from engaging in a competitive activity, as opposed to its normal monopoly activity, by ordering Bell to divest itself of the competitive activity.
The stifling effect that a dominant carrier such as Bell Canada can have on the growth of competition is a product not merely of its size but also of its monopoly control of basic telephone services. It is something like a cash cow, which is exactly what it is. It is a constant flow of dollars which many people would love to have.
Access to revenues generated by monopoly services creates the distinct danger that these revenues will be used to subsidize competitive activities regardless of CRTC regulation, to the detriment of competitors which have no monopoly revenue to draw upon. The Bill does not by any means go far enough in preventing this scenario from happening.
In conclusion, I point out that the former Minister of Communications, the Hon. Member for Frontenac (Mr. Masse), during talks with his provincial counterparts acknowledged his sense of obligation to ensure that Canadians are provided with a universal telephone service at reasonable cost.
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In fact, Bell Canada has a mandate to provide, on an exclusive basis, as a regulated public utility monopoly, telephone service to all customers in its territory at a reasonable rate. This service has evolved over the last century into more than a privilege. It has now become almost a right for all Canadians.
I have tried to outline the shortfalls of Bill C-13. What it all boils down to is the fact that we can create children but we cannot create our own parents. By creating its own special parent company through reorganization Bell Canada has weakened the powers of the regulatory body, the CRTC, whose function it is to protect telephone subscribers. This Bill fails to give the CRTC the tools with which it can do the most effective job.
I look forward to the necessary changes to the Bill so that it will truly reflect what was in the minds of the founders of Bell Canada-a universal telephone system.


Ms. Lynn McDonald (Broadview-Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, the Bill before us today, Bill C-13, respecting the reorganization of Bell Canada, is a slightly recycled version of another Bill, Bill C-19, introduced by the Conservatives in the last session which, of course, was simply a recycled version of a Liberal Bill, Bill C-20, introduced in 1984. However, whatever it is called and whatever number it bears it is a mistaken piece of legislation. It shows a lack of telecommunications policy. It is a Bill dealing with one specific question on which the Government has capitulated in order to give Bell Canada what it wants.
Bill C-13 is virtually unchanged from its predecessor, Bill C-19. I know that the Minister said that there had been some improvements made as a result of recommendations presented in committee. I suggest that they are trivial changes and that the Minister has not learned much from the committee hearings.
The New Democratic Party certainly fought this Bill hard in the House and in committee, as did many citizens' groups, consumers' groups and ordinary Canadians concerned about their telephone service. They fought the old Bill and I suspect, like us, they will be fighting the new one very hard as well.
Bill C-13 represents yet another instance of the Government putting the interests of a large corporation ahead of the public. Most Canadians need their telephones. Virtually all Canadians are telephone subscribers. The largest company providing telephone service is, of course, Bell Canada. Canadians want good service at reasonable rates. It is certainly in the public interest that we have regulations to ensure that this be the case. The Bill before us does not take us in that direction, but instead makes it possible for the company not to avoid entirely regulation but allows certain aspects of its operation to avoid regulation. It certainly ensures that consumers will not receive adequate protection in terms of rates charged.
Canadians are the greatest telephone users in the world. The telephone is an essential means of communication in our large country. Many people would be isolated without one. It is an important matter. Yet the Government has absolutely

October 28, 1986
Bell Canada Act
capitulated to a large corporation which simply wants to bully its way through the courts and through Parliament in order to get what it wants.
The Bill before us would legalize the reorganization of Bell Canada. It is an example of how a corporation with a monopoly and guaranteed profits is allowed to spin off profits made in a regulated field into other areas and into other parts of its corporation. The Bill will permit Bell Canada to do in the 1980s what the CPR did earlier. The CPR became an enormously wealthy corporation and yet train service deteriorated. The public was not well served by it, yet corporate profits remained at an enormous level thanks to a privilege which it had as a monopoly.
I would like to review a bit of the history of this Bill. When the Bill first appeared as a Conservative Bill, it was tabled in the House by the former Minister on December 20, 1984. It was very similar to the Bill previously introduced by the Liberal Minister earlier that year.
It is worth noting that on May 10, 1984, the then Opposition House Leader wrote the Liberal House Leader urging him to split the old Bill C-20 into two Bills, one being called the Bell Canada Reorganization Act, an Act which could receive a quick second reading and referral to committee, according to the letter. When in Government, the Conservatives did exactly that. They split it into two Bills so they could sneak it through very quickly. However, they found a lot more opposition to it than they had anticipated but now the Bill is before us again.
At the beginning of a study of this Bill, a couple of points must be made. It is a short Bill. It does not deal with very much. Effectively, it outlines what already exists in regard to the regulation of Bell Canada. It is not what the CRTC, consumer groups and the former Government wanted. It is what Bell Canada wanted. It pushed and finally twisted enough arms to receive acceptance from Liberals and Conservatives. This shows what corporate power in Canada can do.
Bell Canada took on the CRTC, the Restrictive Trade Practices Commission, the Bureau of Competition Policy and any number of intervenors from consumer and public interest organizations. It fought them all. In the end, the Government backed off and the result is a Bill which only legislates what is already in place and allows Bell to join Canadian Pacific in being a major company which has prospered in a heavily protected government-created monopoly. Now it will be permitted to take the assets it gained thanks to that protection and use them as a basis for a diverse acquisition seeking conglomerate now known as Bell Canada Enterprises.
As much as anything else, this Bill sugggests the Conservative trend to deregulation: let the public interest be damned and let companies get away with what they want. In this case, it is to take the money and run. Bell Canada will be free to do as it pleases in the market-place with assets that it acquired thanks to its monopoly status. The existing Bell telephone
service will remain under CRTC regulation but, and I stress this, without the important financial support which had provided cross-subsidization and had held down telephone rate increases. With increasing costs looming, we can expect increasing costs for basic telephone services.
I think we have to look at this Bill as being a failure in the development of public policy. It does not put the public, consumers and ordinary Canadians first. It would not have happened if we had a federal Government with a decent telecommunications policy and enough guts to take on Bell Canada and fight it in the public interest. That, I am afraid, we do not have. The Liberals did not want the Bill in the first place but capitulated. The Conservatives never put up a fight at all. Bell has managed to impose its corporate will on the country. It has got what it wants.
Let us look at how Bell has managed to do this. On June 24, 1982, Bell Canada announced a planned reorganization to create "a new, non-regulated parent company called Bell Canada Enterprises, Inc.". The Chairman, Mr. de Grandpre, described this as being a purification of Bell Canada's regulated activities. In his words, it would make the task of the CRTC easier by separating off Bell's regulated activity so the CRTC would not have to be bothered with all its other activities. He said that Bell Canada would remain the regulated utility but this reorganization would simplify the regulatory process. He said that under the old structure, Bell controlled about 80 different companies, regulated and non-regulated, leading to distortions. Of course, many Canadians did not agree with this and were concerned about the interests of consumers.
The spokesperson for the Public Interest Advocacy Centre said that this was an ingenious scheme to avoid regulation and that in football terms, it is an end-run again but around the other end. Other opponents of the legislation said that it was a recognition that Bell is really in the investment business, not the telephone business. Unfortunately, this has proven to be correct.
Bell Canada simply created Bell Canada Enterprises as its holding company, displacing Bell Canada. The profitable subsidiaries and the revenue for planned acquisitions went to Bell Canada Enterprises. Bell Canada became a regulated subsidiary with only three subsidiaries: a 30 per cent share in Bell Northern Research, a 24.6 per cent share in Telesat Canada and Tele-Direct (Publications), a subsidiary to be transferred to Bell Canada Enterprises as soon as practicable. The intent of all this is very clear. The intent is to get the profitable parts away from Government and from regulation.
To head off any interference, Bell referred the reorganization to the Quebec Superior Court. Courts can move very quickly. The law does not have to be slow. In barely two months after the referral, on September 24, 1982, the Quebec Superior Court approved the Bell Canada reorganization rejecting a federal Government challenge that the plan required the approval of the supposed regulator, the CRTC. Charles Gonthier, Justice of the Quebec Superior Court said
October 28, 1986

that the arrangement is just and reasonable for the shareholders of Bell since it was approved by an overwhelming majority. The federal Government appealed this decision. Bell won the appeal in the Quebec Court of Appeal on March 25, 1983.
On April 18, 1983, CRTC investigations and hearings produced a 105-page report with recommendations, some of which appear in this Bill. Significantly, however, the regulation most necessary as a check against Bell Canada Enterprises was a minority shareholding in Bell Canada which is now 100 per cent owned by Bell Canada Enterprises. To the CRTC, this would be a "significant incentive" to conduct company affairs in the best interests of both subscribers and shareholders.
Hon. Members will understand that the creation of minority shareholders is a very commonly used device to ensure that certain interests are protected and are not ignored by a single shareholder. That recommendation was not included in the old Bill C-19 nor is it included in Bill C-13 which is before us now. In fact, the CRTC said that it should not be included in the immediate future.
Also omitted from the legislation were the arguments put forward at the CRTC hearings by consumers' organizations and particularly the Consumers' Association of Canada for some disposition of the capital gains which Bell had acquired as a federally chartered telephone monopoly. This is an extremely important matter when considering the amount of money that is at stake here. The CRTC had calculated the capital gains from the sale of Bell owned provincial telephone companies and Northern Telecom to Bell Canada Enterprises at $560 million. The Consumers' Association of Canada felt 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 gains realized by Bell, although obviously it was the fees paid by subscribers that made it possible for these capital gains to be realized.
Should this not be a consideration for us when looking at this Bill? Should the House not look at the public interest and the interest of subscribers? After all, the subscribers paid for the gains that were ultimately realized by the company. Should the Government not have a duty to protect the larger public interest when creating monopolies apparently in the public interest? Unfortunately, Government just turned aside and did not take its responsibilities here.
On April 21, 1983, having been defeated in the courts and having seen its own regulatory agency, the CRTC, accept the reorganization, the Liberal Government capitulated. It decided that it would not take any further court cases, and the restructuring would go ahead as Bell Canada wanted it. I cite the then Minister of Communications, Francis Fox, who said that because it has a favourable impact on the economy generally. In other words, what is good for Bell Canada is good for the country. However, he did not produce any evidence to
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explain why this would be so, and why Bell Canada's profits should be considered apart from the interests of subscribers and the people who have been paying their bills and making their profits for them over the years.
The federal Government threw in the towel on the issue of whether a publicly fostered monopoly had an obligation to consumers. This again is very similar to the kinds of deals that the CPR got away with over the years. Now technology has changed, and it is not the railways which make these big profits. We are now in the telecommunications era and that is how it is being done. The principle is the same and it is a very bad principle.
On April 28, 1983 the Bell reorganization went into effect at the Bell annual meeting. The chairman of Bell hinted only at future rate increases. He did not want to appear too greedy at this point. He did not announce any specifically. 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.
On the telephone subscribers side it has been very different. There has been a campaign for user-pay charges on local calls, and much higher basic telephone service rates combined with deregulation of long distance service. We cannot be at all complacent about what is going to happen to consumers. What has this Bell reorganization accomplished? Has it created more jobs? No. We know that takeovers do not create jobs. Sometimes they result in the elimination of jobs. Certainly in this case, Bell has actually cut jobs since 1980. Has it resulted in lower rates for telephone subscribers? Has it resulted in better service? Well, telephone rates have continued rise. There has not been any benefit to consumers as a result of the reorganization. Phone centres and increased service charges mean that a visit from the telephone repair or service man is a very expensive rarity. Bell is eliminating those jobs and eliminating services that it previously provided.
Has it created more research and development in Canada? That, at least, would be a significant improvement. We cannot say that that has happened. Telecommunications is an area in which Canada has shown a great deal of expertise. Yet, we have to be worried about losing an industry that we have made some contribution toward developing in earlier years. Northern Telecom's record in Canada in recent years is not good. Between 1976 and 1980 Northern Telecom's Canadian workforce declined, although company sales doubled. At the same time, Northern Telecom's U.S. workforce grew from about 3,000 people in 1976 to nearly 19,000 in 1985. Since the Canadian workforce is now about 23,000, there is strong speculation that this joint Bell Canada Enterprises and Bell Canada subsidiary is really headed for the U.S. Certainly we have had comment, speculation, and we have worries to the effect that we are going to be losing research and development in Canada in this area. That is hardly anything that the Government can be pleased about, and it ought to be considerably more worried about it.

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Bell Canada Act
This Bill does not set any research and development commitments for Northern Telecom. This opportunity was missed in the long inquiry conducted by the Restrictive Trade Practices Commission between 1977 and 1983. Instead, we are stuck with what Bell Canada Enterprises will give us, because governments have not ventured beyond various incentives and carrots for research and development to require that there be a minimum contribution made. In short, there is very little in the history leading to this Bill that is commendable at all.
I would like to refer to some of the arguments that have been developed by consumer organizations and other groups which are deeply concerned about this. One of the best briefs prepared is that done by the National Anti-Poverty Organization. In effect, the National Anti-Poverty Organization has been speaking for all ordinary Canadians, for all consumers and telephone subscribers. Poor people certainly need their telephones and are acutely worried about increased costs and decreased service. The points that they make affect ordinary Canadians with adequate family incomes.
The National Anti-Poverty Organization states in its submission that it is important to note that if the reorganization is allowed it becomes irreversible. It is not an incremental decision that can be corrected incrementally. It is not like a rate decision where if you make a little mistake you can roll it back, as in the case that we have seen recently, or you can adjust it in the future. This is a momentous decision. It is not something that could easily be reversed, if realistically reversed at all. It is something to which we must give extremely serious attention.
The redistribution of management functions has been a major claim that Bell Canada has been making as a reason for the reorganization, that it cannot create the management team that it needs in order to manage its affairs adequately. However, it has not managed to convince too many people of the necessity of drastic reorganization of this sort in order to redistribute its management functions. It could do that without this full-scale reorganization. Other companies manage to reorganize management functions without an Act of Parliament completely changing and hiving off one company from its holding companies.
The National Anti-Poverty Organization submits that Bell Canada's claim that it needs a holding company to plan is completely unsubstantiated. The Commission and Parliament ought to view the company's explanations and justifications on other aspects of the reorganization with considerable scepticism.
The issue of capital is extremely important. The National Anti-Poverty Organization in its submission stressed that capital is the life-blood of Bell Canada. Effective control in relation to capital is essential to meaningful regulation. However, after the reorganization, Bell Canada Enterprises would be able to limit the amount of equity capital available for Bell Canada's needs. The other riskier subsidiaries would receive equity capital more easily as they offer higher returns. The parent company could thus force the regulated company
to obtain a higher rate of return or pay increased dividends to the detriment of subscribers. This is an extremely important point. It is one that the Government has not paid sufficient attention to, and has certainly not met the criticisms that have been raised here.
Let us note that Bell Canada acknowledged in questioning by the intervenors that it does not believe or expect that the CRTC can regulate Bell Canada Enterprises in any way, because the parent company will not be actively involved in the provision of telecommunication services under CRTC jurisdiction. Obviously. That is the whole purpose of the organization. The importance of this factor has to be considered in the light of capital requirements. After the reorganization, the cost of equity capital determined by Bell Canada Enterprises will, from Bell Canada's position, be akin to taxes in energy prices. Bell Canada will be able to argue that it is not in control of these, and that such costs must be passed on to subscribers.
We see that the needs of subscribers can be simply set aside and that companies can be starved for capital. In order to obtain adequate capital, which might have come from other subsidiaries in the Bell family, the rates to subscribers are increased. The views and motives of Bell Canada in relation to the capital question were revealed in cross-examination during earlier hearings. It was asked the following question: "After the reorganization, does it mean that the CRTC has no control of the capital issued by Bell Canada Enterprises?" The answer to that question is quite revealing-"There is a concession that the CRTC will have no control over the capital issued by Bell Canada Enterprises". This clearly reveals an important problem. The CRTC will not have any say, and the needs of telephone subscribers could be easily ignored.
If Bell Canada Enterprises will not force up the return from Bell Canada in the short run, equity will be denied Bell Canada and the return from other subsidiaries will improve Bell Canada Enterprises consolidated results. Sooner or later this will have to be recognized. Either service quality will be allowed to deteriorate and consumers will not receive the service they want, or there will be pressures to increase the rates. The relative earning standard will no longer be other regulated utilities in Canada but will be other unregulated subsidiaries of Bell Canada Enterprises abroad.
How effectively could the CRTC control Bell Canada with the gun to its head that service will be allowed to deteriorate if rates are not raised appropriately? Control will have shifted from the regulator to the regulated.
I note that Bell Canada prefers to talk about scrutiny rather than regulatory control. It is aware that rather important aspects will escape regulation as a result of the reorganization. What is scrutiny if nothing can be done about it? Surely scrutiny is simply the first step to be followed up by firm regulations where necessary. However, in this case there is a loophole or an escape, and the CRTC will not have the authority to regulate on the important question of capital.
October 28, 1986

Bell Canada's response asks us to accept two assumptions- that Bell Canada will always continue to represent the large majority of the assets of Bell Canada Enterprises and that it will never be in the interest of Bell Canada Enterprises to allow Bell Canada to deteriorate. I wonder how valid are those assumptions. I think we must be rather sceptical.
Let us look at the Northern Telecom example. It was created by a pool of capital which came from the earnings of Bell Canada and was allowed to survive by the forbearance of subscribers. Subscribers might have had reduced prices to pay but instead of the money going into the reduction of rates, it went into providing capital for Northern Telecom. Bell Canada is now saying that all the capital gain and goodwill of Northern Telecom belongs to Bell's shareholders. However, it was the subscribers who indirectly paid for that. They paid Bell Canada and the money was shifted away. If subscribers had the choice of lower Bell telephone rates, they might have chosen that rather than having the money go to the subsidiaries which then depart and take it with them.
All subsidiaries of Bell Canada have their roots in the telephone service. That is from where the money came. They were created in large measure by money which came from payments by subscribers which were greater than needed to provide the service. It seems to me very reasonable that some of that money ought to go back to them. That the company should be allowed to take it and run when it earned these returns in a monopoly situation is quite unwarranted.
For years Bell argued that it should not be regulated on a consolidated basis and that a subsidiary should be allowed to develop freely into competitive areas. In the old days Bell said that that was in the best interest of subscribers, in that the profits ultimately earned through the new subsidiaries would be used to reduce subscriber rates. It argued that the subscriber would ultimately benefit from the development of subsidiaries. Now we see subsidiaries becoming profitable and Bell Canada no longer wants to use them to benefit subscribers; it wants to grab the profits for itself. It has changed its tune very considerably from its early argument that it was in the interest of subscribers to have their money go into subsidiaries. Bell said that the subscribers would eventually get their money back, but now we see they will not get it back.
I should also like to refer to so-called intangible assets-the assets of goodwill, the Bell name and reputation, and corporate associations within the Bell group. If Bell wishes to divorce a subscriber at this point, it should make a fair division of the family asset and its future value. The amount to be paid to Bell Canada for the use of such assets should be equal to the amount which would be charged to any third party for them, either as a lump sum equal to the capital gain or as an equivalent royalty.
A company which has developed a business and has a good name does not give away its name or its associations. One has to pay for them. However, in this case Bell Canada Enterprises will obtain the good name gained through the telephone
Bell Canada Act
business and not have to pay for it. This is entirely unreasonable. Certainly we know that Bell Canada management wants to use that name. Bell Canada management thinks it is important, counts on it, and uses it internationally in sales and in the search for contracts in other parts of the world. However, when it comes to putting a price on it, Bell management says that it is not important and that it does not need the name.
If these same Bell managers resigned their jobs and set out to create a new company, there is no way the new company could obtain these intangible assets-its name and associations-without enormous expense, yet they propose to do it for the price of incorporation of Bell Canada Enterprises.
The Chairman, Mr. de Grandpre, attempted to make the case that the Bell Canada name was not much of an asset. At one point he even described it in large measure as a liability. However, its own advertising quite belies this notion. Bell Canada advertising emphasizes that foreign customers are attracted to and sold on the Bell Canada name, that it is an asset, and that it is important. They cannot have it both ways. They cannot use it in one fashion and then like to claim that it does not count for anything at all.
Management spends its time trying to make Bell Canada a household name not only in Canada but around the globe, yet it proposes to appropriate this value for the subsidiaries and Bell Canada Enterprises and to pay nothing to Bell Canada and its original subscribers for it.
I will not go into a detailed study of the different clauses of the Bill. Obviously we will have an opportunity to consider it clause by clause, but I should like to refer to one glaring clause immediately although we are addressing the general principle of the Bill at this time. I am referring to subclause 6.(2) which would give the company the right to demand a six-month prepayment of subscribers unless the CRTC ruled otherwise. It is a rather excessive provision. I think it shows a certain contempt for consumers or telephone subscribers. It epitomizes what is wrong in this piece of legislation. Obviously we will have an opportunity to look at it in more detail later, but I simply wanted to note it as a particularly offensive part of the Bill.
I want to note also that the Bill raises a lot of concerns for people who work in the telephone industry. The Canadian Federation of Communications Workers opposed the Bill when it last appeared before the House and went to committee. These are people who work in the industry and who know it. They have very serious concerns. Let me quote briefly, "We are very much opposed to any form of splitting off unregulated subsidiaries of the telephone carriers to carry on competitive activity. We oppose that because it lets the "shark out of the cage" as has been said and is therefore bad for consumers. We also have a direct interest in preventing fragmentation of existing union bargaining units". I think that is an important consideration. People who have been working together to look

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Business of the House
after their own interests to see that their needs are looked after can be in a position of being fragmented, of having to fight battles separately and of having to work in quite a different situation from what they were used to.
The Minister made very much of the point in her remarks that the Bill is a different Bill from the previous one. It does reflect some changes, but I suspect she is trying to butter us up with the statement. I do not think it is very much different from the previous Bill. Apparently there are not a lot of Conservative Members lined up wanting to speak on it. It seems that they do not see this as a new Bill that they want to discuss. I do not know whether they will be really embarrassed about it, but I note there was an attempt to sneak it through the House and bring it on while people who were concerned about this issue were in a meeting of the Standing Committee on Communications and Culture. The Government should be blushing and perhaps hanging its head in shame for trying to fool the opposition critics who were occupied in a standing committee meeting, an important meeting, while sneaking the Bill into the House.
Perhaps the Government hoped that people would not see this important piece of legislation and would get away with sneaking it through very quickly. I would like to assure the Government that it is not going to get away with any such thing. We are going to give this Bill very full attention. It is not quite a test case. There can hardly be that many companies in the same kind of situation, but I do remind the House that we have very broad concerns about corporate concentration and deregulation. These are very important themes in the Bill before us now and we are going to look at the Bill very carefully. We are going to look at it carefully clause by clause in committee.
We think the Bill is misguided. We think the whole question should be looked at from the context of a decent telecommunications policy. We are sorry to see that the previous Liberal Government capitulated to Bell Canada on this and that the Conservatives have simply had absolutely no vision in developing a policy for themselves. They have simply gone along with the tactics of Bell Canada of getting what it wants by moving quickly, going to the courts and simply bulldozing its way, ignoring the requirements of the CRTC. This is not the way to develop policy for the public. It is not the way to see that the public interest is served in this extremely important area of telephone service.
I assure you, Mr. Speaker, that we are going to be fighting on these general issues of deregulation and corporate concentration and we are going to be looking to see that the consumer is well served in this very important telecommunications matter.


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


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, before resuming debate, I wonder if we could ask the Government what the business of the House will be for tomorrow and what Bills will be considered so that we can prepare ourselves accordingly.


Philip Derek Lewis: Mr. Speaker, it is the intention of the Government to proceed tomorrow with Bill C-14, the Excise Tax Act.




[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Miss MacDonald that Bill C-13, an Act respecting the reorganization of Bell Canada, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, the Bill we are debating today is the same Bill that we dealt with last year, Bill C-19. Bill C-19 was brought forward and debated in the House by the present Conservative Government. Bill C-19 was essentially the same Bill that was brought forward by a previous Government when Francis Fox was the Minister of Communications, which was then Bill C-20. That old saying "The more things change, the more they are the same" applies to Canada and applies to the Liberal and Conservative Parties. When you get down to the real life of how companies operate, particularly large companies and what powers they have and are given, there is no difference between the Liberals and Conservatives.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Don't tell that to Bob Rae.


David Orlikow: We are talking about the federal House. We are not talking about the temporary situation going on in the Province of Ontario.
The principles in this Bill were opposed by a large number of organizations which appeared before the committee last year and which gave evidence in opposition. Bringing in this Bill now demonstrates even more clearly than bringing in the Bill last year that this is just another of the pre-election promises made by the Progressive Conservative Party on which it is reneging.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) before the election told the communications workers, Mr. Speaker, that no major changes would be made in this area of Canadian life until the Government had worked out, brought down and tabled a telecommunications policy. We have yet, despite the fact that the Government has been in office for two years, to see that telecommunications policy. This is another example of ad hockery. In an important facet of Canadian life, the question
October 28, 1986

of telephones and telecommunications, we are permitting a major corporation to set the policy in reality rather than the Government. When the Government does bring down its telecommunications policy, it will find that the horse has been stolen before the Government has shut the barn door.
This Bill will legalize for Bell Canada what Bell Canada has done in recent years, and it will continue to permit Bell Canada to do even more of what it has done. We will see a repeat of what has happened in the last more than 100 years with the CPR.
I remind Members of Parliament that the CPR began as a proposal to build a railway from the Atlantic to the Pacific, to bind this country and the various regions, the then separate provinces and territories, into one country. Because there was not enough private capital to do that-it was too risky for private investors to put their money into building the railway because they were not certain that we would survive as a country or that they would make profits-they were induced, persuaded and cajoled into building the railway by grants by the then Canadian governments and subsequent Canadian governments of hundreds of millions of dollars and millions of acres of land. The railway operation controlled by the CP has been and is regulated.
Members of Parliament, especially those from slow growth areas, know how frequently the CPR has come to the Government of Canada or its regulatory agencies and made the case that it was losing money in the railway business by serving these areas. It received hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies in this way. What the CPR does not say, what it does not want the Canadian people to think about, and what it does not want the regulatory agencies to look at, is that over the years it has expanded. It is no longer simply a railway company. It is now in the real estate business, the forest industry-


John Horton McDermid: So what? What is wrong with that? Don't you like successful Canadian companies?


David Orlikow: I wish the Hon. Member would wait until I am finished. I would be very happy to answer any questions he may care to put. If he will listen for a couple of more minutes he will understand the point I am making.
CPR is in the forest industry, the real estate business and the mining business. How did that come about? It came about because of the land grants it got as a sweetener for building the railway. Those companies which the CPR controls, and there are dozens of them, are not regulated. The profits from those companies belong to CPR shareholders. The company does not want the people of Canada or our regulatory agencies to look at those profits which were based on the original land grants given to it by the Government of Canada. The company wants the people of Canada to look only at the railway operation which it says is losing money at this time. That is how it gets the subsidies.
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That is precisely what Bell Canada proposes to do, will do and has already done to a certain extent, if we pass this Bill. Bell Canada was established to provide telephone service, as it does for almost all of the people and businesses in Quebec, Ontario and the Northwest Territories. Because it is a monopoly the rates are set after careful consideration by the regulatory agency, the CRTC. The profits Bell has made over the years have allowed it to grow to be one of the largest corporations in this country. Those profits accumulated from the monthly charges paid by subscribers, residential and business.
Bell used those profits to develop Northern Telecom, which has been an extremely aggressive company. It is one of the few companies in Canada to do a substantial amount of research. Yet Bell Canada has not been satisfied simply to control Northern Telecom. There is some rationale to this because Northern Telecom has developed products associated with the telecommunications industry. However, what Bell has done recently, and what it will be able to do even more successfully if and when we pass this Bill, is to spin off a whole series of companies which have no relationship to the telecommunications industry.
Let me just mention a few of the companies Bell now controls. It controls TransCanada PipeLines, Daon Development, one of the largest real estate developers in western Canada, and British American Bank Note Company. It purchased a year or so ago a large printing company in the U.S., Case-Hoyt. It purchased Comae Communications, Alphatex, and controls Ronalds Federated Ltd. Bell International is operating in Great Britain where it has made it very clear that it wants to do so without a union. We have to ask ourselves who benefits from this rapid growth of this giant conglomerate? It may be the shareholders who benefit, but what benefit is there to ordinary Canadians, particularly those who live in Ontario, Quebec and the Northwest Territories? It is their monthly payment for telephone services which enabled Bell to amass large profits and take control of these companies I have mentioned, and many more.
We have a right to ask Bell, and possibly other conglomerates if we have the opportunity, to answer some questions. Let me list some of the questions I think Bell should be asked to answer when it appears before the committee dealing with this Bill. We should get a list of the companies in which Bell has an equity position that gives it effective control of the company. When were those companies acquired? What was the price paid? What were the benefits to the company which led it to make these acquisitions? In other words, what were the tax benefits? We know, for example, that when Olympia & York took over Gulf Canada it used what has been described as the little Egypt bump and was able to avoid paying taxes of $500 million. What benefit does Bell get when it makes these acquisitions? What benefits were paid to senior officers of the acquired companies?

October 28, 1986
Business of the House
How many employees were there in each of these companies before Bell took them over and how many employees are there now? I think that we will find that while these acquisitions may bring substantial benefits to the officers and shareholders of Bell, they bring very little benefit, if any, to Canadians. They usually lead to the retention of less employees.
Bell has a good record of research efforts, in particular by Northern Telecom. We should ask Bell how much money was allocated by each of these companies for research and development before the takeover and how much has been allocated for it since Bell took them over. We ought to ask if there has been any reduction in the cost of production. In other words, did the acquisition make these companies more efficient and competitive? We are told every day of the week that we must become more efficient and competitive. We should ask whether there were any reductions in the cost to the consumer as a result of the takeover. These are all questions which we ought to ask because Bell has reached its present position and made its profits because of the money it received from the subscribers in Ontario, Quebec and the Northwest Territories.
Let us examine one of the companies in order to answer, at least in a small way, some of the questions which must be answered. In many ways Northern Telecom is a fine company. It probably puts as much effort into research and development as does any company in the country. It has grown rapidly as have its profits. I want Members of Parliament to consider that from 1976 to 1980 employment by Northern Telecom in Canada dropped but employment by a Northern Telecom subsidiary in the United States grew from 3,000 to almost
19,000.
Bell Canada received very substantial grants for its research programs. We recognize the tremendous improvements it has been able to make. However, what benefit is there for the people of Canada if the workforce of Northern Telecom increases in the United States, Great Britain and Turkey? Through the tax system and subscription charges the people of Canada have enabled Bell Canada to grow. I say that the people of Canada should benefit rather than only the shareholders of Bell Canada.
I would like to point out another thing which bothers me about Bell. The profits of Bell grew from $555 million in 1981 to $829 million in 1983. That is an increase of 40 per cent in two years. However, Bell Canada did not pay any corporation taxes in those years. In fact, it has accumulated a deferred tax account of $1.5 billion.
Before we give Bell Canada the blank cheque which we will by passing this Bill we ought to be able to ask it a host of questions. Before we permit this Bill to receive third reading or Royal Assent, the New Democratic Party will insist that Bell Canada answer a lot of questions. We will insist that Bell Canada come clean and show us that the people of Canada will benefit from this rather than only the shareholders of Bell Canada.


Lynn McDonald: Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a couple of questions to the Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) who has a longstanding interest in this subject and worked on the previous Bill C-19. He will have noted that there is very little difference between that Bill and the present Bill C-13.
In his remarks the Member made a number of comparisons between CPR and Bell Canada and spent quite a bit of time discussing the effect of the recent employment trends within a Bell Canada subsidiary and the effect on Canadian research and development.
Would the Member now give us his views on what the effect of this reorganization will be on workers in the telephone industry and on consumers?


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, we know what is happening in the telecommunications industry. For quite a number of years we have seen, at an accelerating pace, automation, computerization and mechanization. Work which was previously done by thousands of workers is now done by very few. When one phones Information for a number in most cities of the United States, you get a recording rather than an operator looking for the number because the whole system has been automated. Therefore, there will be many less workers than before. That is a problem facing all workers in the telecommunications industry as well as in many other industries.
With regard to the subscribers, if Bell can hive off more and more of the companies which it controls which are not in the telecommunications area, there will be no regulatory agency which will have authority to monitor the profits made by those companies. The regulatory agency will be restricted to the telecommunications business. I have already mentioned the CPR as a classic example of how a company can, through creative auditing, ensure that the consumer pays through the nose while the company laughs all the way to the bank with the profits it makes from the companies it has acquired which are non-regulated.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Philip Derek Lewis: Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of the House I wish to point out that in the event that Bill C-13 is passed before six o'clock, tomorrow we will start with Bill C-14. However, in the event that Bill C-13 does not pass the House before six o'clock, we will carry on debate with Bill C-13 tomorrow and then go to Bill C-14.
October 28, 1986



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 66 deemed to have been moved

Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, on October 9 of this year, I put a question to the Minister responsible for Official Languages (Mr. Crombie), asking him when the Government would table its Bill to amend the Official Languages Act. In his reply, and I quote from Hansard, at page 243, the Minister said:
-that Bill will be coming in due course.
Mr. Speaker, now that the Official Languages Act is about to be revised for the first time in seventeen years, I may say that I am concerned about the Government's delay in producing these changes. I am anxious to see some action on the matter and have these important amendments introduced.
Mr. Speaker, since the fall of 1984 we have witnessed the betrayal-perhaps too harsh a word-of election promises, promises that were not kept. We have seen budget cuts and personnel cuts, and we have yet to see much in the way of positive action. I urge the Government to introduce its amendments so that we can publicly reassure those Canadians to whom official languages are an important issue.
If we take a careful look at the promises in the 1984 Throne Speech, we find that in 1986, in this Government's second Throne Speech, our language laws are something of an illusion for this Government. Mr. Speaker, I would like to read, and I shall quote verbatim from the 1984 Throne Speech: "supporting official language minorities and in fostering the rich multicultural character of Canada. My Government is committed to or . . . ensuring that the equality of the two official languages-so vital to our national character and identity-is respected in fact as it is in law." That was in 1984.
Mr. Speaker, this promise was assessed as follows, two years later, on September 4, 1986, in an editorial in the Montreal Gazette, and I quote:
"It did", that is the Throne Speech, "promise a fairer deal for language minorities. It has not kept that promise".

And now, Mr. Speaker, in 1986, the Government has announced amendments to the Official Languages Act, to bring it into line with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. After two years of doing nothing, the matter is brought up again. The 1986 Throne Speech says, and I quote: "Official bilingualism is an indispensable feature of our national character. Seventeen years after its enactment, Canada's Official Languages Act now needs to be revised.
Adjournment Debate
Appropriate legislation will be introduced in this Session to ensure, as well, that this Act conforms with the Canadian Charter of Rights."
Mr. Speaker, after two years of seeing the false hopes created across this country, and I know wherof I speak, because I belong to one of Canada's diasporas, a minority language group that is trying to put teeth into this legislation and that cherished the hope of seeing some serious amendments considered in this House. It seems, Mr. Speaker, that once again, the Government has made much ado about nothing, or if that is too tame for my constituents, a Conservative dinosaur has laid a figurative egg, because for us, a Conservative is a dinosaur. What can I say? That's what they do, and they don't have much to show for it.
Mr. Speaker, I don't think there is anything to get upset about, but there is cause for concern because this is not the first time the subject has come up in the House. There was a report from the Standing Committee on Official Languages, which studies such matters regularly, a report tabled a while ago, which contains all the changes required to bring the legislation into line, to update it and give it teeth.
Perhaps I may recall what those recommendations are. And if the Conservative Government is at all responsible, it will take the plunge and introduce those promised amendments.
First of all, the Official Languages Act must be amended to clearly establish its declaratory and executory nature. Mr. Speaker, I have talked about this in the House many times. I think it is pretty clear what this means. Let us give this legislation, in addition to its declaratory role, the executory powers requested by the courts.
Second, the Government could introduce as Government Bills, if it so wishes, and I wouldn't mind at all, two Bills, namely Bill C-223, an Act to amend the Official Languages Act and give it primacy over all other Acts of Parliament, and Bill C-225, another Act to amend the Official Languages Act, this time with respect to the institutions of Parliament, the purpose being to make the Act apply expressly to parliamentary institutions, in other words, the House of Commons, the Library of Parliament and the Senate, which, according to a century-old rule, are not bound by statutes of general application unless these include specific provisions to that effect.
Mr. Speaker, I would recommend this Bill as required reading for certain Conservative Members, because I think it would be a good thing to have this legislation apply to Parliament.
Mr. Speaker, Parliament could put teeth into the Official Languages Act and give it the same powers as Section 24 of the Constitution, powers to provide redress in cases where its provisions are not observed, which means giving Canadians the right to go before the courts and state that there has been an infringement of their language rights. I think that is a very responsible recommendation.

October 28, 1986
Adjournment Debate
Mr. Speaker, there is a lot I would like to say, but I know you are going to interrupt me, so I would urge the Government to take action and do so as soon as possible.


Mr. Vincent Della Noce (Parliamentary Secretary to Secretary of State and Minister Responsible for Multicultur-alism):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak on an issue of great interest to me, as it is to the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier) who has often mentioned the subject over the past few months when we had the privilege of sitting on the same committee. However I can see now he has just realized that we have official languages in Canada, although he has been here a lot longer than we have. The Liberals have been debating the issue for a long time, but just because we have worked together for a year and a half and discussed the problem it would seem they have come to the conclusion that we Conservatives are dinosaurs. Perhaps they were riding a flying saucer. We could not even see them. Well, some things do seem a lot easier when viewed from the Opposition side, but there was so much work to do that perhaps a few things were left out.
The interest expressed by the Hon. Member for Ottawa- Vanier in the two official languages of Canada is shared by quite a few Canadians. One thing for sure is that the matter of official languages is one of the priorities of this Government, as evidenced in the Speech from the Throne delivered earlier this month. In this policy statement the Government did promise to introduce in this session a Bill specifically aimed at ensuring that the Official Languages Act is consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Mr. Speaker, this commitment happens to be a major element of our Government's dedication to national reconciliation.
Mr. Speaker, this Government considers that the equality of our two official languages is a basic aspect of our national identity. When we came into office we said we would make sure that the equality of both official languages would be respected both in fact and in law. This is an important commitment and we take it seriously. There is no doubt that Canada's linguistic duality is gaining ever wider recognition. Witness the fact that New Brunswick has become officially bilingual. Witness the fact that Ontario has made a lot of progress with respect to services in French, and the provincial administration expects to push further along this line. We can also see encouraging signs of linguistic co-operation in Quebec. As far as the West is concerned, French immersion for anglophone pupils is increasing at a rate of 15 per cent annually.
All this is very encouraging in terms of national reconciliation. However, there are still challenges to meet. We must strengthen language minority groups faced with the spectre of assimilation. We must also strengthen the Official Languages Act, Mr. Speaker, which has been in existence for seventeen years. Finally, we must find new modes of co-operation among
the various sectors of our society, to promote our two official languages.
Mr. Speaker, as the Secretary of State (Mr. Crombie) mentioned previously in his answer to a question put by the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier, the Minister of Justice (Mr. Hnatyshyn) at an early date during this session intends to propose some important amendments to the Official Languages Act and its application in the case of federal institutions.
I have good reason to believe that the Hon. Member, the House and the entire country will be very pleased with the scope of this renewal of our commitment to Canada's official languages.


MULTICULTURALISM-CANADIAN MULTICULTURALISM COUNCIL-REQUEST FOR RESIGNATION OF VICE-CHAIRMAN. (B) REQUEST FOR INVESTIGATION
Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to review a question I asked of the Minister of State responsible for multiculturalism last Tuesday during Question Period. My question concerned the leak of the confidential report of one Peter McCreath who happens to be the ViceChairman of the Canadian Multiculturalism Council. The confidential report basically admitted without any shame that the Council should be used as a very partisan vehicle and should be committed fully to the Conservative Party of Canada.
On that day, I asked the Minister during Question Period if he would comment on that report and do the honourable thing by asking the Vice-Chairman to relinquish his duties on the Council pending a full review. The Minister's response was that he had neither seen nor read the report. That was fine. I accepted the answer and took it at its face value.
This afternoon, I asked the Minister the same question again. He has had the report for a full week. His Parliamentary Secretary got a copy of that report from me for the Minister. This afternoon, the Minister refused to comment on the document. He refused to put distance between the document and the Government. He refused to suggest that what was said in that report was dead wrong and that he would not have any part in it. Instead, he simply chose to say that he would be meeting with the Council and that I and other members of the standing committee will have that opportunity. That response was completely inadequate.
The Council has been crippled and is hobbling because of statements made by its own Vice-Chairman. No Canadian will take this Council seriously. If the Government feels that the reputation, integrity and credibility of the Council should be restored and if the Council is to play any useful role whatsoever in advancing and enhancing the cause of ethnocultural communities across the country, then the Government has an
October 28, 1986

obligation to act. It has an obligation to tell the Vice-Chairman that what is purported in the document is dead wrong and that the Government will not have any part in it. The Government should tell the Vice-Chairman that the consequence of advocating that position is to be relieved from his duties on that Council. That is the very least for which Canadians are asking the Minister. As well, the mandate and operation of the Council should be submitted to a review so that the Council and its members which have been put under attack by the existence of the McCreath report may be vindicated and their credibiliity and confidence restored.
To date, the Minister has refused to act. He takes it as some kind of a joke. He simply throws it back to us in a light and humorous way. I would suggest that that is not the way to approach serious business in this House. It is a stonewalling tactic that will work against the Government. It is the same stonewalling tactic that was used in the events leading up to the Parker Commission, a tactic that is now backfiring badly on the Government.
It is no wonder that the ethnocultural Gallup poll conducted by Multifax Communications Corp. of Toronto, a research company that is dedicated to ethnocultural communication and research, showed the results it did. It asked three ethnocultural communities in Toronto what would be the results of an election if it were to be held tomorrow.
It is no wonder that within the Italian-Canadian community, the Liberal Party has the support of 39.5 per cent while the Conservative Party has the support of 3 per cent. It is no wonder that 34.5 per cent of Chinese-Canadians support the Liberal Party while 5.4 per cent support the Conservative Party. Forty-one point three per cent of the Portuguese-Canadian community are committed to the Liberal Party while 5 per cent are committed to the Conservative Party. The Indo-Pakistani community in Toronto is in support of the Liberal Party to the tune of 46.3 per cent while only 5 per cent support the Conservative Party.
I am not advocating that we as Liberals should be taking advantage of these numbers, nor rest on our laurels. We have to continuously build on this base and ask for the continued support of these Canadians in the various constituencies. The message should be loud and clear to the Parliamentary Secretary, the Minister, and to the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney), who takes great pleasure in going into Montreal and annoucing all sorts of great things for the ethnocultural communities, that those communities are not satisfied, pleased, or happy with the policy thrust and directions of this Government. They are not pleased with simply laughing at the McCreath report. They are not pleased with the laughter at the subcommittee of the Tory caucus in Toronto which suggests manipulating the immigration and multicultural programs to the benefit of the Conservative Party.
The only people who are laughing are the Conservative Party members. That simply is not good enough for those
Adjournment Debate
Canadians. Those Canadians are simply saying, by these numbers as one example, that the Act has to be cleaned up and the action and the rhetoric has to stop. I am looking forward to the great wisdom of the Parliamentary Secretary to tell us if we are going to get the resignation of Mr. McCreath, and whether we are going to get the review that Canadians are asking for, or whether we are simply going to get another answer of stonewalling and further undermine the figures that will probably be coming out next month.


Vincent Della Noce: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for York West (Mr. Marchi) has demanded an immediate inquiry into the activities of the Canadian Multiculturalism Council, to restore the credibility and integrity of this national advisory body. The Hon. Member is spreading panic and confusion, misrepresenting the facts and sowing the seeds of doubt among our ethnic communities.
The Government does not share the Hon. Member's view that the credibility of the Council is at stake, nor does it share his perception of the vice-president.
If the CMC's mandate has remained basically the same since the organization was created as the Canadian Advisory Council on Multiculturalism in 1973, its structure has undergone several changes since that time, for the greater benefit of all groups, irrespective of their political affiliation. The Government intends to maintain the Council as an independent source of advice for the Minister and ensure that its members represent a cross section of Canada's ethnocultural communities.
The Hon. Member for York West has concluded that the Canadian Advisory Council on Multiculturalism is nothing more than an extension of the Canadian Conservative Party. I gave him evidence to the contrary on October 20 of this year, and I may refer him to Hansard at page 546. If he insists, I can give him some details on the ethnic community in Montreal to which I belong.
In any case, it is not the view of this Government, which sees the Council as a group of experts from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds and representing various professions. In the category of professionals, the Council includes a university administrator, a restaurant owner, a chemist, a physician, an engineer, an oil rig operator, an architect, an artist and a housewife. These people were chosen for their ability to use their own experience, their interests and their wisdom in the area of multiculturalism.
The Government will review the membership of the Council to ensure that it has at its disposal a vast spectrum of abilities. There is no need to re-establish the credibility and the integrity of the Council as they were never lost. It is simply a matter of respecting fully the principles and ideals of multiculturalism, which are so important for the government.

October 28, 1986
Adjournment Debate
Mr. Speaker, all the criticisms of my colleague deal with a situation which was exactly the same under the Liberal Party before the election of the Conservatives in 1984. In an organization where the Government had spent enormous amounts of money, there was even a prohibition against campaigning for Conservative candidates, but not for the Liberals. Is this Liberal justice? Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for York West does not have the real version of the facts. However, he is new here and he will learn.


HUMAN RIGHTS-VIOLATIONS IN U.S.S.R.
Mr. Andrew Witer (Parkdale-High Park):: Mr. Speaker, on November 4, the review of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe opens in Vienna. The Vienna CSCE review will assess compliance with all aspects of the Helsinki Final Act by the 35 signatory states and, further, will consider any new commitments the signatories may wish to undertake.
I thank the Minister for his comments in reply to my question in the House last week regarding the review. I am pleased with his assurance that Canada will continue to press the U.S.S.R. for compliance with the accords.
This month my colleagues in the Parliaments of France, the United States, Italy, the Federal Republic of Germany, the United Kingdom, Austria, and other countries are taking part in a co-ordinated effort by the International Parliamentary Group for Human Rights in the Soviet Union to focus attention on Soviet performance in respect of human rights agreements. One of the most basic of those rights is freedom of religious practice. A summary of the reality of religious life in Soviet-dominated nations quickly leads one to understand the importance of Canada and other countries taking a firm position on the issue.
Under Basket 1, Principal VI1 of the Helsinki Final Act, the Soviet Union pledged to "recognize and respect the freedom of the individual to profess and practice, alone or in community with others, religion or belief acting in accordance with the dictates of his own conscience". The reality is that the U.S.S.R. attempts to control all facets of religious life and to discourage belief among its citizens.
There are approximately 100 million religious believers in the Soviet Union representing major world religions, yet the only religious activity officially recognized by the Soviet Constitution is the freedom to conduct religious ceremonies in officially registered churches. The constitutionally guaranteed separation of church and state is interpreted to mean that the church has no say in state matters. However, the state retains total control over religious life through the Council for Religious Affairs, a government watch-dog body. The state maintains control over places of worship by enforcing registration requirements. All religious leaders and literature must be approved by the state, and access to seminaries is strictly limited. There is an absolute ban on religious education and
charitable and relief works by religious communities. Believers are widely discriminated against in education, employment, and housing. Moreover, whole denominations such as the Uniate or Ukrainian Catholic Church and Jehovah's Witnesses are outlawed.
Individuals who are tried and imprisoned for their religious activities are charged under articles of the Criminal Code, an example being a charge of anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda or slandering of the Soviet state. This allows Soviet officials to claim that no one in the Soviet Union is imprisoned for religious beliefs. Recently new Soviet legislation was introduced which made it possible to rearrest prisoners just prior to the date of their release, thus "legally" extending their sentences. In 1986, prisoners such as Sergei Khordorovich and Nikolai Baturin were rearrested just prior to the date of their release. Baturin is now serving his third consecutive sentence in a labour camp. The number of people imprisoned for religious activities has nearly doubled since 1979. These prisoners of conscience are incarcerated in prisons, labour camps, and psychiatric hospitals.
The Minister asked me to advise him of any particular examples of violations of religious freedom which I would like to see raised in Vienna. The unconscionable suppression of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the U.S.S.R. is a primary case in point. The church has some four million followers, yet it has been outlawed and forced to become part of the Russian Orthodox Church which is under state control. Despite harsh repression and persecution, the Catholic Church in Ukraine is still active underground.
The late Cardinal Slipyj, the Church's legendary head, spent 18 years in labour camps before being allowed to leave the country. Not long ago, Josyp Terelya, was sentenced to 12 years of imprisonment. He has already spent a total of 18 years in prison for his religious activities.
The treatment of the Ukrainian Catholic Church under the Soviet Government is a clear violation of the Helsinki agreements. I will be pleased to supply the Minister with specific cases and names of individuals who have been imprisoned as a result of Soviet policy.
My colleagues in IPG and I believe that religious freedom and other issues in Soviet human rights performance must remain squarely on the agenda at the Vienna Review Conference. The democratic signatories to the Helsinki Final Act must strengthen their support for human rights in the Soviet Union. Further, the democracies must insist that there be balanced progress in all areas.
Any new agreements in military, security and economic relations reached in Vienna must be accompanied by similar accords in human rights and by guarantees of performance under existing agreements. Suppression of religion, and discrimination against individuals following their conscience in defiance of dictates of the Soviet state are well documented,
October 28, 1986

particularly oppression of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. Action must be taken to effect real change. I ask the Minister's undertaking that these matters be raised in Vienna by the Minister and the Canadian delegation.


Mr. Jean-Guy Hudon (Parliamentary Secretary to Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, the third follow-up meeting to the Conference on Security and Cooperation will begin on November 4 in Vienna, and all the elements of the conference process will be on the agenda, that is military security, economic cooperation, human rights and humanitarian cooperation. The participants will examine the extent to which existing commitments will be or have been kept and will analyse the proposals for making new progress.
Canada will first of all try to ensure that the Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries substantially improve their performance in fulfilling their commitments under the Final Act of Helsinki and the Closing Document of the Madrid Conference, especially as concerns human rights and humanitarian cooperation.
Mr. Speaker, we shall be frank in criticizing the countries with a performance under all reasonable standards, but we shall certainly underline the sincere efforts made by other countries, even if the results do not meet our expectations perfectly.
We will follow a constructive approach, Mr. Speaker, but as in the past we will continue to insist strongly on the fact that commitments which have been made must be respected, and that sustained progress through stricter compliance with the provisions of the Final Act is an essential prerequisite to the
Adjournment Debate
establishment of a climate of confidence vital for the improvement of East-West relations.
In so far as practicable, we would also like to achieve balanced progress in all fields covered by the Final Act. We take heart in the resounding success of the Stockholm conference on confidence-building measures and certain aspects of security and disarmament in Europe. We are now considering ways of making the best of it.
In the field of economics we are striving to promote trade as well as industrial and environmental co-operation. Since we are dealing with human rights and humanitarian co-operation, we deeply regret the fact that recent meetings of so-called experts-including the one on human rights held here in Ottawa-were unable to produce final documents because of the systematic opposition of eastern countries or their token concessions.
Because we do have sound information and given the positions agreed to by western countries during previous meetings, when next we convene in Vienna we will continue to insist on the fact that, if we want to restore lasting security in Europe, improvements in economic and military sectors will have to be matched with progress in the field of human rights, including minority rights and religious freedoms, human contacts and reunification of families, as well as other important measures designed to improve the circulation of people, ideas and information.


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 3(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.30 p.m.
[Stage Direction]

Wednesday, October 29, 1986