1987-03-30

Mr. Doug Lewis (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 106(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the Government's response to 92 petitions, numbered as follows: 332-1056 to 332-1093, inclusive, and 332-1131 to 332-1184, inclusive.



EDUCATION


Hon. David Crombie (Secretary of State of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to inform the House that the National Forum on Post-Secondary Education will be held in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, from October 25 to October 28. The aim of the forum will be to explore the challenges and opportunities facing Canada's universities and colleges in preparation for the 1990s and the 21st century. Learning is a lifelong process and our institutions must become flexible enough to respond to the differing needs of the 45-year old executive, the 65-year old pensioner, and the 18-year old student fresh from high school. These are formidable challenges and demand the utmost from all involved in postsecondary education.

This Forum will not be a federal event, a provincial event, or even a federal-provincial event. It will be an historic occasion for discussion among informed and concerned Canadians. The role of the governments here is to facilitate such discussions and respond to the issues and concerns that are raised.

The planning of the forum will be in the hands of a national committee, a group of eminent and respected Canadians from across the country. I am pleased to announce today, together with the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Education, the Hon. Anthony Brummet, the names of those who will be responsible for organizing the event.
Chairing the National Forum Committee will be Dr. Brian Segal, President of Ryerson Polytechnical Institute. He will be supported by two vice-chairpersons: Dr. Jean-Guy Paquet, Rector of Laval University; and Dr. Sylvia Fedoruk, Chancellor of the University of Saskatchewan. The remaining persons on the steering committee include: Jill Bodkin, Chairman, British Columbia Securities Commission; Adrienne Clarkson, President and Publisher of McClelland and Stewart Publishers; John Evans, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Allelix Incorporated; Paul Gallagher, President of Vancouver Community College; Claude Pichette, President, Societe d'entraide economique du Quebec, the Hon. Robert L. Stanfield, Chairman, Institute for Research on Public Policy; Genevieve Tanguay, student at Laval University; Ronald Watts, Professor, Political Science, Queen's University; Noel Stoodley, the Canadian Labour Congress.

The complete list of members of the National Forum Committee, which we are releasing today, includes Canadians from all walks of life: students, teachers and administrators from the academic community, and representatives of business, labour, and other interested groups.

It may well be advisable that I read the list of those who are going to participate because it shows the breadth, depth, and importance of this National Forum. They include: Lise Bisson-nette, journalist, Quebec City; Gina Blondin, school teacher and graduate student, University of British Columbia, from the Northwest Territories; Paul Davenport, Vice-Principal, Planning and Computer Services, McGill University; Ronald Duhamel, Professor of Educational Administration, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg; William Dunbar, Vice-President and General Manager, NorthwesTel; Gilbert Finn, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Assumption Mutual Life Insurance Company, Moncton; Graham Flack, student, Dalhousie University, Halifax; Paul Gallagher, President, Vancouver Community College; Therese Gouin-Decarie, Professor of Psychology, University of Montreal, Montreal; Ray Hainsworth, Comptroller, Ontario Workers' Occupational and Safety Health Centre; Paul Inchauspe, Director General,

March 30, 1987
Statements by Ministers
CEGEP Ahuntsic; Linda Inkpen, member of the Board of Directors of the Cabot Institute in St. John's, Newfoundland; Anthony Johnstone, Executive Director, Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission; Gordin Kaplan, Professor of Biochemistry and Vice-President, Research, University of Alberta; Muriel Kovitz, Chancellor, University of Calgary; Ian MacDonald, Director of Extension and Summer School, University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown; Tony Macerollo, Chairman, Canadian Federation of Students, Ottawa; Andrew MacKay, Ombudsman, Province of Nova Scotia; Colin MacKay, former President, University of New Brunswick; John Panabaker, Chairman, Mutual Life of Canada, Waterloo; Charles Pascal, President, Sir Stanford Fleming Community College, Peterborough; Frank Smith, Co-ordinator, National Educational Association of Disabled Students, Ottawa; Ahab Spence, Teacher of Cree and Indian Studies, University of Regina; John Stoik, former Chief Executive Officer, Gulf Oil Canada, Saskatchewan; David Strangway, President, University of British Columbia, Vancouver; Edward K. Turner, Executive Director, Prairie Pools Inc., Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, Regina; Dorothy Wills, teacher, Vanier College; and Claudia Wright, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Winnipeg.
[DOT] (mo)
I read the entire list because it is important that people understand the representativeness and excellence of the group which will carry on the National Forum.
Members of the House will recall that in the Speech from the Throne last October the Government reaffirmed its commitment to supporting, with the provinces, a system of post-secondary education based on excellence and equality of opportunity. At that time we proposed that a national forum on post-secondary education would be convened to provide the opportunity for a full discussion of the challenges and opportunities facing our colleges and universities as we approach the 21st century.

Following the speech from the Throne, I undertook extensive consultations. In particular, I met individually with most provincial Ministers responsible for post-secondary education and, on February 2, I met with the full Council of Ministers of Education.

Everywhere I went I discovered widespread support for the forum and I was particularly pleased that the Council of Ministers of Education agreed to co-sponsor the event. I have also received numerous letters of support for the forum and expressions of interest from individuals and groups right across the country. Everyone wants to avoid the forum being simply a replay of some of the sterile debates we have had in this country about the specifics of post-secondary education financing arrangements. The forum is a much-needed opportunity for dialogue and co-operation among all sectors of our
society; government, business, scientists, educators and young people.

I see the forum also as an occasion for the federal Government to show leadership in the critical area of higher education and university research. I don't mean a leadership based on control and supervision-which inevitably leads to confrontation and discord-but one which was defined so well by the Honourable Claude Ryan in a 1984 conference on federal-provincial issues; "A leadership of inspiration, encouragement, and support."

The forum will enable us to look to the future with a broader vision, to examine the issues and opportunities facing our universities and colleges, and to help make us ready for the challenges of the next century.
To quote the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) in a recent address to the University of Waterloo on the topic of research and development;
The western world is moving toward knowledge-based economics, and Canada must move with it. We want to be known not only as a resource-rich nation, not only as a trading nation, but as a nation known for our brainpower, our ideas, and our intellectual and educational achievements. The issue is no less fundamental than how Canada will earn a living in the 1990s and beyond



The forum will help all Canadians appreciate the challenges facing our post-secondary system in the years ahead. We now have the organizational framework for the forum in place.

I am confident that the co-operative approach we have established will produce a very successful event and contribute to making our post-secondary education system one of the best in the world.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Hon. William Rompkey (Grand Falls-White Bay- Labrador):: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Minister for sending me a copy of his statement in advance. Along with all Hon. Members and all Canadians, I am pleased that this forum is going ahead about a year after it was mentioned in the Throne Speech. I believe that the Minister has put together a blue-ribbon steering committee. There is some balance on that committee, certainly in the male-female ratio, but I would point out to him the absence on the steering committee of a member of the Canadian Federation of Students. The President is on the committee, but not on the steering committee. Students, whose fate is most involved and whose future is most at risk, should be on the steering committee itself rather than only on the committee. I make that suggestion to the Minister.
The Minister said in his statement that he wants a positive, wide-ranging and national dialogue rather than only a federal-provincial dialogue. I think that is important. He also said that he does not want a repeat of the sterile debate on financing.
March 30, 1987

However, that is surely fundamental to a healthy system of post-secondary education. Apropos of that, I want to draw to his attention an article from The Sunday Express from Newfoundland this weekend which draws attention very graphically to a real crisis in post-secondary education. The headline reads, "Memorial University in Crisis". The article reads:
Mortar is oozing out from between the bricks on several buildings around campus. Buckets catch water dripping in an underground tunnel system that is not properly maintained. Department heads this year requested $4.2 million in funding for 125 teaching positions. Of the 125, zero was authorized.
I could go on. The President of the University did not want to go public but was forced to talk about a real crisis in postsecondary education with regard to the maintenance of buildings, the number of students, and the kind of support they are getting.
I would like to draw to the attention of the Minister two other events which show that this problem is not confined to Atlantic Canada. The University of Regina was told on the weekend that it was receiving a zero per cent increase in funding this year and that it has to retire its deficit of $6 million over the next four years. At Carleton University a referendum is taking place today on whether there should be a $15 increase in the annual student fees from now on to provide for the construction of buildings and repairs to the campus. Carleton University is not one of the poorest universities in a province which is not one of the poorest in the country.
I believe that these examples illustrate graphically that there is a serious crisis all across the country, not only in national policy but indeed in funding. We can construct a vehicle, but if we do not have gas in the tank of the vehicle it will not go anywhere. EPF and Canada student loans must be on the agenda for that forum.
It is important that we have this debate at the same time as the child care issue and proposals for it are coming forward. Women are the most disadvantaged in the country in terms of access to post-secondary education. We recognize that child care is important as well and we will have a debate on that issue. However, if women are really going to achieve equality it is important to have access to improved education. That is fundamental to the achievement of equality for women. That should be highlighted at this discussion in the forum on postsecondary education. Women must be involved and their particular case must be put forward.
I do not want to give the impression that I feel negatively in any way about this forum because I think it is a good initiative, one which we have called for for the past two years. However, I want to ask what the follow-up to this forum will be. That is very important. We can have a three-day forum of learned discussion as the beginning of a national debate on post-secondary education, but it is what happens the day after which is important. I hope the Minister can give a commitment that after that forum the Government will listen and seriously consider the recommendations of that forum and make a commitment to follow up. I would like to hear the
Statements by Ministers
Minister say he is hopeful about establishing an ongoing permanent national advisory council on post-secondary education.
A three-day forum will not be enough. Canadians must build on that three-day forum and indeed create a policy that is not federal or provincial, but a national policy on postsecondary education. Such a policy requires continuous administration.
I welcome the leadership the Minister is showing this morning and the fact that he has also brought the provinces into this initiative. Indeed, I believe some provinces, such as Quebec and Ontario, have shown leadership themselves. Ontario has shown leadership recently with its announcement of an increase in funding and its initiatives toward postsecondary education. The Minister will know that many other provinces still have much to do in order to have a total consensus about what must be done in post-secondary education in this country.
Therefore, while I welcome the announcement today, I want to repeat those three points. First, students must be involved at the top level in planning for this forum; second, the agenda must include the funding of post-secondary education in the future; and third, there must a commitment to follow up.


Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-Walkerville):: Mr. Speaker, the university system is in crisis, just as science, research and technology has been in crisis for the last several years. The Government has done very little in either area.
When faced with the crisis of a deterioration in research, science and technology and innovation, the Government held a forum. The appropriate reaction was that at least it is doing something, however little. Now, we will have a forum on postsecondary education. Again, the appropriate response is that at least the Government is doing something.
When faced with concern about the post-secondary educational system and education in general in the United States, the President formed a commission and the Carnegie Foundation conducted an investigation which led to considerable reform and increased financing in many states in the U.S. But we will have a forum.
Many of the provinces have conducted Royal commissions on post-secondary education, all of which have identified a deterioration in the state of our universities in many provinces and stated that reform was necessary if the system was not to deteriorate to the point where it would serve no national or provincial purpose. But we will have a forum.
Leaders in industry, academia, and students all across this land have sounded the cry of alarm about the failure of governments, both provincial and federal, to recognize the importance of the university for our future economic development and opportunities for our youth. But the federal Government is going to have a forum.

March 30, 1987
Committee Reports
Everyone who is interested in universities has condemned the federal Government for cutting back on the rate of increase in transfer payments for the funding of universities. They have indicated that there clearly is an urgent need for the federal and provincial Governments to get together and to establish their respective responsibilities toward post-secondary education. The need is clear, but the federal Government is going to have a forum.
Many of us have said that an advisory council on postsecondary education must be established. Indeed, such a council should engage in a long-term and continuing study of elementary and secondary education. It must study the needs of post-secondary education and elaborate on the kind of policy that the OECD indicates this country needs desperately. But the Government is going to have a forum and solve all of these problems in three days.
The Canadian Association of University Teachers, the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, and the Canadian Federation of Students and many of those who are interested in post-secondary education and research and science have had repeated forums. They may even welcome another forum as a result of their experience.
A few months ago there was a forum on science, research and technology that was held in Winnipeg. There were five recommendations as a result of that forum, but no action.


Some Hon. Members:: Louder.


Mr. Rodriguez:: You think it is funny over there.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: One cannot speak loud enough to call attention to the utter failure of the Government to respond to the needs of youth and all those who ought to be served by post-secondary education in this country. I will congratulate the Government for holding a forum and at least doing one thing right. Indeed, it has invited representative groups of Canadians to participate in the forum and I give the Government credit for ensuring that there is some degree of representation of women, visible minorities, natives, youth and others.
While that is good, the need has been demonstrated so clearly that the Government should be able to see beyond another forum. Yet there will be another three days of talking about post-secondary education while we wait for the Minister of State for Youth (Mr. Charest) to produce his policy for youth. Part of that policy should include action on the restrictions to accessibility and opportunity in post-secondary institutions in this country. But we will have another forum.
I hope it is a good forum. I hope the Government will listen to what it has been told repeatedly, that it has responsibility for exercising leadership, for full participation in the funding of post-secondary education, and a responsibility to find a solution to the impasse between the federal and provincial levels so there will be a stable level of financing for postsecondary institutions. Perhaps it will realize that it is time to stop having forums and will direct its attention toward
implementing a national advisory council on post-secondary education.
It is interesting to note that the Secretary of State (Mr. Crombie) mentioned the need for increased attention to research in universities and elsewhere. I hope the Government will stop closing laboratories, transferring scientists and playing games with the scientific community, that it will stop holding forums and make a determined effort to improve the situation in this country with respect to science, research and technology.
While we do not need any more forums, the Government may need them because it has failed to appreciate the dimensions of the problem or recognize the solutions to it.



CHILD CARE


Mrs. Shirley Martin (Lincoln):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the final report of the Special Committee on Child Care in both official languages.
It is with great pleasure that I table the report. It represents 15 months of exceptional effort by members of all Parties. It is a report which I believe reflects the views of most Canadian families. It is a report that challenges the Government and its provincial and territorial counterparts, that challenges the child care system, volunteer organizations and, most important, Canadian families. It is a report which offers no simple solutions. It recognizes that no one approach can effectively deal with the unique and diverse needs of Canadians. With this in mind, it is important that the recommendations put forward by this committee be examined as a complete package rather than isolated components.
This report opens many doors. It is now up to all of us to ensure that Canadian children receive the love, encouragement and quality care they so richly deserve.
I would also indicate that the committee, in accordance with Standing Order 99 (2) requests that the Government table a comprehensive report to its recommendations.


PETITIONS
Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege of presenting a petition on behalf of several constituents in my riding, regarding the fact that innovative
March 30, 1987

drug companies will be put in a monopoly position that will preclude competition from less expensive generic drugs, resulting in increased drug prices for the Canadian consumer and making it increasingly difficult for many people to purchase the drugs they need; that the proposed amendments to the Patent Act will have a direct impact on all Canadians who are not covered by public or private health insurance plans; that the Government's proposals will add to the already high cost of provincial health insurance plans; and that the proposed amendments to the Patent Act are one more example of concessions made by the Canadian Government to the United States in the context of free trade negotiations, to the detriment of the average consumer. Therefore, my constituents humbly pray that Parliament reject the proposed amendments that will otherwise increase the price of drugs for Canadians.


Mr. Derek Blackburn (Brant):: Mr. Speaker, I, too, have the pleasure of introducing two petitions this morning, both of which have been certified by the Clerk of Petitions. The first petition is from residents of the Village of St. George, which is in my constituency. The operative clause is, wherefore the undersigned, your petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to instruct the Government to make improved service the highest priority of Canada Post Corporation and to instruct the Government to abandon the policy of closing rural post offices and cancelling rural routes.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: Mr. Speaker, the second petition is also signed by a group of constituents from the St. George area in my constituency and has to do with the generic drug legislation. The operative clause is, wherefore the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon Parliament to reject these proposals which will increase prescription drug prices for Canadians.


Bill Rompkey: Mr. Speaker, I also have the honour to present a petition from several hundred people throughout the riding of Grand Falls-White Bay-Labrador. The petition calls upon the Government to right the wrong done to Newfoundland and Labrador by immediately cancelling the offer which was made to France with regard to the resolution of the fishing rights in the gulf and to immediately seek other means to resolve that dispute.


Bill Rompkey: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition from residents of Red Bay and Capstan Island in Labrador which calls upon Parliament to ensure that no
Order Paper Questions
changes are made to the unemployment insurance regulations or benefits concerning fishermen.


Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg-Birds Hill):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present several petitions signed by petitioners in my constituency who responded to a mail-back in my Householder, in regard to Bill C-22, the Government's proposal to amend the Patent Act and to restrict the ability of average Canadians to buy necessary prescription drugs. These petitioners call upon Parliament to reject these proposals which will increase prescription drug prices for Canadians.
I might say, for the benefit of the Hon. Member for Simcoe North (Mr. Lewis), assistant to the Government House Leader, that these petitions were submitted by myself for certification and are being presented by the same Member who presented them to the Clerk for certification.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition which I have also had certified by the Clerk regarding Bill C-204, which seeks to protect the health of Canadians by restricting the promotion of tobacco and guaranteeing smoke-free air to Canadian workers and travellers. The petitioners call upon Parliament to enact the Non-smokers Health Act, Bill C-204.


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present two petitions dealing with the price of prescription drugs. The first petition is from residents of Halifax, St. Margarets Bay, Ketch Harbour, Bedford, Nova Scotia. The second petition is from residents of Winnipeg, mainly in my constituency. These petitions state that the federal Government's proposal to change the Patent Act relating to prescription drugs will increase drug prices for Canadian consumers and severely restrict the ability of average Canadians to buy necessary prescriptions and, therefore, the petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to reject these proposals which will increase prescription drug prices for Canadians.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Philip Derek Lewis: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 75, 76 and 77.

March 30, 1987
Teleglobe Canada


Mr. Riis: For the period January 1, 1986 to January 1, 1987, did the government authorize permits for the export of any goods falling under section 7 of the Export Control List where the destination of the said goods was (a) Botswana (b) Zambia (c) Zimbabwe (d) Tanzania (e) Angola (/) People's Republic of China (g) South Korea (h) Taiwan (/') Sri Lanka (/') Afghanistan (k) Vietnam (/) Laos (w) People's Republic of Kampuchea (n) Cuba (o) Albania (p) El Salvador (q) Costa Rica (r) Panama and, if so, in each case, what was the total value of these export permits?


Right Hon. Joe Clark (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Permits for the export of goods falling under Section 7 of the Export Control List. For the Period January 1, 1986,
to January 1, 1987.		
Country	Permits Issued	Total Value
(a) Botswana	No	
(b) Zambia	No	
(c) Zimbabwe	Yes	$60(d) Tanzania	Yes	$47,457(e) Angola	No	(f) People's	Yes	$3,183,607Republic of China (all of which, except $333,532 will return to Canada)	(g) South Korea	Yes	$16,149,333(h) Taiwan	No	(i) Sri Lanka	Yes	$272,780(j) Afghanistan	No	(k) Vietnam	No	(1) Laos	No	(m) People's	No	Republic of Kampuchea	(n) Cuba	No	(o) Albania	No	(p) El Salvador	No	(q) Costa Rica	No	(r) Panama	No


Mr. Riis: 
Charles Joseph Clark: Yes, for the period January 1, 1986, to January 1, 1987, export permits were issued for articles of military electronics and lifesaving equipment which fall under the appropriate ECL item numbers. The total value of these authorized exports is $6,112,180, of which a certain percentage is for a temporary export for demonstration purposes.
Details of the specific equipment by ECL number is protected under Section 20,1 b, c, d of the Access to Information Act.


Mr. Heap: What visits by foreign naval vessels to Canadian Great Lakes ports are scheduled for the summer and fall of 1987 and, in each case (a) what is the name and country of the ship (b) what are the dates and ports of visit (c) what is the purpose of the visit (d) under what international agreement will the visit be permitted?


Charles Joseph Clark: At present, no foreign naval vessels are scheduled to visit the Canadian Great Lakes ports during the summer or fall of 1987. Visits of ships on the Great Lakes are governed by existing international agreements including a 35 year old bilateral agreement affecting the Movement of Ships, Troops and Aircraft between Canada and the U.S.A. and a NATO standardization agreement that applies to all member countries.
[ Translation]


Philip Derek Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I would ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I wish to inform the House that because of the Ministerial statement, Government Orders will be extended twenty-four minutes beginning at one o'clock p.m.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Hon. Flora MacDonald (for the Minister of State (Privatization)) moved: that Bill C-38, an Act respecting the reorganization and divestiture of Teleglobe Canada, be read the third time and passed.


Mr. George Baker (Gander-Twiilingate):: Mr. Speaker, I would just like to say a few words on this particular Bill at third reading. Perhaps the question should be asked at third reading why the Government of Canada is selling Teleglobe. Why did it decide to sell Teleglobe at this time? Why did it decide to sell Teleglobe, period? Was there any great reason for its sale? Was it a philosophical reason? Was it a financial reason? Was it that it was competing with private enterprise? As I understand it, the answer to those questions from members of the Government is yes.
March 30, 1987

We are dealing here with a company that actually makes money. It makes incredible profits. One would suspect that when a company makes money and is a monopoly, as has been pointed out by members of the Government, that one would use a bit of arithmetic to try to figure out what such a company is worth to the Canadian taxpayer. Would you, Mr. Speaker, sell for $400 million a company that makes $100 million a year and has a monopoly?


An Hon. Member:: Why not?


George Baker: An Hon. Member sitting on the government benches asks "Why not?" This is a member of the Progressive Conservative Party saying "Why not?" Why not sell a company that makes $100 million for $400 million? That seems to be the financial philosophy of this Government. In other words, for a short term gain before March 31 to deal with the deficit-not the national debt but the deficit-the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) says: "Would it not be lovely to have another $500 million knocked off the deficit for the financial year before we reach March 31?" That is the financial philosophy of the Government of Canada today. It goes from March 31 to March 31 to March 31. There is always a scramble at the end trying to figure out how the deficit can be reduced by x number of dollars. Why? So that it can carry through with the philosophy it espoused during the election campaign.
Where has this philosophy gotten the Government of Canada? When one looks at the national debt of the country one discovers that in the short time that this Government has been in power the debt has climbed more than in any other time in our history. There is no other three-year period in our history in which we can find that the national debt rose at the rate which it has risen under the present Government. It is the highest rise in the national debt, the entire national debt of Canada, that we have ever seen. This includes the accumulated deficits of every Government since Confederation.
The Minister of Finance says that the national debt has risen by one-third since his Government took power. The accumulated deficit since Confederation has risen by 30 per cent since the Government came to power. Why is that? The Government's usual response is that it is because of the previous administration. That is the reason which is always given. The first year in which the Government was in office the deficit was about $37 billion or $38 billion. Members of the Government said that that was due to the previous administration. The next year came along and what was the deficit then? It was about $35 billion, give or take $3 billion or $4 billion. I am not sure of the exact figure. At any rate, members of the Government said it was due to the previous administration. They projected that the deficit would go below $30 billion in the next year. If we look at the publications of the Minister of Finance, including his budget projections and fiscal plans, we see that for two years in a row it was projected that the deficit would go down below $30 billion. What happened after that?
Teleglobe Canada
In the next Budget the Government said it had missed the mark by $4 billion or $5 billion. Members of the Government said, "We are now projecting that it will go down to under $30 billion in the next year". However, next year will come along and they will say, "We were off $4 billion or $5 billion in our projections because of this, that or the other thing, but next year it will go down to less than $30 billion".
There has never been a time in Canadian financial history in which we have had such a disastrous record as far as the deficit is concerned. Yet the Government claims that it is selling Crown corporations because it wants to reduce the deficit and the national debt. Mr. Speaker, I am sure you can recall all the Bills that went through this Chamber in a hurry giving $1 billion here and $1 billion there. Do you remember, Mr. Speaker, when the Government gave $1 billion here and there to foreign banks? Do Hon. Members remember that? Do Hon. Members remember when the Government gave money to rich people, the millionaires, buddies of the Government and friends of cabinet Ministers? Do Hon. Members remember when the banks were bailed out? It did not make much difference at that time that $1 billion was being handed out here and there. Nor did it make much difference at certain other times when there was a real reason for granting such sums of money.
Why then does the Government of Canada come along all of a sudden and say, it is going to sell Teleglobe? I would say that 99 per cent of the people in Canada do not even know what Teleglobe is. Why should they? It is a Crown corporation that handles telecommunications. It does not actually charge for it, it just handles telecommunications, mostly across the Atlantic Ocean. This is a marvellous company which gave the Government of Canada $108.1 million last year and another $80 million this year. Of course, the Government of Canada is now saying that it is up for sale and, in fact, it will sell this company to another company called Memotec, which I believe is the name of the company. At any rate, the chairman of the board is a fellow by the name of Baker. The Government now wishes to sell the company for a song. It will make Memotec the prize of the stock market, just as Fishery Products International was made the prize of the stock market. The same is true with respect to other sales that the Minister responsible has carried out and is carrying out at the present time.
We can see on the face of it that it is difficult to try to figure out why the Government is selling Teleglobe. It is very difficult to figure it out. One could stretch it on this or that point, but one would come to the end and say, there is no reason whatsoever for the Government to sell Teleglobe. I am now searching for reasons for this sale. I am trying to say that the Government had some reason for selling this company. While doing some reading the other day I noticed that other countries have sold out companies comparable to Teleglobe. But that is no reason to do the same thing in Canada, if the company was making such a magnificent profit and was

March 30, 1987
Teleglobe Canada
carrying on in a good manner as a good Crown corporation, not just to its employees but to the Canadian public.
There was some discussion, Mr. Speaker, with respect to the rates that were being charged, but the Chairman of Teleglobe, before the standing committee, said that, as far as the rates were concerned, they had contemplated a decrease in any event. He also pointed out that, as far as the actual tariffs are concerned, that is a matter of bilateral negotiation.
What is the reason for selling Teleglobe? One can search but one cannot find a justifiable reason for selling this company. One can perhaps find the reason, Mr. Speaker, when one compares it to the sale by this Government of other Crown corporations. We look to another sale that this Minister made, that being the sale of Fishery Products International, a fish processing company on the East Coast. In fact, while this sale of Teleglobe is in progress, the sale of Fishery Products International is also in progress. The shares of FPI have just been offered on the market.


Mr. Blenkarn:: We can walk and chew gum at the same time.


George Baker: The Chairman of the Finance Committee is talking about walking and chewing gum. I do not know, Mr. Speaker, whether you understand what he means. I do not know. Usually when he talks one cannot understand what he is talking about. But "walking and chewing gum"! I suppose, Mr. Speaker, he is trying to say that both can be done at the same time. I suppose that that is what he is saying.


An Hon. Member:: You've got it, George!


Bill Rompkey: But mostly what he is talking about are bubbles; a bubble full of hot air.


George Baker: Mostly what he is talking about is a bubble, yes.


An Hon. Member:: Now, now, boys!


An Hon. Member:: It is not even his line.


George Baker: What is the reason for selling Fishery Products International at the same time as Teleglobe is being sold? I suppose one could say that there is a certain amount of justification on the economic side, the financial side, in selling Fishery Products International. FPI was established as a Crown corporation at a time when fish plants were closing-


Bill Rompkey: By us.


George Baker: The former Minister just said "by us"; and "by us", he means, of course, the Liberal Government of the day.
FPI was set up at a time when fish plants were closing all over eastern Canada, with hundreds and thousands of people being laid off. This was something that was being done by a very large private sector company at a time when fish prices had gone down. The whole of the fisheries industry at the time
was in financial trouble. The Government of Canada created a Crown corporation, and it did so because that was the only way to go. Both the federal and provincial governments jointly took the decision to create a Crown corporation, and that is exactly what they did.
Fishery Products International was created to save jobs, to save the industry, and to maintain continuity insofar as the export of Canada's fisheries products was concerned. One does not want to see, in terms of international markets, a substantial drop in the export of any one commodity, as another country will then come along to fill that vacuum. Once the industry recovers and plants are reopened, it is difficult to regain lost markets. For that reason, it was important that the Government of Canada act very swiftly to maintain the supply of Canada's fisheries products into the international markets. Insofar as the nation's economy was concerned, and the economies of the affected provinces, not to mention the thousands of jobs affected by a substantial downturn in prices, there was good reason for the creation of FPI.
The world has now changed insofar as fisheries products are concerned. Current demand is high in all parts of the world. There are many fisheries products in the market-place-frozen fish products, fresh fish products, fish fillets, and so forth. In certain instances, fisheries products are almost refined products. With the supply remaining relatively the same, with the increased demand, we have had increased prices.
What we have seen, Mr. Speaker, in FPI, a Crown corporation that controlled 30 to 35 individual companies in eastern Canada, is a substantial increase in the bottom line. Substantial profits have been made. I believe last year the profit was something in the order of $24 million to $30 million. This represents quite a turn around insofar as the fisheries industry is concerned. FPI was a Crown corporation owned by the federal and provincial governments.
This Government then decided to get rid of that Crown corporation. Given that FPI no longer fulfilled a public purpose, one can understand the sale of FPI. There was a guarantee in the sale that the employees would be taken care of, that the employees would not lose their pension contributions, and that they would maintain their positions in the workforce. There was a also a condition of sale whereby if for any reason the new board of this now private sector corporation decided that any one of the individual operations was to be closed down or sold, the Government of Canada and the affected provincial Government would be notified and given the first option to purchase.
The FPI sales agreement was drawn and supervised by some very prominent Newfoundlanders, and we have in the telecommunications industry in this country today some very prominent Newfoundlanders. When those individuals drew up the sales agreement in respect of Fishery Products International they left no holes. No employee could turn around and accuse the Government of Canada of not taking care of jobs, of not ensuring that each community was protected. The Government of Canada ensured, through the sales agreement, that the new
March 30, 1987

board of directors, the new shareholders of that company, understood that they could not close any individual plant connected with that former Crown corporation without making a first offer to the Government.
Why is it, Mr. Speaker, that the Minister who handled the FPI sale so well now comes before the House with this measure? In the one case, the Minister came into the House and read out a glorious statement in respect of the sale of Fishery Products International. In the case of the sale of FPI, we had an agreement with all of the guarantees written in, an agreement with not even a shadow of a doubt that the employees would not be taken care of. In fact, we had the Government even instructing the new owners that they could not sell a portion of the business at any time without first giving the Government of Canada and the affected provincial Government the first option of purchase, and the same guarantee applied to plant closures.
Everybody appeared to be quite happy with that agreement. The Minister made the announcement, and the shares of FPI were listed for sale on the stock market, and were immediately bought up by investors.
The value of the shares was nine to one as far as the profits were concerned. The Government gave factory freezer trawlers to another profitable company called National Sea Products and gave them permission to operate it in eastern Canada, against the wishes of fishermen. As I say, the company was very profitable in the fish business.
The Minister made a statement in the House of Commons assuring the employees of their guaranteed benefits, saying that the new owners of the company would have to abide by the rules. After saying that they were not allowed to touch a piece of equipment in all the plants in eastern Canada, unless they notified the federal Government, what did the Minister do? The Minister of State for Privatization (Mrs. McDougall) will be sending out a letter today to all Teleglobe employees. Actually, the letter is dated March 27, 1987, but it will be going out today. It is a four-page letter. I do not want to get into its particulars, but it goes back to a problem which the Government brought on itself in the clause in the Bill dealing with employees and their pensions.
I would like to read into the record a letter from the Teleglobe Canada Ad Hoc Committee on Pensions. It is signed by Mr. Carlos Saldanha and Mr. E. A. Rutherford, Ted Rutherford, who are in charge of the committee. The letter was sent to the Minister of State for Privatization and Minister responsible for regulatory affairs. In part it reads:
We, the Teleglobe Ad Hoc Pension Committee, understand that it is in the
best interest of the parties concerned that Bill C-38 be passed and come into
effect by March 31, 1987. We also wish to see this date achieved.
If that were not in the letter, I guarantee that the Bill would not be passed through the House before March 31. It would not be passed in the House unless the pension committee wished it to be passed.
Teleglobe Canada
I cannot see any other reason for passing the Bill other than standing up and protecting Teleglobe employees. They might change their minds if the Minister does not answer their letter properly. However, it goes on to say:
However, some issues related to transferring values for past service, in our opinion, are still not resolved.
We are getting to the pension issue now. It continues:
We expect that your Government will endeavour to sit down with representatives of this committee, as was previously promised by the Honourable Robert de Cotret, to reach an equitable solution in the process of developing a Reciprocal Transfer Agreement.
We all know what reciprocal transfer agreements are as far as pensions are concerned. Then it continues:
A proper transfer agreement, when coupled with the future plan offered by Memotec,-
That is the name of the company which is buying Teleglobe for a song. It continues:
-which we note was more generous than the norm your Government recommended, will maintain Teleglobe's pension plan features for existing employees as they were prior to privatization.
In other words, at the last minute, at the last hour, members of the ad hoc committee on pensions are saying to Members of the House of Commons, "Let us help the Government get the Bill through before March 31". However, they are also saying that they need a reciprocal transfer agreement on their pensions.
I looked at the letter from the Minister which will go out today to all Teleglobe employees. I looked for some substance in it. Before the day is out, perhaps the Minister will be able to explain to the House what the particular letter means. However, we know what the reciprocal transfer agreement is all about.
You and I, Mr. Speaker, know what happens when someone changes employment. For example, when workers are laid off from a Crown corporation, are given early retirement, or whatever the case may be, they always hope and pray for a reciprocal transfer agreement on their pensions. Why is that? It is because they are interested in adding the time they were employed somewhere else on to their new employment. When a lay-off or an early retirement takes place in a Crown corporation, the man who is affected always looks back at where he worked 10 years ago, 20 years ago, or 30 years ago. Perhaps he worked with the department of highways in a provincial Government or something like that. Then he wonders whether he can transfer his pension benefits from the provincial government department to the Crown corporation and add it all together. Perhaps he will wonder if the private company for which he might work will take his accumulated pension benefits from years of service into its pension scheme and honour them.
There are people in Canada today who make a living in Crown corporations examining whether it is to their benefit to have reciprocal transfer agreements or pension transfer agreements. I imagine that the office of Canadian National in Montreal would have people working on that continually.

March 30, 1987
Tele globe Canada
It is interesting to note that a Government which wanted to get rid of Crown corporations and said that they were a menace to society would create a Crown corporation to save money, that is, Marine Atlantic. That Crown corporation has a pension transfer agreement with the Province of New Brunswick, the Province of Prince Edward Island, and the Province of Quebec. However, it does not have one with the Province of Nova Scotia or with the Province of Newfoundland. It is amazing that a Crown corporation would be laying off people or offering them early retirement at this time of the year and have no signed pension transfer agreement.
Employees of Teleglobe are interested in a reciprocal transfer agreement as it relates to their pension funds. The Government of Canada through the Treasury Board should have had this worked out some time ago. It should have made sure that this issue would not arise during the final moments of the sale of the Crown corporation, but it did not do so. The Government did not satisfy the employees of Teleglobe otherwise the employees would not have written such a letter dated March 27, 1987. Why is the Government of Canada selling Teleglobe today? Why did the Government sell another Crown corporation at the same time it created another one? I suggest it was to save money? The whole thing does not add up, Mr. Speaker.
In the letter being sent by the Minister of State for Privatization, certain blanket guarantees are supposed to be made to the employees of Teleglobe. I think what would be of benefit in the Chamber today is to have a statement directly from the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary to the effect that they will comply with the wishes of the Teleglobe Canada ad hoc committee on pensions, that they will immediately sit down with them and immediately state publicly in the House of Commons before the Bill is passed today exactly what the Government of Canada has in mind for all the employees. It is a very confusing scenario. It is not clear at all what the Government of Canada has in mind.
This Crown corporation, as we know, has to do with telecommunications. It is the carrier of the telephone lines, the telegraph lines and the telex lines from Canada to other countries in the world. It is the sole carrier. It is the actual carrier of the message. It is a guaranteed monopoly for the next five years which is being put under a regulatory agency, I believe the CRTC. Under those circumstances, with the incredible investment made at the beginning in Teleglobe, with the incredible amounts of money used to build cables across the Atlantic and at the same time to have the satellite feed in case the cable breaks-if the cable breaks, then the satellite is there, and if something goes wrong with the satellite, the cable is there-for this company now to be getting into the business of new cables, into fibreoptics and everything else at a cost of probably hundreds of millions of dollars or even billions of dollars, $400 million or $500 million seems a very small price to pay to purchase such an operation.
One wonders about the philosophy of the actual sale of Teleglobe and the recommendations of the Government of Canada respecting Crown corporations. What about the Government being involved in businesses that perhaps should be in the realm of the private sector? Will the overriding philosophy of the Government of Canada be, let's get rid of everything that we believe the private sector can do? If the private sector cannot possibly fulfil a transportation function in Canada, then we will maintain our presence. Yet even in that area today we hear the Government of Canada saying to Crown corporations "Cut, cut, cut. Reduce, reduce, reduce." What was the message with Teleglobe? Efficiency exports came into the shops of Teleglobe and said, "Let's cut here, there and some place else". The same thing has happened to practically every other corporation in Canada today, especially in the telecommunications business. We have several Crown corporations in the telecommunications business.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: You know nothing about it.


George Baker: The Minister of Communications (Miss MacDonald) should listen. She may learn something about telecommunications. The Government of Canada has Crown corporations that operate telephones like Bell Canada-


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Why do you think Bell Canada is a Crown corporation?


George Baker: -like Maritime Tel and like B.C. Tel? The Minister of Communications does not understand what Teleglobe is. She does not know. We are into the area of telecommunications. She did not even know that the Government of Canada owned telephone companies.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: When did the Government of Canada take over Bell Telephone?


George Baker: The Government of Canada actually through Crown corporations owns telephone companies, but does this mean now that the Government will sell its telephone companies?


Flora Isabel MacDonald: What telephone companies?


George Baker: The Minister of Communications has asked what telephone companies.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Right.


Mr. Hockin:: Gather your thoughts together.


George Baker: Let me educate the Minister of Communications for just a moment. CN Telecommunications recently applied to the CRTC and to the Government of Canada for rights to go into the business of long-distance operations against Bell. The reason it did that, and not very many Cabinet Ministers in this Government know why, is that CN operates telephone companies. My entire district is operated under CN telephones, and so are other areas of Canada. Granted they are northern areas. We each have our own little cubicle. Ours is
March 30, 1987

called TNT. The names change every now and then. It used to be called Canadian National, but that was not, I suppose, a very good word from which to develop a slogan so it was changed to Terra Nova Tel. You see TNT all over the place. Now the Minister of Communications is beginning to learn a few things.
Are we to take it from the sale of Teleglobe that the federal Government will say that all other Crown corporations dealing with the public, which could be owned by the private sector, should be gotten rid of, dissolved or sold? If you look at any of the northern telephone networks, if you look at telecommunications as a part of Canadian National up north, you will see that it has a fairly profitable operation in northern Canada. Last year Terra Nova Tel made about $4 million after all its capital expenditures were taken into account. One would have to say it is a profitable company but that does mean it is on the Government's list to be sold? Perhaps I should not have mentioned it because I do not think the Government knew that it owned telephone companies. Now that it knows, it might sell them and I do not want them sold.
It is unfortunate that we do not have more competition in the telecommunications field. It is unfortunate that a monopoly exists. That is perhaps the most unfortunate thing of all in the telecommunications field. The unions would not agree with me on that, but I will tell you who would agree with me. The woman whose telephone is removed because she could not pay for a long-distance call she did not make would agree with me. She has no choice but to pay, no choice whatsoever, because if she does not get her telephone from that company she does not get a telephone. It is a monopoly. In some constituency cases it is an absolutely disgusting monopoly. Certainly we would not recommend that the Government get rid of its telephone companies. Yet that is what the Government wants. We cannot figure out any other reason for putting this Bill through the House.
If you read the letter from the Minister of State for Privatization you will see there is no guarantee that a reciprocal transfer agreement will be arrived at with the Government. The Minister sent this letter to every single employee of Teleglobe. She says:
It is false and misleading to suggest that they are being deprived of benefits;
The Minister should stand in her place today and give her guarantee on the pension reciprocal agreement before we decide to filibuster the Bill. If that is done to the satisfaction of the employees, fine, we will let the Bill through. If it is not done, I am sure the Whip will agree with me that the Bill will not go through. The Minister of Finance will lose $500 million on his deficit reduction plan.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: It is $600 million.


George Baker: I am sorry, $600 million. I have been using the figure of $400 or $500 million. Anyway, the entire budget speech will have to be rewritten unless these employees are
Teleglobe Canada
satisfied with the pension plan. You are an expert in parliamentary procedure, Mr. Speaker, and you know that one thing the Opposition can do is stop the passage of this Bill by March 31. It is a simple thing to do. Anyone in grade six or grade seven can read the rules and see how an opposition can prevent the passage of a Bill over a two-day period. The Whip has a whole list of things written on both sides of a sheet of paper, threats he will make unless the Government satisfies these employees.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Single spaced.


George Baker: We have a letter from the ad hoc committee saying they want the Bill to go through if the guarantees are there. That is the final word to the Minister of Communications. She should intervene and contact the Minister of State for Privatization and say, let us get this thing straightened out. The Minister has been trying to develop this wonderful rapport with everyone in the communications media in Canada and around the world. Here is an opportunity for her to do just that.
We have made our position perfectly clear on this Bill and we await the Government's response. The Whip of the Official Opposition will have a few words to say in a few moments.


Mr. Ken James (Sarnia-Lambton):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the third reading debate on Bill C-38. I will be speaking specifically to the Bill and the divestiture of Teleglobe rather than giving a long dissertation about everything under the sun in order to pass the time. We have just been given a little education on supply and demand economics and almost how fish patties are made. I was surprised to hear a whole speech built around why the employees do not want the Bill passed when the Hon. Member has a letter in his hands from the employees who appear to be pleading to have the Bill passed. I think they understand that they can best handle the negotiations for the proper transfer of pension benefits.
The sale of Teleglobe is an important initiative by this Government. The legislative and policy initiatives associated with it are designed to protect the interests of consumers and employees, and provide for regulation of the privatized company in order to ensure that Canada's international obligations continue to be met and provide Teleglobe with the opportunity to pursue a bright and exciting future.
I want to express my appreciation and that of the Minister to members of the committee for their conscientious review of the legislation. We also should say thank you to the witnesses for their valuable assistance in committee. Certainly I am delighted that a frank and full debate has taken place and that the many interested parties have had an opportunity for a balanced discussion, to the greatest extent possible.
Since the legislative review process began a few weeks ago certain amendments were made in the committee and I would like to briefly explain them for the benefit of Hon. Members. First, discussions with employee representatives led the

March 30, 1987
Teleglobe Canada
committee to conclude that an amendment to the Bill would add greater certainty to the pension alternatives available to those employees. Accordingly, an amendment was made to delete Clause 24(l)(b) in its entirety. Second, there was a series of minor technical changes made in committee to improve or clarify the language of the Bill. There was a minor change to Clause 4(3) to make the language consistent with similar clauses such as Clause 19. There were changes to the wording of Clause 5 but no change to the spirit of the provision. It was to improve or clarify the clause as it relates to the associate rules. There were a few phrases in Clause 5, Clause 13 and Clause 18 where the French and English versions differed as to meaning. Changes were made to rectify that situation. In order to facilitate the creation of a new corporate entity with the name Teleglobe Canada and avoid any possible confusion it was appropriate to change the name of the old company while its affairs were being wound up, and a new Clause 20 was added while Clause 21 was amended accordingly. This amendment also necessitated appropriate renumbering changes and the reference to clause numbers in Clause 34 as well as the addition of the new name in Schedule II.
I believe all Hon. Members would agree that the Government has been forthcoming in terms of the information it has made available in connection with this transaction. We provided extensive documentation and offered technical briefings to assist Hon. Members in their understanding of the sale of Teleglobe to Memotec. This is indeed a complicated transaction. By appreciating the many benefits of this privatization I am sure Hon. Members will understand the advantages to both consumers and Teleglobe employees and to the telecommunications industry itself. The timely passage of Bill C-38 is important.
Opportunities for growth and employment have been foremost in our objectives for this privatization. This Bill will sanction the alliance between Teleglobe and Memotec, thus creating a dynamic new force in the Canadian telecommunications industry. Teleglobe's proven technical expertise and industry experience will get renewed vigour from Memotec's entrepreneurial energy and marketing abilities. I will give you a few examples of the kinds of benefits that will be in store for Canada once this sale is completed.
While Teleglobe has profited under good management, it still had to perform under the operational restrictions of Crown ownership. Expansion was pre-empted because of impediments imposed on Teleglobe as a result of legislators and bureaucratic requirements. Consequently, Teleglobe was kept from exploring other avenues of growth despite its recognized industry expertise.
However, Memotec can give to Teleglobe what Crown ownership could not, the freedom to grow, expand and mature. Memotec understands the dynamics and the opportunities of the telecommunications market-place. It has proven itself as a force to contend with in the business world by its marketing,
sales and distribution expertise. In addition to Teleglobe's client base, Memotec will add its own international market base and its own customer network which includes major corporations in banking, insurance, transportation, other governments and so on.
A new Teleglobe allied with Memotec can create and take advantage of opportunities presented by this added national and international market base. The word "synergy", which has been coined of late, describes this kind of alliance. In simple terms this means the creation of new products and services offered in expanded markets and generous new exports. Such dynamic growth potential will create more opportunities for Canadians in all parts of the country.
Private ownership under public regulation will continue to serve the public interest while providing further benefits to consumers. Effective January 1, 1988, there will be a rate reduction on overseas telephone calls of more than 13 per cent. In addition, telex rates will decrease by 10 per cent at the same time. Consumers will also benefit from special protection of their telecommunications services through CRTC regulation. This is a new safeguard which was not present under Crown ownership. Thus, lower rates will be charged for the same high standard of services to which all Canadians have become accustomed. Consumers will benefit over-all, either by taking advantage of savings or by using services more frequently or for a longer duration.
I am especially pleased with the care that was taken by the Government to ensure that employees' interests were safeguarded. It was clear in the Government's announcement of November 19 that employee concerns were a key factor in setting the terms and conditions under which Teleglobe would be sold. I and my colleagues in the Government were sensitive to employees from the very beginning of the privatization process of Teleglobe. The Minister personally met with employee representatives prior to the initiation of the final round of bidding. Meetings were held over the course of the last few months between officials and Teleglobe employee representatives where employee concerns, particularly related to the future pension arrangements, were given ample discussion. In recognition of these concerns, Memotec's generous employee package was a key factor in supporting the Government decision to select this firm as the preferred purchaser for Teleglobe.
I think all Members must agree that Teleglobe employees are being well taken care of. For example, Teleglobe employees will remain under federal labour jurisdiction and all existing collective agreements will remain in force. As compared to industry norm, Memotec has offered a generous pension proposal, a plan which will be equivalent to the federal public service pension plan for all existing employees of Teleglobe. Furthermore, I would like to point out that we took heed of employees' interest in purchasing shares of Teleglobe. This was proposed by representatives of employees crossing all union lines. They had a very special interest in purchasing, and
March 30, 1987

a purchase arrangement is therefore included in the agreement. Special provision has been made for an employee share ownership program which will offer 5 per cent of shares to employees at a discount of 10 per cent with interest-free loans available from the company.
In addition, Memotec has undertaken to make every effort to qualify employee share purchases under the Quebec stock savings plan and similar plans implemented by other provinces. Finally, in order to limit the disruption to employees and management, the legislation provides that Teleglobe's headquarters will remain in Montreal.
The discussion with regard to pensions centred on the transfer of past service. I asked a Treasury Board official what transfer of past service he would receive if he went to work at a university as compared to what employees would receive under this plan. This plan is substantially better than the benefits available to a federal employee who goes to work for one of our universities.
It seems that the question of whether the Government is receiving fair value for Teleglobe has finally been put to rest. At committee even the Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor (Mr. Langdon) recognized that a reasonably good price had been received for the company. However, for the record, I want to state that Memotec is paying the Government $488.3 million which is a premium of $110 million over the revised book value of $378 million. I believe this represents a very good return for the taxpayers' investment in Teleglobe. Added to that, of course, were profits of over $100 million plus another $18 million.
You can see, Mr. Speaker, that the sale of Teleglobe to Memotec is a good deal for all interested parties. An equal and fair balance has been struck for taxpayers, shareholders, customers and, very importantly, the employees. The result will be a more dynamic and exciting new Teleglobe with advantages for all Canadians and for the telecommunications industry.
The passing of Bill C-38 will make Teleglobe our eleventh privatization since the Government came into power. This is a forward-looking program based upon a vision the Government has developed to promote better management of public resources and to create new opportunities in industry. I have only to point out the success of de Havilland and Canadair. I noticed that the previous speaker never referred to the additional employees and the additional business which has been generated at de Havilland and the positive environment of Canadair. Our vision has created more flexibility, new challenges and greater incentives for these firms and their employees to pursue new opportunities for growth. In following this course we have prepared these companies for the future rather than anchoring them in the past.
Teleglobe Canada
The rapid pace of technological advances requires adaptation not only just to keep up with but to lead global competition in the provision of telecommunications services and equipment. A new Teleglobe bolstered by Memotec will result in industry dynamism which will serve the interests of all Canadians and ensure that Canada remains a world leader in telecommunications.
It is important that Members recognize the urgency and importance of this legislation. The employees have also brought it to our attention that they want this legislation passed. I thank the House for assisting the Government and suggesting that the Bill be passed with expediency.


Mr. Hovdebo:: Mr. Speaker, are the employees of Teleglobe entirely satisfied with the pension arrangements that have been made?


Kenneth Albert James: Mr. Speaker, the Member for Gander- Twillingate (Mr. Baker) read a letter from the employees asking that the Bill be passed. The discussion in which employees wanted some input was the area of past services as it was transferred from the government plan to Memotec. Specifically, it concerned the actuarial assumptions that were used in comparison, for example, to the actuarial assumptions used in the Canadian Arsenals Disposal. That was the centre of the discussion. A number of different employees' groups made representations. Certainly, the request by the group that wanted the opportunity to purchase stock in a new company was fulfilled. They are happy with that aspect. The supervisors' group made representations and appear to want to handle the negotiations with their company. All the groups were concerned about this actuarial assumption. It appears to be negotiated between them and Memotec and I assume the negotiations will come to fruition.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, in my opinion the question of the transfer of the pension to Memotec is serious. I have the letter alluded to this morning by the Member for Gander- Twillingate (Mr. Baker). It is indeed true that the employees are satisfied with the Memotec offer and the arrangements for their pensions.
My question concerns something that has bothered many of us. The actuarial assumptions which were made in 1980 and used for transferring the pensions from Canadian Arsenals are not the same assumptions that are being used this time. The question is whether it is a 5 per cent rate and salary increase assumption, whether we are looking at a 3.5 per cent CPI, at a 6.5 per cent interest rate and so on. Actuaries have a very complicated formula, including mortality rates and other factors.
In the committee, the unions stated that there would be a shortfall of some $7 million to $8 million in the transfer of the funds to the new company.

March 30, 1987
Teleglobe Canada
In the letter to the Minister of State for Privatization (Mrs. McDougall) on March 27, which was signed by Carlos Saldanha and E.A. Rutherford, it is stated:
-it is in the best interest of the parties concerned that Bill C-38 be passed and come into effect by March 31,1987.
That is true. The reason is the Quebec stock option plan, and it will be more easily saleable if they can roll this new asset and equity of Teleglobe into the Memotec assets.
We are not trying to prevent the passage of the Bill, but trying to understand exactly how the Government came to the logic of using new actuarial assumptions. How can one who is uninitiated in the matter-I am no actuary-justifiably say that, until the date of agreement, which is the proclamation of this Bill, prior service under the Public Service Superannuation Act is fully covered? The Minister of State for Privatization states that in the letter she sent to all employees on March 27. She states on page 3:
For those employees who choose to transfer their prior service credits to the Memotec "mirror" plan, the government will transfer the greater of twice the employee's contributions plus interest or the actuarial value of the accrued benefits computed on a going concern basis that recognizes future salaries and indexing and includes a provision for survivor benefits;
The next paragraph is key:
This amount will be fully adequate to allow Memotec to pay all of the obligations for prior service benefits;
Will the Hon. Member, who just spoke on behalf of the Government, request that the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. de Cotret) come to the House to confirm that indeed he fully gives to the employees the guarantee that he will sit down with them and explain what he means by a guaranteed prior service fully covered pension plan? Then there will be no difficulty in letting the Bill go through today. Will the Member give an undertaking that he will call his Minister, as I tried this morning, to have him come to the House this afternoon and give us an undertaking that prior commitments will be kept and the plan will be fully funded on the basis of actuarial assumptions?


Kenneth Albert James: Mr. Speaker, there were many points in the Hon. Member's question, but I will attempt to answer him.
First, the Hon. Member alluded to the fact that there are a number of areas of input in developing an actuarial assumption. I, too, am not an actuary. Certainly, the Treasury Board must change and establish those assumptions from time to time, based upon all these inputs that are given, including interest rates and other factors.
I would not want to confuse anyone in that there are $7 million or $8 million involved. The Minister said it would be twice plus interest or actuarial assumption. Certainly, twice plus interest is much increased by the actuarial assumption. The example I referred to earlier was of the Treasury Board official who left the federal Government and went to work at a university. The best he would get would be twice plus interest. This transfer has a much greater transfer of past
service than that through the actuarial assumptions. We must make sure we put these things in the right place.
I want to re-emphasize that what is important here is that employees are attempting to get everything they possibly can. They are receiving total protection under the Labour Code. They are able to buy stock and receive the equivalent to the PSA Superannuation Program. They are looking for something that is different than has been set up by the actuarial assumptions established by Treasury Board. It is not like it is our money. That money belongs to the fund of all the other employees working for the Federal Government. Do we keep doing this even though it is not a right and proper actuarial assumption based upon sound calculations? If it is given to those few employees, there is going to be less in the fund for others.
Mention has been made of the Minister coming and speaking to the situation, and I am sure we shall carry on with the debate.


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


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, what we have with the decision to sell Teleglobe, which has been a Crown corporation, publicly owned, since its inception, is another example of the belief of the Conservative Government that the private sector can operate much more efficiently than the public sector and that wherever possible Crown corporations should be sold and privatized. That really ignores a great part of the history of the development of this country.
At the federal, provincial and municipal level we have several thousands of Crown corporations in Canada. They have been a way in which governments-and let me make it clear, not just socialists governments, but Liberal, Conservative, Social Credit, P.Q., CCF, and N.D.P. Governments- have set up Crown corporations when they saw a need to serve the public and when it was obvious that the private sector was not interested because it could not see that it could make a profit. After all, that is the reason private companies are established. I do not question that reason.
Therefore, what we have are Crown corporations which operate electric-power systems in our provinces. In the Province of Ontario, Ontario Hydro was set up, not be some radical socialist government but by the Conservative Government of the day. The three prairie provinces, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, have publicly-owned Telephone Systems. In my Province of Manitoba, the Manitoba telephone system was set as a publicly-owned utility by a Conservative Government in the year 1908. That was a government headed by Sir Roblin, the grandfather of Senator Roblin.
The Canadian National, a publicly-owned railway, was set up when a number of privately-owned and operated railway companies found they could not make a profit and were going bankrupt. The government of the day brought those companies
March 30, 1987

together and established the Canadian National as a publicly-owned system.
The Canadian Wheat Board was an agency set up by the Conservative Government headed by the Prime Minister at the time, the Right Hon. R. B. Mr. Bennett, to handle the sale of grain.
This was done because governments of the day, regardless of their political persuasion, realized there was a need because the private sector would not enter the field. These Crown corporations have provided a needed service and have helped develop this country in a way which would not have been possible had we depended entirely on the private sector.
I am sure there is no one in this House and no one in any political Party who has not realized that for the foreseeable future, for as many years as we can see in advance, we are going to operate in this country, as is the case in most countries, with a mixed economy in which there will be public ownership at the federal, provincial and municipal level-cooperative ownership-and in the main, privately-owned companies operating in most facets of Canadian life. We accept that. We do not say that because a certain Crown corporation was established recently or years ago for a very good reason it must always continue as a Crown corporation. We must ask ourselves if the Crown corporation provides a useful service and if it is operating efficiently.
We have to ask ourselves if the Government made its decision to sell Teleglobe after examining, as it should have done, what it was doing and whether it was operating efficiently? 1 do not think so. It seems to me that the Government was more concerned with achieving a quick sale of this Crown corporation, and others, than in linking any sale of Crown corporations to a well-thought out industrial policy, or after considering what the effect of the sale of Teleglobe would have on competition in the area of telecommunications.
Let us look at the record of the Government. It sold Cana-dair and de Havilland, companies in which governments, because they believed-and there was not much opposition to that belief-that in a modern industrialized country like Canada we must have an aerospace industry. When these two companies, which were earlier privately owned, decided that they could not make a profit and, therefore, they wanted to close down, the government of the day was, I think, almost unanimous in support of taking over these companies. Hundreds of millions of dollars were invested in research to make these companies efficient, in order for them to produce products which were state-of-the-art and could compete in the world market.
Fishery Products International was a publicly-owned corporation established because the private sector fishery companies were going bankrupt. Having bought these companies, and after the people of Canada paid hundreds of millions of dollars to keep these companies going, they were sold at a fraction of their cost.
Teleglobe Canada
The Government is now talking about privatizing the CNR and Air Canada. The objective when these two companies were taken over as publicly owned corporations was that they provide service to the people of Canada. That will go by the boards because as private companies they will be required to make a profit. One cannot object to this since shareholders of companies are entitled to gain a profit from their investment. However, service to the slow growth, have-not areas of the country will be drastically cut back. We have already seen that with regard to both the railways and the airline.
Let us take a look at the situation with regard to Teleglobe. Teleglobe is a Crown corporation responsible for all overseas telecommunications entering and leaving Canada. These include telephone, telegraph, cable and telex communications. Teleglobe is a joint owner of submarine ocean cables and telecommunications satellite systems. It has an effective monopoly in Canada on all overseas telecommunications. Overseas telephone calls account for 85 per cent of its revenues.
Was Teleglobe operated efficiently? Was it a money-loser or was it a money-maker? Teleglobe has always been a consistent money-maker. It has been known as the jewel of Crown corporations. In 1985 it recorded profits of over $53 million. Its profit picture for the last 10 years has been excellent. In 1985 Teleglobe's revenues totalled $678 million.
The Conservative Government has sold Teleglobe to Memotec Data, a small Montreal-based data processing and data communications company. The Government claims to have sold Teleglobe for $608 million. However, if we analyse the sale more carefully we will find that at most Memotec is paying $488 million for the company. Indeed, since Memotec as part of the purchase price has said it will assume Teleglobe's liabilities, which amount to $143 million, we must then estimate that the Government will only receive $345 million for Teleglobe. No actual funds will be paid for the debt.
We believe this is a low purchase price. The company's book value is reported to be anywhere between $300 million and $400 million. Furthermore, its sale value is much higher, as it has had, as I have indicated, an extremely profitable picture. We have been told that some time ago British Telecom made a bid of $750 million for the company.
Government and analysts thought that Teleglobe would bring in at least $600 million, and expected that it would receive that price. Unfortunately, the Government has let the company go for just one-half of that. The $600 million mark also explains why the Government has tried in its press coverage to create the impression that the company is being sold for more than $600 million.
We are completely opposed to the sale of Teleglobe because the company has been a consistent money-maker, because it is a monopoly and because it occupies the field of communications in which there is a legitimate public policy interest to be

March 30, 1987
Teleglobe Canada
protected. It adds insult to injury to receive only a paltry $350 million for such a lucrative company so valuable to the people of Canada.
There was a great deal of surprise about the sale of this company to Memotec. Memotec is just a minnow in the sea when compared with Teleglobe. In 1985 Memotec reported revenues of just $17 million. We must compare this figure to the $678 million in revenues reported by Teleglobe for the same year. We have to wonder how Memotec will manage this acquisition of Teleglobe. In Canada and in the United States we have seen companies which have gone in for these acquisitions and have done so by borrowing huge amounts of the money required from banks and other companies, and have then had tremendous difficulties in meeting the interest costs and showing a profit.
We have another problem with this sale. Teleglobe was the company which dealt with the international telecommunications business as a result of agreements made and treaties signed with other countries. With the exception of Japan and the United States, in countries which include Australia, New Zealand, France, West Germany, Italy, Norway and Sweden, there are government-controlled overseas telecommunications systems. In Great Britain the British Government has completed a major privatization of British Telecom through a share offering. However, the British Government retained just slightly more than 50 per cent ownership in the company. Thus it has a controlling interest.
Canada is a party to a treaty called the INTELSAT Treaty. INTELSAT is the international body which was set up in 1964 to govern all international overseas telecommunications satellite traffic. A key objective of INTELSAT is to provide even the most remote areas of the world with access to the global communications system. Therefore, services are to be provided at the same cost in high density traffic regions, for example industrialized countries, as in lower traffic regions. Essentially, the INTELSAT Treaty provides for a crosssubsidy system by which the richer countries subsidize the poorer ones.
With a U.S. satellite set up a privatized Teleglobe, which has as its goal the bottom line and profits for its shareholders, could well be in a conflict of interest situation. On the one hand it is supposed to represent Canada internationally on INTELSAT and carry out Canadian policy. On the other hand, it could be tempted to send at least some of its calls overseas via the cheaper U.S. systems. Its obligations to its shareholders would almost demand this, we believe, if going through the U.S. would be more lucrative. While Teleglobe could always endeavour to remove itself from INTELSAT, how would Canada then fulfil its international obligations? That question has not been dealt with.
I now wish to deal with the position of the employees. Memotec has agreed to provide current Teleglobe employees with a pension plan which is the equivalent to that which they currently have under the Public Service Superannuation Act, which is a good pension plan. Unfortunately, despite comments
made by the previous speaker, an Hon. Member from the Conservative Party, future employees of the company will not be eligible for this equivalent pension plan. For new employees there is to be a pension plan equivalent to the norm "in the telecommunications industry" in Canada. In other words, what we will see created after this deal is completed is two classes of employees, one with a respectable pension plan and the other with a less generous one. There are no job guarantees past the five-year period provided for in the Bill.
The employees are not very happy with the arrangements made with regard to their pensions. They point out that the arrangements made here are not the same as those made in other cases where the Government has divested itself of Crown corporations. Let me point out some examples.
In the case of Veterans Hospital, which was turned over to municipal operations, the employees were allowed to retain their Public Service pensions; in the sale of Canadian Arsenals, the purchaser and the union were able to negotiate a pension plan which allowed for the same kinds of benefits as a public service pension.
It should be recognized that most people had no concern about the growth or success of the purchasing company after privatization. With the Teleglobe sale, the Government is saying, as it did in the case of the sale of Canadian Arsenals, that they are protecting the employees. It is being said that they are offering the employees of Teleglobe everything offered to the employees of Canadian Arsenals, other than that in respect of the level of future additions.
The employees at Teleglobe have not negotiated with Memotec Data Incorporated, and they are feeling very insecure. There is no guarantee that Teleglobe will have the monopoly protection that the Government has suggested. Already Bell Canada and some provincial telephone companies are talking about bypassing Teleglobe; in other words, going through the United States.
So, there is no guarantee of success, and the employees feel that they are leaving a secure and growing pension plan for something smaller and less secure. Even if they could be guaranteed the protection which was theirs under the Pension Benefits Standards Act, they might accept.
The employees of Teleglobe have made their position clear: they are unhappy. They are unhappy about the lack of job security. There is no guarantee that Memotec will be able to grow and, even if it gets more business, that it will protect the job security of the present employees.
For all of these reasons, Mr. Speaker, it is our intention to oppose this Bill.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, let me say that we believe that Teleglobe has proven itself an effective money-maker, and as such we do not know why it should be sold. The long range outlook is that the company will stay a monopoly beyond the five year guarantee. There simply is not the demand in Canada
March 30, 1987

to have another overseas telecommunications service. Teleglobe is, effectively, a utility company, and therefore should remain in public hands, as do some of the telephone companies-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret to say that the Hon. Member's time has expired. Questions or comments?
The Hon. Member for Sarnia-Lambton (Mr. James), on a question or comment.


Kenneth Albert James: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I should like to address some comments on the remarks made by my friend from Winnipeg North. It may be that there will be a question come out of all of this.
I am a little concerned about the paper that he read from when he talked about the sale price being $350 million. It was $488 million, plus $100 million in returned profit, plus $18 million. Those are very right and proper figures. We have to be careful about the figures that some researcher gave to him. I am wondering whether his researcher read the proceedings of the legislative committee on this Bill. Certainly, the sale price was not an issue of any consequence during committee consideration of the Bill. There may have been one question on it. Certainly there was no lengthy discussion or questioning on the sale price itself. In fact, a Member of his own Party made the statement in committee that it was a very reasonable price.
Also, there was no argument mounted against the selling of Teleglobe by the employee group. Certainly, they had some thoughts and questions, but not about the sale itself.
It has been stated by the Minister, and it was stated in testimony by the President of Memotec, that there would be an equivalent pension plan put in place. The fact of there being an equivalent pension plan was not in issue. What was in issue was the actuarial assumption used in respect of past service. Certainly, it has been stated that there will be an equivalent pension plan for the employees. The only issue is whether the actuarial assumptions would result in sufficient moneys being transferred into the pension plan to handle all of the eventualities that actuaries attempt to calculate in setting up a pension plan.
Given that there was no argument mounted during committee consideration of this Bill in respect of the intelligence of selling Teleglobe Canada, given that the employees did not come before the committee to mount an argument against selling Teleglobe Canada, and given our experience with de Havilland and Fishery Products International, where privatization has resulted in added employment, why does the Party of which my friend from Winnipeg North is a member continue to talk against privatization?


David Orlikow: Let me try to deal with both points raised. With regard to the pension plan, let me put on the record a few paragraphs from the brief presented to the legislative committee which dealt with this Bill by the Communications and Electrical Workers of Canada, on March 10, 1987. Under the
Teleglobe Canada
section headed "Vested Rights and Collective Agreements", the brief reads:
-we were told that the purchaser had made a commitment to provide a pension plan identical to the Public Service Superannuation Plan-and the Supplementary Retirement Benefits Plan-for all current employees of Teleglobe Canada.
Our position is that all measures taken to make this affirmation a concrete reality should be defined and tabled to the unions representing those employees before the Bill is passed, in order to avoid any ambiguity.
I do not think that that was done. They go on to say:
We think plans identical to the PSSA and the SRBA should be offered to future employees as well (as current ones), to avoid treating them in a discriminatory manner.
That is exactly what I said in my remarks. The brief continues:
So far we have yet to see concrete written proposals from Memotec or the government with respect to the pension plan that will be introduced; that is why we think all such questions ought to be settled before the final passage of Bill C-38.
The CEWC considers that all rights and privileges currently enjoyed by Teleglobe's employees, and more especially those in Local 1653, must continue to apply, and that the government should make every effort required to ensure complete openness about this aspect of the matter.
Insofar as the point made about the price paid, let me read to the House the position which our researcher has given to us. It is as follows:
Memotec is to pay $488.3 million to the Government for the Teleglobe, and then the Government is to get $102 million in accumulated cash out of the company, plus an $18 million dividend, for a total of $608.3 million. But, these latter payments cannot be considered part of the purchase price, because they represent funds already in Government hands held by the crown corporation.
However, it is also understood that Memotec, as part of the $488.3 million purchase price, has said that it is assuming Teleglobe's debt liabilities, which amount to $143 million. If this is the case, then the government will only really be receiving $345 million for Teleglobe, as no actual funds will be paid for the debt. Memotec has said that it plans to raise the $345 million by a loan of $225 (million) from the National Bank, and an issue of $125 (million) in debentures to institutional investors.
That, Mr. Speaker, is precisely the point I made in saying that we can have real doubts as to whether Memotec can make this financial arrangement work.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member for Gander-Twillingate (Mr. Baker), on a question or comment.


George Baker: A short question, Mr. Speaker.
The Hon. Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) has said that the sale of Teleglobe Canada makes no sense economically.
Given that Teleglobe Canada is guaranteed a monopoly for five years, the purpose of the sale cannot be to increase competition. Given those facts, why does he think the Government of Canada is privatizing Teleglobe Canada?
The Hon. Member for Winnipeg North has told us that there is no logical reason for the sale of Teleglobe Canada. Given that that is his view, can he tell us why he feels the Government is privatizing Teleglobe Canada?

March 30, 1987


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, I will be happy to try to answer that question. I thought I explained my understanding at the beginning of my comments.
We have a Government which ignores the entire history of the development of Canada and really believes that the private sector can do things better than the public sector.


Kenneth Albert James: Hear, hear!
Mr. Orlikow. I hear the Hon. Member. He ignores the success of all hydro companies in the provinces and the success of publicly owned telephone companies.
Government Members really believe that the private sector can do things better than publicly owned corporations. In believing that, they ignore the entire history of Canada. We have seen again and again that publicly owned corporations in many areas do a job efficiently and provide a service at a price which the private sector cannot meet. The Government ignores that because it is ideologically locked into the concept that somehow the private sector can do things efficiently and that all government operations are somehow incompetently run.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I just heard conflicting comments in the House and I want to rectify the record, if possible.
I heard a government representative state that the unions were in favour of privatizing Teleglobe. However, if we look at page 3 of the union brief put to the committee in February, 1987, we see the following:
The Government's preoccupation with the privatization of Teleglobe seems to arise from their fixation with the national deficit. They intend to use the profits from the sale to reduce this deficit. The short-term gain they will realize from this transaction pales in comparison to the amount that the dividends from Teleglobe would have poured into the national treasury in future years.
It goes on to indicate categorically-and perhaps I will read it this afternoon-that the union opposed the sale of Teleglobe.


Kenneth Albert James: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I said that there was no mounted argument about selling Teleglobe in the legislative committee. That is what I said. I did not say that there was no argument. Maybe the Hon. Member did not hear me. Perhaps he was behind the curtain.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) has about 30 seconds in which to reply.
The period for questions and comments is now terminated. On debate the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier).
It being 1.24 p.m., I do now leave the chair until 2 p.m. this day.
At 1.24 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.


Mr. Keith Penner (Cochrane-Superior):: Mr. Speaker, last week Canada's First Ministers missed their opportunity for greatness. With few exceptions, insufficient political will and vision among our government leaders prevented the breakthrough which would have recognized in our Constitution the aboriginal right to self-government. The federal Government's mind-set was predicated on failure. Preparations for the conference were inadequate and the federal strategy became one of damage control.
The aboriginal peoples of Canada lost nothing at the conference. They emerged strong and united with all their rights intact. The Canadian Confederation lost, and our international reputation in the field of human rights has suffered.
We must try again, but this time with strong federal leadership and advocacy. The first step must be an agreement between the federal Government and aboriginal leaders. Once that is done, work can begin on a program of persuasion so that when another conference is called there will be unanimity that constitutional recognition of aboriginal self-government in this country is long overdue.



GENOCIDE


Mr. Alan Redway (York East):: Mr. Speaker, last night 1,200 people jammed the Concert Hall of the Royal York Hotel in Toronto to watch two films dedicated to the 1.5 million Armenians killed at the hands of the Ottoman Empire in the first genocide of the 20th century.
The 60,000 Canadians of Armenian origin ask us to recognize and acknowledge their tragedy, not just for the sake of Armenians but for the sake of all mankind. There is a lesson here of what can happen when Governments and people are indifferent to the plight of religious and ethnic minorities.
In 1939, on the eve of his invasion of Poland, Adolf Hitler told his generals to show no mercy "because who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" The Armenians perished during World War I, the Jews during World War II.
March 30, 1987

Canada has recently spoken out eloquently about the Jewish Holocaust. Isn't it time for us to speak out just as eloquently about the Armenian Holocaust?



THE ARTS


Mr. Jim Manly (Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, Bill Reid, a world-renowned Haida artist, has reminded us that art is not simply a commodity which can be bought and sold or produced on demand. Art springs out of the life of an individual or of a people. As an artist, Bill Reid believes that when Canada refuses to recognize the legitimate rights of the Haida people, Canada has no right to display Haida art in its embassies around the world. Because the First Ministers' Conference on Aboriginal Rights has failed, Mr. Reid has said that he will not proceed with a commission for a sculpture using Haida motifs and symbols which was to have been placed in the new Canadian embassy in Washington.
Mr. Reid has made this decision at great personal cost, both in terms of money and also in terms of international recognition of his work. But Bill Reid keeps two things more important than either money or fame. These are his integrity as an artist, and a living relationship with his people.
When will the Government of Canada come to terms with aboriginal nations so that the work of artists like Bill Reid can be shown in Canadian embassies and be seen as a symbol, not of colonial usurpation but of a living partnership among peoples?



ABORTION


Mr. John Oostrom (Willowdale):: Mr. Speaker, life is priceless. Since 1975, according to Statistics Canada, there have been an average of 60,000 abortions a year. It is crystal clear that abortion is the number one killer in Canada. The film, Eclipse of Reason, focuses on second-trimester abortion. I should point out that over 6,000 unborn Canadian children are aborted in the second or third trimester of pregnancy. This film shows quite graphically the manner in which they are killed.
Dr. Nathanson has stated, "Abortion, all abortion, is violence, and violence is impermissible in a world of reason. Late abortion, the systematic and deliberate destruction of a viable foetus, is especially odious". I agree with his statement
and applaud his efforts to show all of us the hard, cold truth about the procedure known as therapeutic abortion.
I urge all Members of the House to attend the film presentation today and see for themselves that abortion violently destroys a living human being. I am pleased to note that Dr. Nathanson is with us in the Gallery today.



ABORIGINAL RIGHTS


[Stage Direction]
Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine
East): Mr. Speaker, aboriginal nations left last week's First Ministers' Conference disappointed and frustrated. All aboriginal organizations, Indian, Inuit, Metis, and non-status, could not accept the final amendment proposal which was in part a complete contradiction of their long-standing position that they have an inherent right to self-government. They exercised this right prior to the arrival of the Europeans, never gave it up, and it was never extinguished.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) should have spent more time seeking a consensus acceptable to the aboriginal nations rather than one acceptable to opposing provinces. As a result he failed on both counts. Although this conference is over, Members of Parliament should continue to work with aboriginal groups in their pursuit of justice and fair play.


Mr. Ross Belsher (Fraser Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, today the Special Committee on Child Care tabled its report along with its recommendations on government involvement in assisting Canadian families in the care of their children. Throughout our hearings Canadians told us they did not want the Government making decisions on how they would bring up their children, but they asked for assistance when it was needed.
No one attempted to advise us on how to differentiate between needs and wants, although in reviewing parts of the NDP wish list it would appear they are dealing with wants and not needs. Their definition of affordable is, "Cost should not be a barrier to access. Parental fees should diminish over a period of time until they are ultimately phased out." That means complete government involvement.
Neither do they subscribe to the fact that parents may be the best decision-makers concerning their own children. In fact in January they called for the resignation of the Minister of

March 30, 1987
National Elealth and Welfare (Mr. Epp) because he dared to make that suggestion. What hypocrisy! Canadians do not subscribe to that kind of thinking. Today's report goes some way toward addressing people's needs and is conscious of the Confederation of which we are so proud.



CHILDREN


Mr. Cyril Keeper (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, over the weekend many of us heard the program on CBC which gave a description of the situation of homeless children. The example used was that of Winnipeg but the problem is not restricted to Winnipeg. It is a national problem. These kids are on the street. They prostitute themselves for meals and shelter. They use chemicals to escape harsh reality.
There is no reason why a country like this cannot take care of all its children. Canadians are relatively comfortable. The report was extremely disturbing and should prod us into action. We must have specific policies in order to make service available to these children while they are on the streets. We also must have policies designed to attack poverty so that children will have decent homes in which to live. I call upon the Government to take leadership in this area so that we have no more homeless children in our country.



NATIVE PEOPLES


Mrs. Lise Bourgault (Argenteuil-Papineau):: Mr. Speaker, contrary to lead articles, and unlike Members of the Opposition and certain people who attended the recent Prime Ministers' Conference on native peoples, I for one consider that it proved to be a worthwhile and profitable exercise in several respects. First, it enabled the native groups themselves to take counsel together, for they must strengthen the ties that bind them so as to form a common front in the quest for the settlement of their claims. Then it made it possible for the provincial premiers to weigh their different views on the question of self-government of the first nations and set up a real mechanism to resume negotiations in the coming year. It also made it easier for Canadians to become better acquainted with the whole matter of native peoples' right to self-determination and understand that the Canadian conference cannot operate without Quebec.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, it made it possible for all Canadians to appreciate the leadership of our Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) who advocated a logical formula from which all
Parties can draw inspiration if they really want to find a solution to this basic question of the right of the first nations to self-determination.



ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, in looking at the world of acid rain it is interesting to note that it took the United States a short time to negotiate a treaty to control acid rain which crosses its border from Mexico. This means that when the shoe is on the other foot the United States knows how to get fast action on acid rain.
This is an important fact to keep in mind on the eve of the third Summit. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) should, in his discussions with President Reagan, ask some pointed questions about the U.S.-Mexico deal to regain the ground he lost when he went out of his way two weeks ago in praising President Reagan for now keeping a promise made a year ago to spend money next year on research and demonstration.
By not restraining himself the Prime Minister gave away his negotiating position at the Summit. It is now time to regain the lost ground and openly and frankly demand acid rain cuts which will be meaningful to Canada.



CANADIAN TEAM WINS WORLD WOMEN'S CURLING CHAMPIONSHIP

Mr. Patrick Crofton (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Mr. Speaker, Canadians enjoy, support, and indeed participate in the full range of local and international athletic competitions. Athletics make a substantial contribution to personal good health, to building the fabric of our country, and to presenting a favourable image of Canada abroad.
Such a happy event occurred this past Saturday which merits the applause of all Canadians. A team of young women representing the Racquet Club of Victoria, the Province of British Columbia and, most important, Canada, won the World Women's Curling Championship held in Chicago. The Pat Sanders rink of Victoria, which includes as a key member the niece of a distinguished Member of this House, overcame with courage, perseverance, and great skill all the challenges before it. Members of this House, indeed all Canadians, salute them.
March 30, 1987


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



MULTICULTURALISM


Mr. Ernie Epp (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Mr. Speaker, action against racism in our country is an urgent necessity. The multiculturalism sector sponsored a conference last July to consider strategy in race relations. Participants at the Winnipeg gathering urged strong action by the federal Government. There was debate between those who think that the primary challenge is to sensitize Canadians to these issues and those who believe minorities need to be empowered to grapple with systemic discrimination.
The Minister responsible for Multiculturalism (Mr. Crombie) has failed to resolve this debate. He has not yet stated what his race relations strategy is. Members of Canada's ethnocultural communities have been largely disappointed in the multicultural policies of the Government. Members of the visible minority communities have even less reason to be pleased. They have heard a lot of talk but have seen very little action.
I call on the Minister responsible for Multiculturalism to develop a strategy for overcoming racism in this country and to tell us what it is. The social situation becomes more urgent with every passing day.



ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS


Mr. Stan Darling (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: Mr. Speaker, last week two very important environmental conferences were held in Quebec City. I refer to the National Wildlife Federation and the fifty-second North American Wildlife and Natural Resources conferences. Both organizations have their head offices in Washington, D.C.
Over 1,000 delegates were present and most were American. They heard the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and our Minister of the Environment (Mr. McMillan) speak forcefully on acid rain saying that the United States must do more to reduce its emissions, specifically that action should be taken by the White House and the U.S. Congress to enact legislation which will reduce U.S. emissions falling in Canada by 50 per cent by 1994. Estimates of these emissions are about 4 million tonnes annually.
Canada and four provinces, P.E.I., Newfoundland, Ontario, and Quebec, have already signed agreements to this effect to reduce their S02s by 1994. Manitoba is expected to sign very shortly. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have not signed as
yet. However, our Minister of the Environment recently met with Premier Buchanan of Nova Scotia to discuss this. The Special Committee on Acid Rain has invited Premier Richard Hatfield of New Brunswick to appear before it on Thursday, April 2. This is another example of great progress being made on the serious problem of acid rain reduction.



APARTHEID


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, this morning, in a full-page ad in The Globe and Mail, the representative of the Government of South Africa said goodbye. He urged Canadians to go to South Africa to see that virtual nirvana will be found there for black people.
The Globe and Mail printed this ad at a cost to the South African Government of $29,000. Of course its defence will be freedom of the press, but I ask The Globe and Mail to seek fairness as well and accord gratis to the other voices from South Africa equal space to tell the truth.



CANADA-UNITED STATES NEGOTIATIONS-USEFULNESS OF DEBATE

Mr. William C. Winegard (Guelph):: Mr. Speaker, since the debate in the House on new trade arrangements a couple of weeks ago, I have sensed in my riding of Guelph and elsewhere in Canada a growing awareness of the importance of the Government's trade initiatives, both with the United States and the multilateral discussions under GATT.
The debate clarified many points. We learned that our agricultural marketing systems were not on the table. We learned once again that our social programs were not in jeopardy. We learned that protectionism in the United States was strong and growing stronger. We put to rest the Liberal and NDP concerns about the Auto Pact.
The debate strengthened the Government's resolve to protect Canadian sovereignty while promoting Canadian jobs. We learned that the NDP is afraid of American competition. We tried to learn where the Liberals stood. Following the debate, Canadians from all walks of life have come forward to say: "We can compete. Let us get on with it".
Oral Questions CULTURAL AFFAIRS

March 30, 1987



DONATIONS TO MUSEUMS AND ART GALLERIES-POSSIBLE EFFECT OF TAX CHANGES

Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Mr. Speaker, the provisions of the Income Tax Act and the Cultural Property Export and Import Act encourage, through tax incentives, Canadians to donate works of art or other cultural property to public institutions in this country.
The fair market value as determined by the Cultural Property Export Review Board for the last year amounted to some $17.5 million in respect of some 430 donations.
It will be interesting to find out whether changes rescinding the exemption from capital gains tax on certified cultural property for taxpayers who are required to use the minimum tax calculation will adversely affect the generosity of Canadian donors.
In the meantime, let us thank those people who have done so much to enhance the stock of cultural property held by Canadian museums and art galleries.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD

[Stage Direction]
[ Translation]

Right Hon. John N. Turner (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, the official document released by the Prime Minister during the last election campaign contained a promise-the words are those we read in the document-to find a speedy, realistic and effective solution to the pressing problem of child care.
This morning, almost three years later, the Conservative Members of this committee produced a report that fails to fulfil the promise made by the Prime Minister and fails to meet the pressing need for a national day care system.
Will the Prime Minister commit himself now, this afternoon, to building day care centres across Canada, because otherwise a national day care system is doomed to failure?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, is the Leader of the Opposition serious about asking me to start building day care centres across Canada, when I received the report of a special committee of the House on child care, published under the title: "Sharing the responsibility", only a few minutes ago? Is he serious about having no hesitation about approving anything that can get the slightest bit of support for his party? Would he not prefer to take a more reasonable and sensible position? He could say, for instance, that now a report by a parliamentary committee has been submitted, we will take a quick look to see if the basic
criteria at the national level are met, and if that is the case, we will make some progress. If not, we will table a proposal in the House to give Canada a day care system that will help those who need it, first of all, and include conditions for providing for the necessary funding.
Interestingly ... I would like to hear what the Leader of the Opposition has to say about the taxes involved and the people who will have to pay for this extraordinary suggestion . . . Now he is being coached by the Hon. Member for Laval-des-Rapides. He certainly needs coaching because suggestions like that tend to raise expectations.


John Napier Turner: I can say to the Prime Minister that I am deadly serious because the recommendation of his members this morning did not respond in any way to the promises the Prime Minister made on behalf of his Party during the election campaign. Three years ago the Prime Minister's Government already had a report by Katie Cooke available and it has taken another three years to study the question once again.


SITUATION OF MODERATE-INCOME FAMILIES
John Napier Turner: Since Conservative Members this morning proposed virtually nothing to help moderate-income parents in their struggle to afford quality child care, will the Prime Minister question his members as to why in their report they gave no hope to the children of moderate-income families for quality day care services?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I hear the "Hear, hears" from the other side. Reference was made to the Cooke Report. My understanding is that the implementation of that report would cost $ 11 billion a year.


Some Hon. Members:: That is right.


Martin Brian Mulroney: That is $11 billion a year, the equivalent of the total cost of the old age pensions. Is my right hon. friend saying he wants the Cooke report implemented today because he just referred to it so favourably? If he is, let him then stand up for the first time with some degree of responsibility and indicate to the Canadian people how he is going to pay for it.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: What we have here is a bit of bravado to disguise the fact that the Conservative members of that committee have broken another promise of the Prime Minister. That is what we have. The Conservative members of the committee have ignored the need for national standards and a national plan for child care.
March 30, 1987


REQUEST FOR FEDERAL-PROVINCIAL MEETING ON NATIONAL STANDARDS
John Napier Turner: Will the Prime Minister meet urgently to obtain a federal-provincial consensus on national standards so that we can have a plan which responds on a national basis? Forget the bravado, forget the rhetoric, for once give us some action and response on one of the promises made by the Government.


Martin Brian Mulroney: The Right Hon. Leader says to forget the bravado, but he is also implying forget the facts, forget the costs. We are saying, no, you cannot have it both ways. You either have to be fiscally responsible and have low interest rates and growth or you are going to have the bankruptcy inflicted on the country by the Liberals in the past. You can't have it both ways.
You cannot have the hypocrisy of the Liberals on fundamental issues like this because some people, including the media, are going to begin asking you where you really stand. Do you want S11 billion a year expenditure here? If so, where are you going to get the money, because it will have to come from Canadians. It is time you started to tell them that.


John Napier Turner: You made the promise.


Martin Brian Mulroney: On March 2,1 said on behalf of the Government:
We know that a comprehensive child care system will require significant resources, and we are going to have to find them. For I want to state clearly that our commitment to a child care program is real and that Canada shall have an effective national child care system.


John Napier Turner: When?


Martin Brian Mulroney: That is the commitment of this Government and it shall be consistent with the commitment to fiscal integrity which was abandoned by the previous Government and which cost Canadian families so dearly.


COMMERCIAL DAY CARE CENTRES-PUBLIC FUNDS- GOVERNMENT POSITION
Mrs. Lucie Pepin (Outremont):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. According to the Cooke report and the "Conservative" report submitted this morning, today Canada has only 10 per cent of the day care facilities it needs to acommodate 1.9 million children. Is the Government prepared to table proposals that are more generous than those in the "Conservative" report tabled in the House this morning?


Hon. Jake Epp (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, first it would be appropriate to thank the chairperson of the Special Committee on Child Care who
Oral Questions
chaired long meetings which produced the report, the Hon. Member for Lincoln-


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: -as well as all members of the committee, including the Hon. Member who just asked the question.
I intend to study the report in detail, as many of us will. I think all of us recognize that when we are dealing with child care there has to be a mix of programs and choices into which parents can opt. That is the basis of the report, and I have only read parts of it. I have not studied it completely, but that is the way the report reads.
Having said that, it is important to take a look at those recommendations. I wish to say to the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition that we have already met with the provinces on various configurations, some of which are similar to those in the report and others which are not. As the Prime Minister has said, there will be a national plan.
One thing I want to disabuse members of the Opposition of very quickly and clearly is that there is only one method about which there is a consensus among Canadian parents as to how child care should be funded. The report very clearly indicates that there has to be more than one method. On that point, I think we should all agree today.


REQUEST FOR CONSIDERATION OF LIBERAL MINORITY REPORT
Lucie Pépin: Mr. Speaker, we know that a number of recommendations made by the Special Committee reflect a fragmented and weak approach to the crucial problem of children and day care.
Could the Minister inform the House whether he would consider both the Liberal Party's minority report and the Conservative report, in order to create a satisfactory, equitable and high quality system across Canada?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, in partisan politics there is always the temptation to give a quick response. As people have only had the report for a few hours I hope that they will study it in detail. By the same token I say to the Hon. Member, and, again, I do not know the entire proposal put forward by the Hon. Member and her Leader, if we are to trigger it only through the Canada Assistance Plan, even with the recommendations they make, then the problem becomes the following. Where is the turning point? We have discussed that here before as well. Do we make the turning point approximately $23,000 or $24,000, as it is currently under CAP? What happens to families with gross incomes above that which have a number of children and in which both parents are working? Before people go shooting all over the place like rockets that find themselves with nowhere to go, I am simply saying that they had better be

March 30, 1987
Oral Questions
careful that they analyse these matters carefully. Once that is done, the Government will come forward with a report.


REQUEST FOR UNIVERSALLY ACCESSIBLE SYSTEM
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. More than 20 years ago we launched a universal medicare system in Canada which is the envy of most of the world. Today we should be doing precisely the same thing, based on the same principles, for child care. In the past we knew that we could not have medicare based on a system of tax breaks. My question to the Prime Minister is this. Since the Conservative majority on the committee which has just brought in its report advocates most of the government spending on child care come from a tax break system, will the Prime Minister now make it clear that he is committed to a universal, publicly effective system of child care, categorically reject this majority recommendation and say that the Government will put up money directly to provide the services our children need?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, child care is a very significant and worthy national objective. We have discussed it. I have indicated that my Government is committed to it.
This report by parliamentarians came in only a few hours ago. In the tradition of parliamentary respect, we will want to read it and analyse it very carefully before responding.
As I have indicated in other circumstances-and I am delighted to do so again today-a child care program, which is something that cannot be instituted overnight, obviously, will require significant new resources. Notwithstanding that money has been rare in terms of its availability for new programs, we shall find, during the first mandate of this Government, the significant new resources necessary to ensure that, along with the provinces, we are on track in the development of a national child care program.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister knows that a fundamental question of principle is involved here.


REQUEST FOR GOVERNMENT FUNDING
John Edward Broadbent: Considering that 77 per cent of those who addressed the committee on the issue of funding opposed using the tax system to launch an important needed service such as child care, will the Prime Minister at least deal with that principle and say that we will do with child care what we have done with education in this country, what we have done with medicare in this country that is, not make it dependent on a specially calculated tax cut system but make it dependent upon direct government commitment?
Will the Government make that commitment now?


An Hon. Member:: Read the report!


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the New Democratic Party dismisses the tax credit system, as he did in his question. I think it is important that it is understood by those following this debate that what he is saying is that he does not want a certain amount of the money that is to be put into child care to go directly to the parents, who will then decide, in their circumstances, what is best for their children.
It is easy to make those kinds of statements, but one has to analyse the effect. The first point that has to be made is that parents want to have some of those choices.
As the Prime Minister has said, it is obvious that we need more day care facilities; but I cannot accept the kind of response that the Leader of the NDP gives, with a cavalier rejection of the one side of the equation, that of parental choice. Those living in rural areas often have greater access to the extended family, and using the extended family for child care is a system that has worked well for them. Let us not deprecate that. Let's look at how we can extend that throughout our modern society, in giving to parents the choices that they need.


John Edward Broadbent: Since the Minister has chosen to answer, I can tell him that the arguments he has just given were arguments given by his Party against medicare when it was introduced more than 20 years ago. The same arguments were given in the 19th century against the introduction of a public system of education.


An Hon. Member:: State ownership of children.


John Edward Broadbent: If the Minister reads our report, he will see that all kinds of options are given to parents. We want parental input into the decision on child care.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


MINISTER'S POSITION
John Edward Broadbent: Since the Minister has chosen to answer, let me ask him if he will admit that 70 per cent of those who gave advice to the committee on this issue were turned down by the Progressive Conservative majority on the committee? And will he admit that 78 per cent of those appearing before the committee recommended against public funds going to profit-making day care centres and that that, too, was turned down by the committee?
Will he admit that he is not bringing in a universal system of child care but is, rather, going back to quaint old reactionary 19th century ideas, ideas almost innate to his Party.


An Hon. Member:: State ownership of children.


John Edward Broadbent: I am prepared to have a battle on this one.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the NDP can have his own views,
March 30, 1987

but he at least should have his history correct. If he goes back to the issue of hospitalization-


John Edward Broadbent: I said "medicare". Listen.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: I am listening. If he goes back to the issue of hospitalization, if he goes back to Tommy Douglas, Emmett Hall, and the Right Hon. John Diefenbaker, because there was the five-province rule, it could not be triggered in-


An Hon. Member:: Diefenbaker was opposed to the Canada Pension Plan.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Because of the five-province rule, Mr. Diefenbaker couldn't trigger it in. The last province staying out was Ontario, and Mr. Diefenbaker said: " Look, we will remove that condition, and any province that wants to come in can do so. We will have a national plan."
With all respect, your history is wrong.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


An Hon. Member:: You guys are rewriting it. What about the CPP?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: The second point I would make is in relation to the 77 per cent figure. If he has read the report, he will find who comprised the 77 per cent. Yes, they were people from the CLC primarily, from each location, as can be seen from the report and the break-out of the witnesses.
If one looks at page 342 of the Cooke report, it will be seen that the NDP propose to finance the $11 billion expenditure by, first of all, removing all dividends on any earnings of interest-and, by the way, the first $1,000 interest exemption is claimed by seniors; secondly, Mr. Speaker, they would propose that there be removed from RRSPs all tax benefits. For all Canadians RRSPs would be gone-


Some Hon. Members:: No, no.


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: And number three, they are going to wipe out the Department of National Defence.


GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO COMMITTEE REPORT
Ms. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister has said on at least three if not four occasions that "we shall have an effective child care system"; and he has also indicated-and I was very glad to hear this- that he will commit substantial resources to this end. He has said repeatedly: "an effective national child care system."
The major tax recommendations of this special committee do not reflect this promise of the Prime Minister's, nor do they reflect the views of most of the witnesses who appeared.
Oral Questions
I would like to ask the Prime Minister whether he will personally take the time to review these submissions; and further, will he ensure that the Government's response calls for federal funding for non-profit accessible quality child care as a top priority, rather than giving money away in tax breaks?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, indeed I will take the time to review this important report carefully, and I would hope that my hon. friend will do the same thing.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: I already have. I wrote it.


Martin Brian Mulroney: The member opposite says that she wrote the report.


John Edward Broadbent: Not that one.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Well, maybe I will have to stand up and congratulate her, because she is breaking away from the NDP position of trying to nationalize our children. I can tell you, that we will not have. I want to congratulate the member for her enlightened position.


John Edward Broadbent: I cannot believe this! This is incredible.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: I heard the Leader of the Liberal Party this morning talking about kidnapping children, and this is going one step further.


John Napier Turner: You didn't hear clearly.


NON-PROFIT SYSTEM QUERY
Margaret Anne Mitchell: The Prime Minister is aware of the various studies that have been done on day care, and many are repeated in the report he has in front of him. These studies show that non-profit child care is qualitatively better than "for profit" child care. Studies right across the country have shown this.
An. Hon. Member: Right on!


Margaret Anne Mitchell: My question for the Prime Minister is: will he be sure, when developing this national child care program that he talks about, to ensure that this principle is embodied in the Government's national child care program?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I indicated to my hon. friend, who has had a great interest in this subject over many years, the extent of the Government's commitment. For example, at the First Ministers' Conference held in Vancouver last year, I, on behalf of the Government, as I did on prior occasions, committed the Government of Canada to searching for ways, with the provinces, whereby, together, we could bring about a genuine and effective national child care system.

March 30, 1987
Oral Questions
I think all of the provinces, be they of NDP, Liberal, or Conservative background, acknowledged that the complexity and the financial burden implied in such a program were such that it could not be done overnight, but they viewed the approach of the federal Government or the commitment of the federal Government as one of very considerable importance, because it marked the beginning of that kind of program which would benefit Canadian families and Canadian parents so greatly. I tell my hon. friend that we will examine very carefully, not only this report, but the minority report submitted by my hon. friend, against the backdrop of the following commitment-that our commitment to a child care program is real and that Canada will find the resources to have an effective national child care program.


ABORIGINAL RIGHTS
B. Keith Penner: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Right Hon. Prime Minister. As the Prime Minister knows, last week's constitutional conference on aboriginal rights was doomed to failure almost from the outset. The key factor in that failure was his Government's unwillingness to accept the fact that aboriginal self-determination is an inherent and inalienable right. That is a vital and first step. There had to be at least a united front between the federal Government and the aboriginal leaders. Is the Prime Minister prepared to say today to the House and to the country that he will reopen discussions and negotiations with the aboriginal leaders without delay, so that a suitable and appropriate selfgovernment amendment could be found? Would he try, please, to get it right this time?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, we put forward the proposal on behalf of the Government of Canada that the constitutional amendment should reflect the existence of an explicit right. This position was endorsed by Governments of Liberal, NDP, and Conservative persuasion. It was viewed by the provincial Governments to which I just referred as the appropriate way to go. If my hon. friend is saying that I, as Prime Minister of Canada, should have accepted a constitutional amendment that provided for an undefined and immediately enforceable right to self-government giving rise to nation to nation sovereignty in Canada, that is an entirely different proposal. If he is putting forward that proposal, may I ask him if this is the position of the Liberal Party of Canada, the Official Opposition?


LIBERAL PARTY POSITION
B. Keith Penner: Mr. Speaker, the Right Hon. Prime Minister knows the position of the Liberal Party of Canada. It is in the motion-


Mr.   de Cotret@: Nobody else does.


B. Keith Penner: The position of the Liberal Party of Canada and its Leader is clearly stated in the motion proposed by the Leader of the Opposition in the House just over a week ago; that is the position. Will the Right Hon. Prime Minister study that motion and will he accept it as being the route to follow, and engage in a program of persuasion to convince the Premiers of the country and the public that this is the kind of self-government amendment we want and need in order to complete this Confederation of ours?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I am interested by the suggestion of my hon. friend. While I was not in the House at the time, I read Hansard. I think there was a question from the Minister of Justice addressed to the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition asking him if the position he had adopted meant that he espoused a position consistent with that put out by the AFN which has implications of sovereignty, nation to nation sovereignty. The Leader of the Opposition, as I understand it, rejected that proposal and rejected that position.
What we have put forward, endorsed by the Government of Ontario, by Premier Peterson, by his very distinguished Attorney General, by Premier Ghiz, and by the Leader of the Government in Yukon, the NDP, was a commitment which was far in advance of anything put forward before on behalf of the federal Government. If we compare it with the position in 1983 and 1984, we see a tremendous step forward on behalf of native rights coming from the Government of Canada.
I think that I share the view of Ontario Attorney General Ian Scott who said that history will show that Canada missed an excellent opportunity to entrench self-government, because the proposal we put forward, while not perfect, on behalf of the people of Canada and the Government of Canada, strongly endorsed by Ontario, Prince Edward Island, and others, would have marked in its acceptance a great stride forward toward equality and fairness for the native peoples of Canada. I deeply regret that we did not succeed, but I give my hon. friend the assurance that we shall try again to make sure that justice comes about for the native peoples of Canada.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Alex Kindy (Calgary East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of the Environment. As the Minister is aware, yesterday, shortly after midnight, a mysterious cloud
March 30, 1987

of toxic gas arrived in the southeast area of Calgary causing concern and illness to many of my constituents. Will the Minister give the House an update on the progress being made in identifying the cause of this toxic cloud over Calgary? Can he assure the House that he will offer technical assistance to the provincial Ministry of the Environment?


Hon. Tom McMillan (Minister of the Environment):: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I can give the Hon. Member the assurance he seeks. The primary responsibility rests with the provincial Department of the Environment, but the Government of Canada, through the Atmospheric Environment Service of my Department, is backing that jurisdiction to the hilt through every possible technical and scientific avenue. We have not, frankly, been able to determine the exact nature of the toxic cloud. We have, however, eliminated certain possibilities, for example, sulphur dioxide, hydrogen sulphide, and carbon monoxide. The investigation is continuing, again with the full backing of the Government of Canada. We share the Hon. Member's deep concern and are following the issue with a great sense of urgency.


NATIONAL SECURITY
Mr. John Nunziata (York South-Weston):: Mr. Speaker, my question concerns the surreptitious organization known as the Canadian Security Establishment and its involvement with the Mist group of companies. Press reports today raise some very disturbing questions regarding this secretive organization. Who are they? What do they do? To whom are they accountable? Are they acting within the law, and exactly what role did they play with the Mist group of companies? Will the Government refer this whole issue to the Standing Committee on Justice and Solicitor General to investigate all the disturbing questions that are raised regarding the Canadian Security Establishment?


Hon. Paul Dick (Associate Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, I can indicate to the Hon. Member that the CSE is a division of the Department of National Defence, reports through the Minister of National Defence, and it is a matter which can be brought up in the National Defence Committee at any time.


John V. Nunziata: The Minister is mistaken. The Canadian Security Establishment is not accountable to any one Minister and in fact is not accountable to Parliament.


REQUEST THAT REVIEW COMMITTEE BE ESTABLISHED
John V. Nunziata: Mr. Speaker, I would like to put a supplementary question to the Minister. Will the Government bring in legislation immediately to
Oral Questions
establish a review committee to monitor the workings of the Canadian Security Establishment, to ensure that the privacy of innocent Canadians is maintained, to ensure that the organization is accountable to Parliament, but, more important, to ensure that the organization operates within the law?


Paul Wyatt Dick: Mr. Speaker, I can assure him that the organization operates within the laws of Canada and that it does report to Parliament through the Minister of National Defence.


NATIVE PEOPLES
Mr. John Parry (Kenora-Rainy River):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Right Hon. Prime Minister. Considering the strong disappointment expressed by the chiefs of the aboriginal peoples following the failure of the First Ministers' Conference, and considering that the Prime Minister himself rejected Mr. Pawley's suggestion to simply adjourn the conference until a later date, what is he prepared to do specifically, as of today, to work towards entrenchment in the Canadian Constitution of the right to self-government?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I missed the very end of the question. If you would have the kindness to repeat it?


John Edmund Parry: Of course, but not as a supplementary.
Considering the strong disappointment expressed by the aboriginal chiefs following the failure of the First Ministers' Conference and considering that the Prime Minister himself rejected Mr. Pawley's decision to adjourn the Conference to a later date, what is the Prime Minister prepared to do specifically, starting today, to work towards enshrinement in the Constitution of the right to self-government?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, we are still looking for a formula that will make it possible to enshrine the rights of aboriginal peoples in the Constitution of Canada. We worked non-stop on a formula that would receive the approval of seven provinces with 50 per cent of the population. We did not succeed last week, but the federal Government's obligation is clear. I think the responsibility is equally shared by the provinces, and we intend to examine with them and the leaders of the various aboriginal groups the various alternatives available, in order to try and develop another formula that would meet with the requisite consent of the various groups so that this right can finally be enshrined in the Canadian Constitution.

March 30, 1987
Oral Questions


POSITION OF NATIVE PEOPLE
John Edmund Parry: Mr. Speaker, by way of a supplementary question, the Prime Minister stated at the conference that the people who would bear the heaviest price for that failure were the native people of Canada. I would like to hear, and I am sure so would all Canadians, what the federal Government will do to ease that burden of failure that has been laid upon the native people of this country.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I indicated that I thought the native peoples would bear the heaviest price, not because of their responsibility but because of our collective failure to achieve an agreement that would relieve them of that burden. I said with the greatest sadness that this was a moral obligation that has been unfulfilled by Canada, by the federal Government, by the provinces and so on.
I point out to my hon. friend that when the amending formula was devised, it was devised, of course, with the concept of 10 provinces involved. I want to tell my hon. friend how difficult it is when a province, which reduces the number to nine, with about 30 per cent of the population, is not part of the amending formula, of the process, and how few doors on which a Prime Minister can knock on behalf of the aboriginal peoples in trying to build that consensus which is necessary.
It may be that if we get the leadership and generosity from other provinces that we will be able, for example, to find a formula which will allow Quebec to become part of the constitutional process. In which case it is my judgment that that would greatly facilitate an equal degree of justice so long overdue to the native peoples, because the Government of Quebec is quite favourably disposed to many of the things that we have been trying to do over the last number of years.


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


Martin Brian Mulroney: I am sorry to have taken a little time, Mr. Speaker, but I know the sincerity of my hon. friend in this matter. I want to assure him of our fullest co-operation in bringing justice to the native peoples of Canada.


FISHERIES
Mr. George Henderson (Egmont):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. The Minister knows that as of tomorrow the Marine Ecology Lab in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, will be disbanded based on a decision that he made some time ago. In light of the fact that
this move has been condemned by scientists around the world and by the fishing industry in Atlantic Canada, will the Minister stand in his place today and admit that his original decision was wrong? Will he defer the closing until a proper study of our fisheries research programs is undertaken by the industry and the Government?


Hon. Thomas Siddon (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Mr. Speaker, first I should point out to the Hon. Member that the work of the marine ecology laboratory at the Bedford Institute is not being disbanded. I should indicate that the commitment of this Government is to strengthen and enhance the effectiveness of our scientific research across the board and, in this case, in support of the needs of our fisheries and our ocean industries. For that reason, out of the some 60 scientists at the marine ecology laboratory, no more than six will have their office location changed or their presence in that laboratory altered. Those six will be moved to St. John's, Newfoundland, where they will assist us to do a better job of supporting the important fisheries management and science in that northern region which was vastly understaffed in previous years.


CANADA-FRANCE BOUNDARY DISPUTE-IMPORTANCE OF SCIENTIFIC DATA
George Roland Henderson: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the same Minister. I realize that some of those scientists will be shifted to Newfoundland. But I want to get something across to the Minister today. He knows full well that the favourable decision we got over the United States in the Georges Bank dispute was mainly because of good scientific evidence and data supplied by the Marine Ecology Lab in Dartmouth. That is one of the reasons why we do not want to see that unit broken up.
In light of the fact that we have a real boundary dispute between Canada and France and we need good scientific evidence and data to support our claim in those negotiations, does the Minister not agree that it is more imperative than ever to have this kind of scientific evidence and data to support our case with France?


Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, the process in which we are engaged is one of integrating and consolidating our scientific resources to bring together more effectively oceanographers with fisheries biologists and hydrographers in certain centres of disciplinary expertise, of which two new ones will be created at the Bedford Institute. The marine ecology laboratory was only a subbranch within the Bedford Institute. It is being enhanced and improved by the creation of a new centre on plankton ecology; another new centre on contaminants and toxicology, as well another strengthening of this centre in marine biology. We are, in fact, improving our ability to serve the industry in the way in which the Hon. Member seeks.
March 30, 1987


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Right Hon. Prime Minister. It has to do with the upcoming meetings between the Prime Minister and President Reagan. Will the Prime Minister assure the House that when he meets with President Reagan, pursuant to an anxiety that was placed before the Special Committee on Acid Rain last week by a distinguished American expert on acid rain, Mr. Paul Hansen, of the Isaac Walton League, he will seek assurances from President Reagan that if there comes to be a congressional consensus and congressional action on acid rain legislation, the President will not veto such legislation?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, we have been urging the Congress to get its act together for a long time. For example, some of these Congressmen who take the liberty of coming up here-God bless them all-to give us some lectures, I have been saying to them: "Why don't you stay at home and persuade the leadership of your own Parties-not the guy across the aisle, persuade your own leaders-to adopt a position in favour of a control bill on acid rain?" Once it gets through the House and the Senate, I think it will be widely acclaimed in the United States and would be ratified by the administration. We very strongly agree with anybody who shares that view. We have been putting it out for some years.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill on a short supplementary, please.


POSSIBLE PRESIDENTIAL VETO
William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I am asking the Prime Minister if he would seek assurances from President Reagan that when that day comes-when Congress is able to do what the Prime Minister says he wants Congress to do and what we all want Congress to do-that the President will not veto any such congressional action, because there is a legitimate worry among the acid rain constituency in the United States that the President might actually contemplate such an action. Would the Prime Minister seek an assurance from the President that he will not do that? That is what we are asking the Prime Minister to do.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I suppose it would depend on what kind of a Bill came out, if any-my friend is shaking his head-in much the same way as New Democrats would not accept, until they saw it on their legislative desks, a government proposal. The Hon. Member would not want someone else in another jurisdiction to give a blind cheque in advance until such time as the legislation is there. All I am saying is that I hope my hon. friend uses his very considerable influence with some American legislators and urges them to take the time and the energy to stay at home prevailing upon members of their own Parties
Oral Questions
to bring forward a Bill. The member should not worry. If that Bill passes the House and the Senate, it will pass through the United States.


IMMIGRATION
Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Immigration. We now learn that shady travel agents and consultants in Lebanon are involved in peddling Canadian visas for up to $6,500. This comes on the heels of similar activities and practices in Portugal.
Given that the Government ignored repeated requests last year on trying to come to grips with this problem and that it is not an isolated, insignificant matter, will the Minister investigate the latest scam in Lebanon as part of a comprehensive inquiry covering all our immigration posts abroad so that, together and collectively, we can stamp out this growing industry of fraud and manipulation?


Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, last week I pointed out to the Hon. Member that, particularly in the case of charges made concerning Toronto passport trafficking with respect to Portuguese, we had asked the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to investigate. The same procedure is followed in any alleged criminal activity concerning the Department of Immigration, that is again we did ask the RCMP to check into and investigate the case raised by my colleague. I should think that the RCMP will pass on to us any information likely to warrant further inquiries.


REQUEST FOR APPOINTMENT OF ROYAL COMMISSION
Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is directed to the Right Hon. Prime Minister. The confusion paralysing his Government's immigration policy is seriously eroding the confidence of Canadians, including his own back-benchers who have requested his intervention to ensure an overhaul of the entire policy. Will the Prime Minister order a full review, indeed a royal commission on immigration, so that we can collectively clean up the mess and articulate a clear, sound vision of immigration policy? If not, how will he, not the Minister, respond to the request by his own back-benchers, let alone other Canadians?


Mr. Shields:: He is trying to clean up your mess. [Translation]


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, I wish my colleague would have

March 30, 1987
Oral Questions
had such clear policies when his Party was in office, because on several occasions he blamed me for being too clear in the policies we have implemented over the past two years, everything is clear and definite . . . We tell him that the RCMP must do their job and he responds with a confusing question.
Mr. Speaker, some people have specific roles to play in this country: we have ours in immigration, the RCMP have theirs and we are not going to ask them not to do their job simply because everything is confused in the Hon. Member's mind. The events will unfold as they should because that is the way it works in a country and a government where things are done in an orderly manner.


CHILD CARE
Mr. Robert Toupin (Terrebonne):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Tradition in this country is such that health care and education are too important to be considered as profitable sectors. The committee reports indicate that the Government should use public funds to finance commercial day care centres, yet most witnesses who appeared before the committee were against that policy. Would the Prime Minister assure us that his Government is against this commercial approach?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, 1 will reply to the member in the same way I did to others, namely, that the Government has received the report, will study it, and then come forward with recommendations not only to government Members but also to the provinces. As the Hon. Member should know, this is a shared responsibility. As of today the report has exactly that status and that is the way we will proceed.


ESTABLISHMENT OF UNIVERSAL DAY CARE SYSTEM-DIRECT GRANTS-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Robert Toupin: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. I should think that time has come for the Prime Minister to live up to his promise to establish a universal day care system. Can the Prime Minister commit himself to making the direct grants required for that purpose before the end of June this year?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, that is not what the Prime Minister said. The new member of the NDP does not seem to be any clearer on the issues than his Leader.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Edward Broadbent: Keep on talking, Jake.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: The Prime Minister's position is quite clear and we will not-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Hon. Members will have noted that this Question Period has been marked with long questions and long responses and is nearly at the end. The Hon. Member for Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke.


SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Mr. Len Hopkins (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke):: Mr. Speaker, thank you for the new challenge.
In a letter to me the Minister of Science and Technology said it would cost $12 million to upgrade the Algonquin Observatory. The National Research Council Vice-President for Science said it would cost $15 million to $20 million. The Minister's own Parliamentary Secretary used yet another set of figures in this House. Why does the Minister disagree with the NRC and his own Parliamentary Secretary? Why is there this big ploy to create the worst possible scenario for the Algonquin Observatory in order to try to justify the Government's colonial decision to remove this science and technology from Canadian soil?


Hon. Frank Oberle (Minister of State for Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, as I told the Hon. Member on several occasions last week, it was not a government decision not to refurbish the Algonquin Observatory but instead to cooperate in an international effort to establish the world's finest observatory on the best possible site. That decision the scientists made for us on behalf of the NRC and it just happens to be the best option available to us.


NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL'S POSITION
Leonard Donald Hopkins: Mr. Speaker, it is not difficult to read the Hon. Minister because my next question is: why is he blaming the NRC for closing the Algonquin Observatory at a time when the officials at the NRC are clearly saying that if the Government had not cut the NRC budget so drastically, $20.5 million, upgrading of the ARO would have gone ahead and Canada would have its own world-class millimetre telescope located on Canadian soil. Now, answer that!


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Answer that!


Frank Oberle: Mr. Speaker, like every other Member of the
March 30, 1987

House, you will recall that several months ago I was being criticized for something I was not doing, that is, directing the NRC on how to spend the money Parliament allocates to it. Now the Hon. Member asks why I did not interfere with the decision. He cannot have it both ways. The decision happens to be the best decision-
Mir. Speaker: Order, please. This will be the last question.


ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Solicitor General. Does he agree with the Minister of Justice and the Attorney-General of Ontario, both of whom say Canadians have lost confidence and faith in our criminal justice system? Will he take immediate steps to change our parole system, bearing in mind that the Chairman of the National Parole Board said recently there are no clear-cut criteria at present for the granting of parole?


Hon. James Kelleher (Solicitor General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for his question and I welcome the opportunity to clarify the statements of the Chairman of the NPB. I am happy to advise the Hon. Member that, yes, indeed, we do have criteria. The study presently under way is to try to implement a more even method of establishing these criteria across the country.
As far as the criminal justice system and the method of sentencing are concerned, as you know the commission has just reported after a two and a half year study. I welcome the report and I and my colleague, the Minister of Justice, are studying it and will report in due course.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mrs. McDougall (St. Paul's) that Bill C-38, an Act respecting the reorganization and divestiture of Teleglobe Canada, be read the third time and do pass.
Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I will give my colleagues a choice: they can either listen to me or leave, but I hope at least 20 members will stay in the House!
Teleglobe Canada

We are dealing today with Bill C-38 which will give legislative authority for the sale of Teleglobe Canada to Memotec. This is a $600 million transaction. My preoccupation with this sale has mostly been with the question of pensions and the right of employees of the new company to a mirror plan pension equivalent to what they had when they were covered under the Public Service Superannuation Act.
The Bill is fundamentally flawed because it does not ensure in law that the employee compensation package will be fair, equitable and respectful with regard to the acquired pension benefits. The Government is attempting to rush Bill C-38 through the House and committee arguing that tomorrow, March 31, is a deadline for the deal, although the Bill has a June, 1987, date for finalization. The reasons are basically financial with regard to the Quebec stock option plan and the new rules which will apply on April 1 for those who invest in plans approved by the province. By blending the equity of Teleglobe, Memotec would change category and there may be some people who would have less interest in buying this stock under the Quebec stock option plan.
Nevertheless, the employee organizations to which I had the pleasure of speaking this morning have assured me that they have received a better deal from Memotec than they were originally offered by the Government. Although the Hon. Member for Sarnia-Lambton (Mr. James) said that they had not mounted a sustained attack on the Bill, their interest is to protect acquired rights in regard to pension and to protect their plan from being eroded by a pick and choose option of the Government with regard to actuarial assumptions and, more specifically, the interest rate and mortality rates.
This is a rather complex issue and for the average Canadian who has not been briefed it could be somewhat difficult to understand. I will try-

in French we say "vulgariser", and in English I would say [English]
-make it as simple as possible. I will use the KISS principle, "Keep It Simple, Stupid". The idea starts with actuarial assumptions.

And what are those actuarial assumptions? In the case of Memotec, we are talking about $100 million, a fairly substantial amount, that would be set aside for employees.
The Government, however, has decided against transferring the entire amount to the new company which would otherwise have had a fully funded plan. The Government is proposing to transfer only 90 per cent, on the basis of actuarial tables produced by the Chief Actuary of Canada in 1971. The Government has considered factors which we find hard to

March 30, 1987
Teleglobe Canada
reconcile with what we know today about the latest assessments made by Canadian actuaries of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries.
Regarding the first item, interest, the Government maintains that the interest rate proposed by the actuaries is too high and therefore wants to bring the rate down. Furthermore, the Government again, while recognizing that the GAM, which is a GAM 83, the-

-the Group Annuity Mortality.

So, what the Government did was to use GAM 71 instead of the far more recent GAM 83. The difference between GAM 71 and GAM 83 is that the latter study recognizes that the life expectancy of workers is far greater than it was in 1971. People are living longer and so will be entitled to pension payments for a longer period of time, and we must therefore provide for additional funding.
The latest GAM was a study prepared by the Canadian Institute of Actuaries in 1983, which recognizes, as I said before, that life expectancy has improved and people are living longer. The Government did not consider GAM 83 but GAM 71 because it was more convenient. According to GAM 71, people were dying at an earlier age which meant that the Government's outlay for pensions was not as high.
Mr. Speaker, perhaps I should explain that these actuarial assumptions are based on the following components. One component refers to interest, set at 6.5 per cent over the long term. Another component refers to long-term inflation of 5.5 per cent, and there is also a component that refers to wage and merit increases, in other words, advancement during a person's career, which is set at 1.5 per cent. Usually, inflation and wage and merit increases are about 5 per cent. This is important. It is this 5 per cent margin that is most often used by actuaries.
As I was saying earlier-and I am getting back to my point on interest rates-the Government feels that interest rates are too high and that nothing justifies investing as much as $100 million at current rates, which as we know are about 8 or 8.5 per cent, to produce that much money. Expecting the fund to yield more, the Government holds back the money, the Government helps itself and says: We will put back only 90 per cent because we believe that 6.5 per cent over a long term would be enough to meet pension commitments.
Well, Mr. Speaker, the union, the employees and management maintain that there is something wrong, something unfair in this Government approach. And this was, if you will, the basic argument of the union and the employers during the committee proceedings. They quite rightly maintained that indeed the employees had every reason to be concerned because, on one hand the company was committed to continue and maintain a plan identical to the one the employees had with Teleglobe, and on the other the company promised to maintain and give the same sound bases, the same financing
and the same benefits the employees had been enjoying all along.
What worries the unions and Memotec management is that if the $100 million actuarial fund were paid to the company there would probably be enough money to keep the fund on a sound actuarial basis. But if the amount paid is reduced to 90 per cent, $90 million instead of $100 million, the employee is quite justified to ask the following question: Will my savings, my money, my contributions be sufficient to guarantee the pension benefits I am entitled to in future years?
And this is an honest question, it is even very serious because ever since the committee sat we had to put up many arguments to convince the Government to listen. Mr. Speaker, in a 1986 telex to Teleglobe Canada employees concerning privatization, the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. de Cotret) had this to say: "Regarding your March 21, 1986 telegram, I assure you that I will be available to meet with you and answer the question on pensions before an announcement is made. As soon as my agenda is definite I will see to it that my office get in touch with you to set the time and place of the meeting." It is signed Robert de Cotret, President of the Treasury Board.
Mr. Speaker, the President of the Treasury Board had promised he would meet with the employees to re-assure them and explain the Government position concerning this transfer of pension funds, but he did not keep his word, he did not take this opportunity he had to give the employees more explanations. He sent his officials to do that, Mr. Speaker, and God knows the employees did their best, but these officials did not have authority to change anything and, since their hands were tied, they had to admit that only the Minister could solve the problem, that is come up with the $ 10-odd million to put the fund on a sound actuarial basis and do justice to Teleglobe-Memotec employees.
Mr. Speaker, not only the employees said that, so did management people, senior officials who belonged to the ad hoc committee. Here is a quotation from page 243 of the March 11, 1987 legislative committee proceedings on Bill C-
38:

I am a manager at Teleglobe. I am a member of the Ad Hoc Committee on Pension Matters. It was put together after 90 per cent of Teleglobe employees expressed their concerns about the way pension matters were evolving. The committee was formed to protect the pension benefits which had accrued and would continue to accrue.
The committee is representative of all employees, unionized and nonunionized, and those almost between two chairs. Possibly it is going to become a technical personnel association in the future.
It goes on in the next paragraph:
Why are employees concerned? 1 think we should talk about a few terms: pensions and acquired pension benefits.
Later in the same hearing on March 11, 1987, Mr. Rutherford said:
March 30, 1987

One more point. We also have been informed by government personnel that the actuarial methods used will be different from those used for Canadian Arsenals and that the results obtained by Teleglobe employees will certainly not be as favourable. They have tried to assure us that it will be close, but whether it will be close or not we have another actuary who says that maybe it will not be. We do not really know and understand why we would not get the same sort of treatment as Canadian Arsenals. It is discriminatory.
Indeed, it is discriminatory that the Government would have deux poids, deux mesures, or two weights, two measures. One set of assumptions was used for Canadian Arsenals and there was a good and fair settlement. A different set of figures was used for Teleglobe, another company being privatized by the Government. No wonder employees, managers and nonunionized people would join together to say that it is discriminatory. There must be one standard that will apply to all, otherwise it opens discussions and the possibility of this kind of discrimination.
After the committee stage, the Bill returned to the House at report stage where we moved an amendment that was defeated by the Government.
Today we began third reading. The Member for Sarnia- Lambton (Mr. James) said that in his opinion the unions had not mounted an attack against the privatization of Teleglobe. I think that statement will not bear scrutiny when one reads the reports of the various intervenors in the debate.
The Government has made a decision on privatization. It decided to sell Teleglobe and make S600 million to reduce the deficit. One of the union representatives stated in committee that this was like selling the furniture to pay the rent. Nevertheless, apart from the privatization debate, which I will not enter because my time is limited, I suggest it would have been a good occasion for the Government to show some sensitivity by meeting with the union representatives and others to better explain the transaction as it relates to their pension acquired rights.
Today we saw a letter from the Minister of State for Privatization, who is also Minister responsible for regulatory affairs, which was addressed to all employees of Teleglobe. We also saw the answer from Mr. Carlos Saldanha and Mr. Rutherford, whom I quoted before, on behalf of the Teleglobe Canada AD HOC Committee on Pensions.
I want to quote from those documents in order to clarify the situation. The Minister's letter to the employees, attempts to make the case that all employees will be protected fully by this transaction in regard to the continuity of their pension benefits. The Minister states in her letter:
Teleglobe employees will have the equivalent of a PSSA pension plan and more.
The Conditions of Sale required prospective purchasers to put in place a pension plan that was at least as good as the telecommunications industry norm;
Memotec is replacing the PSSA with a plan that mirrors these benefits for all existing employees;
1 accept that. The employees and some of us in the House are concerned that if less money than required is transferred to Memotec, perhaps some of the hard-earned savings will not be
Teleglobe Canada
there in five years when the monopoly in telecommunications will more or less have run out for that company. Our difference of opinion lies in the fact that the Government, in using the actuarial assumptions it has, literally reduces the actuarial transfers that will be given to the new company by some $10 million. That worries the employees today because it is possible the company could face some difficulties and fall short of the expectations that the Minister seems to imply. She goes on to say in her letter:
This means there will be no change to the current level of pension benefits enjoyed by Teleglobe employees. It is false and misleading to suggest that they are being deprived of benefits;
No one ever said that. We are saying that there is a shortfall and a use of figures which I do not believe is easily explainable in regard to the actuarial assumptions that have been changed, and with regard to the interest rate and the actuarial mortality rates. We know that Canadians are living longer. We must not try to make people believe that despite the fact that the actuarial studies show an increase in life expectancy, we will use some 1971 study to justify the transfer of funds. That is a measure of some concern.
I would like to make with a few closing remarks. I said that this Bill is discriminatory. I think the employees feel that in this transaction the effects of the actuarial assumptions will have a difficult and possibly damaging effect on their pension benefits. The President of the Treasury Board (Mr. de Cotret) could have solved that if he had kept his word and met with the employees and explained what he intends to do. That complaint not only comes from the unions, it comes from nonunion individuals and management. They all feel very nervous and concerned about this plan and would like the Minister to sit down with them-that is all they are asking-and explain and then come to an agreement and, if need be, have a third-party arbitrator to do that for the sake of protecting the integrity of the employees and their savings and pension benefits.


Kenneth Albert James: First, I would like to reread the letter in its entirety. The letter was written to the Minister of State for Privatization Mrs. McDougall and is dated March 27:
Dear Madam Minister;
We, the Teleglobe AD HOC Pension Committee-
This is the committee which was concerned about past service actuarial assumptions, and so on.
-understand that it is in the best interest of the parties concerned that Bill C-38 be passed and come into effect by March 31, 1987. We also wished to see this date achieved.
However, some issues related to transferring values for past service, in our opinion, are still not resolved. We expect that your Government will endeavour to sit down with representatives of this committee, as was previously promised by the Hon. Robert de Cotret, to reach an equitable solution in the process of developing a Reciprocal Transfer Agreement. A proper transfer agreement, when coupled with the future plan offered by Memotec, which we note was more than generous than the norm your Government recommended, will maintain Teleglobe's pension plan features for existing employees as they were prior to privatization.

March 30, 1987
Teleglobe Canada
The letter was signed by Carlos Saldanha who appeared a number of times before our committee. I think that certainly tells it all. Certainly their committee is satisfied with the way in which things are progressing.
In the same vein, I would like to ask the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier) about the actuarial difference between the CAL proposal or the CAL privatization, and the Teleglobe privatization. Would the Hon. Member also have some ideas as to the differences on the plus side of the benefits and so on of the agreement on Teleglobe versus the one on CAL?


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I am not, as I said, a specialist in actuarial things. I am concerned with the pension side of it. The request I was making and the plea I was putting forth can be explained by the second paragraph in the letter quoted by the Hon. Member, which reads:
However, some issues related to transferring values for past service, in our opinion, are still not resolved.
That is what I was addressing. It continues:
We expect that your Government will endeavour to sit down with representatives of this committee, as was previously promised by the Hon. Robert de Cotret, to reach an equitable solution in the process of developing a Reciprocal Transfer Agreement.
My argument with the Government is that it did that with the SNC and Canadian Arsenals. The Government did sit down and come to an agreement. It did meet half way, or I might possibly say in a full way, in trying to come to terms with the actuarial evaluations which were being made.
I am here voicing what I think is a general opinion of the employees and non-union individuals and management. Even though the employees admit that the decision to privatize was taken, it was not their decision. They have told the Government since 1978 or 1979: "Do not privatize. There are dangers here. But if you do, we would like to make sure that what you do is done properly".
There are documents I could read if time would permit which would support the view that the unions consistently have said to Governments since the Liberal Government of 19801984, and particularly to this Government, "Do not privatize". But this Government decided to privatize. I am not discussing the privatization process in itself. I am talking about the employee pension plans and the employees' rights and concerns and their repeated requests. The letter of March 27 states:
However, some issues related to transferring values for past service, in our opinion, are still not resolved.
What I am doing is asking the Government to try honestly to resolve this issue of using actuarial assumptions which possibly are questionable and using the GAM83 instead of the GAM71 which are the actuarial mortality rates it is using now and which, I think, a debatable question and could possibly be resolved by mutual agreement.
Clause 35, of Bill C-38 refers clearly under "Coming into Force", to sections 20, 21 and 25. Section 25 is the section
dealing with the pensions entitled "Transitional and Consequential Pension Rights". Clause 35 reads:
Subsection 4(4) and sections 20, 21, 25, 30 and 32 to 34 shall come into force
on a day or days to be fixed by proclamation.
But what the people are saying is, "You want the Bill, you have the majority, and you are going to privatize it anyway, but now let us have some concern for the people involved. Before you can proclaim this Bill, would you please meet with us and explain what you are trying to do with actuarial assumptions, how you are going to guarantee and maintain the purchasing power of our savings and come to grips with that issue, either on a one-to-one basis with the unions or have a third party arbitrate and decide by a third-party arbitration process, as we do with many other things, who has the better deal and who can come forth with reasonable, assured pension right benefits, guaranteed and solidly in favour of the employees".


Kenneth Albert James: Mr. Speaker, I know the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier is very concerned about the employees, and on his part he is very ethical and right. I think, though, we have to take all things into consideration. He said he did not know about the other aspects of the agreement under CAL. I think we have to take all things into consideration. Of course, the employees want a different actuarial assumption and want it enhanced. Let us take into consideration a comparison between CAL and the Telegiobe plan. The Teleglobe plan has a defined benefit. The CAL plan has no pre-determined level of benefits. Whatever the money is in the plan is what can be bought upon retirement. That is a very significant difference. I think the Hon. Member would want to know that when he considers how the employees are being treated.
Additionally, the Teleglobe plan has full indexing for past and future service. The CAL plan does not. I think the Hon. Member would want to know that when he looks at the total package. Employers' implicit contribution to the Teleglobe plan is 10.6 per cent or more. Employers' contribution to the CAL plan is 6.5 per cent or less. There is a very significant difference between the two. I know my colleague who is interested in this matter will want to know that.
The CAL employees bear all the risks. The Teleglobe employees bear no risks. The risks, if any, in the plan will be borne by the Memotec-Teleglobe Company. These are significant differences, and I know that the Hon. Member would want to take all aspects of all plans for employees into consideration, notwithstanding the fact that the employees have said that they have confidence in the Government and Memotec. They seem to be saying: "Pass the Bill. Let's not muck around with this. We have been consulted all along". We will continue to consult in terms of a final understanding as far as past service is concerned.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I have just a short reply. I am glad that the Hon. Member gave us the figures which he did.
March 30, 1987

We did not have those figures this morning. I wish that we had had them because I would have liked to check them. In debate it is always useful to have that type of information.
If the Memotec plan was so good, why is it that the Government is using different assumptions? That is the only question I am putting. As far as the Canadian Arsenals plan is concerned, at the time everyone seemed to be satisfied with the deal made. Why was that not used as the standard? Those are the questions I would ask the Hon. Member. I accept some of the figures, and I will check them out.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The time allotted for questions and comments has now terminated.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: 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 York East (Mr. Redway)-Environmental Affairs-Possible use of low-sulphur western coal by Ontario Hydro; the Hon. Member for Don Valley East (Mr. Attewell)-Penitentiaries-Illiteracy among inmates; and the Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom)-The Economy-Western economic development, (b) Mandate of alleged office.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mrs. McDougall that Bill C-38, an Act respecting the reorganization and divestiture of Teleglobe Canada, be read the third time and passed.
William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to participate in the debate today on third reading of Bill C-38, an Act to authorize the sale of Teleglobe. I am pleased to have an opportunity to say a word about privatization, about the Government's privatization program in general and, more specifically, about the privatization of Teleglobe. I regret that the Minister of State for Privatization (Mrs. McDougall) did not take the opportunity, which was hers at third reading, to speak to the House, giving us the benefit of her reflections on this process and on
Teleglobe Canada
the proposal by the Government. In abdicating her responsibility to do so she gave the Hon. Member for Gander-Twillin-gate (Mr. Baker) the opportunity for unlimited time in which to make his remarks. Knowing the oratorical talent of the Hon. Member, I am surprised that that time did indeed come to an end and that he is not still speaking. One thing I would have liked to have heard from the Minister, if she had deigned to enter the Chamber and share her thoughts with ordinary Members of Parliament, would have been the Government's philosophy and over-all strategy with respect to the money that the Government will receive as a result of privatization sales.
In the fall of 1985 I had the opportunity to go with a parliamentary study group to Great Britain. I was there with the former Member for St. John's East, His Excellency the Lieutenant Governor of Newfoundland, and several others. I suppose I can refer to the former Hon. Member by name now since he is no longer a sitting member. Mr. McGrath was chairman of the delegation. We spent some time in London meeting with officials and politicians from both sides of the House to discuss the politics and the mechanics of privatization. We all know that the British Government committed itself to a privatization program which, in large measure, it has completed. A great many British Crown corporations have been privatized to one degree or another. I would note, however, that even the British Government and Mrs. Thatcher, whom we in my Party regard as being ideologically extreme with respect to economic matters, retained a 51 per cent controlling interest in British Telecom when they privatized it. Even Mrs. Thatcher was wise enough and pragmatic enough, one might say, to realize that when it comes to something such as communications, and in particular international telecommunications, the public interest must come before any particular ideological consideration or any particular opportunity for increasing the profit that might come to the Government through privatization. Thus the British Government retained a 51 per cent ownership in British Telecom. If I remember correctly, it privatized the other 49 per cent in the market-place through the offering of shares for sale.
When I was in Britain at that time there was a debate going on within the Conservative Party with respect to what should be done with the moneys received from privatization. It was a very interesting debate. One of the things I have found odd about the politics of privatization in Canada is that there has been no debate in Canada similar to that which went on in Britain. The privatization debate here in Canada seems to be somewhat of a sideline. It is something that is going on while other more important things are going on.
I find this regrettable for two reasons. The first is, of course, that I am opposed to the Government's privatization program. Quite frankly, I think it is getting away with murder. I think it is getting away with having all these privatizations, not having all that much attention paid to the process either by the media or by Parliament for that matter. I think these Bills have made their way through the parliamentary process with much less

March 30, 1987
Tele globe Canada
hassle than the Government deserves on its measures to privatize Crown corporations.
Having said that, what I found most interesting about the debate going on in Britain was the debate going on within the Conservative Party itself about where the money from privatization should go. As I understand the position of the Conservative Party of Canada-and if I misunderstand the position I hope government Members will correct me-it is that this money will simply go into operating revenues, into current accounts. This money will not be set aside for any specific purpose that might either now or later be determined by the Government to be a worthy object of such funds. Within the Conservative Party in Britain there was a debate about whether the money from privatization-and we are talking about considerable sums of money- should go simply into offsetting the deficit or whether it should go into a special fund created by these numerous privatizations. On the part of those Conservatives who were in favour of the special fund option, if I may put it that way, their thought was that they might be better able to persuade the public of the value of privatization if they could point to specific things that they were going to do with the money received from such sales.
The criticism of simply taking any money made from privatization and applying it to the deficit was best put by the late Lord Stockton, or Harold Macmillan, a former Prime Minister of Great Britain. During debate in the House of Lords, Lord Stockton compared the policy of the Conservative Government of Mrs. Thatcher to selling off the family silver in order to pay the electricity bill.
Yet, Mr. Speaker, this is exactly the kind of policy that we see coming from the Progressive Conservative Government here in Canada, the difference being that at least-and this is no ringing defence of the Conservative Party of Great Britain-at least within that Conservative Party, they were intellectually alive enough, or at least the 92 year olds were, to ask whether it was a viable strategy to take this money that was being made from the sale of important institutions and using it in this non-specific, non-goal oriented way of applying it against the current deficit. There was a great debate, and I was impressed with the way a 92-year old parliamentarian delivered a criticism of his own Government. I am probably not being faithful to the exact words, but certainly the analogy of selling off the family silver in order to pay the electricity bill was used.


An Hon. Member:: We could sell a few Tories.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: And here, Mr. Speaker, we have a good example of how the Canadian Government is leaving itself open to this particular kind of criticism, leaving aside the more fundamental criticism of the Government's privatization program in the first place, a program with which we, as New Democrats, disagree. We disagree with it both in principle and in practice: in principle because we do not think that a
comprehensive privatization program is what is going to bring about the rebirth and necessary restructuring and revitalization of the Canadian economy; and opposition in practice because thus far none of the privatization that this Government has embarked upon has met what we would consider to be the condition under which isolated privatization might be to the benefit of Canada.
I say that, Mr. Speaker, because 1 want you and other Members to know-and I have said so in the House before- that we are not opposed, on principle, to each and every privatization that each and every Government might consider in each and every moment of Canadian history.
The Manitoba Government, for instance, only recently decided to privatize the Flyer Bus Company. It was felt that that was the only reasonable course of action left to the Government in the circumstances of that case.
It would be a mistake to imagine that this Government's privatization program is simply a matter of pragmatic judgment being made on a case-by-case basis, and what we do disagree with in principle is that privatization should be one of the main elements, or indeed an element, of the Government's over-all approach. We do have a fundamental difference with the Government in that respect.
The privatization of Teleglobe has proceeded without the kind of attention that a major privatization such as this should have received. Teleglobe is a Crown corporation which has been a consistent money-maker. Its sale raises the question of how Crown corporations cannot win when it comes to the Progressive Conservative logic in respect of Crown corporations. According to that logic, if a Crown corporation is losing money, it should be privatized, because obviously the Government cannot do a good job; and if a Crown corporation is making money, then it, too, is to be sold.
The only Crown corporations that fit into this strange Conservative cosmology when it comes to Crown corporations are those which exist in the twilight zone between profitability and bankruptcy.


An Hon. Member:: What about de Havilland?


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I would ask anyone who is prepared to get up once I have finished to give to me the definition of a Crown corporation that ought to be kept, given that both being profitable and/or incurring losses are grounds for privatization.
I mentioned earlier, Mr. Speaker, the matter of this being an example, to use Lord Stockton's words, of selling off the family silver. Teleglobe has been regarded by many as the jewel of the Crown corporations. In 1985, it recorded profits of $53.2 million. Its profit picture over the last 10 years is a good one. In 1985, its revenues totalled $678 million.
One of the aspects that has not been considered often enough with respect to the sale of Teleglobe to Memotec, Mr. Speaker, is the international dimension of the services for
March 30, 1987

which Memotec will be responsible as a result of its ownership of Teleglobe.
I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to consider that Canada is a party to the INTELSAT Treaty. INTELSAT is the international body set up in 1964 to govern all international telecommunications satellite traffic. The key objective of INTELSAT is to provide even the most remote areas of the world with access to the global communications system. Its services are to be provided at the same cost in high density traffic regions as in lower density traffic regions. Essentially, the INTELSAT Treaty provides for a cross-subsidy system, with the richer countries subsidizing the poorer ones.
Another central purpose of the INTELSAT Treaty is to ensure that all member countries will direct their satellite traffic exclusively through INTELSAT.
Teleglobe has always been Canada's designated signatory to the INTELSAT operating agreement, and represents Canada on the INTELSAT Board of Governors. A privatized Teleglobe is to continue this role.
Recent developments in the United States, springing from the introduction of so-called competition in telecommunications in the U.S., have led to the U.S. deciding to renege on its commitment to INTELSAT. It will be putting up competing satellite systems, and these competing systems will not have cross subsidies in their rate structures.
With U.S. satellites set up, a privatized Teleglobe which has as its goal the bottom line profit for its shareholders could well be in a conflict of interest situation. On the one hand, it is to represent Canada internationally on INTELSAT, and carry out Canadian policy; on the other hand, it could be tempted to send at least some of its calls overseas via the cheaper U.S. system.
Its obligations to its shareholders would almost demand this, if going through the U.S. would be more lucrative. While Teleglobe could always endeavour to remove itself from INTELSAT, how would Canada then fulfil its international obligations?
Teleglobe has proved itself to be an effective money-maker. Why should we sell off the family silver for a very, very shortterm consideration on the part of this Government, for obviously purely ideological reasons, so ideological that they look extreme even in comparison to what has been done in Great Britain?
The privatization program of the Government should receive more attention than it has been receiving. I hope, this afternoon and in subsequent debate, that Canadians will awaken to the fact that what is happening under the Government is a basic restructuring of the economy. I do not think that this is always apparent.
Before my time is up, let me say that the days of the Conservative Government are numbered. But even if the
Tele globe Canada
Tories are defeated at the next election, and if they are able to proceed with the economic agenda which they have before them now, through privatization, deregulation, and free trade, it worries me that they will have fundamentally reoriented Canadian economic thinking and restructured the Canadian economy.


Some Hon. Members:: It is about time.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: I know that this is their goal, and they are being honest about it right now. However, I am worried that all the dirty work will have been done for the right wing of the Liberal Party. The Conservatives will have been in power for a few short years. They will have done the dirty ideological work for the Liberal Party, if indeed the Liberal Party forms the Government after the next election. It may well be the New Democratic Party. In any event, the fact remains that the Conservative Government is getting away with these things, particularly in respect of deregulation and privatization. These things are happening now. They are not free trade; sometime in the future. They are at third reading, second reading, and in committee. It is high time that people realized what is going on and paid more attention, as we are trying to do this afternoon, to what the Conservatives are doing to our country.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, New Democratic Party members seem to be speaking vigorously on the Bill. I was wondering whether my hon. friend could tell me why they are objecting to the Bill when the employees want it, when it has been before the public in one form or another since the incorporation and the arrangement for sale of the company by CDIC, when we have had public hearings on the Bill, when not one editorial board of any major newspaper across the country has objected to it, and when there is no public effort to try to hold it up? Why are NDP Members trying to impose their unacceptable business, governmental and social philosophy on the House by delaying the passage of a piece of legislation which has overwhelming public approval?


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I hardly think that we could be accused of delaying the Bill. The Bill was debated very briefly before it went to committee. I believe it went through committee in something like a day or two. We have gone through report stage already, and here we are at third reading. I do not know by what standards the Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn) gets up and accuses the Opposition of delay. If this is delay, they should have more of it. It is hardly a case of where the opposition has made life terribly difficult for the Government.
The Hon. Member for Mississauga South has a brief memory. I remember when he was in Opposition. The amount of time we have taken on this privatization would not have been regarded as significant at all by the Hon. Member.
Regarding his comment about why we are against it, it was nice to have a Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament quoting editorial boards. It is very interesting. I always thought the Hon. Member had a more independent sense of

March 30, 1987
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judgment than that. It was interesting to hear that coming from him.
He also mentioned that the unions involved with this privatization are happy with it. We have not been getting the message that they are completely satisfied. It may be that they have not opposed the sale. Quite frankly-


Jean-Robert Gauthier: They have.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Whether they have or have not is immaterial to me. I happen to be against the Government's program in this respect. If there are unions in favour of the Government's privatization program, then they are unions with which I have a fundamental disagreement. It is as simple as that.
The Hon. Member will not succeed in intimidating me by telling me that unions are in favour of it, that the Chamber of Commerce is in favour of it, or that editorial boards are in favour of it. One of the reasons he is able to rise and say that there is no public outcry is that there has not been the kind of attention paid to it which I think ought to have been paid to it. Part of the problem, apart from the people working in a plant which may be privatized, is that there is no identifiable constituency. It concerns the over-all macro-economic debate, and it is very difficult for a lot of people to get involved. I admit that that is one of the problems. However, he should not mistake silence from the general public on the issue as approval.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I have a comment on the latest intervention. Maclean's magazine contained an interesting article entitled "Memotec's Tangled Roots". As a matter of interest I should like to read an extract from that article to the House. It says:
-a very senior official in the communications department says that-his department's advice was overshadowed by the government's political objectives. He said that such a critical telecommunications vehicle as Teleglobe should not have been sold to a small firm like Memotec.
Memotec, he said, is simply too small and is saddled with debt that may jeopardize Teleglobe's operation. Said the official: "On straight dollars, Memotec made the best offer. But the government did not make the best deal for Teleglobe, and that is dangerous for such a strategic industry".
It goes on to explain that the Government is indeed selling the furniture to pay the rent.
I have a question for the Hon. Member for Winnipeg- Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie). Since 1978-79 the unions have consistently opposed the privatization of Teleglobe.
As a matter of fact, in the transcript of the committee meeting of Wednesday, March 11, 1987, we find the comments of Mr. Carlos Saldanha, President of the Canadian Overseas Telecommunications Union. He stated categorically that the unions were against the privatization of Teleglobe.
Perhaps I misunderstood the Hon. Member. I thought he said that he did not care whether the unions were for or against it, that he thought the principle of privatization was wrong. If I did not understand him properly, it is up to him to
correct me. However, I would like to quote the transcript where Mr. Saldanha said:
There is another reason that the government says we should privatize Teleglobe. Probably other priorities have to be addressed. I appreciate the concern of the government toward the Canadian deficit, being a concerned Canadian. But even there, I still do not see how the government is selling the furniture to pay the rent.
Reports on Teleglobe Canada have shown that the government could easily decrease the deficit by applying some sort of recapitalization of Teleglobe Canada. As an example, Teleglobe could utilize certain debt-to-equity ratios, borrow in the market, give the money to the government, utilize the present assets as collateral, and still be a profitable organization giving the government the dividends as a consequence of these profits.
Does the Hon. Member not agree-and I guess he agrees with me-that Teleglobe was a paying proposition and a good proposition? Does he not agree that it should be maintained, if possible, in the public domain?
The concern I want to address is that of the employees' pension plan. Has the Hon. Member thought about the position of the NDP with regard to the pension plan? I know it has had a long history with these problems. Does he not agree with me that until the pension issue is resolved, we in the House should not vote for such a measure which gives Teleglobe employees a bad deal in respect of pensions?


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I did not think 1 had to get up to tell the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier) that we have those concerns about the pension plan. We voted with his Party on the amendment at report stage, proposed by the Hon. Member for Humber-Port au Port-St. Barbe (Mr. Tobin). When other members of my caucus speak this afternoon, I fully expect that they will be addressing those issues. There is no point of contention there between the Hon. Member and me.
With respect to the other point which the Hon. Member raised about what I had to say concerning the unions, I was simply making the point that we arrive at our judgments about the merits of privatization either through a general approach or by a specific proposal as a result of judgments we make ourselves. We do not take marching orders from the unions, or from anyone else for that matter.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated. The Hon. Member for Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands (Mr. Manly).


James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, I have a few comments to make on Bill C-38 dealing with the privatization of Teleglobe. This is important to me. In my constituency we have the earth satellite station at Lake Cowichan. A number of employees are very concerned about their future and the future of the company as it is being taken over by Memotec.
We have questions about the whole process of privatization. In the last few months there has been a great deal of emphasis in the media on the scandals that have racked the Government,
March 30, 1987

and perhaps on that basis there has not been the kind of critical attention there should have been to the failure of the Government to have a coherent economic policy. At the same time, there has not been the kind of emphasis in the media that there should be that the Government is proceeding with its own very right-wing agenda of deregulating and privatization. The privatization of Teleglobe is a prime example. This Bill is a very clear example of privatization for no other reason than ideology. Teleglobe, as everyone in this House knows, has been a consistent money-maker. In 1985 it had earnings of $53.2 million. Teleglobe has been bringing money into the federal Treasury at a time when we are all concerned about the deficit. The company is a money-maker, and yet the Government is getting rid of it. It is killing the goose that laid the golden egg because the Government wants, I guess, to have a few quick dollars that will look good in reducing the deficit. In addition, Teleglobe performs a vital function in Canada's whole communications industry. Teleglobe is a vital link in international communications.
There are some very serious questions as to whether or not it is in the interests of the Canadian public that a vital link should go into private hands. The Government says it will regulate the company. On the one hand, the Government says we should be getting out of the whole area of deregulation and that we should be deregulating. On the other hand, it says it will privatize Teleglobe but will regulate it. There is a certain inconsistency here. I believe it would be much better if Teleglobe remained a Crown corporation earning money for Canadians, serving the general public interest in the whole field of telecommunications.
I do not wish to speak at any great length this afternoon, but I do want to emphasize the whole question of pensions. When I spoke at second reading on February 16, 1987, I noted the importance of the pension issue because I spoke to the employees of the earth satellite station in my constituency a year and a half ago. It was their primary concern.
Teleglobe is being sold to Memotec. As our critic, the Hon. Member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell), pointed out, it is like a minnow swallowing a whale. Memotec is not a large corporation. It does not have a distinguished track record. There is a lot of concern about the future of Teleglobe in new hands. Does Memotec have enough clout to be able to maintain the monopoly position that Teleglobe has had? There are no guarantees in the Bill that that will happen. Naturally, employees are very worried about their protected pension plan now being transferred to Memotec, even though some of the provisions are good. People are wondering whether the pension plan will grow or whether there will be problems detrimentally affecting the pension plan.
Concern has been raised that there has been a smaller transfer of funds to the new pension plan than there should be, thus creating a shortfall.
I want to register my concern that the Government is proceeding with an ideological program for privatization when there are no rational reasons for the privatization of Teleglobe.
Teleglobe Canada
The Government is selling Teleglobe, this very important link in our communications industry, at a time when we see that it has made money for Canadians. We have to ask why. We do not see the reason. There is only one reason I can think of. If there is one thing the Tories like less than a Crown corporation that loses money, it is a Crown corporation that makes money. We are very concerned about the lack of adequate protection for the pensions of the employees of Teleglobe. On that basis, we will have to oppose the Bill at third reading.


Kenneth Albert James: Mr. Speaker, I want to speak to the point about there not being adequate protection for the employees. I know the Hon. Member is interested and has concern for the employees. Teleglobe employees will have a PSSA equivalent plan with some added features. I know the member did not have the opportunity to be present at the legislative committee and hear all this and perhaps he has not had a chance to read the minutes. But the pension plan is better and more generous than that provided to other telecommunication industry employees, other private sector employees-with the possible exception of General Motors employees-and other public sector employees in Canada. Why, Mr. Speaker? There is a 2 per cent accrual rate per year, versus 1.5 per cent for Bell Canada employees. There is a maximum pension of 70 per cent of the average best six years of salary. There is full indexation, versus a 2 per cent to 3 per cent contractual indexation or ad hoc indexation for telecommunication employees. There is early retirement at age 55 and 30 years of service. There is an unreduced pension at age 60 with five years of service for the people who move over. There is generous pre and post-retirement survivor benefits, 50 per cent for a spouse and 10 per cent per dependant, up to a maximum of 40 per cent. There is full recognition of all prior PSSA service by Memotec, versus recognition of service after January 1, 1987, in most private sector plans. There is an employer contribution of 10.6 per cent of payroll or more for Teleglobe, versus 5 per cent to 8 per cent on average for the telecommunication industry.
I think the Member would want to know those things when taking into consideration his concern for employees and how they are being treated.


James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, I cannot dispute what the Hon. Member said concerning some important features of the pension plan. I simply know that there are several unresolved issues concerning the pension plan which the employees of Teleglobe are very concerned about. Both they and I would have liked to have had those issues resolved before this deal goes through. If the Government wanted to deal in an open and above-board manner with those employees, it should have been prepared to wait a while and make sure those issues were resolved before it attempted to push this deal through. If the agreement is as good as my hon. friend says it is, why do the unions continue to insist there are several unresolved issues?

March 30, 1987
Teleglobe Canada
Why is the Government not prepared to resolve those issues before it pushes the Bill through?


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


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Mr. Speaker, I have a few words I would like to say on this legislation. Because of the Government's majority there is no doubt this Bill will go through. However, the Government has not done what any good employer would do to make sure its employees are well treated. It is allowing this sale to take place in such a way that it will be branded as a Government that allowed employees of 25 or 35 years to be sold off with the company and without the same kind of pension plan they had before.
I have heard the protestations of government Members, but we are still faced with the fact that there are employees of Teleglobe who are not satisfied that they have been treated properly. They have put more into the pension plan than they are going to be able to take out. Those employees will receive $7 million less than they would have received had the Government made the same arrangement in this sale as it did in the sale of Canadian Arsenals.
Teleglobe was established in 1949. Since that time, with the infusion of public funds, it has grown. Yet with this legislation we are going to allow a private corporation to reap the benefit of that infusion of public money. That is quite unacceptable to most people. The taxpayer has the right to expect to get most of that money back. That has not been allowed to happen in this particular case, and a very profitable company will be sold to another operation which has very little experience in operating this type of company.
There is something else of concern to us. Here we have a monopoly operation and I am a little surprised that the free enterprise philosophy of the Government did not hold in this case. Ordinarily, if that philosophy did hold, the Government would have sold the company to Memotec and left it to the rough and tumble competition of the communications marketplace. Instead, this company will remain under the control of the CRTC, but with only a partial guarantee of a monopoly. That bothers the employees of Teleglobe as well. There will be quite an opportunity for other companies to bypass Teleglobe when it becomes a private organization.
The Government suggests that it will guarantee a monopoly to Teleglobe for at least five years. Even were that to hold true, and there is nothing in this Bill that says it will, what will happen after the five years? There are employees of this company who have given 15 and 20 years of their life who, five years from now, will be working for a company that does not have that protection and that may not have the expertise or power to survive in a free market-place.
There is also the matter of security. As my colleague from Winnipeg-Birds Hill said, every country in the world depends on a secure communications system in that they own and operate to a certain extent their communications with other
countries of the world. When Britain sold its overseas telecommunication operations it retained 51 per cent and control remains under British direction. Almost every country in the world is in a similar situation with the exception of the U.S. However, the U.S. has a parallel system operated by the military which is as effective or maybe even more effective than the private system on which it only partially depends.
We are not only giving away a corporation which could do quite a bit to reduce the deficit over the next few years, but we are putting ourselves in the position where we will be dependent upon a corporation which may or may not make a profit. In the end it may have to divest itself of some of its less profitable operations.
There are a number of issues in this sale which the Government has not dealt with in the legislation. It has not taken care to make sure that the employees are satisfied with the new organization, not only for today but into the future. The Government has not made sure that the corporation will continue to be successful. The Government has not even ensured that it will be able to operate profitably beyond the first five years.
The Government has decided that privatization under any circumstances is a good thing. It came to office almost three years ago with the conviction that the privatization of Crown corporations was good for Government and the country. From the day it came into power it began to do something about that conviction. The experience of privatization has not proven that that conviction was worth while following. The Government is now privatizing with no consideration for public interest or public policy but rather on an ideological conviction which it does not even bother to defend.
Canadians must be very concerned about the idea that the Government should not be involved in any enterprise that can be operated by the private sector. There are many areas of service in the country which it makes a lot of sense for the Government to operate. Admittedly, there are many operations in which it does not make sense for the Government to be involved, but there is an area in between, and in that area each divestiture should be examined closely. The divestiture of Teleglobe is one which should have been examined carefully. Through this transaction we are putting into the hands of a private corporation part of an industry which is important, not only to us in Canada but in our relationships with other countries.
If the Government continues its commitment to privatization, we will eventually put at risk the basic structure of Canada. In the West, for instance, we have private telephone companies in almost every province and private hydro companies in every province. All those companies operate well. Those kinds of services as well as international telecommunication services should be carried out by the public sector. Consequently, we in this Party will not be able to support this Bill when it finally comes to a vote.
March 30, 1987


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, would the Member for Prince Albert (Mr. Hovdebo) give us the benefit of his reflections on the difference between the sale of Canadian Arsenals Limited, with which I know the Hon. Member was very familiar as a result of having looked after that issue for the NDP caucus and having sat on the committee? Could he point out some of the significant differences between the way in which that privatization was handled by the Government and the way in which this one has been handled, particularly with respect to employee pensions and the rights of employees in the privatization deal?


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Mr. Speaker, I was even more concerned about the reason for the sale of Canadian Arsenals Limited than I am about Teleglobe. Canadian Arsenals made armaments for the Department of National Defence of Canada only. With regard to the specific question, the Government was no more prepared in that divestiture to deal with the union than it is in this one. The difference is that this time the Government was willing to sit down with the union and the purchasing company and come to an agreement before the Bill returned to the House. Before the committee stage was concluded, the Government accepted a solution to the pension problem and the union was able to say that it was satisfied with the solution which had been reached, would accept the sale, and believed it had protection for the future.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague from Prince Albert. Elephants have an awful fear of mice, but 1 do not think that an elephant has ever been afraid that a mouse would swallow it. The Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn) said that there was no objection or protest with regard to this sale. However, Maclean's magazine has noted that a communications expert questioned seriously, as have others in the business community, the capacity of Memotec to handle this acquisition. The member also indicated that there was no significant antagonistic editorial comment. Yet I see an article in Maclean's magazine entitled: "Memotec's Tangled Roots". Perhaps the Member has forgotten the headline in The Financial Post which reads: "The Memotec-Teleglobe Buy Raises Serious Questions".
One of the more significant questions is why in God's name the Government is doing this. I was impressed by references to the fact that the Government is willing to unload the family jewels, the epitome of the family jewels being Teleglobe. There must be some reason for this. I am sure it is not just stupid, empty-headed ideology. It may be that there will be jobs created. Is there anything inherent in this arrangement which is certain to lead to the creation of new jobs? Has he heard or been privy to information from the Government that more jobs will be produced and will demonstrate that this sale is consistent with the Prime Minister's (Mr. Mulroney) promise of jobs, jobs, jobs?


Stanley J. Hovdebo: First, Mr. Speaker, we must remember that a telecommunication policy was not in place during the first
Teleglobe Canada
attempts to sell Teleglobe. When a buyer was finally found, it was protected by being given a monopoly. This means that it would be under the jurisdiction of the CRTC.
No one can be sure what will ultimately happen to Teleglobe when it is in the market. It may or may not develop into a strong company, but it must operate under the jurisdiction of the CRTC for at least five years.


Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, does the Hon. Member believe that this particular privatization is not in the public interest? Does he have an explanation as to why the Government is pursuing this policy?


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Mr. Speaker, I cannot read the Government's mind, but I do not believe the sale is in the public interest because telecommunication should be controlled and operated by the Government, particularly in relation to other countries. I have no reason to believe that the Government's motive is anything but blind ideology.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, will the Hon. Member explain, in view of the difference in size between the two companies, why the Government is selling Teleglobe to a company that had a total worth in 1985 that was virtually the same as the profits of Teleglobe in that year?


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Mr. Speaker, there were five bids before the Government decided on Memotec. Obviously, the companies that were larger and more capable of controlling Teleglobe would not bid for it once they knew the basic guidelines. I presume the Government decided on the company that would follow the rules that were laid down and still make a bid.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is the House ready for the question?


Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, I must say that I am a bit disappointed that none of my colleagues from across the way rose to the occasion to speak in the debate. One must ask why government Members have chosen to sit silent rather than respond to the questions that we on this side of the House have put to them. Members of our Party have been questioning the privatization of Teleglobe all day. We have been raising valid questions about the sale of the company, yet members opposite have failed to state clearly why the Government is turning this company over to the private sector in its pursuit of its privatization policy.


John Napier Turner: Because it works.


Cyril Keeper: They heckle from their desks rather than stand up to tell us why they are dragging Canadians with them down the road to privatization. While it is entertaining to hear my colleagues throwing those pointed barbs in my direction, one wonders why they do not stand up to tell us why they are pursuing this policy of privatization.
I wish we had more time for debate today so there would be an opportunity for a government Member to explain the

March 30, 1987
Teleglobe Canada
Government's policy and why they support it rather than belie my assertion that they are supporting this policy in silence.
This debate characterizes the Government's economic policy. It leads one to wonder whether the Government is pursuing this economic policy on fiscal or ideological grounds. One must wonder whether it was wearing ideological blinders when it devised this policy of privatization because Teleglobe is a profitable company that contributes money to the public Treasury and reduces the burden on the Canadian taxpayer.
Why does the Government want to give away the goose that lays the golden egg and deprive Canadians of a money-making machine?
When the Conservatives were in opposition, a role in which they have much experience and to which we believe they will soon return, they believed that Crown corporations were a waste of public money and a drain on the public Treasury. Now that they are the Government, they have taken action under the flag of privatization in order to save public money. However, is Teleglobe an example of such a Crown corporation? When we examine the facts we see that this jewel of a Crown corporation makes money.
While the Conservatives were in opposition they said that Crown corporations were money losers and a drain on the public purse. Yet the Conservative Government is selling those Crown corporations that are making money and easing the burden on Canadian taxpayers. That is a strange about face and reveals quite a difference between the rhetoric when in opposition and the reality of their policies when in government.
The Government has not yet succeeded in privatizing Teleglobe although it is trying very hard to do so. We can see that it is very anxious to privatize this company. Every time a speech concludes in this House, these Hon. Members are waiting to see if there is going to be further debate and then sit silently in their seats. They do not rise to the occasion and enter into public debate. The Government is trying to privatize this company and we, on this side of the House, are not going to make it easy for the Government to do so. We are not going to roll out the red carpet for the Government to privatize this Crown corporation.
Why has the Government picked on Teleglobe Canada? The Minister of State for Privatization (Mrs. McDougall), when commenting about privatization, said that if there is a public policy reason why a corporation should remain in the public sector, it will remain there, but if the public policy reason for a Crown corporation to exist has long passed, then the Government should privatize. The Government can then sell that corporation to the private sector. That is a policy question beyond the question of whether the company can make money or whether it can help out the public Treasury and the average taxpayers. It is a public policy question. Is there a reason that Teleglobe Canada should be in public hands rather than private hands? One of the reasons that strikes me is that all
other western industrialized countries have their major telecommunications instrument in public hands. Why do we want to stick out like a sore thumb among western industrialized countries? It seems we have found a secret formula and we are going to go in a totally different direction down a strange road, down which no other western industrial country has gone.
This is beyond toleration. I do not want to make a display, but my colleague has just handed me a cartoon which I would say seeks to demean the New Democratic Party. I would like to tell you about the cartoon, Mr. Speaker, just so you will know why I smiled when I saw it.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: If the Hon. Member would send it up to me, I would like to have a look at it, please, and we will carry on with debate.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Table it.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member is not tabling it. He is just sending it to me.


Cyril Keeper: I appreciate the fact that you took the cartoon off my hands, Mr. Speaker, because the cartoon was not really relevant other than that it took a poke at the New Democratic Party. It took a poke at our high standing in the polls. I think that might have something to do with what we say in this House. Our position on this piece of legislation might also have something to do with our standing in the polls, and perhaps the position of the Government on this piece of legislation with which we are dealing today may have something to do with its lack of standing in the polls.
Dealing directly with the whole question of Teleglobe Canada, I asked if there is a good public policy reason why Teleglobe should be in public hands rather than in private hands. 1 cited the fact that other western industrialized countries have their telecommunications instrument in public hands rather than in the private sector. I think that should alert us to examine the whole question. The function of Teleglobe Canada is to keep us in touch with the globe, to keep us in communication with our whole planet. The "tele" part of Teleglobe has to do with communications. The "globe" part has to do with the fact that Teleglobe touches the whole planet. If we turn Teleglobe over to the private sector, and allow the lines of communication we have with the globe determined by where a private company can make a profit, obviously there will be vast parts of the globe which will be non-favourable. We will be limiting our own communications with the planet on the basis of where it is favourable to make a profit. If this corporation remains in public hands, it can help us keep in touch with the whole globe. Our planet is shrinking in size and it is becoming more and more important that we be able to communicate globally. It is vital that we have an instrument which allows us to communicate with everyone around the world on the basis of our communications needs rather than on whether or not a profit can be made in carrying on those communications at any one particular time.
March 30, 1987

The other interesting part of this whole public policy question is the fact that we in Canada have used Teleglobe Canada to represent us on an international basis in countries which concern themselves with telecommunications, for example, INTELSAT. Do we want to use a private profitmaking corporation as the instrument to represent the interests of the nation of Canada, rather than having a genuine representative of the public interest, a public body which can provide that kind of representation? I think that would suggest a kind of image of Canada as a large private profit-making corporation. It is like the old saying: "What is good for General Motors is good for the United States. What is good for Eatons is good for Canada".
Canada is more than a profit-making company. We have other reasons to exist. We are a nation and we have national interests. We want those national interests to be objectively represented rather than have them represented by someone whose simple and legitimate purpose is to make a profit and to see its stockholders get the largest possible return.
I have a few more points to make. I would not wish to mislead my colleagues into thinking that I have made all the points I want to make, although I know they may want to get into the debate between now and 5 o'clock, and I welcome their doing so. However, I think it is crucial that I make a few more points. I would like to examine a little more closely the price that is being paid by Memotec for Teleglobe Canada. Memotec is the minnow of the telecommunications industry. It has found the whale. With the assistance of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and his colleagues, this little minnow is seeking to swallow that whale. It has been known that whales have swallowed small fish-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. When this Bill is called again tomorrow, or whenever, the Hon. Member will have five more minutes to speak in debate, plus 10 minutes for questions and comments.
It being 5 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.


PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS -MOTIONS   THE SENATE SUGGESTED EQUAL PROVINCIAL AND TERRITORIAL ELECTED REPRESENTATION
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Friday, February 6, consideration of the motion of Mr. Taylor:
That, in the opinion of this House, the Government should consider the advisability of introducing the appropriate measures to abolish the Senate and create a new Senate composed of Senators elected by the people of Canada on the basis of equal representation for each province and territory, and to initiate
The Senate
discussions to that end with provincial and territorial Governments at the earliest opportunity.
Mr. Blaine A. Thacker (Lethbridge-Foothills):: Mr. Speaker, it is indeed an honour to speak to the motion of my colleague, the Hon. Member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor), with respect to abolishing the Senate and creating a new Senate. I believe this is a motion that is worthy of passage by this Parliament. I feel the best contribution I can make to the debate and, in particular, to Members who were elected in the election of 1984, is to reiterate the conclusions of the Special Joint Committee on Senate Reform on which I had the privilege to serve.
The special committee was composed of some eight Senators and ten Members of Parliament. We held hearings in Ottawa and in each provincial capital. We received and reviewed carefully some 280 briefs. We heard from 119 witnesses and some 30 organizations. We spent hundreds of hours reflecting on the issue. I now wish to read into the record part of the committee's conclusions. They are as follows:
We have concluded that the Canadian Senate should be elected directly by the people of Canada.
An appointed Senate no longer meets the needs of the Canadian federation. An elected Senate is the only kind of Senate that can adequately fill what we think should be its principal role-the role of regional representation. We propose a Senate different in composition and function from the House of Commons and from the present Senate. The second chamber we recommend is designed specifically-by its distribution of seats, by the way it is elected, and by the powers it exercises-to represent the sometimes diverse interests of the people of Canada's provinces and territories in federal legislation and federal policies.
In fulfilling that role, an elected Senate would strengthen the authority of Parliament to speak and act on behalf of Canadians in all parts of the country.
We reached this conclusion after reviewing the work of previous inquiries into the question of Senate reform and after hearing the testimony of witnesses in all provincial and territorial capitals ... We were told frequently that, after so many abortive attempts at Senate reform, the time has come for vigorous action-for fundamental change in the Senate-and that it would be a mistake to adopt inconsequential reforms.
Our conclusion was not reached lightly or easily. Although a substantial part of the testimony we heard favoured direct election, a roughly equal part opposed it, mainly on the grounds that a parliament with two elected houses cannot be reconciled comfortably with the principle of responsible government as it has operated in the British and Canadian traditions. Some highly respected people in public life and in the academic community prefer a reformed system of appointment to election. Among this group is one member of our Committee.
Although a reformed appointed Senate could bring about some needed improvements, we are persuaded that it would lack the political mandate to fill what we believe is the Senate's primary role. Only a politically strong second chamber can dispute, when necessary, the decisions taken by a government that is supported by the House of Commons.
Therefore only an elected Senate can satisfy the original intent of the Fathers of Confederation: the provision of a chamber that would balance judiciously the power of the Commons (which is based on representation by population) by safeguarding the legitimate interests of the people of the less populous provinces-
We believe that Canada should establish an elected Senate designed in such a way that it would not be vying continually for supremacy with the House of Commons: it should have significant powers, but it should not be able to undermine Canada's well-tried system of responsible government. We therefore propose that the new Senate be given only a suspensive veto, which would allow time for national debate and reflection, but which the Commons

March 30, 1987
The Senate
could, after a suitable lapse of time, override by re-passing the legislation in question.
We also propose that every effort be made to ensure that Senators have a significant degree of independence of party. Only then will they be able to speak in favour of local and regional interests without having to be concerned primarily, as Members of Parliament must be, with adhering to party policy. A healthy measure of independence is therefore essential if the Senate is to fill its role of regional representation. This does not mean that Senators would lose sight of the needs of the country as a whole.
It is for this reason, and also to distinguish Senators from members of the House of Commons, we propose that Senators be elected for a single but comparatively long term-nine years-with one-third of the Senators being elected every three years.
To lessen party influence in the choice of Senators, all but one of us prefer 'first-past-the-post' elections in single-member constituencies to proportional representation in multi-member constituencies. Each province would be divided into as many constituencies as it had Senators.
We recognize that, in the absence of proportional representation for an elected Senate, the political parties will have to work hard to achieve balanced representation from across the country in the Commons and the Senate. This is as it should be. In striving to do this, they will have to adopt their policies accordingly, and this can only benefit national politics.
On the question of the distribution of seats, the Committee was advised by nearly all witnesses across Canada that the division should be made not on the basis of the present four Senate regions but by allocating seats to each province and territory. We accept that this kind of allocation reflects more closely the diverse nature of Canada.
As to how many seats should be allocated to each province or territory, we recognize that there is no perfect solution. We believe that giving an equal number of seats to each province would not be appropriate, having regard to Canada's historical development and the configuration of its population. If each province had the same number of seats, five provinces with as little as 13.4 per cent of Canada's population would have a majority of seats if they had the support of the territories.
While the less populous provinces merit a stronger voice in Parliament, equal representation in the Senate would tilt the balance too far and would be unacceptable to the vast majority of Canadians, not only to those living in the two largest provinces. We therefore propose a compromise whereby most provinces would have an equal number of seats, but Ontario and Quebec would have more and Prince Edward Island and the territories would have fewer. Our proposal would, for example, give the four western provinces together as many seats as Ontario and Quebec jointly. We believe that most Canadians would agree that our proposed distribution, or something close to it, represents a fair solution.
That quotation gives the heart and core of the summary of a thoughtful committee composed of some eight Senators and some 10 Members of Parliament which studied 280 briefs and held hearings in every province of Canada. I personally believe that a combination of this report, together with the report of the Alberta Legislature done by the committee chaired by Dennis Anderson, who is now the Minister of Culture for the Province of Alberta, would give a solid basis for reform of the Senate, something which I think we all agree is very much needed. Elowever, I think western Canadians in particular have to consider carefully the question of "equal per province" since I am not sure that in a resource-based economy it would be wise in the long term for us to transfer to five provinces with only 13.4 per cent of the population a majority of Senate seats. That constitutes a very serious question that I have with respect to the Triple E proposal. It is something that I would join with in a flash if it could satisfactorily answer the question of the transfer of power to one region.
The federal report proposed that there be 96 Senators representing the regions, with 48 seats for the two populous provinces: Ontario would keep 24, Quebec would keep 24. The four western provinces would have 48 seats, thereby neutralizing the two central provinces; and the Atlantic region and the Territories would have 48 seats.
That would amount to a massive transfer of power to the regions, at the Senate level. I believe that is a proper transfer of power, and it is one that Ontario and Quebec could live with as compared to the current Triple E proposal, which calls for an equal number of Senate seats for the provinces.
As Members consider this question, I hope that they will take these views into consideration.


Lise Bourgault: Mr. Speaker, the motion before the House today, presented by the Hon. Member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor), urges the Government to consider introducing the appropriate measures to create an elected Senate where provinces and territories will enjoy equal representation.
An elected Senate and equal representation for the provinces reflect the proposals submitted and supported by various groups and individuals, including the Premier of the province represented by the mover of this motion. I would like to point out, however, that most proponents of an elected Senate have a third requirement in addition to the two "e's" of "elected" and "equality". They would like to see effectiveness in the Upper House, Mr. Speaker.
I think it would be useful to take a few moments to consider how effective a reformed Senate could be. When we make any changes in the powers of the Senate, such changes also affect the powers of the House of Commons and its ability to defend the interests of the people. Among the proposals for Senate reform, made in the last decade, four major reform proposals recommended having an elected Senate. These proposals were submitted by the Canada West Foundation in 1981, by the Government of Prince Edward Island in 1983, by a Special Joint Committee of Parliament in 1984, which was referred to by the previous Speaker, and last but not least, a plan was proposed by a committee of the Alberta Legislature in March 1985 and renewed since by the Premier of that province.
Of these four plans, only one did not propose electing the same number of senators from each province. The Special Joint Committee of the House of Commons and the Senate was more in favour of a weighting system that would encourage over-representation of the smaller provinces while nevertheless respecting substantial differences in population. According to the report, this formula would prevent five provinces with only 13.4 per cent of the population from controlling the Senate or one inhabitant of Prince Edward Island from being the equivalent of 70 Ontarians or 50 Quebecers for the purposes of representation in the Upper House.
March 30, 1987

Committee members recommended that the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec should be represented by 24 senators each, Prince Edward Island by six and the other provinces by 12 each.
To respect the statutory equality of each component of the Canadian federation and ensure that national policy takes into consideration the interests of outlying regions, proposals by the Canada West Foundation and the Governments of Prince Edward Island and Alberta, as well as the motion by the Hon. Member for Bow River, all fall back on the formula applied in the United States, in Switzerland and Australia, with the request that the provinces be represented in the Senate on an equal basis.
However, where the motion by the Hon. Member for Bow River is silent on the question of the powers of a reformed Senate, the three proposals I mentioned earlier do focus on this question.
In a study made in 1983, the Government of Prince Edward Island suggested that a Senate elected on the basis of provincial equality should retain the full legislative powers possessed by the Senate as we know it today. Although it would not, and it does not today, have the power to initiate supply Bills, the Senate would retain its absolute veto over all measures adopted by the House of Commons and would, generally speaking, exercise the same powers as the House of Commons.
According to the document submitted by Prince Edward Island, Senate reform would not be justified if that body were to be deprived of the necessary powers to defend the interests of those it is supposed to represent.
In 1981, the Canada West Foundation also proposed that on the basis of its increased legitimacy, an elected Senate should be able to maintain its right to vote on Bills initiated by the House of Commons and to exercise substantial powers.
According to this project the basis of representation-the population for the Commons and the province for the Senate- did not justify one House being directly subordinated to the other. The consensus was that allowing the Senate to have its say about ordinary legislation would guarantee that regional views would be taken under consideration in drafting national policies. However the Canada West Foundation did not go as far as giving the Senate a veto over ordinary legislation. Deadlocks would be impossible since a legislative measure rejected by the Senate would come into force after reendorsement by a significant Commons majority. Without actually specifying the terms, the proposition made it clear that in most cases a significant majority would imply that the Government in office would seek the support of some of the Opposition Members to reverse a Senate vote.
But the Senate would have an absolute veto in cases of constitutional amendments to ratify certain appointments and to authorize the Government of Canada to exercise such extraordinary powers as war measures, disallowance and declaratory powers.
The Senate
In short, the Canada West Foundation position in 1981 was that the Senate would be effective in the sense that the Upper House would be able to examine and amend all Bills, exercise a power of suspensive veto over most pieces of legislation, and of absolute veto over extraordinary Government measures.
In 1985, the Special Committee of the Alberta Legislature also looked at the question of the Senate's effectiveness. It recommended that the Senate retain the power it now has to discuss and recommend amendments to all the Bills coming from the House of Commons. The Senate would still have the right to oppose legislation, but the House would have various ways of getting around that opposition.
On constitutional matters, the Senate's veto would only be suspensive for a period of 180 days, as the 1982 constitutional Act now provides. A negative vote by the Senate on legislation with financial or tax implications could be overturned by a simple majority vote here in the Commons.
Finally, on all non-financial Bills, a Senate amendment or veto could only be overturned in the Commons by a larger majority vote than that expressed in the Senate.
Honourable Members will have understood from the foregoing that proponents of the Triple E-Senate support significant powers for Senators. Their view is that the Senate's effectiveness in defending regional interests requires that it be able to control, if not direct, natural policies.
Maintaining the current veto, as proposed by Prince Edward Island, or the requirement of an outlandish majority in the Commons to go around a negative vote in the Senate, are only two of the possible means of strengthening the higher Chamber to make it more effective.
The need for such effectiveness is indeed clear. Once elected, the Senate would have the legitimacy it now lacks to exercise its broad powers. To that new legitimacy, equal provincial representation will add a clear mandate by indicating to the Senate what interests it must protect.
Knowing the commitment of Canadians to their regions, a chamber that would be devoted solely to the defence of provinces would not be long in gaining their sympathy, thereby strengthening its mandate. Therefore, how could we deny that legitimate chamber the powers required by its mandate? There would be no reason to do so. This is what supporters of the Triple-E Senate formula have understood.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to stress that for some time already, one of my constituents, Mr. Jean-Guy Legault, from Oka, who chairs the Fondation Edouard- Mont petit, has been consistantly asking the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) to appoint volunteer deputy senators whose responsibility would be to advise the Government on draft Bills, etc. While finding this proposal original-it clearly goes against the reported collective will of an elected Senate-I am convinced that Mr. Legault will be interested in today's debate which will give him the opportunity to add new elements to his proposal or amend some current ones.

March 30, 1987
The Senate
At the same time, Mr. Speaker, I will send him a copy of today's Debates. I see that you're indicating to me that I may still have a minute and a half left.
With equal powers and different representation structures, would the two Chambers not run the risk of attracting sympathy from different segments of the population, thereby increasing the opportunities for conflicts?
Although the supporters of an elected Senate have convinced me of the validity of their claims and a need for reform, none as yet has reassured me as to the dominant role the House of Commons would continue to play. To these and similar questions which come to mind today I have not yet found any completely satisfactory answer. It seems to me that, so far, the issue of Senate reform has been addressed in isolation, independently from the development of other Government institutions.
Without opposing this reform, Mr. Speaker, I feel that we should look into its impact on our political life generally, and of course I would fully support unreservedly any initiative to that end.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I begin my contribution to the debate as I did on a previous motion by the Hon. Member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Parry). His Private Member's motion called for the abolition of the Senate by calling to the attention of Hon. Members the traditional or long held view of the New Democratic Party of Canada that the Senate ought to be abolished because of its non-democratic nature.
However, I want to make clear that it is the current nondemocratic Senate which my Party has a long-standing policy of wanting to abolish. In my judgment there is openness within the Party, collectively and among individual New Democrats, on what kind of democratic Senate might be appropriately put in the place of the current non-democratic Senate which, as I said, ought to be abolished.
One of the origins of the current push for Senate reform quite legitimately comes from the feeling of certain regions in Canada that they do not have enough power at the centre, that they do not have enough power in the decision-making process in Ottawa, whether it is in the House of Commons or in the Senate as it now stands. They feel that there is a strong tendency, manifest in many ways, for the decision-making process in the House of Commons not to take into consideration the interest of the regions. I speak particularly from the point of view of the region from which I come, that is, western Canada.
Another way people have thought about addressing the problem has been through House of Commons reforms. They have imagined ways in which, through a combination of the system we have now, proportional representation, and representation based upon regions as opposed to constituencies
strictly, we might be able to address the imbalance between the centre and the periphery in the House of Commons and still be able to get rid of the Senate and have a unicameral House.
That is not what we are debating today. We are debating the motion of the Hon. Member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor) which, as I understand it, calls for a Triple E Senate. It is important that these kinds of motions have come forward because they give us a chance to debate the matter. I am particularly appreciative of the contribution of the Hon. Member for Lethbridge-Foothills (Mr. Thacker) who I think did the House a service by reading into the record the recommendations of the Joint Committee on Senate Reform. He pointed to the fact, if I understood him correctly, that the notion of equality could be achieved, not necessarily on a province-by-province basis, but on the same sort of regional basis originally envisioned in the constitutional amending formula at one point, where we would have had western Canada considered as a region, Ontario considered as a region, Quebec considered as a region, and Atlantic Canada considered as a region. If we had equal representation devised on that basis, we might then get over some of the problems involved in having equal representation from each province. I think that bears more study.
However, one thing which concerns me as a western Canadian is some of the expectations raised around the idea of a Triple E Senate and what it could do. Part of the problem with the Triple E Senate proposal is that we do not know exactly what powers many of its advocates have in mind, whether it would be strictly a suspensive power, whether it would have well defined areas of jurisdiction, et cetera.
There is a variety of expectations being placed upon the Triple E Senate. In my judgment, support for such a Senate, although I respect many of the people who advocate it, has come into rather bad company lately with the support being given to it by an editorial in the Western Report by Mr. Ted Byfield. He went on at great length giving, in my judgment, the classic example of the false expectations raised about a Triple E Senate.
He referred back to the controversy over the CF-18 contract. He suggested that had there been a debate in the new Triple E Senate which he had in mind, these new Senators, unbound by Party discipline, would have somehow been able to prevent the decision to give the CF-18 contract to Montreal instead of to Winnipeg where it should have gone.
He used the phrase, "Unlike the Commons debate, it would be worth covering". As you know, Mr. Speaker, and as everyone knows, there was no Commons debate on the CF-18 contract. It was a contract let by the Government with the full powers of the Government. There was no debate in the Commons. There would not be such a debate in any new Senate, except in some aside way, the same way as we managed to have an aside debate in the House of Commons during Question Period about the contract after the fact.
March 30, 1987

There would have been no debate either in the Commons or in a Triple E Senate on a matter of government contracts.
It is quite misleading to give the impression that somehow a Triple E Senate would have been able to stop that or that a Triple E Senate would somehow exist in some sort of pristine political atmosphere where Parties would not have any effect.
I remind Mr. Byfield, through you, Mr. Speaker, that it was the Tory Premiers of western Canada-and Mr. Byfield is fond of chastising New Democratic Members of Parliament from western Canada-who decided not to stand by the Premier of Manitoba, Mr. Pawley, in his protestation against the CF-18 contract going to Montreal. They certainly had more freedom than any Senator would have had down here, working in close proximity to the Government. Yet, they could not be prevailed upon, through any sense of western Canadian solidarity, to be more than purely symbolic in their solidarity with Manitoba in protesting the injustice of the contract going to Montreal.
I think the whole debate about a Triple E Senate insofar as it relates to western alienation is being poisoned by this kind of false expectation. I think it is being done deliberately. I should like to quote from the March 16 editorial. It says:
Unlike the Commons debate, it would be worth covering. Neither in the
Senate would we have to witness such loathsome spectacles as that of four
Manitoba NDP members declaring themselves in favour of taking the CF-18
project away from their own province.
You were here, Mr. Speaker, in the fall of 1986, as were the Hon. Member for Lethbridge-Foothills, the Hon. Member for Brandon-Souris (Mr. Clark), and many others. They will know-and I hope everyone will agree with me-that it is simply a lie, just a lie to say that we, the NDP Members of Parliament from Manitoba, declared ourselves in favour of taking the CF-18 project away from our own province. Why would anyone want to say that when it is so patently untrue, and say it twice?
This kind of thing was said previously in the Western Report, and I wrote a letter to the editor which was printed. Subsequent to that, a month or so later, we get, in the form of this editorial, a blatant lie.
This was raised in the House many times by Manitoban New Democratic Members of Parliament. If Mr. Byfield, or anyone else for that matter, is unhappy about the way the House of Commons works or the way the New Democratic Party handled the CF-18 contract, there are many criticisms he could make, but there is one thing he could not say with any pretension to truthfulness, namely, that the four Manitoba New Democratic Members of Parliament were in favour of the contract going to Montreal.
This debate has become tied to a much more serious political reality in western Canada. It has become associated with a deliberate attempt on the part of certain elements in western Canada, Mr. Byfield among them, to distort and misrepresent what is actually going on here in the House of
The Senate
Commons. There is enough to be unhappy about in terms of real western alienation and western Canadian grievances. I would be the first one to admit that. We ought not, for obviously ideological reasons, pretend that certain things happen when they did not happen. We ought not to allow people like Mr. Byfield to pretend that the only real western Canadians are those who happen to agree with him. We western Canadians disagree among ourselves, be we New Democrats or Progressive Conservative western Canadians. We have had left-wing Governments and right-wing Governments, and we do all that within the freedom of the democratic process that we cherish. For anyone, Mr. Byfield or anyone else, to pretend that somehow only those who agree with the Western Report are real western Canadians is a disservice not only to New Democrats, whom he is so fond of attacking, but also to Progressive Conservative Members of Parliament from Alberta and from western Canada generally who are now becoming the object of this particular form of garbage journalism.


Mr. Charles-Eugene Marin (Gaspe):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to take part in the debate on the motion presented by the Hon. Member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor), which seeks the abolition of the Senate and the creation of a new Senate composed of Senators elected by the people on the basis of equal representation for each province and territory. The motion also urges the Government to initiate intergovernmental discussions to that end at the earliest opportunity.
Today I would like to take a closer look at one of the most interesting aspects of Senate reform, a subject that has been getting a great deal of attention recently in this House.
Mr. Speaker, when we look at the purpose or objective of the Senate reform, I think we should look at the various roles that could be played by a new Upper House. 1 think it would be useful to consider the function of the Upper House, especially in other countries with a federal system. In most cases, the Upper House has a responsibility for examining legislation. It is supposed to look at legislative measures to detect any possible errors, contradictions or shortcomings. Today, most Upper Houses perform this function without challenging the general principles or policies underlying legislation already adopted by the Lower House. Often, they are also asked to provide legislative support. For instance, Upper Houses may conduct inquiries on questions of public policy or they may have special powers to scrutinize subordinate legislation.
Some Upper Houses play a role in representing and protecting minorities. When minorities are regrouped geographically in a given region, they can be protected from the majority by giving this region a specially weighted representation. During the debate prior to Confederation, Lower Canada demanded representation in the Senate equal to that of the two other regions, Ontario and the Maritimes, and it is clear that the francophone leaders at the time thus hoped to enjoy a form

March 30, 1987
The Senate
of linguistic and cultural protection. Mr. Speaker, there is also the option of demanding special procedures when voting on certain issues in the Upper House, so as to avoid any hasty action that might prove prejudicial to the interests or rights of certain minorities.
Upper Houses can have an intergovernmental function. They can be structured to enable various governments within a federation to take part in the business of the central or federal Government. A prime example of this is the Bundesrat in West Germany, whose members are Ministers or their delegates of the Governments of the component States. Members of the Bundesrat vote as one according to the instructions given by their respective governments. Many observers think that the Bundesrat makes an appreciable contribution to intergovernmental coordination and cooperation within Western Germany. In the late 70s the supporters of Senate reform in Canada came up with a number of propositions aimed at creating a similar institution at the federal level.
The fourth function which a second chamber may have is to represent the regions. This is intended to mean representation of the regions or constituent elements on a basis other than representation by population. In certain cases each state or province may have a representation equal to the second chamber. In others the number of members may vary, but the scale is usually tipped in favour of those with fewer people. In any case it is always a matter of limiting somewhat the will of the Lower House by reflecting the diversity of the regions or elements which make up the federation and, to that extent, to compensate for the rule of simple majority.
It is widely acknowledged that the first and second of these four functions-examining legislation and representing regions-are the ones which were expected to be the main role of the Senate when it was created. In light of this we can indeed wonder about the way the Senate has fulfilled these functions over the years. To answer the question, I would refer to the report of the Special Joint Committee of the Senate and of the House of Commons which was tabled in the House in January 1984.
According to the report, the role of the Senate had evolved so as to complement rather than compete with the popularly elected House of Commons. The Committee made the following comments concerning the role of the existing Senate, and I quote:
Its principal functions are now improving legislation and investigating questions of public policy. It is said that investigation is one area where the present Senate has shown a commendable degree of independence from the executive.
On the matter of other important functions the Senate could perform, the Committee report noted that:
The more recent arguments for Senate reform-notably those made to our Committee-have focused on achieving one of the original goals of the Senate, the protection and representation of regional interests. These arguments spring from a belief that Parliament needs a chamber that represents those interests with more political authority that can be achieved with a Senate appointed in the present way.
Based on the representations made by the various witnesses, the Committee went on to say:
The principal complaint the Committee encountered was that federal institutions as they are now constructed are unable to express and mediate regional concerns. Although the Senate was originally designed to give the regions a weighted voice in Parliament's decisions, it is argued that this does not apply. Witnesses pointed out that regional interests are now forced to seek outlets through other means, often through provincial governments.
It is very clear, Mr. Speaker, in the Committee's report, that most witnesses heard focussed on the Senate's representational role. For instance, Hon. Robert Stanfield expressed the following opinion:
I find it highly desirable that we have a Senate that would allow regions to be more present and have more influence in Ottawa.
I do not believe it is possible to govern this country in a satisfactory manner based only on the majority rule, in spite of the distribution of powers and the Charter of Rights.
For its part, the Business Council on National Issues noted the following:
The specific powers that should be vested in a new, elective Higher Chamber are less important than the principle that there must be an elected Canadian Senate, and that it should play a positive and strong role to iron out increasing regional tensions.
In its report, the Committee recognized that better regional representation was important in the opinion of witnesses.
The principal complaint the Committee encountered was that federal institutions as they are now constructed are unable to express and mediate regional concerns ... The more recent arguments for Senate reform-have focused on achieving one of the original goals of the Senate: the protection and representation of regional interests.
The Committee further emphasized that its primary objective was
-to strengthen the Senate's capacity to fill its role of regional representation. If this objective and others which are consequential were achieved, there would be a new forum whose principal role would be to discuss openly and to reconcile competing regional interests in matters under federal jurisdiction. We do not argue that regional differences would disappear, but we do believe that the system for resolving them would be much improved and that regional tensions would be less troublesome-
Similar arguments could be found in a fairly recent study on the Senate reform. In its report issued in March 1985, the Alberta Legislative Assembly's Special Committee on the reform of the Senate wrote, and I quote:
The role of an Upper Chamber in the federal decision-making process is effectively quite clear. The first function of the Canadian Senate, as contemplated by the Fathers of Confederation, was to represent provincial points of view within the federal decision-making process. The Committee does not believe that the Senate should get involved in intergovernment negotiations. The Senate of Canada must have, as its first objective, to continue representing regions at the federal level, as the Fathers of Confederation wanted it.
In the light of the few examples I have just given, Mr. Speaker, it can be said that the recent proposals aimed at reforming the Senate all share a common objective: To improve regional representation within the Senate and Parliament as a whole. I feel that during our discussions on the way to improve the Senate's regional representation, we should keep in mind that, basically, it is the Canadian people which will make it possible for the Senate to become a truly efficient
March 30, 1987

forum; through their support for a reformed Senate, whatever its nature, it will receive the power to act on behalf of the regions during the proceedings of Parliament.


Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, this resolution before the House is two-pronged. The first part is very easy to support. It calls on us to abolish the Senate as it is today. I support that because I believe the Senate as we know it today is an affront to democracy. Senators are appointed until age 75. They are not elected and they are responsible to no one once appointed. Neither can they be recalled.
The second part of the resolution is a bit trickier. It suggests that we create a new Senate composed of Senators elected by the people of Canada on the basis of equal representation for each province and territory, and to initiate discussions to that end with provincial and territorial Governments at the earliest opportunity.
Speaking only for myself, I believe we should initiate some discussion on the possibility of an elected Senate. There should be some discussion as to the kind of representation we want in the other place, if any at all. I hesitate to endorse the idea of a Triple-E Senate as proposed in this motion by the Hon. Member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor) because it says that there should be equal representation for each province and territory. I am concerned that because we have so many small provinces and territories with very small populations there could be a time when a majority of Senators represent less than 10 per cent of the population of Canada. For example, if one were to have 10 Senators per province or territory, or five, you could add the populations of the four Atlantic provinces, Yukon and the Northwest Territories, and that would be half the Senate, and they would represent less than 10 per cent of the population of Canada. I think that is going a bit too far.
On the other hand, I think it is extremely important in a federal democratic state that there be a balance between representation by population on the one side and representation by region on the other. There has to be some balance between the two. We do not have that balance today. Ontario and Quebec make up the overwhelming majority of our population, about 38 per cent in Ontario and about 28 per cent in Quebec. Add those figures, and you will find that two-thirds of the Canadian population lives in two provinces. As a result, this House of Commons is dominated by those two provinces under representation by population.
We have to find some way of balancing that with representation by region. The Hon. Member for Lethbridge-Foothills (Mr. Thacker) talked about equal representation from each region. That is one possible way of doing it. The system would perhaps allow for special recognition of Quebec and the French fact. Perhaps there should be some special recognition of our native people on matters affecting their rights where a majority of native Senators would agree with the rest. Those
The Senate
are things we could look at in considering the possibility of another place.
I want to indicate my support for the idea of looking at taking steps in this direction without endorsing all the ideas in a Triple-E Senate. It is very important that we have some representation by region as well as by population. For example, in the U.S. House of Representatives there is representation by population. A state like North Dakota has one Congressman, as does the small state of Rhode Island. New York and California have many Congressmen and Congresswomen because of the size of their populations. On the other hand, there is representation by region in the Senate where every state gets two Senators, whether it be Rhode Island, North Dakota, New York or California. The U.S. has that balance, which I think is so important.
We of course now recognize equality of the provinces in our amending formula. To amend the Constitution you need to have agreement by at least seven provinces and they must represent at least 50 per cent of the population. That covers both regions and populations and gives us that balance which is so important.
Going back to the U.S., there is no way that a number of smaller states could block the will of the country as a whole. We could have that kind of situation here where the smaller provinces and the territories, with about 8 per cent of the population, would have as many Senators as the rest of the country and its 92 per cent of the population. That does not exist in the U.S. because there are many more states of roughly equal size, many more states of moderate size, and many more states of small size. There is that difference in the two systems.
I would like to return to the first part of the motion, which is to abolish the Senate. As I said, I believe the present Senate is not a democratic institution. It is an affront to democracy, a throwback to the 19th century. I believe that the Senate, as it exists today, should be abolished. I think all Members of Parliament should agree to that. I have nothing whatsoever against any member of the other place. There are many fine men and women who are Senators in the other place who work very hard and have served this country very well. However, in many ways the other place has become a house of patronage. Many people who worked very hard for the Prime Minister's Party, regardless of what it may be, got their just reward by being appointed there until the age of 75, regardless of whether or not they work or keep in touch with the province which they represent.
The second thing that concerns me is that campaign managers are appointed to the other place by the Prime Minister, regardless of his Party. They have a public office, draw a large salary, and have a large expense account and a staff paid for by the public. A good example is Senator Atkins who was appointed by the present Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney). Senator Jean Bazin is there in the same capacity.

March 30, 1987
The Senate
On the Liberal side there is Senator Keith Davey, a good friend of mine who has been there for many, many years. He is the chief Liberal campaign manager in the country extending back to the days of Lester Pearson. Senator Kirby is the newer version of Senator Keith Davey. He is a very intelligent man, a very decent Canadian, and a very competent political manager. However, that is not the role of the Senate. In a democratic society people should not be appointed for such functions in such an institution. I believe campaign managers should be paid out of the coffers of political Parties rather than by the people of Canada. That is not the purpose for which the Senate was created. That is another reason that the Senate of Canada, in its present state, should be abolished.
With that I call upon the House to support the first part of this motion to abolish the Senate. Although I do not agree with everything that has been advocated with regard to a Triple E Senate, I believe we should study this motion and begin discussions as soon as possible with regard to whether or not there should be an elected second House in this country in order to have a balance between "rep by pop" and "rep by regionalism". Without that, in a federal state we will have continuing problems of disunity within all political Parties because the problems of central Canada are often perceived as being more important than those of the west, the north, or Atlantic Canada.


William C. Winegard: Mr. Speaker, I think no one in this House can doubt the necessity of doing something about the other place. Since the September, 1984 election, Members of this House have witnessed two incidents where Members of the other place have sought to frustrate the will of this House. With this in mind I would draw the attention of Hon. Members to the serious conflict at the turn of the century between the British House of Lords and the House of Commons, which culminated in the Parliament Act of 1911. I would like to take a few moments to explore the development of the Act because it is important in terms of the discussion which we are presently having.
The real catalyst of that crisis was the 1909 Budget of Mr. Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer. He, like the Government of Canada today, faced the problem of a large deficit and introduced a series of taxation measures which particularly affected Britain's wealthy land-owning class. Some observers at the time suggested that the Liberal Government had brought forward a particularly tough Budget in order to dare the Lords to veto it, thus allowing the Liberals to go to the electorate on a "peers versus the people" platform. Whether or not that is true, the fact remains that the Lords had not rejected a finance Bill in 250 years.
On November 30, 1909, the House of Lords rejected the Budget and in doing so disregarded one of the most fundamental principles of the parliamentary system, that is that the power of the purse belongs to the democratically elected House of Commons alone. Parliament was then dissolved and, as expected, both the Budget and the unparalleled action of the Lords were the key election issues. The Liberals remained in
power with the support of a group of Irish nationalists who demanded that limits be put on the power of the Lords.
The Liberals then began to draft the Parliament Bill. It was introduced on April 15, and the 1909 Budget was passed without incident by both Chambers a few days later. With the introduction of the Parliament Bill came a warning from Prime Minister Asquith that if the Lords rejected the Bill there would not only be a second election, but the existence of the House of Lords would be an election issue.
A constitutional conference of Liberal and Unionist Party leaders aimed at ending the crisis was quickly convened. That went on from June until November when Prime Minister Asquith finally admitted that there was "an apparently irreconcilable divergence of opinion" between the two Parties. Shortly thereafter, in an audience with King George V, Asquith sought a guarantee that, assuming a Liberal victory in a general election, enough Liberal peers would be created to allow the passage of the Parliament Bill in the event of another deadlock. This guarantee was obtained.
As expected, the December, 1910, general election produced another stalemate, but Balfour himself, who had urged his House of Lords colleagues to reject the Bill in the first place, recognized that the British public had had enough and that the Unionists ran the risk of being blamed for any further constitutional upheaval.
After a serious and emotion-filled debate in both Houses, the Parliament Bill was finally passed on August 11, 1911. The vote in the House of the Lords was 131 to 114, with 37 Unionists voting with the Government. As you are aware, Mr. Speaker, the Parliament Act seriously reduced the power of the Lords. If the House of Lords does not pass a money Bill certified as such by you, Sir, the Speaker, within 30 days of its passage by the Commons, it may be presented for assent without the Lords' consent. In 1949 the Lords' power to prevent or unduly delay the passage of legislation was reduced still further. The Parliament Act has rightly been described as the most decisive step in British constitutional history since the extension of the franchise in 1867. It greatly reduced the authority of the House of Lords and established once and for all the supremacy of the democratically elected House of Commons in our parliamentary system.
I think you will see from my recounting of these events, Mr. Speaker, the similarity to the situation we face regarding the Canadian Senate. Here, too, there have been attempts by the majority Party in that Chamber, an appointed, non-accountable body, to thwart the clearly-expressed wishes of the House of Commons. Not only that, but the first incident was on a question involving public revenues, which are indeed the responsibility of the people's representatives in this House. Just as the "ditchers" of 1911 refused to accept the decision of the majority, we, too, have witnessed vain efforts from our own little band of "ditchers".
George Dangerfield, in his book, The Strange Death of Liberal England, put the matter very well. He said that these
March 30, 1987

individuals "did not realize that life consists in change, that nothing can stand still.... Clinging to the realities of the past, they prepared to defend their dead cause to the finish".
I sincerely hope, Mr. Speaker, that all Hon. Members, both here and in the other place, will heed the words of Dangerfield.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, will the Parliamentary Secretary tell us what we will be dealing with tomorrow? I am sure everyone is interested and will want to know so that we can prepare for the debate.


Philip Derek Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to confirm that we will continue with Bill C-38 tomorrow morning until it is completed. We hope that we can finish it expeditiously so that the deal can be completed.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, you are probably not aware of it, but I have a friend and constituent by the name of Judy Fournier. Judy lives in my constituency in the Don Mills Road and Lawrence Avenue area.
She has a brother who works for a coal company in Grande Cache, Alberta. This coal company used to be very prosperous. Its sales were very high, but recently they have gone down, production has fallen, and there have been lay-offs, as I am sure you are aware. The fact that there have been lay-offs at this mine in Grande Cache, Alberta, is an example of the problems that the Alberta economy has been facing and an example of the problems of regional economic disparity in Canada.
As you know, jobs are available in Toronto and, in fact, a report in the newspaper on the weekend states that thousands of jobs are unfilled at the moment. However, there is unemployment in Alberta and elsewhere in Canada. Judy Fournier is worried about her brother and his future. Although he has been working at that mine for a long time, even with his seniority he may very well be out of a job before too long.
Judy has a boss who is a very good friend of mine. His name is Chuck Thornton. He owns a printing company in Toronto
Adjournment Debate
and he and his family also have a cottage property on an island in Lake Muskoka near Gravenhurst, Ontario. It is a beautiful cottage, on a beautiful lake, in a beautiful summer resort area.
That summer resort area, Lake Muskoka, and the Muskoka Lakes generally, have a problem. The problem is acid rain. There is an answer to that problem, an answer to Judy Fournier's problem, and an answer to the problem facing Chuck Thornton and his family. The answer, which is the same, is for Ontario Hydro to begin using low-sulphur western coal instead of the high-sulphur American coal it is now using to generate electric power.
The House will know that a study was completed last summer which indicated that if Ontario would begin substituting western coal for U.S. coal, it could create some 13,000 permanent jobs until the year 2000. Most of those jobs would be created in Alberta and British Columbia and perhaps as much as 40 per cent would be created in Ontario.
That same study indicated that the income that would be generated by that effort would be some $4.1 billion. Of course, that would be important for western Canada and Canada as a whole, and, perhaps from a parochial point of view, it would be important for Ontario because it would cut the amount of acid rain emissions and reduce the amount of acid rain in Ontario.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, and as the Parliamentary Secretary knows, Ontario has agreed to cut its acid rain emissions by some 50 per cent by 1994. Ontario Hydro is responsible, through its coal and thermal generating plants, for some 85 per cent to 90 per cent of all of those emissions. Western coal, on the other hand, has a sulphur level of 0.25 per cent compared to the U.S. coal-sulphur level of 2.2 per cent.
If Ontario Hydro would use Canadian coal instead of American coal, it would create jobs, it would reduce regional economic disparity, it would help bind our country together instead of tearing it apart, and it would reduce acid rain emissions in Ontario. It would reduce acid rain which would help our lakes, fish, birds, trees and people with respiratory problems. It would make Judy Fournier happy. It would make Judy's brother happy. It would make my friend, Chuck Thornton, happy, and his entire family, his wife Pam and his children, Scott, Bruce and Paul, would all be happy. It would make the people of Ontario happy and it would make the people of Canada happy.
What is holding it up? Of course, it is Ontario Hydro and it is the Ontario Government. I ask you, Premier Peterson, what is holding it up? Let us get on with it. Let us substitute western coal for U.S. coal. Let us create some jobs and cut acid rain in Ontario.


Philip Derek Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I would like to compliment my colleague on his continued interest in environmental matters, especially acid rain. I want

March 30, 1987
Adjournment Debate
to lend my voice to his efforts to encourage Ontario Hydro to use western coal.
My colleague asked the Deputy Prime Minister if the Premier of Ontario is prepared to order Ontario Hydro to cut acid rain emissions in the same manner that private industry has been asked. The Deputy Prime Minister has met with the Premiers of Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia to seek ways to use low-sulphur western Canadian coal at Ontario Hydro. This is in response to the federal-provincial task force which reported in June of 1986 and recommended that increased utilization of western coal be treated not just as a possibility but, indeed, as a reality. Not only is this possible from a financial sense, but its importance in reducing acid rain is the key concern.
The sulphur content of western Canadian coal is .3 per cent. This is about nine times less than the sulphur content of Pennsylvania coal. That is the reason we must take advantage of our western-Canadian coal. The Hon. Member asks whether Ontario Hydro has been ordered to reduce its acid gas emissions in the future. The short answer to this is, yes. In fact, Ontario Hydro has pledged to reduce its total acid gas emissions by 50 per cent over the next six years. This means that the 430,000 tonnes per year of acid gas emissions must be reduced to less than 215,000 tonnes per year by 1994.
In order to reach this level it is anticipated that during the 1990s, when Ontario Hydro will be needing new capacity, western-Canadian coal will be efficiently utilized to ensure these levels are met. This project could potentially create 13,000 jobs across Canada.
That is the reason we are treating it as an exciting project which will unite the country and will provide jobs in many regions and reduce acid rain. Quite clearly, this is good for the economy, good for the environment, good for Ontario, good for the western provinces and, Mr. Speaker, good for Canada. We are very optimistic that this project will become a reality in the near future.


PENITENTIARIES-ILLITERACY AMONG INMATES
Mr. Bill Attewell (Don Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, on March 5, 1987, I rose in this House to ask a question of the Solicitor General (Mr. Kelleher) about the steps being taken to combat the problem of illiteracy among prisoners. My question was prompted by the discovery of some alarming statistics.
Before pursuing my specific question about the illiteracy rates in prison, I would like to comment on this problem, which exists throughout our entire society. By coincidence, the leading editorial of The Globe and Mail today provides some shocking statistics about the illiteracy afflicting many Canadians.
Some one million Canadians cannot read at all, and four million cannot read or write well enough to function adequately in our society. The editorial points out that it is not an imported problem, since 70 per cent of the illiterate people in Canada were born here. Nor is it a problem of the elderly, since 40 per cent of the illiterate people are under the age of 45. Tragically, 60 per cent of the illiterate population is out of work. As Senator Fairbairn rightly said: "The illiterate population is our country's hidden shame."
With regard to my direct question of the Solicitor General, he assured me at the time that concrete steps would be taken shortly to deal with this situation. Indeed, on Wednesday of this week an adult basic education program will be launched in federal institutions across the country by the Correctional Service of Canada. Therefore, this is a good time to shed some more light on this unprecedented initiative, the success of which depends not only on my support or that of my colleagues in the House, but also on the awareness and goodwill of Canadians in general.
It would be instructive to begin with some further statistics. Currently, about one-half of all federal inmates have a level of competence below grade eight, which is considered to be the standard for conventional literacy. Out of these approximately 6,000 prisoners only 500, or less than 10 per cent, are enrolled in a basic education program, and of them only 150 or so will complete it successfully. Considering that 80 per cent of all prisoners are in jail for six years or less, this means that a great majority of those who enter being illiterate serve out their sentences and leave without any improvements. The question arises: Why educate prisoners? Some allege that this simply leads to well-informed, competent criminals. That is a narrowminded, vindictive view.
To begin with, criminals, even if they have at one time consciously violated the law, are human beings who at some point will return to society. To be able to function within society on par with other citizens certain basic skills are essential. Certainly, being able to read and write are in that category. Not having these skills is yet another obstacle for a productive return to those already branded with the social stigma of a "record".
The adjustment process is difficult enough as it is. No conclusive evidence exists linking crime and lack of education, but one may draw a common sense link between the latter and repeat offenders. After all, if there is one area in which prisoners are relatively well educated, it is crime. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that lacking alternative "employment", many will again resort to crime. In 1979 the then Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court expressed his concern in the following way:
In many of the institutions in this country today, a majority of the inmates cannot read or write. They are functional illiterates. This is why during the period of incarceration, a concentrated program must be available on two levels: first, to see to it that every prisoner learns to read and write; and, second, to see that each prisoner is trained in a marketable skill.
March 30, 1987

Aside from these specific considerations, it is important to look at what prisoners do during their term in a general way since, in a sense, that is their period of preparation for returning. These people have pride. But a lack of the most basic education often contributes to a low sense of self-esteem and self-confidence. Crime can be an escape from the system which may have failed them. Being better educated may enable them to discover new interests and skills and give their life in prison meaning and hope. Their preoccupation with anger and frustration may be channelled into something positive. Therefore, when they are released, literacy may qualify them to return, not just in a technical sense, but it should also raise their morale. Often, merely knowing that one can contribute in a meaningful way to society can be enormously inspiring and satisfying.
The goals of the program announced by the Solicitor General are ambitious. The target is to increase the number of successful completions of the program by 400 per cent in the first year, and ultimately to achieve a level of literacy among prisoners comparable to that of the Canadian public in general. This will not be easy, but the proposed initiative provides measures pointing in that direction. Incentives will be provided to encourage prisoners to participate. They will include linkage between program completion and, for instance, jobs in the institution and parole dates.
There will be improved co-ordination of the entire system so that prisoners transferred between jails will not be affected by the lack of standardized programs. More effort will be given to identify individual perceptual and hearing deficiencies, and correct them. Increased participation by qualified inmate tutors, with whom the prisoners will feel more comfortable, will also be encouraged.
In the entire process, success will depend largely upon the involvement of sectors of the community. Fortunately, a number of private organizations are ready and willing to help. For instance, there is Listen for Pleasure, a commercial group which distributes literacy programs in the form of cassettes- something that may be ideal for inmates often uneasy about formal classroom instruction. Frontier College is an institution whose basic mandate is to provide literacy in general, but its commitment to prisoners is very strong and well known.
And last, but most important, there are volunteer organizations, such as the John Howard Society and the Salvation Army, which have helped thousand of prisoners, and which try to foster goodwill toward them on the part of the public at large.
These groups provide an invaluable service, especially to young offenders and first-time offenders, during all stages, from court appearances, prison visits, and the problems associated with re-entry into society, to rebuilding family life, and in finding worthwhile employment.
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In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I should like to emphasize the importance of recognizing inmates as decent human beings, with dreams of a better future. Yes, they have violated our social and criminal codes of conduct. However, given that ultimately they will rejoin society, they deserve every opportunity to be able to make a productive contribution and to shoulder some of society's responsibilities.


Mr. Frangois Gerin (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I want first of all to thank the Hon. Member for Don Valley-East (Mr. Attewell) for providing us with an opportunity to raise this important issue in the House, and to emphasize that the Solicitor General of Canada (Mr. Kelleher) shares his opinion on most of the points he has made. The Solicitor General of Canada, who is responsible for the penitentiary services in this country, is also well aware of the serious problem resulting from prisoners' illiteracy. His response, therefore, was to announce recently an adult basic training program which will be implemented in all Canadian prisons.
To give you an idea of the scope of the problem, I will give you some statistics: recently, in Canada, almost 50 per cent of the inmate population, which means about 6,000 individuals, were functionally illiterate. Out of an inmate population of 12,500 people, only 500 were enrolled in basic education programs, and each year barely 150 complete successfully the program they have started. With this initiative, the Solicitor General seeks to raise the level of literacy among inmates to a level similar to the one found in the general Canadian population, that is 70 to 80 per cent of people with a grade nine education or better. To reach that goal, we are aiming for a 400 per cent increase in the number of literate inmates in 1987-88, thus helping 600 more men and women to reach a grade nine education level. The second year the program budget will be doubled and the number should reach 1,200.
Why all these efforts, Mr. Speaker? Because illiteracy is a social and economic problem particularly acute among prisoners. Most of them, when they come out, are confronted with serious adjustment problems in their job or social life. Illiteracy is another obstacle to their social rehabilitation. Illiterate people cannot read or complete a job application; they cannot go through the classified ads to look for a job or a phone number; they cannot read the street signs or find an address. Such simple tasks can be beyond their ability. As to those who finally find a job, they cannot read instructions, regulations or safety precautions at the work site.
Mr. Speaker, the facts speak for themselves: chances of finding and keeping a job are better if the applicant can read and write. It has also been acknowledged that there is a direct correlation between the ability to keep a job and not to commit a subsequent offence. In light of that principle, whenever the National Parole Board examines the record of an inmate it takes into account the efforts he may have made to acquire a basic training.

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Adjournment Debate
Other efforts will be made to encourage these people to take part in the program. As can readily be seen, the program is not additional punishment for the inmates, quite the contrary, it was designed to help them help themselves.
Mr. Speaker, the Solicitor General is convinced that most Canadians support him. According to a 1984 Gallup poll, more than 50 per cent of respondents felt that reading and writing should be the number one priority of programs for inmates. It is one way of expressing a basic truth concerning social reintegration: the inmate must have skills which will enable him to do something other than returning to criminal activities, and he can acquire the necessary skills by becoming more proficient at reading and writing. All Canadians who are concerned by this question will surely welcome this initiative whose aim is to enable inmates to reach that objective.


THE ECONOMY-WESTERN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. (B) MANDATE OF ALLEGED OFFICE
Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, this evening I want to elaborate on why I want the federal Government to announce its plans for the Western Diversification Office. About a month or so ago I asked a question in the House about the western initiative office. At that time the Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Privy Council (Mr. Mazankowski) said that it did not exist.
Since that time they have changed the name of the office to the Western Diversification Office. Once again the Deputy Prime Minister refused to acknowledge that such an office existed. I do not know why they are delaying making an announcement because there is such an office in the bureaucracy now.
I have a copy of a leaked list of the employees of the Western Diversification Office. It was sent to me in a brown paper envelope. It is not a "Lome Nystrom" or an NDP list. It comes out of the Public Service of Canada from someone who is in the knowledge, in the situation, and has access to the list of employees of the Western Diversification Office.
It is an office which has not yet been announced by the federal Government. It is an office which does not have a budget of which we know or a mandate of which we know. It is an office which does not have the discretionary power to decide on what projects will be accepted or not or what projects will be funded or not. Yet, there is such an office.
I want to read into the record and make an announcement on behalf of the federal Government. On behalf of the Deputy Prime Minister I announce that there is a Western Diversification Office. It is located on the fourth floor at 435 Ellice Avenue in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in the Canadian Institute of Industrial Technology Building. This is a National Research building in Winnipeg.
When I first mentioned it, the Deputy Prime Minister said that these 15 employees were employees of the Minister of State for Science and Technology (Mr. Oberle). That is not true, and I will read into the record the names of the employees.
First, there are two co-chairpersons. The first is John Blackwood, Co-Chairperson of Resource Industries. He is located in Room No. 473 and his phone number is 949-6956. The other Co-Chairperson, Mr. Speaker-and do not forget that the Deputy Prime Minister said that this office did not exist-is Mr. Anthony Reynolds. He is co-chairperson of Manufacturing and Service. His Room No. is 474. His phone number is 949-6589. These are the two co-chairpersons.
In addition, the Western Diversification Office, which has not been announced by the Government of Canada, has a secretary. The secretary's name is Kay Hoare in Room 472. In addition, there is a senior policy adviser for Manufacturing and Services. This person's name is Robert Stalker. In addition, there is Derryl Millar, Senior Policy Adviser for Resource Industries. There is also Burt Waslander, Senior Economic Adviser. By the way, he was a person in the Ottawa headquarters of DRIE, the Department of Regional Industrial Expansion. He is now in Winnipeg in Room No. 466.
There is John Inns, Senior Project Manager. There is Gary Hosea, Co-ordinator of High Technology. There is Randy Winnitowy, Co-ordinator of Resource Processing. By the way, Mr. Winnitowy is from my home province. He comes from the Saskatoon office of DRIE.
There is also Bill Whiting, Co-ordinator of Traditional Industries. There is Kim Nishikaze, Communications Officer. There is Terry Gibson, who is Project Manager of Resource Industries; Mr. Ron Smith, Administration Co-ordinator; Janice Dyck, a word processing operator; and Joann Primrose, who is a secretary.
In addition, this Western Diversification Office, which does not exist according to the Deputy Prime Minister, has a communications centre. That communications centre is located in Room No. 461. In case you want to communicate with them, Mr. Speaker, their phone number is 949-2489. If that is busy, you can call 949-7950. That is the Western Diversification Office. It has not been announced by the Government of Canada. It is in existence. It is doing some work. It is paying rent at the NRC building in Winnipeg which happens to be in the riding of my friend, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Keeper). I want to know now from the Parliamentary Secretary, who is a very honest, decent forthright gentleman from Alberta, why the secrecy. Why has the federal Government not announced that the office exists? Why has the Government not told us what the mandate of the office is and whether or not there will be a budget?
I have another bit of information that you will be interested in, Mr. Speaker. I have been told by a reliable source, who I
March 30, 1987

cannot name, that the federal Government did not make this announcement because it is planning a very slick, audio-visual presentation in the four western provinces in order to kick it off at an opportune political time, using senior Ministers from each of the four provinces. Winnipeg, of course, is the headquarters, so I assume the Minister involved in Manitoba would be someone like the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Epp), in Saskatchewan it would be one of our two Ministers, in Alberta I would assume it would be the Deputy Prime Minister and in British Columbia one of the Ministers from there. Is the Government going to use taxpayers money for a slick, political kick-off rather than do some real work on western diversification?
With regard to western diversification, the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) does say that there is work going on. The work is in his office and there will be an announcement very soon. Up to now there has been nothing at all in terms of western diversification. What we have had so far are western emergency programs. We appreciate them, like the $1 billion for farmers, the ending of the PGRT and the $350 million to western oil and gas. But that is not western diversification. That is western emergency aid which does not diversify the economy.
What we need in western Canada is a western Canadian economic strategy to diversify the economy, one with more local control, more self-reliance, more local input where western Canadians have more say. That is what I want and that is what western Canadians want. I hope that this office will have some input in real industrial economic strategy for western Canada so that in the future we will have a more balanced view of what the national interest is. I do not want to see more CF-18 decisions made that do not diversify the western Canadian economy but instead restrict the possibilities for diversification.
1 look forward to my friend from Alberta enlightening this House since the Deputy Prime Minister felt he could not do so.


Jack Wendele Shields: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to reply to the statements by the Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom). First I want to compliment and thank him for supporting the Progressive Conservative Government on its western Canadian strategy.
I want to point out that this matter is not secret. We are not preparing a slick, audio-visual presentation. I am sorry to say that the Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville was again using innuendo in this House in an attempt to discredit the Government.
He talks about the brown paper envelope with this list of people working in an office in Winnipeg. He says it came from
Adjournment Debate
someone who knows who has access to the information. He admits that he does not know from where the envelope came but in it there is a list of people who are in a so-called secret office.
I would like to point out that the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion (Mr. Cote) has asked officials of his Department to undertake wide-ranging analytical work on the manufacturing and service industries of Canada. This work, of course, and I think the Hon. Member should agree, illustrates again the high priority which the Government places on western diversification. For administration convenience, the work is being co-ordinated by the Winnipeg office of the Department of Regional Industrial Expansion. The officers involved could not be accommodated in DRIEs permanent offices, so temporary accommodation has been rented in the Canadian Institute of Industrial Technology Building.
I underline that that is not the Western Diversification Office in Winnipeg. There is no Western Diversification Office in Winnipeg. The Hon. Member knows exactly what we are talking about. He heard the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski) say there is no Western Diversification Office in Winnipeg. There is an office of the Department of Regional Industrial Expansion. Employees of the Department are doing analytical work so this Government can make decisions based on a good study of what is going on in western Canada. For some reason the Hon. Member would rather believe something from a brown envelope. Of course, the NDP are very used to brown paper envelopes.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: So are the Tories.


Jack Wendele Shields: They would rather believe that than the word of the Deputy Prime Minister. The Hon. Member knows the implications of making a misleading statement in this House, and he should also know that what the Deputy Prime Minister said is correct. The work going on does not constitute a Western Diversification Office. The Hon. Member should realize that and accept it once and for all. When the time comes for an announcement on the western diversification strategy and the setting up of an office, the member will know it and he will be there in the front ranks applauding this Government's initiatives.


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


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.32 p.m.
[Stage Direction]

Tuesday, March 31, 1987
[Stage Direction]
Prayers