1987-10-20

Mr. Scott Fennell (Ontario):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth reports of the Striking Committee.
If the House gives its consent, 1 intend to move concurrence of the thirty-fourth report later this day.


GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS-FOURTH REPORT OF STANDING COMMITTEE
Mr. Felix Holtmann (Selkirk-Interlake):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to its order of reference dated June 23, 1987, I have the honour to present the fourth report, in both official languages, of the Standing Committee on Government Operations.
Your committee examined the resolution adopted by the House on February 10, 1987, regarding the erection of a statue in honour of former Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, as well as the document entitled "Report on Commemorative Statues to Canadian Prime Ministers and Commemoratives to Other Eminent Canadians", tabled in the House on February 10, 1987.
We are satisfied that a suitable site is presently available on Parliament Hill for the erection of a statue of the Right Hon. Lester B. Pearson. In the longer term, however, we are of the opinion that alternative sites off Parliament Hill should also be considered in the planning of future commemorative statues.
1 wish to thank Hon. Members for their contribution in drafting this unanimous report.


STRIKING-CONCURRENCE IN THIRTY-FOURTH REPORT OF STANDING COMMITTEE
Thomas Scott Fennell: Mr. Speaker, if the House gives its consent, I move, seconded by the Minister of State for the Treasury Board, that the thirty-fourth report of the
Striking Committee presented to the House earlier this day be concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops-Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure and honour, pursuant to Standing Order 106, to present the following petition from a number of western Canadians.
They draw our attention to the procedure proposed by standing committee of Parliament's for dealing with refugees which they feel would fairly and effectively solve the problem of the backlog, which has the support of all the Parties in Parliament, as well as the Canadian Council of Churches, the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Jewish Congress, and many other groups and individuals who have expertise in dealing with refugees.
The petitioners are asking the Government to withdraw Bill C-55 and substitute legislation embodying the principles that were reported from that standing committee of the House of Commons.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Hon. Doug Lewis (Minister of State and Minister of State (Treasury Board)):: Mr. Speaker, question No. 185 will be answered today.


Mr. Boudria: 1. In (a) 1984-85 (6) 1985-86 (c) 1986-87 to date, what was the total amount spent by Statistics Canada on foreign travel and associated expenditures?

October 20, 1987
Immigration Act, 1976
2. What portion of the cost was spent on (a) travelling (6) accommodation (c) food (ct) entertainment?


Hon. Michel Cote (Minister of Supply and Services):: Statistics Canada reports:
1. The amount spent by Statistics Canada on foreign travel and associated expenditures in 1984-85, 1985-86 and 1986-87, including travel to the United States, is as follows:
(a)	1984-85	$ 229,165(b)	1985-86	$ 239,228(c)	1986-87	$ 309,820
2. The costs spent on travelling, accommodation, food, entertainment and miscellaneous are as follows:
1984-85	1985-86	1986-87(a)	Travelling	$ 120,219 $	119,941 $	151,247(b)	Accommodation	59,810	63,645	92,372(c)	Food	30,986	32,533	45,049(d)	Entertainment/Hospitality	1,086	-	97(e)	Miscellaneous	17,064	23,109	21,055[Translation]


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


Mr. Speaker:: The question as enumerated by the Minister has been answered, shall the remaining questions stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Friday, October 16, consideration of the motion of Mr. Bouchard that Bill C-55, an Act to amend the Immigration Act, 1976 and to amend other Acts in consequence thereof, be read the third time and passed.
Mr. Dave Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, I am not going to take much time of the House, but I do wish to express my objections to the thrust of Bill C-55.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, we were summoned in the midst of the summer recess in order that Parliament could deal with what the Government of the day deemed to be an emergency situation. That resulted from the fact that 174 Sikhs landed on the coast of Nova Scotia. Because of this particular matter, and the queue jumping the Government deemed to be in vogue at that point in time, it required us to return to Parliament. However, we have dealt with that particular Bill, but there are linkages to this particular piece of legislation, Bill C-55.
In my view, the thrust of the Government's legislation points out a number of serious weaknesses, for instance, the prescreening system, the safe third country concept, the refugee board, the appeal system, as well as the precedent that Canada has set for other countries encouraging them to consider similar action by turning a blind eye to the plight of refugees. The situation with regard to refugees ought to be clear to Canadians. We are a very fortunate country to have in our midst a large number of refugees from all over the world who have come to Canada and have become exemplary citizens for all Canadians to observe and, indeed, with whom to participate and interact.
With its obvious apparent weaknesses, this Bill ought not to pass Parliament. I wish to give credit to my colleague from Toronto who has led the charge in opposition to Bill C-55. He has set out very clearly and unequivocally the objections that he and other members of our Party have with regard to Bill C-55.
It is one issue when queue-jumping takes place and individuals jump ahead of the line who are not legitimate refugees. But the over-all Canadian policy which is now codified into law, particularly an appeal system which I and many lawyers and organizations in the community at large oppose for a variety of reasons, ought to be amended and amended very clearly in order that we can improve upon that system.
In summations, I am opposed to Bill C-55 for many of the reasons which have already been announced by my colleagues in the House. Upon reflection, I would hope that the Government would change this particular Bill in order to address the very serious errors and omissions which are tied into Bill C-55.


Mr. Jim Manly (Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands):: 1 wish to emphasize the present reality. Since World War II Canada has received more than 400,000 refugees from other countries. Those people have made a signal contribution to the social, economic, and political life of Canada. In recognition of the work and attitude of Canadian people toward refugees, last year the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees presented the Canadian people with the Nansen Medal. This was a very signal honour for the Canadian people as a whole. The great majority of Canadian people support the admission of genuine refugees to Canada. They wish the abuses cleaned up, but they wish Canada to continue to receive people from other parts of the world who are in genuine need.
With Bill C-55 we are returning to some earlier attitudes. We are turning back the clock, because the present reality of openness was, of course, not always the reality in Canada. We do not need to go too far back in our history to find some pretty shocking and disgusting incidents of racism. There are situations where racism was not only an incident but was institutionalized in our laws. For example, the Oriental Exclusion Act provided that male workers from Asia could come to Canada to work, but they could not bring their families. This was a cruel type of legislation that helped to perpetuate many stereotypes about Asians. Some of those stereotypes still linger in the minds of some Canadians.
Because people from India were British subjects and hence eligible to come to Canada as immigrants, Canada took a very devious round-about way of excluding them. We passed an Order in Council which required that they come on a boat directly from India without stopping in a third country, when we knew very well that there were no direct passenger lines from India to Canada. It is the same kind of government subterfuge which we see in Bill C-55. The Order in Council eventually led to the Kamagata Maru incident when a boat was chartered to bring people directly from India to Vancouver, and Canadian racism erupted in a very ugly manner which eventually led to the death of a number of Sikhs.
I would like to give some examples of earlier racism. We know the sad story of the turning back of the St. Louis with Jewish refugees on board at the close of the 1930s. These people had no alternative, when Canada and other countries shut the door to them, but the Holocaust of Hitler's Europe.
We can look at the attitude exemplified by R. B. Bennett on June 7, 1928, when he was Leader of the Opposition and spoke about European immigrants in the House of Commons. He said:
-These people-have made excellent settlers; they have kept the law; they
have prospered and they are proud of Canada, but it cannot be that we must
draw upon them to shape our civilization.
That kind of racism was widespread at that time. I presume that my grandparents, and perhaps even my parents, supported that kind of statement, a statement which nobody in the House would support today.
Immigration Act, 1976
On May 1, 1947, Mackenzie King said the following in the House of Commons:
I wish to state quite definitely that, apart from the repeal of the Chinese Immigration Act and the revocation of order in council-regarding naturalization, the government has no intention of removing the existing regulations respecting Asiatic immigration unless and until alternative measures of effective control have been worked out-
We reject that kind of open racism in Canada today, although at that time Mackenzie King was probably speaking for a fairly broad cross-section of Canadian people.
I could look at the example of my own church, the United Church of Canada. By the time the Right Reverend Hugh McLeod gave his address as Moderator in 1962, I think the United Church had far surpassed him in its openness and its attitude. However, we see in his statement some of the regrettable attitudes which continue to linger in Canada. He spoke of what he considered to be "the disproportionate influx of Roman Catholics by immigration", and said the following:
Perhaps Roman Catholics have been the only eligible immigrants available in large numbers, and as people they are doubtless estimable and capable of greatly enriching our nation, but as members of a Church which everywhere favours the establishment of a monolithic infallible authority under Rome, they may herald and achieve the end of liberty as we have known it and as we deem it necessary for life. Some will say, "But it is different here", and to them I say, "How is it different here?"
Such statements today can only make members of the United Church embarrassed that that attitude was common within certain sectors of our church just 25 years ago. Of course, the Moderator of the United Church never spoke ex cathedra, but that is illustrative of a certain attitude.
There are people today who want to go back to that kind of attitude. On September 19, 1987 The Vancouver Sun quoted former B.C. Supreme Court Judge J. V. Clyne saying:
I'd not want to see us cease to be a white country.
Canada never has been a white country, and I do not think it ever will be. J. V. Clyne is living in some kind of racist imagination of his own which has nothing to do with the present reality of Canada or with the kind of vision of a Canada that we want.
We have a new reality in Canada which is ashamed of the racism of the past and is open to genuine refugees. At the same time it recognizes that there has been a change in the place of origin of most refugees. After the Second World War most of them came from Europe. Around the end of the 1970s and into the early 1980s they came from southeast Asia. Today, most of the refugees who are trying to come to Canada come from Central America.
Perhaps another element of reality at which we need to look is the administrative backlog that has been built up. There has been a lack of staff. The Department of Employment and Immigration simply did not have enough people on staff to handle in a rapid and efficient manner people who came and applied for refugee status, so there were delays. As a result of the delays, people would remain in Canada for a longer period of time than what would have been expected to process their

October 20, 1987
Immigration Act, 1976
case. Because they could stay here for such a long period, they began to use the delays and to abuse the refugee policy. Of course Portuguese Jehovah's Witnesses making false claims of persecution is a predominant example of that. Jehovah's Witnesses themselves do not give any credence to the claims of persecution in Portugal.
There has been a number of studies of the administrative backlog and what needs to be done. The best known would be the study done by Rabbi Gunther Plaut. Standing committee recommendations called for a speedier process, but one which would continue to give people due process and would continue to give them the right to a hearing within Canada, the right to appeal, and so on.
Despite the recommendations of a number of committees, the Government refused to act, and the backlog continued to grow until today when it is estimated to be somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 people who are backlogged, still waiting to find out their final refugee determination. Some of those people are genuine refugees; some of them are bogus refugees. However, the Government's refusal to act almost indicates that it wanted the crisis to develop.
1 want to suggest that Bill C-55 is not aimed primarily at the backlog or at the causes of the backlog. Bill C-55 is aimed at the perceived threat of an influx of refugee claimants from Central America via the United States. It is not aimed at bogus refugees, although it will weed out some of them, but it is aimed at genuine refugees who will also have a much more difficult time getting into Canada.
In one year Guatemala had some 400 people applying to Canada for refugee status. Some 75 per cent of these people were recognized as refugees. In fact, the repressive conditions in Guatemala and El Salvador have produced hundreds of thousands of refugees. Many of them have gone to Mexico where they must exist in absolutely deplorable conditions in refugee camps. Others have entered the United States as illegal aliens. United States policy has made it almost impossible for those people to achieve refugee status.
In 1982, some 12,000 Salvadorans applied for asylum in the United States, and only 26 were accepted. Something like .2 per cent of refugee applicants were accepted as refugees coming from El Salvador.
Last year, the United States passed legislation which provided for fines of $10,000 for anyone employing or harbouring illegal refugees. When they are caught in the United States they are returned to their country of origin. If the country happens to be El Salvador or Guatemala, the refugee returnees are liable to torture, disappearance, or death.
Up until this year, if those people came to Canada they could be given special ministerial permits and relatively quick entry. Then new regulations were published last spring that slammed Canadian doors. It eliminated the list of countries,
including El Salvador and Guatemala, to which we would not deport people. In January and February this year 2,300 Salvadorans and 600 Guatemalans came to Canada from the United States and together with about 1,000 Chileans who arrived by air they equalled two-thirds of the refugee claimants at that time.
Professor Reg Whitaker contrasts the difference between our shabby, mean-spirited treatment of Central American refugees with our fairly generous treatment of some 60,000 refugees from Southeast Asia in 1979-80.
Mr. Whitaker asks:
What is the difference between the enthusiastic support for refugees in 1979-1980 and the closed door of 1987? Is it economic conditions in Canada? Hardly: unemployment is not worse now than then, and inflation is a good deal lower. Nor can it be racism, for Asians were the most discriminated-against group of immigrants to Canada.
There is only one difference, but it speaks volumes about Canada's vaunted international generosity. The Vietnamese and Cambodians were fleeing Communist regimes recently installed following military victories over U.S. fire power. The Latin Americans are fleeing anti-Communist regimes sponsored by the U.S. Oppression is defined in terms of where the oppressors stand in relation to the Cold War-and woe to any refugees who find themselves on the wrong side of that divide.
If the motivation for Bill C-55 and the restrictive regulations published last spring are not racism, the Government at least is using racism as a tool to push this legislation through. We saw the phony crisis that erupted this spring over the boat people when 174 Sikhs waded ashore in Nova Scotia. Canadians should be asking which is worse, genuine racism or using racism as a tool? I suggest that this Government has been using racism as a tool to pass repressive legislation.
An Hon. IVlember: False.


James Douglas Manly: There was a backlog, which the Government allowed to develop of some 20,000 to 30,000 people in the system and then suddenly when 174 people who happen to be Sikhs came ashore in Nova Scotia the Government discovered that it had a crisis. There were all kinds of inflammatory statements made by Members on that side of the House and members of the press who whipped up the situation.


Mr. Malone:: False.


James Douglas Manly: The Government called the House of Commons back into session to deal with what was perceived as a crisis. Bill C-84 was introduced. The Government attempted to get Bill C-55 passed in that mood of crisis although the Government had known of the backlog of some 20,000 to 30,000 people for a number of years. It is despicable the way the Government has handled the whole business of using 174 Sikhs to whip anti-refugee sentiment in Canada in order to get this Bill passed.
When the Government introduced it, every knowledgeable group-churches, bar associations and refugee assistance organizations-opposed it and detailed the problems with it. Instead of having a reasoned debate and attempting to make
October 20, 1987

reasoned and reasonable amendments, the Government has attempted to push the Bill through.
Bill C-55 is not the answer to the backlog problem. It hits out at the wrong people. The legislative committees on Bill C-55 and on Bill C-84 were forced to meet while one was being debated in the House. That put a tremendous amount of pressure upon the critics, the Hon. Member for Spadina (Mr. Heap) for our Party and the Hon. Member for York West (Mr. Marchi) for the Liberal Party. It was unfair to the critics and unfair to the witnesses who appeared before the committee who were trying to make their case. The Government attempted to force the legislation through with a hothouse atmosphere. Of course, it did not work.
Major concerns remain even after the Government introduced some minor amendments. These major concerns remain. As Ms. Kutz-Harder from the Inter-Church Committee for Refugees pointed out to the legislative committee:
A few minor amendments cannot rectify the fundamental flaws of the current Bill C-55.
We have reviewed the attempts by several groups to propose amendments which try to make sense of Bill C-55 and make it workable and just. However, clause by clause amendments cannot correct the fundamental flaws of the Bill.
We ask the Government to begin again in the face of a more just and more viable alternative. The most responsible action which this legislative committee could take would be to make the recommendation that the Government reconsider and replace this Bill with legislation consistent with the widely supported alternative procedure, which would better protect genuine refugees and certainly deter abuse.
In its present form, Bill C-55 still gives immigration officials the power to screen out refugee applicants before they get a chance to make their case to the refugee division. It still denies them the right to a proper appeal process.
I would like to close by giving the last word to Victor Velasquez, Vice-President of the Canadian Hispanic Congress who said:
We are convinced that the Bill worsens the situation of genuine refugees and makes protection for them almost inaccessible and practically illusory. We are facing an abuse psychosis and we are forgetting the universal values that we should maintain as human beings in dealing with other human beings who are fleeing from repression and death.
That is the reality of refugees in our world. Bill C-55 neglects that reality. It is trying to change the reality of Canada as being a relatively open decent society into being one of a closed door with a closed mentality.
I urge the Government to consider again whether it wants to enforce this kind of repressive reality upon Canada in 1987.


Mr. Heap:: Mr. Speaker, I was interested in the remarks of the Hon. Member for Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands (Mr. Manly) and, in particular, his remarks about what has been called the Sikh boat load and his suggestion that the Government used the occasion of that to promote racism as fuel for this legislation to pass. I would like to ask the Member to comment on another aspect of that same situation.
Immigration Act, 1976
Throughout the year we have had growing suggestions associating refugee claimants with terrorism. There were a number of unfounded accusations. For example, Maclean's published that 33 of those people had criminal records. When the former chairman of the Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration, the Hon. Member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes), went on the air the day Bill C-84 was tabled, he made the astonishing statement that the Bill is not about refugees but security. He suggested that refugees are security risks or may well be.
In light of the fact that the RCMP then testified to our committee that in relation to the 11,000 people which the RCMP had to examine last year and up to August this year, having no regular visas, there was no evidence of a threat to Canada and that included the Tamil and the Sihks boats, would the Hon. Member comment on how he finds the public perception of the Government's words in cases like that relating terrorism to refugee claimants? Has this done any damage to the public acceptance of refugees?


James Douglas Manly: Of course it has, Mr. Speaker. We need only to recall that the first person of the 174 from the boat load dealt with by the authorities before being released to the general public was the person with the highest profile and about whom the most questions were asked as to whether or not the individual might have some unsavory and possible terrorist connections. The Government zeroed in on the person with the highest profile first to get the maximum kind of-


Arnold John Malone: You're imputing motives.


James Douglas Manly: Yes, I am imputing motives. I think the motives of this Government are reprehensible and the Canadian people will judge it on those motives.


Ms. Lynn McDonald (Broadview-Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, 1 think that Canadians want a fair and reasonable system for dealing with refugees. I think Canadians want a system that is consistent with our international obligations and the Charter of Rights. Unfortunately, the Bill C-55 before us today, is not that kind of legislation.
Yes, we do have a problem with bogus refugees. We are very well aware of that problem. That problem has arisen because the system has broken down under the weight of paper, memos and files going back and forth. It is a lousy system and people who work in the system know it is a lousy system.
Many recommendations have been made to improve the system. Since it has broken down it has provided people an opportunity to take advantage of it, and there have been bogus refugee claims. The bogus claimants have felt safe to remain in Canada for a very long period of time under the current inefficient system while waiting for the processing of their bogus claims.

October 20, 1987
Immigration Act, 1976
1 share the concerns of my constituents and the concerns of many Canadians who feel that radical change is needed. Nonetheless, I cannot support this Bill because it will not attack that problem. What it will attack is genuine refugees. I think we will have on our consciences, if this Bill passes, that some genuine refugees will be turned away and returned to countries which are not safe. They will then be sent back to their own countries which they fled in the first place. We have to keep in mind that this inhumane Bill means that some people will die and some people will be tortured.
In my riding, there are a large number of immigrants. Many people are trying to get relatives into Canada legitimately, using the proper channels, and it is very frustrating for them to see other people make bogus refugee claims. That is a perfectly proper concern. We would like to see improvements made in the processing of immigrants and certainly in the processing of family reunification cases. That would be fair and highly desirable, but having an unfair process for refugees does not help immigrants either. It simply creates bad feelings.
I am pleased to see in my own riding that refugees are a matter of concern. A number of local churches have supported refugees. There are local committees on refugees and local agencies, and churches have sponsored particular families. The Woodgreen Community Centre Red Door program and St. John's Presbyterian Church have sponsored refugee families. My own church, St. Barnabas, has recently sponsored a refugee family which is integrating very well, considering their situation of confusion and desperation until they can get their long-term problems sorted out. In the meantime they are being treated well as refugees and their needs are being looked after. The Judgment Centre for Social Faith and Responsibility deals with the refugee question and indeed has come up with a number of proposals for better ways to change our laws.
I would like a take a few moments to look at what happened to get us in the mess we are in and why we need to have a better system. Canada's present law, the 1976 Immigration Act, provides for a system for the examination of claimants and decisions by the Refugee Status Advisory Committee. It is a very cumbersome process. It has broken down because the number of claimants increases faster than the number of staff members needed to deal with the cases, so a great backlog has developed. Once the backlog developed, people knew it would be a couple of years before their claims would be processed and they began to take advantage of that.
There are fraudulent immigration consultants offering services and charging very high fees to people wanting to make use of their services to get into Canada in the hope that they will be able to get themselves settled while they are moving slowly through this very cumbersome procedure. The case of the fraudulent Jehovah's Witnesses from Portugal certainly shocked people. Yet when this happened, did the Government do anything about it? It waited for months before it even acted. The Government delayed imposing a visa requirement for 14 months after the scam was discovered, and 3,500 bogus claimants apparently managed to make their way in.
The Government has only itself to blame for this great pile-up of bogus refugees. It has not acted promptly. The law does need revision. The Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration tabled a report in 1985, as a result of a study. This report proposes a swift, fair system of refugee status determination. The report proposes that a refugee claimant be sent directly to a refugee board without immigration procedures first. The refugee board would consist of people who would be trained to recognize legitimate refugee claims and a decision would then be made by them.
The Government was required to reply to the report four months after it was submitted, but it has never replied comprehensively to the report. Instead of dealing with these quite reasonable recommendations, it brought in its own Bill C-55. This Bill, if it is passed, would send a refugee claimant first to an immigration inquiry to determine whether or not there is any reason not to remove him or her. The immigration adjudicator, a member of the refugee division at this inquiry, examines only for the criteria of eligibility and credibility. This means that he does not judge the merits of the refugee's case itself, but only whether the claimant could have been safe in another country through which he passed and whether he could be removed to that other country.
What is wrong with this, of course, is that there is no guarantee, if the person is deported to the safe country from which he came, that he will be able to stay in that country. Of course, the prime example of this is Latin American refugees who go first to the United States. The United States is deporting refugees to countries where there are reprisals, torture and the disappearance of persons. While the United States will not harm these people directly, it will deport them to a place that will. Canada would then be doing indirectly, by deporting to the United States, what in good conscience we could not do and what would be so clearly and flagrantly contrary to our international obligations as a member of the United Nations. We could not deport people directly to a country where they are being persecuted but some of those people will, by being deported, indirectly end up back in those countries.
The New Democrats very strenuously oppose Bill C-55. It does have a few good points which have been remarked upon by other speakers. But I want to focus my remarks on what is very wrong with this Bill and how it goes completely against the obligations we have undertaken under the United Nations Convention that requires that everyone be accorded the right to make a refugee claim.
The United Nations Charter of Human Rights says that every persecuted person has the right to seek the protection of another Government. The Supreme Court of Canada decision in the Singh case in April of 1985 said that on the basis of the Charter everyone physically in Canada who makes a refugee claim has the right to be heard in person by the body that will decide the merits of the case. This Bill would certainly go against the rationale of that decision. The Charter of Rights also guarantees the right of access to counsel and there is a
October 20, 1987

right of appeal implicit in Canadian law which may be defended on Charter grounds.
Bill C-55 provides the right to appeal on only the most narrow and technical grounds, and limits the right to counsel. Counsel may not be legal counsel or counsel of the person's choice; counsel may be appointed, which would certainly not fulfill the requirements of the Charter of Rights.
Many Canadians have raised objections to Bill C-55. The Catholic Bishops have very strongly asserted their opposition to the injustice of this Bill. They say:

The Bill presented to Canadians fails to abide by any of the principles we have always supported. It is also regressive as far as our international responsibilities are concerned. Furthermore, it is unfair to refugees and to other countries of first asylum that are already overburdened.

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops called instead for legislation which would give all claimants access to a full, fair, and independent hearing with a meaningful appeal procedure which would deal with the substance, something which Bill C-55 does not do. The Conference notes that this is a departure from our international obligations and how unfair it is to send refugees back to the country from which they came directly to Canada because these countries themselves are often very overburdened with refugees. Canada is exporting a problem which we are certainly able to handle as a relatively well off and well organized country.
According to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops there is a false premise that Bill C-55 will protect genuine refugees. It will not do that. They say that the preliminary hearing is no more than an elaborate mechanical screening. They note that the abuses which are alleged and are the pretext for Bill C-55 are entirely the result of delays in reforming the present system. The answer, therefore, is to reform the present system.
Finally, they state that they will resist with unflagging determination the concept that this compromise is just for refugees. Refugees are among the most powerless people in today's world. We all know that to be the case. They are exploited, oppressed and fearful. When they arrive they have to make decisions and have decisions made on their behalf at a time of acute stress for them.
Rabbi Gunther Plaut is very well known for his work on refugees. Ele is a Canadian, having come here as a refugee. He has called for humane refugee procedures which will respect our international obligations. In Heart of the Stranger, a report on refugees, he stated:
We have a Bill that was constructed by the Commission of Employment and Immigration and is brought forward as the will of the people .... This Bill has the wrong focus. It is not a Bill to determine refugee status primarily: it is a Bill on how to deport people primarily... . It is Filled with constitutional problems. The process it proposes is not shorter but longer.
Immigration Act, 1976
Unfortunately, all of that is true. All of these criticisms are perfectly correct and are shared by many Canadians; experts, voluntary groups, church groups, and many others who are concerned that Canada live up to its obligations.
The Jesuit Centre for Social Faith and Justice, which is based in my own riding but which, of course, has a mandate much beyond that, has come forward with many recommendations on how to deal with the situation and supports the previous Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration approach which was a much more humane and probably more efficient approach.
The first step that they propose is that the claimant be examined by an immigration officer and referred for inquiry. Second, there would be a hearing before a two-person board which would be held within two weeks and the decision would be immediate. This would cut through the problem of cases piling up for two or three years which makes it possible for bogus refugees to take advantage of the system. Third, if the person is refused he or she could apply for a review to a centralized review board. Again, a decision would be anticipated within weeks. Therefore, an appeal would be allowed but it would be a speedy procedure. Fourth, if the person's appeal was refused, the person could appeal on legal grounds to the Federal Court. There are only four steps. Everyone would get a hearing and it need not take a very long time.
The Jesuit Centre for Social Faith and Justice notes all of the problems associated with the lack of access to counsel. They note the problem, with which anyone who has worked with refugees is familiar, that the person needs a bit of time to find out what is happening. Genuine refugees are scared and upset when they arrive. They may be ill. They have all kinds of problems. In order to make such fundamental decisions they need time to talk to people, to establish trust, and to know whether the advice they are getting is reasonable.
These people have been abused by the authorities of their own countries. They need time to figure out what authority figures can be trusted and where they can get fair advice. The procedure proposed in this legislation does not allow for that. They would be put through the procedure without counsel of their own choice. They would have to make a claim instantly and would have to make decisions before they are properly prepared to do so.
If the credible basis test fails a person can be deported back to the country for which they feel persecution without a full hearing. What is the credible basis and how accurate are the Government's criteria? We know that the Government can make mistakes in these matters. We know that for a number of months Chile was not considered to be an unsafe country. Instead of looking at the person's actual situation there is an objective list. The list can be out of date and the person's circumstances may be different from those of other people. There is no provisions in Bill C-55 for examining the actual circumstances of an individual.

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Immigration Act, 1976
We need a crackdown on abuse. We want a better and more efficient system which works speedily, but it must have proper procedures for control as well. It must have proper appeal procedures, opportunity for counsel, et cetera.
I would like to say a little about the Government's approach to this issue. I am very concerned about the approach contained in Bills C-84 and C-55. This is Draconian and very cynical legislation. It foments bad feelings. At a time when we have unemployment and other difficulties the Government is taking a get-tough approach. With bogus refugees, ambiguous situations, and growing numbers of refugees the Government wants to get tough.
Only very recently Canada became humane in its refugee determination process. We have a sorry history in this regard. We have turned away Jews and Sihks who were persecuted when they returned to their countries. Frankly, we had a racist immigration policy until very recently which, of course, also affected the refugee process. However, Canada finally did sign and ratify the United Nations Convention on Refugees and has done some very good work on refugees. We accepted a large number of people from Southeast Asia and dealt with them in a very humane way.
In the meantime Canada has changed. With Bills C-55 and C-84 we are taking a big step backwards. Instead of building on Canada's recent steps toward being humane, generous, reasonable, and exercising our international obligations, we are going backwards. This is unfortunate.
1 call on the Government to live up to its commitments, to show leadership, and not be cynical. I call on it to reconsider and replace Bill C-55 with legislation that would be humane and just, in accord with our principles in the Charter and with the United Nations Convention.


Mr. Cyril Keeper (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I cannot really say that I am glad to take part in this debate because this legislation is so poor that one would rather not see it before the House. However, I will share a few of my thoughts about the Bill.
In August the Government called Parliament back for an emergency session in order to deal with refugees. We are still here many weeks later dealing with legislation that I believe is politically motivated.
While we are dealing with two pieces of legislation concerning refugees, Bill C-55, which concerns the over-all refugee system, and Bill C-86 which deals more specifically dealing with people arriving here by boat with seeming impunity, we are essentially with one issue. That issue is the fairness of our immigration and refugee systems. The events which have occurred in the last while have caused Canadians to put in doubt our refugee and immigration systems. Many Canadians have the impression that the system is open to abuse because many have spent years trying to gain access to this country for
their relatives only to be frustrated in the majority of cases, and suddenly they see refugees getting on a boat and being able to come to Canada where the doors are open to them. People have felt that this is unfair and have demanded that the Government take the appropriate action.
The Government studied the situation and decided that this was a political opportunity to show Canadians that it was responding to their sentiments. Therefore, it drafted some very tough legislation and the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) announced that he would call back Parliament for an emergency sitting to deal with queue-jumping and the fact that so-called refugees were getting through an open door while the relatives of other Canadians could not get into Canada. According to parliamentary reform, the House is not supposed to sit during July and August. Yet, the Prime Minister disregarded this and announced that he was calling an emergency session of Parliament so that he could appear to be taking action and showing strong leadership.
It is interesting to note that the Government called back Parliament last summer as well, in a similar situation, choosing to serve its own political interests rather than respect parliamentary reform and follow the parliamentary calendar upon which we all agreed. Of course, the Government is taking every political opportunity it can, because it is so low in the polls it is afraid it will never regain its standing.


Mr. Nickerson:: We are rapidly gaining.


Cyril Keeper: I hear a faint echo that the Conservatives are rapidly gaining. It depends whose poll one reads.
It took the Prime Minister 10 days after his announcement to call the emergency session of Parliament. The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski) explained that the Prime Minister did not have time to write the appropriate letter. However, one would assume that an emergency session of Parliament is meant to deal with an emergency situation.
While the Prime Minister eventually found the time to write the letter in order to call back Parliament, summer has long since passed and the leaves are turning colour. It will not be long until we feel the cold winds of winter, yet we are still in an emergency session, presumably to deal with the emergency.
The fact is that we have dealt with many other pieces of legislation since we have returned. Furthermore, Question Period has functioned in the normal fashion, during which we have dealt with the issues that appear on the front page of The Globe and Mail. In other words, we have been proceeding with the normal day-to-day work of the House of Commons.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Was Meech Lake an emergency?


Cyril Keeper: My colleagues asks whether the Meech Lake Accord is an emergency. We dealt with that question yesterday and will be dealing with it in the days to come. Obviously that question must be dealt with, but surely it is not an
October 20, 1987

emergency and not the reason that the Prime Minister called back the House of Commons.
When one considers the delay in calling back the House of Commons and the fact that the Government introduced other business that takes place in a normal session of Parliament, one must question whether the Government really called back Parliament in order to deal with an emergency. Rather, it raises the possibility that the Government was trying to take advantage of a political opportunity as a result of the hysteria and fear developing among Canadians because of the arrival of refugees to this country in boats operated by private contractors.
Clearly, the way this question has been handled in Parliament indicates that the only emergency was for the Government to take advantage of a political opportunity. I question whether the Government is dealing with an emergency when we are here going about the normal work of Parliament on a day-to-day basis.
Let me deal more specifically with Bill C-55.


Mr. Friesen:: It is about time.


Cyril Keeper: My colleague wants to hear about Bill C-55. I will certainly give him my analysis and hope that he will meet the challenge and speak to the Bill himself in order to explain his point of view.
Our Party believes that where the refugee system is being abused there is a need for change, but there are ways of changing the system that are fair. There is a need to take action with regard to the refugee determination system. Certainly the backlog which exists in the refugee determination system indicates that the system is not up to par and must be reformed. We support change in this area.
However, once again, rather than reforming the substance of the refugee determination system, rather than changing the system to bring about better results, it appears that the Government is grasping at straws, seeking to grab a political opportunity. The Government came in with heavy-handed legislation, with a sledge-hammer, and really sought to give the impression to Canadians that it is going to be tough on the abusers of the system. There is nothing wrong with being firm, in playing the tough guy role, but if one goes too far and puts at risk the possibility of genuine refugees coming into this country, people who are seeking a safe haven, then the Government itself begins to abuse the refugee determination system by using it for political purposes.
In effect, what the Government has done is said to the Canadian people, "We are going to be tough on abusers". In order to sustain that impression it has brought in legislation so sweeping in its implications that it has put in doubt the opportunity of people who are not abusers, but who are in genuine need of protection, of coming into this country. This is an important point.
Immigration Act, 1976
Canadians are a generous and compassionate people. For years they have had a reputation of being open to people from other parts of the world when there was a need. Canada is a nation of immigrants, for the most part. Canadians want to help other people who are in danger when it is possible. They want to help people whose lives are at risk. Obviously, they do not want someone coming along and telling a big story just to get into the country, someone who could not normally get into this country. That is not what we are talking about. We are talking about people who are in genuine danger, who are living in some of the countries in Latin America where their lives are at risk because of civil war, those who have decided they are no longer willing to put up with dictatorial regimes and have struggled to overthrow those regimes and, in the process of doing that, have put their lives at risk. These people must seek refuge elsewhere, a safe haven, and Canadians have provided that safe haven. We do not want the system to be abused. We want to be able to continue to offer a safe haven to people who need it.
This legislation allows the Government to play the tough guy. We do not mind if it wants to play the tough guy as long as it does not carry it so far that it actually begins to hurt people. The problem is that the Government has carried it too far. This legislation has a number of key faults, one of which is that people will not be accepted as refugees if they come here from a country that is considered to be a safe country. For example, there are people from a Central American country who are temporarily in the United States and want to come to Canada because the United States will not give them haven because of the attitude of its president, Ronald Reagan. This provision puts the safety of these people in doubt.


Benno Friesen: Are you sure about that? Ask your neighbour if you are accurate.


Cyril Keeper: I hear the heckling and I appreciate the effort to engage in debate. I would urge the Hon. Member to rise at the end of my comments and enter a full speech on the record-give us his wisdom. We will certainly listen. We are prepared to hear him out because we want the full light of debate to be put on this legislation.
What I am saying is that it is likely that a Canadian Government in establishing what are safe countries would consider the United States to be a safe country. It would certainly be surprising if a Canadian Government in its refugee legislation was to say that the United States was not a safe country. I think that would shock most ordinary Canadians. It might even have a diplomatic repercussion for Canada. Who knows, Ronald Reagan might even tear up the free trade deal and go off in a huff someplace, which would not be a bad thing.
It is likely that the United States would be considered a safe country, yet we know that for people coming from Central American countries, where the United States is involved in its civil conflict, the doors are not open. The American administration really does not consider those people to be refugees.

October 20, 1987
Immigration Act, 1976
Yet they are refugees in the international sense of the word, in the sense that their lives are in danger through political conflict in their own countries.
These people are in need of safe haven. They should be able to have an adequate hearing in this country, and if their case is genuine we can open our doors to them. This law is flawed and this is one of the specific ways in which it is flawed. Another flaw is that there is no assurance in this legislation that someone will in fact receive a hearing, that they will be able to tell their story, make their case and indicate the reasons why Canada should accept them as political refugees. There is no assurance that they will have such a hearing. In fact, this legislation has a provision under which many people would be screened out before they could even get to Canada to receive a proper hearing. This legislation is seriously flawed.
It is important to realize that Canadians not only are generous and compassionate when it comes to people needing refuge, we have an international reputation as being a fair and just country. This reputation has been muddied by the international critiques of this legislation. Agencies of the United Nations have said, "Hold it, Canada. This legislation looks like it is going to do harm to genuine refugees. It looks like it is unfair". When an international body such as the United Nations says to take another look at our legislation, the Government ought to do so.
In closing, 1 wish to say that we were recalled for an emergency session in order to deal with refugees and queue jumping. While we wish the abuses of the system to be eliminated, at the same time we wish Canada to maintain its tradition as a compassionate country that has an open door to people who are in genuine danger and who need a safe haven. This legislation fails to meet those criteria, or meet that test. This legislation gives us a black eye internationally. This legislation has not been brought in to reform the refugee system. The only conclusion I can come to is that it was brought in to bolster the political agenda of the Government, for it to take advantage of a political opportunity to play the tough-guy role on the national stage in order to bolster its Gallop and Angus Reid ratings.


Mr. Hockin:: Speak to the Bill.


Cyril Keeper: An Hon. Member has stated "speak to the Bill". I invite the Hon. Member and his Conservative colleagues who are heckling me to rise in the House and speak to the Bill. We will listen to what they have to say. Let them rise and add to the discussions and debate on this Bill. These are important matters, and we have raised crucial questions on the fundamental fairness of this legislation, as have international bodies such as the United Nations. I challenge Conservative Members to rise in the House and refute what we have said. If they cannot refute it, withdraw the legislation.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: The Hon. Member has referred to the public excitement and anger surrounding the arrival of the boat load of Sikhs in the summer. I am wondering if the Hon. Member can tell us the responses of the people in his own constituency, or in the parts of Winnipeg that he knows, both immediately in the first few days following that incident and since then. The reason I ask is that my own experience was that constituents in Spadina were not nearly as upset at the outset as we have been told in general, and furthermore when they had a chance to learn more about the facts of the case they were even less upset by the arrival of the boat load, but became more upset by the legislation.
I received plenty of phone calls, but they were mostly from people in constituencies represented by Conservative Members of Parliament. Certainly in some cases it was quite evident that they had been put up to it by their Conservative Member who claimed, quite falsely, that the NDP and the Liberals had blocked Bill C-55 in the spring. Of course that is ridiculous since we have only a quarter of the votes we could not do that. The Government had not even tried to have more than three hours of debate on the Bill.
I found that there was not nearly the spontaneous anger at the Sikh boat load, at least in my part of Toronto, that some people had claimed there was all over the country. I would be interested to know what the Hon. Member can tell us of the opinions, both during the summer and at this time, of the people in his riding; church people, non-church people, people with knowledge of those matters, or people who receive their information from the front page of the paper or from television.


Cyril Keeper: I thank my colleague for his question. Clearly this legislation and the events that led up to it require sober reflection. Early in the summer many headlines and television newscasts focused upon the boat people, and the people who were coming into the country. I must say that that type of coverage caused concern, certainly in the short term. I think that the Government saw that. Of course, there was much more hullabaloo and excitement in the press than at the grass roots level. That is not to say that there were not individuals who were generally concerned. A lot of people who were concerned were immigrant people who felt that, after struggling themselves to get their relatives into Canada, it was not fair that someone should be able to come in the back door without getting into line.
I found that as I talked to people and as they became aware of the contents of the legislation, they agreed that the legislation should not be so Draconian that it closes out or puts at genuine risk the possibility of real refugees coming into the country. People wished the abuses dealt with, but they certainly did not want the Draconian type of legislation that the Government has brought in.
The people have also begun to see through the smokescreen of the Government that, while it has been seeking to focus their attention upon refugee abusers, it has done nothing on
October 20, 1987

the central concern of the people in my riding which is family reunification. The Government has done nothing to make it easier for people to bring their relatives to this country. That is where their genuine need lies, and what they wish to see the Government act upon. Even during the hottest moments of the discussion their concern was on family reunification because they were looking at it from a fairness point of view.
There are many people in my riding who follow refugee, immigration and justice matters on a regular basis, particularly people who are involved in the churches. They were shocked and outraged by the legislation. They were disgusted. I do not know the correct word to use to describe how they felt about this legislation. Clearly they were saying that the Government has gone too far. It has gone beyond what is acceptable to Canadians. It is fine for the Government to play politics, but when it goes as far as to bring in the type of legislation that we have in the House today, legislation which will make it doubtful that even genuine refugees can gain access to Canada, then they say that the Government has gone too far, it should back off, and reconsider what is being done.


Mr. Hovdebo:: I wish to follow up on that particular train of thought. I found that a great number of people were concerned about queue-jumping. Perhaps the Hon. Member can shed some light on this. My understanding is that the queue for refugee claimants is quite a different queue than the one for regular immigrants, family reunification, business, or commercial entrants. Therefore, even the refugees coming in on the boats were not actually displacing any person in a particular queue. I wonder if the Hon. Member would comment on that.


Cyril Keeper: My colleague has raised an excellent point. It brings some facts to this discussion. The reality and the fact is that no one's place in the line to bring in a relative for family reunification was disturbed by the entry of refugees into this country. In fact, if I understand correctly the comments of my colleague, who is a critic in this area and whom I have heard speak on previous occasions, the line for refugees was not full. In other words, there was still room under the allocations. I would think the same thing would apply under family reunification.
The point is that there are two different lines, two different movie houses. Those people who were coming in as refugees did not in any way retard the entry of anyone's relative. That is not to deny the point that Canadians, particularly Canadians of immigrant origin attempting to get their family members into this country, are not having a hard time. It is like dealing with a brick wall.
The Government has made as much a mess of its family reunification program as it has of the refugee determination process. While it is playing politics on the backs of refugees and putting at risk genuine refugees, when it comes to family reunification the Government is being hard-nosed and is not demonstrating any generosity of spirit.
Immigration Act, 1976
Most Canadians would agree that preference should be given to the family or relatives wanting to join immigrants living in Canada.


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Mr. Speaker, the Government brought the House back several months ago-it seems almost like a year ago but it cannot be that long-to deal with a refugee crisis. It claimed that the crisis would be dealt with on an emergency basis by Bill C-84, an Act to amend the Immigration Act. Today we are talking about Bill C-55, which is also an Act to amend the Immigration Act.
The two Bills were supposed to deal with the so-called emergency. Bill C-84 was supposed to keep people offshore who wanted to get into Canada. It was supposed to keep the door locked. Bill C-55 was supposed to deal with immigrants who managed to land in Canada. The intent of the Bill was to deal with immigrants, refugees, or whoever got into Canada, and to establish ways in which to send such people back.
As I say, we have two pieces of legislation. One is intended to keep them offshore and the other is intended to send them back if they get into Canada. That seems to be the main intent of the two Bills.
We should be looking at what Canadians expect from this kind of legislation or from any Government that is dealing with people. That is what we are dealing with here. We are not dealing with something nebulous which came in from Mars or from anywhere else. We are dealing with people who inhabit and share the planet Earth with us. They expect compassion and knowledge of the situation from any Government dealing with people. They expect the Government to have a listening ear in terms of their concerns, complaints, and the conditions under which they survived and which sent them to us. They also expect such a Government to make judgment on the basis of what it hears with a certain amount of compassion.
Canadians would also expect a very logical approach in legislation which recognizes and understands the problem being solved or supposedly solved by the proposed legislation. They would expect sensibility or a lot of common sense in dealing with these situations and with people in such a way that it arrives at a logical answer to most questions.
Last, and perhaps most important, they expect a certain amount of sensitivity to the needs of the people who are trying to get into Canada. In many cases they have been forced out of their homelands or have found themselves to be in danger. It should also have sensitivity to the fact that if they are arriving at our shores they may not have the kind of documentation or the kind of attitude which we would think is particularly good.
If any of us found ourselves to be in a position where we had to impress someone so that we could remain in Canada, we would be under such pressure that we might say and do things that would not help us along. We would not be ready for the kind of pressure put upon us and, consequently, the pressure would expand and have a real effect on us.

October 20, 1987
Immigration Act, 1976
The Bills, the Government, and the bureaucrats should be sensitive to these facts. However, neither Bill C-84 nor Bill C-55 take into consideration any of the things we would expect in legislation dealing with people. It is not legislation which deals with money or property; it is legislation which deals with people, fellow inhabitants of this planet. We do not find compassion, logical approaches to the problems, common sense or sensible solutions, or sensitivity to the needs of people in these Bills.
Although Bill C-55 may have some very good points in terms of dealing with the problems which all of us recognize, it does not fulfill the expectations of people in terms of dealing with immigrants and refugees.
For years Canada has had a policy of welcoming immigrants and refugees according to processes established by law. These procedures were intended to limit abuse of the laws so that there would be no interference with the proper acceptance of immigrants and refugees. We in the New Democratic Party- and particularly our critic who has spent much time on it- know that the system broke down because too many people were coming into Canada. We also know that there was a need to change it and that it broke down because there were changes in the world structure. Refugees were being produced around the world at a much greater rate than we had ever seen before. Also, refugees who had been going to other parts of the world, such as Europe and Third World countries to a great extent, were not being accepted any longer. As well, because of economic situations and starvation in other parts of the world refugees were being created faster than other parts of the world could accept them.
It is interesting to look at the kind of situation which creates refugees or at the number of refugees which are being created every day. In the eyes of the Government, and in the eyes of many people, 174 people landing off the shores of Nova Scotia constituted a crisis about which something had to be done. It resulted in Bill C-84, and Bill C-55 which had been introduced earlier.
1 think it is important to put before the House and before the people of Canada the fact that every day for 365 days per year for the last 30 years an average of 700 people have become refugees. These figures are important to know. For instance, today in Central America there are one and a half million refugees. There are two million Palestinian refugees in the Middle East, and some of those refugees from Israel, the Gaza Strip or Jordan are second and third generation. Three million Afghans have fled to Pakistan and Iran since the Russians invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Some two million people were displaced in Vietnam, Kampuchea and Laos over the last 10 years. In 1980 to 1985 some 400,000 people were forced to flee from Uganda. Millions of Africans have been displaced by war, internal oppression, famine and ecological disasters, such as the advance of the Sahel.
All of these are ways in which people become refugees and we think here in Canada-one of the richest countries in the world if not the richest-that when 174 refugees land off the coast of Nova Scotia that constitutes a crisis which requires Draconian legislation to ensure that it does not happen again. Compare the 174 refugees in Canada to the 400,000 who have been forced into refugee status by the famine in Africa.
Where are these millions of refugees going about whom 1 have spoken? Some of them are coming here but most are going to Third World countries. The average income of the inhabitants of those Third World countries is about $700 a year. I think that should give us a pretty good idea of what kind of a crisis there is with immigration and refugees in Canada. The basis of the Government's reaction to it should be looked at very closely. Can it be considered anywhere near a crisis? Obviously not.
If you were living in Malaysia over the last 10 years, Mr. Speaker, you would have expected 20 times as many boat people to land on those shores or on the shores of Hong Kong, if they could get that far, or on any islands surrounding that area. Every day in the summer 20 times as many as the 174 who landed in Nova Scotia land in Malaysia. If we have a crisis, then their crisis must be devastating.
Our Government decided, however, that there was a crisis and we would have to shut the doors as quickly as possible. As far as I know, no Canadian, outside of this Parliament possibly, has ever suggested that we leave the doors absolutely open to refugees and immigrants. Canadians have suggested some kind of control. That control has been set up and it has worked fairly well.
I know the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Keeper) talked about the slowness of family reunification which has been a problem. But still that aspect of immigration has moved along. A certain number have been allowed each year, but the process is slow and needs to be improved.
No one is suggesting that we shut the doors entirely. We are suggesting that we look at the existing structure, what is the Immigration Act, what is being supposedly amended and improved by Bills C-55 and C-84. We should find out whether they actually do what is intended to be done. We find that even as certain objectives and recognition of responsibility are stated as far as Canada is concerned, those two Bills, Bill C-55 in particular, do not do what those objectives say they should.
I think I should spend a little of my time looking at the real faults, recognizing that the Government tried, and we appreciate that, to improve Bill C-55. Unfortunately, the concerns that we, the church groups and immigration groups had back in May when the Bill was before the House still remain. The Government has not dealt with them. The Government used the 174 refugees arriving off the shores of Nova Scotia as a reason to bring Bill C-55 into the emergency session practically unchanged. The Government did not deal with the concerns
October 20, 1987

expressed by churches, refugee groups, lawyers and people helping refugees.


Benno Friesen: That is not accurate.


Stanley J. Hovdebo: The Government did not change the Bill enough to alleviate those concerns. The shortcomings are still in the Bill. I suppose we could go over many of the faults in the Bill. First, the one that concerned most people last spring was the denial of the right to be heard. That position was not dealt with in Bill C-55. Nor is it in the changes to the Bill. I know that during 44.5 hours of testimony most people addressed the issue of the right to be heard, but did they not change the position of the Government. Consequently, the situation was not changed.
The UN covenant and protocol relating to the status of refugees signed by Canada in 1967 in Article 33 states that no country shall expel or return a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories when his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular group or social opinion. The recognized logic of this is that Canada has solemnly agreed that no one who is inside our borders who claims to be a refugee will be shipped out unless and until Canada has decided that the person's claim is unfounded.
We are now setting up a situation which makes it impossible for many people who would claim refugee status in Canada to be heard by the Canadian people. These two Bills will send them away as they come offshore or as they enter the country, even if they have not had an opportunity to be heard. In doing so, we are in contravention of the Convention because this violates Article 33.
Those are the kinds of things which have made me, other members of my Party and members of the public decide that this Bill should be withdrawn to allow us the opportunity to make the kind of changes that will make the system compassionate and humane.


Cyril Keeper: I have just answered some correspondence from residents of my riding and I have a letter here from a Mr. David Bergen of Langside Street in Winnipeg. Fie takes aim at the Government on a number of issues and says:
-the issue which is uppermost in my mind right now ... is the Government's anti-refugee and anti-immigration attitude. I feel that the Tories are using the recent arrival of Sikh boat people to stir up racial prejudice and to provide a pretext for closing the door to thousands of legitimate refugees whom Canada is duty bound to accept under the United Nations accord. I fear that Bill C-55 (or the new version of it that the Government seems in such a hurry to get passed) will result in the exclusion of large numbers of people fleeing persecution, especially those refugees fleeing from El Salvador and Guatemala. Most of these refugees have no choice but to pass through the U.S. on their way to Canada, but under the new legislation they would be deported because the U.S. is a "safe country"-ignoring the fact that Salvadoran and other Central American refugees are being deported from the U.S. because the American Government does not acknowledge that a human rights problem exists in those countries whose governments it is propping up.
Immigration Act, 1976
I also note that the American Civil Liberties Union has found at least 50 cases of people who have been returned to their countries of origin from the United States being killed in El Salvador and neighbouring countries.
I wonder if my colleague would like to comment on the concerns my constituent raised about this legislation. It sure does not sound like the attitude the Government thinks all Canadians have with regard to the refugee determination process.


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Mr. Speaker, the denial of the rights of refugee claimants to be heard means that they will be shipped offshore before they are heard. The first test of whether or not they shall be accepted and heard in Canada is the determination that they may have come through what are considered to be a safe third countries. That is what concerns the constituent who wrote to the Hon. Member.
The decision of whether or not a country is a safe third country is done mechanically. The bureaucrats look at a list of countries that are considered to be safe third countries, countries which comply with Article 33 of the Convention. But there have been cases of persons being rejected at Canada's border, sent back to the States and then sent from the States back to their country of origin and there have disappeared. The fact that a country says it complies with Article 33 does not necessarily mean that it does.
This test sounds like a good idea at first, but if we refuse to hear the refugee's story, we do not know whether the third country will be safe for him or whether it will ship him back to his country of origin where he will be persecuted or even killed. The concern raised by the Hon. Member's constituent is a concern which many people have had, and was one of the concerns of the churches, the refugees groups and the law reform groups that dealt with this Act back in its early stages. The safe third country concept does not become a direct violation of the Convention-it is an indirect violation.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member referred to refugees in Africa. I know he is one of the few Members of this House who have some direct knowledge of Africa. I wonder if he could give us his opinion on whether the millions of refugees in Africa all wish to, would have the means or would intend to come to Canada, and if not, what he thinks is their future and what he thinks are Canada's obligations.


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Mr. Speaker, I spent four years in northern Nigeria on the very borders of the Sahel. During that period of time we dealt with starvation and famine in the countries of northern Nigeria, Chad, and Niger. Canada has an excellent record of assistance in those countries. However, those people do not want to go anywhere but back to their land. They have no intention of being refugees in any other country but a place where they can wait out the period of time necessary for the situation to change enough that they can live in their own home countries. There is no doubt that we have a responsibility not only to feed them and to make sure they survive, but also

October 20, 1987
to make arrangements which will allow them to move to where they want to live.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It being one o'clock, I do now leave the chair until two o'clock this afternoon.
At 1 p.m., the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.


Mr. Jean-Claude Malepart (Montreal-Sainte-Marie):: Mr. Speaker, on October 5 this year, the Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Mulroney) admitted there would be losers, that some workers would lose their jobs as a result of the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the United States.
The same day, an economist at the University of Montreal published a study revealing that Montreal would lose 10,000 jobs in the short term as a result of free trade. Today, a study ordered by the Canadian-American Group sponsored by the C.D. Howe Institute recommends setting up programs to help the victims of free trade. Furthermore, all the experts admit that workers in the textile, footwear, clothing, shipbuilding and railway transportation industries will be severely affected.
Mr. Speaker, before anyone ratifies this Free Trade Agreement, we should first consider the potential victims.
All Conservative Members in this House should force the Government to set up retraining programs ... in fact, older workers will be the worst off because the Government has cut the early retirement program that was coupled with unemployment insurance, and we know that the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Bouchard) is discriminating against older workers with respect to unemployment insurance benefits.
I urge the Premier of Quebec to refuse to consider the Free Trade Agreement unless the federal Government takes steps to protect workers who are potential victims of this Agreement.



CITIZENSHIP


Mr. William G. Lesick (Edmonton East):: Mr. Speaker, it is with a great sense of satisfaction and pride that I note the tremendous reception the people of Saskatchewan have given to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.
Although my ancestry is not related to the Commonwealth and I am but a first generation Canadian, I am proud to be a loyal subject of so great and regal a monarch and pleased that the people of Saskatchewan have been so gracious to her. Therefore, I am astonished to learn of a faction in Canada committed to eliminating any mention of the sovereign in a proposed new citizenship oath. That means new citizens would not swear loyalty to the Queen but to the Constitution. Somehow that does not seem right.
There has been so much talk of late about maintaining our sovereignty and differentiating ourselves from our neighbours to the south; what better way is there than belonging to a Commonwealth and respecting an allegiance to a monarch? The Queen's loyalty to Canada has been unswerving.
Three cheers for the Secretary of State (Mr. Crombie) who assured the Hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Domm), indeed all Canadians, that it is not the Government's intention to withdraw the reference to Her Majesty from the Oath of Allegiance.



EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg-Birds Hill):: Mr. Speaker, this week Ottawa is host to the Vice-President of Nicaragua, Mr. Ramirez. Many Canadians hope that the Canadian Government and the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) in particular will use this visit as an opportunity to show the same independence from the policies of Ronald Reagan that he showed in Vancouver from the policies of Margaret Thatcher.
We hope that in the discussions with the Vice-President of Nicaragua this week Canada will be able to consider what it can do in its own judgment and on its own merits, and not have to look south for tacit approval, to use an expression from a newspaper article today, in responding, for example, to a request by Nicaragua that Canada participate in a peacekeeping force, or whatever the request of the five Central American countries might be. This should be an occasion for the Prime Minister to show that Canada has an independent foreign policy not just with respect to South Africa and our former colonial master Great Britain, but with respect to Central America and our current colonial master, particularly since 1984, the United States of America.
October 20, 1987



PUBLIC WORKS


Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: Mr. Speaker, when I first read the story which appeared in The Edmonton Sun last Sunday indicating that Dave Werner, President of the Alberta Federation of Labour, had painted a large swastika on Canada Post property, I was angry. This, 1 thought, is an insult to every veteran in Canada who fought against Nazism, and for a democratic Government that reflects the thinking of the people by doing things such as keeping the mail moving so small business and the rank and file would not be inconvenienced, and workers would be properly compensated for their work.
Then 1 read the story again. Behold, it was not a black swastika, the symbol of Nazism, but a red swastika, the symbol of the virtues of the heart; life, happiness, and good fortune.
Certainly defacing public property was an act of vandalism and the President of that Federation should have outgrown such a juvenile act, but as long as the red swastika remains on that fence it will say to Canada Post: "From the heart; good luck, good fortune and happiness!" I now wonder, because of this grievous error, will the NDP cancel his membership?



RAIL TRANSPORT


Mr. Gilles Grondin (Saint-Maurice):: Mr. Speaker, a decision that will have a serious impact on the economy of the regions of Mauricie, Portneuf and Quebec City was made last August by Canadian Pacific.
The company confirmed it did not intend to rebuild the bridge over the Sainte-Anne River that was swept away by a combination of ice and spring floods last April. It explained that a study had been ordered and the results would be forthcoming in two or three years' time. This is a deplorable excuse. Meanwhile, at a time when VIA Rail is doing so much to improve the quality of its service, millions of dollars are being spent to build intermodal stations in Quebec City and Trois-Rivieres.
Canadian Pacific's decision is unacceptable in more ways than one, and it proves that the company has failed to consider the well-being of the community, since the decision is a threat to the economic development of the entire North Shore between Quebec City and Montreal.
For these reasons, Mr. Speaker, I ask the Minister responsible for the Canadian Transport Commission, which has every authority over CP, to take the necessary action to have the railway bridge at Saint-Anne de la Perade rebuilt.
1 also want to express my support for colleagues in neigbour-ing ridings who are trying to get rail passenger traffic on the North Shore between Montreal and Quebec City restored as quickly as possible.



ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE


Mr. Thomas Suluk (Nunatsiaq):: Mr. Speaker, we all know that the red-coated Mountie is probably the best known and most internationally recognized symbol of Canada. Over the past 114 years the RCMP has acquired a world-wide reputation for excellence, and legends surrounding the force have sprung up, many, if not most, originating in the Canadian North.
Recently the arrest of American fugitive Charles McVey by Corporal Dan Fudge of RCMP Teslin Detachment, Yukon Territory, has again given the force international prominence and perhaps added another northern legend.
As a result of his actions, the Government of the United States recognized him with two presentations. On October 15, 1987, Corporal Fudge was presented with the Outstanding Public Service Medal at the Pentagon by the U.S. Department of Defence. The following day he and another member of the force, Constable Vander Leek, received a citation from the U.S. Customs Service.
I believe we can proudly applaud the excellent work of this unassuming and obviously dedicated young man and rightfully claim that the stuff of legend can still be found under that Canadian symbol, the Mountie uniform.



ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS


Lynn McDonald: Mr. Speaker, Our Common Future, the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, is currently being debated at the United Nations. This is a landmark, even revolutionary, report in the significance of its rethinking of the issues of the environment and economic development.
It is a report with hope also. It argues both for economic growth and the active combating of poverty, especially in Third World countries, along with concern for sustainable development.

October 20, 1987

The Brundtland Report promotes an intertwining of economic and environmental concerns in all stages of planning. It calls on us all, especially in industrial countries, to change our ways, to produce more with less, to develop renewable sources of energy, to change our positions on international development to assist other countries to reach sustainable development as well, and to change our policies with respect to our native peoples. We must consider the real costs of environmental pollution and ensure that it becomes cheaper not to pollute than to pollute.
This is not the time for pious statements about the Brundtland Report. It is a time for a serious rethinking of our ways. This report will require serious study and I hope it will receive it in this House soon. We need social and political change. We can and must do it for "our common future".



HUMAN RIGHTS


Mr. Andrew Witer (Parkdale-High Park):: Mr. Speaker, Yuri Shukhevych has spent 33 years in Soviet labour camps, prisons, and internal exile. He was first arrested as a 15-year-old boy and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for the crime of being the son of the Commander in Chief of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. After serving the original 10-year sentence Yuri was re-arrested in 1958 for his continued refusals to condemn or renounce his father.
Shukhevych's plight has earned him the title of "The Eternal Prisoner". After years of imprisonment his health has suffered greatly. In 1980 part of his stomach had to be removed, followed by operations for cataracts and detached retinas in 1982. He has lost 99 per cent of his vision.
Shukhevych's plight is a warning to us all. As long as the Soviet Government continues to violate the fundamental human rights of its own citizens, the western nations must continue to view the so-called policy of "glasnost" with suspicion. I call on the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark) and the Government of Canada to use all of the resources at their disposal to effect the immediate release of Yuri Shukhevych and to send a clear reminder to the Soviet Government of its obligations as a signatory of the Helsinki Accords.



CANADA-UNITED STATES TRADE AGREEMENT-POSITION OF PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND PREMIER

Mr. George Henderson (Egmont):: Mr. Speaker, I want to express my dismay over the comments of the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski) as reported in The Globe and Mail on October 17, 1987. Apparently the Deputy Prime Minister is upset with the Premier of Prince Edward Island who stated that the energy provisions of the free trade deal were not discussed at the Premiers' briefing.
The Deputy Prime Minister disagrees with Premier Ghiz and he is reported to have said: "Perhaps Mr. Ghiz was more interested in discussing potatoes." I want to remind the Hon. Member that our potato industry is very important, but we are also deeply concerned about our future energy supplies.
The consumers on our Island already pay the highest electricity rates in Canada. I believe that the Premier of Prince Edward Island expressed his genuine concern and I am disappointed that the Hon. Member for Vegreville would make this condescending remark. I am surprised that he would insult all those who are in our potato industry. Surely the Deputy Prime Minister now realizes that insulting Canadians will only make this free trade sell-out look even worse.



POLITICAL PARTIES


Mr. Gabriel Fontaine (Levis):: Mr. Speaker, throughout the world, socialist parties are totalitarian and centralist. However, when they see it is to their political advantage, they try and adapt to local custom. In Quebec, they do not use the same vocabulary they use for the rest of Canada. But how different is it?
The socialist leader should explain to the House why his only elected Member in Quebec slammed the door at his Party's meeting in Quebec.
Where is the democratic process in this Party? How come the Director of the Centrale de l'enseignement du Quebec, Mr. Michel Agnaieff, has more clout than the entire Quebec Socialist Caucus? Unless the socialist leader exlains otherwise, we will have to conclude that he is merely a mouthpiece for the labour establishment and the Socialist International.
October 20, 1987



Oral Questions



INCOME TAX


Mr. Simon de Jong (Regina East):: Mr. Speaker, average Canadian taxpayers are fed up. They are fed up with a tax system that allows 80,000 corporations with profits of well over $10 billion to escape paying a single cent in tax, while many more only pay a small token fee.
Average taxpayers are wondering why Edper Investments Limited, a holding company controlled by multi-millionaires Edward and Peter Bronfman, paid just $6,000 in taxes in 1986, despite enjoying after tax profits of $207 million.
Average Canadian taxpayers are asking why the Bronfman brothers, estimated to be worth over $650 million, are paying less in tax than they are. Canadians are fed up with this unfairness. They have had it with the Government's tolerating and indeed contributing to it in budget after budget. They are as mad as hell and you can bet that they won't take it any more.



OPPOSITION TO CANADA-UNITED STATES TRADE AGREEMENT

David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, free trade to this Government is alleged to mean that we as Canadians get access to the American market, but in fact the Americans get us and our economy for free. That is right, Mr. Speaker. According to the President of the United States, this trade agreement puts Canada in a continental union with the United States.
Clearly this is not in the best interests of a united, strong Canada. Realistically it is not surprising, given the Government's record and the Prime Minister's (Mr. Mulroney) obsession with pleasing the Americans.
On March 13, 1986, the Prime Minister said: "We will spare no effort to secure our access to the U.S. market". Well, he certainly spared nothing and he gave away our economic sovereignty in so doing. But the good news is that this deal can still be stopped. The United States must continue to be our most important trading partner, but we must not try to buy our way into one major market at the price of our sovereignty as the Government of Canada has done in this proposed free trade arrangement with the United States.



CANADA-UNITED STATES TRADE AGREEMENT-POSITION OF MANITOBA PREMIER

Mr. George Minaker (Winnipeg-St. James):: Mr. Speaker, an article appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press on October 9, entitled "Does Pawley speak for Manitoba or the NDP?"
It accurately points out that in 1985 Premier Pawley not only advocated free trade with the United States but the creation of a common market. Premier Pawley said that he would support free trade: "as long as we preserve existing jobs, through a program of transition and analysis and at the same time obtain a guarantee to an access to future markets." That is exactly what our Government has achieved.
Now what has happened to Mr. Pawley? The federal NDP Leader, the Hon. Member for Oshawa (Mr. Broadbent), and their Vice-President, Bob White, must have got to him.
Everyone knows the NDP support free trade and foreign investment, but only in Oshawa.
Premier Pawley's logic to support free trade in 1985 still exists today. Mr. Pawley's slogan in the last election was: "Standing up for Manitobans", but for whom is he standing up now? The federal NDP? He must stop being controlled by the big unions and their leaders in Oshawa.
Let us give Manitobans the opportunity to realize the benefits of free trade.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. Raymond Garneau (Laval-des-Rapides):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. Yesterday the stockmarkets around the world declined by a record amount. The Dow Jones fell by 500 points and the Toronto Stock Exchange fell by more than 400 points. Similar things happened in the Montreal Stock Exchange.
At 2.03 p.m., just before I came into the House, the Toronto Stock Exchange had fallen by an additional 333 points. That is 733 points in two days.
However, if we can judge by the Minister's answers in the House yesterday, he does not think the situation is too serious. Yesterday in reply to a question the Minister said:
I think the Leader of the Opposition is exaggerating in his reference to this morning's activities on the markets.
The Minister then went on to say-


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Order.


Mr. Young:: Question.


Raymond Garneau: -and I quote: "There have been some corrections in the financial markets". With the situation

October 20, 1987
Oral Questions
deteriorating by the hour on Canadian stock exchanges, does the Minister still believe that only "some corrections" have taken place in the stockmarkets which do not require any government action? Or has he finally realized, like all Canadians, that this is a major crisis which requires more than the Minister's passing interest as he watches from the sidelines as the world passes by?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, let me respond to the Hon. Member's question by saying the Government has taken some action. As 1 indicated earlier today I have spoken to most of my colleagues in the G-7 countries and there appears to be a broadly agreed point of view that we should be doing what we can to stabilize markets by ensuring that there is an adequate degree of liquidity in the financial markets. This has been done in Canada. For example, the Bank of Canada has acted accordingly.
The result has been a drop in interest rates in this country and other countries as well. I think this will contribute to achieving a greater degree of stability in the stock exchange markets.
However, 1 think we should be careful to understand that the stock exchange markets are the markets that have been the volatile ones. The bond markets, the interest rate markets, the foreign exchange markets, have been relatively stable during this period.


MINISTER'S POLICY
Raymond Garneau: Mr. Speaker, it was clear to all Canadians, except, of course, the Minister of Finance, that there was a very serious situation developing in the stockmarkets of Canada and the world. I suggested to the Minister that some action be taken in terms of interest rates. This is exactly what he announced he has done today.
What prompted the Minister to abandon his laissez-faire policy of yesterday? Was he overruled by the Cabinet?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I do not think this is the time to use these sorts of partisan jibes. I have indicated very clearly what I believe is necessary for achieving greater stability in the markets.
I have indicated to the House, as well as outside, that the underlying economies of Canada and the other G-7 countries are performing quite well. We reviewed this at the G-7 meeting in Washington toward the end of September, and that was the conclusion that we arrived at.
What we have seen is a major decline in stock markets. But I should draw the Hon. Member's attention to the fact that the Canadian market is below what it was at the beginning of this year, but not that far below what it was this year. The point I am making is that there was a substantial run-up in the market during the course of 1987. This has been taken away as a
result of the decline, but the underlying economies are still very strong.


Raymond Garneau: Mr. Speaker, the Minister referred to the good performance of our economy. Granted, but I may remind him that those are the same comments President Hoover made in 1929. He even went to a baseball game to show that everything was o.k.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Raymond Garneau: It is a historical fact. It's absolutely true.


REQUEST FOR CLARIFICATION OF MORNING DECISION
Raymond Garneau: I would like to ask the Minister whether the decision he announced this morning to establish greater liquidity in the financial markets was made after consultation with members of the Group of Seven or did Canada act on its own in this case?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I said in my answer that the decision that the Bank of Canada made today was based on consultations with my colleagues in the Group of Seven and consultations by the Governor of the Bank of Canada with other countries. I think the decision to provide for increased liquidity in the financial markets will help stabilize the market. I think we should understand that the present lack of stability is in the stock market, not in the financial or exchange markets.


GOVERNMENT ACTIONS
Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to ask the Minister of Finance a question which I am sure is on the minds of millions of Canadians today in light of the worldwide stock market crash. The question is the following.
What is the Government doing, and what will it be doing to prevent this world-wide stock market crash from leading to a serious economic downturn, or worse, right here in Canada? Can the Minister gives us a clear and detailed answer, not only in terms of current action, but what it will be doing in the future?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I have indicated what we are doing in the markets today through the Bank of Canada, and I think that this is having the desired result. We have seen a substantial drop in short-term interest rates where the bank rate, if it were to be set today, would probably be down three-quarters of 1 per cent.
The House Leader of the Liberal Party is asking what might we do in the future. It is important to realize that the underlying economies-the real economies as opposed to the stock market-in Canada, in the United States, and in other major industrialized countries are operating quite effectively.
October 20, 1987

If there is a need for further policy responses as things develop in the weeks or months ahead, we can review that at the time. I do not think it is appropriate to jump to conclusions on the basis of one day's understanding of a major decline in the market which took place yesterday.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Well, Mr. Speaker, the Minister speaks of one day, but it was some day!


WORKERS' PENSION FUNDS-GOVERNMENT'S POSITION
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, one of the experts said that the world-wide decline on the stock markets wiped out $3 billion worth of securities held by Canadian pension funds on which millions of Canadian workers depend for a safe and secure retirement.
I want to ask the Minister what the Government will do to restore and safeguard the value of these pension funds, to give Canadian workers the assurance of a safe and secure retirement. Could the Minister give us a concrete answer today?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I am glad that the Hon. Member has raised this point. I think Canadians should understand a few things about the state of their pension funds.
One is that there has been a significant increase in stock market prices over the last number of years. As I pointed out earlier, the current level of the Toronto Stock Exchange is what it was toward the latter part of last year, so that we have not lost a major amount in the longer term perspective.
The second and I think more important point is that the large majority of the assets in these pension funds are invested in bonds and in real estate. Both these markets have not been affected by the drop in the stock market. In fact, as I have indicated, the bond market has been up quite significantly and that should result in good profits for pension funds in that part of their investments.


REQUEST FOR MEETING OF GROUP OF SEVEN
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance.
The Minister said that he contacted the Group of Seven. He also said the crisis was a one-day crisis. The Minister knows perfectly well that the crisis is continuing today as well. It is world-wide.
In this context, is the Minister prepared to ask for a meeting of the Group of Seven?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I think it is very important to realize that my colleagues and I have had many consultations with the Group of Seven, and
Oral Questions
that we, like the other countries, have taken steps to deal with the situation here in Canada. The Governor of the Bank of Canada has decided to increase liquidity in the financial market, and I think the result is promising. There has been a drop of nearly 1 per cent in the interest rate. That is a good way to encourage stability in the markets.


REQUEST FOR GLOBAL ECONOMIC STRATEGY
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, as the Minister knows, the crisis which the world is now facing in terms of the decline in stock market values has already vastly exceeded what happened in 1929.
It is encouraging that principal industrial countries are responding in a quicker and more positive direction than was the case in 1929.
However, this having been said, does the Minister not think that it would be useful for the G-7 actually to have a meeting to try to co-ordinate on a global basis an economic strategy to head off what followed 1929?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the views of the Hon. Member. What I should say to him is that we have been having meetings of the Group of Seven on a regular basis. We had our last meeting at the end of September in Washington, at which time a number of matters were discussed.
As I indicated earlier, there have been discussions yesterday and today with members of the Group of Seven. We have compared the situations in each other's markets and compared what we can do to address the great instability or volatility in the stock markets.
However, the result of the decisions we have already taken has been good stability in the foreign exchange markets and a drop in interest rates. I think that, as a preliminary approach to the effects of the drop in the stock market, this is a good one.
We will be watching it very closely. We will be consulting on an ongoing basis. If it is appropriate to have a meeting of the G-7 countries, then we can proceed on that basis at that time.


GROUP OF SEVEN
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, the Minister has said that the G-7 has been meeting on a regular basis. That is true, but the last meeting was two weeks ago. To understate it a wee bit, the world has changed a little since then. The one concrete change announced by the Minister which has taken place here, which is encouraging and is in the right direction, is the move to keep interest rates down. That is the sole initiative, if I understood the Minister correctly today, which the Government of Canada plans to take.

October 20, 1987
Oral Questions
Again, does the Minister not think now is the time that the Government of Canada, in a constructive way, propose to other members of the G-7 that their Ministers of Finance get together for a meeting to map out a strategy to head off a deepening of this very serious crisis?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, we did map out a strategy at the meeting we had in the Louvre in February of this year that has served the seven countries and the world well.


Nelson Andrew Riis: The results were a little questionable.


John Edward Broadbent: It has not worked very well.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: The Hon. Member says that it has not worked out well. Since then we have seen a remarkable degree of growth, particularly in the Canadian economy. We have good stability and exchange rates.


Nelson Andrew Riis: A trillion dollars lost in one day.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: The Hon. Member said the Canadian dollar has gone down since then. That is not true, it has gone up since then.


Nelson Andrew Riis: I said a trillion dollar loss.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: In that meeting we agreed as countries to undertake certain policy initiatives. The Americans have followed through on theirs as have the Japanese, the Germans, the Canadians and the other countries. We have a strategy. We have been following it and the underlying economies, as I have said, are operating very effectively. I think that is a tribute to the success of that strategy developed at the Louvre.


CANADA-UNITED STATES TRADE AGREEMENT-DISPUTE SETTLEMENT MECHANISM
Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg-Fort Garry):: Mr. Speaker, I want to raise a question with the Minister for International Trade. This weekend there was a conference on international law which brought together a number of Canada's most distinguished jurists in the area of international trade. The conclusion out of that meeting by a number of the participants was that the proposed dispute mechanism entrenched in the free trade proposal will be a contravention of the Charter of Rights because it only allows appeals and a judicial review by Governments and not by individuals. In fact, this raises the question of contravening the individual rights of Canadians to make application for review.


Mr. Crosbie:: That is silly.


An Hon. Member:: Sit down.


Lloyd Axworthy: I know there are a number of Tory cabinet Ministers who are unlearned as far as the law is concerned.
I would like to quote from a statement by Gowling and Henderson which I think we recognize is a reputed law firm. It says, "The important question that arises is whether the free trade agreement will deprive Canadian producers, importers or exporters of the judicial review remedy and, therefore, such a procedure would not be in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice as contained in the Canadian Charter of Rights."


Mr. Clark (Yellowhead):: Who is their client?


Lloyd Axworthy: That is an important question, Mr. Speaker.


John Carnell Crosbie: That is twaddle.


Lloyd Axworthy: If the only deal which the Government got will contravene the fundamental law of the country, what does the Government intend to do about that kind of serious dilemma in which it puts Canada by signing something which goes against the fundamental law of the country?


Hon. Pat Carney (Minister for International Trade):: Mr. Speaker, 1 am not aware of the report which the Hon. Member has quoted. I personally fail to understand why a trade agreement that will create jobs, preserve Canada's standard of living and preserve our sovereignty, would be in contravention of the Charter of Rights. If that were true, I suppose the Hon. Member might be suggesting that our membership in GATT, which also has a dispute settlement mechanism, contravenes the Charter of Rights.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, the abysmal ignorance of this Minister about the law of this country is incredible to behold.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member will put his question without argument.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, the fact that the Minister of Trade is unaware is not justification for the Government to go ahead and sign a deal which a number of Canada's most distinguished lawyers in the field of international trade have suggested that the dispute mechanism will, in fact, contravene the Charter of Rights because it denies judicial review. It may be that the Minister does not understand the principle of judicial review. It would seem to me that we are now signing an agreement that will be challenged in the courts and, therefore, will become totally irrevocable.


Mr. Speaker:: I would ask that the Hon. Member put his question.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, her ignorance is only exceeded by that of her colleagues.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre.
October 20, 1987


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker-


An Hon. Member:: You were not recognized, Lloyd. Sit down.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Mike Cassidy (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also directed to the Minister of Finance. The Minister has just informed us he had no plans for calling a meeting of the Ministers of the Group of Seven, and that he has taken steps to provide for a temporary drop in interest rates. Does the Minister have any other measures in mind to reassure investors and to start the process of economic rebuilding that will be necessary after the past two days decline on the stock market?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, 1 think the conclusions which the Hon. Member is drawing are, to choose my words carefully, somewhat excessive. We have a strong economy. We have an economy that has performed extremely well this year, let alone over the past three years, under a strong economic plan which has been clearly followed by our Government. It has resulted in the nearly one million jobs that have been created and in Canada leading the G-7 countries in economic growth, productivity performance and job creation.
I am not denying that we have had a major drop in the stock markets. That is evident. But what I think we must not do is jump to conclusions that might not be warranted by the facts. We should watch to see what happens with the markets over the next few days and weeks and then we can have a look to see whether some further policy response is necessary. Let us not jump to conclusions.


MINISTER'S POSITION
Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, we face a situation in which the Toronto market has dropped by some 35 per cent from its peak for this year, in which there has been a world-wide crisis on the stock exchanges which is only outmatched by what happened back in the 1929 crash and the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Simply, apart from a temporary reduction in interest rates, does the Minister have any other specific and concrete measures in mind which he can inform the House of now, or is he still taking a wait and see attitude?
Oral Questions


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I think that all Hon. Members should be quite careful about the type of rhetoric which they use in addressing questions.
I have made it quite clear that I am in continuing touch with my colleagues in the G-7 countries so that we can review the situation on an ongoing basis. We have reviewed our economies quite recently. The conclusion we came to at that time was quite a positive one. Let us not jump to conclusions. Let us watch how things develop.
As I said, I believe to the Member's Leader, if there is a reason to have a meeting of the Group of Seven countries then I would be very happy to participate, but let us not have a meeting too soon without ensuring that we know the extent of the situation that we face.


CANADA-UNITED STATES TRADE AGREEMENT-EFFECT OF STOCK MARKET SITUATION
Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Millions of Canadians will want to know the effect this crash will have on the so-called free trade agreement or economic constitution with the United States. They will not be able to ask the Prime Minister, but at a private meeting tonight some 150 businessmen from Canada and the United States will be able to ask the Prime Minister in a very private way what kind of effect this crash will have. I would like to ask the Prime Minister why it is that he will meet with Americans for a private briefing when he will not even table the relevant documents with respect to the economic union agreement here in the House of Commons.


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, the statement of my hon. friend is of course both false and misleading in regard to tonight's meeting. I was invited, as were other Prime Ministers, to address the BCNI and other groups. It is their choice as to the manner of the meeting. I have met in similar circumstances with leading unions, universities, and multicultural groups, and will continue to do so because I think it is of benefit to have a dialogue between Candians.


REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, if the Prime Minister is really interested in dialogue, he will have no objection to our being provided with a transcript of all remarks, made during the meeting this evening. So, if indeed his quest for truth is genuine, 1 should like to ask him whether he is prepared to give us, Members of the House of Commons, the same information he is prepared to give this evening to his

October 20, 1987
Oral Questions
American bosses who will attend the meeting to unveil here in Canada the scenario of our economic constitution with the United States? Is he prepared to give us at least the same information?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I will be pleased to send the Hon. Member a copy or transcript of my speech. It will undoubtedly be the most enlightening reading material the Hon. Member has laid her hands on since way back when.


THE ECONOMY
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. The Minister of Finance can describe what has happened in the last two days as a decline in the market. I want to suggest, and 1 am sure most Hon. Members would agree, that Canadians today are feeling very uneasy. The future is anything but sure and they are looking for some strong signal, a beacon of confidence, from the Minister of Finance. So far, all we have heard the Minister say is that he has taken some steps to ease interest rates today.
Does the Minister of Finance really think, considering the uncertainty that exists in our country today, that he ought not to make more of a statement about what action he is prepared to take on this very, very critical issue?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I have said we have taken steps to increase the amount of liquidity in the financial markets and that this is having the result of getting interest rates down. I have also said that I am in continuing contact with the other members of the Group of Seven, and I would think that Members opposite would be very pleased now that we are a member of the Group of Seven that we can participate in that organization in these consultative and co-operative approaches to ensuring that we bring the full force of the seven largest industrialized countries to bear on these problems.
I will not repeat the response I gave to the Hon. Member's colleague. We are watching this on an ongoing basis and if further steps need to be taken, we will take them.


INTEREST RATE LEVELS
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, rather than stand back and wait for the situation potentially to deteriorate further, why would the Minister of Finance not call a meeting of the Group of Seven and propose a co-operative strategy to deal with this very serious situation? If he would
not consider that, would he explain why he would not take that positive initiative?
Is the Minister of Finance also saying that, while he has met with the Governor of the Bank of Canada and that interest rates are holding today, he is committed to ensuring that interest rates will not go up in the immediate future?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, to take the Treasury Bill as an example, the Treasury Bill at the end of last week was trading at around 9.68. The latest information that I have here indicates that it is trading at 8.50. That is down over a point in one day.
I think it is very clear that we are taking decisive action, action directed at the immediate problem. We have also held discussions with many of my colleagues in the Group of Seven and we are prepared to continue those discussions. If it is appropriate to have a meeting, then I will be encouraging my colleagues to get together for a meeting.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF PARLIAMENTARY DELEGATION FROM SUPREME SOVIET OF THE U S S R.
Mr. Speaker:: I wish to bring to the attention of Hon. Members the presence in the gallery of a parliamentary delegation from the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. led by Mr. Efrem E. Sokolov, member of the Presidium of the U.S.S.R. Supreme Soviet.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF VICE-PRESIDENT OF NICARAGUA
Mr. Speaker:: I wish also to bring to the attention of Hon. Members the presence in the gallery of a delegation from Nicaragua, led by His Excellency, Sergio Ramirez Mercado, Vice-President of Nicaragua.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


CANADA-UNITED STATES TRADE AGREEMENT-EFFECT ON FISHING INDUSTRY
George Roland Henderson: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister for International Trade. According to Mr. Richard Gutting, Vice-President for Government Relations with the National Fisheries Institute in the United States, the omnibus Trade Bill now before Congress will drastically change the U.S. trade laws, especially as they relate to fisheries. For instance, in future countervail
October 20, 1987

actions, unemployment insurance benefits could be defined as a subsidy to our fishermen.
Will the Minister now admit that our fishing industry under the free trade deal and the dispute settlement mechanism will be subject to even more harassment by American fishing lobbyists? Why did the Minister and the Government not obtain more protection for Canadian fishermen?


Pat Carney: Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw to the Hon. Member's attention the statement of the President of the Fisheries Council of Canada who said that we will be getting better access to a market of 250 million people for our processed products. That is the view of the Fisheries Council of Canada, not the view of the Hon. Member opposite.


PROTECTION OF UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE PROGRAM
George Roland Henderson: Mr. Speaker, 1 am sure that the big fish companies will do well with or without a trade deal. I and my party are concerned about fishermen who are trying to draw unemployment insurance in the wintertime to see them over the year.
According to the document, the fishery will have the full benefit of the protection of the agreement on countervail and anti-dumping. Can the Minister define what she means by protection and can she categorically state today that there will be no more countervail action by the Americans against Canadian fish products in the future?


Pat Carney: Mr. Speaker, we have told the House on a number of occasions that social programs such as unemployment insurance are not part of the trade deal. They are preserved and protected.
May I tell the Hon. Member of the views of the President of National Sea Products Limited who said that the most important aspect for them was the dispute settlement mechanism which deals with countervail and anti-dumping, and they got that. He said, "It's a hell of a gain for Canada".


FINANCE
Neil Young: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. As the Minister knows, some $130 billion has been invested in Canadian pension funds, and under the changes coming out of the 1985 Budget nearly a third of those funds are permitted to be invested offshore in other countries.
Could the Minister advise the House whether or not he has investigated to find out what amount of those pension funds has actually been invested offshore, and in particular could he
Oral Questions
tell us how much of those funds are presently invested in the New York Stock Exchange?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, first, let me say that the conclusion that the Hon. Member has drawn that one-third can be invested offshore is partly correct. One-third can be invested offshore provided that there is an appropriate amount of investment in small business here in Canada. The whole purpose of that amendment of 1985 was to encourage these very large pools of capital to invest a meaningful amount of their assets in small and medium-sized businesses which heretofore were not the subject of that investment. We are trying to accomplish something that will be good for that sector of the market.
As to the specific question of how much is invested offshore, 1 do not think there would be a great deal more than the basic 10 per cent limitation in place right now. How much of that is invested in the New York Stock Exchange 1 could not say. That is probably more appropriate for an Order Paper question.


REQUEST FOR DETAILS OF OFFSHORE INVESTMENT
Neil Young: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the Minister fully understands that members of pension plans are understandably concerned and anxious about the events of the last couple of days. If the Minister has not investigated how much of those funds are invested offshore, will he agree to do so and give a detailed response to the House some time in the next week?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, 1 think I addressed the basic thrust of the Hon. Member's question in my previous answer. 1 said that while pension funds are investing in the stock market, and most do, common stocks have done pretty well over the last number of years. The health of pension plans today has been strengthened by the existence of a good stock market in Canada which reflects the basic strength of the economy. In addition, a large part of the assets of those pension funds are invested in bonds. The bond market is very strong today. There are also real estate and other investments.
I think the Hon. Member would do well not to try to cast too broad a net and frighten those people with assets invested in pension funds because the pension industry in this country is a very strong one.


CANADA POST CORPORATION
Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. He

October 20, 1987
Oral Questions
will know that the Minister responsible for Canada Post said in this Elouse and elsewhere that no rural post offices would be shut down or privatized without consulting the people affected. I have in my hand a Canada Post manual which explains to officials how to proceed with the shutting down of post offices, complete with such gems as this question: "Why can't we have a general town hall meeting?" Then there is a suggested answer for the Canada Post official to weasel his or her way out of it.
How can the consultation process be taken seriously when there is a manual which explains how to avoid consultation?


Michel Côté: Mr. Speaker, of course, in the absence of the minister responsible, I just want to point out that we and Canada Post Corporation have drafted a corporate plan providing for better service in the best interest of Canadians. And we are trying to put it into effect as soon as possible.


REQUEST FOR DETAILS CONCERNING CERTAIN INTERNAL DOCUMENTS
Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, i would like to ask a supplementary question. How can the minister responsible explain that action by Canada Post Corporation? Is it not true that Rural Dignity and other concerned Canadians have every reason to worry when the Government and Canada Post Corporation circulate such internal papers to their staff to ensure the real consultation process never comes?


Michel Côté: Mr. Speaker, once again, my colleague's comments distort somewhat what was the truth. First, the responsibility of Canada Post Corporation is to guarantee the best service at the lowest cost possible. In that regard, the Minister has thoroughly consulted most regions in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada, which led to a corporate plan highlighting the results of those recommendations.


INDUSTRY
Ms. Marion Dewar (Hamilton Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, on October 7 the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion assured this House that he would respond to the breakdown in negotiations between Cooper and Firestone by calling a meeting to get the parties back to the bargaining table. I understand that the parties have now done so because the Minister urged them to do so. However, the people of Hamilton need more than communications, they need a commitment. Is the Minister willing to give us the commitment that if these
negotiations break down again he will effect some kind of sale of the Firestone plant?


Hon. Robert de Cotret (Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion and Minister of State for Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, as the Hon. Member quite correctly said, when the talks broke down I communicated with the presidents of both companies urging them to get back to the table at the earliest possible moment. They have done that as of yesterday morning. I also indicated to them at that point that I would be following those discussions very closely.
My officials have been in touch with officials of both companies. We are monitoring the progress being made. We are aware that the discussions are difficult. We are committed to seeing those discussions lead to a mutually agreeable commercial settlement of the question being negotiated and 1 can give my commitment to the Hon. Member that I will be keeping a very close watch on the evolution of the negotiations.


REQUEST THAT UNION PARTICIPATE IN NEGOTIATIONS
Marion Dewar: Mr. Speaker, there are 1,300 families involved in this matter. If there are multi-level discussions between the companies and the federal and provincial Governments, can the Minister assure us that he will invite union representatives to participate?


Robert René de Cotret: Mr. Speaker, I can assure my hon. friend that during this period I also communicated with my counterpart in the Ontario Government as well as the Mayor of Hamilton. We have agreed that should the negotiations break off for some reason or other, which is obviously the opposite to what we wish because we certainly hope for a good commercial settlement, there would be meetings involving all levels of government.


EFFECT OF CANADA-UNITED STATES AGREEMENT ON EMPLOYMENT-RETRAINING OF WORKERS
[Stage Direction]
Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine
East): Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Employment. Yesterday he said no special programs for retraining were necessary for workers who have lost their jobs because of free trade. Today we have a report from the Canadian C. D. Howe Institute and the American National Planning Association recommending special training and placement programs to deal with free trade adjustment. Is the Minister going to wait until the last minute, or will he tell us now what he is going to do about these massive changes in the labour market resulting from free trade?
October 20, 1987
Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, if the Hon. Member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine East had quoted the full text, he would have said the study indicates that the number to which he referred will be much lower. I also believe 1 said yesterday that the Government has mechanisms for employment adjustment in the form of a manpower adjustment program for which several million dollars are budgeted yearly. However, if the Free Trade Agreement creates new situations with which our programs are unable to cope, Mr. Speaker, we will take the necessary action. However, I would rather not assume, as the Hon. Member is doing, that a certain kind of situation is going to develop. Before spending any money, we first want to know what for, then make the studies and spend the funds.


PRIME MINISTER'S POSITION
[Stage Direction]
Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine
East): Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is directed to the Prime Minister. Will he tell the House exactly what he meant when he said on October 5 before the Canadian Export Association that massive retraining and relocation programs were necessary to combat free trade losses? When will he put his specific plan on the table, and who really speaks for the Government?
Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member is quite substantially misquoting what I said. The answer with regard to retraining programs, if and when they become necessary, is one that 1 discussed at great length both here in the House and with the First Ministers. It has always been the intention of this Government-we do it now with billions of dollars directed to retraining and redeployment-to the extent that any further programs are required, to deal always with the human element first.


WESTERN GRAIN STABILIZATION ACT
Mr. Bill Gottselig (Moose Jaw):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State for Grains and Oilseeds. The Minister will be aware that when inflation is taken into consideration the initial prices received by producers this year were the lowest they have been since the 1930s. Western Grain Stabilization Act for 1987? If so, how much is it, when will it be announced and, even more important, when will the producers have it in their hands?


Hon. Charles Mayer (Minister of State (Grains and Oilseeds)):: Mr. Speaker, the Western Grain Stabilization Act
Oral Questions
is an important device to help producers in a difficult time. We are presently doing the calculations and expect to be in a position to announce the size of the payment in the middle of next month, as has traditionally happened. In all likelihood there will be a record payment and we are doing everything we can to get it into producers' hands as quickly as possible.
We announced today that there will be an increase on the initial payment on oats. The initial payment has been increased by $25 a tonne which is good news for oat producers. While oats is not a large crop, those people who produce it will realize that this is a significant increase. That is a little bit of good news for producers who have been suffering under the effects of very depressed international grain markets.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: This will be the last question in Question Period. The Hon. Member for Fundy Royal.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Bob Corbett (Fundy-Royal):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs and is with regard to the Iraq-Iran conflict. Last week an Iranian missile hit a school in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad resulting in the loss of lives, mostly of children. Iran has also launched Silkworm missiles against reflagged ships in the ports of a nonbelligerent third party, Kuwait. Yesterday the United States responded to this attack by destroying an Iranian oil platform which was being used as a military base in the Gulf.
In keeping with the Government's policy of constructive internationalism, and in keeping with the Minister's statements of support for both the American position and the need for further action by the U.N. Security Council, what role can Canada assume in helping to bring this tragic conflict to a swift end?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, it is a tragic conflict, and a dangerous one. The most effective role that Canada can continue to play is to continue to urge the members of the Security Council of the United Nations and, most important, the Secretary General, to work toward the implementation of Security Council Resolution 598.
We have been doing that. The Secretary General has been playing a very active role of mediation in that conflict. We wish him the best of success and are prepared to put at his disposition any help that Canada might practically offer.

October 20, 1987
Statements by Ministers


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been discussions among the Parties and I think you would find unanimous consent to revert to Statements by Ministers in order to permit the Minister for International Trade (Miss Carney) to make a statement followed by appropriate replies by the opposition Parties. Thereafter the House would return to debate on Bill C-55.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, we are prepared to agree to the request of the Government House Leader (Mr. Lewis).


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, we are certainly prepared to co-operate. I would, however, observe that we certainly would have appreciated receiving a written version of the Minister's comments a little earlier. We received it 50 minutes before Question Period. That makes it a little difficult to make an excellent reply, but I am sure that our reply will be more than excellent in any event.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Pat Carney: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce that the Government is today tabling in Geneva a comprehensive negotiating proposal on agriculture in the Uruguay Round of the multilateral trade negotiations. It seeks to enlist the support of all GATT countries for a wide-ranging attack on trade barriers and on subsidies which distort production and trade. It is a major assault on the forces of protectionism.
Of course, we recognize that governments need to respond to the imperatives of their agricultural sectors. We are not saying that governments should not support farmers. We do say that support should be given in ways that do not distort production and trade and that are in conformity with agreed rules.
I am sure that all Hon. Members are aware of the importance which the Government attaches to agriculture. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) has taken the lead to raise the issue at the past two economic summits. At Venice he secured from world leaders an acknowledgment of the need to proceed quickly in the GATT negotiations. Various Canadian Ministers have, in different international forums, advanced Canada's view that there is an urgent need for agricultural trade reform.
My colleagues and I worked hard at the OECD ministerial meeting to obtain endorsation of the general principles which should guide the reform of policies which affect agricultural trade. Over the past year I have used a series of meetings with
trade ministers from key countries to promote the development of the political will necessary to translate rhetoric into reality.
Most recently my colleague, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise), spoke eloquently to the ministerial meeting of the Inter-American Institute for Co-operation in Agriculture about the need to reform agricultural trade.
I co-chaired the ministerial meeting of the Cairns Group in Ottawa this May. This is a group of 14 countries, both developed and developing, with important agricultural interests which have decided to work together to seek a major reform of the rules governing agricultural trade.
My colleagues, the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of State (Grains and Oil Seeds) (Mr. Mayer), and I used that meeting to build further international support for the need for the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations to deal expeditiously and comprehensively with the problems plaguing agricultural trade. Again last week the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting adopted the Vancouver Declaration on World Trade, a Canadian initiative which re-emphasized the urgency of action on agricultural trade and agreed "on the crucial need for reform of all trade distorting agricultural policies, both domestic and international".
One imperative has clearly emerged from international discussions over the past few months, that is, that the world needs to adopt a comprehensive approach to agricultural trade reform. The OECD has demonstrated that only a broad approach covering all commodities, all countries, and all policies which directly or indirectly affect trade can have any hope of success.
The negotiations in Geneva involve 94 countries whose interests span the whole range of world agricultural production. If we are to have a successful negotiation we must deal with the legitimate concerns and interests of all countries, large and small, developed and developing, exporters and importers. We all know that many of our farmers are suffering, and suffering deeply, from the current agricultural trade crisis. We have promised not to abandon them in the short term and to seek lasting solutions in the longer term.
The proposal we are tabling today in Geneva is designed to achieve that latter goal. While our current programs are aimed at dealing with the symptoms of the problems, we will be using the Geneva negotiations to promote the basic reforms which must occur if we are to get at the underlying causes of the problem.
We are proposing that, in the longer term, over a time frame to be negotiated, all access barriers and all subsidies which distort trade should be eliminated. We consider that, in an interim period of perhaps five years starting from the conclusion of the negotiations, a major reduction should be made in all access barriers and trade-distorting subsidies.
In addition, Mr. Speaker, we are firmly convinced that there is a pressing need for clear and effective GATT rules. Policymakers need to know clearly what actions they can undertake
October 20, 1987

to support their farmers. They need to know what kinds of actions will create trade problems and which ones will not. For example, the Canadian system of supply management is in conformity with GATT rules, in contrast with the open-ended support programs of some other countries which have generated massive surpluses.
The world needs to reduce the frictions which have come to characterize agricultural trade relations. Governments need to have clear rules and traders need to know that conditions of access to international markets will be secure.
The Canadian proposal is the second one to be tabled at Geneva and it should reinforce the push toward reform of the agricultural trading system. We have been working very closely with our Cairns Group partners in developing the ideas which are included in the Canadian proposal, and we are confident that the contribution by that group will also serve to promote our common objectives.
Over the rest of this year, we expect other countries will table negotiating proposals of their own. We look forward to seeing the proposals of the European Community, Japan and other major agricultural countries.
Early in the New Year negotiators in Geneva will be working to maximize the common ground in the various proposals which will have been put forward. We are seeking to reach agreement by the end of 1988 on a negotiating framework for agriculture.
These discussions will be arduous, but we are determined to make progress quickly so that Canadian farmers can begin to obtain relief from the current crisis in agricultural trade.
We are reaping today the results of 40 years of the lack of will of the GATT countries to deal effectively with agricultural problems. GATT countries recognize that we must all mend our ways. Canada is proposing a bold and far-reaching plan to achieve this goal because we know that Canadian farmers need their foreign markets to survive. Canadian farmers are among the most productive in the world. Given a level playing field, they can compete on world markets. Our negotiating proposal offers a way to do that.
We believe that a systematic attack on measures that distort trade is urgently needed. We want to create an environment where farm production decisions are more responsive to market signals. We have seen how export subsidies directly, and domestic subsidies indirectly, can distort and depress international prices. It is time that we returned some sanity to agricultural trade.
By tabling our proposal we are challenging our trading partners to join with us in the search for lasting solutions to the agricultural crisis we face today. We look forward to working with our GATT partners to define those solutions. We believe the solutions we are offering are good ones and we encourage all GATT countries to table their own ideas. In that
Statements by Ministers
way we can move directly toward an agreement which will meet the needs of the international community. In that process, all countries will need to take account of the points of view of others so that the final result of the MTN will reflect a true world view of the solutions needed.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, we are at least grateful that the Government has finally shown a response in this matter. We have been asking in the House for the tabling of such a proposal since last February when the first phase of the GATT negotiating round on agriculture began. We are glad that finally, after some nine months, the Government has got around to providing at least the rhetoric of a proposal. However, we do not have any details.
Once again, we are treated to the spectacle of a trade proposal being given only in the largest of generalities, without dealing with many of the very serious and crucial issues that must be resolved in order to make such a proposal plausible and realistic.
Let me give an example. Next week, on October 26, the Government of Canada must decide whether it accepts the GATT ruling dealing with the European Economic Community exports of beef to Canada. There was a panel ruling against us and the Government must decide whether or not to accept that ruling.
The Government's decision will have a great bearing on our success in future negotiations for establishing a set of rules. It seems only appropriate that the Minister for International Trade (Miss Carney), in outlining the Government's so-called proposal, would have given an indication of what stand the Government would be taking. Surely any elements contained in that proposal will be based on that kind of initiative.
Members of GATT and officials of the European Community said that Canada would jeopardize its position in upcoming agricultural trade talks if it ignores the GATT panel ruling. That is a shot across our bow. We want to know what the Minister will do about it, but there was nothing in her statement to give any clue whatsoever.
Let me point to another major inconsistency. The Minister says that it is very important that we have new rules and that all the major players understand those rules. If that is the case, why was the Government of Canada one of the major countries vetoing the application of the Soviet Union to become a member of GATT? The Soviet Union is our largest customer and buys most of our grain. However, when the Soviets were in Uruguay attempting to at least acquire observer status or participant status, the Government of Canada gave absolutely no support and followed the United States in rejecting them. Our largest customer will be kept outside the rules which the Minister says are necessary. Surely a statement in the House should have included some explanation or response to that particular problem.

October 20, 1987
Statements by Ministers
The most disturbing aspect of this statement is the underlying philosophy behind it. The Minister said, "We have promised not to abandon the farmers in the short term". Does the short term mean six months or a year? When will they be abandoned? Is that kind of philosophy-


Charles James Mayer: We know what you did. You just abandoned them, period. You did nothing.


Lloyd Axworthy: The Minister of State for Grains and Oilseeds (Mr. Mayer) is having a short cardiac arrest. We will give him an opportunity to recover.


Mr. Gustafson:: You abandoned the farmers for 20 years.


Charles James Mayer: If you did a better job negotiating the last GATT-


Lloyd Axworthy: I remind the Minister that the whole support system about which he is making announcements was brought in by Liberal governments.
The Minister went on to say that the Government is now attempting to deal with a level playing field. The Government's position is a replica of that taken by President Reagan. We will move toward a total market oriented approach.
The Minister talks about reducing subsidies; what kind of subsidies, and what kind of programs? What is the Government prepared to renegotiate? Will it be the transportation subsidies or the Grain Stabilization Act? Incidentally, I remind the Minister that those were two programs brought in by Liberal governments. Those programs were introduced in order to deal with our geography and certain Canadian circumstances.
Will those matters be on the table? Is that what the Minister for International Trade is talking about? Essentially she is saying that the Government will provide a few welfare handouts in the short term while it negotiates away those major subsidies. Those are legitimate questions that western Canadian farmers, in fact all farmers, will have to ask because we have seen what has happened with the proposed agricultural initiatives under the free trade proposal.
That in itself gives a number of important clues about the Government's policy. First, it abandoned the subsidy under the Western Grain Transportation Act for the movement of Canola to the United States. It is the first time that a Canadian government has ever acknowledged that a transportation subsidy is in fact a trade related subsidy. It has established a seriously dangerous precedent.
It has agreed with the Americans who challenged the WGTA and said it was a trade related subsidy. If the Government of Canada has acknowledged this to the Americans, other countries will wonder whether Canada will acknowledge it to them as well. Therefore, the whole freight rate structure upon which Canadian agriculture is very dependent will be
part of that negotiation and that so-called new reduction of subsidies about which the Government of Canada is talking.
Let me give a further example. The Government says that it will once again defend supply-management. However, if we consider the free trade agreement, we realize that when the quotas are removed and the tariff is reduced, one of the fundamental ingredients of a supply management system is pulled away.


Pat Carney: You are wrong.


Lloyd Axworthy: How is it possible to organize supply management when you remove the kind of regulator by which other cheaper goods can come in and compete with your own supply system? The Government does not seem to understand most matters dealing with trade. The country was much better off when the Minister was away from the trade negotiations. The fact is that that subsidy arrangement with which we are now dealing in the tariff area is a frontal attack upon the supply-management system. That is very clearly seen in the free trade agreement and is something with which we are going to have to cope. It is not going to be part of the Canadian agricultural proposal? Is that what the Minister means? If she does not, she should spell it out much more effectively.
Let me give you another example, Mr. Speaker. We have under the free trade agreement a proposal dealing with the total reductions of the mark-ups on American wines. That does not include European wines which are the largest agricultural export commodity of the European Common Market. We are going to give the Americans lower access but we are not going to give it to the Europeans whose first response will be a challenge under the most favoured nation principle of GATT.
How can one provide a discriminatory ruling in respect of its major agricultural product and then try to get the Europeans to reduce their other kinds of barriers? The Government walks around with two right feet, continually stumbling over them. It does not know what it is doing. All it is doing is putting out a statement that is designed more to confuse and contradict than it is to give any clear explanation.
We challenge the Minister. We want to see more specifically what it is the Government is putting on the table; what kinds of tariffs, what kinds of subsidies, what kinds of programs, so that Canadian farmers will not be greeted with the same kind of fear and apprehension that met them two weeks ago when the Minister negotiated a so-called free trade agreement that will put agriculture in jeopardy.


Mr. Vic Althouse (Humboldt-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, in representing my Party's response to the Minister's statement on the multilateral rounds through GATT, I would like to make a couple of observations this afternoon.
First, I want to congratulate the Minister for initiating this multilateral series of agreements and negotiations. It is a
October 20, 1987

policy decision that I wish she and her Government had adhered to in the past couple of years. Multilateral agreements make much more sense for a country the size of Canada with the kinds of trading relations we have developed over the years.
I think they will be much more productive in the long run. At least 1 certainly hope they will be much more productive than the bilateral agreements she and her colleagues came to just last week.
I note that the Minister takes some pride in the number of times the Government has raised the question of agricultural trade at the various international forums; the Cairn's Round, the Uruguay Round, the Venice Summit and the Commonwealth meeting. At all of those meetings, agriculture was mentioned.
This gives farmers some heart, but they still note that after more than two years of these kinds of meetings there is still no movement toward a basic resolution of the problem, which is basically a problem initiated by two of the largest grain traders in the world, the European Economic Community and the United States of America. The former had introduced a relatively modest, in today's terms, system of exporting grains at lower prices than they were being sold for within the European Economic Community. That in turn drew the ire of the United States, and some other competitors, of course, but the response of the United States is the one that has hurt us, and all other grain exporters, with the ultimate harm being done to exporters of meats, because it is very difficult to compete in a meat market where the extremely cheap subsidized grains are part of the input of the finishing of that meat.
The response of the U.S. was one of simply lowering what it called its loan rate, which has a habit of becoming the price for world grain. It would be very simple to change that decision made by the United States, and simply reverse it, by raising the loan rate by $1.50. Most farmers producing grains for export in the world right now would be able to come close to meeting their costs, but the U.S. refuses to do this. It chooses instead to use its treasury to pay its farmers instead of demanding that price from the market. The multilateral approach under GATT, while I must say I admire it, has some very large shortcomings in this particular set of initiatives which I think all farmers recognize, particularly if they are exporters of grains.
The GATT round includes 94 countries but does not include as full participants the U.S.S.R. or the People's Republic of China, the two largest grains importers in the world. As well they are two of the largest producers of grain in the world.


Pat Carney: China is it?


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Yes, China and Russia are the two largest producers. While China has observer status, as I interpret it, from outside, it appears the U.S.A. is trying to keep the U.S.S.R. from participating in these talks. I am quite concerned about that because it brings back memories from ten or 15 years ago of the United States trying to set the rules for the
Statements by Ministers
international grain talks that were going on at that time. The Americans had a firm idea in their heads about who should be considered producers and who should be considered consumers.
In the American view, Japan and the European Economic Community should be on the consumer side forever and ever, amen; the United States and other select groups of countries would be considered to be producers, and there would be certain rules and regulations for the two sides to take part, and that would be how the world markets would be carved up forever after. Unfortunately, the U.S. assessment was wrong. I think its assessment of keeping the U.S.S.R. out of these discussions is equally wrong. It was only a short period of time before both Japan and the EEC became exporters or had export capabilities in the production of grain. There has to be in these rounds recognition that countries do have the capability to switch from being consumers to being producers and exporters of grains.
I hold that both China and Russia have excellent opportunities to become surplus producers, given a climate where subsidies in the more developed countries disappear. I remind the House, because I think a lot of Members are not aware of this, that the U.S.S.R produces grain on a cost-of-production basis. Its state farms have to price the grain out at their actual costs. That is not the case for the production in Canada or in the United States. We sell the grain for what it will bring and it is usually below actual production costs.
As long as the Russians are functioning that way, they are very rational economic beings. They purchase grain because it is cheaper for them to purchase it than it is for them to produce it. But as soon as we and the other so-called more developed countries drop our subsidization program and stop using our tax dollars to subsidize the export of grains, those countries will become competitive and they have the capability to increase production. As soon as prices go up they will indeed increase production. So any agreement, whether under the GATT or as a special grains agreement, that ignores the Soviet Union is doomed to failure.
I think the program announced today does not provide us with very many details. I thank the Minister, however, for having made the effort. I think we are still awaiting an announcement and the tabling of documents from the Department of Agriculture, which has been doing an in depth analysis of what programs are now being provided in this country which would not meet the criteria that Canada has put forward at international meetings. These programs should be tabled for our review. It is not clear from this statement whether the Special Grains Program of last year will be permitted to continue this year. Farmers want to know, as quickly as possible, whether that $2.6 billion to $3 billion will be made available to them this year. Their very lives depend on it.

October 20, 1987
Immigration Act, 1976


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I wish to inform the House that, because of the ministerial statement, Government Orders will be extended by 27 minutes.
Therefore, Private Members' Hour will begin at 5.27 p.m.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Bouchard that Bill C-55, an Act to amend the Immigration Act, 1976 and to amend other Acts in consequence thereof, be read the third time and passed.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: When the House rose at one o'clock there were two minutes left in the question and comment period of the speech of the Hon. Member for Prince Albert (Mr. Hovdebo). Are there any questions or comments?
Resuming debate with the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain.


Marion Dewar: Mr. Speaker, 1 rise to speak on this Bill because it has serious implications for the future of our country. Certainly, over the years the whole immigration process and refugee designation has become so cumbersome that we have had no idea what we were actually doing as far as immigration was concerned.
I know that this Bill was put forward in an attempt to straighten out some of those issues, but instead it only adds to the inequality and the injustices that have already stayed in the system. When we look at some of the main thoughts of Bill C-55, we must look at the fact that there is a denial of rights to be heard. That is in direct contravention of the Accord that we have signed, which in Article 33 states that "no country shall expel or return a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where their life or freedom would be threatened on account of their race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular group, or social opinion". This means that when we do not allow a refugee to be heard, we are in direct contravention of the treaty that we signed.
In 1976, the Immigration Act was such that often officials were illegally turning people back without having heard them. When a stop was put to that, instead of this system becoming streamlined and efficient, there was a horrendous backlog. In an attempt to rid ourselves of this backlog, we have in front of the House Bill C-55.
Unfortunately, Bill C-55 does not get rid of the backlog. It gets rid of genuine refugees. That is the great concern that I have. Not only do people not have a right to be heard, but they have no time to prepare themselves for the hearing. There is no
higher authority of appeal that has always been there. When we asked for an amendment in order that at least the chairman of the review committee could act in the next stage of appeal, that was refused. It seems to me that what we are looking at is something that traditionally is not what we would want as a society.
Unfortunately, there are many Canadians who do not believe that this type of thing is happening. They think that we are opening up and streamlining our system. It is important that we take a good look at this Bill and recognize that we are saying, "Sorry, if your life is in danger, if you are fleeing, you cannot come to Canada unless you have a visa, unless you have gone to your travel agent and acquired a ticket and you arrive here as a tourist". Basically, that is what we are saying.
When we recognize no safe third country, and look at what is a safe third country, very often we will not allow people to be admitted to Canada from another country. We have no assurances that those countries will keep them for a hearing. We are only saying that we will not hear them. We are really saying that we do not value their lives, therefore, it is all right for them to go back where they can continue to be persecuted and very often executed.
That is a tragedy and a mark on the very forward-looking attempt by the former Prime Minister, the Hon. Member for Yellowhead (Mr. Clark), when he raised the quotas of the Southeast Asian refugees and had them coming into this country. When looking back at that experience of almost 10 years, we will recognize that those people contributed to the economy of this country, to its character, to its culture, and certainly to its future.
It does not take very long for us to do a quick summary of some of the people who came at that time. They went through dire circumstances. They did not have legitimate papers. They did not necessarily come from safe third countries, some of which we would designate today as safe third countries. We opened our gates and welcomed them. They were privately sponsored and they have done very well. They have given Canada a whole sense and thread of culture that previously we did not have in the fabric of our country. I think it has been very important.
That will not happen again. What will happen if this Bill goes through is, unfortunately, something that has been on the agenda of the bureaucrats of the Department for many years. They will be the ones who will decide offshore who is and who is not a refugee. They will decide who is the best economic type of person to let into our country. Through their bureaucratic policies, they will decide what is or what is not humane. That is not the manner in which we have made decisions in the past.
Because there has been a backlog in our refugee designation, all we have done is to bend to what they have been attempting to do for approximately 20 years. Now they are successful. They are the ones who will decide the future of this country, as far as immigration is concerned. In looking not only at
October 20, 1987

refugees but at regular immigrants who wish to bring in or sponsor a relative, if there has been some official decision made, the whole process of appeal is so cumbersome and lengthy that they will never get into the country. Those are the people who are now complaining that they have been waiting. They will not cost the country any money because they are willing to sponsor their relatives and willing to sign the commitment for the people coming in. Certainly, because there has been an infrastructure of family and relatives there, they will be the solid type of people whom we wish to have in our country in the future. We are eliminating a lot of this.
We are putting issues to a very arbitrary type of decisionmaking when we say that, if a refugee is heard, he has to be heard very quickly, with no time for preparation. They are very fearful of what their conditions are, very often they are not knowledgeable in either of our official languages and, therefore, they have no way of being able to be heard legitimately, whether or not their lives are in danger or they are being persecuted.
We must also keep in mind the fact that we are only taking in approximately 5 per cent of the world refugees in the western world. When we are taking such a small number of refugees in the western world, it seems a tragedy that we are being selective and arbitrary about our decisions. What we are saying is that we do not really care whether or not people's lives are in danger. What we really want is to look at people who are in trouble and say to them that it is not their lives that we are worried about, it is what type of skills they have and what occupation they will have in our country. In that case, we may let them in, but then again we may not. If they are already here, they will be heard quickly. We will never be able to hear them out thoroughly and, therefore, very often their attempt at designation as refugee will not be heard.
Not only is this unfair and unjust, but it is very un-Canadian. It is not the type of thing that our country has responded to in the past. If we look at the refugees that we have opened our doors to, it has always been a positive experience. At times we have become arbitrary and turned it over to the officials of the Department, which unfortunately was what the decisionmaking was in 1939.
If we read None Was Too Many, which was documentation of the whole process of immigration at that time, we find that bureaucrats in the Department placed an over-emphasis on their decision-making power. With that kind of power they arbitrarily turned people away from our shores. They were sent back to the gas chambers, and we said that it was okay. That has been a blot on our history.
However, we can look back to the wonderful experience of opening our doors to the Hungarians, to the southeast Asians, and to many other refugees. Each time we did that, Canada had a spurt of growth and certainly its mosaic was enriched. We also had a good feeling about ourselves because were were
Immigration Act, 1976
putting our hands out to our brothers and sisters around the world. We were saying that we were not a country which only makes bureaucratic decisions but we are a country which is capable of looking at the whole.
When we signed the international agreement we were complimented by the United Nations. At that time we were told that Canada was in the lead and that Canada was showing generosity. What have we done since? We have contravened the agreement so that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has criticized us.


Charles Joseph Clark: That is not true, Mr. Speaker.


Marion Dewar: I am sorry, but I have certainly received some correspondence to that effect.


Charles Joseph Clark: Well, your correspondence is false. That is not true.


Marion Dewar: Mr. Speaker, I think I will respond to the questions after, but that is the kind of correspondence I have received.
Over the years we have worked hard to ensure that our reputation would be sustained. I think the Hon. Member who is saying that that is not true took a very personal and active part in ensuring that we would have that kind of generous policy. It grieves and upsets me to say that everyone has been caught in this and that they have succumbed to bureaucratic decisions.
We have talked about the kind of Canada we want when discussing a variety of other Bills. However, surely the whole essence of that is how we treat people individually. If we do not start looking at people as part of the human family, we do not understand the human family or what our planet is all about. It seems to me that this Bill contravenes the goals and visions of our country over the years.
We will be told by our children and our grandchildren that it was because of this kind of Bill that people lost their lives. That is not the reputation we want to build for ourselves. That is not the reputation we want for this country. We have lots of land. We have lots of resources. We have the ability to be humane.
Even though our immigration numbers have been high, we have not met the quotas year after year. We have often been short. We have been short for the last two years or three years. We will probably continue to be short. If we pass a Bill like this one, we certainly will not be able to meet the quotas of people who are trying to save their lives, people who are escaping.
It is important to look at the demography of the country in very practical terms, at what is happening to our birth rate, and at the recognition that we need to increase immigration to maintain our population. We need that population if we are to develop a buoyant and vibrant economy. However, if we continue to bring in restrictive Bills such as this one, we might

October 20, 1987
Immigration Act, 1976
not even be getting the kind of people we want, because Canada will soon be known to be a country which does not look generously and humanely at people, but as a country which looks at its own economic objectives with no sense of what are the rights of persons to survival.
1 am very concerned that we are continuing to consider this Bill and that some of the amendments we have put forward were not accepted. 1 think they were very slight amendments. We were hoping that they would soften the Bill so that maybe a few lives would be saved which will not now be saved. We recognize that there are people who probably are not qualified to make decisions on whether or not a refugee is a refugee, who are not qualified for refugee designation. However, over and above that is the fact that the hearing and the information will be so short and incomplete that even if they were qualified it would be very difficult for them to make a good decision.
We know some of the things that are happening in Central America now. We know that the United States has closed its doors on refugees. I remind the House that we are only talking about 5 per cent of refugees who are coming into the western world. We realize that maybe the lives of people coming to Canada from Central America can be saved.
According to the Bill, if they do not have their papers, their visas, or their travel agent tickets, we will say "no" and send them back to the United States. The United States has said that it will not keep them, so they will be sent back to where they have been tortured and persecuted. That is not the kind of Bill at which we should be looking or of which we should be proud. We should be ashamed of this Bill, and we should not want to see it expedited.
We recognize the backlog in terms of refugee designation. Clearly something needed to be done. When they attempted to straighten that out, what happened was that the refugee designation system became backlogged because they allowed bureaucrats to make decisions and they did not put in place a decision which streamlined the system and provided adequate time, resources, and staff to ensure that they were heard.
It is no secret that for many years the Department has said that it knew better than anyone else who should come to Canada. With this Bill they are saying that the only people who will be able to designate refugees are our officials who decide what camps to go to, to pick out the cream of the crop, and to send them here. That is a dreadful direction for us to take both in immigration and in refugee designation. It seems to me that there is a better way to do things. We could streamline. We could have two parallel systems, one that is identifying and designating refugees and another which is looking at straight immigration. We also need to increase the family reunification program and our resources for refugee designation.
It is not an impossible task, but what they are doing is just taking 10 backward steps in attempting to amend the Immigration Act with this Bill. I urge Hon. Members of the House to defeat the Bill because it is not the kind of thing of which
any of us will ever be proud. It is the kind of thing that can leave us with a legacy where people will say: "What were they thinking of? Did they have no sense of justice and humanity? When the world was getting into a turmoil, what did Canada do?" They will say that Canada restricted its immigration Bill so badly that it was literally impossible for refugees to have their lives saved by coming to this country.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, 1 congratulate the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain (Ms. Dewar) on a speech which I think was a very powerfully reasoned and moral plea. I think the moral issue she presented is right and was very strongly stated.
Although it is only a few months since she was elected in Hamilton Mountain, I know that she spent a good deal of time talking with the people there before she was elected and that she has been in close touch with them since she was elected. I would like to ask her what she finds about the opinion of the people of Hamilton Mountain or anywhere else that she wishes to mention.
My point is that we were told by the Government that Canadian people all want this harsh law. We have been told that groups like the churches, refugee aid groups, and the Bar Association representing 35,000 lawyers who opposed the Bill were only special interest or pressure groups speaking against the majority of the public.
I would be interested to know what the Hon. Member has found about the expression of opinion from the public in her particular area of jurisdiction.


Marion Dewar: Mr. Speaker, I have been to meetings in my riding of Hamilton Mountain. I have had correspondence from groups right across the country. 1 have had calls from individuals in Hamilton Mountain. The general thrust is that people want to have a fair Immigration Act. They have heard the debate and looked at the Bill and recognized that this is not a fair Bill. It is a Bill that will discriminate against refugee designation. Certainly the consensus that I have heard in my riding from the people of Hamilton Mountain, from some of the collective groups, the church groups, the local labour council, individual parishes and congregations is that we should speak out against the Bill. They would like to stop it because they think it is a backward step and one which will give us an international reputation of not being the just and generous society which they like to think we are.
I think it would be less than responsible if we did not speak out against the Bill. The information I get from the people who have elected me to represent them is that Canada needs a fair and just immigration Bill. This we do not have. Some people have been generously wanting to sponsor family members, but they have been unable to do that. They have wanted to sponsor refugees, but have been stopped from doing that. With the other Bill coming through, people could be charged for helping
October 20, 1987

refugees and could be seen as being criminals in what they thought was an act of charity and love.
1 have no hesitation in being able to say to the Hon. Member that the people of my riding and in the district in which my riding is, Hamilton Wentworth, have organized meetings, as have the churches. They have made a plea to us to speak out against the Bill. I spent about an hour in my office just before we came into the House today responding to correspondence asking me to to please do something about this Bill which they are against. It seems to me that we are representing the people who elected us to speak for them as well as for the potential future immigrants who will not now be able to come to this country.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member mentioned church groups in her riding. Were they of one particular religious orientation or do they include non-Christian groups? Did they indicate a knowledge of what is in the Bill so that the Member felt they knew what they were opposing, or were they only speaking generally for fairness?


Marion Dewar: Mr. Speaker, the churches, including synagogues and Muslim groups as well as Christian groups, have studied the Bill. They have looked at the lack of a safe third country provision as well as a lack of a provision for a just and adequate hearing. They recognize that there is no avenue for a higher appeal. The know the Bill very well. They fear that there is a sort of popular approach to the introduction of the Bill. People thought that it would be harmless and it would not be as obstructive as it actually is. I think church congregations have been very successful in getting that concern out. We are hearing from the individual citizens now as well as from the collective groups. It seems to me that not only have they studied the Bill but they are doing a good job at educating people around them about what the Bill is all about. I have come across people who at first said they supported the Bill but when they got the Bill and started to look into it they came out in great opposition. The more and more people know about the Bill the more concerned they are about it.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member mentioned the matter of no safe third country. We know that particular phrase has been removed from the Bill.
Will the Hon. Member comment on the fact that the United Nations representative came to the committee to speak about the Bill and agreed with one of the government questioners that the UN does not charge Canada with contravening the Convention? But it was pointed out by a later witness that, of course, the UN does not charge us with contravention because there is no such thing as enforcement. There is no policeman to take us into court or put us in jail over this Convention.
Immigration Act, 1976
We have all seen the four page letter which was sent, which matter was reiterated in greater detail before the committee. There was a demand that there be a guarantee against refoulement of anyone who might be a refugee. One of the questions raised is whether the principle that a person be sent back to a country considered to be in compliance with Article 33 of the Convention is satisfied given the fact that it does not guarantee that such a country will give a person a hearing which Canada denied.
Does the Hon. Member consider that, by failing to ensure that either Canada or the country of departure give a refugee claimant a hearing, we have in fact refused to meet the request of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on that point? Second, when people had studied the Bill they asked for an adequate appeal system. As Members know, no change was made in that respect. Would the Hon. Member consider on that point that we fail to meet the requests? I ask these questions because the Hon. Member got some very high priced heckling from across the aisle from a Member who said that the correspondence was false. I think the heckling from across the street was false. I would like the Hon. Member to make her comment.


Marion Dewar: Mr. Speaker, there is no question in my mind, even though we took out the no safe third country concept, that if Canada does not give an adequate hearing, and we have no guarantee that an adequate hearing will be had from the country to which the person is returned, we are contravening the agreement. Some of the rationale I have heard in the debate in the House of Commons is that it is not our fault that the other country will not give people a hearing. We have already established that precedent by saying that we as a country will not do it, so why should we expect somebody else to do it. I certainly do not think that we met the request from the United Nations High Commissioner. What was being asked was to make sure that we did not contravene the convention in that way.
As well, the appeal process I have described is not there. We even asked for something as minor as to have the chairman of the refugee commission review the process, but that was refused. It seems that we literally do not have an appeal process per se, certainly not the type of appeal process asked for by the High Commissioner. There is no question in my mind that we can be held up for criticism in that we did not meet the conditions. After having signed the agreement we have obviously said we really do not care about it, that if somebody else does not care about it, that is their problem. We are not doing anything to show any leadership about any kind of moral commitment to the resolution of a world problem on which the western world is not going overboard, but for the little bit we do take responsibility we are not taking a lot of moral responsibility. I do think it is a shame.

October 20, 1987
Adjournment Debate



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
[ Translation]

Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 66, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the Hon. Member for Levis (Mr. Fontaine)-International Monetary Fund-Finance Minister's message to Washington meeting; the Hon. Member for Cape Breton-East Richmond (Mr. Dingwall)-Pharmaceutical	industry-Profits	of drug
manufacturing companies- Research work-Request for inclusion of guarantees in legislation; the Hon. Member for York East (Mr. Redway)-Status of women- Report on battered women-Lack of space in transition houses.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Bouchard that Bill C-55, an Act to amend the Immigration Act, 1976 and to amend other Acts in consequence thereof, be read the third time and passed.
Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to enter the debate. The constituency I represent has for 100 years been the place in which new immigrants and refugees who came to western Canada first settled. To the people who came from eastern Europe before World War I, the Ukrainians, the Poles, the Germans, the Jews and the Czechs, to mention just a few of the groups, in recent years have been added people from Italy, Portugal, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Viet Nam, Central America, Africa-it would take all my time to list all of the countries from which people have come.
The record of Canada with respect to the entry of immigrants and refugees prior to and during World War II is one of which none of us can be proud. Any Member of Parliament who has read that very important book, None is Too Many, written by Irving Abella, will know how impossible it was for Jewish refugees to enter Canada after the seizing of power in Germany by Hitler and how not only the Prime Minister of the day but indeed the senior officials of the Immigration Department worked so hard to keep out those and other refugees.
Things changed after World War II. We have seen the movement into Canada of several million people, either as immigrants or as refugees. After the end of World War II, we saw tens of thousands of people, people who had lived in the
countries of eastern Europe and who had been uprooted and pushed into western Europe as slave labourers during World War II who did not want to go back to those countries which are now communist dominated, come to Canada. Later, at the time of the revolt in Hungary, we saw thousands of Hungarians come to Canada. After the difficulties in Poland, thousands of people came from Poland. Then came Asians from Uganda, Chileans and Vietnamese. Tens of Thousands of people have come here as a result of political uprisings, unrest and revolutions and have adjusted to Canada and made important and useful contributions to Canada.
The Conservative Government does not seem to understand what happened. There is no better example of the failure of the Government to understand how the refugee problems developed and how we should deal with them than the way in which this Government reacted to the two most recent situations. A little more than a year ago, a boatload of Tamils arrived on our shores. They were greeted and welcomed by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) himself. A year later, a boatload of Sikhs came, but this time they were greeted by the Government with hostility and were condemned as queue-jumpers.
The Government does not know what to do. It has no principles, it has no policies, and because it is having difficulties, it is being manipulated by senior people in the Department who have always been antagonistic to immigrants coming from what they consider to be the wrong places, from-


Charles Joseph Clark: That is an absolute falsehood, Mr. Speaker.


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, I wish the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark), if he wants to speak on this or any other issue, would make his own speech and not interrupt with his intemperate remarks.


Charles Joseph Clark: I wish you would tell the truth.


David Orlikow: It seems to me that as the Conservative Party declines in the polls, the Secretary of State for External Affairs becomes more vituperative and more antagonistic.


Charles Joseph Clark: You are out of date.


David Orlikow: The Hon. Minister says 1 am out of date. There is no evidence that that is a fact.
The Secretary of State has suggested that when I say that this Bill was drafted by senior officials in the Department, by the bureaucrats, I am wrong.


Charles Joseph Clark: That is not what you said and you know it. The record stands and you were not speaking the truth.


David Orlikow: The record stands. I will give the interjections of the Hon. Minister the consideration to which they are due, and that is zero.
October 20, 1987

Let us put on the record the facts. The Bill we are debating has been opposed by more groups representing more people than any Bill that I have ever heard debated in this Parliament in my more than 25 years here. Let me list briefly the groups which do oppose this Bill. The Canadian Bar Association, not the most radical organization, the Canadian Jewish Congress, the Canadian Council of Churches, which represents 11 of the major non-Catholic church groups in Canada, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Canadian Labour Congress, and many others-


Arnold John Malone: Plus the NDP Party.


David Orlikow: The NDP and the Liberals. The former Conservative Chairman of the Standing Committee on Employment and Immigration sat through the hearings and came to the conclusion, based on the evidence, that this was a bad Bill, so he has been removed as the chairman of the committee.
Rabbi Gunther Plaut was commissioned by the former Liberal Government and made a report containing a number of very sensible proposals, all of which have been ignored. The parliamentary committee on which a vast majority of the members were Conservative Members of Parliament joined with the then Chairman, a Conservative Member from Quebec, and made a number of very useful, workable, progressive suggestions about what should be in the Bill. Those suggestions have been almost completely ignored.
The UN High Commission on Refugees has said that this Bill violates the agreement that we signed on this matter. All these groups and individuals have been urging reform of the present slow and bureaucratic refugee determination process which they say fails to recognize genuine refugees.
1 say as I said a few moments ago that 1 cannot believe that this Bill as it is before us today could have been drafted by anybody but senior Department officials. I repeat, I believe that many of them have very definite ideas as to who they think should be able to come to this country and they are not happy with what has happened in recent years with the large number of people coming from countries from which we never permitted or encouraged people to come either as immigrants or refugees.


Charles Joseph Clark: That is false and cowardly.


David Orlikow: Again, the Secretary of State for External Affairs is interjecting.
Let me put on the record some of the views on this Bill held by non-political organizations. Lirst, we have World Relief Canada which serves as the refugee resettlement arm of the Evangelical Lellowship of Canada, an association of 23 evangelical Protestant denominations. They strongly urge our Government not to pass Bill C-55 and Bill C-84 as originally proposed.
Immigration Act, 1976


Charles Joseph Clark: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Hon. Member has been making assertions about the motives of public servants who are not here to defend themselves. He is doing that in breach of all the traditions of a parliamentary democracy. He is also seeking to associate with those condemnations, which I can only call cowardly, various organizations which might oppose the Bill. Is he seriously suggesting that the organizations he is listing join with him in attributing base motives to public servants who cannot come here and defend themselves?


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, of course I have not said that. 1 am not suggesting it. I am not implying it. When the Right Hon. Minister reads Hansard tomorrow he will see that I am quoting precisely what those groups said. They said nothing about the motives or actions of senior public servants. I said that and I take responsibility for it and I believe it. If the Right Hon. Minister would take the time to read the book by Professor Abella he would see that that was the attitude of senior public servants in the period before World War II. I suggest there are still some of those around at the present time.
Let me read from a statement made by the Canadian Jewish Congress which says:
As Jews, we ask you this time not for ourselves but for all those who arrive at our shores seeking refuge . . . (we) implore you not to close the gates by enacting this seriously flawed piece of legislation.
Or the Canadian Bar Association which represents most of the lawyers in this country. They were very clear in their rejection of this Bill. They said:
Section 3 of the Immigration Act sets out our objectives; the objectives with respect to refugees are: 3(12), to fulfil Canada's international legal obligations with respect to refugees and uphold its humanitarian tradition with respect to the displaced and persecuted.
They reject this Bill. They call on Parliament not to enact this Bill.
I say to the Right Hon. Secretary of State for External Affairs that if he will not listen to members of the NDP, representatives of the major church organizations, the Canadian Labour Congress, or the Canadian Bar Association, who is he listening to? By a process of elimination I can only come to the view that he and his Government are listening to senior representatives in the Department. Why does he not look at the record of that Department? We had a movement to this country of several thousand Portuguese who claimed refugee status because they were supposedly being persecuted as Jehovah's Witnesses. That was a false claim. It took the Department months before it woke up to what was happening and put through a regulation requiring Portuguese to obtain a visa before they came to Canada.
We saw a similar situation involving a large number of people from Turkey. During the period of time when there was great violence in Turkey and people were being murdered in the hundreds, we had virtually no people from there coming here claiming refugee status. Over the last couple of years, when things were relatively quiet in Turkey, suddenly we had

October 20, 1987
Immigration Act, 1976
hundreds of them claiming refugee status. Again the Department was, to say the least, slow.
I have no complaints about the people in the Department who I have worked with. 1 have had requests, as I think every Member who represents an urban constituency has had, from constituents asking for assistance in getting their relatives into Canada. I have had nothing but the utmost co-operation from people in the Department in both Winnipeg and Ottawa. 1 am not suggesting for a moment that the majority of the people in the Department are not doing a good job, not following the law or interpreting the law as they should be in a sympathetic way. What I am saying, and 1 believe it to be true, is that there are people in important positions who have never accepted the change in attitude-


Charles Joseph Clark: Perhaps you should name them.


David Orlikow: -which took place-


Charles Joseph Clark: If you had any courage, you would.


Mr. Rodriguez:: Certainly this Bill was not drafted by the Minister.


David Orlikow: Of course 1 cannot name them, but 1 can look at the Bill-


Charles Joseph Clark: This is scurrilous.


John R. Rodriguez: Look at history.


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, fortunately 1 do not have to satisfy the Right Hon. Minister.


Charles Joseph Clark: You just make blanket accusations and do not back them up with any names. That is shameful.


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, I do not believe I have to name names. 1 think it is the responsibility of the Minister who brought forward this Bill to tell us by whom it was drafted.
As I indicated, virtually all of the important organizations representing millions of Canadians have been critical of the Bill. They have been critical not only of certain provisions and clauses, they have said very clearly and specifically that unless there are major amendments it should be defeated. I prefer to stand with those groups and organizations than with the Government which brought forward this Bill.
If the Right Hon. Secretary of State for External Affairs, who I presume had very little to do with the drafting of this Bill, or the Minister of State for Immigration (Mr. Weiner) or the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Bouchard) want to tell us who drafted the Bill and whose ideas these clauses were based on, then we can decide whether I have been unfair or whether in fact the suggestions I have made as to the origins of the clauses in this Bill are correct. I would be very happy to have the Minister, now or at some point when the committee meets, give us an explanation as to what happened.


Charles Joseph Clark: Show a little courage, name the names.


David Orlikow: 1 intend to vote against this Bill, as I have indicated right from the beginning. As I have indicated right from the beginning, 1 think this is one of the worst Bills with which Parliament has had to deal in many years. It is unfair to refugees. It will be used against many people who, I believe, have the right to come to this country. It will be used to keep out many people who, if permitted to come to this country, would make a contribution as have the hundreds of thousands of people who have come to this country since the end of World War II, either as immigrants or refugees.
I see a tremendous change in the population of my city. There are people of all races, all colours, and all religions there. People like the former Justice Clyne of British Columbia have criticized and attacked what has happened since World War II. They believe that this will destroy the country. I believe, however, that permitting people to come to this country, either as immigrants or refugees, from every continent in the world since World War II has added a great deal to our country, it has helped to make this country a much better place in which to live than it ever was before. Because I believe that this Bill will lessen the number of people whom we permit to come to this country, either as immigrants or refugees, I intend to oppose it.


Mr. Cook:: Mr. Speaker, I have a number of comments to make. The rhetoric I have been listening to in this debate is starting to get to me. We seem to have overlooked the facts and it may be interesting to go back and look at some of them.
I have heard no mention of the major problem involved with the recent landing on the foggy shores of Nova Scotia of a large group of illegal aliens. That is what they should be called. The terms "refugees", "boat people" or whatever are only euphemisms for people who have deliberately broken the laws of Canada and landed on our shores without any right whatsoever. There are thousands of people throughout the world who are waiting for visas in order to come to Canada legitimately and honestly. Illegal aliens attempt to jump the queue.
When the current Immigration Act was drafted in 1976 anyone in Canada, whether here legally or illegally, was given the right to a determination of their claim by the Minister and to a redetermination before the Immigration Appeal Board of any claim rejected by the Minister. Quite frankly, that was not a bad system.
These were not simply assurances or administrative arrangements, but were rights established in the law which made it impossible to remove anyone until these rights were honoured. The current system began to break down in the early 1980s due to an unprecedented number of refugee claims which, at one point, numbered over 1,000 a week. That was caused by worldwide events beyond Canada's control. Many of
October 20, 1987

these people were claiming refugee status when in fact they were economic migrants.
That is an abuse of Canada's generosity because it constitutes an attempt to remain illegally in Canada. Some of the bona fide refugees, as well, are people from refugee-producing countries who had an opportunity to find a safe haven in another developed country before they came to Canada. Unfortunately, nothing can be done to keep such people out of our very complex process until the Immigration Act is changed.
This Bill provides us with the tools to deal with the high volumes of claimants we are experiencing. It introduces three features which are not found in the current legislation. The Member has totally ignored those three features.
First, individuals arriving from countries that have been designated as safe third countries by the Cabinet will be returned to those countries without being allowed to claim refugee status in Canada. Second, manifestly unfounded claims are refugee claims without any merit because they are based on difficulties not at all related to the Geneva Convention. Third, there will be a streamlined determination process. For persons whose claims appear to have some substance there will be a single level of review by an independent quasi-judicial tribunal and an appeal by leave to the Federal Court of Canada. This will be completed in a few months rather than in several years as is now the case.
The new refugee determination system will offer a simple, high-quality procedure moving us clearly away from the existing cumbersome system of review and appeal. It will provide effective defence against abuse and, thereby, prevent manipulation.
Does this mean that I am against refugees any more than is the Hon. Member? Of course not. I believe that legitimate individuals who, for political rather than criminal reasons, could face death if returned to their country of origin should be allowed to stay in Canada provided that they are prepared to be good citizens of Canada and to work for this country. This is a moral and responsible attitude espoused by the NDP with which I totally agree. If there is real danger to individuals, of course they should be allowed to stay.
Nine out of ten refugees are economic refugees seeking a better life in Canada. Who can blame them? However, entry to Canada must be legal and achieved in an organized and proper manner. Illegal aliens make a mockery of Canada. That is why this legislation is necessary and should be passed.
The 1976 Liberal Government Immigration Act was a humanitarian and charitable attempt to open Canada to help the rest of the world. Unfortunately, it has been used and abused by the desperate and has been overwhelmed. In the interests of all Canadians it must be changed substantially. Why the NDP does not understand that, I do not understand. In any event, let us get on with passing this Bill and cleaning up immigration in Canada.
Immigration Act, 1976


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) will be given equal time to respond.


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, I listened to the Hon. Member and wondered what he was talking about.


Felix Holtmann: You did not understand?


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, if the Member for Selkirk- Interlake (Mr. Holtmann) wants to speak, which I doubt that he can, he should make his own speech and not make interjections during my speech. If the Hon. Member for Selkirk- Interlake can read, which I doubt that he can, and looks at Hansard tomorrow, he will see that I never said that the 1976 legislation was good legislation. I never said that all the people who come to Canada claiming to be refugees are genuine refugees. I did say that this Bill does not do the things which the Government says it wants to do. I did say that many groups, which I listed, made suggestions on how the Bill should be changed so that the people who claim to be refugees can be dealt with quickly-rather than taking the years which it now takes-fairly, humanely, and honestly, which these organizations say that this Bill does not achieve.
I will ask the Member who made that statement a question. Maybe he will take the time to make his own speech. What was the difference between the Tamils who came here a year ago and were greeted as genuine refugees and promised humane, generous treatment by the Prime Minister, and the Sihks who came in the same way? I am not saying that either group should have been permitted to come here.
The present law does not permit a quick, fair and humane judgment. I suggest to the Hon. Member who criticizes me, the New Democratic Party and, implicitly all the groups who opposed this Bill, that he or the Prime Minister should tell us what the difference is between these two groups. If this Bill had been in place, would the Prime Minister have greeted one group generously and humanely and called the other group queue jumpers, as he did? If this Bill had been in effect, what judgment would have been made? I think the Government should be explaining this, rather than us explaining the inadequacy of this Bill.


Neil Young: Mr. Speaker, my remarks will be brief.


An Hon. Member:: Good.


Neil Young: If they listen, they may in fact welcome my remarks.
I spoke at some length at second reading of this Bill and therefore do not feel that I need to take the full 20 minutes allotted to me at this point in the debate.
My remarks will be based on some comments made by another Member with respect to this Bill. I think his comments

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Immigration Act, 1976
were more in reference to Bill C-84 than Bill C-55, the legislation with which we are dealing today.


Benno Friesen: You heard what he said, Mr. Speaker.


Neil Young: I heard what I said, Mr. Speaker. I do not know if you did. 1 believe it is absolutely true that part of the confusion that has arisen about this issue is the difference between immigrants and refugees, particularly in reference to those unfortunate people who landed on the shores of Nova Scotia in the summer.
No one would pretend to even argue that they were immigrants in the ordinary sense, nor would they probably be covered by this legislation. In fact, as 1 understand it, Bill C-84 itself was directed toward those people who landed on the shores of Nova Scotia during the summer months.
I suggest that the Member's comments only add to the confusion that exits in the country and perhaps to the misconception that those individuals somehow or other had denied legitimate immigration claimants access to Canada because they were queue-jumpers over legitimate immigrants. I do not think that is a fair way to characterize this problem.
I want to comment on the excellent work of my colleague, the Hon. Member for Spadina (Mr. Heap), as well as on the time he spent on this Bill both in the House and in the committee. It was a great help to members of my caucus, and I know that while government Members may disagree with him, I am sure they appreciated his contribution.
I have seldom seen any piece of legislation that has been so roundly condemned and opposed by groups and individuals who have been concerned with refugee and immigration matters over the years.
I understand that there were some 40 witnesses who appeared before the committee dealing with this Bill during some forty-four and a half hours of testimony before the committee. All of those 40 committees were in opposition to what the Government was proposing. I am told that there were probably five witnesses before the committee who supported what the Government was proposing, but most of them were officials from the Minister's Department and one was a representative of the airlines, which I believe have their own vested interest in the outcome of this Bill.
I want to read a letter concerning Bill C-55 that was circulated to concerned MP's by a Mr. Donald Anderson, General Secretary of the Canadian Council of Churches. 1 want to read it because he says what I would like to say much better. He begins:
We appreciate government work to try to improve Bill C-55. Unfortunately our deep concerns remain. How can we know if a person claiming to be a refugee needs our help if we do not hear their problems? Each person claiming to be a refugee should have a right to have their individual circumstances assessed and their case decided on its merits before competent independent decision-makers. To us, this is the intent of the Convention and Protocol.
He is talking about the United Nations Convention and Protocol to which Canada is a signatory. He goes on to say:
Immigration programs may legitimately choose who comes on humanitarian grounds and may set priorities on countries they may come from. We understand the attractiveness of this approach. Bill C-55 provides for exclusion of people not on the basis of their individual circumstances, but by a political cabinet decision that the country they transited before arriving in Canada is deemed to adhere to Clause 33 of the Convention, that is, it is deemed the transit country will not return the person in any manner whatsoever to a country where he or she may face persecution. This is a far shot from our obligation to give an individual who arrives in Canada a fair hearing of his or her claim to need our protection.
Also, there is no meaningful appeal to any of the critical decisions made which can remove claimants from Canada in proposed inquiries and hearings.
He concludes by saying:
We cannot accept legislation which sets aside a claimant's right to just procedures in the name of administrative convenience. We urge you to reconsider, to abandon this Bill C-55 and to speedily replace it with one conforming with the principles of allowing every claimant a hearing on the merits and a meaningful appeal. There are alternative processes we can surely all support.
Most of the witnesses who appear before that committee, while recognizing that there was something wrong with Canada's immigration processes, also made suggestions on how Bill C-55 could become a more humane Bill, give more consideration to the needs of those individuals who wish to establish refugee status in Canada. Unfortunately, the majority on the committee rejected all of those suggestions that were put forward.
For example, World Relief Canada, which serves as the refugee resettlement arm of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, an association of 23 evangelical protestant denominations, strongly urged the Government not to pass Bill C-55 and Bill C-84 as they were originally proposed. Mr. Lome Waldman of the Coalition for a Just Refugee and Immigration Policy said:
We would like to ask you to remember in your deliberations the wider context of the refugee issue.
We feel that Canada should play a role in pressing for peaceful solutions to conflicts in areas of the world that produce refugees.
In conclusion, I would simply say that I think it is unfortunate that the Government has resorted to extreme measures in reacting to what everyone admits is a problem, but which is not as big a problem as the Government is attempting to make it out to be. It is obvious that it is going to have the support of the majority of the House because it has the bodies, but I would honestly hope that at some point down the road the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Bouchard) will review this policy and come up with something that is much more humane so that Canada can continue to enjoy the reputation we have managed to build up internationally with regard to our approach to refugees and to our immigration policy.


John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, I was not going to give a speech, but I have been moved by what I heard. I thought I would just say a few words that I want to put on the record.
October 20, 1987

Here we are in the third week of October. This House was brought back on August 10. Why was the House brought back? Do you remember why we were brought back, Mr. Speaker? First, we were brought back because in fact we were being invaded. There was a sort of Asian phobia because the Sikhs had landed on the East Coast. I recall that atmosphere very well. The Government was finally going to show how decisive and tough it was. We heard comments like "queue-jumpers". This boatload of refugees who landed on our shores and claimed refugee status were queue jumpers. They were abusing the system and it was not fair. There was a big argument and the Government mixed up refugees and immigrants until the public could not make out the difference between refugees and immigrants. The Government brought us all back on August 10 and it brought in Bill C-84 which was concocted in the crypts of the bureaucrats here in Ottawa.
The Government got the sensitive Minister-and he understands what 1 mean when I say he is a sensitive Minister and should be a sensitive Minister-to bring in Bill C-84. And where is Bill C-84 now? It has not been passed as law and Canada has not been invaded. Canada still exists and Bill C-84 is hung up. But the Government decided that while we were here it was going to jam Bill C-55 through, and here it is. We are in third reading of Bill C-55 today. The Government also thought that while we were here it was going to get Bill C-22 passed, and we all know where Bill C-22 is today. It is keeping Bill C-84 company. They are warming each other up in the warm place with the red carpet and the majority of Liberals over there, God bless their souls.
I have to ask myself what kind of government it is that cannot even order its priorities and get its legislation through. What kind of leadership is it exhibiting? It is a government that, for example, could not bear to have the Chairman, its Chairman of the Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration, depart from the Party line, having said it believes in the independence of committees? That man showed bravery in standing up in this House and condemning Bill C-84, as well as condemning Bill C-85. He did it publicly.
The Conservatives talk about queue jumping, and we have the case of Mr. Grossmann. It is unfortunate that the Sikhs who landed were not all teachers. It is too bad they did not teach the Prime Minister's children so they could have sent home a written message, because if ever there was an example of queue jumping, that was it. The Prime Minister's wife sent the note to the Prime Minister's Office, which sent it to the Minister responsible for immigration, and he promptly jumped to obey. He asked: "How high?" With special dispatch he sent it down the line of bureaucrats. And do you know what the bureaucrats did? They broke the rules because he was under a status. He had a work permit which did not come to an end until September 30, 1987, yet they were processing him for another status, a landed immigrant status. So they broke their own rules. You want to tell me, Mr. Speaker, that that is not a sign of privilege? I would not want to say that the colour of his
Immigration Act, 1976
skin was white. I would not want to say that, but 1 would want to suggest that maybe 1 could think about it.


Charles Joseph Clark: That is shameful, John.


John R. Rodriguez: We have heard about people coming here because of economics, not really being refugees. I could think of other situations. There was a hockey player that Harold Ballard wanted to play for his Maple Leafs. God knows, he needed any help he could get. He brought a Czechoslovakian hockey player here. As far as I know, he was brought here within four days. In four days Harold Ballard had the guy playing for the Maple Leafs. He decided on Sunday he was going to get the guy here to play, and within four days he had him playing. He played that Saturday for the Maple Leafs. We, of course, have a shortage of hockey players. You know that, Mr. Speaker.
I did not see this great fuss made when the tourist liners lined up in Montreal and Polish tourists got off the boat and claimed refugee status. Then there was the case of the Bulgarian wrestlers. I know we have a shortage of wrestlers in Canada. They got into the country. No problem. They were not even Sumo wrestlers. 1 do not know why the Minister was intimidated, but they got into Canada just like that, and no one said they were jumping the queue. Does it have something to do maybe with the colour of their skin?


Charles Joseph Clark: That is shameful demagoguery. It is shameful.


John R. Rodriguez: It is not shameful.


Charles Joseph Clark: It borders on racism.


John R. Rodriguez: And it was done by the same bureaucrats who sank the ex-Prime Minister, who sits here and heckles me. He should be examining that situation instead of defending the bureaucrats who did him in, and will do him in again.


Charles Joseph Clark: You have no standards, John.


John R. Rodriguez: About 60 witnesses came before the committee on Bill C-55. With the exception of about two or three bureaucrats and two airline officials who argued for the Bill, everyone else was against the Bill and made recommendations for changes. I think the Government made two minor changes. There was nothing substantive changed. The people who appeared before the committee, and my hon. friend, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Keeper) named the groups, were all experienced in working with refugees. They were more experienced than the Minister or me. Yet the Government never even gave them the benefit of accepting any substantive changes. It is not the Minister who knows how it works, it is the bureaucrats. They are the ones who designed this Bill, and all the Minister is doing is carrying the can for the bureaucrats. As I said, being a sensitive Minister, he really should be aware of these things. We know the standing committee has made recommendations, for

October 20, 1987
Immigration Act, 1976
example, on family reunification. Has anything been done on that?


Cyril Keeper: Promises.


John R. Rodriguez: A Tory make a promise. Do you believe that? Changes have been recommended with respect to immigration. The standing committee brought in recommendations with respect to refugees. Has anything been done about putting those recommendations into effect? No way.
The Minister and the Government ought to examine their motivations as to why we have this Bill before us. Why is it that Parliament was recalled on August 11 to pass Bill C-84 to save Canada from an invasion of Asian people? Why are we still here and Bill C-55 is only at third reading? It is such a priority that it keeps getting put down the list and down the list. Here we are on October 20 still debating Bill C-55.
I do hope-and it is the only justification I have ever had for the existence of the other place-that Bill C-55 will go over there and keep those other two Bills company. That is the only hope that I have now that Bill C-55 will have its final resting place over in the red Chamber. I wished to state that because it was on my mind. I have listened to some of the heckling and some of the comments made to my colleagues as they gave their speeches on Bill C-55.
I wish to remind the House that we cannot have two standards for who comes into this country, either as immigrants or as refugees. We must have a system that is fair and just.


Charles Joseph Clark: Exactly.


John R. Rodriguez: And a system that is non-discriminatory.


Charles Joseph Clark: Exactly.


Mr. Fulton:: I have a short question for the Hon. Member, because he can probably hit the nail on the head more quickly than many Members in the House. My question is in regard to the politics of Bill C-84 and Bill C-55.
I wish to relay what has happened in my own constituency during the last two weeks, and the type of inaction 1 have found from the government side. Last week I hand-delivered a letter to the Solicitor General (Mr. Kelleher) regarding large numbers of illegal aliens coming into my constituency by boat up the Stikine River. 1 contacted Customs in Prince Rupert. Those people had not been clearing Customs. Their state of origin was unknown. I contacted the RCMP and they told me that they did not have the budget to go up and do anything about it, but perhaps I could help by getting in touch with the Solicitor General to get something done.
I assume that the Solicitor General has been in touch with the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Bouchard) about it, because it is a serious matter. Those people are
entering Canada illegally. They are contravening all types of provincial and federal statutes with their activities while they are in British Columbia.
Having related that to my friend, the Hon. Member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Rodriguez), I would like to ask him what he thinks the politics are. Here we have an example right now of where we cannot get an immigration officer, a police officer, or anyone to deal with illegal aliens coming into northwestern British Columbia. But in a situation where a boat load of refugees arrive in Nova Scotia, suddenly it is a national crisis. Parliament has to be recalled. The House of Commons, which costs $180 million a year, has to be thrown into full force. Three months later we are still debating the Bill. Not a single one of those who came in under refugee status to Nova Scotia has been deported, asked to leave, or kept in custody.
I ask the Hon. Member for Nickel Belt, what are the politics and the political agenda of the Government in recalling the House during the summer to deal with Bill C-84, and now Bill C-55?


John R. Rodriguez: It seemed to me that the Minister responsible for immigration should have been on his feet right away asking the Hon. Member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton) the question as to where those people are coming from, the ones whom the Hon. Member reported to the authorities as being illegal aliens. I notice the Minister is not interested in that type of information.
The Hon. Member for Skeena asked me about the politics. Look, I am just a lowly back-bencher in the New Democratic caucus. I only look at things and size them up. I asked myself the question, "What are the politics of this situation?" Well, as I described, the Government is on the ropes, down at 23 per cent in the polls.


Mr. Weiner:: Twenty-eight per cent.


John R. Rodriguez: It is looking for something to bring it up in the polls. To its salvation comes a boat-load of Sikhs on the East Coast of Canada. Right away it is a crisis.
I saw the television cameras showing the House of Commons; the midnight oil was burning in the Minister's office; they were planning. The Armed Forces were called out. Our Navy-all two boats-was out there patrolling the 200-mile limit. Information was leaked that there was another boat on the way with the wives and the spouses. The gunboats were out, they were armed, and there they were patrolling and patrolling. This image was on the TV screens. As the image was on, the hysteria was building. It reminded me of what I had been reading in history about the hysteria that Mackenzie King used to whip up against the CCF and the yellow race.
Of course, here was the Government determined to pull itself up by the boot straps from 23 per cent, and here was this golden opportunity to show how tough it was. That is the politics behind that.
October 20, 1987

Furthermore, it is no secret that the Government knew that a lot of that animosity towards the Sikhs had been whipped up in this country. Even if there were some violent ones, it was applied to the whole community of Sikhs, which is very unfortunate and very untrue. So here was the situation of this boat-load. It had an appropriate group, the Government was going to come in with Bill C-84 and recall Parliament. We all know that Parliament can only be recalled if it is an emergency situation. The Speaker had to be convinced that this was an emergency situation, and Your Elonour was convinced of it and acquiesced to recalling Parliament.
I imagine that the stock market could have been falling and we would never have been called back. But this was a national crisis. We had to solve this problem of 200 people. Well, 1 think that is the politics of it. It is really a disreputable situation.
The Government will inherit the disaster that will follow from this type of action. It has not improved its standing in the polls. It will find out, as have all Governments in the past, that playing this type of game will catch up with it in the end.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: All those in favour will please say yea.


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: In my opinion the yeas have it.
And more that five Members having risen:


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Call in the Members.
During the ringing of the bells:


Mr. Gauthier:: Mr. Speaker, as the Whip of the Official Opposition I would like to request, pursuant to Standing Order 13(4)(a), that the vote on Bill C-55 be deferred until tomorrow at six o'clock and that the understanding also be accompanied by the following order: That the House proceed with Private Members' Hour at this time so that we can proceed with the Bill before us at five o'clock, as normal, instead of going to Government Bills with Bill C-74.
Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Act


Thomas Scott Fennell: Mr. Speaker, we are in total agreement with that arrangement on the basis that we move straight ahead into Private Members' Business now.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: As it is the preogative of the Opposition Chief Whip to ask for the deferred vote, the vote will be deferred until tomorrow at six o'clock.
It being five o'clock, the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.


PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS-PUBLIC BILLS   NUCLEAR WEAPONS FREE ZONE ACT MEASURE TO ENACT
James Ross Fulton: that Bill C-214, an Act to declare Canada a nuclear weapons free zone, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I am honoured and pleased, under the new rules of the House, to have before us Bill C-214, an Act to declare Canada a nuclear weapons free zone.
The main contents of the Bill are the declaration of Canada, our territorial seas and airspace, as nuclear weapons free. It also calls for Canada, through the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark), at the earliest opportunity to move a motion calling for a world referendum on world disarmament.
The Hon. Member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin) and the former Hon. Member for The Battlefords

Meadow Lake, have had similar Bills before the House for debate. The Hon. Member for Beaches (Mr. Young), who is present for the debate this evening, has a votable motion presently before the House to declare Canada a nuclear arms free zone, to prohibit export of materials or technology for construction or deployment of nuclear arms, and to encourage cities, provinces, and states throughout the world to undertake similar action.
Many recent publications have come out, but one of the better ones, in my view, is the one by Elizabeth Woodworth, a medical historian in Victoria in my home province of British Columbia. She has put together a book called What can I do? Citizen's Strategies for Nuclear Disarmament. In one of its appendices there are a number of quotations from military professionals and statesmen about war and nuclear weapons with which 1 should like to lead in the debate.
I should like to quote first from Admiral Noel Gayler, U.S. Navy (Retired) Former Director of the National Security Agency, Commander of all U.S. Forces in the Pacific, and Deputy Director of the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff. He had the following to say:

October 20, 1987
Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Act
There is no sensible military use for any of our nuclear forces: intercontinental, theater, or tactical.
The second quote is from McGeorge Bundy, George F. Kennan, Roberts S. McNamara, and Gerard Smith, from the paper they produced called Nuclear Weapons and the Atlantic Alliance, and I quote:
It is time to realize that no one has ever succeeded in advancing any persuasive reason to believe that any use of nuclear weapons, even on the smallest scale, could reliably be expected to remain limited.
The third quote is from Chairman Leonid Brezhnev at the 26th Communist Party Congress in Moscow. He said the following:
The peoples should know the truth about the consequences, ruinous for mankind, which nuclear war would bring.
The next quote is from President Ronald Reagan in his recent Camp David address, and I quote:
A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.
The next quotation is from Rear Admiral Eugene J. Carroll, U.S. Navy (Retired) and currently Deputy Director of the Centre for Defence Information in Washington, D.C., in Nuclear War: The Search for Solutions, from the proceedings of a conference held at the University of British Columbia under the auspices of Physicians for Social Responsibility just a year ago, and I quote:
You simply can't fight with nuclear weapons, and the first lesson that we have learned as we build up these arsenals is that they serve no rational military purpose.
"-Both sides are planning, arming, and training for a nuclear war. We are on a collision course in the name of deterrence. Each side says we are building these weapons to deter nuclear war, we are preparing for a war to have peace. We are going to end up with the weapons themselves starting a war which no one wants. They are going to be uncontrollable and unmanageable in time of crisis or under events of stress, miscalculation, or accident.
1 want to comment on that quotation for a moment. Just yesterday and today we learned the impact of having massive amounts of so-called co-ordinated hardware and software in terms of the computers involved in the New York Stock Exchange, Toronto Stock Exchange, Vancouver, Hong Kong, London, and around the world.
We realize that if there is anything we can learn from that, it is not just that the stock market is a barometer but that one of the fixes which has come to be involved in that area of the world market-place is the same kind of technology which is involved throughout the world in terms of a nuclear response in a time of crisis. I think we can just hope that the same kind of thought processes which put the chips together for computers monitoring the equity market are not the same kind of thought processors that put together the response mechanisms for the computer hardware for a nuclear response.
The next quote I have is from Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States, who said:
When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. War settles nothing.
The next quote is from Dr. George F. Kennan, U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union in his speech of acceptance of the Albert Einstein Peace Prize in 1981 who said:
To my mind, the nuclear bomb is the most useless weapon ever invented. It can be employed to no rational purpose. It is not even an effective defence against itself... I question whether these devices are really weapons at all.
The next quote is from Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940-1945 and 1951-1955. He said:
The human tragedy reaches its climax in the fact that after all the exertions and sacrifices of hundreds of millions of people and the victories of the Righteous Cause we have still not found Peace or Security and that we lie in the grip of even worse perils than those we have surmounted.
The last quote is from Albert Einstein. In the final week of his life, in his last signed appeal against the development of nuclear weapons, he said:
We appeal, as human beings, to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest.
Many learned and thoughtful people have set their minds on how to deal realistically with the nuclear presence we now find on the planet. There are over 50,000 nuclear weapons, all of them larger than those which eliminated, in the blink of an eye, Nagasaki and Hiroshima. We have to become much more practical. That is why I am encouraged to see so many publications coming out, so many Canadians, physicians and people around the world regardless of nationality, rallying to a common cause to find a way to denuclearize the world through verifiable and balanced means so that the world can go on quite a different course.
There are nuclear weapons free zones by international treaties, the four key ones being the sea bed, Antarctica, outer space and Central America. Seventeen nations around the world have already self-declared, including Japan, Austria, Sweden and New Zealand most recently. Work is under way to declare the South Pacific nuclear free, and hopefully through efforts in this House, if we can manage to get enough Members mobilized on it, to get first a Canadian declaration and ultimately an international treaty to declare Canada's Arctic nuclear free.
There are 169 nuclear free zones in Canada as of June, 1987. Even in my own constituency, cities like Prince Rupert, Terrace, Kitimat, Smithers are nuclear free. Many others are trying to become nuclear free such as the Queen Charlotte Islands and other areas of the Pacific northwest. Major cities, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Toronto, Montreal, Bathurst, Lunenburg, cities and regional districts representing 59 per cent of Canadians now live in self-declared nuclear weapons free zones. The entire Province of Manitoba has recently passed a resolution before it making Manitoba a nuclear weapons free zone.
My Bill attempts to expand the zones, such as Vancouver where, for example, U.S. nuclear vessels tie up in the downtown area. That city and its councillors have declared all within their jurisdiction nuclear weapons free, but often at the
October 20, 1987

end of a rope at times rest vessels regularly armed with nuclear weapons in the middle of one of Canada's major cities.
The UN has long supported the establishment of nuclear weapons free zones as a means to bring about balanced verifiable disarmament. In 1978, the UN declared in its final report on disarmament:
The establishment of nuclear weapons free zone on the basis of arrangements arrived at among states in the region concerned constitutes an important disarmament initiative. The process of establishing such zones should be encouraged with the ultimate objective of achieving a world free of nuclear weapons.
Canada has internationally supported nuclear weapons free zones in the international theatre in 1978 and 1982. However, both Liberal and Conservative Governments have preached internationally but hidden from the issue here at home. The present war in the Persian Gulf surely reveals the importance of installing stronger mechanisms to achieve peace and to provide for nuclear weapons disarmament. The most recent silk worm missile attack of recent days against vessels carrying the American flag in Kuwaiti waters and even yesterday's bombing of Iranian oil platforms reveal the escalation in that zone.
Probably a lot of people in this House and in the country realize that over one million Iranian and Iraqi soldiers and citizens have already perished in the few short years of that conflict. Without strong leadership on the peace front this war will spread like cancer with real potential for a nuclear response.
The preposterous arguments trotted forward by the Government when this matter has been raised in the past must be taken head on. I would like to quote from one of the more recent debates where the central argument coming from the government benches is that if Canada adopted a nuclear weapons free zone resolution policy for all of Canadian territory, our obligations to our allies would be diminished. In fact, the former Minister of National Defence, the Hon. Member for Victoria (Mr. McKinnon), on August 31, 1987, as found on page 8630 of the Commons Debates, said in relation to the excellent motion by my friend, the Hon. Member for the Beaches (Mr. Young)
It would be foolhardy and dangerous for Canada to pass such a resolution.
I think we have to spend a moment and think here. We have the Secretary of State for External Affairs going to the UN and various functions around the world pushing and calling for other states to declare themselves nuclear weapons free zones, fighting for treaties for the sea bed and other areas of the globe, demanding that they declare themselves nuclear weapons free, but the key work to be done at home is put back on the shelf. Yet remarks totally unrelated to the motion and totally without any substantive logical argument are left on the record saying it would be foolhardy and dangerous to pass such a resolution. That flies in the face of two-thirds of Canada's population who have already, through various forms
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of referenda and the electoral process, declared their immediate areas, be they a city, a town, a regional district or a province, nuclear weapons free.
Canada is nuclear weapons free in the Canadian military sense. But we are linked to weapons production, and by allowing particular U.S. vessels and aircraft to use our territory for transit of these weapons we are drawn further and further into the potential for either accident or conflict.
The NATO argument is constantly trotted out, but do we hear a peep from the same government back-benchers and cabinet members about Canada withdrawing from our historic commitment to provide troops to Norway? Nothing. No major speeches are given across the country by government Members about withdrawing from that sole responsibility in NATO. They point to the New Democrats and say "Oh, they want to withdraw from NATO." What hypocrisy, Mr. Speaker. The Government has already withdrawn our key commitments and has done nothing about the threats to our sovereignty and security in the Arctic. I want to spend a few moments on that.
The Government promised, it is going on years, that there was going to be a Polar 8 ice-breaker to provide the kind of sovereignty and security so dearly required in the Canadian Arctic. I responded to the Secretary of State for External Affairs following the voyage of the Polar Sea, unasked and unwanted through Canadian territory. The Government at that time promised it was going to build the largest ice-breaker in the world. Perhaps it would be built in Vancouver, certainly on the West Coast. I suppose that is being held back for an election promise and then another one years down the road. There is something more dire in the consequences of what the Government is doing.
What we see on the international stage is the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) pursuing with vigour issues like apartheid, for which 1 congratulate him. Also we hear speeches given by Secretaries of State past and present on the need for nuclear weapons free zones and treaties around the world. What we should have on behalf of Canadians in a serious way is a declaration of the Arctic, all of the Arctic as a nuclear weapons and technology free zone. But there is no movement on that.
Instead what is the Government doing? It is proposing to acquire from France, Britain or somewhere outside of Canada, nuclear submarines. For what purpose? Not to be armed to go under the Canadian ice, to go into the Canadian North, but simply to go under the ice and monitor for surveillance purposes, to ping either American or Soviet or other submarines that we know have been lurking and operating unasked, unwanted and contrary to Canadian sovereignty within our territory.
Those who have taken a look at the implications of that policy realize quite quickly that the alternatives are far better in the interests of Canada in sovereignty and security as suggested at a meeting that I attended with people far more knowledgeable than I on military matters, security and

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sovereignty. We have the technology, in hardware, software and computer submarine monitoring devices, to place the kinds of monitoring devices that we should have had long ago in the Canadian Arctic. We have the technology to monitor the movements of any vessels in, at, near, under or around our territory in the far North. Those are the kinds of technologies that should be implemented now, even before the construction of the Polar 8, so that we will have accurate, ongoing data for the preservation of both Canadian security and of Canadian sovereignty in the area.
Rather than that, what is the Government doing? We have not heard a peep about pursuing a resolution for Canada on a nuclear weapons free zone in the Arctic, not a peep about how to move accurately and properly forward to preserve our internationally recognized legal rights in the Arctic so that if we ever have to go to the International World Court in the Hague to put our case forward for Canadian sovereignty and security, we will have the kind of accurate and formidable legal data that we should have to win such a case.
When I was debating with the Secretary of State for External Affairs on the voyage of the Polar Sea, I was listening to what the Minister had to say about how we have come to secure sovereignty in the eyes of the world throughout all of the Arctic Archipelago, throughout all of that enormous mass of land, ice and water. This Government of all Governments placed sovereignty on the backs of the Inuit people. It said that the presence for thousands and tens of thousands of years on the ice, on the land and on the water in the High Arctic, in the Canadian North, was the root at international law for our sovereignty and security on this continent in the eyes of the world. Yet the same Government has taken no substantive movement on the comprehensive or specific claims of the Inuit or of the Dene, the Metis, the Yukon Indians, the Nishga, the Haida or any other aboriginal groups in Canada.
It is truly a preposterous state of affairs when the Government secures in the eyes of the world sovereignty and security on the backs of the Inuit but takes no steps, within the context of Canada's Constitution, which recognizes and affirms aboriginal title and rights, to give them the same kind of recognition that it provides to any forest company, any mining company, any corporate entity or anyone else.
One must spend a moment reflecting on the enormity of the psychological pressure on people of all generations who reflect at any time in their lives on the implications of nuclear weaponry and the possibility of a nuclear holocaust. Just think for a moment, the cost of one Canadian tank, usually constructed outside of Canada for military purposes, would pay for 520 classrooms for 15,000 children anywhere in the Third World. The cost of one nuclear submarine would pay for the education of 16 million children in the Third World for an entire year.
There are 50,000 plus nuclear weapons in the world now. How can an individual in Canadian society or elsewhere in the world confront that? How can people logically find a way to deal with that directly and to search internally and externally for peace? It is only through individual action and, as a starting point, declarations of nuclear weapons free zones.
The $800 billion that was spent in 1987-and it is expected to be $900 billion in the coming year-on world military expenditures amounts to $1.5 million per minute. How can intelligent, understanding people in Canada or elsewhere stand idly by knowing that every single day, thousands of children in the Third World are dying of malnutrition? If even a small amount of the money going into military hardware was diverted for disease control and for providing food and education, we would have a far better and a far more peaceful world for everyone to live in.
Along with huge and growing trade deficits and debts, we have now seen the U.S. economy begin to turn upside down. Every $1 billion dollars spent on the U.S. military creates
28,000	jobs in the United States. If that were spent in the transportation industry, it would create 32,000 jobs. If it were spent on goods and services, it would be 57,000 jobs or 71,000 jobs even in Canada or the United States if spent on education.
The jobs argument about the nuclear weapons industry is often self-serving drivel. Anyone who can understand the exorbitant costs of these expenditures on regional economies has to be saddened.
This debate must be an affirmation that Canada wants to influence national and international behaviour and nuclear policy. The world can return to peace and stability but only through leadership and the pursuit of peace.


Hon. Donald J. Johnston (Saint-Henri-Westmount):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to talk about nuclear disarmament and about the suggestion made in Bill C-214 which is before us and whose purpose is to establish a nuclear-free zone in Canada.

I have to say at the outset that I have a great deal of sympathy for the position put forward by my friend who is a member of the NDP. Obviously we share with him all the concerns that he has expressed, but the question surely before the House-

-the question which Hon. Members must examine is as follows: First, is this legislative measure truly realistic? Will such a unilateral declaration as that advocated by my friend lead to unmistakably concrete results with respect to nuclear disarmament, and will such an approach prove to be a worthwhile contribution to nuclear disarmament?
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I suggest that notwithstanding the sympathy and support which I wish to offer to the spirit of this proposal, it does not meet those tests. I do not believe that a unilateral declaration of a nuclear weapons free zone as proposed is realistic. Second,
I do not believe it would be effective. Consequently, 1 do not think it would make a significant contribution to reducing or eliminating the threat of nuclear war on this planet.
That being said, 1 want to draw the attention of the House and of my hon. friend to the position of my own Party, the Liberal Party, as expressed at the November 1986 convention in a resolution which went specifically to this point. It was a resolution referred to, I believe, during an earlier debate in this House on the same subject, a resolution put forward by the association represented by my colleague, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy). A number of points were raised in that resolution but specifically it resolved that the Liberal Party of Canada move immediately to adopt a more imaginative and rigorous arms control policy which would include making Canada a nuclear weapons free zone.
1 want to emphasize at the outset that the Party to which I belong has taken that position, but as our Leader has carefully explained on numerous occasions, that must be done within the context of our international treaty obligations, specifically our obligations to NATO.
Let me say a word on definitions. What is a nuclear weapons free zone? There are many who define it in different ways, but Project Ploughshares, for example, tells us that in its view, it is a defined geographic area within which the possession, deployment, storage, transit, manufacture, testing or other support of nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons systems is prohibited.
I must say that Bill C-214 certainly seems compatible with that definition. In fact, I suggest it goes even further.
As the sponsor of the Bill pointed out, there are such nuclear weapons free zones established by treaty in four areas, namely the sea bed, outer space, Antarctica, and Latin America. In 1985, a zone was also set up in the South Pacific, but it is interesting to note that there the transit of nuclear weapons is specifically provided for. I gather that that zone was designed primarily to address the problem of nuclear testing. Indeed, the Nordic countries, Denmark, Norway and Iceland, have since 1958, I believe, tried to establish a nuclear weapons free zone in their area, so far without success. Similarly, some of the Balkan states have been trying to do this since 1959, specifically Greece, Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Turkey. Those are examples of either nuclear weapons free zones established by treaty or attempts to do so.
There are also examples of unilateral declarations, such as the proposal we have before us. Specifically, we have the example of New Zealand. You will recall that the U.S.
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response to New Zealand's position was to remove protection and apply trade sanctions.

So the question is this, Mr. Speaker: Would a unilateral declaration on Canada being a nuclear-free zone be consistent with our NATO commitments? There are many who say yes, like Project Ploughshares whose NATO definition 1 have just referred to. But there are others who say no.
Mr. Speaker, I will refrain from elaborating on the legality of such a unilateral declaration, that is within the scope of our multilateral obligations, but will this kind of gesture help achieve the goals mentioned by the NDP spokesman?

As I said before, I do not think that a unilateral declaration would meet the objectives I described at the outset which surely must be the objectives of my friend from the NDP.
That being said, there is no need to be negative when faced with this proposal. There is no need to be negative with respect to the concept of a nuclear weapons free zone for Canada. After all, as the Hon. Member pointed out, we do not have and have not had nuclear weapons ourselves for some years as a matter of policy. Surely in itself that is a statement that others should not have them either.
There is no need to review the unthinkable consequences of any kind of nuclear confrontation on this planet. The question is: Would a unilateral declaration contribute? Or would it not, on the contrary, tend to remove Canada from nuclear policy decisions at the tables of NATO? Might it not compromise our ability to influence our allies on arms control? In addition, could we enforce it? Obviously we could not. Therefore it is not practical, it is not effective, and does not meet that test which 1 set at the outset.
What would? Obviously a negotiated multilateral nuclear weapons free zone to which Canada could be a party and in which territory of Canada could be involved is of course a realistic alternative. The Arctic is a logical place to begin.
I realize my time is short but I cannot help but mention the statement made by General Secretary Gorbachev in his recent visit to Murmansk on October 6 when he entertained the possibility of a negotiated nuclear weapons free zone in the Arctic. It had been my intention to read rather extensively from his comments because I think they are quite enlightening and should make us optimistic about the possibilities of demilitarization, if one could use that term, of the Arctic area.
He makes specific reference to the nuclear weapons free zone and perhaps concessions that might be made with respect to the Soviet arms currently situated in the Kola Peninsula. I know there is a certain amount of skepticism that one could effectively have a nuclear weapons free zone in the Arctic given the present significance of the Kola Peninsula for Soviet military purposes. Nonetheless, why not give it a chance? Why not find out? Who could object to a verifiable, enforceable

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nuclear weapons free zone established by treaty to which the superpowers would be parties? That would be an effective way of making a significant contribution to nuclear disarmament. Surely that is the direction in which we should be moving.
In closing, the proposal in Bill C-214 is not realistic. It will not make a significant contribution to nuclear disarmament. However, the concept of a nuclear weapons free zone within the parameters 1 have described is something that indeed some day we may attain. That day may be sooner rather than later.


Mrs. Anne Blouin (Montmorency-Orleans):: Mr. Speaker, this bill reflects a concern that, as the Government is well aware, is on the minds of many Canadians. I refer to the role of nuclear weapons in preserving collective security and Canada's own responsibilities in that regard. Given the awesome destructive power of nuclear weapons, it is understandable that Canadians who reflect seriously on national and international security issues should be especially attentive to their Government's policies in this area.
First of all, I would like to emphasize that Canadian policy and practice are in many respects already in conformity with the provisions of Bill C-214. Canada does not possess nuclear weapons.
In normal peacetime conditions, no nuclear weapons are deployed, tested or constructed within Canada nor transported through Canada. Nor could such nuclear-weapons related activities occur on Canadian territory or under Canadian jurisdiction without the express consent of the Canadian Government.
I would remind the House that Canada's situation in this regard is very different from that of a number of our NATO allies who accept the stationing of nuclear weapons on their territory. As for Canadian exports, it is firm Canadian policy that all exports of nuclear material, equipment and technology shall be for peaceful, non-explosive purposes only.
This policy is strictly implemented through bilateral agreements and with the cooperation of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Secondly, Mr. Speaker, 1 would like to make it clear that the Government is in principle sympathetic to the broad concept of nuclear-weapon-free zones until such time as the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which Canada strongly supports, achieves close to universal international adherence. Meanwhile, the establishment of such zones can make a contribution to the objective of preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. However, to be effective a nuclear-weapon-free zone must in our judgement fully meet the following criteria: apply to a well-defined region; have the support of the countries of the region; and, most importantly, promote regional and international stability.
From what 1 have said so far, Mr. Speaker, it should be apparent that the Government's approach is a pragmatic one. Our central concern is to ensure that in current and foreseeable circumstances our policies contribute to national security and international stability.
Canada's national security policy is based on the twin pillars of collective defence and arms control and disarmament. This Government's commitment to collective defence is exemplified in Canada's membership in NATO and NORAD. The primary role of the Alliance is to safeguard the security of member nations by deterring aggression. This Government believes, as do other NATO Governments, that the nuclear deterrence strategy of the Alliance has been a critically important element in maintaining peace in the East-West context for over 40 years. Canada has voluntarily shouldered the obligation to contribute to the capability of the Alliance to implement its strategy of deterrence. As I have mentioned, this has involved a less onerous burden for us than for several other Alliance members who have accepted the deployment of nuclear weapons on their territory. It would neither be consistent with our Alliance membership, nor with our own security interest, for Canada as a matter of principle to attempt to dissociate itself from any or all aspects of the nuclear deterrence strategy. This will remain an essential element of our collective defence until there is much greater progress in reducing levels of armaments, particularly strategic nuclear weapons, and in building a more secure world.
The second central pillar of our national security policy is arms control and disarmament. The Canadian Government, like other Alliance members, recognizes the desirability of moving toward reduced reliance on nuclear weapons. The fact that the USA and USSR are close to successfully concluding an agreement that will totally eliminate the whole category of intermediate-range nuclear weapons on a global basis is a significant milestone in the arms control process. These negotiations began as a result of an Alliance initiative. The progress in the negotiations has in no small measure been due to the ability of the Alliance to maintain a consistent, coordinated approach. The Alliance is similarly providing strong support for the efforts of the two superpowers to negotiate major reductions in their strategic nuclear arsenals. As we move toward a less nuclear world, the conventional balance of forces gains in importance. In this area too. Alliance members are coordinating their efforts to bring about negotiations with the objective of maintaining security through balanced reductions of armaments.
Canada has been able to make a serious and constructive input to these important arms control negotiating efforts, in which we have a direct interest, because of our presence at the table as an Alliance member. Without that membership card, Canada would be relegated to the spectators' gallery. Even in multilateral arms control forums, much of Canada's credibility and capacity for influence derives from our Alliance membership, which signals to others our level of knowledge about and direct involvement in the activities of key deliberative forums.
October 20, 1987

To the extent that we decline to assume our share of the collective defence burden, Canada's ability to influence events as an Alliance member would be diminished.
The question must be asked, Mr. Speaker, what would really be achieved by passing this Bill?
In many respects, as 1 have noted, nothing would change. Canada would remain a country without nuclear weapons and with no direct involvement in the manufacture and maintenance of nuclear arsenals. However, by signalling a righteous desire to dissociate ourselves from key aspects of the collective defence strategy of the Alliance, Canada's credibility and influence with our traditional European partners, not to mention the United States, would be significantly diminished. Our own security would certainly not be enhanced and could in fact be compromised. It would, in sum, be a worse than futile gesture which ignores the realities of today's interdependent world. This interdependence is just as real in the area of national security as in other areas.
Finally, this Bill provides that the Secretary of State for External Affairs should request the United Nations to hold a world referendum on nuclear disarmament. Mr. Speaker, in resurrecting this old chestnut, the Honourable Member is not helping to advance the arms control and disarmament process. Although a global expression in favour of nuclear disarmament would be fine in itself, it would not be a substitute for the negotiation of effective international arms control agreements. The call for a referendum fails to recognize that meaningful progress in reducing levels of nuclear weapons must be the product of negotiations among governments. There are no short-cuts or substitutes for the negotiating process.
Even if such a referendum were to be held, it is not clear how the results should be interpreted in view of the global diversity of political systems and approaches to freedom of expression.
Furthermore, practical considerations, such as the enormous expenses associated with such an undertaking at a time when the United Nations is attempting to avert financial crisis, would present a serious constraint.
To sum up, Mr. Speaker, when comparing the uncertain benefits with the staggering costs, the utility of such a referendum is highly doubtful. Mr. Speaker, for all these reasons, 1 would strongly urge my colleagues on both sides of this House to vote against Bill C-214.


Gabriel Fontaine: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to speak to Bill C-214, an Act to declare Canada a nuclear weapons free zone. This Bill deals with a very fundamental issue to which no Canadian is indifferent, which is the role of nuclear deterrence in Canada's defence and security and in maintaining peace.
Canada has no nuclear arms and does not intend to purchase any. It has signed treaties guaranteeing the non-proliferation and prohibition of nuclear testing; furthermore, unlike most of
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its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, it neither stores nor deploys nuclear arms on its territory. According to the terms of the Bill, Canada is technically a nuclear weapons free zone in peace time. However, because of its geographic location, Canada must live with the threat of a nuclear holocaust which, in a conflict between the two superpowers, would make short thrift of neutrality and spare no one. There are only two ways to avert this threat: by maintaining a credible force to deter potential aggressors and through negotiation.
Canadians know that strategic deterrence is provided under NATO's collective security plan, and that we, for our defence, have to count on the nuclear forces of our allies. Today, the mutual deterrence system is effective and stable. Despite some of the worst crises, it has given us more than forty years of peace, and the Government believes this should continue. In this perspective, the Canadian Government's priority is not to create nuclear weapons free zones but to maintain peace zones.
As part of this common effort, since we count on our allies and they count on us to deter a potential adversary, we are in favour of developing and maintaining nuclear forces with the potential for survival that is necessary for an effective and credible deterrence system.
So, Mr. Speaker, even if Canada does not have and does not deploy nuclear arms, it contributes to strategic dissuasion.
Our role and our mandate are clear and have their roots in our geography and history. We must continue to ensure the aerospatial defence of North America, which we are doing through our defence effort and our association with NORAD. We must protect NATO strategic forces by forbidding access to our air space, our territory and our territorial waters to any potential aggressor. And Mr. Speaker, this is the real purpose of the defence program of the Government. Last, we must put our territory and our facilities to the disposal of our allies if required.
We fulfill those obligations and those collective security tasks in the full respect of our sovereignty and our integrity. In peace time we cooperate in the training and development of the dissuasion force. In time of crisis, Canada could authorize the strategic force components to fly over its territory and use its facilities.
It is essential and in keeping with our policy and our commitments that our air space and fire ranges continue to be used for the testing and development of non-armed components, that our Armed Forces train with the Atlantic Alliance Forces and that the dissuasion force ships visit our harbours.
It is not a threat for our country but it is part and parcel of its security and its commitment to peace.
A commitment to peace which results in a sustained negociation effort toward arms control and disarmament. These negotiations are unprecedented because of their duration and intensity, and they are contributing to the dialogue between East and West. Our presence at these

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negotiations and our ability to influence how they are carried out and what results are achieved can also be attributed to our membership in the Atlantic Alliance. Because of our defence effort and of our role in collective defence, Canada is a valid and credible participant which can and does take certain initiatives.
Mr. Speaker, I do not believe that the best way for us to contribute to world peace and security would be to break away from NATO or to weaken the deterrent strength of the Alliance. As abhorrent as might seem the use of nuclear weapons to ensure our defence, their presence is essential to counterbalance the Soviet arsenals. To renounce to these weapons would be a violation of our commitments, but it would also disturb the balance which is essential to maintain world peace.
Mr. Speaker, when I read the proposal of the socialist Member, I am tempted to ask him certain questions about his philosophy for peace and the general ideas of his socialist party for the protection of our western civilization, North America and Canada. 1 would like to know what his party would suggest as an alternative solution if Canada were to break off its association with NATO as his socialist colleagues have proposed. I find it strange that Canada would be asked to disassociate itself from a very credible international defence force while other members of the same party have asked that war be waged in certain countries. It is true that, since this request was officially made by certain socialist members, their leader decided to demote to the rear rows those who had been responsible for these initiatives, which were to say the least bellicose on the part of people who would like to eliminate nuclear weapons.
It would be better if the members of the socialist party agreed on a way to protect Canadians. If they prefer the protection of the Soviet Union, they should not be living in this country. They should move elsewhere, along with their colleagues. This is why, Mr. Speaker, I oppose the motion of the socialist member because I am happy to live in a free country in North America where citizens are free and prosperous, and it is in fact because of this prosperity that these socialists can become parasites of our western civilization.


Mr. Clement M. Cote (Lac-Saint-Jean):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on this motion after the excellent speech made by our colleague for Levis who to some extent gave our Socialist friends a good dressing-down. Our Socialist friends, Mr. Speaker, take every possible opportunity to try to scare Canadians. Fortunately, Mr. Speaker, Canadians do not take them that seriously come election time. But, of course, Canadians being what they are, and having a great sense of compassion, will make them comfortable in-between by giving them a feeling of popularity in the Gallup polls.
Mr. Speaker ...


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I have watched two government Members read typed speeches into the record. The Hon. Member speaking now does not seem to have the vaguest idea of what the debate is about. Perhaps the rules of relevance might be applied to him.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Lac-Saint-Jean (Mr. Cote) may go on with his comments.


Mr. Tremblay (Lotbiniere):: Mr. Speaker, he does not even understand French, he does not know what he is talking about, come now! How stupid, really! Go and learn French and then you may come back! Come now!


Clément M. Côté: Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out to the Hon. Member opposite that yesterday was my birthday and last night since on this side we still have friends, someone was kind enough to give me this lovely pen I now have in my hand. So a while ago as I was listening to the speeches, 1 did a little doodling to try out my new pen and I jotted down a few comments here. So, if the Hon. Member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton) finds that irritating, he may do as his colleagues do, if he so wishes, either keep his earphone to listen to the translation or go to sleep. He may do as he pleases, Mr. Speaker, he will not stop me from saying what I have to say, from playing with my notes or read from them, if I so choose, or from discussing this motion which, as usual, does not bring about anything new. Of course, the motion reflects a concern shared by all Canadians, but we should not overlook the fact that nuclear weapons play a collective security-keeping role. We must also keep in mind that Canada has no nuclear weapons of its own. Neither does Canada build them and, as opposed to several of its NATO allies, it keeps no nuclear arsenal on its territory.
But as the Hon. Member for Levis said earlier, contrary to the Socialists who would like our country to withdraw from NATO, we say that Canada should remain part of it. We said it in so many words and, because we are a responsible government, we have every intention to meet our commitments.
Clearly, Mr. Speaker, when people are not in government or are very unlikely ever to be in government, they can express all sorts of ideas, implying that there is in Canada a Department of Defence which should be called a Department of War, that the monies which are used to protect this country which we, and all other Canadians, love, could be used for something else. Of course, after a big meal, if you ate too much, you may think that the money you spent on lunch might have better been used to buy medicines, and so on. Yes, Mr. Spaker, it is easy to say anything you want when you are certain you will never be in government.
But I would like to stress, Mr. Speaker, that our Government is open in principle to the general concept of nuclear weapons free zones. The establishment of such zones may be a
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positive factor when most countries of a region agree to it and when it can promote regional and international stability.
Canada supported several U.N. resolutions calling for the creation of nuclear weapons free zones. This is what 1 wanted to say when I was taking notes earlier. There is nothing new in the Hon. Member's proposal.
I want to point out to my friend opposite-but he is not listening, of course-that the few zones that were officially established do not necessarily call for an absolute ban like this motion does. For example, the South Pacific nuclear weapons free zone, which was welcomed by Canada last year, does provide for the transit of ships that may carry nuclear weapons. It shows very well that in the few regions where nuclear weapons free zones have been created, the measures taken are adjusted to the strategic reality and the particular interests of the countries involved.
Mr. Speaker, all of what 1 just said shows that the approach chosen by the Governement is obviously one of pragmatism. We want to make sure that, in the present and foreseeable circumstances, our policies will contribute to our national security and to international stability.
Our collective defence is one of the main tenets in the national security policy of this Government as is evidenced by our participation in NATO and NORAD, which 1 mentioned a moment ago.
The first role of the Alliance is to preserve the security of member nations by deterring every form of aggression. Our Government, like all others within NATO, is convinced that the strategy of nuclear deterrence has played, for the last 40 years, a very important role in maintaining peace between East and West. Canada, Mr. Speaker, has agreed on its own free will to contribute to the Alliance and its capacity to enforce its strategy of deterrence even though, as 1 mentioned, our burden has been lighter than the one of other members.
It would not make sense for Canada, considering that we are a member of the Alliance and that we have specific security interests, to dissociate itself from some or all aspects of the strategy of nuclear deterrence, as is the desire of our colleagues opposite.
As it happens, this strategy is still one of the key factors of our collective defence effort until such time as we make significant progress towards arms control. Arms control and disarmament make up the second mainstay of our national security policy. Echoing the position taken by other NATO member countries, the Canadian Government acknowledges that decreasing dependence on nuclear weapons is a commendable objective.
Mr. Speaker, I see that my time is up. 1 would have liked to pursue this line of thought to indicate that the motion is of no use and that my colleague was prompted only by political considerations when he introduced it.
Adjournment Debate
S)


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The hour for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired. Pursuant to Standing Order 42(1), the order is dropped from the Order Paper.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Gabriel Fontaine: Mr. Speaker, on September 25, 1987 I asked a question to the Minister of Finance as he was getting ready to go to Washington to meet with G-7 representatives to discuss progress made in IMF initiatives. If there had been time for a supplementary, I would have ask the Minister to inform the House how he was also informally involved in a dossier that was very much in the news, and I am referring to the free trade talks with our American neighbours. Going back in time, this dossier represents nearly two years of intensive work by Ambassador Reisman's representatives, Cabinet Ministers and particularly the Minister for International Trade (Ms. Carney), with the co-operation of various provinces, including the Province of Quebec, all of whom worked very hard to bring about a historic agreement with United States, an agreement that-
Mr. Speaker, in Canada today, some people keep saying we have between 8 and 9 p. cent unemployment. I keep saying that in Canada, between 91 and 92 people out of 100 are employed. Ninety-one members of the labour force employed in Canada that is not bad. It means a total of twelve million Canadians are employed. Those twelve million Canadians are responsible for a total annual production, a Gross National Product of $500 billion. On top of those $500 billion, our Canadian entrepreneurs and business people have developed export markets worth one-quarter of that amount: $125 billion annually. This means that in Canada, one out of four people in the labour force is working for our export markets.
Mr. Speaker, that is why my Government and our negotiating team want to maintain and expand access to this market in the United States.
Out of a total of $125 billion exported by Canada abroad, our present exports to United States, thanks to expanding marketing networks and the efforts of Canadians, are worth $95 billion annually. This means one job out of five. In recent months, Canadians have experienced some problems with the United States, including our exports of lumber, pork carcasses, cedar shingles, smoked fish, and so forth. The main purpose of

October 20, 1987
Adjournment Debate
our negotiations with our American neighbours and customers is to maintain that one job out of every four in this country. And I say that whatever the Socialists may care to think, with their useless and partisan association with coalitions that are against free trade and in favour of losing that one job out of four. When the Socialists get together with our coalitions, our so-called defenders of the Canadian people, it all rings false. They only want to deprive us of this American market. It does not make sense. They want one Canadian out of four to lose his job exporting goods abroad. Mr. Speaker, Canadians ought to know that the Socialists are using scare tactics to spread fear among Canadians by greatly exaggerating the drawbacks of free trade, while the purpose of free trade, and this we intend to achieve, is to preserve that one job out of four in Canada.
Fellow Canadians, ask your socialist neighbours-there are still a few-ask them how they would have managed to create that one job out of four if we had been unsuccessful in our free trade negotiations.
Mr. Speaker, I hope the spokesman for the Minister of Finance, the Parliamentary Secretary, will help me enlighten Canadians even more, particularly the residents of my riding, concerning this important issue, which is to keep the American market open to our good Canadian manufacturers despite the socialists who are intent on keeping Canadians in poverty.


Benno Friesen: Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment the Hon. Member for Levis (Mr. Fontaine) on his question and on the remarks he has made. At the outset, I would agree with him that the socialist Party certainly is a Party of apostles of fear. They fear any change. They look for the status quo. They can build only on the past and what the past has shown them. Because they think that way, they cannot anticipate any new changes which might produce something new or some new patterns.
People wonder why a free trade deal is good for Canada. The answer is very simple. It will create business for Canada and, if it creates business, it will create jobs for Canadians.
As my friend knows, the Economic Council of Canada has suggested that there might be a quarter or a third of a million jobs created as a result of this free trade deal. Why and how can we imagine that that would happen? It is very simple. It is a matter of numbers. Canada is made up of 25 million people. The United States has 10 times that many. It is the largest single market in the world.
Why should Canada not have free access to the single largest market? At present, Canadian companies service 25 million people. Why should they not service 275 million people? The simple mathematics are that if they can manufacture for 275 million people rather than for 25 million people,
they can increase the size of their plants, their companies, their assembly lines.
This means that to do that they will have to hire people. If they can manufacture tires, generators, light bulbs, or any other commodity to service 275 million people, including the entire U.S. market, why should they not be able to do that?
The fact is that there is no such thing as a status quo in the world market. The unions and the socialists may want to stay where we are, but there is no staying where we are because the rest of the world is going to compete, and somebody is going to get that quarter of a billion people for a market. It may as well be Canadians rather than the rest of the world.
Why should not Canadian business people take advantage of that large market? Why should not consumers benefit from the added variety of product which would be available to them?
I want to add to my comments a quotation from Peter Cook in an edition of The Globe and Mail of last week headlined "Protecting Canada from the worst of enemies". There are those who say that we will be swallowed up by the United States. Let me read what Peter Cook says:
The critics, in their negative way, contend that getting closer to the United States is a desperately dangerous exercise. It has not been dangerous for Ireland with Britain, or Denmark with West Germany, or New Zealand with Australia. And, as of this moment, tiny countries such as Malta and Cyprus arc clamouring to get inside the EC.
To swallow the arguments of the "antis" is to say that what is good for the rest of the world is somehow bad for Canada.
All of the little countries that are in marketing systems like this have benefited. Even though they are small countries next to large countries, they have benefited. Why should Canada not get the benefit of having a large market at its disposal and let Canadian business thrive?
PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY-PROFITS OF DRUG MANUFACTURING COMPANIES/RESEARCH WORK-REQUEST FOR INCLUSION OF GUARANTEES IN LEGISLATION


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, on August 20, 1987 I posed a question to the Right Hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) with regard to the profits of drug manufacturing companies. In my question I noted that from 1968 to 1982 pharmaceutical companies in Canada made some very healthy and substantial profits. This was recently confirmed in the report which was made available by Dr. Eastman, who studied the pharmaceutical industry. In particular, he looked at the profit margins of companies operating as a result of the passage of amendments to the Patent Act, namely, compulsory licensing.
It was very clear from the evidence used by Dr. Eastman that those companies, notwithstanding their serious objections to compulsory licensing, made substantial profits. In fact, their profits were so substantial that they led the manufacturing sector in terms of percentage. At the present time, the profits
October 20, 1987

are higher than those in Japan, Germany, Britain, France and Switzerland. What is perhaps even more appalling with regard to Bill C-22 is that not only will it provide additional profit to companies that are already profitable, but it will take much needed money from those Canadians who need it most.
It should be very clear that who will be paying the higher drug prices in this country will be the provincial Governments-yes, provincial Governments right across this land- and individuals who are not covered by drug programs. Inevitably this comes to the Canadian consumer who will pay the lion's share of the additional profits which will go to multinational corporations as a result of the passage of Bill C-22.
It should be understood that no one argues against profits or the private sector making a reasonable profit. No one should argue against that. I think there is an argument to be made that if one receives reasonable profits and those profits are extended without any guarantees for research and development, for protection of the Canadian consumer and to create jobs, and guarantees of jobs then bad public policy is contained in Bill C-22.
It was adduced at committee, debated in the House and it is very clear that multinational corporations and the national Conservative Government believe strongly in their case that new jobs will be created and thousands upon thousands of new dollars will be funneled into research and development in our pharmaceutical industry. Surely the Government ought to ask those companies in whom it is placing its faith to put up a performance bond as a bare minimum in order to meet the objectives which it has set. Unfortunately, the Government has chosen another route, which is not to seek public guarantees for research and development, for the protection of the Canadian consumer or to create thousands of new jobs. We all hope that would result from any piece of legislation which would be passed by this Parliament.
I have grave difficulties with the answers that we have been receiving to date, and even in Oral Question Period there have been no guarantees whatsoever. It all comes back to profits and who is paying for those profits for multinational corporations. It is done through a number of auspices including provincial Governments and drug plans of another sort, but it is the Canadian consumer who will pay more for drugs.
I think that it is a shame. In fact, six provincial Governments have expressed serious reservations about Bill C-22. Thousands upon thousands of Canadians and organizations of senior citizens and veterans and even the United Church have opposed Bill C-22 for the very serious effects it will have on Canadians, and particularly for the costs that it will impose on Canadians, costs which will drive up the profits of a select few when many, many Canadians do not have the necessary finances to pay for their drugs.
Adjournment Debate


Benno Friesen: Mr. Speaker, I hope my friend from Nova Scotia who has just spoken had the agreement of his colleague, the Hon. Member for Laurier (Mr. Berger), who represents a Montreal riding, with the points of view he has just expressed. I suspect that some of the people of Montreal might disagree with some of the comments made by my friend from Cape Breton.
I would like to correct the emphasis that has been placed on Bill C-22. First, my friend has focused on the word "profits" as though somehow that were wrong. I wonder if he would be able to explain how it is that polio has been eradicated from the Canadian scene by a little discovery known as the Salk vaccine. Did that come about through some kind of magic? Surely my friend will agree that if the pharmaceutical industry is to carry on its research to provide better health for Canadians, it will have to make some profits.
The Hon. Member is rightly concerned that if there are profits, they should be spent in Canada on R and D. That is exactly what will happen. Under the present system which his Government introduced some years ago, only about 5 per cent of sales have been used for R and D in Canada. That will increase to 10 per cent in the years ahead. R and D will be done in Canada in order to provide better health care for Canadians.
If we are to provide better health care and if we are to provide research in Canada, we have to keep Canadian brains in Canada. If we do not have an incentive system within the research industry, that brilliance will go somewhere else, as it already has. Too many of our research scientists have gone south of the border and have helped the industries in the United States.
The Bill is about jobs in Canada. With the increased spending of up to 10 per cent of sales in Canada on R and D,
3,000	new jobs will be created in the immediate future. I would hope that my friend would agree that that is a good thing for Canada and that it is good for the health of Canadians.
To answer shortly, Bill C-22 is first not a Bill about profits but a Bill about health and about the improved health of Canadians. Second, it is a Bill about research and development and therefore it is a Bill about jobs in Canada. As I said, 3,000 jobs will be created here.
Dollars will be spent in Canada and profits will be kept in Canada. This legislation puts the health of Canadians first.
Third, and the Member knows this very well, there is built into the law protection for Canadians against what might be construed as unreasonable profits or profits that escalate too rapidly. The review system will study the profit pictures of pharmaceutical companies and make certain that they include

October 20, 1987
Adjournment Debate
the necessary increase of research in Canada that will provide better health for Canadians.


STATUS OF WOMEN-REPORT ON BATTERED WOMEN-LACK OF SPACE IN TRANSITION HOUSES
Mr. Alan Redway (York East):: Mr. Speaker, as a lawyer who has practised a good deal of family law I have listened to many, many stories about family violence and wife abuse, including a number involving attempted murder. When I had the opportunity to read the report sponsored by the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women written by a sociologist, Linda McCloud, entitled "Battered but not Beaten: Preventing Wife Battering in Canada", the story it told did not come as something new out of the blue. In fact, I served for some six years as a member of the Community and Social Services Committee in Metropolitan Toronto, and we dealt with the establishment of something called the Domestic Response Team. As a result of the problems flowing from family violence and wife beating, we established on an experimental basis a team approach in responding to such calls. It was made up of two police officers and a social worker. The police officers of course went to deal with the violence and the social worker went to deal with the counselling aspect. That program grew from an experimental approach into one that now covers all of Metropolitan Toronto.
As a result of that experience and my experiences as a lawyer, I certainly am familiar with the problems set out in that report. At the same time, that has not prevented me from being shocked by the fact that the report spells out that there is something like a million women each year who suffer from family violence and abuse. It has not prevented me from being shocked by specific examples set out in that report or by the fact there is such a lack of shelter for women in situations of this sort.
I do not know whether you or the Parliamentary Secretary have ever had the opportunity to visit a shelter or hostel. I have not had the opportunity to visit one for women but I have had the opportunity to visit one for men. In fact, I headed a task force that looked into one of the major men's hostels in Metropolitan Toronto, Seaton House, a few years ago. We found that while these facilities provided clean surroundings, hot meals, hot showers and other things which are obviously welcome to anyone in need, at the same time they are not the sort of places that you and I or our families would enjoy spending a night or week in. They are a communal-type of living experience where everyone there, including you, has problems, some more severe than others. As a result, although a person who has suffered from family violence obviously is looking for some shelter in some transition house, these kinds of facilities are not the kind that you and I would really want to go to, notwithstanding the fact we may need to if we do not have a family or friends that will take us in.
If a woman and her children are victims of family violence and have to go to a facility like this, that is bad enough. However, according to the report, one of every two women who attempt to go to a shelter or transition house facility have to be turned away because there are not enough facilities available. That is more than just disturbing, it is extremely shocking, particularly in this International Year of Shelter for the Homeless.
In his answer to my question in the House, the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Epp) indicated that since the Government came to power in 1984 there has been a very substantial increase in the number of shelters available for women who have been abused. That is admirable. In fact, the Minister pointed out that of the approximately 265 shelters which now exist about 100 are cost-shared between the federal and provincial governments.
However, the Minister also said that there is some distance to go. It is obvious that when one out of two women is turned away from a shelter there is some distance to go. Canadians are looking to the Government for word that we will close this distance and eliminate it altogether.
I know that the Parliamentary Secretary is a very humane man and has a social conscience as has his cousin, Mr. Colin Friesen, who is a neighbour of mine. He also has a very strong social conscience and is looking to the Parliamentary Secretary for an answer tonight as am I and other Canadians. We are looking for some concrete evidence that the Government intends to close this gap very quickly to ensure that shelters are available for women and families in need of them.


Benno Friesen: Mr. Speaker, 1 want to thank my colleague for raising this matter which weighs on the hearts and minds of many Canadians. It first developed national prominence when it was brought to the attention of the House by our colleague, the Member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Howie) of New Brunswick during Private Members' Hour. It went to committee and a report on battered women was tabled in the House on the subject. I want to compliment my friend, the Member for York East (Mr. Redway), for the work he is doing in sensitizing the public to this issue as well as complimenting our colleague from York-Sunbury who raised the issue five or six years ago for the same purpose.
This subject is recognized by an increasing number of people. It is a societal issue. Transition homes are needed to an increasing degree to help these people.
The matter of providing financial support, shelter, and social services to battered women and their children falls under the jurisdiction of the individual provinces and the territories. The federal Government, through the Canada Assistance Plan, assists Canadians by sharing in costs to provinces and territories for providing financial assistance and social services to persons who meet the eligibility requirements. The province,
October 20, 1987

on the other hand, assumes responsibility for determining eligibility and deciding on the amount or type and extent of social services that are to be provided within the province or territory.
The Canada Assistance Plan shares in the costs incurred by provinces and municipalities for operating transition homes for battered women and their children. The care and social services provided to the residents are shared as assistance costs on behalf of persons in need based on the applications of the needs test. Federal funding is not limited to any predetermined amount and is available to all provinces and territories.
In 1987 CAP shared on behalf of women in need and their children in approximately 130 transition and crisis centres across the country. It is estimated that 265 centres currently provide emergency shelter to women and their children. In addition, the plan provided sharing in provincial costs for counselling, day care, rehabilitation and a wide range of other social services benefiting victims of violence.
Some time ago, Canada Assistance Plan policy was changed to accept the use of an abbreviated needs test in emergency situations for determining eligibility in relation to short term care. This gives provinces and territories the flexibility to simplify their admission policies and provide emergency shelter in crisis situations without losing cost sharing.
Adjournment Debate
It is also important to note that National Health and Welfare through the Family Violence Prevention Division, is concerned that a comprehensive approach to education and prevention of wife assault has to be firmly promoted. The Family Violence Prevention Division provides the necessary liaison and co-ordination of activities, clarifies issues and provides general information. This general information is provided mainly through the National Clearing House on Family Violence. Provincial involvement is necessary if the incidents of wife battering and violence in general within the family is to be reduced.
May 1 add, for my hon. friend, that if there are a million women who are battered each year, there are a million men who are sick and need treatment. Women need shelter and there is an increasing need for role modeling that is healthy, supportive and constructive within the family, and that will deal with this issue. While shelter is important and we must provide it for these distressed families, there must be a cure for these people who are sick and need to Find a different way of handling their problems rather than battering wives.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 3(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.37 p.m.
[Stage Direction]

Wednesday, October 21, 1987
[Stage Direction]
Prayers