1987-04-03

Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, today I should like to speak on behalf of some of my constituents who have expressed concern about the inordinate amount of time it takes to obtain Canadian citizenship.
I am told that under normal circumstances the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or the Canadian Security Intelligence Service need three months to file an investigation report.
This sounds like a long delay, but in some cases the authorities do need time to do their work. Well, Mr. Speaker, it would seem that of late these delays have been as long as eight months, and this is unacceptable.
For example, Mr. Georges Tymowski wrote to me recently to inform me that, although he signed his application on June 16, 1986, he is still waiting for the results of the security investigation to complete the process. Mr. Ahmad Awale is another applicant who has been waiting for a long time for the completion of the investigation.
This is an unacceptable situation, Mr. Speaker, because it is prejudicial to people who need access to certain Government services such as passports.
I hope the Government is aware of the problem and will take every measure required to redress the situation.


FORESTRY
Mr. Ted Schellenberg (Nanaimo-Alberni):: Mr. Speaker, almost half the Members in this House represent ridings whose economies are dependent on the forest industry. To a great extent our nation's future is tied to the future of our forests.
Professor Les Reed and others at the University of British Columbia are discussing putting together a new facility called the Western Forests Science Centre.
Such a world-class facility would involve the forest industry, academics, and Government. It would greatly enhance the capability of the UBC forest faculty to teach and to attract the very best post-graduate students and visiting scholars.
More than that, Mr. Speaker, it would give the forest community in British Columbia a tremendous psychological shot in the arm.
And where would the funding for the Western Forests Science Centre come from? The recently imposed export tax, of course. Only 5 per cent of the funds the Province of British Columbia will receive this year alone would be required.
To paraphrase the poet:
I think that I shall never see A poem, lovely as a tree . . .
But more than that, 1 hope there'll be,
A Forest Science Centre, at UBC!


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Jim Manly (Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, as Canada focuses on its relationship with the United States during the visit of President Reagan, I want to draw attention to Canada's use of non-union labour in the construction of the new Canadian Embassy in Washington.
The Embassy is being built by union contractors except for three crafts, one of which is the sheet metal workers, who are

April 3, 1987
being paid substandard wages, with no health or other benefits.
Because many of these workers lack experience and training, there is concern that some of their work will not pass inspection, and that safety and health problems will result.
Since December of last year union officials have tried to meet with our Ambassador to discuss the problem. While the Embassy has agreed in principle to such a meeting, it has never set the time or the place.
I urge the Government to instruct our Ambassador to arrange this meeting in the near future so that the problem can be resolved.
We need to have good relations not only with American officials but also with the American people, including working people.

[ Translation]


OFFICIAL LANGUAGES
Mrs. Suzanne Duplessis (Louis-Hebert):: Mr. Speaker, this week, the Commissionner of Official Languages has submitted his report for 1986.
As a French speaking Member of Parliament, 1 am sensitive to the Canadian language problem and I am very pleased to commend the Committee on Official Languages for the excellent work done under the chairmanship of the Hon. Member for Charlevoix. 1 commend Members of that Committee for their tremendous work.
However, much remains to be done and this is why 1 very much look forward to the tabling of the Official Languages Bill, which will have to reflect this country's linguistic duality and clearly state our commitment to French-speaking and English-speaking minorities in Canada.


SHIPBUILDING
Mr. George Henderson (Egmont):: Mr. Speaker, the Government's current standing in the polls is no accident.
During the 1984 election campaign the Tories made many promises which they have since broken.
Nowhere is this record more horrendous than in its treatment of the Canadian shipbuilding industry.
In fact the Conservatives have not only broken their promises, they have slashed the shipbuilding industry assistance program, and they have slashed the performance improvement grants just when these programs were most needed.
The situation is even worse for shipyards in Atlantic Canada. In my province there is the Georgetown shipyard. The future of its workers is not solely a provincial responsibility as some would suggest. At a recent meeting the Council of Maritime Premiers expressed their impatience with the federal Government which has turned a blind eye toward Atlantic Canada. I call upon the Government to get off its seat and take some action.


AIR SAFETY
Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Mr. Speaker, since its inception in 1984, the Canadian Aviation Safety Board, through its independent investigation of accidents and its recommendations, has done much to advance air safety in Canada.
Canadian aviation activity is very high with 26,000 civil aircraft and 1,300 licensed airports handling annually some 54 million passengers. In 1986 there were 495 aircraft accidents in Canada, 73 of which involved fatalities.
The recent annual report of the board shows a favourable continuing downward trend in the accident rate, but unfortunately accident survivability remains unchanged.
Let us encourage the board in its important work of making air travel in Canada even safer than is presently the case.


NATIONAL PARKS
Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, many Canadians think that a settlement has been reached between the Haida people, the federal Government, and Victoria regarding Lyell Island, Windy Bay, and a National Parks reserve in South Moresby.
Despite a declared six-week moratorium on logging permits on Lyell Island, logging continues right down into the area sought for a national park. Last month the Hon. Member for Okanagan-Similkameen (Mr. King) had a letter published in British Columbia which falsely claimed that the B.C. Tory caucus was "unanimous in its support of the western forest products solution". That Tory Member forgets that at least
April 3, 1987

five Tory MPs do not hold that view, including yourself, Mr. Speaker.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) met with the B.C. Premier recently and obtained his support for an early settlement of the boundaries for the park reserve, including all of Lyell. Next week the federal and provincial Ministers of the Environment meet to finalize the boundaries and move forward with compensation and economic development projects for the park, Sandspit, and the islands generally.
However, just hours before a settlement we discover that there are secret plans to go ahead and log Windy Bay, other parts of Lyell Island, and the small islands to the north and west of Lyell. Canadians were led to believe that all of Lyell would be included. We are sadly learning otherwise.
Mir. Speaker: I must say that all Hon. Members know that the matter raised by the Hon. Member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton) is of course a very serious one about which many people have very strong views.
However, I would ask Hon. Members when they make statements not to refer in one way or another to what they may think the view of the Speaker may be on any particular matter. I would ask for that courtesy.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


CHILD CARE
Mr. Bill Gottselig (Moose Jaw):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today in defence of the traditional Canadian family, the family which many Members opposite have said is like the dinosaur- extinct. I refer, of course, to the recent statements pertaining to the issue of child care, statements that only 16 per cent of families are traditional, by which it is taken to mean that only one parent goes to work and the other parent stays at home to care for the children.
I do not know from where Hon. Members have obtained their information. However, I would point out that the figure obviously does not relate to families with young children. In fact 44 per cent of families with children under the age of three years have one spouse at home full-time. Thirty-eight per cent of families with children three years to five years of age have a spouse at home full-time.
The traditional Canadian family is not dead. I should like to know who the Opposition is including in its figures. Is it including retired couples, or Aunt Mabel in the nursing home?
In so far as these figures relate to families with young children, they are way off base.


AEROSPACE INDUSTRY
Mr. Jean-Claude Malepart (Montreal-Sainte-Marie):: Mr. Speaker, as a Member of Parliament from the Montreal area, I would like to join and support the Montreal Economic Community, municipal authorities in Montreal, the Leader of the Parti Quebecois Mr. Pierre-Marc Johnson, and Quebec's Premier Mr. Robert Bourassa in saying unequivocally to the Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Mulroney) that we do not and never will accept the argument being developed by the Conservative Government to justify their refusal to locate in Montreal the space agency, for the reason that the Government of Canada just helped save jobs at the GM plant in Sainte-Therese.
Mr. Speaker, it is important to remember that the grant extended by the Quebec Government is helping save the 5,000 jobs in Montreal, while the Federal grant is aimed at helping save 2,800 jobs in Ontario and create 2,600 new jobs.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I say to this Tory Government that the whole Quebec population will unanimously refuse to be conned once more by this Tory Government.


FINANCE
Mr. Reginald Stackhouse (Scarborough West):: Mr. Speaker, in the past two weeks three chartered banks have heeded Parliament's call to cut interest rates on credit cards.
When are major retailers and department stores going to show that they have some responsible corporate citizenship too? They are still levying a whopping 28.8 per cent interest on unpaid balances whether a balance is $40, $400 or $4,000. One department store pushes its charge cards by saying it will help the consumer with a new home, a new baby, a new decor, a new hobby, a new style, but it does not add "at the same old interest rate". Another says that it is easier and faster to use the charge card than to write a cheque. It is, Mr. Speaker, until you pay 28.8 per cent interest.

April 3, 1987
Oral Questions LABOUR RELATIONS


CHANGES TO BRITISH COLUMBIA LABOUR LEGISLATION
Ms. Pauline Jewett (New Westminster-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Social Credit Government in British Columbia proposed radical changes to B.C.'s labour legislation. These proposals will bring sweeping changes to union certification, dispute settlement, the protection of workers by unions, and they will increase the Government's powers to intervene in labour-management disputes.
The changes were introduced with absolutely no consultation with the B.C. Federation of Labour which represents a quarter of a million workers in the province. They are ill considered, disruptive proposals that will create mistrust, insecurity, and increased conflict.
We in the New Democratic Party call on the B.C. Government to withdraw these drastic changes to labour law, to study far more carefully and thoroughly any future changes to labour legislation, and to consult fully with the B.C. Federation of Labour before making any changes in the province's labour legislation.


CHILD CARE
Mr. Ross Belsher (Fraser Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of recent media comment on the dangers of the so-called informal market in so far as child care is concerned. I would like to point out that some of this unlicensed care includes nursery schools, junior kindergartens, and kindergartens, none of which are considered licensed.
Teachers in these facilities are often better educated than licensed child-care workers. May I ask you, Mr. Speaker, and the Canadian public, are we really to believe that children in these facilities are at risk?



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Right Hon. John N. Turner (Leader of the Opposition):: When preparing for the meeting between the Prime Minister and the President of the United States, will the Deputy Prime Minister recommend that the Prime Minister inform the President we are pleased to hear there are negotiations between the super powers, especially on intermediate nuclear arms, and that we hope Star Wars will not prevent these negotiations from progressing? Will the Prime Minister
recommend that the President review the status of these arms negotiations in his speech here in Parliament?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, that will certainly be one of the topics to be discussed when the Prime Minister and President Reagan meet. The issue of arms control and east-west relations are certainly issues in the international forum that require attention. As to whether the President will be specifically referring to this in his address to the House of Commons, I am not in a position to indicate to the right hon. gentleman, but assuming the prominence which this issue takes in terms not only of the bilateral discussions that will be going on but indeed the international importance, I would suspect that reference will be made.


EFFECT OF U.S. ACTIONS ON CANADIAN AGRICULTURE
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, will the Prime Minister in his discussions with the President of the United States impress upon the President the grave difficulties caused to Canadian farmers by the U.S. Farm Bill and its export subsidies, and the trade war between the United States and the European Economic Community? Will he also urge the President to include this issue in his address before Parliament because there is grave concern in Canadian rural communities and in the country generally?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, indeed that will be an issue raised as it has been raised on many other occasions. I would like to draw the attention of the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition to the initiative taken by the Minister for International Trade in New Zealand where she outlined a five-point program on behalf of the Canadian Government. Clearly, on behalf of the Government she has taken a leadership role in trying to work toward a common approach to address this very deep and disturbing issue as it relates to the future of the grains and oil-seeds industry in Canada. It will be dealt with at the multilateral trade level, and I am sure it will certainly be dealt with at the Venice summit. The Minister is organizing a meeting of several of the exporting nations to be held in Canada to develop that common approach and to treat this issue so that on common ground the exporting nations can speak with one voice.


CANADIAN SOVEREIGNTY IN ARCTIC
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, when the Prime Minister meets the President will he urge President Reagan and the American Government to recognize Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic? Would he also urge the President to make an explicit statement before Parliament when he addresses us on Monday indicating that the American Government explicitly recognizes Canada's unconditional sovereignty over our North?
April 3, 1987


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, as the right hon. gentleman is aware, there are some obvious differences of opinion on this particular issue. I can assume that what will be sought is an attempt to find common ground to deal with this issue. I think the bottom line from Canada's standpoint is that we will be looking for ways and means to preserve Canada's interests, which will certainly not be bargained away.
We have taken a very strong position with regard to the issue of sovereignty and the entrenchment of our sovereign rights in the North. That was evidenced by the announcement that we will proceed with the building of the Polar 8 icebreaker, the delineation of the straight baseline, and other major initiatives that have been announced by the Secretary of State for External Affairs.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF HON. GERARD LATUL1PPE, QUEBEC SOLICITOR GENERAL
Mr. Speaker:: Order! I would like to draw the attention of the House to the presence in our gallery of the Hon. Gerard Latulippe, Solicitor General of the province of Quebec.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF PAST PRESIDENT OF U.S. ASSOCIATION OF FORMER MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Mr. Speaker:: I also wish to draw the attention of Hon. Members to the presence in the gallery of Senator Edward Moss of Salt Lake City, Utah, a past President of the U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress and the guest of honour last night at the meeting of former Members of the House of Commons and the Senate.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. On the eve of the third summit would the Deputy Prime Minister reassure the House and Canadians that the Prime Minister will not be sidetracked by Washington's insistence on research and demonstration but that the Prime Minister will forcefully, openly and publicly ask the President to launch a program of cuts in acid pollution that will be parallel to Canada's program launched by this Government in 1984? Will he ask that the
Oral Questions
program have a target date, percentages, and the specific purpose of implementing and supporting what we in Canada are doing to come to grips with this very important ecological issue?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member insists on repeating the same question. It has been very adequately answered by the Minister of the Environment and indeed by the Prime Minister. I fail to see what benefit he expects to derive from repetition.
May I simply reiterate that the statement of the Prime Minister in a recent speech in Quebec clearly outlined the position of the Canadian Government. I think the Hon. Member would recognize that considerable progress has been made and the objective of the meeting this weekend will be to further that progress. The bottom line is simply this, and I quote: "Our objective continues to be a bilateral air-quality agreement between Canada and the United States with specified emission control targets. We will not be fully satisfied until we achieve that objective." I do not think it can be any clearer than that.


Mr. Caccia:: The reason for the repetition is that the Government is hesitant about giving the assurance that it will make this request openly and publicly of the President.


TRANSBOUNDARY POLLUTION
Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary concerns the progress to which the Deputy Prime Minister has referred. Does the Government realize that at this rate of progress transboundary acid rain pollution will not be reduced by one ounce well into the 1990s if we are still following the recipe prescribed by Washington, namely, further research and further demonstration?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, that is the view of the Hon. Member and he is certainly entitled to it. I think there are many people who would not share that view, including people south of the border. I happened to watch an expert on Canada AM this morning who differed very fundamentally with the Hon. Member.


Charles L. Caccia: The coal industry, yes.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I think the Prime Minister has made the commitment, and we require a commitment from Congress. As the Prime Minister and the Minister of the Environment have indicated, we have to use our best efforts to implore Congress to move and support the administration, and see that this resolution is sought from and confirmed by Congress. It, too, has a very important role in this exercise.

April 3, 1987
Oral Questions DISASTERS


FLOOD DAMAGE IN NEW BRUNSWICK
James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. Devastating floods in New Brunswick have caused widespread damage to both public and private property. The damage is beyond the power of the communities or even the province to handle adequately. I presume the Government has been in touch with local authorities. Can the Minister tell us what kind of aid the Government will provide to meet the emergency, prevent further damage, and help with rebuilding? When can the people of New Brunswick expect that help?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, clearly the Government shares the concern about these floods. As the Hon. Member is aware, Emergency Planning Canada has a program in place which is triggered by a request from the provincial Government. There is a funding formula in place. Certainly the Government of Canada would be prepared to receive a request and honour it, commensurate it with that formula.


CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY STATIONING OF TOXIC CHEMICAL FREIGHT CARS ON FLOOD THREATENED BRIDGE
James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is directed to the Minister of Transport. Will he launch a full public inquiry into the incredible action of CPR officials in placing 17 rail cars, including 13 filled with toxic chemicals, on the railway bridge at Perth-Andover in order to counterbalance the pressure from ice and flood water? When the bridge collapsed those cars fell into the river and now present a very clear environmental risk. There is a real danger to the fish habitat and a possible danger to drinking water. Will the Minister be launching a full public inquiry to get to the bottom of this issue?


Hon. John C. Crosbie (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Transport Commission will naturally be making a full inquiry into that situation. As I understand the facts, the cars did not break. They contained ammonium sulphate and potash. The contents could harm fish but it is expected the water will dilute them sufficiently that there will be no harm caused. It will, of course, be the responsibility of CP to retrieve these cars from the river. There will naturally be a full inquiry.


LIABILITY FOR DAMAGE TO FISH HABITAT
James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, I will direct my final supplementary question to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. Will he assure the Canadian public that CP Rail will be liable for any damage to fish habitat which results from this incredible action on the part of CPR?


Hon. Thomas Siddon (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Mr. Speaker, I certainly find it astonishing, as I think do most Canadians, that 13 cars of chemicals, diammonium phosphate and ammonium sulphate, were used in the face of a five-metre flood crest to attempt to stabilize the bridge. I have asked my officials and those of the Department of the Environment, on behalf of my colleague who is not in the House this morning, to estimate immediately the possible risk to fish habitat and human health as a result of any of these chemicals dissolving in the river, and to determine immediately what recovery methods might be necessary if any of the cars are found to be leaking. 1 have asked that this assessment be done immediately and, furthermore, that we determine what authorities were granted for the parking of these rail cars on the bridge in this way.


FLOODS-REQUEST THAT FUNDS BE SPECIALLY PROVIDED TO HELP AFFECTED REGIONS
Mr. Jacques Guilbault (Saint-Jacques):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Deputy Prime Minister and I would like to remind him that Quebec is also trying to cope with some major natural disasters.
About fifty municipalities are experiencing flooding, including the Beauce region, Saint-Raymond-de-Portneuf, Sainte-Anne-de-la-Perade and La Malbaie, to name only a few.
Earlier the Minister referred to a general agreement between the federal Government and the provinces under which assistance was available for these regions. However, my specific question is: Has the Government set aside funds especially for requests of this kind? And may we expect financial assistance from the Government of Canada to be forthcoming, to help Canadians in the stricken areas?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, there are always funds set aside for these types of emergencies. That is consistent with the formula which has been established to provide assistance to communities through the provinces in cases like this. There is a formal procedure and the request comes from the respective provincial Governments. A costsharing formula on a per capita basis is applied.
If, after an assessment of this level of damages, they are considered sufficiently high to trigger that particular formula, a request would be forthcoming from the Province of Quebec and the federal Government would examine it and respond in kind.


INQUIRY WHETHER GOVERNMENT DISPOSED TO CONTRIBUTE
Jacques Guilbault: Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw the attention of the House to another
April 3, 1987

disaster that has struck the people of the Gaspe. There was nearly $10 million worth of damage as a result of the fire in the mine at Murdochville, which raises some doubts as to the future of the mining operation. The people in the area are worried about losing their jobs.
I therefore want to ask the Deputy Prime Minister whether the Government is prepared to help finance repairs to the equipment at the mine at Murdochville, in order to protect the 700 jobs that are at stake, considering that the Murdochville mine is the principal employer in a region that already has an unemployment rate of nearly 25 per cent.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I think the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources outlined to the House a full report on this issue yesterday. The mine is operated under the jurisdiction of the provincial Government of Quebec. The Commission of Health and Safety within the Department of Labour is the functioning body which would investigate all aspects of this. I am not aware of any request for federal aid on this particular issue. However, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources has indicated that the federal Government and his Department have co-operated in dealing with this issue. I assume the door has been left open.


Mr. Speaker:: I have just been advised that the Deputy Prime Minister must, for pressing and important matters, leave the Chamber in a few minutes. If there are questions to be directed to the Deputy Prime Minister, I hope Hon. Members will make them short and succinct in order that those questions can be asked.


ACID RAIN
Mr. Robert Toupin (Terrebonne):: In view of the absence of the Prime Minister, Mr. Speaker, I will direct my question to the Deputy Prime Minister. He may notice that I return time and time again to the same issue. Throughout Canada, a great many groups of Canadian men and women have emphasized on several occasions the urgent need to settle the acid rain problem and to send the president of the United States a clear and definite message to that effect. Even the Quebec National Assembly has unanimously adopted a resolution to that effect.
My question is this: At his forthcoming summit meeting with Mr. Reagan, what specific, concrete and immediate
Oral Questions
action will the Prime Minister require of the American Government with a view to reducing the sulfur and nitrous oxide emissions?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, if the Hon. Member had listened to the answer I gave to a previous question he would know that I responded to that question. The bottom line was outlined in the speech made by the Right Hon. Prime Minister in the Province of Quebec. He will certainly find that. Perhaps he can read Hansard tomorrow and get the answer.


Robert Toupin: This reply is totally inadequate, and the Deputy Prime Minister must realize that proper action is extremely important, not only to protect our environment, but also the physical health of Canadian men and women, not to mention the financial health of our industries, including the maple syrup industry in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada.


COMMITMENT DEMANDED FROM UNITED STATES PRESIDENT
Robert Toupin: What sort of commitment for concrete and immediate action will the Prime Minister require and ask of Mr. Reagan?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that the Hon. Member found my previous answer improper. For his benefit I will again read the response that I gave. The Prime Minister has maintained all along, and it is the position of the Government that: "Our objective continues to be a bilateral air-quality agreement between Canada and the United States with specified emission control targets. We will not be fully satisfied until we achieve that objective".
That is exactly what the Prime Minister will be impressing upon the President to achieve. There have been some very major bilateral accomplishments over the last couple of years. On February 4 Canada and the United States, along with Ontario and New York, signed a declaration of intent coupled with the Niagara River Management Plan to see a 50 per cent reduction of loadings of persistent toxic chemicals. On May 14, 1986, a waterfowl management plan was signed. A joint declaration of intent regarding a memorandum of understanding-


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Some Hon. Members:: Order, order!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!

April 3, 1987
Oral Questions FISHERIES


BRITISH COLUMBIA SPORTS FISHERY TAGGING PROGRAM
Ted William Schellenberg: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. Last weekend in Penticton at the meeting of the B.C. Wildlife Federation the Minister announced a new tagging program for sports fish and sports fishermen. Why has the Minister brought in that program at this time? Where will the dollars collected through that program go? 1 hope they will go back into enhancing the resource.


Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, the chinook or spring salmon stocks of Canada's West Coast are a very precious mainstay of our recreational fishing industry and are harvested as well by our commercial and native fishermen. In the face of growing abundance of other commercial stocks the survivability of these stocks continues to decline. Therefore, we must mount a major effort to keep better records of who is catching fish where. As well, we must fund a major research and enhancement effort to restore these stocks to traditional levels. Therefore we have announced a one-dollar-a-tag initiative to be introduced next year after appropriate consultation with all affected groups.


PUBLIC WORKS
Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, my question to the Minister of Public Works deals again with the lease renewal contract for Vincent Massey Place, in Hull. Yesterday, in the House, to justify a $15 million gift to Mr. Tessier, the Minister of Public Works told us that the lease would have expired in three years from now.
Is the Minister prepared to admit that he made a mistake yesterday, because the lease still has another eight and a half years to run? Is he prepared to admit that it was a gift from the Government to one of its friends, out of Canadian taxpayers' money? Moreover, could he explain to us why another contract for $106,000 has been awarded to the same Mr. Tessier to renovate a room on the fifth floor? How could he justify all that?


Hon. Stewart Mclnnes (Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, the original lease in 1973 was signed by that Government.


Don Boudria: Yes, it should have been kept.


Stewart Donald McInnes: We were obliged to pick up the tab for these renovations, to respond to the Fire Inspector. That is a policy we have followed in other buildings in Ottawa, and the same policy was followed here.


An Hon. Member:: Kickback.


Stewart Donald McInnes: The Hon. Member has been investigating this particular matter for weeks. All he has produced to the House is innuendo and scurrilous, false accusations. I suggest that if he has knowledge that anybody was involved in improper political interference, he go out of this Chamber and make the accusations and take the consequences.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Don Boudria: I did not mean to get the Minister all excited.


GOVERNMENT POSITION
Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, let me try to get it straight. The House should know that the Minister initially refused to give me the documents concerning the building. Is the Minister telling us that the fact that Mr. Tessier has, for 25 years, been the friend of someone working for the Prime Minister, that Mr. Tessier gave healthy contributions to the Conservative Party, that government officials overturned decisions-


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Sleaze!


Don Boudria: -overturned decisions in favour of Mr. Roy's friend are all just happy coincidences in this cosy leasing arrangement, or is it the lease that they could do for a friend?


Stewart Donald McInnes: Mr. Speaker, there are an awful lot of suggestions there. Let the Member go out of the House and restate exactly what he said, and take the consequences.


Jacques Guilbault: You are stuck in the corner.


John Carnell Crosbie: Senator McCarthy-Turner.


SOVEREIGNTY
Pauline Jewett: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister or the Acting Secretary of State for External Affairs who, I believe, is the Minister for International Trade. This week in Maclean's letters column, the Secretary of State for External Affairs wrote: "There is no truth to the assertion that Canada will give unlimited access to all U.S. vessels to use the Northwest Passage". Is it the position of the Government to give unlimited access to U.S. vessels to use the Northwest Passage?
April 3, 1987


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I have not read the report to which the Hon. Member refers. I will check and get back to her on it.


GOVERNMENT POLICY
Pauline Jewett: Mr. Speaker, 1 quoted the Minister so that the Government would know that the Cabinet position has been stated in his letter. However, it is not clear. Therefore, my supplementary question is based on the same quote by the Secretary of State for External Affairs. If the Government is not giving unlimited access, is it preparing to give limited access to some or all U.S. vessels in Canadian Arctic waters?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, as I indicated earlier in response to a question posed by the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition, the issue of Arctic sovereignty and the question of access to the Northwest Passage are a matter that will be discussed on a bilateral basis between the President, the Prime Minister and, clearly, the Secretary of State for External Affairs. While we recognize that there are some different views on this-


Jacques Guilbault: What is your policy?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Our policy has been clearly stated by the Secretary of State for External Affairs in the House on a number of occasions and it is a heck of a lot better than your policy was. You never had a policy on it.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The Hon. Member for York Centre.


PUBLIC WORKS
Hon. Bob Kaplan (York Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. For the last two days he has listened to the unfolding of the Duroc-Tessier matter, in particular to the defence made of it by the President of the Treasury Board. Do the Acting Prime Minister and the Prime Minister support the behaviour and treatment given to this contract by the President of the Treasury Board?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, what I do not support are the actions of Hon. Members opposite who are violating the terms of conduct that were outlined by their Leader which are, first, before you involve yourself in scandal mongering you should know the facts, and second, you should know when you have made your case.
It is interesting to note that The Globe and Mail this morning states, when the allegations were hurled across the
Oral Questions
floor of the House about the involvement of Mr. Bernard Roy, that when asked outside the House:
- Mr. Robinson said he had no hard evidence linking Mr. Roy to the lease negotiations-
And:
-Don Boudria said only that someone had exerted pressure-
But that:
He, too, acknowledged he did not have evidence-
Now put up or shut up.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Carnell Crosbie: Put up or shut up.


Mr. Speaker:: I know that Hon. Members on both sides of the House, those who are helping the Hon. Member for York Centre put his question and those who are trying to help the Minister answer the question, will allow the Hon. Member to put his question and let the Minister deal with it.


MINISTERS' POSITION
Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Deputy Prime Minister for the lecture, but Ministers have a responsibility to answer questions. The simple question was whether the Deputy Prime Minister or the Prime Minister support this explanation of what the Opposition considers a totally unacceptable transaction. If they do not support it, have they looked into it? Are they taking corrective or disciplinary action? It is a simple question.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker,-


John Carnell Crosbie: Senator McCarthy.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: -the questions that were put to both Ministers yesterday were answered fully and comprehensively. What I object to and find very disgusting is the gutter politics that the Liberal Party, led by the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition, is engaged in. I think he should live up to his word.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


John Carnell Crosbie: Out of the gutter. Senator McCarthy lives in the person of John Turner.


Jacques Guilbault: John Crosbie is there also.


An Hon. Member:: Get out of the gutter, John.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Gutter politics.


John Napier Turner: Just answer the questions. Mr. Gauthier: You are an expert in gutter politics.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Prove it.


Mr. Speaker:: This exchange is exciting and interesting, but 1 especially want to impress upon Members on one side of the

April 3, 1987
Oral Questions
Chamber that while this exchange goes on, interesting as it may be, other Members are not getting their chance to put their questions. The Elon. Member for Essex-Windsor.


AGRICULTURAL SUBSIDY WAR BETWEEN UNITED STATES AND EUROPEAN COMMUNITY
Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Mr. Speaker, first I want to welcome the Minister for International Trade back to the House of Commons. Farmers across Canada are losing their family farms because of the subsidy war which is taking place between the United States and the European Community. Will the Minister tell us of any concrete steps which have resulted from the discussions which took place during her trip to try to alleviate this very serious situation?


Hon. Pat Carney (Minister for International Trade):: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I am glad to report to the House that this issue was discussed in some detail at the Trade Ministers' meeting in New Zealand. There was a great deal of support generated for the Canadian position which consists of the five principles referred to by the Deputy Prime Minister and which form our guidelines in the short and the long term to start ending this trade war in which we are the victims. I will make sure that the Hon. Member has a copy of those five principles.
The Chairman of the Cairns Group of Fair Agricultural Traders, which is composed of the 14 countries which support agricultural reform, and I, have agreed to hold a meeting of the Cairns Group in Canada toward the end of May at which time this issue will be addressed before the summit meeting. In that way we hope to keep attention on the problem of agricultural reform before the summit.


MINISTER'S POSITION
Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that there is a great deal of discussion and not nearly enough concrete action which is taking place on this issue. Will the Minister assure the House that in the discussions that will take place with the Reagan cabinet Ministers who are here this weekend she will raise this issue urgently and toughly and try to obtain a commitment from the United States to roll back that support which is so badly hurting so many Canadian farmers?


Pat Carney: Mr. Speaker, I disagree totally with the Hon. Member's suggestion that no concrete action has been taken on this matter. Our Prime Minister was the very first person ever to take the issue of agriculture to the summit, which is something he did last year in Tokyo. The Prime Minister took it for the first time to the economic summit and he put it on the world agenda. In
New Zealand, as I said, I took a position that was developed by the Canadian Government which would, if adopted by other countries, lead to the cease-fire which we all seek. For that reason I would like to outline briefly in layman's language these five principles. The first is that agriculture policies-


Some Hon. Members:: Order, order!


Pat Carney: -must become more price-responsive. The second is that support should-


Some Hon. Members:: Order, order!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I hesitate to interrupt the Hon. Minister who has come back from an important trip, but there are other places and occasions when a Minister can make a statement.


REFUGEES
Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State for Immigration. It concerns the $360,000 rental contract that the Department signed with a Toronto apartment owner for the housing of refugees. While other tenants in the same building are paying $340 and $400 respectively for one and two-bedroom units, the Government has agreed to pay the landlord $740 and $790 respectively for these units, which is more than double the current market value. How can the Minister justify the gouging and squandering of taxpayers' dollars in such a reckless manner?
Will he assure the House that he will renegotiate the contract so that the rents can be brought down to a legitimate and realistic level thereby allowing the housing of twice the number of refugees? Will he provide a responsible and accountable expenditure of taxpayers' dollars?


Hon. Gerry Weiner (Minister of State (Immigration)):: Mr. Speaker, I am having difficulty understanding how little the Hon. Member knows about his own community in which he is supposed to live. A proposal call was made. We required temporary accommodation and certain specific services. The person who was the lowest bidder was offered a contract. That is normal procedure. That is what we have done in this particular case.


APARTMENT RATES
Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, it is not normal to pay twice the amount. If the Minister were to call the Toronto office or one of his CMHC friends they would have told him that.
I want to ask the Minister again why the Government paid double the rates when for the same units similar rates were deemed to be illegal by the Ontario Rent Review Board only
April 3, 1987

two months ago. In addition to renegotiating the contract will the Minister institute a full review of these real estate dealings in these apartments so that we may avoid in the future unnecessarily lining the pockets of landlords with millions of dollars while immigrants and refugee settlement programs under this regime are suffering?


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Mr. Speaker, is the Hon. Member against the principle of offering a contract to the lowest bidder? Does he not understand the services we require? We have 24-hour-a-day reception services. Landlords must be willing to loan money to these people who are in their buildings. We have daily cleaning of the premises with a change of towels provided. All of these things that are required are in the contract, and this person was the lowest bidder.


Sergio Marchi: You got suckered.


AIR TRANSPORT
James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. Three years ago federal bureaucrats wrongfully cancelled Fred Turner's charter airline licence in the Northwest Territories. Two years ago Cabinet recognized the error and ordered the return of the licence along with an offer of $15,000 in hush-money. Three weeks ago the Hon. Member for Regina West, Fred Turner, and myself met with the Minister to find an acceptable settlement. Since that process had no terms of reference that would have provided a settlement, will the Minister show the compassion for which he is known in this country and appoint an independent body to settle the matter through binding arbitration with fair terms of reference?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, with reference to the hon. gentleman's question, first, I want to correct him. Federal bureaucrats had nothing to do with this matter whatsoever. This matter started with a decision taken by the Canadian Transport Commission on April 4, 1984. That is a quasi-judicial body. It is not a part of the ordinary government structure in the country. I do not think we could describe it as a body made up of federal bureaucrats. A decision was taken in accordance with the powers granted to the Commission by the House. That decision was reviewed later by the Governor in Council and changes made to it.
The position of the Crown is that there is no liability on the part of the Crown. Mr. Turner has taken legal action against the Government. An ex gratia payment was offered to him. 1 have had the matter reviewed twice by members of my own staff. I wanted to be sure that we were justified in the position that we were taking. I think that is the case. I cannot see any
Oral Questions
reason to interfere. Because the matter is sub judice it is hard for me to say anything more about it publicly.


CROSBIESHIPPING LINES QUERY
James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is this. If Crosbie Shipping Lines had its licence to operate wrongfully taken away and subsequently Cabinet overruled that decision and gave the licence back, but during that period of time Crosbie Shipping Lines lost $2 million, would the Minister of Transport accept $15,000 in hush-money? Is it not about time that he applied the same rules to Fred Turner as he would apply to himself or any other small businessman in this country?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, I do not know what the relevance is of Crosbie Shipping Lines, or whether there is a Crosbie Shipping Lines, or whatever. I have never had anything to do with any decision that affected the Crosbie Shipping Lines. This is the type of McCarthyism that we see repeatedly in this House.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Carnell Crosbie: What is the relevance of a Crosbie Shipping Lines? It is a scandalous attempt to impute that-


Some Hon. Members:: Order, order!


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Montreal-Sainte-Marie.


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, with respect-


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Sit down, John. We've been recognized.


John Carnell Crosbie: I have not finished answering the question.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: You never even started.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Montreal-Sainte-Marie.


TRANSPORT
Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport and I hope he will respond with fewer buffooneries than he did just now.
On February 12, the Minister of Transport of the Quebec Government sent us a copy of a letter to his federal counterpart. Yesterday a brief was tabled and he stated that, as a result of some of the provisions of Bill C-18, the Canadian Government is on the verge of granting American transport

April 3, 1987
Oral Questions
companies using rail lines unconditional access to our railway network. My question is the same as Quebec Transport Minister Marc-Yvan Cote's: As Canada is attempting to negotiate a free trade agreement with a partner who has no intention of handing us anything on a silver platter-restrictions on lumber, pork, potash and what not-how can the Minister offer him, without any concession on his part, unconditional access to our rail lines?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, I think that that is the most confused question that 1 have ever been asked in this House-


An Hon. Member:: It is very clear. You are confused.


Pauline Jewett: You had better get on with the answer.


John Carnell Crosbie: I do not know what the question is, Mr. Speaker. I do not know what American company has been offered what concession over Canadian rail lines.
The hon. gentleman has divided his question into "male" parts, and he doesn't know what any one of those parts means.
If he is referring to Bill C-18 and Bill C-19 now before the House of Commons Transport Committee, I suggest that the hon. gentleman attend some hearings, learn something, and then come back and ask another question.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!
[ Translation]


INQUIRY WHETHER GOVERNMENT WILLING TO INTRODUCE AMENDMENTS TO BILL C-18 RECOMMENDED BY QUEBEC MINISTER OF TRANSPORT
Jean-Claude Malépart: Clearly, Mr. Speaker, the stupid reply of the Minister shows that the Minister of Transport did not give any consideration to the letter of the Minister of Transport of the Quebec Government, because in the quotation I have here those are the questions which were asked by the Quebec Minister of Transport. This shows clearly that the Minister is not interested in Quebec, he who stated during the leadership race that speaking French or Chinese pretty well amounts to the same thing. He has no knowledge of Quebec.


Some Hon. Members:: Order, order!


Jean-Claude Malépart: My supplementary question to the Minister is this: Is he-


Some Hon. Members:: Order!


Mr. Bouchard:: Where is your control, John?


John Napier Turner: Where is his control?


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the Hon. Member might ask his question?


Jean-Claude Malépart: My supplementary question to the Minister is the question asked by the Minister of Transport of Quebec. Is he prepared to amend Bill C-18 as recommended by the Quebec Minister of Transport to make sure that the Quebec Government and the other provincial administrations will be consulted before any changes are made?
The Quebec Minister of Transport sent him a letter on February 12, is he now prepared to respond favourably to the requests of the Quebec Government?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, he is unbelievable. The Hon. Member is behaving like a clown.

You are a "fou".
Mr. Speaker, a few days ago I met with the Minister of Transport for Quebec and the Ministers of Transportation representing the other provinces. We had an excellent conference here about a week ago. We answered all questions. It was agreed that the legislation would be proceeded with.
I listened to their suggestions in respect of any changes they thought the House of Commons committee might consider. I will be meeting with the House of Commons Transport Committee next week, to review with that committee those amendments that we think should be made.
I have listened to the suggestions of the Minister of Transport of the Province of Quebec, who is supporting our legislation, although he does suggest that some changes might be made.
We have the support of all 10 Ministers across the country, as well as the Ministers of the two Territories. As a matter of fact, eight of the provinces signed a Memorandum of Understanding the other day with respect to safety on the highways, and Ontario and Quebec-


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


John Carnell Crosbie: The Leader of the Opposition doesn't like to listen to progress.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: You are making a speech.


John Carnell Crosbie: You are always making speeches. Why can't we make one in return?


Jean-Robert Gauthier: You have a big mouth; that's all.


Mr. Speaker:: I would advise Hon. Members that the time allotted for the Oral Question Period has expired.
April 3, 1987


PRIVILEGE
Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, I want to raise a question of privilege arising out of today's Question Period.
It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, and I think that Canadians generally will agree, that the primary obligation of Ministers is to be in this House to account to the Canadian people through the questions raised in the daily Question Period.
We do not, as is the case with the United States, have what is commonly called there a system of checks and balances, a system whereby the power of the executive can be checked by the action of the legislative branch, except in a series of limited ways, especially where the Government is supported by a very strong majority.
I have said that there are some ways, and chief among them is the challenging and the holding to account of the Government during the daily Question Period. When we have the daily Question Period, Mr. Speaker, and the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) is absent, and the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski) is absent, and the larger part of the Cabinet is absent, then the basic concept-
An Hon. Mlember: Two days in a row.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: -then the basic concept of parliamentary Government of holding the Government to account on behalf of the Canadian people through Question Period cannot be carried out. We have seen this unjustified and unacceptable absence, not just one day-today-but two days in a row. I say, Mr. Speaker, that the Ministers-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The Hon. Member, who is a distinguished Member of this House, and who speaks with a high degree of responsibility for the Official Opposition, is raising a matter which is clearly important. The Chair is in perhaps a little bit of difficulty because there is a tradition of the House that the presence or absence of Members is not remarked upon, and the reason for that, as is understood by all Hon. Members, is that there are many places that Members have to be in order to carry out all of the obligations that go with their office. I would hope that the Hon. Member would keep this in mind in his further remarks, which the Chair is most certainly going to listen to.
There is perhaps a fine line here that the Hon. Member has to walk, and I will most certainly hear him; but, I think we should all remember that there is this tradition. There may very well be good reasons for one's absence, and that is why absences, for the most part, are not commented upon.
The Hon. Member for Windsor West (Mr. Gray).


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, I understand the point you have made. Let me say this. 1 think that you should
Privilege-Mr. H. Gray
interpret that concept in a way which enables Members to raise the issue of the absence of the most senior members of the Ministry in a consistent fashion, because if Members of this House could not raise that matter for your attention, then we might find a day when no members of the Ministry are here for Question Period, or only one or two of the most junior Ministers.
I think, Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps 1 can assist the Hon. Member.
I would hope that all Hon. Members, and certainly the Hon. Member for Windsor West (Mr. Gray)-because he does speak, as I have said, with dignity and importance on behalf of the Official Opposition- would understand that I am only putting out a caution. I have said in other places and at other times, as have most of the Members of this place-and I say this not only for the interest of Hon. Members but also for the public, which is always watching-that Question Period is perhaps, at its best, the finest accountability session of any free country, and I want to assure the Hon. Member and the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner) that the Chair is very conscious of that.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, I shall conclude by saying that I hope that the Government, the Ministry, takes into account not only what I have said, but what you have said, Sir, perhaps with greater eloquence than myself, with respect to the the importance of Question Period, and the fact that it cannot work unless the Prime Minister or the Deputy Prime Minister and the most senior members of the Ministry are here, on a consistent basis.
This institution, Mr. Speaker-


Some Hon. Members:: Hypocrisy.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: -is the foundation of our parliamentary system, our system of parliamentary democracy-


John Carnell Crosbie: It is not-


John Napier Turner: Oh, oh!


An Hon. Member:: You are grandstanding, Herb.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: The Minister of Transport (Mr. Crosbie) said-and I hope that Hansard records this-that Parliament is not the foundation of our system of parliamentary democracy.


Some Hon. Members:: Shame on you!


John Carnell Crosbie: I did not.


Some Hon. Members:: Resign!


John Carnell Crosbie: I did not.

April 3, 1987
Privilege-Mr. H. Gray


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: I think, Mr. Speaker, that explains the cavalier attitude-


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker-


An Hon. Member:: Sit down, John.


An Hon. Member:: Resign!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The Hon. Minister of Transport (Mr. Crosbie), on a point of order.


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. That statement, I never made-


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: You certainly did.


John Carnell Crosbie: -and I am not going to allow the Opposition House Leader to make it for me, or his Leader, Senator McCarthy Turner.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh oh!


John Carnell Crosbie: Keep your Opposition House Leader under control.


Some Hon. Members:: Withdraw.


John Carnell Crosbie: Not likely. He has that little germ cell up every day.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh oh!


Mr. Speaker:: I ask the Hon. Minister to reconsider very carefully what he said. While I am not going to refer to a list of words which are parliamentary or unparliamentary to decide what is appropriate in the Chamber from time to time, I will use as much common sense as I can muster, no matter who may say something which has by its implications very, very regrettable connotations. I hope the Hon. Minister would, now or at some appropriate time, indicate to the Chamber-


John Carnell Crosbie: What did I say to him?


Mr. Speaker:: I do not think calling any Hon. Member, whether it is the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner) or any Hon. Member, a user of McCarthy tactics is acceptable in this Chamber. We all know what it means. It was a very unpleasant period of the life of a very friendly nation. Nobody doubts what it means. It is an unpleasant and very disagreeable term indeed.
The Hon. Minister may not wish to say anything at this time, but I would invite the Hon. Minister to consider that. When he feels it is appropriate I would certainly hear him.


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, as you know, I am certainly quite willing to take your advice, and I withdraw the words you object to in connection with the Leader of the Opposition.


Mr. Speaker:: I want to say to Hon. Members that the Chair deeply appreciates the statement of the Minister. The Chair also appreciates that when we have moments such as on this occasion-and Hon. Members will have noticed it, and I hope the public notices it-Hon. Members did the Chair the courtesy of remaining silent, allowing the Chair to do the best it could on behalf of all of you to pass over, perhaps, what was a rough moment.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, if the Minister of Transport (Mr. Crosbie) says that what he said was misunderstood and he did not use certain words, I will certainly accept that in the spirit in which you called upon us to act in this place.
However, I want to say finally with regard to my question of privilege that I hope in future members of the Government, especially the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, and senior Ministers-no matter what are their duties or their schedules, especially with regard to cabinet committees,-will give priority, and it must be given, to attendance in the House for the Question Period.
This is one of the key ways Canadian people expect us to hold the Government to account. Unless it is there to operate fully, I submit that our House of Commons, and therefore our parliamentary democracy, is on the road to being undermined. That would not be in the interest of the country now or in the future.


Mr. Doug Lewis (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, I think there is no question but that parliamentary democracy is being undermined by the conduct which is allowed by the executive of the Liberal Party to its Members-


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


An Hon. Member:: Sit down.


John Napier Turner: The Speaker is on his feet.


Mr. Speaker:: The point which is being raised by the Hon. Member for Windsor West (Mr. Gray) is simply that today, or perhaps on some other occasion, it is his view and the view of members of	the Official	Opposition that	not sufficient
members of the Cabinet were present in Question Period. That is the position. It has nothing to do with other things.
The Hon.	Member for	Windsor West	is saying thatQuestion Period is essential	to our democratic	way of life. I
have said, and I know all Hon Members will agree with me, that at its best Question Period is the finest accountability session of any free country in the world. It is ours.
The Hon.	Member has	made his point.	Perhaps it is
necessary to make another point. It may well be. There may be reasons for the absence of Ministers. I have also suggested, and
April 3, 1987

I know the Elon. Member for Windsor West had heard me and commented on it, that it is not the tradition here to comment on the absence of members, because we all know that members must be in many places doing the duties which they were sent here to do, and across the country, by their electors.
The narrow point, the point that I am hearing, the point 1 want to address, and no other point, is simply that the Hon. Member says that some or not enough cabinet Ministers were present. That is the point being addressed, and that is the point to which any Hon. Member who wishes to rise on this particular matter ought to address his or her words.


Philip Derek Lewis: Mr. Speaker, with that admonition I will completely restrict my remarks to the point in question and not engage in any partisan commentary inside the House.
There is absolutely no obligation for any Minister to be in his place because questions are asked of the Ministry. Every effort is made by our Government to brief Acting Minister's, at 10.30 and 1.30 every day, on the questions of the day.
Third, Ministers have other obligations as do members of the Opposition; they may be ministerial obligations, they may be constituency obligations, or they may be personal obligations.
Fourth, I invite contrast only in this case of comparison with the United Kingdom where, as Hon. Members know, Ministers appear in the House on rotation-


Mr. Penner:: Oh.


Philip Derek Lewis: That might have been a partisan comment.


John Carnell Crosbie: The Mother Parliament.


Mr. Speaker:: I think the Chair has asked all Hon. Members to hear each other on this point. The Hon. Parliamentary Secretary has accepted the admonition of the Chair, for which I thank him. He is putting forward an explanation, which he is absolutely entitled to do on a matter of this importance. 1 would ask all Hon. Members to allow the Parliamentary Secretary to finish his remarks.


Philip Derek Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I was making the point that in the United Kingdom the Ministers appear on rotation. I happen to prefer our system because it gives the Opposition a better opportunity to keep a Minister and an issue on the front burner. We accept that. It happened today in the case of a lease question. Those Ministers in question, on an issue which was dealt with yesterday, were here.
In the United Kingdom, the Minister of Transport appears on a Tuesday and then two weeks hence. Actually, 1 think our system is better and I suggest no change. However, I suggest, given our system and given that Ministers try to be here most of the time to answer questions, that there are occasions when they must be elsewhere. That was accepted by our Party in opposition.


Mr. Prud'homme:: Oh, no.
Privilege-Mr. H. Gray


Mr. Fennell:: Yes.


George Albert Proud: I will talk about that.


Philip Derek Lewis: Perhaps, outside.


George Albert Proud: Inside. I do not talk outside.


Philip Derek Lewis: It cuts both ways. The point has been made. I think we understand what has been said. We will continue to make every effort to have Ministers in the House to be accountable to the country-and we have no difficulty with that-and to be accountable to the Opposition.
I will save the rest of my remarks which might be partisan for another time.


Ross Belsher: Mr. Speaker, I have listened with interest to the comments of Hon. Member for Windsor West (Mr. Gray) on the absence of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and the absence of the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski). I think the Hon. Member failed to realize or to acknowledge that the Deputy Prime Minister-I believe this is the first time I have witnessed this-sent a notice to you that he would have to leave the Chamber a few minutes early. The Hon. Member for Windsor West alleges that the Deputy Prime Minister was not in the Chamber. He did not even acknowledge that prior notice had been given that he would be leaving the Chamber. I think the Member for Windsor West does this House a disservice, having been given the courtesy of the notice, by not acknowledging it when he rose on his question of privilege.


Mr. Speaker:: 1 thank the Hon. Member for his intervention. The Chair has listened with interest and with complete attention to all of the interventions. I do want to say one thing to all Hon. Members and it is this. The Chair did receive a notice during Question Period-and for whatever reason a Minister or Member leaves it is not my place to comment on it, but one has to assume that whenever a Minister or any Member leaves this Chamber it is appropriate and legitimate-that the Hon. Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski) had to leave because he is travelling to another part of the country today. The Chair made the announcement, not because the Chair is taking any position that it is appropriate or inappropriate for any particular Minister to be here during Question Period, but because the courtesy was extended to the Chair I felt that same courtesy ought to be extended to the Chamber.
1 think the matter has been adequately discussed and I will consider the representations that have been made. I want to assure all Hon. Members in this place, especially the Hon. Member for Windsor West (Mr. Gray) who has spoken on behalf of the Official Opposition, and any others who may have strong views about this, that it is the opinion of the Chair, which I think is shared here, that Question Period is indeed a very important part of our Canadian democracy. It is perhaps

April 3, 1987
Statements by Ministers
the most vivid accountability session of any democratic country in the world.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Hon. George Hees (Minister of Veterans Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, next week we will be marking one of the most important dates in our history. Seventy years ago this Thursday, April 9, Canadians from coast to coast, standing shoulder to shoulder, moved forward against the strongly entrenched positions at Vimy Ridge in France. By the end of the day, the Canadian Corps stood triumphant at the top of the ridge.
This triumph is the acknowledged birth of Canada as a nation. Brigadier General Alex Ross was to describe what happened in this way:
The barren earth erupted humanity. From dugouts, shell holes and trenches
men sprang into action, fell into artillery formations, and advanced to the
ridge ... It was Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific ... I thought thenthat in those few minutes I witnessed the birth of a nation.
Our victory was not without cost. Over 10,000 Canadians were casualties in the one day battle, 3,500 of whom were killed. Four Canadians earned the Victoria Cross, three of them posthumously.
As part of my mandate to perpetuate the memory of Canada's wartime sacrifice, I will be leading a delegation of 10 Vimy veterans to Vimy Ridge next week. We will be paying homage to those who fell at Vimy, and, indeed, to the over
66,000	Canadians who were killed during the Great War.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make all Hon. Members aware of a very special carving now on display in the lobby outside the Chamber. This carving, a replica of the Canadian Memorial at Vimy, was presented to me by the Royal 22nd Regiment. It was expertly crafted by Master Warrant Officer J.A.P.R. Laplante of the 22nd's 1st Battalion. I am told that Master Warrant Officer Laplante put in well over 1,000 hours of carving time. The result is simply magnificent. I therefore recommend it to Hon. Members' attention very much indeed.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Gaston Isabelle (Hull-Aylmer):: Mr. Speaker, as the official Opposition critique for Veterans Affairs, I consider it a great honour and take great satisfaction in joining the responsible Minister in commemorating that historic feat, seventy years ago on April 9, at the Battle of Vimy Ridge during the First World War.
Mr. Speaker, on that day, at 5.30 a.m. at sunrise, under a ceaseless barrage of fire, iron and steel, Canadian divisions
launched the attack on Vimy Ridge, headed by ten battalions marching abreast which lead the attack, while flurries of wet snow swept the cold and somber battle ground. April 9, 1917 was truly a landmark in our history as a nation.
Canada entered the First World War as a nation that was still young. It had always existed in the shadow and under the trusteeship of the two mother countries, France and Great Britain. However, when the Armistice was signed at the end of this terrible conflict, Canada had succeeded in carving out a niche for itself among the nations of the world and was recognized and invited as an independent country to attend the peace negotiations.
Mr. Speaker, blood and iron forged a new nation on that day, an independent Canada, a Canada that was respected and that earned the privilege of ranking among the great nations of this world.
Mr. Speaker, all Canadians are grateful to the 600,000 men and women who answered the call of their country during the First World War.
Vimy Ridge is a symbol of their sacrifice and their courage. That is why every year, so many Canadians go back to Vimy to attend a service commemorating this great battle, in front of the splendid monument that stretches up to the sky, as though to carry up to heaven our prayers commemorating all who fought at Vimy.
Mr. Speaker, perhaps I may quote the Right Hon. Mackenzie King, the Prime Minister at the time, who said in the House on March 27, 1923, before the monument was built, and I quote:
The future will look on the battle grounds of the Great War as the altars of a
holocaust, and none will shine more brilliantly in our memory and our history
than Vimy.
And that is also why the seventieth anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge is a day of special celebration, a day of gratitude and a day of prayer.
Mr. Speaker, I want to wish the Minister "bon voyage", and 1 would ask him to express to the handful of men and women who will accompany him, as veterans who fought on April 9, 1917 at Vimy, our profound gratitude and our sincere thanks for the example they have set to the whole world through their acts of heroism and their exceptional courage.
We will be with you in our prayers.


Mr. Neil Young (Beaches):: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the New Democratic Party, it is an honour to join the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Hees) and the veterans affairs critic of the Official Opposition in saying a few words about Vimy Ridge. If ever a conflict deserved to be called the war to end all wars, it was the 1914 to 1918 war. It was sheer slaughter from beginning to end. Canada alone lost over 60,000 troops in that war. We just have to look at Vimy Ridge itself to
April 3, 1987

appreciate the massive losses. It is estimated that 150,000 French troops were killed attempting to take it. Subsequently the British army also attempted to do so and was decimated. Then along came the Canadian troops to see what they could do against this seemingly entrenched natural fortress. It was quite a challenge for an inexperienced volunteer army. However, it was there at Vimy where all the divisions of the Canadian corps came together for the first time to fight as a single unit. The rest, as we say these days, is history. It is certainly history worth recalling and applauding.
There are over 14,000 veterans of the First World War here in Canada today. Next Thursday let us remember just what this very special group of veterans achieved for Canada. We should never forget their contributions and sacrifices and we should always be grateful.
At this point, Madam Speaker, I would like to offer my own congratulations to the Minister for heading that delegation of war veterans back to Vimy Ridge.


TELESAT CANADA
Mrs. Claudy Mailiy (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Communications):: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 67(2), I am pleased to table the 1986 annual report of Telesat Canada.
Also, pursuant to Standing Order 67(4), this report is deemed to be referred to the Standing Committee on Communications and Culture.


PETITIONS
Ross Belsher: Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present to the House petitions from some 100 people, the majority of whom are from Surrey, British Columbia. These concerned people call upon Parliament to support Motion M-37 which would allow unborn babies to be protected by the Charter of Rights.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: 
QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
Claudy Mailly: Madam Speaker, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Privy Council (Mr. Lewis) does not seem to be here at the moment. I suppose all questions will stand, for the moment.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Shall all questions stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Tuesday, March 17, consideration of the motion of Mr. Wilson (Etobicoke Centre) that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the Government.
The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I wish to inform the House that because of the Ministerial statement, Government Orders will be extended by eight minutes beginning at 1 p.m.


Hon. William Rompkey (Grand Falls-White Bay- Labrador):: Madam Speaker, it has been a long time since the Budget and, apart from the fact that the Budget lends itself to being forgotten, many people may have forgotten what was in it. What was not in the Budget was brought home very dramatically to me yesterday when a Budget was brought down in the Newfoundland House. It is very timely for me to

April 3, 1987
The Budget-Mr. Rompkey
be able to make some comments on the federal Budget today because that Budget painted not only an austere picture but even a tragic picture of what is happening in this country.
I would like to read from an article in this morning's Globe and Mail which summarizes for Canadians what is happening in Newfoundland. Bear in mind that the Government in that province is of the same political stripe as the Government here in Ottawa. The article reads as follows:
Finance Minister John Collins presented a $2.8-billion budget yesterday that freezes construction of new government buildings and predicts dire consequences for Newfoundland's ailing economy unless Ottawa comes through with more money.
"The 1980s decade has not been kind to Newfoundland and Labrador." he said. "We should not be asked, nor would we agree, that our people should be thankful to receive half the Canadian loaf.
"After 38 years, we remain the archetypal have-not province."
I suggest that it is relevant that we are continuing the Budget debate today. I say in all sincerity to Elon. Members opposite that there is a responsibility for us here in this Chamber and on the treasury benches to be cognizant that there is a province in Canada that is in very, very serious financial straits. Some people would even say the province was on the verge of bankruptcy. I suggest that the treasury benches take a very close look at what is happening and at their own fiscal and financial policies.
Let me give some indicators of what is happening at the federal level. The Government told us in the budget debate and thereafter that something like 400,000 or 500,000 new jobs have been created. I remind the House that the Newfoundland unemployment rate is more than 20 per cent. With the exception of about 6 per cent, all of those new jobs have been created in central Canada. That is a very distinct reality. Given that one measure of the success of the Government's financial policies is job creation, then it has failed miserably.
The Government has not had a regional development policy. I have seen no evidence in this Chamber of any policy over the last two years. Between 1984 and 1986 the Government reduced regional development expenditures by 25 per cent. Not only that, there has been a consistent and conscious effort to cut government programs and spending. There may be a rationale for that, but I submit, as I have before, that when you have a national policy which cuts across the board without regard for its effect on the regions, then it is a double burden on those less favoured regions which depend more heavily on government services and programs. No one likes dependency but it is a fact of life. When you slash across the board you hurt the weakest. That is the reality. You cannot have a single policy. If you do, you entrench regional disparity. I again use the example of Procruste's bed. He was a Greek innkeeper who had one bed. If the guest was too long for the bed he cut the person to fit. If he was too short, he stretched him to fit. That is the policy of the Government for the whole country. I submit that when that happens you entrench regional disparity. That is exactly what is happening. That is why in my province,
which is not economically self-supporting, we now have a three-year freeze on construction, expansion and renovation of public buildings. The worst part of that is that it applies to nursing homes, hospitals and schools.
Two days ago my province celebrated 37 years in Confederation. When Joey Smallwood led the fight for Confederation in Newfoundland he told us we would gain the advantage of receiving services equal to the rest of the nation. Yet yesterday's budget in Newfoundland told us that for three years there is going to be a complete and absolute freeze on most new construction, including nursing homes, hospitals and schools. What is Confederation all about? Are we all equal? Do we have the right to expect services and policies from the Government of Canada which will advance our interests and allow us to develop as a people? That is not happening because the Government has absolutely no policy for regional development.
Let me give a few other examples. We have seen a cut-back in equalization payments. Those payments are a fundamental lever of federal policy for righting regional disparity across this country. Oh, yes, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) told us recently that something like $180 million in equalization overpayments, caused by demographic changes, will be forgiven. However, it is not new money. It is of no help to an ailing economy. There has been a cut in Established Programs Financing for education and health care. Newfoundland, as did the rest of the country, expected an increase of 7 per cent. That was the five-year agreement between the federal Government and the provinces. The federal Government unilaterally abrogated that agreement and instead of a 7 per cent increase we will receive only 5 per cent. That may seem trivial when you look at it superficially, but in Newfoundland it means we will receive $187 million less than we had expected or budgeted for schools and health services.
In delivering his budget yesterday the Newfoundland Minister of Finance said:
We should not be asked, nor would we agree, that our people should be
thankful to receive half the Canadian loaf.
1 repeat, the brutal reality is that for three years the expansion of nursing homes, hospitals and schools will be completely frozen. That is the tragic reality.
Newfoundland has the highest rate of taxes in Canada, including a 12 per cent sales tax, yet taxes will increase by $600 to $800 for the average family as a result of the last federal Budget. There has been a one-cent increase in the federal tax on diesel and aviation fuel.
The simple fact is that the Government has one single underlining principle, and that is to let the private sector do the job. Yet that is not working and it is time the Government woke up to that fact. We have a province which is struggling, not to progress but simply to stay alive. I cannot make that point too strongly. That is not rhetoric. 1 hope the treasury benches will realize that.
April 3, 1987

What initiatives has the Government taken? It has said that it believes oil will be the salvation of Newfoundland. I hope so, but there" is no evidence of that so far. Yes, it is true the Atlantic Accord was signed. Yes, it is true that $66 million has been spent on development as a result of that Accord. What we have not seen is any movement toward development of the oil field itself. We are told there is a deal in the making. We are told there is an offer. We do not know and that is part of the problem. We cannot get information on what the Government is doing and the hard cold facts of what it plans for the province. We are told there is a deal between Mobil and the federal Government. We are told that that deal will involve Mobil spending something like $900 million in a $4.3 billion development program for the Hibernia field. However, Mobil will be able to recover that investment after three years. That has been described as a jammy deal for Mobil. We do not know what that company's response will be. As far as we can tell, the Newfoundland Government has approved the offer. As far as we can tell, Mobil is studying the offer and will respond some time before June. Yet how many Newfoundlanders know the facts of that deal before it is announced, if it ever is? That is very important to us because our future will hang on it. What will the advantage of that deal be to the people of Newfoundland? As far as I can tell that is what the Government is hanging its hat on. We will have to be very vigilant over the next few months and ensure that we ask the proper questions and scrutinize this deal very closely indeed. There has been no consultation on this matter. It has been very difficult indeed to get information on what the Government is doing.
The Government has encouraged and possibly twisted the arm of Petro-Canada to go ahead with some drilling this year. We know that the SEDCO 710 will be drilling off the coast of Newfoundland this year. However, that rig would have to be out there anyway because, as I understand it, it is still under contract to Petro-Canada and it would have to be used somewhere, albeit not necessarily on the Grand Banks. Therefore, that initiative alone is no indication that there is a willingness and dedication by the Government to go ahead.
In the meantime the Government is going ahead with the privatization of the very arm of government which it is using to suggest that it is serious about the development of the oil field off Newfoundland. At the same time as the Minister of Transport (Mr. Crosbie) announces the initiative by Petro-Canada to drill further on the Grand Banks, the Government is putting Petro-Canada up for privatization. I believe that is another indication of the ingrained philosophy which is not in the best interest of that province.
I believe the strength of Canada has been that we have always had a mixture of private and public sector initiatives, a mixed economy. Petro-Canada was created to take risks which other private companies would not take, to go where other private companies would not go, to take initiatives on behalf of
The Budget-Mr. Rompkey
Canadians. The very vehicle which was created for those purposes is now up for sale.
1 suggest that it is time the mentality of the Government change and it realize that the approach of solving regional disparity through the private sector is not working. The Government must come up with a different approach. It must reassess its position and ensure that it has policies which will help a province, not only to advance, but to hold the place it now has.
I have heard the Minister of Transport, who is Newfoundland's representative in the Cabinet, talk about the benefits of free trade. That is another initiative which the Prime Minister has said will be the salvation of the region. Yet there is no hard information as to how that free trade deal with the U.S. will impact on the regions. There are all sorts of indications that it will not be a help to the regions. The fact is that we are getting no clear indication from the Government on exactly what the facts are and what the impact will be.
I appreciate this opportunity to put those things on the record today because, in light of the Budget which came down in the province yesterday, it is urgent that this House and, in particular, the treasury benches, realize that the ball is in their court. The power is in their hands to advance a policy for that province which will not only enable it to make progress but enable it to remain in Confederation.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Questions,
comments. The Hon. Member for Louis-Hebert.


Suzanne Fortin-Duplessis: Madam Speaker, with all due respect to my Opposition colleague the Hon. Member for Grand Falls-White Bay-Labrador (Mr. Rompkey), I would like to make a few comments and ask him a question about his speech.
First, he stated a number of times in his remarks that this . Government, our Government, had no regional development policy. I am personally very much surprised to hear him say such a thing, in view of the fact especially that since we came to power we have given concrete examples-and have results to prove it-that we are committed to developing the various regions across Canada.
Let me refer to an example that happened recently. When this Government awarded the CF-18 maintenance contract in the Montreal area, we thereby insured the future of aeronautics research there, at that specific location.
Currently, as vice-chairperson of the Committee on Research, Science and Technology, I am very well informed of this Government's future policies on scientific research and technological development.
And I can state, Madam Speaker, that together with the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion (Mr. Cote), who is to announce very soon a long-term regional development policy, the Government is currently consulting with various

April 3, 1987
The Budget-Mr. Rompkey
departments in order to put forward to Canadians a policy that will be of benefit, a policy that will not be a duplication, and that also calls for most departments to make suggestions to avoid duplication and to ensure that all regions and all department components come up with a development that will enable us to ensure the future of all Canadians, long-term wise and for years to come, into the 2,000's.
Madam Speaker, I would like to point out to the Hon. Member that he stated we have created almost no new jobs. 1 would like to tell him again that we have created at least
705.000	jobs, 80 percent of which are permanent.
Madam Speaker, he said that currently the economy is ailing. Well, if we have an ailing economy, this is quite a performance because under the Liberals the economy was dying.
Madam Speaker, I would like to ask a question to the Hon. Member for Grands Falls-White Bay-Labrador, as a Liberal Member. Instead of constantly suggesting that everything this Government is doing is wrong, I would be extremely pleased to hear at some point from him positive proposals to the Government for a better regional development policy.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: You have been elected, Madam.


Bill Rompkey: Madam Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for her question and I do believe I have some very positive suggestions to make. With regard to new jobs, as 1 said in my remarks, it is true that new jobs have been created. The Government has said that it has created something like
400.000	new jobs in Canada.


Stewart Donald McInnes: Seven hundred thousand.


Bill Rompkey: Seven hundred thousand new jobs, that is right, but I ask the Regional Minister how many jobs have been created in the Atlantic area. The fact is that statistics show that only 6 per cent of those new jobs have been created outside central Canada. That is exactly the point I am making. I am making the point that there is not a regional development policy.
If I had to make a specific suggestion it would be to restore the balance to the regional development envelope which was decreased by $3 billion between 1984 and 1986. If the Member does not want to take my word for that she can take the word of the Premier of Newfoundland who is a Member of the same Party as Hon. Members opposite. The policy of the Government is, first, to hope to hell that the private sector will do the job all across the country and, second, if you have to have a regional development policy of any kind, let it be broker politics. It is not possible to operate a country on brokerism. There must be a consistent, co-ordinated and well developed policy that recognizes that there are less favoured people and more favoured people in this country. That is the reality. If regional development simply operates on brokerism and the
Government simply operates its regional development policy on the basis of where it will get votes, it will not work. We do not have any votes and cannot offer the Government anything. We only have seven seats in Parliament so what power do we have in broker politics?
Our only hope is the vision that the creators of Canada had in 1867 and the vision of people like Joey Smallwood in 1949. That is our only hope that we will get a fair deal.
I made the point that we are not getting a fair deal because the jobs are not being created in Atlantic Canada. The problem lies in the fact that the regional development envelope of the Government has decreased.


Mr. Heap:: Madam Speaker, I was very interested in the remarks of the Hon. Member. I was reminded of the figures I have heard which show that the education tax in Newfoundland and the other Atlantic provinces is considerably higher as a proportion of the gross domestic product than in the other provinces. As well, personal income tax is considerably higher as a proportion of provincial revenue than it is for other provinces. This certainly underlines the point the Hon. Member has been making, that there is a very serious situation facing the Atlantic Provinces even in regard to equalization payments. I agree with his points, particularly in response to the question.
As someone from Toronto, I can say that it is not enough to acknowledge that there are a lot of jobs in Canada and ignore the fact that hardly any of them are in Newfoundland or the Atlantic Provinces.
There is another matter on which I would like him to comment. Vast resources have been taken and are still being taken from Newfoundland and Labrador. These include mineral, forest, hydro, fish and oil resources which at a glance may seem to make the people of that province at least well served, if not rich. I must come to the conclusion that those resources are not under the control, let alone ownership, of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. Will the Member comment on the budgetary action, or tax action, or other action which might be taken, not merely to put revenue or income into Atlantic Canada's hands but to restore to them control of those resources which they used to control in their own provinces?


Bill Rompkey: Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question and I thank the Hon. Member for it. If I could put it simply, I would say that when one has very little to begin with one has to mortgage very heavily. We have had so little to invest that we have had to mortgage heavily throughout our history. That fact remains. For example, the investment in mineral development has been by large American firms. While there are some royalties and jobs from this, the levers of economic power are in the hands of large American multinationals.
April 3, 1987

It is a fact of life that we are linked inextricably with the Province of Quebec with respect to hydro power. We share the same continent and we share the Ungava Peninsula. If that power is to flow to a reasonable market, it must go through the Province of Quebec. Therefore, we had to mortgage again and, while one may agree or disagree with it, that mortgage is a fact of life.
What about the fish resource? While I may sound partisan, as a result of initiatives this Party took when we were the Government of Canada, Newfoundland is finally regaining some financial control in the fishery because in the past two weeks Fishery Products International-a company we set up as a majority partner when we were the Government-has been privatized and is very profitable. That is what must happen. The levers of financial power, whether private or public, must go back to the people and that process must be accelerated in all those resources.
The point I have been making to the Government is that a laissez-faire approach will not necessarily work all across the country. There are areas which need the economic power of the Government in order to make progress. I believe that is still true in my area, as it has been not only for decades but for centuries.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The period for questions and comments is terminated. I would seek consent of the House to call it one o'clock.


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: It being 1.08 p.m., I do now leave the chair until 2 p.m. this day.
At 1.08 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.
The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Resuming debate. The Hon. Member for Levis (Mr. Fontaine) has the floor.


Mr. Gabriel Fontaine (Levis):: On February 18, 1987, Madam Speaker, our Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) tabled his Budget, his message to the Canadian people. He was contemplating expenditures of some $122 billion. The Minister indicated on that occasion the additional taxes which he would impose on Canadians and, for the first time, we witnessed a budgetary tax increase of less than 1.5 per cent of total spending, that is to say, less than $1.5 billion out of $122 billion in total spending, which proves that our Government is well aware of the need to ease as much as possible our taxpayers' burden. Also, Madam Speaker, 1 should add that out of this $1.5 billion, we are going to obtain $1.2 billion from major corporations; those paying over $15,000 per month in
The Budget-Mr. Fontaine
deductions at source from their employees paychecks, will have to pay these deductions twice a month, so that the Government will collect $1.2 billion more without Canadians having to pay a single cent out of their own pockets.
Finally, the Government will also increase the prices of gas and tobacco, for a total of approximately $1.5 billion out of $122 billion.
Before breaking down further these revenues and commenting on the Budget, it is advisable to consider what we are going to do with this $122 billion budget.
There are three major spending categories, and the most important one, the one to which our Conservative Government will allocate the greatest funds, concerns social programs. As a matter of fact, Madam Speaker, out of a $122 billion budget, $57 billion will go to the needy through all sorts of social assistance and benefits, including old age security pension, unemployment insurance, youth assistance, etc.
We are going also to spend $28 billion to pay the interest on the debt which was accumulated by our predecessors, leaving $37.1 billion to meet the needs of the other Departments.
With its message, our Government has shown Canadians its great concern for gradually reducing the Government's deficit. In 1985-86, our deficit was $34.4 billion; it was $32 billion in 1986-87, and we foresee for 1987-88 a deficit of $29.3 billion.
Madam Speaker, it should be emphasized that we have managed to reduce our deficit and as much as 63 per cent of that reduction resulted from cutting down on Government spending through better quality management. This was formally acknowledged by Mr. Dye, the Auditor General of Canada, when he tabled his first report. Everybody knows that, every time the Auditor General tabled his reports dealing with quality control and Government management, he used to criticize the previous Government and the Liberals for their mismanagement. Now in our case, Madam Speaker, for the first budget which we were entirely responsible for in this House, the Auditor General has indicated that we have considerably increased the quality of our financial management.
Our budget has taken into account, Madam Speaker, a very small increase of program expenditures, that is we have increased the program expenditures by less than 2.8 per cent, or at a lower rate than the inflation rate which is between 3.9 and 4.1 per cent. That again represents a very significant effort.
And what are the tangible effects of that control and reduced deficit?
Firstly, we have contributed, and every Canadian can appreciate it, to a very significant reduction of interest rates. As we know, Canadians will never forget that in 1981, they paid 22 to 24 per cent interest rates on their loans and we have seen last week that the bank rate had decreased to 7 per cent.

April 3, 1987
The Budget-Mr. Fontaine
So if we compare the interests paid under the Liberal Government and those paid today, there is a very significant difference. All Canadians can appreciate it when they borrow to purchase durable goods such as a car, a house, etc. And this has surely and clearly an effect at the beginning of each month when Canadians make their mortgage payments.
There are also other tangible consequences of our good management. 1 now refer to the 705,000 new jobs created by Canadians and not by the Government. The Government has offered favourable conditions to Canadian entrepreneurs and businessmen, encouraging them to invest in this country. This has an entirely different effect than that of the infamous Canada Work programs under which the Liberal Government created jobs lasting four months and then the people would be back on become unemployment for eight months. As opposed to that, we got organized, and our message was heard, especially by small businesses because 70 percent of those
705.000	new jobs that were created are due to small and medium size businesses. And that, Madam Speaker, we achieved despite the slump in the international price of oil. That oil price slump created many problems in Western Canada, and despite a very significant level of job losses in the oil industry and oil and gas exploration, we still created
705.000	jobs. And that job creation was also achieved despite the very sharp decline in the prices of farm commodities. That has created many problems for our farmers, but despite all that we succeeded in creating many new jobs. And those
705.000	new jobs were also created despite an increasingly protectionnist mood in the United States against some of our exports.
All of that, Madam Speaker, clearly was favourably reflected in terms of the level of economic recovery in Canada. And we are going to pursue along that road, we will pursue deregulation, and we also will pursue privatization of some corporations. Let us remember how much de Havilland and Canadair have cost Canadians. Billions of dollars were sunk, and the Liberals even passed special legislation to write off Canadair liabilities billions of dollars that were later transferred to the Canadian Government deficit.
We are going to keep on improving legislation, and we are not going to put forward legislation that solely reflects the interests of marginal people in this country. Our legislation, our positions will increasingly be aimed at the total Canadian population, because the total Canadian population pay the bill when we legislate in some areas. So we will take that total population into account.
We will keep on modernizing our financial services. We made possible, actually we brought barriers down, we opened the doors between the various financial institutions like brokerage firms, insurance companies, banks, so that you will now be able to obtain various financial services from a single business place. This is simply in tune with the new, modern ways of doing business, a kind of attuning Liberals did not feel
to be pertinent. We have done it. And we did it while protecting for instance services offered by our insurance agents, our local insurance brokers who are still exclusive insurance retailers.
In addition to our goals of good management and deficit control, we will remain committed to two major national matters. I am referring to the matter of trade liberalization with the United States. I will also refer to the matter of tax reform. It is important for our Government to sign an agreement with the United States to ensure that our exporters, who over the past few years have developed a market worth $95 billion a year ... It is important for us to keep this market and, with the Government's help, we are going to keep it through a definite agreement with our American neighbours, in spite of the negative attitude of both the Socialists and the Liberals.
Moreover, Madam Speaker, we are going to make a sustained effort to come up with a tax reform in an attempt to discourage some of them who seem partial to the American tax system from leaving Canada permanently to pursue their business in the United States which would be detrimental to our country. Therefore, we are going to make sure that our tax legislation will fit within the North America framework to prevent this brain drain. Through our tax proposals, we are going to encourage the ant rather than the cicada. You certainly know the fable, Madam Speaker. The cicada sings all summer long but comes winter and it is totally without resources. It decides to turn to its neighbour, the ant, which is more the thrifty type. So far, our tax system favoured for decades by the Liberals did not encourage the ant but the cicada. It did not encourage Canadians to invest, to use their savings to create new business ventures, because they had to pay too much tax on their savings. We, on the other hand, understand that the ant is more important than the cicada; consequently, we intend to give back to the ant the desire to get involved in business. We are going to amend our tax system accordingly.
Madam Speaker, we are also going to ensure, through our tax proposals, that Canadians pay significantly less income tax.
The Minister of Finance's message is directed also to Quebecers. We can say that Quebecers will enjoy an international banking centre, and those in Montreal East will witness the rebirth of the petrochemical industry. We know that the F-18 will be built in Montreal and that shipyards in Eastern Canada and Quebec will get a new start. There have been formal commitments of over $1 billion to Versatile Vickers shipyards, in Sorel, and my own shipyards in Levis and Lauzon.
The day before yesterday, Madam Speaker, this Government also announced that the plant in Sainte-Therese-and I see that my colleague, the Minister for External Relations (Mrs. Landry) is here-would continue to employ 5,500 Quebecers in Quebec and that the same plant would also guarantee 5,400 jobs in Ontario. Many of these jobs are in the riding of the Leader of the NDP, the Hon. Member for
April 3, 1987

Oshawa (Mr. Broadbent), who did not make the slightest gesture to co-operate with our Government on reaching an agreement with the union so that the Government of Quebec and our Government could each contribute SI 10 million. The Leader of the NDP did nothing at all, nor did he intervene when we made our proposals on the pharmaceutical industry.
And what about the position taken by the members who are supposed to comment on our budget? 1 am thinking of the Elon. Member for Laval-des-Rapides (Mr. Garneau) who had nothing to say about the international banking centre. Madam Speaker, he knows what I am talking about. 1 am referring to an article that appeared in Le Devoir on January 30, 1987: "The banking centre project is unacceptable". That was the Elon. Member for Laval-des-Rapides. And that from a Quebec Member and a former Minister of Finance in the Quebec Government! The Hon. Member for Laval-des-Rapides did not take a very clear position either on the F-18 issue. And the same applies to his remarks on our trade with the United States. He ignores the position taken by his colleagues in the Quebec Government who are of the same political persuasion. He is at odds with the position taken by the President of the Liberal Party of Canada, Mr. Roberts, and we would have appreciated a more clear-cut position on his part in the matter of the Sainte-Therese plant.
Maybe that is why the Hon. Member for Laval-des-Rapides has to force people to come and listen when he is a guest speaker. I would like to quote part of a letter that was sent to people in the riding of Saint-Jean by the Liberal Party of Canada. There was a complaint about the absence of elected officials and mayors. The letter goes on to say: "Considering that situation-the fact that they stayed away for two years- your presence or absence on May 1, 1987 at our supper will be noticed and noticeable". Elected officials are being forced to come and finance the Liberal Party, probably with the proceeds of municipal taxes.
And what about the party leader's comments on our Budget? He has no comments at all except for a few negative remarks. I think that before trying to comment sensibly on our Budget, he should first control his caucus. He should show he takes a clear stand on our negotiations with the Americans, on Canada's defence and on tax reform, which is a way of keeping capital and human resources here in Canada for the benefit of Canadians.
The Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier) may laugh at this, but I would like to listen to his response later today. When the Leader of the Liberal Party talks about the Budget he should tell us just how he would pay the $11.3 billion his day care program would cost. And how would he pay for his regional development distribution program? That I would like to know. I would also like to hear what he has to say about former Canadian Government Finance Minister Macdonald teaming up with Mr. Lougheed of Alberta to
The Budget-Mr. Fontaine
support the firm position of Canadian businessmen in favour of free trade.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Resign, incompetent!


Gabriel Fontaine: We do not hear the Leader of the Liberal Party talk about that. How much are we going to have to pay for the guaranteed income scheme they proposed in caucus? We do not hear him talk about that.
He should talk about the finances of the Liberal Party of Canada before commenting on anything else. In conclusion, Madam Speaker, if I may I should like to say a few words about the socialists, for I have something for them as well even though few of them are in the House today. They ought to shed some light on their own sources of financing. Let them tell us why they continue to remain silent about the fact that they obtain their funds in a way which is probably questionable, illegal, from Canadian workers' pay deductions. Madam Speaker, I would refer to the July 1986 ruling of Ontario Supreme Court Justice Wise that it was against the law to draw funds from the union dues of Canadian workers who do not belong to a union.
I would like to hear their side of the story. I would also like them to comment on their new awareness, their new understanding of the Province of Quebec. In 1981 they ignored Quebec, they did not know our province is different, but now they are prostituting themselves in a way, Madam Speaker, by telling us that Quebec is not a province like the others.
My last words are about their convention where they had 43 delegates from Quebec, a province with 75 ridings. They did bring a lot of western Canadians east to Montreal, but for their own convention they were unable to attract as many delegates as there are ridings. So before they lecture us, Madam Speaker, I would like to hear their explanations about the fact that they represent Quebec as well.
What is their position on Labrador, Madam Speaker, on aircraft test flights? I see that my time is up. I conclude by sending a message to the Party leader: Let him explain how come a socialist can draw a salary of $101,700, be driven around by a chauffeur, and still remain a socialist? That is food for thought.


Mr. Gagliano:: Madam Speaker, I have a question to put to my colleague. At the outset of his comments, he congratulated the Government for having collected $1.2 billion, thanks to its famous conjuring trick of which everyone is aware today since even financial experts are criticizing the Government for having manipulated the financial data in the budget.
Considering that my colleague has praised the Government, I am compelled to put to him the following question: Of course, everyone agrees that the Government is levying $1.2 billion from businesses. I should like also to point out to him that a building contractor in Quebec with 20 employees is also subject to that new measure which does not increase taxes nor reduce expenditures. However, during the financial year, the Government will be collecting $1.2 billion before March 31,

April 3, 1987
The Budget-Mr. Fontaine
1988 and what will be the effect of such a measure in the next budget between April 1, 1988 and March 31, 1989 after being levied only once? Is it not a red herring? The Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) had to collect $1.2 billion to reduce or at least give the impression of reducing his deficit under $30 billion, but what is the purpose of such manipulation which is not approved by accountants themselves?


Gabriel Fontaine: Madam Speaker, I do not understand why the expert in small and medium size businesses of the Liberal Party, the Hon. Member for Saint-Leonard-Anjou (Mr. Gagliano) cannot explain and understand how the Government without increasing taxes will collect $1.2 billion.
As you know, Madam Speaker, business people try more and more to accelerate the turnover of funds and to speed up the collection of accounts receivable. What is true for private enterprise is also true now for the Canadian Government. It is only sound management that Canadians be now asked for a timely and accelerated remittance of source deductions, because payroll deductions do not belong to businesses. From the moment the deductions take place, they belong to the employee, Madam Speaker, and all we proposed was to move to twice-monthly remittances, thus saving us some expenses and increasing our cash, our revenues by $1.2 billion.
Finally, I have this to say to the Hon. Member who just accused our Government of fiddling the accounts. I have already explained that there was no such thing, but I would like to remind him about the playing around of the Liberals when they wanted to conceal losses to the tune of billions of dollars that Canadair and de Havilland had accumulated. They passed a legislation that waived those losses which they included in Canada's consolidated deficit. That's tampering with the accounts. As well, I would like to refer my Liberal colleague to previous Auditor General's reports. Year after year, he pointed out that important and significant expenses were not accounted for, objecting to the fact that the Government would defer until later years the inclusion of theses expenses, and noting that liabilities did not show some well identified debts. Then, Madam Speaker, one could talk about manipulation.


Don Boudria: Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to what my colleague had to say. I am slightly worried that he should get so hot under the collar; this does not do his blood pressure any good, and as I manage to remain quite calm in this House, Madam Speaker, as you have surely noticed, you can understand my concern.
I would like to ask the Hon. Member opposite, on the same subject to which the Hon. Member for Saint-Leonard-Anjou (Mr. Gagliano) referred when he asked him a question earlier, a very important question, which is normally the case, as you well know, when the Hon. Member for Saint-Leonard-Anjou gets on his feet, I would like to ask him the following question regarding payroll deductions which are then remitted to the Federal Government and which are now to be paid twice a month rather than once. The Hon. Member will recall that the
Canadian Association of Municipalities had recently written a letter to the Minister of Finance, and had in fact met with the Minister some time before the Budget was tabled, at which time it had asked him to channel supplementary funding to municipalities to improve municipal infrastructures. What happened in fact, Madam Speaker, as you well know, given your objective and non-partisan stance, and as the Hon. Member opposite knows also, I am sure, what happened was that the Government brought in a Budget which took more money away from already impoverished municipalities which needed extra funding and had informed the Federal Government of their needs only a short time before. Can the Hon. Member explain why his Government has taken money away from municipalities rather than give them the money they had asked for?


Gabriel Fontaine: Firstly, Madam Speaker, the Hon. Member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria) would be well advised to get acquainted with the Canadian Constitution and understand it, because it does not provide for development between municipalities and the Governement of Canada. Such a matter is a provincial reponsibility. I know that the Liberal party to which my colleague belongs has limited knowledge of the Constitution. Indeed, it entirely forgot the existence of a Canadian province in 1981. The Liberals should have known better.
In conclusion, I will say that the $1.2 billion that the Government is collecting, Madam Speaker, is money which is being collected more rapidly to which it is entitled and which was kept by the companies that were making to the Government monthly remittances of less than $15,000 in salary deductions. They will now make their remittances twice monthly. Now this is a measure of fine management and I am quite proud of it in spite of the allegations made by my Liberal colleagues.


Don Boudria: Madam Speaker, I would like first to remind the Hon. Member opposite, as he should know, that we had previously federal-provincial agreements in Canada, for the purpose indeed of helping municipalities. I know that, what with Conservative confrontation with provincial Governments, it is not very realistic to expect that now. But all the same, I would like to remind the Hon. Member opposite that it did happen.
Second, concerning his little comment at the end of his remarks about the Constitution, I feel it is totally unfair for the Hon. Member to criticize Conservative members who also supported the 1982 Constitutional resolution. I would think that if I were a Conservative Member in this House, I would be quite offended by the comments made by the Hon. Member for Levis (Mr. Fontaine), because a large majority of those Members indeed supported the Constitutional resolution. I would hope that his colleagues next to him would ask for immediate apologies.


Gabriel Fontaine: Madam Speaker, when the Hon. Member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria) refers to
April 3, 1987

cooperation with cities and municipalities, I will point out that we are aware this is an area of provincial jurisdiction, and on this side we will not resort to measures and scams the way Liberals used to do in order to build all kinds of capital projects in the various cities and municipalities in Quebec through scam agencies with a view to protecting the interests of supporters, Liberal organizers. That happened right across Canada, and do not ask me to refer to that here, because I will also refer to the most partisan use you made of the Laprade Fund. I have no reluctance to answer you on that.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Have you forgotten Oerlikon, Gravel, Stevens?


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Order, please. The period for questions and comments has now expired. Debate. The Hon. Member for Spadina (Mr. Heap).


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to have an opportunity to take part in this Budget debate. The Tory Budget before us is a two-Canada Budget. It divides Canadians into two groups, the rich and the rest of us. As some of my colleagues in the New Democratic Party have already pointed out, this Budget does little or nothing to address the inequities between the different regions in Canada, the subject of a speech made by the Hon. Member from Labrador this morning. It does little or nothing to end the terrible cycle of unemployment and poverty that grips Atlantic Canada, British Columbia, parts of the Prairies, northern Ontario and parts of Quebec. That cycle of poverty and unemployment is not limited to the have-not regions of Canada but it is certainly more prevalent.
Even in Toronto, we see the trend between a two-Canada society, one Canada for the rich and one for the rest of us. It is nowhere more visible than in my riding of Spadina where the golden windows of a bank tower look over the houses and flats of working people and of the rooms of those who have no work.
There was no direct mention of poor people, or poverty in the Budget of the Hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson), nor was there a mention of poor people or poverty in the Speech from the Throne. This Government clearly would like to pretend that poverty does not exist, or does not exist in Canada. I can tell you, Madam Speaker, that poverty does exist in Canada, even in Toronto, even in Spadina within sight of the bank tower with the golden windows. There used to be an old song about how the banks are made of marble. That has gone out of style. Now we have gold windowed bank towers in Toronto, so the song will have to be updated.
However, in our Toronto, the Toronto for the rest of us, not for the banks and the rich, 165 food banks are needed to serve more than 200,000 free meals every month to those who simply do not have enough money to feed themselves. In our Toronto, 21,000 of those who depend on the food banks for nourishment are children. Those food banks did four times as
The Budget-Mr. Heap
much business last year as the year before. We are heading the wrong way.
There are 70,000 families currently waiting for subsidized housing, waiting in overcrowded and substandard housing. In our Toronto people are living and sleeping in the streets, in alley-ways, in abandoned cars and, in the wintertime, perhaps over a grate that brings up some warm air from some heating duct in one of the buildings. Others sleep in boarded up buildings. Increasingly the people who are forced to do this include young people, children as young as 10 or 12 years.
It is true that the nominal unemployment rate is declining in Toronto. I suggest that the official unemployment rate is a poor indicator of poverty. It is even a poor indicator of unemployment. We cannot really kid ourselves that the unemployment rate officially at 5 per cent or 6 per cent covers the people who have given up looking for jobs because they are not there. We cannot kid ourselves that it covers the people who are working part-time because that is all they can get, when what they want, are willing to do and need is full-time work. The Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto has estimated that the real unemployment rate is probably one-third larger than the nominal unemployment rate in Toronto and elsewhere. In our Toronto, the number of people on general welfare has gone up 48 per cent over the past four years. In January, there were more than 50,000 people in metro on welfare.
Furthermore, our Toronto is a city where most women work. In our Toronto most working women have children. There is a tremendous shortage of affordable day-care, something that was noticed lately by a parliamentary committee, and then quickly forgotten since it was decided that the matter could be dealt with in a very slight and superficial way. The working women of Toronto know that that is not going to work. It will not support life as it can and should be lived by the working people in this country.	.
One of the ironies to which I have referred about the life in Spadina is that besides many such working people at the bottom of the scale and others at the middle of the scale, Spadina also contains Bay Street. It is my honour and privilege to represent Bay Street, the bank towers, the insurance headquarters, the oil company headquarters and many other such interesting institutions.


James Douglas Manly: Did they vote for you?


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Those are the symbols of the other Canada. My colleague asks if they voted for me. The people who work in those bank towers do not live anywhere close. They live farther away among the elite. They vote for the elite somewhere else. I will add though that during municipal elections when they could vote for me I was elected four times as alderman in the ward and was never defeated.
This is the symbol of the other Canada, the symbol of Canada for the rich, the Canada that is so ably represented by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney), by the Minister of

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The Budget-Mr. Heap
Finance and by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner). This Budget serves the interests of the other Canada and ignores the needs of our Toronto. It did not deliver the programs which the working people of Spadina need. This Budget represented the needs of Bay Street. As a result of the Budget, for every $100 earned by a corporation the corporation will be paying $1 less in taxes than it did the year before. On the other hand, the working people in Toronto will each pay $2 more than last year in direct and indirect taxes on every $100 earned.
This Budget continues the regressive and unfair taxation measures that have marked this Government. The Hon. Minister of Finance increased taxes on the people who live in Spadina by an average of 13 per cent in this Budget. Combined with the increases in previous Budgets, the total tax increase borne by ordinary people comes to more than 50 per cent in the last two and a half years. The average family living in the shadow of the Toronto-Dominion Tower is being hit with a tax bill that is $1,300 higher than it was when the Government took office.
What about the companies with head offices in these bank towers on Bay Street? Who speaks for those companies? Of course, the Minister of Finance speaks for them. He used to work there and he speaks for them very ably. In this Budget, as in previous Budgets, he has reduced the share of taxes paid by Bay Street as compared to the share of taxes paid by the people who live in the rest of Spadina or in most of the rest of Canada.
The Government hopes to raise about $35 billion in new tax revenues by 1990. It intends to take almost all of that money out of the pockets of ordinary Canadians. It estimates new corporate tax revenues as making up only 1 per cent of that amount. Only 1 per cent of it will come from the wealthiest corporations in Canada. Is that fair? It is not. Is it good for the economy? We have been told to tighten our belts for another five, 10 or 20 years and that some day we will eat again. We should remember that it was consumer spending, not corporate spending, that brought us out of the last recession. The corporations were salting all their money away or spending it in other parts of the world. It was consumer spending that brought us out of the recession, and cutting back on the power of consumers to spend is not good for the economy.
My colleagues in the New Democratic Party have made recommendation after recommendation for ways the Budget could have been both fairer and more effective. The Budget could have seen that Bay Street carries at least as much of the tax burden as the people living in the shadows of those head offices. My colleagues in the New Democratic Party have advocated the reduction of the scale and importance of corporate tax expenditures. "Corporate tax expenditures" is an interesting term and refers to the money the Government spends on reducing a corporation's tax. In Toronto, we call them loopholes, give-aways, and ripoffs.
I would like to deal with one particular aspect of corporate tax expenditures. Last year, as the House may recall, the Hon. Minister of Finance was forced to revise his deficit forecasts. In the revision, about $1.2 billion of his shortfall was in corporate tax collections. That is to say, in a Budget that planned to reduce the tax burden on corporations, as compared to ordinary Canadians, he over-estimated the taxes corporations would pay. Last year, he over-estimated that figure by $1.2 billion.
How does the Minister of Finance, a smart businessman, make a $1.2 billion mistake? Last year the Hon. Minister said that it was because of unexpectedly low corporate profits. Had the Minister been somewhat more precise he would have said-as he said in the papers attached to the Budget papers which were not read by everyone-that the $1.2 billion error in 1986 was due to the unexpected application of something called a loss carry-forward.
What is a loss carry-forward? When a corporation has a loss or deduction that it cannot use in a given year for the purpose of reducing its tax, it can carry it forward and apply it to reduce its taxes in the following year. Working people are not allowed to do that. We cannot carry forward our losses in order to apply them where they would be more beneficial to us, but corporations, of course, can and they plan on it. The loss carry-forward means that the higher corporate profits are protected from taxes for many years to come.
If the Minister were to correct this problem, he would automatically find himself with a larger corporate revenue base for his taxes. Hence, he would have the ability to make the tax system fairer and to address some of the needs of the people who live in the shadow of Bay Street, whether that be in Spadina, Come-By-Chance or the Northwest Territories. If the Minister does not close up this and similar loopholes, then his promises of fairer taxes will ring as hollow in 1988 as they did in 1984.
It is hard to imagine anything less fair to the majority of Canadians than the present tax system. Already the majority of Canadian corporations pay no taxes. Some of them do not pay taxes because they are taking losses in the current year, and no one takes issue with that. However, many companies that do not pay taxes are profitable and do record positive net incomes on their balances sheets. Our NDP study of the tax system indicated that as many as half of all companies not paying taxes were profitable.
Some of these loopholes and tax expenditures might be justified if they provided efficient ways to create jobs, but they do not. Let me explain why this is so. First, if the House were to vote an appropriation of moneys as a grant for some purpose, there would be an elaborate accounting system that would give us a great deal of information on how effective the program would be. The Minister and the Auditor General would present reports to the House and perhaps the committee of the House studying the matter would look at how effective the grant would be. We might disagree but we would have the facts on which to base a reasonable argument. With these tax
April 3, 1987

expenditures, all we have is estimates in advance. We have no report and we have no real way of knowing if a company that has taken advantage of an investment tax credit has in fact created new jobs or has just shuffled the old ones around and pocketed the difference. We have no way of keeping track.
Second, studies have been done on the link between corporate tax cuts and private-sector job creation. These studies show a very, very weak link between the two, if any at all. In 1985, a study done by the Department of Employment and Immigration showed that if personal incomes taxes were cut by $1 billion, five times as many jobs could be created than would be created if corporate income taxes were cut by the same amount. That study was done by this Government and it was ignored. The same study indicated that if government spending were to be increased by $1 billion, six times as many jobs would be created as would be created by cutting corporate taxes.
Did the Government do that? Of course not. Instead, it has effectively reduced the portion of the tax burden paid by corporations while increasing that which is paid by individuals. This continues the trend followed by the previous Government ever since 1950. In 1950, the amount of income tax contributed by individuals and the amount contributed by corporations was about equal. Now, the immensely wealthy corporations contribute only one-quarter of the amount that is contributed by individuals to income tax. The Government has pushed that process still farther in the wrong direction.
What do I advocate? What should the Government do? It has obviously missed many chances already. It has missed the chance to announce specific employment targets, milestones on the road toward a goal of full employment for all Canadians. It has missed the chance to announce programs aimed at providing quality day care where it is needed. In this Budget, it missed the opportunity to increase the stock of housing for the homeless. It has failed to address the needs of the homeless in Toronto and elsewhere.
The Hon. Minister of Finance has reserved for himself the right to correct some of the inequities in this Budget. We hope he will address the needs of the people who live in the shadow of Bay Street, whether their address is Spadina, Come-By-Chance, or the Northwest Territories. I call on the Minister to right some of the wrongs in the tax system as embodied in this Budget.
I particularly call on him to undertake the following steps. First, he should establish a detailed annual accounting of the cost and benefits of this type of tax expenditure so they can be evaluated on the same basis as other government expenditures.
Second, he should restore a fairer balance in the tax system between what individuals give and what is given by the corporations and then cancelled through tax giveaways. We should never again hear the horror stories of profitable corporations who escape all or most taxes year after year. We
The Budget-Mr. Heap
have that situation in Spadina. At least two banks in some years paid no tax, although they each made hundreds of millions of dollars in profit. The Government of the day had the gall to give them, by way of a law made for its friends, a tax credit.
Third, the Minister ought to consider a minimum income tax on profitable corporations. He knows that consumer spending has been the driving force in pulling us out of the recent recession. To continue raising taxes on ordinary Canadians threatens our ability to extend that recovery. It threatens to return us to the recession. Tax expenditures on large corporations, which do not have to account for how they spend that money, do not help.
I see you are indicating that my time is nearly finished, Madam Speaker. I want to briefly mention three more points which should be considered. First, with tax reform of the kind I have described we would increase disposable income and the needed consumer spending. Second, we would have more money to deal with the social programs cut back by the Government, as represented by the Save Our Summers demonstration yesterday noon. When we have done that we might find that we had a little money to start reducing the deficit. The important thing in all of this is to build toward one Canada. Instead of polarizing Canada between the rich and the rest, we could build a Canada with equity in opportunity and condition for the people in Spadina, in Come-By-Chance, the Northwest Territories, the Gaspe, indeed, in every part of Canada where there are poor people.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Questions or comments.


Reginald Francis Stackhouse: Madam Speaker, it has been very worth while to listen to the remarks of my hon. friend, particularly because I had the pleasure of living in his riding for 10 years. It was a Liberal riding through most of that time, but I think it has gotten better recently. One thing characteristic of the Hon. Member is his concern for those who can be described as the poor. It is a concern that I am sure all of us share. Where we will disagree is in the way we attempt to meet the problem he has identified.
I think it is very important to recognize that this Canada of ours is not divisible by two. It is a misrepresentation of the Canadian scene for the NDP to say it is divided between the rich and poor. In between those extremes there are so many people of varying degrees of affluence and accomplishment that it is simply distorting beyond all recognition the Canadian scene to speak as he did. Where we have to get together is on how to cope with the problem suffered by a too large minority of our fellow Canadians. I suggest that, as correct as many of the points that he made were, there are some things which need to be added to the record. In the brief time allowed me I want to do that.
First is the way in which the economic policies of this Government have added to the prosperity and increased the number of Canadians who have raised themselves up out of

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The Budget-Mr. Heap
poverty through gaining employment and being able to provide for their families. Through their spending they contribute to the prosperity of others. That number has increased. That should be recognized for what it is. The most effective way of meeting the problem of poverty is meeting the problem of unemployment.
The second point I want to make concerns the way in which our social scene has been made a much more humane and helping scene because of the various pension reforms and other program improvements that have been part of this Parliament under the leadership of the Government.
The Elon. Member spoke about the inequities of the present tax system. In doing so he surely heralds the advent of the tax reform we will see in this Parliament. I certainly hope he will dedicate his support to that reform which we will hopefully see in this Parliament within this calendar year. I trust that reform will remove many of the inequities he has identified. More importantly, it will provide us with a tax system which will contribute to an increase in Canadian productivity.
One of the worst parts of our present tax system is the way it discourages the advance of productivity. That, unintentionally and indirectly, but nonetheless effectively, contributes to the poverty problem about which he is so concerned. The best way to deal with poverty is by improving the economy in a way in which more Canadians can have an active share. I think the forthcoming tax reform will give us that opportunity and I certainly appreciate the support of the Hon. Member.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Madam Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for his kind comments. I am aware that he lived in Spadina for some years. I am also aware that he did not choose to run for Parliament in Spadina.


Reginald Francis Stackhouse: Aren't you lucky?


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: I am not worried in case he should decide he wants to do it.


Reginald Francis Stackhouse: I have a better riding.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: He likes the riding he is in better than Spadina. That is his choice. Perhaps he feels safer there.
In speaking about the poor he shows that he does not want to hear the facts I mentioned about the increase in Spadina, and other parts of Toronto, in the number of people who are forced to go to food banks for the day's food, including 21,000 children in Metropolitan Toronto. He did not refer to the families who are still waiting for subsidized housing. He did not refer to the social planning council's estimate of as much as 10,000 homeless people in Toronto. He talks, as do others on his side, about this jobs created figure. I will tell him that if he runs in Spadina he will have to face up to the fact that, notwithstanding all his statistics, there is a great deal of hunger and poverty in Toronto, including Spadina. People will ask him to answer for that.
He talked about the Government's record. He even had the comical nerve to mention pension reform. The pension reform his Government tried to implement was to reduce old age pensions. It was the NDP, with some help from the Liberals, that led the revolt of the senior citizens which forced the Hon. Member's Government to back down on that issue. He talked about tax reform. We have heard that talk since the election campaign of 1984 from the Hon. Member's Party. We have heard it promised every month since 1984. We have now had four Budgets with no tax reform of any benefit to poor people. According to the practice of the Hon. Member's Party tax reform means soak the poor and subsidize the rich. He claims that by doing that they will increase productivity.
As a factory worker for 18 years and a trade unionist, the productivity of Canadian working people is nothing of which 1 have any cause to be ashamed. With the equipment given them by the investors the Canadian workers have as good a record of productivity as almost any country in the world. To accuse Canadian workers of being unproductive and to claim that the unemployment and poverty which has been visited on some of them is a punishment for lack of productivity is false. We need not a whip to make the workers more productive, but a more rational division of the product of their labour. If the Hon. Member's Party is going to do that in its tax reform I will, of course, welcome it. However, I will also be very much astonished because it will be a 180 degree reversal of what it has been doing for the past two and a half years.


Gabriel Fontaine: Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the comrade for Spadina (Mr. Heap) refer to his tax philosophy. He speaks of tax fairness, tax justice as far as tax sources are concerned, etc.
1 would like to ask him whether he considers it fair and just that the Socialist Party collect funds from compulsory salary deductions from workers who are not union members, and whether it is fair and just that the Socialist Party continue to ignore the judgment rendered in July, 1986 by Mr. Justice Wise of the Ontario Supreme Court. I would also like to add that his colleague from Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) already admitted that funding source. Finally, I would like to ask him whether it is fair that his Leader, the Leader of the Socialist Party refused to take a salary cut? He is still receiving $101,700. For a socialist to have a chauffeur and a limousine, we do not find that fair, Madam Speaker, and we would like to have explanations.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Madam Speaker, I am very glad to answer the Hon. Member's questions within the time available. With regard to Party contributions, as a trade unionist and factory worker, in non-union factories at first, I was not so much concerned about the small amounts which unions gave to the New Democratic Party as I was about the very large amounts given by the banks, oil companies, et cetera. To the best of my
April 3, 1987

knowledge they did not get the permission of their shareholders to do that. They did not ask their shareholders whether they wanted to give $50,000 to the Conservative Party and to the Liberal Party so they would have a hold on whichever Party formed the Government. To the best of my knowledge that was done without any of the control which is exercised by the members of my union, the Canadian Paperworkers Union, and other unions in Canada which can remove officers with a year's notice if the officers are mis-spending money. Therefore,
I believe that the trade unionist money which goes into election campaigns is under much better democratic control by the people who earn the money than are the huge donations made by the banks, insurance companies, oil companies and so on.
With regard to the court decision, I am going to wait to hear what the Supreme Court says. I remember a court decision 20 years ago which was against a union. The Royal York fired its employees who were on legal strike and cancelled their pensions. A judge said that according to the Master and Servants Act of 1513 the company had the right to do that. 1 remember that some powerful businessmen were horrified at that decision. There were some very left-wing trade unionists, further left than I, who rejoiced at that decision because it would have destroyed with one blow the whole system of labour relations built up in this country. Therefore, I will wait to see if the Supreme Court makes a wiser decision than did Judge Wise.


Mrs. Mary Collins (Capilano):: Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to have an opportunity to take part in the debate on the Budget. Since the Budget came down in February I have received feedback from my constituents and heard comments from across the country on it. I am very pleased with the positive response on this Budget which was consistent with the direction of the Government and offered the people of Canada some real opportunities.
I do not want to spend all of my time today reviewing the facts and figures of the Budget because I want to discuss particularly its implications for my home Province of British Columbia. However, I will just remind my colleagues of the outline of the Budget. The most important thing about it is that it shows that this Government has control of the financial management of the country as has no government for a long period. That is what voters asked us to do when they sent us to office in 1984, and that is what we are doing. We all know of the situation we inherited. Spending had got out of control. It is like taking a huge ocean liner and trying to turn it around in the middle of the ocean. It takes some time to do it, but we have turned it around and are now going in the right direction.
To cite a few statistics in support of that, when we came into office in 1984, there was a deficit of $38.3 billion. In the past years we have been able to bring that down by 24 per cent. The projected deficit in the 1987 Budget of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) is only $29.3 billion. We would like it to go down even more and I know we will accomplish that with the fiscal management which the Government has undertaken. The real costs of Government are declining for the first time since the
The Budget-Mrs. Collins
Korean War. There has been a decline in the program expenditures of the Government. It is in the decline of program expenditures that we have been able to make the most rapid gains, and that accounts for 69 per cent of the decline in the deficit. As a result of the tremendous efforts by my colleagues in the Cabinet it is projected that by 1990-91 there will be a reduction of 15,000 positions in the Public Service.
What have been the results of this sound program of fiscal management? Some people expressed the fear that by taking what some may regard as relatively harsh measures to get spending under control we might see some adverse impacts. However, the exact opposite has occurred. Since September, 1984, over 700,000 new jobs have been created, by far the majority being full-time jobs. That is what Canadians want and need. Of great importance, too, has been the decline in interest rates which affect all of us when we have to borrow money to buy a home, a car, or invest in a business. A mere four or five years ago interest rates were at 22 per cent and people were really frightened. They could not realistically take a risk in buying a home or investing in a business. Now that interest rates are below 10 per cent and long-term mortgage rates are below 10 per cent, there has been a tremendous turnaround and, for the first time, young Canadians can look forward to the opportunity of owning their own home. That is probably the dream of every Canadian and we want to make sure that it comes true.
Low interest rates have meant increased investment in business because people are willing to take risks. New investment has come to Canada. Even with low interest rates, Canada is still very attractive because of the stability of the economy and the good management of the Government. This was recently verified in the Kanao Report by the group of Japanese businessmen who visited Canada late last year. They went throughout British Columbia and the country to meet with government officials and business people. Their report stated that they had found a new Canada which had a new spirit of entrepreneurship and productivity. They found diversification in industry and a stable investment climate. In fact, they recommended to their peers that Canada is a good place to invest. We look forward to the results of that investment in the years to come.
Another indicator of growth is the forestry industry, an industry that is so important in my home province. The estimates for 1987 are that capital investment in Canada's forestry sector will rise by 23.5 per cent. That is a spectacular increase despite the cries of potential doom and gloom we heard from the opposition Parties when we unfortunately had to deal with the 15 per cent export charge recently. Despite that export charge, the forestry business is booming, particularly in pulp and paper. British Columbia alone will benefit from 64 per cent of this projected increase in investment. New investments in the province's forestry sector is expected to reach $144.8 million, which will mean many more jobs.

April 3, 1987
The Budget-Mrs. Collins
There are projects planned for British Columbia that will have a tremendous impact on B.C. communities. Those are some of the results of this Government's efforts.
We should recognize how the efforts of the Minister of Finance and his ability to get financial issues and management on track allow other cabinet colleagues to support him with their initiatives.
Tax reform that will come forward later this spring is another initiative in the Budget about which we have heard a great deal. I look forward to that proposal and look forward to discussing its details when it is brought forward. We know that the Minister of Finance has already stated in his Budget Speech that we will be dealing with changes in personal, corporate and federal sales tax and that the emphasis will be on reducing the personal tax rate, reducing tax preferences and broadening the tax base. This will probably mean that lower income Canadians in particular will pay less tax, a policy which is indeed consistent with the other initiatives the Government took in its 1986 Budget, such as the $50 sales tax credit and the $300 child tax credit. We are focusing these efforts particularly on that group of people in our society who are facing greater difficulty because we want to help them. Our Government cares about all Canadians.
What has been the impact of this Budget and the Government's measures on British Columbia in the last two years? How do we ensure that British Columbia develops the potential that 1 believe it has in its people and resources? First, because we sometimes tend to overlook them and consider the negative, let us consider some of the positive aspects of what has happened in British Columbia in the last couple of years. Since September, 1984, 61,000 jobs have been created in British Columbia which is twice as many jobs in the 29 months since the Government took office than in the four years of the previous Liberal Government. Jobs have been created at a monthly rate of 2,103.
The unemployment rate has fallen from 15.1 per cent at the time of the election in 1984 to 13.3 per cent now. That is still to high and I hope to have an opportunity to expand on our plans to reduce the unemployment rate. Total unemployment, however, has fallen by 21,000 in the past two and a half years and we must ensure that it continues to drop.
There are other economic factors that are important to consider. For example, retail sales have risen by 6.8 per cent in the past year, and 18.7 per cent in the last two and a half years.
Urban housing is an important indicator in the economy and housing starts in 1986 were at their highest level since 1981. Construction commenced on 18,841 units, which means that those families, many of whom would be first-time buyers, can have a home of their own.
In December, 1986, manufacturing shipments were up 8.6 per cent from the same period in 1985, which is a tremendous increase. They are up 13 per cent since September, 1984.
The number of bankruptcies in the first month of 1987 was down 14.4 per cent compared to the same period in 1986. New incorporations are an indicator of small business activity which is a very important sector of our economy. They were up 11 per cent in 1985, which means 1,529 new businesses were started in British Columbia. At the same time, inflation was held at 2.8 per cent in Vancouver.
There are a number of other factors, but one of particular interest is tourism. International tourism sky-rocketed in 1986 and was up 80.6 per cent. We know that much of that is due to the spectacular success of Expo 86. However, it also means that the millions of visitors who came to Vancouver and British Columbia, and were exposed to the tremendous attributes and attractions of that city and province, will want to come back. We welcome them and their friends and family because beautiful British Columbia is the place to visit on a vacation. I am sure you will agree, Madam Speaker.
There are a number of initiatives which the Budget itself did not address specifically but which are being addressed by Ministers as they review their portfolios. Since the Budget in February we have been particularly pleased in British Columbia and my constituency of Capilano by the announcement that the new Polar 8 ice-breaker will be built at Versatile Pacific in North Vancouver at an estimated cost of $320 million. That is a major boom for the shipbuilding industry on the West Coast and shows the Government's commitment to that industry. It will mean jobs for 1,000 people and a certain future for the men and women and their families who work in that industry. They know they will be able to stay in British Columbia where they can enjoy the opportunities to work in their particular field. A long-term four to five-year contract will provide the shipbuilding industry with an opportunity to restructure and pursue other contracts, as there are interesting opportunities developing in the cruise ship business and other areas of shipbuilding which I know British Columbia will seek as well as future government contracts.
There was an even more recent announcement by the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Masse) with respect to an estimated $350 million program in the energy field which will also help British Columbia. Up until now the focus has been on Alberta. Let us not forget that there is a significant energy business in British Columbia, in particular in northern British Columbia around Fort St. John. This will mean a significant increase in exploration activity with drill rigs moving back in and with men and women working in that field. It will be necessary for suppliers to support the industry. These communities will have a chance to participate in greater economic activity than has been the case over the last year.
Those are just two announcements which the Government has made which are of significant importance to the West. Let us not forget the major initiative undertaken by the Government in its signing of the Economic Regional Development Agreement about a year and a half ago. This agreement covers
April 3, 1987

an important area and will infuse over $300 million into the forestry sector to assist in reforestation and silviculture. It is an agreement jointly shared by the federal and provincial Governments. It will also have an impact for the province in terms of tourism, agriculture, science and technology and small business. We are already seeing an impact on many of the activities that are associated with the ERDA. I will mention a few of them in a moment.
When we consider the economic structure of British Columbia we recognize that, traditionally, it has been resource-based. Forestry has been the main industry, and for many years mining was rated second in terms of industrial capacity. Agriculture has been important, as has the oil and gas industry to some extent. We are all aware of international trends which have caused a great many difficulties for all of these industries, especially in terms of the pricing of commodities in the mining field, and other problems we face in the forestry industry. In British Columbia we recognize that what we have to do is to build on the strengths that we have in these resource industries and find new ways to add value to those basic resources and to use new technologies in order to become more productive. We must have adaptive technologies which will help us add value to those basic resources. Some of this has been going on over the past couple of years. An interesting example which comes to mind is with respect to the forest industry which has implemented the use of computerized equipment. At a computerized sawmill of MacMillan Bloedel a computer can be given the specifications of a log, and in conjunction with another system which feeds in the order requirements, the equipment can automatically cut the log to meet the specifications of a particular order, whether it be for Japan, Germany or some other country. This has meant a tremendous increase in productivity and being able to meet market demands in a dynamic way. It is this type of technology that is vitally important to British Columbia.
We are also looking to other products. We have an interesting example in Prince George where a recent investment was made in a chopstick factory. Just a couple of years ago who would have thought that we could make chopsticks in British Columbia to export to Japan? However, we have the wood which, up until now, has been mostly waste wood, wood that was not being used. Through imagination and innovation some people got involved in making this investment in Prince George. They have produced a whole new industry with a number of people working in it.
What we need to do in British Columbia is to find markets. British Columbia is particularly reliant on trade. We are far from the markets of eastern Canada and the costs of transportation are high. The geography of the province makes it expensive to transport products even within the province. Thus, traditionally, we have looked to the U.S. for our markets and more recently to the Pacific Rim. This is why the new trade arrangements with the U.S. are vitally important to British Columbia. Opportunities which would open up new markets in
The Budget-Mrs. Collins
the Pacific Rim are equally important. These are the areas in which we need innovation and support from Government.
I believe it is not necessary to throw masses of money at a particular problem but that it is sometimes the identification of the obstacles to growth which are important. In some cases these obstacles have been in the form of protectionist measures or other problems which we have encountered in the United States as a result of countervailing practices. In the Pacific Rim we have been faced with similar sorts of restrictions, some of which are now being opened up, particularly for the forest industry. We are required to look not only at the products but able to match our ability with the markets.
We have to do more than say that we have a product and we want to sell it to a particular country, such as Japan or China. We have to get out and find out what it is that the people of China or Japan want and how we can develop or adapt our existing products to their markets. This is where I know the department of trade has been making great efforts to bring together our manufacturers and innovators with potential markets in this field.
I understand my time is up, Madam Speaker. There are so many other ideas which my colleagues and I have for the development of the economy of British Columbia which I look forward to sharing with Hon. Members as the weeks and months progress.


James Douglas Manly: Madam Speaker, in listening to the Hon. Member for Capilano (Mrs. Collins), our Dr. Pangloss, I could hardly recognize that we come from the same province. The Hon. Member talked about job creation. I would like the Hon. Member to comment on the fact that in February the unemployment rate in Vancouver was 14.3 per cent, the highest unemployment rate in any metropolitan centre in Canada. The Hon. Member also talked about tax reform. Could she comment on the fact that between 1984 and 1991 projected Tory tax increases will amount to $20 billion in sales tax, $15 billion in personal tax and $128 million in corporate tax? In other words, corporate tax increases account for less than 1 per cent of the increased tax load that the Tory Government has loaded on individual Canadians. Does the Hon. Member think that is fair?
Will the Hon. Member comment on rumours that there will not be any exemptions on the business transfer tax which could be introduced as part of tax reform? This means that the business transfer tax would be added on to such basic items as food, children's clothing, housing or whatever. Does the Hon. Member believe that that business transfer tax should have exemptions or not? I am interested to hear the Hon. Member's comments.


Mary Collins: Madam Speaker, first, with respect to the proposed business transfer tax, I really do not want to speculate on it. I think it is inappropriate at this time to comment on it since we do not know what the form of it will be or on what products or services it will be levied. It is appropriate to wait

April 3, 1987
The Budget-Mrs. Collins
until the plans come forward. There will obviously be a review process to determine that at that time.
The Hon. Member mentioned the unemployment rate in Vancouver. This is certainly something which disturbs me very much, as I know it disturbs the Hon. Member and other of my colleagues, since I know the rate in Vancouver is higher than it is in the province as a whole, which is perhaps rather an unusual situation. While not underestimating the difficulties this causes, I remind my colleague that some of the figures which are now showing up are as a result of people who worked at Expo last year. I know that in my own riding this has occurred. These people worked for six months at Expo. After that they were eligible for unemployment insurance which they are now collecting. They now show up on the records as unemployed. Not all of these people would have worked before Expo. They worked only during that six month period.
There may be a bit of a glitch there, and we may see that fall off on its own. Nevertheless, the unemployment figures for British Columbia are of concern to all of us, and that is why we think it is important, as the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski) has indicated, that we move forward with the program of western diversification. That is why I and my colleagues from the British Columbia caucus have been spending a great deal of time working on this, to identify what we feel are the appropriate measures and the appropriate directions for this Government to take. We have to determine how we can be most helpful. We do not want to waste money. We want to use our resources most effectively to encourage job creation and meaningful activity-and long range jobs, not short-term make-work jobs. I personally do not agree with make-work projects.
I am very pleased with the Canadian Jobs Strategy Program, and particularly as it has been applied in my own Province of British Columbia. As I am sure my colleague is aware, during 1985-86, the Province of British Columbia received just under $1.7 billion under CEIC programs, an amount well over its percentage share of all CEIC programs.
Under the Canadian Jobs Strategy Program, 1 have found of particular value the Job Entry-Re-entry Program. It is a program that is very important in terms of getting those who are now unemployed back into the job market, and particularly so for young people who have quit school before attaining any marketable skills. Having the benefit of a nine month period in the job entry program in which to develop skills has resulted in an 80 to 90 per cent success rate in job placements in some of the projects in my riding for those young people. Similarly, many women have benefited from the Re-entry Option Program, a program that has allowed them to develop the skills and confidence to re-enter the workforce.
It seems to me that if these programs were expanded and extended, many of these people could develop the skills
necessary for even more highly paid jobs, instead of having to start at the bottom.
With those kinds of initiatives, along with other initiatives which I believe this Government will be bringing forward, we will see changes for the better in the unemployment rate over the next two years.
I am sure that my colleague opposite has ideas on how we can reduce unemployment. We would welcome his ideas on what we could be doing to assist in alleviating unemployment on Vancouver Island, an economy which is based on tourism and forestry. There may be other directions in which the economy of Vancouver Island can go, one of which might be to focus on the new information technologies, the new knowledge-based industries. These industries have a tremendous application for British Columbia.
The president of one of the major technology companies in British Columbia was recently asked why he was headquartered in Vancouver; why it was that he was not headquartered where the big markets are in eastern Canada. And his response was: "Because my employees want to live in Vancouver. With this kind of company, given the new communications technologies, it doesn't matter where the business is physically located. We can be where we want to be".
It is that kind of industrial activity, supported by strong post-secondary educational opportunities, that I think will be vital for British Columbia.


Mr. McCurdy:: Mr. Speaker, I listened with a great deal of interest to the intervention of the Hon. Member for Capilano (Mrs. Collins). I know that she pays very close attention to polls. Indeed, it has been alleged that, in embarking on any course of action in this House, she is governed largely by polls.
I heard her indicate, at the very beginning of her speech, that the latest Budget has been well received in Canada.
Considering what my colleague said earlier about the Panglossian nature of her intervention and her love of polls, we might even regard her as being "pollyannish".
1 am driven to ask a question about her response to the facts, which the polls have ascertained, with respect to the reception accorded the Progressive Conservative Budget. I have here the results of a poll reported in, among other places, The Ottawa Citizen of March 26, 1987. The headline is: "Most Canadians found latest budget forgettable". It wasn't well received, by any means. The opening paragraph of the article reads:
The federal government's latest "breathing space" budget in fact seems to
have left more Canadians yawning.
It goes on to say:
Of those aware of the latest budget, most (58 per cent) said it will not
strengthen the economy, while only 18 per cent (said) it will help Canada's
economic picture.
My question for the Hon. Member is: Knowing how much she respects polls, does she agree with this poll?
April 3, 1987


Mary Collins: I know there is the opportunity in this House many times to take cheap shots at Members across the floor, but I think that that is a particularly cheap one. You have obviously misinterpreted my position-


An Hon. Member:: Shame on you!


Mary Collins: -misinterpreted my position and my philosophy, which is not one based on polls but one based on consulting my constituents. I try to ensure that I, as their representative, understand and reflect their views.
While my colleague may view the Budget one way, I can only say that, in my area of the country, having discussed it with a great cross-section of people, it has been well received.
The people asked this Government to get the country's financial affairs in order, to bring down the deficit, and to manage the economy in a conservative and thoughtful manner.


An Hon. Member:: Conservative!


Mary Collins: That is what this Government is doing, and it is the first time in decades that it has been done. This Government is looking after the pennies, after the dollars. It is looking after the taxpayers' dollars. That is what this Government has done for the last two and a half years, and that is what this Government will continue to do for the next decade, and the next decade, and the next decade after that.


Alfonso Gagliano: Madam Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to take part in the debate on the Conservative Budget. Everybody knows the Conservative Government is always bragging about reducing the deficit. In the twenty minutes I am allowed, I will try to show there has been no reduction in the deficit at all.
Madam Speaker, between 1984-85 and 1987-88-three fiscal years-total Government revenue from income taxe increased by $22.3 billion. This means that during the period, the Government took $22.3 billion out of the taxpayers' pockets and now at the end of fiscal 1986-87, everybody agrees we will have a deficit of $32 billion, the same deficit we had during the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984, which was the last full fiscal year under a Liberal Government.
So after collecting $22.3 billion in taxes from Canadians, we still have the same deficit. That is the good management this Conservative Government promised us and promised Canadians in the fall of 1984.


Don Boudria: It took them three years to do what the Liberals did in one.


Alfonso Gagliano: And now, after three years, the results are there. The figures are there. We can prove that after three years, despite the fact they collected $22.3 billion, the deficit is still at the same level it was three years ago.
Of course, Conservative Members are going to say: That is what the Liberals say. Madam Speaker, it was our initial
The Budget-Mr. Gagliano
reaction when the Budget was brought down, but this week, we read comments by the C.D. Howe Institute which is after all an authority on economic affairs, and it had the following to say about the deficit, and I quote:
The year over year reductions are sizeable. They are not, however, as sizeable as they appear at first glance. The $2.42 billion reduction in fiscal year 1986-87 was made possible only by the last minute sale of Teleglobe Canada for $450 million and by the delaying of $700 million in special assistance to grain farmers until after March 31, 1987.
The Government reserved its neatest gimmick for fiscal year 1987-88, however, when it will gain $1.2 billion in additional revenue by accelerating remittance of source deductions of income tax, pension, and unemployment insurance premiums.
In the face of the increasing difficulty of maintaining the appearance of a downward deficit track, the Government has resorted to asset sales and fiscal tricks to fulfil its principle. This is not the way to reduce the underlying imbalance between spending and revenue. It is merely a way to finance it. The ongoing budget deficit appears to be stuck at over $30 billion.

Madam Speaker, this clearly and accurately says the Minister of Finance manipulates the tax data of his Government so that every year, he can come before the House and tell us that the deficit will again be less than $30 billion. Last year he did the same thing. And now the deficit is $32 billion. This year, he did the same, and considering the measures he took to bring the deficit down to less than $30 billion, the experts were already saying one month later that he would not achieve that objective and that the deficit would again be over $30 billion.
Madam Speaker, we all know that $22.3 billion were taken out of taxpayers' pockets through personal income tax and also quite a bit through federal sales tax. I should like to recall the remarks the Minister of Finance made about the federal sales tax in his Budget presentation, and I quote: "The federal sales tax is unfair and inefficient. It is a silent killer of jobs. It levies a higher tax-on average, one-third higher-on domestic manufacturers than on competing imports. This leads to plant closures and lost Canadian jobs. The base is narrow and similar goods can have very different burdens of tax. The sales tax is coming under increasing pressure and reform is increasingly urgent."
Madam Speaker, the Minister of Finance keeps repeating that the federal sales tax must be changed, that it is an unfair tax, yet again this year he did not bat an eye when he raised the federal sales tax on gas, and he also extended the federal sales tax to ice cream, candies and other snack foods which are bought and eaten by kids mostly. Then he raised the air transportation tax. Well now, if indeed the Minister is convinced that the federal sales tax is unfair and that a tax

April 3, 1987
The Budget-Mr. Gagliano
reform is urgent, why has he been keeping us waiting for a year and a half-for almost two years now-before delivering the goods, Madam Speaker?
This afternoon we listened to the two Conservative Members who spoke in this Budget debate, and they said over and over again that time has come for tax reform, that when we do get this tax reform they will reduce personal income tax, lower the federal sales tax, and so on. But we have been waiting for two and a half years, so what prevents the Conservative Government from going ahead with the tax reform, and in the meantime we would not be debating this proposed tax reform and Canadians would get some tax relief? Madam Speaker, taxes have been going up at a rate unprecedented since World War II.
I should like also to refer to a poll taken by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business among its members. This pool revealed two things. First, that businessmen for their tax burden is their main problem, the second being, red tape, all many forms they have to fill out every year for the avowed purpose of providing the Government with tax data. In order to get $1.2 billion from businesses, the Government is asking them to send those forms every fortnight instead of every month. By this single action, Madam Speaker, the Government doubles their paperwork businessmen just to meet the request of the Minister of Finance, because they are not required only to issue a cheque every two weeks, but to balance their books, fill out forms and send them to the Government. Since coming to power, the Government has not only imposed a greater tax burden, but increased significantly the amount of red tape, while advocating the opposite.
Madam Speaker, this Government is committed to a tax reform. When are we going to get it? I am wondering, because each time the Minister of Finance makes a speech, he keeps postponing its presentation. Let us say that we will get it eventually. He has promised a White Paper to inform the Canadian people of the Government's intention. We hope to get this document as soon as possible, so that we can comment on it and hear what Canadians from different walks of life have to say about the proposed new tax system.
There have been tax reforms in Canada before. Unfortunately, once the tax reform, was in place, there was twice as much red tape. If, therefore, the Minister of Finance wants to succeed in his endeavour, he must be clear and definite in his intention not to increase taxes. Such a tax reform should not be an excuse for the Government to get additional funds from Canadian taxpayers. They are already overtaxed. The purpose of this reform is to implement in Canada a simple, adequate and equitable tax system for all Canadians, no matter their social status. It is very important, therefore, that the Minister of Finance, when tabling his White Paper on tax reform, should take into account the need for fairness, so that the tax reform may be accepted and successful in Canada. Otherwise, this will be an exercise is futility. There will be new tax increases, nobody will be able to understand the income tax
legislation, and the economic development will stall because of our foolish habit of always increasing the tax burden.
Of course, we are not debating the tax reform this afternoon because we do not know yet what are the intentions of the Government nor the directions in which they intend to lead us in that regard. We are only hypothesizing about what the various ministers, and particularly the Finance Minister, indicated in their speeches across the country or during the Budget debate. So, we are anxious to learn what are the intentions of the Government and then, of course, as the Finance Minister requested, we will reply positively and suggest solutions to make our tax system fair and equitable.
Let us go back to the Budget, Madam Speaker. We have a very important tourist industry in Canada. Yet, once more in this Budget, we increase the tax on gas. I would like to quote a few paragraphs of a paper the Canadian Automobile Association issued in March 1987.
The 2.5 million member, not-for- profit Canadian Automobile Association takes this opportunity to present the views of its members on the fiscal policy affecting motorists and the travelling public as amended by the February, 1987 Budget presented by the federal Finance Minister, Michael Wilson.
Motorists are struggling with excessive taxes. Judging from the hundreds of thousands of submissions made last year to the Prime Minister, the Finance Minister and Members of Parliament, our 2.5 million members are extremely concerned and frustrated. They feel they have been overtaxed by more than $10 billion from 1981 to 1985 following the introduction of the National Energy Program and its various forms of taxes and special charges. Motorists are upset further with the current fixed rate of 5.5 cents per litre of excise tax which, compared to 1.5 cents per litre in August, 1985, represents more than a 250 per cent increase.
[ Translation]
As we can conclude from that document, Madam Speaker, Canadians are frustrated, exasperated, fed up with tax increases.
Madame Speaker, we all drive cars. Therefore, a 1 per cent increase in the sales tax on gas affects each and every one of us. We have certainly reached the point where enough is enough and we must find a way of reducing the tax burden.
My Conservative colleagues, Madam Speaker, praise the Budget as a good one. I would like to quote only a few newspaper reports that were published immediately following the Budget. On February 19, 1987, La Presse titled: "A $1.2 billion sleight of hand".

New bookkeeping makes govt, look S1.2B better.
That is a headline from The Ottawa Citizen.

"The Conservatives make individuals pay." "Ottawa takes less from businesses and more from individuals.", La Presse of February 19. "Business sectors are disappointed.", the same paper on the same day.
April 3, 1987



Quebec may sue over transfer payments-
That is the headline in The Gazette, Montreal.
"Great disappointment", Le Droit, February 1987.
Madam Speaker, these were the headlines of the major papers the day after the Budget, that empty document which used means I would call not exactly Kosher to bring the deficit below $30 billion. That is what the Conservative Government has done, a Government which has kept talking endlessly about fiscal responsibility. That is what the Minister of Finance has done, when he should be giving leadership to this country. When you introduce a budget, or financial statements, you must stick to the facts and not try to manipulate the figures to make people believe that the deficit is lower than it really is. That is the Budget, Madam Speaker, the third Conservative Budget. They want us to believe that they reduced the deficit, but it is still the same.
Madam Speaker, I would like to quote a few figures which show the impact of this Budget on Canadian families. Let us take, for example, a married couple with two children, where both parents work. In 1986, before the Budget, they had to pay $235 more in taxes. Before the February 1987 Budget they had a $400 increase, and now, after the 1987 Budget, they will have to pay $470 more.
Madam Speaker, here is another example, a married couple with two children, where both parents work, with an income of $30,000; in 1986 they paid $500, they had an increase of $590. In 1987, but before the February 1987 Budget, an increase of $875, and after the Budget it was $966 more. Madam Speaker, I say in 1987, before the February 1987 Budget, because we now have, each year, automatic increases, thanks to the May 1985 Conservative Budget which created a 3 per cent tax increase. We could	go on and	look at all theseincreases.	But it is enough	to look at	families,	MadamSpeaker, because that is were the main difference is, that is were we see the gap between rich and poor, a gap widened by the Government. A family with a $100,000 income had an increase, in 1986, of only $680. Their increase before the 1987 Budget was $1,145 and after the Budget, $2,285. It is obvious, Madam Speaker, that over the past three years the Conservative Government has not reduced the deficit. On March 31, 1984, the	deficit stood at $33	billion. On	March 31	1987, itstill stood	at $33 billion. Yet,	at the same	time, the	Government collected more than $20 billion in income tax from individuals.
This situation resulted in a widening of the gap between rich and poor. The poorer you are, the more income tax you pay; the richer you are, the less tax you pay.
Therefore, Madam Speaker, this social injustice is inacceptable to Canadians. The polls do prove it. I do hope that the fiscal reform will correct this situation.
The Budget-Mr. Gagliano


Mr. Champagne (Champlain):: Madam Speaker, I have listened carefully to my colleague, the Hon. Member for Saint-Leonard-


Alfonso Gagliano: -d'Anjou!


Michel Champagne: -d'Anjou-I stand corrected-and 1 might like to make a few comments and ask him a question.
Firstly, my colleague mentionned the price of gasoline and the fact that the Canadian people had to pay a one cent increase. 1 want to remind him that, before the Conservatives come to power in 1984, the Liberals had introduced the National Energy Program. The Member did mention it in his speech a while ago, and I wish to remind him that in the period from 1981 to 1985, his party was in power, and it is his government that introduced a national energy program, which became our responsibility upon being elected. It was abolished. It was abolished because it was 105 per cent of the international price.
When we were elected, Madam Speaker, in 1984, gas was 60 cents a litre. Today, two and half years later, it is 52 cents. So we are still 8 cents lower. When the Liberals got elected in 1979-80, they promised they would fight us on the 18 cents increase. There was an increase of over a dollar a gallon under their government.
Madam Speaker, in all honesty, if the member for Saint-Leonard-Anjou is speaking for Canadian taxpayers, he should recognize that the father of the federal deficit is his own leader sitting there up front, that the true father of the federal deficit, the one who got Canadians into serious economic trouble, is his own leader. Indeed, Madam Speaker, when the Hon. Member for Saint-Leonard-Anjou extols the virtues of his party concerning poverty and concerning the gap between the rich and the poor, I will simply remind him that it was his government that allowed the highest salaried Canadians to get by without paying any taxes because of their tax shelters. Our government, our Minister of Finance, took responsible action in establishing a minimum tax, carving up tax shelters and seeing to it that the richest Canadians would have to pay taxes.
Madam Speaker, I would like to ask him whether it is our present Minister of Finance or the then Minister of Finance who is now his leader, that showed a greater sense of morality when our Minister of Finance set up a fair tax system and took steps to protect the poor against the rich while his own leader, the leader of the Opposition, as Minister of Finance, was doing everything he could to maintain the tax shelters benefiting the rich rather than the poor.


Alfonso Gagliano: Madam Speaker, I shall be pleased to reply to the comments made by my Conservative colleague. Let us see first of all the energy issue. As for the price of gas which has gone from 60 cents a litre down to 49 cents, I certainly hope the members opposite will not try to take the credit for

April 3, 1987
The Budget-Mr. Gagliano
the oil price decrease because it is due to the international market.


Mr. Blais:: It is due to the energy policy.


Alfonso Gagliano: You say it is due to the energy policy. We will get back to the energy policy later on, but allow me to tell you that if the gas price has gone down in last few years, it is not because of the Conservatives, but mostly because the international price for crude oil has gone down. So do not take Canadian people . . . That's it, you look like manipulators; you are always taking credit for everything even though you don't deserve it. If the price of oil has decreased, it is not because of the Conservative policies, but indeed because of the international price for crude oil.
Now let us get back to the energy policy. I would like to ask my colleague if he knows how many Canadians, controlled the industry when the Liberal government introduced the National Energy Program. Almost none. Today, more than 50 per cent of the Canadian energy industry is controlled by Canadians, not by foreigners. Look at the facts. Do not focus only on the negative side of the NEP. Consider the positive side also, and ask Canadians whether, in pre-NEP days, the energy industry in Canada was not indeed totally controlled by Americans. Ask that to Canadians, and see what they will say.
Now, Madam Speaker, he asks me who is the fairer between the Minister of Finance and my leader. I want to remind my colleague that the present Minister of Finance is the one who de-indexed old age pensions. Let us remember Mrs. Denis and her famous Charlie Brown, and I hope he is listening to us and will remember too ... It is precisely my leader who introduced that protection, who granted to Canadians, especially to the elderly, to the low income people that protection against inflation. Therefore, 1 obviously choose my leader, Madam Speaker.


Pierre Blais: Madam Speaker, it is always easy to make a point as the Hon. Member just did when he mentioned indexing, but as usual, you too forgot that time when the increase in the cost of living index was 12 per cent and that indexing was frozen at 5 and 6 per cent. Because you too only mention whatever suits you not only because your present leader, who was Minister of Finance at the time, the father of the Canadian deficit, managed to turn a surplus into a deficit, which is quite a feat, and your finance critic as well, who is responsible for deficits at the provincial level. In view of his record at the provincial level, he was brought in at the federal level to see if he could do any better. All your Finance Ministers, be they MacEachen, Turner, Lalonde, Chretien have all introduced budgets that were called by the name of their authors, and they were all responsible for our deficit.
All the economists of the time have called them disasters one after the other. I hope you will remember that. You were not in politics at that time, but I suppose you read the papers once in a while about it. I was surprised to hear what you said earlier. Here is my question. A moment ago, you spoke about
the poor contractors who are overwhelmed by tax burden, red tape and the fact that they now have to complete and return forms twice a month, to pay whatever tax they owe to the Federal Government. Through a housekeeping measure which is commendable, I think, we will be able to recover tax payable to the Government. Those companies are big enough because it applies to amounts of $ 15 000 at least. I listened to your colleague for Montreal-Sainte-Marie (Mr. Malepart) who keeps repeating that we are against low income Canadians and that we always give to the rich. As far as I can see, we have an advocate of the rich and you are the champion of business. Personally I would be tempted to ask what you have to say about interest rates, for example, because that is another element. You will undoubtedly reply that the federal Government does not have anything to do with that. And then for the first time the national deficit has been going down, for the first time public expenditures have declined, and this is something you were unable to accomplish over 20 years. This is the first time there is a net decrease since 1952, I think, since the Korean war. With current interest rates, people can renew their mortgages at 9 per cent, whereas when you were in office you had budgets, the Lalonde budget among others, where the deficit was expected to be in the $3-to-$4 billion range and finally ended up at the $15 billion level. Not to worry! Who cares! Never mind the expenses! We can spend freely, Canadians will pay. The children or the great grandchildren will pay for that.
We have shown the Canadian people that we were able to get a handle on the rising federal deficit and repair the mistakes you made over the years, so people regained confidence and interest rates went down. And the companies you are talking about, businessmen, what do you have to say about that and the interest rates? Do you not agree that companies are now investing heavily in Canada, that ours ranks first among industrialized countries in terms of projected investments, so what do you have to say about interest rates? Would you not agree that the present Minister of Finance has come up with policies which have driven interest rates down, a better performance than when you were on the Government side? Respond to that, please!


Alfonso Gagliano: Madam Speaker, allow me first of all to tell my Hon. friend that I am not fighting for the rich and that, as usual on the other side, they have a great deal of difficulty understanding anything intelligent.
What I was trying to say-


Michel Champagne: Read your speech again. Your replies are stupid.


Alfonso Gagliano: Listen. Then you may learn something and be in a position to ask intelligent questions. Instead of asking stupid questions, you may be able, to ask intelligent ones, if you only listen.


Pierre Blais: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
April 3, 1987


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The Hon. Member for Bellechasse (Mr. Blais) rises on a point of order.


Pierre Blais: Madam Speaker, I may have used strong language but I did not say they were stupid. Whatever his opinion I believe the Hon. Member should think about the word stupid. I find this quite insulting. All they can do is to question people's intelligence, and when they are unable to answer our questions about figures, they call us stupid. I suggest he should be called to order for the choice of words he uses in addressing members on this side of the House. I call upon you, Madam Speaker, because this afternoon I do not intend to let anyone call me stupid.


Mr. Marin:: On the same point of order, Madam Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The Hon. Member for Gaspe (Mr. Marin) on the same point of order.


Charles-Eugène Marin: The Hon. Member never said that my hon. friend was stupid; just that he was asking stupid questions. By inference of course, it is possible to say that a person who asks stupid questions is stupid. I would say this kind of language is unparliamentary and I think, Madam Speaker, you should ask him to withdraw.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The Hon. Member for Champlain (Mr. Champagne), on the same point of order.


Michel Champagne: That is exactly what the Hon. Member for Gaspe (Mr. Marin) just said. Madam Speaker, I think the question put by the Hon. Member for Bellechasse (Mr. Blais) concerned the Canadian economy in general. He simply asked what the Hon. Member thought about interest rates. I fail to understand why the Hon. Member for Saint-Leonard-Anjou (Mr. Gagliano) says we are stupid when we have a question that is of fundamental importance to all Canadians, not politics but a simple and straightforward question . . . With the Hon. Member for Gaspe, I ask the Hon. Member for Saint-Leonard-Anjou, through the Chair, to withdraw those words because they are not unparliamentary.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The Chair thinks it is really too bad that on a Friday afternoon, Hon. Members should be using terms that are certainly far from parliamentary. I can't help thinking of the people who are watching us on television. There are young people out there who are now home from school and since in many parts of Canada the weather is not ideal, they are watching this debate on television. I would ask all Hon. Members to remember when they are debating very important issues that they are doing so on behalf of the voters who elected them to the House of Commons and perhaps they would think twice before they said something they might later regret.
I will give the Hon. Member for Saint-Leonard-Anjou one minute to finish his comments, and I am sure he will put that
The Budget-Mr. Gagliano
minute to good use. The Hon. Member for Saint-Leonard- Anjou.


Alfonso Gagliano: Madam Speaker, I want to start by thanking you for your comments with respect to the order in this House.
First of all, I will withdraw. However, I did not say the Hon. Member for Bellechasse (Mr. Blais) asked stupid questions, certainly not. I just said, and I was answering Hon. Members who had not asked questions themselves but who were about to and who were shouting and would not let me answer the Hon. Member for Bellechasse. So I said: Please listen to what I have to say and then you can ask some intelligent questions afterwards. That was what I meant. Now, if the meaning went further than I intended, I hope Hon. Members will understand. And if they are interested in my answer, I shall, if I may, answer the questions put by the Hon. Member for Bellechasse, if they are prepared to listen. But if they start shouting again, Madam Speaker, it can only mean they are not interested in having intelligent answers.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I allowed the Hon. Member for Saint-Leonard-Anjou (Mr. Gagliano) one minute to conclude with comments on the debate. The Hon. Member has the floor.


Alfonso Gagliano: Madam Speaker, there is of course a lot of material in the question put by the Hon. Member for Bellechasse (Mr. Blais) and within that minute I will try to answer.
First, concerning the $1.2 billion. I put the same question earlier this afternoon to the Hon. Member for Levis (Mr. Fontaine) after he spoke.
It is not that I am defending the rich on that but that in fact, my point is clear, the Minister of Finance is playing with figures. If for instance that proposal had not been in the Budget, he is neither increasing taxes nor reducing expenditures. Therefore, it is a no-win proposal. Certainly he is only delaying the problem. He is applying that as of January 1, 1988, and he says: You will remit every fifteen days. This means that at the end of March, year end being March 31, 1988, he will be getting 15 days of extra remittals! They evaluated this will amount to $1.2 billion, for the sole purpose of stating that the deficit is $1.2 billion lower. I was not defending the rich.
I also indicated on a number of occasions in this House that that proposal is not hurting large corporations, but small businesses. And if you make a very simple calculation, any building contractor in Quebec with 20 employees, and I hope you will accept those 20 employees, because in today's terms that is not a large business! With 20 employees in the construction industry, he is paying more than $15,000 a month. So he will have to remit every 15 days, and to what benefit? That does not reduce the deficit, it increases paperwork and also entails extra costs, because we know very well that the majority are operating on a credit margin and they will be paying more in interests.

April 3, 1987
The Budget-Mr. Manly


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Debate. The Hon. Member for Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands (Mr. Manly).


James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to speak on the Budget. As some of my colleagues have pointed out, it is an eminently forgettable Budget. It is what my mother would have called chip and porridge, a Budget with nothing good, it is just there. In this case, however, there is no porridge to go with it.
My fundamental criticism of the Budget is the implicit assumption underlying it that all is well with the Canadian federation and all we need is a bit more belt-tightening to get our deficit down and everything will then continue purring on just as though everything is wonderful. It is in fact a do-nothing Budget. Its myopic point of view ignores what is happening to hundreds of Canadian communities and the people who live in those communities.
I would like to share just a couple of examples to bring this home to members of the government Party. First, I would like to talk about the community of La Scie and the Baie Verte Peninsula in Newfoundland. A delegation from that community appeared before the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans a few weeks ago. They pointed out that in the Baie Verte Peninsula since 1979 some 1,300 jobs have been lost. They depend very much on the fisheries plant there, and the entire inshore fishery has been neglected by the Department in favour of the offshore fishery which is controlled by two large companies, National Sea and Fisheries Products International. It is interesting that the latter company, having been established as a Crown corporation and given a good allocation of fish, has now become a profit-making venture and, being so, will now be privatized. In the meantime, in communities like La Scie who depend upon the inshore fishery, there are not enough fish allocated to the inshore fishery to maintain the fish plant there at anywhere near the level at which it should be. In 1979 the plant processed 29.6 million pounds of fish. Since that time there has been a continuous decline, and last year less than half that amount, only 13.3 million pounds, was processed. These people live in the very place where further allocations of cod are going to be taken from Newfoundland and given to France. That not only hurts them economically, it hurts them in the sense of feeling they belong to a nation that does not care for them as a community or as individuals.
The only other major source of employment in the area is an asbestos mine which itself has had a 74 per cent reduction in its workforce over the last few years. There is nothing being done for those people by the Government, either within the Department of Fisheries and Oceans or in the larger sense of eliminating disparity. For example, the NDP has called for a Northern Fisheries Development Corporation which would focus on the inshore fishery and help it to develop. However, we do not see anything like that kind of an initiative being taken by the federal Government.
The Budget should have addressed those kinds of issues. It should have addressed the issue of regional disparity. Again, the NDP has made suggestions which the Government chooses not to accept. We suggested there should have been a $815 million community initiatives fund and a $200 million single industry community diversification fund. Things like that would help a community like La Scie and hundreds of others across Canada to develop alternative employment.
It is interesting that the official unemployment rate in Newfoundland today is 19.2 per cent. However, Earl McCurdy, the Vice-President of the Fishermen's Union of Newfoundland, has pointed out that if the people of that province had the same rate of participation in the labour force as they have in Ontario, then the actual unemployment rate in Newfoundland would be a staggering 38 per cent. That is the situation in Newfoundland.
The other community I would like to talk about is in my own constituency, and that is Cowichan Valley. It has been hard hit by changes in the forest industry over the last few years. Several large mills have closed, and others have drastically reduced their workforce due to technological change. The same sort of thing is happening in the logging industry. Fewer workers are getting out more wood. We are continuing to export raw logs overseas.
The situation has resulted in many older workers being laid off. Who wants to hire a worker of 45, 50 or 55 years of age whose skills are all in one industry? They have literally nowhere to go. I have had people like that come into my office looking for some kind of assistance to help them continue to lead productive lives. These are people who are used to working, used to paying their own way. Suddenly they find that they have no jobs and no prospect of jobs. I know I am not the only Member of Parliament who has experienced that. I see one of the Hon. Members from Prince George here and I know he has had the same kind of experience. Other older workers have had the experience of being bumped down in seniority and have ended up doing the kinds of jobs which have traditionally been done by much younger workers. They are required to do heavy physical work, which may be suitable to younger workers, but not to people in their age bracket.
There is also the situation of younger workers who cannot get their first job in their home community. They are forced to leave home and look for work elsewhere. We do not want to build a Canada in which people have to leave home in order to find work. We want a Canada where people can build their lives in the communities where their families are. The real unemployment rate in the Cowichan Valley is around 30 per cent. In the last week in British Columbia we have seen the closure of Unemployed Action Centres which have tried to provide some help to the people about whom I have just been talking who have been caught by this terrible downturn in the economy.
April 3, 1987

The Canada Jobs Strategy has recently designated the Cowichan Valley for the Community Futures Program. We are glad to have that designation, but I want to emphasize that unless there are are other government initiatives which affect the entire economy of the Province of British Columbia this Community Futures Program will not be able to address the crying need for jobs in the Cowichan Valley. That goes for other communities in British Columbia which have been designated as well. We need a global package which will get the entire community going.
I was interested to hear the Hon. Member for Capilano (Mrs. Collins) speak about the decline in employment following Expo. Of course many of us had been saying all along that the jobs at Expo were short-term jobs. The Government is using the fact that they were short-term jobs as an excuse for the very high rate of unemployment in British Columbia right now. She expects that these people will soon drop off the unemployment rolls and that that will bring the unemployment statistics down. Of course it will bring the statistics down, but it will not do a damn thing about the fact that these people would really like to have jobs. It is simply the way in which the Government keeps statistics. I apologize for the language, Madam Speaker, but the people in British Columbia feel very strongly about this.
The estimates on the need for a forestry program in British Columbia vary, but most experts agree that the cost of an effective program of reforestation ranges between $200 million and $300 million per year. This figure would cover the cost of replanting not satisfactorily restocked lands and replacing what is cut annually, as well as providing some funding for intensive forestry. Contrast the $200 million to $300 million needed annually with the money available under the economic development agreement signed by the federal Government and the Province of British Columbia. The federal Government is contributing a total of $150 million over five years, or $30 million per year, which will be matched by the province for a total of $60 million which is less than one-quarter of the funds needed to do an effective job of reforestation.
A recent report put out by the University of British Columbia authored by Sten Nilsson on forest economics points out that British Columbia is only 15 years away from economic catastrophe unless we do something about our forest resources. Seventeen thousand direct jobs have already been lost and a further 7,000 jobs are about to be lost unless we take action. We have not yet seen that action. I pointed out a few weeks ago that only 48 per cent of the professional foresters who have graduated from UBC in the last six years have been able to find jobs in their field. Twenty-one per cent are still completely unemployed. We are training people but do not provide the jobs for them even though everyone recognizes that there is a crying need for forestry in British Columbia.
What is the matter with the Government that it cannot bring together the skills and resources to meet the needs? The needs are there and recognized. The resources and skills are there. Yet, only 48 per cent of our professional foresters can
The Budget-Mr. Manly
find jobs after they have graduated and the others have to go and whistle. There is something wrong, and the fault lies with the Government and its failure to address this kind of situation adequately.
There are in fact, Madam Speaker, two economies developing in Canada, one for central Canada and one for the region. Yesterday in British Columbia there was new labour legislation introduced which will make British Columbia's economy more of a third world economy by weakening the rights of workers to organize and fight for better conditions.
The neglect of our resource economy by the Government is a major indictment of it. It has failed. When the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) was campaigning he promised that there would be a separate department of forestry. He recognized the need for a separate department with its own budget, its own employees, and a full-time Minister. Instead, we have a junior Minister who reports to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) and shares forestry with mining. The people in the mining sector are probably very concerned that they do not have more clout in Cabinet as well. However, for our number one industry across Canada to have only a Minister of State reporting to the Minister of Agriculture is criminal. We neglected the primary wealth producers and the regions wherein that primary wealth is being produced.
With regard to the situation of fishermen, there has been a doubling of licence fees on the Pacific Coast and an increase in wharfage fees for both fishing and pleasure boats. That will deal a blow to our tourism industry as well. There has been no permanent funding for the Salmonid Enhancement Program. Representatives from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans appeared before the committee and pointed out that in order to do an adequate job of maintaining small craft harbours they needed $120 a year. They are getting $48 million a year. Unless further money is allocated within five years the Government will have to close down 150 Class C harbours across Canada. That will mean shutting down the basic infrastructure of our Atlantic and Pacific coasts in many communities which depend upon those harbours.
The Government claims that there are are too many people in the fishing industry. Its slogan is, too many fishermen taking too few fish. Yet, the Government is doing nothing to create alternative employment. Canada did not become a nation by relying on market forces. If we wanted to rely on market forces we would have joined the United States a long time ago. Canada became a nation because we had a vision of a nation which would extend from sea to sea and a Government which was prepared to work for that. Right now we have a Government that is prepared to allow the market to determine what happens. As a result, we have seen that in the last year all but 5,000 of the 137,000 jobs that have been created were in the Province of Ontario.
Is it too much for provinces like Newfoundland and British Columbia to have expected that a federal Budget would have

April 3, 1987
The Budget-Mr. Manly
recognized their problems and taken action? Is not a Budget supposed to be a process by which the Government looks at all of our resources and our needs and tries to bring the two into balance?
We must question the priorities of the Government. Are native self-government and settlement of land claims too expensive, as the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. de Cotret) has claimed, or does the Government simply have its priorities wrong? Does the Government have no alternative to the Budget which does no more than apologize for regional disparity?
The fact is that spending on economic and regional development in this fiscal year which just began will be about $3 billion less than when the Conservative Government was elected in 1984. Regional disparity has increased and less money is being spent to try to overcome that.
Earlier Conservative Budgets have loaded huge tax increases on the backs of individual Canadians, particularly Canadians in low and middle-income tax brackets. At the same time, they offered upper-income Canadians more tax loopholes like the $500,000 capital gains tax. The Budget continues that trend.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) promised tax reform during the 1984 election campaign. It is another promise that has been postponed, and now we are supposed to see something in upcoming months. Perhaps the Government could explain to Canadians why an increase in tax could be slapped on at midnight of budget day, but it is a different story when it comes to tax reform that might give them a break.
Of course, Canadians should be concerned about what might be in that tax reform because there are many rumours that while there might be a slight decrease in the income tax rate it will be balanced by a business transfer tax. The rumours are that there are to be no exemptions to that business transfer tax, which will mean an increased cost on food and other basic necessities. It is the kind of tax that is once again most regressive and will hit the poor people of this country the hardest.
I suggest there are some measures the Government can implement that would begin to introduce some fairness into the tax system. First, it should eliminate the $500,000 lifetime capital gains tax exemption. This measure will cost over $1 billion by the end of this year. The exemption benefits only the rich. In 1983, only 10 per cent of taxpayers who had less than $40,000 income could claim an average capital gain of $1,000. Elowever, 61 per cent of taxpayers who had more than $250,000 income claimed an average capital gain of $57,461. Of course, we believe the capital gains exemption should remain for principal dwellings, family farms, fishermen or small businesses that have been built up in a family for a period of years.
We believe the Government should tighten up on the minimum tax. It should use the revenues from a fair taxation of capital gains to restore the basic federal tax exemption. We
want it to put a halt to personal and sales tax increases for ordinary Canadians.
By 1990, individual Canadians will have been hit by a $35 billion tax increase by the Conservatives, while at the same time only $128 million will have been slapped onto the corporations. That represents only 1 per cent of the over-all tax increase. Is that fair?
I have a number of other comments but you are indicating that my time is up. I look forward to answering perhaps some questions on these issues.


Mr. Johnson:: Madam Speaker, I want to make a couple of comments on the Hon. Member's speech. First, he mentioned two specific communities in Newfoundland, Baie Verte and La Scie. He said there has been a decrease in employment in the Baie Verte asbestos mine. The original owners of that mine closed it down because of a lack of market and the protest from around the world by environmentalists and others about the potential health hazard of asbestos. If it were not for the fact that the Government of Canada and the Government of Newfoundland put some $18 million into the asbestos mine in Baie Verte, there would be much higher unemployment there today. I doubt very much if the mine would even be operating.
The Hon. Member also spoke about inshore fishermen in La Scie. Obviously Mr. McCurdy of the Fishermen's Union could not have filled him in , and I am sure the Hon. Member would not have Members of the House believing that the Government of Canada is doing nothing for the fishermen of La Scie and other places in Newfoundland.
The fact is that the Hon. Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. Siddon) recently issued a shrimp licence to a company so that it could land the shrimp in La Scie and provide decent employment there. Furthermore, for the Hon. Member's information, for at least three or four years the inshore fishermen of Newfoundland have not been able to catch the inshore fish allocations that presently exist. Whether that is because of water temperatures or ice conditions that prevent them from getting out when the fish could be caught, I cannot say. Apparently it is not even evident to the scientists and biologists who are doing research in that area. I might say that they are doing extra research from St. John's, Newfoundland because the Minister has increased the number of employees in the scientific branch in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Newfoundland.
I suggest that the Hon. Member check his source of information to determine whether there is indeed a community Futures Program in existence in Baie Verte. While I do not want to say there is and perhaps mislead the House, I am pretty damn sure, to use the Member's words, that there is such a program. I would not want him to leave the House with any misunderstanding.


James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for his question. He comes from a part of Newfoundland that is very
April 3, 1987

dependent upon the fishing industry. He knows the difficulties that the people of Newfoundland are facing there.
The dependence of the Baie Verte Peninsula on the asbestos mine should be of concern to all of us because asbestos mining does pose health hazards. The fact that they do not have any alternative except to engage in an industry which has very high risks for people who work in it should be a real cause of concern for all Members of the House.
We become concerned when there is a building that has asbestos insulation that is covered with panelling. We say that that creates a hazard. Yet we expect people will work in those mines, and we have to be concerned about that. I can understand how people who have no other source of employment would see that as being something that is better than having no other means of making a livelihood. Yet it is a terrible price to pay. I am sure the Hon. Member will agree with that.
The Hon. Member pointed out that the Minister has just granted a shrimp allocation to the community of La Scie. That could be, and I think it is good. The basic fact is that there was a delegation from La Scie which appeared before the Fisheries Committee. Members of that delegation made a very moving and eloquent plea for their region. They asked that there be a further allocation of fish which could be treated at the plant at La Scie. I certainly support that. If the Government has other programs which could ameliorate somewhat the situation in La Scie and Baie Verte, the more power to it. But the fact remains that the Government and this Budget have not done enough for the people of Newfoundland, a province where there is an unemployment rate running as high as 38 per cent, especially when we consider the number of people who want to work and cannot. I am sure the Hon. Member would be the last person to get up in this Chamber and say that he thinks the Government is doing an adequate job for the people of Newfoundland. I am sure the Hon. Member has some time left and that he would not want to get up and make that type of an assertion.


Morrissey Johnson: Madam Speaker, yes, I would want to say that I will never be satisfied until there is no unemployment in Newfoundland. In fact, I would be very proud if I had to pass out invitations to other Members telling them that there is work available in Newfoundland because there are not enough labourers and because there is full employment. I would be very proud of that.
What I was trying to say is that it is wrong to give the impression that the Government does not care about the people of Newfoundland, or the people of any other part of the country for that matter. All 1 was trying to point out is that the mine in Baie Verte would have been closed if it were not for the assistance it has received from the Government of Canada and the Government of Newfoundland.
I was also trying to point out the effort of trying to put in place additional work in La Scie through the giving of a
The Budget-Mr. Manly
shrimp allocation. I could have gone further and said that last year there were supplementary crab licences issued in order to create additional work. But the Hon. Member knows that it would be irresponsible for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. Siddon) to issue additional fish allocations to anyone from the offshore sector if it is not appropriate under the guidelines of the scientific evidence on which he has to make his decisions.
I can also tell the Hon. Member that there have been efforts made in terms of the revitalization of the sealing industry with the location of a plant in Fleur de Lys which is also on the Baie Verte peninsula. Federal and provincial money has gone into that effort. So the Government is trying, but as the Hon. Member knows, Newfoundland is not a manufacturing area. There is only certain potential for the resources that we have to create as much employment as we possibly can. I would certainly like to see less unemployment. I am sure my colleagues would like to hear suggestions from anyone who might be able to enhance employment in Newfoundland.


James Douglas Manly: Madam Speaker, if the Government really cared it would not be allocating fish to France in that area. It would have had some policies that would have seen that out of 137,000 jobs created last year more than 5,000 of them would have gone to some other province than Ontario.


Mr. Bill Tupper (Nepean-Carleton):: Madam Speaker, I am delighted this afternoon to rise in the House to share with you and through you with my colleagues and my constituents some of my thoughts about the 1987 Budget which the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) presented. It is a Budget which really brought good news for Canadians. The budget experience this year was an unusual one for me. I would like to share it with you, Madam Speaker.
I live in and represent the federal riding of Nepean- Carleton which is in so many ways a microcosm of this great country in which we have the privilege of living. It is a large riding from a population point of view, while being an excellent mixture of urban and rural people. It represents an excellent mixture of entrepreneurship and people involved in small business, people who are involved in the high technology business, people who are involved in dairy production and so on. One of the most striking things about this community is its vibrancy and its growth. When we look at the community today we see that there are about 1,900 small businesses in it. I ask Hon. Members to think of what that translates into in terms of jobs, in terms of the creation of new wealth and in terms of the enjoyment of life. Those 1,900 small businesses, together with some of the other features of the community, translate into about 36,000 or 37,000 jobs. These jobs are filled by people who come to work into the riding every morning who have a positive work experience during the day. This community is really a thriving business community.
What have these businessmen, these farm producers and dairy producers to say to me about the economic world in which they would like to operate? Their consistent message to

April 3, 1987
The Budget-Mr. Tupper
me is simple. They say: "We would like the Government to get out of our hair, to simplify the regulations and the guidelines under which we must work". The second thing they say to me is: "We want to stay on a steady path. We want to know what the goals of the Government are so that we can work side by side with those regulations without having our goals move from year by year by year. In this way we can have a constant business plan, a constant goal, a constant level of productivity and a constant level of exports for which we can aim".
The unique budget experience for me this year boiled down to how few calls of a negative nature I received from my constituents with respect to the Budget. How few were they? 1 would like to share with Members of the House the fact that I received more negative calls when Petro-Canada, Esso and Texaco upped the price of gasoline by two cents or three cents a litre when they should have only done it by one cent a litre. In fact, most of the calls I had about the Budget were thank you's or calls of a congratulatory nature. The small businesspersons and members of the farm community who called me said: "Thank you for leaving the half-a-million-dollar capital gains exemption in place on an ongoing basis". They said: "Thank you from the high technology community for removing the import duties on many of the components that we have to bring into the riding in order to add value to them in the process of manufacturing and which we then export". 1 was thanked by the booksellers and the book retail people in my riding who simply said: "Thank you for removing the tariffs on the importation of books which were such an impediment". This community, under the fiscal regime of which we are now a part, is growing. It is buoyant.
By way of example, this morning I was out at the sodturning ceremony for a new high school, a high school that the City of Kanata and the Carleton Board of Education are building together, the core of which in fact is going to be used jointly by the community and the Board of Education, for the over-all betterment of the young people and people of all ages in that community.
To take and build on that, over the last two and a half years, economic growth and job creation in Canada has exceeded that of all other major industrial countries. The Government has worked hard to attain this progress. We have made tough decisions, and we have applied firm and disciplined management to all sections of the Canadian economy.
It should be noted that these results have been achieved in the face of a world economy that has become not only more competitive, but also more uncertain and more volatile.
Going back some 30 months, or to mid-1984, when we had the privilege of forming the Government of Canada, we had just gone through 15 consecutive years in which the federal deficit had increased annually. By then, it had increased to some $38 billion. When one translates that into what it means per person or per household in Canada, it translates into $23,000 per household across this great nation of ours. Just
think of that! You and 1, and everyone across Canada, because of what the Government had been doing on our behalf, had a debt of $23,000.
In November of 1984, against that background, faced with disturbing trends, trends that posed a threat to sustained economic growth, permanent jobs, and greater opportunities for Canadians, the Government's renewal strategy began.
The agenda for economic renewal set out the Government's philosophy of economic management and its blueprint for the renewal of the Canadian economy.
That meant, Madam Speaker, adopting policies that helped small business, policies that fostered entrepreneurship and risk taking, policies that promoted innovation and created a positive climate for the growth and expansion of new enterprises. It meant making the Canadian economy more dynamic, more flexible, and more competitive, so that companies, small and large, high technology companies such as those located in my constituency, can thrive and compete in world markets.
That was the challenge. We started a program of economic renewal, and we are continuing down the road of growth, of job creation, and of economic vitality.
Given our economic successes over the past 30 or 32 months, Canadians have every reason to be encouraged about their future.
The Government has made good progress in delivering on its fiscal commitment. The deficit is down from some $38.3 billion in 1984-85, to $32 billion last year, and projections indicate a further decline to some $29 billion in the fiscal year just beginning.
This is an over-all decline of some 23 to 24 per cent. Through dealing positively with the deficit, the Government is ensuring that the well-being of all Canadians is preserved; that the future of my children and my grandchildren, and yours, will be such that they will have a much more creative environment in which to grow and to develop and to prosper.
We are determined to provide that opportunity for all Canadians, an opportunity that is not burdened by debt. The Government has acted across a full range of its programs and operations to implement the fundamental requirements of economic renewal. As a result, Canadians now have an economic climate that encourages private initiative and rewards success. It is starting to pay tremendous dividends for us.
The real growth of Canada's economy has averaged about 3.5 per cent per year, second only to Japan and much stronger than that of the United States. Consumer confidence has risen sharply and is at an all time high. Spending by consumers has provided a major impetus to growth.
Across this land, 705,000 new jobs have been created. Our employment growth has been stronger than that of any other major industrial country. The employment rate has dropped by some 2.1 per cent; short-term interest rates are at the lowest levels in over a decade, perhaps some 14 years; mortgage rates
April 3, 1987

have fallen by more than 3 per cent, making home ownership a possibility for all young Canadians; inflation is in the area of 4 per cent.
I invite you to translate those figures into the stability and the economic activity that can result.
In the agricultural sector, the farmers of my constituency welcome the fact that we did not change the capital gains tax. They are pleased with the fact that when we increased the excise tax on motor gasoline and diesel fuel- by one cent per litre, we at the same time increased the rebate in a matching way.
One thing that has, in large part, gone unnoticed in the Budget is the fact that we announced that mobile veterinary clinics could come into Canada on a duty-free basis- something that was not possible before the Budget. This type of mobile veterinary clinic is not manufactured in Canada. This measure will be of extraordinary value to the agricultural community.
The small business and high technology communities of Canada welcomed the announcement of the removal of tariff measures on a number of import products. Specifically, the Budget restored duty-free entry for computer parts, semiconductors, and books. As far as the high technology community is concerned, a community which, in so many ways, is involved with a value-added type of activity, these measures may result in increased profits by as much as 50 per cent.
Not all countries, Madam Speaker, are as privileged as Canada, and one thing this Budget does is to give strong support to developing countries. Canada's foreign aid expenditures will be some $450 million higher than the 1984-85 level, an increase of some 21.8 per cent.
We are committed to achieving the objective of 0.5 per cent of our Gross National Product being allocated to official development assistance.
We have taken other measures to help developing countries. For example, we are providing all financial assistance now in the form of grants, instead of loans. As well, we now permit
The Budget-Mr. Tupper
duty-free access for a range of goods from Commonwealth Caribbean countries.
Let me turn for a moment, Madam Speaker, to the mining sector. While it may surprise you to hear me speak of the mining sector this afternoon, I have had an enormous amount of input from that sector complimenting this Government and the Finance Minister for maintaining the flow-through share arrangement for our mineral resource industry, an industry that is so vital to Canada. It is an industry that contributes a great deal to our exports and hence to our foreign currency position. There are some 65 mining communities scattered across Canada, from Newfoundland to British Columbia.
Last year, we spent some $550 million on mineral exploration in Canada. Of that amount, some $400 million-$264 million on the part of the junior mining companies and some $136 million by the seniors-was spent through the flowthrough share arrangement.
In other words, Madam Speaker, about 73 per cent of the funds raised for mineral exploration in Canada last year were funds that came through the flow-through share arrangements, giving some indication of how important that program is. I want to compliment the Finance Minister for ensuring that that mechanism stays in place.
In closing, Madam Speaker, the Government has acted on initiatives of fundamental importance to the Canadian economy. We inherited a challenge, and we have met that challenge. We will continue moving forward with our program for economic renewal in a carefully managed and consistent way. Staying the course is the key to our future prosperity.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: It being 5 p.m., pursuant to the Order made Wednesday, April 1, 1987, this House stands adjourned until Tuesday, April 7, 1987 at 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 3(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 5 p.m.
[Stage Direction]

Tuesday, April 7, 1987
[Stage Direction]
Prayers