1988-04-14

Ms. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to present a petition from people living in North Vancouver, Surrey, Port Coquitlam and Burnaby, British Columbia. They are all very concerned about the recent increase in murders which are connected with knives.
These people call on the federal Government to amend the Criminal Code to prohibit the carrying of knives by citizens in public places. Exemptions from this ban would include only activities in which the use of a knife is integral to legitimate work such as in construction and fishing, or for religious purposes, such as with the members of the Sikh religion who carry a ceremonial knife as part of their custom.


Mr. Bill Vankoughnet (Hastings-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition signed by over 300 constituents of the federal constituency of Hastings-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington who are requesting that Parliament pass a law to protect the right to life of the pre-born child at all stages of development.
The petitioners cannot accept a law that protects pre-born babies from the fourth or fifth month only. They are calling upon Parliament to amend the Criminal Code so that unborn human beings are protected by law from abortion.


Mr. Vic Althouse (Humboldt-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I have a group of petitions from people ranging from the area of Dawson Creek, British Columbia, to the St. John's area of Newfoundland. They are calling upon Parliament to amend the Criminal Code to prohibit the carrying of knives by citizens in public places, the only exception being for those who use knives for legitimate purposes as part of their work,
such as in construction, fishing or farming, or for religious reasons.


Mr. Ian Waddell (Vancouver-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, my petition follows the petition of my colleague, the Hon. Member for Vancouver East (Ms. Mitchell). This petition is signed by a number of residents of the downtown east side in Vancouver. It petitions the House of Commons about the incidence of crime, including crime committed with knives, which is on the increase in the east side of Vancouver.
The present law allows citizens to carry knives for selfdefence; whereas the carrying of knives by persons in public places is directly responsible for knives then being used in a variety of crimes and fights where self-defence is claimed.
The petitioners ask that the Government amend the federal Criminal Code to prohibit the carrying of knives by citizens in public places. Exempted from the ban would be legitimate uses of carrying knives, for example, when people are engaged in construction work, fishing, or because of a religious belief such as that of the Sikhs wearing kirpans, small ceremonial knives. But where knives are carried in the streets, in the downtown east side of Vancouver, in the beer parlours, and in other places where people are carrying knives and using them, the petitioners ask that the Government take action to stop this.


Mr. Peter Peterson (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by residents of my constituency of Hamilton West, and the surrounding area. The petitioners would like to point out to the House the seriousness of an illness called schizophrenia. The petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to ensure that research efforts related to schizophrenia will, in the future, be commensurate with the seriousness of the illness in Canada.


Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina West):: Mr. Speaker, it is my duty and honour to present to the House a petition on behalf of citizens of Richmond, Burnaby, and Vancouver, British Columbia. The petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to amend the federal Criminal Code to prohibit the carrying of knives by citizens in public places. Exemptions from this ban would only include activities where the use of a knife was integral to the legitimate work of construction on the work site, fishing, or for religious reasons, for example, the

April 14, 1988
Order Paper Questions
Sikh religion where the wearing of a ceremonial knife is part of the custom.
The federal Criminal Code, and court decisions allow citizens to carry knives for self-defence. Your petitioners request that this not be allowed any longer, for which they will ever pray and hope that the Government will act.


Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-Walkerville):: Mr. Speaker, from time to time one of the responsibilities and duties of a Member of Parliament is to submit petitions on behalf of the electorate of Canada. I have one in hand which has been properly certified by the Clerk of Petitions. It seeks a response to its request of Parliament that the situation evolving from the closing of the Canadian Embassy in Ecuador be corrected by reopening the Canadian Embassy in Ecuador. It urges the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark) to reverse the decision to close that embassy.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member for Vancouver-Kingsway on another petition.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: I apologize, Mr. Speaker, 1 forgot it on the previous occasion.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I would like to bring to the attention of the Hon. Member that the Hon. Member requires the consent of the House to bring in another petition to allow it this time.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, constituents in my riding believe that the Government's trade deal negotiated with the Americans will threaten the very fabric of Canadian political and economic sovereignty.
The petitioners pray that Parliament be dissolved and that the Government allow the people of Canada the opportunity to accept or reject the proposed free trade agreement during a national general election. I have a suspicion that the Government is going to do that, so why does it not do it sooner rather than later?


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
Mr. Jim Hawkes (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it agreed?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Wednesday, April 13, consideration of the motion of Mrs. McDougall that Bill C-121, an Act to authorize the reorganization and divestiture of Eldorado Nuclear Limited and to amend certain Acts in consequence thereof, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee, and the amendment of Mr. Benjamin (p. 14369).
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member for Comox-Powell River (Mr. Skelly) had the floor. Since he is not present, I will recognize the Hon. Member for Humboldt-Lake Centre (Mr. Althouse) on debate.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the amendment moved by my friend, the Hon. Member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin), to put a hoist on this motion and permit the House to have more time to consider the proposal the Government has put before it to dispose of the shares in Eldorado Nuclear Limited.
What is being proposed here is the floating of a share issue. It appears that the Government is proposing to use that issue of shares to assist in the debt reduction for the corporation of some S550 million, and to carry out its philosophical commitment to privatize as many Crown corporations as it can.
We have a great many questions about this particular initiative, not only on the whole question of privatization and whether that in itself is a good idea, but also on whether it does serve the economy better to have the shares of a public Crown corporation owned by private citizens as opposed to all of the citizens.
The proposal is an attempt to shift some of the debt from Eldorado Nuclear to other owners. We have some grave concerns about the timing. At a time when uranium prices are as low as they have been for a long time, demand seems to be extremely low, this particular initiative brings to mind the initiative of the Government of British Columbia a few years ago when it sold shares in BCRIC, British Columbia Resources Investment Corporation. Those shares were offered to the public at $5 a share, which the Government said was a good deal and which appeared to be a good deal. Those shares continue to be traded on the stock exchange and are now selling in the range of 90 cents.
The timing could not be worse. The prospects for the nuclear industry are very low at the moment. There is a surplus of uranium, if one looks at the market price for uranium. We see our main market for the commodity, having been the United States, attempting to resist the inflow of any further amounts of uranium. In spite of the clauses in the free trade agreement, which the Government states allows access to the U.S. market,
April 14, 1988

I would remind the House that it does this under U.S. terms. One of the clauses in the agreement has decreed that the further processing of uranium has to occur on the American side rather than on the Canadian side. What extra jobs might accrue to the industry through the processing of the product will occur on the American side rather than on the Canadian side.
The main reason, rather than being one of good economics, good business, and good timing for having Eldorado Nuclear as a Crown corporation in the beginning, was a clear and urgent need perceived by the Government of the day. I think that need has not changed a great deal over time, that is, to have as much control as possible over a very critical industry which has large implications in the defence field. It is not just a source of energy. It is even more critical for the survival of the human race to consider it as a very cogent part of today's defence needs.
The original concept was to permit the Government, as the sole shareholder, to exert its needs and desires in terms of control over the sale of the product. Subsequent Governments have not always utilized all that control power. We have seen many examples of uranium being sold to countries that are not using it in a responsible manner. They have in fact taken it through its first stage in the nuclear reactor to extract power and have taken the waste to develop weaponry with it.
The list of countries which now have the technology to create nuclear arms has expanded greatly, because we have not exerted full control over the waste product from the first reaction. We have permitted that to be dispersed throughout the world, and now a great many countries, although they are not particularly world powers, have the capability of preparing and using nuclear weapons. I do not have the list of possible countries in front of me, but from memory it seems that countries such as Israel, Pakistan, India, and China are known or believed to have nuclear weapons. Other countries such as Brazil and Argentina are probably capable of producing nuclear weapons. South Africa is believed to have an operating unit. The list goes on and on. It is scary that these countries are also countries wherein extreme political instability exists either internally or in their relations with their immediate neighbours. The risk of nuclear war or of the emergence of a nuclear holocaust because of some loss of control of the industry has followed.
The answer which the Government is proposing, simply to privatize the industry, is not a responsible direction in which to go. Not only are the questions of defence and world instability at stake here both politically and on a war footing, we have equally urgent concerns about control over the nuclear industry as it applies to the environment which the Government appears to be giving up with this initiative. The chances of controlling Eldorado Nuclear in its use of waste, its factories, its reprocessing, and its use of tailings are much more in the hands of government regulators when it is a Crown
Eldorado Nuclear Limited
corporation than when it becomes a private corporation. Almost every citizen can recall a private corporation which has polluted the environment and has escaped any penalty for so doing. The Great Lakes are becoming very close to being polluted to the point where the quality of drinking water is at risk. Some of the lakes have a turnover-that is, the water in, the water out, and the flushing capacity-in the hundreds of years.
Once the full saturation point is reached they are virtually dead to the use of humanity without applying a great deal of technology to purify the water before it is made usable for the people who live in the neighbourhood of the lakes. The preponderance of the population and the industry of North America is located around the lakes. This is an extremely important factor. Part of the industry about which we are talking today, Eldorado Nuclear, has contributed somewhat to the environmental problems in the area, although because it has remained under federal control they have been kept to a minimum. The Department of the Environment has done a fairly good job of containing this Crown corporation. I submit that it has been more successful in containing a Crown corporation than would have been the case had it been a public corporation.
Earlier I raised the question of declining demand and some U.S. actions which have made that demand drop even faster. I remind the House that just in the past month the United States Senate, by a vote of 62 to 28, passed a Bill which would penalize the use of foreign uranium including imports from Canada. Granted, this is a direct violation of the proposed trade agreement. It violates the stand-still aspects whereby both parties agreed not to implement such legislation. I realize that the legislation has not yet completed the full process in the United States, but I think the 62 to 28 votes against permitting further access to the American market for Canadian uranium is very significant.
This is a crucial presidential election year and there is an opportunity for the House of Representatives to change completely, but the Senate vote is a good indicator of what the U.S. public thinks about imported uranium. I submit that the prospects for uranium do not look good. Any potential buyer of the shares would certainly be taking that into consideration when he or she, or if it were a publicly traded corporation, decides to place an evaluation on the shares when submitting a bid.
In short, I do not think the Government will recover very much money with the sale of this organization. It has agreed to continue to be responsible for a good chunk of the debt, the $550 million to which I alluded earlier.
What will the public be gaining from this particular initiative? It is not clear to me that the public will gain very much. The sale of shares will not do much more than change the control structure of Eldorado Nuclear Limited, a control which I submitted in my previous argument should not be given up by the Government of Canada. It should be retained

April 14, 1988
Eldorado Nuclear Limited
because of the special nature of the nuclear industry with regard to defence, as it affects the environment, as it affects future generations of people, and as it affects the over-all future economy of Canada.
For these reasons I recommend that the House support the hoist motion of the Hon. Member for Regina West. We should delay action on the Bill at this time until we have had an opportunity for further study, so that the full impact and the full implications of this proposal can be more correctly analysed.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the Hon. Member for Humboldt-Lake Centre (Mr. Althouse) on a very thoughtful speech. I notice that, with very short notice, he is able to give a thoughtful and cogent analysis.
I want to ask him a question about Saskatchewan. Perhaps he could tell us a little more about environmental problems and the history of Crown corporations in Saskatchewan. My colleague will know that there are some measures in the Bill respecting the liabilities of Eldorado Nuclear. The Government is selling this Crown corporation, but usually when one sells a company one sells the liabilities and the assets. The Government is not selling all the liabilities in this company. The big liability is for environmental clean-up. It is estimated there are something like 1,200,000 tonnes of low-level nuclear waste around the Port Hope area. As you might know, Mr. Speaker, the New Democratic Party has an inquiry going on into the nuclear industry. The Government would not institute one, so we did. We visited the Port Hope area and heard from the local people. There is a big problem with respect to cleaning up what we call low-level nuclear waste. It is not the high-level nuclear waste from the hydro nuclear plants, but low-level waste from the production of uranium. I think this low-level waste is also a problem in Saskatchewan.
I want to ask the Hon. Member, since Saskatchewan Mining Development Corporation is involved in this sale of the Crown corporation, if he could tell us something about some of the problems in his own Province of Saskatchewan with respect to the liability of low-level nuclear waste and the failure to clean this up and the kind of costs that would be involved in cleaning it up.
I will remind the Hon. Member that 25 per cent of any cost over $2 million, up to $100 million, will be paid by the company that buys Eldorado Nuclear, which could be Denison Mines, and we all know of its record with respect to safety and the environment. It is bad. Seventy-five per cent of any costs will still be retained by the Government of Canada. Over $100 million, it is 100 per cent. Would the Hon. Member tell us whether there are low-level nuclear wastes in his own Province of Saskatchewan? Saskatchewan was the home of Crown corporations, and it has used Crown corporations in a very Canadian way in helping people develop their own province.
Perhaps the Hon. Member could say something about that as well.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: I can, in the short time I have, tell the Hon. Member a little about some of the projects that exist in Saskatchewan. As the House will know, there a number of mines operating there. One of them was a mine owned by Eldorado Nuclear at Uranium City which, in the last five or six years, closed, resulting in the virtual closing of the town. It also resulted in some of the $550 million debt the Crown corporation is now carrying because there were substantial improvements made to the tunnelling in the mines. After expending these moneys the ore ran out very shortly thereafter, so it was a bad management decision by the operators of the mines at Uranium City which were owned by Eldorado Nuclear.
With regard to the Saskatchewan mines, a number of them have been approved for development. Deposits of very high-grade uranium ore, by far the highest grade of ore in the world are under the northern lights in Saskatchewan. As I understand it, because of the process required for SMDC to control those mines, to meet the environmental needs, it has in many cases formed alliances with other developers, but SMDC still controls the operation. SMDC is a Crown corporation.
I understand a number of the projects were opened up by the process of draining a lake. The ore was mined using virtually a pit process. The tailings such as exist are kept on the site. When the mine is played out a long time from now, my understanding is that the lake will go back into place and the water will keep the radiation at bay, serving the same function it has served for millions of years before the opening of the mines. The tailings will not have the same radiation value as the ore, so we ordinary people accept advice of the experts and presume that that will keep the radiation at bay with no environmental problems.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, I have sat here very patiently. This is the fourth day of debate on a government proposed initiative to combine two companies in the uranium business, one owned by the Government of Saskatchewan and one owned by the federal Government, into a larger, more efficient company, with better quality jobs-


Ian Gardiner Waddell: You assume that.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: -better marketing potential-


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Where?


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Members of the NDP say we assume that. We do not have to make an assumption. We know from the past history of this Party that every time this Government moves to privatize, on ideological grounds the NDP says jobs are at risk, all these awful things are going to happen. In every single case, from de Havilland on through the system, when we privatize, we create better marketing-


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Why?
April 14, 1988


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: -and we create better quality jobs and more jobs. There are now 14 privatization proposals on the table. We have completed a number of those, and this happens in every single case. Every single time we get the same stupid, foolish argument.
It is common sense and it is logical that if we take two smaller units in the same business, we reduce the input costs in part in terms of administration, research and development-


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Baloney! That is not true.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: It happens every single time. That is why there are so many mergers of private sector companies. They want to reduce their overhead costs. They become more aggressive as marketers because they have people out in more centres trying to sell their goods and products. We have mergers all the time because they end up with a healthier corporation which does a better job, with happier employees when there is employer ownership, and that is part of this proposal. All these positive things happen.
We have a lot of important issues coming up in this country such as free trade, abortion, and so on, but the NDP, for some set of silly, bloody reasons, has decided to drive us into a fourth day of debate with two mouths. The Leader of the Party stands in the House and says this should go to committee soon, and the back-benchers of the NDP Party stand up and filibuster and move silly motions to try to kill a piece of legislation. What is this country coming to? Is the NDP Party going to stand in this Chamber and do what is right and it is best for the Canadian people or is it going to continue to behave in a nonsensical, ideologically nonsensical way?


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Call an election, then.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Which are they going to do?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is that the question?


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: That is the question. What are they going to do?


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I think the Hon. Member in his fit of apoplexy must have lost track of the English language and the appropriate way to refer to Parties in this House. It is the New Democratic Party. We are not having a party. It is a political Party.


An Hon. Member:: Come on, sit down!


An Hon. Member:: Order!


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I will allow the Hon. Member a minute to answer the question.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, I think that if the Hon. Member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes) had been paying full attention to my speech he would have noted that I did not take very much time at all on ideological arguments. I was dealing with economic arguments. I am a person from Saskatchewan,
Eldorado Nuclear Limited
a person who pays taxes there and who is an owner of SMDC through the Government of Saskatchewan. As such, I cannot see the economic advantages for me as a Saskatchewan taxpayer of taking over part of the debt of this company. As a Canadian taxpayer, I cannot see the advantages of being saddled with the balance of the debt.
Saskatchewan already has the advantage of having most of the good concentrates and good ores in the uranium field. We do not particularly need this deal. The deal that is being offered apparently permits SMDC to have some options on facilities Eldorado Nuclear had that SMDC might buy for a very low price. The point I was making is that this low price is in fact a problem for me as a Canadian taxpayer and also as a Saskatchewan taxpayer, because I am concerned about why we need this deal.
Saskatchewan has all the advantages in the uranium industry. If we want to develop it, we can develop it at our own speed. We are sitting on several hundred years of the best uranium mines anywhere in the world. We are in charge of them. I do not think that there is any advantage to me either as a Canadian taxpayer or a Saskatchewan taxpayer to go through with this deal.
I have not seen any data presented by the government side to convince me or my colleagues or my neighbours that it is a good deal. Although this debate may have gone on for a short time on three or four different days, that data is still lacking. Through the motion of my hon. friend from Regina West, we are trying to give the Government an opportunity to present that information to us. What will be the advantage to the Canadian taxpayer and to the Saskatchewan taxpayer?


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to have this opportunity to participate in a debate which, in the view of my Party and of my House Leader, is one which should be pursued. If there is anything silly about the motion that was introduced by my hon. colleague, it is that it has elicited a silly, obscene response from the Hon. Member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes).
The Hon. Member alleges that this debate is based on some ideological imperative. Let us make it clear that the question of privatization is not subject to ideological imperatives. That is a fact and a consideration that I wish the government Party would take into account.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: That's what you say every time. No common sense-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: There will be an opportunity for questions and comments later.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: What I said is like a worm that drew a fish to speak. It is not this Party which has raised the issue of the ideological content of privatization, it is the Government.

April 14, 1988
Eldorado Nuclear Limited
Recently, we had presented to us a ridiculously unprepared proposition for the privatization of Air Canada. That will be open to considerable debate, but it raises the question of whether or not the Conservative Party is so totally committed on the basis of an ideological imperative to privatization that it very nearly loses its senses whenever the issue is raised in the form of debate.
We have before us the proposition to merge and privatize the Saskatchewan Mining Development Corporation and Eldorado Nuclear. If ever there was an example of a case of privatization in which ideological considerations have overrun all other considerations, it is this one, and so it should be examined. This is a Government-


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: In committee.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: I am very pleased that I am being listened to carefully, because the Hon. Member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes) could stand further education and an examination of his own motives.
Not too long ago, various spokesmen for the Government expressed their support for the Brundtland Commission report which drew the world's attention to the tremendous significance of the massive numbers of environmental problems the world faces. One of the propositions enunciated in that report was that there should be a movement in the direction of sustainable development.
For the Hon. Member for Calgary West, whose mind turns to a complete blank every time any question is raised about privatization, sustainable development means development that incorporates in the estimates of the costs and in the determination of whether or not to proceed the costs of all the environmental impacts. Surely even the Hon. Member for Calgary West should understand that the nuclear industry is not beyond question. It is not devoid of widespread concern. For that reason alone, one would have thought that the Hon. Member for Calgary West would have had the common sense to understand that this, therefore, is not just any old deal, it is one that requires the most careful scrutiny. It would get that scrutiny if this Government were not so totally committed to its ideological imperative.
In this instance, there is not only an ideological imperative that is being pursued but considerable environmental considerations that must be taken into hand. We know, for example, that the Port Hope refinery produces hundreds of tonnes of waste each year and that the capacity of the disposal site is on the verge of being completely exhausted. There are no alternatives, and when an alternative is found, will it be the burden of the new owners of this merged company to pay for the disposal of these wastes? No, the Government will pay $75 million for it in the estimated costs, according to the legislation we are considering today.
We must also be aware that there are similar problems with the mines owned by the Saskatchewan Mining Development Corporation. The most significant problem we have with the
nuclear industry in its peaceful use is the environmental impact of the waste generated by it and the disposal problem which has not been resolved.
In debate the other day, one of my hon. colleagues indicated that the half-life of some of the waste contamination produced was 300,000 years, and he was talking about it taking 300,000 years to get rid of it. The half-life is 300,000 years-


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Hon. Member is bringing up interesting general information about the nuclear industry, and indeed the committee might decide that some of that information is required from expert witnesses in order to deal with the nuclear industry, but what does this have to do with the motions being debated by the House, either the amendment or the original motion which provides for the merger of two Crown corporations?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I am sure that the Hon. Member will get to the point.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I do not think that whatever the Hon. Member said was recorded because the microphone was off. Again, I said that I am sure that the Hon. Member will return to the amendment. The Hon. Member for Windsor-Walkerville (Mr. McCurdy) has the floor.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: As I said, the Hon. Member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes) is undergoing considerable mental strain, I see, in trying to understand the obvious.
This is obviously in support of the motion. It takes no great difficulty to understand that we are pointing out some of the considerations that need to be debated and considered by the Government before this legislation is even considered in the House. That I would understand to be the purpose of a hoist motion. It is to allow the Hon. Member for Calgary West and his colleagues to consider what it is they are doing.
Even the bare facts that I have indicated strongly suggest to any rational individual that we are dealing with an industry which should not be privatized. If there is any source of dependable control over an industry that people fear, it resides with Government. Why, then, do we suggest that we abandon the kind of control that will provide the necessary assurances that the nuclear industry will be handled in such a way as to protect the interests of the people and the environment?
We could talk about the workers and the proposition advanced by the former Minister responsible for privatization, which I will only paraphrase, which suggested there would be vastly increased efficiency as a result of privatization. It will be rationalized in order to achieve that efficiency. When matched against the notion of stock being available to the workers, it surely is of some importance to these workers to be sure that their interests will be taken into account in a fashion modelled
April 14, 1988

on what happened when the industry was subject to a vast layoff under circumstances of government ownership.
Apart from the foolishness associated with privatizing the nuclear industry, one has to raise the question of whether in the long run it would be profitable for the private sector owners. In addition, there is the question of whether we should perpetuate this industry ad infinitum. Would it not be better to look in other directions and not place in the hands of private interests an opportunity to expand the nuclear industry? Would it not be better to put more commitment into exploration of alternative energy sources which would be renewable and non-contaminating, and based on the notion of sustainable development? It has been only a couple of weeks since we pointed out that there is such an alternative available to us in the form of hydrogen technology.
We have here, then, a proposition which is environmentally threatening and flies in the face of undertakings to move in the direction of sustainable development. It is economically doubtful in view of American action to restrain the import of uranium to the U.S. in flat contradiction of the free trade agreement. We have a deal that involves a stock flotation where, as my colleague indicated, the Canadian people will sell something they own and then turn around and have to pay for a great deal of the cost of that operation, with our taxes amounting to something in the order of $350 million.
I will admit that this intervention is a kind of random walk through the considerations which apply to this legislation, intended for one purpose only, to demonstrate that the Hon. Member for Calgary West and his colleagues are so absolutely committed to their ideological imperative that they refuse to consider the implications of what they are doing, so overwrought are they with ensuring that further mergers and so on continue as a matter of principle. They believe they should encourage them for reasons which are perhaps not ideological in some instances, perhaps more patronizing in a certain sense,I might suppose. Certainly we heard earlier suggestions that mergers have been of economic benefit to this country. If that is the principle being applied here, then that is under question, too.
I will conclude by saying that it seems to me self-evident, as I am sure it is to my colleagues in this House, that this Bill should be hoisted. The Government should take some time to give some thought to the matter. I do not think Members opposite want to be accused again of doing something thoughtless and in an ill-considered manner, a reputation which they have rightfully earned. Here is an opportunity for them to withdraw, reconsider, and perhaps not do at all.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions or comments.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, they speak out of two sides of the mouth, maybe three. The NDP Government in Manitoba is in trouble in large measure because it is inappropriate for elected representatives, I believe, to have control of certain
Eldorado Nuclear Limited
kinds of management paths related to public enterprise. It is the management of Crown corporations where indeed elected Members of Parliament do not have the expertise that has got the NDP Government in trouble in Manitoba.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Where?


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Where? We will see on voting day just exactly the size of the trouble.
The arguments being advanced on the other side would force Canadians to conclude that when they go to the ballot box they should be choosing people who know how to run a mining and processing company. That is the logic of their argument; elected representatives are better able to manage a mining enterprise. I am sorry, but my background does not prepare me to manage a mining company. What I think I am asked to do when I come to this Chamber is to protect the environment, protect public health and safety, and produce a policy climate that will enable enterprises to flourish and jobs to be created. I am here to try to help people reduce their tax load so that they have more discretionary income and they can enjoy a higher standard of living.
We are dealing here with two Crown corporations, one owned by the Province of Saskatchewan and one by the federal Government. We are simply saying: amalgamate the two of them so we have a more efficient enterprise so when you do research into things like the environment you have more resources to do it and the environment is better protected. We will have a better marketing wing and the health and safety standards we lay down in this House of Commons, which is our job, will be better complied with by the company because it is a healthier enterprise.
I was in this Chamber when the Liberal Government of the day, supported by the NDP, decided to nose around in an industry and take control in many ways, control which Members of this Chamber were not prepared by background to take. That industry was the oil industry. I saw job losses, wife beatings and suicides as a result. I saw unemployment rise from 4 per cent to 12 per cent because a group of politicians on some kind of ego trip decided that they could run the world. Well, we cannot. Neither should we be responsible for running a mining operation. We were not elected to do it.
Years ago, when the markets and technology were brand new and private investors had no experience in this area, it may have been appropriate for Government to help get something started. However, we are now dealing with a tremendously sophisticated and competitive world-wide business. We need strong companies to compete successfully in markets around the world, and this is one of them. This is what that legislation is designed to do. We need it to be controlled and managed by knowledgeable people rather than not knowledgeable politicians.

April 14, 1988
Eldorado Nuclear Limited
They have taken four days in this Chamber and have spoken out of the two sides of their mouths. The filibuster continues. On Monday of this week we heard the House Leader say that this should go to committee soon. We heard him make another speech on Tuesday and another speech yet on Wednesday.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Who?


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: The Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis), the House Leader.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Will the Hon. Member put the question please.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: I would be happy to, Mr. Speaker. What is the honest statement of reality? Is the New Democratic Party, as expressed by its leadership, moving this Bill to committee to hear expert witnesses to see if we got it right, or is the backbench revolt a planned revolt? Is the House Leader saying one thing in this Chamber which is different from what the behaviour tells us? From which part of the NDP are we hearing? What is the lie and what is the truth? Is this going to committee or is it going to get filibustered?


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Calgary West has become downright revolting. We do not have backbench revolts over here. I suppose that in his environment the Hon. Member thinks that all Parties are subject to back-room revolt. We do not have any little cabals in our Party or anything of the sort. The Hon. Member should disabuse himself of that kind of silly observation.
I have never heard such an abject confession of the ideological basis of this and so much else that the Government is doing. The Hon. Member says that he was not elected here as someone competent to do a number of things. A government does a great many things, and I am sure that we would all agree that the Hon. Member is not competent in any of them. However, I do not understand why the Hon. Member would submit the argument that it follows that if we are not competent in mining we are not competent in public health, medicine, science, or forestry.
The Hon. Member has said clearly that the motivation behind this legislation is thoughtlessly ideological and because it is thoughtlessly ideological we have a piece of thoughtless legislation before us now which disregards the proper role of government.
Let me disabuse the Hon. Member of his perception of where this Party stands. This Party is a social democratic Party. If the Hon. Member is so narrow in his understanding and knowledge not to know that the highest percentage of private ownership exists under a social democratic Government in Sweden, then he knows nothing, but then he has confessed that previously.
This Party understands that there are certain situations in which it is in the national interest that certain industries and
certain businesses be in government or Crown hands. It understands as well that there are industries and businesses which should remain in private hands. The decision is to be made in the interests of the public or national welfare, whether that be in terms of the production of jobs, which is the highest priority, or the environment, which is of equally high priority. Those kinds of considerations may so heavily weigh in favour of public ownership that we, in those circumstances, would propose it.
However, that does not necessarily mean that private ownership, in the vast majority of circumstances, would not be in that same interest so long as what is done is on the basis of a strategy of prosperity for this country. I hope that that will provide a basic understanding for the Hon. Member which has been so difficult for us to provide to him.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated. The Hon. Member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Parry).


Mr. John Parry (Kenora-Rainy River):: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have the opportunity today to address a few remarks of my own to the privatization of Eldorado Nuclear. The New Democratic Party opposes this privatization for much the same reasons that we oppose the deal which has been made with the United States, because it is fundamentally a bad deal and one which does not hold the prospects of profit or benefit for the people of Canada.
The deal is structured in such a way that the private sector, presumably the eventual owners if this Bill passes, of Eldorado Nuclear will get the profits, profits generated not only from the commercial activities of the company which will be formed by the eventual merger of Eldorado and the Saskatchewan Mining Development Corporation, but profits also that have been made possible by the very heavy public subsidies that have been given to the uranium mining industry over a number of years in the form of favourable taxation, marketing arrangements, sweetheart contracts and, I might say, some forms of political manipulation and protection as well. We have no assurance that the Government even recognizes the benefit that it is conferring on the private sector by this privatization.
I think that Canadians would more readily excuse the Tories if they were to say honestly that they are going to give things to the private sector at less than their full value on the basis of potential income generation because, as Tories, they believe in the private sector and see this as a useful way to further that belief and their own ideological agenda. However, it does not seem that the Government has had the straightforwardness to confess to the Canadian public. I can assure the Government that if it were to make the confession in such terms, it might get a better response than it has received to this sly way of using the backroads to sneak through another privatization on the Canadian people.
April 14, 1988

The Government is now putting it to the Canadian people that the public sector, the people of Canada, is ultimately bearing and underwriting all the risk components which might be in this deal because the Government is assuming the potential liability of the nuclear waste problem at the Port Hope refinery at a cost of perhaps $75 million, and because the Government is assuming financial liabilities that might arise.
The Government would receive from the newly merged company about $250 million, but that would still leave some $300 million of debt which the Government is essentially going to have to take over and write down to nothing. Yet that only represents the tip of the iceberg on the investment which has been made in Eldorado in the form of government equity.
The Government is going to take a loss on this transaction. It is going to tell the taxpayers of Canada that now is the time to take the loss. However, it also means that the previous investment is liquidated to zero and that the people of Canada will not share in any future profits which come from the uranium industry.
I wonder, Mr. Speaker, whether there is any certainty for the Government in trying to seek a high share price in order to diminish its losses. Obviously it does not want to end up like that great Socred experiment in British Columbia, the British Columbia Resources Investment Corporation, where the shares were sold to the public at $5 each and are now valued at 90 cents. If the Government seeks that high share price for this privatization it must face the reality that uranium markets are chronically over-supplied and prices are depressed at the moment. After all, if the United States Government were to go against the spirit of the free trade deal and pass the Bill presently before it concerning penalties on utilities which use foreign-enriched uranium, that would drastically reduce the market for Canadian mined uranium within the United States and would of course, depress the prices.
This gives me the legitimate opportunity, which I shall not pass up, to point out again to the Government the degree to which that trade deal signed with the United States Government is one-sided and unrealistic. While we are even waiting in this House for the introduction of the omnibus Bill which will harmonize all the Canadian legislation with the trade agreement that has been signed, Bills are coming forward in the American Congress that would provide for obvious restraints on trade with Canada.
Therefore, we have a deal that is no deal at all because it does not change the future from the past. All that has changed is that certain programs have been given a blessing or said to be legitimate, yet they can still be treated before the U.S. Trade Commission and in the U.S. Congress as if they were not legitimate. So it is with American legislation. There surely must be a large corpus of American legislation that can be very readily recognized as protectionist.
Eldorado Nuclear Limited
I do not think I need to go into examples about the Jones Act, about quotas on Japanese automobiles, about some of the military procurement regulations that prevail in the United States. The fact is that the Government has signed a trade agreement that really does very little to reduce not only the protectionist legislation that is in place in the United States but the protectionist legislation which is to come in the United States.
Therefore, to say that we have a trade deal really is flaunting a Pollyanna approach in front of the Canadian public. Much more is left unregulated, uncontrolled and at the mercy of the whims of the U.S. Congress in that deal than is settled in it.
What are the other advantages to this Eldorado privatization? Are there job guarantees? Is there any security for the workers of those two companies that are to be merged? Quite the opposite is true. The Minister spoke of rationalization, which we all know is the Tory code for lay-offs. There are no guarantees for jobs in Bill C-121.
What are the research and development prospects? After all, there are prospects for change in the way in which uranium is enriched. That will require substantial research and development investment but there is no guarantee in this Bill that that research and development investment will be made.
There is no guarantee that if it is made, the research and development will in fact be done in Canada. In the Minister's own words, the future prospects of the entire uranium industry have been heightened by lessening the uncertainty over possible U.S. import restrictions on uranium. But how is that to happen? The trade deal with the United States has us dropping our requirements for the processing of imported oil. How will this happen, beyond the United States saying that they want our unrefined uranium and if they do not get it they will subject the refined version to the countervail provisions of their trade law.
Environmental problems are an issue that could really be the subject of a separate speech. Something that must be remembered and that I do not believe the government side would challenge is that it is far easier for a private company to avoid or evade nuclear regulations and obligations than for a public company to do so. Indeed, I would suggest that it is far easier for a private company to tailor the regulations to its taste than it is for a public company to do so, where of course the board of directors know that they are subject to the Government. That is something that private companies would often chance their arm at. The unions of the facilities believe that private ownership could lead to a reduction in those safety standards.
I believe we should look at privatization in the context of other privatizations that have occurred. The Government is pursuing an agenda of privatization, much the same as the Conservative Government in the United Kingdom. Some of their privatizations have been touted as successful by the Government, but they are only successful in the degree to which they have conferred windfall benefits on private

April 14, 1988
Eldorado Nuclear Limited
investors. They have not been successful in terms of returning the fair market value of the privatized company to the people of the country through the Government which previously held the shares.
That is a consideration to make when we look at the broad scheme of privatization and the broad scheme of the Government's ideological agenda for privatization within Canada. Rather than judge it on a case by case basis, I think we should say that the Government is obviously running this risk and is prepared to do so. It is prepared to see the profits on a privatization go to private hands. It is prepared to call the privatization successful if the shares merely change hands, whether or not the shares subsequently increase significantly in value and generate windfall profits for the investors. That is quite harmonious with the ideological agenda of the Progressive Conservative Party and is something that the Government will not take into consideration even though, in every other context, the objective of deficit reduction is highly touted and widely used. However, when it comes to selling off a company below the market price, this is not quite such a pressing consideration when the Government gets to that point.
Let us look at the safety agenda once again. In the 1940s the federal Government recognized the importance of nuclear energy by first expropriating the assets of Eldorado and using the declaratory power present at that time in the BNA Act to take jurisdiction.
If the Government gets out of the nuclear industry and does not have hands on experience, how will it get the information so readily that it requires to improve safety regulations and to continue to enforce safety regulations? Instead of a Crown corporation, with workers understanding their link through to the Government and their responsibility to the people of the country, there is a danger that an ethic may develop whereby workers will see themselves as being responsible to the company and see a necessity to keep some things secret that would be better in the public domain.
If we look at the behaviour of some of the companies in the American nuclear industry we can very readily see how that type of mentality can build up and possibly do damage in Canada.
The social cost of withdrawal from the nuclear industry as result of this privatization could be immense. Some of the key liabilities in this transaction have been taken over by the Government, and I see a situation whereby the Government will assume the full environmental responsibility while the company will escape scot-free, without bearing the costs of that environmental responsibility. I believe that would be a very bad paradigm to lay before Canadian industry and the Canadian people because we have seen in the past that many industries have prospered and returned profits to their shareholders by socializing the real cost of their operation, particularly in the environmental areas. This is something that dates from the industrial revolution when waste chemical was
first poured down a sewage system and taken out into a stream.
Simply because it is only in recent years that the true costs have been identified does not mean that we can afford to drop the vigilance that is necessary to ensure that any resource or mining or manufacturing operation pays the full cost of its operation and does not arbitrarily socialize costs which, in many cases, may be immense.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment my colleagues who have spoken today and brought new material into the debate. I want to say for the benefit of my colleague for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes) that from his remarks one would think that MPs and MLAs in places where there are Crown corporations will be managing them. I do not know of a single MLA or MP anywhere in Canada who has been managing a Crown corporation. In every instance, whether federal or provincial, top-notch experts were hired to be managers. I am wondering if the Hon. Member for Calgary West is trying to say that Petro-Canada is poorly managed.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Yes.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: It is the most successful oil company in all of North America.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Bull-roar.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: What is the shareholder doing, then?


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: If it is being poorly managed then the responsibility is on the Hon. Member for Calgary West and his colleagues.
Even if it were the case that MPs and MLAs were managing Crown corporations, I have been trying to think of something that the Hon. Member for Calgary West could manage. I decided that it could be nothing more than a chicken coop.
It is the Conservative Government which has been talking about running the Government using sound business practices and bringing business ethics into government. It has come to a point now where we socialists have to give Conservatives lessons on sound business practice and good business ethics. It has always been my understanding, and I want to ask my colleague for his opinion on this, that in the private sector where there is sound business management and good business ethics if one buys a business one buys not only its assets but also its liabilities.
What does my colleague think of this ridiculous, harebrained, bone-headed proposal of the Governments that the taxpayers of Canada will keep the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of debt and that the eventual private owners of this new company which will be privatized will get off scot-free and get the gravy? Would my colleague like to express an opinion on those types of business practices?
April 14, 1988____________________COMMONS DEBATES_________________________________14459
Eldorado Nuclear Limited


John Edmund Parry: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Hon. Member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin) for his perceptive comments. Indeed, I would like to respond to the first part of his comments in which he was criticizing what I can only describe as the caricature that the Hon. Member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes) made of the actual structure by which Crown corporations are managed.
It is of course entirely inappropriate for the Hon. Member for Calgary West to suggest that Members of Parliament or even members of the Government would be involved in an operational way in the management of Crown corporations. For him to caricature the real situation in this way I would say is an abdication of a parliamentarian's responsibility to describe, whatever his or her preconceptions, things as accurately as they know how.
As the Hon. Member for Regina West said, the situation is quite clear. The Government appoints a board of directors for a Crown corporation. The board of directors hires the management. The Government acts as the shareholder, whereas in a private situation there are many shareholders. But the principles of corporate organization remain the same. The board of directors instructs the management. The board of directors of course accepts direction in policy matters and policy matters only from the Government.
It may be that Tory Members have been getting involved in mischievous ways in attempting to interfere with and run Crown corporations. Maybe what we are hearing is not so much a caricature as perhaps a confession. I would have to point out that in provinces such as Saskatchewan, Manitoba and British Columbia, which have had the benefit of Crown corporations established by New Democratic Party and CCF Governments, those distinctions have been observed. Those distinctions have been made to work. Indeed, Crown corporations have been run in accordance with sound business principles.
Turning to the other part of the question, it is obvious that there are enormous costs out there, unestimated, unanalysed and unknown, for the Government if it sells off merely the assets of a corporation without selling off the liabilities as well. That is something that flies in the face and is totally contrary to sound business practice.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The time allotted for questions and comments has now terminated. Is the House ready for the question?


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The question is on the amendment of Mr. Benjamin. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: All those in favour of the amendment will please say yea.


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: All those opposed to the amendment will please say nay.


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five Members having risen'.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Call in the Members.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I declare the amendment lost.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It being after 1 p.m., I do now leave the chair until 2 p.m. this day.
At 1.04 p.m., the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.


Mrs. Therese Killens (Saint-Michel-Ahuntsic):: Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, April 12, the Montagnais Indians were in Ottawa to condemn the failure of the federal and Quebec governments to take action with respect to the situation in Schefferville. Schefferville has, to all intents and purposes, been abandoned, and many houses, for which the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation is responsible, are empty. Meanwhile, the Montagnais in the area are living in multifamily dwellings, with a bare minimum of services, and without any play areas for the children. The empty houses in Schefferville are deteriorating, despite the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's attempts to provide maintenance.
I therefore ask the Minister responsible for Indian Affairs, the Minister responsible for housing and the local Member who is the Prime Minister himself, to negotiate an agreement
with the Montagnais under which they will be able to move into these houses, which would be a first step towards giving the Montagnais responsibility for their own economic development.
*
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VISIBLE MINORITIES


Mr. Ross Belsher (Fraser Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, this Government has been determined from the very beginning of its first term in office to redress the wrongs of the past as best it can today. Ministers have met with the Japanese Canadian community, listened, and searched for the appropriate set of actions. This is not a matter we as a Government take lightly.
Most recently, the previous Minister of State for Multicul-turalism offered the following to that community: an official government acknowledgement of the injustice, to be formally adopted by Parliament; the introduction of new emergency legislation to replace the War Measures Act; and compensation to the community as a whole. This Government is at least willing to talk.
Our new Minister of State for Multiculturalism (Mr. Weiner) committed himself this morning to continuing discussions with the National Association of Japanese Canadians, proof that we are trying to find a fair and equitable solution to this problem which has been ignored for too long.
* *
*



AGRICULTURE


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, today members of the National Farmers Union are holding a national day of protest to raise public awareness of the seriousness of the farm crisis. Rallies will be staged across Canada, including mock funerals in Edmonton and Regina. The caskets carried by honorary pallbearers symbolize the death of the family farm.
Government policies are not adequately addressing the burgeoning debt and low income problem of farmers. The Farm Credit Corporation has still not clarified the problem of longer term leases, an initiative it was supposed to have addressed a year ago. As well, the Chairman of the Standing Committee on Agriculture has not vigorously continued the investigation into equity financing or land bank schemes.
April 14, 1988

Another year has gone by. Another year has been wasted. Another year's crop of farmers has been lost. I call on the Government to make a greater commitment to ensure the survival of the family farm.



ACCESS TO JUSTICE


Mr. David Daubney (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, as Chairman of the Standing Committee on Justice and Solicitor General I am pleased to invite my colleagues and all Canadians to celebrate the sixth annual Law Day which takes place tomorrow. For six years now Law Day has given us an occasion to reflect upon the rights and freedoms which define our society and which benefit all Canadians. This year's theme, "Access to Justice", reflects the right of every Canadian to have equal access to information about the law as well as equal opportunity for access to the courts.
Tomorrow across Canada members of the Canadian Bar Association and other lawyers from the private and public sector will be engaged in a variety of activities aimed at bringing the law to the Canadian public. I look forward personally to speaking to students at Woodroffe High School in my riding about the work of our committee.
As Members of this House it is our duty to help our constituents become more aware of the law and how it affects them. All Canadians should feel that the law exists for them and that it allows them to live in a fair and just society. It is up to each one of us to help make access to justice a reality for all.



WELFARE


Mrs. Lucie Pepin (Outremont):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today in the House to voice my complete indignation at Premier Vander Zalm's reorganization of the B.C. welfare system. We heard this morning that in the restructuring of the welfare program Mr. Vander Zalm has decided to cut back on welfare benefits for single mothers. Even Mr. Vander Zalm's allies find inconsistency in the fact that Mr. Vander Zalm is trying, on the one hand, to promote family life while, on the other hand, making life more difficult for single head of family mothers.
According to Mr. Vander Zalm's new restructuring, women who do not find work within 15 weeks of the birth of their children will face a financial penalty. How can Mr. Vander Zalm reconcile the promotion of family life with the fact that
he is virtually ruling out the possibility for single women to have a child by imposing harsh restrictions on their access to welfare benefits?
I see no promise for universal day care in Mr. Vander Zalm's new program, only a vague promise of personal intervention in the harshest cases. Single mothering is itself a harsh case, Mr. Speaker, a case Mr. Vander Zalm is making harsher. We must voice our disdain for a plan so completely devoid of compassion or understanding.



AIRPORTS


Mr. Geoff Scott (Hamilton-Wentworth):: Merci, M. le President. Bienvenue a I'aeroport internationale de Hamilton!
Mr. Speakah, Ah want to welcome y'all to Hamilton InterNayshunal Eiry-port.
Viva! La Aero-puerto Interna- TZion-Ale di Hamilt-Donl!
You see, Mr. Speaker, it does not matter which language you use, the name "Hamilton International Airport" has a nice ring to it. It is also becoming an urgent ring because of potentially greater chaos and confusion at Toronto with the construction of a third terminal building there. Many pilots and passengers are suddenly becoming aware of Hamilton's superb runways and facilities.
With regularly scheduled services such as Pan Am Express and Alleghany Airways to the United States, and with NationAir coming on stream with flights to London, England, and hopefully beyond to continental Europe, we are now virtually an international airport.
I am formally inviting the new Minister of Transport (Mr. Bouchard) and the new Minister of State for Transport (Mr. St. Germain) to see for themselves what should become Canada's newest international airport-Hamilton International Airport.
Merci, Thank Yew, Dankeschon, and Muchos Gracias.



AIR CANADA


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, Canadians are asking a lot of questions about the Government's scheme to sell Air Canada and to sell them out. Canadians want to know why it is okay to give General Motors $250 million in subsidies but not to give Air Canada a similar injection of cash. Why have the Government and Air Canada not considered capital refinancing plans that do not involve selling out the company?

April 14, 1988
Why should the public buy shares in something it already owns?
Air Canada is an important instrument of national policy. It serves small and remote communities with jet aircraft with cargo capacity. It allows public monitoring of pricing practices and guarantees adherence to safety and maintenance standards.
The Government can make no guarantees about Air Canada concerning safety, service, bilingualism, or jobs if it abdicates control of the company to a small group of private investors.
As was said in this morning's Globe and Mail, "we cannot afford to lose public accountability in deregulated skies. In the U.S. ruthless corporate managers have savaged workers' jobs, wages, and working conditions, brought chaos to passengers and shippers, and cut corners on safety and maintenance". We must not allow Air Canada to become Air Texas.



CANADIAN JOBS STRATEGY


Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Mr. Speaker, the second report of the Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration entitled "A Review of the Canadian Jobs Strategy" reports as follows:
A great deal of concern was expressed to your Committee regarding the fact
that many individuals are unable to fully utilize the Canadian Jobs Strategy
because they lack literacy skills and/or are in need of basic academic
upgrading.
This is certainly the case in the region which I represent and I commend for careful study by the Government the recommendations made by the committee to deal with this serious problem.



LOBBYISTS


Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, this week a legislative committee is studying Bill C-82 on the registration of lobbyists. The Bill has some gaping omissions.
First, the Bill does not prohibit lobbyists from charging contingency fees. This means that a lobbyist can charge an extra fee contingent on the outcome of the lobbying activity.
In most provincial jurisdictions this type of practice would be prohibited. Why should it not be prohibited for lobbyists as well?
Second, the activity of information gathering for the purposes of lobbying is not addressed in the Bill.
Third, the goal of transparency of the lobbying industry is thwarted in the distinction between Tier 1 and Tier 2 lobbyists in the Bill.
I urge vigilant Members of the House to lobby our legislative committee to amend the effects of the lobbying effort of the lobbyists on the lobbying Bill.



SOCIALISM


Mr. Gabriel Fontaine (Levis):: Mr. Speaker, my Government is about to proceed with its fourteenth privatization. This is its fourteenth message of confidence in the creativity and productivity of Canadians. It is the fourteenth challenge to the Socialist Party, a Party that does not trust Canadians to create jobs and prefers to place its trust in protectionism and trade barriers.
Every day, socialism wants to give the keys to our economy to laboratory technocrats. Canadian workers know by now that privatization creates employment and more businesses. Collective ownership does not make sense.
Not a single country in the world has been able to apply this concept and we are certainly not going to start here in Canada.



IMMIGRATION


Mr. Dan Heap (Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mrs. McDougall) keeps repeating the high sounding principle that Canada cannot morally allow economic refugees to use up the spaces allotted to real refugees. She is busily deporting Turks to prove her point.
However, during the past two years Canada has doubled the number of so-called refugees selected abroad for entry into Canada from Nicaragua. What is going on?
Nicaragua does not have the busy death squads such as Chile, El Salvador, and Guatemala. The United Nations and Amnesty find that Nicaragua's performance on the rule of law and human rights is clearly better than those countries, and the Central American Verification Committee found Nicaragua the only country seriously complying with the Esquipulas cease-fire agreement.
April 14, 1988

Canada seems to favour well off professionals and political opponents of the Sandinistas, by bringing in over 900 of them to take the places of other real refugees.
If this is the Tories' high class immigration policy, that is their choice. But to call it a refugee policy is hypocritical nonsense.



HISTORIC EVENTS


Mr. Fernand Jourdenais (La Prairie):: Mr. Speaker, today is Holocaust Day, Yam Hasho'ah, a day of remembrance for the six million Jews and the uprising of the Ghetto of Warsaw during World War II.
We pray for the orphans, the widows, the innocent victims whose ashes have been scattered around by the Nazis. Their only flaws-they were Jewish by birth, and they were taken to Auschwitz, Dauchau, via Drancy, and the velodrome d'hiver and many other camps of slow deaths. They were tortured, they were destroyed on account of their identity. They were innocent victims of barbarians.
We too, here in our country, are not proud of what the then Liberal Government did to them, in returning them to the concentration camps in Germany.
We can only pray in silence to pay tribute to their memory. We undertake not to let such an evil repeat itself in this century or ever again.
My colleagues on all sides of the Chamber will no doubt rise with me and offer a tribute to their memory.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



CAPE BRETON DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION


Mr. Dave Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, the Cape Breton Development Corporation preretirement leave plan was designed purposely to have the workers affected continue to be employed under a contract of service to Devco in order that they be eligible to continue to earn entitlement to various benefits, including the Canada Pension Plan. With very few exceptions, income from employment for purposes of one of the Acts I have mentioned is income from employment for the purposes of the other.
Since the pre-retirement leave plan of 1971, many miners have now gone for a compassionate disability pension and programs under the Labour Adjustment Program. Under these programs, individuals were not be requested to pay UIC. Hence, individuals who participated in the Devco preretirement leave plan must pay employment insurance. This is financial discrimination since these persons will never obtain employment with that Crown corporation.
I call upon the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Mac-Kay) to write to the Board of Directors at Cape Breton Development Corporation and encourage them to change this absurd and unfair deduction. The Minister relayed to me in a letter that he believed only Devco could change this rule. I encourage the Minister to help show Devco the light by providing it with his assistance.



AIR CANADA


Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, the privatization of Air Canada has been on my mind for many months. On May 7, 1987, I wrote to mayors, chambers of commerce, school boards, development corporations, LEAD corporations and the CRDAT in the riding of Abitibi, suggesting they send resolutions to Mr. Jeanniot, President of Air Canada, to the effect that "in the event Air Canada is privatized, the Abitibi-Temiscamingue region is not penalized by cut-backs in staff and in the excellent service it has always received".
On August 6, 1987, I met privately for an hour with Mr. Jeanniot in Montreal to discuss the privatization of Air Canada. The decision was made by Ottawa.
This is Canada's fourteen privatization. This airline has an excellent record, and I agree with letting its employees become shareholders.
This morning, I received confirmation from the director of Air Canada for Abitibi-Temiscamingue, Mr. Jean-Claude Tetrault, that there would be no cut-backs in staff or services.
Mr. Speaker, Air Canada has a duty to provide outstanding service to isolated areas. We will all be most vigilant in this respect, and I intend to see to it that privatization does not mean sacrificing the interests of the public.

April 14, 1988
Oral Questions



VISIBLE MINORITIES


Mr. Ernie Epp (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Mr. Speaker, this is an historic day for Canada as the National Association of Japanese Canadians and many other representatives of organizations gather in Ottawa to call upon the Government of Canada to recognize the enormous injustice done the Japanese Canadian community during the 1940s, and to urge the Government of Canada to act upon a proper redress.
This matter was put before the people of Canada by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) four years ago. Yet, in the intervening four years, the Government has hesitated at the decisive and important step-the essential step-of recognizing that individuals who suffered so profoundly and suffered so much have to be compensated as individuals if we are to be sure that a Government in the future will be deterred from taking action of this sort.
I call on the Government and the Prime Minister to enable the new Minister of State for Multiculturalism (Mr. Weiner) to carry the redress to its full conclusion, to negotiate a proper redress, to recognize the necessity of individual compensation, to arrive at a proper figure, and to remove this blot from the Canadian record.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Right Hon. John N. Turner (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister for International Trade. Since his appointment the Minister has not distinguished himself by his tasteless and insulting remarks to the citizens of Toronto who oppose the trade deal with the United States. I want him to know that on this side of the House we do not think he is being very funny. Those of us who oppose this deal from all parts of the country consider it a very serious matter.
The Minister knows that we have in our possession a document which is the agreement between the United States Senate and the House of Representatives on the content of the U.S. omnibus Trade Bill. Why did the Minister not advise Canadians of the existence of this agreement which is obviously so harmful to Canada in that it extends the application of unilateral trade remedy laws as authorized by Congress?
The document is dated April 6. Why in Washington did the Minister not publicly object to the stance taken by the U.S. Congress? Will the Minister now admit that Canada will not receive an exemption from the U.S. omnibus Trade Bill and
therefore be subject to a wide range of harassment from American trade interests?


Hon. John C. Crosbie (Minister for International Trade):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. apartment dweller from Toronto, whose rent is met of course by his own Party, must be one of the few Canadians who does not know that an omnibus Trade Bill is being considered by the U.S. Congress. Everybody else knows about it.
Today he had a press conference because he had a document dated April 6-eight days ago-which is supposed to be a lay summary of tariffs and tariff law provisions of this legislation which is now before a conference committee of the House of Representatives and the Senate. It has not been reported out yet. We will not have the legal text of whatever is agreed upon for several weeks after it is reported out. It may be reported out today.
Canada has made strenuous representations in connection with it. The omnibus Trade Bill is considerably improved compared to what it was in its original state.
Everything that the Leader of the Opposition says is just one more argument in favour of the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement, because if we do not have that agreement, we have, as he points out today, little protection against U.S. protectionist actions which it is adopting against the rest of the world.


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


John Carnell Crosbie: I would like to quote what Mr. Gerald Regan, the former Minister for International Trade, stated on April 10-


Some Hon. Members:: Sit down.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the Hon. Minister would find an opportunity on subsequent questions to give the House the information that he desires to impart.
The Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, if the Hon. Minister continues in that tone we would be delighted because he is not going to do his cause any good across the country.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


EXCHANGE VALUE OF DOLLAR
John Napier Turner: The
document which we have represents the consensus of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and it will form the basis of that agreement for drafting the text of the U.S. omnibus Trade Bill. Therefore, the Senators and members of the House have agreed on the substance of that Bill, and that
April 14, 1988

is in the document. It is a very dangerous document for Canada.
One of the items in that agreement-and Canada has no exemption from it-suggests that the United States will have the power to determine the level of the currencies of those with which that country trades, including Canada.
Will the Minister not admit that that document substantiates some of the suspicions we have had from the beginning, namely, that the value of the Canadian dollar and the interest rate structure necessary to maintain it, are an implicit part of the agreement with the United States, and now can be made mandatory as a result of the omnibus Trade Bill?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Leader of the Opposition is in a state of anticipatory panic about an omnibus Trade Bill that is not even passed. As Gerry Regan, the former Minister for International Trade said, "Canada cannot expect to get special treatment from whatever path they take in the future unless we have some very specific, very comprehensive deal with them".
Perhaps the Leader of the Opposition should go down and tear up the omnibus Trade Bill since he is going to tear up the free trade arrangement.


Some Hon. Members:: Sit down.


John Carnell Crosbie: Oh, you can't take it.
With respect to the question about exchange rates, the Leader of the Opposition at a press conference this morning was a dismal failure. He made misstatements. There is no provision in the U.S. omnibus Trade Bill that gives the U.S. Government any right to intervene in Canada's right to set exchange rates, which is what the Leader of the Opposition said in his press release.
What it says is that they propose a provision that would say that whenever, in the course of negotiating a trade agreement, the President is advised by the Secretary of the Treasury that a foreign country that is a party to the negotiation manipulates its currency exchange rate, the President shall initiate exchange rate discussions with that country on an expedited basis. That hardly gives them the right to intervene to set some other country's exchange rates. Try to be factual and correct in your statements.


EXEMPTION FROM U.S. BILL-COMMITTEE'S RECOMMENDATION
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I think the pathetic side of this argument is that the Minister only came into possession of the document after we drew it to his attention, and he obviously has not had time to read it.
The agreement is not worth the paper it is written on, the Prime Minister has admitted, unless there is secure access to the American market. There is no secure access to the
Oral Questions
American market without a specific exemption from U.S. trade law.
Articles 1902 and 1904 in the agreement with the United States do not give us that. Now this new current Bill before the House of Representatives refuses to have it as an exemption, so the very basis of any bilateral arrangement with the United States is down the drain. That is what 1 am trying to convey to the Minister.
The House of Commons committee on trade, unanimously, including all the Conservative Members, gave as its advice to the Prime Minister that he should cancel his trade deal with the United States unless there were specific exemptions given under the U.S. omnibus Trade Bill. It now clear that they are not going to be given.
My question to the Minister is the following. Will the Minister now admit that the Government has been taken to the cleaners by the United States, that there has never been any intention on the part of the Congress or the administration to give us an exemption, and will he follow the advice of a unanimous House of Commons committee to move towards cancelling that agreement?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, if the Government did any such thing it would be moving against the advice of former International Trade Ministers of the Liberal Party such as Gerry Regan, and former Liberal Ministers of Finance such as Donald Macdonald. I could give them instance after instance.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Could the Hon. Minister complete his answer?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, what the agreement does is give Canadians more secure access to the U.S. market. That is why we have this bipartisan support.
I quote Mr. Gerry Regan who says: "There is a large amount of support for free trade at all levels of the Liberal Party", and he says whole-heartedly: "I think it's the best way of combating regional economic disparity that I can think of'. Those are the comments of a former Liberal International Trade Minister.


FISHERIES
Mr. George Baker (Gander-Twillingate):: Mr. Speaker, since the Government took over, the French metropolitan fleet from France has consistently overfished its quota. It is overfishing right now in area 3PS off the south coast of

April 14, 1988
Oral Questions
Newfoundland. It will overfish by four times its quota like it did last year, totally destroying the fishing resource, while the Government does nothing about it.
I would like to ask the Minister of External Affairs, or the Acting Minister of External Affairs, why is the Government of Canada only now flexing its muscles with one vessel from St. Pierre and Miquelon loaded to the gunnels with politicians and film crews just begging to be arrested? Why not chase the real culprit, the French metropolitan fleet right from France, or is the Government afraid of the sharks and only chases the minnows?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, the fact is that we have taken a firm position on the question of protecting the interests of Canadian fishermen on the east coast of Newfoundland. We did not give away the shop as was done in 1972 by the Government which entered into a treaty with France, the Canada-France Treaty of 1972, that gave them access to fish in Canadian waters.
As a result of the recent dispute we have taken a firm position. We closed ports to the French fishing vessels until they complied with the law and stopped overfishing in disputed area 3PS.
We closed the Burgeo Bank. We closed the fishing area of the western gullies. We have taken firm action, and the result is the incident we see occurring today, where a vessel from St. Pierre and Miquelon has deliberately come into Canadian waters to try to create some kind of incident.
I want to remind the hon. gentleman that we have 5,000 fishermen and 70 fishing communities along the south coast of Newfoundland. We are protecting them, and we are going to continue protecting them, the interests of whom were given away by the hon. gentleman's Government in 1972.


REPORTED DECISION TO SEND DISPUTE TO ARBITRATION
George Baker: Mr. Speaker, that 1972 agreement says specifically "subject to resource being available".
Since the Hon. Minister brought up agreements, I would like to ask him to verify for the people of Canada that the Government of Canada, through its negotiator, has now agreed with the Government of France, through its negotiator, to send the entire fishing dispute to arbitration, and that that arbitration will be non-binding, not binding on either party.
Why such a loose agreement when we have such a strong position? We have been "Chiraced". We have been shellacked and, with non-binding arbitration, we are going to be "Ex-laxed".


John Carnell Crosbie: There has been a series of negotiations with France by Canada during which we have been as reasonable as one could expect.
We have made offers of quotas of fish to French fishermen and the fishermen of St. Pierre and Miquelon on the condition that France agrees to go to international arbitration on the question of the territorial boundaries of St. Pierre and Miquelon vis-avis Canada. It has refused to do that.
Canada has not agreed to any non-binding arbitration or any binding arbitration on the question of fish quotas in Canadian waters. We do not intend to agree to any such arbitration. In the last three or four weeks there have been meetings and discussions as to whether a process of mediation might be agreed to by Canada and France, whether a mediator, under the proper terms and conditions, could be employed to help bring a resolution to this problem. That is not yet settled. There will be other meetings in connection with that possible process within the next week or 10 days.


Some Hon. Members:: Order!


John Carnell Crosbie: If you don't want to have the answers, don't ask the questions.


An Hon. Member:: Sit down!


AIR CANADA
Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg-Birds Hill):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. It has to do with reports today by the Manitoba Conservative Leader, Mr. Filmon, that he has guarantees from the Government with respect to the preservation of Air Canada maintenance jobs in Winnipeg. These are guarantees the Government would not give to the House in Question Period yesterday and the day before. I wonder if the Deputy Prime Minister is prepared to say what kind of guarantee he gave to Mr. Filmon. Or was this just to get Mr. Filmon through the next difficult few weeks for him during the election campaign?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister, President of the Privy Council and President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, the guarantees I gave Mr. Filmon are the same guarantees I gave in this House. It was outlined by Air Canada, and indicated in the announcement that there clearly would be provisions for the establishment of Montreal as its home office and the maintenance of the major overhaul operational centres, namely, Toronto, Montreal, and Winnipeg.


REQUEST FOR LEGISLATIVE GUARANTEE
William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, the fact is that the Deputy Prime Minister gave no guarantees. All he did was quote Air Canada at the same time as he announced a plan to turn the control of Air Canada over to
April 14, 1988

someone other than the Government. How can the Government give a guarantee and at the same time relinquish control, unless it is willing to do what it was willing to do for Montreal, and that is to put legislative guarantees in for Manitoba and Winnipeg? 1 ask the Deputy Prime Minister why is he not willing to do that for Manitoba? Is Manitoba to be betrayed again like it was with the CF-18?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member is referring to an age-old problem where the Liberal Government of the day removed a large installation from Winnipeg, which was an Air Canada installation. Since that time there has been a certain amount of nervousness, and a lot of nervousness from the New Democratic Party because it is running third, I understand, in Manitoba. So it is trying to engage in cheap politics here on the floor of the House of Commons. If the Hon. Member wants to fight the provincial election in Manitoba, he should go back there and do it.


GOVERNMENT POSITION
William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, the Deputy Prime Minister may want to make fun of the anxiety that all Manitobans have about the future of Winnipeg in the aerospace industry, but it is a legitimate anxiety. He is right, it does go back to the Liberals. For that matter, so does privatization of Air Canada. But two rights don't make a wrong.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Or two wrongs don't make a right. I am sorry.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: They do not make a question, either. The Hon. Member will put his question.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: They all knew what I meant, Mr. Speaker. What I meant was that the Liberals and the Conservatives have a record of shafting Winnipeg when it comes to jobs in the aerospace industry. It appears the Deputy Prime Minister did not give a guarantee to Gary Filmon any more than he gave a guarantee to this House. The only guarantee that Manitobans will accept will be a legislative guarantee. Until that guarantee is forthcoming, we know the Conservatives are setting Winnipeg up to be shafted once again.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the only anxiety quite obvious is the anxiety of the New Democratic Party in losing the provincial election in the Province of Manitoba. That is quite clear. It is engaged in an act of desperation to use any cheap political trick to try to enhance its popularity.
Oral Questions


DIRECTION AND CONTROL OF CORPORATION
Mr. Brian Tobin (Humber-Port au Port-St. Barbe):: Mr. Speaker, both the Deputy Prime Minister and the Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill are trying to fly on one wing. Everyone knows the only one soaring in Manitoba is Sharon Carstairs.


Ms. Copps:: Right on!


Brian Vincent Tobin: Can the Deputy Prime Minister confirm today in the House the suggestion he made when he announced the Air Canada sale, that is, that the Chairman of the Board of Air Canada, who, after the first 45 per cent of the shares are made private, shall be directed by the Government to vote the majority shares in the same way as a majority of the minority shareholders, that the Government and Air Canada management shall not exercise their control block but rather shall take direction from the private shareholders? Could he confirm that today in the House?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member should know that under the Canada Business Corporations Act, all directors, no matter who they are appointed by, must act in the best interests of the company and all shareholders. The Government's commitment not to intervene simply re-enforces our intention to ensure that the Canada Business Corporations Act is complied with.


DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER'S POSITION
Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for his convoluted but nevertheless straight answer. What the Deputy Prime Minister is now telling the House is that neither the Government, nor Air Canada management, who shall act under direction of the minority private shareholders, can give any assurances to anybody anywhere, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal or Stephenville, Newfoundland, which now has an Air Canada service.
Why does the Deputy Prime Minister continue to interfere in the Manitoba election campaign by making statements that cannot be substantiated and do not reflect the fact of the privatization plan announced by the Government? Why is he doing that?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Very simply, Mr. Speaker, for this reason. In previous privatization initiatives there have been conditions that have been attached to the privatization, whether it has to do with official languages or with certain operations of the company. That becomes part of the legislation and/or the Articles of Incorporation. Clearly in the case of Canadair there were conditions. In the case of de Havilland there were conditions. In the case of Fisheries Products International there were conditions. In the case of Eldorado Nuclear there were conditions.

April 14, 1988
Oral Questions
Why does the Hon. Member not go back and read the Air Canada Act of 1977? The Air Canada Act of 1977 said that it must perform and operate as a commercial company in anticipation of profit. That is a pretty clear mandate for the corporation.


FISHERIES
Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops-Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. He will know that at this moment Canadian fisheries officials are boarding the French trawler off the coast of Newfoundland. This obviously is a most serious international provocation on behalf of the French. The French officials on board the craft have indicated they plan to resist any efforts at arrest. Considering that the Minister's officials are now boarding this particular craft, and our officials and our ship are armed, what does the Minister plan to do from this point on?


Hon. Thomas Siddon (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Mr. Speaker, as the Hon. Member points out, this is a very serious matter indeed. We have had the St. Pierre and Miquelon based trawler Croix de Lorraine under surveillance for several hours while it has been sailing within the undisputed waters of Canada. We now have sufficient reason to believe that an infraction of Canadian law has been committed. For that reason we are commencing normal activities, as the Hon. Member has implied, according to standard operating procedures. When further information is available on the progress of this exercise, I will have more to say.


MINISTER'S PLANS
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, this is obviously a serious international provocation on behalf of the French. French politicians are on board the craft. Television crews are on board the craft. It is obvious they plan to make this a serious incident.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Is that where Broadbent is?


Nelson Andrew Riis: It is not a joking matter, Mr. Speaker. It is a very serious international incident. The people of Canada would like to know precisely what the Minister's plans are. Does he plan to arrest the fishermen? Does he plan to arrest the people aboard this craft?


Mr. Shields:: If the cameras are there, Broadbent will be there.


Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, as the Hon. Member has recognized, this is not a
matter to be laughed at. It is indeed a very serious matter. It is also a matter on which we should not speculate or hypothecate here in the House of Commons.
Our two coastal patrol vessels, the Leonard J. Cowley and the Cape Roger, have engaged in an enforcement action according to standard operating procedures. When that action is completed, I will have something further to report.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS
Mr. Speaker:: I wish to bring to Hon. Members' attention the presence in the gallery of Ford Carlisle of Bucklow, Member of the House of Lords and Chairman of the British Parole System Review Committee.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF WESTERN EUROPEAN UNION COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Mr. Speaker:: I wish also to draw to Hon. Members' attention the presence in the gallery of the members of the General Affairs Committee of the Western European Union, led by Dr. Karl Ahrens.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


UNITED STATES OMNIBUS TRADE BILL
Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg-Fort Garry):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a further set of questions to the Minister for International Trade in relation to the agreement between the two Houses of Congress to proceed now with the Trade Bill that contains many measures which are clearly detrimental to Canadian economic interests.
On March 6 the ambassador of Canada in Washington outlined a series of objections and concerns about that legislation. A reading of the document shows that most of those concerns have not been answered and that the measures to which the ambassador took exception are still contained in the agreement that is now going forward as part of the omnibus Trade Bill.
Taking that into account, I want to ask the Minister why it is he said in the House, in response to the Leader of the Opposition, that he considers the new Bill to be a major improvement and that it has many improvements in it. Does the Minister still stand by the position taken by Ambassador Gotlieb that the measures contained in the omnibus Trade Bill
April 14, 1988

are contrary to the spirit of both the multilateral and the bilateral trade agreements which we are negotiating with the United States and will have serious implications for the passage of any future Canada-U.S. agreement? Do we still stand by the ambassador's statement?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, I think the ambassador of Canada sent a letter to the Congressional committee on March 1 outlining a number of our concerns with respect to the omnibus Trade Bill to which we had strong objection. There have been changes made. Some of the more onerous provisions have been changed.
The Bill has been improved in quite a number of respects as a result of our representations and those of others. For example, among proposals dropped that were of particular concern to us were the House proposals to amend the definition of a countervailable subsidy, certain amendments to revise the anti-dumping law, the Gephardt amendment, and I cannot go into them all because the list would be too lengthy. The Bill has been improved. We do not know the final version of it yet.
In addition, if there are any provisions in an ominous Trade Bill-omnibus trade Bill passed by Parliament-ominous is also right because, I will tell Hon. Members this, if we do not get our U.S.-Canada free trade agreement agreed to, there will be many ominous moments with the United States Congress which is in a very protectionist mood.


John Napier Turner: Oh, yeah, just knuckle under. Oh, boy!


John Carnell Crosbie: We are hardly knuckling under when we have secured changes in this legislation. If there are any provisions in the omnibus Trade Bill that are contrary to the free trade agreement stand-still arrangement, we will be expecting the American Congress to attend to that in the legislation that goes before it to approve the free trade agreement, if there are such.
Now, there will be changes, not concrete, to the stand-still agreement that we object to which will be in the omnibus Trade Bill. But next year, thank God, with the passage of the agreement, we will no longer be as vulnerable as we are now.


DEFINITION OF SUBSIDY
Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, as the Hon. Minister well knows, any measures passed in the omnibus Trade Bill by the U.S. Congress will become entrenched as part of the Canada-U.S. agreement. We will be obliged to administer that part of the U.S. trade law. It will be a classic case of shooting ourselves in the foot.
Ambassador Gotlieb clearly outlined that one of the most serious reservations was about a definition of subsidy, because it would limit a number of very important government economic and development programs. That measure is still in the omnibus Trade Bill, still clearly restricting any subsidy
Oral Questions
that has very specific application to industry. Does the Minister stand by the commitment made by the ambassador that we will not proceed with the Bill and that we will have to provide our own Canadian legislation to offset that kind of damage that will be caused by the passage of this legislation in the U.S. Congress? That is a very important commitment. I want to know if the Minister stands by it.


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, what I stand by is this. I do not know of any outside country that can control the legislation that is passed by the U.S. Congress. I can assure Hon. Members that the countries that will be best favoured when dealing with the United States will be those that have firm arrangements with the United States in their trade relations. As the Hon. Gerald Regan said on April 10, Canada cannot expect special treatment from whatever path they take in the future unless we have a specific, very comprehensive deal with them.
If we have a deal which is torn up by some other Party or some other Party Leader, then God help Canada and any-[DOT]


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


CONSUMER AFFAIRS
Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Miles Laboratory is trying to mislead the public and take advantage of the vulnerability of the sick. In a so-called educational bulletin called Heart Beat, the company uses fear tactics to persuade angina sufferers to get the company's medication instead of using the cheaper generic drug. My question is this: How does he intend to respond to this situation and protect the Canadian consumer, now that his friends in the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association seem to be able to do anything they like?


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure precisely what the Hon. Member is getting at because the drugs in question, I understand, are all prescription drugs. One can only obtain them if a physician gives one a prescription for them.
Is the Hon. Member suggesting that I or someone else on behalf of the Government write to the physicians of Canada saying to beware, prescribe the right drugs, or something? I am not sure what problem he is alluding to. These are prescription drugs and physicians will prescribe the drug they think appropriate for their patients.

April 14, 1988
Oral Questions NATURE OF ADVERTISING


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, it might be excusable if the Hon. Minister had missed the translation of the question, but it is inexcusable that he has not been reading the newspapers. Miles Laboratories has been sending out, under the title of an educative newsletter, a statement or article to the effect that generic drugs are substantially more dangerous than the patented original. This is misleading advertising.
The Minister is supposed to protect the consumer. What will the Minister do about this clear example of misleading advertising being used to sell a drug on the basis of the fear of patients? Will he not take action?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, there are provisions within the law against misleading advertising. If the Hon. Member feels that this is misleading advertising, he can bring it to the attention of officials in my Department whom he knows-


Howard Douglas McCurdy: I am.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: He's trying to bring it to you right now.


Harvie Andre: Just a minute. If the Hon. Member would close his mouth and leave his ears open for a moment I would explain to him that the officials operate with an independent mandate. I cannot direct them to instigate an investigation or lay charges or so on. They do that independently as provided under the law.
I repeat again, the products in question are not products that consumers can purchase on their own. They are prescription drugs which are prescribed by physicians. For the Hon. Member to suggest that the Government should intervene and make judgments as to the quality of information being given to physicians-


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Yes, yes.


Harvie Andre: The Hon. Member is shaking his head affirmatively. I think he wants to think about that before he shakes his head affirmatively.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Keith Penner (Cochrane-Superior):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of the Environment. Since 1985 the Government of Canada has known about the serious PCB environmental problem in the Indian community of Big Trout Lake located in northwestern Ontario. Government tests show that PCB contamination of quite a number of individuals is above the level of concern. In fact, many are approaching an above the alarm level. Representatives of that community are
in Ottawa today protesting the lack of action by the Government of Canada through the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of National Health and Welfare.
I ask the Minister why it has taken so long for action to be taken in the community of Big Trout Lake? Why has he not acted in the way the Health and Welfare report calls upon him to do, that is, in a determined and thorough manner?


Hon. Tom McMillan (Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, the immediate issue at hand concerns a capacitor containing PCBs which was stolen from a storage facility of the Atmospheric Environmental Service of my Department by the band council in question. The storage was under the most rigorous authority and a permit was given by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment for that purpose. Storage was on an approved site in an approved fashion, and yet the facility was broken into and the capacitor is now in the hands of the band. I think that situation, Sir, is the most immediate risk to the health of the Indians whose cause the Hon. Member is championing.
I will give the Hon. Member my assurance, on behalf of the federal Government, that if the band will co-operate with the Crown, no charges will be pressed. I will dispatch the highest official possible to retrieve the capacitor. It will be stored under the best of authority, and as far removed from the area in question as the band would like.


TOXIC WASTE SPILL
B. Keith Penner: Mr. Speaker, the Minister has not been fully briefed on this problem. He will be when he meets Chief McKay and members of the council this afternoon. Chief McKay will carefully explain that he knows of Government of Canada transformers buried in the landfill site in the community. One is even exposed down by the lake. Another was found to be leaking. Knowing that, the Government of Canada has taken no action at all.
When there was a PCB spill on the Trans-Canada Highway the Government acted promptly. When there is one in an Indian community it drags its feet. Is there a double standard in this country-one form of action for all other Canadian citizens and another form of action if you happen to be a native Canadian?


Thomas Michael McMillan: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member's question is replete with equal measures of inaccuracy, hyperbole, and exaggerated rhetoric. There is no foundation whatever to the substance of the Hon. Member's question.
My Department, the Department of my colleague, the Minister of National Health and Welfare, and those of some of my other colleagues met with the Indians in question on January 12. Subsequent meetings were cancelled by the Indians themselves. I understand another meeting has been
April 14, 1988

scheduled for April 21 and I look forward to it. I share, and the Government shares, the deep-seated concerns of the native people themselves. We want to work hand in glove with them to resolve any outstanding questions. However, I do not think the Indians' cause or the cause of accuracy or justice is served by the Hon. Member resorting to the kind of question that he just put on the record of the House of Commons.


REQUEST FOR ASSURANCE OF WASTE REMOVAL
John Edmund Parry: Mr. Speaker, my question is also directed to the Minister of the Environment and also concerns the situation in the community of Kitche-Nuhmaykoosib, known in English as Big Trout Lake.
The Minister should be the foremost protector of Canadians in hazardous situations caused by-


Mr. Speaker:: Given the time, I ask Hon. Members to put their questions as directly as they can.


John Edmund Parry: Mr. Speaker, is the Minister prepared to give the community of Big Trout Lake the assurance that those wastes will be moved from the community at the first possible opportunity?


Thomas Michael McMillan: Mr. Speaker, I think it should be acknowledged, and I believe the Hon. Member would be the first to do so, that while government authorities have detected higher than normal levels of PCBs in blood samples from some of the Indians in question, no one, least of all the Government, knows the primary source of the PCBs. We have a particular situation concerning one capacitor, but that is clearly not the source of the problem. The source resides elsewhere. We are eager to work with the Indians to identify the real source. It is not evident to anyone.


REQUEST THAT MINISTER MEET PROVINCIAL COUNTERPART
John Edmund Parry: Mr. Speaker, is the Minister prepared to meet with the Ontario Ministry of the Environment to co-ordinate the identification of the sources of waste that the Hon. Member for Cochrane-Superior mentioned, and their removal as soon as is practicable?


Thomas Michael McMillan: Yes, Mr. Speaker. If he is referring to the capacitor, we already sought from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment the relevant authority to remove the capacitor. In the meantime the Indians in question stole the capacitor, now have it, and we are trying to retrieve it because it does pose a danger to them when not handled by professionals.
As to the other sources of PCBs, we have been working with the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and different Departments at the federal level have been working with one another. Together we are eager to work with the Indians themselves.
Oral Questions HORTICULTURE


IMPORTATION OF SOUR CHERRIES FROM UNITED STATES
Mr. Joe Reid (St. Catharines):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Agriculture who knows of the more than average difficulties with which the fruit growers of this country are faced. For example, last year our sour cherry producers were up in arms because they were hurt by provisions of the Canada Agricultural Products Standards Act which allowed an over-generous importation of sour cherries from the U.S. to this country.
Can the Minister give some hope to the fruit growers of this country as they look to this year's cherry harvest, and introduce the amendments he proposed last year to the CAPS Act?


Hon. John Wise (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the Hon. Member's question. I also appreciate the continuing representations that the Hon. Member for St. Catharines and other members of the government caucus have made on this subject.
The record will indicate very clearly and without exception that when this Government makes promises to the agriculture industry, it keeps them.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Wise: When we make commitments, we keep them. I can clearly indicate to the Hon. Member on this specific issue that we fully intend to keep this commitment as well. In fact, we could be in a position as early as next week to introduce those amendments. With co-operation from Members opposite we could have them within a week or 10 days.


VISIBLE MINORITIES
Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State for Multiculturalism and concerns the emotional issue of Japanese Canadian redress. I would first like to wish the Minister well in his new responsibilities, particularly in dealing with this issue.
A few moments ago the Minister participated, as did I, in a very moving meeting organized on Parliament Hill by the National Association of Japanese Canadians to move the Government towards a solution and overcome the lack of a proper and legitimate negotiating process that would give justice a chance. Given that the Minister told the delegation that his door is open, can he inform this House that the door is open to a commitment to ongoing negotiations so that we avoid

April 14, 1988
Oral Questions
a unilateral decision and instead obtain a satisfactory compromise that would do honour to this Parliament, the community, and the country?


Hon. Gerry Weiner (Minister of State (Multiculturalism)):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank members of the National Association of Japanese Canadians for coming here today and joining in the rally sponsored by the Coalition for Redress. I want to say how wonderful that is for the democratic process. It will help us all in our understanding of the issue.
The Hon. Member is certainly in no position to raise the issue. Forty years of successive Liberal regimes were unable and unwilling to face the problem head on.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the Hon. Member for York West would ask a short supplementary question.


REQUEST THAT NEGOTIATIONS BE CONTINUED
Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, the Minister is the fourth Conservative Minister of Multiculturalism. Given that during the election campaign and as Opposition Leader the Prime Minister gave his commitment to a settlement and to negotiations, in a tone of co-operation and to try to de-escalate the emotions contained in this redress issue, can the Minister assure us that he will start his responsibilities on the right foot and commit his Government to a process of continued negotiations so that, in an atmosphere of give and take, a Canadian compromise position on this issue will be attained and we can cleanse the soul of a very dark blot?


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Mr. Speaker, I indicated clearly to the community and all other Canadians this morning that I will continue to meet with the community, that I am prepared to listen, and that we will explore the issue completely. My door is open. We are prepared to redress the injustice. We are prepared to acknowledge the injustice. We are committed, we are dedicated, and we are hopeful that we can work together with the community.


REGIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Charles Hamelin (Charlevoix):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion. People have been looking forward to the announcement that various regional development plans will be implemented in Quebec's peripheral areas. These plans were to have been announced on March 31. As a courtesy to the Government of Quebec, you engaged in a series of consultations, and unfortunately, there have been no results so far, since the plan
for Eastern Quebec is being held up, and the North Shore and Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean plans as well. Everything is at a standstill. Isn't it time the Minister asked for an emergency meeting with Premier Bourassa to get out of this impasse which is harming the interests of Quebec's peripheral regions?


Hon. Robert de Cotret (Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion and Minister of State for Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to thank the Hon. Member for his generous question. My answer is that negotiations with Quebec are progressing rapidly, considering the circumstances, and that for the first time, Quebec's peripheral regions to which the Hon. Member referred will have plans adapted to their respective strengths and weaknesses, the ultimate goal being to reduce regional disparity and respond to the needs and wishes of the people in each region, as expressed during the consultation process.
I hope that in a matter of days or at the most a few weeks, Quebec will agree to a joint agreement that respects the constitutional jurisdictions of both levels of Government, this ensuring that these plans will proceed in the best interests of the people in these areas.


Mr. Speaker:: I want to advise the House that there will be a single question from the Hon. Member for Edmonton- Strathcona and a single question from the Hon. Member for Thunder Bay-Nipigon, and that will close off Question Period.


VISIBLE MINORITIES
Mr. David Kilgour (Edmonton-Strathcona):: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the Minister responsible for multiculturalism who will know that the galleries are full of senior Japanese Canadians from right across Canada today. The Minister knows that there are six issues, and I think the Government is agreeable on five of them.
Can the Minister say anything to the House about those five of the six issues, if he cannot speak to the sixth today, in the non-partisan way in which we are trying to deal with this issue?


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Mr. Speaker, I know that my colleague shares my pride in representing a Government which has finally attempted to deal with the injustices that the Japanese Canadians suffered in those days of yore. We will attempt to do this in a very open manner. I have indicated clearly that we are prepared to meet and to listen. I hope that, after a period of reflection, we will find a solution together.
April 14, 1988


REQUEST FOR RESOLUTION OF ALL ISSUES
Abram Ernest Epp: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the same Minister who is familiarizing himself with the issues in the matter of redress for the great wrong which Japanese Canadians suffered. I ask him, under the eyes of many Japanese Canadians, whether he will ensure that there are discussions and decisions taken on all matters of a non-monetary nature which have never been resolved to ensure that those components of redress will be resolved. Will he also seek authority to agree to individual compensation which is absolutely essential to a just redress acceptable to the Japanese Canadian community of Canada?


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Mr. Speaker, I want to express my thanks to the Member and the other members of his Party for their support in trying to reach a solution to a very difficult issue. Forty years has been too long to wait for some acknowledgment of the injustices which have been suffered by Japanese Canadians.
As I have said, I have committed myself, with an open door, to continue to meet, to listen, and to explore all ways in which this situation can once and for all be put to bed.


PRIVILEGE
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege as a western Member of Parliament deeply concerned about the way the legislative committee is handling Bill C-113, the Bill on western diversification.
I want to remind you, Mr. Speaker, that when this House gave second reading to Bill C-103 to establish the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency Members of the House of Commons and the Government took it very seriously. A legislative committee was struck and it asked permission to travel because of the importance of this particular issue in Atlantic Canada and the obvious need for people living in Atlantic Canada representing individuals, groups, and various agencies, to express their reactions to the legislation as easily as possible.
Therefore, the committee decided to travel. It visited St. John's, Charlottetown, Port Hawkesbury, Halifax, and Fredericton. It held open public meetings so that all people of Atlantic Canada would have access to the process as the legislative committee proceeded with its work.
The committee saw, in a formal way, 35 witnesses including representatives from labour, business, women's groups, academic groups, co-ops-


Mr. Speaker:: The committee may well have done all of that but, as I understood the Hon. Member, he was raising a point
Privilege-Mr. Riis
with respect to another committee and another Bill and 1 would ask that he bring his comments to a conclusion.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a western Member of Parliament I believe it is only right that western Canadians have an opportunity at least to express their views. The committee members have not requested travel to western Canada but have asked that witnesses who represent the interests of western Canadians appear before it. The list of witnesses was not long. I believe a list of less than half a dozen witnesses was offered by the Hon. Member for Yorkton- Melville (Mr. Nystrom) and a similar sized list by the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy).
That modest request was rejected. The Conservative Members who form a majority of the legislative committee rejected the request to hear from some witnesses. As a matter of fact, they recently decided to hear no witnesses. Before that final decision on witnesses was made they decided to proceed clause by clause with the legislation.
How can the committee proceed in a thoughtful, businesslike way to evaluate the legislation when no witnesses have been invited or heard? As a westerner I find that to be the ultimate affront. We are simply asking-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The Hon. Member for Kamloops- Shuswap (Mr. Riis) has raised a matter which clearly gives him very great concern and may, in fact, give concern to other Members. I have listened very carefully to the Hon. Member and the difficulty the Chair is having is that the decision of which he complains was made by a committee. As Hon. Members know, it is not the place of the Chair to interfere with committee proceedings unless something quite extraordinary took place which would literally amount to an Hon. Member not being able to attend the committee or not being able to carry out any function whatsoever.
The question of what witnesses will be called to committees is one which all of us who have been here for some years know is often a matter of debate within the committee. It is not for the Speaker to say whether the decision the committee has made is a correct one or an incorrect one. I can certainly understand, as other Members probably can, that there is clearly a complaint brought to the floor of the House by the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap.
However, I must say that while I have sympathy with the Hon. Member's position, procedurally I have very great difficulty understanding how the Chair can resolve the issue.
The Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy) is seeking the floor. I will hear him, but very briefly, in view of my comments.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to interrupt the Hon. Member, but during your comments you said that we would only bring this

April 14, 1988
Privilege-Mr. Riis
to the attention of the full House if something exceptional happened. Let me say that something exceptional did happen which I believe seriously impairs my privilege as a Member of Parliament. It is that it was not a matter of which witnesses were called, there were no witnesses allowed at all.
If people whom I represent in my province, who have contacted me with a deep interest in appearing to represent a strong case for their interests in this legislation, are denied any opportunity even to be heard, I consider that to be a very serious breach of the privileges not just of myself but of all Members of the House. It is a real abuse of the rights of the majority and the minority and I think something should be done about it.


Mr. Speaker:: 1 thank the Hon. Member for assisting the Chair with that intervention. The Hon. Member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor).


Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: Mr. Speaker, if Hon. Members from the West are so interested in the West, I wonder why they are trying to hold up this legislation.
I want to give the facts as Chairman of the committee. There has not been one application to come and make representation. The Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy) and the Hon. Member from the New Democratic Party presented about 10 names-


Lloyd Axworthy: That was the deal we have with them. A point of order, Mr. Speaker. That is a distortion of the facts.


Mr. Speaker:: If the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy) feels that it is important to assist the Chair further, I will of course recognize him. However, I would like to hear from the Hon. Member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor).


Gordon Edward Taylor: We did not have one application. When the motions were made, they were discussed and then refused. There was not one application from them and there was no indication that they were interested in coming. A motion was then moved that we would hear the Federation of Independent Businesses. That motion was agreed to, with the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry walking out and not even waiting to vote. While the Hon. Member from the New Democratic Party abstained, he did stay.
I asked the Clerk to contact the Federation of Independent Businesses to see if they wanted to come. The Clerk contacted representatives of the federation who said that they were not interested in coming but would be glad to accommodate us if we invited them. However, they did not have anything to offer to the Bill.
The Members raised questions about that, so we adjourned the meeting yesterday. I telephoned the Federation of Independent Businesses to see if they wanted to come, and they advised me again that they had nothing to offer. They had no dispute with the Bill and said they would come if we
wanted them, but had nothing to offer in regard to the improvement of the Bill.
I went back to the committee and there was no representation, so there was a motion that we proceed with clause by clause study and we did so. We went through six clauses and during the afternoon the Hon. Member from the New Democratic Party pointed out, properly so, that once we begin clause by clause study there is no precedent for hearing further witnesses.
Today I received a phone call from the Federation of Independent Businesses, the gist of which is that they were being hounded to come and appear before the committee. I asked if they wanted to come and they said: "No, we do not want to come but if you want us we will".
Why are the Hon. Members trying to misrepresent this when there are hundreds of people in the West who want to get the loans and get this in operation?


Lloyd Axworthy: On a point of order.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps I can assist the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy). I will take it upon myself to adjourn this particular intervention. It is still on the floor of the House.
1 am not telling members of the committee to do something because I cannot do that, but I am asking Hon. Members to see if this matter can be resolved. I will ask the committee chairperson, the Member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor), to call me later in the afternoon.
Let me say this to Hon. Members: This is the very reason why we have had a rule for many years that the Chair cannot resolve disputes within the committee unless there is a most extraordinary situation.
The Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry properly brings to my attention-I do not think I was completely aware of it- that the situation here involves no witnesses. I understand that that is a serious complaint.
However, I have listened to the Hon. Member for Bow River and there seems to be some explanation for that. The difficulty the Chair is in is that I cannot settle that dispute.
I am asking all Hon. Members to co-operate with the Chair. I am adjourning this application and I hope that Hon. Members will meet and perhaps later this afternoon the Hon. Member for Bow River, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg- Fort Garry or the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) can call and indicate to me whether any resolution of this has taken place. I thank Hon. Members for their intervention.


Lloyd Axworthy: A point of order, Mr. Speaker. 1 will not address the substance-


Mr. Speaker:: May I ask the Hon. Member if this is about the same issue?
April 14, 1988


Lloyd Axworthy: I wanted to raise a point of order about the remarks of the Hon. Member. The Chairman of the committee did not state the facts as they were and I think the record must show that the facts were that when the committee first met it was an undertaking by members of the committee to contact witnesses. Second, I did vote on the motion.


Mr. Speaker:: I do not-


Lloyd Axworthy: Those are the facts. That is the truth. He should start telling the truth.


Gordon Edward Taylor: Is there something wrong with you?


Mr. Lewis:: At least Lloyd is on the committee.


Mr. Speaker:: I would ask all Hon. Members, if they need to address each other, to do so in the lobby or through the Chair. At the moment the matter is adjourned as far as I am concerned. I will hear from Members later on this afternoon.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, it is Thursday afternoon and time for the usual question which I would like to put to the Deputy House Leader, Minister of State (Treasury Board) (Mr. Lewis), Minister of just about everything for a Government that is very fortunate to have him! Perhaps he would have the kindness to inform Members of the business of the House for the next few days and give them a priority list of the business he will table in the House in the near future.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, in the time remaining today, we will continue debate on Bill C-l 17, which is the amendment to the Excise Tax Act, and the back-up Bill that is shown on today's Order Paper.
Tomorrow we will continue debate on Bill C-l 17, and the back-up Bill will be Bill C-121, the divestiture of Eldorado. Next week we will be looking at Bills on which we had hoped to make better progress this week. Due to the delay in dealing with the Bill on Eldorado, we have not been able to do that. That will be Bill C-l 17, the Excise Tax Act, if we do not finish it tomorrow, and Bill C-121, the divestiture of Eldorado Nuclear, if we do not finish that tomorrow. We will also deal with Bill C-l 10, the trade tribunal, and Bill C-30, the National Parks Act.
The arrangement of those Bills will depend upon the availability of spokespersons because we are trying to accommodate the opposition Parties.
Business of the House
As soon as we are finished with these Bills, I want to advise the House that we hope to move to the Atlantic Opportunities Agency, Bill C-103, which is at report stage and third reading, to the important changes to the Environmental Protection Act which is at report stage and third reading, and to Bill C-30, the National Parks Act.
If we get those other items out of the way we will be able to move on to these very important Bills that we wish to send to the other place.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I asked the Minister to give me some information as to what the Government intends to present in terms of its priorities. We are dealing with a very difficult situation. The Minister knows that. We have 46 days of House time left for the Government, and we have a heavy agenda.
As a matter of fact, I did a search of the documents today and found that there are about 40 items on the list of the Government including abortion, the Meech Lake Accord, the trade agreement, tax reform legislation, massive excise tax increases, child care, immigration Bills, tobacco advertising, Atlantic development, western development, lobbying, replacing the War Measures Act, western development, official languages, multiculturalism, conflict of interest, and now as of yesterday the privatization of Air Canada.
This sounds to me like enough work for a whole year. Is the Minister trying to set up the House to be yelling "foul" or "obstruction" in a couple of days because the Government fails to give us a list of priorities today in terms of the items I just mentioned? If the Government does not have a priority list then it will run out of time by June. It had darn well better start thinking about being serious now. I am asking the Minister to please give us a priority list so that we can get organized.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, one has to admire my hon. friend's ability to keep a straight face as he went through that list. I will say this to the House. We are making every effort to priorize not only our agenda but also to fit in with the agenda of spokespersons of the opposition Parties who have other commitments.
My hon. friend and the House Leader for the New Democratic Party know that. I appreciate my hon. friend's concern for our legislative calendar. If he were to review the record, and I see that he has done some review as to what is ahead of us, what he might look at is what is behind us. In three years and two months to December 31, 1987, some 230 Bills were introduced in the House and some 180 were passed. If he were to review the record of the previous Liberal administration he would see that it took four years and two months in which to achieve the same record. I ask the Hon. member to bear with us.

April 14, 1988
Excise Tax Act


Mr. Guilbault (Saint-Jacques):: You have a more cooperative Opposition.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order since the Government has indicated its plan for the next number of days. I agree with the Deputy House Leader that in fact the House has been productive considering that 180 Bills have been passed. There is a clear explanation for that success. It is the willingness on all sides of the House to co-operate and to facilitate the business of the House.
I want to say that that element of co-operation is led by the Government. If the Government is prepared to co-operate then the opposition Parties are inclined to co-operate. We are then able to conduct the House of Commons in a business-like way.
What we have seen in the committee examining the western diversification office is not co-operation. I am sending a very clear signal to the Deputy House Leader. If that is the way the Government will lead, allowing that type of skulduggery to take place in terms of procedure in committees, then there will be little inclination on our part to be co-operative.
The Minister knows, as does the Whip for the Official Opposition, that this place works when we co-operate. The type of situation in the committee does not indicate good faith in terms of a willingness to respect views and the concerns of the opposition Members but simply to bulldoze ahead. This place cannot work under those circumstances.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my hon. friend's comments. We will certainly do our best to co-operate. I appreciate that in view of today's news he is under a bit of stress. I repeat, we will do our best to co-operate.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, I wish to ask the Minister a question. In doing so I am not asking for a fixed figure, but can he give some indication, whether it be in terms of the number of days or the number of weeks, before the Government will finish the drafting and be prepared to present for first reading the Bill to privatize Air Canada? I ask this question in light of the large amount of interest that there is in the matter and because of my particular responsibilities in my Party.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I do not have a reading on that at this time. However, I will make the inquiries for my hon. friend to see if I can get some sort of reading as to when that Bill might come forward.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: On a further point, Mr. Speaker, I ask the Minister this. From my reading of his response to the Whip of the Official Opposition and to my colleague, our House Leader, is it in the cards that we will be called back to sit during the summer?


Mr. Speaker:: I wish to assure Hon. Members on the government side that the Speaker has nothing to say.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: My hon. friend will know that we work to a parliamentary calendar and that we came back early last summer because of the emergency refugee legislation which, unfortunately, is still delayed in the Senate by Liberal Senators. Barring any unforeseen emergency I think my hon. friend will have his normal summer-perhaps an abnormal summer-but it will not involve parliamentary proceedings.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: I have one final point, Mr. Speaker. In the interests of good management will the Minister share with us next Thursday what the priorities of the Government are so that Canadians and the House can operate more efficiently and perhaps even get the program of the Government in the works? He has a whole week in which to ask the various Ministers what their priorities are.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, we will certainly take a look at the matter. If my hon. friend will provide me with the travel plans of his official spokespersons-


Jean-Robert Gauthier: There are no travel plans and you know it.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: -we could then co-ordinate government business with the time parameters of members of the Official Opposition.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I gave notice before Easter that there will be no travel by members of this caucus between Easter and the end of June. I have no control over trips that were approved previously. I gave the Minister notice before Easter and I give it to him now. I will not give consent to trips.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Government House Leader to help some of us, for example, myself, our Party's critic for communications and culture. Is the film distribution legislation a priority for the Government? If not, will the Government say that? If it is, will it tell us when it will be brought in?


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, there are several items that the Government has on its agenda. We are proceeding to review them and to draft the appropriate legislation. As soon as that legislation is ready to be introduced, I am sure that my hon. friend will be among the first to know.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Tuesday, March 29, consideration of the motion of Mr. Wilson (Etobicoke Centre) that Bill C-117, an Act to amend the Excise Tax Act and the Excise Act, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs.
April 14, 1988
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: When Bill C-117 was last before the House, the Hon. Member for Montreal-Sainte-Marie (Mr. Malepart) had the floor. Since he is not in the House, I will recognize the Hon. Member for the Yukon (Ms. McLaughlin) on debate?


Ms. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today on the Bill to amend the Excise Tax Act. This is legislation to implement the federal sales tax and excise tax changes that were announced as early as February 18, 1987; February 10, 1988; June 18, 1987; and through the 1987 tax reform paper.
The Bill will deal with the imposition of taxes such as the 10 per cent tax on telecommunications services that was imposed on January 1 of this year. It will deal with an increase in the sales tax on such items as paint and wallpaper, and the acceleration of federal sales and excise tax remittances, that is, changing the time between such remittances which must be given to certain businesses. It also deals with an increase in federal sales tax on beer, spirits, and wine; an increase in specific excise tax and duty rates for tobacco products; an increase in the air transportation tax levy; an increase on the excise tax on gasoline and aviation gasoline by one cent per litre.
This is a summation of the policy of the Government to tax through what is often called a system of regressive taxation, or hidden taxes, in common understanding. The dictionary meaning of "regressive" is moving backwards and reasoning from effect to cause. As I continue, Mr. Speaker, you will see some of the deleterious effects that this Bill will put into effect through law.
Regressive taxation is pernicious in the sense that most consumers do not know that they are paying it. It is included in the price of the product and consumers are not aware that it is an additional tax. Perhaps one exception is at the gasoline pumps where it is outlined for the consumer how much of the gasoline price is sales tax and how much is excise tax. The difficulty with those taxes is that they are indiscriminate and tax all consumers regardless of their income bracket and, therefore, hit both the middle income and the low income earner more severely than a high income earner. For that reason, regressive taxation, both the hidden aspect and the fact that it tends to affect everyone regardless of income, makes it a very serious and onerous tax for many people.
The same reasoning that led the Government to institute this continuing series of sales and excise tax is perhaps similar to the type of reasoning made by the current Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) when he was in opposition in early 1984. At that time the current Minister of Finance when in opposition stated: "We would cut spending. We would not raise taxes. Tax levels in Canada are already too high".
Since 1984 when the Government came into power, some $22 billion has been raised through increased taxes, again
Excise Tax Act
mainly hitting the lower income and the middle income person, leaving out the 60,000 corporations that make profits but do not pay taxes, and hitting the average person.
As I outlined at the beginning, this Bill not only raises taxes, but it does so indiscriminately. I wish to talk about a few areas that concern the general public, and in particular those of us who live in northern or rural areas who are hit particularly hard by a couple of those areas.
For the ordinary person, the distinction between excise tax and sales tax is a moot one. We know that excise tax was originally imposed supposedly on luxury items such as beer and wine. For the person who drives his or her car as a tourist, or who requires a car to get to work, gasoline can hardly be considered as a luxury item. Yet gasoline is subject to excise tax.
An interesting example was brought to my attention by one of my constituents. Before the constituent did so, I was not aware of it. This example exemplifies how ludicrous is the combination sales tax and excise tax on one particular industry. With a combination of sales tax and excise tax certain products are taxed twice as opposed to once.
This particular issue concerns the jewellery manufacturing industry. The January, 1988 periodical Jewellery Manufacturing contained an article which outlined the types of concerns faced by that industry. They note that at the present time there is a 22 per cent combined sales and excise tax on jewellery manufacturing. The article raises an interesting point to take into consideration when looking at a tax system that has become very complex. What has happened as a result of this 22 per cent tax, which I think anyone will agree is very high, is that it tends to lead to the possibility of evasion of tax through a loophole system that I am sure only a minority of people might find. The industry maintains that there tends to be a black market in jewellery where jewellery is sold for cash in order that the person can evade paying the tax. A representative of the industry stated:
A loophole in the tax legislation allows small manufacturers to make up to
$50,000 worth of jewellery annually without paying tax.
That seems fair enough. What many of the legitimate producers in the industry have found is that some business people have taken advantage of this by changing the name of their company. Once the $50,000 limit is reached, they change the name of the company and remanufacture to stay under the $50,000 limit.
That is an example of a sales and excise tax at an excessive level which has a negative impact on this particular industry, and also on the confidence that people have in the tax system. In the same manner as the justice system, when people do not have confidence in the fairness and equity of a system, they then begin to look for ways to circumvent it.
We all realize that taxes are essential for schools, services, and many of the things that we take for granted in this country and wish to preserve, such as the medicare system. When the

April 14, 1988
Excise Tax Act
system becomes perverted to the extent that people are looking for more ways to get out of it because they see it as unfair, then we have a serious credibility problem.
There are a couple of other items contained in this Bill that are worthy of note because of the unfair and inequitable burden they place on certain consumers. One of those is the tax on telecommunications and long distance telephone calls. For rural residents, and residents of northern Canada and isolated areas, this means a significant increase in doing business, because many business calls are long distance. It has recently been brought to our attention, again by one of my constituents, that there is a tax on mobile phones.
In rural areas many people must use a mobile phone because there is no alternative. For example, trappers on a trap line for safety reasons need to have a mobile phone. They have to pay tax on what for them is an essential service. If they lived in downtown Ottawa or Toronto, they would not need this type of phone for safety reasons; they would not need this type of phone to call their child's school, to make a dental appointment, or to call the doctor. But in a rural area many of those calls become long distance calls which are taxed.
We all recognize that small business is one of the main employers in the country. In the business community this tax is particularly onerous in more rural areas. For example, in my constituency in the Yukon much of the business and ordering of supplies is done outside the territory for which people must make long distance calls. Of course, the extra tax will be passed on to the consumer. Where else is it going to go? In that sense consumers get nicked twice-once with what they pay on their own bills and again on the additional cost of doing business which in some instances must be passed on to them.
I should like to touch on another area in the few minutes I have, that is, the 1 cent per litre tax on gasoline. Since 1984, when the Government came into power, the tax on gasoline has increased by about 23 cents per gallon. This is in approximately four years. It has been sort of a sneak-up approach-1 cent in one Budget, 1 cent in another, and so on, until cumulatively we now have about 23 cents per gallon. This is a tax on gasoline fuel for both personal and business vehicles. I realize that there are some exemptions for primary producers such as farmers and fishers, but there are not exemptions for many other groups.
In the North we are very reliant on transportation for everything from the importing of goods to, if I may say so, the importing of tourists. For example, I received a communication from Ernie Berken of Whitehorse, Yukon, indicating his concerns about the imposition of an additional gasoline tax and that gasoline costs may discourage both Canadian and U.S. tourists and damage our economy through unreasonably high prices. In the case of the Yukon, tourism constitutes a very large part of our economy.
While it is a system of raising taxes on the one hand, it takes away business on the other hand. Were there a flat tax on business and so on, we would be able to pay our fair share in that way rather than the Government looking to this hidden kind of tax.
Previously I mentioned the telecommunications tax. The finance committee in its fall report recommended that people living in the remote North be subject to a 10 per cent tax on long distance calls only to a maximum of $3, if indeed it was to be imposed at all. While we would like to see no imposition of taxes, it was a reasonable compromise which would have taken into account the additional cost but not necessarily penalize people to as great a degree. Of course that particular recommendation is not reflected in the Bill.
Also earlier I mentioned the effects of this kind of tax on business and subsequently on the consumer. It was interesting to receive this week, from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, a very interesting survey which it recently did of its 21,000 members across Canada, some 119 from the Yukon. In canvassing its members on what they felt were the most serious problems with which they had to deal as small business people, overwhelmingly the number one concern across the country was the high tax burden, and following that was red tape and paperwork. Those of us who visit with and meet with many small business people, or those of us who have been in business ourselves, can empathize with the question of red tape and paperwork.
As I noted earlier, in the Bill we are discussing there will be an acceleration of tax remittances. This means that some businesses, which formerly remitted their taxes once per month and then twice per month, will almost be on a weekly remittance basis. Anyone will recognize that that is a severe cost, particularly to small businesses, another cost that will be passed on to taxpayers.
Again referring to the study by CFIB because it made some very interesting points, it indicates a consistency across the country which we do not see very often. There is also a consistency across the type of industry which it found identified these problems. For example, on the question of high tax burdens, all provinces and territories identified it as being their number one problem. It varied a bit from province to province, but it was fairly consistent to almost 60 per cent of the 21,000 members. They said it was the most serious problem with which they had to deal.
The second issue of red tape and paperwork has a consistency across Canada, across the provinces and the territories.
I should like to say that this is an interesting survey. Very often when we see surveys by a number of groups that do not include the territories. I am pleased to see that this particular group did so. It is certainly a much better reflection of what is actually happening in the country when the Yukon and the Northwest Territories are included in such surveys. As I mentioned earlier, we have particular problems surrounding transportation, and of course small business has to deal with a
April 14, 1988

much smaller scale than the large provinces. It is very important that these kinds of surveys include us, because they give us a comparative sense of the kinds of issues other parts of the country are dealing with and how they relate to what we must deal with. It is very interesting and reinforces many of the other comments I have made today about the Bill.
Small business is one of our major employers. They find that the exact items about which we are talking are the ones that make it most difficult for them. Often we hear the Government saying that it is for business, that it is for small business, but the Bill certainly does not reflect that. Not at all does the Bill reflect that the Government is for business.
Canada is the only remaining major industrial country with a sales tax at the manufacturing level. We now collect more revenue from taxes on goods and services than most OECD countries. We must look seriously at the concerns of independent, small business people and take them into account if we want to make a truly vital and strong economy.
I have pointed out a number of concerns that I have about the Bill. The telecommunications tax, as I mentioned, is particularly onerous for people in our area. The gasoline tax affects many of us and, in the end, will affect all consumers badly. More important, it is the idea of this tax which is extremely serious. In view of that, I should like to move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis):
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word "that"
and substituting the following therefor:
"Bill C-l 17, an Act to amend the Excise Tax Act and the Excise Act, be not
now read a second time but that it be read a second time this day six months
hence.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The House has heard the terms of the motion. Debate is now on the motion.


Mr. Cassidy:: Questions and comments, Mr. Speaker?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: No, I am sorry. We must now begin debate on the amendment. Questions and comments are not permitted after the amendment has been put.


Michael Morris Cassidy: On a point of clarification, Mr. Speaker, what you are saying is that in the case where an amendment is moved, because debate switches over to the amendment, the normal process of questions and comments is therefore sidetracked, is that correct?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Exactly. We are now
on debate on the amendment.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, I was prepared to speak on the main motion, but in putting the amendment, obviously the Hon. Member for Yukon (Ms. McLaughlin) is letting Members know that she is not very much in favour of this Bill. That is basically one of the reasons
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I would be very happy to speak to the amendment as well. It is a bit of a difficult situation because here we are in the House examining tax changes which have already been put into effect. We are actually being asked to retroactively approve an attempt to gouge the Canadian taxpayers through indirect excise and sales taxes.
Just for the record, if we look at the history of tax measures imposed by this Government, a Government that came to power promising to cut taxes and simplify the process, we can see a litany of excessive taxation in an indirect and direct fashion. We can start off with the Budget back in February 1987 which took effect on July 1 where the Government is actually taxing by 12 per cent snack foods and ice cream. Those of us who come from Ontario will know that there was another government that came to woe when it made a decision to tax the candy in the mouths of babies. That was the Conservative Government of Ontario.
The Conservative Government was in power 43 years without ever having been defeated. One of the things that brought it to defeat was its decision to bring in measures of taxation that the people considered wrong, in particular, taxing things like snack foods and ice cream to the tune of 12 per cent. That tax stuck in the minds of the people of Ontario and when they were looking for change and saw a new and progressive Government that was willing to take the reins, obviously they left the Conservative Party in droves and became supporters of the Liberal Party. This was put in motion when the then Conservative Government actually had the gall to say it was taxing things that were not essential, and then actually decided to tax tampons which it told the House was not an essential item. Those things stuck in the throat of the Ontario taxpayer who ultimately decided to make that Government pay the price.
If we examine the tax measures which have already been implemented and which we are retroactively being asked to approve, we see they include a 12 per cent tax on snack foods, a $4 per ticket increase on air transport, and a sales tax on leaded and unleaded gasoline which will bring in a revenue of $30 million. When the Government decided to equalize, why did it not equalize down? Why does it always equalize up to a higher price for the consumer?
In the package we are now looking at we see a 10 per cent tax on long distance telephone calls. People who live in urban areas where there is a very wide range of telephone services available on a local level might say that long distance telephone calls are a luxury and, therefore, should be taxed. However, when we consider that many Canadians live in rural communities and the only way they can communicate is perhaps by long distance telephone, is it right that these people who already suffer the expenses of living in distant communities which may have higher food prices and higher transportation costs, be also asked to pay a tax to talk to people? Perhaps that might be effective here in the House. If we had a tax on talking, we might cut down a bit on the rhetoric. However, those people living in rural areas of the country should not be

April 14, 1988
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taxed to talk. The practical reality of this 10 per cent on long distance telephone calls is that they are being taxed to talk to their friends, neighbours and children.
As a society, I think we can be rather proud of the fact that we have a fairly sophisticated telephone network where we can talk without having our words measured on local measured rates. We can talk without necessarily having to pay exorbitant prices. Of course, we know that this is not the kind of issue which is going to defeat the Government tomorrow. I do not think we are going to see the Government fall on a 10 per cent tax on long distance telephone calls. But every time my cousin, who lives in the Northwest Territories, makes a telephone call, she is going to remember why she is paying 10 per cent more. It is the kind of tax measure that will remain in the minds of the voters long after we in this House have actually passed this Bill and sent it on to the other place.
There are these other rather niggling taxes. The tax on paint and wallpaper has been increased from 8 per cent to 12 per cent. If someone wants to improve their standard of living, someone living in a small apartment in the City of Toronto, paying $500 or $600 a month, if someone wants to put a bit of life in the apartment with new paint and wallpaper, they are going to have to pay more for it because of higher taxes.
And there is the kicker. This kicker is an absolute tax grab on the part of the Government. It is insidious in, that it is not even laid out in the form of a straight measure. What it is is confiscatory bookkeeping in the sense that we are calling on all small businesses across the country to speed up the payment of sales and excise taxes. This particular measure got sort of slipped in under the table. It is going to generate for the Government $1.6 billion in new revenues in 1988-89. Will the Government then cut back on its expenditures? Will it then deal with the deficit problem? No, it is simply transferring that same problem to the small business community in the same way it transferred the problem of the transfer payments for education and health services.
It is fine to say that the Government is reducing the deficit but when the deficit is being borne by a small business which may be scratching by its fingernails merely to survive on a month-to-month basis, then the Government is not being fiscally responsible. It is engaged in legal confiscation of moneys that should have been collected when they were due in the way they had been collected in the past.
That single measure looks on paper as if the Government was really getting its act together, that it is really starting to deal with the deficit problem. But think of where that $1.6 billion is coming from. It is coming from the small business people in my community and, like the Hon. Member for Yukon, I have received a number of personal letters and issue orientation letters from the Canadian Federation for Independent Business, and from small businesses. They say: "Hey, we are being hit hard enough as it is. With this new
measure there will actually be instances where we are supposed to pay the Government in advance for money we have not collected".
The receivables of a small business are not always received. It may have the money on paper but if the receivables have not been collected, then the payables will not be able to go out in a way the Government would like. That of all the tax measures we are required to look at today is probably the single most insidious and confiscatory tax measure being imposed by the Conservative Government.
This Government actually rose to power claiming that it wanted to free the business community from the shackles of government control. Freeing the business community from the shackles of government control actually means that the business community will have to send double the number of payments that it did under the previous program and it will have to send them earlier. This will cost the business community forgone revenues of $1.6 billion. It is incredible that this is buried here among tax measures dealing with wallpaper and other items.
We also saw, effective February, an increase in the tax on motor fuels by one cent per litre. We remember the old 18-cent-per-gallon debacle that actually saw the fall of the former Government. Looking at the record of this Government since it came into power makes 18 cents per gallon look pretty darn good. We would like to go back to the old Crosbie days of 18 cents per gallon, and I am sure there are some on the other side who might like to join us. To say that after the four-year record of this Government in the area of motor fuel taxes, an 18-cents-per-gallon increase looks desirable is to really say something.
We have before us a series of tax measures which have already been implemented, and we are being asked to vote on them here in the House today. We must also keep in mind that we cannot consider these tax measures in isolation. Because there has been a White Paper, a Green Paper and a number of other papers on the issue of tax reform, we understand that after we pass these measures, the Government will be waiting with a second kick at the can in the way of tax reform. For example, it plans to levy a generalized over-all consumption tax. We will see more and more erosion of the purchasing power of poor and middle-income Canadians. There will be more and more cuts into the standard of living of those who are already the poorest of the poor.
What has the Government's response been? When the Government introduced original changes to the sales tax legislation, it said, and of course we took it at its word, that it would offer a sales tax rebate to poor Canadians in order to ensure that they were not losing because of what was essentially a regressive tax, and sales taxes are clearly regressive because they hit out at the poorest of the poor. In fact, that particular credit amounts to only $70 per adult and $35 per
April 14, 1988

child. This particular tax measure does not apply equally to all poor families, though. Using the Senate subcommittee on poverty's standard as the benchmark, we should be offering a sales tax rebate to all families with incomes of below about $23,000 per year.

more or less, depending on the circumstances.
Elowever, it seems families with an income of more than $16,000 are less entitled to this tax credit which now is only $70 per adult and $35 per child. This is ridiculous. If we accept the fact that sales tax is a regressive tax that hits the poorest of the poor, then why impose new sales taxes which, in the very words of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson), are regressive taxes and kill jobs. He said so himself: "It is a job killer". This is not a Liberal quote.
So if we accept that principle, then at least when the Government introduces all kinds of taxes the way it is doing now, including a tax on kids' ice cream, a 10 per cent tax on all long-distance calls which will hit the poorest of the poor living in remote areas, in Northern Quebec and Northern Ontario and other parts of Canada outside our urban centres-all these taxes should at least be offset by a tax credit for those on low incomes. To say that $70 is enough for a family with an annual income of $16,000 is absolutely outrageous. I think that if the Government really wants to go ahead with this legislation and the sales taxes and excise taxes on all sort of things including alcohol, tobacco, all the taxes we have here, and even the tax on gas-the 18 cents a gallon introduced by the former Minister of Finance (Mr. Crosbie) looks good now, because since this Government came to power, it has increased taxes by a total of 23 or 24 cents a gallon, and now they want to add another cent per litre as of April 1, "La journee du poisson". Is that correct, Mr. Speaker? In English we say April Fool's Day.


An Hon. Member:: Le poisson d'avril!


Sheila Maureen Copps: For Canadians, "Le poisson d'avril" was that they would have to pay one cent more in addition to 23 or 24 cents per gallon they were paying since this Government came to power, a Government that promised Canadians it would not increase taxes.
It is clear this Government is not for the working man. This is a Government that does not want to give those who are less well off enough to help them raise their children. Now really, Mr. Speaker, $35 per child per year in exchange for the thousands of dollars of sales tax the Government is bringing in now-this is ridiculous!
That is why we cannot support this Bill and why we must support the amendment which gives the Government a chance... It will give them another six months to reflect on what they want to do, and we hope that six months from now they won't be around any longer, because they will be beaten in the next election, which may be in October.
Excise Tax Act
So if we wait, if we support this motion for a six-month hoist, it would provide a flicker of hope for the poorest of the poor in this country. We will have a chance to get rid of these taxes which are inequitable, and this includes the way small businesses will be taxed, which will have an impact on the tax system, but will not reduce the deficit.


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

Since there are no more questions or comments, and before I recognize the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy)-



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 66, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier)- Official languages-Saskatchewan	Bill-Request that
financial assistance be offered to province / Survival of minorities; the Hon. Member for Spadina (Mr. Heap)- Immigration-Query whether Minister has consulted Canadian Bar and the Senate / Request for today delay on deportations; the Hon. Member for Trinity (Mrs. Nicholson)-Tax reform-Request that Government pay interest on income tax collected.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Wilson (Etobicoke-Centre) that Bill C-117, an Act to amend the Excise Tax Act and the Excise Act, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs, and the amendment of Ms. McLaughlin (p. 14479).
Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your use of French, and I hope your colleagues and compatriots in Alberta and Saskatchewan will in future do likewise.

I would like to speak to Bill C-117, second reading of which we have proposed be deferred by six months. That, of course, is

April 14, 1988
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a means within Parliament to indicate that we are dissatisfied with a particular piece of legislation and with the way the Government is proceeding.
What does Bill C-117 do? The main thing it does is perpetuate the federal sales tax. It puts a number of modest patches on it. It increases the gasoline tax by one cent, and it imposes new taxes, particularly the 10 per cent telecommunications tax.
Had I been able to raise the issue with my colleague from the Yukon, I would have been able to get more precise information from her about the impact of the Government's refusal to listen to the finance committee which recommended that there should be a cap on any telecommunications tax. This cap would take into consideration the problems of people in Canada's North whose telecommunications are almost all long distance and for whom, therefore, a limitless telecommunications tax represents a very major burden indeed. Northerners can have long distance bills of up to $100 or more a month because they have no other means of communicating. The committee suggested, unanimously I believe, that there should be a cap of $3 a month on this particular tax, bearing in mind in particular the problems of residential subscribers and people living in Canada's North. That was ignored.
The basic question in looking at any tax proposal by a Conservative Government in power since 1984, and which mercifully I think will not be in power after the next election, is: Has the Government been fair? Has it been open and honest in the way it dealt with the tax system and average Canadians? The answer to those questions is no.
For example, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) said that 850,000 people are being taken off the tax rolls. What he forgot to say was that people going off the tax rolls were those people who were paying a very small amount of tax in the beginning, and that since 1984 something over 850,000 Canadians have been added to the tax rolls. In other words, the Government had been adding people to the tax rolls because of the deindexation which has been in force for several years, and it is now turning around and saying it went a little bit too far and is going to take them off the rolls. It is duplicitous to tell average Canadians they are benefiting because some people are going off the tax rolls when it is those same people who in many cases were put on the tax rolls by the Government.
As well, the Government says the average family will get a tax cut of $200 or $250 per annum under tax reform which went into force on January 1 this year. That, too, is not being particularly honest or straight with Canadians. What the Government forgets to mention is that since the 1984 election the Conservatives have raised taxes on the average Canadian by something like $1,300 per annum. That is a lot. Over four years we are talking about $5,000 in additional taxes on the average Canadian family under a Conservative Government.
I talk about the average Canadian family. There, too, the Government is less than fully open and not very fair when it talks about what it has been doing. If you look at the over-all impact of the Government's changes in taxation you will find one group which actually benefits. I was quite surprised by something that happened when I was speaking to the Canadian Tax Foundation in Montreal the other day. They were appreciative even though they were listening to a democratic socialist. It was a very interesting experience to speak to them. However, at one point I raised my voice in a certain amount of anger and concern over the fact that the average taxpayer earning over $100,000, or most of them, was going to get a tax cut of some $4,365. I suggested there was grounds for indignation over that. Much to my surprise, the room erupted in a round of applause for Michael Wilson and the tax cut for the tax accountants and tax lawyers and people like that making over $100,000 a year. They were applauding where their interests lay.
As much as I have respect for the professional capacity of people in the tax field and look forward to working with them from the government side rather than the opposition side some time in the near future, I have to say that they are not by any stretch of the imagination average Canadians. They are well-paid Canadians. They are well paid for their capacity to, among other things, steer corporations and wealthy individuals away from having to pay as much tax as was originally intended in this Parliament.
Another example of where the Government is not being particularly fair in the information it has given to average Canadians relates to the question of the Canada-U.S. trade agreement. We have been told about all the wonderful things that are going to happen there in job creation and those kinds of things. However, we are not told whether or not Canadians are going to have to pay anything for that deal. Yet in the Budget that came down on February 11 the Government brought in an increase in the gasoline sales tax which, lo and behold, over the next two years will be just about equivalent to the reduction in revenues anticipated by the Government because of the decline in tariffs in the first year or so of the Canada-U.S. trade agreement. That decline is in the order of some $515 million over the first two years; $55 million in 1988-89, and $460 million in 1989-90.
We are assured from time to time by government Members that there is no such thing as a free lunch. As a matter of fact, this is a real loss of revenue because we will not be getting revenue from tariffs on those items coming here from the U.S. There may also be losses from tariff revenues on imports from other countries if this trade agreement concentrates trade between our two countries at the expense of trade with the rest of the world.
The interesting thing is that in the first year the new one cent a litre gasoline tax which, I remind my colleagues, is already in force despite the fact it has not been enacted, will bring in $275 million. In the second year it will bring in $300 million. That adds up to a total of $575 million. That means
April 14, 1988

that before Congress has made up its mind on the trade agreement, before this Elouse has even seen the Government's huge Bill that it is allegedly in the course of preparing on the agreement, we are already paying at the gas pumps an additional one cent a litre in order to offset the anticipated loss of revenue that the Government will experience over the next couple of years.
I had the opportunity this week to meet with Judith Maxwell, chairperson of the Economic Council of Canada. I asked her specifically, because the Council just came forward with a study on the trade agreement, what is going to be the impact on revenue. How do you compute this? She said that they assumed that the $2.2 billion in tariff revenue which Canada gets every year on its trade with the U.S. would be translated into an increase in personal income tax. What that means is that the average taxpayer paying perhaps $300 or $400 a year in tax will pay $150 or $200 a year more one way or the other in order to pay for the Canada-U.S. trade agreement. If the Government was open with Canadians, it would be telling them that in all of the literature it distributed through supermarkets and other ways to the Canadian public about the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement. However, I did not see any mention of that. I have seen no mention of the fact that average Canadians are going to have to pay a substantial increase in income taxes.
When you think of it, it is very interesting to note that this increase in income taxes will be more or less equivalent to the reduction in tax which the average family will allegedly get under the tax reform package we will be debating in this House in a very short time.
I want to come back to the question of the sales tax in this sense. We had stage one of tax reform, which is now coming back to the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs shortly. Then we had stage two, which is sales tax and which the committee has been considering for some time but on which the Government appears to have pulled in its horns. It has decided not to act but to do another patch through the manufacturers sales tax, which is not contained in this legislation. Then we have stage one and a half which is here right now. That is a heck of a way to run a tax system or a fiscal railroad.
I participated with the committee when it took the opportunity to spend some time in New Zealand in February looking at what that country had done with the tax system under a democratic socialist Labour Government. We were looking at the comprehensive goods and services tax, the GST as they call it, which that country has put in. It was extremely interesting to compare the approach taken by that Government with respect to tax fairness with the approach taken by this Government to tax fairness and a comprehensive tax base.
In Canada we have had increases in taxes of $1,300 on the average family over the last few years under the Conservatives.
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There was a 1 per cent increase in sales tax in 1984, another 1 per cent increase in 1985 or 1986, and there is now an increase in the gasoline tax. In fact, it is interesting to note the extent to which Canada's current inflation problem is not a result of over-heating in the economy but a result of over-zealous tax gathering by the Finance Minister and his colleagues over the course of this period of three or four years.
What have we had to compensate average families? Well, for the first three years of Conservative Government we had next to nothing. In fact, the major move was to withdraw the tax reduction for average families, which was a feature of the fiscal system prior to 1984. The Government has brought in an increase in the sales tax credit and asked us to say "Ain't that wonderful". The increase is from $50 to $70 for an adult and from $25 to $35 for a child. Sure, I can say "Ain't that wonderful". A 40 per cent increase is magnificent, except nothing on top of nothing still winds up being nothing. That is precisely the situation we have right now.
I have some estimates here. A family with an income of $16,000 a year-which is poverty income for a family with children in many of our major cities today-at the current federal sales tax rate is paying $500 or $600 per annum in federal sales tax on different goods and services which they purchase. It is hard to know the exact amount but the estimate is in the range of $500 to $700.
What is that family going to get back in terms of these tax credits? It will get $70 for the breadwinner, $70 for the spouse if there is a spouse, and $35 for one or two kids. That is a maximum of a couple of hundred dollars. Therefore, the net effect on that family is that instead of paying $600 worth of tax, they will pay $400 worth of tax because they will qualify for all of the sales tax credit.
We know that that sales tax credit is sharply declining. It disappears very quickly. It amounts, as a matter of fact, to a very severe incremental rate of tax to people on modest incomes as they go from inside the sales tax credit zone to outside the sales tax credit zone. People with very substantial incomes, on the other hand, wind up paying just a little higher rate of sales tax than the family on a poverty income. This is the patchwork system we have.
In New Zealand the Government wanted a comprehensive goods and services tax. At that point it decided to make it apply to everything in the country, something with which I disagree. It included food, and my Party and I make it clear that we disagree profoundly with that. However, there is no question that it is quite possible to exempt one particular area as we propose now, if we ever get to stage two.
At the same time as the Government of New Zealand was bringing in the goods and services tax, it knew that the effect would be somewhat inflationary because it represented a substantial increase in revenue. It took several steps to offset that and to protect people from an undue effect of this new tax. It increased the social assistance rates under the system of social benefits. It changed the minimum wage and changed the

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child allowance very substantially. I do not mean by only a dollar or two the way this Government might have done, but by something like $35 a week in New Zealand dollars which meant that there was a substantial increase in what the average family would receive for their kids compared to the levels of family allowance in this country which are unfortunately too low.
The Government of New Zealand took all of those measures together and at the same time reduced the rate of personal tax for people on middle incomes. It moved at all of those levels at once. We were surprised and very interested in the fact that far from being opposed to that particular tax, there was a substantial amount of support for it because people felt that the Labour Government of New Zealand had acted fairly in the way in which it introduced that tax.
On top of that, it put a great deal of energy and effort into explaining how that tax worked, in showing how it was fair, and in showing how it overcame some of the weaknesses in the existing manufacturers' sales tax which we have in Canada or equivalent excise taxes which were applied on an ad hoc basis to different commodities and goods which had previously existed in New Zealand.
It reached the point that the chairman of our committee, the Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn), was stating publicly in the press in New Zealand-and I am sorry that he has not yet said it here in Canada-how he wished that Canada could have had Roger Douglas as Minister of Finance. A man like Mr. Douglas, he said, would make a fine Minister of Finance in any country in the developed world. I presume that he meant Canada as well. I am not sure if that was a vote of non-confidence in our present Minister of Finance, but it certainly made me think about the fact that we have a Minister of Finance who looks as though he is about to step into a telephone booth to strip off his clothes and become Superman, only he can never get the door of the telephone booth open.
It was very interesting to go to another country and see what happens when you have a dynamic, a radical, and a somewhat progressive Minister of Finance. I did not agree with all of his measures. I was a bit surprised by some of them. Things seemed a little bit upside down down under from time to time in certain measures implemented by our colleagues in Socialists International in the Labour Party in New Zealand. Nonetheless, there was a dynamic and coherent idea of what should be done and the ability and political will to put it into force.
We are patching together this system despite the fact that the current system has enormous weaknesses. As my colleague from Regina pointed out in debating this Bill just a few days ago, the burden is different on different commodities, the burden is different with the manufactures' sales tax which we have right now depending on what kind of goods and trade channels it passes through. We tax production goods and, therefore, discriminate against Canada's exports, not only to
the United States but to every country in the world. We also discriminate in favour of imports because importers get a better deal. While that may change a little bit with the patching job which is being proposed to the committee right now, that is nonetheless a problem which remains. In addition, the system is unreasonably complex, particularly for smaller manufacturers and small businesses.
This tax is making Canadians pay for the free trade arrangement. The Government could in fact have applied the same political will, the same amount of energy, to putting into place a stage-two revision which would have been radical and important while at the same time bringing in measures to alleviate the impact on Canadians who are on modest or low incomes, not $50, not $70, but a substantial tax credit to persons who are on very low incomes. Unfortunately, that was not done. I regret that because I think the Government could have moved in that particular area.
I want to conclude by making a comment about comments made by Mr. Robert Campeau this week. I tried to raise this in Question Period but was unable to because of other issues which were also important. Mr. Campeau attacked the federal Government for spending too much on social programs and specifically argued that Canada's medicare program is a mistake.
I wanted to raise this because we had established that the Campeau Corporation has not paid a nickel of federal income tax in Canada since 1980 on some $300 million of Canadian profits. There is something wrong when a free-loader like Mr. Campeau turns around and criticizes the Canadian Government for having social programs that are excessive.
If he wants to criticize the Government, he and his corporation should be contributing to the cost of taxpayers. I think it is time we had a minimum corporate tax of 20 per cent in this country so that people like Robert Campeau make a real contribution to the country rather than constantly bringing it down.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I simply want to bring to the attention of the Hon. Member that I gave him an extra three minutes.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that you gave the Hon. Member extra time. I assume that can be taken off questions and comments.
I do not know whether the Member had an opportunity to finish with respect to Robert Campeau. Personally, I was shocked when I heard this. I am quite concerned because Mr. Campeau is a big Liberal fish who got a lot of patronage and money. As a matter of fact, in Ottawa they do not call the place across the way Place du Portage but Place de Patronage. That is because he received so much money.
He is a great friend of Trudeau and was at the Trudeau dinner the other night. Did this fellow and his corporation that
April 14, 1988

made all that money not pay any taxes to the Canadian treasury? He turns around and tries to criticize our Medicare plan in Canada. That has to be gross hypocrisy.


Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, as a matter of fact it is a classic example of someone biting the hand that feeds them.
I am a bit surprised. I thought that perhaps Mr. Campeau had become a Conservative. He has become a big promoter of the trade deal, yet as my friend from Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell) points out, he attended the dinner for Pierre Trudeau. I believe Mr. Trudeau is still a Liberal but one can never tell these days. The Liberal Party may have to go into bankruptcy shortly, but maybe Campeau will come along.
I read in the paper today that the former president of the Liberal Party suggests that Canada's banks should rally around the Liberal Party and lend the money rather than leave the bad debt in the hands of the Royal Bank and Banque Nationale du Canada. Getting back to Mr. Campeau-

Now that Mr. Campeau has become an important businessman in the United States, he advises the Canadian Government to get rid of medicare. I find it interesting that while the average taxpayer in Canada is starting to pay for free trade through this one cent per litre increase, we hear Mr. Campeau, who is big business in Canada and the United States . . .


An Hon. Member:: A big Liberal fish!


Michael Morris Cassidy: .. . advising Canada to get rid of medicare because with free trade, there will be pressure to eliminate social programs. The Government keeps insisting, Mr. Speaker, that social programs will be protected under a free trade agreement. Now, however, even before the Free Trade Agreement is ratified, big business interests which support the Conservative Government on free trade have started a campaign to get rid of social programs.
Mr. Speaker, this shows the hypocrisy of both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party and its big backers.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment, because I heard the Hon. Member, who happens to be his Party's finance critic, say that Mr. Campeau was very well known in Canadian and American business circles, and I think he is...

He is in the process of quoting him. On the other hand, he is calling him a big Liberal fish. Which is it? Is he a very well known respected Canadian businessman or a big Liberal fish?


Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted that my colleague from Hamilton has raised this point. It is clear from these anguished cries of financial pain that we are hearing from the Liberal Party every day on television and in the press that the big Liberal fish have deserted them and are no longer contributing to her Party. Perhaps she should organize a game of
Excise Tax Act
tombola in her constituency by which the Liberal deficit could be overcome.
If the Liberals want to form a government and eliminate the deficit of Canada, I think they should begin by demonstrating they can eliminate their deficit and run their Party in the prudent and effective way we New Democrats have run our Party for so many years.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I have been listening with some degree of amusement to the remarks of the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy), having just returned last evening from a couple of days of campaigning in the shopping malls and on the streets of Manitoba where his Party is now generally known in the parlance as in political free-fall. The reason is that the people in Manitoba resent the imposition of a whole new regime of taxation from the NDP Government in Manitoba.
The people want to know why a Party that once enjoyed the support of a large base of working class, middle income ordinary Manitobans are now deserting them by the thousands and transferring their allegiance to the Liberal Party of Manitoba. The reason is because of the severe and heavy taxation that was imposed by that regime.
The Member for Ottawa Centre, in only a fashion of which he is capable, is demonstrating the purity of principle when his colleagues in Manitoba are now suffering the wages of sin and being visited with the ultimate sanction of a democracy, which is to be thrown in the ashcan of political has-beens.
When Manitobans fill out their tax forms they see the additional surtax, the additional payroll tax, the additional tax burden and the additional premiums. That is the reason why the poor, unfortunate and in many cases good representatives of the New Democratic Party are facing their problems.
I suggest to the Hon. Member that while he is in the throes of cackling about the well financed union funds that flow into his Party, he may want to relate that to the other statistic which appeared yesterday. It is the latest opinion polls which show that despite all the difficulties he ascribes to our Party, we seem to be gaining favour while his Party is losing theirs.
It will be interesting to note from the Member for Ottawa Centre how he explains that rationale. Is it because they are too well funded by the unions? Is it because they are too much dominated by one group or because their finances are so carefully managed by their political masters at headquarters that they may not have to depend upon the ordinary gifts and contributions of individual Canadians?


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Like Robert Campeau.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker,H just heard from the Member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell) who has admitted in his earlier remarks that Mr. Campeau deserted the Liberal Party.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: I am not saying he deserted the Liberal Party.

April 14, 1988
Excise Tax Act


Lloyd Axworthy: In his comments he suggested that one of the problems of our finances is because the big corporate giants are leaving us due to our stand against the iniquitous trade proposal of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney). It shows that when it comes to our Party and fighting for a principle of an issue, we do not care who finances us. I am not so sure I would say the same thing about the New Democratic Party if they had to fight an issue that the CLC does not favour.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Was he not at the dinner?


Lloyd Axworthy: I do not follow Mr. Campeau's dinner itinerary. He means nothing to me. The fact of the matter is, I am talking about the Liberal caucus, the Liberal Party as it presently exists. If Mr. Campeau goes to a dinner, that is his business.


John Edmund Parry: That is all it does, exist.


Lloyd Axworthy: It exists No. 1 in the polls. I say to the Member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Parry) that it exists No. 1 in the polls and you are No. 3.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I know that all of this refers to the Bill, but I would ask Hon. Members to delay their questions and comments until the Hon. Member finishes his debate.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I was only taking my cue from the presentation given by the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre who, in his fashion, forgot a few pertinent facts. I thought that the House would probably want to understand those facts and to have them on the record as to how things are financed and how that relates back to finances. I am sure that the Hon. Member is not enjoying my exposition. Other Members of the House certainly are because they are always prepared to be educated.
With respect to the Bill, I think that the Manitoba case is a good example as to why this Bill should be opposed. There is an underlying undercurrent of tax revolt going on in the country. People are getting fed up with the Government in Ottawa, as they were with the Government in Manitoba, imposing personal taxes on them, putting taxes on their snack foods, watching television and driving a car. Those are not luxuries. We are not talking about something that is a frivolous exercise of activity. We are talking about something that is part and parcel of everyday life.
Who is suffering most as a result of these excise taxes? If we consider one group in the community, and there are many, who suffers the most? It is older people who rely on their telephones and their television. There are probably many Members in the House who have a high percentage of senior citizens in their ridings, as I do. If one visits the apartment blocks in which they live, one will see that many of them are confined during winter months. One of the joys they are able to exercise is the picking up of the telephone to call a relative,
a son or a daughter in another city. Television is also very important in terms of a means of communication.
What do we do? We put a tax on those items. In fact, the imposition of taxes on consumption has been the highest level rise of any form of taxation in the last three years when compared to corporate taxes or income taxes. We have placed more taxes, regressive taxes, on people's ordinary necessary consumption than on any other level.
I believe that the increase has been over 70 per cent since the Government came to power. Let us consider what those taxes have been on. They have been on gasoline, snack foods, cablevision and paint. That is not tax reform. That is not a regime of receiving revenue that applies taxes according to the ability to pay or according to lifestyle.
If there is any clear indication of the distortion and bias in our tax system, it is this very Bill we are debating today. It shows how a burden is being put on those least able to bear it. Rather than trying to achieve a system of fairness and equity that would balance the need of revenue on the ability to pay, we seem to be reversing that formula. We seem to be working at it in opposite and contradictory style.
I hope that members of the Government will understand why there are such concerns. When this excise sales tax is laid on top of those being imposed at the provincial level, and increasingly at the municipal level, the levies against those least able to pay become heavier and heavier while many of those who can afford it are being let go. We are reducing the rate for them. An excise tax on cablevision may not count to the family or individual earning $50,000, $60,000 or $100,000 per year. It certainly counts for a senior citizen whose disposable income may be $20 or $30 per month. I think you know that, Mr. Speaker. You have people like that in your own riding. I do not understand this.
If there is to be true tax reform, then one may want to look clearly at this Bill as being the wrong example to follow. As I read it, the Government intends not just to follow it but to expand upon it, to broaden it, to enhance it and to enlarge it so that we will have a much broader base of consumption tax. Then, the Government will try to sell it by saying; "We will offer a tax credit to relieve some of the burden of those on lower incomes."
One need only look at the level which applies here. The threshold is $16,000. That is below the poverty line for a family in our cities across Canada. At least we put the threshold at $22,000 on the child care issue. That is the problem with using the tax credit method. It is that it becomes subject to this type of niggardly approach. The Ministers of Finance, if they are short a little revenue, can always bring the threshold down and say; "We are helping those on lowest incomes". They are not helping the working poor, or even working people themselves. All they are doing is restricting their access to some very basic necessities.
April 14, 1988

I think one of the most pernicious parts of this Bill is the one that incorporates the tax change that was brought about in this spring's Budget. There is a very important story to be told. We have been told that the trade agreement, this great economic bonanza, is nothing but good-jobs, growth and productivity. We know that that has been disputed. The report of the Department of Finance and the Economic Council of Canada mentioned less than one half of one per cent growth per year, perhaps 20,000 jobs per year, which is marginal in terms of the over-all macro-economic scale. What we are now finding out is that we will have to pay increased taxes because of that proposed trade agreement. Not only does it not deliver the bonanza that has been promised, but we will have to pay more. If one looks at the calculations of the Council and the Conference Board, we are talking about an additional $2 billion annual taxes when the trade agreement, if it ever comes into effect, would finally be fully implemented.
How does the Government of Canada intend to make up the $2 billion? Here is evidence case number one. It will increase the tax on gasoline by one cent per litre. That is a beginning. It will raise $450 million. It is not coincidental that in the financial papers accompanying the Budget there were two lines which stated: "revenue loss because of trade agreement 400 some odd million dollars", while the other states revenue gained from additional gasoline tax 400 some odd million dollars. It is a clear replacement tax for the revenue that we are losing. It is being placed on people who drive cars. We know that in a country such as Canada with our climate and geography that driving a car is not a luxury, it is a necessity. The tax falls heaviest on those who can least afford to drive.
I come back to my friends in the NDP. Why are they being defeated? Because they raised the Autopac premiums. They put another tax on that particular service. The people who really got mad are those who are driving a 1972 Chev or something and all of a sudden their Autopac premiums go up 300 per cent.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Like mine.


Lloyd Axworthy: The Hon. Member would be mad too, I say to the Hon. Member for Vancouver-Kingsway. He would even vote against the NDP in Manitoba if he lived there.
The fact of the matter is that this is a tax that falls upon those least able to bear the burden. If we have to make up or replace not $400 million but $2 billion, and we see how the Government approaches the problem, it will not provide extra taxation for all those big corporations which are out humping for free trade, but put it on the people who do not want it. It is putting a tax on those who are carrying the burden. It is a free ride for the free trade advocates, but a very heavy load for those working people who cannot afford it. That is why this Bill has a pernicious element to it.
Let us say for the sake of argument that the full $2 billion deficit will have to be made up by increasing the tax on
Excise Tax Act
gasoline. That will mean an extra couple of dollars to fill up a tank. If it does not come from there, where will it come from? From the television set? From the telephone system? That is the real problem, and that is one of the stories that Canadians better understand: there is no free ride with free trade. Canadians will have to pay through the nose, or in this case pay through their telephone set or at the gasoline pump.
That is why this is a very important Bill. It clearly demonstrates the type of financial and economic shenanigans that we are getting ourselves into because of this trade agreement, and the type of losses that we will suffer that will have to be made up through heavier burdens of taxation, probably on consumers, because that appears to be the favourite choice and mode of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson). The Minister of Finance may not be around long enough to carry through on that threat. I am sure that he will not be. What we are debating today is one of the reasons why he will not have the chance to carry through on this particular formula that he has introduced in this Bill.
What we see today in Manitoba, the disillusionment and tax revolt that is going on by ordinary people who say that they have had enough, is happening right across the country. They are not fooled by the tax reform fable that has been spilled out in the country. I know for sure that Canadians see through that in spades.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: That's right in Ontario.


Lloyd Axworthy: It may be. I think that there is a real lesson here for all Governments, and I do not care of what stripe. The Hon. Member's colleagues in Manitoba are finding out in the most disastrous manner.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Yes. They are trying to raise taxes with a $600 million surplus.


Lloyd Axworthy: Well, they did. I am sorry, the Hon. Member does not know what he is talking about. They did raise taxes.
Many ordinary people are saying that they have had enough. If we are going to fire this Government, we had better find a more equitable way of doing it than putting a tax on the basic necessities that Canadians consume.
That is why this Bill is an awful lot more important for Canadians than just the revenue it raises. It stands as a clear lesson and example of what is wrong with our tax system under the present regime, and it provides them with a very clear symbol as to why they are mad, indignant, and turning against so many of the proposals that too many Governments are attempting to get away with.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: I do not wish to get into the Manitoba election, since I am not from Manitoba, but the Hon. Member from Manitoba did mention that. I want to point out to him that I am from British Columbia and last week I renewed my auto insurance. Previously it cost me approximately $400 and

April 14, 1988
Constitution Amendment, 1987
last week it cost me $561. Auto insurance is increasing all over the country. No one likes that, but it is a fact. I know the Hon. Member likes to put it into Manitoba and pretend that it is only Manitobans who are suffering this, but I wish to tell the Hon. Member out of personal experience that I had to pay last week.
I also would like to note that in B.C. the conservative Government has cut our social services terribly, and taxed us too. The Pawley Government never cut back social services, as far as I could see as someone from outside of Manitoba. That province had pretty good employment with low unemployment rates through a difficult period. It was about half the rate of British Columbia. I also see a Premier who was pretty honest and took full responsibility for the defeat of his Government. From an outsider's point of view, Manitoba does not look all that bad.
I am confused about the Campeau matter. The Hon. Member said that Campeau was going to a dinner of Polish waiters-not polls-Polish. The Hon. Member was also talking about Gallup polls, and so on. I understand that was the dinner for Mr. Trudeau. I wish to ask the Hon. Member if he went to that dinner along with Mr. Campeau, and whether he agrees with the very serious remarks made by Mr. Campeau which seem to be in contradiction of his speech. I understand that Mr. Campeau, a very prominent Liberal, received many favours and many contracts from the Government of which the Hon. Member who just spoke was a member. This man is against medicare. Is that the position of the Liberal Party that the Hon. Member from Winnipeg represents?


Lloyd Axworthy: First, I do not know what dinner Mr. Campeau attended. I was only using it as a turn of phrase that he went to a dinner for Mr. Trudeau. He may have. I was not there. I do not know if Mr. Campeau was there. I do not follow his social agenda, and I do not know which dinner he attended.
I can tell the Hon. Member, without any reservation, that I do not like what Mr. Campeau said either. I think that it was despicable. The statements made by Mr. Campeau about the blessings of another system after he has enjoyed this one is one that many of us regret, and I share with the Hon. Member a sense of indignation for the ingratitude of a man like Mr. Campeau who was given opportunity in this country.
I may have a different philosophy from the Hon. Member. I do not in any way bring down someone because they have made good. Someone who has succeeded and done well, built up a business or an enterprise deserves some credit and respect. But at the same time I think that they should also acknowledge that along the way they were able to enjoy many benefits in this country. I agree with the Hon. Member that Mr. Campeau ignoring his recent history brings shame to him and deserves the calumny that has been expressed by so many in this country, and I have no argument with that.
While we are not here to debate provincial politics, I wish to say to the Hon. Member that I do sympathize with the burden he bears of being a citizen of a province governed by the present Premier. As I have often stated, I think he took his experience in Fantasyland too seriously and is now trying to apply it to Government.
I was struck by the Hon. Member's description of the increase in his auto premiums. If I am not mistaken, he said that it went from $400 to $561. My auto insurance went from $400 to $700. Perhaps it is just that extra bit of difference in Manitoba that is the reason why Mr. Pawley is now going to lose his seat and every other seat in the province along the way.
I am not trying to make the case, and I am sure the Hon. Member knows, that Governments do not have a right to tax or to provide services. I strongly believe in that. But I am saying that there are serious problems in this country that the burden of taxation is falling on the wrong people, and that too many Governments, federal and provincial, are trying to put it at the consumption level and ignore other areas which are far more effective.
Clearly, the tax revolt going on in Manitoba is an indication. I would only ask the Hon. Member to consider the following. I also admire Mr. Pawley as being an honest man, but I do not think that his Government became very good in its second term. I think it lost its way in the second term. It started cutting back on social services, education, and other programs of that type. That became a problem for that Government, and as a result it lost the support of people who are prepared to be taxed if they receive value for it. But they do not wish to be taxed to blow a bunch of money on a telephone enterprise in Saudi Arabia, which is what the Manitoba Governments was doing, or blow money on mega projects rather than investing it in higher education or training.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It being 5 p.m. the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.



PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS-MOTIONS

[Stage Direction]
CONSTITUTION ACT, 1867 MEASURE TO AMEND Mr. Alex Kindy (Calgary East) moved:
WHEREAS the Constitution Act, 1867 provides in section 17 that there shall be one Parliament for Canada, consisting of the Queen, an Upper House styled the Senate, and the House of Commons;
AND WHEREAS it is expedient that the electors of Canada be more directly involved in the legislative process;
April 14, 1988
[Stage Direction]
AND WHEREAS an initiative and referendum process is an appropriate mechanism for the determination of questions of national interest;
AND WHEREAS the Parliament of Canada should be bound to enact any measures necessary to implement decisions of the electors of Canada on questions put to them by referendum;
NOW, THEREFORE, the House of Commons resolves that an amendment to the Constitution of Canada be authorized to be made by proclamation issued by Her Excellency the Governor General under the Great Seal of Canada in accordance with the schedule hereto.

[Stage Direction]
1.	The Constitution Act, 1867 is amended by inserting, immediately after section 19 thereof, the following section:
"20. (1) A referendum on any matter coming within the classes of subjects enumerated in section 91 may be initiated by proclamation of the Government of Canada or by petition of not less than twenty per cent of the electors of Canada addressed to the House of Commons.
(2)	A decision of the electors of Canada in a referendum held pursuant to this section is binding on the Government and the Parliament of Canada and shall, within a reasonable time after the holding of the referendum, be implemented by them in a manner consistent with their powers and authority.
(3)	No referendum shall be held on a question that is substantially the same as a question on which a referendum has been held within the previous four years.
(4)	The Parliament of Canada shall, before the expiration of the first parliament following the coming into force of this section, enact a measure consistent with it to provide a reasonable procedure for the orderly administration of referendums to be held pursuant to this section."
2.	This amendment may be cited as the Constitution Amendment, 1987.
Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. You may have noticed at one o'clock when we concluded our vote this afternoon that we were seeking the floor on a point of order. The Hon. Member for Windsor-Walkerville (Mr. McCurdy) is here at this time, and I wonder if I might simply invite the Hon. Member, on a point of order, to recognize that it is a very important principle of this place, that before one votes in the Chamber, one is in his or her place when the question is put.
Inadvertently, I am sure, the Member was somewhat tardy in arriving in the House and achieving his place earlier this day, but I do note-and I have checked with the Table-that a vote was recorded. Even though it is not particularly important in this particular instance, I think that it might be in the best traditions of the House for the Member to ask that his vote held earlier this day not be counted. That would give us a chance to clear the record before the proceedings of the day are sort of written in stone in Hansard or the proceedings are published.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, if in fact the evidence indicates that I failed to hear the putting of the motion, then I would be perfectly willing to defer to the request of the Hon. Member, but that is not what I understand to have been the case.
I heard the motion being put. I got into my seat just in time to hear the beginning of the statement and, under those circumstances, although I came in subsequent to the rising of
Constitution Amendment, 1987
the Speaker, I do not believe that I missed the putting of the motion.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes) should give notice to the Speaker, because this has not arisen out of this portion of business. Therefore, upon doing this, the Speaker will rule on it.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like to emphasize the fact that immediately upon the conclusion of the vote we shouted: "Point of order" and attempted to be recognized, and we were not, at one o'clock. I did not think it was appropriate to raise it at a subsequent point until the Hon. Member was in the House.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: That is fine, except that I was in the chair and 1 did not hear it. I did not see the Hon. Member come into the Chamber and therefore you will have to raise it with the Speaker as written notice.


Mr. Kindy:: Mr. Speaker, my motion today deals with a very important issue, that of direct participation of Canadians in the democratic process.
As we all know, there is no provision in Canada or in the provinces to have binding referendums on Governments. As we move into the 21st century it is extremely important that people be consulted. Therefore I have presented this motion to the House.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, a Private Member's Motion can be voted upon only if it is not talked out. I am looking at the clock; if nobody is talking one minute before six o'clock, the motion can be voted upon. I hope for the sake of democracy that those present in the House will abide by the wishes of their constituents so that the Private Member's Motion can be voted upon.
I will read my motion. It indicates:
WHEREAS the Constitution Act, 1867 provides in section 17 that there shall be one Parliament for Canada, consisting of the Queen, an Upper House styled the Senate, and the House of Commons;
AND WHEREAS it is expedient that the electors of Canada be more directly involved in the legislative process;
AND WHEREAS an initiative and referendum process is an appropriate mechanism for the determination of questions of national interest;
AND WHEREAS the Parliament of Canada should be bound to enact any measures necessary to implement decisions of the electors of Canada on questions put to them by referendum;
NOW, THEREFORE, the House of Commons resolves that an amendment to the Constitution of Canada be authorized to be made by proclamation issued by Her Excellency the Governor General under the Great Seal of Canada in accordance with the schedule hereto.
I will read the schedule because it is important to note the mechanisms of a referendum and it needs an amendment to the Constitution:
1. The Constitution Act, 1867 is amended by inserting, immediately after section 19 thereof, the following section:

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Constitution Amendment, 1987
"20. (1) A referendum on any matter coming within the classes of subjects enumerated in section 91 may be initiated by proclamation of the Government of Canada or by petition of not less than twenty per cent of the electors of Canada addressed to the House of Commons.
(2)	A decision of the electors of Canada in a referendum held pursuant to this section is binding on the Government and the Parliament of Canada and shall, within a reasonable time after the holding of the referendum, be implemented by them in a manner consistent with their powers and authority.
(3)	No referendum shall be held on a question that is substantially the same as a question on which a referendum has been held within the previous four years.
(4)	The Parliament of Canada shall, before the expiration of the first parliament following the coming into force of this section, enact a measure consistent with it to provide a reasonable procedure for the orderly administration of referendums to be held pursuant to this section."
2. This amendment may be cited as the Constitution Amendment, 1987.
I read the motion so that the people of Canada will be cognizant of the fact that we need a referendum.
Why do we need a referendum? At the present time there is no federal enabling legislation for Canadians to initiate a vote on public policy or law. The closest example of direct federal legislation is the Canada Elections Act, which governs the election of Members of Parliament. Nevertheless, it is not a law of general application as the public has no mechanism to invoke its application. This means that once Members are elected they cannot be revoked even if they vote against the wishes of their constituents.
My motion before the House is to consider an advance of the referendum process in Canada. The referendum process is created to enhance a direct democracy. It means the participation of constituents in the legislative process. A federal referendum process will enable electors of Canada to become more directly involved in the legislative process.
The particular advantage of the referendum is that it permits the severance of a specific issue of national importance from political party philosophies and enables the public to determine the value of specific national objectives.
Referendums can become a democratic tool to encourage greater public input and control over national objectives by individuals. Presently Canadians are frustrated by public policy being influenced by unelected Senators and appointed judges. More and more Senators and judges are creating legislative policy in Canada rather than interpreting existing legislation.
Conversely the referendum process establishes a method of presenting or referring important legislative issues to a direct public vote of the whole society. The results of a referendum would bind the federal Government to enact legislation to reflect the public will.
There are precedents for this in other countries. For instance, Switzerland enacted in 1848 a referendum process whereby 50,000 signatures can direct the Government to have a referendum on a specific issue. Switzerland is one of the best
direct democracies in the world. It has a system that enables public input on different issues. For instance, recently we had a vote on capital punishment but the public had no input whatsoever. Therefore, it is extremely important that the public be consulted continuously.
In Switzerland, which has these types of referendums, 50,000 signatures can demand a referendum. Even if the upper and lower House have voted on a Bill, that Bill remains not proclaimed for three months. If the 50,000 signatures demand it, the Bill is put to the whole country. It happened quite frequently in Switzerland, that even though both Houses voted on a certain Bill, the Bill did not pass the test of direct democracy.
In Canada, as we know, we have representatives of the people, Members of the House of Commons. But we have as well the non-elected Senate appointed by the Prime Minister of the day. Those Senators are not accountable to anyone but themselves.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: We should get rid of them.


Alex Kindy: As the Hon. Member says, we should vote for a referendum so we can get rid of those Senators or have Senators who are elected. In western Canada, we believe that it is essential to have a Triple E Senate, an elected, effective and equal Senate. This would have brought more democracy to our Confederation. But as the House knows, with the Meech Lake Accord, it will be extremely difficult to bring about an equal, elected and effective Senate because we have created with the Meech Lake Accord a third government institution, the conference of First Ministers. I would say that those are the 11 backroom boys who are going to determine the fate of Canada. It certainly is not a democratic process. We are moving away from direct democracy, a representative democracy, to a Government of 11 First Ministers. Recently, they have determined we should have free trade. On this issue all but two or three First Ministers were in agreement. But a question of national importance should be put directly to the people of Canada. Referendums create a democratic forum where the public will be involved. Federal general elections do not represent single issues of policy and law. Referendums will not be greatly influenced by personalities and political loyalties.
It has become apparent to many Canadians that Parliament is no longer the sole forum of Canadian political policy formation. Our constitutional system of Government has reduced the control and input of individual Canadians in the federal Government. The growth of the Constitution and its Parliamentary rule in Canada has weakened the traditional role and contribution of individual Members of Parliament. The growth of the constitutional rights and laws have created corresponding powers for the courts.
In the past five years we have witnessed unelected judges not only interpreting laws but in fact creating new federal policies
April 14, 1988

based upon their interpretation of Canadian society. We have permitted a constitutional democracy to develop whereby the policies of a duly elected Government of Canadians can be declared unacceptable by five appointed judges who are not directly accountable to Canadians. As I said previously, the Meech Lake Accord has further reduced the public's representative role in Canadian policy development. An unelected Senate will remain enshrined in the Constitution with appointment powers delegated to the provincial Premiers.
A referendum process will enable Canadians to directly introduce policies of national importance to rectify such judicial powers. Judges employ the interpretation of laws based upon their personal interpretation of Canadian values and morals. The recent Supreme Court Morgentaler decision is a clear example of a constitutional system enabling judges to set social standards upon Canadians. Referendums will be an effective mechanism for categorizing and articulating the popular will of Canadians directly into the parliamentary process. Referendums would also enable the consistent protection of Canadian public policy as changes in elected Government often leaves important social issues exposed to change by bureaucrats.
The federal civil service has become the permanent Government of Canada, always present to protect its role and status in policy development. It has become clear to Canadians that upper echelon civil servants, the mandarins, control exceptional power in our public policy domain. Many mandarins possess greater access to cabinet Ministers than do the duly elected Members who compose the accountable Government of Canada. Referendums could act as a control mechanism to provide the Canadian public greater accountability from the permanent Government of Canada and its accountable mandarins.
Referendums are a concept that has been advocated by advocates of direct democracy. This is what we want, direct democracy. People should be able to express their will upon the Government. I think this is a fundamental principle of democracy. I hope that Members of this House will allow this motion to be voted upon because if they do not, I think at that point they do not believe in direct democracy.
We have created in Canada a monster. I would call it a monster of governments. We have the unelected Senate which does not represent the will of the people. As we have seen recently, it is refusing to pass a Bill on immigration that is so important to Canadians. If Meech Lake is accepted, it will contain a unanimity clause which will prevent us from getting rid of this institution that prevents Canadians from having input into their legislation.
It is proposed that a referendum on any matter within the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal Parliament could be initiated by proclamation of the Government of Canada or by a petition of not less than 20 per cent of the electors of
Constitution Amendment, 1987
Canada. I use the figure 20 per cent. In Switzerland, they use the figure of 3 per cent but we must have safeguards and I accept the figure of 20 per cent. Those electors address their petition to the House of Commons, thereby petitioning for a referendum addressing an issue of national importance as determined by the electors of Canada.
I would hope that once this motion passes, the provincial Governments and municipalities would as well accept a referendum process. Such a process exists in Switzerland where there is a referendum process at the national level, at the canton level which corresponds to our provincial level and at the municipal level. The process is binding on those Governments.
Issues of monetary policy of national interest, whether it is abortion or capital punishment, should be voted upon directly by the people if the people feel that their representatives have not brought forward a Bill in accordance with the wishes of the majority of Canadians. As I said, I hope that Members across who believe in direct democracy will not talk out this motion. I hope they will be faithful to their electors and will permit the motion to be voted upon.
I see Members from the New Democratic Party and from the Liberal Party here. I am sure they believe in democracy. Therefore, I would ask them to let this motion be voted upon.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, it was interesting to hear part of the argument presented by the Hon. Member in defence of his motion. I think he will find that it is not likely to be deemed altogether defensible on both sides of the House. His problem is not that Members on this side will keep it from coming to a vote. The probability is that Members on all sides would defeat it on the basis of what they know to be the parliamentary system.
I would like to discuss this motion in the context of the experience to which I am privy as the Member from Windsor-Walkerville, a riding which is close to the American border. I will refer to a few examples of what he has suggested be done and will indicate what the dangers are if what he proposes were to be done. Of course, we understand that the Hon. Member's philosophical bent would not necessarily reject the situations that have arisen as a consequence of the acceptance of his proposition in the states of the United States at least.
During the course of the Hon. Member's intervention, he indicated, as an example of his complete misapprehension of what the democratic process is all about under a parliamentary system, that during the debate on capital punishment, the people were not allowed to be heard. If it were not unparliamentary to say so, I would say that that was a flat-out lie, but I cannot say that it is a flat-out lie. All I can say is that it certainly was not the truth.
The fact is that the people were heard. They were heard extensively. I for one, and I am sure most Members of the House as well, considered very carefully the views of those who

April 14, 1988
Constitution Amendment, 1987
expressed themselves as they did to a very extensive degree on the question of capital punishment. We reached a conclusion based, we think, on well informed opinion and a strong sense of responsibility.
I do not want to be trite by quoting the historical references with respect to the duties of Members of Parliament to be advised by their own intellect and their own knowledge and to strain in so much as possible to make decisions on behalf of those who elect them on the basis of good, solid information and careful thought. Nevertheless, I will remind the Hon. Member, as most of us have been reminded repeatedly, that there is a view of this Elouse which imposes upon us that responsibility. To suggest for a moment that it is a contradiction of democracy to state quite clearly that there are issues so complex as not to be easily subject to a referendum method does not follow that view.
Let us look at some of the consequences of the Hon. Member's particular point of view in the State of Michigan, for example. In the State of Michigan, as in so many other states of the United States, there is the most horrible kind of poverty in large urban areas. This occurs in states which have referenda. Why is this? It is because those referenda have allowed the taxpayers to make decisions about when the taxpayers will or will not, for example, pay taxes and whether or not taxes will be paid.
It would take some kind of empty-headed thinking process to believe that the responsibility we have to raise taxes from time to time would be given a favourable response from most taxpayers. In the United States, the consequences of this have been clear. The majority have seen that the black minority in Detroit, for example, is without satisfactory schools. A situation has been created where there is no chance of that being corrected. The Hon. Member would have the majority make every decision without limitation and without assuring a process of careful deliberation of all the factors involved in any decision.
We have a responsibility here which I consider to be a very important one and at times a very trying one. It may be the Hon. Member's bent to avoid the necessity of making decisions, but I for one, and I am sure other Members of the House as well, recognize that the democratic process is not one which is satisfied by collecting signatures on referenda or petitions. It is a question of the electorate choosing those who will represent them best, not because they always reflect the majority opinion but because they are equally able to defend the rights of minorities and, much more important, because they are willing to give the study to any issue that is necessary to reach a decision that will be in the interests of all the people, without conceding to a method which, on the basis of our experiences with petitions, would lead to a fallacious image of democracy and in fact to its utter failure. Therefore, if this motion comes to a vote, I will vote against it. I would support the Hon. Member on only one thing. Let us have the vote and let us reject the proposition.


Mr. W. R. Bud Jardine (Northumberland-Miramichi):: Mr. Speaker, it gives me pleasure to take part in this afternoon's debate. My colleague, the Hon. Member for Calgary East (Mr. Kindy), is asking us to consider an amendment to the Constitution entitled the Constitution Amendment, 1987. This amendment would allow for referenda to be initiated on any matter coming within the purview of Section 91 of the Constitution Act, 1867, by proclamation of the Government of Canada or by petition of not less than 20 per cent of the electors of Canada.
I would like to begin my comments by reminding Hon. Members of another constitutional amendment, the 1987 Constitutional Accord. On October 23, 1987, by an overwhelming majority of 246 to 16 votes, and with the support of all three Party Leaders, this House approved the 1987 Accord which truly marks a turning point in our constitutional history. The Accord closes the difficult chapter that began when Quebec was left out of the agreement leading to patriation and to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982.
The 1982 reform was a major advance. Besides patriation, it included constitutional recognition of equality and other fundamental rights of our multicultural heritage, aboriginal rights, the rights of official language minorities and our regional strengths.
However, the 1982 Agreement was incomplete: It did not include Quebec. Quebec's return to the constitutional fold is the signal achievement of the 1987 Accord. To bring Quebec fully into the constitutional fold, to strengthen and reaffirm the partnership of Confederation, and to establish a framework for building the partnership of tomorrow are proud achievements, and ones which strengthen the fabric of Confederation as a whole.
Quebec was, of course, legally bound by the Constitution Act, 1982, but it rejected the legitimacy of the new Act, including the Charter, and subsequently announced its intention not to participate in the constitutional process until its constitutional concerns had been addressed.
This was damaging for Canada in two respects. Quebec's isolation made constitutional amendments more difficult to achieve, as we witnessed in our discussions on aboriginal constitutional issues. However, more importantly, Quebec's continued isolation ran the risk of festering and creating a very serious problem for another generation to resolve, perhaps in less tranquil times. That is why it was such a joyous occasion when First Ministers reached unanimous agreement on an Accord which satisfies Quebec's aspirations within Canada and allows Quebec to embrace voluntarily and completely the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
A major reason for the success of the Quebec round of negotiations was the agreement by all Governments to deal with the Quebec issue as a constitutional priority and to defer discussions on other constitutional issues. This distinction
April 14, 1988

between the Quebec round and a second round of constitutional negotiations effectively prevented linkage and was key to the Meech Lake success. With great respect to my colleague, the Member from Calgary East we must not lose sight of that objective by entertaining further amendments to the Constitution of Canada, however commendable those proposals may be, before the Accord is ratified by all provincial legislative assemblies.
The place to deal with further constitutional progress is in the second round. The Accord itself guarantees a forum for further constitutional talks at annual conferences of First Ministers. In particular, the Accord requires the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) to convene a First Ministers' Conference on the Constitution at least once a year. Agenda items will include Senate reform, roles and responsibilities in relation to fisheries, and such other matters as may be agreed upon.
Before I sit down, I would like to reflect briefly on the role of public participation in the constitutional process and in particular with regard to the 1987 Accord.
The Accord was forged in the democratic tradition of our country. The issues it resolves have been debated for years in past constitutional negotiations, by the media, by scholars, and by interested Canadians. First Ministers scrupulously respected and surpassed the procedures laid down in the 1982 amending formula.
The hearings of the Special Joint Committee on the Accord ensured that the terms of the Accord were well communicated to the people of Canada and that it was carefully scrutinized. During four weeks of intensive hearings, the joint committee elicited 246 briefs and communications, and heard testimony from more than 80 individuals or groups. The joint committee concluded the Accord represents a reasonable and workable package of constitutional reforms and recommended its adoption by Parliament.
I might point out that the hearings of the joint committee were the first of their kind to have been held on a specific constitutional amendment. The timetable of the hearings was a demanding one, and one which required all involved to focus their energies and attention on the task at hand. While recognizing the magnitude of their task, the committee concluded their schedule was not an unrealistic one or one which excluded meaningful public participation. As the committee put it, "The process has provided us with a strong basis upon which to evaluate the 1987 Accord." The committee also noted that "any fundamental flaws in the Accord would have emerged in the course of this process." However, it is clear that we as parliamentarians, and our opposite numbers in provincial legislatures, could do more, and I welcome the joint committee's recommendations for an expanded parliamentary role through the committee process in giving expert and interested Canadians a voice in proposing the agenda items for First Ministers and in exploring issues First Ministers have agreed to address.
Constitution Amendment, 1987
I do not think anyone can realistically quarrel with the joint committee's conclusion that "a conference of First Ministers will likely always be necessary as the final step to reach agreement on proposed constitutional amendments." Nor, however, can we quarrel with the committee's observation that flexibility after First Ministers have made a decision will always be limited.
In this regard, I note the committee's recommendation that, together with the other place, we create a standing joint committee on constitutional reform, to, as the committee recommends, put "the emphasis on a more open process before First Ministers meet to discuss constitutional issues." I think this is an interesting idea and one which merits further consideration. Indeed, it seems to me that a committee process might provide an ideal forum to examine proposals such as the one we have before us today. Public hearings could be held where Canadians, experts and interested individuals and groups, could make known their concerns and contribute their ideas into the process. Through such processes, Canadians could have a real influence on the course of constitutional reform.
In the meantime, let us not forget that our immediate task is to do everything in our power to ensure the Accord is adopted as quickly as possible, so that the second round can begin on a sound basis, with Quebec's full participation.
I am pleased to note that, in addition to this House, the Accord has been ratified by the legislative assemblies of Quebec, Saskatchewan and Alberta, and debate on the resolution is well under way in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Prince Edward Island. The Ontario Select Committee has nearly completed its hearings, and I understand from media reports that debate has begun in British Columbia.
It is heartening to see that the momentum generated by First Ministers on June 3, 1987, continues. For the Constitutional Accord of 1987 is not an ending. It is a beginning. It will set the constitutional reform process on the road again.


Charles-André Hamelin: Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity, before this numerous audience, to speak to the motion of the Hon. Member for Calgary East (Mr. Kindy) in which he proposes to amend the Constitution of Canada by introducing the referendum concept. The Hon. Member would have us include this concept in the Constitution of Canada because he sees this process as absolutely essential to our democratic system. This means that we would put what he calls questions of national interest to a direct vote by all citizens of Canada.
Referendums and direct democracy are not exactly new. In fact, the very concept of democracy, of demos kratos, the strength of the people, apparently originated in Greece, and more precisely in Athens, many centuries ago. At the time, when Athens, like all other cities, was actually a City State, all citizens would be called on when decisions had to be made.

April 14, 1988
Constitution Amendment, 1987
Whenever a decision had to be made on politics, on the polis- the city-on the city's administration, everyone was called to a meeting and a direct, democratic vote was taken.
However, as the city's territory grew, its population realized that direct democracy created certain problems. People were constantly being asked to come and vote on any number of questions related to the city's administration. The farmer in his field and soldiers in their barracks had to drop everything to come and vote. So people said: Direct democracy is all very well, but it might be better to elect a few people to represent us and save us the trouble of going back and forth all the time. This led to an initial form, which developed over time, of a parliamentary system with elected representatives. People chose certain other people to represent them and to speak on their behalf.
That is how a government administered directly by the people changed, over time, and not without great difficulty, into a parliamentary system in which the people elect a number of representatives. In other words, we have people who become part of the government and who defend the general and more specific interests of the people they represent.
Obviously, people opted for a functional rather than an ideal government. And I think the very concept of a referendum is probably the "tentatively" ideal government, provided that referendums are held often. However, we must not forget that a referendum is a kind of snapshot of public opinion at a given time on a given question. These images change over time. Opinions change. The ideals, customs and morality of one era are gone in the next.
The referendum concept, idealistic though it may be, is not without problems. For instance, how are we to define what the Hon. Member refers to in his amendment as national interest? Of course, we cannot have referendums at the drop of a hat, but are we not about to deny the importance of our parliamentary system? If we go back to direct democracy, we are saying, to a certain extent, that the people who represent us today are not doing their job, do not represent public opinion and do not stand up for the fundamental interests of the citizens of this country.
The changing nature of public opinion is one problem. And what about the protection of minority groups? Referendums can be fatal to minorities.
In his proposal, the Hon. Member suggests that 20 per cent of Canadian citizens would be sufficient justification for applying the referendum formula. It sounds like a lot. This is nearly three million people. But consider the city of Toronto. It would be relatively easy to get three million people to support an emotional issue of so-called national interest.
In that case, what about Prince Edward Island? What about Newfoundland? What about the minorities in the Northwest Territories? What about the Yukon? What about francophone
or, in some cases, anglophone minority groups? What would happen to our aboriginal communities?
You know, in a referendum, what with the emotion and public pressure, some rather startling events widely broadcast on television can make public opinion swing and waver; it does not take so long. We saw a striking example of that recently with the refugee issue. A child crying on television has much more impact than a minister's speech. However, with the rather massive arrival of people from abroad, Canadians might say no to any further immigration, if asked in a referendum. It might come down to such a referendum.
And you know what happened in the United States, in California, with Proposition 13 where Californians said they were fed up with taxes. So they put it to a referendum. It was decided that there would be no more tax increases.
At first, that seemed like a bright idea, a good thing to do. It is true that we are burdened by taxes; everyone is fed up with them. Of course the referendum carried by an overwhelming majority, but what have the consequences of this famous Proposition 13 been? It has deprived the government of some $100 billion since 1978. Everyone will say, "Great! Way to go! They got $100 billion less-that money would have come from us. Wonderful!" But what have the consequences been? The highway system is deteriorating. All kinds of municipal and government facilities are running down because of a referendum, a snapshot of public opinion reflecting a temporary fashion, what almost amounted to collective vengeance, because of too many tax increases too close together, perhaps, but now Californians are paying the price. It is the same individuals and communities who are paying for it. Everything is deteriorating, compared to other surrounding states or municipalities that may have undergone tax increases, but at least have quality services.
So there are dangers in going the referendum route. Of course, compared to a constitutional document, for example, a referendum seems to be supported by the whole country. Let us have Canada's Constitution ratified by the whole population. I, for one, would have liked the BNA Act to have been endorsed by a strong majority, and by that I mean most of the citizens. We would have been on much firmer ground had the Constitution Act of 1982 been the subject of a referendum with a very strong majority in favour of it. But what happens when a referendum is won by something like 50.1 per cent or lost by 49.4 per cent? You will find yourselves in situations leading to the kind of divisions which leave no room for change or negotiation.
So, Mr. Speaker, imagine the people being asked directly to consider a Bill of some 350 pages, 12 paragraphs, 14 subsections, printed as big as this.


An Hon. Member:: Fifteen appendices!


Charles-André Hamelin: And 15 appendices, says my colleague. It will be impossible, I admit, you can see for yourself, Mr. Speaker, you will readily admit it in spite of your great intelligence, we
April 14, 1988

have a hard time figuring out what is what. So think of the ordinary man who is given an 18-inch thick document and told to make up his mind. Are you for or against? Even we are lost. What a mess, Mr. Speaker, you know that, we have to work full time at it just to be able to single out the positive elements of national interest-when there are any, which does not happen very often.
So there is danger in these referendums which may indeed put us in a straitjacket from which escape does not come easily. The advantage of the parliamentary system is that we can be thrown out every four years or so, we can propose new policies or seek re-election. Like you, Mr. Speaker, I hope we will be able to keep up the good work. But if we have to revert to direct democracy in every instance, then we have problems.
There is an other aspect to the question. The laws, as we know, are often ahead of or lag behind public opinion. There may be some pieces of legislation in Canada that are some years ahead of public attitudes, but, Mr. Speaker, some others are reactionary and need to be adapted to take into account the will of the people. But could we accept a decision based on an occasional and dangerous snapshot of opinion polls? I find it hard to live with that but despite all the shortcomings of our system, despite the theoretical and almost romantic appeal of direct democracy, I would not put such a proposition in the Constitution, at least in Canada.
Mr. Speaker, it is our role to represent this country and our constituents.


Mr. Ricardo Lopez (Chateauguay):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased in turn to take a few minutes of the House to express my views on the motion just tabled by the Hon. Member for Calgary East (Mr. Kindy). In the first place, Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend my colleague for Calgary East for the work he put into the preparation of his motion. I would like to add that for a major part of his presentation, Mr. Speaker, I can but agree with him on that part, certainly, that deals with the Senate's encroachment on elected Members of this House. There are many other things also on which I had to fight alongside the Hon. Member for Calgary East and on which I was in total agreement with him. I also note that a lot of work went into his motion, his bill, a lot of research coming from a man of absolute integrity and a very able Member.
As to the actual contents of his motion, Mr. Speaker, this is another story, and I cannot agree with the motion as such. He constantly refers to democracy, direct democracy. Mr. Speaker, each election is an exercise in democracy. That is a democratic process, direct democracy needless to say.
I feel that Canadians are rather bored with being called upon to vote so often. They often told me: We elected a Government, we elected a Member, let him do his job afterwards. If we have to give our views each time the Government has a decision to make, we have other things to look after. We
Constitution Amendment, 1987
should trust our elected representatives, that is what we elected them for.
If each time the Government wants to make a decision, everyone had to go out and vote, there would be no end to that, and there would be no need for the House of Commons, with its Speaker, for a Prime Minister, etc., if on every major decision we went through direct democracy. As you know, Mr. Speaker, major questions are like an accordion. Some might say for instance that what is significant is the budget, or capital punishment; it could be abortion, it could be a million matters. And each individual would have his or her own priorities. Will these matters be put directly to voters each time, in order to know what is the significant issue? Would that not lead to chaos? In my view, it would also be a loss of time, it would be disturbing our fellow citizens in an absolutely needless way, not to mention the costs. As we know, a referendum is very expensive, just as elections are, and Canadians have other things to do than spend money for absolutely no reason and also be disturbed at every moment.
Some colleagues referred to the process in Switzerland. Apparently this would be the country in which there is the greatest number of referendums. Even in that country, Mr. Speaker, the credibility of that referendum process is declining. Initially, it would seem that from 60 to 65 per cent of citizens used it, went to vote. But currently the percentage has sunk below 40 per cent. So if the Swiss could be called the fathers of referendums, they themselves do not believe in it anymore.
My colleague for Calgary East (Mr. Kindy) also referred to the vote we had a few weeks ago, or rather a few months, concerning capital punishment. But on that I think he overlooked one essential aspect. What did he forget? Something I am sure he, like most of my colleagues, did: before voting in the House, he made an effort to find out what the people thought. And since it was a free vote, I should now congratulate our Prime Minister for having allowed us to hold a free vote on an extremely important and controversial issue. I did it myself: I consulted my constituents before voting. Of course, I am not here to represent myself or to defend some personal idea but to represent my constituents' ideas. So when the issue is extremely important in my view, as capital punishment was in the past and other issues will be in the future-I am thinking about abortion legislation, etc.-we should ask Canadians what they think. This kind of consultation would be much less costly than a referendum and make it possible for us to find out just what our constituents think.
You know that when only 20 or 25 per cent of the people respond through a referendum they do not necessarily represent the interests and the will of the whole population.
We have excellent tools at our disposal to be able to consult the people, such as parliamentary bulletins, and we can send householders four times a year. I should think that is enough. We can consult people four times a year on what we feel are major issues, and it does not cost us a cent. I do that all the

April 14, 1988
Adjournment Debate
time and I urge my colleagues to do the same thing. If we really believe in democracy, which consists in representing the views of our constituents as eloquently and faithfully as we can, that is an essential tool to ask them what they think. We could always include a removable page which they can return to us. A constituent does not have to change his routine, he does not have to leave work to go and vote, yet at the same time he can tell us what he thinks. In a case like that they just send us the removable page and tell us their views, and after that the parliamentarians or the Members should act accordingly.
To me that kind of democracy is much more direct than .. . [English]


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired.

Pursuant to Standing Order 42(1), the order shall be dropped from the Order Paper.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 66 deemed to have been moved.
OFFICIAL LANGUAGES-SASKATCHEWAN BILL-REQUEST THAT FEDERAL FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE BE OFFERED TO PROVINCE / SURVIVAL OF MINORITIES
['The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 3(1).']
Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I rise on the adjournment motion to refer to a question which I put to the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) on April 12 last as recorded on page 14 387 of Hansard. I do so because I think that the Prime Minister erred in his answer and I should like to bring a correction to Hansard and stick with the facts.
I put a question to the Prime Minister about conditions in Saskatchewan and pointed out that the Government has introduced and is discussing Bill 2 which according to many is a step backward and will restrict considerably language legislation confirmed on February 25 last under a decision delivered by the Supreme Court.
It will be remembered that the Supreme Court had pronounced judgment in the case of Saskatchewan and perhaps also with respect to Alberta because both provinces were carved within the same territory; it decided that section 110 of the legislation creating the provinces had been copied as it were from the same legislation concerning the Northwest Territories ... therefore clause 110 directed the Government to allow English and French in the legislature and in the courts.
The Supreme Court rendered its judgment and gave the government two options, as we all know. The first option: You can declare you are unilingual by adopting legislation that says all statutes enacted since 1905 are valid. The second option: Instead of saying you are unilingual, you could have your statutes translated and negotiate appropriate arrangements with the official language minority group.
I put the question to the Prime Minister to establish that many premiers, Mr. Bourassa as well as Mr. Getty and Mr. Devine, are using the language question in Saskatchewan for their own political and provincial purposes. I am sorry I have to say this, but I think it is high time these premiers took action and stopped making promises or the kind of unacceptable statements made by Mr. Bourassa who said, substantially, and I am quoting from an article that appeared in La Presse on April 12: "I wouldn't want other governments to interefere with the way we treat our Anglophone minority in Quebec, and so I respect the way the province is treating its Francophone minority".
I could quote many more instances, Mr. Speaker. The papers are full of them. Mr. Getty said he would proceed like Saskatchewan did but that in any event, Alberta would take care of its own business. Mr. Devine tells us that in ten or fifteen years the province of Saskatchewan will be bilingual. No kidding!
The majority of the population of Saskatchewan is anglophone. We know that. The Province has statutes, and under those statutes, it had certain statutory obligations. There was one obligation that had not been met, through no fault of the Saskatchewan Francophones who, until recently with Father Mercure, lacked the money and the legal arguments to go before the courts and stand up for their rights.
Hon. Members will recall that Manitobans were given back their language rights when George Forest, in 1974-75-76, decided to go before the courts to stand up for his rights in Manitoba. Finally, in 1979, he won his case.
However, my main point today is the point I was trying to make to the Prime Minister, namely that asking Francophone communities to put their faith in Mr. Devine's statements would, in my view, be asking too much of this minority which today has yet to receive from the Saskatchewan Government the most basic, the most essential services as far as education is concerned. In fact, the courts have been asked to decide whether Section 23 of the Constitution Act of 1982 gives Francophones in this province the right to have their own autonomous school boards.
He should not go too far in his suggestion that there is much good will on the part of the Government.
In his reply, the Prime Minister said:
If I am not mistaken, Mr. Speaker,-
-I am quoting him verbatim-
April 14, 1988

-the report of the Commissioner for Official Languages indicates that in recent years there has been substantial progress in Saskatchewan with respect to the use of French.
I perused the report of the Commissioner for Official Languages which I had read before and tried to find the comment which could have given the Prime Minister this idea and suggest that in recent years there had been substantial progress in Saskatchewan with respect to the use of French. Well, Mr. Speaker, there is no mention of that in this report; on the contrary, and I should like to quote a statement made by the Commissioner for Official Languages on page 159, and I quote;
Their relative weight no doubt accounts for some of the special difficulties they-
-the Fransaskois-
. . . face and for the sharp debates which sometimes surround the issue of official bilingualism in the West.
-I continue-
-the year-
-this is 1987-
-witnessed a number of unfortunate confrontations over demands for French language schools, legal battles over the right of accused persons to trials in the official language of their choice and controversy surrounding the status and use of French in provincial legislatures.
I was quoting the Commissioner for Official Languages. What he said is entirely different from what the Prime Minister stated in the House in his reply on April 12 when he said that there had been substantial progress. He should not try to ... I am not saying that he tried intentionally to mislead me, but the Prime Minister should state openly that there are serious problems in western Canada. These are serious problems which must be dealt with. We are going to solve them if we deal seriously with western Canadians and declare outright that the rights of minorities should be respected wherever they are, whether in Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba or Ontario, in short, all Canadian provinces, including Quebec. They have a right to survive in Canada and I hope that the Prime Minister whom I know very well will make sure from now on-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please! I must regretfully interrupt the Hon. Member, but his time has expired. The Hon. Parliamentary Secretary has the floor.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member must realize that there have been many Commissionner reports and many words in this one, but this is not the gist of the issue. I am sure the Hon. Member realizes that the Prime Minister has already been questioned at length on the issue of language rights in Saskatchewan. He clearly explained his own and the Government's position on this issue.
The Prime Minister also recalled his own and the Government's commitment to promote the full recognition and the use of French and English in Canadian society. But there is a
Adjournment Debate
difference between the parties in this House, a difference of attitude. We, the Conservatives, believe that discussion and cooperation have more to offer than confrontation. But the Liberals and the NDP believe that confrontation is better than co-operation and discussion.

There is a big difference on a very important and fundamental issue in this country, the issue of language. I do not think the nation is well served by any political tactic that attempts to heighten divisions. It is surely an issue in this country, and I commend the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) for the degree to which he provides that co-operation and discussion of leadership on this very important and essential issue to the fabric of our nation.

I urge the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier) to study the issue in the same non-partisan spirit that he demonstrated when previously taking stands; he will recognize, as did the NDP leader, that the Prime Minister is making positive and constructive efforts in that matter.
He is meeting today in the Province of Saskatchewan. He has offered the House his willingness to report fully and completely on those discussions.
I simply say to the Hon. Member opposite: "Be non-partisan on this issue, invite the Prime Minister to report to the House". Surely co-operation and discussion is the way to advance national unity on the language issue.
IMMIGRATION-QUERY WHETHER MINISTER HAS CONSULTED CANADIAN BAR AND THE SENATE/ REQUEST FOR 60-DAY DELAY ON DEPORTATIONS


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to have a chance to speak on a question that I raised two weeks ago. The question concerned the problem or collection of problems that our country has in connection with the backlog of refugee claimants and the need for new legislation on refugee determination.
The legislation has been stalled by a number of causes, which I will not take time to go into now because I have discussed them before, and the backlog has been increased by the allowing of various national groups to enter through a loophole without imposing a visa restriction as early as could have been done. Also there have been no convictions yet of any of the operators of those scams and no legislation yet to provide the means for better regulating those operators, or no proposal for legislation.
However, the problem is with us. Two weeks ago I asked the then Minister to consider the need for consulting to resolve a practical problem. I asked him if he would consider a package as follows: (1) a 60-day delay on deportation, that is of

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Adjournment Debate
backlog members, to allow time for consultation; (2) consultation with the Canadian Bar Association and the Senate to make Bill C-55 workable under our existing Constitution and Supreme Court; and (3) creation of a new administrative review that fairly identifies the people who are effectively established in Canada, taking into account help from their relatives and their work record.
I want to take up each of those points in order. The 60-day freeze is an arbitrary number that I picked, two months, to give time for consultation. I agree with the words that I heard from across the way, from the speaker for the Government, that there are times when confrontation is not wanted. I think this is a time when consultation could be appropriate.
At present the Turks are being deported, although Canadians where they are living have said that they want them to stay. Obviously there are many others of the 48,000 who will come into question in the very near future and farther. Many people doubt that this Government will in fact deport 48,000 people during this year. The number might be greater, or it might be smaller, but it is in the tens of thousands.
The suggestion therefore is, rather than deporting a few and then perhaps working out a plan that would have treated them differently had it been in operation earlier, that we hold in order to treat all in the same way. During that two-month hold we could do two major things. There could be consultation on Bill C-55. Granted there has been a lot of talk on it so far, but the main point on which we should consult is to bring it into line with the Supreme Court decision given three years ago which says that everybody who comes here-that is, if he claims refugee status and if he is in Canada-has a right to have his or her claim fully heard by the people who will decide on the merits of the claim. That is denied to most people by Bill C-55. Furthermore, what we have for those people who do go to have their claims heard is a double process, two hearings instead of one. If we could get rid of that screening, in accordance with the advice of the Bar Association and all the lawyers in private practice who have discussed this with anyone I know of, we would do two things; we would speed up the process of Bill B-55 itself, which we all agree is desirable, and we would be bringing it into line with the Supreme Court decision on the meaning of our Constitution.
If we do not do that, what we have is a Bill that is unworkable. Even if it were declared today, it would be found to be unworkable. We have that on the advice of all the lawyers who are not being hired by the Government to support it. That is part of the reason for its delay.
The second thing that could be done would be to work out fairer plans for a new administrative review, to review the backlog of refugee claimants on an individual basis to find out who is or who is about to be adequately settled. The Government has already done that with tens of thousands of people. The Minister issues tens of thousands of permits every year.
There is nothing extraordinary and certainly nothing illegal about this procedure. It would not be hurting the regular immigrants because the Government last year, according to its figures, brought in 9,000 more than it had planned to bring in. So for the ones who were brought in in the administrative review last year, it did not block them.
It should be made more fair than the last administrative review. It should take account of the people who are receiving genuine help from their families in getting settled. It should take account, for example, of a Guyanese woman who is earning $13,000 a year in a factory. That does not come up to our Stats Canada standards, but she is in fact supporting her two children. She has done that for several years. That should be recognized. She, like many Canadian born people, is paid less than what we consider an acceptable wage but she is surviving. She is working and looking after her family. She should not be turfed out because she does not come up to an abstract wage standard.
Likewise, people in areas of high unemployment should not be penalized because they are in areas of high unemployment. Therefore, I am hoping the Government will consider a package like this which would benefit the Government, the refugees and the country by resolving this impasse.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member and I have served for some considerable period of time on inquiries into immigration. In many ways we have similar attitudes about many kinds of solutions. However, I think the Member is off base in several ways. He starts his discourse today by he saying he cares about the operators of scams and the fact that none have yet been convicted, but there is a problem in the current law in getting evidence and convicting. Then the Member says that nothing is on the table that would change that situation. Bill C-84 is on the table. It has very clear-cut provisions designed to stop that kind of scam, to get convictions, and to stop the assault on Canada's immigration borders. I think the Hon. Member knows that. I am not quite sure why he said what he said.
There is an argument on the constitutionality of some of the provisions in Bill C-84 and Bill C-55. These two pieces of legislation were dealt with by this House on an emergency basis last summer. They were stalled in the Senate month after month after month.
My experience goes back to June of 1985 when we got into a real clear understanding of the refugee situation. We were dealing in this Chamber with a piece of legislation designed to increase the strength of the number of people in the Immigration Appeal Board so they could deal with the reunification of family members, the real immigration side, and the assault on refugee claims by bogus claimants. We were delayed by the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party. We have had this since June of 1985. Every time the Government tries to do something positive to straighten out the situation, to clear up the difference between bogus claimants and real refugees, to
April 14, 1988

really help refugees and to help the family reunification process, we get delays.
What is the Hon. Member asking us to do? The very first thing out of the box in his original question and again today, is a 60-day delay. Well 60 days more delay will invite more scams. This Government says no to more scams. Let us get on with it. Let us get the deal back from the Senate, get it in place and start to clear up the mess.



Miss Aideen Nicholson (Trinity):: Mr. Speaker, on March 18, I pointed out to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) that the Government had just given itself an interest-free loan of over $1 billion. This is because, under what the Government is pleased to call tax reform, income tax has been reduced for Canadians since January 1, 1988, in some ways, but they will not see this reduction in their pay cheques until July 1988.
I noted as well that the Conservative chairman of the finance committee had been quoted as calling this situation a rip-off. The Minister did not say that he would do the correct thing by paying the interest on this loan back to Canadians. Instead, he responded that this situation exists for various administrative reasons.
I would like to point out again today that this rip-off is just one of many rip-offs imposed by this Government since it came to power. It is just one of others that the Government has tried to keep rather quiet about.
Another silent tax grab is the Government's requirement that employers deduct their income tax, unemployment insurance premiums and Canada Pension Plan contributions and remit them weekly instead of fortnightly. That was increased from once a month in January of 1987. This gives the Government a one-time increase in its cash flow for this year of $1.6 billion.
The Government made another silent tax grab in the 1985 Budget when it deindexed the income tax system. By doing this, the Government has made inflation work for it. Each year since 1985, the rate of increase of benefits such as family allowance has not kept pace with inflation. Neither has the rate at which taxpayers could deduct certain allowances for income tax purposes. This year alone, as a result of deindexation, taxpayers had to pay an extra $750 million to the Government.
I would ask again, when will the Government admit to Canadians that it is at their expense that the smoke-and-mirrors routine that is miscalled tax reform is being carried out?


Mr. Murray Cardiff (Parliamentary Secretary to Solicitor General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, with reference to the question posed by the Hon. Member with regard to the
Adjournment Debate
Government paying interest on income tax collected as a result of the tax reform measures, I would offer the following comments.
In June of 1987 when the White Paper on tax reform was tabled in the House, we were aware that we would not introduce the detailed Ways and Means Motion early enough to change the withholding tables for January 1, 1988, given the time necessary for detailed consultation and review by the parliamentary committee. Therefore, it follows that the earliest date for adjustment to the withholding tables could not be before July 1, 1988. Accordingly, the changes were scheduled to take effect with respect to withholdings on salary and wages paid after July 1, 1988.
It would have been difficult to provide for earlier implementation of these measures for the following reasons. The Government's fiscal year runs from April 1 to March 31. Government expenditures for the year to March 31, 1988, have been based in part upon the revenues collected under existing regulations. In addition, the current fiscal framework was one of the fundamental premises upon which the personal tax rate reductions, introduced as part of the tax reform process, were based.
If such an approach had not been adopted, the reduction in tax rates for 1988 may not have been as significant. The legislation has not yet been introduced to the House and there is no authority which would permit the withholding of lesser amounts. In addition, while the draft legislation respecting the tax reform proposals has just been made public, there may be changes made to the legislation as a result of further input from the public and the finance committee.
While most taxpayers will benefit from the lowering of rates through increased take-home pay, some taxpayers may also have an increase in tax liability due to the elimination of certain tax preferences and the restriction of certain other deductions. This situation is no different from any other year in which relieving measures are introduced in the Budget.
While these measures take effect in a particular year, employers will deduct amounts from salary and wages based upon the tax tables issued as of January of that year. The taxpayer will not receive the benefit until he files his return. Interest is paid in the normal course on refunds paid after April 30.
In closing, it is only reasonable that there be a transitional period for the implementation of such major tax revisions and it is commendable that this has been kept to a short period of six months.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 3(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.26 p.m.
[Stage Direction]

Friday, April 15, 1988
[Stage Direction]
Prayers