1988-04-21

Mr. Scott Fennell (Ontario):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour of tabling the Fifty-ninth Report of the Striking Committee.
[Editor's Note: For above report see today's Votes and Proceedings.]


BRETTON WOODS AND RELATED AGREEMENTS ACT
Hon. Doug Lewis (for the Minister of State for Finance) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-126, an Act to amend the Bretton Woods and Related Agreements Act.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House that the Hon. Minister shall have leave to introduce the Bill?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.

Mrs. Therese Killens (Saint-Michel-Ahuntsic):: Mr. Speaker, the petitions I am tabling today concern housing and are signed by residents of Laval, Montreal, Saint-Hilaire,
Deux-Montagnes, Saint-Eustache, Longueuil, Quebec City, Winnipeg and Fredericton, New Brunswick.
The undersigned deplore the fact that over 100,000 people were homeless in Canada last year, that many young people, women and entire families lack adequate shelter, that the number of affordable housing units is dwindling steadily and that the Government has done nothing so far to deal with this problem.
Wherefore your petitioners humbly pray Parliament to take immediate action to provide suitable accommodation for all Canadians and to set up social reintegration programs so that needy Canadians can get back into the mainstream of Canadian society.
[DOT] (mo)


Mr. Gus Mitges (Grey-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, it is with great pride and honour that I am presenting a petition which includes the astronomical figure of 10,000 signatures of very concerned Canadians from all across the country who are deeply devoted and concerned for the rights of unborn children. These 10,000 signatures are only the forerunners of thousands upon thousands of additional signatures that will be forthcoming as time goes on.
With prayers and hope, the petitioners request the Government to enact legislation immediately which will protect the lives of our unborn children and our future generation.


Mr. Peter Peterson (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present today, both of which have been signed by constituents of my riding of Hamilton West and the surrounding area.
The signatories of the first petition are primarily from the Hamilton Jewish Federation who take issue with the remarks made by the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark) on March 10 at a Canada Israel Committee function.
These petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to ask the Department of External Affairs to provide the Canadian people with the evidence to support the charges made by that Minister.

April 21, 1988
Order Paper Questions


Peter James Peterson: Mr. Speaker, the second petition is related to the illness of schizophrenia. The petitioners would like to point out that it is a major illness in Canada, affecting about 1 per cent of the population, which causes severe mental anguish and suffering to the patients and their relatives and costs Canadian society more than S3 billion annually in direct health care and other support costs. The petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to ensure that research efforts are increased in Canada.


Mr. Paul Gagnon (Calgary North):: Madam Speaker, 1 have both the duty and honour to present a petition signed by 25 people and addressed to the Parliament of Canada which states that a number of Canadians believe that the state and our tax dollars have no place in the area of child care, which is a parental responsibility, except in cases of demonstrated financial need.
The petitioners call upon Parliament to restore the system of fairness and justice by opposing any form of national child care policy that does not provide equality of choice, thereby leaving the child care decision-making process with the parents where it belongs.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. Richard Grise (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Privy Council):: 
Mr. Althouse: 1.	In the past ten fiscal years, has the Department of Agriculture conducted research with a view to the development of a nitrogen-fixing wheat and, if so (a) along what lines (b) involving which research stations?
2.	In each of the past ten fiscal years, at each station involved (a) how many staff members (b) what financial resources have been dedicated to this research?
3.	For 1988-89 (a) what are the (/') staff (//) financial commitments to this project (b) which research stations will be involved in this research?


Hon. John Wise (Minister of Agriculture):: 1. (a) Yes, the Lethbridge Research Station carried out original work which showed that certain soil bacteria appeared to cause wheat plants to fix nitrogen in much the same way as legumes fix atmospheric nitrogen. Subsequent studies at Lethbridge and in other countries demonstrated that the process was not the same, but rather that bacteria, capable of fixing nitrogen, lived
in the rhizosphere (a unique zone near the roots that support the growth of specific micro-organisms) and functioned in association with specific wheat lines to promote growth.
Recent studies conducted by industry have focused on the genetic engineering of wheat plants to transfer genetic coding for nitrogen fixation (ability of bacteria to infect wheat roots, to grow in nodules on the root and to actively fix nitrogen). This is a very complex, high-risk area and progress has been slow.
(b) The Lethbridge Research Station only has been involved.
2. (a) and (b) The Lethbridge Research Station has dedicated the following ressources over the past ten fiscal years to this research:
3. (a) (i) and (ii) The Lethbridge Research Station has committed the following resources to this research for 198889:
(b) The Lethbridge Station only is maintaining a small program with the associative bacteria concept concentrating on the theory that these bacteria are releasing growth promoting substances which are stimulating root development, thereby making the plant more capable of obtaining nutrients. Since not all varieties react in the same way, this process is also complex. A decision will be made in 1988-89 whether the cost/benefit justifies further work.


Richard Grisé: Madam Speaker, I ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The question enumerated by the Parliamentary Secretary has been answered. Shall the remaining questions stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
April 21, 1988



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Philip Derek Lewis: that Bill C-110, an Act to establish the Canadian International Trade Tribunal and to amend or repeal other Acts in consequence thereof, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Debate.


Mr. Pierre H. Vincent (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance):: He said: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise on second reading of Bill C-110, which will create the Canadian International Trade Tribunal and consequently amend and repeal a number of other Acts. The Canadien International Trade Tribunal will replace and take over the functions of the three institutions: the Canadian Import Tribunal, the Textile and Clothing Board and the Tariff Board. The legislation creating these latter institutions will be repealed and they will disappear. The Bill also contains amendments to other Acts. These amendments are consequential to the Bill and technical in nature. The Bill also includes provisions to ensure an orderly transition to the new tribunal.
The decision in principle to amalgamate the three import institutions was first announced in the May 1985 budget. This is part of the Government's efforts to rationalize and streamline federal institutions and practices. By bringing the functions of these institutions under one roof, expertise and knowledge regarding trade matters will be more efficiently focused. The treatment of import and other international trade issues will be harmonized. The new tribunal will provide a central and common focus for examining the trade-related concerns of Canadians. The Government will have a sound and consistent base on which to make decisions.
The easiest way to explain the main purpose of Bill C-l 10 is to first look at the responsibilities of the existing three institutions. The Tariff Board's functions are threefold. First, they undertake inquiries into any issue relating to trade and commerce when asked by the Government. Second, the Tariff Board advises the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) on tariff-related issues the Minister may refer to it such as the valuation of goods and the implications of adopting the harmonized system of tariff classification. Under a standing reference by the Minister of Finance, it inquires into complaints by Canadian industry as to whether imports at preferential tariffs granted to developing countries are causing injury.
Finally, the Tariff Board acts as an appeal tribunal primarily in customs and excise disputes. Most of the Tariff Board members' time is spent on the appeal function.
Canadian International Trade Tribunal
Madam Speaker, my colleague from Roberval (Mr. Bouchard) told me earlier this morning that he fully supports this Bill.
The main role of the Canadian Import Tribunal is to undertake material injury inquiries as part of anti-dumping and countervailing duty investigations. I know that this is important to the riding of Roberval, Madam Speaker.
The Canadian Import Tribunal also undertakes general injury inquiries when requested by the Government.
Finally, Madam Speaker, the Textile and Clothing Board is primarily an advisory body. The Government can ask the board to give advice on any matter affecting the textile and clothing industry. Either the government or the textile and clothing industry can request the board to undertake an injury inquiry.
The TCB also monitors developments in the Canadian textile and clothing industry.
Madam Speaker, I would note that under the new Bill the Government will continue to be able to seek advice from the new tribunal on textile and clothing issues that may arise as it will be the case for any other sector. The government, through its relevant departments will continue to monitor development in that industry as it currently does for several other sectors.
Madam Speaker, this brief description highlights the degree of duplication and overlap that now exists and that a particular issue may be treated differently depending on the agency dealing with it.
If I may I will now turn to the powers and functions of the new tribunal which constitute the substantive provisions of the bill. The new Canadian International Trade Tribunal will take over the main functions of the three import institutions as well as being given an important new function. As such the Canadian International Trade Tribunal will be responsible for undertaking a wide variety of inquiries such as general economic inquiries, injury inquiries and tariff-related inquiries. In addition, it will take over responsibility for hearing appeals of customs and excise decisions that are currently heard by the Tariff Board.
Finally, the new tribunal will be given an important new inquiry function: hearing complaints by Canadian producers in any industry that increased imports are causing or threatening serious injury.
General Economic Inquiries. The legislation contains general inquiry provisions whereby the government can ask the tribunal to inquire into matters relating to the economic, commercial and trade interests of Canada. Such fact-finding inquiries could be made regarding goods or services. Their purpose is to give the Government an independent assessment as a basis for developing policies. Any Government reference to the tribunal under these provisions will specify the issues to be examined. An example of the kind of inquiry the new tribunal could be asked to undertake is the recent study by the Tariff Board regarding the economic prospects of the Canadi-ian natural sweetener industry.



April 21, 1988
Canadian International Trade Tribunal
Tariff-Related Inquiries. The tribunal will also undertake tariff-related inquiries when requested by the Minister of Finance. These inquiries are helpful in relation to the Minister's responsabilities for tariff policy.
A recent inquiry undertaken by the Tariff Board in this area was an analysis of the conversion of Canada's tariff to the harmonized commodity description and coding system. You will recall that legislation implementing the harmonized system was passed by this parliament late last year.
Another example of a tariff-related inquiry is the reference to the Tariff Board by the Minister of Finance to undertake inquiries at the request of Canadian producers as to whether general preferential tariff concessions unilateraly granted to developing countries are injurious to Canadian producers. The procedures associated with these inquiries are intended to be retained by the new tribunal.
Injury Inquiries. The new tribunal will have general responsibilities for all injury inquiries. However, the current "fast-track" procedures whereby producers of horticultural products can seek emergency safeguard action without reference to an independent tribunal will continue to be available. The most common of injury inquiries are those associated with anti-dumping and countervail cases initiated under the Special Import Measures Act. In addition, the Government will continue to be able to direct the tribunal to conduct general inquiries into the injurious impact of imports of goods or services. The specific authority to request such inquiries is now set out in the special import measures Act and, in the case of textile and clothing products, under the textile and clothing Board Act. Direct Access Injury Inquiries. The existing rights of the textile and clothing industry to directly petition an independent body for an injury inquiry will be extended to all industries. In such inquiries the tribunal will examine whether increased imports are a principal cause of serious injury to domestic producers of like goods. Until now, except for the textile and clothing industry, such inquiries could only be undertaken at the request of the government. It is important to note that the tribunal will only consider complaints under the direct access provisions where the cause of the alleged injury is increased imports of fairly traded goods. Complaints regarding injurious dumping or subsidization will continue to be dealt with under the anti-dumping or countervail provisions of the Special Import Measures Act.
The right of direct access is being extended to all producers to make the procedures of dealing with injury complaints by Canadian producers more equitable and open. The new system will be more transparent and clear for Canadian producers. There will no longer be any doubt in Canadian producer's
minds concerning the procedures to be followed when they feel that increased imports are causing them serious injury.
In extending the direct access to all industries the Government was mindful to ensure that frivolous, ill-founded, trade harassing complaints would not stand before the new tribunal. In this connection, it is worth recalling that the purpose of safeguard actions is to help an industry adjust to legitimate import competition. Such actions are therefore meant to be temporary and designed in such a way as to encourage such adjustment.
As you can see, Madam Speaker, there is widespread support for Bill C-110!
For a safeguard injury inquiry to be initiated by the new tribunal, certain conditions will therefore need to be met. For example, the petition must be made by firms producing the majority of the Canadian production of the goods to be investigated. Furthermore, producers will have to provide adequate evidence that increased imports are causing the alleged injury. These conditions should ensure that only legitimate complaints will be accepted by the tribunal.
The legislation contains provisions whereby the Government can ask the tribunal to investigate and report on related issues, at any time during or after a direct access inquiry. These issues could include such public interest matters as competition policy, competitiveness, prices and/or the availability of imports. They could also include the desirability of following various courses of action to deal with serious injury that may be caused by increased imports.
These provisions will allow the Government to have the public interest considered in the context of a direct access inquiry and when choosing to do so to tailor its intervention to the particularities of the case.
The decision regarding the taking of border action or any other appropriate measures pursuant to a serious injury report, resulting either from a government reference or a direct access petition, will continue to rest with the government. In making a decision on border action the Government will, among other things, take into account trade relations considerations, particularly since affected parties generally have rights under the GATT to compensation or to take equivalent action in retaliation when safeguard actions are taken.
Appeals. The new tribunal will take over the existing appeal function of the Tariff Board. This essentially involves the hearing of appeals of Revenue Canada decisions regarding customs and excise duties. The current attractive attributes of the Tariff Board process-ease of access, speediness, ability to represent self, informality, low costs-will be retained in the new tribunal. And I know, Madam speaker, that some people in the riding of Roberval have benefitted from this.
April 21, 1988

Madam Speaker, the other provisions of the bill deal essentially with the establishment of the new tribunal, organizational and procedural matters. Most of these provisions originate in the statutes of the existing tribunals, particularly the Canadian Import Tribunal which was established at the end of 1984.
The new tribunal will be composed of nine members appointed by Governor in Council. This is a significant reduction from the existing 15 members of the three agencies being replaced. This is made possible by the rationalization resulting from amalgamation. In order to deal with situations of heavy work-load, the law contains provisions for the appointment of temporary members. The chairman will be the Chief Executive Officer of the tribunal.
In developing this bill the government was concerned about maintaining the current "easy access" attributes of the existing institutions. The bill contains provisions which will ensure that this objective is met. For example, parties will continue to be able to appear in person before the tribunal and a provision specifically states that hearings must be conducted as informally as possible.
The bill contains several provisions which will ensure transparency. For example, public notice of reports and decisions of the new tribunal will be made. In the same vein, the bill provides for the making by the new tribunal of rules of procedures for the conduct of its proceedings and for the submission of an annual report on its activities as is currently the case for the Canadian Import Tribunal.
Finally, the bill contains detailed disclosure of information provisions which will ensure access by interested parties to information before the tribunal in the course of proceedings while at the same time protect information which must legitimately remain confidential.
Madam Speaker, I believe this bill will significantly modernize, rationalize and streamline Canadian import institutions. It puts an end to the duplication and overlap that now exists as well as to the confusion this may create. It will ensure that the government gets sound and consistent advice on trade-related matters. This is particularly important for a country like Canada where a major proportion of its wealth depends on trade. It will give to all Canadian producers an important new right to have their legitimate trade concerns heard by an independent tribunal. Since the Bill was first introduced in the House, we have not received any representations against the purpose of this Bill and I hope the House will give it speedy approval.


Miss Aideen Nicholson (Trinity):: Madam Speaker, the Bill before us today, as the Parliamentary Secretary has said, creates a new agency, the Canadian International Trade Tribunal, by amalgamating three existing agencies, the Canadian Import Tribunal, the Tariff Board and the Textile and Clothing Board. The aim is to remove whatever duplication and overlap currently exists. Presumably, the new agency
Canadian International Trade Tribunal
will provide for greater harmonization and standardization in the way import issues are treated.
At present the Canadian Import Tribunal conducts inquiries into anti-dumping and countervail cases. It also has the responsibility for undertaking general injury inquiries when requested to do so by the Government.
The Tariff Board advises the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) on matters of trade and economic issues and particularly tariff-related measures. It also acts as an appeal tribunal for disputes between importers and Revenue Canada regarding decisions made on excise tariff and other administrative matters. I will return to this appeal tribunal function later.
The Textile and Clothing Board, the third agency, gives advice on trade matters that affect the Canadian textile and clothing industries. The newest tribunal will be responsible for undertaking a wide variety of inquiries; general economic inquiries, injury inquiries and tariff-related inquiries. The Government will be able to ask the tribunal to inquire into matters relating to the trade interests of Canada under the rubric of the general economic inquiries. Examples of injury inquiries are anti-dumping and countervail cases. However, the current fast-track procedures whereby producers of horticultural products can seek emergency safeguard action without reference to an independent tribunal will continue to be available.
The direct access injury inquiries, such as the existing rights of the textile and clothing industry to petition directly the Textile and Clothing Board for an injury inquiry, will be extended to all industries. At present only the Government can initiate such an inquiry for other industries. In the case of the tariff-related inquiries, the tribunal would conduct these when requested to do so by the Minister of Finance. Therefore, the Government is still maintaining a fair amount of control over the access to this independent tribunal.
The new tribunal takes over the appeal function of the Tariff Board involving appeals of Revenue Canada decisions regarding customs and excise duties. The new tribunal will be composed of nine instead of the present fifteen members. Therefore, essentially, the present members will be competing for their jobs since the tribunal is not yet established.
We may very well find ourselves faced with a similar situation as that of the Immigration Appeal Board. Recently the Federal Court of Canada ruled that the Government's refugee Bill, Bill C-55, created "a reasonable apprehension of bias" on the part of the Immigration Appeal Board because the Government proposes to fire all its members and rehire only some of them. Therefore, according to the court, the board could appear to lean in favour of the Government's position in immigration cases where the situation arose where the board members were in effect competing for their jobs. That specific ruling, which was rendered in March, was that the present Immigration Appeal Board was prohibited from determining the refugee status of one applicant "for as long as a reasonable apprehension of bias exists", and immigration lawyers have said that that ruling affects every refugee claimant in Canada.

April 21, 1988
Canadian International Trade Tribunal
If the same principle is applied to this Bill before us, if someone chooses to challenge that, we may find that the situation of fifteen members of the three amalgamated tribunals competing for nine jobs may create "a reasonable apprehension of bias" that toward the Government's position and industry may find itself without the access to appeals which the Bill promises until the matter is cleared up by the courts.
I also want to speak particularly about the apparel trade. In Canada, unlike the United States, we find a certain rift, or at least there are different interests presented by the Apparel Manufacturers Institute and the textile trade. In the United States the two work together and form a very effective and, unfortunately, very protectionist lobby. Recently, the Minister of Finance told members of the Canadian Apparel Manufacturers Institute that the Government was determined to give clothing manufacturers a fighting chance to compete in their own market against the Americans, and that the high tariffs on foreign textiles, which run on average about twice as high as comparable U.S. external tariffs, would be reduced to at least U.S. levels over the the 1990s.
This will not guarantee survival under free trade for Canadian apparel manufacturers but it will help lower their input costs since they now import about 60 per cent of their fabrics from third countries. I am not talking about low cost, low quality goods, but rather about many of the high quality fabrics and textiles which are used for Canada's most stylish clothing products. However, the trouble is that most of the tariff relief is in the future and will be shaped by this new government regulatory body, the Canadian International Trade Tribunal, which may very well find itself limited in what it can do. Although the tribunal is theoretically independent, it will of course hear not only from manufacturers but from the textile makers, who have a totally different set of priorities and interests and whose lobbying was responsible for the erecting of these high tariff walls, in the first place.
Some time ago the Government announced and began to shape a massive duty remission package which would have cost $2 billion in lost revenues over 10 years. This was designed to assist the apparel manufacturers. However, when word of the package reached the United States and its powerful protectionist textile industry, the reaction was fierce and fast.
The Minister backed off and the duty remission portion of the policy was scaled down, with the major part of the tariff relief policy being pushed into the future and extended to cover both textile and apparel industries. To make it additionally palatable, Canada gave the U.S. a partial or total preference on several immediate tariff reductions for specialty fabrics or yarns not made in Canada.
This will present the Canadian apparel manufacturers with a number of difficulties both because of the preference and also because of the rules of origin. Canadian manufacturers will be driven to find American rather than third country
sources of fabrics wherever possible in order to qualify for duty-free access to the United States market beyond a stipulated quota.
The North American market is very difficult. Some Canadian clothing manufacturers will survive. They will perhaps find themselves specialty niches such as winter clothing. Some may be able to maintain their markets because of being so near, if they are able to provide very quick and effective supply. However, increasingly, the industry will be facing a great deal of restructuring.
Canadian manufacturers are saying that it is no longer enough to manufacture a few good items of clothing, that the industry trend is to product lines manufactured, assembled and marketed to retail chains. That takes size and export and marketing skills. There is really no guarantee of success even in the domestic market after putting out all these additional moneys.
Thus Canadian suppliers are facing a difficult time. It will not be a smooth restructuring. The situation is complicated because the industry is divided. The situation in the United States, where textiles and clothing manufacturers work together as a very large and very effective lobby, leaves our Canadian manufacturers and our Canadian textile industry much more vulnerable. I am not sure that the creation of this additional international trade tribunal, which simply delays the process of finding solutions, is the way to go at this particular time.
There is one significant exclusion upon which I wish to comment before giving the floor to some of the other Members who I know wish to speak on this matter. It is that the international import tribunal is not empowered to inquire into or otherwise administer complaints that involve dumping or subsidization of imported goods. Such questions in the future are to be referred to the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. MacKay) to be dealt with under the Special Import Measures Act.
That does not inspire confidence, not with a Government like this, which has shown such a singular lack of backbone in standing up to American pressures. We have to be very uneasy with the present Government about any move that increases ministerial discretion and takes matters of trade dispute away from an independent tribunal with public hearings where Canadians can be fully informed.


Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Madam Speaker, first I would like to suggest that this is a Bill which is actually more controversial than the Government suggested in its opening comments. Certainly, in our discussions with a number of groups throughout the country, in particular groups which were previously subject to the Textile and Clothing Board, which had certain powers and certain capacities to act which this particular new international trade tribunal will not have, they have expressed to us their serious concerns about what the Government is doing in this case.
April 21, 1988

I must say that we have also had from a number of importers and import competing institutions a sense that this Bill is really far too weak when compared to what they had hoped to see come forward from the Government, given the much more difficult international situation which our traders face throughout the world. Frankly, it is for that reason that it is somewhat disappointing that the Minister is not here to carry forward this debate today.
I must also make the point that there are a great many parts of the Bill which we find to be half-hearted, timid, timorous and which give one a sense of taking steps backward at a time when we should be taking steps forward to try to establish a more dynamic institution which could act more effectively on behalf of Canadian businesses and Canadian workers.
Despite these basic concerns which we intend to raise in the form of amendments at the legislative committee stage we still as a Party support the basic principle of the Bill. That principle is to streamline, rationalize and obtain a more effective single institution which can serve the important needs of Canadian business at the present time with the great escalation of what has to be considered unfair competition internationally. The situation must certainly be considered much more competitive and threatening to exports from this country than has been true in the past, exports to other markets which we have considered to rest with us in the past.
This sense of trying to pull together the three institutions which have dealt with trade policy restrictions in the past is something which we think makes sense. The reduction of a number of agencies operating in this field, we also think is important. It seems to us that it is not sensible to have three separate bodies dealing very much with the same type of concerns in relation to trade, all of them building up sources of expertise and manpower to support them. That type of proliferation of government agencies seems to us both unnecessary and wasteful, as far as the public is concerned.
But if we are aiming to pull together these three institutions into one effective and dynamic institution, I believe it is necessary that we do it very differently from what this Bill has set out to do with respect to a number of the key details of the Bill itself. Some of those details will be debated at much greater length in the legislative committee. But I do not think that the Government should simply assume that it has an uncontroversial Bill before the House which will simply sail through without a lot of questions being raised by the opposition Parties. These questions have certainly been raised with us by the people who will be affected by this change in institutions.
There is a certain irony that while we are taking backward steps with respect to what some of our institutions have been
Canadian International Trade Tribunal
able to do, especially the Textile and Clothing Board, this very day the United States is voting on an omnibus Trade Bill which will not reduce the powers of its International Trade Commission, but, rather, will increase them very considerably. It will also increase the powers of the United States trade representative very considerably. It will provide a greater arm's length relationship between the Government and the various institutions regulating international trade in the United States.
In short, if the omnibus Trade Bill passes today, as everybody predicts, the United States will be setting up a system which will establish weapons which it has developed for the increasingly tough international trade wars that are taking place which are very much more powerful, quicker in their capacity to respond, and more independent and therefore responsive to business' and workers' concerns within the United States.
While the United States is doing that, we have before us a Bill which, in a number of very important respects, weakens the capacity of Canadian business and the capacity of Canadian workers to take the tough steps that are often needed to deal with unfair trade activities occurring within the international economy.
If I may point out some of those concerns in particular, they start with the speed with which this tribunal will be able to move. In Canada, that has certainly been a problem in the past. For instance, it is not uncommon for the Tariff Board to take a year to hear appeals on tariff classifications or valuation issues which come before the Tariff Board. In fact, the average length of time taken is one year. That is clearly not fast enough to respond to the concerns of Canadians workers and business people who want to get a decision from the Tariff Board.
I have great deal of concern looking at this so-called rationalization that by reducing the number of people who will be involved in this process, potentially we will make it an even lengthier and more difficult process for Canadian workers and business people to get decisions from this institution. Therefore, speed is the first concern. Is this in fact an effective institution that will be created that will be able to respond rapidly to problems of unfair trade, as is often crucial in the international economy these days? I have a serious doubt in my mind with respect to the question of speed.
Second, the Textile and Clothing Board, the TCB, has had within its powers one important function, and that has been the independent capacity to initiate inquiries with respect to dangers to the industry, with respect to questions of adjustment and restructuring within the industry, and with respect to questions which involve the future of workers within that industry.

April 21, 1988
Canadian International Trade Tribunal
That is not a power that has been associated with the International Trade Tribunal. It is not a power that has been associated the Tariff Board. However, in attempting to put these three bodies together, the sensible thing to do would surely be to recognize that the power which existed with the TCB has been a useful, effective and responsive power which has made it possible for the Textile and Clothing Board to move quickly to initiate inquiries when it was crucial. In attempting to rationalize all three of these institutions, surely the sensible and efficient thing to do would be to give the producers the capacity to look for assistance when unfair trading is taking place. Surely the sensible thing to do would be to give to this new tribunal the power which the Textile and Clothing Board had. However, that is not what has been done.
Instead, the power which existed with the TCB has been stripped away. The new tribunal will not have the power to take independent initiatives on problems which may occur in the future. That seems to me to be a serious mistake and a question with which we will attempt to deal in committee.
Third, besides conducting inquiries, it has been possible in the past for a board such as the Textile and Clothing Board to actually make recommendations to the Government. If the board discovers, for instance, that there is import action which is seriously hurting a sector of the Canadian industry, it has been possible for the TCB to recommend to the Government specifically what it feels should be done. That has been a key part of this institution's activities. Yet this Bill strips that power away from the TCB. The Bill sets up a tribunal which itself is much less powerful, precisely because it cannot do what its equivalent in the United States will be able to do, which is to make direct recommendations about what should be done to counter an import threat of some kind which is hurting Canadian producers.
Again, I have a sense of irony, almost a sense of unreality, about the Government's weakness as it sets up a new institution here in Canada after looking at the one in the United States. The International Trade Commission in the United States has complete authority to make recommendations. No one there would think of establishing an institution which did not have that authority, and in fact, the omnibus Trade Bill which is being voted on today increases the capacity of the United States ITC to make such recommendations in the future. That increases the necessity of institutions elsewhere in the United States trade mix to respond to those recommendations from the ITC. Yet here in Canada, we are taking a backward step by providing that in the future, the International Trade Tribunal will not have the capacity to make recommendations to the Government with respect to any trade problem it has discovered.
It is not simply weak of the Government to be doing this, it is also stupid. The Government is creating a collection of expertise, and that expertise should surely be employed not just to assess import problems or trade threats but also to make recommendations, based on that expertise, as to how the Government should respond to that difficulty.
Fourth, I must deal with the question of direct access. Almost three years ago now, a special committee was established to look at international relations, a joint Senate and House committee. That committee recommended that we should have a much stronger and more flexible single international trade tribunal and that it should be possible for Canadian businesses to access that trade tribunal directly.
In this Bill, the Government pretends that it has established that direct access. In fact, however, the details of the Bill show that the principle of direct access is trumpeted but the reality of direct access is prevented. Let me point out two specific ways in which this is true.
First, it is not possible for companies to have direct access with respect to countervail actions. Countervail actions have become the heart of the international trade conflict which is taking place in the world today. Yet this Bill suggests that companies will not have direct access with respect to this absolutely crucial part of trading activities and policies. They will have direct access to everything else, but they will not have direct access to what really counts. Surely that too is a weak and foolish step to take.
I must also say that it is a very curious principle that this direct access to the new institution will only be possible if companies from an industry can prove that they are speaking on behalf of a majority of that industry. What does that mean? For example, textile companies based in the Atlantic provinces feel they are being attacked by unfair trade practices on the part of another country. It is not possible for them to take their case to this new import tribunal. The case has to be taken there by a majority of the industry across the country. It might be that the industry in Quebec and Ontario, which would make up the majority, would be quite pleased to see their competitors in Atlantic Canada go down the drain and would not support their Atlantic counterparts in taking their case to the tribunal. That would stop the Atlantic producers from having an inquiry take place.
Exactly the same is true of western producers of, let us say, steel. For example, both Saskatchewan and British Columbia produce small but important amounts of steel. They might want to take a case to this new tribunal saying that they are being damaged by imports. Yet they are not permitted to do so because the rest of the industry concentrated in central Canada refuses to go along with their concern. This could be because the industry in central Canada wishes to see the industry in western Canada wiped out as a future competitor.
Again, this seems to me to be a ridiculous, weak and misguided attempt to set the parameters for this institution. In short, we are likely to find ourselves in a situation where it is not possible for certain parts of the country affected by import pressure to take their case to this tribunal unless they have a majority of the entire industry across the country with them. Even if they do that, they cannot do it with respect to unfair trade in the way of countervailing duties.
April 21, 1988

There is a fifth point, the last key weakness in this Bill. If we want to put together a body of serious expertise able to operate effectively in this tough international environment, why do we not give that institution much more freedom than is established by this Bill? As I have noted, it is not possible for countervailing duty issues to be considered by the tribunal unless there is a reference from the Governor in Council, in fact the whole Cabinet. Why do we want to control this institution so closely? What is it about the Textile and Clothing Board which has been so ineffective in the past? In fact, that board, with its sense of greater freedom, has been able to be quite effective and efficient with respect to many of the inquiries it has initiated and its analysis of issues with respect to countervailing duties. Yet the Government is preventing this new institution, which it says is supposed to be more effective and efficient, from operating on its own. I just do not understand the logic. It seems it can only be justified by a sense of wanting to create some kind of institution dealing with trade without actually establishing a serious and substantive institution.
It is for that reason that the fight which will take place in committee to try to establish a serious international trade tribunal will be extremely long and hard. It will be necessary to call as many witnesses as we need to convince the Government that it is establishing a hollow shell instead of a tough and efficient institution which can act on behalf of Canadian producers in the future. That is what the Government has brought on itself by not consulting with as wide a sector of the industry as it should have. It did not consult with workers and their institutions. It certainly did not consult with the opposition Parties. It is certainly not attempting to open up to broader public discussion the question of what kind of institution we need. That is a recipe for serious problems in getting the Bill through the Elouse in the short time available before the summer recess and a possible election.
Frankly, I am quite sad that the Government chose this approach. It has taken a good and sensible idea and put it together in such a way as to vitiate the idea. It has weakened it and, as I said, created the form but not the substance of what producers in the international economy will need in the very difficult days in the future.


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg-Fort Garry):: Madam Speaker, last night I was driven to amusement by the appearance of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) on national television protesting his innocence on matters of patronage. I knew that pending on the legislative timetable was Bill C-110, one of the most blatant and egregious examples of the Government's horrendous appetite for finding places for its favourite colleagues. More important, this Bill has created a serious level of confusion in the procedures of trade remedy law in the country.
On March 15 the case of Maltby versus the Minister of National Revenue before the Tariff Board was referred to the Federal Court because of the clear apprehension of bias which was created as a result of the Bill which we are debating at
Canadian International Trade Tribunal
second reading today. This Bill contains clauses which permit the extermination of the existing members of all tariff boards and agencies in Canada without any form of severance or allowance for services.
The precedent was set with the Immigration Appeal Board when the Government undertook the ridiculous initiative of firing all the people on the board without any of the due processes which are generally allowed for under our Labour Code. The incredible confusion in the immigration system has now been compounded by the fact that the Immigration Appeal Board cannot work. We now have a similar circumstance with the tariff boards.
The Prime Minister of Canada is saying, "My hands are clean, my conscience is clear, we do things totally in the public interest without any advantage being sought". Yet, we have two Bills still before Parliament, one on immigration and one on tariffs, in which the Government is executing the most severe and blatant example of trying to eliminate people in quasi-judicial positions whose independence is absolutely sacrosanct, thereby creating a clear apprehension of bias to the point where the courts of the country have now endorsed that position. The Federal Court has always said, in the case of the Immigration Appeal Board, that there is an apprehension of bias, and that particular regulatory agency has now ground to a halt.
I think it would be very important, perhaps for the Clerks or the Speaker's office, to determine whether this legislation in fact contravenes some of the basic rules. If you are creating that apprehension and bias you are running into clear legal jurisdictional problems. This certainly gives full lie to the speech made by the Prime Minister yesterday and will be one of the clear exhibits which the people of Canada will have in front of them of the appetite the Government has shown. It is not satisfied simply to replace people as their terms come to an end, but most commit a form of guillotine on sitting Members in order to get their own partisans on these boards and agencies. The Government is thereby clearly guilty of interfering in the quasi-judicial regulatory structure of the country.
I do not think that any other Government in the history of this country has ever undertaken that kind of action. That is why this Bill, with some laudable purposes in terms of trying to reform the trade mechanism, because of that voracious appetite for patronage has turned into a very ugly piece of legislation which has very serious overtones which go beyond simply matters of trade.
That is why we find this piece of legislation as repugnant as we did Bill C-55, which was repugnant for a number of reasons dealing with human rights and individual liberties. However, the fact that this Bill has built into it a clear and unmistakable whiff of patronage of the most evident and manifest kind will result in other Canadians finding it equally repugnant. That is unfortunate because reform is required in our trade administration. There must be better rationalization for determining trade remedy laws.

April 21, 1988
Canadian International Trade Tribunal
I do not understand why the Government does things like this. I do not understand why it takes something which could have been useful, could have been purposeful, could have been positive, and perverts it so badly. It was unnecessary. There is attrition. People resign their offices. They do not have to be kicked out summarily by a piece of legislation, thereby destroying the whole system. That was not necessary. It is not contingent to the effective utilization of this Bill. The Government is blinded by the thought that it may not be here much longer and wants to get its friends into cushy jobs for the next 10 years. This kind of philosophy has biased a good piece of legislation. As I said, it is just not necessary to do those kinds of things and establish such a precedent.
I fully expect that the Federal Court will rule on this legislation in the same way as it did on Bill C-55. I expect that it will rule that it is the cause of a clear apprehension of bias in the present operations of our regulatory system. Therefore, all the cases presently before the import tribunals will not be able to be considered until we expunge this particular set of clauses from the Bill. Members opposite should be duly warned that that is going to have to happen, that they cannot contravene basic principles of regulatory law, which is what they are doing with this legislation. It will be our responsibility to ensure that we cleanse it of this particular obvious and evident maladministration of our trade law.
Speaking of that. Madam Speaker, my Party has put forward a number of proposals over the last two years on how we should rationalize and reorganize the trade administration system in Canada in keeping with the new international trade atmosphere which we face. As a piece of legislation this is simply tinkering, it is not doing what we would have liked, that is, rewriting the trade law itself to ensure that Canadian producers facing competition, facing the requirement to offset unfair trade practices of other countries, will be able to receive fair and adequate protection. We can say quite honestly that our trade law is not adequate for the task, nor is our trade machinery.
Let me give one very clear example of where a serious omission has been made, and that is in the area of adjustment. We have done an awful lot of experimentation in the last 10 years to try to find ways to assist industry in dealing with the dislocations that are caused by international competition, by trade competition. As tariffs have come down as a consequence of various GATT rounds, we have attempted, through such things as the Canadian Industrial Renewal Board to help industry meet that kind of competition. The Canadian Industrial Renewal Board was a separate agency administered by a board composed of people from the private sector. It was meant to provide both labour adjustment and capital adjustment to the footwear and textile industries to help them meet that kind of competition and allow them to modernize.
Similarly, our administration brought in the Industrial Labour Adjustment Program which was designed to help
individual industries like the automobile sector which was facing a downturn in 1980, or the textile and other sectors to provide assistance to workers for retraining or pre-retirement benefits, as well as to give industrial assistance to firms or communities.
Those programs were wiped out by the Government. In some cases, it allowed them to lapse, such as with the retirement benefits for older workers. The Canadian Industrial Renewal Board was allowed to lapse, but nothing was put in its place.
I am not saying that those instruments were perfect. They were experiments in recognition that something had to be done to deal with the major problem of industrial adjustment in this country. However, if it was the judgment of the Government in 1984 that these programs were not good enough, it should have introduced something better. Instead, it created a vacuum, and there is no adequate means of enabling industries to respond to dislocation, to help workers affected by competition or to give some security for our workforce in light of the new trade conditions.
Approximately one month ago, the Economic Council published a report entitled "Managing Adjustment: Policies for Trade Sensitive Industries". The Council made a very clear set of recommendations that the new Canadian import tribunal should have the ability to provide for adjustments or forms of protection for industries affected by international competition. The Economic Council indicated that in order to make it work effectively a broad-based set of instruments had to be available. I do not believe anyone on the government side is suspicious of the Economic Council, which tends to endorse all of the Government's initiatives.
The question is why the Government did not respond at least to these set of recommendations and say that one of the powers of the new tribunal would be to ensure that the tribunal would be able to make a judgment, whether it be in the form of temporary quotas or direct assistance to the workers in the particular industry. Part of its responsibility should be to make such a judgment, for example, in the case of a town affected by the closure of its textile plant because of a new high technology area or a trade arrangement. In my opinion, Bill C-l 10 contains no such powers.
For example, the Employment Support Act, passed in 1972, is still on the statute books of Canada. It was brought in by a previous Liberal administration when the United States introduced its 10 per cent surtax under the Nixon administration. That Employment Support Act enabled Canadian industry to stay in business while we reconciled that particular conflict. Those industries did not have to shut down because they were able to get assistance to fight those particular incursions. As a result, some 5,000 Canadian businesses kept their doors open during that period.
April 21, 1988

The Employment Support Act has been put in abeyance. It could be brought off the shelf and reactivated with the new Canadian International Trade Tribunal as the agency to make the judgment as to when and how support for workers could be provided as a result of international trade competition.
The Government is contemplating signing an agreement with the United States which will require massive adjustments in this country. The Bank of Nova Scotia, an agency to which I presume the Government would listen, has listed some 17 to 20 different industries that will face massive relocation. The only response we have received so far from the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) and others is that they will use existing programs to provide that adjustment. However, existing programs have been cut back by 30 per cent. The labour adjustment and training programs have been cut back by 30 percent. How will it be possible to deal with this new adjustment when the funds are being severely cut? It does not make sense. Furthermore, the existing programs are not trade sensitive.
We are still waiting with great anticipation for some kind of older worker adjustment program, the people affected most directly when an industry must shut down or change its technology as a consequence of trade or other matters.
The promise was made over a year ago and we are near the end of the legislative agenda, but nothing has happened. Simple amendments to this legislation would enable us to provide for labour adjustment for older workers affected by trade dislocation. I believe it is a prime opportunity for the Government to fulfil a promise that it made over a year ago because it could easily be done in this legislation.
The Economic Council study described in principle how it could be implemented. The fact that this legislation has those omissions only indicates to me that the Government has no intention of bringing in adjustment programs. It made a false promise to older workers and has no interest in providing any kind of federal government support.
This does not mean there will be no adjustment assistance, it will simply have to be picked up by the provinces or the private sector, adding costs to their budgets which have not been in any way provided for. The Minister of Finance may be able to keep his own financial books in order, but when we look at the national accounts of Canada we see that someone will have to pay for thousands of workers who will be affected.
It will certainly be our intention in dealing with this legislation to make the tribunal a far more contemporary instrument of dealing with trade sensitive adjustment programs than anything that is presently provided for by the Government. If the Government will not do it, someone will have to, and I only hope that members of the government caucus would be aware of their obligation in this respect and support those kinds of amendments that will have to be introduced.
Canadian International Trade Tribunal
Finally, let me point out that I also believe the trade law itself needs to be reformed. The reorganization of the tribunal is not good enough. The tribunal is only as good as the law it must implement and, as we have seen in the recent Hyundai case, our present anti-dumping rules are not sufficient to encompass the kind of new conditions we face whereby corporations are making different products in different countries with a market system that requires a different test for countervail or dumping. Again, it would seem to me that a corollary piece of legislation, if not included in this, must be a very major overhaul in rewriting of our trade law generally to catch up with modern contemporary circumstances.
Those are only some of the reasons that I think this is a deeply flawed piece of legislation. The Government has taken what should have been a good idea and failed very badly in its execution both because of what it omits and because of the very severe perversion of the Act in terms of trying to exterminate existing members of the tribunals we now have in a way that can only be interpreted as an appetite for the patronage machine of the Conservative Party.


Steven W. Langdon: Madam Speaker, I have just one question that I would like to raise with my colleague, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy). I would like to refer specifically to the Textile and Clothing Board and the particular powers it has had in the past, powers which have given the board the capacity to initiate inquiries of its own which, in turn, gave the board the possibility, indeed, the duty, of making recommendations to go with its findings from inquiries.
I know the Member is a fellow member of several committees looking at trade matters, and of course a fellow member of the Standing Committee on External Affairs and International Trade. I would be interested in his explanation or analysis of why he feels the Government, in amalgamating the three institutions, has cut out those key functions which the Textile and Clothing Board in the past was quite successfully able to fulfil. What explanation would the Hon. Member offer of that, to me, very strange and very foolish move?


Lloyd Axworthy: Madam Speaker, I did not address that specific part of the legislation, first, because I thought the Hon. Member himself had dealt with it so adequately and, second, because time was a constraint. However, I would want to offer my own sense of puzzlement as to why what was a useful and effective power is being stripped. I can only suggest two things; first, there is an increasing tendency on the part of the Government to strip down the arm's length relationship between itself and a number of agencies, to politicize, in effect, the kind of quasi-judicial system which has been used in this country for a long time.

April 21, 1988
Canadian International Trade Tribunal
As the Hon. Member knows, I spoke on the one area where it is stripping the members out, and I think it is again an attempt to try to control decisions, especially because of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. I think the Government recognizes there are going to be a number of new areas of sensitivity growing up. It does not want someone else out there examining them in an independent way and reaching conclusions the Government may not like. I think it is quite a deliberate attempt to squelch and restrict the orbit of independent inquiry, examination or initiative because of the potential embarrassment of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. I really believe that is reason number one.
Second, I also believe we are again seeing a tendency, one that disturbs me, to have our trade matters basically decided in the Department of External Affairs itself. I think my own Government takes some responsibility for this when it amalgamated the Department of Trade, the Department of External Affairs and others and made trade a kind of handmaiden to foreign policy, as opposed to trade as a direct outcome of domestic needs and the requirement of our own producers to go out and get markets. I think we have reversed the onus as to what our trade policy should be. As a result, we do not want these agencies doing things the Department of External Affairs does not want them to do. It is just part and parcel of the same area. Again, it may result in different sensitivities. We know there is an incredibly difficult balancing act going on in the textile area between the importation of low-cost products from Third World countries and the protection of our own domestic industry. I think that is an area that we as a country must come to grips with in a more effective way than we have.
Unfortunately, the way in which it could have been done more effectively, through the Textile and Clothing Board, will no longer be allowed. It will now be in the hands of a Minister to determine whether and how they are going to do it. So I think that restriction on those freedoms is really a consequence of a kind of political and bureaucratic agenda on how to deal with trade policy.


Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate today on Bill C-110, an Act to establish the Canadian International Trade Tribunal. We have heard some interesting and useful remarks this morning, as is often the case, only from the opposition Parties. It seems to me that even with the largest majority in Canadian history, government Members cannot seem to pull themselves together to speak on any legislation.
There are some fundamental questions one has to ask oneself when looking at a Bill such as this Act to establish the Canadian International Trade Tribunal and to amend or repeal other Acts in consequence thereof. I think we have to ask ourselves if it does cut red tape. How accessible will it be to those who would want to use it? Is it at arm's length? Is it likely to be independent? And does it have real power?
The question of the arm's length relationship is perhaps one on which we should focus first. The new tribunal will not have the power to initiate inquiries, nor can it make recommendations for remedial action. I think that is a fundamental test
that any piece of legislation should be put to. Is it going to be at arm's length and can it do what the Government is trying to sell it as being able to do?
We can look under the clauses related to powers, duties and functions and find quite quickly that this has been designed in a certain way by the Government and by those who drafted this Bill. Clause 16 states that the duties and functions of the tribunal are to conduct inquiries, consider complaints, to hear, determine and deal with all appeals and exercise and perform such other duties or functions. One quickly sees that the Governor in Council, the Cabinet and the Minister have maintained control over the processes which might be launched under the new tribunal thoroughly and totally.
I think the points made by my friends, the Hon. Member for Essex Windsor (Mr. Langdon) and the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy), make clear the question: if we are going to have a body, if we are going to amalgamate a number of other tribunals, reduce the number of members of that tribunal, obviously increase the work-load of a smaller number of individuals, are we actually providing powers? Are we actually making it independent so that a producer from wherever in Canada, whether from British Columbia, Prince Edward Island or Yellowknife, actually has access to a tribunal that is truly independent and can look at the real ramifications and causes of the complaint?
If we look at the first section under inquiries, inquiries into economic trade or commercial matters, we see it is strictly for the Governor in Council, so it is a political matter the Minister might bring to Cabinet, saying: "Here is something we should inquire into". Inquiries into tariff-related matters and inquiries into injuries are all very well laid out in terms of reference, tabling of reports, and so on. That is the political area. If there is some political heat coming from a collection of producers or from a number of regions or a number of provinces, the Minister in Cabinet can make a decision to send it on to the tribunal.
When we come to the clause on complaints by domestic producers, there is certainly a great deal of verbiage. There is Clause 22, Clause 23, and on and on it goes for pages about what a domestic producer would have to go through. There are 21-day time limits, 30-day time limits, reporting periods of 180 days and so on. When one moves on to Clauses 25, 26 and so on, one sees that they all lead once again right back to the Minister and the Cabinet.
A domestic producer might say, "Is that a little unusual in a piece of legislation?" It certainly is, if the Government is trying to sell this as cutting red tape, getting rid of three boards and making it one. It sounds great. It sounds like streamlining, government efficiency and cutting down on government debt, wastage and bureaucrats and so on. However, I have not even heard members of the Government trying to sell it as that.


April 21, 1988

When one looks at what type of real access domestic producers would have, one finds that it is likely to be stifled and snuffed out if any political waves might be made. Members who have already spoken have pointed out that in sensitive areas of obvious deficiency such as in the Mulroney-Reagan deal, areas in which our domestic producers will likely be harmed by certain things that will now be allowed under that agreement, should it be promulgated, they will not have the type of opportunity to be heard by an independent process. This is something that is fundamentally important and is provided by many other legislatures and parliaments around the world. In this way there is a truly independent arm's length operation.
All of the drafting of the Bill leads it back into the situation wherein it can be manipulated politically either by the Minister or by the Cabinet. In some cases it can be diverted off to the Deputy Minister of National Revenue for consideration under another Act, the Special Import Measures Act.
On the test of its independence it fails. On the test of its relevance, its accessibility and its timeliness for domestic producers, it fails, and it fails miserably.
I was always interested in listening to Conservative Members in opposition berate the Liberals when I was elected here in my second term in 1980 to 1984. They berated Liberals for bringing forward legislation without the accompanying regulations. They were always saying, "We are always expected to buy a pig in a poke". Now that the Conservatives are in government, they are even worse than the Liberals were in continually promulgating legislation before the House. The Government has been in office for four years. Surely, the regulations associated with this particular Bill could have been provided to Members of the House so that we could make a realistic evaluation of the legislation.
Let us look at Clause 40 of the Bill, which is now becoming standard Tory fare. They print a few pages with a few general themes but they never put the regulations in place. For example, even on definitions with respect to what is a domestic producer the Governor in Council has yet to make a regulation. This clause is worth reading into the record because it reveals that the Conservatives are once again bringing in a true pig in the poke before the House and asking it to be passed in its entirety. It states:
The Governor in Council may make regulations.
(a)	respecting the matters to be addressed or examined by the Tribunal in an inquiry-
That means that we do not even know what matters may be addressed or examined by the tribunal. We have a general idea. It will be almost impossible for a domestic producer to get anywhere unless the Minister is on side and the Cabinet is on side. If there are any political problems associated with having evidence heard before the tribunal then it will be
Canadian International Trade Tribunal
squashed by the Minister or by Cabinet before the producer even has a hearing. We now find that the definitions are not even provided to us. We read:
(b)	defining the expressions "domestic producer", "domestic production" and "like or directly competitive goods" for the purposes of this Act-
Those definitions are yet to be made by the Governor in Council. They will be promulgated after the Act is dealt with by Parliament. Once again, this is a truly undemocratic way of dealing with legislation. It reads:
(c)	defining the expression "other interested party" for the purposes of section 25, 26, 28, 29 or 30-
This is where domestic producers are in the midst of their process of identifying the problem that they have and trying to get themselves before the tribunal. We find that even in terms of defining other interested parties it has not been defined. For example, let us say that there is a domestic producer of a commodity in British Columbia who feels that there are other interested parties, perhaps someone who produces part of that commodity from, say, Calgary, Regina, Montreal or St. John's, Newfoundland, and wants to bring them in as an interested party because of the impact that certain imports might have on them. That is not being made available to them. I see the Minister of Transport (Mr. Bouchard) nodding in agreement. Once again, we have a pig in a poke before the House.
One could drive a Kenworth truck through Clause 40 as a result of this type of loophole. It reads:
(d)	prescribing any matter or thing that under this Act may or is to be prescribed-
The real coup de grace of the Bill, a test that any Member of Parliament must put a piece of legislation to, is the following which states:
(e)	generally, for carrying out the purposes and provisions of this Act.
There is the big Kenworth. It allows the Government to turn this Bill, this paper tiger as it is presently written, into anything the Government should so desire.
Let us take a look at what the Government claims Bill C-110 does. It claims that it amalgamates three existing agencies: the Canadian Import Tribunal, known as CIT; the Tariff Board, known as TB; and the Textile and Clothing Board, the TCB. There is no doubt that it does that. It wipes out their legislative foundation and will turn them all into the Canadian International Trade Tribunal.
The duties and functions of the new tribunal are to inquire and report on economic trade or commercial matters as requested by the Government. Let us make sure that everyone in the country understands. This is not an independent tribunal where domestic producers, friends of the Minister of Transport, might have an opportunity to come to have a hearing before the board.

April 21, 1988


Mr. Bouchard:: You are not very convincing.


James Ross Fulton: The Minister of Transport says that I am very convincing. I am sure he will go back to Cabinet and make sure that this Bill is rewritten.
The Bill is to require a report to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) and, as I referred to earlier, to refer some matters to National Revenue, including Canada's international rights and obligations. The terms and reference for both are then set by the Government.
In addition to its research functions, and this is where there is a problem, the tribunal cannot independently initiate its own inquiries into matters. They can only really come from the Minister or Cabinet. It is true that domestic producers can try to wind their way through, but before they ever actually complete the process it has to have the stamp of approval of the Minister or Cabinet. So how likely is it that that will happen in the case of a sensitive trade matter when we find out that the Minister for International Trade and Mr. Reisman bungled? Let us say that they forgot something and there is a little area there. The Government can say that this is embarrassing and that people will know there are a great many termite holes in this agreement. It will keep it to the side, whether it is a horticultural matter, a domestically produced commodity or whatever.
That reminds me, back in 1975 the then Liberal Government lifted the tariff and non-tariff barriers on Canadian household appliances. I refer to pop-up toasters, fridges, stoves, dishwashers and all that kind of thing. At that time we produced 90 per cent of our home appliances. They were purchased in Canada and made in Canada in Vancouver, Edmonton and various other centres across the country such as Toronto, Montreal and so on. After 10 years of having that tariff and non-tariff barrier removed, which was about a 4 per cent barrier to incoming products, there has been a complete reversal. Some 90 per cent of home appliances purchased in Canada are made in the United States.
We must ask ourselves this. Would this legislation meet the test of Canadian home appliance producers if we found ourselves in the situation of 1975 today in terms of that level of production? Would they be able to wind their way through, if they were having unfair dumping and unfair practices from another country, the United States or anywhere else? Would this type of tribunal provide timely, easily accessible and independent hearings and inquiries? The answer is no. I say that because it has been clutched so tightly politically to the body politic in this case to the Conservative Government, that it fails on all those really key tests. It is unlikely to be either accessible or useful to domestic producers.
I see that it is one o'clock. I will resume my comments later in the day.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Order. It being I p.m., I do now leave the chair until 2 p.m. this day.
At 1 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

[Stage Direction]
[ Translation]

Mrs. Lucie Pepin (Outremont):: Mr. Speaker, in spite of the economic recovery in our country, Statistics Canada confirms that the percentage of Canadians living below the poverty line has increased.
These statistics are upsetting and support our statements to the effect that only couples where both spouses work outside the home have been able to maintain their standard of living, compared to couples living on one salary, who have seen their income drop by 4 per cent.
The situation of young couples has deteriorated to such an extent that their children-our children, Mr. Speaker-are living in poverty. One out of five children in Canada is poor.

Young people, women, and children are living in poverty, and the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) has missed many opportunities to ensure a guaranteed annual income by reforming the welfare system. Nor has child care been discussed in the broader context of the poverty of Canada's young families.
These women and children wonder, in view of the fact that the poor of our country are unlikely to be adequately heard, insofar as welfare and child care are concerned what reforms does the Government have to offer which will be specifically targeted to the young people and the women and children of our society?

What has the Conservative Government done and what does it plan to do to change this unfair situation and to give families and children in this country the right to live in equality and justice?
April 21, 1988


THE CONSTITUTION
Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: Mr. Speaker, the right to own property, singly, jointly, or in a group, is one of the strengths of democracy. This right distinguishes a democratic country from all brands of totalitarianism and socialism that believe in the state owning all land.
Thousands of Canadians who came from other countries came to Canada because of their desire to own land, their own home, their own farm. The right to own property is part of the Canadian heritage. Why is this fundamental right not included in the Canadian Charter of Rights?
In 1981, because of the efforts of the PC Members, it was in the Charter for 48 hours, but during the weekend the Liberals caved in to the demands of the NDP and took it out, to their everlasting shame.
The Canadian Real Estate Association, the Canadian Bar, and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce all, along with most Canadians, want the right to own property enshrined in the Constitution. So let's put it in!


HISTORIC EVENTS
Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops-Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, today is the fortieth anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel, a nation based on religion and democracy. Created out of the chaos of World War II, it was a deliberate attempt by the United Nations to a find a homeland for a displaced people. Then, as now, the desire for peace and security from violence demanded tolerance, understanding, and good will.
We offer our congratulations today to Israel, believing that Israel and its neighbours will some day find that elusive solution to their problems by applying their genius, tolerance, and imagination. Then all peoples of the area will be able to celebrate peace.
It is all too easy for Canadians with our vast, thinly populated spaces to have difficulty understanding the problems of a part of the world heavily populated with many nationalities. However, today Canadians wish to congratulate Israel and offer our best wishes for peace and happiness.


THE LATE JEAN GASCON
Hon. Andree Champagne (Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot):: Mr. Speaker, I first wish to thank you and Hon. Members from all three parties who defied custom and let me speak.
Today, the arts community is in mourning. Canada has lost a man of the theatre whose talent, versatility, devotion and leadership marked an era and will continue to have an impact on the whole Canadian arts community.

As Jean Gascon was preparing yet another production at the Stratford Festival, sadly the curtain fell and Canada's artistic community is in mourning.

From the Compagnons de Saint-Laurent to the Theatre du Nouveau-Monde, from the National Arts Centre to the Stratford Festival and the National Theatre School, artists and craftspeople have been enriched by their contacts with Jean Gascon.
To his wife, children and whole family, we extend our deepest sympathy.
Companions in good times and bad, disciples, students, patrons, and all of us in the general public will never let the flame he passed on to us die. Jean Gascon was a great artist and like all great artists, by making us laugh or cry, he made us better.
Thank you, Jean!


GOVERNMENT APPOINTMENTS
Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, the crown prince of Canadian comedy appeared yesterday as the invited guest of the Canadian newspaper publishers. "I don't get no respect" said the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney). The media ignore the great appointments the Prime Minister has made. Let us review some of those great appointments.
For instance, we could talk about Jean Sirois. We could talk about the kissing cousins of Pierre Hardy and the Hon. Member for Joliette (Mr. La Salle). We could talk about Gayle Christie, the Duchess of York. We could talk about Peter Clark. We could talk about Marcia Clark, the wife of Peter Clark. We could talk about the Minister of International Trade's (Mr. Crosbie) two sons. Remember them? They used to do some legal work. We could talk about Lawrence Hannigan, defeated Conservative candidate in the riding of Laval-des-Rapides. How about Jocelyne Ouellette? How about the present Secretary of State?

April 21, 1988
If you allowed me two hours, Mr. Speaker, I could continue giving you a full list of all those very good and excellent patronage appointments that the Prime Minister talked about. In my opinion the Prime Minister's appointments were a fraud, a deceit, and a sham. He had the option to say no to those old Tory ways, but he did not.
[DOT] (M05)
As the Prime Minister put it, "There will be jobs for Liberals and NDPs too once I have been Prime Minister for 15 years and I cannot find a living, breathing Tory left in the country". He also said, "I was talking to Tories then and that is what they wanted to hear. Talking to Canadians at election time is something else". Those are all quotes that he will remember.


VOLUNTARY ORGANIZATIONS
Mr. Marcel R. Tremblay (Quebec-Est):: Mr. Speaker, during National Volunteer Week, I would like to pay tribute to all those Canadians who give so generously of their time for the benefit of their fellow citizens and their country. Across Canada this week, people are praising the invaluable contribution made by volunteers to the quality of our lives here in Canada. Their unselfishness has made us more compassionate and has made our cities and towns a good place to live.
Volunteer work is done in practically every sector of our society, including health care and social services, recreation, the arts, the environment and community development. Many volunteers are active in social work, making Canadians aware of the injustice and disparities present in our society.
Volunteer work is so much a part of our lives in this country that we often take it for granted. However, it deserves to be mentioned as one of the social forces that sustain our communities and as a source of national pride. Only through public recognition of the essential role played by volunteers in Canada can volunteer work continue to expand. Without their efforts, Mr. Speaker, the country would lose one of its fundamental characteristics: the spirit of solidarity and mutual assistance.


FISHERIES
James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, Alcan refused to appear before the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans this week to answer questions about the Nechako hydro agreement signed last fall and has now been ordered to do so by all Parties represented on the committee. The agreement puts at risk 53 per cent of the sockeye habitat of the entire Fraser River system, will lower the natural flows of the Nechako to as little as 6 per cent of its volume, and will lower the Fraser River itself by three feet at some times of the year.
Alcan has been placed above the law and above Parliament through this agreement with the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Siddon), insulated from public inquiry and scrutiny. It is unprecedented in Canada for a Cabinet or a Parliament to concede such constitutional powers to a private corporation. Rather than defend the rights of Parliament to set water flows necessary to protect fish, the Minister chose to impose an adverse water flow regime upon a common property resource for the private benefit of Alcan, not the public.
In British Columbia a province-wide coalition has taken this matter to the Federal Court, having filed just last week, and plans to fight all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada for justice and for Canada.


PROVINCIAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Bob Pennock (Etobicoke North):: Fear not, children of Canada, for Robin Hood is still alive and well.
He wears not a cloak of green but a tie of red.
He lives not in Sherwood Forest, but at Queen's Park.
He leads not merry men, but a pack of thieves.
They rob, not from the rich but from everyone in Ontario.
They give not to the poor, but squander, squander, squander.
His name is not Robin, but Peterson, and his band calls itself Liberals.
Yesterday the people of Ontario again saw the effects of electing a Liberal Government which is irresponsible in its fiscal outlook and learned everything it knows from its federal Liberal cousins.
A Conservative Government in Ottawa is now attempting to correct the Grit years of mismanagement of Canada. The people of Ontario will not soon forget how they were hoodwinked by Peterson and his band of merry spenders.

April 21, 1988


HISTORIC EVENTS
Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of many other Members of the House to pay tribute, on the 40th anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel, to a remarkable country and a remarkable group of people who, over that 40 years, made great achievements in establishing a democratic system of government in the Middle East and in undertaking a number of important initiatives in science, technology, education, culture, and economics.
I think that Canadians have always felt a strong affinity for Israel, and throughout the years have clearly established our support for the existence of the State of Israel and its future. We all recognize that Israel is now going through a serious time of trouble and turbulence. I think all Members of the House reach out to that country and its neighbours in the hope their future will be far less troublesome than it is at present.
On behalf of my caucus and, I hope, other Members, I say congratulations to Israel on its 40th anniversary, and we look forward to another 40 years and more. To quote the Talmud, which I think represents the spirit of Israel,"if we can save one life, we save the whole world". I think that should be the standard we apply to the State of Israel and the situation it is now facing in its time of trouble.



Hon. John W. Bosley (Don Valley West):: Mr. Speaker, most of us have experienced a 40th birthday. We know, Sir, that whether that event is traumatic or positive, it is a time when one takes stock of what one has achieved and what one hopes to achieve. Today is of course a very special birthday, for today Israel is indeed 40 years old, only 40 years old.
Whatever one thinks of Israel's policies, and one does not have to agree with all of them, no one can visit Israel without being utterly staggered by what she has achieved in such a short time. From desert to orange groves, her industrial, cultural, social and economic achievements have been miraculous. No other country in the world has achieved so much in 40 years. To have done all that in what has been far too often a war zone is only that much more impressive.
Israel is younger than most of us. Her people deserve even more our congratulations and the sure knowledge that we
continue to support their right to exist within secure borders. Perhaps we could paraphrase an old saying which is appropriate to this day and say let us pray, Sir, that "peace begins at 40".


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Mr. Derek Blackburn (Brant):: Mr. Speaker, the Government's expensive scheme to buy nuclear submarines is dying the death of a thousand cuts. Expert after expert around the world is questioning the cost and the very reason for this program.
Jane's, perhaps the most respected voice on defence matters in the world, has just published the latest condemnation in a book by Anthony Cordesman who says "the true cost would be at least twelve billion." He warns that the horrendous cost of nuclear submarines "would mortgage Canadian defence investment funds for a generation." Mr. Cordesman is not alone.
Last week, Frank Gaffney from the Hudson Institute pointed out that the Government has not told Canadians about the total cost of operating and maintaining nuclear submarines. In fact, he even called them "obsolete death traps".
The chorus of experts condemning the nuclear submarine program is getting louder and louder. The question is: will the cold warriors in the Government listen?


FORESTRY
Mrs. Mary Collins (Capilano):: Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to bring to the attention of the House news of important discoveries made in British Columbia. Recently, Canfor Corporation of Vancouver announced a major breakthrough in the search for an environmentally safe spray to protect lumber from mold and fungi during shipment and storage. After two years of research and testing, Canfor has perfected an inorganic compound which is both safe and effective, so that potential harmful chemical sprays will no longer have to be used.
It is expected that lumber producers from around the world will want to use this product for the safety of their employees and customers.

April 21, 1988
Oral Questions
In these days of increased focus on environmental and health issues, I am sure all Members of the House will want to join me in congratulating Dr. Suezone Chow, the creator of this important new product. Discoveries like this prove that British Columbia is a world leader when it comes to innovation and producing firsts in the forest industry.

[ Translation]


BRIDGES
Hon. Jean Lapierre (Shefford):: Mr. Speaker, since 1984, I have taken every opportunity to mention the dissatisfaction of 40 million drivers who cross the Champlain Bridge each year with a situation that also discriminates against residents of the South Shore.
Mr. Speaker, in August 1984, the Conservative Party promised to abolish the toll on the Champlain Bridge. Many ministers later, ministers of state (Transport) as well as senior ministers, this problem has yet to be solved. Now that the present Minister, formerly Minister of State, has the portfolio and, I hope, the power, we will finally be able to deal with the case of the toll on the Champlain Bridge that wastes hundreds of hours of work and hundreds of dollars worth of energy, and in the final instance yields very little to the Government of Canada.
Mr. Speaker, I know the Government of Canada will have no choice but to end this discrimination. Why not do it now, because the people of the Eastern Townships and the South Shore should be able to go where they want without paying more than anyone else, and especially without wasting the amount of time they do now on the Champlain Bridge. Once again, I would urge the Government to meet the commitment it made in 1984, while there is still time!
The Socialist Party has already persuaded the unions to raise their dues to pay for the election campaign. Just think what it would cost the individual Canadian if a Liberal-Socialist coalition came to power!


GOVERNMENT APPOINTMENTS
Mr. John Nunziata (York South-Weston):: Mr. Speaker, of all the nerve. Yesterday the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) tried to defend the indefensible. The king of patronage was trying to defend the Conservative record of patronage.
In the last election campaign, in his thirst for power, the Prime Minister was prepared to make any promise in order to secure political power. He promised the people of Canada that he would change the patronage system in Canada. Yesterday the Prime Minister said:
Patronage appointments have been part of the Canadian political system
since Confederation.
That is not what he told the people of Canada three and a half years ago. He hoodwinked the people of Canada. He tricked the people of Canada into believing that he would change things.
Once he came to power he proceeded to appoint every Tory hack, flack, and bagperson from one end of the country to the other. If you went to school with the Prime Minister, whether high school or university, you would get a political appointment.
The Prime Minister ought to be ashamed for hoodwinking the people of Canada three and a half years ago. They were fooled once, but they will not be fooled again.
* *
*



POLITICAL PARTIES


Mr. Gabriel Fontaine (Levis):: Mr. Speaker, the next election will be like the fable of the ant and the cricket. On one side we have the crickets who dance and sing and have fun in other people's gardens, who borrow and spend other people's money, like the Socialists and their allies in the next election, the Liberals.
On the other side, we have the ants who are industrious, thrifty and concerned about the present and the future, and they are the Conservatives.


Mr. Jacques Guilbault (Saint-Jacques):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question of the Secretary of State for External Affairs. We understand that he has been doing his best to downplay as much as possible the diplomatic storm between Canada and France.
Last Monday, in answer to a question in this House he went as far as to say, and I want to quote him precisely, that the negotiations on fisheries "have been continuing in an atmosphere of quite remarkable calm".

Since then I have been wondering where the Minister has been and who gave him the advice to stick his head in the sand.
Why have the Secretary of State for External Affairs and the Government allowed our relationship with France to deteriorate to such a level that France has withdrawn her Ambassador, and our own outgoing Ambassador and yet unelected Secretary of State had this to say:
It is serious. If we don't take care it could be very serious.
It is not a sport. We cannot go on like this-escalation must stop
somewhere.
Perhaps the Secretary of State for External Affairs can try to square that with what he calls "calm negotiations".


Right Hon. Joe Clark (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I was not sure that that question would end in time to allow me to answer in this Question Period.
I am happy to report to the House that the two negotiators in the fishery dispute, which is at the base of all of this, have been meeting today in Paris. They have had a very constructive and cordial meeting. They will be meeting again tonight and, if necessary, again tomorrow. As we have throughout the piece, if there are matters to report to the House, we will report them.


Jacques Guilbault: Mr. Speaker, the negotiators are meeting, but the atmosphere must be a stormy one.
Tuesday evening we were able to measure the extent to which relations between our two countries had cooled off when ex-Ambassador Bouchard gave a reception and none of the French ministers showed up. Canadians must have concluded that their ex-Ambassador's last tango in Paris was a solo affair.
I want to ask the Secretary of State for External Affairs what he intends to do to improve or rather to salvage relations between France and Canada before they deteriorate even further.


Charles Joseph Clark: 
Jacques Guilbault: Mr. Speaker, the unelected Secretary of State seems to know no more about
Oral Questions
negotiations between the French and Canadian negotiators than the Secretary of State for External Affaires. He was quoted as saying: "Our two countries have certain plans and they will try to carry out those plans and explore what might be a new avenue for negotiations".
I would like to ask the Minister what this new avenue is. What is its central theme? And when can Canadians expect to see this crisis resolved?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I notice the Hon. Member referred to an unelected Minister. If I am not mistaken, he himself had a Leader, a Prime Minister who was not elected .. .
I want to make it clear to the Hon. Member that we had discussions today in Paris through our two negotiators. As we indicated in the House, discussions centred on finding a way to deal with the basic issue through negotiation.


Jean-C. Lapierre: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister and in fact concerns the unelected Secretary of State.
Since the Prime Minister said in front of Rideau Hall that the Secretary of State would be responsible for ethics, how can the Prime Minister justify the fact that in order to find a riding for the Minister, the Prime Minister's Office offered the Hon. Member for Chicoutimi a job with an annual salary of $75,000 for ten years, in other words three-quarters of a million dollars to buy the Minister a riding; that, according to rumours, a judgeship is being offered to the Hon. Member for Vercheres; and that the Hon. Member for Langelier has put his seat on the auction block to get the Prime Minister's attention and maybe get a job as well? Is this the new ethics the Secretary of State wants to bring to Canada: Get in throught the backdoor of patronage?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of his question, the Hon. Member mentioned that the Prime Minister announced in front of Rideau Hall that the Secretary of State would be responsible for ethics. That is the first falsehood in his statement.
He starts his statement with a falsehood and finishes it with a falsehood. This has become his trade mark in this House. As a lawyer who is supposed to believe in the presumption of innocence, he is not enhancing his image. His behaviour has consistently been unworthy of this House and he is becoming a disgrace to the Parliament of Canada.

April 21, 1988
14694_______________________________________
Oral Questions PRIME MINISTER'S POSITION


Jean-C. Lapierre: Mr. Speaker, I have the feeling that I have hit on a sore subject with the Prime Minister.

Yesterday the Prime Minister was trying to say that there was no problem with his patronage appointments while at the same time his office is conducting a sleaze-bag operation to find a seat for the future Secretary of State.


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: I would ask the Hon. Member to restrain his language. I point out that historically this is not the first time that this particular way of bringing someone into the House of Commons has taken place. It has happened with both of the principal Parties in the history of our country.


Jean-C. Lapierre: Mr. Speaker, 1 ask the Prime Minister: Is this the new morality, using the taxpayers' money to find a seat for his friend from Paris?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, if I am not mistaken, he himself was co-chairman of the election campaign for someone who was not elected, Mr. Turner, who did not seek to become just a Member of Parliament or a Minister, but Prime Minister. You supported Mr. Turner's election as Prime Minister while he was still unelected. Prime Minister of Canada! he sat as Prime Minister without being elected. He was even Prime Minister and director of some Canadian corporations.
Now he is getting offended-you yourself had an unelected leader who, while he was Prime Minister of Canada, sat on the boards of the largest Canadian corporations. You are joking. You are misleading the House and that is why you are not taken seriously in Quebec.



SPACE DEVELOPMENT


Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-Walkerville):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister in lieu of the Minister of State for Science and Technology who was here a moment ago. It concerns the announcement to be made today that Canada has agreed to participate with the United States and others in the space platform. The Prime Minister will know that the cost has escalated from $800 million to $1.2
billion and there is quite a bit of concern that this increase in cost will be at the expense of other scientific endeavours in the country. I have two preliminary questions.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, Oh!


Mr. Crosbie:: Get to the point.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: First, is there any provision in connection with this agreement to ensure that the cost will not go beyond $1.2 billion now estimated? And where will the extra $400 million over and above the original estimate come from?


John Carnell Crosbie: From space.


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, both the Minister of Industry, Science and Technology and the Minister of State for Science and Technology are in the process of making this announcement. I think it is an announcement that all Canadians will welcome very much. It is a very positive announcement that will provide leading research and technical capability in the field of space for Canadians for future generations. I would hope the Hon. Member would applaud this initiative.



COST OF SPACE PROGRAM

Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, there is going to be an awful lot of Canadian money in orbit and Canadians want to know where that money is going to come from. It was a Cabinet decision to participate. My question is directed to the Prime Minister who promised there would be an additional $1.3 billion spent for fundamental research principally in the universities. I would like the Prime Minister's assurance now that the additional money for the space program will not come from that $1.3 billion, and some indication of where in fact the additional money for the space program is going to come from.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker-


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: Nuclear subs.


Mr. de Jong:: Are they going to send them into space, too?


An Hon. Member:: They are already in a black hole over there.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: Will you go?


Mr. Hnatyshyn:: A bunch of Gary Doers over there.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Well, there is the answer.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Well, it is clear, Mr. Speaker, that space has caused the entire caucus opposite to become spaced out, including the Prime Minister. We are not getting anything near a considered answer.
April 21, 1988



RESEARCH UNDERTAKEN IN UNIVERSITIES

[Stage Direction]
Mir. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-Walkerville): Mr. Speaker, I will repeat my question for the Prime Minister who made the promise. Is this to be another broken promise? Is the Prime Minister going to provide the $1.3 billion for the purposes for which he promised, or are we going to sneak some money away from the universities again for a project that, while everyone agrees is necessary, is in danger of affecting the entire Canadian scientific program?
Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I tried to answer my hon. friend a few seconds ago but I was prevented from doing so. I am happy to try again. We made the commitment in January at the National Conference on Science, Technology and Innovation in Toronto. Since that time I have had meetings with the Association of Canadian University Presidents. On Monday I chaired again a meeting of the National Advisory Board on Science and Technology.
This large increase of investment in science and technology will go the education route, in substantial measure. It will, with the blessing of the universities, go for the Canada Science Scholarships, which are a unique and important improvement in this area. There is a series of initiatives.
I should tell my hon. friend because this will please him, I think, that I met last Thursday at the University of Saskatchewan with leaders of the university research communities, the small and medium businessmen who interlock in the research and development field, all of whom expressed great satisfaction with the major commitment of the Government in the area of science and technology, plus the fact that much of this money is going to increase research at the universities. I know my hon. friend will want to applaud that initiative.



UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Employment and Immigration I address my question to the Prime Minister.
On March 28 I addressed a very serious problem to the then Minister of Employment and Immigration concerning the layoff of 350 workers at the Canada Packers plant, and the fact that unemployment insurance was given to the salaried workers but denied to the workers who were being paid on an hourly basis or who belonged to the union. At that time the Minister said that the Government would take immediate action. It is now close to four weeks ago and absolutely no action has been taken.
Oral Questions
Will the Prime Minister instruct his new Minister of Employment and Immigration to address immediately the serious inequity faced by those laid off workers at the Canada Packers plant, and ask for immediate redress so that they receive the same treatment as those who received salaries?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend raises a very important problem in regard to the employees at Canada Packers. I regret the absence of the Minister of Employment and Immigration from the House today. I will be in touch with her immediately to go through the matter raised by my hon. friend. I will report back to the House just as quickly as possible.



SITUATION OF OLDER WORKERS

Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Prime Minister's response. We will look forward within the next 24 to 36 hours for the action that he promises.
Along with the workers who are facing that inequity there are a number of older workers who are not being given any form of retirement benefits, even though the Government promised a similar type of program over a year ago. Has the Government now decided on a program for older workers? In particular, will that program be retroactive so that workers such as those at the Canada Packers plant who need early retirement benefits will be able to receive them because of the vacuum caused by the lack of government action in this very crucial area?


Hon. Pierre H. Cadieux (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform my hon. colleague that, assuming that the old program which was instituted by the former Government was still in place, those workers would not be indemnified by that particular program since it dealt with only four particular sectors, not including Canada Packers.
As announced in the 1986 Budget the POWA initiative is being negotiated now. As a matter of fact, there are negotiations ongoing right now with the Province of Manitoba.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



CANADA-UNITED STATES FREE TRADE AGREEMENT-FINANCIAL INSTITUTION'S REFUSAL TO RENEW LOANS

Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Right Hon. Prime Minister who will be sad to learn that the first victim of the trade deal has been identified. It is the Somer family of Kelowna, British Columbia, who a few days ago received from the financial institution with which they have been doing business for many, many years a letter that includes the following quote:

April 21, 1988
Oral Questions
If the Free Trade Agreement with the USA is implemented the grape industry in the Okanagan will be devastated. This is particularly unfortunate for your family-we have a responsibility to minimize risk in all loans we make.
With this in mind, we are unable to renew your loans-
That letter is signed by the Branch Manager of one of the financial institutions in the Okanagan Valley.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Name the institution.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Since the Prime Minister identified that there would be compensation packages for those who are hurt by the deal, and considering that this family will now be wiped out before the deal is actually in place, will the Prime Minister explain just what the compensation package will be and when the actual details will be made known?


John Wise: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Hon. Member's question. I have some fair and considerable degree of understanding and sympathy for the particular individual. The Hon. Member should take satisfaction in the fact that I convened a meeting with provincial representatives and a cross-section of the total industry, including producers, the wineries and so on, as early as December 4. Task forces both in B.C. and Ontario have held meetings at least every other week. They have presented me with their reports. We are having a detailed look at them. We should be in a position very shortly to make some recommendations to the Government.



REQUEST FOR COMPENSATION PACKAGE

Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister visited the interior of British Columbia last week. He will be interested to know that the individual involved in this case has indicated in a letter that his parents and himself will be losing their homes. His parents will be losing their retirement funds, and he will lose his job. He will lose his business, as well as his property. The employees that he employs will be laid off. In other words, he is going to lose everything that he and his family have worked for over many, many years in building up their vineyard in the Okanagan Valley.
I appreciate the Minister of Agriculture indicated that he is studying the matter and that he has received reports. This person's life is now about to come to an end in terms of providing for his family.
Can the Prime Minister be specific and indicate precisely when families such as the Somer family in the Okanagan Valley-and I am sure there are many others in the Okanagan Valley and other parts of Canada-will receive a specific compensation package as the Prime Minister promised?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend is quite right. I had the pleasure of spending time in British Columbia on Friday. In fact, I was in Kamloops where I passed on his warm regards to the voters.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: They never see him there.


Martin Brian Mulroney: They do not see him very often, Mr. Speaker.
My hon. friend raises a very serious matter. Unemployment is high in Kamloops, unacceptably high. When this Party was sworn in as a Government, unemployment in British Columbia was 15 per cent. We brought it down to 10 per cent provincewide, a decrease of one-third in three years. I think that is pretty good going. However, unemployment remains unacceptably high in Kamloops itself.
I had some excellent meetings with the Mayor of Kamloops and with other individuals. We agreed to examine proposals put forward to increase employment in Kamloops.


Nelson Andrew Riis: This guy wants to keep his farm. He does not want a job, he has a job.


Martin Brian Mulroney: My hon. friend raises the loss and the sadness in a given family, and I regret that a great deal. I will examine carefully the point that he raised.
I am really quite astonished by the letter from that financial institution. I would like to take a good look at it.
With regard to the dislocation, there is a committee established under the leadership of Jean de Grandpre which will be advising Parliament in regard to all new measures that should be taken. I ask my hon. friend to remember this. If there is dislocation in this particular family, and I regret it, he should also know that the Economic Council of Canada last week released a report which predicted 250,000 new jobs in Canada-


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Nelson Andrew Riis: This guy has lost his farm as of today.



PRESENCE IN THE GALLERY OF UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY

Mr. Speaker:: I wish to draw to the attention of Hon. Members the presence in the gallery of the Hon. James A. Baker, United States Secretary of the Treasury.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
April 21, 1988



CANADA-UNITED STATES FREE TRADE AGREEMENT-SITUATION OF OKANAGAN FAMILY

Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, the Government announced its trade deal with the United States last October.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Why after so many months is the Prime Minister unable to say in this House today exactly what it is going to do for the Somer family which will clearly lose its farm, its livelihood, and its well-being because of the Government's trade deal? After all the time he has had why can the Prime Minister not give a clear, definite, helpful, and meaningful answer today?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend knows full well that with respect to an individual case having been raised I am incapable of responding directly to how that might take place in six months or a year. It is an individual case, and I will work with the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap in regard to that individual case.
If the Hon. Member wants to deal with substantial issues, he should look at the one million new jobs that have been created and the 250,000 new ones that will be created under the free trade deal, including the 30,000 new jobs that will be created in British Columbia alone over and above the important job-creation statistics that are ongoing in Canada. He should be pleased and celebrating that great fact here in Canada.



ECONOMIC COUNCIL'S REPORT

Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, the Economic Council Report that he cited in his earlier response suggested that there would be far fewer jobs than the number he suggested, and I suggest that will continue.
That same report said that there had to be an adjustment program now to help those it admitted would be hurt by the Government's free trade deal.
Why has the Government failed to act on the advice of the very body it cites in support of its program? What is the use of talking about new jobs when it cannot point to the new jobs that it is going to give to even one family that will be hurt by the Government's trade deal?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, the very report that the hon. gentleman refers to was very positive and very supportive of the free trade agreement.
I am sure all Members in the House will be delighted today to see that Ontario Hydro in its assessment of the deal states: "free trade will be a boon to at least the six largest electricity consuming industries in the province", and "the proposed pact will add a further 3 per cent to gross provincial product" in Ontario "over the next decade".
Oral Questions
That is a very positive assessment by Ontario Hydro right in the central province of Canada. Why does the hon. gentleman not open his eyes, and not just concentrate on the negative? The positives far outweigh the negative effects of this arrangement.



TAX REFORM


Simon Leendert de Jong: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the Minister of Finance. I am sure the Minister is aware that yesterday the Government of Ontario raised provincial sales and personal income taxes. This follows a disturbing trend set by Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. All of these provincial Governments have, in the last few months, increased the sales and personal taxes of Canadians. Obviously, the Minister has failed to obtain consensus and co-operation from the provinces in regard to tax reform.
My question to the Minister is the following. Why did the Minister fail to anticipate this provincial tax grab, and why did he not secure provincial co-operation when he introduced tax reform?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I do not think it will come as any surprise to the Hon. Member if I say that I am quite disappointed in the actions of the Ontario Government in its Budget yesterday. I think that this goes contrary to the direction that we have set out in tax reform where we are trying to get tax rates down for Canadians right across the board. This runs counter to that.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: That's why it's not going to work.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: If the Hon. Member wishes to look behind the reasons for this, he will find that the reason for the tax increase is the very high level of government spending in the Province of Ontario. It has been running at 9.5 per cent for four years now.
I should remind the Hon. Member that if Governments would follow the same course of action that his Party recommends of increasing spending successively year in and year out, that is the sort of response that we are going to see.



EFFECT OF PROVINCIAL ACTIONS

Simon Leendert de Jong: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Minister of Finance. Hopefully, the Minister of Finance will also be in touch with Gary Lane, his colleague and friend in the Province of Saskatchewan. Because of his tax reform and what the Minister of Finance in Saskatchewan has done, the people of Saskatchewan are paying S22 million more in personal taxes. Obviously, Ontario residents face a net loss of some $286 million in tax savings.

April 21, 1988
Oral Questions
Will the Minister not admit today that he has failed in providing Canadians with fair tax reform? Will the Minister tell the House if he has been in contact with provincial Finance Ministers? If not, will he do so immediately and use his influence to find a solution to this disastrous situation? Canadian taxpayers are paying more and more every day.


John Carnell Crosbie: Take it up with the provinces.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: That's why your tax policy is not going to work. We have provinces.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I do not know what more I can add to the question that the Hon. Member has put to me. The Hon. Member should look at the province next door to him which has been labouring under the burden of an NDP Government for a number of years. Last year there was a tax hit comparable to what we saw yesterday in the Province of Ontario, a tax hit that was unprecedented.
The type of thing that we have to be cautious about in government is to control government spending; keep the rate of growth of government spending under reasonable control, as we have in the federal Government where government spending has grown at a rate of approximately 4 per cent per annum for the period of time that we have been in office. It is that type of spending discipline which is the answer to the questions that the Hon. Member is posing. That is how we can get taxes down.



FINANCE


Mr. Gabriel Desjardins (Temiscamingue):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance and concerns flowthrough shares, which are such an important issue for the Abitibi-Temiscamingue region. After his tax reform was tabled, the Minister of Finance said many times that he would monitor developments in the mining exploration industry very closely and that he would make the necessary changes as required.
Given the poor prospects for mineral exploration, the many consultations that the Department of Finance has had with the industry and various socio-economic interest groups and the many contradictory rumours going around the country, can the Minister tell the House today whether the consultations are over and whether he is considering the possibility of maintaining the present flow-through share regime at 133 1/3 per cent
after June 30, 1988; does he intend to make an announcement in the coming days?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I would first of all like to say that we have had many meetings with members of the industry and also members of Parliament for northern Canada and Quebec, my friend, the Hon. Member for Temiscamingue, and also others in the Province of Ontario. We had meetings to discuss the situation in the industry now, the situation after the stock market crash, after October 19, 1987, and I wish to say today that it will be possible in a few weeks to have a decision to rectify the situation. I realize that the situation is very important for my friend, the Hon. Member for Temiscamingue.



GOVERNMENT APPOINTMENTS


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the king of patronage, the Prime Minister-


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member will put his question.


Don Boudria: Yesterday, in making his "I don't get no respect" statement, the Prime Minister complained that the media pay too much attention to the wrong appointments, and that people forgot too quickly that the Prime Minister had appointed an Acadian and a francophone woman.
Does this mean that the Prime Minister now approves and still approves of the appointment of Jean Sirois, that he still likes Pierre Hardy's nomination, that he likes Gayle Christie's nomination to the board of directors of Air Canada, and that he likes the appointment of the two sons of the Minister for International Trade? Does he not at least repent for the appointment of Dalton Camp?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I would hope that my hon. friend would take the time to read the entire remarks yesterday, because I think that he might be interested in some of the facts. For example, when we became a Government, and I think that my hon. friend would applaud this, 15 per cent of the appointments of the Government of Canada to agencies, boards, and commissions were women. We have increased that in three years to 30.9 per cent, a 100 per cent increase.


John V. Nunziata: What about all your university buddies? What about all your friends?
April 21, 1988


Martin Brian Mulroney: We have increased the number of women to federal court positions by 59 per cent in three years, including the Supreme Court of Canada.


John V. Nunziata: You are full of it.


Martin Brian Mulroney: When I became Prime Minister there were two women ambassadors in the federal Public Service.


John V. Nunziata: You hoodwinked the people of Canada. You lied to them. You are lying.


Martin Brian Mulroney: There are now-


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member will please withdraw the comment that I just heard.


John V. Nunziata: I so do, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: I thank the Hon. Member.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Because my hon. friend raises an important question, the use of the appointment power to deal with minorities and to improve affirmative action for women, for example, which I have tried to do, my hon. friend will be happy to know that, when I became Prime Minister, 1 believe there were two or perhaps three women at the Deputy Minister rank; there are now 12 or 13, so there have been very important increases.
For example, I had the honour of appointing most recently a black as the first Public Service Commissioner in Ottawa, preceded by the appointment of a black as the Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario for the first time in history. This is very important for the nation. It is very important that these ladies and gentlemen of distinction across Canada be honoured, and this is one appropriate and, I think, effective use of the appointment procedures we have followed since we formed the Government. I know that my hon. friend would want to comment on that favourably.



LUCIEN BOUCHARD

Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I want to remind the Prime Minister of what he said on May 24, 1983: "There will be jobs for Liberals and NDPs too after I have been in power for 15 years and I can't find a living, breathing Tory left to appoint". Those are the facts that I want to bring to the attention of the Prime Minister.

1 would like to ask the Prime Minister how dare he take the information media to task while at the same time resorting to every known patronage scheme to find a seat for his friend Lucien Bouchard?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, indeed my hon. friend will allow me to make a few comments in French concerning this opportunity for appointments. In certain cases the federal Government has the power
Oral Questions
to make appointments. Within three years we doubled the number of women appointed to federal commissions and agencies, and I should think that is significant progress for the House and Canada as a whole. We appointed women to the Supreme Court. Listen, when I was sworn in as Prime Minister there were, if I am not mistaken, two women in ambassadorial posts here in Canada, and there are now 12 or 13. There were two or three deputy ministers, now there are 12 or 13. I had the honour to appoint a woman to the Supreme Court of Canada, and a black as Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario. Those were important appointments for the country which I think the Hon. Member ought to praise rather than criticize.



AIR TRANSPORT


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport. When Cosmos 954 crashed in northern Canada 10 years ago, only five grams or one-tenth of one per cent of the deadly radioactive U-235 cargo was recovered. Two U.S. military bombers have crashed carrying plutonium, and when plutonium was released in Greenland 20 years ago, the clean-up cost $300 million. When plutonium was similarly released in Palmares, Spain, the clean-up cost $500 million.
What steps has the Minister of Transport taken to evaluate the safety of an emergency landing or the impact of an accident on northern Canada from the plutonium overflights of the Arctic by Japan which can begin next Monday?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to note that the nature of the Hon. Member's question has been changed and that he is keeping up with the facts. His concern when he first raised this issue in the House was that there would be overflights over Canada. This Government took that concern very seriously, entered into discussions with Japan and the United States, and the agreement now is, as the Hon. Member will know, that if there is to be carriage of plutonium by air, it will not be over Canadian air space. We have secured that protection for Canadians.
The Hon. Member raises another important question that we are continuing to look into and will be discussing with the Governments of Japan and the United States, but I think it is time, for once in this House, that he give this Government credit for acting on an important concern and achieving results.

April 21, 1988
Oral Questions PLUTONIUM CONTAINERS


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Minister of the Environment. 1 have lived on the B.C. coast my whole life and have watched garbage dumped by Japan outside its territorial waters washing on to the coast of British Columbia for the past 20 years.
Since the safety containers for the transport of plutonium have failed the safety tests and no impact assessment has been done or filed, will the Minister of the Environment at least assure Canadians that a complete existing radioactive profile of the North will be conducted so that, should an accident occur, we will at least have a basis on which to perform the clean-up? If there is an accident, it is quite clear that that plutonium can and likely will enter Canadian territory.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I want to say this as gently as I can. The Hon. Member should adopt the practice of telling the whole truth in the House rather than being as selective as he is being. He should also resist the temptation to indulge in Japan bashing or in an attack upon other countries. That is not at all constructive.
I have told the Hon. Member that we are looking at all of the implications of potential flights through space that will not involve Canadian air space. The other point the House should know is that if plutonium is to be moved following current practices, by sea, that plutonium is subject to hijacking, subject to uses that can be extremely dangerous, not only to all Canadians but to-


James Ross Fulton: Planes are never hijacked, eh?


Charles Joseph Clark: -but to all of mankind. The Hon. Member asks if planes are never hijacked. The incidence of hijacking of cargo planes which are in question here is virtually zero. The Hon. Member knows that. He should stop trying to create false fears among Canadians.



MINORITIES


Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Right Hon. Prime Minister.
According to StatsCan data released yesterday, there has been a net regression in French outside Quebec, and if we read the information carefully, the fast rate of assimilation of a major group in our country makes it an endangered species.
I would like to ask the Prime Minister, considering the promise by the Premier of Saskatchewan to make Saskatchewan fully bilingual in fifteen years, how are we to reconcile the Premier's rather optimistic promise with this threat of assimilation?
How can he endorse and congratulate the Premier of Saskatchewan who is trying to evade the issue by having us believe that in fifteen years, Saskatchewan will be bilingual, although we know perfectly well that once there are no more Francophones in Saskatchewan, there is no way the province could be made bilingual?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member's question concerns two issues. First of all, there is the Supreme Court's decision, and I have made it clear what my position and that of the Government was in this respect. I think it is substantially that taken by the Hon. Member. The first item is the Supreme Court's decision.
The second is the future of the Fransaskois. I think that for the first time, the Government of a Western province has said fairly and squarely that it intends to make a province that is now officially unilingual into a bilingual province sometime in the future, by taking concrete action.
As Prime Minister of Canada, I feel I must congratulate the Leader of this government and be prepared to co-operate with him in order to implement this new initiative intended to help the Fransaskois who, like other language minorities across this country, have been left to their own resources for nearly 90 years. I think we all have work to do at both levels, and perhaps at a third level as well, to help this language minority in Saskatchewan, and to protect its rights and enhance its prospects for the future.



DEMANDS OF FRANSASKOIS-PRIME MINISTER'S POSITION

Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, the Fransaskois are not asking for the moon. Yesterday, they published their main demands, and I quote:
First, that the main documents of the Legislative Assembly be bilingual; second, that the laws passed in future-and I do mean the future, not old laws-be in both official languages; third, that French can be used in our courts-this seems an essential right to me-and fourth, the creation of an office of francophone affairs.
Is the Prime Minister in favour of, or in principle in agreement with, these very basic, essential demands? Is he prepared to put this into practice and support the Fransaskois in their demands that the province act today, not in 15 years, to show some respect to minority groups?


Martin Brian Mulroney: But, Mr. Speaker, I find the recommendations published yesterday fitting and appropriate. And I am doing my best with the Association des fransaskois and the Saskatchewan government to implement as many of them as possible for this linguistic minority.
The problem arises from the fact that this House has not cooperated on behalf of this minority for decades. There was complete silence from successive governments, leaving this francophone minority . . .
April 21, 1988


Some Hon. Members:: .. . he's a dinosaur!


Martin Brian Mulroney: . . . speaking of dinosaurs,. . . but it was mostly a Liberal government that was in power here in Ottawa, and unfortunately, as the Hon, Member for Ottawa- Vanier knows, successive governments here .. .


Mr. Speaker:: One question, the Hon. Member for Essex- Windsor.

Excise Tax Act
is not ready to do that, I will be happy to ask the Deputy Prime Minister to do so on his behalf.


Hon. Doug Lewis (Minister of State and Minister of State (Treasury Board)):: Mr. Speaker, this afternoon we will continue debate on Bill C-117, amendments to the Excise Tax Act. Tomorrow we expect to resume debate at second reading on Bill C-118 assuming we do not finish Bill C-117 today. Following that will be Bill C-l 10, the Trade Tribunal Act.
On Monday and through the rest of next week we will be dealing with Bill C-77, the Emergencies Act, C-74, the Environmental Protection Act, and possibly later on in the week, Bill C-l03, the Atlantic Opportunities Agency.



AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, Birla auto parts plant in Windsor has just been closed by its creditors, throwing 152 people out of work. A major cause, we have been told by officials of the Federal Business Development Bank, is the 10-cent increase in the value of the dollar over the last year.
Is the Minister of Finance finally prepared to admit that the increase in interest rates has been responsible for that increase in the value of our dollar and has killed this plant and thrown 152 people out of work?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I think the Hon. Member is drawing a very narrow conclusion about the cause of this situation. I have a good deal of sympathy for the people who work at that plant but if I were to be honest with them I would have to say that if that operation cannot make money with the dollar at the current level, there are other things wrong with it.
We have lived for a few years now with a dollar that was somewhat undervalued. That gave a new lease on life for some of those companies that were probably not competitive. However, we believe the level of the Canadian dollar reflects the strength of the Canadian economy and the increased level of activity here.
I should point out to the Hon. Member that in each of the last three or four months our trade surplus has increased so that we are demonstrating in a broad sense an ability to deal quite effectively with the level of the Canadian dollar at the position it is today.
* *
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BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, I would ask the Deputy Government House Leader to make a statement about the business he intends to call for the coming week. If he



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Tuesday, April 19, 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.
Mr. John Gormley (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity as a western Canadian to say a few words this afternoon about this Bill. While it is an Act to amend the Excise Tax Act and the Excise Act, in short a Bill to impose certain taxes, it is of significant importance to farmers across Canada, particularly many in western Canada.
There are a number of changes in this Bill, among which is an increase in the price of gasoline of 1 cent a litre. As Members will know, that increase took effect on April 1 despite the fact that this Bill had not been passed. However, until the Bill is passed the Government cannot rebate the 1 cent a litre tax on gasoline to prairie farmers.
Obviously a lot of us are very concerned about the small vendors who will sell gasoline products to farmers without charging the tax and then have to apply to Revenue Canada to get the rebate back to the dealer. We are similarly concerned about farmers who buy from very small retail dealers where the farmers apply for the rebate. The Bill is still in the House, it has not been sent to committee, and these small dealers are unable to claim the 1 cent rebate.
In western Canada it is a little drier than it usually is at this time of year and many farmers are making their plans for spring seeding. In fact, in many areas of the prairies, farmers are already actively working the land. This is a time when they consume a great deal of fuel. It is of significant concern to a lot of farmers that they must await passage of this Bill before they can claim their rebate.

April 21, 1988
Excise Tax Act
I know that while this Bill contains certain tax increases, and no Member of Parliament ever likes to argue in favour of tax increases, we do acknowledge that many of the revenueraising measures will fund reductions in personal income taxes and the increase in the child care tax credit which is part of tax reform. We see those tax increases as having some social value.
However, that brings us back to the concern 1 raised. I am very concerned on behalf of prairie farmers that because of the prolonged debate on this Bill their rebates are being delayed. I do not think that is acceptable, and for that reason I move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Edmonton South (Mr. Edwards) that:
The question be now put.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


John V. Nunziata: Madam Speaker, needless to say the Official Opposition is somewhat surprised at the move by the Hon. Member. He purports to move the motion because of his concern about the rebate of the excise tax which went into effect on April 1, 1988. Perhaps he has not taken the opportunity to read the legislation, so 1 will remind him that if you do not increase the tax there is no necessity to give a rebate.


John Kenneth Gormley: It took effect on April 1.


John V. Nunziata: You cannot speak out of both sides of your mouth. The Hon. Member says that these tax increases have social value. He went on to say that they have social merit. How strange for him to be making those comments about a Bill amending the Excise Tax Act, especially in view of the comments made by certain members of his Party prior to the last election.
We all remember that during that particular election campaign, the Finance Minister (Mr. Wilson) made certain comments and certain promises. 1 would like to remind you, Madam Speaker, Hon. Members in the House, and indeed all Canadians, of some of the comments made by the Finance Minister, the Member for Etobicoke Centre, and some comments made by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) himself.
For example, on March 6, 1984, when he was on this side of the House, the Finance Minister said:
We will reduce spending. We will refrain from increasing taxes, which are
already too high.
This was a promise made by the Hon. Member for Etobicoke Centre as a representative of the Conservative Party. He
promised the people of Canada that a Conservative Government would not increase taxes because taxes were already too high. What did the Conservative Government do from the moment it took office? Well, time is too short this afternoon to list all the taxes that have been implemented by the Government, but I would like to mention just a few.
In the February 1987 Budget there was a 12 per cent increase on snack foods and ice cream effective July 1, 1987. There was a 4 per cent increase in tax on cigarettes and tobacco effective February 19, 1987. There was a $4 per ticket increase in tax on air transport effective May 1, 1987, and August 1, 1987. There was an increase in sales tax on leaded and unleaded gasoline effective April 1, April Fool's Day, 1987. That was his February Budget, and we all remember that he said, "We will not raise taxes".
Let us look at some other tax measures implemented by the Government through the Minister of Finance, the June and December 1987 tax reforms. What did the Government do in those particular measures? There was a 10 per cent tax imposed on long distance telephone calls. When Canadians are paying their telephone bills and see that there is a 10 per cent tax, they should be reminded that this tax was introduced by the man who told Canadians that they were already paying too much in taxes, the guy who promised that he would not increase taxes.
Not only did he implement that tax in the June and December 1987 tax reform measures, he also increased the tax on paint and wallpaper from 8 per cent to 12 per cent. He increased the tax on alcohol and tobacco from 15 per cent to 18 per cent.
I am not criticizing the fact that Governments must at times raise taxes in order to meet expenditures. That is understandable as long as there is fairness and equity and the burden is equally shared among all segments of society. However, we on this side of the House take great exception to the fact that Members opposite seem to be speaking out of both sides of their mouths. What they say depends on whether they are in Government or in Opposition, whether they are speaking to a group in Ontario or a group in Prince Edward Island, or whether it is during an election campaign or it is said as Minister of Finance.
Let us look at another tax initiative introduced by the Minister of Finance. In the February 1988 Budget, he increased excise tax on motor fuels by 1 cent per litre. The list goes on, Madam Speaker, notwithstanding the Minister's promise not to increase taxes.
That was the Finance Minister. What did the Prime Minister have to say a few short years ago? On November 29, 1984, the Prime Minister said:
April 21, 1988

Canadians pay a good deal of money for government services and feel that
they are already paying quite enough.
That was a fair comment by the Prime Minister three and a half years ago. If he meant what he said on November 29, 1984-although his actions and those of his Government suggest that perhaps he did not really mean what he said- why did he allow his Finance Minister to introduce three or four Budgets resulting in substantial tax increases which hit low and middle-income earners more than higher income earners and corporations?
They made promises and they broke promises. These were not the only promises that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance made during that election campaign. We all know of the many promises they made and the many promises they have broken. During the election campaign three and a half years ago they also promised to share the tax burden across the board and reduce personal income tax. Let us examine the record of the Government vis-a-vis its Budgets over the last three and a half years and the increase in taxation.
In terms of budget revenues, from fiscal year 1984-85 to fiscal year 1988-89 personal income taxes were increased by a total of $15.1 billion, a 55 per cent increase. Compare that, if you will, to the increase in the corporate income tax. In fiscal year 1984-85 the increase was $9.4 billion, and in fiscal year 1988-89 it will be $12 billion, an increase of 28 per cent or $2.6 billion. A 28 per cent increase in corporate income taxes and a 55 per cent increase in personal income taxes hardly seems fair, not only because of the promises made by the Government during the election campaign, but also because of comments made by the Government throughout the last three and a half years. One questions the fairness and equity in increasing personal income taxes by 55 per cent and increasing corporate taxes by only 28 per cent. One can see from these figures that the increases have not been fair across the board.
In moving his motion the Member indicated that the excise tax increase on gasoline which went into effect on April 1, 1988, was of social value and social merit. The reason for moving his motion was to allow the rebate to be made to the farmers in western Canada more quickly. However, he does not tell the farmers in western Canada that the rebate is only given because of the tax increase itself. If he was truly concerned about the farmers in western Canada he would not vote for this particular measure which increases the tax not only on gasoline but on a number of other products and goods.
As I indicated, Bill C-117, an Act to amend the Excise Tax Act and the Excise Act is a rather lengthy Bill of 70 or 80 pages which contains a number of measures which would give lawful authority to some of the tax measures which were announced in the 1987 and 1988 Budgets and in the tax reform Ways and Means motions of June and December, 1987. Most of the main revenue- raising items in this piece of legislation have already been implemented, with the exception of one or two items. These revenue-raising items are some of the tools used by the Government to create its smoke and mirrors illusion. We know that during the election campaign
Excise Tax Act
the Conservative Party promised the people of Canada that they would reduce the deficit. That is fair enough, but one would have hoped and expected that the Government would have decreased the deficit by honest means.
I submit that it has used the smoke and mirrors illusion to lead the Canadians into believing that the deficit has in fact been decreased. The fact is that it has used certain measures not only at the expense of the average Canadian's wallet, but has used certain accounting techniques to reduce the deficit simply on paper.
I want to talk very briefly about the acceleration of federal excise and tax remittances and the manufacturers' sales tax. The Government has used the acceleration of federal sales tax and excise tax remittances as a method to have people believe that the $29.3 billion deficit the Government has been speaking about is lower than it actually is.
It bears repeating that one of the ways this illusion was created was with the use of accounting tricks such as the acceleration of federal sales and excise tax remittances. Canadian employers, who must deduct income tax, unemployment insurance premiums and Canada Pension Plan contributions from their employees and remit these deductions to the Government, have been required to do this more often since 1987. In effect, rather than remitting the federal income tax, Canada Pension Plan contribution and unemployment insurance contribution once a month, the Government has required the employers in Canada to remit them more often. In effect, it is getting money a little earlier than it otherwise would have received it and thereby affecting the cash flow of a lot of small businesses across the country. It does not represent an actual decrease in the deficit but is a trick to lead Canadians into believing the deficit is that much lower. It is only delaying an increase in the deficit.
In January, 1987, employers were remitting once a month. Now they are remitting twice a month. This gave the Government a one time only increase in revenue of $1.6 billion.
The Government then told employers to remit the deductions weekly, resulting in another increase in revenue for the Government. Due to the fact that the payroll deductions based on the new tax rates will not begin until July this year, the Government gives itself a six-month interest-free loan for this year, amounting to about $1 billion. That is another trick used by the Government to have Canadians believe the deficit is lower than it actually is.
The manufacturers' sales tax was dubbed by the Hon. Member for Etobicoke Centre, the Minister of Finance, as "the silent killer of jobs". Between October 1, 1984, and April 1, 1986, this tax increased from 9 per cent to 12 per cent because of his tax measures, notwithstanding the concerns he expressed when he was a member of the Opposition. This particular tax increase resulted in a $3 billion gain to the Government.

April 21, 1988
Excise Tax Act
Manufacturers, too, are being required to remit this tax earlier, sometimes even before they have collected the tax from sales.
The Government continues to tinker with this tax, apply it to more goods, broaden the base, and increase the rates. Evidently, this will continue because the national sales tax with which the Government was going to replace it will not be presented before the next election.
The Government said in 1984 that it would not raise taxes, but it has proceeded to do so. Canadians take great exception to the fact that these tax increases have not been fair across the board. We all remember the first Budget that was handed down by the Minister of Finance in the spring of 1985, shortly after the election campaign. That was the Budget in which the Government tried to deindex senior citizens' pensions.
Who will forget the election campaign in the summer of 1984 when the Prime Minister referred to senior citizens' pensions as "a sacred trust"?
Canadians took him at his word, but when he came to office and the Minister of Finance brought down his first Budget, he tried to deindex senior citizens' pensions. The Government tried to reduce the deficit on the backs of senior citizens in Canada, thousands of whom are at or near the poverty line. The House will recall that in the very same Budget the Government gave a $500,000 capital gains exemption to the wealthy in society. In effect, it was a pure out and out gift of $125,000 to the wealthy in society.


Don Boudria: To their friends.


John V. Nunziata: To the Bay Street boys who support the Prime Minister.
I have outlined some of the income tax increases implemented by the Government. It has also used a number of other tricks to try to reduce the deficit. If it were not for the Opposition in the House of Commons and senior citizens from one coast to the other, that measure to deindex senior citizens' pensions would have been implemented. Because of the Opposition, the Minister of Finance and the Government were forced to back down. However, they did not back down from the deindexing of family allowances, personal credits and income tax tables. The Government proceeded with those measures by tricking Canadians. Rather than increasing taxes directly in this regard, it raised $635 million by deindexing some measures that Canadians have had as part of their income tax system for a number of years. These were measures that were meant to protect Canadian taxpayers from the ravages of inflation.
Other measures introduced by the Government include the elimination of the tax abatement, effective January 1, 1986, which was intended to raise $650 million. There was the elimination of the Registered Home Ownership Savings Plan, which was a very successful plan that was implemented by the previous Liberal administration. That plan was used by
thousands of Canadians in order to assist them in purchasing their first home. It was obliterated by the Government, effective May 27, 1985. By so doing, it saved $105 million.
The Government also put a temporary surtax on high-income earners of 5 per cent and 10 per cent, effective July 1,
1985,	to December 31, 1986. However, it slapped on top of that a permanent 3 per cent surtax on all taxpayers, including low-income earners.
It also implemented changes in the tax treatment of dividend income. Those tax changes were effective January 1,
1986.	It also changed spousal exemptions, which took effect January 1, 1986, to save the Government $20 billion.
In closing let me say that the Government has been somewhat less than forthright and honest with the people of Canada. As I indicated, promises were made and promises were broken. We in the Opposition have attempted to remind Canadians of those broken promises by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance with regard to taxation. It seems to me it is not too much to ask of politicians to follow through on their promises, although it might be too much to ask of Conservative politicians.


Simon Leendert de Jong: Madam Speaker, it was with interest that I listened to the comments of the Hon. Member for York South-Weston (Mr. Nunziata). Indeed, the Member made some excellent points in this debate, especially in relation to the aggressiveness of the sales tax and how the Conservative Party, since being elected in 1984, has increased the tax burden on average Canadian families, particularly the middle and lower income earners.
I was dismayed, however, with respect to the Budget introduced last night in Queen's Park. I would have thought that the Liberal Party in Ontario would at least sing from the same hymn book as the Liberal Party in the House of Commons. The Liberal Party in Ontario has increased the sales tax by 1 per cent, from 7 per cent to 8 per cent. It also increased income tax by one point with another point increase next year.
The Ontario taxpayer would have been paying $450 million less because of the tax reform proposals. Now it will only be saving $164 million. What we are finding is that the provinces have been increasing their taxes, the tax rates have been going up, while the federal tax rate has in fact gone down because of tax reform, but at the same time the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) reduced the federal tax rates, he made up for it by increasing the sales tax. Now the provinces are increasing their part of the income tax rate as well as increasing their sales tax, so really what is happening is the poor taxpayers caught between provincial Finance Ministers and the federal Minister of Finance are being picked clean. I wonder if the Hon. Member would want to comment on what happened in Ontario last night.
April 21, 1988


John V. Nunziata: 1 would be pleased to comment, Madam Speaker. As the Hon. Member knows, all the provinces in Canada are suffering as a result of the tax measures introduced by this Government. Provincial governments have found themselves in the last several years with less revenue from the federal Government under the Established Programs Financing Act. This federal Government has reduced the transfer payments which would otherwise have gone to the provinces, including Ontario, which was especially hard hit by these drastic decreases in federal transfer payments for education and health care.
Billions and billions of dollars have not been transferred to the provinces because of the Government's tax measures, so the Province of Ontario was put in a position where it had to increase certain taxes. I would certainly ask the Hon. Member to understand some of the reasons certain tax measures were necessary in the Province of Ontario and also to examine that particular Budget as a package to see how the Government of Ontario has effectively assisted those low and middle income earners, more so than the wealthier in society.
The Hon. Member also has to consider some of the expenditures announced in that particular Budget. For example, I am sure he agrees with the increase of $300 million for education in the Province of Ontario. When one looks at the tax measures introduced in the Budget, one also has to look at the expenditures. It would be my respectful submission that the Budget handed down by the Treasurer of the Province of Ontario is a fair and equitable Budget, unlike the Budgets handed down by this Government.


Don Boudria: Madam Speaker, first, I want to congratulate the Hon. Member for York South-Weston (Mr. Nunziata) for having made a very thoughtful and well reasoned speech in the House of Commons today. The Member will know, as I do, that the free trade agreement has been well advertised by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) as having one very worthwhile redeeming feature, if nothing else was good about it. According to the Prime Minister, this particular free trade agreement would result in lower tariffs. Therefore, when Canadians purchase goods made in the United States of America, presumably these goods would be cheaper. However, the last Budget brought down by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson), supported by his Prime Minister, presented to Canadians an increase in the price of gasoline. There was an equal reduction in the amount of revenues generated by tariffs on products imported into Canada. That leads me to believe that in fact what we have done is increased the price of gasoline to pay for the reduction of tariffs.
Would my colleague not agree that that being the case, this so-called free trade deal can be considered anything but free, particularly because what we have allegedly saved in the right hand we will now be paying out from the left hand? Is it not a little less than honest of the Government to pretend that Canadians will be saving money because of free trade when such is not the case?


John V. Nunziata: Madam Speaker, there is no doubt at all that Canadians will be made to pay for the so-called free trade agreement. As my colleague pointed out, it is really not a
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"free" trade agreement. Canadians are receiving nothing for free. They in fact will have to pay for this pet project of the Prime Minister, if ever this particular agreement is ratified by Parliament.
It was hidden in the last Budget handed down by the federal Government. It was not something the Minister of Finance stood up and spoke about. It was tucked away in the many documents given to us when the budget was handed down. Tucked away was the fact that lower tariffs would result in lower revenues for the Government. Just by some strange coincidence, or what might appear to be a strange coincidence, the amount of dollars the Canadian Government would not receive because of the reduction in tariffs happens to be exactly the same amount Canadians would be asked to pay through the increase in the price of gasoline. That might appear to some to be coincidental, but I am sure the Minister of Finance and his colleagues sat around the cabinet table and asked themselves: "We are not going to get as much money as we otherwise might get without free trade. It is going to cost us. Let's stick it to Canadians through the Excise Tax Act by increasing the price of gasoline".
I hope the Hon. Member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake will remind his constituents, his farmers, that it is because of the free trade agreement that the excise tax on gasoline has increased. Had it not been for the free trade agreement with the United States, this particular tax increase might not have been necessary, in which case there would be no need to provide a rebate.
In reply to the question put by my hon. colleague, the Hon. Member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria), who always asks direct and forthright questions, yes, the bottom line is that this particular Bill, Bill C-117, which provides amendments to the Excise Tax Act and the Excise Act, has some ramifications so far as the free trade agreement with the United States is concerned.


Simon Leendert de Jong: Madam Speaker, I too wish to participate in this debate this afternoon. The Hon. Member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake (Mr. Gormley) has introduced a motion which states that the question be now put with respect to Bill C-117. This certainly gives me another opportunity to make some comments on the Bill.
When I think of all the manoeuvres taken by the present Conservative Government in the area of taxation, Bill C-117 clearly indicates the record of the Government. In many ways the Conservative Party and its Government make claims that they have reduced the taxes of large numbers of Canadians through tax reform, a piece of legislation which we have yet to see. The fact is that many of those dollars that Canadians will get back in terms of reduced tax rates because of tax reform the Government has already taken back through increasing the sales tax.

April 21, 1988
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To unscrupulous politicians the sales tax is a beautiful tax. It is a tax that is hardly noticed. It is the nickel and diming tax. It is the tax that one pays every time one buys a chocolate bar. So many cents go to the federal Government because of the federal sales tax that the Conservative Party slapped on kids' chocolate bars, soft drinks and popsicles. Every time they go to the corner store to spend part of their allowance on a popsicle they, too, will be helping to reduce the national deficit so to speak. They, too, will be paying part of their allowance to the federal Treasury in terms of taxes on popsicles, soft drinks, chocolate bars and ice cream cones.
People who have pets will be contributing to the national coffers when they go to buy pet food or kitty litter. The Government has imposed as well a sales tax on cat food, dog food, canary feed, cat litter and so forth. The kid who goes out to buy himself or herself a kite or a model airplane will be contributing to the national coffers since the Government has decided to tax those items as well.
Those who live in rural and remote communities and who have to place long distance telephone calls to their friends or family in the town next to them will also be paying new taxes, thus adding to the federal coffers. One move the Government has taken is with respect to slapping on a 10 per cent tax on communications. I will have more to say about that later on in my speech.
What we have is a Government that on the one hand is claiming to have reduced personal income tax rates while on the other because of tax reform, it is taking almost all of that back as a result of increasing the sales tax, the hidden tax, the sneaky tax as I call it.
Even the claim that the Government has made that it has reduced income taxes on the vast majority of Canadians is something that also has to be taken into context. When we compare what those Canadians will be paying after tax reform we see that it will still be more than what they were paying before the Tories came into power.
When the Tories claim that they reduced taxes and the number of people on the tax rolls, they do not compare it with 1984 when they were elected. They just compare it to the previous year. Thus what we have is the Tories coming into power in 1984 and every year that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) has stood up on budget day we have seen different tax increases. In fact, Canadians did not even have to wait for budget night to find tax increases. They also found them every other time the Minister of Finance stood up to make an economic statement. Invariably, he took the opportunity to slap another tax on the taxpayers of Canada.
What we find in terms of the Tory record starting from 1984 is steady tax increases every year. Let me read into the record what some of those are. The main revenue raising item in the Bill before us is a 10 per cent tax on telecommunications services, such as telephone and telex services but not including charges for local residential telephone lines. That measure was announced in the June, 1987, White Paper.
As I mentioned before, this tax discriminates against people in northern and remote communities as well as in rural communities. There are parts in my constituency of Regina
East in which people pay long distance rates to call their doctor who might live in the town next to them. These people will be charged 10 per cent on those calls. It is a charge that people living in urban centres will not have to pay. Surely, the strength of this country is also its rural areas. We have a vast country, and in many ways it is underpopulated. Surely, it should be government policy to encourage people to live in our rural areas, the small towns, villages and hamlets of Canada. Instead, what we find when sales taxes such as the telecommunications tax are imposed is that people who live, in our small towns, our hamlets and our villages are being penalized.
The same can also be said for the many increases the Government has introduced on the gasoline tax. Let us consider that history.
In 1984, the economic statement increased the price of oil and gas which meant $100 extra would be paid per year by the average family. As well, in November of 1984, after barely two months in office, the Government introduced sales tax increases and other increases, such as increases in the unemployment insurance premium, which totalled an increase for the average Canadian family of some $352 per year. Then, a few months later, on May 23, 1985, the Minister of Finance brought down his first Budget. It contained various tax measures which meant that the average taxpayer after that day ended up paying some $512.50 more in taxes. Thus we had to pay $352 more in taxes in November, 1984.
In May of 1985 we saw a further increase in taxes of $512.50. As well in that statement we saw that the gas tax was increased. A few months later, on June 27, 1985, before the parliamentary break for summer, the Minister of Finance rose in the House to increase again the taxes that Canadian taxpayers would be paying. That day cost the average Canadian family some $340 in extra taxes per year. Again, there was a 1 per cent increase on gasoline.
A few months later, on February 18, 1987, the Minister of Finance introduced a Budget. There was again a further tax increase on gasoline, as well as increases in the sales tax, cigarette tax and so forth. That day cost the average family some $65 to $100 extra in taxes per year.
We also find that not too long ago, on February 10 of this year, the Minister of Finance stood in the House to increase the tax on gasoline by one cent per litre. That cost the average Canadian family some $50.
In every one of his economic statements or Budgets the Minister of Finance has increased the tax on gasoline. That discriminates against my rural constituents. People who live in the rural areas of Canada and who need to drive their cars longer distances to go to visit their dentist, to go shopping or to visit family will be paying more in taxes than Canadians living in larger urban centres. The tax on communications and the tax on gasoline is a direct disservice and a disincentive for Canadians who live in the rural areas of this great country of ours. It is darn poor policy planning on the part of the Government, and it is a crime what it is doing to the rural areas of Canada.
April 21, 1988

There is another aspect of the increase in sales taxes that should be mentioned in this debate. That is the effect that the Tory tax increases have had on inflation. It is common sense that as the tax is increased on goods and services, the price is increased that Canadians have to pay, and inflation is increased. Last year there was an inflation rate of some 4 per cent. If the Tory Government had not introduced all of the sales tax increases, that inflation rate would be closer to 2 per cent. A 2 per cent inflation rate is an acceptable inflation rate.
With an inflation rate of 2 per cent, interest rates could be reduced. A true inflation rate of 2 per cent would justify a 1 per cent drop in interest rates. A 1 per cent drop in interest rates would help young families struggling to get by and paying off their mortgage month after month. It would make life a little easier for them. It would give them a little more disposable income that they could spend on other goods and services, for example, going to the family restaurant on a weekend which, in turn, perhaps would allow the restaurateur to hire an extra waitress and create more employment.
A drop of 1 per cent in the interest rate would have a tremendous benefit on many farmers who live in my constituency. It would give them some relief on the payments that they have to make to service their farm debt. A decrease in the interest rates charged would have an economic benefit throughout the country.
The Minister of Finance and the Governor of the Bank of Canada have rejected our appeals for lower interest rates, appeals called for by various provincial Premiers, economic advisory bodies, and some of the banks. The Minister of Finance has told us in the House that it is bad economics to lower the interest rate because it would be inflationary. The Minister of Finance has stated that as long as inflation is at 4 per cent we cannot afford to drop that interest rate. I would suggest that if we are really interested in dropping the inflationary rate, then let us get rid of some of the sales taxes that have increased the inflation rate. In fact, the major reason that we have inflation in this country is because of the increases in the sales tax.
The other aspect that I wish to touch upon in this debate is the interrelationship between the sales tax increases and free trade. I noted that the spokesperson from the Liberal Party also made mention of this fact. When the Minister of Finance presented the Budget in February of this year, we again saw an increase in the sales tax on gasoline. Further on in the documents we noted the Minister stating that the Canadian public would save somewhere in the order of $300 million to $400 million because of the reduction in tariffs that would occur starting in 1989.
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When one looks at the number given by the Minister for the reduction in public revenues because of the elimination of certain tariffs, it is approximately the same as the revenue the Government was going to gather by increasing the sales taxes. That said it all. Under the free trade agreement we will see a certain reduction in some of the tariff items, which means decreased government revenues. The Government gave notice in the February Budget that those savings that Canadians will enjoy because of this agreement will be paid back to the federal Treasury in increased sales taxes. I submit that that is dishonest.
Let the Government at least be honest and state that while there will be a reduction in prices because of the elimination of some tariffs, the federal Treasury cannot afford the loss of that revenue and, therefore, it will be collecting it back from Canadians by increasing the sales tax, income tax, or by whatever means. But at least be honest. Do not play games with the people of Canada. They are tired of governments that promise one thing and say one thing and do the exact opposite. They want honest government that is up front.
If the Government can demonstrate that those revenues are needed, that it has done everything it can to reduce government waste and duplication, and that it is not in the pork barrel and squandering money on its friends and chums, then I think that the Canadian people would be prepared to accept hard economic reality and would be willing to put their shoulder to the wheel in a national effort to reduce the deficit.
Canadians get very angry when they find that games are being played on them, and with sleight of hand tricks that attempt to snatch an extra dollar out of their pockets; when they see patronage appointments and the squandering of public money; when they see that the burden of reducing the deficit is not properly and fairly shared, that the well-to-do and the large corporations are not paying their fair share. In fact, in many instances the large profitable corporations are not paying a cent of tax. I think that Canadians are angry and disgusted, and they have had enough with this Government.
Despite the promises of open, clean, and fair Government that the Tories made in the 1984 election, we have seen the Tories, as we saw the previous Liberal administration, with their snouts in the barrel or trough looking after their pals and their friends. There has been the continuation of an unfair tax system that benefits the rich and the well-to-do and fleeces the middle income earner, the low income earner, and the poor of this country.
That is why it is with pleasure that I participate in this debate today and urge the House to defeat the motion, and later to defeat the Bill itself.

April 21, 1988
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Mr. White:: Madam Speaker, I have sat in the House for three and half years now and during all that time I have heard Members of the NDP sanctimoniously tell us that they have all the answers. There may be some people in Canada who believe some of the things that the NDP are saying. We in Manitoba have been able to judge the NDP by their actions as a government. Very briefly, I want to mention a couple of points.
The Hon. Member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin) spoke about squandering of public money. In the past seven years, government expenditures were up 87 per cent in Manitoba. The debt has doubled, and 60 per cent of that is owed to foreigners.
What about taxes? In the past 12 months, there has been one of the largest tax grabs in Manitoba's history. The increased sales tax affects everyone. In the past 12 months, taxes to the middle class have increased in the neighbourhood of 25 per cent. There is a payroll tax of 2.25 per cent in Manitoba. Every employer in the province must pay 2.25 per cent on gross payroll. I call it an employment tax, the Manitoba Government calls it a payroll tax.
The Hon. Member talks of dishonesty. I would like him to tell me how he rationalizes what the NDP says about things like that and what it does when it is in Government.


Simon Leendert de Jong: Madam Speaker, I certainly thank the Hon. Member for the points he has raised. First, though, the Hon. Member neglected to mention the debt rate the NDP inherited from the previous Tory Government, left by the squandering of money and the inefficient programs that were undertaken in Manitoba at that time.
To be sure, Manitoba has gone through a rough period and continues to go through a rough period. The Government there made a decision to attempt to maintain a satisfactory level of employment and has conducted economic programs that have cost money.
I noted that in the Hon. Member's question he did not make any suggestion as to what programs the Manitoba provincial Government should have cut. I wish he would also look at the situation in the Province of Saskatchewan where there has been a Tory Government since 1982. That Government inherited a public treasury with a surplus, and it had been running with a surplus for years. Since that Government was elected, the Saskatchewan Tories have driven that province so far into debt that Saskatchewan now has the highest per capita debt in Canada, thanks to a Tory Government.
I could list a whole ream of programs that Government introduced that have been wasteful and have squandered public money. That Government continues to do that. Let me give you several examples of this, as so many come to mind.
Seeing that it was in some political difficulty, the Government of Saskatchewan made a very strategic decision to buy its re-election during the last provincial election of 1986. One
of the things it did was to offer every farmer in Saskatchewan $25 an acre at 6 per cent interest, whether they needed it or not, whether they were in difficulty or not, whether they farmed their land or not. The program was universal. Everyone got it and everyone took it.
We now hear of cases of people who did not need the money but took the $25 an acre at 6 per cent interest, turned it around and reinvested it at 10 per cent, 11 per cent or 12 per cent. They made themselves a tidy sum of money. That whole program cost the public treasury some $1 billion.
Now the Tories are trying to collect this money back. Of course, the farm situation has not improved. There are many farmers who are worse off today than they were when they got the $25 an acre. They are in no position to start paying that money back.
Now the Government of Saskatchewan is starting to patch together some programs. It is attempting in all sorts of ways to get this money back. Of course, it is creating divisions within the communities. The provincial Government might very well be in a position of having to force some farmers into bankruptcy just to try to get this money back.
That was a very irresponsible program, a program that was badly designed and badly thought out from a public administration point of view. Of course, that program's entire reason for being was the re-election of the Devine Government, and it was willing to spend $1 billion on it, increasing the public debt in Saskatchewan by $1 billion.
I see that the Minister of the Environment (Mr. McMillan) is leaving. The Minister knows, as I pointed out in the House earlier this week-I am sorry, I should not mention that the Minister of the Environment is present or is not present. In any event, I mentioned to the Minister earlier this week the project the Government of Saskatchewan wants to undertake. It wants to build a dam on the Souris River, a dam that will cost over $1.5 billion. This will create employment in the Town of Estevan in the Premier's riding, but that dam will depend entirely on run-off. It will create electricity that is more expensive than the electricity that can be bought from Manitoba or even from North Dakota. It makes no economic sense whatsoever, and environmentally, it is the most foolish idea. That is one of the driest parts of the province.
I understand that it was in 1912 when the water levels of the Souris River were first measured. Had the construction of that dam been finished in 1912, that body of water would not have filled up sufficiently to allow the generation of electricity until 1942. That is how much run-off water exists in that part of the province. Yet Mr. Devine is prepared to squander $1.5 billion of the money of Saskatchewan taxpayers just to ensure his reelection in his constituency of Estevan. That, I would suggest, is irresponsible public behaviour on the part of the Tory Government of the Province of Saskatchewan, and it is totally reprehensible.
April 21, 1988


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I would like to advise all Hon. Members that the first eight hours of debate on this Bill have now expired. From now on, speeches will be 10 minutes long, and there will be no period of questions or comments.


Mr. Jim Hawkes (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Privy Council):: Madam Speaker, this Bill has been before Parliament for quite a while. It was preceded by a White Paper. It deals with the Government's tax reform package. It is time it go to committee, and I hope today will be the day because farmers need their rebates. Therefore, I move:
That the House continue to sit beyond the ordinary hour of daily
adjournment for the purpose of continuing consideration of Bill C-l 17, an Act
to amend the Excise Tax Act and the Excise Act.


Mr. Foster:: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point or order. I do not think, since this is a tax measure, that the Hon. Member should introduce such a motion at this time. Surely this is an important matter involving billions of dollars in taxes. Surely it requires a full and complete debate, and the Government ought not to try to choke off debate on this matter today. The matter involves all kinds of sales taxes, taxes that are regressive in nature, and the debate should not be choked off in this manner by this kind of a tactic on the part of the Government.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The motion is in order. The House has heard the terms of the motion moved by the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?
And fewer than 15 Members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: There not being 15 Members rising in objection to the motion, pursuant to Standing Order 9(4)(b), the motion is deemed to be carried.


Simon Leendert de Jong: Madam Speaker, is this not a debatable motion as well?


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: No, it is not.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Madam Speaker, it is obvious that the Tories do not want to hear about the tragic way in which they are trying to hoodwink Canadians. This legislation is typical Tory. It hits the poor, the weak, and the low income earner. Those with high incomes benefit. People like the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) and the Minister of State for Forestry and Mines (Mr. Merrithew) have high salaries, so they have the big advantage. It is the poor ordinary Canadian, those who work in Canada's forest industry, the small entrepreneurs hauling wood in northern Ontario or northern New Brunswick, who are hurt by this legislation. All of these tax reform measures introduced by the Government are regressive in nature. The income tax rates have been pushed down, but who does that help? Mainly those in the upper income bracket.
On the CTV program Question Period in the spring of 1984 the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) said he would not have
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to increase taxes. He said he would be able to solve any deficit problem simply by cutting expenditures. He certainly did that. He cut everything in sight, from old age pensions to the deindexation of tax rates, research in agriculture, and he increased service charges. He did so in a dramatically more regressive way than any other Minister of Finance in history. The personal tax increases put in place between September 4, 1984, and the spring of 1987 represent the largest increase at any time in our history.
However, this is all part of a grand scheme. It is designed to hit hard early in the mandate of the Government and then give back a pittance toward the end. The Government has not got around to giving back the pittance, but we are told that a reduction in income taxes for the average Canadian of about $100 or $150 will take place around the end of July of this year.
It is interesting that the Government has been unable to reduce the deficit by any significant amount. The projected deficit was $30 billion and it is still $30 billion, yet over that period of time the Government increased personal income taxes by 16 per cent or some $22 billion.
It is not only the amount of taxes which is horrendous, it is the type of taxes. It is the senior citizen going to the drugstore to buy a non-prescription drug who will pay an extra 12 per cent. This adds up to $950 million on all prescription drugs. Then we have gasoline. If you live in western Canada or northern Canada where you have to drive maybe 60 or 100 miles to do your shopping or obtain health care or see a lawyer or whatever, you have to pay an extra 4 cents a litre for your gas. That is almost 20 cents a gallon. The Clark Government in 1979 increased the tax by only 18 cents a gallon and it was driven out after nine months. You can imagine what is going to happen to the present Government after four years and a 20 cent a gallon increase in gasoline taxes.
We also have to deal with the extremely regressive nature of these taxes. The increase in the sales tax alone amounts to 25 per cent. If you bought a television for $1,000 in 1984, you paid a $90 tax. Today you will pay $120 tax on that same item. That is just for openers. The Government has not revealed what its new super-duper sales tax is going to be. We hear snatches here and there of how it is going to work. For example, yesterday the Canadian Real Estate Board met here in Ottawa. One of its members described how the tax is going to work on a family buying a new home.
We read today how housing prices, especially in the area around Toronto, are going up dramatically. Let us say you buy a home for $100,000. The builder has paid perhaps $50,000 for materials. Under the proposed super-duper sales tax which the Minister of Finance forecast in his tax reform, if it is 10 per cent you will be paying a tax of $10,000 because you will be paying tax not only on the materials but also on the labour as well.

April 21, 1988
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We have to look at the approach the Government has used to justify the tremendous tax increases in every direction. Not only has it dramatically increased taxes, it has used every possible trick in the book to make its Budgets look great. It does not look that great to Canadians but it would look a lot worse, certainly to the Government's friends on Bay Street in Toronto, if it did not use all these tricks. For example, it sold Teleglobe, one of the very profitable Crown corporations and entered the money it received in last year's Budget projections to pull the deficit below $30 billion. As well, it speeded up the remittance of income tax, Canada pension and unemployment insurance remittances employers have to make, thereby giving itself a one-time windfall of about $1.5 billion. Little beknown to most Canadians, that is what is happening right now. They have imposed the new tax increases and do not actually have to reduce them until July.
We have this litany of tremendously regressive tax increases combined with all kinds of tax tricks which the Government has been using to try to make itself look good in spite of its very poor management of the economy and the fiscal framework of the country.


Mr. John Parry (Kenora-Rainy River):: Madam Speaker, I am glad to have the opportunity this afternoon to speak on the motion to put the question on Bill C-117. It gives me the opportunity to put on the record some of the consequences of Bill C-117 and also to draw, particularly in the light of last night's events, some interesting parallels between the direction in which the federal Government is heading and the direction in which the Government of Ontario is heading.
We know that the proposed outline for federal tax reform which the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) has put forward is generally quite good. Under that tax reform many taxpayers can look forward to savings. Were it my Party the Government introducing such a tax reform, we would not have distributed the savings disproportionately toward the upper end of income earners as has the Government. Nevertheless, there is an overall tax saving by way of the tax reform which is, of course, a reform of income taxation essentially in the order of $450 million.
We saw the parallel to Bill C-117 in Ontario last night, that is, that the federal Government and the Liberal Government in the Province of Ontario are determined to get those taxes back somehow. When we compare the litany of additional taxes, extension to taxes, and additional charges by way of excise and federal sales tax with the tax grab conducted by the Treasurer of Ontario, the Hon. Robert Nixon, last night, we will see some parallels in the way in which it is being done.
The 10 per cent tax on telecommunications services which is already being collected and which I believe has led to disproportionate taxation, particularly on the residents of my riding for whom most calls are long-distance calls rather than local calls, is one example of how the federal Government has
identified a new area not previously subject to taxation and has decided to dip the revenue ladle into that pool of funds.
It has, of course, already cost residents of Kenora-Rainy River dollars on their telephone bills. However, one area of service which I believe is particularly unfair to tax is radiotelephones. These normally rent for $50 and up per month, depending on a number of factors. The taxation of what is essentially a lifeline, because these are, of course, installed for people who cannot get normal pole line telephone service, to the tune of $5 or $10 a month before the long-distance calls are taxed, is an unfair impact of the Government's tax program.
The increase in taxation on telecommunication programming-cable and pay TV-from 8 per cent to 10 per cent has been remarked upon before. There has been an increase in tax on paint and wallpaper from 8 per cent to 12 per cent. There has been an acceleration of the remittances somewhat along the lines of the acceleration in the remittances of employee deductions. There has been an increase from 15 per cent to 18 per cent in the sales tax on beer, spirits, wines and tobacco. That is directly paralleled in the Ontario Budget. There is also the increase in the tax levy on air transportation and the increase in taxation on gasoline.
When we look at the parallels with the Province of Ontario it would seem, in the most daring tax grab in living memory by a provincial government, the Liberal Government of Ontario, that it has learned very well some of the lessons which the federal Government has taught. The sales tax is to go up by 1 per cent, from 7 per cent to 8 per cent. In Ontario a family of four is going to be facing a sales tax increase of $126 per year with no off-setting credits. Under federal income tax reform Ontario taxpayers would have saved $450 million. Of that $450 million saving, the Treasurer of Ontario, the grinch who stole spring, has taken that $286 million into the tax coffers of the province.
This poses a problem in designing tax systems in the country and raises the question of whether there should perhaps be more federal-provincial consultation before these changes are made. If one level of government reduces taxation in one area, which a province then moves in to occupy, at the same time as the federal Government is increasing taxation in the sales and excise tax areas, we have over-all higher taxation and the average taxpayer is hit with a double whammy, the provincial tax and the federal sales and excise taxes.
In addition to that the Treasurer of the Province of Ontario has, in two stages, raised provincial income tax by 2 per cent which, of course, is an effective increase in the tax yield to Ontario of 4 per cent. That will become effective in the 1988 and 1989 tax years.
I do not want to make any particularly detailed comment on the increases in the so-called sin taxes which we see in both Bill C-117 and the provincial Budget. However, the Governments together must recognize that there will be a point of diminishing returns.
April 21, 1988

Turning to the gasoline tax, the rate of increase by the federal Government under Bill C-117 is 1 cent a litre and the provincial Government in Ontario is taking an extra penny a litre on unleaded and an extra 4 cents a litre on leaded. I think that that is sheer tax opportunism on the part of the Liberal Government of the Province of Ontario. Surely it was not necessary to increase the tax rate on leaded gasoline by a full 4 cents per litre in order to get price parity between leaded and unleaded.
In my riding many people are still using leaded gasoline for their daily transportation. For example, there are people in some 27 communities in my riding which do not have road connections who use snowmobiles in the winter and outboard motor boats in the summer just to get around their communities. In addition, leaded gasoline is a necessity for those who have kept older vehicles.
I do not think that it was necessary for the province to jump that rate by 4 cents per litre. They should have recognized that it is simply a marketing situation. The leaded gasoline, while it is still available and still needed, is used as, so to speak, the fighting brand at the gasoline pump and is priced significantly lower. An increase in the order of 2.5 cents would have led to a rethinking of pricing structures by the petroleum companies and eventually to price parity between leaded and unleaded gasoline, which is surely what was desired. However, the Treasurer of Ontario went straight ahead and took 4 cents.
Another impact of that gasoline taxation is, of course, the phenomenon of ratcheting. Those of us who live in remote areas of the country, to where goods have to be transported over larger distances, end up paying higher prices and therefore, of course, higher taxes. A bedroom suite which would cost $900 in Toronto would cost $1,200 in the community of Red Lake. That means, of course, a contribution of one-third more by the taxpayer in Red Lake than by the taxpayer in Toronto.
Increases in the price of gasoline and the price of motor fuels that are used to transport the goods tend to ever increase that difference between the tax contribution made in the more remote parts of the country and the major centres.
I see that you are signalling that my time is up. I am glad to have had the opportunity to make these comparisons between this Government's tax grab and that of the Liberal Government in Ontario.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Resuming debate. The Hon. Member for Richmond-Wolfe (Mr. Tardif).


Mr. Alain Tardif (Richmond-Wolfe):: Madam Speaker, I also welcome the opportunity to take part in this debate and to deal with a very important aspect of this administration.
Madam Speaker, I think it is important to go back to September 1984, when the Government took over the responsibility for the country's finances. At the time, Canada was
Excise Tax Act
coming out of an unprecedented recession which had obliged governments to take steps to ensure that Canadians would not suffer unduly from the consequences of this recession.
There was, of course, a substantial deficit which had to be dealt with after the election. Although by September 1984 the economy had started to improve quite considerably, decisions had to be made with a view to reducing the deficit.
Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to recall that this Government promised to substantially reduce the deficit and also to substantially reduce the tax burden on Canadians. At this point, it would be relevant to mention two comments. The first was made by the present Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson), who said on March 6, 1984 that they would reduce spending and refrain from increasing taxes that were already very high. Later in that same year, the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) said that Canadians were paying a pretty penny for Government services and had the feeling they were paying enough.
Mr. Speaker, these two comments left the impression that the Government would deal with this tax burden by substantially reducing the amounts paid by Canadians which were already fairly high.
Today, the House is considering Bill C-117, whose purpose is to ratify substantial tax increases, most of which are already in effect and undermining Canadians' ability to pay.
Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to explain what this Government has done in the three and half years it has been running this country. I think that in the circumstances, it would have been normal for the Government to deal with the country's finances by going to those who are able to pay and to cope with these tax increases.
The Government did the exact opposite. It has been said many times and on many occasions that the tax burden had to be redistributed. In other words, improve the country's finances by letting those who are well off pay their share and provide relief for people on low incomes.
Today, in April 1988, we see that after three and a half years, revenues from sales tax and personal income tax increased by 55 per cent, while revenues collected from corporations increased 28 per cent.
We also see that revenues from sales tax and excise tax increased 77 per cent. The conclusion is that personal income tax and sales and excise tax increased far more than corporate taxes. I would like to get back to this later on.
Madam Speaker, we have here an administration that has constantly increased taxes since it came to power in 1984. This Government, instead of collecting the money where it is likely to find it, has taken the opposite stand and launched a cruel, savage and even obscene attack on the incomes of those who unfortunately have no way of escaping these systematic and on-going increases and are not able to cope with all these expenses-

April 21, 1988
Excise Tax Act
As you know, all indirect taxes are regressive. The low-income taxpayer tends to spend a larger share of his income on consumer goods. We all know that, and we all agree it is true. In 1986, the Government introduced a refundable sales tax credit. This credit is clearly inadequate, however, since it now totals $70 per adult and $35 per child. The cutoff point, after which the credit starts to go down was set at $16,000, well below the poverty line.
Madam Speaker, this proves beyond a doubt what the Government has indicated on many occasions, and that is its determination to make average Canadians whose ability to pay is certainly not able to absorb all these increases ... To prove that these increases are aimed especially at those who do not necessarily have the ability to absorb them, I shall, if I may, give a short summary of the tax increases we have seen since September 1984.
As far as indirect taxes are concerned, we have had repeated increases in sales tax: from 9 to 10 per cent on October 1, 1984, from 10 to 11 per cent on January 1, 1986, and from 11 to 12 per cent on April 1, 1986. These three increases in indirect taxes yielded $3 billion.
There was also the decision to extend sales tax to candy, soft drinks and snacks, with increases on July 1, 1985 and July 1, 1987, resulting in revenues totalling $460 million for the Treasury. We also had an increase in sales tax from 8 to 12 per cent on paint, wallpaper and toys, which yielded another $60 million. We had the increases in the excise tax on gasoline: 2 cents per litre on September 3, 1985, 1 cent per litre on January 1, 1987, 1 cent per litre on February 19, 1987, and 1 cent per litre on April 1, 1988, which yielded the princely sums of nearly $900 million and $450 million! Equalizing the sales tax on leaded and unleaded gasoline meant another $30 million. We also had progressive increases in the rate of airport taxes. The excise tax on alcohol and tobacco rose as well, yielding many hundreds of millions of dollars. Finally, the 10 per cent tax on long-distance calls and cable TV services, totalling $945 million.
Madam Speaker, these taxes have brought in billions of dollars in revenues and this entire burden has been assumed almost exclusively and fully by Canadian men and women with a very limited ability to pay. This is the trick which the Government used not really to reduce the deficit, but to increase the revenues in order to be able to claim openly: We have managed to slow down the rate of increase of Government expenditures.
That is not the point at all. The fact is that callously the Government has very heavily taxed Canadian men and women to secure considerably higher revenues.
Also, indirect taxes have been shamefully increased by the Government. Furthermore family allowances, personal credits and income tax deductions were de-indexed effective January 1, 1986, which brought in as much as $635 million in tax revenues. The elimination of the tax abatement brought in $650 million in additional revenues; the elimination of the Registered Home Ownership Savings Plan deduction: $105 million; the 5-10 per cent temporary surtax on high income earners, the only one which could be acceptable because it is
aimed at high income earners, Madam Speaker, brought in $500 million in a context of several billion dollars. There was the permanent 3 per cent surtax on all taxpayers which brought in $1.2 billion; there were the changes in the tax treatment of dividend income, and finally in the spousal exemption, which saved the Government $20 million.
Madam Speaker, this is clear evidence that the Government is determined to place the tax burden on the backs of low and middle income taxpayers, when it should use this opportunity to work on a fair, equitable and harmonious tax reform and thus those with the ability to pay could share in the deficit reduction effort.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Madam Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to speak to Bill C-117 which, of course, is intended to give legislative effect to a number of federal sales tax and excise tax increases and excise duty changes announced by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson). This legislation calls attention to the characteristics of the sales tax which recommend it and similar taxes to this Government. It, of course, has a number of advantages, one of which is it is simple to administer.
Another attractive aspect of the sales tax is it is hidden. The ordinary citizen does not really know how much it is costing him or her. It is a tax which is completely consistent with the character of this Government. It is a tax to be implemented by this Government for one simple reason, it is sneaky and perfectly consistent with the approach the Government has chosen to use with the Canadian people. The Government's way to get money from the taxpayers is to be a pick-pocket rather than be up front in arranging things so people will be fully conscious of how much it will cost them.
There is another perhaps more important aspect of this kind of tax that is perhaps even more attractive in an ideological way than the fact it is a pickpocket tax. It is a regressive tax. It is a tax that soaks the poor and middle income earners far more than the rich. It has none of the advantages of an income tax which can be so designed as to be fair. This tax inherently speaks to another characteristic of the Government and that is its refusal to be fair.
I do not want to be misunderstood that I am alleging only this Government as being sufficiently ideologically right wing as to see advantages of soaking the poor to pay for the rich. We have other examples, one revealed to us just recently. Colleagues of the Official Opposition in Ontario have demonstrated their capacity to respond to those ideological imperatives. They have lowered the corporate tax rate from 17 per cent to 15 per cent while raising the sales tax from 7 per cent to 8 per cent. It has to be admitted that that Government is a little less sneaky because at the provincial level everyone knows what they are paying. Nevertheless, the notion of fairness, whether it be the Ontario Government, the Saskatchewan Government or at the federal level, seems not to motivate the design of the tax structure.
April 21, 1988

The Government claims it has removed 850,000 people from the tax rolls while at the same time it does not mention that it was responsible for putting an additional million people on the tax rolls in the first place. We are dealing with a Government that, on the one hand, says it is interested in tax reform and, on the other hand, the average Canadian family is paying an additional $1,000 per year in federal taxes as a result of the Budgets of the present Government. Of course, while we would have to admit there are certain changes in the income tax structure which are beneficial to certain of our citizens, even those modest reforms are to be counteracted in the future by the national sales tax structure to be introduced, the details of which the Government has not seen fit to release, and I am sure they will reveal how unfair the approach of the Government will continue to be for ordinary Canadians.
There are a couple of aspects of the sales tax changes that I would like to examine for a moment. The 10 per cent increase in telecommunications and the effect it will have on our rural population, especially in northern Ontario, has already been adequately discussed. I would like to simply address two sales tax changes which are significant to my own constituency.
1 come from a community where automobile manufacture is extremely important. An important aspect of operating an automobile is economy. Since the Government has come into power, by virtue of steadily increasing sales taxes on gasoline, the average family is now spending $300 more a year on gasoline. It is a situation made worse by the progressive Liberals in Ontario who have themselves tacked on an additional one cent a litre tax on gasoline. So we have the pattern established of soaking the poor to benefit the rich, making it as difficult as possible for ordinary people. The significant issue, of course, is the prosperity of the automobile industry in Canada, severely threatened already. It is certainly not in the interests of that industry to impose an additional burden of cost of fuel on those who drive the cars that are manufactured so well in Windsor.
In Windsor, one of the more significant distilleries in the country, Hiram Walker, has been a corporate citizen of great value to our city. It employs a significant number of Windsor-ites who have been very worried for many years now about the steadily increasing burden of taxation on distilled spirits. One can look at this in two ways. I am fully conscious of the role the taxation of alcoholic beverages plays in trying to control the consumption of alcohol. Certainly there needs to be a control on the consumption of alcohol so that it is not abused. However, we go too far in limiting a perfectly legal product by
Excise Tax Act
means of a taxation regime which is costing jobs. The evidence is clear that the imbalanced imposition of sales taxes and excise taxes on distilled spirits is costing jobs. Distilled spirits are taxed more than beer and wine. The taxes should be balanced. This taxation really must stop in the interests of this industry and those constituents of mine who are constantly being threatened because jobs are being lost by the continued imposition of taxation on a product that is legal.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Is the House ready for the question?


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The question is on the motion of Mr. Gormley. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: All those opposed to the motion will please say nay.


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: In my opinion the yeas have it.
I declare the motion (Mr. Gormley) agreed to on division.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The next question is on the motion of Mr. Wilson. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: All those opposed to the motion will please say nay.


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: In my opinion the yeas have it.
And more than five Members having risen:

April 21, 1988
Excise Tax Act


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It being close to 5 p.m., and since I was in a meeting this afternoon, I am not sure whether there is Private Members' Business to consider at 5 p.m. or not. If there is I would like to have that confirmed. We have had discussions among the Parties and I suggest that the vote to be taken on this Bill be deferred until 6 p.m. tonight so that we can group the votes on Bill C-74 and C-117 together. It will avoid having the bells ring for the next half hour and we could proceed with our work.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Does the House agree to calling it 5 p.m.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Madam Speaker, I think the Hon. Member opposite asked a question with respect to Private Members' Hour. It is my understanding that the Hon. Member is not here. The Hon. Member also asked for a deferral of the bells until 6 p.m. so that we could combine the votes. The House is in agreement with that. I will request it if it is appropriate, or my Whip will, but then I think we should go back to Government Orders. I would like the House to call Bill C-l 10.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Madam Speaker, I think that is changing the proposal of my colleague for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier). Since there is no Private Members' Hour, I suggest that we might want to consider having a short bell, call the Members in now and then dealing with it expeditiously rather than wait until 6 p.m. to vote.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The House can understand that Hon. Members seem to know that the Hon. Member whose motion was to be debated at 5 p.m. will not be present. The Chair could not take that for granted until the moment we present the Bill to the House and then understand that the Hon. Member is not here.
As more than five Members rose when the question was asked, call in the Members.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I declare the motion carried.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs.)
Thomas Scott Fennell: Madam Speaker, I think you would find unanimous consent to call it six o'clock p.m.. Since there is agreement to continue with other business, that being the voting, Private Members' Business is effectively cancelled today. So as not to disrupt the schedule of future Private Members' Business, I suggest that the House agree to place the Bill of the Hon. Member for Saskatoon East (Mr. Ravis), Bill C-240, at the bottom of the order of precedence.
April 21, 1988

Canadian Environmental Protection Act


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Is there unanimous consent?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


CANADIAN ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION ACT
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Wednesday, April 20, consideration of Bill C-74, an Act respecting the protection of the environment and of human life and health, as reported (with amendments) from a legislative committee.
The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: It being six o'clock p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 13(4)(a), the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred divisions at report stage of Bill C-74, an Act respecting the protection of the environment and of human life and health.
Shall I dispense with the ringing of the bells?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The question is on Motion No. 2. Mr. Caccia moved:
Motion No. 2
That Bill C-74 be amended in Clause 2 by striking out lines 19 and 20 at
page 2 and substituting the following therefor:
(0 endeavour to establish national standards of environmental quality.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I declare the motion lost.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: There have been discussions and, as usual, the Opposition feels very co-operative. We would not want to keep Members here for the next 15 votes, and I propose that the votes on Motions Nos. 9, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, 17, 29, 30, 18, 23, 24, 26, 27, and 28 be taken as having the same results as the vote which was just taken, adding the names of those Members who just came in who, because of the hour, were unable to be here. Perhaps some of them would like to rise and have their votes recorded.


Mr. Pietz:: Madam Speaker, I would like my vote to be recorded with the Government.


Mr. MacKay:: Madam Speaker, I, too, would like to have (Division No 322)	my vote recorded with the Government.
Allmand	YEAS Members Guilbault	PennerAlthouse	(Saint-Jacques)	RiisAxworthy	Heap	RodriguezBlackburn	Isabelle	Skelly(Brant)	Killens	TardifBoudria	McCurdy	(Richmond-Wolfe)-24Cassidy	Nicholson	dc Jong	(Trinity)	Foster	Nunziata	Fulton	Nystrom	Gauthier	Parry	Binns	NAYS Members Browes	Cornea uBosley	Cadieux	CooperBouchard	Cardiff	CrouseBradley	Clifford	DarlingBrightwcll	Clinch	Della Noce


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Does the House agree that the division just taken shall be regarded as applying to all other deferred motions?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The next question is on Motion No. 9.


Ms. McDonald (Broadview-Grenwood) moved:: Motion No. 9
That Bill C-74 be amended by adding immediately after line 39 at page 5
the following:
"7. The Minister will make public all correspondence, documents and information arising from the work of the committees referred to in sections 5 and 6."
The House divided on the Motion (Ms. McDonald), which
was negatived on the following division:
14716		COMMONS	DEBATES		April 21, 1988	
Canadian Environmental Protection Act						' -
(Division No. 323)	(Division No. 324)	;YEAS	YEAS	fH *Members	Members	Allmand	Guilbault	Pcnner	Allmand	Guilbault	Pcnner	Althousc	(Saint-Jacques)	Riis	Althouse	(Saint-Jacques)	Riis	Axworthy	Heap	Rodriguez	Axworthy	Heap	Rodriguez	Blackburn	Isabelle	Skelly	Blackburn	Isabelle	Skelly	(Brant)	Killens	Tardif	(Brant)	Killens	Tardif	Boudria	McCurdy	(Richmond-Wolfe)-24	Boudria	McCurdy	(Richmond-Wolfe)-24	Cassidy	Nicholson	Cassidy	Nicholson	dc Jong	(Trinity)	de Jong	(Trinity)	Foster	Nunziata	Foster	Nunziata	'Fulton	Nystrom	Fulton	Nystrom	Gauthier	Parry	Gauthier	Parry	NAYS	NAYS	Members	Members	Binns	Hawkes	Nickerson	Binns	Hawkes	Nickerson	Bosley	Holtmann	Nowlan	Bosley	Holtmann	Nowlan	Bouchard	Horner	Pennock	Bouchard	Horner	Pennock	03Bradley	Jelinek	Peterson	Bradley	Jelinek	Peterson	Brightwell	Jepson	Pietz	Brightwell	Jepson	Pietz	Browes	Kempling	Porter	Browes	Kempling	Porter	Cadieux	Kindy	Redway	Cadieux	Kindy	Rcdway	Cardiff	King	Scott	Cardiff	King	Scott	*Clifford	Lawrence	(Hamilton-Wentworth)	Clifford	Lawrence	(Hamilton Wentworth)	':v%;Clinch	Lesick	Stewart	Clinch	Lesick	Stewart	't'.-.K-.Comeau	MacDougall	Suluk	Comeau	MacDougall	Suluk	Cooper	(Timiskaming)	Tardif	Cooper	(Timiskaming)	Tardif	Crouse	MacKay	(Charlesbourg)	Crouse	MacKay	(Charlesbourg)	Darling	Mailly	Thacker	Darling	Mailly	Thacker	Della Noce	Malone	Towers	Della Noce	Malone	Towers	Duplcssis	Mantha	Turner	Duplessis	Mantha	Turner	Edwards	Marin	(Ottawa-Carleton)	Edwards	Marin	(Ottawa-Carleton)	Fennell	Mazankowski	Vincent	Fennell	Mazankowski	Vincent	Fcrland	McCain	White	Ferland	McCain	White	Fontaine	McCrossan	Wilson	Fontaine	McCrossan	Wilson	Fricscn	McCuish	(Swift Current	Friesen	McCuish	(Swift Current	Gagnon	McDermid	-Maple Creek)	Gagnon	McDermid	Maple Creek)	Gass	McKenzie	Wise	Gass	McKenzie	Wise	Graham	McKinnon	Witer-71	Graham	McKinnon	Witer-71	Guilbault	McMillan	Guilbault	McMillan	(Drummond)	Merrithew	(Drummond)	Merrithew	Harvey	Mitges	Harvey	Mitges


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: 1 declare the		The Acting	Speaker (Mrs. Champagne): I declare the		
motion lost.			motion lost.			
The next question is on Motion No. 12.			The next question is on Motion No. 13.


Lynn McDonald: moved:			Ms. McDonald (Broadview-Greenwood)		moved:	
Motion No. 12			Motion No. 13			
That Bill C-74 be amended in Clause 11 by striking out line 16 at page 9			That Bill C-74 be amended in Clause 11 by striking out line 18 at page 9			
and substituting the following therefor:			and substituting the following therefor:			
"human, animal or plant life depends; or".			"danger in Canada to life or health."			
The House divided on the Motion (Ms. McDonald), which			The House divided on the Motion (Ms.		McDonald), which	
was negative on the following division:			was negatived on the following division:			
						
April 21, 1988

Canadian Environmental Protection Act
(Division No. 325)


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I declare the motion lost.
The next question is on Motion No. 15.


Mr. Caccia moved:: Motion No. 15
That Bill C-74 be amended in Clause 33 by striking out lines 12 to 22 at page 24 and substituting the following therefor:
"33.(1) Subject to subsection (3), where an order has been made to add a substance to the List of Toxic Substances in Schedule 1, the Governor in Council may, on the recommendation of the Minister, make regulations with respect to the substance, including regulations providing for or imposing requirements respecting".
	NAYS	
	Members	
Binns	Hawkes	NickersonBosley	Holtmann	NowlanBouchard	Horner	PennockBradley	Jelinek	PetersonBrightwell	Jepson	PietzBrowes	Kempling	PorterCadieux	Kindy	RedwayCardiff	King	ScottClifford	Lawrence	(Hamilton-Wentworth)Clinch	Lesick	StewartComeau	MacDougall	SulukCooper	(Timiskaming)	TardifCrouse	MacKay	(Charlesbourg)Darling	Mailly	ThackerDella Noce	Malone	TowersDuplessis	Mantha	TurnerEdwards	Marin	(Ottawa-Carleton)Fennell	Mazankowski	VincentFerland	McCain	WhiteFontaine	McCrossan	WilsonFriesen	McCuish	(Swift CurrentGagnon	McDermid	-Maple Creek)Gass	McKenzie	WiseGraham	McKinnon	Witer-71Guilbault	McMillan	(Drummond)	Merrithew	Harvey	Mitges


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I declare the motion lost.
The next question is on Motion No. 16.


Charles L. Caccia: Motion No. 16
That Bill C-74 be amended in Clause 33 by deleting lines 45 to 48 at page 26 and lines 1 to 32 at page 27.
The House divided on the Motion (Mr. Caccia) which was
negatived on the following division:

April 21, 1988
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
(Division No. 327)
++YEAS


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I declare the motion lost.
The next question is on Motion no. 17.


Lynn McDonald: Motion no. 17
That Bill C-74 be amended by adding immediately after line 9 at page 29 the following:
"35. Where
	YEAS	
	Members	
Allmand	Guilbault	PennerAlthousc	(Saint-Jacques)	RiisAxworthy	Heap	RodriguezBlackburn	Isabelle	Skelly(Brant)	Killens	TardifBoudria	McCurdy	(Richmond-Wolfe)-24Cassidy	Nicholson	de Jong	(Trinity)	Foster	Nunziata	Fulton	Nystrom	Gauthier	Parry	NAYS	Members	Binns	Hawkes	NickersonBosley	Holtmann	NowlanBouchard	Horner	PennockBradley	Jelinek	PetersonBrightwcll	Jepson	PietzBrowes	Kempling	PorterCadieux	Kindy	RedwayCardiff	King	ScottClifford	Lawrence	(Hamilton-Wentworth)Clinch	Lesick	StewartComeau	MacDougall	SulukCooper	(Timiskaming)	TardifCrouse	MacKay	(Charlesbourg)Darling	Mailly	ThackerDella Noce	Malone	TowersDuplessis	Mantha	TurnerEdwards	Marin	(Ottawa-Carleton)Fennell	Mazankowski	VincentFerland	McCain	WhiteFontaine	McCrossan	WilsonFriesen	McCuish	(Swift CurrentGagnon	McDermid	
Maple Creek)
Gass	McKenzie	WiseGraham	McKinnon	Witer-71Guilbault	McMillan	(Drummond)	Merrithew	Harvey	Mitges


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: 1 declare the motion lost.
(a)	a substence
(i)	is not specified on the List of Toxic Substances in Schedule 1 and the Ministers have reason to believe it is toxic, or
(ii)	if the substance is specified on that List, the Ministers have reason to believe it is not adequately regulated, and
(b)	the Minister has made no interim order in respect of the substance.
Her Majesty in Right of Canada may be held liable for all injury and damage resulting from the use of that substance in any period after the Ministers have reason to believe it is toxic or not adequately regulated."
The next question is on Motion No. 18.


Mr. Keith Penner (Cochrane-Superior) moved:: Motion No. 18
That Bill C-74 be amended in Clause 51 by deleting lines 10 and 11 at page 40.
The House divided on the Motion (Mr. Penner), which was
negatived on the following division:
April 21, 1988

Canadian Environmental Protection Act
(Division No. 329)


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I declare the motion lost.
The next question is on Motion No. 19.


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Motion No. 19
March 23, 1988-That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 53 and substituting the following therefor:
"53. Where no other Act of Parliement expressly provides for the making of regulations that result in the protection of the environment, the Governor in Council may, on the recommendation of the Minister, make regulations for the protection of the environment respecting
(a)	limits on the release of emissions and effluents by departments, boards and agencies of the Government of Canada or from federal works or undertakings, and where appropriate, by corporations named in Schedule C to the Financial Administration Act, or on federal lands; and
(b)	waste handling and accepted disposal practices for departments, boards, agencies and corporations referred to in paragraph (a), federal works or undertakings, or on federal lands."
	NAYS	
	Members	
Binns	Hawkes	N ickersonBosley	Holtmann	NowlanBouchard	Horner	PennockBradley	Jelinek	PetersonBrightwell	Jepson	PietzBrowes	Kempling	PorterCadieux	Kindy	RedwayCardiff	King	ScottClifford	Lawrence	(Hamilton-Wentworth)Clinch	Lesick	StewartComeau	MacDougall	SulukCooper	(Timiskaming)	TardifCrouse	MacKay	(Charlesbourg)Darling	Mailly	ThackerDella Noce	Malone	TowersDuplessis	Mantha	TurnerEdwards	Marin	(Ottawa-Carleton)Fennell	Mazankowski	VincentFerland	McCain	WhiteFontaine	McCrossan	WilsonFriesen	McCuish	(Swift CurrentGagnon	McDermid	-Maple Creek)Gass	McKenzie	WiseGraham	McKinnon	Witer-71Guilbault	McMillan	(Drummond)	Merrithew	Harvey	Mitges


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I declare the motion lost.
The next question is on Motion No. 23.


Charles L. Caccia: moved:
Motion No. 23.
That Bill C-74 be amended in Clause 62
(a)	by striking out line 15 at page 47 and substituting the following therefor: "62. The Gov-"
(b)	by striking out lines 31 to 48 at page 47 and lines 1 to 19 at page 48.
The House divided on the Motion (Mr. Caccia), which was
negatived on the following division:
14720		COMMONS	DEBATES		April 21, 1988	&
Canadian Environmental Protection Act						II *
	(Division No. 331)			{Division No. 332)		
	YEAS			YEAS		
	Members			Members		
Allmand	Guilbault	Penner	Allmand	Guilbault	Penner	ItAlihouse	(Saint-Jacques)	Riis	Althouse	(Saint-Jacques)	Riis	Axworthy	Heap	Rodriguez	Axworthy	Heap	Rodriguez	Blackburn	Isabelle	Skelly	Blackburn	Isabelle	Skelly	(Brant)	Killens	Tardif	(Brant)	Killens	Tardif	iBoudria	McCurdy	(Richmond-Wolfe)-24	Boudria	McCurdy	(Richmond Wolfe)- 24	Cassidy	Nicholson	Cassidy	Nicholson	dc Jong	(Trinity)	de Jong	(Trinity)	titFoster	Nunziata	Foster	Nunziata	vlFulton	Nystrom	Fulton	Nystrom	Gauthier	Parry	Gauthier	Parry	
NAYS			NAYS		
	Members			Members		
Binns	Hawkes	Nickerson	Binns	Hawkes	Nickerson	Bosley	Holtmann	Nowlan	Bosley	Holtmann	Nowlan	Bouchard	Horner	Pennock	Bouchard	Horner	Pennock	Bradley	Jclinck	Peterson	Bradley	Jelinek	Peterson	,.vBrightwell	Jcpson	Pietz	Brightwell	Jepson	Pietz	Browes	Kempling	Porter	Browes	Kempling	Porter	Cadieux	Kindy	Redway	Cadieux	Kindy	Red way	Cardiff	King	Scott	Cardiff	King	Scott	Clifford	Lawrence	(Hamilton-Wentworth)	Clifford	Lawrence	(Hamilton Wentworth)	Clinch	Lesick	Stewart	Clinch	Lesick	Stewart	Comeau	MacDougall	Suluk	Comeau	MacDougall	Suluk	Cooper	(Timiskaming)	Tardif	Cooper	(Timiskaming)	Tardif	Crouse	MacKay	(Charlesbourg)	Crouse	MacKay	(Charlesbourg)	Darling	Mailly	Thacker	Darling	Mailly	Thacker	Della Nocc	Malone	Towers	Della Noce	Malone	T owers	Duplessis	Mantha	Turner	Duplessis	Mantha	Turner	Edwards	Marin	(Ottawa-Carleton)	Edwards	Marin	(Ottawa-Carleton)	Fennell	Mazankowski	Vincent	Fennell	Mazankowski	Vincent	Ferland	McCain	White	Ferland	McCain	White	Fontaine	McCrossan	Wilson	Fontaine	McCrossan	Wilson	Fricsen	McCuish	(Swift Current	Friesen	McCuish	(Swift Current	Gagnon	McDermid	- Maple Creek)	Gagnon	McDermid	-Maple Creek)	Gass	McKenzie	Wise	Gass	McKenzie	Wise	Graham	McKinnon	Witer-71	Graham	McKinnon	Witer-71	Guilbault	McMillan	Guilbault	McMillan	(Drummond)	Merrithew	(Drummond)	Merrithew	Harvey	Mitges	Harvey	Mitges


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: 1 declare the		The Acting	Speaker (Mrs. Champagne): I declare the		
motion lost.			motion lost.			
The next question is on motion No. 24.			The next question is on Motion No. 26.


Lynn McDonald: Ms. McDonald (Broadview-Greenwood) moved:			
Motion No. 24			Motion No. 26			
That Bill C-74 be amended in Clause 65 by striking out lines 35 to 38 at			That Bill C-74 be amended in Clause 110 by striking out line 37 at page 77			
page 49.			and substituting the following therefor:			
			"for a term not exceeding one year, or to".			
The House divided on the Motion (Ms. McDonald), which			The House divided on the Motion (Ms. McDonald), which			
was negatived on the following division:			was negatived on the following division:			
						
						
April 21, 1988

Canadian Environmental Protection Act (Division No. 334)
(Division No. 333)
	YEAS	
	Members	
Allmand	Guilbault	PennerAlt house	(Saint-Jacqucs)	RiisAxworthy	Heap	RodriguezBlackburn	Isabelle	Skelly(Brant)	Killens	TardifBoudria	McCurdy	(Richmond-Wolfe)-24Cassidy	Nicholson	dc Jong	(Trinity)	Foster	Nunziata	Fulton	Nystrom	Gauthier	Parry	NAYS	Members	Binns	Hawkes	NickersonBosley	Holtmann	NowlanBouchard	Horner	PennockBradley	Jelinek	PetersonBrightwell	Jepson	PietzBrowcs	Kempling	PorterCadieux	Kindy	RedwayCardiff	King	ScottClifford	Lawrence	(Hamilton-Wentworth)Clinch	Lesick	StewartComeau	MacDougall	SulukCooper	(Timiskaming)	TardifCrouse	MacKay	(Charlesbourg)Darling	Mailly	ThackerDella Noce	Malone	TowersDuplcssis	Mantha	TurnerEdwards	Marin	(Ottawa-Carleton)Fennell	Mazankowski	VincentFcrland	McCain	WhiteFontaine	McCrossan	WilsonFriescn	McCuish	(Swift CurrentGagnon	McDermid	-Maple Creek)Gass	McKenzie	WiseGraham	McKinnon	Witer-71Guilbault	McMillan	(Drummond)	Merfithew	Harvey	Mitges


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I declare the Motion lost.
The next question is on Motion No. 27.


Lynn McDonald: Motion No. 27
That Bill C-74 be amended in Clause 111 by striking out line 7 at page 78 and substituting the following therefor:
"for a term not exceeding one year or to".


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I declare the motion lost.
The next question is on Motion No. 28.


Lynn McDonald: Motion No. 28
April 18, 1988-That Bill C-74 be amended in Clause 115 by striking out line 4 at page 80 and substituting the following therefor:
"for a term not exceeding one year, or to".
The House divided on the Motion (Ms. McDonald), which
was negatived on the following division:

April 21, 1988
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
(Division No. 335)
(Division No. 336)
++YEAS
++YEAS
Members
Members
Allmand	Guilbault	PennerAlthouse	(Saint-Jacques)	RiisAxworthy	Heap	RodriguezBlackburn	Isabelle	Skelly(Brant)	Killens	TardifBoudria	McCurdy	(Richmond-Wolfe)-24Cassidy	Nicholson	de Jong	(Trinity)	Foster	Nunziata	Fulton	Nystrom	Gauthier	Parry	NAYS	Members	Binns	Hawkes	NickersonBosley	Holtmann	NowlanBouchard	Horner	PennockBradley	Jelinek	PetersonBrightwell	Jepson	PietzBrowcs	Kempling	PorterCadicux	Kindy	RedwayCardiff	King	ScottClifford	Lawrence	(Hamilton-Wentworth)Clinch	Lesick	StewartComcau	MacDougall	SulukCooper	(Timiskaming)	TardifCrouse	MacKay	(Charlesbourg)Darling	Mailly	ThackerDella Nocc	Malone	TowersDuplcssis	Mantha	TurnerEdwards	Marin	(Ottawa-Carleton)Fennell	Mazankowski	VincentFcrland	McCain	WhiteFontaine	McCrossan	WilsonFriesen	McCuish	(Swift CurrentGagnon	McDermid	-Maple Creek)Gass	McKenzie	WiseGraham	McKinnon	Witer-71Guilbault	McMillan	(Drummond)	Merrithew	Harvey	Mitges


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I declare the motion lost.
The next question is on Motion No. 29.
Allmand	Guilbault	PennerAlthouse	(Saint-Jacques)	RiisAxworthy	Heap	RodriguezBlackburn	Isabelle	Skelly(Brant)	Killens	TardifBoudria	McCurdy	(Richmond-Wolfe)-24Cassidy	Nicholson	de Jong	(Trinity)	Foster	Nunziata	Fulton	Nystrom	Gauthier	Parry	NAYS	Members	Binns	Hawkes	NickersonBosley	Holtmann	NowlanBouchard	Horner	PcnnockBradley	Jelinek	PetersonBrightwell	Jepson	PietzBrowes	Kempling	PorterCadieux	Kindy	RedwayCardiff	King	ScottClifford	Lawrence	(Hamilton-Wentworth)Clinch	Lesick	StewartComeau	MacDougall	SulukCooper	(Timiskaming)	TardifCrouse	MacKay	(Charlesbourg)Darling	Mailly	ThackerDella Noce	Malone	TowersDuplessis	Mantha	TurnerEdwards	Marin	(Ottawa-Carleton)Fennell	Mazankowski	VincentFerland	McCain	WhiteFontaine	McCrossan	WilsonFriesen	McCuish	(Swift CurrentGagnon	McDermid	-Maple Creek)Gass	McKenzie	WiseGraham	McKinnon	Witer-71Guilbault	McMillan	(Drummond)	Merrithew	Harvey	Mitges


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I declare the motion lost.
The next question is on Motion No. 30.


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Motion No. 29
That Bill C-74 be amended in Clause 129 by striking out lines 38 to 43 at page 84 and substituting the following therefor:
"(g) directing the offender to compensate the Minister, in whole or in part, for the cost of
(i)	the investigation of the offence and the proceedings under this Act, and
(ii)	any remedial or preventive action taken by or caused to be taken on behalf of the Minister as a result of the act or omission that constituted the offence;"


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Motion No. 30.
That Bill C-74 be amended in Clause 134 by striking out lines 41 to 45 at page 87 and lines 1 to 10 at page 88 and substituting the following therefor:
"134.(1) Where, on the application of any person, it appears to a court of competent jurisdiction that a person has done or is about to do any act or thing constituting or directed toward the commission of an offence under this Act, the court may issue an injunction ordering any person named in the application to refrain from doing any act or thing that it appears to the court may constitute or be directed toward the commission of an offence under this Act."
The House divided on the Motion (Mr. Caccia), which was
negatived on the following division:


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: When shall the Bill be read a third time? At the next sitting of the House?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: It being 5.41 p.m., this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 3(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 5.41 p.m.
[Stage Direction]

Friday, April 22, 1988
[Stage Direction]
Prayers