1988-08-30

Hon. Doug Lewis (Minister of State and Minister of State (Treasury Board)):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 106(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the Government's response to seven petitions numbered as follows: 332-5252, 332-5254, 332-5279, 332-5280 and 3325283 to 332-5285 inclusively.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



JUSTICE AND SOLICITOR GENERAL


Mr. David Daubney (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the Sixth Report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Solicitor General.

This 300-page report entitled Taking Responsibility is the first comprehensive review by a parliamentary committee of the important issues of sentencing, conditional release, and related aspects of the correctional system. If the key recommendations of the 97 recommendations submitted in our report are accepted, public confidence in the criminal justice system will, in the committee's view, be significantly improved.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYMENT ACT


Hon. Doug Lewis (for the Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Privy Council) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-157, an Act to amend the Public Service Employment Act and the Auditor General Act in consequence thereof.


Mr. Speaker:: Shall the Hon. Minister 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.


Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-319, an Act to amend the Canada Elections Act.


Mr. Speaker:: Shall the Hon. Member have leave to introduce the Bill?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour to have the opportunity to introduce an amendment to the Canada Elections Act relating to a more precise definition of election expenses. As Your Honour knows, when the Standing Committee of the House on Elections, Privileges and Procedures reported to the House on March 3 of this year it recommended:
"-that the Act be amended as quickly as possible in those sections dealing with expenses so that it precisely defines those election expenses which should be the subject of spending controls and rebates."
We have attempted to get the Government to introduce an amendment to this effect over the last five months. We have not succeeded and as a result of that I have the specific proposal before me which was given to the Government four months ago. I believe it is the type of legislation we need to restore credibility to our Elections Act.
[DOT] (UIO)


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.
[Stage Direction]
August 30, 1988
Petitions

Mr. Pat Nowlan (Annapolis Valley-Hants):: Mr. Speaker, I have the duty to present a petition signed by 97 constituents of my riding. Pursuant to Standing Order 106, the petition has been certified as correct in form and content.
My constituents petition the honourable House of Commons and Parliament assembled and say that at the present time there is no law in Canada protecting the rights of the unborn child from conception to birth. The undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon Parliament to formulate and legislate a law to protect life from conception, which law will seek to save the life of both mother and child. As in duty bound, your petitioners will ever humbly pray.


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present two petitions from residents of Winnipeg and towns and villages in Manitoba including Anola and Dugald. One set of petitioners say that the Conservative Government had no mandate from the people to conclude a free trade agreement with the United States. The other group says that the proposed trade agreement not only denies Canadians the secure access to the U.S. market which was the key objective in these negotiations but threatens the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Therefore, your petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to dissolve and allow the people of Canada the opportunity to accept or reject the proposed free trade agreement during a national general election.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I ask that the questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Speaker:: Shall the questions stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Monday, August 29, consideration of the motion of Mr. Crosbie that Bill C-130, an Act to implement the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the United States of America, be read the third time and passed; and the amendment of Mr. Axworthy:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word
"That" and substituting the following therefor:
"Bill C-130, An Act to implement the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the United States of America, be not now read a third time but be referred back to the Legislative Committee for the purpose of reconsidering Clause 8."
Mr. Speaker:: Last night the Hon. Member for Cowichan- Malahat-The Islands (Mr. Manly) introduced a subamendment, an amendment to the amendment submitted by the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy). Just so that Hon. Members will understand, the amendment by the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry, moved on behalf of the Official Opposition, basically seeks to amend the free trade legislation by referring a certain clause in the Bill back to committee. That amendment, of course, is in order.
The amendment sought by the Hon. Member for Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands was to add to the motion of the Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry the further words "in the context of an imminent general election". Last night Madam Speaker indicated that she was having some difficulty as to whether that was procedurally in order.
I want to assure Hon. Members that I have given this careful consideration because of the great importance of this particular legislation and this debate.
However, I have given some indication that the Table is having some trouble with the amendment. I have to rule it out of order because, as least in my view, it does not do what a subamendment must do, that is, amend the main amendment, that is the amendment of the Hon. Member for Winnipeg- Fort Garry. It is more a general statement which may well be true when taken in the abstract, but I find that it is not procedurally acceptable.
I point out to Hon. Members of the New Democratic Party that debate will continue and there will, of course, be opportunity to put forward another amendment which, I am sure, after discussion with the Table, might be more acceptable to the Chair. I thank Hon. Members for their understanding.


Mr. Arnold Malone (Crowfoot):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday when I commenced to debate at about five minutes to ten o'clock I had had the opportunity to mention that Canada's economy was growing, that our unemployment rates had been falling, and that while the successes of our achievements over
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the past four years have been remarkably excellent in that regard, our political Party was in no way content with the rate of growth that we have or with the level of unemployment. To enhance the economic opportunities for our country, it is clear to all who know the nature of the Canadian economy that our foreign exports have to be secured.
The truth of the matter is that one-third of the individual wealth of Canadians comes from trade. It is also a fact that almost 80 per cent of that which we export is exported to the United States. It is also a fact that our exports to that market were being significantly threatened by the fact that there was a mood of protectionism which was bubbling up into a legislative process which had, in the legislatures of the states and the capital in Washington, nearly 400 bills aimed at protectionism, the impact of which would be, in the largest majority, negative for Canada.
Those who are affiliated with the New Democratic Party, either here in the House of Commons or by their satellite influence such as Bob White, the Vice-President of the New Democratic Party, take the view that this agreement is somehow a threat to our sovereignty, our culture, and our identity. We must bear in mind that Canada became more of a sovereign nation since the war ended in 1945.
Our cultural programs and social programs, particularly pension plans, workmen's compensation, unemployment insurance and medical programs were there at a time when tariffs were coming down. If we consider 1944 as the peak of tariff protection between Canada and the United States, from 1944 to 1988, 75 per cent of tariffs have been reduced. How can the NDP argue that all these programs that we have developed while there has been a 75 per cent reduction in tariffs will disappear when the next 25 per cent are removed? It is simply illogical.
The NDP talk about these threats against our sovereignty. If they believe that some kind of trade relationship with another country will destroy our capacity to market our goods in the world, or preserve our identity as Canadians, then let them find such an example in the 92 other nations that also belong to trade blocs or trade arrangements. If they believe that such a threat exists, I dare members of the NDP to go to New Zealand and tell New Zealanders that they are just like an Aussie, that they behave and think like Australians because they have a trade relationship with them. If there is anything a New Zealander takes pride in, it is the fact that they are not Australian, even though they recognize the mutual advantage of trading with each other without the encumbrance of tariff barriers.
The Liberal Party has stated that it does not want free trade and would tear up the free trade agreement if it ever became the government. My favourite comment is that by Donald Macdonald, a former Liberal Cabinet Minister, who said of the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr, Turner): "That
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comment that he would tear up the agreement said more about the strength of his wrists than the strength of his judgment".
Canadians should know that Liberals in this country are not opposed to a trade deal with the United States. It is only the Liberals elected in this House, under the leadership of the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition and his influence on the Senate, who are opposed. There are many Liberals who are on record as saying that this arrangement is important and good for Canada.
The Premier of Quebec, Robert Bourassa, asked:
"How could one seriously say that Canadian sovereignty is at stake when we want to protect Canadian markets in the United States?"
He went on to say:
"What's at stake are dozens and dozens of billions of dollars of potential growth for Canada's resource-based economy. Canada is the only one of 24 developed countries which is not part of some sort of free trade area."
That is the opinion of Robert Bourassa, Premier of Quebec. He is a Liberal who is certainly in favour of free trade.
Let me refer to Ray Curran, President of a Liberal constituency association. He said:
"Liberal leader John Turner's position on free trade is totally irresponsible. You can't make agreements between two sovereign governments and then just rip them up."
Those are two Liberals who say this is a good agreement and the proper approach.
Milt Harris, a gentleman whom I know, is the former chairman of the Liberal National Executive Finance Committee. He is also president of a company called Harris Steel. He said:
"I am going to vote for the Conservatives, and if they ask me, I will give them money."
That shows the depth of his feeling as a former Liberal about what he thinks of a Party that would speak out against a trade deal that secures not only our economy but jobs for Canadian young people and gives us a chance to expand and develop a nation that will allow us not only to penetrate North America but any market in the world. Milt Harris went on to say:
"If we lose this agreement, it will have very dire consequences for Canada."
Let me now refer to a Member who is presently in the House of Commons and chose to leave the Liberal Party to sit as an independent. Don Johnston, a former Liberal Cabinet Minister, said:
"Our position on free trade is indistinguishable from that of the NDP .. . why would anyone vote Liberal?"
Let me say that Don Johnston has it right. I asked that question 20 years ago: Why would anyone vote Liberal?


Mr. Langdon:: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I think that as an experienced Member of the House, the Hon. Member should know that to refer to a Member by name is not correct. It should be a reference to his constituency. I

August 30, 1988
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would expect that with his care for the rules of the House the Member would have followed that direction. I hope he would.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor (Mr. Langdon) is correct. I am sure the Hon. Member for Crowfoot (Mr. Malone) will be more careful.


Arnold John Malone: Madam Speaker, if you check the record, I think you will find that the references I was making were references to quotes. Those are quite permissible in the House of Commons. The Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor (Mr. Langdon), of course, being a new Member, would not know that.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The Hon. Member should know that he cannot do indirectly what he cannot do directly. The Hon. Member should be more careful.


Arnold John Malone: Madam Speaker, there is a long list of Liberals who believe that the trade arrangement is an appropriate and good move for our country. They have come on the record because they think it is important that Canadians know that the little rump opposite, that is so desperate to try to gain its position on the Government side, is up against a case of folly and is acting to the disadvantage of the potential economic and job security of our nation.
Former Liberal Cabinet Minister, Marc Lalonde, said:
"The liberalization of international trade is, more than ever, a top priority for Canada. The best strategy for Canada is to press ahead with a two-track approach: support for a new round of GATT negotiations and an early start of negotiations with the United States on a comprehensive free trade agreement."
That is what we have.
Another on that long list of Liberals who believe it is important that we secure our largest market in the world is Stuart Langford. He was not an executive assistant to Mackenzie King, Lester Pearson or Pierre Trudeau, he was a former executive assistant to the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition. Stuart Langford said:
"Turner's position on free trade was founded not on conviction but on perceived opportunity. His "handlers" convinced him that he had to be more aggressive than Ed Broadbent. Turner bought the idea and as a result made the stupid threat to "tear up the agreement" should he win the next election. Turner's tough talk won him three minutes of coverage on television news but it destroyed three years of work in the west."
That is another person associated with the Official Opposition and who has worked with the Party for years but takes exception in the extreme to the position the Liberals are taking. It is clear to many that jobs and economic opportunities exist if we secure a trading relationship with our major trading partner, the United States of America.
Ron Longstaffe, a Vancouver businessman and Liberal fund raiser stated:
"It seems very unusual to elect a Member from Vancouver-Quadra to have him go to Ontario and speak out against free trade."
Ron Longstaffe, a Liberal fund raiser, does not buy this notion. Donald Macdonald, a former Liberal Cabinet Minister, called the free trade agreement a considerable achievement. He saw it in terms of a great treaty that was struck between our two countries. Noting that the New Democratic Party Leader, the Member for Oshawa (Mr. Broadbent), made the same promise, he said:
Can you imagine Mr. Broadbent going down to Washington and saying "Mr. President, I just tore up our trade agreement"? He'd just say: "That's a coincidence, Mr. Broadbent, we just tore up the Auto Pact, too". What would the Member for Oshawa say then?
The list goes on. Paul Martin is a candidate for the Liberals in the next election. He says we have to be realistic and ripping it up is not a viable alternative. The same can be said for Premier Frank McKenna, the Premier of New Brunswick, or Gerald Regan, the former Premier of Nova Scotia and former Minister for International Trade.
I simply say, Madam Speaker, that the point has been made. Mr. Regan said:
"Some people say that the pressure to compete with the U.S. under a free trade system will force us to dismantle our social programs .. . The answer, of course, is that it will not. Such claims are unmitigated nonsense and scare tactics..."
Those are the words uttered by a Liberal Cabinet Minister in the Government just previous to ours. He says that to talk about the dismantling of our social programs because of the trade agreement is unmitigated nonsense and scare tactics.
The first thing we all have to recognize in this debate about trade is the importance of trade to Canada. It comprises one-third of our wealth. One-third of everything we have comes from trade. It is also important to recognize that 80 per cent of our exports go to the United States. That is where it goes today.
In the beginning of this century we traded mostly with north European countries, particularly Great Britain. In the evolution of time, Britain has gone into the European Common Market. We are almost shut out from being able to sell to Great Britain. The amount we sell there is very minimal. We sell most of our export to the United States, nearly 80 per cent, yet we are faced with legislation upon legislation which are putting up walls and barriers, tariffs and non-tariff duties that will not allow Canadians to penetrate the U.S. market in a secure way. So we need an agreement not to dismantle all of the rules of trade, but to put rules of trade there, so there will be fairness and so that we can continue to export to a larger market and, because of that larger market, have the capacity, excellence and skills to penetrate markets in all parts of the world.


Mr. Blaikie:: Mr. Speaker, I have just a few comments to make to which the Hon. Member perhaps could respond. He used a familiar argument, that tariffs have come down between 1944 and 1988, and this has not posed a threat to our culture or to a variety of other things that opponents of the free trade agreement now claim will be threatened. He posed
August 30, 1988

the rhetorical question: Why should these things be any more threatened by the elimination of the remaining tariffs than they were threatened by the elimination of 80 per cent of the tariffs that have been eliminated since 1944? I hope I have made the argument correctly on behalf of the Hon. Member.
I think we have an obligation to understand what the various sides are saying. What has been wrong with this debate is that sometimes deliberately, and we have to assume sometimes not deliberately, people have caricatured what the other side has had to say. The New Democratic Party has never maintained that it is the elimination of tariffs that is the threat to our culture or sovereignty. That is not a claim we have ever made, but we have made a claim about the effects of the entire agreement, which I hope the Hon. Member will admit is more than simply the elimination of tariffs.
If all we had before us was the elimination of tariffs, then we would have quite a different agreement. The fact is, in order to get the elimination of those remaining tariffs, which the Government views as desirable, and in order to get the dispute settlement mechanism, which the Government views as desirable, but which was not what the Government set out to get by the admission of even some supporters of the agreement, such as the Hon. Member for Saint-Henri-Westmount (Mr. Johnston), whom the Member just quoted, the Government proceeded to arrive at an agreement on a number of other matters which are quite separate from the traditional question of the value of eliminating tariffs, on questions having to do with foreign investment, energy, services and the cultural industries, and so on. All these were separate questions and were dealt with separately and were Canada's own business at the time of the coming down of the tariffs to which the Hon. Member referred.
Either the Member misunderstands our position or he has misrepresented it. The fact is that the claim with respect to the elimination of tariffs having all these effects is not a claim the NDP has ever made. It is a claim we make on the basis of the whole agreement. I see the Member is being coached by the Parliamentary Secretary.


Mr. Darling:: And a good coach too.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: I would have hoped the Member was conversant with the agreement and did not need to be coached by the Parliamentary Secretary. The Member mentioned the former Liberal Cabinet Minister, Mr. Macdonald, who was in charge of the Royal Commission on Economic Development, as a supporter of the agreement, but it also remains the case, for instance, that the Royal Commission headed by Mr. Macdonald did not even look at the question of services. Yet that is something we have in this agreement, and which was not recommended.
There are a lot of things I think should at least be acknowledged. If the Member wants to criticize our position, we have an obligation to respond. There is enough to legitimately disagree about. We do not have to invent things to disagree
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement
about. We have lots to disagree about. The claim the Member says we have made about tariffs is a claim we have not made.


Arnold John Malone: Madam Speaker, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie) is quite right. We have enough we can disagree about without inventing things. That is why I did not invent anything. That is why it is important to point out the very elements of fear that the NDP and Liberals are now raising, and particularly I say that to the NDP because it was that Party which used exactly the same arguments some 23 or 24 years ago when it opposed the Auto Pact. The NDP told us all of the same things that would happen. The Auto Pact was going to somehow threaten Canada. Today we export two cars for every one we consume in Canada. The Auto Pact has put one-half a trillion dollars investment into southern Ontario in the 23 years of its existence. The Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill said: "You missed the point. It is not just about tariffs. It is about something beyond that". He is right. It also deals with the non-tariff barriers.
Then he made a very specific point, the one which I want to come to now. He said: "It deals with things like services". It is clear to this House, to Canadians and to all who have studied this issue that members of the New Democratic Party are saying: "We are not going to have anything to do with this deal. We are going to stick with GATT. That is our model".
The Uruguay Round on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade is studying services. It is looking at the whole element of bringing barriers to services between countries down. Thus what the Hon. Member is saying is only inconsistent within himself. The New Democratic Party's view is to favour the GATT relationships around the world. GATT is the very agency that at this time is studying the removal of barriers on services, not between two countries on a bilateral basis but between many countries on a multilateral basis.
I say to members of the NDP: You cannot have it all ways. That Party is basically trying to proclaim that this agreement fits all the old arguments that its Members used more than 20 years ago when they opposed the Auto Pact, as well as when they opposed the Auto Pact amendments in the early 1970s. When this agreement was coming forward, they suddenly stood up in unison as a Party and with one arm straight in the air said: "Don't you dare touch the Auto Pact". They now use the same elements of argument to try to make Canadians believe that this relationship that will secure our markets, our economy and our jobs has the same evils that they imagined some 20 years ago. They were wrong then and they are wrong today.


Steven W. Langdon: Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the Hon. Member for Crowfoot (Mr. Malone) if he is aware of who was the biggest opponent, the harshest critic of the Auto Pact in the House of Commons in 1965. I wonder if he knows that the harshest critic, the one with the most flowing rhetoric possible

August 30, 1988
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement
was none other than the Leader of the Conservative Party, the Right Lion. John Diefenbaker, who attacked the Auto Pact day after day in the House of Commons.
On the contrary, with respect to our Party, our Party put its position with respect to the Auto Pact in terms of two things. First, we said that there should be commitments with respect to investment in the future and there should be commitments in the form of letters which the companies actually give to the Government as commitments. Second, we said that if there is to be a trade change like this, there has to be in place an assistance program for workers who will be affected, a lesson which the Conservatives have still not learned. That is why the Transitional Assistance Benefits Program was brought in. As soon as it was in place and as soon as the commitments to investment in the country were in place, as the Hon. Member should know, both the New Democratic Party and the labour unions involved, as well as the parts producers involved, became supporters of an agreement which, because it had safeguards, because it had support for workers who were affected, was at that stage a fair agreement, unlike this agreement.


Arnold John Malone: Madam Speaker, if there is anything that I have heard in what the Hon. Member has just asked in the way of a question that would give me reason to suggest that there is a significant difference between us and how we see Canada, it is his requirement that there be commitments and safeguards.
Last night, when I was having a bite to eat, I wrote out on my napkin, a very fast scratching, the areas in which I believe Canada is the best in the world-certainly better than the United States. We produce better beef. Americans will not like to hear that but we do. We also do it cheaper. We produce better pork in Canada. We have a better labour force in Canada. We are far better in telecommunications and telecommunications research. We have by far better oil field technology, which is why producers in the North Sea and the Middle East come to Calgary and not to Houston.
While I could go on with this list I see that Madam Speaker is encouraging me to hurry. Let me just say that there are some other areas in which we are the best in the world. We do not need safeguards and guarantees. We need markets. Give us the markets and Canada will show the world that we are people who can produce and create jobs and wealth because we do not need safeguards. We need opportunity. That is what this agreement with the United States is all about.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I am sorry to interrupt the Hon. Member. However, the period for questions and comments has now expired.


Mr. Kilgour:: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I believe Your Honour was in the chair yesterday when a matter raised by the Parliamentary Secretary came up with respect to the Hon. Member for York South-Weston (Mr. Nunziata) and his use of unparliamentary language concerning the Prime
Minister (Mr. Mulroney). There was reference to the "blues". I would ask Your Honour to look at page 18974 of Hansard where, about half way down the page, the Hon. Member for York South-Weston is reported clearly to have used unparliamentary language. The Hon. Member is not in the House. However, I would ask the Chair to make a direction that the remark either be struck from the record or that the Hon. Member be asked to withdraw it when he is in the House.
I do not know if Your Honour has a copy of Hansard but it is clearly indicated that he used an unparliamentary word.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The Chair will have a look at Hansard, which I have not had time to do yet today. If there is any language which needs to be struck out or withdrawn, I am sure that the Hon. Member mentioned by the Hon. Member for Edmonton-Strathcona (Mr. Kilgour) will see what is reported in Hansard, do the honourable thing and withdraw later today.
Resuming debate with the Hon. Member for Davenport.


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Madam Speaker, the concluding words of the Hon. Member for Crowfoot (Mr. Malone) in his last intervention were brave words. They would be credible if we had achieved in Canada a ready common market across our own nation. If that were so we could believe his call to go out to conquer the world, so to speak. However, we have not even achieved that. Therefore, it seems to me that what he is really putting forward is just a little bit more of the same Progressive Conservative rhetoric.
In this debate it seems that what the Conservatives have chosen to do is to ignore the fact that the issue of trade involves more than just trade. Of equal importance is the fact that they have neglected the preoccupation among Canadians that is now emerging as a result of the measurements that we obtain from polls, namely, that what we have been debating here yesterday, today and in the preceding weeks is really a debate on values. What is taking place this morning on the floor of the House of Commons, and tomorrow when we vote, is a comparison on a set of values as they have driven us so far, and as they will determine the future of our nation, and the behaviour of Canadians.
Why do I say that it is more than trade? Why do I say that this debate reaches an importance of the size and with the implications and impact of the Meech Lake debate? It is because in the long term the implications are immense, far reaching, and well beyond trade. What we are debating here is economic union in North America. That is the substance of this deal, which has been given the wrong title. It is an economic union in North America that is being proposed here, not on January 1, 1989, perhaps not in the next five years, but in the long term. That is what it is. The Government should at least have the decency to tell Canadians that, and Canadians may then want to decide if that is what they want. However, it has to be put on the table, so to speak.
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It does not stop with trade, because this has been the experience in other continents where similar measures have been implemented, for example, in the case of the European Common Market. Eventually it touches on competition laws, consumer regulations, standards and the setting of standards, and this has profound implications on the environment. It touches on jobs, the jobs that will disappear, the jobs that will be enhanced, and the policies that have to be put into place in order to provide social shock absorbers to manage the transition.
There are certain things that, on the Canadian side of the border, cannot be changed and have to be dealt with in a real manner. Those are questions related to climate, wages, and volumes. Other speakers have dealt with those questions. On the question of volume, I remember very clearly a couple of weeks ago the Hon. Member for Broadview-Greenwood (Ms. McDonald) stated that south of the border the production line could be extended on a Tuesday night and enough could be produced to satisfy the needs of the Canadian market, because they have that capacity. She put it very well and very effectively. On the question of climate, our growing season is what it is. We can only produce so much between spring and fall, compared to an economy where the climate permits production of much more. Therefore, there is the capacity for producers south of the border to do much better, unless we protect our own horticultural producers, as they have told us on a number of occasions. That is a reality from which we cannot hide.
On the question of wages, again we have developed a standard of living, and social security systems. We have produced something we are very proud of, namely, our hospital and medicare systems, and our minimum wages. They do not exist in the southern part of the United States. Therefore, we will not be able to deal with that type of competition effectively, no matter how brave the exhortations might be of the Hon. Member for Crowfoot, or the Parliamentary Secretary. Those exhortations will not help in the face of such a reality.


Mr. McDermid:: How do we compete with them now, for heaven's sake?


Mr. Caccia:: Those who claim that the European Common Market experience is one that we should imitate, as we were encouraged to do by Mrs. Thatcher when she spoke in this Chamber, do not realize that, when it comes to negotiations at the European Common Market table, the Brits are very reluctant to go any further into an agreement for further trade facilitations. The reasons why the British can retain their sovereignty, values and identity, is because there is a channel between them and the rest of the continent, a different language, and a different history over the last 10 centuries.
That brings me to the second theme that is central in this discussion. In a short manner, I will describe it as the battle of values. On the one hand there is the dollar sign, the marketplace, versus quality of life. On the one hand there is the dollar sign, and what we want to be, our identity. On the one hand there is the dollar sign versus our sense of sovereignty and decision-making powers. On the one hand there is the dollar sign, and on the other hand there are the intangible values which would take a much longer time to elaborate on which
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make Canada what it is, and what makes a Canadian. In this battle of values there is a heavy emphasis on the one hand on the dollar, and on the other hand on intangible values of profound importance that have to be dealt with and put forward. This is why we are so keen to have an election called. We want to see this matter put to the people of Canada.
In this battle of values it is interesting to note that on the one hand editorialists-except for The Toronto Star-but most editorialists, most multinationalists, and probably most professionals are supporting the deal. In other words, those who are safe and secure and who can draw a financial benefit from this measure.


John Horton McDermid: Do not take any risks.


Charles L. Caccia: I do not blame them. It is a question of values, and the Parliamentary Secretary is fully entitled to support them. However, on the other side of the population I sense that a growing number of farmers, particularly horticulturalists, and grape growers have already assessed what it will do to them. There is a growing number of food processors, and unions, because they represent the workers who will be affected in those factories whose future is at stake, which includes those in the large urban centres where shoes, textiles, and clothing are produced, and also a growing number of small businesses. There are also those, and I suspect that this number is substantial, who honestly believe that trade is not everything in life, that we can be driven and motivated by other values, not only the importance of the market-place and the size of a pay cheque.
On this side of the House others have put forward extremely well the alternative position. Because of time limitation I will only say that what we stand for, and what we do recognize, and what we recognized long before this so-called Progressive Conservative Party came into power, is the importance of international trade and that we must improve trade relations. We are fully on the same wavelength.
Where we disagree profoundly is how we do it. Do we do it within the confines of North America or do we do it worldwide? Do we want to improve, therefore, the trade agreements that affect 100 nations and be part of a large group of nations negotiating improvements as an alternative to a negotiation whereby, on a one-to-one basis, we negotiate with a partner that is 10 times larger and more powerful than us? That is where we profoundly disagree.


An Hon. Member:: We are doing both.


Charles L. Caccia: You are not doing both, because yesterday, in his speech, the Minister for International Trade (Mr. Crosbie) had to admit, at page 18946 of Hansard, that we have to get 95 other countries to agree. Well, they have not agreed, and on top of that we are implementing this measure on January 1, 1989, without waiting for the agreement and the concurrence of the international community. What a way of proceeding.

August 30, 1988
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement
What we stand for is proceeding within and with the international community. We want to do it that way because, as I mentioned, the relation of forces in this type of trade deal as proposed by the Government puts us at a disadvantage. The American economy is 10 times larger than ours. When you hear talk about harmonization of laws or harmonization of standards, as in the case of pesticides, to quote a minute example, where we would be working toward equivalent guidelines, the bigger will not make an effort to adjust and harmonize with the smaller. That simply does not happen. It is the smaller that has to adjust and harmonize with the bigger. We do not want to see that happening, particularly when it comes to harmonization, as I mentioned earlier, of the environmental standards and regulations and laws, particularly incentives that might be given to industries in order to clean up their act, which could be interpreted as incentives to industry itself to produce more and better in competition with American firms. Again, that is a big item.
We want to retain our sovereignty and economic independence and not be isolated within the North American geography. This is why we think we have enormous arguments to put forward as an alternative approach to Canadians if an election is called. We will ask Canadians to judge. We will ask Canadians to make a choice in the full knowledge of what is at stake here. The values that I and many others have spoken about is an important factor which is not stressed often enough, that this agreement, this Bill, is more than just trade in the long term. It will affect our energy and our security. We are giving up long-term security, no matter how funny the Member for Crowfoot finds this.


Arnold John Malone: Ridiculous.


Charles L. Caccia: There is more at stake than just trade, because we will give up our political decision-making powers. We will also be giving up the edge that we have on energy by virtue of the fact that we will have to give up the two energy pricing policies that we have used, and quite successfully for very good reasons.
In the process, we will be less like us and more like them, as John Trent put it so well in a speech at the University of Trent, when he said:
"We have declared it is not just what is on the table that counts but the probable after-effects of a trade deal, when Canadian corporations pressure the Government to lower corporate taxes, to lower social benefits and public health payments, and minimum salaries and union rights so that they can compete on a level playing field with the American counterparts."
This is what John Trent said on November 3, 1987, when he appeared before the committee.
What is this level playing field that has been bandied around so cleverly by several people, by several speakers, during this debate? The question being asked is: "A level playing field or an empty field" by a well known columnist, Leonard Shifrin, who wrote in the Toronto Star last October:
"On day one of a free-trade arrangement, certainly no objections would be registered to Canada's pension programs, its medicare system, maternity benefits, or whatever. Even years down the road, no objections should be
expected-as long as Canadian companies are being beaten in the marketplace. It will be only if we are winning that our "trade distorting" social practices will be diagnosed as the reason .. . One by one the measures that have defined our national community would be stripped bare as Canada's playing field was emptied of the offending provisions and made level with the U.S. plain ..."
This is put well and effectively. To add to those two analyses, as I have said, by a university academician and a writer and columnist, you have the input by Margaret Atwood, which I thought was so punchy, so well put, when she appeared before the Standing Committee on External Affairs and International Trade last September. It may not have been read in detail, as the Parliamentary Secretary says. He may be quite right. You do not have to read it unless you are the Minister for International Trade responsible for negotiating it. The average Canadian does not have to read it in detail. They can catch the sense and the direction and the values at stake here in order to express a comment. You do not have to know it all in detail. That is the responsibility of the Minister.
Margaret Atwood wrote, and I will conclude on that:
"Canadian people, like people everywhere, have values other than money that are important to them. Their fears of losing these values are real fears, by which I mean that they are truly held and must be addressed. It is no use claiming that there is some mysterious gene of Canadianness welded into us at conception that will guarantee the retention of these values, even if all the social structures, educational underpinnings, and cultural manifestations of them disappear. What will be done, if anything, to give these values a fighting chance of surviving?
... It is no use saying that these are emotional arguments as if that disqualifies them.
Almost ail of the arguments heard so far in this debate have been emotional arguments. Fear is an emotion, yes, and love of country is an emotion; but greed is an emotion too."
That is how Margaret Atwood concluded her remarks.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, does the Hon. Member not agree with two statements that I will now put on the record? First:
"The Canadian nation is not a weak and fragile plant doomed to disappearance merely because we trade more freely and securely with our American neighbour. Free trade will reduce regional divisions and enhance Canadian confidence."
The second statement is:
"We cannot choose to cut back significantly our trading integration with the United States without risking severe economic dislocation, cessation of economic growth, and a resultant political instability. In the longer term, successful competition in a North American context will lead to a greater ability to compete abroad and diversify our markets."
Those two comments came from a commission which the Hon. Member's Government set up back when he was a Minister. They are from the Macdonald Commission on the Economy of Canada Report which highly recommended that we get into the trade negotiations with the United States. Very clear and concise statements were in the report on Canada's economy over a three-year period. If the Hon. Member does not agree with those statements, can he tell me why?
August 30, 1988


Charles L. Caccia: Madam Speaker, I thank the Parliamentary Secretary for having revealed the source of the statements, otherwise I would not have recognized them.


Mr. Kempling:: He would not have read that either.


Charles L. Caccia: Those statements remind me of other parts in the same report which I would like to quote in reply to the Parliamentary Secretary because I find them rather peculiar, to say the least, when the same Macdonald Commission reported in an attempt to forecast what would happen:
"Until these barriers are gone-"
And by these barriers the reference is made to trade barriers of course,
"-the exhilaration that can come from a true sense of maturity will remain beyond our nation's reach."
That statement is in the same league as the ones which the Parliamentary Secretary quoted. It is rhetoric of some sort. That was the reason the Government was spooked by fear of U.S. retaliation, went to Washington, asked for access to the U.S. market and did not get it. Not only that, but the Government provoked a round of legislative initiatives, including the U.S. omnibus bill, which has made the situation for Canada tougher than it was before.
On the question of maturity and exhilaration, it is interesting and worth while to put on record what Mavor Moore wrote over the weekend as reported in The Globe and Mail. He analysed the situation so beautifully it would be a pity to miss it. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary can understand and appreciate the refinement of Mavor Moore's thought. He wrote:
"Maturity may or may not be assisted by free trade; history gives no
assurance either way. The one sure key to maturity is knowing who you are,
and universal experience advises us not to lose it inadvertently, or to sell it at
any price."
My answer to the Parliamentary Secretary is that I do not want to sell it at any price, nor would I like to see Canada's independence sold at any price-


John Horton McDermid: It was not.


Charles L. Caccia: -nor Canada's identity sold at any price.


John Horton McDermid: It was not.


Charles L. Caccia: -nor Canada's sovereignty sold at any price.


John Horton McDermid: It was not.


Charles L. Caccia: Therefore, for all these reasons we will put to the Canadian people the importance of defeating this Government in order to defeat this measure.


Mr. Hockin:: Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the Hon. Member a question that pertains to the thrust of his remarks, particularly his comments about independence and sovereignty-
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement
Does the Hon. Member not understand that the American ability to sideswipe Canada when the Americans take trade remedy actions against other countries has been removed through this agreement? We now have protected ourselves against sideswipes.
Second, does the Hon. Member not agree that the binational panel which deals with trade remedies puts us in a situation of equality with the superpower? Does the Hon. Member not agree, with the United States being ten times bigger than Canada, that right now when we have a dispute we have to go cap in hand and ask the Americans to be nice to us or fight in their court system? Does the Hon. Member not agree that the binational panel institutionalizes equality for Canada with the United States and that this is an enormous step forward for sovereignty?
Finally, all the studies indicate that securing access to and having liberalized trade with the United States will produce more jobs and more wealth for Canada. Does that not allow us to fund our cultural and other groups that help us to promote our culture in the sense of our cultural well-being?


Charles L. Caccia: Madam Speaker, in reply to the Hon. Minister of State for whom I have the highest regard, if what he said were correct, why was it necessary yesterday morning in this House for the Minister for International Trade to say, as reported at page 18946 of Hansard the following:
"We want to achieve a clear set of rules for countervail that prevents the
kind of politicized decision-making we saw in the U.S. in the softwood lumber
case."
That is still to be achieved. It is not yet in the bag. That is not yet resolved. We have not achieved equality with the superpower in this. We still have to obtain it. Both of us have seven years to develop the question of resolving our own disputes and defining the question of subsidies. Subsidy has been left in limbo. I am sorry for the Minister of State for Finance (Mr. Hockin) because he is making a statement of hopeful anticipation, perhaps, which even his own colleague, the Minister for International Trade was prompted yesterday to put in terms of things still to happen, not that have happened, otherwise the Minister for International Trade would not have gone on by saying:
If the Americans suggest, sometime in the next five to seven years, some kind of distorted approach to those issues, we will simply say no. We will not agree to their suggestions. That is all we have to do, just say no.
What will happen when we say no to the future seven years from now? Will we pull out of the deal after having put into motion phenomenal machinery of integration of the two systems and harmonization of regulations? That will be pretty hard to do at that late stage. There are many unresolved questions, Madam Speaker, otherwise the Minister for International Trade yesterday would not have raised them himself in his own speech.

August 30, 1988
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David Kilgour: Madam Speaker, the Elon. Member knows there is a six-month termination period for the agreement. It is not a question that we cannot get out of very quickly. Does the Hon. Member not realize that this agreement enshrines the Auto Pact to the extent that if one wants to terminate the Auto Pact, which has been so important to the Member's province-we are all delighted about that-the entire international trade agreement will have to be cancelled? As the Hon. Member knows right now support for the Auto Pact in Congress is getting less and less. I put it to the Member that a great many families in his province will have more security of employment in the auto and parts sector from this agreement than they will if the agreement does not go ahead. I would appreciate his comments.


Charles L. Caccia: Madam Speaker, that is a very thoughtful question. The Hon. Member raises it in his fine style for which I have the greatest admiration. I have to remind him that the Auto Pact was not in question in prompting this Government to run to Washington to obtain a trade deal of any sort. The Auto Pact is established. It is a sectoral trade agreement as the Hon. Member certainly knows. It was not in question so there was nothing endangering the future functioning of that measure which, by the way, was a fine Liberal initiative in the 1960s.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Resuming debate.


Hon. Thomas Siddon (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Madam Speaker, I am really delighted, in fact 1 feel privileged to have the opportunity to speak on the final day of this historic debate on a matter of such great import to our nation.
1 am proud to be part of a government led by a Prime Minister who had the vision and courage to engage in these historic negotiations almost three years ago in the autumn of 1985 in order to secure for Canadians a long-term legacy which far exceeds that of mere access to U.S. markets and the economic benefits that will flow therefrom.
This free trade agreement represents an opportunity for Canada to step into the 21st century. It offers Canadians a chance to ask themselves whether we are grown up enough, whether we are self-confident enough now to take advantage of world markets. Are we ready to not merely rely on our natural resources and continue as so-called hewers of wood and drawers of water, but to turn those natural resources and our human resources to a much greater economic and social advantage for all future generations of Canadians. To turn those resources to our advantage, we will draw heavily on the products of our ingenuity, the talents of our young people, and show how proud we are as a strong and confident nation. We will display that message to the world as we engage competitively in world markets.
What we are dealing with here in the final hours of this debate is a basic choice between those rooted in fear, those who want to live in the past and who will invent every kind of phoney excuse to obstruct this great national objective, and those who project the confidence and enthusiasm our young people feel for the evolving world of technology, the needs of
the developing world, and the reality that it will become a major force in the world economy in future.


Steven W. Langdon: Tell us about the fish.


Thomas Edward Siddon: I will get to fish momentarily. First I want to say how proud I am of the initiative the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) took in creating this opportunity for Canadians. It grew out of this Government's commitment to expand our horizons, expand our productivity, expand our use of technology in turning our natural resources into a great future for our children.
As you know, the Macdonald Commission did extensive analysis of this issue, consulted widely with Canadians over two years, and recommended that we proceed in this direction. Over the three years of negotiations which culminated early last October with an initial agreement, the leaders of Canadian industry, business, trade unions, and all of the important groups in Canadian society, played a role and contributed to the evolution of this historic agreement. The heart and soul of this agreement, what it is all about, is competitiveness in world markets. Rather than continuing to shelter and isolate our industries, we will offer them the great opportunity of access to a much larger market. As a result, as the developing world becomes more prosperous and at the same time more dependent on our knowledge and our ability to trade, it will improve our ability to be price competitive in the international marketplace.
If we cannot sell our products, whether it be a natural resource or high technology, an intellectual product or professional service, on a price competitive basis in the largest economy available and open to Canada, that is the economy of the U.S., we will never sell those things in any other part of the world. Those who say that we can somehow ignore our major trading partner and not seek to gain increased and more secure access to that market are living in the 1800s. If we cannot compete, if our industries cannot produce products at a competitive price, which means at the same price or more cheaply than American industry, we can never sell to the Far East, the European Community or Australia.
We have to learn to be internationally competitive. That will create a great opportunity for Canada because, unlike the U.S. whose resource base is running down, unlike countries like Japan, Israel and Taiwan which have very few natural resources, we have all the resources in the world, to use a figure of speech. We have the young, well educated, talented people we need. We have the productive energy of a well educated, well trained work force in all sectors. The only thing lacking is the ability to meet the challenge of being price competitive in international markets. Those who advocate that we take another course, forgetting the U.S. market which takes 78 per cent of our exports, but rather turning to the Far East or Europe or elsewhere, have to realize that if it is tough to compete in the U.S., it is going to be much tougher competing against the Far East or the European Community which has its own free trade agreement.
August 30, 1988

Those who are so pessimistic, those Canadians who resist this initiative are essentially telling other Canadians that we have another option. We can import the products of countries which use sweat shop labour or which pay their workers 50 cents or less an hour. That is their preferred course of action. Yet they are the very same people who over the years insisted that we use embargoes and quotas to prevent the import of products from the developing world and those other countries which can produce much more cheaply than we can.
The fundamental point here is how do we become more competitive and gain more access to the U.S. market in order to learn how to compete in the world. There is no country anywhere else in the world that has a greater opportunity than Canada and a greater quantity of resources and educational institutions and human creative talent than Canada has to take advantage of this opportunity.
If we are to be competitive, we have to eliminate tariffs which protect our industry and the other tariffs which deny us access on a competitive basis to the American market. That is why the second most important ingredient of this agreement is to eliminate tariffs at a much faster rate than that projected under the schedule laid out under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. We are therefore committed in this agreement to removing all tariffs on trade and exchanges between Canada and the U.S. at the end of 10 years from the beginning of the agreement. The point is simply that tariffs are taxes on our producers. Whether those be tariffs and taxes against the imported products that go into our manufacturing base or the products our consumers inevitably bring in in any event, or whether they are tariffs against our own manufacturing sector imposed by American interests to shelter their industry from ours, those tariffs, which are taxes, are regressive.
It is a fact of history that the tariffs erected by the American industrial sectors against our manufactured products have been higher and higher in relation to the greater degree of processing involved in the resources we export to the United States. The Opposition has always appealed to government, as I did when I was a Member on the other side of the House, to get more value out of our natural resources and end the dependency of being hewers of wood and drawers of water and shipping out all our resources.
It is, therefore, very hypocritical and inexplicable that they would resist this initiative which would reduce and eliminate the tariffs against our value-added production in order that young Canadians can escape from the bondage of shipping out our raw materials; natural gas rather than plastic bumpers for automobiles, two-by-fours or whole logs rather than packaged or modular homes, unprocessed fish instead of finished TV dinners and microwavable, low-calorie meals with all the vegetables and other products we can put into that package.
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement
This attitude we are hearing from our opponents, which has very little substance, is all caught up in emotion and rhetoric. It is denying the Canadian people and the children of our future the opportunity to escape from the bondage of being hewers of wood and drawers of water, to become truly productive, and to maximize the value we extract from our natural resources, keeping those additional dollars right here in Canada where they belong.
With regard to the fisheries industries alone, I have travelled extensively across Canada. I have travelled in the north to Baffin Island, Pangnirtung, White Horse, and Yellowknife. I have spoken there on free trade. I have travelled to small fishing communities on the wharves of Wool Bay in Great Slave Lake and to Buctouche, New Brunswick, and all around the Atlantic Coast in the past few weeks. I have been through many fish plants and have talked to many workers. I have talked to many businessmen, many community leaders, and many in the service industry.
They have told me not to let the opponents in the House of Commons and the Senate deny Canadians this great opportunity to become a powerful, dominant nation in the world in which our young people can look to the future with confidence and optimism that they will have a satisfying career at the same time as making their contributions to the coffers of government in order that we can maintain and enhance our social programs and ensure that as a strong, confident nation we defend and project our sovereignty to the world.
All this nonsense about the fifty-first state and giving away our resources is totally contradicted in the essence of this agreement. This agreement is all about sovereignty. Any nation that lacks confidence in its own culture and its own social programs to the extent that it has to shelter and protect them behind the barriers of protectionism and isolation from the world reality is a nation which is poor and weak in spirit. A strong culture will survive in the world.
The British culture is strong and flourishing in the world, as is the U.S. culture, the French culture, and many other prominent cultures. Canadians are fortunate to be a reflection, through our multicultural heritage and policies, of all of those strong values. We are unlike any nation in the world. We do not need the narrow-minded attitudes of the Opposition or some members of the Senate to protect Canadians and our sovereignty, our culture, and our social programs from this great opportunity to enhance that sovereignty and increase the integrity of those social programs by becoming a productive, leading edge, technology-intensive nation which takes advantage of its resources and shows its goodness to the entire world instead of hiding behind the steel walls of protectionism. This is the challenge we offer to our young people, the challenge to eliminate this uncertainty which has arisen from the protectionist attitude emerging in the United States.

August 30, 1988
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The United States does not particularly care about little Canada. After all, we are one-tenth of their domestic market. However, we in British Columbia care about big California which is as large to us as the entire Canadian market. We care about the history which has forced us to ship our natural resources to central Canada or the Far East and bring the finished products back.
We want access to California. We want access to the states of the northwest; Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. We want that access on a fair and competitive basis because we are confident that given that opportunity we can sell 10 times more into that market than they can sell into ours. We are confident in the ability of our industrial leadership, our well organized union work forces, and our scientific institutions to compete aggressively and have access to that market 10 times larger than our own.
The Americans really care about the Far East. They care about dumping and the sweat shop labour about which I often hear our colleagues talking. They know that Canada, as part of a great continental alliance, is an important neighbour. We stand to gain vastly more than the Americans as a result of this free trade agreement. That is why the Government is so committed to it.
We would not have had to deal with the harassment of the countervail action and the anti-dumping action against our Atlantic fish exports in the United States, at great cost and uncertainty to the fishing industry, had this free trade agreement been in place.


Steven W. Langdon: You certainly would.


Thomas Edward Siddon: We would not have had to deal with the threatened 30 per cent countervail duty against our lumber exports had this free trade agreement been in place.


Steven W. Langdon: That is not so.


Thomas Edward Siddon: The Hon. Member sits in his seat kibitzing. He can speak when he has his turn. We would probably not have had to deal with the GATT case on the export restrictions on our west coast fish products if this free trade agreement had been in place.


Steven W. Langdon: Tell the truth.


Thomas Edward Siddon: I will tell the House why. We and our industries have been harassed by these protectionist measures coming from certain sectors of the U.S. industrial economy and driven by political force and weight right through the Congress and up to the presidential level in the administration because there was no protection, no remedy other than to go into the U.S. system and use U.S. lawyers to fight our case.


Steven W. Langdon: It still exists.


Thomas Edward Siddon: 1 think the Hon. Member opposite is concerned that I might be telling the people of Canada something that is true.


Steven W. Langdon: No, untrue.


Thomas Edward Siddon: The fact is that we have, for the first time in history, an unprecedented agreement with the United States of America which gives Canada something no other nation in the world has, that is, a trade dispute system which treats Canada as an equal to our immediate neighbour, the United States of America. In that process tribunals will be the point of referral of any of these disputes.


Steven W. Langdon: No, no, no.


Thomas Edward Siddon: Yes, the point of referral before important and detrimental initiatives can be taken to further tax and frustrate the productivity of our industries. We will, for the first time in history, and unique among nations, be able to refer such controversies to this balanced, non-partisan group of tribunals, this trade dispute panel, in order to head off this kind of problem.


Steven W. Langdon: Not true.


Thomas Edward Siddon: That is a great achievement of the Minister for International Trade (Mr. Crosbie) and the Government of Canada which will bring untold benefits to the Canadian economy.
In the time I have remaining I want to illustrate the reality of this as shown in the solution which was found to the softwood lumber countervail case. For many months, in fact extending back three or four years, our industry was harassed by the threat of a major countervail duty being levied against our exports of softwood lumber. That industry, which is British Columbia's first industry, contributes 45 per cent of our Gross National Product in terms of our exports to the United States. That industry was in such a state of uncertainty that the investment decisions were not being made, the technology was not being put into our plants, and we were not going out and seeking other markets because of the uncertainty of that countervail action.
The point I wish to make is simply that when the former Minister for International Trade, now the President of the Treasury Board (Miss Carney), concluded an agreement with the Americans in January, 1987, it stabilized our forest industry. The industry put massive new investment into its plants. The stocks of the principal forest industries of British Columbia went up and employment reached unprecedented levels, with 30,000 new jobs being created in the forest industry in British Columbia last year.
If it was good for the automotive industry in Ontario, if it was good for the constituency of the Leader of the New Democratic Party, it ought to be good for western Canada. It ought to be good for British Columbia.
August 30, 1988

History will represent this free trade agreement as the most important achievement and turning point in the progress of this nation in this entire century.


Ms. McDonald:: Madam Speaker, I have seldom heard such overblown rhetoric and departure from the substance of the text. 1 have seldom heard such PR, wishful thinking and such an attempt to mislead Canadians.
However, the Minister did say one thing that 1 believe is correct and which the Minister of Communications and Culture (Miss MacDonald) has not had the nerve to say. It is to concede that culture was indeed on the table and negotiated away. The Minister has basically described the kind of situation our workers in cultural industries, including artists, writers, composers, film makers and so on, will face. He said they can compete in the world. Of course, they can compete if they want to make a film in Canada in which they change the street signs and licence plates to make it look like the United States or sometimes another place to sell the film somewhere else. If they want to sell Harlequin romances, they can do that in the world. However, if they want to make something distinctly Canadian for which we need a structure of support because we are a small country, those cultural supports will be gone in this trade deal. The Minister was frank enough to admit that.


John Horton McDermid: That is nonsense and you know it.


Lynn McDonald: Look at his remarks in the "blues". He said that artists can compete in the world. Of course they can compete.
I want to ask the Minister a specific question concerning his remarks early in his speech. He suggested that those of us who have a different vision for Canada, who are working very hard to defeat this trade deal, are somehow motivated by fear and it is only his side that has confidence.
Before the election the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) were against the trade deal. Did he ever correct the Prime Minister or the Minister of Finance and say they are operating out of fear and do not have confidence in Canada? Why did he not make that kind of speech in favour of free trade before the last election? Why did the Hon. Minister not oppose his own Party Leader, the Prime Minister of Canada, and tell him that he did not have the right way of organizing the Canadian economy? Why was he not in favour of this before the election?
Does it not come down to the issue of trust. The Government, which is now using free trade and wants to sell out Canada, never stood for that in an election campaign. It is like the sacred trust. The Government tells us that social programs are not in the deal. They are in the deal and I will speak about that shortly. In the last election the same Government described social programs as a sacred trust. Immediately after the election the Government deindexed the family allowance and tried to deindex the old age pension. Fortunately, seniors rose up against the Government, as Canadians will rise up against it in the next election to defeat the trade deal.
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Thomas Edward Siddon: Madam Speaker, I appreciate the questions although not necessarily the comments by the Hon. Member for Broadview-Greenwood (Ms. McDonald) because they were so silly.
We talk about our sovereignty and cultural programs. The Hon. Member knows that there are clear provisions in the agreement to ensure that special provisions in legislation to protect our cultural industries are maintained.
I was saying that as a proud and confident Canadian I have no hesitancy in going out to share my culture with the world and turn it into something which we can all celebrate, which can bring economic benefit throughout the world. Canada, instead of being a small-minded, closed nation which protects every little thing from world reality, takes what we are so proud of and sells it. That is exactly the reason for this free trade agreement. We can become whole Canadians, not just petty negative backward looking Canadians as some would advocate.


Lynn McDonald: Why did you not say that in the last election campaign?


Thomas Edward Siddon: The Hon. Member has been here long enough to know that as we research and study issues of national dimension, as we receive reports such as that which came from the Macdonald Commission, and as we do our homework and analyse the realities which 1 projected in my speech, we will learn about the benefits of an agreement of this historic dimension. This agreement can enhance our ability to add value to our natural resources, to market our professional skills, to market our social and cultural programs which the world should have and emulate. We can only do that by being in the real world, not shutting ourselves off from it.
Indeed, I, the Prime Minister and all Members of the Government are confident because when we travel this country we see smiling faces and optimistic people who tell us to put this through because they want it for their children. That is why we are engaged in this historic exercise that we will conclude shortly.


Mr. Foster:: Madam Speaker, I was very impressed by the Minister's comment that the softwood lumber deal had stabilized the softwood lumber industry. It certainly stabilized the softwood lumber industry for about three plants in northern Ontario which immediately shut down when the deal went through in January, 1986, and laid off over 400 workers.
He would be interested to know that in his own province the Pas Lumber Company was almost put out of business when the Government of that province transferred the export tax of 15 per cent to a stumpage charge. The stumpage charge for the Pas Lumber Company in Prince George went from $6.3 million a year to $19 million a year. Now the British Columbia Government is trying to reduce that stumpage charge and the United States is opposing it. That deal, which was bad at the outset, has been entrenched in the free trade deal. Now we have to run to Washington every time we want to do something about our stumpage charges.

August 30, 1988
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When the Minister talks about stabilizing the industry, he also knows that he is almost stabilizing some parts of the softwood lumber industry out of business. Last week, I talked to the manager of G. W. Martin Company in Sault Ste. Marie. It is a very large operation, employing 700 people. Since 1986, the appreciation of the Canadian dollar has cost it an extra $1 million more than what it was making in January, 1986. The export tax is costing it $750,000. It is at a point where it is not making any profit at all.
If this deal is so smart, why did the Government not index it to the exchange rate between Canada and the United States? The G. W. Martin operation in Sault Ste. Marie is actually losing almost 30 per cent from what it was making in 1986 as a result of the softwood lumber deal and the export tax of 15 per cent. 1 can assure the Hon. Minister that it is not stabilizing the industry in northern Ontario, it is destabilizing the industry. If there is a downturn in the U.S. housing market, things will be a total disaster.
Fortunately, the Ontario Government was smart enough not to put on a new stumpage charge because it would cost the industry three times as much, as it did in British Columbia. They are maintaining an export charge which, in itself, with the appreciation of the dollar, is a disaster for that industry in northern Ontario.


Thomas Edward Siddon: My hon. friend stated in the closing part of his remarks that there is a downturn in the U.S. housing market. 1 do not think that has anything to do with the free trade agreement. It has a lot to do with the state of the U.S. economy.
In 1987, the forest industries of Canada had unprecedented profits. Rather than putting a 30 per cent countervail duty in the U.S. Treasury, we kept 15 per cent in Canada and put it back into the ground in the form of reforestation.
I am told that the three companies in northern Ontario that he spoke of were on the verge of serious financial difficulties because they had not kept pace with the evolving trend of technology in the industry. This leads to the basic point and principle of this agreement.
If industries fail to modernize and find ways to diversify and add value to their product, they will, of course, be faced with failure. The very heart and soul of this agreement is that it encourages value added processing. It encourages a situation where we bring in the best technology, and maximize productivity. Instead of exporting chips, particle board or two by fours, we are able to export a wide range of finished products to the world. That is happening in British Columbia right now.
I have seen major investment in my own riding in British Columbia in world-class technology to process finished products from our wood fibre. The same is happening in the fishing industry-


Steven W. Langdon: Time.


Thomas Edward Siddon: -if the Hon. Member will allow me to complete.


Steven W. Langdon: On your own time.


Thomas Edward Siddon: In the fishing industry, a full two-thirds of all of our fish that come out of our seas go to the United States market. In the last two or three years we have seen tremendous increases in the processing before export of those fish.


Lynn McDonald: Time.


Thomas Edward Siddon: As a result of the policies of this Government-


Mr. Manly:: You sold out the B.C. fishery.


Thomas Edward Siddon: -and the additional processing of-


Lynn McDonald: Time.


Steven W. Langdon: Point of order.


Thomas Edward Siddon: -the fishery of Canada, the exports to the United States, is worth almost $20,000-


Steven W. Langdon: Point of order.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Point of order, the Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor.


Steven W. Langdon: I think the Member is well over his time.


John Horton McDermid: They cannot stand the truth so they call it time.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I can assure the Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor (Mr. Langdon) and the Hon. Member for Broadview-Greenwood (Mr. McDonald) that I can count. The question and comment period started at exactly 12.42. For three minutes the Hon. Member has been asking for the time to be expired. I can assure the Hon. Member that there were 30 seconds left in the time for questions and comments. I will give those 30 seconds to the Hon. Minister after which I will recognize the Hon. Member who will have her 20 minutes like everyone else.


Thomas Edward Siddon: Thank you, Madam Speaker. The final point I want to make is that in my own area of the fishery, the average income to a Canadian fish plant worker or fisherman, from our exports to the United States, is almost $20,000.


James Douglas Manly: You put 4,000 jobs at risk.


Thomas Edward Siddon: If the Hon. Member would allow me to conclude. There has been a 10 per cent increased access by way of eliminating these export tariffs on value added products. Crabmeat, fishsticks and TV dinners will add 10 per cent of income in the back pockets of every one of those fish plant workers, an extra $2,000 a year, and that is an illustration of the benefit the agreement will bring to all industrial sectors of Canada.
August 30, 1988


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The period for questions and comments has now expired. Resuming debate.


Lynn McDonald: Madam Speaker, the ancient Greeks saw nature as being comprised of four basic elements, the earth, the air, water and fire. As the environment critic today, I want to talk about the impact of the trade agreement on all four basic elements of our life. 1 want to begin with water.
John the Baptist baptised with water. Water is a symbol of life. For the ancient Greek, water was the primal substance out of which everything else was created. We know, especially this summer with the effects of the drought on western farmers and producers, just how important water is to us. We know that we do not have too much of it and we are wasting it very badly.
What do we have with this trade agreement but a Government that has given away on this most basic substance of life? I would like to refer to some expert testimony of Mr. Mel Clark, consultant to the Rosan Academy of Aquatic Science and a former GATT negotiator for Canada. He is someone very well versed in water in international trade. He stated that the free trade agreement will override domestic legislation. When there is a conflict between the two, it is imperative there be an explicit exclusion of fresh water in the trade agreement itself. As the agreement now stands, water has been included. Not only has water not been excluded, but it is included in the FTA, both implicitly and explicitly.
Let me explain, using the expert testimony before the Standing Committee on External Affairs and International Trade. In Article 408, export taxes apply to the export of any good. Article 409 applies to the export of a good. Article 201 states that the goods of a party means domestic products as these are understood in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Tariffs covering water have been included for many years in the schedules annexed to the GATT. GATT has adopted the harmonized system for classifying goods for customs and tariffs and it contains an item for water. It is beyond reasonable doubt that GATT understands water to be a good. Then there is explicit evidence where water is included in the tariffs schedules in the agreement.
Two conclusions emerge from the evidence. First, the FTA includes all natural water, regardless of how it is packaged or transported. It is not just limited to bottled water which has been the excuse used by the buffoon of a Minister who has tried to joke about this matter and to make light of it. It is a serious matter, indeed. Americans themselves understand that water has been included and, indeed, American Congressmen have made a big point that this is one of the advantages to the free trade agreement to them. Because their water problems
are even more serious than ours, their drought more serious, their supplies of water much more badly affected, they are looking to the possibility of water imports in cases of shortages.
Mr. Clark raises one actually very scary possibility. In the event water sharing is required, how would the sharing be? Would it be on a ten to one basis, according to our population, or would it be on a nation to nation basis, a fifty-fifty sharing? I do not know, but it seems to me any kind of sharing on that basis, where we are forced, is certainly something we would not want to get into. We might want to share, particularly if we relate it to conservation measures. We might well want to share in the question of shortage with our neighbours, or with other people for that matter, but to be forced into it by a binding agreement is quite another matter completely.
Let us also be very clear that having a separate Bill or amendment to Canadian legislation does not cover the situation. It simply does not. It is the text of the agreement itself that will count. If there is any conflict between what is in the agreement, and water is in the agreement, and what we have in some Canadian law, it is the agreement that counts. It is not what some Minister, who will not be around after a while, says, and not what is in Canadian law. If I have an agreement with you, Madam Speaker, that I am going to sell you my house, but in a memo to myself I exempt the second storey of my house, you would take me to court. The text of the contract, in the case of any conflict between the parties, actually counts.

Madam Speaker, water is included in the Agreement, inasmuch as water is included in the GATT. It is considered property under the GATT. The chief negotiator in the sell-out of Canada to the Americans was Mr. Reisman. Who is Mr. Reisman? A man who favours water exports. He even put forward the James bay project, the idea of a huge canal, which would make the Bay a body of fresh water.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I am sorry to have to interrupt the Member, but she will be given 14 minutes to speak when the debate resumes. It being 1 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]
August 30, 1988

[Stage Direction]
[English)

Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Mr. Speaker, tomorrow morning the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mrs. McDougall) is planning to deport a 45-year old Filipino seamstress, a landed immigrant named Sally Espineli, for providing incorrect information on her marital status.
However, her employer, the Manitoba Fashion Institute, like many others in the garment industry, regularly recruits and demands that its women workers be single, which in turn forces women to circumvent an employment criterion which clearly violates our Canadian human rights legislation since marital status is a prohibited ground of discrimination.
It is ironic that the Government stalled four months before trying to deport a convicted terrorist, yet it wasted no time in taking action against a single, helpless woman. The Minister should instead suspend deportation and allow the Human Rights Commission to complete its hearing into her case so that our immigration policy will not violate our own federal legislation on human rights and so that the Minister may also ease the unique hurdles facing immigrant women.
The Minister has spoken very passionately a number of times about the plight facing immigrant women. Here is a real human story which cries out for her sensitivity as the Minister of Immigration and as the Minister responsible for the status of women.
This policy discriminates against women. This Minister has a golden opportunity in wearing those two ministerial hats to do something clearly in favour of women, to stop the discrimination, and to stop forcing them to mislead in order to get a job in this country.


INDUSTRY
Mr. Rob Nicholson (Niagara Falls):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce on behalf of the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) that, in co-operation with the Province of Ontario, the sum of $100 million will be provided to improve the competitiveness of the Ontario grape and wine industries.
The program will include assistance for grape removal, quality enhancement, and price support, as well as grape and wine market development. In addition, the federal portion will support the 1988 surplus grape program.
Research will be directed at determining alternate markets for grapes, as well as ensuring quality and productivity for improvements for wine and grapes. Details of the cost-share
program will be worked out over the next few weeks with the province and, most important, with the producers themselves.
I join with my colleagues in the Niagara, Essex, and Kent areas of the province in making this important announcement that will assist the grape and wine industries to compete in terms of quality and price with products from Europe and the United States.


NORTHERN AFFAIRS
Ms. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to register deep concern about the recent sale of NorthwesTel to Bell Canada.
There has been no guarantee that the 400 jobs will stay in the Yukon. Such a condition should have been a condition of sale. Yukoners do not deserve the vague promises that have been made by Bell Canada in this regard. We need firm commitments.
We also question whether or not our telephone rates will be increased. Bell Canada rates in Ontario for basic residential services are 63 per cent higher than those rates currently in the Yukon and northern British Columbia.
It is also disturbing that Bell Canada had to pay $200 million for NorthwesTel but cannot find the will or the dollars to settle with its striking Ontario employees who have been on strike for over two months. We wonder if this kind of management style will soon be seen in the Yukon. NorthwesTel has not had a strike in at least 10 years.
The Government could have facilitated the sale of NorthwesTel to northerners. Instead, this Yukon company will receive its marching orders from Montreal. Unfortunately, it appears that the privatization plans of the Government take precedence over any desire for northern participation.


SENIOR CITIZENS
Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: Mr. Speaker, Alberta has another first, thanks to La Vida Communities Incorporated, a privately based company located in Calgary.
Last weekend I attended the official opening of the club house of a seniors village called Woodside on the Green. This unique project is designed to meet the special lifestyle needs of senior citizens over the age of 55. In addition to providing beautiful single-family homes it contains an array of convenience and safety features. It is beside the Bethany Care Centre.
August 30, 1988

Lifeline, which is a centrally monitored medical and security response system, is in every home. An 18-hole golf course is adjacent to the club house, while Calgary, Banff, Kananaskis, and Drumheller are within easy reach.
Seniors of Canada, come to Alberta and complete a lifetime of activity in a La Vida home where fullness of life at Hea-theridge in Cochrane, or Woodside on the Green in Airdrie, can culminate your retirement with peace, happiness, and contentment among friends of your own age.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
Mr. Jean-Claude Malepart (Montreal-Sainte-Marie):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to support the thousands of older working men and women in Canada who, on hearing the statement by the Minister of State for Employment and Immigration and Member for Rimouski-Temiscouata (Mrs. Vezina), said that she refused to give them justice and eliminate discrimination against older workers who are penalized by not being entitled to unemployment insurance benefits.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to join the people of the Quebec City Region of ARSAC who say that they will remember the Conservative candidates in the next election as the ones who refused to defend their rights.
The Minister of State for Employment and Immigration is completely mistaken. She does not know what she is talking about! What the people of ARSAC were asking for is help for those who have taken early retirement, who lost their job under the former regulations, as a result of information provided by Conservative Members for the Quebec Region, which the Government refuses.
Mr. Speaker, I would like the Minister of State for Employment and Immigration to tell us why a retired person with a monthly income of $5,000 from an RRSP or an investment is entitled to full unemployment insurance benefits, whereas another older worker who has paid premiums is not entitled to unemployment insurance if he loses his job? That is the Conservatives' idea of justice!


THE ENVIRONMENT
Mr. Gabriel Desjardins (Temiscamingue):: Mr. Speaker, as we count the cost of the Saint-Basile-le-Grand tragedy and considering the serious irregularities that have come to light,
we must admit that governments have to take their share of responsibility for this situation.
Mr. Speaker, how does one explain that this warehouse had not been inspected in the past 15 months? How does one explain that they continued to accept transformers and condensers until February 1986, thus exceeding the allowed limit by 30 per cent? How does one explain that they allowed storage of highly flammable solvents with barrels of oil containing PCBs? How does one explain that since 1983, they never systematically inspected the 3,800 barrels piled one on top of the other? How does one explain that in the past 15 months, no one checked the alarm system?
Mr. Speaker, these facts are troubling and an agonizing question remains: How many such storage sites are there in Quebec?
That is why I ask the federal Minister of the Environment (Mr. McMillan) to urge his Quebec counterpart to proceed immediately to make a complete inventory of all storage facilities containing PCBs, especially in Abitibi-Temis-camingue.
Mr. Speaker, the people have the right to know and Governments have the obligation to respond.


AIR CANADA
Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina West):: Mr. Speaker, Air Canada's shares are for high-flyers only. The Government's Air Canada share issue is a hoax for average investors.
Investors who buy Air Canada's shares can expect to receive neither dividends nor interest on their investment. Air Canada has operated profitably on a commercial basis over the last 11 years, and it has never paid a penny's worth of dividends to its shareholders, the people of Canada.
Airlines in the private sector, whether in the United States or in Canada, are rarely if ever in a position to pay dividends because they have a high debt/equity ratio built into their financial structures.
The Government claims that small investors are the target of its share sale. However, I would advise average investors to avoid Air Canada like the plague, unless they have thousands of dollars to invest and nothing else to do with it but play the equity markets.

August 30, 1988
Large investors are interested in buying Air Canada shares for the purpose of making capital gains, or to reap the tax benefits arising out of capital losses.
The real reason for the share sale is to reduce Air Canada's debt/equity ratio to make the sale of the other 55 per cent of the company more attractive to the high-rollers on Bay Street.
Since many brokers consider airline stocks to be unsuitable for the average investor, buyers should beware.


PUBLIC SERVICE
John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Mr. Speaker, I know from time to time Members in the House hear complaints from the Deep East that it is sometimes discriminated against, and they often think that those complaints are in our wildest imaginations.
I want to bring to the attention of the House a very specific matter which has been irritating me, and giving me concern. I was hoping that it was going to be resolved so that I would not have to bring it to the floor of the House of Commons. It has to do with dock workers, both on the East Coast and on the West Coast. We have a beautiful system whereby there is a ship repair unit on the Atlantic, and a ship repair unit on the Pacific. A contract has been negotiated in which the Atlantic workers receive $3.50 less an hour than the same tradesmen in the same unit on the Pacific on the West Coast. This is not acceptable.
[DOT] (MIO)
It is time that the Treasury Board got off their duff and moved to resolve this discrimination. There is no right to strike here, because these workers on both coasts, because of the importance of the job they do for national security, are designated workers. As a Government, we do believe in regional development. It is illogical to think that, with something within our administrative command, by Order in Council we could not remove this discrimination.
We talk about equal pay for equal work, and we talk about it only applying to women or visible minorities. Why can we not have it for our own trades people in the Public Service? The cost of living is more in the Halifax area than in Esquimau. It used to be that comparative wage scales were different. The fact of the matter is that comparative wage scales in Atlantic Canada are even higher now than the comparative wage scales in the West.
My time is almost up. The fact of the matter is it is time to end the eastern workers being geographic scapegoats and
second-class citizens, and to move to parity over a three-year period.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


TAX REFORM
Miss Aideen Nicholson (Trinity):: Mr. Speaker, there was a song by the Beatles called The Taxman, which went like this:
"There's one for you, 19 for me . . .
Should 5 per cent appear too small.
Be thankful 1 don't take it all."
That might not be an inexact description of what the Government has done with so-called tax reform, bearing in mind where Canadians started in 1984, and where they are today.
The Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) has tried to dupe Canadians into thinking that their incomes have risen with the few extra dollars that they have received in take-home pay since July 1.
The Fraser Institute describes this as "trickery". That is a harsh word, and it is not commonly used by that institute.
The Fraser Institute's recent report points out that Canadians face so many hidden taxes embedded in our cost-of-living that we do not even notice when we pay them. That is something that has often been addressed by Members on this side of the House. There are so many indirect taxes; the excise taxes on tobacco, alcohol, gasoline, the manufacturer's sales tax, which this Government has increased enormously.
The Conservative tax grab is big and still growing.


FITNESS AND AMATEUR SPORT
Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Mr. Speaker, I was just waking up this morning when I heard on the radio the impressive news that Vicky Keith, an Ontario swimming coach, had reached land in Toronto after swimming across Lake Ontario.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Iain Francis Angus: She had just completed a series of crossings of each of the five Great Lakes-the first person ever to do so. She had also just broken the previous world record for long distance swimming using the butterfly stroke, a world record that she herself set. She is the first swimmer to cross either Lake Huron or that Great Lake, Lake Superior.
August 30, 1988

But I feel that the most important reason that her achievement should never be forgotten is because of her drive to raise money to build a new aquatic wing in a sports facility being built for disabled youngsters.
Ms. Keith, along with her parents and crew, devoted many months to training, planning, and waiting for good weather- not to mention warm water-for safe crossings. Personal lives were set aside as this crew of dedicated individuals worked to make an opportunity possible for everyone who will use the new aquatic centre.
Canada has developed a fine tradition of young athletes who have donated their time, effort, and determination to benefit those who are less fortunate, and Vicky Keith now joins their ranks.
1 congratulate Ms. Keith, her parents, and the crew on a fine achievement, and 1 urge all Canadians to show their appreciation by donating to Ms. Keith's cause.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


BURSARIES
Mrs. Suzanne Duplessis (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State (Science and Technology)):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that all Members of the House will want to join me and the rest of the country in congratulating the 2,500 winners under the 1988 Scholarship Program, whose names were announced by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) on August 17. Fifty-three young Canadian students have been in Ottawa for the past two days, representing the 2,500 winning students in Canada.
The purpose of the Scholarship Program is to increase the pool of highly qualified personnel in science and engineering, and one of the Program's requirements is that at least 50 per cent of the scholarships go to women. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to say that this year, 53 per cent of the scholarships went to women. To be eligible for the Program, students must be enrolled in their first year of study for a bachelor's degree in natural sciences, engineering or related disciplines. Every year, 2,500 scholarships each worth $2,000 will be awarded. The scholarship may be renewed, depending on course results. The five-year program is worth $80 million.
On behalf of all Canadians, I wish the students every sucess in their studies.


EMPLOYMENT
Hon. Jean Lapierre (Shefford):: Mr. Speaker, the somber sequence of plant shutdowns is continuing. A few weeks ago, I said that the Simonds Company in Granby was closing its doors, thus jeopardizing the jobs of 131 workers. There was also the closing of Avibec in Marieville, which affects 55 jobs, and recently, Lowney's in Sherbrooke closed down, affecting 350 jobs, which is the worst so far.
Mr. Speaker, I think these plant closings will make the Government realize there is an urgent need for reviving the early retirement program. In the case of Lowney, for instance, which is very similar to the situation at Simonds, the workers are fairly old, in their fifties and will have to either transfer to Smiths Falls or lose their jobs altogether.
Mr. Speaker, in August 1986, when the Minister of Employment and Immigration abolished the early retirement program, it was supposed to be replaced by another program within the next few months. It has now been two years. Meanwhile, families are living in poverty because people who have worked all their lives unfortunately cannot depend on the early retirement program. I therefore feel that these three plant closings should make the Government understand how urgently these early retirement programs and the adjustment programs are needed.
It isn't enough to say that people can manage their own affairs, Mr. Speaker. 1 think the Government has a duty to help those Canadians who have worked hard all their lives, and who now at the age of fifty or fifty-five are being laid off for reasons beyond their control. I cannot understand why, since August 1986, the Government has failed to wake up to this fact and meanwhile is letting people go out on the streets. Mr. Speaker, I earnestly urge the Government to wake up to reality and act sensibly and realize there are people across this country who are in dire straits.


NARCOTICS
Mr. John Oostrom (Willowdale):: Mr. Speaker, drug pushers are beginning to take over our neighbourhood parks as witnessed by the amount of discarded syringes which are being found daily.
Metro police report that dealers use parks to conduct the majority of their drug transactions. This situation is intolerable. Our parks and streets must be made safe for our children and these vermin put behind bars. Each one of us has to contribute if the war on drugs is to be won.

August 30, 1988
Oral Questions
Programs such as the one suggested by a few members of Toronto's City Council of giving drug addicts free syringes in order to attempt to control AIDS must be seriously questioned. Drug use cannot be condoned under any circumstance. Addicts must be urged to curtail their use of drugs and not be provided with better tools for their use.
I hope Toronto Council forgets this foolishness and instead supports Metro Chief Jack Marks' request for 100 more officers to help stem the flow of drugs.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of the Environment. He knows that as of last week PCB has become a household term across Canada and our international reputation, as well as our domestic reputation, hinge on how well we will solve this problem.
The Canadian Environmental Protection Act was proclaimed in June of this year. The Act covers storage, handling, and destruction of PCBs. On that day the Minister of the Environment announced that:
"The Government will get tough on polluters ... and take offenders to court..."
On the same day the appointment of senior investigation officers was announced in all regions of Canada, including Montreal. Thus Canadians were led to believe by the Minister that they would be protected from PCBs.
Can the Minister inform the House today and explain why there are no federal regulations regarding the destruction of PCBs?


Hon. Tom McMillan (Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, as a former Minister of the Environment the Hon. Member for Davenport should know that until the Canadian Environmental Protection Act was proclaimed on June 30 the federal Government, largely because of neglect by the Member's Party, lacked the legislative authority to act. We now can, including through the use of regulations.
Historically the management of PCBs has been shared by the federal and provincial governments. We have engaged in a Canada-wide program in that regard to ensure that the provinces and the federal Government are not acting at cross purposes.
I can assure the Hon. Member for Davenport, and through him I can assure the House, that unless national standards under CEPA are met by every province, and storage and incinerator facilities meet the highest standards of environmental protection, that territory at present occupied by the
provinces, provided enforcement at the provincial level is not done, will be occupied by the federal authority. We intend to act.


PROTECTION OF PUBLIC-REQUEST FOR ANNOUNCEMENT OF REGULATIONS
Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, we have heard this rhetoric since 1985, and I am glad to hear the Minister reversing himself and all of a sudden becoming very bold on the floor of the House of Commons about federal jurisdiction, having reversed the thrust of the Bill in committee some six months ago. That is quite a reversal.
If the Minister has all of a sudden found courage and sounds like a lion on the floor of the House of Commons, when can we expect from him action on PCBs for the protection of Canadians, through CEPA, and announce the regulations for the destruction of PCBs? When will he stop hiding behind provincial Environment Ministers? When will he do that?


Thomas Michael McMillan: Mr. Speaker, I am not hiding behind provincial Environment Ministers or anyone else. Under the authority of the Government of Canada, through myself, the Department of the Environment has arranged for every single PCB storage facility in the country under federal jurisdiction to be identified. We are ensuring that those sites meet the most rigorous national standards for storage.
Second, we have engaged in an exercise with the provinces to identify all PCB storage sites across the country under provincial jurisdiction. I can tell the Hon. Member that if in any one province any site does not meet national standards for PCB storage, then the federal Government will swoop in and occupy the territory.


Charles L. Caccia: Mr. Speaker, the one who has swooped and swallowed himself in his rhetoric is the Minister of the Environment. He is reversing himself on the floor of the House of Commons, having taken a position 180 degrees diametrically opposite in committee on CEPA. Anyway, I wish him luck.


DESTRUCTION OF PCBS-CHEMICAL TRANSFORMATION TECHNOLOGY-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: My question is directed to the Minister responsible for Science and Technology or to anyone answering today for that Department. It involves the new chemical transformation technology to destroy PCBs. I would like to ask the Minister why it took so long to launch the development of advanced technology for destroying PCBs? Would the $60 million cut in the Council's funding, initiated by the Minister of Finance in 1985, including the elimination of the Environment Secretariat, be the cause of that slowdown?
August 30, 1988


Thomas Michael McMillan: Mr. Speaker, the clear implication of the Hon. Member's question is that the federal Government has done nothing in this area over the last three years. The fact is, number one, for the first time ever we have prepared a national inventory of PCB storage facilities across the country; number two, we pressed into service low-level PCB decontamination centres across the country in seven provinces. Only three do not have them. Third, we have laid the groundwork for PCB destruction plants in Alberta, Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec. We now have one on stream in Alberta and one is about to come on stream in Quebec and in Ontario.
We have imposed, Sir, strict federal regulations under the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act for all shipments of PCBs from one end of the country to the other. We have instituted strict regulations with respect to the importation of PCBs, the manufacture of PCBs, the sale of equipment using PCBs, and finally, Sir, with respect to the wilful release of PCBs into the environment. Now that we have the Environmental Protection Act in place we intend to bring the full force of the law down upon violators wherever they may be.


SAINT-BASILE-LE-GRAND TRAGEDY-LABORATORY ANALYSES- GOVERNMENT POSITION
Mrs. Lucie Pepin (Outremont):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. After the Saint-Basile-le-Grand tragedy, 3,000-odd people underwent health examinations in Charles Lemoyne Hospital, including blood and breast milk analyses. They are anxiously awaiting the results.
Apparently, hospital authorities are still looking for laboratories to detect traces of dioxin and furans in blood and breast milk. How come such analyses are not a priority with the Minister of National Health and Welfare? Parents are concerned about the health of their children, pregnant women and new mothers are concerned that breast milk may be contaminated. Can the Minister give us assurances that his Department has taken the necessary steps to have those analyses done within the shortest timeframe?


Hon. Jake Epp (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, the short answer to the Member's question is yes. With respect to the health protection branch and the LCDC, we are giving whatever help is requested. We are testing as well.
Oral Questions
The Member made a valid point about the time lapse for information once a test has been conducted and about the toxicological work that has to be done. We are developing information. We have notified the Province of Quebec and will make that available to every one of the people affected as well. 1 have been told that that should be available by tomorrow night or the day after.


ANALYSES OF BLOOD AND BREAST MILK-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Lucie Pépin: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is directed to the same Minister. Will the Minister confirm whether it is true that the Food Research Division in his Department is today busy analyzing blood and breast milk samples or whether, as one medical officer told us, this is not a priority with the Department of National Health and Welfare, and samples are sitting on the shelves.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, that is not correct. I do not know to whom the Hon. Member is referring. 1 have checked with my Department to ensure that we are giving every cooperation in that respect.
1 also phoned the Minister of Health in Quebec and assured her of every assistance that we are willing to give and that if they want any further assistance we would be ready to give that as well.


DANGEROUS SUBSTANCES
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of the Environment. Yesterday the Minister of Labour, who was filling in for the Minister, told the House that as a result of the new law that is now in place Canadians no longer need to have any concern about potential disasters of the kind which took place in the past week in Quebec with PCBs. Just after he said that an expert in the Minister's own Department said the following: "We don't know a hell of a lot about these sites and we can't do a damn thing about it" if we find that they are unsafe.
My question to the Minister is straightforward. Who is correct in this situation, the Minister of Labour who said that we should rest assured, or the expert in the Minister's Department who says he can do nothing about it?


Thomas Michael McMillan: Mr. Speaker, I do not think the Minister of Labour intended to imply, and certainly I did not infer from his answer, that because of CEPA we would have a Linus blanket that would prevent pollution from occurring or accidents from taking place. There was no such exaggerated claim.

August 30, 1988
Oral Questions
The fact is that we have now a stronger law than we have ever had. CEPA will equip the federal authority with a much stronger instrument to deal with PCB-type contamination and pollution than ever before. However, there was no implication from the Minister, from me, or from anyone in my Department that accidents will not occur.
The federal Government is totally committed to identifying PCB storage sites right across the country under federal jurisdiction and under provincial jurisdiction, to now ensuring that they meet the most rigorous national standards for storage.
To the extent that national standards in that connection are not met in a given province, I assure the House and the Leader of the NDP that the federal Government will take all necessary steps under its authority, which is now much broader than before under CEPA, to make sure that the job is done.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, the Minister knows that, despite the verbiage he has just put on the floor of the House, the correct conclusion is that the expert was right yesterday and not the Minister of Labour. The Minister knows that the regulations are not in place which would give the federal Government the authority to act. When the Minister of Labour said what he did to the House yesterday he was leading all the people of Canada astray because the authority to act is not now in place, and the Minister should concede that.


AGENDA FOR DESTRUCTION OF PCBS REQUESTED
John Edward Broadbent: I want to ask the
Minister a supplementary question with regard to an answer he gave just a minute ago. He said that, notwithstanding the Government's tardiness in terms of preparing regulations, the regulations it would have out soon would be pertinent to the storage of PCBs. He said nothing about the authority of the federal Government in the June Bill to destroy PCBs.
He knows, and experts in his Department no doubt have told him, that technology exists now to destroy all the PCBs in Canada within six months if we had the will to do it. Why does the federal Government not give us an agenda for the destruction of all PCBs, and give us that agenda now?


Thomas Michael McMillan: Mr. Speaker, the agenda is, first, to identify all storage sites for PCBs across the country. Second, it is to ensure that each storage site meets the highest standard for environmental safety. Third, it is to work with the provinces to ensure that with dispatch, to the maximum extent possible, given the technology, the PCBs in those storage facilities are incinerated. Finally, we are going to do all we can as a federal Government to ensure the technology is available and in place and used.
1 might add, in conclusion, that I will be convening a meeting of the Council of Resource and Environmental
Ministers to ensure that those four points I have identified are carried through.


CONTENT OF PROPOSED REGULATIONS
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, the country has been waiting some three years for the Government to live up to its promise on this. The Minister just now made reference for the first time in the House this afternoon to the destruction, as I understand him, the incineration of the PCBs. Is he now guaranteeing to the House that the regulations will include a requirement not simply for the storage of PCBs but for their destruction? Will the federal Government lay out a timetable so the people of Canada, at long last, can rest assured that definite, concrete action will be taken?


Thomas Michael McMillan: Mr. Speaker, I can assure the Leader of the New Democratic Party and, through him, the House and the country that we have a phase-out strategy in the advanced stage of preparation. I am in a position to present it to my provincial colleagues. That is the first priority, to phase out PCBs in use in the market-place.
In tandem with that, we will have a strategy, again well advanced, to identify the storage sites and arrange for their immediate or very soon incineration.


RAILWAYS
Mr. George Baker (Gander-Twillingate):: Mr. Speaker, there are 1,000 employees of Canadian National in Newfoundland who are presently facing an uncertain future because of the actions of the Government. There are 600 employees of Terra Transport who are presently negotiating their future because the railway will close in a couple of weeks. There are 400 employees of Terra Nova Telecommunications, a Crown corporation that was sold just last week to its only competitor, Newfoundland Telephone.
First, the 600 employees of the railway only have 30 days left on the job.
My question is directed to the Minister for International Trade who signed this agreement and made the announcement on behalf of the Government of Canada. Where have all those glorious promises gone? They evaporated into thin air. Why will the trainmen, the people who work the train, including the engineers, no longer have any job security? They are told to go to the mainland to work the spare board. Why is it that 150 permanent part-time workers, some of whom have been with the company for 25 years, are not even covered by the agreement? Will the Minister step in to stop this railroading of rail workers in Newfoundland and at least extend the lay-off deadline?
August 30, 1988


Hon. John C. Crosbie (Minister for International Trade):: Mr. Speaker, as we have come to expect, there is some element of exaggeration in what the Hon. Member says. The Newfoundland Railway had 642 employees. If I have the figures correct, I believe 155 are eligible to go on early retirement; 140 I believe are continuing on with CN. That leaves 347 who had to be provided for. Collective negotiations are now under way. They will get all the benefits in their collective agreements. In addition, they will get generous other benefits that will look after them, that will pay them salaries in many cases until they are 65 and then a pension afterwards, or other jobs will be provided.
The negotiations are under way now. They resume on September 7. The union representative has said that he is expecting and hoping to conclude negotiations with satisfaction for all parties after this next round of talks. Let us be serious. The situation is well in hand.


George Baker: Mr. Speaker, the Minister did not include the remaining employees. He is an expert at side-tracking.


CROWN CORPORATIONS
George Baker: Mr. Baker, 1 want to ask the Minister about the remaining 400 employees of Terra Nova Telecommunications, which Crown corporation was sold last week. By the way, the consultant who represented the successful bidder is a prominent former Tory MP from Newfoundland, and the consultant hired to sell the Crown corporation on behalf of the Government is a prominent Tory fund raiser nationally. In fact he even raised money for the Minister for International Trade and even hired a Playboy centerfold, Miss Shannon Tweed, to spice things up.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Minister.


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member-


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the Hon. Member has not completed his question.


George Baker: 1 will put the question, Mr. Speaker. Instead of Miss Tweed, perhaps Miss Piggy would have been more appropriate.
Can the Minister give a guarantee that there will be no layoffs in Newfoundland from this Terra Nova Telecommunica-tions-Newfoundland Tel merger? Can he give that guarantee and, to prove it, will he at least table the documents?
Oral Questions


John Carnell Crosbie: The hon. gentleman is an expert in blowing, whistling and puffing, as we have come to realize, and in shunting.
With respect to the 400 employees of Terra Nova Tel, they have been given a guarantee that their jobs will continue. Their pension rights are continuing. Gander will continue as a central part of the operation. Additional money will be spent for capital purposes and there will be a reduction of rates for the subscribers of Terra Nova Tel as a result of the take-over by Newfoundland Telephone. Guarantees have been given to CN in writing. I am prepared to repeat them here on the floor of the House.
As the hon. gentleman knows, the people of Gander and central Newfoundland are well satisfied with this transaction. His attempt to raise further alarms does the people he represents a distinct disservice.


BROADCASTING
Mr. Ian Waddell (Vancouver-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, the Canadian Conference on the Arts, ACTRA, the Canadian Film and Television Association, the Association of Canadian Film and Television Producers, CTV and Global Networks, the President of the CBC and the Chairman of the CRTC all have one thing in common. They oppose the Government's new broadcasting legislation.
Why is the Minister persisting with this legislation? She told the committee this morning that the Bill would go directly to the House and we would start debating it on Wednesday, September 14. She said the Bill would go through.
In view of the fact that the Prime Minister has said we will have an election announced on or about September 17, how does she intend to meet this impossible timetable? Why does she not withdraw the Bill?


Hon. Flora MacDonald (Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, I must thank the Hon. Member for his co-operation in committee this morning. I think he was behaving like a perfectly proper committee member, helping to get this legislation through. 1 thank him for the suggestions and, in fact, the amendments that he put forward.
A year ago this time, which I remember so well, Members of the New Democratic Party and the Opposition in general were asking why the Minister did not move forward more quickly with this legislation. They were asking why we did not have new broadcasting legislation because we had been working at it for two years. They were asking why it was not introduced and passed.

August 30, 1988
Oral Questions
1 must say that it took the committee a while longer to finish their work. When they tabled their final report in May of this year I took those recommendations, incorporated a great many of them into the Bill, and I have brought it forward. I may say that this Bill remains a priority with the Government.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, 1 thought for a moment the Minister was going to call me a gentleman.


MINISTER'S POSITION
Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, one reason that many groups are opposed to the Minister's Bill is her refusal to accept all-Party amendments to avoid the North-Americanization of broadcasting, for example, licensing and regulating, say, the American super channels. In light of the free trade deal would the Minister not agree we need stronger, not weaker, Canadianization provisions? And is the real reason the Minister will not accept these recommendations of all these groups in the all-Party committee is that she cannot because of that very trade deal?


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I must say that the exaggeration of the Hon. Member really boggles the mind. 1 may just point out the fact that this Bill supports the Canadianization of the CBC to 95 per cent Canadianization in its programming. This Bill brings in a performance incentive to encourage the private broadcasters to do more and better Canadian programming than they have in the past. This Bill talks about broadcasting which must be predominately Canadian, and I would like to assure the Hon. Member that the CRTC, through its licensing of distributing agents and services, has to deal with all programs it receives. That is the way in which licensing is carried out in this country, by the regulatory body which has been set up by this Parliament to do that very thing.
V V *


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF MR. ALAIN DECAUX, LA FRANCOPHONIE MINISTER DELEGATE
Mr. Speaker:: Order, please! I am privileged to draw to the Hon. Members' attention the presence in the gallery of Mr. Alain Decaux, Minister Delegate responsible for La Franco-phonie.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


THE MINISTRY
Hon. Bob Kaplan (York Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. I want to ask him whether the Prime Minister is aware that the wife and daughter of the Minister for International Trade took a free one week trip to Thailand last month provided by Thai Airlines, and whether this is acceptable behaviour of the Ministry.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, in my 23 years of political life this is the first occasion on which any person in political life has tried to attack my wife or my daughter or to insinuate they behaved in some improper way.
In July, at the invitation of the Thai International Airways and/or the Government of Thailand, I was invited to go on an inaugural flight from Toronto to Bangkok. I decided not to go, having other responsibilities. My wife was invited and my daughter. They went. They went in the company of a Minister from the Government of the Province of Quebec. A Minister from the Government of Ontario went. The Mayor of Metropolitan Toronto went. Other persons in the private sector went. There was no impropriety whatsoever in them going at the invitation of the Thai Government.
1 am very surprised that the Hon. Member would bring this up in this way, without any advance notice to me he was going to drag my family up on the floor of the House of Commons. It is not the first time he has done that. If that is his standard of behaviour, so be it.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Phillip Kaplan: I am not suggesting that the conflict of interest guidelines-


Some Hon. Members:: Cheap! Cheap!


Robert Phillip Kaplan: 1 am not suggesting that the conflict of interest guidelines apply to a wife and daughter-


Some Hon. Members:: Sit down!


Robert Phillip Kaplan: -but I was suggesting in my question that they apply to the Minister.


An Hon. Member:: Shame!


Robert Phillip Kaplan: But the day after he refers to the Leader of the Opposition as a Nazi, a criminal, and a liar, I do not think I have anything to apologize for to him.
August 30, 1988


BENEFIT QUERY
Robert Phillip Kaplan: I would like to ask the Deputy Prime Minister, apart from the Minister's own defence, whether the Government considers this proper or whether the conflict of interest guidelines mean what they say when they refer to the ability of office holders to accept hospitality and benefits, provided they are of nominal value? Is this a benefit of nominal value?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, now we see the reason for this. This trip took place in July. There was a story in the Toronto Globe and Mail in the last week of July about this inaugural flight, giving the names of many of the people who were on it. The hon. gentleman now says he is asking this question because I spoke in this House yesterday and said certain things, he alleges, about his Leader. 1 did not call his Leader a Nazi, by the way. 1 said he uttered untruths. But that is irrelevant.
The Hon. Member, if 1 can call him that, now says he is bringing this up because I made a speech in this House yesterday. Well, he can bring up what he likes, he will never stop me from speaking my mind in this House.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre.


John Horton McDermid: Are you in that much trouble in your riding, Kaplan?


Thomas Edward Siddon: Why do you not join the rat pack?


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre has the floor.


IMMIGRATION
Mr. Cyril Keeper (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister responsible for immigration. As 1 am sure she is aware, the first garment worker to complain about being discriminated against in terms of entry into this country on the basis of marital status is due to be deported by her Government tomorrow. The Commission of Human Rights has written to the Minister directly to ask her to intervene so that this woman can stay in Canada until the Human Rights Commission is able to announce its findings as to whether or not this person was discriminated against. 1 wonder if the Minister would take this opportunity to announce her decision in this matter.


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I am not in a position to announce any decision. There has been a formal application to the
Oral Questions
Human Rights Commission. An investigation is being conducted. 1 am certainly taking a strong personal interest in the outcome of this-


Mr. Axworthy:: Do not deport her, then. Why are you deporting her?


Barbara Jean McDougall: -and we will be watching it in our office.


URGENCY OF SITUATION
Cyril Keeper: I hope, Mr. Speaker, the Minister is aware of the urgency of this situation. The woman is due to be deported tomorrow.


Lloyd Axworthy: People with compassion do things like that.


Cyril Keeper: Can the Minister hear what I am asking? All right. The woman is due to be deported tomorrow and the Human Rights Commission has made a special appeal to allow this woman to stay in Canada until her human rights complaint is carried through. It has found it has reasonable grounds to believe that the Department of Immigration has discriminated against this woman on the basis of marital status. Will the Minister recognize the urgency of the situation and make a decision now so that the woman can stay in Canada until her human rights have been respected?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, the Federal Court has some involvement in this, too. 1 would point out to the Hon. Member that I have already said we are investigating this matter. If he would like me to, I will say I am actively investigating this matter. But I do not need any lessons in human rights from the Hon. Member.


Cyril Keeper: What are you waiting for?


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Barry Turner (Ottawa-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. As someone who has spent many years in Africa I am saddened and appalled at the barbaric and totally uncivilized slaughter the world has recently witnessed in Burundi. It amounts in fact to modern tribal warfare. Will Canada continue to maintain normal relations with Burundi? If not, what action does the Government intend to take to condemn this wanton slaughter of innocent men, women, and children?


Right Hon. Joe Clark (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I think everyone in this House is shocked by the massacres in Burundi. It is part of a tragedy that appears to be ongoing. What all of us want to try to do is to find some effective way in which we might contribute to an atmosphere of peace and justice in that country.

August 30, 1988
Oral Questions
Officials of my Department have met the Ambassador from Burundi. A representative of the Government of Canada was in the country last week, has just returned to Rwanda and is reporting to us. We are meeting today with representatives of the Hutu population in the region. We will work through the Francophonie and other organizations to try to change the practices that have so shocked the world.
1 have noted that the European Community has suggested that it would be helpful to have an independent commission of inquiry. That was rejected initially by the Government of Burundi. We hope that it will reconsider that reaction.
We think that the first step should be to get facts as to how we might resolve the problem and then countries like Canada should certainly be exercising all our influence to try to achieve an atmosphere of peace and justice that would endure.


IMMIGRATION
Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration who also happens to be the Minister responsible for the status of women.
The Minister has just told the House that she will be investigating the deportation order served on a 45-year old Filipino seamstress, a landed immigrant, because she provided incorrect information on her marital status. That deportation order is to take effect tomorrow morning at nine o'clock. With all due respect I suggest that simply investigating is not an answer to this case.
Since the employer of this woman, the Manitoba Fashion Institute, like many others in the garment industry, regularly recruits foreign women workers with the condition that they must be single, which in turn forces them to circumvent an employment criterion which clearly violates our federal human rights legislation, will the Minister immediately suspend the deportation order and investigate the Espineli case, a case which involves problems faced by so many other immigrant women, so that we can be sure that our immigration policy is not going to continue to contradict and violate our federal human rights legislation on the books of our own Government?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, the law on the books of the Government is not new.
I did not say that I will be investigating-I am investigating. We are looking very seriously at this matter.
I recognize that women immigrants or potential immigrants have particular problems in a range of fields which are longstanding, problems which we are also investigating. 1 take my responsibilities both for women within the immigration system and on the human rights side very seriously.


MINISTER'S POSITION
Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, it is very ironic that the Government procrastinated for 10 months before starting deportation proceedings with regard to a convicted terrorist but swoops in, to use her colleague's words, on a 45-year old helpless woman with a case file that has national repercussions.
Since the Canadian Human Rights Commission is investigating this case, and since the Commissioner has said that it will have to bring this woman back at Canadian taxpayers' expense if she is deported, why does the Minister not do the appropriate thing, stay the deportation order and allow the Commission to make a determination not on this one case file but on the many case files of so many immigrant women about whom the Minister has so passionately spoken? Here is a human rights story that cries out for her sensitivity as a woman and as a Minister.


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, as a woman, as a Minister and as a member of this Government I am not only aware of my responsibilities but 1 am very aware of the human conditions that we deal with every day, not just the ones that the Hon. Member chooses to raise from time to time. We deal with them every single day. We deal with them humanely and well. We also have some regard for the system which involves the Federal Court and the Immigration Appeal Board. We are actively investigating this file.


CHILD CARE
Mr. Neil Young (Beaches):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Day Care Connection, a child care organization in my constituency, received some 4,000 calls last year alone from families needing day care. That is over 10 calls a day, 365 days of the year.
Last week the Mayor of Toronto said that child care in Toronto is in a state of crisis. He is right.
I want to ask the Minister whether or not he is aware that in Metropolitan Toronto newly planned subsidized child care spaces have had to be cut back as a result of the Government's planned legislation on child care. Will the Minister not agree that there is something seriously flawed with that legislation and that he should go back to the drawing-board?
August 30, 1988


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: No, Mr. Speaker, 1 will not. If the Hon. Member were to take a look he would see that 200,000 spaces will be created over the next seven years. Those are only subsidized spaces, not to mention the other spaces that are being created.
Additionally, 1 would suggest to him that he should indicate to his Party's Member on the committee that there should be some co-operation to get the legislation passed so that the money can start flowing.


REQUEST THAT MINISTER REDRAFT LEGISLATION
Neil Young: Mr. Speaker, the Minister must realize that rather than being part of the solution that legislation is adding to the problem. If the Minister is not prepared to listen to Members of Parliament will he at least listen to Canadian families? Will he listen to the Mayor of Toronto? Will he listen to Canada's children? Will he go back to the drawing-board to improve this legislation?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, I have listened to Canadian parents. I have listened to the parliamentary committee and its recommendations. The legislation has been following those recommendations very closely. The legislation has been approved in principle in this House. I suggest that what is being done now is that $6.4 billion is being targeted for child care over seven years, whereas at the present time the federal Government is spending $160 million. That is a 100 per cent increase in the last four years that this Government has been in office.
The Hon. Member's Party should start to support such legislation. It should start to support that kind of money. It should not say with respect to the 200,000 spaces that the NDP program of 200,000 spaces is more than the Government's.
Members of that Party should get off the rhetoric which says that on the one hand they are trying to be financially responsible while on the other by the year 2000 they will have an $11 billion bill which will somehow come out of thin air and that taxpayers support it. Less than 10 per cent of Canadians support the program of that Party which is why it was rejected by the Government, as well as for other reasons.


REPORTED CONTAMINATION OF MEAT USED IN HAMBURGERS
Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the Minister of State for Agriculture. In view of
Oral Questions
recent press reports that a disease called hamburger disease, or HUS, is causing severe health problems and deaths in senior citizens and young people, and that it is caused by meat contaminated by the E coli bacteria, can the Minister tell the House whether any special precautions are being taken in Canadian meat packing plants that are inspected by the federal Government to ensure that this contamination is not causing these serious illnesses and deaths which have occurred in Canada this year?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for his question. It gives me an opportunity as Minister of Health to indicate again to all Canadians that proper handling of food is essential. We have had a number of E coli outbreaks, as the Hon. Member has mentioned.
Additionally, the Canadian Government through the Department of National Health and Welfare and the LCDC has been co-operating with Public Health officials. We have put forward a warning again that proper storage, handling and preparation of food are necessary. I thank the Hon. Member for raising this issue which has given me the opportunity to make that point again.


MEAT PACKING PLANT OPERATIONS
Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, can the Minister of Health clarify whether any review has taken place with regard to the operation of meat packing plants? Has there been any new commitment of funds by his Department for research to develop a serum or a vaccine for this disease? Just how extensive will the program of public information be to ensure that as few children as possible are infected by this bacterium and the toxin that it produces?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, I can tell the Hon. Member that LCDC is providing all laboratory assistance required to provide identification of organisms or toxins. We also have an epidemiologist on the site to assist in the investigation, as well as to contain the outbreak.
As I stated earlier, additionally, we have said to provincial health authorities that any further information that can be given, or any technical help that can be provided, we will do that as well.
In respect of any anti-serum, I would have to take cognizance of that part of the question and make further inquiries.

August 30, 1988
Oral Questions PUBLIC SERVICE


NAVAL DOCKYARD WORKERS-WAGES PAID ON EAST AND WEST COASTS
Mr. John R. Rodriguez (Nickel Belt):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the President of the Treasury Board, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister.
Ship repair workers in the naval dockyard in Halifax are paid $3.50 an hour less than similar workers in Esquimalt, British Columbia. Those workers are all federal civil servants. They all do exactly the same work.
Can the Deputy Prime Minister explain to the House, to the workers, and to Canadians, why federal employees in one part of the country are paid less than workers in another part of the country when they are doing exactly the same work?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, without getting into the details of the issue, I would suspect that the collective bargaining process would have something to do with this.
I will take this matter under advisement and return to the Hon. Member with a fuller response.


PAY OF HALIFAX DOCKYARD WORKERS
John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, the Deputy Prime Minister is correct, this is a matter that is a bone of contention in collective bargaining in the Halifax unit.
First, the workers in the Halifax dockyard have been without a contract now for one year. Because their work is essential they are not allowed to strike.
Why does the Prime Minister not do what is fair and honest to the workers in the Halifax dockyards and remove this regional discrimination in the hourly rate of pay, and immediately settle the contract in Halifax by giving the workers pay equity per hour with the workers in British Columbia?


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I want to point out to my hon. friend that it is government policy, as an employer, to reflect the current rates in that particular region. When viewed in the context of the rates that are paid in the Halifax region, those rates are reasonable. That is the point of view that the Government takes.


John R. Rodriguez: Do you do it for MPs?


Philip Derek Lewis: In terms of the Halifax shipyard industry, and this was very well brought out by my hon. friend on the Government side earlier today, and I am surprised my hon. friend did not listen to his comments-


John R. Rodriguez: Do you do it for MPs?


Philip Derek Lewis: No. We are going to stay with that policy.


John R. Rodriguez: That is shameful.


EMPLOYMENT
Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Labour. For two years the Minister of Labour in this Government has been boasting he was going to negotiate with provincial governments an adjustment program for older workers. As we know, such a program was put in place under the Liberal Government to meet the needs of people 55 and older who were affected by plant closures, such as the ones that are now happening in the Eastern townships and also in Eastern Montreal at the Vickers plants. For two years, the Minister has been stating he is negotiating with provincial governments. Can the Minister tell us now whether the Quebec Government, the Ontario Government, the governments in western and Atlantic Canada signed an agreement with the Canadian Government to set up an adjustment program for older workers, so that our working men and women aged 50, 55 or over can benefit from a program that is really efficient and compassionate?


Hon. Pierre H. Cadieux (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, as I said to the Hon. Member and to this House on several occasions, the program in place under the previous Government only covered four industries-it would not have covered Vickers employees for instance, as suggested by the Hon. Member, nor those of the company the Hon. Member for Shefford referred to earlier.
Mr. Speaker, the program is indeed in the final negotiating stages and 1 expect to be in a position to make an announcement very soon.


REQUEST FOR RETENTION OF FORMER PROGRAM
Jean-Claude Malépart: Mr. Speaker, I will believe the Minister again. For two and a half years, he has been telling me that he would make some announcements soon. But they have not been forthcoming; we still do not have any answer. Does the Minister not believe that it would be preferable to maintain the old program and to extend it to the people of eastern Montreal and Sherbrooke? It is an internal matter for the federal Government to decide. He does not have to wait for someone else. So would the Minister be prepared to implement the former program immediately? Once agreements have been reached in the provinces, then he can change them. It would seem more humane to me, because the guys from Vickers have been waiting for a year and a half. . . when they have to pay for their groceries, the cashier does not tell them that he will wait until the Minister of Labour has negotiated with Quebec; he wants to be paid right away, in cash. Why delay such a decision?


Pierre H. Cadieux: Mr. Speaker, since the former Liberal program was to end in 1985, and was discriminatory, we decided it would be better to negotiate a new non-discriminatory program for workers 55 and over, and I should be able to make an announcement very soon, Mr. Speaker.
August 30, 1988


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Philip Derek Lewis: Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the Parties with respect to the vote which is to be held on Bill C-130 and is scheduled for 3 p.m. tomorrow. I think you will find there is unanimous consent for the following motion to be put to the House. 1 move:
That, notwithstanding the Order of the House adopted on Thursday, August
25, 1988, any division demanded on Bill C-130, An Act to implement the Free
Trade Agreement between Canada and the United States of America, shall be
deferred until 6.00 o'clock p.m., Wednesday, August 31, 1988.
This conveniences the House and those Members who wish to attend the funeral service for the late Senator Jean Mar-chand in Quebec City. We understand that this will allow everyone who wishes to attend the service to be back in time for the vote.


Mr. Speaker:: The House has heard the motion of the Hon. Minister of State. Is there agreement?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Mr. Riis:: Mr. Speaker, first, I wonder if I could take this opportunity to seek unanimous consent of the House to allow the Leader of the New Democratic Party to have sufficient time to complete his remarks later today before the speeches begin. Second, we have an understanding that private Members' hour will follow the speech of the third Leader.


Philip Derek Lewis: I am prepared to entertain that suggestion. This is the first suggestion I have had that it was going to be made. I am not sure that 1 see any difficulty, however, I would like to check with some people, and perhaps we could look into it in a minute or two.


Mr. Speaker:: I take it from that there will be some discussion and brought back to the House. The Hon. Member for Windsor West.


Mr. Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, while I would be happy to wait to hear from the Deputy Government House Leader, we are prepared to agree now to the suggestion of the House Leader for the NDP.


ALLEGED USE OF UNPARLIAMENTARY LANGUAGE
Mr. Speaker:: I wish to bring to the attention of the House a matter which gives me some concern, and I want the cooperation of Hon. Members.
I will not name any names, however there has been a suggestion that as a consequence of something said in a speech yesterday morning a question of privilege might be raised today.
First, the rules are very clear that there must be notice. Second, it should be brought at the very first opportunity. Despite the difficulty with the delay in Hansard, it would seem
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement
to the Chair that something said as long ago as yesterday morning, if it was causing that much grievance, could well have been brought to the Chair. Third, 1 must say that I examined with very great care certain remarks that were made yesterday morning. What I might have done if a complaint had been brought to me immediately or at the first opportunity is one thing. I did notice that there was apparently no disorder as a consequence.
1 share with the House my difficulty in this. I am bound to apply the rules. At the same time, 1 would ask that, when Members are speaking-there was more than one complaint brought to me and it involved both sides of the House-no matter how passionate they may feel, that they exercise the restraint and constraints that are appropriate in this place. There are many ways to say here what one thinks of political issues. 1 raise this matter and share it with Hon. Members because I am afraid that, on procedural grounds, if there are further complaints about what happened as long ago as yesterday morning, I just do not feel that it would be appropriate to entertain them. I have taken this position on complaints coming from both sides of the House. Orders of the day.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Crosbie that Bill C-130, an Act to implement the free trade agreement between Canada and the United States of America, be read the third time and passed; and the amendment of Mr. Axworthy (p. 18987).
Mr. Speaker:: Before proceeding further, 1 ask for the indulgence of the House. I was about to rule on an amendment that has not yet been put to the House. I shall wait until later. I might indicate that I will probably be receiving it favourably. On debate. The Hon. Member for Broadview-Greenwood (Ms. McDonald).


Lynn McDonald: Mr. Speaker, water is included in the Free Trade Agreement because it is included in the GATT. Under the GATT provisions, water is a commodity. That means that the Government will no longer be able to block water exports through taxes.

August 30, 1988
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement
Mr. Speaker, environmentalists from all regions of Canada are opposed to this Agreement. They are concerned about the negative impact of this Agreement on the environment particularly on water and non renewable resources, and rightly so.
This Government has adopted the principle of sustained development put forward by the World Commission on Environment and Development. Mr. Speaker, having commit-ed itself to this principle, this Government then approved the principle of free trade, which goes against sustained development. You cannot have it both ways. Free trade means an accelerated development of our non-renewable resources. It means water exports, incentives to use pesticides and the prominence of chemical agriculture over a sustained development-oriented agriculture. Environmentalists have good reasons to worry about this Free Trade Agreement. No wonder the Agreement includes water as a very important resource for us. The chief negotiator for Canada, Mr. Reisman is a known advocate of water exports to the United States. He is even among those who support a wild scheme that would turn the salt water expanse of James Bay into a fresh water lake complete with a dam. That water would then be transported, to the United States. Mr. Reisman would like to see nuclear plants built to feed this water up to the American market.
Had the Government wanted to prevent water exports to the United States, it could have included a clause to that effect in the agreement, but it failed to do so.
There is a policy against water exports. There is even a bill that would disallow them. But the wording of the agreement is of paramount importance and if we look at the wording, water exports are a distinct possibility because water is included in the GATT.
Madam Speaker, this is a mistake, a betrayal of Canada! [English]
Environmentalists all over Canada oppose this deal because environmentalists want to see us move toward a renewable kind of agriculture and forestry. That is what environmentalists want to see, and yet, with this deal we will see an ever faster exploitation of our non-renewable resources. We will not have the opportunity to use our resource base to create jobs because performance requirements will not be allowed.
The requirement for research and development, buying Canadian, local sourcing, all these requirements which have been used by other countries and which have been used in Canada in the past, and used very effectively in Quebec, for example, will no longer be permitted in the deal on free trade. This is tying our hands for economic development, regional development, and resource management. It is tying our hands in terms of the conservation of our non-renewable resources. It means that Canada will depend more and more on selling our non-renewable resources at world prices-we cannot even have two prices-and selling them without transformation, without getting the benefit of the jobs around them because that will not be allowed.
Environmentalists see an ever faster exploitation of resources. In the case of oil and gas, these are resources in
conventional terms that are not going to last very long. What happens? It means that we will have to go further out. We will have to go to environmentally fragile areas, to the Beaufort Sea, offshore to areas that risk the natural environment for native people and fisherpeople, the natural environment on which we all depend, in order to sell cheaply resources which should be for more than one generation, resources which should be lasting, resources which indeed have often been developed with the taxpayers' money, and now will be sold cheaply, in effect subsidized and given away.
A specific example of what is wrong with this deal for the environment is pesticides which are an important chemical product. That is one item that will be cheaper after free trade. Is this something that we should be happy about as consumers? Unfortunately, pesticides are a major environmental hazard, and measures to encourage even greater use are not something that environmentalists are going to favour at all.
Measures that have been used in the past to subsidize industry, to bring in pollution abatement, for example, reductions in acid rain, could be considered unfair subsidies under the trade deal and could be abolished.
There is going to be pressure to have lower environmental standards because the competition is going to be tough. Industries are going to say: "We have to compete with our neighbour with lower standards. We have to reduce our standards too". The pressures are all going to go in the wrong direction with this deal, and people understand that.
The area of culture is one in which the betrayal of this Government has been extremely important. People in the cultural community are beginning to understand that, and they are speaking up ever more forcefully on it.
Let me refer to testimony by a coalition that is formed of the major arts groups in Canada. Just last month they came up with a statement on the implications of the trade deal, and they are very clear. Each member of this alliance is convinced that the agreement's so-called exemption for culture will actually discourage Canadian governments in future from taking measures to assist the development of independent cultural industries by Canadians for Canadian audiences.
Yes, Canadians can compete in the world, but they have to make Canada look like the United States for those films, and then they can sell it.
Canadians want to see something of themselves. The regions want to see themselves and not just the use of our film industry to make American movies here. Measures need to be taken if this is to happen. It is doubtful if measures introduced in the past would be acceptable were they to be proposed by post-free trade Canada. Therefore, we are forced to conclude that our sovereignty is jeopardized by the agreement. They give a number of examples. The Government has reneged on the capital cost allowance. The Baie Comeau publishing policy was announced by the Government, but it is not being acted on. Takeovers are being allowed with no divestiture.
August 30, 1988

The previous Minister of Communications is unhappy about it and has talked about this abandonment of the Baie Comeau policy because of pressure from the free trade deal. We have rejection of Investment Canada guidelines for film distribution and rejection of the Raymond Rock report, a very, very weak proposal which the Government has finally come up with. The Minister of Communications (Miss MacDonald) reneged on everything that had been promised to the cultural community. The very, very weak broadcast legislation that we have now is weaker than the present Act. Why, Madam Speaker? Because that is the climate. We will have North American culture because the giveaway is complete by this Government.
This agreement recognizes a North American reality but leaves little room for a Canadian vision, and I am sorry to say that that is the case. The cultural industries that came together for this brief pointed out that they were not surprised that this happened given Mr. Reisman's statements. He explained the amazing Article 2005, the one that is supposed to be the exemption. He explained what that means.
"-new measures affecting cultural industries would be scrutinized by both sides to determine whether they were consistent or inconsistent with the Agreement."
What is that? Instead of making the decision ourselves, we have to scrutinize and ask whether this is something our American friends will object to. The Americans will scrutinize and ask: "Is this something where we can be making more money in Canada? If so, we will not let the Canadians get away with it." That is what Mr. Reisman was talking about. It is an absolute betrayal of all of the statements made by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney), and Ministers saying that culture was not up for trade. It was up for trade and the Government gave it away.


Some Hon. Members:: Nonsense.


Lynn McDonald: What Mr. Reisman is saying, and what we believe the agreement says, is that actions taken in the past are exempt from the agreement but any new initiatives are not. As a result, all of the provisions in the agreement which apply to the economy in general apply to the cultural industries as well insofar as new measures are concerned. Yet we need new measures to strengthen our Canadian culture.
The present Government of Canada has bound its own hands in a way no previous Government in our history was ever prepared to do. Under the constraints imposed by this agreement, vitally important cultural initiatives such as Bill C-58, the capital cost allowance, the Baie Comeau policy could never have been implemented. This Government has neutralized its own cultural policy initiatives. I say shame on this Government for having done that.
People in my riding are very concerned about this. Ordinary Canadians are telling me that they have pride in Canada. They
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement
like our country. They want our medicare system, our cultural system and the fairness that we have that has taken years to develop. A Macedonian Canadian said that if he wanted to live in the United States he would have emigrated there, and a Latvian Canadian told me the same earlier this week. These are sentiments of people who care about their country, who have confidence that we can solve our own problems, that we can do things ourselves.
We can trade with the world. We can develop our own economy. We can create jobs. We do not have to sell our soul or our resources cheaply. These are Canadians who have confidence in Canada and these are the people who have been betrayed by a Government which talked about patronage when all it wanted to do was get to the trough faster than the previous Liberal Government.
It is a Government that talked about the sacred trust and then moved immediately to deindex the old age pension. Fortunately, it did not get away with it. This is a Government that is saying "trust us" as we take this next step. Canadians cannot trust this Government. Canadians have a different vision. We have worked hard to build Canada. Seniors, who are opposed to this deal, think of all the work they have put in over the decades that is being given up by a Government that cannot be trusted and by a Government that has no mandate to act.
I have confidence in Canada. I have confidence that we can create jobs here. I have confidence that we can solve our problems, not easily, but we can do it. Certainly if we give up the very tools of our political sovereignty we will not be able to solve our problems.
We live in a changing world and we need the tools to change, to adapt, to create new solutions to problems. The future will be different from the past. The status quo will not go on. This Government wants us to give up the very political sovereignty we need in order to solve those problems in the future.
It is not this House that will be making the fundamental decision. The Government's course has been decided. It is using its majority and closure on this Bill. Canadians are going to make the decision at the next election, and I hope that next election will come soon. Canadians will decide that the Government does not merit their confidence, that they have been betrayed by it. The fundamental decision will be made not on Bill C-30, not tomorrow when we vote on it because that is a foregone conclusion, but this Government will be accountable to Canadians. They are not going to like the results because Canadians still have confidence in their country and they have lost confidence in this Government.

August 30, 1988
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In the minute 1 have left I would like to conclude by moving an amendment to the amendment. I move:
That the amendment be amended by deleting the period and adding the following therefor:
"and its implications on the economic and political sovereignty of Canada"


John Horton McDermid: Madam Speaker, 1 think we just witnessed here on the floor of the House of Commons the approach which the New Democratic Party is taking in this debate, one of frightening Canadians and scaring them with tripe. I want to go through some of the items the Member was speaking about.
First, water. The New Democrats keep bringing up this old canard that water is in the agreement and that the Americans are going to come with their pipes and drain us dry of all the water. Let us take a look at the facts and the truth.
1 want to quote Frank Stone who is a prominent Ottawa consultant on trade policy.


Lynn McDonald: And he is wrong.


John Horton McDermid: He is a senior research associate with the Institute for Public Policy. He is the author of Canada, the GATT and the International Trade System, published by the institute in 1983 and now being updated. He had a long career in the Department of External Affairs, represented Canada at the GATT in Geneva and led the Canadian side in the 1972 Canada-U.S. Agreement on Great Lakes Water Quality. He said:
"Under the Free Trade Agreement our water is for sale all right, as it always has been-as a beverage. All the Trade Agreement will do is disallow import or export duties on trade in water that is sold normally in bottles and jugs...
The Free Trade Agreement, like the many other agreements of its kind and the father of them all the forty year old General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), is concerned with regulations over commercial trade, not water diversions or inter-basin transfers. The items in the Canadian and American schedules attached to the Trade Agreement very clearly refer to water as a beverage. Indeed, water falls under the chapter heading Schedules entitled "Beverages, Spirits and Vinegars" which covers trade in mineral water, soft drinks, beer, whiskey and wine as well as vinegar."
He said if this was ever brought to GATT, his words, "it would be laughed off the table".
Just to satisfy the NDP let me read Clause 7 of the Bill which says: "For greater certainty, nothing in this Act or the agreement except Article 401 of the agreement applies to water. In this section water means natural surface and ground water in liquid, gaseous" and she understands gaseous "and/or solid state, but does not include water packaged as a beverage or in tanks." It is all there. Our water policy enunciated by the Minister of the Environment (Mr. McMillan) in November clearly states this Government's position. For the Hon. Member to go around spreading those untruths across the land that the transfer of interbasin water is in this agreement is a total fallacy. The expert she quotes is someone out to do one thing. I would check his political credentials before quoting him.


Lynn McDonald: Madam Speaker, would that the Hon. Member were correct. I would be much happier if that were the case. The submission made by Mr. Frank Stone, a weak lily on which to lean in this case, finishes with a note for editors: "The views expressed in this article are his own". He does not represent the institute on that.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Lynn McDonald: He has some experience in the Department of External Affairs. The expert whom 1 have quoted also has that experience. Mr. Clark is a retired public servant. He was deputy chief negotiator to the Tokyo Round of GATT for Canada and has over 30 years experience on trade issues.


William James Kempling: A member of the NDP.


Lynn McDonald: He is not a member of a political party to my knowledge and that would not make him right or wrong if he were. Mr. Mel Clark is certainly an expert and he is a consultant to the Academy of Aquatic Science.
Let me quote further, apropos the statement of the Hon. Member that it is only bottled water, only fizzy water that is included. Mr. Clark says: "Explicit evidence that water is included in the FTA is that tariff item 2201, which is in both the Canadian and U.S. tariff schedules as well as the harmonized systems, includes all natural waters". Let's be very clear: all natural waters. The fact that vinegar is in the title is neither here nor there. The title is not the text, unfortunately. If there is a dispute between what is in the text and what is in the title, it is what is in the text that counts. The tariff item reads: "Waters, including natural or artificial mineral waters and aerated waters not containing added sugar or other sweetening, ice and snow". They have even included ice and snow. Is the Hon. Member trying to tell us that ice and snow are put only in bottles? Never heard of such a thing. Water is included and so is ice and so is snow.
The Hon. Member would like Canadians to be deceived about the importance of this agreement. It sells out water, nonrenewable resources, culture and our social programs.


Thomas Edward Siddon: It is a lost cause, Lynn. Forget it.


Lynn McDonald: There are 21 chapters in this agreement and 11 of them are about items that have nothing to do with tariffs. This Government is selling out what is most important to Canadians.


Some Hon. Members:: Time!


Lynn McDonald: This Government deserves to be defeated.


Philip Derek Lewis: Point of order, Mr. Speaker. There have been discussions among the Parties and I think you will find there is unanimous consent to the suggestion that we move Private Members' Hour this evening and therefore interrupt and put all questions necessary to dispose of third reading of Bill C-130 at nine o'clock p.m. Immediately thereafter we will move to Private Members' Hour. In addition, it is the wish of the House that when the Leader of the NDP (Mr. Broadbent) speaks, he should be given sufficient time to complete his remarks.
August 30, 1988


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, certainly we are in agreement with the proposal put forward by the Deputy Government House Leader with the proviso, of course, that we think the debate should be going on for several months more-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Lloyd Axworthy: -and we should have an election before the vote, but aside from that we are quite happy to go along with this particular suggestion.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, we certainly agree. I also want to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to my friends in the Official Opposition and the Government for their generosity in allowing my leader to complete his remarks.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Let us make it reciprocal.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps I could say that what the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) expresses gratitude for is at the same time in keeping with the traditions of this place. 1 appreciate his making the remarks he did.
Continuing debate with the Right Hon. Prime Minister.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, it is with pride that I rise to support this Bill which will give Canada a new, more certain and more beneficial trade relationship with the United States of America.
1 believe it is a good agreement for Canada. It is an idea older than Confederation itself whose time has finally come. It will stand the test of honest scrutiny. It is I believe genuinely in the national interest. The free trade agreement is necessary to secure access to our most vital market and is consistent with policies which are already strengthening our economy and improving the well-being of Canadians.
We on this side of the House support the free trade agreement because we believe it will bring prosperity and economic benefits to Canadians from coast to coast.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Free trade will mean lower prices for Canadian consumers, better jobs, and greater individual opportunities. Free trade will help the regions of this country. It will do so by creating a broader and deeper pool of national wealth, not just by redistributing existing resources.

Mr. Speaker, free trade will help us to sustain our social security programs. Nothing endangers them more than economic decline. Nothing guarantees them better than an expanding economy. The values we have as Canadians and the distinctive quality of life we bring to North America will be enriched by free trade. By strengthening our economy, free trade will help us support cultural programs that enhance the
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement
capability of our artists, writers and performers to express themselves to Canadians and to the world. Free trade will also improve our capacity to strengthen our national programs ranging from the environment to regional development to child care.
Free trade will strengthen our foreign policy. It will be welcomed globally as a beacon of hope for the forces of more open trade, particularly, Mr. Speaker, among developing nations and as a bulwark against protectionism.
My purpose today is to outline the rationale for this initiative, measure the results against our objectives, separate myth from fact, and assert the reasons why I believe this agreement deserves the support of all Canadians.
Almost four years ago the Government received an overwhelming mandate for change from the people of Canada. It is a mandate that we are doing our very best to honour with vigour and determination. Several years ago, before I entered the House of Commons, I set out an agenda for Canada.
First, I said that the new Government must establish that special relationship of trust at all levels with our allies, including our greatest friend and ally, the United States of America. Second, we have to send signals around the world that investment capital is welcome here and that this is a good, an honourable, and a decent place to do business. We have to state clearly that the private sector is the only motor whereby new wealth, new jobs and new opportunity can be created for Canadians. I also said that we must energetically stand and press for the lowering of barriers to trade because trade is our life-blood. In that direction lies our future prosperity.
Government in Canada must see its role as creating, with the private sector, a greater and freer access to world markets and higher levels of trade. That was true when I made that statement over five years ago and it is very much true today.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: That is precisely what we have delivered during our mandate. More Canadians are working today at rewarding and satisfying jobs than every before. Inflation is low, the dollar is strong, business is expanding, and consumers are confident. The Canadian economy has out-performed all other OECD economies over the past four years. Relations with the United States have improved substantially. The sour mood and the petulance of the seventies and early eighties is gone. When neighbours quarrel, everybody suffers. When neighbours co-operate, everyone benefits.

August 30, 1988
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: We on this side of the House prefer the advantages of co-operation to the futility of confrontation. We are proving, as best we can, that co-operation works. The biggest challenge for government today is to manage the forces of change, and that is what we are trying to do.
In the information age ideas are the new currency of power. High tech industries and universities have become the arsenals in the nation's influence. In the nuclear age economic strength is becoming as much an alternative to military power as a basis for it. The proportion of world income generated from the sale of natural resources is declining. Capital has become more mobile, moving literally at the speed of light. Investment funds, the motor of growth, flow where there is political stability and profitable economic opportunities.
For all countries, especially the already industrialized countries like Canada, prosperity depends on the quality and skills of our people in harnessing technology, fostering innovation, and establishing an environment for stable growth. We have in this country world-class industries and world-class financial institutions. Our economy is diversified and strong. In the last four years we have recaptured much of the road lost. We are well equipped to prosper and to manage change if we make the right policy decisions now.
We know from painful experience what happens when we make the wrong choices, when we try to swim against the tide, for example, on energy policy or investment policy, or to resist the global trend toward more open trade. One has only to walk through western Canada from the late seventies to the early eighties to see the devastation inflicted on western Canada by a wrong policy choice in energy. That will not happen again.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: We must master change, not run from it. We must meet competition, not hide from it. There is no sanctuary from the difficult realities of the unfolding decades. If properly grasped, Canada's future holds the promise of ongoing economic renewal. If rejected, Canada's prospects can be thwarted and our horizons diminished. Canada's youth has understood this challenge. Our young people are saying no to the attitudes of the 1930s and yes to the opportunities of the 1990s.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: The newly industrializing countries are not going to decide that their new prosperity has been a mistake. The Europeans are not going to revert to a pastoral life. Far from it, by 1992 the Europeans will have the largest, most powerful trading bloc that the world has ever known. Australia and New Zealand recognize where their interest lies and are rapidly accelerating their free trade association. So, Mr. Speaker, what is the best prescription for Canada?

For anyone ready to listen, to study events and trends and to learn from them, the message has emerged in a persuasive way, with the authority of genuine scholarship and the benefit of real life experience. New challenges demand objective analyses and fresh approaches.

The answers of a generation ago, a decade ago, must be reviewed in light of a rapidly changing world and Canada's role in it. Trade is the lifeline of Canada's prosperity. Trade with the United States, our most valued commercial partner, is the key to a secure economic future for this nation in the next century. Trade abroad means jobs at home here in Canada.
How best do we ensure this reality with the United States? In recent years independent analysis has sharpened the focus and I believe has helped to point the way for all of us. The Senate report on free trade with United States issued in 1982, under the chairmanship of Senator George Van Roggen, said that "the desired restructuring, growth and competitiveness of Canadian industry can best be achieved by the negotiation of a bilateral free trade agreement with the United States".


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: The report pointed out that it is precisely at the strengthening of the national fabric, both political and economic, that a Canada-U.S. free trade agreement is aimed.
In August of 1985, at a meeting of the U.S. National Governors Association, seven of Canada's ten Premiers called for comprehensive free trade negotiations with the United States and two of the three absent premiers soon thereafter conveyed their support.
The report of a special joint parliamentary committee on Canadian trade relations in 1986 urged "immediate trade discussions with the United States".
Then there was the powerful contribution to our national debate, which I think everyone would acknowledge, by the Macdonald Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada. Over a three-year period from 1982 to 1985, the Macdonald Commission analysed options for Canada's economic future. It heard from hundreds of Canadians, individuals and institutions, held public hearings in 32 cities, in all 10 provinces, and sponsored three-day debates in major centres across Canada. Its research alone fills 72 volumes.
In 1985, the Macdonald Royal Commission concluded that free trade for Canada with the United States would be "a prudent course which will help make us richer and, by making us richer, strengthen the fabric of our country and increase our self confidence".


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
August 30, 1988


Martin Brian Mulroney: No analysis was more thorough, no body of research more impressive, and no conclusion more compelling to my colleagues and myself than that of the Macdonald Royal Commission calling for a comprehensive free trade agreement with the United States of America.
This Government chose to act on that strong analysis and on that recommendation. This was not just the view of the Hon. Donald Macdonald, a distinguished former Minister of Finance in the Government of Canada. It was also endorsed by other commissioners such as Tommy Shoyama, a widely respected former Deputy Minister of Finance; by Laurent Picard, former President of the CBC, by Albert Breton and Clarence Barber, both prominent economists; by Jean Wadds, a former High Commissioner to London; and by Michel Robert, a distinguished Quebec lawyer soon thereafter elected President of the Liberal Party of Canada.
Meanwhile, the Government had been pursuing studies and consultations on the same topic. In 1985, we issued a major discussion paper setting out the options for Canada. We appointed the late Tom Burns, a veteran trade policy expert and former President of the Canadian Exporters Association, to consult with Canadian business and labour leaders.
We established an international trade advisory committee, involving prominent Canadians from all regions of Canada. We appointed 15 sectoral advisory groups. And we invited the Public Service to review options and explore prospects with the Americans and bring forward plans for a clear and realistic course of action.
In all of these consultations, in all of the studies and analyses there was one overwhelmingly and singular conclusion: Canada had to act quickly and decisively to confront the new reality of the future.
We are a nation of only 25 million people, heavily dependent on trade and living next door to the largest and richest market on earth. Almost 75 per cent of our exports, worth $108 billion, will go to the United States.
Millions of jobs are dependent on the success of this economic relationship, which is the largest between two nations anywhere in the world. That rich market, on which so many Canadian jobs depend, was turning inward and protectionist.

The Hon. Pierre MacDonald, Minister of International Trade in the present Government of Quebec, wrote this:
"Since the early 1980s, the United States has been grappling with an enormous trade deficit, which they absolutely must reduce. Consequently, a new wave of protectionism has appeared and has gained much ground among American politicians. This trend is highly disturbing to a number of trading partners of the United States. Given the importance of the U.S. market for Canadian and Quebec exports, protectionism is viewed with particular concern here."
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement
And Minister MacDonald, speaking on behalf of the Quebec Government, continued:
"It is in this perspective that free trade talks were undertaken in 1986. The time could not have been more opportune to discuss free trade with the United States."
Mr. Speaker, Minister MacDonald, speaking for the Government of Quebec, was quite right. The time could not have been more opportune. We acted when we had to.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Indeed, as the Macdonald Commission noted, Canada's economic growth is critically dependent on secure access to foreign markets. More, better and more secure access to the U.S. market represents a basic requirement, while denial of that access is an ever-present threat.
Access to our most important market was indeed being threatened. About 40 per cent of our exports to the United States were subject to quotas, "voluntary" restraint and other restrictions.

At that time, by way of illustration of the mood and atmosphere that existed in the United States, the Ottinger Bill, passed three successive years by the United States House of Representatives, sought to destroy the Auto Pact. That was the object of that exercise. The Americans demanded punitive action against Canadian steel, uranium, cement, subway cars, fish, lumber, in fact virtually all of our exports. There was a crisis a month for one Canadian exporter after another, as new trade barriers were erected against Canadian products and new legal interpretations were advanced to inhibit Canadian access to the U.S. market.
That is the challenge that we faced at that time and the negotiation of a bold new trade agreement offered the most realistic solution on behalf of the people of Canada.
I doubt that any other initiative taken by any Canadian government has been the subject of as much thought and consultation with Canadians as the launching of the free trade negotiations.

Indeed, Mr. Speaker, this is a quite legitimate question: How did we approach the negotiations? First, Mr. Speaker, we selected Simon Reisman as chief negotiator. He was the most able person we had, a man of great talent and unparalleled negotiating experience. Mr. Reisman's involvement in trade policy on behalf of Canada goes back to the very foundation of the GATT four decades ago. In bilateral trade, he was best known as the architect and negotiator of the highly successful Auto Pact, which has brought such prosperity to Ontario and Canada. Mr. Reisman then selected a team of the best and brightest public servants in the trade policy field, one of the finest such groups ever assembled-and properly so, Mr. Speaker. The mission we were giving them was one of the most important in Canadian history. Mr. Reisman led a series of consultations with Canada's private sector to ensure that the Government got the best possible counsel.

August 30, 1988
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Throughout the negotiations, the provincial Governments were regularly briefed and fully consulted. Detailed analyses were conducted of all sectors of the economy. Comprehensive research was conducted on policy issues, ranging from United States trade remedy laws to the European experience in trade liberalization.
When we entered negotiations with the Americans, we had done our homework, thoroughly. As Prime Minister, I involved the Premiers in this process on a basis and to a degree that, I believe, Mr. Speaker, was unprecedented in our history. In a federation like ours, I met the Premiers on 11 separate occasions in intensive working sessions. They were intimately involved in the negotiations of the Free Trade Agreement from beginning to end.
Moreover, the continuing committee of Ministers and officials from the federal and provincial Governments met almost monthly to review progress and to guide our negotiation strategy.

Throughout, the entire trade initiative was guided with skill and resolve by the Ministers responsible for international trade during this historic period: The Hon. Member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Kelleher), the Hon. Member for Vancouver Centre (Miss Carney), and now the Hon. Member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie).


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: What are the results? In a phrase, security of access and opportunity for economic growth. It is a good deal for Canada, one that serves our national interest, one that fulfils the objectives-not perfectly. Perfection is a rare commodity in our society and in our lives-but it is one that largely fulfilled the objectives that we had set for ourselves and for the Government of Canada.
Most of all, it is a fair deal for both countries, for Canada and the United States. Most obviously, Canadians will pay less for American products. All tariffs on U.S. imports will be removed over the next 10 years. There will be no more U.S. quotas on Canadian uranium exports. There will be no more U.S. import tax on Canadian oil exports. There will be no more U.S. customs user fees on any Canadian exports.
Most fundamentally and most importantly, the agreement will replace the politics of trade with the rule of law, a feature which is of particular value to the smaller of the two trading partners. From now on, any U.S. trade legislation affecting Canada will have to be consistent with the free trade agreement. From now on, all actions by the United States within the scope of the agreement, whether by the executive branch, the Congress or independent regulatory agencies, will be subject to notification beforehand, to consultation and, if necessary, to
dispute settlement. From now on, final decisions on disputes regarding access to that vital market will be taken, not just by the Americans as they have been all too often in the past, but by Americans and Canadians acting together.
Canadian exporters will have a solid defence against harassment by their American competitors. This is good news, for example, to the fish and potato exporters of the Maritimes who have endured six vexatious but expensive investigations launched by their American competitors. Canadian industry will at last escape being sideswiped as the Americans pursue safeguard actions against other foreign exporters, but hit us on the rebound. This is good news for industrialized Ontario particularly.
Canadian exporters of lumber, shakes and shingles, and other goods will at last be able to challenge unilateral decisions imposing duties on their exports to the United States of America. Bi-national review will assure greater fairness, greater objectivity and, I believe, greater caution by U.S. regulators in the first instance. This is particularly good news for British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and, indeed, for all exporting provinces.
This agreement builds on 50 years of bilateral and multilateral negotiations with the United States. The agreement takes a hodgepodge of existing agreements and ad hoc arrangements and translates them into a coherent and binding framework of rules tailored to the trade and investment realities of the 21st century. The agreement establishes a new blueprint for almost $200 billion a year in two-way trade. There will be new opportunities for duty free and more secure access by Canadian exporters. That is why our pork and beef industries and manufacturers in all regions are expressing solid support for the free trade agreement. Its provisions regarding services, business travel, investment, government procurement, trade remedy law and dispute settlement, establish trade rules for the future for Canada and the United States and I believe, as others have said in this House and elsewhere, offer a model to the world.
This is why this particular agreement was strongly welcomed by the industrialized leaders at their summit meeting in Toronto in June, and was underlined, and I quote the leaders from the Socialist President of France to the Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, who unanimously said this was a "catalyst" for the Uruguay round of multilateral trade negotiations.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: Quote him fully. What did he add?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Which I suppose, Mr. Speaker, if nothing else, proves that some socialists have their heads on properly.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!
August 30, 1988


John Edward Broadbent: Right.


Martin Brian Mulroney: But the agreement's main achievement lies not so much in the removal of tariffs or in new rules as in its ability to change attitudes, increase confidence and inspire innovation. The combination of new and better rules and improved dispute settlement procedures will ensure that trade and investment between Canada and the United States become more secure and more predictable. The success will be measured by the confidence of investors, Canadians, Americans and others, to establish new plants in Canada and to modernize existing facilities.
This is already happening as business now gears up for the implementation phase. This agreement provides a more positive framework for change. With it, I believe, we can meet the economic challenges of the next century. As the respected economist, Richard Lipsey, has stated:
If the agreement turns Canadian policy outward, it will have done its job, irrespective of the specific gains that it undoubtedly achieves.
To reject the agreement is to give up major gains on market access and to risk turning Canadian policies in the wrong direction-away from accepting globalization and toward the now obsolete, inward-looking policies of the 1970s.
Canada cannot go back to the prescriptions that were tried and have failed. With this agreement, we can move forward with confidence and pride in our ability to compete and excel among the very best in the world.

Mr. Speaker, we have heard, here and elsewhere, some myths and options, and I would like to respond briefly to some of those comments. 1 readily recognize that the concept of free trade itself troubles some Canadians. 1 would like to reassure them as much as I can. Free trade is indeed a big step-but in the right direction. We hear fears expressed about a "loss of sovereignty" that "our identity is at risk" or that "our social programs will vanish." Let history and experience be our guide. Canada is surer of its identity today, Mr. Speaker, than it ever was before throughout its history. Canada's international personality in the global community (especially now with the Commonwealth, the leadership of our Government, the creation of La Francophonie made possible mostly through the cooperation shown by this Government and our admission to the G-7 two years ago) is more mature and we express ourselves more independently than ever in the past. Our commitment and our capacity to protect our economic, political and territorial sovereignty have never been stronger. Our artistic community is flourishing. An officially bilingual nation whose constitutional framework we have recently strengthened and whose linguistic foundation we have recently reinforced, Canada has the significant advantage of participating in two of the world's great languages, and all of this is helping us, not only in our own country, but also abroad.
Our culture, Mr. Speaker, is a unique and rich mosaic of thought, experience and values we acquire from individuals, from every corner of the world. Canadian writers-Robertson
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement
Davies, Michel Tremblay, Mordecai Richler, Antonine Maillet, and Margaret Atwood-have attracted an international audience as never before. Our performing artists-from the National Ballet to Brian Adams, Celine Dion, Andre-Phillipe Gagnon and great symphony orchestras-have fans throughout the world, and more and more so. This brilliant and progressive affirmation of Canada's cultural influence took place, as trade with the United States expanded, year after year. Similarly, as Canada-U.S. trade grew steadily in importance over the years, successive Canadian governments brought in the Old Age Pension Plan, Family Allowances, National Health Care, the Canada Pension Plan, all uniquely Canadian initiatives. Very soon, this Parliament will pass legislation establishing one of the most advanced child-care systems anywhere in the world. If anything, the prosperity the Free Trade Agreement will bring will make these and other social programs easier to sustain.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, Bernard Landry, who was the Minister of International Trade in the Government of Quebec, a very competent one at that, addressed the question of social programs in the context of free trade, and I quote: "My experience and my background, as well as the Government to which I belonged, all make me very sensitive to social issues, yet I have never seen the slightest evidence that Canadian social measures would be threatened by a free trade agreement. Such a claim does not stand up to rational analysis. Briefly, how would this rational analysis go? He answers: "The American system is not nearly as good as ours and it is a lot more expensive. So why should we change ours to adapt to theirs, when ours is less expensive and better?"
This is an excellent opportunity and an excellent answer given by an expert in economic matters, someone who studied in depth this issue of free trade and its impact on social programs in Canada. Mr. Landry concludes that free trade is likely to assist our social programs, and this is one of the reasons why we support it so enthusiastically and vigourously.


Martin Brian Mulroney: As for sovereignty or identity, I believe a recent editorial in Toronto's The Globe and Mail put this important question in perspective. 1 quote:
No province is more dependent on U.S. markets than Ontario and 50 per cent of Ontario's trade is auto-related-Tin industry unusually dominated by foreign firms operating under a 23 year old bilateral trade pact (a limited form of free trade).
Is Ontario less Canadian than Alberta or Quebec as a result?
Is Ontario less committed to national independence now than it was before the Auto Pact sewed it so closely to a North American market? Surely not.
The editorial concludes: "But Ontario is obviously more prosperous". That has been the result of greater trade for Ontario with the United States-prosperity.

August 30, 1988
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: We are proud of that tremendous prosperity in Ontario. We want to strengthen that great prosperity and, by using similar instruments in the process, enable other regions of Canada to grow in similar fashion thereby building a stronger nation for all Canadians.
If there is a link between increased trade with the United States and our quintessential Canadianness, it is that free trade enhances Canadian vitality and ensures the expression of our nationhood. The weight of history and experience, I believe, confirms that basic truth.
Consider the question posed by Newfoundland artist Christopher Pratt:
"If the Newfoundland identity could survive total economic and political integration with another country, why do Canadians see the removal of some remaining barriers to trade with the United States... as a threat to our identity?"
I think the living testimony of the fact that there has been no change in the Newfoundland personality is exemplified every day by the Hon. Member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie).


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: That is a bonus for Canada.
We hear from some that this trade agreement represents a radical turn, a monumental shift in Canadian economic policy, a sharp departure from trade policies pursued in the past. This is simply not the case. The agreement builds on a half century or more of experience in Canada and throughout the world of reducing barriers to trade. It builds on previous bilateral trade agreements dating back to 1935-the defence production sharing agreement, the Auto Pact, and many other bilateral initiatives.
The free trade agreement follows squarely and consistently in that tradition, a tradition that has worked increasingly to Canada's advantage.
[ Translation]
Mr. Speaker, it is suggested in some quarters that Canada is rejecting the GATT. But essentially the facts prove otherwise. The Free Trade Agreement is fully consistent with the GATT. It discriminates against no country. Barriers are not raised against any other nation. Much of the language and the principles enunciated in the Free Trade Ageement are taken directly from the GATT. Moreover, both Canada and the United States have reaffirmed their existing GATT commitments, rights and obligations and are mutually pledged to advance the goals of the current round of multilateral trade negotiations. Remember as well, that Canada will host in Montreal this December a mid-term review of the multilateral trade negotiations.
Mr. Speaker, I think that it is also a good idea to mention that Canada will host in December, in Montreal, a mid-term conference to monitor the progress made in international trade negotiations. This is an important milestone to ensure progress towards genuine improvements in the world trading system.
There is widespread recognition, as acknowledged at the Toronto Summit and elsewhere, that this agreement offers a model for needed reforms in the GATT. It establishes new frontiers-in services, agriculture, investment, business travel and dispute resolution.

Other critics contend that Canada did not achieve improved or more secure access to the United States market. Let us examine the facts. There are numerous concrete examples in which access has been improved by the removal of all tariffs, by the right of national treatment to prevent U.S. discrimination against Canada, through greater access to American government purchasing, easier entry of temporary workers, to cite just a few.


Lloyd Axworthy: That's it. You just did it.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Equally important are the measures which make our access more secure. New and important constraints have been negotiated against safeguard actions which in the past have allowed the United States unilaterally to impose duties or quotas on Canadian exports.
We all recall Canada's experience with shakes and singles when we were the target, or on specialty steel when we were not the target but we were affected nonetheless. Such action will be against the rules of the free trade agreement between Canada and the United States.
Most significant of all are the dispute settlement provisions which ensure that Canadian exporters are less vulnerable to arbitrary interpretations or capricious applications of U.S. trade law. Exporters, jurists and business people alike are virtually unanimous in recognizing that the dispute settlement procedures under the free trade agreement are superior to those available under the GATT or in any other trade agreement that has been negotiated to date. It is generally acknowledged, I believe, that what has been accomplished in the area of dispute settlement is a triumph for the rule of law in international trade.
From time to time the Opposition contends that Canadians have not been exempted from U.S. trade laws. I have not, by the way, heard any of them advocating that Canada should give the United States an exemption from Canadian trade laws, which is the mirror image of what they purport to seek for Canada.
This Canadian Government has no intention of allowing Americans, or anyone else, to dump their products in our market, or to take advantage of subsidies to undercut Canadian companies in their own market. Until our laws are replaced by a system of new disciplines, and Canada and the United States have given each other a pledge to work together for five to seven years to create those new disciplines, our laws, the laws of Canada, remain in place to protect our industries and our workers from unfair trading practices.
August 30, 1988


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Some people in this House and elsewhere profess concern about the energy provisions of the agreement. Interestingly, those concerns do not come from the Canadians who produce the energy nor the Canadians who invest in energy. These concerns do not come from the Canadians who work in the oil fields, nor the provinces that own the resource.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Let me deal directly with the pricing argument: Under the free trade agreement, Canadians will be able to sell their energy for whatever price the market determines, at home or in the United States. In this regard, the northeastern states represent a particularly lucrative market for our electricity and natural gas exports. For example, Quebec has recently signed a 21-year contract with New York to export electricity for more than double the price that Quebecers pay. This is possible because the market alternatives for our energy in New York are more expensive oil-fired generation using imported oil from offshore sources.
Similarly, Alberta natural gas stands to make promising inroads in the New England and mid-Atlantic U.S. markets. For decade after decade western Canada has only asked for the same opportunities as other provinces. Now it has an opportunity to grow and to prosper, and all Members should be supporting it.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: The argument that we can be forced under the agreement to share our energy resources deserves but a brief comment. What we have agreed to do in times of significant oil shortages, and what the previous Liberal Government undertook to do for all of the western industrialized countries under the International Energy Agency in 1974, is to reduce our consumption and to supply our foreign customers, including the United States, with a proportion of our supply at commercial terms. While the critics have been inventing problems on the energy issue, they have completely overlooked one huge advantage. We have achieved for the producing provinces, and for all Canadians, guaranteed access to the United States market.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Billions of dollars of energy exports formerly subject to the winds and whims of U.S. protectionism will now enter that vast market free and unencumbered. Think of what this means for investment and job creation here in Canada. Think of the beneficial impact that this will have upon our regions of Canada that have been asking for fair access to that tremendous market. Think of what it means to the hopes and aspirations of young people from western Canada, British Columbia, to Newfoundland and Labrador whose resources are so vital in the development of their regions.
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement [ Translation]
Small wonder that Premiers such as Robert Bourassa, Don Getty and Grant Devine so strongly support this agreement. The producing provinces have been seeking precisely such a trading instrument for decades. It gives their regions an historic opportunity for durable prosperity.

But guaranteed access to the huge American market also means more investment and more exploration in Canada. It enhances our security of supply and benefits consumers as well as producers. To suggest that Canadians have given up control of our energy resources is nonsense. Decisions about how we develop our resources and what we do with them-even in times of shortage-are decisions that only Canadians will make, in the national interest of Canada.
As for water, Canada's rivers and lakes are not for sale. Geography is not a commercial commodity under the GATT, the free trade agreement, or any other agreement. No specious argumentation nor any distorted interpretation from the Opposition will ever alter that plain fact. Listen to what-


An Hon. Member:: Who wrote this?


Martin Brian Mulroney: A Member asks, "Who wrote it". Listen to what Senator Van Roggen says. He wrote it. 1 want to thank my hon. friend for triggering my memory. Senator Van Roggen says: "Many of the attacks on the free trade agreement are mischievous, and motivated by partisan politics. The nonsense about water diversions is a good example. Water diversions", says Senator Van Roggen "never entered into the negotiations".

In fact, Mr. Speaker, there is nothing in this agreement which obliges anyone in either country to sell anything they do not wish to sell! The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner) is fond of saying that this agreement puts Canada "up for sale." Ultimately, silly slogans and blind jingoism will crumble when hit with the truth, when confronted with the facts. The Agreement in essence adopts current Canadian investment policies-policies that have manifestly won broad support in Canada and around the world and which helped rescue our economy from the blight of previous regimes. Traditionally sensitive sectors such as transportation, communications, culture and energy continue to be subject to special restrictions. Major direct takeovers will still be subject to review i.e. about two thirds of all corporate assets in Canada.
What is often neglected, Mr. Speaker, is what Canada has gained in terms of investments namely that our investments in the United States which, per capita, are three times greater than American investments here will not suffer discrimination, and that is a tremendous advantage for Canadian investors.

August 30, 1988
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement

In fact, Mr. Speaker, cries of "sell-out" and "51st state" are not new to those responsible for the conduct of relations with the United States. As a distinguished Canadian once observed:
"The picture of weak and timid Canadian negotiators being pushed around and brow-beaten by American representatives into settlements that were 'sellouts' is a false and distorted one. It is often painted, however, by Canadians who think that a sure way to get applause and support at home is to exploit our anxieties and exaggerate our suspicions over U.S. power and policies."
That was what Lester Pearson wrote in his memoirs, published in 1972.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Pearson's assessment is as valid today as it was then, only today it applies directly to the exaggerations and distortions of the very Party that Mr. Pearson once led so proudly and so well.

To counter such misguided arguments, the Quebec Government published an analysis of the agreement, parts of which should be of interest to all my colleagues in the House. There have been claims that the Government or the Premier of Quebec have not read the document. Indeed, we now have an analysis of the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the United States as viewed by Quebec. It is vital to Quebec and Canada. Here is what the Province of Quebec has to say in its analysis item by item and chapter by chapter.
Customs matters: During free trade negotiations, Quebec insisted that clear rules on customs matters be spelled out, to avoid the diversion of trade. We are satisfied with the rules adopted in this respect. Mature industries: The periods of reduction of customs tariffs with respect to mature industries reflect Quebec's requests in this regard. Agriculture: Quebec requested that agriculture be accorded special status in the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, to ensure that farm support programs are maintained, especially income stabilization programs and agricultural marketing boards. In this respect, the Agreement satisfies Quebec's demands.
And now the conclusion drawn by Premier Bourassa and all his colleagues, which is so important to our producers in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada, and I quote:
"Quebec is satisfied with the Agreement, especially with the treatment accorded Canadian supply management programs, federal or provincial income stabilization programs, farm insurance and financing programs and recognition of provincial jurisdiction over agricultural marketing boards."
By the way, the agreement on services is consistent with Quebec's position. Investment: The Agreement reflects the position of the Quebec Government, which hoped that negotiations would create a more stable, open and liberal climate to encourage investment. Institutional provisions: The Quebec Government called for the establishment of a bipartite commission at the ministerial level to manage the Agreement.
As to cultural industries, indeed, Mr. Speaker, this Government is concerned with that highly important reality, Quebec's and Canada's cultural welfare. You can imagine with what care and attention Quebec leaders reviewed every provision that dealt with that major cultural issue. And here is the conclusion. Quebec insisted that the cultural industries be excluded from the free trade agreement. The agreement reflects the position of Quebec and Canada in this respect.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: And here is the conclusion-overall, Quebec is satisfied with the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. The Quebec Government's support for the agreement is not based solely on compliance with the conditions it initially deemed essential. The agreement also generally satisfies the expectations of the vast majority of Quebec organizations, which apprised the Government of their viewpoint during negotiations, and following the signing of the agreement. Although the agreement is not always as far-reaching as we had hoped, it unquestionably represents a step in the right direction. There, Mr. Speaker, we have a review of each provision by a provincial Government that was deeply involved in the negotiations. The Quebec Government, Hon. Robert Bourassa's Liberal Government, the Leader of the Opposition, Hon. Jacques Parizeau, all Quebecers say "yes" to the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
Under the free trade agreement, Mr. Speaker, the Auto Pact, so vital to the national interest and so important to Ontario's economy, will be more secure as part of a broader accord. The President of Chrysler Canada, Moe Closs, has said, and I quote:
"The Canada/U.S. F.T.A. will save the Autopact... As we see it, the F.T.A. will permit the Canadian auto industry to continue to grow and prosper by ensuring that our access to the vast U.S. vehicle market will not be hindered by tariff barriers and the threat of trade irritants."
Clearly, the Auto Pact, which is subject to cancellation by either party on 12 months' notice, will be significantly less vulnerable to abrogation as part of this comprehensive free trade agreement than if it stood alone against the winds of protectionist action in the United States Congress.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Moreover, the Auto Pact's safeguards are retained and the content rules strengthened, to the advantage of North American producers.
What about the most vital aspect of all, jobs? The overwhelming consensus among private, non-governmental research institutions and economists in Canada is that there will be a net gain in jobs for Canada.
August 30, 1988

1 know that some parties and some groups in Canada do not view jobs with the same priority that the Government does. It is a most important consideration in the conclusion of this kind of arrangement, and all of the independent analysis, mostly all that can be obtained, indicates that the gains in job creation will be substantial.


Lloyd Axworthy: Minuscule.


Martin Brian Mulroney: In April of this year, the Economic Council of Canada concluded an extensive impact analysis of the free trade agreement and determined that the agreement will generate some 250,000 new jobs as the agreement takes effect. The logic is straightforward. Improved access to the U.S. market will lead to more investment, larger and more specialized enterprises, less protection, less harassment, lower consumer prices and higher wages and incomes. This logic is already at work in Canada.
In the years since the Government has committed itself to the goal of the free trade agreement with the United States, investment, job creation and growth in Canada are second to none in the industrialized world.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Canadian business people in the hundreds of thousands are demonstrating their endorsement of the agreement through concrete deeds.

Investors from Canada and around the world have already said "yes" to the agreement, as witnessed by their continuing interest in the Canadian investment market. Concerns have been raised about adjustment programs. A panel of prominent Canadians, chaired by Jean De Granpre and appointed by the Government, is examining this question, and we will be considering their recommendations with great care.
But I am encouraged by the fact that labour adjustment has not been a major factor in free trade and even common market arrangements in other parts of the world. Canadian manpower mobility never has been so great. According to certain estimates for example, each year 4 million Canadian workers, or one out of four, change jobs. In other words, with or without free trade, adjustment for Canadian workers is an important fact of life in Canada. The best way to meet this challenge is through economic growth. And the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement, Mr. Speaker, will contribute significantly to this growth. And what are the alternatives? We all know it is important, before accepting or rejecting something, to consider the alternatives.
So, on October 26, 1987, the Leader of the Opposition announced in this House he would "tear up" the F.T.A. Now he has proposed what he describes as a five-point alternative. Let us examine the five points.
Who can quarrel with efforts to strengthen and streamline the GATT. It is an objective fully in line with what Canada's
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement
team at the GATT is presently attempting to achieve. Similarly, who would challenge the idea of modernizing the international monetary system? That is precisely what we are doing, Mr. Speaker, especially now that this government has gained admission for Canada to the G-7 table, to help coordinate such efforts. We have certainly never doubted the need to encourage Canadian companies to export and become internationally competitive. We have introduced policies and programs responding to that objective, and I think they are working. Our exports are expanding and not only to the United States. In the first seven months of this year, our exports to Japan are up a whopping 54 per cent over the same period last year, and that is no small measure of the success of Canadian programs.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: But the United States are still, by far, our biggest customer and our largest supplier and, if relations with your biggest customer are in trouble, you correct the problem, you do it thoroughly and you do it well.
What of the sector by sector approach that is now being recommended by the Opposition? Listen to the counsel of the Trade Minister in the Liberal Government who tried the sectoral approach, the Hon. Gerald Regan, who said recently:
"When I was Minister of Trade in Mr. Trudeau's Government, I recognized the importance of obtaining better guarantees of access to the vital American market to which we send the lion's share of our exports.
I sought to move in that direction by initiating free trade talks with the United States on a sector by sector basis.
The defeat of the Liberals ended that effort, but 1 have come to the conclusion that the present free trade project is more meaningful, more courageous and an important undertaking-more important than our limited negotiations."
Mr. Regan was a far-sighted Minister then and continues to be a man of vision now. He wanted to go further. He was held back by the forces of protectionism and negativism in his own Party.
And then, of course, there is the GATT to consider. It is curious indeed that a Party seeking to strengthen the GATT embraces a sectoral approach which most experts, including Premier Robert Bourassa two weeks ago in Quebec City, consider to be inconsistent with GATT rules. The "Five-Point Plan" withers under the most elementary scrutiny. I urge the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner) to heed the advice of one of his Liberal colleagues in the Senate, George Van Roggen, a wise parliamentarian who has spent more than a decade analysing trade policy, especially in the area of Canada-U.S. trade. Here is what he said:
"It is a pity that what is essentially an economic agreement has been so distorted by its critics.
It would be a tragedy if the opportunity were lost to conclude an arrangement that offers such large benefits to Canada."

August 30, 1988
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement
If only, Mr. Speaker, Senator Van Roggen's senatorial colleagues could be permitted the same freedom to decide, the same opportunity to arrive at their own independent judgment of what is in the best interests for Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


An Hon. Member:: Where is George?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Yes, somebody has said: "Where is George?"


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Martin Brian Mulroney: The opposition Parties in the House obviously disagree with more than 250 leading Canadian economists who stated unequivocally in April of this year that the free trade agreement is:
"Canada's best option in a world threatened by increased protectionism, since it provides an historic opportunity to ensure a greater degree of access to the U.S. market than Canadian producers would otherwise enjoy . .. better investment opportunities .. . lower prices for consumers ... and a higher standard of living for Canadians."
When you dispel all the myths, when you analyse all the alternatives, as responsible parliamentarians must do, you find that with its imperfections this free trade agreement meets the most fundamental test of all; it serves the national interest.
We have the ability to manage change. With this agreement we now have the instrument to ensure that we can manage change in Canada's national interest. There will be greater opportunity and more certainty in the future for our exporters, our investors and our workers. The decision we make on the free trade agreement is the key step in redeeming the promise of this great country. With this agreement, with sound economic management and with stronger scientific, technological, educational and literacy programs, we can build a much better Canada. We have a clear choice.
The 21st century can be one of enormous accomplishment for all Canadians. We have the brain power, the resources and we have the national will. Canada is young and Canadians can still dream of a destiny unattainable by most of the world. The free trade agreement, most of all, is about our most precious asset-our youth. The young people of Canada have been uppermost in my mind as Prime Minister throughout this long and challenging negotiation. They shall be the principal beneficiaries of this new trading agreement. They shall become the new leaders of Canada in a new world in a new century.
James Joyce, one of the favourite Irish poets of the Leader of the Opposition and myself, once observed that:
"The past is consumed in the present and the present is alive only because it
gives rise to the future."
The free trade agreement is about Canada's future-one Canada, united, prosperous and strong with guarantees of prosperity and economic growth for the future.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: We cannot compete in the world by withdrawing from it. We cannot gain freer access to the world's markets by limiting access to our own. We cannot grow and
prosper by shrinking from opportunity and turning our back on reality.

We chose to negotiate not because it was easy, not because it was without political risk, but because it was in the national interest. We are proud of our distinctiveness as Canadians. We are proud of the values that mark us clearly as Canadians. We are determined to preserve and enrich those qualities which ensure a uniquely Canadian way of life. Our future will be built by Canadians doing their very best, providing world class results in a genuine national commitment to excellence.

All Canadians, those born in Canada and those who have chosen it for their home, can share in this great enterprise. Let us give them a chance to get on with the job. The decision is for all of us. Canadians have the fundamental ability, the skill and the talent to compete and to excel. As a government our responsibility is to provide the best environment possible to allow Canadians, individual Canadians, their chance to succeed. I believe we can do this by endorsing the free trade agreement today. By doing so we say yes to free trade; yes to jobs for our youth; and yes to a more prosperous future for Canada. We say yes to the great hopes and dreams of what this splendid nation can genuinely provide to our children, to the cause of freedom and to prosperity here and around the world.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Right Hon. John N. Turner (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, the history of a country and a people is not written in one day. However, there are days in a country's history that are decisive for the future of its people, and the date of the next election is such a day. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) is the only person who knows when that day will be, but when Canadians go to the polls, they will decide what happens to the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, the agreement that is the subject of our debate today. Mr. Speaker, this debate concerns more than just our trade relations with our neighbours to the south. Canada's very future is at stake. The question is, what kind of country we will have at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Will Canada be independent, sovereign and autonomous, or will it be an American colony?
This debate is not simply about the future of our trading relationship with the United States. It is about the future of Canada. I travelled across this country again this summer from Prince George to Carbonear, from Quebec City to Saskatoon. I have visited farmers, fishermen, factory workers, office workers. I have talked to new Canadians, I have talked
August 30, 1988

to young Canadians, and I have talked to our older Canadian citizens from almost every walk of life. I have marvelled once again at the sheer diversity of our country and the spirit which pulls us together as a nation. It is a spirit not easily expressed. Such words do not come easily to Canadians, someone who works the land in Saskatchewan, digs a mine in Kirkland Lake, runs a business in Montreal, fishes for salmon off Vancouver Island, or types memos in a Winnipeg office tower. However, I tell you the feeling is there. It is there in every Canadian and it is strong. It is a sense of belonging to a unique nation. It is living in a very special place.

And Canadians, better than any other nation, appreciate unity in diversity. That is why our country is officially and firmly bilingual and multicultural. Instead of homogenizing our citizens, our regions and our cultures, we cherish our differences because they make us unique, rich, proud, tolerant and responsible. Granted, harmony in diversity demands maturity, vision and great openness of mind. Striking this fragile balance is a challenge we must meet every moment, every day, with patience and perspicacity, without flinching and without ever abdicating our responsibility.

We love this country. It is precious to us. Because we love this country, what we have built and what we stand for as Canadians, we will not allow it to be thrown away by the Government.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: What the Government is telling us to do in this trade deal is to close our eyes, sign away our future as Canadians and the right to shape the destiny and direction of our country. It is telling us to give up that which is most vital to us, our sovereignty, our way of life, the way we do things.
In exchange for what? In exchange for a leap of faith which even the Government's most optimistic predictions describe as having only marginal economic benefits.
Yet the Prime Minister and other advocates of this deal, like the dream merchants of another era, paint a picture of wealth and prosperity, as he did this afternoon, of unrivalled riches unheard of in history, or certainly in contemporary economic reality.
It is inarguably a very attractive sales pitch. Free trade. Who is against free trade? Who is against anything free? Positive words. Seductive words. Easy rhetoric. Free trade. Free gift. Free lunch. Yet Canadians know there is no free lunch, there is always a price, and the price of this deal is just too high. The price is unacceptable.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: The price is our sovereignty, our freedom to make our own choices, to decide what is
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement
right for us, to go on building the kind of country we want. That freedom, that sovereignty, is our most valuable asset. When you strip away all the technical jargon of this deal, that is what the Government wants to give away, our freedom to be different, our freedom to be ourselves, to do things our own way, not the American way.
We admire the Americans. We share many of the same hopes and goals. We are fortunate to have them as neighbours. We are proud to have them as friends. Yet as much as we respect and admire our American friends we do not want to become Americans.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: The United States is certainly the most powerful democracy in the world, but it is not the only democracy. It is not the only country that values its independence and its freedoms and its ability to make its own choices. So do we. We have chosen to make a separate place for ourselves on the northern half of this continent. We have chosen to do it in a different way. They may not see it. They may not recognize it. But we are different.
The Americans were born of revolution. We were born of the joining of British and French traditions. Their Constitution calls for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The British North America Act called for peace, order, and good government. The United States is a categorical country. Stephen Decatur perhaps put it best once when he said: "My country, may it always be right, but right or wrong, my country".
For an American "you are either with us or against us". Choices are clear-cut. We Canadians instinctively seek a consensus and a compromise.
While both countries are federal states, they have a highly centralized Government in Washington. Ours is much less so. Even the largest of the states like California and New York do not compare to the overwhelming influence in our own confederation of Ontario and Quebec.
The American frontier was explored and settled with the discovery of California. The American frontier is closed. Our frontier remains open. Our frontier is the North, and it is very important to us. We look northward as a nation. We value the resources of our North, we treasure its ecology, and we admire its people. We are deeply concerned about the militarization of the Arctic. As we look around the Pole we feel kinship for Scandinavians, Russians, and Alaskans.
The Americans put all their faith in market forces. Yes, we believe in enterprise and we believe in rewarding success, but as Canadians we have the ultimate goals of fairness and sharing. We feel that those purposes have been accomplished better in a mixed economy.

August 30, 1988
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement
Their society is a giant melting pot while ours is a cultural mosaic. We have two official languages. The United States is a unilingual nation. We have a parliamentary tradition which is being honoured here today in a momentous debate. Theirs is a presidential system with a separation of powers.
We are more influenced by geography, by our environment, and by the vast expanses of wilderness reflected so dramatically in the paintings of Lawren Harris, A. Y. Jackson, and others of the Group of Seven. My favourite painter, Emily Carr, is from British Columbia.
Every Canadian dreams, not only of his own home but of a cottage, a cabin, a tent beside a lake or a river. With all the black flies, the mosquitoes, and the thunderstorms, it is his own escape, his retreat in the wilderness, something he can call his own. That is very much a part of us.
The Government opposite and the supporters of this trade deal are perpetrating the myth that because we as a Party oppose this particular trade deal we are anti-American. That Conservative myth is completely false. We are not antiAmerican. We are pro-Canadian and we do not like being sold out as Wayne Gretzky was. What Peter Pocklington is to Edmonton, Brian Mulroney is to Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, let us not tell each other fairy stories or try to rewrite history. There was no iron curtain between Canada and the United States before this Conservative Government was elected. Trade relations between Canada and the United States did not start in 1984. In fact, previous Liberal governments have always perfectly understood the importance of our trade with the United States. We have always tried to reduce trade and tariff barriers between our two countries. We have always worked very hard to expand, increase and improve our trade with our neighbours to the south. That is a known historic fact.
Since the end of World War II, thanks to successive GATT rounds we have lowered our tariffs from an average 40 per cent down to 4 per cent. Today, before this Government signed a trade agreement with the United States, about 80 per cent of everything we sold on the American market crossed the border duty free. We obtained this without conceding one iota of our sovereignty to the United States.
However, to phase out 20 per cent of remaining tariffs over ten years, the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) sold the whole store. He sold us out to the Americans.
The Liberals were never afraid, and have never refused, to discuss trade with the Americans, far from it. What some people have forgotten or choose to ignore altogether in the present debate is the initial reasons that led the Government to start the talks with the United States.
Since the last war, we have had enviable success in negotiating with the United States within an international framework. However, the Conservative Government decided to take a different approach by initiating comprehensive bilateral talks
with the United States. Basically, the purpose of initiating bilateral talks was to obtain secure access to the U.S. market. To achieve this, there were two things we needed first: exemption from U.S. protectionist legislation and a compulsory arbitration system to deal with cases when both countries could not agree on enforcement and implementation of this exemption. Both conditions were absolutely essential.

We in this Party have been saying that ever since these negotiations first started. We have said all along that any agreement with the United States that did not have a specific exemption from American trade law, that did not exempt us from their protectionist legislation-and I speak here about the 1930 Trade Act, the American trade law of 1974, and particularly about the Omnibus Bill just passed by the Congress and signed by the President-and did not give us a dispute settlement mechanism that would enforce that exemption, would not be fair, would not be free, and would not be worth the paper it was written on.
I recall the day when the Prime Minister and his Ministers agreed with me on that point. A year ago in New York the Prime Minister, as quoted by The Wall Street Journal said, "The U.S. trade remedy laws can't apply to Canada, period". The former Minister for International Trade, the Member for Vancouver Centre (Miss Carney), said in the House of Commons that the objective of any trade agreement would be the elimination of countervail by both parties. The current Trade Minister (Mr. Crosbie) agreed with his predecessor and with the Prime Minister. He spoke to the St. John's Board of Trade in Newfoundland on July 2, 1987 and said that "unless we get out from under the threat of countervail and other U.S. trade remedy law, and unless there is an effective dispute resolution mechanism to bind the Americans to their commitments, a free trade agreement with the United States would not be a good deal for Canada."
We have been saying that ever since the negotiations started.
I have been referring to this agreement in speaking across the country and have been referring as well to the Canadian and American legislation and the presidential interpretation of that legislation. Article 1902.1 of the trade agreement signed by the Prime Minister says that the United States "reserves the right to apply its anti-dumping law and countervailing duty law to goods imported from the territory of the other Party". This is confirmed by the President's statement of administrative action submitted to Congress on July 25, which states on page 98:
"The United States retains the right to apply its national anti-dumping and
countervailing duty laws to goods of the other party and also reserves its
right to amend these laws."
In other words, there is no exemption from U.S. protectionist trade laws, no matter what the Prime Minister said this afternoon. The same laws which crippled our exports of softwood lumber and potash and fish, imposed quotas on our steel, still apply.
August 30, 1988

It is true that we are to have a new trade tribunal, but how will this tribunal work? How will this tribunal ensure that our exports have guaranteed access into the American market? How will it protect our exporters from protectionist United States legislation?
The Prime Minister attempted to deal with that this afternoon, saying that it is a better mechanism than we ever had before. However, his speech was full of endorsements, citations and statements of approval. He never once dealt with the agreement, dealt with the argument, or referred to the document. The Minister cannot tell us because he has not read it.
The fact is that the trade tribunal will not protect us or give us an exemption from American trade law. Not only will the system be longer and costlier for Canadian exporters, the tribunal will still be unable to challenge American trade law.
I refer once again to the trade agreement. Article 1904:2 states that the tribunal can review a trade decision of the American Government, using the document's words: " ... to determine whether such determination was in accordance with the anti-dumping or countervailing duty law of the importing Party". That is U.S. law. It goes on to state that: "... The anti-dumping and countervailing duty statutes of the parties, as those statutes may be amended from time to time, are incorporated into this Agreement". It does not matter what the Prime Minister says or what his endorsements say, or how the citations he can provide in the House may support him here and there, the document is quite clear.
The President's statement of administrative action is even more brutal and blunt. Again at page 98 of the President's statement, it states: "The panel cannot order statutory modifications". In other words, the tribunal cannot change or challenge American law. Therefore, Canadian exporters will not be able to challenge American law.
The tribunal has the jurisdiction only to interpret American law, using American precedent, American jurisprudence, American judicial practice. This does not only include present American law, the 1930 Trade Act, the 1974 trade law, and now the omnibus legislation, which adds a whole new series of hostile remedies against Canada, but any future law or any law as it may be amended from time to time.
The Prime Minister stood up this afternoon and said: "We have made progress. We now have the rule of law". We certainly have. It is the rule of American law, enforced by this tribunal.
Let us look at some of the precedents that the tribunal would be referring to. The Government is hoping that Canadians will not look at the fact that dozens of our programs have already been found by American authorities to confer subsidies of some kind or another. During the five to seven-year period of negotiations, the Americans will be using their
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement
definition of subsidy as it has been derived under American practice in ensuring that they impose and force that definition on us.
Yesterday the Minister attempted to explain what countervail was. He told Canadians that U.S. countervail action "had nothing to do with regional development". U.S. countervail decisions have everything to do with our regional development programs, and it is nothing short of scandalous that the Minister responsible either does not know that, has not read the deal, or is attempting to tell Canadians something completely at variance with the documents before us.
Read some of the decisions made by the U.S. Commerce Department pursuant to American law that will be binding on this tribunal. For example, in a 1986 decision on groundfish, it listed 55 separate federal, provincial and joint programs which it considered subsidies. That is part of that American jurisprudence incorporated into this agreement.
The 1986 finding of the U.S. Trade Administration of the Department of Commerce says:
"Based upon our investigation, we determine that certain benefits which constitute subsidies within the meaning of Section 701 of the Tariff Act of 1930 as amended are being provided to producers or exporters in Canada of certain fresh Atlantic groundfish. For purposes of this investigation, the following programs are found to confer subsidies":
I obtained a copy of this agreement and went through the list of 55 programs. I will not read them all, but will describe how some of them are categorized. Under federal programs they include certain types of investment tax credits; a program for export market development; regional development incentive program; industrial and regional development program. Are these not regional equality programs?
Others include the fisheries improvement loans program; Government equity infusions into National Sea Products Limited and Fishery Products International Limited. Those are among the federal programs.
Joint federal-provincial programs include agricultural and rural development agreements; transitional programs; economic and regional development agreements. All the ERDA agreements.
Let me refer to some of the provincial programs listed in the judgment. In New Brunswick, interest rate rebates; in Newfoundland, marketing assistance; in Nova Scotia, industrial development division grants; in Prince Edward Island, technology improvement grants; in Quebec, insurance premium subsidy programs.
The list goes on and on. It also included the fishing vessel assistance program which, since 1942, was used to help fishermen build and repair boats. Suddenly in February, 1986, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. Siddon) cancelled the program saying in a press release that "it had outlived its usefulness", and noted only in passing that the Americans had found it to be a countervailable subsidy.

August 30, 1988
Canada- U.S. Free Trade Agreement
It is becoming abundantly clear, not only to fishermen but to all Canadians, that the Conservative Government has outlived its usefulness.
Of course, we are honoured to have the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans here at the moment. While I am on the subject of the fishery, and because he and his colleague, the Minister for International Trade (Mr. Crosbie), have been rattling their cages, disputing what I said about Atlantic processing, let me point out a couple of facts to both Ministers. Both have been less than forthcoming on the question of whether or not the Atlantic fish processing sector is threatened by the trade agreement. The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans said in the Flouse on August 19 that I "untruthfully attempted to arouse the fishermen", when I said in Carbonear, Newfoundland, that the trade deal did in fact threaten the fish processing industry. The Minister for International Trade went even further and issued a press release attacking my statement.
The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans then told the House that Friday that the free trade agreement in no way jeopardizes the processing regulations, and that the President's statement confirms not only that the free trade agreement grandfathers existing Atlantic processing regulations, but that the U.S. Administration will not take these regulations before the GATT. I would refer to page 18570 of Hansard to substantiate those words.
The Minister has not read Article 1205 of the agreement which specifically states that the United States retains its GATT remedies. The Minister for International Trade stated in his press release that "Mr. Turner is wrong when he says that Atlantic fish processing is threatened by the free trade agreement".
Before I go on, Mr. Speaker, I should point out to both Ministers that their quarrel is not with me. Their quarrel is with the President of the United States and the U.S. Congress. All I am doing, and I thought I was doing it for the benefit of both Ministers, is quoting the President's statement to Congress and the American implementing legislation, the legislation implementing the trade deal that both these Ministers say they understand and support, and may even by now have read.
The President does not agree with the Ministers. While in his statement he acknowledges that:
"Article 1203(c) of the agreement "grandfathers" from the obligations of the agreement various specified statutes of eastern Canadian provinces."
He goes on to say, and this is all on page 70:
"In the event that regulations pursuant to these authorities should be issued so as to apply those authorities to control the export of unprocessed fish. Section 304(e) of the implementing Bill would require the President to take one or more of the actions specified in that section ..."
In other words, and I want to make this clear to the Minister so he understands, the Acts themselves are grandfathered, but that does not mean much because if we ever use those Acts to protect our processors-and the same thing applies even more
clearly on the West Coast-the full weight of the U.S. Government will come down on our fishery. Section 304(e) of the implementing legislation tells the President what he must do:
"Within 30 days of the application by Canada of export controls on unprocessed fish under statutes exempted from the agreement under Article 1203, or the application of landing requirements for fish caught in Canadian waters, the President shall take appropriate action to enforce U.S. rights under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade that are retained in Article 1205 of the agreement;"
In addition:
"In enforcing the United States rights referred to in paragraph (1), the President has discretion to:
Bring a challenge to the offending Canadian practices before the GATT. Retaliate against such offending practices;
Seek resolution directly with Canada;
Refer the matter for dispute resolution to the Canadian-United States Trade Commission; or
Take other action that the President considers appropriate to enforce such United States rights."
Could anything be clearer, Mr. Speaker? The President has virtually unfettered options under that legislation to retaliate at any time against an attempt by Canada to protect its processing on either coast. I suggest the two Ministers, first, read the President's statement and, second, read the American legislation and, third, stop trying to mislead Canadian fishermen and Canadians in general.


Some Hon. Members:: 

The Government is desperate. It is telling Canadians that without this trade deal this country faces unimagined economic disaster. I would like to quote what the Minister for International Trade told this House, and you will recall it, Mr. Speaker, on June 22:
"We want to save the Canadian people."
He hollered.
"If anything goes wrong with our trade relationship with the United States, we stand to lose 25 per cent of our wealth."
He went on to say about those of us who oppose this deal:
"They want to endanger one-quarter of all the wealth generated in Canada every year."
That is a prime example of being untruthful, and the Minister knows it. But it is part of an orchestrated campaign of fear the Government is attempting to use to sell this deal. Those who support the deal also do so on the basis of presumed economic benefits. The Prime Minister spoke in glowing terms about our future this afternoon, but what do economists have to say about the Prime Minister's trade deal? They are divided. The Prime Minister says he has a list of 250 economists. I could give him another list of 250 economists who are against it. In the paper entitled Venturing Forth the Economic Council of Canada comes down, it is true, on balance in favour of the trade deal. However, its projections, like all projections, are no better than the assumptions that underlie them. Let me quote from the dissenting opinion of Raymond Koskie, a council member and a lawyer from Toronto:
"The Council simply assumes without a shred of hard evidence, that manufacturing productivity will increase by 0.6 per cent annually under the free trade agreement (i.e. 6.0 per cent in 10 years). Naturally, such a positive assumption produces highly positive results, but those results are, with respect, useless. The Council is not demonstrating, but is assuming, that increased productivity will result from the FTA. Naturally, having assumed that the FTA would bring about higher manufacturing productivity, the Council concludes that it would also create additional employment and higher growth."
Those are projections based on untrue assumptions. Moreover, despite its rosy assumptions, the council forecasts that even after 10 years this trade deal will have increased jobs by only 1.8 per cent above the numbers expected from the status quo. The council also looked at the reverse side of the coin. It examined the implications if Canada rejected the deal and things took a turn for the worst in terms of our relationship with the United States. It developed a projection based on a number of hostile trade actions by the United States, plus a significant outflow of American investment from Canada. What was the result after 10 years? Compared with the status quo, national output would be one-fifth of 1 per cent lower. Output for employed persons would be unchanged. Disposal income would be down a mere one-fifth of 1 per cent. The
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement
unemployment rate would be up by a scant one-tenth of 1 per cent. That is from the Economic Council of Canada.
So we ask ourselves as Canadians, is it worth it? Is it worth it to sell out energy? Is it worth it to give up our right to develop our own resources, our oil, our coal, our gas, our potash, our hydro?


Some Hon. Members:: No.


John Napier Turner: And despite what the Prime Minister said, even our water, because it is in the deal and all the subsidiary documents point to its being in the deal. Is it worth it to sell out our whole agriculture, our supply management system, our grain transportation subsidies, our potato industry?


Some Hon. Members:: No.


John Napier Turner: I see someone smiling about potatoes. One of the first things the United States intends to do in this so-called free trade deal is to limit all trade in potatoes. Here again, I cite the American implementing legislation. The President, under the legislation, is authorized to negotiate an agreement-and I am using the words of the American statute:
"-to limit the exportation and importation of all potatoes between the U.S. and Canada, including seed potatoes, fresh, chilled or frozen potatoes, dried, desiccated or dehydrated potatoes, and potatoes otherwise prepared or preserved."
So much for free trade on potatoes. So much for the economies of Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick. They have been sold out.
I ask you once again, Mr. Speaker, is it worth it to give away control of our own capital markets?


Some Hon. Members:: No.


John Napier Turner: Is it worth it to give away control of our own investment policy?


Some Hon. Members:: No.


John Napier Turner: Is it worth it to sacrifice the Auto Pact by taking away the safeguards over a period of years?


Some Hon. Members:: No.


John Napier Turner: Is it worth it to impede our ability to create new cultural initiatives? I ask you, Mr. Speaker, is it worth it? My answer, and the answer of the majority of Canadians in the next election, will be a strong, unequivocal, clear no.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!

August 30, 1988
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement [Translation]


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister should admit that this Agreement goes well beyond trade. The whole agreement is based on a concept called national treatment. Section 105 of this agreement is quite clear. Canada will have to give the United States national treatment in investment and in goods and services.
The Agreement does affect our social programs, despite the Prime Minister's statements. It also affects our regional development programs, our agricultural support programs. During the next round of negotiations that will take from five to seven years, both parties will try to find a common definition of subsidy. That is where all our programs will be harmonized with those of the United States.
That is why we must ask ourselves whether Canadians want to harmonize our minimum wage with Wyoming's, which is $1.60 an hour. Do Canadians want to harmonize our unemployment insurance programs with the United States, where only a quarter of the unemployed are covered, at a rate that is only a fraction of the Canadian rate? Do Canadians want to harmonize our maternity leave with a country that has no equivalent program? In the United States, only about 40 per cent of women receive maternity benefits, and in most cases for less than six weeks.
Do we really want to harmonize our health insurance plan with a country where one quarter of women of child-bearing age have no medical insurance? Do we really want to harmonize with a country where 37 million Americans have absolutely no medical insurance? A country where the federal medicare program is not accessible for more than half the people living below the poverty line? A country where a serious illness can easily bankrupt you?
Personally, I prefer to live in a country where they do not check your credit card before they check your pulse when you have to go to hospital.

This agreement talks about the free flow of market forces. I believe in the market system, in competition, in private enterprise and in rewarding success. However, I have to remind the House and through you, Mr. Speaker, Canadians from coast to coast that, historically, Canada was not built on free market forces. This country became a nation in 1867. Negotiations began in 1864, because it wanted to resist the continental pressures of the United States. This country deliberately built itself east and west and then north to resist those continental pressures. We built a railway which brought British Columbia into Confederation in 1871. We persuaded Prince Edward Island to join this Confederation in 1873 with a direct guarantee for communication and transport. The Terms of Union in 1949, persuaded Newfoundland to come in under the same guarantees.
We built a railway. We built a national highway. We established a national broadcasting system. We established
and built a national pipeline and a national airline-all to build an infrastructure that would hold a relatively small population together in a massive land mass. We deliberately resisted the market forces of the United States.
Free market forces alone would not have given us public housing, or a public transportation network, or the best medical care system in the world, the Canadian Wheat Board, or a very comprehensive support system for the weaker elements in Canadian society. What I am saying is not antiAmerican; it is pro-Canadian. The Americans have always been our closest friends and our closest allies, as well as our best trading partner. That will not change whether this deal goes through or not. That certainly will not change when a Liberal Government returns to Ottawa.
We heard this afternoon from the Prime Minister that those of us who do not support his deal are timid and afraid. We are accused of having no confidence in Canada's future. But who really are the frightened ones? Who are the ones rushing into this trade deal with the United States looking for Big Brother? Who were the frightened ones afraid of putting this deal to the test of the Canadian people? This is a deal that they tried to keep secret. They tried to hide it from Canadians for more than 1,000 days of secret negotiations.
It is the members of the Government who were afraid. They are wrong about this trade deal. They are wrong about this country. They are certainly wrong about this Party. We do have confidence in Canada. We do have confidence in our future. The difference is that our future is not a continental future; our future is a Canadian future with wide international aspects.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: Our Canada has horizons which go far beyond those envisaged in the Conservative trade deal. There is a better way. We reject this deal because it turns us into little more than a colony of the United States and, on the international scene, into merely a junior partner.
I want to refer to a document produced by my colleague from Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy) who pointed out in his report, Expanding Choices, that we are offering Canadians a better choice. I am sure you, Mr. Speaker, would allow me, and the House would allow me in a parenthetic but in a very sincere way, to say to my colleague from Winnipeg- Fort Garry how much the House, how much the Opposition, appreciates the way he has worked against great odds in this House and in the committee through the heat of the summer. The results have been borne out in his analysis of this deal.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: I also want to thank the other member of the committee from our Party, the Hon. Member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine East (Mr. Allmand), for his incessant work in the analysis of this deal which will mean so much negatively, I believe, for our country.
August 30, 1988


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: That report sets forth a clear agenda that allows us to trade with the world without giving away our sovereign right to decide our own future. The essence of the Liberal trade alternative-the Prime Minister can mock it-is to liberalize trade internationally. Our greatest leverage with the United States in developing new markets and expanding new trade opportunities has always come by negotiating internationally. The Liberal trade policy is a five-point program which will give us that leverage by making Canada a strong, dynamic, and sovereign world trader. The five areas are the GATT, the world economy, Canada-U.S. trade, export expansion and enhancement, and global competitiveness.
Beginning with the GATT, from the mid-1930s to the election of the present Conservative Government, the strategic trade objective of every Canadian Government was to increase the standard of living of Canadians by widening trade opportunities, and by obtaining improved and more secure access to foreign markets without putting our national unity or our national independence at risk. The chief vehicle for meeting this objective has always been, and must continue to be the GATT, the world's leading trade organization of over 90 countries.
As a founding member of the GATT, Canada has taken a lead in encouraging all trading nations to play a part in formulating its rules and adhering to its decisions. It is essential to understand the GATT and its great importance to Canada, because it has been through the GATT process that all modern reductions in tariffs between Canada and the United States have been obtained. Most of that was done while Liberal administrations were in power. As a result of past Liberal trading policies Canadian exports today are booming, and in particular exports to the United States. It will be the policy of a Liberal Government to build on that success, to build on that historic process, and not to change course, as the Conservative Government proposes to do. That is the difference.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: The supporters of this trade deal argue that in any trading arrangement, whether it be within the GATT or directly with the United States, we have to give up some of our freedom to act. We understand that. But then they go on to argue that since Canada is just a little country with no influence in the world, we are better off to join our economy to that of the United States. That is a "little Canada" argument. That is a "fortress North America" argument. What it overlooks is that while from time to time we may not like certain decisions of the GATT, the nations of
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement
the GATT do not dictate Canadian domestic national policy as this agreement with the United States will do.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: Because unlike the Government's trade deal, GATT deals exclusively with trade issues. GATT is a trade mechanism. It does not tell Canada how we should set our own domestic, economic, and social programs. It does not determine or shape our agenda. That is a very important distinction between the international process under the GATT and the pervasive nature of this agreement that goes well beyond being a trade deal.
I said to the Prime Minister, and he repeated it today, that it is "the sale of Canada" Act. The problem is that in bilateral or one-on-one negotiations with the United States, Canadian bargaining power is diminished by two factors. First, Canada becomes what is normally called in international trade language the demandeur, the petitioner. We are the ones asking the Americans to change their trade laws. Second, the United States market is 10 times larger than ours. There is little incentive for the Americans to open up their markets to us without getting substantial concessions in return. The Conservative trade deal with the United States is ample proof of that. Even after the Government made concession after concession in energy, in agriculture, in the negotiating process on the definition of subsidy which will reach right into the whole fabric of the country, the primary objective of any trade deal with the United States on a bilateral global basis was not obtained. There was no secure access into the American market, and there was no exemption from American trade law.
We have to aim for something which gives us better access, not only to the United States market, which is vital to us, but to markets world-wide. Our Party favours the GATT. In the GATT negotiations, as opposed to the bilateral negotiations with the United States, the United States becomes like us, a demandeur, a petitioner on a wide range of trade issues, some of which we may agree with, and some of which we do not agree with. However, we gain substantial leverage in achieving our trade goals by enlisting the support of like-minded countries within the GATT, leverage that is not available to us in bilateral, direct trade negotiations with the United States.
Lor example, in the Tokyo Round the United States and Canadian tariffs on dutiable industrial goods were each reduced by six percentage points. Also in the Tokyo Round the United States made a number of concessions that were important and of value to Canada which we could not have obtained on a bilateral basis without providing the United States substantial extra concrete benefits and concessions which would have impaired Canadian independence. That is why we prefer the international mode. That is why successive Governments since the war have kept to the international theatre, because our bargaining position with the United States has always been better that way.

August 30, 1988
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement
A Liberal Government will take a more active role in building new rights and obligations into the GATT code, and into improving the dispute settlement process. We will work closely with the United States toward achieving our common goal of improving the GATT and widening the jurisdiction of the GATT to include services, and to include agriculture.
We would seek to strengthen the GATT by establishing a management committee of GATT Ministers of Trade which would meet not less than twice a year, and also arrange for closer consultation and co-operation between the GATT mechanism, the mechanisms behind the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development known as the World Bank for the purpose of improving the management of the multilateral system, of linking the trading, monetary, and aid prospects in one umbrella co-operation.

As for the world economy, there is an urgent need for reform. We have withnessed the emergence of new economic powers such as China and Japan as well as the economic rebirth of Europe. In the world today, Japan is the leading creditor and the United States are the leading debtor.
We have to maintain some flexibility in our trade policy to adjust to the new global and commercial economic trends. By signing a rigid trade agreement with the United States, we will be losing our own capacity to adapt to new economic situations.
We are also witnessing the formation of large trade blocks which could rapidly undermine the very principle of world trade without discrimination.
The Third World is sinking ever more heavily into debt and it is quite possible that this debt will never be repaid. Consequently, a major overhaul of international institutions is in order and we have some concrete proposals to that effect: There must be a reform of our trade, monetary, and financial institutions. At present, no such proposal has officially been made either by the OECD or the G-7 Finance Ministers. In fact, we are suggesting a new Bretton Woods where trading nations could find ways of dealing with an uncertain and volatile global market, especially in the highly volatile context brought about by the emergence of new economic powers, such as Japan, China and Europe and by the present policies of the United States.

In just over two months the Americans will elect a new President and a new administration will begin to take over in Washington. When I sit down with them to discuss trade, defence, the environment, our Arctic, or any other issue, I will not begin with the assumption that in order to obtain any agreement in any of those areas we have to surrender our sovereignty.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: This has been the approach of the Prime Minister of Canada and those days are
numbered. Our two nations have common goals and objectives. We share a common ecosystem. One of our first priorities will be to ensure that together we protect that ecosystem. American Governments must understand, as more Americans do, that the acid rain and industrial pollution, which are killing our lakes, rivers, and forests, and their lakes, rivers, and forests, must stop. The price of their prosperity should not be the destruction of our environment.
We will negotiate a clean air treaty with a specific timetable for reduction in cross-border pollutants. Our trade policy will be environmentally sound just as it will be economically sound. The Government I lead will work with the new American administration as partners in the struggle to reduce protectionism around the world. We will work with them in international forums in Europe, Asia and with emerging nations around the world, to defend the principles of more liberalized trade and encourage the freer movement of goods between all nations.
We have never been a protectionist Party. We do not view the current situation, the current proposed agreement with the United States, with protectionist eyes. If it would have been just a matter of tariffs and lowering trade barriers and had been limited to trade, we would have said, "Fine, let us look at it very seriously and constructively". But it went beyond trade. It went right into the heart of our ability to determine the type of political, economic, and social country that we want to be.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: We are each other's largest trading partner. We will work to solve trade irritants and continue to work for lower tariffs around the world, particularly between Canada and the United States, within those international forums.
Yes, after we have determined the results of the present GATT Round, we will examine again the possibility of establishing managed sectoral arrangements, like the Auto Pact, that has worked so well for both nations.
The Government that 1 lead will bring all of our trade experts under one roof in a new Department of Trade and Development. In addition to its legislative mandate to assist exporters to expand into newer and bigger markets, the new Department will back up our GATT negotiators to ensure that the GATT rules are followed. Canadian industry and workers will have direct access to the expertise of trade officials, united in one Department, in order to investigate and respond to the possible and fair trading practices of our trading partners and goods coming into our market.
We would have this department report directly and regularly to Parliament on opportunities and difficulties with all our trading partners, including the United States. We would have the department assist Canadian workers and businesses in adjusting to changes brought about by new international competition.
August 30, 1988


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
Geographical distance, cultural differences, commercial barriers and language must be overcome if we are to penetrate the developing markets of the world.
1 will be announcing the establishment of a National Trading Corporation with a special mandate for the growing markets across the Pacific. It will have three functions. First, the development and penetration of world-wide markets for Canada; second, the development and co-ordination of distribution facilities, including shipping and transportation; and third, the provision of specialized resources, including financing and the technical skills in exporting activities. It will be a leader in developing those networks which are so important, particularly in the Pacific. There will be training programs and, hopefully, language skills at our universities, hopefully at the university shared by the Speaker and myself as graduates of a great institution. There will be commercial knowledge required to increase our share of world-wide trade.
In co-operation with the private sector, we will build bridges across the oceans to new economic giants like Japan and China. I am talking about the Indonesias, about the Philippines, and then into Latin America, Brazil, the Argentine and Mexico.
We will open new trade missions, not close them. We will increase our trade support programs and we will increase funding for the Export Development Corporation.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: I have had the honour of representing this country from time to time at OECD meetings. 1 think that we also now have to recognize the growing importance to Canada not only of Atlantic trade but of trade in the Pacific Rim. It is now our second largest export market after the United States. In Europe, the OECD has helped to develop a spirit of the Atlantic. We will promote the creation of a Pacific spirit through a similar organization of Pacific Rim nations which will encourage economic co-operation and the development of greater trade with all the countries of the Pacific Rim.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: No trade policy can be a substitute for a national economic strategy. No trade policy, no trade pact, even with the United States, can replace our own efforts. We cannot depend on others to make us more competitive. We must do that ourselves.
A Government that I lead will invest in people and in education in order to give our younger Canadians the skills that they need today for the jobs of tomorrow. We will invest in research and development to give our industries the tools that they need to compete successfully on world markets.
Our goal, which we will achieve, will be to raise the level of public and private spending on R and D in Canada, from 1.36 per cent of GDP to 2.5 per cent. We will nurture the new industries which are helping us become more self-sufficient.
Some of these programs 1 have mentioned before. We will establish a national literacy program. There are over one
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million adult Canadians who can neither read nor write. There are 4 million more adult Canadians who functionally cannot read or write, in the sense of putting a subject and a verb and a predicate in order and using it for economic purposes.
We will invest in training and retraining programs for those displaced by the new technologies. We will create, as we created in 1984, a national apprenticeship program to improve the school-to-work transition for young people.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: We will provide our industries and our workers with adjustment programs to help them adapt to the changing international trade environment. We will establish a federal-provincial task force to work on the elimination of barriers to trade between provinces, with the goal of creating free trade within our own borders.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: In the coming weeks, I will be announcing further details of our agenda to give Canadians a better choice for their future. Canadians will know clearly before election day what we intend to do in government.
I will tell you this. When we are in government, we will not invent phoney reasons to ignore our commitments. We will not try to rewrite history, as this Government has attempted to do in defending and selling this trade deal, a trade deal which represents a fundamental change in the political and economic direction of this country. It is not an ordinary piece of legislation. It is not just another major piece of legislation. It is the most important and drastically different piece of legislation that I remember in my lifetime and that probably Canada has faced in the 20th century, other than the 1911 election.
So it is not a matter of challenging the Government's ability to govern. It is so fundamentally a change in direction that the Prime Minister must admit that he has no mandate or authority from the Canadian people to sign a comprehensive trade agreement with the United States.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: The Prime Minister spent a good deal of his speech in the complimentary endorsements and citations, but I would like him to produce any citations during the last election that gave the Canadian people a warning that we would have this kind of agreement with the United States. Not one. It was not a feature of the Throne Speech of November, 1984. The only idea that we had of where the Prime Minister stood on this vital issue were the words that he spoke when he was replying in debate for the leadership of the Conservative Party in 1983, to his colleague, now the Minister for International Trade, the only leading Minister who, after all, has been consistent on this issue. It was not the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson); he was against free trade. It was not the Minister of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark); he was against free trade. The Prime Minister, when accosted face to face with his now colleague, the Minister for International Trade, had this to say; "Free trade, it affects our sovereignty, and we will have none of it".

August 30, 1988
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Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: The Prime Minister has never told us why he changed his mind. There has been no genuine debate, one thousand plus days of secret negotiation with the United States. This House of Commons has been given just 12 days to discuss the deal. The Prime Minister invoked closure all the way.
There have been no meaningful public hearings. Yes, there were hearings when the exchange of general principles was presented on October 5, 1987, but when the agreement itself was deposited on December 17, last year, there were no public hearings across the country, no opportunity for Canadians to present their views, whether they be members of a trade union or a profession, or having their own businesses, or farmers or fishermen.
A trade committee of the House completed its review after only three and a half weeks. That committee did not travel outside Ottawa. It did not listen to the concerns of Canadians across the country. The vast Conservative majority on the committee made sure it was nothing more than a rubber stamp for the Mulroney trade deal.
A Government, which by September 5, in a few days, will be going into its fifth year since its election, does not have the right to force through such a massive change in the direction of our country without going back to the people in an election.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: It was for all these reasons-a fundamental change in the direction of Canada, no mandate or authority from the people of Canada, no meaningful public hearings, inadequate debate in the House of Commons, and the end of the Government's mandate in this Parliament-that I asked Senators to delay passage of the trade Bill until the people of this country had had an opportunity to pass judgment.
The Prime Minister often talks about the Senate. When his Minister for International Trade was Minister of Justice we had our head-to-head on reform of the Senate and we advanced the proposition for an elected Senate at that time. We are still bound by that and that will be part of our electoral program. Under Meech Lake the Senate still has a constitutional role to play. We have asked the Senators to exercise that constitutional review, to review this legislation, and to exercise that role. I am not asking them to defeat the Bill. I am asking them to delay the Bill until the people of Canada have had an
opportunity to decide. If the Prime Minister wins he can still meet the deadline imposed upon him by the United States of January 1, 1989. I think that is a pretty straightforward proposition. Call an election now. If Canadians vote for the Prime Minister, then he has his trade deal. If Canadians vote for me, there is no trade deal. All I am saying is: Let the people decide.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: I put it to you, Mr. Speaker, to the Government, and to the country: let the people decide between a Conservative Government which is willing to sell Canada's soul for a deal which gives us virtually nothing in return, and our Party which will advance the trade strategy allowing us to trade with the world, including the United States, but without shredding our political independence or yielding on the sovereignty that has made this a unique nation north of the 49th parallel.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: I believe fundamentally that this country and Canadians from coast to coast want to be able to make their own choices, in their own way, in their own time, for their own future. Because of that, I repeat, Mr. Speaker: Let the people decide.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I rise with a great deal of pleasure to take part in this historic debate which, in fact, is one of the most important if not the most important in the history of this country in terms of the implications of the measure that has been put before this Parliament by the present Government.
I want, at the outset, to say to the House and to all those Canadians who are now watching this debate from Atlantic Canada ...
[Translation\
-in the province of Quebec, in Ontario-

... to the Prairies and to those in British Columbia who are still midway through the working day that there are a number of things I want to clear up in which all three Parties, it seems to me, have strong or substantial agreement. One could waste a lot of time either here in the House of Commons or speaking to the people of Canada about straw men and phoney arguments instead of dealing with what 1 think ought to be the essentials of the argument.
August 30, 1988

I want to suggest that the Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Mulroney), the Leader of the Liberal Party, the Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Turner), myself, and our respective Parties would share agreement when it comes to trade on the following matters. All three of Canada's national Parties want to expand trade. I have yet to hear a Member of the House of Commons who has said: "I am in favour of restricting trade. Let's go backwards." No one says that. No serious politician advocates that. We want expanded trade.
Second, we want expanded trade with our most important customer to the south, the United States of America. All three Parties agree with that. Having heard the Leader of the Opposition today and having heard him before, and having heard Government Members, we all recognize the need to expand trade elsewhere in the world. There is no disagreement with expanded trade with our neighbour to the south and with other countries in the world.
Third-and this is not frequently mentioned but I would enjoy hearing some Members, particularly from the Government, pick up on it-all three Parties in the House of Commons are for a reduction in tariffs and have been for a long time. We have supported the GATT process of gradually reducing tariffs, systematically, in a way that does no harm.
For countries in the Third World that, is done in the context that takes our national need, as well as that of other countries much stronger than ourselves, into account. All three Parties want a reduction in tariffs.
Next, I say to my fellow Canadians wherever they are tonight or this afternoon, watching this debate and listening to the arguments, that all three Parties in Canada's Parliament want higher employment levels. I have not heard anything to the contrary on that.
Finally I would say, if I understand all Parties, that no one is arguing the case for expanded protectionism in terms of trade in commodities between nations, either between us and the United States or between us and other countries in the world.
1 would like to suggest through you, Madam Speaker, to the people of Canada that there are no major divisions among Canada's Parties on these important matters.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh?


John Edward Broadbent: I have heard some questioning. Maybe there will be a contribution in the debate. I am saying that those stated goals are shared by all three national Leaders, by all three federal Parties. There are some very important differences.
In my comments in this debate today 1 want to deal with the present deal, the present negotiated proposal which the Government of Canada has entered into with the Government of the United States. In my comments today I am not going to dwell, as I did in contributing to this debate a few weeks ago, on the major aspects of this deal that have nothing to do with trade. The Leader of the Opposition touched upon some of
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those today, and 1 went over those at great length before. The deal we have before us, 1 say to my fellow citizens, is much more than a trade deal. It is much more than simply an exchange of commitments between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States about trade in commodities going across our borders.
What is involved in this deal goes to the root of what it means to be a nation. It touches upon the internal policies particularly of Canada because, let us have no illusions, we are one-tenth the size of the country to the south of us, and I will come back to that in a minute. The deal before us is not primarily a trade deal, although the Government will continue to talk about it in those terms.
I want now to get into what I think this deal really is all about and why not only New Democrats but increasingly among Canadians who have looked at it, whether in the West, in Central Canada or Atlantic Canada, the more they are aware of this deal, the more they are opposed to it.
Canadians share all those goals that I have just talked about. If the deal concerned only those goals, there would not be this debate. There would not have been protracted debate and questions in this House for the past two years if the deal had been restricted to the matter of commercial exchange between Canada and the United States. I want to deal with it and what I think is so seriously at fault with it, what it means to be a Canadian, and what it means for our country in the long run.
It was Sir John A. Macdonald, a bright, imaginative Conservative Prime Minister, the father of our country, who, in thinking about relationships between Canada and the United States, never made the mistake of thinking about them exclusively in economic terms. He said: "It might be that the lion and the lamb would lie down together but the lamb would be inside the lion". I profoundly believe that the question future historians will be asking about this particular period in Canadian history is the following: How did the Party of Sir John A. Macdonald come to advocate, at the end of the 20th century, a policy whose essence is the opposite to what he devoted his life's struggle to? In short, how could the present Leader of the Conservative Party, the present Prime Minister of Canada, sign a deal that the President of the United States quite accurately described not long ago as "a new economic constitution for North America"?
I think future historians will be asking about Conservative premiers as well, without exception, from Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and indeed because he is a Conservative whatever his label, the Premier of British Columbia. How could all those Conservatives agree to a deal which, according to the U.S. trade representative Clayton Yuetter, will mean after 20 years, in his felicitous phrase, that Canada "will be sucked into the United States economy"?

August 30, 1988
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I will try to answer that because I think it is worth thinking a great deal about. Again I speak primarily not to my fellow politicians in this Elouse, most of whom have thought it through on different sides and made up their minds, but to the people of our land. 1 want them to think through the implications of this deal for the future of our children and our children's children.
I ask: How could the present Conservative Prime Minister and Conservative premiers from coast to coast turn upside down the life dream of Sir John A. Macdonald? The question has to be answered. There is an answer to it and it is this. The Conservative Party today has no goal of nation-building that would distinguish our country from mainstream U.S.A. It has no goal precisely because, in my view, it has completely abandoned one of the guiding principles of conservatism.
There are in the history of Conservative movements here in Canada and abroad two important principles. In this debate and in the speeches we hear from the Premier of Saskatchewan, the Premier of Alberta, the Premier of British Columbia, and their eastern Canadian equivalents, there has been abandonment of one Conservative tradition in favour of another. I believe both here and abroad there are two traditions in the Conservative Party, normally competing for ascendancy, one with the other, and what we have seen here is the victory of one of those traditions over the other. We should be thinking about that and thinking about it a great deal.
On the one hand there is, for Conservatives of tradition, the importance of continuity and community and nation, of a sense of values based on a shared common past. According to this view, other values, like those of the market economy, are seen to be subordinate to the primacy of the historical common good of all in society. This view has been the kind of conservatism invoked by Disraeli in the 19th century when he made a critique of the ravages of industrialism. It was the conservatism of Sir John A. Macdonald who used government power to build a separate Canadian economy because he had a different vision of the future of this part of North America from what existed to the south of us. It is the conservatism that at one time supported the CBC and Air Canada. It was the conservatism of a Prince Edward Island Premier who, I remember very well, in the early part of this decade opposed putting property rights in the Constitution because he saw the possibility of its negative impact on a decision affecting the common good.
It was the conservatism of Harold McMillan's attack, and a brilliant attack it was, on Margaret Thatcher's policies in Great Britain. It was the conservatism of John Diefenbaker who brought in a national hospitalization program in this country because he knew if left to individual action in the market-place we would never have had such a plan.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: If there is this one kind of tradition of conservatism, as I think there is, and I believe it is at the core of most Canadians in varying degrees, there is another, stronger Conservative tradition in the Conservative Party. This
tradition, while I believe it has normally been the stronger of the two in the history of the Conservative Party here and abroad, in the present historic circumstances, unfortunately for Canada, has gained complete and utter dominance. This Conservative tradition puts exclusive emphasis on the marketplace. Instead of market values being subordinated to those of the community good, those of the common good are subordinated to those of the market-place. To put it perhaps more precisely, for Conservatives of this tradition, consciously or unconsciously, the common good is virtually defined in terms of market values.
This Conservative tradition, in contrast to the one I spoke about a moment ago, was seen in the original opposition by Conservatives to government pensions and medicare. It is revealed in the ideology of privatization and deregulation, in the belief that a national program for child care can actually be achieved by giving people tax breaks. It is espoused by Milton Friedman, practised by Margaret Thatcher, trivialized by Ronald Reagan, and has been put into the heart and soul of this trade deal by Brian Mulroney.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: I believe that we have before us a deal which does not protect our water or our regional development programs, gives away control of our energy, puts in jeopardy over the next five to seven years and beyond our social programs, is indifferent to foreign ownership, and ignores the claims of Canadian culture precisely because these matters are totally subordinate to the claims of the market-place for the Conservative Government here in Ottawa and, regrettably, subordinate to the claims of the market-place for every Conservative Government anywhere in Canada today.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: Having abandoned the civilizing aspects of conservatism, they seek to establish an uncaring Canada. We will soon see that the people of Canada will abandon an uncaring political Party in the forthcoming election.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: Sir John A. Macdonald subordinated, because he saw the necessity of it, the forces of the continental market in his original dream of Canada. He understood that there was then and would always be an inevitable tension between Canada and the United States, between a Government in Canada that had a different concept of a future from that of the United States. He understood that to build with a market economy he had to have the state play a major role fundamentally to break the continental forces of the market if we were to have a nation called Canada at all. He understood that when a smaller country totally integrates its economy with a larger one it will also inevitably take on the values, norms, and customs of that larger nation. Would that we had a Conservative today who understood that reality.
August 30, 1988


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: The Prime Minister has taken part in this debate and has now listened with respect to the Leader of the Opposition and myself. 1 believe that his life experience-and we can debate about this-as a former branch plant manager has so internalized the values of the market-place as being preeminent that, unlike Sir John A. Macdonald and John Diefenbaker, he sees no possible contradiction between the national good and the continental market good.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: It follows from this kind of thinking that the only criteria brought to bear-and we have heard it in debate this week and in the past six months inside the House of Commons and outside from the Conservatives-by the Government in assessing the historical implications of this deal are market criteria. If you understand the Canadian national essence in such a limited way, it is no wonder that you will blithely sign a deal that will permit, over time, that essence to disintegrate. A nation protected by such leaders is not protected at all. A nation wise to the consequences of such leaders will vote those leaders right out of office.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: Rather than stand up for Canada, the present Prime Minister has handed over control of our future to the United States of America. Clayton Yeutter understands that. I quoted him earlier. Ronald Reagan understands that, and I quoted him earlier. I say to the Prime Minister today that "you, Sir, have let the people of Canada down".


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: In the 19th century, Madam Speaker, a Conservative Prime Minister who had an altogether different vision of the role and place of Canada on the North American continent set us on the road to independence. In fact, the Prime Minister we have now is not offering an alternative vision. He is willing to accept that Canada should become the Northern United States.
From the very beginning, the implementation process of this agreement has been the opposite of what the Prime Minister had promised in 1984, from a so-called open and transparent government.
At first, the Prime Minister was against this proposal, but no sooner had the Prime Minister met Mr. Reagan for the first time during the Shamrock Summit that he initiated a process which in the end will hurt Canadian men and women.
The Government never encouraged discussions. In fact, it tried to hamper them every step of the way. All summerlong, our colleague, the Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor (Mr. Langdon), did a tremendous job in committee on this issue for our party and for Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: He moved a great many motions to protect the interests of Canadians, but the Conservative Members on the committee always turned them down. For instance, the NDP motion calling on the committee to travel and listen to
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Canadians everywhere in the country was defeated by the Conservatives. The public hearings where witnesses had no time to be heard were sinister jokes. Canadian men and women were thus denied the right to express their views on one of the most serious decisions ever to be made by the Parliament of Canada. While the Tories were spending millions of dollars in propaganda, my caucus and I were visiting and listening to Canadians everywhere in Canada to find out what they thought of this agreement. We fought for the interests of ordinary people during parliamentary committee sittings where this agreement was considered.
Madam Speaker, Quebecers, from farmers to textile workers in Montreal, want and have the right to demand a stable future. The Free Trade Agreement with the United States is a threat. Whenever we suggested changes, the Tories said no. The cultural and artistic communities in Canada have truly florished, especially since World War II. Because of the all prevailing American influence, the Trade Agreement threatens this progress. Again, when we suggested changes to protect this positive development, the Tories said no.
We felt that the jobs of all the working women in the service industry, in all the cities, towns and villages from coast to coast were being jeopardized. Again when we proposed changes, the Tories said no.
Our grain producers who rank among the most competitive and productive in the world want to retain the existing powers of their Wheat Board. We agreed that this was important. Again the Tories said no.
All Maritimers want their regional development programs to be maintained. Likewise, Quebecers living in far away places, people living in the heartland of British Columbia as well as in the northern areas of the other provinces want to protect the capacity of the federal Government to support their regional economic development. When we moved amendments to this effect, again the Tories said no. This is totally unacceptable, Mr. Speaker!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, senior citizens want our health and social programs maintained and enhanced for future generations. The trade agreement jeopardize these programs, threatens to gut them as those in the United States. We have said: Yes, we must protect them. The Tories have said no. What the Conservatives do not understand when they say no to the requests made by women, artists, farmers, senior citizens, workers, simple requests relating to regional development and social programs, is that they are saying no to what Canada has become since the Second World War. Conservatives argue that they are steering us toward a better future. That is their argument. What they are really doing is in fact forcing us to conform to the concept of an American continent whose strength lies in the dollar, the almighty dollar, a concept that is illustrated by the United States, where 36 million people do not have any health insurance, where less than a quarter of the American people receive unemployment insurance benefits, where the rich get richer and the poor even poorer.

August 30, 1988
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Mr, Speaker, if that approach is acceptable to Conservatives, it is neither acceptable to the New Democrats or to the Canadian people. We are saying no to this agreement because it will hurt people who are dear to us, men and women of this country. We are saying yes to Canadian men and women who want to carry on the Canadian tradition in a modern and humane way. We, New Democrats, are saying no to this Agreement because it threatens to ruin everything that is different, that is progressive in our country, Canada.
Our vision of Canada as a social democratic party is based on fairness for average Canadians and their families. We want a fair deal for the many, not a special deal for the few.
Our vision of Canada is rooted in what I believe has become a modern Canadian tradition of compassion and justice. It responds to the challenges of today but also reaches beyond to the challenges of tomorrow. Instead of rejecting the past, we want to build upon it. Instead of restricting the notions of liberty, equality and community, we want to expand them. Instead of marching backward, we look forward to the 21st century.
I say again to all those Canadians who have begun to watch this historic debate, we in my Party believe in a Canada where we work together with average Canadians for a future not of perfection but a future of fairness, whether we are thinking of lumber workers in British Columbia, office workers in our cities, the farmers in all of Canada, textile workers in Quebec, or women, whether they work in the home in the tradition of women in the past or are contemporary women who more often are working outside the home.
We believe that the concerns of these people, average people, ought to become the priority of government not one day of the week but the priority of governments day in and day out, week in and week out, all year long.
Our vision of Canada certainly embraces strongly our tradition as a trading nation. Our vision of Canada includes a strong but fair trading relationship with our largest trading partner, the United States.
Our vision of Canada encompasses enhanced trade with the world, with our traditional partners in the European Community and those in the Pacific Rim. Most of all, our vision of Canada goes beyond mere matters of trade. It retains Canada's sovereign ability to determine our own destiny here on this part of the continent, to ensure that Canadians retain control to make decisions about the kind of society we want and retains the control for our children to make the kinds of decisions that they want.
The Conservatives try to claim that Canadians must accept this deal or nothing. Having created a monster, they ridiculously ask: Is there anything better? Well, there are other options to enhanced trade that do remain pertinent to trade and trade alone.
I want to say something about those specific alternatives favoured by my Party. I begin by saying that any proposal for trade should be about trade alone and not entail the giving away of all those powers to create within Canada the kind of society we want. I said earlier that John Diefenbaker understood that as part of the 20th century and John A. Macdonald certainly understood that at the last part of the 19th century. I only wish there was some current Conservative leaders who understood their own Conservative tradition in this regard.
Our approach combines three fundamentals that are key to enhancing fairness for average Canadians and for future generations. They are new opportunities for Canadians at home, fair trade with the United States, and new global trading opportunities beyond this continent.
First, let me say something about the opportunities for Canadians here at home. We would institute a national conference on the economy. This would be a body which meets at least annually for a serious analysis and discussion of the Canadian economy. It would have a serious mandate. It would be made up of leading business people, trade unionists, and community representatives. Its role would be advisory, but it would be expected to make recommendations and have regular assessments of what was done with them.
I say frankly to the Prime Minister who is here with us in this debate that he began what I thought was a serious effort in this direction shortly after he was elected. He established a conference that brought together such representatives, in which they discussed the future of this country and made a number of sensible proposals. Then they were sent home and never heard from again.
I have talked to some of those people who were at that conference, including business people, trade unionists, and others who expected a follow-up conference. I suggest that any modern government, in a mixed economy, should begin with an approach, whether or not it is within a federal state, that receives advice from such people in the private sector. It should be prepared to listen and systematically have a dialogue, with the Government retaining the final responsibility of making a decision. Such people should not be brought together simply for show, then sent home and ignored.
Second, we would upgrade our industrial potential at the national level by doubling our commitment to research and development and strengthening our capacity for technological innovation.
August 30, 1988

Third, we would enhance the skills of our labour force with a long term commitment to eliminating illiteracy, improving skill training and apprenticeship training, and encouraging retraining opportunities throughout the working lives of our working men and women.
Fourth, we would encourage domestic investment by a determined policy to keep interest rates down rather than allow the Bank of Canada to do what it has been doing recently. Fifth, we would use our resource wealth as a base to develop a more diversified manufacturing economy here in Canada. Not long ago I was in the Province of Quebec meeting with the head of a corporation, to be specific in the Rouyn- Noranda area, a very successful corporation which is now reinvesting millions of dollars. As I went through the plant with the head of this corporation and saw this very successful enterprise, I asked at each part of the visit where the particular equipment was manufactured. He pointed out that the equipment was manufactured in Italy, Sweden, the United States, and a couple of other countries. Rarely did I find equipment manufactured in Canada.
We had a discussion and we had a fundamental agreement. We both agreed that Sweden with a smaller population, a forest products country, had made the effort to have an industrial strategy in order to start exporting mining and forest equipment based on its resources. He said to me: "We have never had such an industrial strategy in Canada". 1 told him that 1 agreed and that it was time we had one. We should be manufacturing that equipment here in Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: 1 say to the Prime Minister that I would have thought economic nationalism 1(b) is to capture your domestic market and use that as a base for exports abroad. I just wish we had a government around this country that would try it sometime. 1 see the Prime Minister smiling. I can tell him one thing: he would never find the Japanese anywhere in their country failing to use a domestic opportunity, a forest product potential, or a mining potential, and importing all their equipment. The Japanese did not start out with half our resources and they are exporting their manufactured goods all around the world. If we took even the conservative approach of the Japanese, we would have used our mining and forest potential not simply as hewers of wood and drawers of water. We would be manufacturing and exporting our goods all over the world.

Mr. Speaker, we obviously want to go on trading with the United States. Americans are and will remain our most important trading partner. We presently benefit from this trade and we will go on doing so. But this should not be at the expense of our independance as a country.
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To settle our trading disputes, we should establish a tribunal which has influence and power. We should examine these disputes case by case keeping in mind that they are normal between neighbouring countries and that Americans will sometimes win out. We should apply the Auto Pact concept to other sectors of our economy, like chemicals or electronics.
As far as multilateral trade is concerned, we should cooperate with other countries to give new impetus to international trade, to reinforce the system of financial institutions, and to establish an international code of ethics for multinationals. We should open up our horizons, find new trading partners, negociate through GATT.
The 40 per cent reduction in tariffs, Mr. Speaker, which took 40 years to become a reality, was negotiated through concessions made by both sides through GATT. This must go on. Although far from perfect, GATT gives Canada the trading flexibility it needs and neutralizes power struggles much more efficiently than the trade agreement negotiated by this Government.

New Democrats believe that developing the full potential of our country requires using the energy and enterprise of the private sector and the ingenuity and vision of the public sector to achieve Canadian goals. Unlike the Prime Minister who said earlier that only the private sector creates wealth, we in the New Democratic Party believe the private sector and the public sector in the past, in the present, and in the future will both have leading roles to play in the creation of jobs.
Strengthening Canada's economy means building from the inside out, with a comprehensive approach to encourage diversification, innovation, and self-direction at the community level; industrial and technological excellence at the national level; and global co-operation at the international level. A healthy and productive trading relationship with the United States remains important in our strategy, as I said earlier, and should be in the strategy of any political Party in this country. The Americans are and will remain our most important trading partner. That is a cliche, but it is true. However, as confident Canadians, we also believe in reaching beyond this continent.
We believe that our trade and other economic policies promise greater prosperity for average Canadians and their families. We also believe that they will aid and complement, not jeopardize, our capacity to control our own future as a people. In my judgment, whenever the Prime Minister decides to call an election, and I hope it is soon, the choices are really clear. Canadians will be choosing between different visions of Canada, and our vision puts fairness for average Canadians and future generations as the top priority on the front burner, not on the back burner.

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Our vision says that all advances in social, regional and cultural policies that we have made so far in this century, particularly in the last few decades, need to be improved, not destroyed. Our vision says that it is time for fair trade, for regional fairness, for equality for women, for a secure future for our children. Our vision and our understanding of the present says that it is time, at last, for a New Democratic Party Government.
The Prime Minister gave an interesting interview the other night on television. I watched with care. 1 do not always pay fascinated attention to what the Prime Minister has to say, nor does he pay fascinated attention to what I have to say, but like many Canadians, I was watching to see if he would finally do what we believe is important and make it very clear that we would have an election. Well, he did say that we have a tradition of four years-and if it was not his words, it was certainly the argument-that it was an aberration to depart from that tradition, and that he planned to stay with that tradition. 1 hope he does.
I would like to conclude with the words of a very distinguished politician and say to the Prime Minister tonight, Sir: "You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go". Call an election!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Hon. Charles Mayer (Minister of State (Grains and Oilseeds)):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to be here this evening to take part in what in many ways is an historic debate on this piece of legislation and to say a few words about agriculture.
Agriculture has always been important to the country. It is one of the main reasons this country was settled. If we look back at our Confederation we see that agriculture was one of the original departments of government. Our history to date has been in making this land flourish and produce. In short, it has been to make it productive. There is no doubt in anyone's mind who is connected with agriculture, as I am as a farmer, that agriculture will play an important part in our future. That is why this agreement is so important for the future of agriculture.
We have tremendous production potential in Canada. Canada as a country has more land per capita than any country in the world, especially when we compare ourselves to the United States with a relatively large land base and a relatively large population, and when we compare ourselves to Japan with a relatively large population base and very little land. There are some 25 million people in Canada, 250 million or thereabouts in the United States, and about 120 million in Japan. That tells us something right there. It is that Canada does not have a large population to serve as far as agricultural production is concerned.
It is evident in other areas as well. Some 30 per cent of everything that Canada produces has to be exported. What
does that mean? If we compare that to other countries such as Japan, we see that 15 per cent of what is produced in that country has to be exported. In the United States only 10 per cent of what is produced has to be exported. Thus we can see that Canada is very dependent on trade.
On average, a Canadian farmer earns at least 40 cents out of every dollar from trade. The figures vary from region to region and from product to product. Some 80 per cent of the wheat that we produce is exported; 70 per cent of Canola is exported, either directly as Canola or Canola product; 50 per cent of our barley is exported; and 40 per cent of our hogs are exported. We are very dependent on trade. That is why we have to think that this agreement will be very important for the future of Canadian agriculture.
Why have we been able to be so productive? It is because we have been good at what we do. With the establishment of the Department of Agriculture as an original Department at Confederation, we very quickly established experimental farms. In fact, the experimental farms in Canada celebrated their one hundredth anniversary two years ago. We have done other things. We have been leaders in plant and animal breeding. We are world leaders in embryo transplants. We have as good a gene pool in our livestock herd as any place in the world. That includes dairy cattle, beef cattle, pork, and poultry. If one goes anywhere in the world, people talk about how good Canada is in agricultural production. We have done it because of the kind of people that we are.
When we listen to some of the things that are being said about this agreement, we hear that it will cause problems and that by implication we will have a difficult time competing. It makes one wonder what our ancestors would have thought had they been here today to hear that. They came here and were told by Palliser, the original doomsayer, that the area which eventually came to be called the Palliser Triangle between the Mississippi Valley and the Pacific Coast would never, ever support settlement because of the type of vegetation that that land was able to produce.
When we consider that our ancestors came here against those types of odds and literally made the country flourish and produce with no roads, no electricity, no television, no schools-none of the things that all of us take for granted today that we like to have for our families-one wonders what they would say when we have the type of opportunity that we have and there are among us doubters in how good we can be in the international market. I find that very difficult to accept as a farmer.
As the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) said today, one cannot hide from trade. One has to look for opportunities. That is what this agreement does. It does not guarantee us anything but it provides us an opportunity.
I am the fourth generation in my family who has lived on this continent, the fourth generation of farmers, and I am the first generation born in this country. Why did my ancestors
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come here before me? They came here for the opportunity to produce. We have been very good at producing. We have been very successful in making this land productive. That is obvious when we see that we have to export as much as we do. If we were not producing it we would not be able to export it. Why are we able to export it? It is because the product we produce is in demand. It is a high quality product. Whether it is grain and oilseeds, or whether it is in the livestock sector, people buy it because it is a good buy. We are reliable sellers. We produce a high quality product. Our reputation internationally is such that Canada as a country is respected. That also helps us when it comes to sales.
When we see what has been happening, we see that we have been so good at what we have been doing that trade barriers have been erected against us. If we look at what has been happening recently internationally, we see the type of subsidies that have been put up against us in order for other countries to get at our markets. We find that in the European Community producers are being paid three and four times as much for barley as is a Canadian farmer. They are being paid three, four, and more times for the production of Durum wheat in Europe. Yet, on the Canadian Prairies, we probably produce the best quality Durum or pasta wheat in the world. Artificial barriers are put up. Non-tariff barriers are put up.
Why? It is not because we are a great big country and can afford to subsidize like the Europeans or the Americans. It is simply because we are very good at what we do and we produce a very high quality product.
This agreement gives us the opportunity to compete with that high quality product on a fair basis. That is really what this agreement is all about. It is nothing magical. The Prime Minister said again that it is not a perfect deal. We all know that. We say that continually. However, it is so far down the road in the right direction compared to where we are now in trade and agriculture that it is obvious, at least in my mind, and in the minds of many Canadians, the right way to go.
Many Canadians support this agreement. There is a group that has been put together called the Canadian Policy Alliance. It very strongly supports this agreement. I would like to mention who makes up this group. They are the Alberta Pork Producers Marketing Board, the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, the Manitoba Hog Producers Marketing Board, the Ontario Pork Producers Marketing Board, the Saskatchewan Pork Producers Marketing Board, the United Grain Growers, a very large grain handling co-operative on the Prairies, the Western Barley Growers, and the Western Canadian Wheat Growers.
This is what they have said about the free trade agreement: "There is no doubt freer access to the U.S. market will be beneficial to the large majority of Canadian farmers. With the decline of traditional markets for grains and oilseeds the very survival of large sectors of Canadian agriculture could well depend on secure access to the large and prosperous North American market".
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Why will that happen? I want to suggest that it will happen for three reasons. First, the agreement establishes a fair set of rules. We know that those rules are ahead of time. Through negotiation they have been arrived at on a fair basis, and essentially they are fair rules. Second, both tariff and nontariff barriers will be removed over the first 10 years of this agreement. Third, when disputes and concerns arise there are provisions in the agreement for a dispute settling mechanism.
It is very important to have rules of conduct in almost any endeavour in life, especially in a competitive sense. That is what we are talking about in trade. It is a competition.
Today the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner) referred to Wayne Gretzky. I wish to refer to him in a little different light. Mr. Gretzky is perhaps one of the best hockey players ever to lace on a pair of skates. In many ways he is not exceptional as far as physical ability is concerned. He does not compare to Gordie Howe or Bobby Hull when it comes to stature and the ability to handle body-checks. However, he is very good at what he does. What would happen to Mr. Gretzky if every time he went on to the rink he played in a game that did not have very many rules and the other players were a lot larger than he was, and big enough that they could make up some of the rules as they went along? It would be very difficult for Mr. Gretzky to show how good he is every time he plays, and we all know that he does that.
In many ways that is the same situation with respect to Canadian agriculture. A country of 25 million people is able to produce beyond what we need in our own country and able to produce a high quality product. In the past we have demonstrated that we are so good that other countries want to erect barriers or trade in unfair ways to prevent us from getting into their markets. That is what the free trade agreement is all about. It is about establishing fair rules as far as trade between our two countries is converned, and specifically here I am talking about agriculture.
Let us look at some of the non-tariff barriers. There are many ways to thwart, limit, and frustrate trade. All that has to be done is inspect something at the U.S. border, it goes into the United States, and the Americans say that it did not meet a certain inspection, and send it back. If it is a perishable good, in the process of sending it back the shipper is so frustrated with what has been going on that he does not ship any more. We all know that that happens.
One of the most important things that we can do in this country to facilitate trade with the United States is to sit down with the Americans and work out a standard set of regulations that will be accepted on both sides of the border. Once those standard regulations are worked out, we then inspect on a random basis, or on whatever basis we determine, to see that those regulations and specifications are met. Surely that makes sense.

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Therefore, we will not get into a situation such as the one in Manitoba three or four years ago in relation to hogs. An artificial barrier was put up because some of the states were concerned about the possible presence of Chloramphenicol, a drug used in disease prevention in the raising of hogs. What is so drastic about simply sitting down with one's neighbour, one's best customer and friend, and working out a standard set of rules by which to play?
The third issue that is very fundamental and, to me, one of the most important parts of the trade deal, is the dispute settling mechanism. When we trade between our two countries there will come a time when disputes arise. That is normal in any endeavour, whether it is buying a car or buying groceries. There are always occasions when there are some concerns to be looked at. The dispute settlement mechanism simply provides that there is a fair adjudication of disputes. Canada is not going to be exempt from American trade law any more than the Americans will be exempt from Canada's trade law. That should be normal. What is very useful and unique in this case is that the dispute settlement mechanism will be binding, and there will be an opportunity to deal with trade disputes on a fair-minded basis by applying the rules.
There have been concerns expressed directly about the quality, uniformity, and ability of Canada to maintain those two very desirable traits as far as grain and oilseeds are concerned. Those have been fully addressed in the free trade agreement. Both Canada Grain Commission and Canadian Wheat Board lawyers were involved in the final drafting of the free trade agreement to ensure that their interests were protected and to see that within the framework of the agreement they had the full legal authority to carry out their responsibilities under the agreement.
In fact, not only were the lawyers for the Wheat Board and the Canada Grain Commission involved in the drafting of the Bill before us, they were also involved in the discussions leading up to the agreement that was originally reached last fall. Nothing in the agreement hinders in any way the ability of the board to function in the same manner as it has functioned in the past. It is quite the opposite.
The Canadian Wheat Board now has the responsibility for issuing end use certificates. That responsibility has been given to the Canada Grain Commission to carry out. If anything, the legal framework under which the Canadian Wheat Board operates has been strengthened. End use certificates will be required should grain come into the country, and that will only happen if there is a certificate issued to bring it in under certain circumstances, or if there is an equalization of support programs on both sides of the border. In either case when the product comes in under an end use certificate it will be up to the Canada Grain Commission to see that it is adhered to, and that commission may decide to product identify that grain. It may wish to colour some of the grain or add some confetti to ensure that the integrity of our system is maintained. Rather
than concern expressed about maintaining the integrity of our grain handling system, and the high quality that we have, the agreement actually strengthens the Canadian Wheat Board's ability to do just that.
There has also been concern expressed about the so-called transparency of the manner in which the Wheat Board operates. "Transparency" simply means that there is concern the Wheat Board does not have its prices made public when it sells. There is nothing in the agreement that compels the Canadian Wheat Board to operate in a different fashion than it does presently. In fact, when there is a system such as the Canadian Wheat Board that is doing a very good job of selling-and in fact it sold a fair amount of wheat to the United States last year-and its ability to sell is strengthened by giving it a better set of rules under which to operate. It seems to me that this agreement gives the board a better set of rules under which to operate.
I want to suggest to those who are concerned that they ask the board. The Wheat Board has told me that it would be delighted to sell into the American market without fear of political quotas, or without fear of having Section 22 of the American Agricultural Adjustment Act imposed on it. I would suggest that people ask the Wheat Board and the Grain Commission whether they see the free trade agreement as causing any problems. There are many opportunities in the United States for Canadian agriculture because of the quality of product we produce.
In conclusion, one other example is Canadian Canola oil. Last year in the United States it was named food product of the year. That oil is derived 100 per cent from Canadian Canola. At the present time we have a very small percentage of the American edible oil market, less than 1 per cent. With the concern today over health and diet, it gives us a tremendous marketing opportunity in the United States. In fact, the Canadian Canola Council is suggesting that we could need two million additional acres to supply that demand. That council can see the demand growing at approximately 10 per cent per year for the next number of years. This agreement gives us that opportunity.
There is an oilseed processor in Windsor, Ontario that is spending literally millions of dollars in expansion, largely aimed at the U.S. market. It is very well positioned to service the Detroit market. Elere is a case where Ontario farmers- and there is a concern in Ontario-can benefit substantially by having more secure access into the United States. There are eight million to ten million bushels of soybean exported today. I am told by that processor in Windsor, Admuco Grain Co., that it can see an additional 18 million to 20 million bushels of soybeans being crushed for the export market. That is as a result of this free trade agreement.
August 30, 1988

I just want to conclude by saying two things very briefly. First of all, I think that this trade agreement is a very great opportunity for Canadian agriculture. I want to pay tribute to the negotiating team under Simon Reisman, all people in the Department and all people in the House who were involved such as the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister. They did a very good job on the agreement and on behalf of Canadian agriculture.
In conclusion, let me speak for a minute as a farmer. I am home on my farm on the weekend. We all know the frustration and the sense of unfairness that go with having weather deprive us of a crop. It is not good for the soul and it does not make us feel good. Above all, as a farmer you are proud of what you produce and you like to produce a high quality product. When the weather deprives you of that, it is not a good feeling. You work throughout the year and in many cases, as around my farm this year, you are left with virtually nothing of a cereal crop. There is not very much that we can do about that.
We have made some improvements as far as plant breeding and as far as what we can do with weather are concerned. However, it is equally as frustrating when we are deprived of a livelihood because we do not have the access to markets. It is just as devastating to farmers. That is what we are addressing in this Bill. We are giving farmers an opportunity to compete. My ancestors came here because there was an opportunity to produce. They made it work. They made history by making this country produce. We are making history, I firmly believe, because this Bill gives Canadian farmers a chance to sell, a chance to have access, a chance to market. It is going to be just as important to my children as my father found it important for his forbears to give him a chance to produce.
I am very happy to have had a chance to say a few words in support of the free trade agreement because I firmly believe that it is going to be very useful and very helpful to Canadian farmers in the future.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I just have a couple of comments. The Minister of State for Grains and Oilseeds (Mr. Mayer) said that there was great concern in Ontario with the free trade deal. He is really right.


Charles James Mayer: I did not say "great concern".


Maurice Brydon Foster: Some 48 per cent in the province oppose it, 31 per cent are in favour of it, and 28 per cent strongly oppose it. More important, the majority of the people of Manitoba and Saskatchewan oppose this deal, as was reported in the Environics poll of June 7 to June 27. In Saskatchewan, 29 per cent are in favour of the Mulroney-Reagan trade deal and 49 per cent are opposed. Even more important is the fact that 36 per cent strongly oppose it and only 9 per cent are strongly in favour of it. In Manitoba, similarly 27 per cent are strongly opposed and 11 per cent are strongly in favour.
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement
I wanted to call to the attention of the Minister that the Wheat Board advisory group opposed this deal because of the implications for the Canadian Wheat Board. If we look at their report, which was issued a couple of weeks ago, on July 28, it reads:
"After careful review of the proposed Bilateral Canada-U.S. Trade Agreement including Chapter 7 of the United States Statement of Administration Action, the Canadian Wheat Board Advisory Committee considers the proposed Free Trade Agreement will:
1.	undermine the ability of The Canadian Wheat Board to be an effective marketing agent on behalf of Canadian grain producers.
2.	create an environment in which it will be increasingly difficult to maintain the quality and uniformity of the Canadian grains.
3.	not provide enhanced and secure access to the U.S. market. The Canadian Wheat Board Advisory Committee recommends to The Canadian Wheat Board, the Minister of State, Grains and Oilseeds, and the Prime Minister that the total grain industry be exempt from the Free Trade Agreement.''
Part of that stems from the fact that the articles of the trade deal, as issued last October, seemed to imply that we would have full access to the U.S. and be exempt from Section 22 of the Agricultural Adjustment Act. However, when we get into the actual agreement in the United States, the administrative recommendations and so on, it is rather fuzzy, especially at a time when the Ministers here and in the provinces are negotiating or considering changing our support programs and our stabilization programs, or perhaps doing that in the future, whether or not we in fact would be exempt from that U.S. Act which provides for controls on imports.
The Minister read out three or four groups in favour of the trade deal, and of course groups like the hog producers and the beef producers essentially have free trade now. They want to continue having that free trade arrangement even though they would gain essentially about one cent a pound. There would be some harmonization of health standards. We hope that they would not be lowered. They are scared to death of the dollar going to 95 cents next to the American dollar, if the exchange rates rise or come to par.


Charles James Mayer: What does that have to do with free trade?


Maurice Brydon Foster: More important, the Minister talks about the people who are in favour of it. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture, the largest umbrella group in the country, expressed grave concerns with the deal, and it sent a letter to the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) demanding a meeting with him, which it has not had yet. In its letter it pointed out that there were grave and serious implications for the Canadian agriculture industry, especially the integrity of the Canadian Wheat Board marketing system. It is very concerned that in the long haul the Government is going to give away that Wheat Board orderly marketing system to the multinationals, mostly large American grain companies, and that the power, the authority, and the effect of the Canadian Wheat Board will be lost.
Second, the Federation is concerned that the standard of quality of Canadian agricultural products will be lost. It is concerned that the Canadian Grain Commission will not be able to control products coming in from the United States.

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Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, 1 rise on a point of order. I know that the 10-minute period is for questions and comments. Surely, we are not going to take 10 minutes in a soliloquy which in itself is a minor speech. 1 would like to have an opportunity to put on the record some things that straighten out the record, in terms of what the Elon. Member is saying, before the 10 minutes are concluded.


Maurice Brydon Foster: I was just about finished, Mr. Speaker. I just wanted to comment on the final point or two in the Canadian Federation of Agriculture brief to the Prime Minister. It is concerned about the failure of the Government to consult with industry on policy administration for import quotas. It is further concerned about the failure on the part of the Government to make a strong public commitment to the continued integrity of the Canadian Wheat Board.
These are not the words of the Official Opposition or the NDP. This is a toughly worded statement of the President and the national council, of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, the largest umbrella group in Canada. It not only covers the western pools, but it covers the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, UPA, and other such groups.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Crofton):: A point of order.


Charles James Mayer: If the Hon. Member wants to get up and speak and listen to himself, that is fine. If he is prepared to make a comment, 1 would be more than happy to try to respond to it. If he just wants to get up and put on record a diatribe, without listening to what is being said in the speech that I just concluded and giving me a chance, that is another story.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Crofton):: I thank the Minister for his intervention, but I was watching the time closely and I had every intention of giving the Minister an opportunity to respond. Has the Hon. Member concluded his remarks?


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I understand the Minister wants to respond and I think he should because the Prime Minister has not. These are important organizations. The Canadian Wheat Board Advisory Committee is the committee that advises his own Wheat Board. Its members are elected throughout the regions of the West-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Crofton):: I recognize the Minister.


Charles James Mayer: First, Mr. Speaker, I want to suggest that if the Hon. Member would listen to what I just said and if he wants to take the word of the advisory committee, that is one thing, but I suggest he talk to the Canadian Wheat Board. Let me give the Hon. Member what the Chief Commissioner of the Canadian Wheat Board said about the free trade agreement and how the board operates. He said that they would be delighted to have access to the U.S. market without threat of
quotas being imposed. The threat of quotas is there now under Section 22 of the Agricultural Adjustment Act.
I point out to the Hon. Member that, if anything, the free trade agreement strengthens the way the Canadian Wheat Board operates because under the agreement the Board is given responsibility for issuing permits to let grain come into the country, if and when we get to a situation where levels of support are equal on both sides of the border. The board has in turn asked the Canadian Grain Commission to carry out that responsibility. There is a case where, if anything, the board's abilities to operate under its present set of conditions is strengthened.
When I tell the Hon. Member what the Chief Commissioner of the Canadian Wheat Board just said and point out how it will be administered under the agreement, I think he has to admit that that does not do anything but strengthen the way the Canadian Wheat Board operates.
Let me tell the Hon. Member what one American group said about the agreement. This is the National Association of Wheat Growers, the largest association of wheat growers in the United States. Its president, Mr. James Miller said:
"Canada came out the clear winner in the free trade agreement-at least in wheat-because it-
"It" meaning Canada. He continued:
-will gain access to the huge U.S. market without giving anything in return."
That is what a representative of the American wheat industry said about the agreement. That tells me that our negotiators did a very good job of negotiating on behalf of Canada, especially on behalf of Canadian agriculture.
I do not understand some of these things, Mr. Speaker. I just pointed out that we are probably as good a producer of grain and oilseeds as anybody in the world. We have been able to compete successfully every place, including the United States. Why are people given that fact-and it is a fact-so nervous about giving the Canadian Wheat Board and our system of producing and selling an opportunity to compete under a uniform and fair set of rules? I do not understand this kind of thinking. We are good at what we do. We have nothing in our history that suggests we cannot compete and yet we have people saying: "We are afraid. We do not want to compete. We do not want to open the border. We are not sure how good we are." It is like having a prize hull- You are sure this bull is the best in the world, but you keep the poor bugger behind a barn and a ten-foot slab fence; you never give him a chance to come out and compete.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Charles James Mayer: That is what we are doing. We are very good at what we do. All we want is a fair chance to compete under the rules. That is what this deal does.
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Crofton):: I regret that the Minister's time has expired for questions and answers. I recognize the Hon. Member for Trinity (Miss Nicholson) on debate.


Gordon Edward Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. When are we going to stop one Member from getting up and talking, talking and talking, not even concerning things the Minister asked about, so as to stop someone else from asking questions? That is not the purpose of our question and comment period at all. One person should not be able to monopolize it as was done a few minutes ago.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Crofton):: The Hon. Member for Trinity.


Aideen Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, in the closing hours of this debate I just want to put a few remarks on the record. It is regrettable that the Government has decided to hurry this Bill through the House. This is a most important Bill. It amends about 27 Acts of Parliament. The Government has used closure all the way. There has been a total of 12 days of debate on the Bill. The period for committee hearings was short. Many people who wanted to give evidence were not heard from, and all the hearings were in Ottawa; there was no attempt to travel outside Ottawa. It is a very sketchy and superficial examination of an important piece of legislation which could change and affect the whole future of Canada.
This is billed as a trade agreement, but it goes far beyond a trade agreement in the sense that there is potential here to affect the whole conduct of Canadian economic and political life. In fact, as a trade agreement it does not do what the Government promised. The agreement was supposed to give Canada secure access to the American market. It does not do that, but it does put our sovereignty and our capacity to take independent action in our own best interests in jeopardy.
We on this side of the House oppose the deal, not because we are anti-American or because we are protectionists. On the contrary, we share with our American friends the longest undefended boundary in the world. The Americans are our allies and our most important trading partner. Liberals have always been in favour of liberalized trade, but Canada by virtue of our smaller economy has always been vulnerable to trade harassment by the United States. Over the years we have negotiated successfully through international fora rather than going head-to-head with our great neighbour.
The reasons for this are obvious. Apart from the disparity in size of the U.S. economy and population, which is ten times as large as ours, in a bilateral agreement we are the petitioners. We are the people looking for access to the American market. When we go to the GATT or international fora we are petitioners. The Americans are petitioners. All the economies of the world are petitioners. Everybody is trying to get a better deal. Not everyone gets what is first requested, but hopefully there is some kind of consensus with which we can all live. Canada has done well negotiating in the international fora. As a matter of fact at the time the Conservative Government
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement
started work on this trade deal some 85 per cent of our goods were already moving across the American border without tariff, with a further 10 per cent in the process of being phased out under the GATT.
Instead of negotiating within the framework of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the Conservative Government chose to put its eggs in the basket of a bilateral agreement. It failed to get the secure access to the American market that was promised. It would have been no disgrace to say "we tried, we failed" and then walk away, but not this Government. It had to have a deal at any price. What it has negotiated is the most massive giveaway of our sovereignty in history.
During the negotiations we were told time and time again that the Government would negotiate free access, secure access to the U.S. market. During the negotiations which also were conducted in secret, the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) vowed that he would accept nothing less than total exemption for Canada from the application of U.S. countervail and antidumping laws.


John Horton McDermid: Where is that quote?


Aideen Nicholson: The Hon. Member asks for a quote. I will be very pleased to give it to him, Mr. Speaker. In an interview with representatives of The Wall Street Journal, on April 3, 1987, the Prime Minister said:
"The United States trade remedy laws cannot apply to Canada."
In March, 1987, the then Minister for International Trade said that the objective of any trade agreement would be the elimination of countervail by both countries. Curiously, in the House of Commons during the last sittings of Parliament in 1987, she said that this was never her objective. The present Minister said, in a speech in St. John's, that he expected the agreement to provide for the elimination of countervail.
Secure access would mean that Canada would be exempt from American trade law, and that has not happened. We are not exempt from the 1930 U.S. Trade Act or the 1974 Trade Act. We are not exempt from the omnibus trade Bill recently passed by the U.S. Government.
There is to be a new trade tribunal, but it will not protect our export markets because it will not be able to challenge existing American trade laws. It will only be able to interpret American trade laws. Article 1902(1) of this agreement says that the U.S. reserves the right to apply its anti-dumping law and countervailing duty law to goods imported from the territory of the other party, that is, Canada. The Government failed to get an agreement to benefit Canada. Instead it took a deal at any price. It lacked the courage to walk away and admit the failure.
This deal has sold out many Canadian interests. In particular, I would like to draw attention to the sell-out of financial services because the deal provides much better benefits to the U.S. than it does to Canada. With the exception of granting

August 30, 1988
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Canadian banks and bank holding companies the right to deal in certain securities in the U.S., the U.S. has agreed only to extend Canadian controlled banks the same treatment they had as of October 4, 1987. Yet the U.S., on the other hand, will be free to establish new bank subsidiaries in Canada and invest without limit in all Canadian financial institutions, not only banks. We know there is no guarantee that this will be used in the best interests of Canada or in the Canadian national interest.
Existing U.S. banking regulations will prevent Canadian banks from increasing expansion to the U.S. because, unlike Canada where banks are federally controlled, in the U.S. they are controlled by the individual states. You cannot have a centralized banking system. So Canadian banks that want to expand into the U.S. have to negotiate with each state where they intend to open a branch.
Canadians were not generally aware of the difference between our banking system and that of the U.S. until the collapse of the ill-fated Canadian Commercial Bank. Canadians were horrified at the failure of that bank, the first in 62 years, but as Canadians at that time began to look at what was happening in the U.S., it was quite clear that it was a different system. The banks are state controlled, not centrally or nationally controlled, and when they get into trouble they are allowed to fail.
We have a system where we have opened up our financial controls to American interests, whereas the Canadians will not have the same access. It is a very one-sided agreement. Even the Canadian Bankers' Association which accepts this deal does so grudgingly, acknowledging that "the particular direct and immediate interests" of Canadian banks are not advantaged by this deal. That is an understatement.
This trade agreement also shows a lack of interest in and consideration for our needy. Our social programs, we learn, are to be harmonized with those of the U.S.


John Horton McDermid: Where does it say that in the agreement?


Aideen Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, the language of the Hon. Member on the other side is at best inelegant so I am not going to respond. He will have a period for questions and comments.
Any program in Canada that can be regarded as a subsidy could be an unfair trading advantage under this agreement. We have seen cases in the past where our unemployment insurance has been cited by the Americans as a subsidy. What has happened in the past can continue to happen in the future. In fact, it may very well be extended in the future.
The Government has failed to recognize the link between domestic economy and trade policy. In order to enhance our trade we need to do more work at home. We need freer trade between the provinces. We need an increased scientific and technological capacity in order to remain competitive. We
need to prepare Canada's labour force by training and educating Canadians to compete in both domestic and world markets. Yet the Government has capped transfers to the provinces for post-secondary education. We need initiatives which are not give aways but instead reflect a genuine commitment to the liberalization of trade in the best interests of Canada.
Not only were Canadians not consulted about this deal which affects our sovereignty, but the Prime Minister had one position before the election and another later. In 1983, in the course of the debate during the Conservative leadership race, he said: "Free trade, it affects our sovereignty and we will have none of it".


John Horton McDermid: Unfettered. He said "unfettered free trade".


Aideen Nicholson: Not only were Canadians not consulted about this deal, but the present Government had one position before the election and another later. There were secret negotiations for 1,000 days when Canadians had no idea what was on the table or what was being negotiated.
We already have an international forum, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which deals exclusively with trade. Canada has done very well negotiating there on trade matters. What we have before us in this measure which will amend, I believe, 27 or 29 Acts of Parliament-


John Horton McDermid: Twenty-six.


Aideen Nicholson: Twenty-six, thank you-is being rushed through closure at every stage with a total of only 12 days of debate. The future of Canada is at stake. This is not a trade agreement; it is an agreement which gives up much of Canadian sovereignty, much of our ability to be ourselves, to plan for our own future in the best interests of Canada. That is why my Party and I oppose it.


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


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I have a very short question for the Hon. Member. Would she please point out to those who are watching and listening to the debate tonight where exactly in this agreement it says that we will harmonize our social programs with those of the U.S.? That is what she said this agreement does. Would she please be so kind as to point out where in this agreement it says that?


Aideen Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to have been asked that question because it points out one of the problems involved in studying this agreement. Since I do not have the agreement in front of me at this moment, and by the way 1 have read it, I cannot point out the particular paragraph to the Hon. Member at this point.
August 30, 1988

Let me point out something else. The Government spent at least $40 million on a program to sell the trade agreement to Canadians. The last time I inquired the Government was still charging $138 for a copy of the actual agreement. I agree with the Hon. Member opposite. Indeed, Canadians should read and study the full agreement. However, apart from the fact that they would need a special bag to get it home, they have to pay almost $140 to buy it.


John Horton McDermid: That is not true.


Aideen Nicholson: The Hon. Member says that it is not true. Perhaps he is going to tell me that the Government has reduced the cost. If so, I will be pleased to hear it. I have been advising people who have written to me to get a copy of the agreement from the library and set up study groups. I believe that once Canadians see for themselves what is in this agreement, even if they are not lawyers, and even though it is technical and needs a lot of careful study and application, they will see for themselves the potential for lack of control over the direction of our social policies and our political future.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, the Member does not know where in the agreement it says that-


Aideen Nicholson: 1 rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I did not say that I did not know. I said very distinctly that I did not have the agreement here and cannot point it out.


John Horton McDermid: That is not a point of order, that is debate.


Aideen Nicholson: It would be nice if the Member would tell the truth once in a while.


John Horton McDermid: The point is that there is nothing in this agreement anywhere that says we must harmonize social programs.
I want to correct the Hon. Member because she is way off base tonight. This is the agreement. It is available free in the office of any Member of Parliament. The Member is talking about the package which the House of Commons has put together including the free trade agreement, the Bill, and the two tariff schedules, the American tariff and Canadian tariff schedules which together are as thick as a telephone book. That has been packaged together and Queen's Printer is charging that rate.
There is no charge for the agreement at all. These are available to Members of Parliament of all Parties. This is the agreement in whole and it is free of charge to the public. The Member made a very misleading statement to the House tonight and I hope she will stand up and apologize.


Aideen Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, I stand by my statement. That to which the Hon. Member is referring as the agreement is a summary of the agreement.


John Horton McDermid: No, it is not. It is the agreement.


Aideen Nicholson: It is the Conservative selective proposal. Indeed this has been made available free of charge to
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all Members. Any citizen who read that and thought that he or she had the full story would be gravely misled.


Gordon Edward Taylor: Mr. Speaker, as I listen to Hon. Members in the Liberal and New Democratic Parties I have to conclude that history repeats itself. The last speaker again reiterated that we will lose our sovereignty. Other speakers in both opposition Parties are saying that we are selling out to the United States, that they are going to take over our industries, that they are going to come in and run the country.
I heard that in the early 1940s when the Alberta Government, of which I was a part, wanted to get our oil and gas developed, we could not get a dollar from eastern Canada or anywhere else in Canada. We went to France and to Britain. No one would invest their money and take a chance on the oil and gas in Alberta. The Americans came in and spent millions of dollars.
When we arranged with the Americans to come in to find our oil and build up an oil and gas industry, the Liberals and the CCF at that time vowed up and down that we were selling the country, that we would lose our sovereignty and our social programs. Well, the Americans spent millions of dollars and today we have a gas and oil industry of which Canada can be proud and which the Liberals tried to eliminate a few years ago with the national energy policy.
We have an oil and gas industry in Canada because the Americans risked their money. We did not lose one social program and we did not lose any sovereignty. They did not take over our country. They did not run our country. They lived according to the rules we set. Under this agreement the Americans will live according to the rules set by the Canadian and provincial Governments. They will not run the country. We can get a tremendous benefit from this just as all of the country has benefited from the oil and gas industry which was developed. All the threats, fears, and gossip put out by the Liberals and the CCF in 1940 was complete hogwash. There was nothing to it. This agreement can give us tremendous industries and we will not lose one iota of sovereignty.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Crofton):: Would the Hon. Member care to make a brief response? There is one minute remaining in the period for questions and comments.


Aideen Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member opposite says that our American friends have abided by Canadian and provincial rules. I agree. My criticism of this agreement is that it sets no rules.


David Kilgour: Mr. Speaker, does the FT A not in fact enshrine the Auto Pact, which is so important to families in Ontario and Quebec, to the degree that the termination of the Auto Pact by Congress would in effect require the termination of the entire FTA? If the Member's Leader were to tear up the FTA, as he has promised to do, would Congress not very quickly give notice of his intention to cancel the Auto Pact because of the dwindling support in Congress for it and its perceived excessive benefits to Canada?

August 30, 1988
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Second, if the FTA does not proceed, will not Canadians, including Ontarians, be exposed to the undiluted effect of all the provisions of the omnibus trade Bill which was signed by the President last week?


Aideen Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, I am not in a position to speculate about what Congress might do given certain events. However, I think that to enter into a trade agreement because we are afraid of retaliation is surely the worst possible motivation. I have great faith that Canadians can negotiate a better agreement than this one, and that we can indeed compete internationally and do not have to lock ourselves into a bad agreement out of fear.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that the Hon. Member for Trinity (Miss Nicholson) is leaving because I want to address the first couple of minutes of my remarks to her. 1 have always had a great admiration for the Hon. Member. She has been and still is a hard-working Member of Parliament. She has just fought a nomination battle and won a close race against Paul Hellyer. 1 believe that she receives respect from all sides in this House.
However, she has just totally misled this House with the statement that she made on this agreement. I feel badly although I think she did it because she did not know. This is the text of the free trade agreement. This is what was printed and is made available to all Members of each Party, regardless of their political stripe. It is available to the public at no charge. Well, that is a little misleading because tax dollars paid for the printing of it and the public pays taxes. However, it is available. This is not an explanatory note; it is the agreement and it is available.
When 1 pointed that out to her, she denied it. Hundreds of people have come into my constituency office, as has been the case with my colleagues, to pick up a copy of this agreement. They have read it.
I understand that there is genuine disagreement about the free trade agreement and that there are different opinions. For the last three months we have listened to the debate in the House over the implementation of Bill C-130, the free trade agreement. While 1 might expect it from some Hon. Members in the House, I was very disappointed in that Hon. Member. 1 hope it is not an example of the desperation that the Liberals are showing, and the kind of action they will stoop to in the election campaign which is coming very soon.
As Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for International Trade, I have had a very rewarding experience over the last couple of years. While I was not on the front line and actively involved in the negotiations, I have been on the periphery. I worked with the President of the Treasury Board, the Hon. Member for Vancouver Centre (Miss Carney), then Minister
for International Trade and now with my colleague, the Minister for International Trade, the Hon. Member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie). I want to thank both of them for giving me the opportunity to play, albeit a small role, a role in the free trade negotiations, that of piloting the legislation through the House of Commons. It has been a great experience for me and one that I will never forget.
Of course, 1 must thank the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) as well for giving me this opportunity by appointing me Parliamentary Secretary.
1 want to congratulate Ambassador Ritchie and Ambassador Reisman, two gentlemen for whom I have the greatest respect. They are very proud Canadians and have done a marvellous job in negotiating the free trade agreement. To the staff at the trade negotiation office as well, I want to thank them for all their kindness. They have been most helpful. They have educated, guided and done a wonderful job, as have those in International Trade and External Affairs. At the outset, I wanted to pass on my thanks to those people.
I have given about 85 speeches across Canada and in the United States on the free trade agreement. Many in this Chamber as well as many throughout Canada will know that once you turn McDermid loose on free trade, heaven knows how long it will take. I will try to limit myself to a few subjects and perhaps comment on what the Leaders of the two opposition Parties mentioned today.
First, I will deal with the sovereignty issue. One hears time and again that Canada will no longer be a sovereign country because all the decisions will be made in the United States. Since other Members have gone back to quote Conservatives, let me refer to Mackenzie King. Mackenzie King would not sign an agreement with the United States to establish the St. Lawrence Seaway because he believed that it would diminish Canada's sovereignty. That is an historical fact.
It took a later Prime Minister, Louis St. Laurent, to realize that the St. Lawrence Seaway would be a great benefit to Canada. He signed the agreement that Mackenzie King refused to sign in the belief that it would diminish Canada's sovereignty.
Has the St. Lawrence Seaway diminished Canada's sovereignty? Not at all.
Today we are hearing from the Liberals that this free trade agreement will demolish Canada's sovereignty. There is no truth in fact. There is no example they can give to suggest that our sovereignty will be reduced in any way, shape, or form.
If the Liberals are saying that we have certain obligations when we sign an agreement, that we must do certain things and will face consequences if we do not, it is true that we have made that commitment. But we also made that commitment when we joined GATT in 1949. We made commitments to do certain things and to pay the penalty if we did not.
August 30, 1988

This agreement is an act of sovereignty because two sovereign nations are signing it. Furthermore, there is a six-month cancellation clause by which either Party simply has to write a letter to the other if it wants out of the agreement. Article 2106 of the agreement states:
"This Agreement shall remain in force unless terminated by either Party upon six-months notice to the other Party."
While we hear the argument that we will lose our sovereignty and the Americans will dictate what we should do, the fact is that 80 per cent of what we do now is free trade.
In 1946, the average tariff between Canada and the United States was approximately 40 per cent. Today the average tariff is about 9.2 per cent, with some 75 per cent to 80 per cent free trade. In that period since 1946, prosperity has followed. There is no question that Canada is a much richer country today in many ways.
Second, our culture has grown. As the economy has improved, so have our cultural enterprises, and our ability to promote and support cultural enterprises.
I listened to my hon. friend, the Hon. Member for Broadview-Greenwood (Ms. McDonald) talk about culture passionately. I understand her interest. I go to the concerts. I visit the Canadian Opera Company. 1 attend the National Ballet and the Toronto Symphony. My wife is on the board of the symphony in Brampton. I go to the musical society. Let me point out that they are all sponsored by businesses. All the arts are supported by business people in all our communities, whether large or small. We have become a much stronger country culturally.
Third, during that period we have become a more sovereign country. Our sovereignty has not diminished at all. We are recognized today as a major middle power. We have joined the G-7. Our economic performance is admired around the world.
This trade agreement will not reduce our sovereignty one iota.
Let me deal with tariffs. The Opposition would have us believe that on January 1, 1989, all tariffs will be removed and there will be a whole new ball game. I listened to the Hon. Member for Trinity say that there was no consultation with the Canadian public.
All walks of life were consulted through the International Trade Advisory Committee which included the unions, the Consumers' Association, and so on. There was a broad crosssection on the International Trade Advisory Committee. There were 15 sectoral advisory committees. Do not tell me that Canadians were not consulted.
This debate has gone on for years. While this Bill has been before the House for some three months, the debate has lasted many years. The tariffs that come off on January 1, 1989, represent about 15 per cent of the tariffs between our two countries today. Those industries have said they do not need tariff protection and are ready to compete right away. Those
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tariffs are gone. Other industrial groups have said we need a little longer adjustment period, we need a five year adjustment period. They wanted a phase-out period over five years. That is about 35 per cent of the tariffs between our two countries which will disappear over that five-year period. The third group said we need a little longer period of time. So they have a ten-year phase out of the tariffs to allow them to adjust to the realities of trade both bilaterally and internationally. That is the tariff end of it.
We then have the non-tariff barriers, probably more important than the tariff barriers. The Hon. Member for Burlington (Mr. Kempling) sat through all the committee hearings with us and he will remember very clearly that we had a Canadian manufacturer tell us that the tariff thing was not a big deal. He said the non-tariff barriers and the dispute settlement mechanism are what is important. He said he had been before the Commerce Department of the United States. He appealed to the courts. He sat in the courts for five years, and the courts turned around and told him to go back to commerce and ask again. He said the best thing of the whole agreement are these binational dispute settlement mechanisms that have been set up. We talk about these problems before they become major problems. That is very important.
In Chapter 18 and Chapter 19 we have the binational dispute settlements, which are binding, an appeal procedure after countervail or anti-dumping. The industries tell us this is great. This is the best part of the whole agreement.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: After.


John Horton McDermid: I hear the Hon. Member say after. The New Democratic Party and the Liberals-


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: You said after.


John Horton McDermid: That is right. It is an appeal procedure.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: So the whole hassle is still there.


John Horton McDermid: But the Hon. Member keeps saying we should be exempted from American law.


William James Kempling: I think he should never be in business. He does not understand.


John Horton McDermid: That is right. He followed in the footsteps of my father, but not too far. I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that the appeal procedure now is through the United States courts. It takes a long time. That was the testimony given by the people who have done it. Those Members do not want to believe it, but it is true. The dispute settlement mechanisms set up to handle any kind of trade disputes that come up or any kind of legislation that may be brought in by either Government, to sit down and discuss those things before they become problems, has been praised universally. In fact, the people in GATT think it is a great idea.

August 30, 1988
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The great GATT supporters over there should know that the people in GATT think our binational dispute settlement mechanism is unique and is a model for them to look at very seriously in the negotiations going on now, and they have said that many, many times.
The Leader of the New Democratic Party (Mr. Broadbent) was quoting Sir John A. Macdonald. He said how disappointed Sir John A. Macdonald would be with this agreement. 1 enjoy the socialists when they quote the Conservatives frequently. They quote Sir John A. Macdonald and Mr. Diefenbaker. It is quite interesting to hear them. I never hear them stand up and quote Tommy Douglas, David Lewis or any of those people. They are always quoting Conservatives, which is kind of interesting.
Sir John A. Macdonald today, I believe, would be proud of the country that he established back in 1867. He would be proud that Canada has matured and can now take its rightful place in the world economies. He would be proud that Canada can trade bilaterally and internationally without fear, without the need of protection, without those barriers. I listened to the Leader of the New Democratic Party say: "We do not want any barriers", but his trade critic is saying: "Why do you not put the barriers up on textiles? Why do you not put the barriers up on shoes or on garments?" You cannot have it both ways. The New Democrats are going to have to explain these things in the election campaign.
The New Democrats said that with this trade agreement ordinary Canadians do not expect a rosy future. But let me ask them this: If that is the case, how about the ordinary Canadian, Bob White, who is the President of the Canadian Auto Workers and National Vice-President of the New Democratic Party? If he does not think that the future is rosy, can he tell me why the Canadian auto workers are building the biggest, fanciest trading centre in Grand Bend that one has ever seen? And just down the road on their property, they are building a magnificent home for the President of the Canadian Auto Workers. I would imagine it is a vacation home. I do not think it is his permanent home. But they must think the future is going to be bright if they are doing that. The future cannot be all that bad.
We have not heard too much from Mr. White lately because I think he realizes that the Auto Pact has been enhanced by the free trade agreement.
The Hon. Leader of the New Democratic Party was talking about creating wealth. He said that the public sector could create wealth. I would agree that the public sector has to set the goals, the rules, and has to develop the atmosphere so that the private sector can perform well and provide meaningful jobs and trade internationally, and so on. But the Leader of the NDP said that both the private and public sectors can create wealth. I have not seen too many public sector organizations create a lot of wealth.
I found the reasoning of the Leader of the New Democratic Party rather interesting. He asked us to look at Japan. He said
Japan would not buy machinery from offshore, it would make it right there. One thing he failed to mention is that Japan has a domestic market of 130 million people. When it builds a plant to produce this machinery, it can build it at economy of scale and what it does not use, it can trade. We do not have the population demand in Canada. With the free trade agreement, however, with those barriers down, we will have a 250 million or 260 million population. A 24-hour truck drive from my riding reaches 60 per cent of the Gross National Product in the United States. Does the Member opposite not think that is an opportunity for Canadians? Of course, it is.
Every business and service organization has said very clearly in its testimony before the committee, and my colleague from Burlington will attest to this, that this is good for Canada. These are the people who make it work. These are the people who take the money out of their pocket, put it down, take the risk and make it work.
I listened to the Hon. Member for Cowichan-Malahat- The Islands (Mr. Manly) with interest. He said-and I am paraphrasing a little, but one can find it in Hansard-it does not matter what kind of multinational company it is, once it becomes multinational, it is bad, whether it is Canadian or American.


Lynn McDonald: No, no. He said it is big and powerful. He did not say "bad".


John Horton McDermid: That is exactly what he said the other day.


Lynn McDonald: He said "powerful".


John Horton McDermid: In the couple of minutes 1 have left, I want to talk about being a Canadian. I love this country. I guess I love it more today than 1 did when I first got into politics-


Lynn McDonald: You love it so much you are giving it away.


John Horton McDermid: -almost 10 years ago. I have had the opportunity of travelling across Canada. One of the advantages of being a Member of Parliament is that one has an opportunity to visit this country in a way in which, unfortunately, most Canadians do not have. I believe in the Canadian people and I believe in their judgment. As I travelled across this country and spoke on the free trade agreement, explaining it to them, one of the things I said, something I mean very sincerely, is that no political Party in this country would ever give Canada away, sell Canada away or trade Canada away.


Lynn McDonald: Except for the Conservative Party.


John Horton McDermid: There is not one political Party that would do that. We have all fought so hard for this country. We have all fought for the betterment of this country. For the opposition Parties to be making these outlandish claims that somehow this Party is selling out Canada that we all love so much, Canada that we all have sacrificed for to come to serve-all of us-is nonsense.
August 30, 1988

My hon. friend, the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner), in a previous incarnation made this statement: "Yielding to protectionism under the guise of economic nationalism is self-defeating for Canada. This country has always prospered under freer rules of international trade".
Let me conclude by saying that this free trade agreement is good for Canada. It is good for Canadians. It is going to make us a stronger country. It is going to help us in the international markets as well as the American market. It will allow our companies to grow and expand. Any person who is involved in the economy of this country supports the free trade agreement. I believe that in 10 years, just like members of the NDP now support the Auto Pact, they will be standing up saying that this was the best thing for Canada that ever came along. They will be clutching it to their bosoms and probably taking credit for it.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the Hon. Member. I have a short comment to make and then I would like to ask a question.
During the Hon. Member's speech he used as an example the development of the St. Lawrence Seaway as an international agreement that did not have any negative impact on our sovereignty.


John Horton McDermid: You missed the point.


Iain Francis Angus: 1 want to point out to the Hon. Member that one of the reasons we are in difficulty in the Seaway today is that in order to get that agreement between Canada and the United States the Canadian Government had to agree to the pressure from the American rail lobby to have 100 per cent cost recovery on the system even though the Mississippi was going for a free ride. There were no cost recovery measures on there.
Second, and more important in terms of the trade agreement, I want to remind the Hon. Member that as a result of yet another American lobby, the maritime lobby in the United States, marine transportation-in fact all transportation-was pulled out of the final agreement. So there is in no way free trade.
The question I have is this. I would like to give the Hon. Member some background first. It is something we have talked about privately. In the United States there is a program called the Buy America Program. If a state or a municipal government is in receipt of federal tax dollars for the acquisition of rapid transit equipment such as subway cars, streetcars or something similar, then there has to be 60 per cent American content. That is the minimum requirement. It used to be 50 per cent but this year it was upped to 60 per cent. That has a very direct impact on my community. CanCar and Bombardier
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sell to the United States. There could be a greater number of jobs in those plants as they relate to American contracts.
The Hon. Member has been a key player in the trade negotiations and in the relationship between the trade negotiator and the House of Commons. I want to know why the Government of Canada-and supposedly this is a free trade agreement which suggests that all barriers are down-did not make any attempt whatsoever to get the American Government to remove the Buy America policy so that Bombardier, or the Lavalin-UTDC-CanCar group could have a chance to compete for contracts in the United States and get 100 per cent of the jobs here in Canada. I would like an answer to that question.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, the Buy America Program does not come into effect on this agreement. I think the Hon. Member will find that the small business set-aside program does. I believe it is grandfathered, but from here on in we can bid on federal contracts in the United States.


Iain Francis Angus: It does not affect Buy America.


John Horton McDermid: The small business set-aside program is exempted from the agreement. It also allows Canada to set aside programs for small business.


Iain Francis Angus: We are talking big business here.


John Horton McDermid: We can now bid on $4 billion worth of contracts in the United States that we could not bid on before.


Iain Francis Angus: What about CanCar and Bombardier?


John Horton McDermid: Bombardier supports the agreement. It thinks it is a good agreement. It is supplying in the United States and will continue to supply in the United States. It will be more competitive because of the free trade agreement. That is what it is all about.
I listened to the Hon. Member asking for exemptions from American programs. In the same breath he stands up to say: "We cannot have any programs in Canada". What total nonsense. Of course we can have programs in Canada. Of course we can have regional development programs. Of course we can have subsidies. Nothing has changed in that respect.


Iain Francis Angus: I never mentioned subsidies.


John Horton McDermid: The Hon. Member is certainly talking about a type of program which is a subsidy program. That is exactly what it is. The Hon. Member should not be silly. Both countries have programs they want to protect.


Iain Francis Angus: Where is the Buy Canada Program?


John Horton McDermid: I think the Hon. Member understands that. Over the next five to seven years the agreement has set up a process to bring some common sense to subsidies, to regional development programs and so on.

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Iain Francis Angus: What about subway cars?


John Horton McDermid: What is the Hon. Member talking about? Bombardier sold subway cars to New York. It will continue to sell and it is supporting the free trade agreement.


Iain Francis Angus: And it has had to have 60 per cent American content instead of 100 per cent Canadian content.


John Horton McDermid: Listen to the Hon. Member. Here is an NDPer who supported an American program. I cannot believe that.


Iain Francis Angus: No, I am not supporting it.


John Horton McDermid: You think it is a bad program? You do not think it should be there? If we get an exemption from that what is the Hon. Member prepared to give the Americans in return up here? The Hon. Member does not have an answer for that, Mr. Speaker.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Is there still time for a question, Mr. Speaker?


Mr. Speaker:: I think the Chair can be generous. The Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie) on a question or comment.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I have to commit what is called the sin of despair, in despair that there might ever be some relationship between what is asked and the answer that is given. I will try one more time. The Hon. Member is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for International Trade. I have known him for a long time-ever since I came into this House. I cannot believe that he really believes some of the things that he is saying. I want to make a certain allowance for tactics and for debate. But he stood up earlier today and he said: "If only we had this huge market and free trade and the access to that market then we would be able to overcome that problem", referring to the Hon. Member for Oshawa (Mr. Broadbent) having pointed to the fact that we do not and are not able, it seems, to manufacture our own machinery with respect to many economic sectors.
I ask the Hon. Member, because I am sure that he has some experience coming from Brampton, does he not realize that we have had free trade in farm machinery and farm implements since 1948, and this has not resulted in the flourishing of the Canadian farm machinery sector? Quite the contrary. The verdict of the last 40 years has been increased American ownership, shutting down of Canadian plants, and we are at the point where we hardly have a farm machinery industry at all.
Given what the Hon. Member said earlier, I wonder if he could possibly explain that.


John Horton McDermid: I would be pleased to explain that, Mr. Speaker. Is 1949, when the free trade in farm machinery came along?


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: In 1948.


John Horton McDermid: For a number of years following that the farm equipment industry flourished. Then what happened? There was rationalization, not only in Canada, not only in Britain, and not only in Europe, but also in the United States. There was a tremendous change in farm machinery. There was additional competition from Iron Curtain countries. One of the things that the NDP Members do not understand is change. They hate to see anything change.


Lynn McDonald: Answer the question.


John Horton McDermid: When change comes members of the NDP cannot absorb it. That is what happened in the farm equipment industry. It has become highly specialized. The nature of farm machinery has changed over the years. There was a rationalization that went on. Industries closed down because they became inefficient, or because they could no longer compete. At the same time other industries come along with new and modern technology, and new ideas. That goes on all the time, and that is what happened with the farm equipment industry. The Hon. Member knows that full well. He mentioned 1949. This is 1988, so he is talking about 40 years ago.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: I am talking about the effect of free trade on a particular sector.


John Horton McDermid: No. We still do have certain farm machinery here in Canada, and we still build certain farm machinery in Canada.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Very little.


John Horton McDermid: We do. The Hon. Member says "very little", but we do. The industry has been rationalized and we build what is good.
It is a world-wide phenomenon, and it has been so for many years. As the Hon. Member may know, there was an overcapacity throughout the world in farm equipment. For example, Massey-Ferguson had plants all over the world. The machinery that is built today is far more productive than the equipment that was built years ago, so there has been a rationalization that has gone on. To blame what has gone on in the farm machine industry on free trade is a fallacy.


Mr. Speaker:: Continuing debate with the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie).


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, it is a rather onerous task to be the one who will have the floor of the House of Commons in what promises to be the last half hour of the debate on the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement.
I hope that at least in the eyes of some I will prove adequate to the task.
We are at the completion of a political process here in Canada which, one way or the other, whether this agreement should be defeated in an upcoming general election, whenever that happens to be, or whether this agreement should go on to be implemented, will fundamentally change Canada.
August 30, 1988

Of course, the most fundamental change will come if the agreement is implemented. However, it will also be the case that, if the agreement is not implemented, the debate which we have had, and the efforts which the Government has made to bring about this agreement, will have a lasting effect on the political process. It will have defined people's positions on various things for many years to come. Therefore, regardless of how it finally turns out, we are at the end of a very historic political debate.
One of the things that has bothered me about this debate all along, and tonight is no different, is that there has been an unwillingness on the part of the people who promote the agreement to hear what the other side is saying, and to at least acknowledge the legitimate differences of view that exist about Canada.
In his opening words tonight, I heard the Parliamentary Secretary say that he respected many of the concerns held by Canadians who are critics of the agreement. Yet I must say that I have listened to the Parliamentary Secretary and to the Minister for International Trade (Mr. Crosbie), on many occasions in the House and outside, and I have yet to find one criticism that has been made of the free trade agreement for which they have shown any respect. Criticism after criticism, and concern after concern has been trivialized and caricatured. People who have raised these concerns or criticisms have been accused of everything from verbal terrorism to criminal negligence, you name it.
I ask you, Mr. Speaker, where is that respect? I also ask not only the Government, but all of us here, the media, and everybody who has participated, why have we not been able- and I have seen it before in the House during the debate on the Constitution in 1981-to get to the root of what it is we are actually disagreeing about?
I suppose part of it is the inarticulateness of the political process, i also think it is a tactical refusal on the part of the Government to admit all of what is involved in this agreement. We saw it again tonight when the Parliamentary Secretary rose and talked about the elimination of tariffs. I have said it time and time again until I am tired of saying it, but I only have one more time to say it: this agreement is not only about the elimination of tariffs. If it were only about the elimination of tariffs, we would have an entirely different debate. It is either a manifestation of the profoundest ignorance for Members on the Government side to keep rising and talking about this agreement as if it only had to do with the elimination of tariffs, or it is a manifestation of the profoundest deceit. It is one or the other. I think there is a mixture over there. I think some are just ignorant, and some are deceitful.
What we have in the agreement is a lot more than the elimination of tariffs. Why does the Parliamentary Secretary and others not rise and talk about that? Why do they not talk about the provisions with respect to foreign investment? Why do they not talk about the provisions with respect to energy? Why do they not talk in the honest way that ex-Premier Lougheed did when he appeared before the committee and stated that this would enable policy to be set in Washington rather than Ottawa, and that he thought that was a good idea?
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement
Why do they not talk about financial services and other things that are involved in the agreement? Why is it that we only hear about tariffs? Why is it that we only hear about this one part of the agreement?
I say to you, Madam Speaker, that one of the enduring frustrations of this debate, for those of us who are against it, is trying to get the Government to admit, and the Canadian people to see, that what we are talking about here is something much more than what has ever been considered historically as free trade. Free trade never involved all those things, and that it is on the basis of those other sections of the agreement, having to do with energy, foreign investment, services, and the agreement to agree, over the next five to seven years on what constitutes a subsidy or an unfair trade practice that is the source of our anxiety about this agreement.
Would it not be nice if someone had just admitted, just once, that in those negotiations that will take place over the next five to seven years there will be attempts by the Americans to draw our social programs into the negotiations regarding what constitutes a subsidy? Does anybody on the other side actually believe that the Americans will not try that, that that will not become an object of negotiation? If the Government is successful in negotiating in such a way that our programs do not come to be seen that way, that will be terrific. We doubt that that may be the case because of the asymmetrical relationship that exists between Canada and the United States, but our first and foundational claim is that these things will be negotiated, that these things will be on the table, no matter what the outcome of the negotiation is.
Our first and foundational claim regarding that is that those kinds of things should not be on the table and that no Canadian government has any business entering into an agreement that provided for a process over the next five to seven years whereby those things would be on any table. As far as we are concerned in the NDP, those things belong on the Canadian table alone, they belong here in the House of Commons, and not on a table between an American negotiator and a Canadian negotiator, either in Washington or in Ottawa.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Could not anybody at least have admitted that that is something that is going to take place regardless of the outcome?
I have asked myself the question I do not know how many times. I look over there and I see people whom I have worked with for nine and a half years now, and I ask myself, how is it that they could contemplate doing something which, in my judgment, and in the judgment of my colleagues and of many Canadians, is so detrimental to the survival of the kind of Canada that the Conservatives, one after the other, have risen to say that they love? I have asked myself why it is that so many can get up and demonstrate so much zeal, joy, delight in this agreement. I have finally come to the conclusion that this debate in many, many ways has had absolutely nothing to do with facts or economic analysis, because economists are a dime a dozen.

August 30, 1988
Canada-lJ.S. Free Trade Agreement


An Hon. Member:: They cost more than a dime.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Yes. They just cost more than a dime.
I think my Leader covered it today when he began his speech with some philosophical analysis. What you have here is a kind of competing view of the world. It is really a religious argument. We have here people in the Conservative caucus who for so long espoused a view of the world in which they feel that the market-place should be sovereign, that regardless of the effect this agreement may have on Canada, they sense here, they sniff, a cosmological victory. Regardless of what the actual effect of the agreement might be, they feel that this Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement carves their view of the world in stone.
That is why they are willing, even if they represent grape growing industries or other areas that may be hurt by this agreement, or whether they actually, even in their heart of hearts, believe in some of the social programs-because some Conservatives do, but we remember that some did not-to swallow all this, repress it, and say, "By God, this agreement is a good agreement no matter what, because in this agreement we win the metaphysical argument that we have been having with the NDP for 50 years". They like that.
What they do not realize is that the Canada that they love is a Canada that has been created out of the mix of political traditions that have existed in this country, that have fought with each other, in elections and between elections and in civil society, for a view of what the country is about. We are a different country precisely because we have had those different traditions. We are a different country because we have had a red Tory tradition that the United States never had. We are a different country because we have had a democratic socialist tradition that never got off the ground in the United States. We are a different country for a lot of reasons, and one of the reasons is because we have had the tension that exists between these various political traditions, which exists within parties, between parties, which overlap. Some of us are hybrids. What they do not realize is that in this agreement they are declaring that creative political tension to be over. They are buying forever, if you like, one particular view, which has its place in Canada's political pantheon, if you like, but it has to be a place in Canada's political pantheon and not the only idol in the political sanctuary.
What we are saying, and I will be right up front about this, is that this free trade agreement philosophically makes the kind of Canada impossible that the CCF and the NDP have fought for since 1933, and indeed before that, in the form of the Independent Labour Party and others.


An Hon. Member:: Bravo!


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: The Member says bravo. That is the point that 1 want to make. I do not think that any political party has the right, including our own, through an agreement with the United States, an agreement that they sought no mandate for,
to declare an end to the political debate that has been going on in Canada.


John Horton McDermid: We can cancel in six months.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: 1 will get to you in a minute. This is what the members of the Conservative Party propose to do, but they propose to do it not in the open. We have listened to the Parliamentary Secretary today talking about tariffs again. He did not talk about the fact that much of what his colleagues on the other side like about this agreement is that it does make the kind of Canada that the NDP and others have been working for in this political mix impossible. We will never achieve the kind of Canada that only we want, and we never should. But we should be in that mix.
What is happening here is that the Conservatives are about to achieve, by political stealth and deceit, what they would never be able to achieve directly. If they went directly to the Canadian people and said on an issue by issue basis "We want to institute a regime by which we will have unregulated foreign investment", they would be thrown out of office. If they said: "We want to hamstring our national government so we will never ever again be able to have a national energy policy of any kind"-not just the one the Liberals had which was not all that great-then they would be thrown out of office.


John Horton McDermid: We campaigned on that.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: The Tories did not campaign on that. The Conservatives campaigned against the Liberal national energy policy. They did not campaign saying they wanted to sign an agreement which would prevent us from ever having a national energy policy of any kind.


John Horton McDermid: This agreement does not say that.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: It does so. Peter Lougheed said that before the committee. Read it. That is one of the reasons he likes the agreement.
If the Conservatives tried to campaign directly on whether or not we should seek to harmonize our social programs with the United States in any way, shape, or form they would be tossed out of office so fast it would make their heads spin.
What is done in this agreement is an attempt, as I said before, to achieve indirectly what the Conservative Party would never be able to achieve directly, to enshrine in this agreement for a generation their view of Canada, this neoConservative view of Canada, which is at odds with the other tradition that exists within the Conservative Party. It is actually more at home with elements of the Liberal Party of Canada, 19th century Liberals, and there are many in the right wing of the Liberal Party who are smiling-most of them in the Senate, but some of them here-because what the Conservative Party is about to do is the dirty work of the right wing of the Liberal Party.
August 30, 1988

If the Liberal Party ever comes to power, God forbid, the Liberals will sit back and say: "Lads, the Tories did all the dirty work for us. They have done the things that we might not have ever been able to do. Let us just take them as given and go from here".
I know that the last time I criticized the Liberals in the House on the free trade agreement some people phoned me and said: "How can you be critical of the Liberals? They are against the free trade agreement. You guys should stick together". I tell you, Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are not to be trusted on this free trade agreement.
I would say to all those Canadians who are genuinely against this agreement: "Do not trust the Liberals when it comes to this free trade agreement". If they get in, they will as they have done so many times-who are the original continen-talists in this country; it is the Liberal Party of Canada- buckle to American pressure as sure as I am standing here, and that six-month clause which the Parliamentary Secretary has been talking about will never be used. It is only the New Democratic Party that sees in this agreement-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh!


Mr. Prud'homme:: Virtuous.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: It is not a question of virtue. It is a question of this agreement being against what we stand for. I say this agreement is not against what the Liberals stand for. It was the Liberals who allowed all kinds of foreign ownership to take place.


George Albert Proud: Do not preach.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: We remember it was the Liberals who presided over the creation of the branch plant economy which eroded Canadian economic independence.


George Albert Proud: The NDP is in danger in Winnipeg.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: What we have is an attempt to win for all time debates which should exist separately, issues which should be debated separately and I have confidence that the Canadian people will see that this is the case. They will not be able to see that this is the case on the basis of what they have been told by the Government because the Government has concentrated almost entirely on the so-called elimination of tariffs and the opportunities this will create for Canadian businesses.
If you look at the analysis of the Conservatives, Madam Speaker, indeed if you read the Prime Minister's (Mr. Mulroney) book-


George Albert Proud: Do not preach.
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: The Member keeps accusing me of preaching. I make no apologies for that. I am preaching against the free trade agreement which I thought he was against, but you see he is a Liberal and maybe he is not really against it, and that is why he is uncomfortable with the vehemence of my style.


George Albert Proud: I rise on a point of order, Madam Speaker. It is a technical point of order. Listening to the Hon. Member I realize now how badly the NDP is in trouble in Winnipeg.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I must tell the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie) that his time had expired. I feel much happier knowing that his eyesight is getting a lot better and he realized that I was in the Chair for the last 15 minutes or so.


Thomas Hockin: Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the Hon. Member a couple of questions. I am very interested in cosmology. The Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie) is interested in cosmology. He is trying to make this debate about this commercial agreement into a cosmological obsession in the country. He is obsessed with cosmology. He wants to make this that kind of issue, but I have a couple of questions for him.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: I can hardly wait.


Thomas Hockin: They deal with his theory of red Tories. His theory is that they would not support this agreement. I do not know what a red Tory is. I guess Gad Horowitz knows what a red Tory is and Louis Hartz or other people who invented the term. If you are using a term you should know who invented it.


An Hon. Member:: He used to be one of them.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Thomas Hockin: When you were president of the Young Tories you would have known what a red Tory is. A red Tory, according to Horowitz, is one who believes in protecting the state and protecting the country to make sure that society has cohesion and sensitivity. Also that it is not frozen into place in some sort of static kind of form that does not move dynamically and does not refresh each generation with new challenges. That is a red Tory. It is rather an interesting combination of protecting the collectivity and also giving liberty. That is what a red Tory is. If that is a red Tory, I think most Members of our caucus are red Tories.


An Hon. Member:: What about Taylor, Shields and Jepson?

August 30, 1988
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement


Thomas Hockin: On the Member's collectivist notions, can he name one Crown corporation that is disadvantaged by the free trade agreement? Crown corporations are the NDP's great example of collectivist thought. Can the Member even point to one Crown corporation that is disadvantaged in any real way by the free trade agreement? In fact, if the Hon. Member took a look at the uranium agreement, he would find there is improved access for our Crown corporations into the United States.
The second question is on protecting the state and protecting our ability as a country to forward our national interests. Has the Member read Article 906 of the free trade agreement which says that the parties to this agreement have agreed to allow existing or future incentives for oil and gas exploration, development and related activities in order to maintain the reserve base for these energy resources? Has he read that this is an energy policy? That is the heart of an energy policy. That is the state acting to protect the leverage of a country when it comes to major decisions on energy. Has the Hon. Member read that? How does the Hon. Member square that with what he said?
Third, talking about red Tories, does the Hon. Member not agree that the great problems in the African countries is that they have not developed enough resources to produce the kind of cultural and social programs they would like? It is through wealth and wealth creation that one builds one's culture, builds a reading public and a public for cultural productions and funds the social service programs. If you secure access to the largest market in the world, is it not true for anybody interested cosmologically in red Toryism that there is much more there in terms of resources for future generations as well as present generations culturally, in social services and in every other sense?
The fourth and final question and the most important one is this. Does he not agree, when he looks at this agreement, that we have put ourselves in a position where we have multiplied our leverage with the U.S. ten times with respect to bilateral disputes? For example, on trade remedies we have essentially negotiated equality with the U.S. With respect to sideswiping, when they get annoyed with another foreign country and apply a trade remedy to them, Canada will be exempted. Canada, one-tenth the size of the United States, has gained resources through this agreement, increased its sovereignty, its dignity, and that is what a red Tory or any kind of Tory would believe. In fact, a socialist should bgtieve that as well.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, obviously-


An Hon. Member:: Madam Speaker.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Madam Speaker, it is not because I look at you that 1 say that; it is because I am not looking at you when 1 say that.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I do wish the Hon. Member would look at me when he addresses me.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: The argument arose as to what constitutes a red Tory because I brought it up with respect to the various political and philosophical traditions that make up the Canadian mix which is set to be destroyed by this agreement. I suppose one of the people that comes quickly to my mind is George Grant who in 1963, wrote a book called Lament for a Nation in which he lamented the increasing absorption of Canada into what he called the advanced technological capitalism of the U.S. What we have here is the completion, I believe, of the process that he began to lament in 1963 with the defeat of the Diefenbaker Government over its refusal to do the bidding of the U.S. That was his analysis.


Thomas Hockin: Nonsense.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: That was his analysis and I suppose he would be recognized by almost everyone as a red Tory whether they agree with him or not. That is the kind of analysis I was referring to.
The Hon. Minister also asked me to name Crown corporations which might be damaged by the agreement. The fact is that Crown corporations are on the hit list of the Progressive Conservative Government. It sees the elimination of Crown corporations as part and parcel of its whole economic agenda. Free trade, deregulation and privatization are the three thrusts of Tory economic policy.
The Minister asked me what Crown corporations might be damaged by the free trade agreement, as if he cared about Crown corporations. The fact is that he does not or else he would not be privatizing them. The Government would not be trying to sell Air Canada. It would not have the Hon. Member for Lethbridge-Foothills (Mr. Thacker) talking about selling the CNR as he did, not too long ago. It would not have the policies it has with respect to privatization. The Minister mentioned the uranium industry. The Government has already sold off that industry. I do not know how we can damage a Crown corporation that we do not have any more as a result of the privatization policy. It is sheer hypocrisy for these people to get up and pretend they care about Crown corporations.


John Horton McDermid: You did not answer the question.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: I did so. The Minister quoted to me elements of the agreement having to do with energy policy. The key words were "existing policies". We know what the existing policy of the Government is. It is a deregulated energy sector. Of course in a free trafje agreement you could agree to preserve existing policies.


John Horton McDermid: And future policies.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Preserve existing non-policies with respect to regulation of the energy sector.
August 30, 1988

The Minister asked me about culture, and this is incredible. He said, will it not be nice when the Africans get an economy like ours so they will finally be able to have some culture. 1 take that to be just the kind of vanity of modern man, if you like, with apologies for not saying "modern persons", that we should say to the people of Africa that the only culture worth having is the kind of culture you can cultivate when you have an advanced capitalist society. I think they have their culture now and they do not need a Progressive Conservative Government in order to have culture in Africa.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Unfortunately, Madam Speaker must interrupt as the time for questions and comments has now expired.
[ Translation]


Mr. Gabriel Fontaine (Levis):: Thank you, Madam Speaker. In the remaining three minutes I will try to conclude this historic debate on free trade. I will take a few moments to summarize the position of the Liberal Party and explain the real reason why they are so opposed to free trade. The Leader of the Liberal Party (Mr. Turner) has no choice. He has to get on side with Ontario and Ontario's Liberal Premier. That is the only way he can get the support of a province with 99 seats. That is why the Liberal Party has decided to stick with Premier Peterson. It is politics pure and simple, while Mr. Peterson wants to defend the interests of a province where unemployment is at a mere 3.1 per cent and exports are worth $60 billion.
Mr. Peterson is protecting the interests of his province, but he is a provincial leader. I think it is hard to explain why anyone running for a national party would be so anxious to support the interests of one province-the Liberal interests of that province.
As for the Socialists, Madam Speaker, in any case they are all in bed together! It's one big happy family of people on the left, who live like parasites on thriving free enterprise in this country. Those are the people who nationalize and live off others.
Madam Speaker, the Socialist Leader has to stick with his funding source, and that source is the Vice-President of the New Democratic Party who is the Socialist Leader's boss and gets his funds mainly from the United Auto Workers who have enjoyed the benefits of free trade since 1965. Madam Speaker, $30 billion worth of exports to the United States are connected with the automobile industry and are the result of free trade. There are 840,000 Canadians who make a living thanks to the existing benefits of free trade. Of those 840,000, there are many who pay dues to the United Auto Workers, to Bob White, their president, a man who holds the Socialist Leader hostage because he pays for the advertising on free trade ordered by the Socialist Party.
In concluding, Madam Speaker, I would like to say a few words about Quebec. The province of Quebec is ready for free
Canada-US. Free Trade Agreement
trade, because in 1960, it started to prepare for more secure access to the American market and better guarantees. We trained business people. We trained accountants and engineers.
In recent years, Madam Speaker, Quebec has built a solid financial infrastructure in co-operation with the two main political parties we have in Quebec. Thanks to this infrastructure, our young people and our businesses are now able to conquer the U.S. market, and that is what Canadians and Quebecers need: the U.S. market, and not a Liberal-Socialist coalition that denies the interests of Canadians and Quebecers. So we challenge you Liberals ...


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: It being 9 p.m., pursuant to order made earlier today, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the third reading stage of the Bill now before the House.

Accordingly, the question is the following one. Ms. McDo* nald moved:
That the amendment be amended by deleting the period and adding the following words therefor:
"and its implications on the economic and political sovereignty of Canada".
Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment to the amendment?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


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


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Pursuant to order made earlier today, the recorded division is deferred until 6 p.m. on Wednesday, August 31, 1988.


John Horton McDermid: Madam Speaker, have we taken a voice vote on all three or just on the amendment to the amendment? Do we do the amendment and the main motion?


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: As the House has decided to defer a vote on the amendment to the amendment, I cannot put the amendment and the main motion before the House until we have disposed of the amendment to the amendment.

August 30, 1988
Railways


John Horton McDermid: Thank you.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: It being nine o'clock p.m., pursuant to the order made earlier this day, the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.


PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS-MOTIONS   RAILWAYS TRIBUTE TO PRESIDENT OF CANADIAN RAILWAYS EMPLOYEES' PENSION ASSOCIATION
Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby) moved:: That this House commend the Canadian Railways Employees' Pension Association and in particular National President J. Earl White for their dedication and tireless efforts on behalf of past, present and future railway employees.
He said: Madam Speaker, it is an honour for me to be able to rise in the House today to pay tribute to the work of the Canadian Railways Employees' Pension Association and, in particular, to their national President J. Earl White. Earl White has put in many hours of dedicated hard work on behalf not only of pensioners today but employees today, beneficiaries of the pension plan, spouses, and survivors.
I feel privileged to be able to draw to the attention of this House the accomplishments which Earl White and the Canadian Railways Employees' Pension Association have made in their efforts on behalf of pensioners. They have helped to draw to the attention of the public a very serious matter involving what I consider to be the legalized theft of literally hundreds of millions of dollars of hard-earned pension funds of railway pensioners across this land.
I have two motions on the Order Paper. The first motion, the one to which I am addressing myself at this time, is that which commends Earl White for the work he has done on behalf of railway pensioners. The second motion calls upon the Government to introduce legislation concerning the pension funds, not only of the Canadian National Railway but also of Canadian Pacific Limited.
This legislation would do two things. First, it would provide that pensions be indexed to the extent that such indexation is actuarially viable with the funds that have been paid into each railway pension plan, the unfunded liabilities of the respective railway companies, and the funds that are being paid into each railway pension plan on a current basis and that, in any event, the minimum indexation to be paid should be indexed to the Consumer Price Index commencing on the retirement date of each pensioner including those currently receiving pensions.
Second, the legislation for which I am calling, and for which Earl White has fought so diligently over the years, would provide that excess earnings on money contributed by employees and former employees must be distributed on an
equitable basis to employees and future employees only and not go into corporate coffers.
That is the legislation which New Democrats are calling upon the Government to bring forward to recognize the contribution of pensioners and to recognize the extent to which Canadian National and also Canadian Pacific have been raiding the pension fund for many years. This was accomplished primarily in two successive stages by increasing the assumed rate of interest.
First, on December 31, 1968, CNR increased the assumed rate of interest to be earned on all pension fund assets from 4 per cent per annum to 7.5 per cent per annum, which change in assumption allowed it to reduce its unfunded liability from approximately $671 million to $300 million as of that date. That was the most profitable move ever made by Canadian National Railways for the corporation. At the same time it was the biggest rip-off of employees and pensioners to that date.
In 1987 CNR accomplished the same kind of thing by changing the assumed interest rate from 7 per cent to 7.5 per cent. It turns out that this was the largest single rip-off of a pension fund in the history of private pension funds in Canada. In fact, the pension fund credits received by CNR for the sole benefit of that corporation-not for pensioners, employees, spouses, or beneficiaries, but for the sole benefit of that corporation-during the past seven years are slightly more than $2 billion.
I could go on and talk about the figures for Canadian Pacific Limited. Unfortunately, these figures are not yet available, but I suspect that they will reveal the same kind of raid on pension funds as that which took place with the CNR fund. As Mr. White says, it is really a tie as to which of these two corporations should be designated as the most selfish.
Furthermore, these two corporations, which are trustees of two of the largest private pension funds in Canada, are also two of the oldest private pension funds in Canada having been instituted in 1935 and 1937.
I mentioned the increase in the assumed interest rate from 7 per cent to 7.5 per cent. Increasing the assumed interest rate in this manner caused a credit of $1.4 billion to arise. That basically meant that the obligation of CNR was eliminated and it reduced assets in the pension fund by some 27 per cent by one stroke of the pen.
Ninety-four per cent of 1,600 other pension trust funds have been established on a defined benefits basis and the trustees of those corporations are the trustees of some $150 billion of assets. It is very likely that when they see the example that has been set by CNR and CP Limited for their pensioners they may be tempted to follow that example. The percentage of funds which they might appropriate unto themselves might be a little less, perhaps 25 per cent, but nevertheless that would amount to literally billions and billions of dollars.
August 30, 1988

After all, moneys that are set aside for pensions are just a form of deferred income. In effect, this is robbery. It is legalized robbery of thousands of employees of Canadian National and Canadian Pacific.
I want to recognize the contribution that Earl White has made in drawing to the attention of the Canadian public, and in particular of railway employees and pensioners, what is a very serious inequity.
I did not bring into the House the literally hundreds of documents that Earl White has produced over the years that attempt to document very clearly the extent to which the pensioners have been the victims of raiding on their pension funds.
I want to say a word about Earl White himself. The motion recognizes his dedication, his tireless efforts on behalf of railway employees, pensioners, spouses, beneficiaries, and survivors. Some may ask who is Earl White, this man who has worked so hard as President of the Canadian Railways Employees' Pension Association.
Earl White is 79 years of age and has dedicated this part of his life to improving the lot of these pensioners. He completed and passed a three-year correspondence course set by the Insurance Institute of Canada. Following that, he completed another correspondence course by the Life Underwriters Association of Canada. After that he went into the Canadian Officers Training Corp and then returned to civilian life and the Canadian National Railways in 1946, having attained the very distinguished rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.
That experience was some 40 to 50 years ago, but certainly the basis upon which life insurance contracts and pension contracts are calculated is the same today as it was 40 to 50 years ago. Earl White is one of the most knowledgeable individuals in this area of railway pensions, and he certainly has studied this very carefully. Indeed, he has based his study on the audited financial statements of the railway companies themselves.
He notes that when a company like the CNR employs a high percentage of new employees between ages 18 and 25, like all employees employed on a permanent basis they are required as a condition of their employment six months after becoming employees to contribute to the CNR pension fund, effective from the beginning of their employment.
That means the CNR would have in its custody the pension funds of all employees for the duration of their working lifetime, plus for their expectation of life commencing on their retirement date. While it can be somewhat technical, the key element in all this discussion about pensions is the interest earned factor. That is the key question.
Effectively, as I mentioned before, CNR raised this assumed rate from 4 per cent to 7.5 per cent in 1968. Basically, the
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pension fund was reduced by some $371 million. That amount was credited not to pensioners, not to workers, not to their families, but to Canadian National Railways. This meant in practical terms that the assets on hand after 61 years would increase by the factor that Mr. White has set out in his calculations, which is 64 times over.
For Canadian National Railways, Mr. White has only been able to supply figures on the contributions of employees, the contributions of CNR, and investment income on pensions paid each year since January 1, 1960. Prior to 1960, CNR did not publish these figures.
He has provided me with all the figures, the amount by which all contributions, investment income, and realized capital gains exceed pensions paid from January 1, 1960 to December 31, 1987. That figure is over $5 billion.
The fact is that the earnings rate on a market value basis on all assets in the CNR pension trust fund was an average of 14 per cent per annum, from 1976 to 1986. The excess earnings were about $2,367 billion. That is pensioners' money.
The trustees of the CNR pension trust funds for the period for which they published financial statements have actually paid out in pensions less than 32 per cent of the total revenue received in the 28-year period from 1960 to 1988. If that is not legalized theft, I do not know what is.
I want to note that it was Liberal governments and Conservative governments that have avoided passing any legislation whatsoever that would protect employees and pensioners and their pension funds from predatory corporations.
I want to say on behalf of the New Democratic Party that we are committed to passing that kind of legislation. We are committed to passing the kind of legislation that would prohibit corporations from raiding the pensions fund that are contributed by employees, by pensioners. That is our commitment. I speak on behalf of my colleagues. I speak on behalf of my distinguished colleague, the Hon. Member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin), our transport critic-he is a former railway man himself-who will be participating in this debate shortly.
I speak on behalf of my colleague, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie), who has done an extraordinary job in speaking out over the years on behalf of railway pensioners and railway employees. I know that a lot of these people reside in his own constituency. Indeed, as recently as yesterday that Hon. Member spoke in the House on the importance of amending the law and bringing in a new law to recognize that this kind of rip-off must end.
Not just railway pensioners, but all Canadians owe a debt of gratitude to Earl White and to the Canadian Railways Employees' Pension Association for his efforts, his commitment, and his dedication in bringing this to public attention.

August 30, 1988
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Unfortunately, the time I have available to me is running out. I know that some of my colleagues want to speak. I will be interested to hear the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport (Mr. Thacker) on this subject.
It is important to note that the onus is squarely on the CNR and Canadian Pacific to respond to Earl White, to respond to the concerns of railway pensioners right across this land who believe that they have been robbed.
This is at a time when the cost of living is going up and pensioners are struggling to survive. They are people who have contributed in many cases 40 and 50 years of their lives. I think of people like one of my own constituents, Ray Carrell, who put a lifetime into the railroad. The corporate executives, the fat cats in Canadian National and Canadian Pacific, get great pensions worth of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, but the ordinary worker, the Earl Whites and Ray Carrells and other railway pensioners, are being hosed. They are the ones being robbed of the funds that rightfully belong to them.
I could go on further about some of the specific figures. Certainly I would be pleased to make these figures available to any Member of the House, indeed anyone in the public who is interested.
In my view Earl White has set out a very comprehensive and concrete statement of the exact situation affecting railway pensioners. He has the funds clearly set out. I believe that the claims Earl White has made are valid and deserve to be repeated.
1 am pleased to have an opportunity to do so in the House. I only wish that we had an opportunity to bring him before a parliamentary committee. When New Democrats are in a position to bring forward legislation that would prevent the raiding of pensions, certainly one of the people who deserves the most credit for this change will be my constituent, Mr. Earl White.
Finally, I repeat that the reason this raid on pensioners' funds has been allowed to take place is that past governments, whether they be Liberal or Conservative, have stood by and allowed it to happen. We are not talking about hundreds of millions of dollars, but about billions of dollars. They have not brought forward legislation that would prevent this kind of rip-off of private pension plans and the pension plans of Canadian National and Canadian Pacific.
In conclusion, once again I want to thank all Members of the House for the opportunity to raise what I consider to be a very serious inequity which affects hundreds of thousands of pensioners, employees, spouses, and beneficiaries. I would also, once again, like to thank Earl White for the tremendous work he has done on behalf of the people right across Canada in drawing this matter to the attention of the public. Let us hope
that one of the most important accomplishments of the next Parliament of Canada will be to right this great historic wrong.
Mir. Blaine A. Thacker (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport): Madam Speaker, I am pleased to respond to the motion put before this House, dated August 10, 1988, proposing the commendation of "the Canadian National Railways' Employees' Pension Association and in particular National President J. Earl White for their dedication and tireless efforts on behalf of past, present and future railway employees".
On a personal basis, I would also like to thank my colleague, the Hon. Member for Burnaby (Mr. Robinson), for placing the motion on the Order Paper. It permitted me the opportunity to be briefed thoroughly on this topic and I must say that I found it to be most interesting. I think Members would like me to share with them information about the pensioners of the railways of Canada.
I would like to give some background on the matter of pensions and on this association, in particular. Canadian National embraces some 44,000 pensioners, with a similar number for CP rail and other railways in Canada combined. These are people who the Government recognizes as having spent their lives making the railways of Canada run, railways which were long the lifelines of commerce, the very arteries and veins which bound the nation together in the first place and which still play an important role in getting our products to market-our grain, coal, forest products, and many manufactured goods such as automobiles, steel products, and pulp and paper.
As you well know, Madam Speaker, it is people who make an enterprise run, who are the background of the enterprise. They make it successful, and this is a fundamental truth in the case of our railways-Canadian National, CP Rail, BC Rail, Ontario Northland, and our resource railways like the Quebec Northshore and Labrador, to name just a few. Many of the people who ran some of those railways, indeed, many of those who built some of them, such as the Great Slave Lake Railway, parts of the BC Rail, and other lines, are today represented in the tens of thousands of railway pensioners.
They have worked hard in their careers, men and women alike, as trainmen, carmen, brakemen, porters, stewards on passenger trains, dispatchers, operators, and many, many other careers from maintenance of waymen to engineers. There are many categories which I am sure I did not mention but are no less important and no less worthy of mention.
Since being a Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport I have noticed among railway men and women a pride in serving their railway which we do not often find in other occupations. They are very proud to be railway people. They do not seem to lose that even when they become pensioners. These numerous pensioners today are represented or have grouped themselves into a large number of local, regional, provincial or national associations, or combinations thereof.
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If 1 may mention some, there are the CN Pensioners' Association and their many councils and locals, the Canadian Pacific Pioneers' Association, the National Council of CN Pensioners' Associations Incorporated, the Saskatchewan CPR Pioneers' Social and Service Association. I suspect my colleague, the Hon. Member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin), was probably a founding member of the Saskatchewan Pioneers' Association. I would like to mention the Biggar Railway Employees and Pensioners Association and the Ottawa Retired Railway Pension Association. There is even a CNR Lady Pensioners' Association. There are retired members of many unions-the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the	International Association	of
Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of the United States and Canada, to mention but a few.
An important contingent, of course, are members of the Canadian Railways Employees' Pension Association, whose membership totals some 19,000 and which I understand is split about equally between pensioners and active employees. The Canadian Railways Employees' Pension Association has been in existence since December, 1971 and consists of 19 branches of which four are particularly active.
Many of these associations from time to time put forward their views on pension and pensioners' issues. The Canadian Railway Employees' Pension Association has certainly been among the most active in this regard, as has its president, Mr. J. Earl White. Without detracting one moment from the efforts of Mr. White, I think we must also acknowledge that many of the other unions have made similar types of presentations.
However, the Canadian Railways Employees' Pension Association has not been the only pensioner association which has made itself clearly heard. It is important to mention the National Council of Canadian National Pensioners' Associations Inc. This organization, called the National Council, was incorporated in 1974. It represents four regional and thirty-two local councils, some of which date back to the 1940s. At present, through its associations the National Council represents about 15,000 CN pensioners. It is the policy of the National Council to work together with CN for the benefit of its members. Since February, 1984 the National Council President has been one of the three pensioners' representatives of the CN Pension Board.
Many of the these groups have made numerous recommendations on improvements to their pension plans in the past and, over time, these have no doubt contributed to achieving some improvements in the benefits which railways and other pensioners enjoy today.
Not to be ignored in contributing toward improvements in the railway pension plans are the negotiated settlements among active employees with their employers, as well as various government initiatives such as the Pension Benefits Standards Act amendments introduced earlier this year. The former have enabled certain enrichment of plans as part of the collective bargaining process, and the latter government initiative will go a long way to increasing pension benefits.
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Railway pension plans, and I can speak particularly for CN's pension plan, have long been among the best in the country. I should take this opportunity to mention to Members of this House the fact that CN's 1959 pension plan is above average. Indeed, by most standards it has been among the top ten plans in Canada and provides benefits that only 25 per cent of members of pension plans in Canada enjoy. CN has also done much in recent years and months to improve various aspects of its plan.
It is through the untiring efforts of employees and pensioners in all walks of life, as represented either directly with their employers or through their unions and associations, that benefits to them and Canadian pensioners as a whole continue to improve over the years. To all these groups and individuals, I would extend recognition and encourage them to work closely with their present or former employers to achieve their goals.
I wish to take this opportunity to express my highest esteem to the railway pensioners throughout Canada and my thanks to them for their significant part in building this great and wonderful nation.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking the Hon. Member for Burnaby (Mr. Robinson) for giving the House the opportunity to debate something which we do not often get a chance to debate. I recalled in the House just yesterday that one of the promises made by the Conservatives when they came to power in 1984, was that they would finally do something about the long-standing complaints that various CN pensioners and CN pensioners' associations have had about the inadequacies of the CN plan. I noted yesterday in the House that four years will soon have gone by and nothing had happened. We had the subcommittee make some recommendations. For a variety of reasons, good reasons, I might say, not all CN pensioners, particularly Mr. White, whom we honour tonight by debating this motion of commendation, were happy with the report. Even the recommendations of that report would have been an improvement, yet the Government has chosen to let four years go by without acting. The subcommittee reported a long time ago and absolutely nothing is happening.
There are a lot of CN pensioners out there, people who were pensioners in 1984, who will remember this, and people who have become pensioners since 1984. That, I might say, is a very large group because of the process that the CN has gone through since 1984. Incredible numbers of people have been retired. Many retired early, with or without a handshake. Many, fortunately, retired with a handshake.
It used to be that I knew an entire generation of people who worked for the railway. I now know an entire generation of retired railway workers. Most of them are not 65 yet. Most of them retired early as a result of what has been going on at CN. I might say that many of them are thankful to have been retired when they see what is going on in the railway and the way that the CNR is now being run. Many of them are grateful not just to be retired but grateful not to be having to put up with the way in which the railway is now being run.

August 30, 1988
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As you might know, Madam Speaker, 1 come from Tran-scona. Transcona is and was a railway town. It is becoming less so as it has become part and parcel of the greater City of Winnipeg. But it still remains the case that a good many people in Transcona either do or have worked for the railway. A great many CN pensioners live in Transcona or in Elmwood, East Kildonan, or in other nearby areas which are all part of my riding. Without wanting to get into a bidding war with other Members, I would say that I probably have more CN pensioners in my riding than anyone else I could imagine. The main Transcona shops are there. We have had them there ever since 1912.
I also have a personal interest in it, if you like, Madam Speaker. I heard the Hon. Member for Lethbridge-Foothills (Mr. Thacker) mention the Biggar Pensioners Association. My association with the railway goes back to when my grandfather Blaikie started with the railway in Biggar in 1912 as a carman, or what was then known as a car knocker. I can remember in the mid-fifties before my grandfather retired in 1958 being in Biggar and going with him down the track as the trains came in. His job was to hit the wheels with a hammer and listen for cracks, among other things.
My father also joined the railway in Biggar. First, he shovelled coal and then later he went to Transcona to take his apprenticeship as a machinist. He retired in 1986 with 44 years of service in the railway as the Assistant General Superintendent of Equipment for the Prairie Region, Motive Power.
I just took a quick count. I think I have at least a half dozen uncles who are CN pensioners, and two grand-uncles, brothers of my grandfather who are now gone who were also CN pensioners. I have a cousin working in the Transcona Car Shop to this day. For me, the welfare of CN pensioners is not an abstract matter. It is something that I know many people whom I personally know will have to deal with if that plans becomes inadequate. That is why I am on my feet tonight. It is to advocate that something finally be done to change the nature of the plan so that CN pensioners are not forever dependent on the goodwill or the fiat of the CNR for increases in their pensions.
There are a number of things that need to be done. We need to have indexation built into that plan.
People who are retiring now, those who have just retired, and those who are in really tough situations now are those who retired quite a while ago-but regardless of the situation-all need to be alleviated of the uncertainty of wondering whether or not they will receive an appropriate increase when the economic situation demands it. We say, and we have said for a long time, that there needs to be some kind of indexation structured right into the plan so that this kind of economic uncertainty might be removed, so that people might continue to get a pension which has the purchasing value that it had when they retired from the railway. It seems to me that that is only justice. It is only elementary justice that people should not find themselves in a situation several years from now, or for
that matter, if they are fortunate to live long, many years after their retirement, in which their pension is worthless. I do not know how anyone can argue against that.
Yet, obviously, nothing has been done. Part of the problem, of course, has been the unwillingness on the part of the Government to challenge the relationship between the company and the pension plan, to challenge this whole question of unfunded liability whereby on the basis of that unfunded liability the CNR feels that it has the right, when the pension plan generates money, to seize that money and to funnel it into the coffers of the CNR instead of either allowing it to accumulate interest or using it in a way that would give it back to the pensioners themselves.
What needs to be done is for the plan to be changed finally in such a way that the company actually contributes instead of sitting and saying: "We will look after the unfunded liability. We will look after it if anything happens". This is a very kind of tenuous way to operate. What if something were to happen to the CN? The very Member who spoke in this debate, the Hon. Member for Lethbridge-Foothills (Mr. Thacker), has said in the House before that the CN should be sold. What if the CNR were sold and in its new private incarnation it ran into economic problems and no longer had the political goodwill of the Government behind it? What would happen to all those pensioners who were depending on this company to provide the unfunded liability in those moments when the pension plan could not meet the commitments of the pension plan? This is a very real concern. There are a good many people out there who have literally bet their retirements on the validity and the solidity of this particular pension plan. The CNR has got away for far too long with this whole unfunded liability business.
I say to the Government and to future Governments-if the NDP were to form a government this is one of the first things that I as a member of that government would be working for- that they must make sure that this kind of change is brought about. I actually had a hope that, knowing as I did some of the members of the Conservative Party who have concerned themselves with this, they might have addressed themselves to it over that four-year period.
But time has come and gone. The problem remains the same. Earl White is four years older now. He is 79 but he has not given up. I am sure that he will not. He and many other CN pensioners, and various pension associations, are going to have to continue the battle to get some justice, to get that plan changed so that people who are retired now and find their pensions to be inadequate, people who are retiring now and have to face the economic uncertainty should inflation come back with any significance, or should any other economic situation be created in which their pensions will no longer have the same purchasing power, will not have to be dependent on what the CNR decides from year to year. As the situation exists now the CNR, could conceivably decide year after year after year not to do anything, not to provide an increase.
August 30, 1988

1 not do see why these pensioners should be at the mercy of that kind of capricious judgment, however generous that judgment might have been from time to time. But it has not been all that generous, I can tell you, Madam Speaker. The Hon. Member said that it was a plan that was above average, or better than most. The fact is that that is a statement about all the other pension plans in the country. It is not a statement about how good the CN pension plan is. It is a statement about how inadequate private pensions are in this country. The time for pension reform is long overdue, and the time for reform of the CN pension plan is even more overdue.


David Kilgour: Madam Speaker, I would like to say a few words about this motion. Your Honour will perhaps know that Edmonton is a CN town and many of my constituents are CN pensioners, including a neighbour. I do not believe I am overstating the facts to say that thousands and thousands of people in southeast Edmonton have worked for CN in the past, or are working for it now. I believe that they would want me to support strongly the motion of the Hon. Member for Burnaby (Mr. Robinson). I know of Mr. White from past interventions he has made on this issue. I hope that all Members of the House will vote in favour of this motion.
Unfortunately, 1 do not have Mr. White's representations with me. However, I know, as I am sure you do, Madam Speaker, from your constituents, that there is a concern that the pension situation for CN pensioners is not as good as it should be. I certainly agree with the Hon. Member who just spoke that other pension plans are even more inadequate. There is a concern that indexation is not there. If CN management feels like it, they will give it; if, for one reason or another, the CN management does not feel like it, then it will not be there.
Actuarial studies have shown repeatedly that men and women who have adequate pensions live longer than those who do not. That is an accepted fact throughout the life insurance industry, and it is one that none of us in the House should ever forget.
For a few summers many years ago I worked swinging a pick on a steel gang, as did the Hon. Member for Burnaby, and we both know a little about what it is like to work on a CN or CP section gang or steel gang. It is very hard work. If a person does that work for 30, 40, or 50 years, that person deserves to have indexation. CN pensioners deserve it, and I hope that it will come quickly. In my view the Government should have done it before. Indexation should be made a matter of law or a matter of legal obligation for both railway pension plans.
If CN is taking moneys or profits out of the pension plan that should go to the pensioners and not to CN's capital expansion or higher salaries to executives, that is something
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which I believe is unacceptable to a vast majority of Canadians.
There is a strong feeling across Canada, as Mr. White has shown to all of us, that the CN pension plan is not being managed adequately. Something has to be done about the CN pension plan.
I commend the Member for bringing this motion to the House tonight. I hope that all Members will vote for the motion and for what is behind it. The Hon. Member is attempting to help Mr. White, who I understand is now 79, to see something concrete, and a general and specific improvement of the CN pension plan for all former CN employees.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Madam Speaker, I only wish to take a few moments this evening because I know there is all-Party agreement and support for the motion to recognize J. E. White and the Canadian Railway Employees' Pension Association.
When I came to this place in October, 1968, one of the first things I started trying to do was something about railway pensions. Like others who have spoken, 1 had a personal interest in the matter. I had been a railroader, and I was the third generation in our family. My grandfather worked for the CPR in Revelstoke in the early 1900s, my father from 1919 to 1950, and I went to work for the CPR in 1947 after I got out of the Army.
I remember when I started my fellow employees, particularly the older ones, my local union officers, and even the local officials of the CPR. Whenever I asked about it or whenever I was at a union meeting, I was always given to understand that every month I put so much into the pension plan, the company put an equal amount into the pension plan, and upon retirement that was my pension.
When I came to Parliament and started looking at the annual reports of Canadian National and Canadian Pacific, each year there was always something called an "unfunded liability". It was in excess of $1 billion for the CPR and almost $2 billion for the CNR. I thought, holy mackerel, that is a lot of money. There is no reason that those companies cannot pay indexed pensions or cannot raise the basic pension. However, I was just an innocent stubble jumping prairie boy. I kept going after the railroads in committee, and I think I have been through seven or eight different Ministers of Transport since I came here. I even asked the Prime Minister one time about my mother's survivor's pension, but that's another story.
It took me several years to realize what "unfunded liability" meant. It meant that the money was not there. After asking questions of the railway officers, listening to actuaries and officials from Health and Welfare, it finally dawned on me that all that meant was that the money was not there. It was what the railroads owed if every employee they had retired the next day, which everybody knows would never happen, could never happen.

August 30, 1988
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Every MP from all Parties received letters galore every year from railway pensioners. Every year we raised it in the committee when we dealt with the CNR's annual report. Every third or fourth year there would be what was called an extra payment of the CNR pension fund. Invariably the CPR did the same thing in direct proportion. The CNR has always been the guinea pig.
Finally, 1 even got mad at the railway unions. I asked them what they were doing, and why they were not representing their members at the collective bargaining table and fighting. The pension plan is worth a strike, not necessarily a wage increase, but a pension plan for the employees and their brothers and sisters already on pension is worth a strike. Under the law, the railway unions, no matter what they tried, legally they could not represent those on pension because, under our present law, they are not considered part of a collective bargaining unit. Who is to speak for the railway brotherhoods and the railway pensioners? I compliment Members from all Parties who have raised this so often for so many years in the House, but the only ones outside the House who could and did speak for railway pensioners were people such as J. E. White and railway pensioners with whom we met from Moncton, New Brunswick, to Victoria on numerous occasions.
We obtained an order from the House of Commons after 1984, and a subcommittee was struck, half the Standing Committee on Transport. We held hearings in five locations. I wanted us to go to 25 or at least 15. We got to five locations outside Ottawa. Pensioners came for miles from all over, at their own expense, to tell us what they were going through.
There were men and women in their late seventies and early eighties who, when they retired, had a great, big pension. When they retired back in the 1950s and early 1960s, they had a pension of something over $200 a month. That was a fabulous pension then, but 10, 15, or 20 years later they could not live on it. Every once in a while their pensions would be increased by $2, $3, $4, $5 a month, out of what are called excess earnings.
What did I know and what did any other Member in this House know about the difference between a defined benefit plan and a money purchase plan, actuarial assumptions, and excess earnings? We very rarely heard about them, it turns out that there were excess earnings, all right, but they were on paper. It is like the "unfunded liability". The money is not there.
It is not that the CPR and the CNR has done anything illegal under our law. They have abided by the law meticulously. It is immoral apd unconscionable that these two magnificent corporations, successive Governments since the 1930s, and Members of Parliament from all political Parties since the 1930s have allowed that to continue. There is no excuse. We all deserve to be blamed and condemned.
We tried in the subcommittee. We had some excellent staff-legal counsel, an actuary, a researcher from the parliamentary library, and an actuary from the Department of National Health and Welfare. They got the figures for us. They showed us what it would cost for full indexing, and it costs a bundle, a lot of money.
It was perfectly obvious that there was no way. It was obvious to all members of the subcommittee and to the whole standing committee that if we were to recommend full indexing of railway pensions, it would (a) not get accepted by this Parliament and (b) not be implemented by the Government. It is not just this Government, but previous ones as well.
We tried to get what we could, and we got a few small things in that subcommittee report which was unanimously adopted by this House.
Here we go again. Some time in the next several months there will be a new Parliament. I hope to be here, if my voters will let me, if I am lucky and honoured enough to be their representative again.
I want to thank my colleague from Burnaby (Mr. Robinson) for this motion and his other motion on the Order Paper. I know that J. E. White is strong enough, angry enough, and ornery enough. He will be here, too, again appearing before a parliamentary committee.
I want to say that my Party and I are committed to the fact that this Parliament, whenever we get the chance, will bring in legislation covering all pension plans under federal jurisdiction that call for two things: First, no longer will any corporation be able to raid a pension plan for any funds or part of funds in that plan. We will recall one of the big multinational food chains headquartered in Toronto which tried to lift tens of millions of dollars out of a pension fund. We say that Parliament must pass legislation that prevents that and makes it unequivocal that every nickel in a pension fund belongs to nobody else but current employees and pensioners and that nobody else can touch it. Second, we stand for full indexing of all pensions under federal jurisdiction.
We got partial success in the minority Parliament of 1972 to 1974. We got indexing of old age pensions and family allowances, which we have since been lost under this Government. War veterans' pensions were indexed, old age pensions were indexed as were the pensions of the RCMP and the Armed Forces. Oh, many a Minister of Finance since would have loved to get out from under that, but it is still in place.
We would have full indexing even if it had to be phased in over two or three years. That is another aspect of pensions under federal jurisdiction that must be brought in and brought in as quickly as possible. Once done by a national Parliament, every other province will have to follow suit or accept their political peril if they do not.
August 30, 1988


Gordon Edward Taylor: Madam Speaker, I just want to say a word or two. I think that all of us feel very strongly about those who have inadequate pensions, particularly when it was promised. A few years ago when we found that the workers under the Workers' Compensation Board in Alberta were not getting enough to live upon, the Government decided to put money into it out of general revenue and, consequently, those on workers' compensation have been able to get by at least better than they would have had before. I thought that I should mention that, because there are ways of solving these problems.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Is the House ready for the question?
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Some Hon. Members:: Question.
Motion (Mr. Robinson) agreed to.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Is there unanimous consent to call it 10.04 p.m.?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: It being 10.04 p.m., this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 3(1).
At 10.04 p.m. the House adjourned.

Wednesday, August 31, 1988


[Stage Direction]
Prayers