1988-01-29

GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Thursday, January 28, consideration of the motion of Mr. Bouchard:
That a message be sent to the Senate to acquaint Their Honours that this House agrees with amendments 8 and 13(e) made by the Senate to Bill C-84, an Act to amend the Immigration Act, 1976 and the Criminal Code in consequence thereof, but disagrees with amendments 4, 5(a), (b) and (c), 6(a) and (b), 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13(a) because this House believes they contradict the principles of the Bill for the following reasons:
Amendment 4 would exclude only criminals and war criminals from the refugee determination process, but would allow terrorists, spies and subversives to pursue a claim to refugee status, notwithstanding the fact that Article 33 of the UN Convention would permit the removal of these latter individuals to their countries of nationality or permanent residence, even if they were determined to be Convention refugees.
Amendment 5(a) would eliminate the authority of the Minister to direct a ship to leave or not to enter Canadian waters. This amendment would reopen a significant gap in Canada's ability to control its borders.
Amendments 5(b) and (c) arise out of Senate amendment 5(a), which is not acceptable, and are therefore inappropriate.
Amendments 6(a) and (b) would reverse the policy on which the Immigration Act, 1976 was based, which policy was not changed in the Bill as passed by this House. The amendments jeopardize the possibility of successfully prosecuting persons who profit from organizing illegal migration and from counselling fraud among refugee claimants.
Amendments 9 and 10 would restrict the ability of peace officers and immigration officers to act quickly to search for evidence of major offences under the Immigration Act, 1976, in exigent circumstances, where lives are at risk or where evidence with respect to those offences may be lost or destroyed.
Amendments 11 and 12 would restrict the ability of peace officers and immigration officers to execute search warrants which have been duly authorized by a justice of the peace, by denying explicit authority to break open containers where it is reasonably believed evidence will be found and by limiting the authority to execute these warrants at night.
Amendment 13(a) would reduce the initial period of detention without review from seven days to forty-eight hours, which would allow insufficient time for the gathering of information to substantiate allegations or to identify the individual, particularly when large groups of undocumented persons arrive at one time.
And that this House agrees with the principles set out in amendments 1, 2(a), 3, 7 and 13(b), (c) and (d), but would propose the following amendments:
Amendment 1 be amended to read as follows:
"Strike out lines 22 and 23 on page 1, and substitute the following:
(c)	to deter those who assist in the illegal entry of persons into Canada and thereby minimize the"
Amendment 2(a) be amended to read as follows:
"Strike out lines 29 to 39, on page 4, and substitute the following:
(a) examine within seven days, in camera, the security or criminal intelligence reports considered by the Minister and the Solicitor General and hear any other evidence or information that may be presented by or on behalf of those Ministers and may, on the request of the Minister or the Solicitor General, hear all or part of such evidence or information in the absence of the person named in the certificate and any counsel representing the person where, in the opinion of the Chief Justice or the designated judge, as the case may be, the evidence or information should not be disclosed on the grounds that such disclosure would be injurious to national security or to the safety of persons;"
Amendment 3 be amended to read as follows:
"Strike out lines 7 to 12, on page 5, and substitute the following:
(d)	determine whether the certificate filed by the Minister and the Solicitor General is reasonable on the basis of the evidence and information available to the Chief Justice or the designated judge, as the case may be, and, if found not to be reasonable, quash the certificate; and"
Amendment 7 be amended to read as follows:
"Add, and immediately after line 6, on page 10, the following:
95.21 No proceedings for an offence under Section 95.1 or Section 95.2 shall be instituted except by or with the personal consent in writing of the Attorney General of Canada or Deputy Attorney General of Canada."
Amendment 13(b) be amended to read as follows:
"Strike out lines 1 to 22, on page 21, and substitute the following:
(2)	Where, with respect to a person detained under subsection (1), the Minister certifies in writing
(a)	that
(i)	the person's identity has not been established, or
(ii)	the Minister has reason to suspect that the person may be a member of an inadmissible class described in paragraph 19(l)(e), (f) or (g), and
(b)	that an additional period of detention is required to investigate the matter referred to in subparagraph (a)(i) or (ii), the person shall be brought before an adjudicator forthwith and at least once during every seven-day period thereafter, at which times the adjudicator shall review the reasons for the person's continued detention."
Amendment 13(c) be amended to read as follows:
"Strike out lines 23 to 47, on page 21, and substitute the following:
(2.1)	Where the Minister has issued a certificate under subsection (2), the Minister may amend the certificate to which the detention relates to include any matter referred to in subparagraph (2)(a)(i) or (ii), following which the person shall be brought before an adjudicator forthwith and at
[Stage Direction]
January 29, 1988
Immigration Act, 1976
least once during every seven-day period thereafter, at which times the adjudicator shall review the reasons for the person's continued detention.
(3)	Where a person is detained under subsection (1) and the Minister has not issued a certificate under subsection (2), the person shall be brought before an adjudicator forthwith after the expiration of the period during which the person is being detained and that person shall be brought before an adjudicator at least once during every seven-day period thereafter, at which times the reasons for continued detention shall be reviewed."
Amendment 13(d) be amended to read as follows:
"Strike out lines 48 to 50, on page 21, and lines 1 to 18, on page 22, and substitute the following:
(4)	Where an adjudicator who conducts a review under subsection (2) or
(2.1)	is satisfied that reasonable efforts are being made by the Minister to investigate the matter referred to in subparagraph (2)(a)(i) or (ii), the adjudicator shall continue the person's detention.
(4.1)	Every review under subsection (2) or (2.1) of the detention of a person suspected of being a member of an inadmissible class described in paragraph 19(l)(e), (0 or (g) shall be conducted in camera.
(4.2)	Where (a) the Minister is of the opinion that any evidence or information to be presented by or on behalf of the Minister at any review under subsection (2) or (2.1) of the detention of a person referred to in subsection (4.1) should not be disclosed on the grounds that its disclosure would be injurious to national security or to the safety of persons, and (b) a request therefore is made by the Minister, the adjudicator shall order that the review or any part thereof be conducted in the absence of the person and any counsel representing the person.
(4.3)	Any person excluded by an order under subsection (4.2) from the whole or any part of the review under subsection (2) or (2.1) may apply to the Chief Justice of the Federal Court or to a judge of that Court designated by the Chief Justice for the purposes of this subsection to have the order quashed and sections 36.1 and 36.2 of the Canada Evidence Act shall apply, with such modifications as the circumstances may require, to such applications. (4.4) Unless quashed, an order under subsection (4.2) shall, with respect to the person to whom the order relates, apply to every review under subsection (2) or (2.1), or part thereof, at which the Minister is of the opinion that any evidence or information to be presented by or on behalf of the Minister at the review, or part thereof, should not be disclosed on the grounds that its disclosure would be injurious to national security or to the safety of persons.
(5)	Where the adjudicator who conducts a review under subsection (2) or (2.1) does not continue a person's detention under subsection (4), the adjudicator shall make the appropriate order under subsection 104(3).
(6)	An adjudicator who conducts a review under subsection (3) shall make the appropriate order under subsection 104(3)."
And the amendment of Mr. Marchi:
That the message of the House of Commons to the Senate be amended by:
a)	deleting, in paragraph one, the reference to Senate amendment 4;
b)	deleting paragraph two;
c)	adding to paragraph nine a reference to Senate amendment 4; and
d)	adding after amendment 3 the following:
"That amendment 4 of the Senate be amended by deleting the said amendment and by striking out line 16 on page 7 of the Bill and substituting the following therefor:
"(2)(c) and against whom a deportation order has been upheld by the Board; or""
Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: Mr. Speaker, before 1 finished speaking yesterday I was beginning to make the points about the two major flaws that we see in the Bill as proposed by the Government.
The first flaw dealt with the decision to incorporate an amendment which would see a boat turned away at the point of entry into Canadian waters. The reason we believe that that particular amendment is seriously flawed is two-fold. First, we may in many cases see legitimate refugees who are turned away without even been given the right to a hearing. We may see a situation similar to what we as a country experienced in the Second World War when shamefully we turned away a boatload of Jewish refugees without giving them any kind of a hearing. As a country, it is not the kind of precedent that we would like to set.
The second flaw is that it permits the shipowner, who is the real mercenary, the rip-off artist, the trader in human flesh, to drop refugees outside the 200 mile boundary thus putting potential refugees at risk of drowning. But that individual will already have cash at hand. He is paid before the people get on the boat. He will drop the refugees outside the 200 mile limit and be gone. He will be laughing all the way to the bank.
If we are going to introduce an amendment, we want to get at these shipowners to discourage them from trading in human flesh. One way would be to accept the Liberal amendment. This would make sure that those refugees who come to Canada are given due process and a fair hearing while the shipowner who trades in human flesh will have his boat and assets seized, will be put in jail and have his boat sold off.


Mr. Hudon:: Good.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Yes, good. That is exactly what we would like to see happen. Unfortunately, in Bill C-84 as it presently exists there is no provision to seize the boat and throw the owner in jail. The boat will be turned away before it actually enters Canadian waters. The Hon. Member will understand that that particular measure will prevent potential legitimate refugees, like the boat people, like the Jewish refugees in the Second World War, from coming to Canada and getting a fair hearing. In the meantime, it will still permit the ship owner to cash in on human flesh. He will be able to take his hundreds of thousands of dollars, drop the refugees outside Canada's territorial waters, and disappear.
The Bill as proposed does not deal with the issue of shipowners who are trading in human flesh. If the Government accepts the Liberal amendment, this would permit the seizure and the sale of the boat, if it is determined it is in Canadian waters illegitimately, and the imprisonment of the ship owner. That is the route we should take.
By turning away a boat, we are violating a UN Convention which provides for due process. We could be turning away legitimate refugees without giving them a fair hearing. Canada is the only nation in the world that has been recognized internationally for its open and generous attitude toward stateless and homeless people. I do not think we want to see that reputation thrown out of the window' by incorporating in law a provision which violates the United Nations Charter.
January 29, 1988

The second part of this Bill which is seriously flawed was not addressed by the Government, either through amendments that had been proposed in the House of Commons by the Liberal Party or amendments that had been proposed in the Senate by all Members of all Parties, including the Independents and the Conservatives. The amendment we would like the Government to accept deals with people who assist and aid refugees.
The Government has introduced legislation which provides that anyone who, without remuneration, out of the goodness of his or her heart, assists a stateless person who may not have proper papers is potentially in violation of the Immigration Act. In many cases, people who flee their homelands for fear of their lives and for the safety of their families may not have proper documentation. The Government wants to implement a measure which would tell any church group, priest, nun or religious person that if he or she tries to help a stateless person who does not have proper papers, he or she could be guilty of a violation of the Immigration Act. We think that is wrong.
Not only do we think that is wrong, Conservative Members in the other place felt so strongly about this issue that they returned a unanimous report condemning the Government for refusing to amend that clause we are discussing today. Not only are the Conservatives in the other place and the Opposition in the House of Commons opposed to these two Draconian measures, many others are as well. For example, Nancy Pocock who works with the Inter-Church Committee for Refugees, has said:
If my Government tells me it is a crime to help these people, I will have to say 1 am obeying a higher law and I am going to continue to help them when they need me.
George Cram of the Inter-Church Committee for Refugees, hardly the subversive trader in human flesh the Government alleges it is trying to curb with this legislation, has said:
I do not want to be guilty of committing an offence for doing humanitarian work. I do not want to feel inside myself that what I am doing is illegal, and I do not want to be liable for prosecution. The offence is what you are creating, not the prosecution.

Mr. Speaker, both the Liberals and the Conservatives in the other place tell us there are two major flaws in the legislation as tabled by the Government. First of all, we have the section prescribing that all ships are to be turned back without allowing the refugees on that ship due process. In that case, Mr. Speaker, ship owners or those who trade in human flesh are not being affected at all. They are not being affected since they already have their money and they can let the refugees disembark at sea.
Mr. Speaker, we suggest the legislation be amended to give the authorities the right to seize the ship and sell it, with the proceeds of such sales going to the Crown, and to jail the ship owner who tries unlawfully to bring people into Canada. This reminds me of the situation in 1979, when we had the so-called "boat people" leaving Vietnam under cover of night. I have
Immigration Act, 1976
several friends who went through this process, and I was part of a group that sponsored them.
At the time, some of these people were unable to leave with the proper documentation, and according to the Bill as it now stands, the fact that I helped people who were without the proper documentation because they were obliged to leave Vietnam under cover of night, would today be a crime. And the same applies to all members of religious groups who try to help people who are stateless or have to leave their country. Although they receive no money, no remuneration for what they do, they will be violating the law by helping refugees.
Mr. Speaker, Canada is the only country in the world that has received international recognition for the role it played in helping people who were leaving Vietnam. We received that recognition because we opened our homes and our hearts to refugees who had no place to stay and who were in fact stateless.
And now we have Bill C-84 and these two measures which, in fact, mean that we do not give due process, we do not give a hearing to people who arrive on ships, even if they happen to be genuine refugees. We are going to turn them back as we turned back the Jews during the Second World War, without giving them a chance to tell their story to our officials and explain how they had to flee their country without the proper documentation.
Second, according to the Bill, Canadian men and women- whether they are priests, nuns, or members of various churches-who try to help people who do not have the proper documentation because they had to flee their country with only the clothes they had on, may be committing a crime by helping refugees who lack proper documentation.
Mr. Speaker, this is so ridiculous that even Conservative senators in the other place objected to the Bill's recommendations out of hand. Both the Liberals in the House of Commons, and the Conservatives in the other place have unanimously rejected the Bill as it now stands.
We already know the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Bouchard) accepted a few amendments because he realized that the Bill as tabled last summer was an overly hasty attempt to react to a situation.

Last summer when the Minister brought in the legislation it was a knee-jerk reaction. He realized that in part, because he did agree to certain amendments which would clarify some of the procedural matters dealing with the Bill. However, he refused to amend the two fundamental clauses of the Bill, and I will tell you why he refused to amend them, Mr. Speaker. I know that this will be provocative, but I hope it will assist Conservative Members in their deliberations on this Bill.
The Government is attempting to use refugees to score political points by whipping up a public frenzy on an issue

Immigration Act, 1976
which is very poorly understood by Canadians. The Government is attempting to use refugees to improve its own standing in the popularity polls. If the Government is not attempting to use refugees in that way, then I challenge it to bring forward two amendments.
First, we should give refugees the right to a full and fair hearing, and that means all refugees, whether alleged or otherwise. If they are proven not to be refugees, they will be deported. That is the law of the land. Second, we should ensure that those people who in the legitimate course of humanitarian good, whether they be members of church groups or are doing it because of a personal commitment, try to help those people who are stateless and homeless, who do not have proper documentation, are not considered criminals. With those two amendments maybe the Government will stop using this issue as a political football and stop exploiting refugees.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Questions and comments.


Mr. Murphy:: Mr. Speaker, obviously the Hon. Member is very exercised about the Government's strategy on this issue. I would like her to explain to the House why she believes this is part of an electoral strategy by the Government rather than a sincere piece of legislation.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, when the Government originally introduced this legislation it was supposed to be a response to an "emergency". It was such an emergency that here we are seven months later and the Government did not choose to bring it back for several months. The Government brought in two Bills and this is one. The other Bill was the more reasoned approach.
I believe the reason the Government brought this Bill in last summer, a Bill with very invidious sections dealing with the refusal to grant due process to prospective refugees as well as the refusal to allow Canadians the right, under the auspices of church organizations and private groups, to engage in assisting stateless and homeless peoples, is that it looked at the issue and saw how many people feel. I know people, and I have them in my riding, who see someone coming to Canada without using the normal immigration process and thinking somehow they are getting ahead of everyone else. What they do not realize, and what I alluded to yesterday, is that we have two streams of people coming into this country. One stream is the stateless and homeless; that process is accepted and endorsed by all Canadians. All Canadians believe in it. The other stream is normal immigration.
Because the immigration process is so tight right now, and because there are so many good people who are not allowed to come to Canada because of quotas and other rather severe restrictions, those who are waiting to be reunited with their families feel that somehow if we accept refugees we are lessening their opportunity to have their relatives and friends come into the country. That is not the case, but you have to be
a student of the Immigration Act to even understand the nuances and differences.
Unfortunately, most of us when we read the papers tend to have a knee-jerk reaction to the question of someone arriving here by boat. Persons arriving by boat may indeed be a legitimate refugees who could face death if they went back to their own country. We should not be going after the refugees who may be legitimate and who should have the right to due process. We should be going after the shipowners who are simply attempting to exploit people by accepting money for passage. They will be off on the high seas and the people we will be going after are those who may need our help and a home in Canada.
1 think the Government is trying to cover up its own incompetence in dealing with the question of immigration by isolating certain instances and trying to get the public whipped into a frenzy on an issue which is very poorly understood. The Government has a responsibility to clear up the two-track system, one being refugees and the other normal immigration, and deal with the real culprits, the traders in human flesh, not simply those who may be legitimately seeking a new home.


Mr. Hawkes:: Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity to represent Canada at an executive counsel meeting of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees the first week of October, 1987. I had the opportunity there to discuss this issue with representatives of most of the nations in the world who are involved in providing significant support for refugees. Perhaps even more importantly, I also had the opportunity to meet with the legal affairs division of the UNHCR. As a consequence of that in depth discussion about Canadian law and the law of other countries, I have been able to go on public platforms in Canada and assert that the legal protection for refugee claimants under Canada's new legislation, a combination of Bill C-84 and Bill C-55, will be a standard to which the rest of the world can aspire. I have said rather flatly that there is no legal system in the world which will come close to matching Canada's new system in providing legal protection for refugee claimants.
I simply want to ask the Hon. Member this. If she believes in what she has been saying to this House today, will she have the courage to stand in her place and name a single country in this whole world that will provide better legal protection to refugee claimants than the projected Canadian system-one country, I challenge her?


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member obviously does not understand the Bill we are discussing. If he did he would know that the precise point he is alleging, protection for refugees by way of due process, is being denied to people who come by boat. The provisions of Bill C-84 require that the boat be turned away before those people have a chance to be considered as prospective refugees. That is the very point that makes this Bill completely unacceptable. That is the reason it was rejected by those in the UN who are knowledgeable on the question of refugees. That is the reason we have to reject this
January 29, 1988

Bill. It is a blight on a very laudable Canadian record around the world in accepting and welcoming bona fide refugees to this country.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that no country was named by the Hon. Member opposite. It is also interesting to have been involved in discussions with those legal experts and recognize that the specific wording of the clause which the Hon. Member tries to bring to the attention of the House and the Canadian people says that a boat can be turned away when the Minister is satisfied that the health of the passengers will not be compromised, their safety will not be compromised, and their rights and Canada's obligations under the Convention will not be compromised. Those are prohibitions on the conduct of the Minister to make sure that the rights of refugee claimants are respected.
Once again I say to the Hon. Member, name a country that will have better legal protection for refugee claimants. Name me one in the whole wide world.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member has just admitted the difficulties with this legislation. He said that the people who are on that boat will not be given individual due process. He just said it is up to the Minister. If the Minister is under political pressure and feels like turning the boat back, it is going to go back. These people, who could be bona fide refugees and who should have their cases heard individually, are going to be denied that due process. They will not be given the kind of protection which has been afforded to every refugee claimant in Canada and that will be afforded under certain clauses of Bill C-55, which is not the Bill we are discussing today.
Bill C-84 was a knee-jerk reaction by the Government at a time when a boat was coming towards Canada. Frankly, I do not want to leave due process and the protection of prospective refugees in the hands of a Minister who may be responding to political pressure in the way he did last summer when he introduced this piece of garbage we are now considering.


Mr. Ernie Epp (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to join in this debate on the proposed Senate amendments to Bill C-84. I am not pleased, however, because of the Bill itself, which 1 join with members of my caucus and many other Members of the House in opposing as an attack on Canadian humanitarianism and a reaction to some of the darkest tendencies in the Canadian nation-a desire to close the doors on refugees. That is a very partisan and political move of the worst sort.
I want to speak with satisfaction on amendments which would make it possible to improve this Bill somewhat. If the Government is determined to go through with it, let us have at least the removal of some of the elements of the Bill which would interfere with the desire of so many Canadians to provide refuge to persons who are in danger of life and limb in the countries from which they have fled.
Immigration Act, 1976
I want to recognize the observations of the critic on immigration in our caucus, my good friend the Member for Spadina (Mr. Heap), who spoke very well earlier this week in support of the proposed amendments. He indicated what the strategy of the Government has been. It is worth spotlighting some of what has happened on this matter earlier before considering the particular amendment which is before us this morning, that being Amendment 4 from the Senate.
As my friend indicated, it took a little while for the policy of the Government to become clear. In the first months of this Parliament the Commons Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration was at work considering the question of how to treat refugees and considering an important document, a report commissioned by the previous Government which Rabbi Gunther Plaut produced. This report was in the best tradition of Canadian humanitarianism. The committee of Members from the government caucus and the two opposition caucuses, in lesser numbers, worked together on consideration of that report making representations to the House, and, consequently, to the Government and Canadian people, on how refugees should be treated.
It became clear later that at the same time a task force on saving money in the Government and on the efficiency of government operations was at work. That task force was under the direction of the then Deputy Prime Minister, Erik Nielsen. It became clear when that report was released later that a very different agenda was being pursued at the highest levels of the immigration department and within the Government itself. That agenda looked to the saving of money. It was suggested that some $60 million could be saved and it became clear that a good deal of that could be saved in the area of immigration by tightening up in particular ways.
As my friend the Member for Spadina indicated, the Government never responded to the report of the Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration. That report recognized the contributions and recommendations of Rabbi Gunther Plaut and called on the Canadian Government to improve and streamline the system for refugee determination. It called upon the Government to provide resources so there would be enough people to carry through the process of determination, get rid of the backlog, and ensure that Canadian humanitarianism was manifested in procedure as well as in principle, so that persons would have their status recognized at an early stage and could consequently settle down to life among the Canadian people. The Government, which was preoccupied with its agenda of the Nielsen task force, never commented on or reacted that report of the committee.
In the summer of 1986 refugees arrived and the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) himself spoke in a commendable way on the traditions of Canadian humanitarianism. In the summer of 1987 more refugees arrived by boat on the Atlantic coast. We observed the most remarkable night-against- day turn by the Prime Minister as he began to pander to very different tendencies, those of the minority that is prepared to close the door, the minority which fears refugees, particularly

January 29, 1988
Immigration Act, 1976
from the southern hemisphere, the minority which wants still to have a white Canada as some Canadians have always wanted. Playing to those tendencies, to prejudice in Canada, some of the best hopes that had been manifested by Ministers of the Government earlier were suddenly contradicted.
Late in the year I spotlighted a statement made by the Minister for Employment and Immigration who, speaking in the spring, promised a campaign against racism. He recognized that the way to deal with racism, prejudice, and discrimination in Canada was to deal with the ignorance on which they feed. During the summer the Government pandered to ignorance and stupidity and the Minister for Employment and Immigration (Mr. Bouchard) has not launched such a campaign. The Government has been strangely silent in developing race relations policy in the area of multiculturalism.
That failure is directly related to this most unfortunate decision to play to Canadian prejudice generally, to bring in legislation, and to allow individual case situations to be made known to the Canadian public. These leaks are still going on. There has been controversy in the House, appropriate or otherwise, in the last weeks on certain cases. How could that controversy occur if it were not that individual files were being made known to the media? It is clear that information is leaking out from the immigration department. That is surely being done quite deliberately to continue pandering to Canadian prejudice.
Not only do we have silence as far as a campaign against racism is concerned, but the Government is allowing officials to pander to those feelings by putting out partial information and allowing the press to build up the kind of anger that can develop among people when they think that something terribly wrong has been allowed to happen.
This kind of attack on Canadian humanitarianism is not just an attack on the expression at the national level, where the Inter-Church Committee, for example, has been eloquently leading, supported by lawyers who have been working in the immigration area for years who know the shortcomings of the system, who want improvement of it, and who certainly never expected that the Government would bring in the kind of vicious legislation which we have before us. It is not an attack on a national activity or on people active in particular in the City of Toronto where so many persons wanting to put refugee claims forward first appear.
In the City of Thunder Bay in northwestern Ontario, many miles from Toronto, only a few score of persons are accepted each year as government-sponsored refugees. In my community the expression of Canadian humanitarianism through the Friends of Refugees organization and through members of the Thunder Bay Multiculturalism Association has been one of the most heartening expressions of Canadian humanitarianism. This movement was fostered and developed in the mid and late 1970s by the Government itself. When people from Vietnam were coming to Canada great encouragement was given to individual Canadians, groups, and churches in particular, to
undertake the work of providing refuge to people, supporting them in Canada, and assisting them to become established. That work has been brilliantly successful.
In my own church in Thunder Bay, St. Paul's United Church, I have been contributing for a year or more in support of a refugee project. I mention that without wanting to arouse envy anywhere else because I could name other churches in the City of Thunder Bay that are very active.
I hesitate to single out names, but I think of the efforts of Lloyd Jones in Thunder Bay and on the national level and of Mel McLaughlin and others in the Friends of Refugees organization. These are manifestations of the best desire of Canadians to allow our rich country to provide the refuge that people from other parts of the world need.
What have we seen in contradiction to this from the Government? We see a particularly refusal to recognize the legitimate problems that exist in immigration. Our caucus realizes that illigitimate refugee claims are made occasionally and procedures are necessary to deal with those. However, there is not the kind of clandestine entry in those cases on which the Government wants to focus. There is not the lack of documents, very often in those cases. Usually someone outside Canada is involved in aiding in the offence of sending bogus refugees to Canada who very often arrive with legitimate documentation. These people who arrive from Portugal, Brazil or perhaps Turkey would not be caught by the Government's legislation.
Those people who arrive from Central and South America, where they have been made refugees by the civil wars that rage in a number of those countries, are the owner who arrive without documentation, because they would not be able to obtain the visas or other papers to make them legitimate entrants to Canada. These people are very often regarded in their own countries as subversives and may well be shot by the death squads in a number of those countries. These are the people who will be caught, and those who assist them in coming to Canada, recognizing that the United States is much less sensitive to the legitimate refugee claims of these persons, could very easily be caught by this legislation and end up with their vehicles confiscated, facing fines and conceivably prison terms.
The Government, which has broken its word on so many other matters, gives us asssurances in the House that it would not act or authorize prosecutions against such persons. That is simply not acceptable. The Government does not have the credibility with this Parliament and the people of Canada to be trusted with such promises.
Therefore, speaking on behalf of constituents, friends and persons whom I admire very much in Thunder Bay, I oppose what the Government has put forward and support the amendments put before us from the Senate, and specifically
January 29, 1988

the amendment put forward by the Member for York West (Mr. Marchi) dealing with amendment No. 4.
Let me note the significance of the amendments put forward by the Member for York West in regard to Central America. When the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark) visited Central America recently, he made a number of observations on the situation. Probably the most remarkable and controversial was his suggestion that those involved in the contra effort against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua might be allowed entry into Canada, to allow refuge to these freedom fighters of President Reagan.
Of course, one must explain this somewhat. These people are counter-revolutionaries, the henchmen of the Somoza regime in Nicaragua. They are the people who exploited the Nicaraguan people until the people were successful in the Sandinista revolution in overthrowing that dictatorship, supported so long by the United States. They achieved a government which, if not for the war, would have made the kinds of advances for Nicaraguan people that the Cuban revolution has made over 30 years on that island. However, the American government has chosen to support these henchmen of the Somoza regime.
The President who should be an example of truth to the so-called free world has allowed his integrity to be completely destroyed by attempting to turn these counter-revolutionaries in Nicaragua, who worked for that previous dictatorship, into freedom fighters. That has been one of the abominations of the 1980's, and has only been intensified every time the President speaks about strengthening democracy in the 1980's, as he did in the State of the Union Address. That is an abomination when American money is destroying property, slaying Nicaraguans and being used to destroy the efforts of aid workers from other countries to support the Nicaraguan people in rebuilding their revolution.
In El Salvador death squad members in the El Salvadorean military, in this case supporting a government that is fighting a revolution, had launched an attack on a restaurant, killing several Americans, among others. According to a recent report, it had been determined at a trial that these death squad members had been involved in a political act. When we see the murder of off-duty Americans, of civilians and persons in a social setting by members of the El Salvadorean forces being regarded as a political act, surely it is not possible to argue against the reality of circumstances that create refugees who have every right to the safety that Canada can provide.
The Hon. Member for York West, in his amendment specifically dealing with amendment No. 4, is focusing on a matter of enormous importance, an amendment which would not preclude from the refugee determination process persons who might be security risks. That focuses on a particular item in which the legislation the Government has put forward is in fact a contradiction to the United Nations convention on refugees.
In this respect the Parliamentary Secretary was posing questions to the Member for Hamilton East (Ms Copps) in
Immigration Act, 1976
which he wanted to find some country that was better than Canada in providing refuge. 1 am not an expert on this internationally and would not be able to name a country which is better, although I think it would be a terrible judgment on the western world in our time if there is no country that has better law than Canada. It would be a terrible judgment on the whole western world if western humanity has sunk to the level of violation of U.N. convention which the Government proposes to put forward.
The U.N. convention allows persons, even those who may be security risks, to put forward a claim for refugee status. Of course, it allows governments to provide safety and that person may have to be detained, but the point is that even those who might be security risks have the right under the U.N. convention to have their claim to refugee status considered.
When the Government refuses to accept amendment No. 4 from the Senate, which is designed to maintain that right, it loses any right to talk about morality, to praise Canadian law and to raise comparative standards. That is simply illigitimate as long as the Government takes the vicious stand it has on amendment No. 4 from the Senate.
I speak in support of the resolution by the Liberal critic and in support of what the Senate has attempted to do in upholding Canadian traditions against a House of Commons tragically dominated by a Conservative majority that is prepared to abandon the best Canadian traditions in order to appeal to the worst tendencies among some Canadians.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: I wonder if the Hon. Member would like to share with the Canadian people the information in his possession about the proportion of people inside the country who are found to be in violation of immigration law and, therefore, go to inquiry? What proportion, once they are caught by enforcement officers, all of a sudden claim to be refugees? They have plenty of time to lodge a claim before they become in violation of immigration law. They are already inside the country. I wonder whether or not the Hon. Member thinks we should continue to have a legal system which allows people, simply by saying those words, to be virtually nonremovable from the country, to have extended stays going in to two, three, four, five, years.
The Hon. Member has brought up Motion No. 4. Does he think that Motion No. 4 in reality is a good idea because of the number of situations of the kind I mentioned? First, does he know the statistics? Does he know how many hundred people a month suddenly make this claim when they are caught by enforcement officers?


Abram Ernest Epp: Mr. Speaker, I believe in speaking bluntly and honestly about these things. I do not know the number. I suppose the former chairperson of the Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration, who withdrew from that position for whatever reasons, would know the number. However, knowing the number is far

January 29, 1988
Immigration Act, 1976
less important in this matter than recognizing why there might be such appeals.
Of course, the reason they occur is because the previous Government, and the present Government, have not wanted a good refugee determination system. Those Governments have allowed a cumbersome system to bog down. They have clearly refused to put the people into the system who are required. Again, I do not have the dates at my fingertips, but months passed. Recommendations had been made for increased numbers. If my memory serves me correctly, it had been clear in the country a long time before that more people were needed in the immigration review, refugee determination context in order to carry out the process properly.
This Government, even worse than the previous Government, refused to put the resources in place. It was worse because the situation was perfectly clear. It was obvious the process was bogging down. It would be obvious to anyone looking at the system that when one gets into a situation where it takes two, three or four years, whatever it may happen to be, that is a cruelty in itself. It is administrative cruelty by the Canadian Government to the person applying. To allow that to happen is one of those failures of Ministerial direction and responsibility; refusing to make the system efficient. If the system were efficient, no one would be able to do more than extend the time by perhaps three or four months. Perhaps half a year would be the most that would be gained by making such a claim. It is only the failures of Government administration that has opened the door to such an opportunity. If people abuse it, it is an indication of administrative weakness.
What is an abomination to the Canadian people and Canadian morality and humanitarianism is to allow the system to bog down and allow abuses to develop. Abuses will always develop when systems break down, but to then use those abuses in order to strike a vicious law, which the Canadian people in other circumstances would not want, is an abomination to the Canadian people. I am disappointed in the Parliamentary Secretary, who was a good chairperson of that committee and who, I think, has a humanitarian sense, for raising this kind of issue with me and with the Canadian people. It is shameful.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, it is a bit astonishing that Members opposite can complain so vehemently when they have not taken the time to learn a little more about the problem. Every month there are about 750 to 800 people in the category I mentioned who are afoul of the law and are caught up by the enforcement officers of Employment and Immigration Canada. These people are already inside the country and suddenly make the claim to be refugees. Three-quarters of the people that are caught suddenly make the claim. That is a significant part of the problem.
The Member brings up the issue of delay. This Government brought forward the Plaut report, which was set up by the previous Government. The committee dealt with it and reported to the House by the end of December 1985. The Government announced changes by May of 1986. Legislation
was brought back to this House last May in the form of Bill C-55. Both Parties in Opposition refused to move it quickly to committee. They filibustered rather consistently. Yesterday the Senate began hearings on Bill C-55. It is better than three-quarters of a year since the solution was presented to the House and we still do not have the changed system.
It defies reality and defies common sense to attempt to tell the Canadian people and Members of this Chamber that the Government is delaying the correction necessary. The Government is eager. I wonder if the Hon. Member might commit to us here right now that Bill C-84 will finish today and go back to the Senate? We operate on a five-day week in the Parliament of Canada. This has been the subject matter of debate for the fourth solid day, simply on Senate amendments. I wonder how much longer the Hon. Member and his Party intend to delay the legislation and then attempt to blame the Government for delay? The delay lies on the other side of this Chamber.


Abram Ernest Epp: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a further comment on what the Parliamentary Secretary has the gall to say, although I recognize that in his job he has to do that. The Parliamentary Secretary says that 850 to 900 persons a month are doing this. That is an indication of how serious the consequences of administrative failure have been.
He knows perfectly well that in a parliamentary system, with two Chambers, it takes time to pass law. It is not my right to say anything about what will happen today. 1 do not control the House. Neither does he, and nor does the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Bouchard). I suppose the Government deserves credit for publishing it rather than suppressing it. Let me give it that credit. But what are the dates the Parliamentary Secretary was suggesting?
The Government was formed in September of 1984. The Plaut report came forward early in 1985, I believe. The committee had considered it through to the end of 1985. That is a year and three months into the life of this Government. Proposals for action came from the Government in the spring of 1986. 1 remember debating some of those. Action could have been taken in the fall of 1984, because I think it was needed. It was clear at that time that action was needed, but action was not taken until the spring of 1986. That was almost two years into the life of this Government.
The Parliamentary secretary pointed to the legislation that was put forward not in the spring of 1986 but in the spring of 1987. Another year had passed. Then, of course, in the summer it attempted to capitalize on the situation and here we are almost six months after that particular attempt. The Government has let all this time pass when it could have been dealing with its administrative shortcomings and getting on with it.
January 29, 1988



STATEMENTS PURSUANT TO S. O. 21


Mrs. Lucie Pepin (Outremont):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Supreme Court rendered a judgment on abortion. I should like to single out three individuals who opened this debate 20 years ago: Dr. Lise Fortier of Montreal, Marion Powell of Toronto, and Dr. Peter Gillett of Montreal.

The Supreme Court of Canada rendered a historical judgment yesterday. It struck down a law that treated women unequally. The judges found this law unconstitutional because women in some provinces were found to have more choice available to them concerning their reproduction than women in other provinces. Under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms every individual must be treated equally. Therefore, this law must be changed so that all Canadian women have access to the same services and options across the country.
I call on the Government to introduce legislation in the House that will recognize that women must be treated equally across Canada. I also call on the Government to recognize that the Supreme Court of Canada has given the federal Parliament the role of regulating how, when, and where these services will be made available and how we will balance the competing interests in this issue.
Now that we have been given this trust, let us proceed cautiously and wisely. Let us recognize that all women must be treated equally and have the same options and services.



PUBLIC SERVICE


Mr. Mike Cassidy (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday the Government decided at the last minute not to proceed with debate on Bill C-33, the Bill which would have deindexed future pensions for 250,000 federal government employees.
Bill C-33 is a bad Bill. It is out of step with the trend toward indexation in the private sector. It is unfair to all those federal employees who have been paying extra contributions since 1973 so that their pensions would be fully indexed.
My colleagues and I plan to oppose the Bill with every tool at our disposal. A delay of the Bill is not good enough, however. The current situation creates uncertainty for federal employees which should be ended now.
I call on the Government to announce that it is abandoning its proposal to deindex federal employees' pensions and to consult with the Public Service unions so that the other parts of the Bill which would give civil servants direct input into the management of their pensions can be implemented quickly.
I urge my Conservative colleagues from the national capital region to stand up and to join the New Democrats to say publicly that Bill C-33 is a bad Bill and that the proposal to deindex federal employees' pensions should be scrapped.



TRIBUTE TO KOOTENAY WEST ATHLETES

Mr. Bob Brisco (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, I stand in the House to commend the people of Kootenay West, the home of champions.
In the past we have had many outstanding athletes from Trail, Rossland, Fruitvale, Nelson, and surrounding communities, each of them excelling to national and international sports fame.
Last Sunday, the City of Castlegar held the first Celebra-tiqn '88 activity in Kootenay West. An overwhelming number of people congregated for a torchlight parade and a special dinner which singled out the family of Canadian ski hero, Felix Belczyk. Felix, ironically, decided to make his own statement from Switzerland where, on the same day, he won the World Cup super giant slalom ski race.
I commend the Belczyk family and the Kootenay West community for the strong support given to local athletes. I thank the committees, athletes past and present, and the people of Kootenay West for making the Celebration '88 events a resounding success.
To Kootenay West-it is still our turn!
.



DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL HEALTH AND WELFARE


Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Mr. Speaker, Canadians can, in large part, be assured of the safety and effectiveness of drugs sold in Canada because of the good work of the Drugs Directorate of the Department of National Health and Welfare.
Last year approvals were issued for 640 prescription drugs, 1,700 non-prescription drug products, and about 150 veterinary drugs. The Canadian Drug Identification Code Book

January 29, 1988
contains information on the some 17,000 drug products sold in Canada.
In addition, the Directorate conducts programs to reduce the misuse and abuse of dangerous drugs, inspects drug manufacturing plants, and undertakes drug research.
Canadians are well served by the competent and professional public servants in the Drug Directorate.



ABORTION


[Stage Direction]
Mr. John Nun/iata (York South-Weston): Mr. Speaker, the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada yesterday reflects the polarized nature of the debate on abortion. The judgment was rendered with seven of the Justices sitting. It was a 5-2 decision. Of those who sat on the majority there were three separate sets of reasons for judgment.
The Minister of Justice (Mr. Hnatyshyn) has suggested that it is now up to the provincial legislatures to deal with the issue of abortion. In my respectful submission the Supreme Court of Canada made it clear that Parliament must act now to bring in legislation that will comply with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
I hope that the Government of Canada will assume the responsibility to ensure that whatever legislation is passed will comply with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is not fair to pass the issue off to the provincial Governments.
The Supreme Court of Canada made it very clear that Parliament does indeed have a role. For those who suggest that abortion should be totally unregulated, that is not the right course to take, in my view. I hope that the Minister of Justice and the Government of Canada will deal with this issue as soon as possible.


Ms. Pauline Jewett (New Westminster-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, it is the view of the New Democratic Party that the exact opposite should be the case to what the Hon. Member for York South-Weston (Mr. Nunziata) has just proclaimed.
In its historic decision yesterday, the Supreme Court of Canada made absolutely clear that the country's abortion law, Section 251 of the Criminal Code, is a violation of the life, liberty and security of the person guaranteed in Section 7 of the Charter.
The words of the Chief Justice could not be clearer. He stated:
Section 251 clearly interferes with a woman's physical and bodily integrity. Forcing a woman, by threat of criminal sanction, to carry a fetus to term unless she meets certain criteria unrelated to her own priorities and aspirations, is a profound interference with a woman's body and thus an infringement of security of the person.
In the words of Madam Justice Bertha Wilson:
Section 251 of the Criminal Code, which limits the pregnant woman's access to abortion, violates her right to life, liberty and security of the person within the meaning of Section 7 of the Charter-
The decision is clear. Let the Government not attempt to fudge it or circumvent it in any way, or try to limit this great victory achieved by the women of Canada.



POLITICAL PARTIES


Mr. Patrick Crofton (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Mr. Speaker, this weekend, in what promises to be a real Donnybrook, the New Democratic Party will review its defence policy, especially with respect to Canada's participation in NATO. Many Canadians will recall that the NDP released a defence policy paper this past summer reaffirming its policy of withdrawal from NATO. However, the unpopularity of this policy, as noted in the polls which the NDP so avidly read, has called for a review of the policy.
Canada now waits with bated breath for an answer. Will pragmatism win out over principle? Will New Democrats seek salvation through polls? Are we seeing the emergence of a new New Democratic Party? Or is it something more sinister?
Perhaps the NDP defence policy is all that stands between the long awaited NDP-Liberal coalition. Will members of the NDP in their unseemly haste to jump into bed with an already amorous Liberal Party shed their principles at the door? Will the fruits of this union be an Old Democratic Party or a New Liberal Party?
Stay tuned next week for the dramatic conclusion of this political Peyton Place.



CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION


Mr. Barry Turner (Ottawa-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, I have been in the House for three years and five months. I have always worked clearly and consistently on behalf of all my constituents on all matters. I have granted hundreds of interviews and have been treated fairly and professionally in most of them.
January 29, 1988

However, yesterday, the CBO radio Morning Show displayed a despicable, unfair, inaccurate contempt for my personal integrity and privacy. Because I politely refused more than once to grant an interview concerning the current status of Bill C-33, CBO Morning concluded that I did not know anything about the Bill. This is simply untrue.
On February 6, 1986, 1 arranged the first meeting ever between Ed Halayko, Chairman, Armed Forces Pensioner's Association, with the then President of the Treasury Board.
1 spoke on Public Service pension indexation in the Adjournment Motion of June 17, 1986. I met with Don Love and Lou Tenace from Treasury Board on January 17, 1987, to discuss Bill C-33.
In January, 1987, I received a long response concerning Bill C-33 from Pierre Gravelle, Associate Secretary, Treasury Board, and Jack McKinnon, President of ESSA.
In February, 1987, 1 received a response from the then President of the Treasury Board to my letter of January 14, 1987.
1 wrote Mr. Bernhardt, President of FSNA. I wrote Mr. Butt, President of the Air Traffic Control Association.
This CBO reference implying that I did not know anything about Bill C-33 is a disgusting display of incompetence, ignorance, and a total lack of journalistic integrity.



INDUSTRY


Sheila Maureen Copps: I guess we will fix that by fixing the CBC.
Mr. Speaker, 66 years ago today Firestone opened in my riding. This weekend Firestone will close. For the record, I wish to say that I think the Minister's handling of this issue has been incredibly incompetent, inept, and uncaring.
This week 1 received a letter from the Minister, who fled to France, refusing to deal with the dossier, and refusing to meet with individuals who had expressed an interest in buying the plant. The Minister sent me a letter in which he stated that he facilitated the payment of $400,000 odd in severance pay to the workers. Because of the Government's changes to the unemployment insurance legislation, and the fact that if people receive severance they do not receive unemployment insurance, that may work out to a paltry $9 per worker.
After sitting idly and doing nothing while 1,200 jobs in my riding disappear, the federal Government has the gall to brag about paying out a total sum of $9 to each of those workers. Many of those workers have 20, 25, and 30 years of service. It
seems to me that a Government that was prepared to pay over $6 million to an American company for training and retraining, another $6 million in duty remission for a total of more than $12 million, should be pathetically embarrassed by suggesting to the same workers in Hamilton, who have lived and supported our community, that they will receive $9.



CANADA POST CORPORATION


Rodney Edward Murphy: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Federal Court of Appeal rejected Canada Post's attempt to pretend that postal services should be under provincial jurisdiction. Yes, Mr. Speaker, 1 found the actions of Canada Post rather strange. Here we have a federal Crown corporation arguing that it is not federal. It took the Federal Court to inform Canada Post management of something that is obvious to Canadians. Postal services have always been the responsibility of the federal Government, and Canadians want that to continue.
Canada Post simply did not want to work under the laws as set out in the Canada Labour Code. Management at Canada Post do not want to accept the provisions of the Canada Labour Code when it interferes with their business plan. They do not want employees in franchise operations to be paid a living wage, or to give them the protection of a union contract.
Yesterday the Federal Court of Appeal refused to allow Canada Post to create an employment ghetto in the Post Office. Once again Canada Post's sacred business plan has been dealt a fatal blow. Again Canadian workers, especially women, are grateful that the Canada Labour Code does protect workers in this country.



ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS


Mr. Gabriel Fontaine (Levis):: Mr. Speaker, today 1 should like to commend the Ultramar Canada board members who, with their employees, associates and senior management, in cooperation with the Laval University research centre, made a breakthrough in environmental protection. Henceforth, wide open Fields where unrefined products used to be dumped will be a thing of the past. Congratulations to the Ultramar team, for in future they will be using this muddy substance in an industrial process called "pyrolysis".
My riding stands to benefit from private sector employment opportunities created by Ultramar Canada. Within two years

January 29, 1988
the company expects to build a plant in Saint-Romuald to recycle its products.
Through the free trade agreement my Government makes it possible for Ultramar to boost its sales on the American market. A stiff tax of 80 cents on each barrel of refined petroleum will be phased out over five years. This amount represents 4 per cent of refining costs.
Mr. Speaker, that is the outcome of co-operation between the private sector and this good Government.



STATUS OF WOMEN


Mrs. Mary Collins (Capilano):: Mr. Speaker, one of the important objectives of the Government has been to promote economic, social, and legal equality for the women of our country. Recent reports show that our policies are indeed working in promoting economic opportunities for the women of this country.
In only 40 months, 528,000 new jobs have been created and filled by Canadian women. Of greatest interest is that 55 per cent of those jobs have been in the managerial and professional sectors. Now, almost 30 per cent of the 5 million working Canadian women are employed in these high income sectors of our economy. Another exciting fact is that there has been a 42 per cent increase in the jobs for women in the natural sciences. Women are truly breaking down traditional barriers.
These figures show that the economic policies of this Government, low interest rates, less government interference, promotion of free trade, and encouragement of the small business sector, are working for the country as a whole, but in particular are ensuring a bright future for Canadian women.



EMPLOYMENT


Mr. Barry Moore (Pontiac-Gatineau-Labelle):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to emphasize today the importance for such ridings as Pontiac-Gatineau-Labelle of the Community Futures Program. This program is directed at peripheral communities which are faced with high unemployment.
The Federal Government has already allocated $600,000 to help the operation in my riding of local development assistance committees under its Canadian Job Strategy . Mr. Speaker, I
am pleased to indicate that within this framework, additional credits of over $312,000 have been allocated by Employment and Immigration Canada. The greater part of this amount will provide 30 unemployed people in my area with income support to help them develop their skills and become autonomous workers.
Through its involvement, our Government is helping workers become more efficient, which in the long run can only have positive results by making our region and Canada as a whole more competitive at the international level.



CANADA POST CORPORATION


Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard-Anjou):: Yesterday, Mr. Speaker, Canada Post has again demonstrated its arrogance and lack of consideration for ordinary citizens and their local representatives by announcing the closing of the Laval Post Office without giving advance notice to the mayor of Laval, the employees and unions.
Over the past few months, Mr. Speaker, we have seen Canada Post impose three day suspensions on employees who had forgotten to punch out and in before and after their lunch break. Instructions were issued warning Canada Post employees not to speak out openly against their employer.
Mr. Speaker, basic rights such as freedom of consultation are completely ignored by this Crown Corporation. I suggest the time has come for this Tory Government to assume its responsibility and instruct Canada Post Corporation to act as a good corporate citizen and respect the Canadian public.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Right Hon. John N. Turner (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question or two for the Minister of Justice.
1 know that the issue of abortion is an extremely difficult one for many Canadians. I remember well in the House of Commons, when 1 had the responsibility of bringing in the 1968 legislation, the agonizing and anguished debate that that provoked in the House of Commons and across Canada. I thought at the time that we had brought in a reasonable and, indeed, the best accommodation between two radically polarized views of the issue.
January 29, 1988

We now have the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I respect the Supreme Court of Canada, and I accept its decision striking down that law.
Yesterday and this morning the Minister implied that the issue is now up to the provinces. I do not agree. For instance, in the last 24 hours the actions of the British Columbia Government demonstrate to me how unfair it would be to slough off the issue to the provinces, because all Canadians must be treated fairly and only Parliament can decide the substance of the issue.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: As difficult as this issue is, can 1 have the assurance from the Minister of Justice that, while undoubtedly the provinces need to be consulted. Parliament and not the provinces will set the rules on how this matter will be dealt with on a national basis in the future, and that it will be dealt with in the very near future by Parliament?


Hon. Ray Hnatyshyn (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate very much the question from the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition. It is a serious issue, and one for which the Government takes its responsibilities very seriously.
As the Right Hon. Member well knows, the responsibility with respect to this matter in the criminal law section has been seriously impacted by the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on a constitutional basis. The status quo position has been rendered in effect unconstitutional.
My response has been that we do take this seriously. I am looking very carefully at the implication of the judgments constituting the majority as well as the minority decisions of the Supreme Court in order to distill the legal implications of this decision.
As far as our responsibilities are concerned, we intend to provide the leadership that is required on this issue. There is a substantial provincial involvement and implication in these issues in terms of their responsibility for the delivery of health services. Accordingly, it would be my intention to work in the interests of Canadians, who are now asking for advice with respect to today's situation, in a position of leadership with our provincial colleagues so we can have, and provide all Canadian citizens right across the country with a uniform approach. That is the commitment we make at this point in time. In addition, we will be dealing with this matter on an urgent basis.


CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS-GOVERNMENT POSITION
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, Parliament, as the Minister knows full well, has the power by using the non obstante clause to bring in legislation which overrides the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But I
Oral Questions
have said in this House, and I repeat, as Leader of the Liberal Party, that we will not agree to any such exclusion of the Charter as a solution to this problem.
Whatever anyone thinks of any Supreme Court of Canada decision, we should not undermine, in our view, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Can I have a guarantee from the Minister of Justice that his Government will rule out using the non obstante clause to get around the Supreme Court of Canada decision?


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, I think it is fair to say that the non obstante clause would only be used in extraordinary circumstances by any Government. I am not in a position to make a policy statement at this point. We are, of course, looking at the implications of the decision. All 1 say to the right hon. gentleman is that we are now in a new reality with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in Canada. We are now seeing in different cases, particularly in this instance, the impact that the Supreme Court of Canada rulings will have on the capacity and abilities of Parliament to deal in certain legislative areas.
What I can tell the right hon. gentleman is that I do not contemplate the use of the non obstante clause on the part of the Government with respect to this issue.


REQUEST FOR PARLIAMENTARY STUDY OF ALL ASPECTS OF HUMAN REPRODUCTION
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I repeat, I accept the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada which has struck down the legislation I had the honour of presenting in the House 20 years ago.
The Supreme Court has declared that Parliament retains the right to protect the fetus, at a given point. It is a question we have to consider. The Supreme Court is in fact obliging us to consider the whole issue of human reproduction in a far broader context, and we must deal with the implications of the Supreme Court's decision very soon.
Will the Minister of Justice immediately order a parliamentary study of all aspects of this very complex question, including artificial insemination, surrogate motherhood, in vitro fertilization and all the new technologies and the ethical issues as well? Is it not time that we, as parliamentarians, considered all these aspects?


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciate suggestions from the Opposition. It is clearly an idea which the right hon. gentleman puts forward that can be advanced by his House Leader with our House Leader and the House Leader of the New Democratic Party to examine the appropriate role of House of Commons committees.

January 29, 1988
Oral Questions
I can only say that these issues, as far as the Government and our Party are concerned, are under active consideration and scrutiny at the present time. My colleague, the Minister responsible for the Status of Women, has taken a particular leadership role in this area. There is an inter-departmental task force now carefully examining all these issues that have been discussed by the right hon. gentleman.
As I indicated in my first response to the right hon. gentleman, I think that in view of the circumstance we find ourselves in today, in light of the Supreme Court of Canada decision, that there is a responsibility on all of us to look at this matter in a serious and urgent way. We are prepared not only to give leadership in the areas that the hon. gentleman has indicated, but to try to work with the provinces in a co-operative way, as we have been able to do on so many issues, to get a consistent approach concerning the situation today.


CANADA ELECTIONS ACT
Hon. Bob Kaplan (York Centre):: Mr. Speaker, if there is an Acting Prime Minister in the House, 1 would like to address a question to her or to him relating to the Masse affair.
The Prime Minister yesterday, and in preceding days, had been telling us about the important responsibilities of the Elections Commission and offered an official of the Commission to answer questions to a parliamentary committee. But that commission and that process do not relieve the Prime Minister from the responsibility he has for the ethical standards of his Ministers. In his letter on the conflict of interest guidelines the Prime Minister said that he would not shirk his responsibility and there was nothing:
-which would relieve me and my colleagues of the necessity of exercising
judgment.
] want to ask about that judgment. What was the Prime Minister's judgment? What did he do when he saw in a letter from the elections official:
Proof in the dossier demonstrates that you participated in an infraction
against Section 62 of the Elections Act.
That was speaking about the Minister of Energy. What judgment was made by the Prime Minister pursuant to the conflict of interest guidelines, and what was the process when that statement came to his attention?


Hon. Flora MacDonald (Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, these questions have been raised over and over again this week. They have been answered.
I would like to mention one thing about Question Period. Something that Question Period does is to establish the priorities of a Party. Day after day we have seen opposition Members standing up and establishing their priorities. Those
priorities are not with employment, they are not with trade, and they are not with social programs. The opposition Parties have not raised these issues because they have no constructive proposals to put forward. That is why they keep raising this subject which has been referred to a committee.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, I think the highest priority of the Official Opposition and that of the Canadian people is to have a Government which they can trust.


CONFLICT OF INTEREST GUIDELINES
Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, what is the point of the conflict of interest guidelines? What do they mean if Ministers are held only accountable by the Criminal Code and only accountable by other standards that apply to the rest of the House of Commons and to the rest of Canadians? Why do we have conflict of interest guidelines, and what do they mean?


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, for some days we have been saying that this matter should be referred to a committee where the proper witnesses could appear and answer, in detail, the questions raised.
I may point out that when the Member talks about support and the way in which people look at Parties, surely he has to ask himself, why members of his own Party are now moving away from backing their Leader to backing someone else. Is it because there is a question of trust?


ABORTION
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Justice. The whole country saw and was impressed with the remarkable decision by the Supreme Court of Canada yesterday which clearly came down on the side of individual liberty and choice. Although the decision was clear, all its implications are by no means clear. Certainly given the statements that have already been made by some provincial Governments, there is some clear misunderstanding.
1 would ask the Minister of Justice if the Government is taking measures to make it abundantly clear, from British Columbia in the West to Newfoundland in the East, that the question of an abortion is now to be a matter of serious but free choice to be reached by a woman on her own, presumably after consultation with her physician.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Leader of the New Democratic Party has asked me to give assurances that
January 29, 1988

we will work with the provinces to try to make sure that the appropriate approach is taken in light of current realities. 1 have already reiterated that position on a number of occasions and have said that that would be our intention.
I think it is important, in light of the decision of the Supreme Court, that we do make sure that Canadians are best served within the federal and provincial jurisdictions. The question raised by the Leader of the New Democratic Party does bring attention to the fact that there is a substantial and significant provincial role in the delivery of health services. This is one of the reasons we are looking at the implications of the decision handed down by the Supreme Court of Canada, a decision which was not made by one person speaking on behalf of the court; rather, there were three different approaches which, 1 think the Lion. Member will agree, require careful consideration of the implications of the decision and precisely the state of the law in Canada today. That is what we are in the process of doing.
We are in fact very carefully reviewing the state of the law. 1 am in fact discussing this matter with my colleagues in Cabinet with respect to the response and different areas of responsibility. We will in fact be in communication with provincial authorities to try to bring a consistent and appropriate approach to this matter across Canada.


HOSPITALS-RETENTION OF THERAPEUTIC ABORTION COMMITTEES QUERIED
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, one aspect of the complex decision that was reached that is not complex and is clear is that the Supreme Court of Canada has said that the decision to be reached on the question of abortion is to be made not by some committee from which a woman must get approval but by the woman herself as a free citizen in a free country. Again, will the Minister make sure that all provincial Governments understand that that is so?
In relation to that, since there were some signs yesterday that some hospitals still planned to maintain therapeutic abortion committees, will the Government make it abundantly clear in light of this decision that the very existence of those committees is incompatible with the Supreme Court decision?


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, I can only say that the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada speaks for itself. This is now a matter of the law of Canada.
The fact is that the Supreme Court of Canada has addressed itself to the criminal law provisions concerning abortion. It has determined that those provisions are now unconstitutional. In the course of its decision, it goes on to reflect upon the basis of its decision and that takes a number of approaches, as the Hon. Member knows. It deals with the right of the woman in matters of abortion, and there is reference in a part of the decision to the right of the foetus, something which 1 think is important to consider as well. There is other litigation before the Supreme Court of Canada dealing specifically with that
Oral Questions
particular issue which is being conducted by a former New Democratic Party cabinet Minister, who will be heard by the court again specifically on that area of the question.
1 am saying to the Hon. Member that it is a complex issue in its legal implications. We want to make sure that everyone fully understands the legal implications and we intend to act in a way which is in the best interests of the Canadian public.


OPPORTUNITY FOR DISCUSSION WITH PROVINCES- GOVERNMENT POSITION
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, this is indeed a complex decision. Yesterday, the Hon. Member for Vancouver East asked some questions about this problem and she did not get a very clear answer. Today, my question for the Minister is this: Does the federal Government intend to discuss all the aspects of this decision immediately with the provincial governments in order to clearly establish what the law is in this area in all provinces?


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, without being facetious, 1 thought that the answer was clearer than the question. Yesterday I indicated that we certainly would be involved with discussions with our provincial counterparts.


John Edward Broadbent: Tout de suite?


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Tout de suite, absolument. I do not know how quickly we can act, if we can act more quickly than we are now acting. We are in the process of giving this matter the most serious consideration. As soon as the decision came down, I was immediately in contact with cabinet colleagues with different responsibilities in this area.
We take the matter seriously. It is a serious question. There are divergent points of view in Canada. One of the positions that must be considered is that we want to make sure that our actions are based on the strict and proper interpretation of the law, so I have been working very hard to make sure that a full understanding of this complex issue is had by all of us at the federal government level so that we may share our point of view with other jurisdictions which have responsibilities as well.


CANADA-UNITED STATES FREE TRADE AGREEMENT-ADJUSTMENT PROGRAMS FOR AFFECTED WORKERS
[Stage Direction]
Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine
East): Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Acting Prime Minister. Earlier this week, the Minister of State for Privatization said that special adjustment programs for workers and companies hurt by the Canada-U.S. Trade Agreement were
[Stage Direction]
January 29, 1988
Oral Questions
not necessary, but in response the Premier of Nova Scotia said that she was wrong. The Premier said that her statement does not in any way coincide with what the Prime Minister has said publicly and with what he said to the Premiers and what he said in a letter to the Premier of Nova Scotia.
Who is right? Will there or will there not be special adjustment programs for companies and workers hurt by the free trade agreement?
Hon. Barbara McDougall (Minister of State (Privatization and Regulatory Affairs)):: Mr. Speaker, what was said this week is entirely consistent with what has been said in the past. We have an employment program, the Canadian Jobs Strategy Program, which is highly flexible and has $1.6 million. It is highly flexible in meeting any labour adjustment needs in the community. We have said that we believe that program will be sufficient for those rare cases where there might be some adjustment arising from free trade, remembering that so many opportunities will come out of free trade that, as every independent study has shown, there will be more jobs.
What I said in my speech, what I said in the House, and what has been said many times is that if there is a need for something further, we will of course make sure that people do not get hurt. We have said that. We have also said that we have established an adjustment advisory committee that will make recommendations and tell us whether it thinks we need anything additional. Surely that is a perfectly reasonable approach.


FUNDING OF ADJUSTMENT PROGRAMS
[Stage Direction]
Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine
East): Mr. Speaker, the Premier of Nova Scotia does not think that it is a reasonable approach and he does not believe that that is what was told to him and to the other Premiers by the Prime Minister earlier this year. He thinks that special adjustment programs were promised, and, by the way, they were recommended by the Macdonald Commission and by many other commissions in this matter.
Is the Minister telling the House today that there will be no special adjustment programs for workers and companies and that we will have to rely upon the retraining programs that have been cut by 32 per cent since 1984, from $2.2 billion to $1.6 billion? Is she saying that that is all that will be available for Canadian workers and firms, contrary to what the Prime Minister promised the Premiers?
Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, when talking about funds being available, let me remind the Hon. Member that there are one million people working today who were not working when he and his friends left government office. The programs we established helped to meet the needs of Canadians in those circumstances. That is what we think Governments do, they develop programs that help people in changing circumstances. That is what we intend to continue to do.
We have a program that is working. We think it will apply to free trade where we expect adjustments will be small. We think there will be opportunities for people. If changes are required, then we will of course be considering them on the basis of the committee chaired by Mr. de Grandpre.


ABORTION
Ms. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Justice. As he must know, there are women across Canada waiting right now for an abortion. Some have been waiting for some time. They are confused about what to do now. As the Supreme Court said yesterday, every delay increases risk for these women.
How will the Minister make it very clear to women and their doctors that women no longer need to apply through a therapeutic abortion committee, and how will he make sure they have the alternate resources available?


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, 1 thank the Hon. Member for that question. I tried to indicate in the course of my responses to the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of her Party that this matter involves two jurisdictions. We have responsiblity for the Criminal Code, but there is a significant provincial jurisdiction with respect to the delivery of health services.
It seems to this Government that we would want to work with the provinces as soon as we can to determine the issues which have to be faced in this matter in order to have a thorough understanding that there will be a consistent approach across the country. This is the kind of approach the Canadian public want us to take.
The situation as it now stands is that the criminal law in this respect has been declared unconstitutional. We have to face that reality and we are prepared to give this matter serious attention, as 1 indicated to her Leader.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, is the Minister saying that a woman who is eight weeks pregnant now has to wait six months before the Governments get together and make some decisions? I was asking for some immediate communication to women and their doctors so that they know they have an alternative right now.


THERAPEUTIC ABORTION COMMITTEES
Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is directed to the same Minister. Will he reaffirm that the majority of the Supreme Court judges said
January 29, 1988

that therapeutic abortion committees caused unnecessary delays, were unfair and contrary to the Charter, and will he confirm that any province retaining this procedure is acting contrary to the Charter?


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, we take this matter seriously. We are acting expeditiously. I do not think it is the function of Question Period for me to be giving legal advice and interpreting a judgment for provincial authorities who have jurisdiction in certain areas. All I can tell the Hon. Member is that we believe we should work together with the provinces to make sure this matter can be resolved properly.
I am not here to dictate to any jurisdiction as to how they should carry out their own affairs. However, I think we can work co-operatively to make sure the best interests of Canadian women, the Canadian people at large, are looked after. I intend to work hard to do that.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Robert Hylton Brisco: Mr. Speaker, yesterday, in a speech to the Conference of Defence Associations, the NDP defence critic said that instead of Canadian submarines in the Canadian Arctic, the NDP would place detection devices under the ice-pack to detect intruding submarines. The data from these devices would be interpreted by Canadian Armed Forces in the North and then transmitted to the U.S.
My question to the Minister of National Defence is this. Is this policy consistent with Canada's obligations under NATO and NORAD, or is it simply an attempt by the NDP to hand over Canadian Arctic sovereignty to a foreign power, the U.S.A.?


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Hon. Perrin Beatty (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, there is a bit of noise in the room.
I will leave it to the NDP to sort out their policies without my assistance. I wish them the best of luck this weekend in trying to do so. We will all be watching with great interest.
The Government, in the White Paper, indicated it was our intention to put acoustic sensors under the Arctic ice. The difference between us and the NDP is that we want to have an enforcement capability. It is clear that someone's Navy is going to be in Canada's North. The real question that remains is whether Canada's Navy will be there, and we want Canada to have the capacity to go there.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
Oral Questions
[ Translation]


CANADA POST CORPORATION
Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, yesterday in a press release, Canada Post announced it was closing the Laval post office, leaving 200 employees uncertain as to their future. Canada Post has once again shown its arrogance and its lack of respect for the parties concerned.
Mr. Speaker, my question for the Minister responsible for the Canada Post Corporation is this: Why didn't Canada Post consult with the Mayor of Laval, the Member of Parliament for the area and the union? Why did Canada Post refuse to consider this reorganization as being caused by technological change and thus protect the jobs under Clause 29 of the Collective Agreement?


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, first, 1 understand that Canada Post did brief Members of Parliament from that area with respect to its plans. Its plans are very simple: to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the operations in the Montreal area, and to make use of excess capacity in the other two plants in that area. The changes will lead to a more efficient Post Office, and the employees will be looked after under the terms of their contract which provides for job security.
I do not understand why the Hon. Member keeps insisting that each and every change in the administration of the Post Office has to be brought before the House of Commons. This is ridiculous and contrary to the advice of his own colleague, the Hon. Member for Papineau, a former Postmaster General, who says it is precisely because of that kind of political interference that the Post Office is in the mess it is in today.


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, if the Minister responsible for Canada Post does not want to play his role, he should resign.


LOSS OF JOBS-TRANSFER OF EMPLOYEES
Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, the proposed change in the Montreal processing plants clearly indicates that after it is done there will be 181 jobs lost. Yesterday Canada Post said that all the employees will be transferred to the other plants. Which document is true, the press release or this document I have here which was given to the union yesterday? This is a Canada Post document. Could he tell us who is telling the truth here?


Harvie Andre: I am quite certain the Hon. Member is not.


Mr. Boudria:: You can't say that. Apologize.


Harvie Andre: Look who is asking for an apology, Mr. Speaker.


Don Boudria: You can laugh all you like. It is not funny.

Oral Questions


Mr. Speaker:: There are a lot of different ways to express ourselves here, but 1 would ask the Hon. Minister to make it clear that he was not calling the Hon. Member a liar.


Harvie Andre: I think that was quite clear but I will repeat it, Mr. Speaker. That was not what I said, which 1 think an examination of the "blues" will confirm.
The question of job security and change is well covered by the existing labour contracts. The security offered by the Post Office to its employees is superior to that offered by any business in Canada. There is no job in Canada outside the Post Office that has the same kind of security protection with respect to change. The Hon. Member is simply inaccurate, and it is not true to suggest that the employees are at risk.
The Post Office is trying to manage the Post Office and increase its efficiency so that the mail is delivered on time and at reasonable cost. I think we ought to allow it to carry on with that job.


PUBLIC SERVICE
John Barry Turner: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State for the Treasury Board. The federal Government's language teachers are in a legal strike position because of their disagreement with the Treasury Board and their willingness not to accept a conciliation report which would increase their teaching load from 20 hours to 25 hours per week in a 37.5 hour work week.
Can the Minister advise the House what the status is concerning these negotiations? Does he think a resolution will be reached to avert a strike?


Hon. Doug Lewis (Minister of State and Minister of State (Treasury Board)):: Mr. Speaker, the conciliation board report was a majority board report. It recommended the settlement that had been reached between the employees and employer in September. We are in agreement with the recommendation and would hope that we can settle on the basis of that report.


CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION
Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-Waikerville):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Communications who, in November, said: "It is not the role of Cabinet to make precise determinations as to which services should be
carried, how these are to be delivered and their cable interrelationships." These are "the domain of our broadcast regulator."
This is a clear and unequivocal statement of principle that the Minister should be proud to have uttered. Would the Minister not, therefore, agree that the Cabinet decision with respect to the CBC news service, which she has since been in the process of carrying out, is a flat contradiction of that principle? Should she not, as a matter of integrity, resign?


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, you will note that at the end of the week I am still here.
With regard to the decisions that were announced by the CRTC in November, the licence takes effect as of September 1, 1988. Any legally binding decision that the Government of Canada would make on any of the appeals would have to be announced in that period.
However, 1 did state some of the concerns which the Government has with the all-news TV channel. One of them concerned the fact that the all-news channel was to be solely in the English language. What do you, Sir, and members of the Opposition think the response would have been in the rest of the country if the announcement of a new channel had been that it would be solely in the French language? I do not really believe that would have been acceptable.
We are signaling to the CBC that we want any service to be available in both languages in the sense that one should take initiatives in the two languages of this country because, first and foremost, we are a bilingual country.


GOVERNMENT POSITION
Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, that is a nice ex post facto and political rationalization for an action already established as the thrust of the Government from the back-benches of the Government. The fact is that the Minister gave clear directives and orders to the CBC as to what it should do between now and September 1. The Government has established its own parliamentary news service. It has prepackaged news coming from southern Africa and the Government has now taken this action with respect to the CRTC decision.
Is it that the Government is concerned about the kind of message that Canadians are getting, the kind of image projected by the Government? Are we seeing the first insidious steps toward the establishment of government control over the news?


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I am very sorry to see that the members of the New Democratic Party do not attach the same importance to service in the French language as we do. I think that is regrettable.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!
\
January 29, 1988


Flora Isabel MacDonald: That is exactly what the Hon. Member is saying. He is saying that if you signal to the CBC or anyone else in the broadcasting system that you expect services to be available in both our official languages, somehow or other that is interference. It is the policy of this Government that we have services available, particularly from Crown corporations, in both our official languages.


INDUSTRY
Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister responsible I would like to ask any Minister who is interested in the city of Hamilton to answer a question relating to the Firestone plant.
The Minister will know that this weekend the first victims of the Mulroney-Reagan trade deal are the 1,200 workers at the Firestone plant in Hamilton who will lose their jobs. You will remember quite clearly, Mr. Speaker, that negotiations for the sale of the plant broke off a day after the preliminary agreement was signed because the company that had expressed an interest knew quite well that without duty on tires there was no need to establish a tire plant in Canada. That is the reality.
We heard the Minister who was talking about an adjustment program this morning say that a committee has been set up. Can that Minister explain to the House why, in the case of the Firestone workers, the total federal contribution, over and above what is available in terms of any employment strategy, is potentially approximately $9 per worker?
Is that the kind of assessment and readjustment program that we can expect from the Government for workers across the country who will lose their jobs as a result of the Mulroney-Reagan trade deal? Is the Government's answer a $9 solution?


Hon. Bernard Valcourt (Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism) and Minister of State (Indian Affairs and Northern Development)):: Mr. Speaker, it is most unfair and an insult to the workers of the Firestone plant for the Member to attribute the decision of the company to the free trade agreement. It has no relation whatsoever to the free trade agreement and the Member knows that.
She also knows that the Minister of DRIE has, by his intervention, brought together a potential purchaser and the company. They have had discussions, and unfortunately no deal has been made. We know that another potential buyer has indicated willingness. We have indicated to the company, the workers, and any potential purchasers that the Government is quite willing, should the private companies which are talking reach a deal, to be helpful. That has been the position of the Government and still is.
Oral Questions


PROSPECTIVE PURCHASERS OF PLANT-MINISTER'S POSITION
Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, that is not the position of the Government as expressed to me in a letter which was delivered to my office this week after the Minister conveniently escaped on his trip to France. In fact this Minister has refused to meet with prospective purchasers of the plant. There is more than one party interested in purchasing this plant. Even I, in the Opposition, know of two prospective buyers.
Why does the Minister not know? Why is the Minister refusing to meet with prospective purchasers of the Hamilton Firestone plant when he knows that he has the responsibility to try to help save 1,200 jobs in Hamilton? Why was he prepared to give over $6 million to an American company and yet give Canadian workers $9 and say good-bye?


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, one of the main reasons that the Minister would not meet with a potential purchaser is because he has no plant to sell. The Minister has indicated that if the company which has announced that it will close the plant can reach a deal with any company and has a business proposal to do so, he would consider it. That has been the position, and the Member knows that.
It is nice to try to score cheap political points in the House on the backs of workers who are losing their jobs.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Don't talk to me about cheap political points.


Bernard Valcourt: Maybe it looks good for her to do that, but the workers know better than that.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Don't talk about my record on this dossier which is a hell of a lot better than yours.


Bernard Valcourt: If a solution to this problem is to be found it will be found by the company with somebody in the private sector.


Sheila Maureen Copps: That's a farce.


GENERAL AGREEMENT ON TARIFFS AND TRADE
Mr. Jim Manly (Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. At the GATT meeting in Geneva next week, Canada will try to get a postponement of the final GATT decision on restrictions on Canadian exports of unprocessed pink or sockeye salmon or herring. I understand that the United States is being very obstructionist in this attempt.

January 29, 1988
Oral Questions
The following week in Washington there will be an attempt to have bilateral talks to reach a mutually satisfactory solution to this problem. Will the Minister assure representatives of the West Coast fisheries industry that they will be able to participate in the negotiating team, either as full members of the team or at least to be present in the room as official observers?


Hon. Thomas Siddon (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Mr. Speaker, this is a most important question. 1 can assure the Hon. Member, as 1 and my colleague, the Minister for International Trade, assured industry representatives in the month of December, that they will be fully involved in the development of Canada's response and our course of action as a result of the GATT panel recommendation.
There is no imminent timetable. Canada will not agree to a decision being taken at the meeting in Geneva next week and we are seeking, through multinational approaches to other members of the GATT council who have similar concerns, a remedy of this issue which would prevent the council taking a decision that is detrimental to Canada's interest. We continue to work with the American industry and Government. We are somewhat optimistic that a bilateral solution to the problem might well be found through the meetings to which the Hon. Member referred.


REQUEST THAT INDUSTRY REPRESENTATIVES BE PRESENT AT CANADA-UNITED STATES TALKS
James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, can the Minister assure representatives of the fishing industry that in any bilateral talks with the United States their representatives will be present in the room either as participants in the negotiating team or as full observers? Will they be present in the room?


Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, I think the Hon. Member knows that in international bilateral discussions of this nature the two parties concerned enter the room but they are not accompanied by representatives of industry, and 1 understand that will be the case. Nevertheless, the representatives of the industry, as in other important bilateral issues, will be fully consulted and taken into confidence in terms of the strategy with which Canada approaches these questions. Their objectives will be fully pursued by the Government of Canada.


Mr. Speaker:: I want to advise the House that, given the hour, there will be three single questions. The Hon. Member for Mount Royal, on a single question.


CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION
Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Mr. Speaker, 1 will try to synthesize my questions into one. My question is directed to the Minister of Communications. In her explanation for delaying the CBC's planning on an all-news channel, the Minister asked the CBC to have a shotgun wedding. If the CBC consummates that marriage with a private sector partner, it will be changing the terms of the "contract", the decision of the CRTC.
The Minister also said that she is concerned about making that much needed service bilingual, with which we would all agree. I am sorry that she did not say that on time.
Is the Minister aware that the CBC proposal was for a nonprofit service and that a partnership with the private sector now implies a partnership with a profit motive? Therefore, if you are going to change the service-


Some Hon. Members:: Order!


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the Minister can respond to the question at least as far as it has gone. Given the hour, I do not think I can let the Hon. Member go on any longer.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, as I pointed out before, we thought that in this period of time it would be both fair and appropriate to advise the CBC of the concerns we had about the present proposal.
I may say that when the Hon. Member raises the question of what she calls a shotgun marriage between the public and private sectors, this was the route that the CBC had gone in the first place. That was its first intention, so it is not something that comes as a great surprise to anyone but the Hon. Member.

Mr. Speaker, we believe we should have both French and an English all-news channel.


FORMATION OF UNITED STATES LOBBY TO DEMAND CANADA LOWER ITS PLYWOOD CONSTRUCTION AND IMPORT STANDARDS-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Mr. John Parry (Kenora-Rainy River):: Mr. Speaker, my question concerns international trade. Considering that a lobby has been formed in the United States to demand that we lower our plywood construction and import standards, the purpose being obviously to penetrate our domestic markets and take over our international markets, what does the Government intend to do against an attack that is contrary to the spirit of the trade agreement which is the Government's pride and joy?
January 29, 1988


Hon.   Gerald. S. Merrithew@Minister of State (Forestry and Mines: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister for International Trade, I will try to respond. There is no question that the American producers have been annoyed and feel that Canada's standards with regard to plywood, particularly plywood used by CMHC in housing construction, are basically a non-tariff barrier to their entrance to our market.
We are very much aware of that. Even through the CCFM, Canadian Council of Forest Ministers, we have been dealing with the standards issue. We do not share the view of the American producers. The issue is under consideration now by CMHC and a decision will be rendered forthwith.
Tabling of Documents



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 106(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the Government's response to petitions, Nos. 332-3515 to 332-3517 inclusive, 332-3535 and 332-3536.
*
* *



CORRECTIONAL SERVICE


Mr. John Nunziata (York South-Weston):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Acting Solicitor General. Will he indicate to the House the reasons why Deputy Commissioner of Corrections, Mr. Gordon Pinder, resigned? If the Acting Solicitor General is unaware of the circumstances leading to Mr. Pinder's resignation, will he undertake to obtain the information and inform the House?


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Yes, Mr. Speaker.


PRIVILEGE
Sheila Finestone: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. Yesterday I made a comment that upset the Minister of Communications (Miss MacDonald) and other Members of this Chamber, which I certainly never meant to do. I have a sincere and profound respect for all Members of the House who make an effort to improve and increase their knowledge and competence in every area of our endeavours.
My remarks were never meant in any derogatory way and I hope all Members will accept my apology.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the Hon. Member for Mount Royal (Mrs. Finestone). I agree, and further more, Mr. Speaker, I regret that I am not perfectly bilingual, but I am still working on it.


FINANCE AND ECONOMIC AFFAIRS
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions between the Parties. I think you will find there is unanimous consent for the following motions to be placed immediately.
I move:
That, further to the Order of December 18, 1987, respecting travel by the
Standing Committee on Finance, the dates for travel be from February 14, to
February 23, 1988.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Does the Hon. Minister of State have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


WAYS AND MEANS
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: That, notwithstanding any standing or special order of the House, at 4.30 p.m. on Wednesday, February 10, 1988, the Speaker shall interrupt any proceedings then underway and proceed forthwith to the consideration of Ways and Means Proceedings No. 29 for the purpose of the budget statement of the Minister of Finance;
And that the House shall not adjourn until the adjournment of the debate on Ways and Means Proceedings No. 29, following which Mr. Speaker shall adjourn the House until the next sitting day.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Does the Hon. Minister of State have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?

January 29, 1988
Order Paper Questions


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Douglas Grinslade Lewis: That this House authorize the Clerk and the research officer of the Standing Committee on Government Operations to travel to Washington from February 2 to 4, 1988. inclusive, for the purpose of participating in the briefing sessions on the United States Postal Service.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Does the Hon. Minister of State have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Douglas Grinslade Lewis: That a special committee of the House of Commons be appointed to examine and report on the Central American Peace Process, with particular reference to the following:
a)	Note and analyze the compliance or non-compliance of the five countries to the specific provisions of the Esquipulas II Agreement.
b)	Take into account the particular geo-political and other factors which bear upon each country's compliance with the provisions of Esquipulas 11;
c)	Examine the process and prospects for settlement of military insurgencies which lie outside the specific scope of the Esquipulas II terms;
d)	Against the background of the above, examine and make proposals with respect to the means by which Canada could play a constructive role in the peace process through assistance in the design and possibly implementation of verification and control mechanisms or through other confidence-building measures which could help to sustain the momentum of the peace process over a longer period;
e)	Draw opinions from witnesses representing the Canadian community including academics, and non-governmental organizations, from Government Departments including National Defence, External Affairs and Cl DA,
from abroad and from the resident diplomatic community, and where desirable, from our Canadian missions in the area;
That five Members of the House of Commons, to be designated by the House at a later date, be members of the committee;
That, additionally, the committee have the power to examine and enquire into all such matters as may be subsequently referred to it by the House, to report from time to time, except when the House otherwise orders, to send for persons, papers and records, to sit while the House is sitting, to sit during periods when the House stands adjourned, to print from day to day such papers and evidence as may be ordered by the committee; to delegate to subcommittees all or any of its powers except the power to report directly to the House;
That the committee have the power to retain the services of expert, professional, technical and clerical staff as may be deemed necessary;
That the committee and members of the committee have the power, when the committee deems it necessary, to adjourn or travel from place to place inside and outside Canada and that, when deemed necessary, the required staff accompany the committee, or members of the committee, as the case may be;
That the committee be authorized to repay, from its budget, expenditures undertaken by the committees and Private Legislation Branch to expedite the study of the committee's mandate;
That substitutions to the membership of the committee may be made from time to time at the discretion of the chief whip of each Party; and
That, notwithstanding the usual practices of this House, if the House is not sitting when an interim or final report of the committee is completed, the committee shall report its findings by depositing its report with the Clerk of the House of Commons, which report shall be thereupon deemed to have been laid upon the table.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Does the Hon. Minister of State have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk)
Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: I would ask that all questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Shall all questions stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. January 29, 1988

Speaker, I would ask that you call starred Question No. 242. We have a response prepared.


Mr. Heap: Has the Government ever agreed, either formally or informally, to permit advance Cruise missile related testing in Canada and, if so, in each case (a) what, in detail, is the nature of the testing (b) what is the date of the agreement (c) what are the dates of any tests or proposed tests?


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: No.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Bouchard in relation to the amendments made by the Senate to Bill C-84, an Act to amend the Immigration Act, 1976 and the Criminal Code in consequence thereof, and on the amendment of Mr. Marchi (p. 12340).
Sheila Finestone: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak on this Bill, but I am somewhat saddened that it is back here for ongoing debate. I would have hoped, along with our colleagues around this room who have an open heart and open mind, and along with the other place, which carefully studied this Bill that was sent to them under emergency circumstances last August, that we would have settled the whole issue and would now be in a position to move forward with respect to refugees who are leaving the lands of their birth and seeking asylum in other countries, certainly not always from their own choice. To become a refugee and to have to leave one's home country is no easy decision. They certainly are coming from places of turmoil.
I would like to point out that we were called back during a summer recess to deal with this Bill as an emergency situation because some boats landed off the coast of Nova Scotia. I would suggest that some people were very traumatized at what looked like an invasion by some one hundred and seventy some souls.
We had been calling on the Government of Canada for nearly three years to bring in comprehensive refugee legislation which would be seen as fair, expeditious and which would assist in the curbing of abuse to the system. There was no question that there was a need to curb the abuse which was taking place.
The Government had the good fortune to receive the wise counsel of Rabbi Plaut, who tabled the Plaut report. It had the wise counsel of a standing committee of this House which studied at great length complicated and heart-wrenching
Immigration Act, 1976
concerns and considerations which face refugees. When it brought this regressive and repressive Bill into the House it heard some very enlightened observations and some very concrete suggestions of ways to improve the thrust of this Bill to ensure that it would not be in contravention of international law and that it would not be in contravention of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
We also heard from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and I will come back to that in a moment. We thought the Government would have welcomed all this wise counsel and would have adjusted the Bill, accepting the amendments which were put forth under great duress because there was not the kind of consultation we would have liked. In light of the fact the Government saw this as an acute emergency, the amendments were brought forward. Yet the Government did not accept those amendments. It pushed the Bill through the House with its massive majority. Fortunately, collectively in that other place, the Senators found reason to correct this Bill. They found reasons to make very strong recommendations for change. They unanimously agreed to send 18 recommendations back to this House, 18 amendments on a Bill that has been hanging around under a supposed emergency state since last August. The Minister saw fit to accept only four of those amendments which, in a sense, were for clarification or with respect to language. However, he rejected the others, the major ones. I gather that there were four language amendments and three other small corrections which were made to the Bill. When it came to the major recommendations we did not see any forward movement on the part of the Government irrespective of the careful and thoughtful consideration that had been given to the legislation in the other place.
The areas of the Bill which deal with its heart and soul, that were refused consideration by the Government, were those which addressed the powers of authority to detain identified refugee claimants for long periods without review. The second area was the right to turn ships back at sea if suspected of carrying illegal aliens. The third was with respect to the right to prosecute anyone, including church groups, who might be found to have helped claimants who did not seemingly have valid visas or valid passports.
Let us consider in what areas the Government chose not to accept the major recommendations. The first area which strikes me as being horrendous is the following. If we cast our minds back to ships being turned back at sea we could consider the Vietnamese boat people and the sight of people floating unprotected on waters. I cannot believe that the Minister did not take the counsel that was given to him on four occasions. He chose to ignore that counsel.
I have in my hand a letter sent by Mr. Jean-Pierre Hocke, the United Nation's High Commissioner for Refugees. The letter is from Geneva and dated August 12, 1987. The letter is addressed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. COMMONS DEBATES
January 29, 1988
Immigration Act, 1976
Clark) and the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Bouchard). It states:
I have the honour to refer to an amendment to the Immigration Act 1976 (Bill C-84) which the Government of Canada has most recently tabled in Parliament. My Office fully understand the Canadian Government's preoccupation regarding abuses of procedures for the determination of refugees status and related problems. Certain provisions of the proposed legislation, however, give rise to serious concern in as much as lack of procedural safeguards could risk exposing bona fide asylum seekers and refugees to forcible return to territories where their lives or freedom would be threatened (refoulement).
That has been described and explained as refoulement.
This pertains in particular to Clause No. 8 of the Bill introducing a new Section 91.1 in the Act relating to the authority to direct ships to leave or not to enter the internal waters of Canada or the territorial sea of Canada, apparently without examination of passengers' status. The principle of non-refloulement to which Canada fully adheres as a party to the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol there to enjoins any action on the part of states which may result in refoulement.
The same principle requires the adoption of appropriate procedures to ensure observance with guarantees, no less effective than those available, to persons claiming refugee status in Canada. The adoption of such procedures would be consistent with the contents of Clause 1 Sections 2.1 (A) and (D) of the Bill which state-"to preserve for persons in genuine need of protection access to the procedures for determining refugee claims" and "-the fulfilment of Canada's obligations in respect of internationally protected persons".
The letter goes on to state:
As you are no doubt aware the situations now being faced are not unique to Canada. Institution of the procedural safeguards referred to above would serve as an important example to the international community and help preserve the principle of asylum throughout the world.
In light of these considerations I am confident that all persons who seek Canada's protection will be afforded adequate procedural safeguards against refoulement and that these will be incorporated in the operative part of the Bill in question.
While these are my Office's initial reactions to the proposed legislation, my Representative in Ottawa may convey further comments on these and related important issues.
Please accept the assurances of my highest consideration. Jean-Pierre Hocke, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
I find it quite astonishing that with the remarks and the concerns brought to the attention of all by the High Commissioner and by Rabbi Plaut, reinforced by representations and presentations, that the Minister still stubbornly refuses to change that clause in Bill C-84. It would seem that the Government has truly not reflected. If it has reflected, and it has come to some very poor conclusions. It is beyond me how the Minister could not understand and accept that particular amendment. It is abhorrent to think that this would not be considered vital. To turn a boat back without knowing whether or not there are true refugees on board is inappropriate action. It is not what exists in the hearts and souls of most Members of the House of Commons.
How do we know who is on board? How do we know if they are really in need or not? How do we know from where they are really coming? How do we know their ages? How do we know the state of their health? How do we know the state of the boat? The unknown is a big variable in the consideration of
this matter, something which the Government has simply not addressed in this Bill.
I suggest that a more intelligent approach would be to have sent out messages that we have no patience for people who deal in human flesh. We have no patience for people who will not respect the lives and the rights of individuals. We have no respect for smugglers and for people who are taking advantage of those in need. Those are the types of messages we want to get across. That is what Canadians would have said while saying, "We are open to accepting and understanding the plight of the refugee".
I would now like to deal with the question of fairness. Perhaps the Government does not think that fairness and equal treatment across the land is something that Canadians want. I think the Government has misjudged in that respect. People arriving on boats as legitimate refugees will be turned around in Canadian waters or outside our waters. I do not know how we will force these boats to turn around. I guess we will pull out our big guns, or perhaps our nuclear submarines will force them to turn around and go the other way. This will force, without much knowledge, the return of people to lord knows where. It will put them in jeopardy and danger.
However, if people in similar circumstances are lucky enough to board a plane and land at one of our airports then they will be given refugee status. They will be given some form of decent treatment. At least someone will look at their papers and do some checking. If they come by boat, they receive different treatment. I do not think that that is correct. That is not the type of system we want. We do not want a two-class, two-category system. In Canada there is one category and one class. The laws are the same for everyone, and everyone should be treated equally.
How do we discourage smugglers, ship captains, and owners of the boats? The manner in which to do that is to pull the boats into safe harbour, check and verify the condition of the passengers and find out if they are refugees, but at the same time take the captain of that boat, fine him, put him in jail, put him on trial, and confiscate the right to that boat. I guarantee in no short order the message will get out across the land and across the sea, "Don't go to Canada that way. You will be escorted directly to jail. Do not pass go. You are not going to collect 200 bucks", for those of you who know the old Monopoly rules. "The rules of the game in Canada are that you cannot bring people into this land by boat and be expected to be treated as a hero, or go free and turn around in order that your next friend can try to do the same thing and dump human cargo so that they are floating out in the sea, or they walk into a strange place, or they run away in fear".
That is not the way people are integrated into this society. Canada has been built with refugees. Often as I drive down the road in my particular riding I think of the Vietnamese boat people, and how proud I was to be among those citizens who
January 29, 1988

sponsored a family and helped bring them to this country and saw to their establishment. I now know many of those children and see how marvelously they have adapted to this land, and how beautifully they have enriched our landscape by the tapestry that they have helped to weave to strengthen this country. They have been entrepreneurs and have brought economic prosperity to this country. More than 100,000 Vietnamese boat people came to this land. Other refugee movements have been given safe harbour in this country, for example, Polish, Hungarian, Czechoslovakian, and Sri Lanka.
Now we have two types of laws for how someone gets to this country, and two types of circumstances under which someone is considered as a refugee. That is thoroughly unacceptable. 1 find it unbelievable that the Minister was not prepared to change that aspect of the Bill.
The second aspect of the Bill that 1 find mind-boggling is that any group that enables, helps, guides, or counsels refugees, particularly those who might be here without valid visas or passports, will be prosecuted. I do not know where the Minister thinks these people who run away from persecution and possible death might go to pick up this valid paper. Do they say, "Just a minute, don't shoot me. I have to go and talk to the embassy and see if they will give me a piece of paper so I can be validated. Wait until I go and check my health. Wait until I have some tests". What type of crazy world does the Minister think we are living in? This is absolute hypocrisy.
We are either a country of receipt that is open to refugees who seek safe haven on our shores, or we are not. Certainly many of those refugees will not have valid papers at the time that they arrive. That does not mean that we do not want to get validation, or do proper checking. Certainly we do. There is a procedure and a manner in which to do that without misusing the force of the Government and misrepresenting the will of the Canadian people.
The question of the smugglers and how they should be treated, the question of turning back the boats, the question of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and his perspective, the question of documentation and how the lack of documentation should be handled, and how we can overcome the fact that it is no luxury to wait weeks and months for proper visas, are the types of questions that I strongly recommend that the House, through the Minister, re-evaluate, and please make the needed changes that have been so carefully considered by the other place, and accept those major changes to the unacceptable clauses in the Bill. That would certainly stand Canada well for itself, and for its best instincts.


James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the Hon. Member for her speech. 1 wish to ask her about the relationship of Bill C-84 to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, particularly in light of the court decision yesterday that reaffirmed the primacy of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and of the obligation upon the House of Commons to ensure that legislation that is passed is in accordance with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Immigration Act, 1976
I wish to read a couple of statements that were included in the Senate report. In Reference re Education Act of Ontario and Minority Language Education Rights (1984), the Ontario Court of Appeal wrote:
The judiciary is not the sole guardian of. the constitutional rights of Canadians. Parliament and the provincial Legislatures are equally responsible to ensure that the rights conferred by the Charter are upheld.
The report also cites Mr. Justice Dickson writing for the Supreme Court of Canada in Hunter v. Southam who stated:
it is the legislature's responsibility to enact legislation that embodies appropriate safeguards to comply with the Constitution's requirements. It shall not fall to the courts to fill in the details that will render legislative lacunae constitutional.
Would the Hon. Member care to comment on those statements from the bench in light of her concerns on Bill C-84?


Sheila Finestone: Mr. Speaker, there is no question that my hon. colleague has made some very constructive observations. I hope that the Minister is watching his television set since he is unable to be with us at this particular moment.
It would seem that there is contravention of the Charter. Fair warning has been given to the House that as soon as this Bill is passed it is liable to be challenged by lawyers and taken to the courts. This means that we will be left with no legislation that will be in action and will answer the responsible needs to address a very serious issue that we have been talking about since 1983. It is now 1988. The Minister has been made aware that this Bill has legal holes in it. He is perpetrating a very serious error on this House, and prolonging responsible action and a responsible measure that will enable us to be effective in curbing abuse and in the receipt of legitimate refugees.


Mr. Heap:: Mr. Speaker, I commend the Hon. Member on her very direct and well-founded remarks on the subject of Bill C-84. I was particularly pleased to hear her remind Parliament of the communication from Jean-Pierre Hocke, the High Commissioner for Refugees and other matters relating to his communication.
One matter that has been rather understandably overlooked at times during the last year of debate around refugees, and the last half year debate around this Bill, is what effect this Bill and its companion Bill might have on other countries, directly or indirectly.
To the extent this Bill proposes a turning away of ships with the assumption that the ships will go somewhere other than Canada and their passengers will go somewhere other than Canada, the actions Canada takes obviously will have a very important effect on other countries in their treatment of refugees. In the past Canada has been considered a leader, acting on the executive of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, funding the work with voluntary contributions, setting a high standard and even preaching those high standards to certain other countries.

January 29, 1988
Immigration Act, 1976
Would the Hon. Member comment on what she thinks may be the international effect, not only in Europe where some of these people might have embarked, but also in southern Asia, the Indian Ocean or the South Pacific if Bill C-84 is adopted with this provision for turning people away who may be refugees?


Sheila Finestone: Mr. Speaker, it sends the wrong kind of a message. I am very pleased to hear the question from the very knowledgeable Member and colleague. Certainly he is well regarded in the international field and understands the implications of the kinds of messages that get sent out. This is not even a subliminal message. It is a loud, restrictive measure. Canada is seen internationally in much better light than we see ourselves. All you have to do is go to international meetings to see the high regard in which Canada is held. We are a role model in many ways. Our care, concern and compassion have been highly regarded and we have received international awards.
What is the message, Mr. Speaker? The message out there is that Canada has changed and is turning to a right wing narrow-minded perspective. Some of the right wing tendencies are now impacting on our standards in Canada. I think the Government is misreading the population. Over one-third of us are new Canadians and over one-third of us have built this land. We are all very proud of this extremely dynamic multicultural society. I suggest that what the Government did was wrong.
The Government has to explain its message and differentiate between the Bill on immigration, Bill C-55 and the Bill on refugees, Bill C-84. It has to make the population meet its own highest expectations, namely, to receive people well, to welcome them and to educate them that Canada is respectful to all peoples of this world when they arrive on our shores. We need to set the standards. This Bill does quite the contrary. It sends the wrong message, whether it is to southeastern Asia, middle Europe, South Africa or South America.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, it is my strongly held view that legislation is necessary to sort out bogus claimants from true refugees. It is the Opposition in this House who filibuster and who must bear the responsibility for the continuation of a situation in Canada where our security is at risk because legislation is inadequate to protect us. That is what Bill C-84 is all about. The Opposition must bear the responsibility for the filibuster, which is gradually eroding the generosity, the will and the commitment of Canadians to true refugees.
What has been brought forward to this Parliament, beginning last May, in legislative form is the required set of tools necessary to protect the security of the country and to continue in positive ways our reputation internationally in positive ways regarding what we do for refugees and immigrants. Every single day of continuation of this kind of filibuster is another little drop of water on the Canadian psyche and its willingness to be supportive of true refugees.
There is no question in international terms about the willingness of western countries generally, and Canada is part of that, to continue to be protective of true refugees. But that protection is at risk in a democracy because of the abuses to the system. Without the passage of legislation that allows us to sort out the abusers from the true refugees, we are helpless. The rest of the world is looking to Canada to provide leadership in the sorting task. Our Government is doing that.
I now have two questions for the Hon. Member. Does she and does her Party want to continue to be part of a filibuster which erodes that spirit about which she talks so much? If she thinks this legislation is so atrocious in its protection of true refugees, can she-her colleague could not earlier this day- name one country in the whole world where a refugee claimant will have a better sense of legal protection and help than will be true of Canada once we have the new Bill in place? I ask the Member to name me one country where a refugee claimant will have better protection than Canada. I challenge her to do that.


Sheila Finestone: Mr. Speaker, with respect to the filibuster, there is nothing like being aggressive when you are wrong. 1 find it surprising that the Hon. Member with his legal talents, and who I respect, would suggest that. What we are doing here today is trying to say, for goodness sake we need this legislation. We need to sort out the abuses and we need to be able to protect the refugees. For goodness sake, stop allowing this kind of a Bill to go through without the needed amendments because it will get hung up in the courts. We will be no farther ahead than we were before. This reference to filibuster should end. It is not a filibuster, it is the proper and appropriate role of the Official Opposition and every Member of this House to speak out when they think an error has been made that will create a change or a different direction than what one supposes is the will of the Government, unless that is not the will of the Government. Don't try to tag us with filibuster when an error has been made in either the timing, the scheduling or the content of a particular clause in a Bill. That is unfair and I call it dirty pool.
Second, the legislation is inadequate. That is what we have said, so fix it. It is not something that is not wrong so you don't need to fix it. It is wrong, fix it; it is broken.
I cited quite particularly for the Hon. Member and read into the record the letter from the United Nations High Commissioner to put the Member on guard and to remind him that we have signed conventions and international documents. We are not living up to those documents and there is concern at the United Nations. I do not have to prove to the Member, and 1 would not care if there was not another place on this whole earth-


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: There isn't.


Sheila Finestone: -in this international village, it does not matter. What is important is what he does as a Canadian and what I do as a Canadian. I am not comparing Canada to any
January 29, 1988

other place in this world because this is the best place in which to live. This is where we do live. This is where we want it to be right to live. Don't ask me to give odious comparisons. They are not relevant to the issue.


James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to make a few comments on Bill C-84. 1 listened to the Parliamentary Secretary attack the Opposition for what he called a filibuster. 1 do not accept that. We are dealing with legislation that is fundamentally flawed, legislation which the churches, the Canadian Bar Association and every single witness who appeared before the Senate committee, except government witnesses, indicated was fundamentally flawed and needed many changes. The Parliamentary Secretary has said that the Opposition is responsible for a filibuster, but we are doing our duty by trying to expose the flaws in this Bill. I think that is fundamentally wrong on his part.
I appreciate having this chance to make one last appeal to the Government to adopt a reasoned and humane policy toward refugees in Canada rather than to turn its back on those people. What we need now from the Government is leadership. Instead, it is creating fear and panic and then pandering to the very fear and panic the Government itself has created. We want a policy that is in accordance with our own Charter Rights and a policy that is in accordance with our international commitments.
A little over a year ago, we received from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees the Nansen award. That award did not go to the Canadian Government, it went to the Canadian people because of their attitude toward refugees. We have a good record and that good record was evidenced last summer when a boatload of refugee claimants landed in Nova Scotia. A woman met them with tea and cookies, a tradition of Canadian hospitality. That is the tradition of the Canadian people, but the Government seems intent upon destroying that good record and so this legislation, Bill C-84, as well as Bill C-55, are before us. Those Bills are undercutting our ability to receive refugees and are certainly undercutting our international standing.
1 would like to say a few things about the importance of ensuring that Canadian laws conform with the Charter. Yesterday, we received the historic decision from the Supreme Court on the Henry Morgentaler case. That decision indicated that the Charter had to be obeyed and respected. The Charter is the fundamental law of Canada. It is not just a high-sounding statement of principle or desired goals, but is the fundamental law, and other laws must be brought into accordance with it.
The Senate report on Bill C-84 quoted the Ontario Court of Appeal's ruling in Reference re Education Act of Ontario and Minority Language Education Rights of 1984. The Ontario Court of Appeal said then:
Immigration Act, 1976
The judiciary is not the sole guardian of the constitutional rights of Canadians. Parliament and the provincial Legislatures are equally responsible to ensure that the rights conferred by the Charter are upheld.
If the Government will not do that, and obviously it is not with Bill C-84, then it is the responsibility of the Opposition and that is what opposition Members are trying to do by speaking on this Bill.
Mr. Justice Dickson, as he then was, writing for the Supreme Court of Canada in Hunter v. Southam of 1984, said much the same thing. He said:
It is the Legislature's responsibility to enact legislation that embodies appropriate safeguards to comply with the Constitution's requirements. It should not fall to the courts to fill in the details that will render legislative lacunae constitutional.
We cannot look to the courts to do our work. If so, we abdicate the trust the people of Canada gave us in the last election, a trust this Government has betrayed in so many different ways.
Passing legislation like Bill C-84, legislation that runs counter to the Charter, is a mammoth hoax on the Canadian people, and an expensive hoax. This legislation will be struck down in certain important provisions. Then it will have to go back to the drawing board.
The Government has received clear indications from organizations such as the Canadian Bar Association that the legislation is flawed. Why does it not attempt to clean up the legislation rather than pretend that it will somehow meet the situation while it knows very well that it will not?
It is interesting that the Government has promised to establish an international institute on human rights. The InterChurch Committee for Refugees had some interesting comments on Bill C-84. It said:
Canada can only remain credible in the international human rights theatres if human rights are fully respected in Canada. The department cannot afford to remain aloof from policies and practices in Canada which threaten or undermine human rights.
It is a matter of deep concern for this department-
The committee is referring here to the Department of External Affairs.
-to launch a centre which focuses on Canada's interest in human rights overseas into the same Parliamentary Session which could pass refugee related Bill C-84 at home. This Bill is a flagrant attack on fundamental rights and freedoms in Canada. By relying on a questionable definition of emergency to justify its clearly excessive measures, it will lower the threshold for Charter Section 1 arguments. If Section 1 can be widely applied for such questionable reasons, the power of every other section of our Charter is reduced. Worse, other states will assume that if Canada does this, it can be considered acceptable.
Instead of having legislation that is in accordance with the Canadian tradition of openness toward refugees, instead of having legislation that is in accordance with our own Charter of Rights and Freedoms, instead of having legislation that is in accordance with the spirit of international covenants which Canada has signed, we have Bill C-84.

January 29, 1988
Immigration Act, 1976
The Government attempted, both last summer when it first introduced this legislation and just this past week, to create a climate of panic and fear so that this legislation would be stampeded through the House of Commons. For example, just two weeks ago, we heard of the case of Mahmoud Mohammad, a convicted terrorist who came to Canada as an immigrant. This case suddenly surfaced in the press. The Government used it as an attempt to justify quick passage of Bill C-84.
There are two questions I would like to raise about this case. Why was the story about Mahmoud Mohammad leaked just as the Government was preparing to reintroduce Bill C-84? I do not know the answer to that question, but there is at least the possibility of a manipulated leak designed to create the climate of fear. We have seen the Government do that before and certainly it arouses that kind of suspicion in my mind.
Second, what does the Mahmoud Mohammad case have to do with Bill C-84? The answer is that it has absolutely nothing to do with Bill C-84 except in the mind of the Government which is trying to link that case with the passage of this Bill. Mohammad did not come here as a refugee. If Bill C-84 and Bill C-55 had been in place, he still would have come here. He arrived in Canada and was accepted as an immigrant because the Government did not properly apply its own regulations, regulations which were already in place. A convicted terrorist arrived in Canada after warnings had been issued because CSIS was having a shift change. To try to use this failure as a reason for putting in place the Draconian measures of Bill C-84 is unconscionable.
My colleague, the Hon. Member for Spadina (Mr. Heap), quoted from a Winnipeg Free Press editorial of January 22 which said:
These are the ministers who claim that Canada needs tough new immigration laws which could be used to send genuine political refugees back to face potential imprisonment, torture or death. Their action demonstrates that, far from draconian new laws, what this country needs most is the competent and honest enforcement of the ones we have.
Competent and honest enforcement of the present legislation, and perhaps some competency on the government side would help as well.
We all recognize that there is a need for tightening the refugee determination process. This has been recognized for a long time. It was recognized by the previous Government which did not take any action on it, but it did appoint the Plaut commission. When that report was brought in, in the early days of the present Government, it did not take any action. Instead, it referred the whole issue to the Standing Committee on Employment and Immigration. When that committee brought in its report the Government did not take any action. It did not even respond to the report, although both the Plaut commission and the standing committee made some very reasonable suggestions that would have helped deal with the question of the backlog of refugees.
The churches made recommendations and the Government did not choose to act. As a result, the situation began to snowball. Canada began to get a reputation as a country where people could make bogus refugee claims and get away with it, certainly for a fair period of time. The Government chose not to act. Perhaps it felt it did not need to. As a result, we had a gradual buildup in the backlog until over 20,000 people are waiting for some kind of final determination of their status.
The Plaut report, the standing committee report, and the churches all recommended a process that would have been speedier, fair, with a reasonable appeal process, and would not have dragged on allowing people making bogus refugee claims to stay in Canada for four and five years. Instead, the whole process would have been through in a matter of some four months. If people were going to be staying here for only four months, it would not be worth their while to pay the very large fees to these unscrupulous refugee or immigration counsellors. However, the Government chose not to act on those recommendations.
Instead, last spring, Bill C-55 was introduced. It was not brought to the House for debate until June. Then there was just a few hours of debate and the House recessed for the summer. Then there was this panic notice that went out in the summer when 174 Sikhs landed in Nova Scotia. The House was called back for a so-called emergency, which I presume still exists, to deal with this issue. Both Bill C-55 and Bill C-84 were brought before us. There was no great emergency. There was a crisis which had gradually been building and which needs government action, but it did not develop suddenly last summer as the Government tried to pretend.
The panic reaction which the Government tried to create and manipulate is not, I submit, the proper climate for dealing with issues fundamentally affecting human rights. They affect human rights in Canada and Canada's standing in the world. They affect the fundamental position individual Canadians are taking towards some of the most disadvantaged people in our world. So much of the focus of the Government has been upon those who are unscrupulous and who do not deserve refugee status. We agree that action has to be taken against those people, but in doing so the Government is going to hurt some of the most disadvantaged people in our world. We are talking about refugees. We talk of them as something we want to push off to one side instead of saying, "Here are fellow human beings who need our assistance and who are speaking to the very depths of our humanity". Instead of responding in a full and free way, the Government is taking Draconian measures which are going to make it more difficult for Canadians to live up to the kind of reputation we achieved over the past 40 years when we received some 400,000 refugees into Canada. We know those refugees made a great contribution to Canadian life. Yet now we are closing the doors.
I want to look just briefly at the provision in this legislation for turning back boats. The Senate wanted to amend that provision, but the Government chose to keep it as it is. We have all heard many times about the disgraceful situation
January 29, 1988

which took place in 1939 when a ship left Germany with 907 Jews and attempted to sail to different countries, including Canada, only to be turned away. That is the Canadian contribution to the Holocaust. We sent those people back to Germany where they faced extermination. That is a black mark upon Canadian history.
Since then we have not had a great many people who have attempted to come to Canada by boat as unsolicited refugees. In 1986 we had a boatload of Tamils who landed off the East Coast of Canada. In 1987 we had 174 Sikhs. That is hardly a major problem. We have a backlog of some 20,000 people in the system, yet the Government brings in this legislation dealing with boat people as though somehow it will solve the problem.
The fact is that the whole idea of people coming here by boat has some symbolism, so that people had the sense we were going to be invaded by an armada. I remember one of the Parliamentary Secretaries, the Hon. Member for Surrey- White Rock-North Delta (Mr. Friesen), talking about five billion people in our world, all of them perhaps coming to Canada. We had that kind of foolish attempt to create panic in the Canadian people. In comparison to the 20,000 backlog, the coming to Canada of boat people is not a major problem.
The Government's ability, under this Bill, to turn a boat back and refuse it entry into Canadian ports is not going to be any real deterrent to any of the people who are organizing these bogus refugee schemes. If the boat that landed in Canada had been seized and the captain arrested or imprisoned, and a stiff fine had been imposed, perhaps that might have been a little bit more of a deterrent. At the same time, by turning boats around and not allowing them to land in Canada, you reduce the possibility of genuine refugees being heard. We regret that, yet the Government has not seen fit to change it. In the past Canada has been concerned about other countries, such as some in Southeast Asia, for example, taking the same position which the Conservative Government is now taking.
In conclusion, this Bill undermines the principles of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It undermines the spirit of Canadian commitment to international covenants. It destroys the ability of Canadians to live up to the spirit of openness and generosity to disadvantaged people who come to Canada as refugees. It does not give the protection against bogus refugees which is required, and works against genuine refugees. I urge the Government to look again at this Bill and to bring in the policy which it says it wants to have, that is, a fair refugee determination policy which is humane and open.


Patrick Dermott Crofton: Mr. Speaker, New Democratic Party members in this House have stood and said that in their opinion there is no other country that has adequate protection for refugees and that anyone who gets here should not be deported because there is no safe place to which to deport them. It is alleged that
Immigration Act, 1976
Mr. Mohammad is a subversive-I say "alleged". Under Bill C-84, subversives will no longer be able to access the refugee determination system in order to delay removal from Canada. Without Bill C-84, individuals such as Mr. Mohammad will be able to make a claim and extend their presence in Canada for months and years even when the U.N. convention permits the deportation of subversives, whether or not they are refugees. With C-84 subversives will be quickly removed. Without C-84 they cannot be removed.
Each day of delay of this Bill increases the possibility that another subversive terrorist will arrive at our borders and we will still be unable to deal effectively with the risk which that person would pose to Canada and Canadians.
Exactly what is the NDP policy? Surely as Canadians we are entitled to determine who comes and to intercept the bogus claimants or security risks at the borders and turn them back. This legislation will allow us to do that. I have yet to hear anything meaningful from the opposition Parties on how we can accomplish what is clearly a Canadian need.


James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, 1 would like to make a number of comments in response to the Hon. Member's statement and question. First, with regard to the concept of no safe country, when we say that there is no safe third country we mean that you cannot say that any one country is safe for every particular group of refugees.


Patrick Dermott Crofton: So you are going to keep them all.


James Douglas Manly: We are not saying we are going to keep them all. The United States is not a safe country for refugees attempting to enter Canada from El Salvador or Guatemala. Of 12,000 applicants for refugee status in the United States in 1982, 26 were accepted. That is the United States record on El Salvador. The United States is not a safe country for refugees from El Salvador. It may be for refugees from Poland, but it is not for refugees from El Salvador or Guatemala and they are sent back to those countries.
With regard to the issue of Mr. Mohammad, we are quite open to legislation which would deal with that kind of situation. We are not open to legislation which runs counter to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and our commitments to international covenants. With regard to saying that Canada cannot pick and choose who will be let into the country, we have certain obligations under international covenants to accept as refugees people who have well founded fears of persecution. Under the United Nations convention, if they pose a security risk, they can be sent to another country later. However, we have a primary obligation to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and to our international conventions. We must honour those and Bill C-84 does not.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, there is a fundamental difference which emerges from time to time between Parties. The Government and the Opposition have a fundamental difference

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in goals with regard to this legislation and the companion legislation.
The Member brought up the issue of boats. 1 do not know whether he has had the opportunity to see refugees in various situations in West Germany, Denmark, or Elolland. People there who make refugee claims do not have the same freedom of movement that we have in this country, but they are safe and healthy. They have food, they have shelter, and they have protection.
The Opposition is urging this Elouse to send a signal to the people in those camps that they should take the risk of putting themselves in the hands of unscrupulous ship captains. These are not captains of passenger boats such as Members of this Chamber take on cruises. They go in the hold of a ship which may or may not be seaworthy and are under the care and control of a crew which may or may not be skilled, with or without doctors, with or without adequate food, and with or without adequate sanitation.
They would tell them to leave the safety that they have in Germany, Britain, or Holland and put themselves in this kind of boat with this kind of a crew and pay a big buck to tackle the North Atlantic. The North Atlantic is the graveyard of all kinds of ships including the Titanic and all kinds of fishing vessels.
I say that the Opposition is dead wrong. Nobody who cares about these people should attempt to send out a signal that they should leave that protection, get on a boat and put their life and health at risk to sail across the North Atlantic.
Yes, this country has a generosity of spirit for the true refugee who is fleeing oppression and needs our protection. However, it is wrong to signal to these people in trouble that they should put their health and safety in the hands of people like that.
Members will remember that two boatloads arrived on our East Coast. The ship's captain put them in lifeboats in the North Atlantic without adequate food, without adequate clothing, and without adequate shelter. That is how the Tamils got here.
A leaky tug with none of the things to protect health and safety brought the Sihks. The ship's captain brought that big ocean-going liner, not into a safe harbour with a wharf, but up to the shoreline in an area where people familiar with that part of the coastline would never have dared to attempt it. There were two boatloads. One was set adrift in the North Atlantic, and the second was put in a situation in which it could have capsized and all the people could have drowned so fast that it would have made your head spin.
This Chamber should send a signal to those desperate people in those conditions of safety not to put their lives in the hands of those kinds of people. That is the signal which this Party thinks is the best, most humane signal to send. That is why this Party and the members of it are so much in favour of this Bill.


James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, 1 just want to reiterate to the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary that the present legislation, Bill C-84, does not provide any real deterrence for organized smugglers. If the Canadian Government detects a refugee scheme, it can simply turn the boat around and send it back. It think it would be much more appropriate to have provisions which would allow for the seizure of the boat, the arrest of the captain, and very stiff fines. That would provide deterrents against illicit refugee schemes.
The other point is the whole question of encouraging refugees to come here. If the Government had listened to the Plaut report and the report of its own Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration, and acted on them, there would be a speedy process so that people who came here and did not have a legitimate claim would be processed very quickly and sent back from where they came. That would act as an effective deterrent.
Instead, the Government has chosen a method that puts at risk genuine refugees who possibly arrive here by boat. It has taken Draconian measures that will not accomplish what it is trying to achieve.
Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine
East): Mr. Speaker, once again we are faced with this Draconian Bill, Bill C-84, which reverses Canada's longstanding policy with respect to refugees. In order to block a small percentage of fraudulent refugees, the Government has introduced these measures which will also prevent legitimate refugees from getting into this country. This is a case of massive overkill with respect to the problem.
I have been listening in this debate to Members from the government side suggesting that the opposition to this Bill is simply being made by the members of the Liberal and New Democratic Parties. What nonsense. One need only look at the list of those who have time and again come out against this Bill. It includes nearly all the churches in Canada, the Canadian Civil Liberties Union, the Canadian Jewish Congress, B'Nai Brith Canada, associations of students, labour unions and all the groups that work with refugees and immigrants. Above all, the report of the Senate which is before us in the form of this amended Bill is supported by the Conservatives in the Senate.
The Senate report to amend this Bill is a unanimous report of Liberal and Conservative Senators. Therefore, the suggestion that the opposition to this Bill is simply an opposition by Liberal and New Democratic Party Members here in the House is nonsense. There is overwhelming opposition to this Bill not only throughout the country but even by those members of the Conservative Party in the Senate who signed the unanimous report with respect to this Bill and sent it back to the House. We were recalled to the House in the middle of the summer adjournment in 1987 to deal with what the Government described as an emergency. They brought us back

and asked us to deal with Bill C-84 immediately. Of course, the Bill required hearings and an extensive debate, not a filibuster. It demanded an extensive debate because the issues involved in the Bill were extremely serious.
After we entered the regular session in September, the Government had a higher priority for other matters and called in all sorts of other Bills. It did not consider this to be a high priority Bill, which did not justify the so-called emergency crisis for which we were brought back in the middle of August.
The Government has the right to call whatever Bill it wants every day. It simply did not call this Bill. Of course, it always wanted an agreement from the Opposition to dispose of it in one or two days. However, we would not agree to that because the issues are too important.
If the Government really pul a high priority on this Bill, since it has the right to fix the business of the House, it could have continued with the Bill until it was passed. Rather, it called the Bill now and then, here and there, and finally it was passed through the House. The Opposition tried to amend the Bill and voted against it, but the Government passed it as it wished, in its still imperfect form.
The Senate has not defeated the Bill but has returned it with certain very specific amendments. The Government accuses opposition Members of filibustering the Bill and delaying a solution to the issues. The Plaut commission was appointed by the former Liberal Government prior to the 1984 election. The Plaut commission reported in June, 1985, after the election, and made very specific recommendations about what should be done to renew our refugee legislation and avoid the problems being experienced due to the large numbers applying, fraudulent claims and so on. However, the Government did not respond to the Plaut report or bring in immediate legislation.
We then saw the two reports of November and December, 1985, from the parliamentary committee on immigration. They essentially agreed with the conclusions of the Plaut report and recommended certain legislation to correct the abuses and prevent fraudulent refugees from coming to this country. Once again, however, the Government did not act on those committee reports which were unanimous reports from members of the Liberal Party, Conservative Party and New Democratic Party.
The Government did not even introduce its own legislation at that time as a response to the reports. The Plaut commission and the Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration recommended a new, fast, efficient and fair system to deal with refugee claimants in order to weed out the fraudulent ones from legitimate ones, and discourage fraudulent claims in the future. Obviously, quick action on refugee claims, turning down those which are not legitimate, will discourage people from coming to this country to make such claims. Long delays of two or three years in making a decision encourage fraudulent claims, but the standing committee and Plaut report recommended solutions that were fast, efficient and fair. However, the Government did not act.
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The Plaut report was issued in June, 1985. It took the Government almost two years, until May, 1987, to table its legislation, Bill C-55. Now it is accusing the Opposition of delay and filibuster when it took it nearly two years to present a Bill on this important issue.
We believed that Bill C-55, although we identified flaws and imperfections in it, was the Government's solution to this question. However, just a few months later, in the middle of the summer, it presented Bill C-84, with further changes. This merely indicates the confusion of the Government. Perhaps it will introduce another Bill next week if there is another boat on our shore.
It does not really know what the solution is. It told us that Bill C-55 was the solution, then presented Bill C-84 a few months later. Now a committee report from the Senate, including Conservative Senators, states that while they believe the problem must be solved, and do not want to admit fraudulent refugees in this country, they suggest the Government is engaged in overkill and will only harm legitimate refugee claimants.
I must remind the House that a former Liberal Government signed the International Convention on Refugees in 1969. As a result of signing that treaty, we committed Canada to accepting refugees as defined by the treaty. We committed ourselves to that. We put it into legislation in 1976 as part of the law of the land. If someone was a legitimate refugee, as defined by the international convention, we had to accept them. These are people fleeing their country because their lives are in danger because of their politics, religion, race, language or whatever. They come to this country and we are obliged to receive them. However, we have a right to determine whether they are true refugees in accordance with the definition. The problem was that due to the conditions of the world, there were almost 20 million refugees fleeing horrible conditions in various countries, and the numbers increased. Canada had to change its procedures to deal with those claims quickly.
Rabbi Plaut, the parliamentary committee, the Liberal Party and, I believe, the New Democratic Party, all want to solve the problem. We want to solve the problem so that those who claim refugee status get a fair hearing. Those who are fraudulent, of course, we can send back, but they have a right to a hearing. The Supreme Court of Canada has already made a statement on that point when it said we must not only review the documentation but that they have a right to an oral hearing.
I believe that if this legislation passes as it is, and many experts have already said this, it will be overruled by the Supreme Court because it is contrary to our Constitution. Certain amendments have been proposed to Bill C-84 by the Senate. These are amendments dealing with serious matters such as the penalties to be imposed against those who help

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refugees, the turning back of boats, and so on. These amendments by the Senate were approved unanimously by the committee. Let us make that absolutely clear. What is interesting is that the Government accepted some of the amendments suggested by the Senate. They were minor, but they were accepted. This indicates that the Government recognized that there were flaws in its Bill. Otherwise it would not have accepted any amendments. It accepted minor amendments from the Senate to improve the Bill, but points dealing with human rights and liberties, with the human condition of individuals, it has not accepted, despite overwhelming support for those amendments by all sorts of groups in this country.
I want to point out again that the numbers of refugees coming to this country today are not out of line with those who came to this country in previous years. I would like to refer to those numbers because I think Canadians should be reminded. In 1982, we accepted 16,900 refugees from three special movements. That was in addition to the refugees we accepted under ordinary movements. There were 16,900 refugees in 1982, 9,300 from Poland, 3,000 plus from El Salvador, and 2,500 from Iran. In the period of 1978-79 we accepted over
11.000	refugees from Lebanon. This was a special movement over and above those who came in on regular movements. In the period of 1976-77, we accepted over 9,000 Vietnamese and Cambodians. In the period from 1975-78, we accepted over
7.000	Chileans and Argentinians. In the period 1972-73, we accepted 7,100 Ugandan Asians. In 1969 Canada accepted
12.000	Czechs following the aborted revolution in Czechoslovakia. In 1957, when our population was much smaller, we accepted 37,000 Hungarians, following the aborted revolution in that country. After the Second World War in 1945, Canada accepted 186,000 displaced persons. At that time our population was only 15 million. What has happened to all those people, the Hungarians, the Czechs, the Ugandans, the Chileans, the Vietnamese, the Lebanese, the Poles, the Salvadorans and the Iranians? They settled pretty well in this country. They have made a contribution. They started businesses and built homes. They are consumers. Very few of them are getting in trouble with the law, probably fewer than Canadians like myself.
We see these people out there in our multicultural environment. We know they are there and we do not regret the fact that we accepted these large waves of immigrants. But because there were two boatloads of refugees who came to our shores, a relatively small number, the Government panicked in response to some reactionary Canadians and brought in this legislation. This legislation is unwarranted. Everyone has been telling the Government that, but it is not listening. Why do we have this situation in the world? I mentioned that we have approximately 20 million refugees in the world. Again, I remind the House that since 1945, which was the end of the last war, there have been 150 regional wars. Those 150 regional wars have resulted in 20 million deaths. Two thirds of those deaths were civilian and 16 million of those 20 million deaths were in the Third World. In addition to the deaths resulting from those conflicts,
we also have a vast movement of refugees, particularly from Afghanistan, the Middle East, Indo-China, Iran, Sri Lanka, Central America and Latin America.
As I said earlier, Canada signed the international treaty with respect to refugees in 1969. We confirmed those obligations in 1976, putting them into law. We have committed ourselves to accepting legitimate refugees. We won the Nansen award a year and a half ago for our treatment of refugees, which is a tribute to Canadians in general. By adopting this legislation, we are throwing mud in the faces of those who presented us with that award.
I suggest to this House that if we are truly citizens of the world, we have a responsibility to help relocate and care for these refugees. As Canadians, we must ask ourselves if we are doing our fair share. The numbers we brought in in the past was not bad, but we have to ask ourselves continually, in the face of the tremendous crisis and tragedy we see in the world, are we as Canadians doing our fair share? Will be be doing our fair share by passing this Bill? Are we going to close our borders and shift the burden to someone else? Are we going to say: "Let the other guy do it. We have enough here by adopting the kind of measures in this Bill? No, we cannot shirk our responsibility. We cannot pass the buck. As I pointed out, since the Second World War, we have settled hundreds of thousands of refugees. We did it then and we can do it again.


Gabriel Fontaine: Mr. Speaker, I have a few questions for the Hon. Member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine-East (Mr. Allmand).
Yesterday, 1 heard one of his colleagues, the Hon. Member for Saint-Leonard-Anjou (Mr. Gagliano), who was referring to a position taken by the members of the Senate and said that the Conservative senators had voted the same way as the Liberal senators. I can inform the House that 1 corrected this mistake and in fact, the Hon. Member for Saint-Leonard- Anjou admitted he was wrong. What actually happened was this. There was some business in committee, where the Conservative senators took a position that was different from that of the Liberal senators. Subsequently, they preferred to send the Bill back to the House as soon as possible so that the Liberal senators would not hold up the Bill any longer. The Hon. Member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine-East said three times that this is not what happened.
I wanted to tell him what happened, because I am sure they are not properly informed by their staff, their caucus and their contacts. I would also like to comment on his position, which probably coincides with that of the Liberal-Socialist coalition against Bill C-84. In fact, there was a similar coalition against Bill C-22.
I wish he would come out and tell the House that what he really wants is for the trade in phony refugees to continue and for Canada to be considered a haven for those who have made trading in phony refugees an institution.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, I am starting to wonder about the sincerity of the representations made by the Hon. Member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine-East, because the same Member who today has opted for a policy of openness, even towards terrorists, of generosity and understanding, that same Member called my grandparents and parents here in Quebec terrorists. That same Member accused members of the Saint-Jean Baptiste Society of being terrorists, and he did so several times.
He is prepared to be generous to non-Canadians, to people who have been identified as terrorists, but he called my brothers, my parents and my grandparents terrorists, and he did so several times.
That same Member who today is supporting an open policy was one of the staunchest supporters of the War Measures Act, under which, at the instigation of his government, the privacy of the homes of Quebecers was violated in so many ways.
Mr. Speaker, I suggest that the Hon. Member be a little less partisan in his representations and ask his caucus, with whom he agreed when he voted against Bill C-22 and against Quebec's economic interests, to be a little less partisan and get out of this Liberal-Socialist Coalition so that Canada can become a haven for refugees and is not considered by non-Canadians throughout the world as a place where money can be made by bringing over all kinds of people for an exorbitant fee.


Mr. Allmand:: Mr. Speaker, the Hon, Member speaks so much nonsense so often in the House that I rarely pay any attention to him. It is not worth while paying much attention to him. I must say that I have never described members of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society as terrorists. I have said that the present leadership of that society is narrow-minded and bigoted. I will say that over and over again as long as it maintains some of the positions which it maintains.
I recall when I was younger living in Sherbrooke, Trois-Rivieres and Montreal and having very good relations with the people from the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society. In those days they did not have that narrow-minded and bigoted approach.
With respect to coalitions, the Hon. Member keeps talking about the so-called socialist-Liberal coalition. 1 would be interested in examining the coalition between the Conservative Party in Quebec and the Parti Quebecois and some very rightwing, almost fascist groups in that province. 1 get a great kick out of the Hon. Member trying to brand all of us over here as some type of communist horde.
He talked about his parents and his grandparents and other people in the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society. 1 have never branded them as terrorists.
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With respect to the Senate, my understanding is that the Senate did not vote against the report of the Senate committee. Some Senators may have abstained or let it go through for one reason or another, as the Hon. Member described. However, the same position was not taken in the Senate as the Conservative Party, the Government, is taking in the House of Commons, at least not with respect to the entire Bill. The Senate is directing its attention to parts of the Bill. They brought in amendments with respect to the section on returning boats and the section on aiding and abetting refugees. There were other technical amendments to the Bill, some of which were accepted by the Government.
The point is that the report of the committee was unanimous. Perhaps the Conservatives in the Senate just let it go through. I am not sure what technicality took place there but Conservative Senators did not launch an all-out attack in favour of the Bill and against the Senate report, as the Opposition in this House is doing. As a matter of fact, I have spoken to some Conservative Senators who are embarrassed with the measures that are in the Bill, whether or not they tried to fudge their feelings by doing what they did. The point of the matter is that the Senate did not launch the kind of attack against those amendments and in favour of the Bill as is happening in the House. It is their right to do so and I think the Hon. Member should understand that.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Hon. Member a brief question. First, I want to say that I respect not only his good remarks on this subject but the work that he has done over the past 21 years. At one point he spoke about the large number of people being displaced by the some 150 wars that have occurred since the Second World War. I would ask him if he has a comment on what Canada should be doing internationally to address the problem of those massive movements, since some of the government speakers say that they are afraid all of those millions of people want to come to Canada tomorrow, in effect, which is why they have to put up these high walls.
I would like the Hon. Member to comment on what might be done in a co-operative way between Canada and the other countries of the United Nations to share the burden occasioned by those disturbances and the burden that is constituted by the large numbers of people who feel that they have had to leave their homes, shared in a way so that it would not be unduly borne by any country, whether it is Canada with some tens of thousands or Pakistan that has something in the order of 2 million or 3 million refugees from Afghanistan.


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member asks a very legitimate question. To consider Central America alone, and the Hon. Member and 1 were part of an all-Party delegation that visited Salvador and refugees in Honduras, as far as I can see, and I think he would confirm this, the overwhelming number of people who are displaced by wars and conflict would rather return to their own countries. They are more at home in their own countries. They are familiar with the

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climate. They have friends and relatives there. They grew up there. It is only through the worst of circumstances that they are forced to seek refuge in another country.
What is it that prevents them from going back to their countries in many cases? It is the fact that there is economic manipulation and exploitation in El Salvador. For example, for a long period of time a small percentage of the population controlled the country to its own economic, social and political benefit. There was a virtual dictatorship. If we want to help as Canadians then we must help to solve the underlying causes that lead to those conflicts and those wars in those countries. The response is certainly not a military one.
I was very disappointed when the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark) recently went to Central America. He ended up giving a very small amount of additional aid to Nicaragua, which all aid agencies say is a model in trying to deal with the problems of underdevelopment, but gave a much larger amount to Honduras, which is impeding the implementation of the Central American peace treaty and is serving as a base for the Contra revolutionaries to attack Nicaragua. Yet our Government gave more to that country than it gave to Nicaragua.
In answer to the Hon. Member's question in a nutshell, the answer is for Canada to help with the underlying economic and social problems. We could do much more there. I have always felt that even under my own Government we were not doing enough. We have to do more if we want to change the conditions which lead to people fleeing their countries. If things were great in those countries, or at least improving, and if these people were being treated fairly and justly, then they would not want to be refugees. We should direct a great deal more of our attention there if we do not want all these people flooding our country, as the Conservatives do not seem to want. If they would pay more attention to solving the basic problems then they would not have boatloads of people on their doorstep.


Patrick Dermott Crofton: I was interested in the remarks of the Liberal spokesman. He seemed to state that somehow the Government has shown a lack of concern for distressed peoples around the world. Indeed, he knows perfectly well that the contrary is the truth.
Except for our native people we are all immigrants or refugees in this country. The Conservative Party does not need lectures from the Liberals about what a refugee is or what a distressed person is since our ranks are of equal numbers as far as these experiences are concerned. The Hon. Member showed interesting passion and emotion in his remarks. I suggest that a great deal of it was misdirected.
He was referring to the people who have come here. Indeed, we have said many times that we need an immigration policy and immigrants. We need to treat them properly. But we must have some sort of rules in place by which to judge the authenticity of people who wish to come here. These rules are clearly
not in place now. The rules that we are proposing to put in place are in step and meet the requirements of the United Nations.
Surely, as parliamentarians, from time to time we have an obligation to convey fact and truth to the Canadian people. I suggest that what really is a filibuster from the opposition Parties is a blatant political play, recognizing that the majority of people in Canada have come as refugees and immigrants. He seemed to suggest that, because we wish to try to put some kind of rules in place, somehow we are prejudiced against these people. This is quite untrue. Equally untrue is the suggestion today by members of his Party and the other opposition Party that because one wishes to assist a refugee one will immediately be charged with a crime. That is patently false. We have said that Canadians are obliged to respect the law. Any Canadian citizen who knowingly circumvents the law, or aids and abets someone else in circumventing the law, is open to charge. That is certainly a philosophy that is held by the Conservative Party. If that is not the philosophy of the other Parties, I am most interested to hear from them. Surely all Canadians have to obey all the laws, and not pick and choose the ones that they will obey.


William Warren Allmand: It is not correct that the Opposition would have been critical of any measure brought forward by the Government to solve this problem. As I previously pointed out, the Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration, which has a majority of Conservative Members, put forward two reports to deal with this problem, and two reports suggesting a solution. The Conservative Members together with the Liberals and members of the NDP on that committee were unanimous in their recommendations in putting forward solutions.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: They were never unanimous.


William Warren Allmand: My recollection is that they were unanimous. Perhaps they were not unanimous on some of the recommendations, but they were virtually unanimous. The principal recommendations were agreed to by the Conservative, Liberal, and NDP Members. If the Government had adopted the recommendations contained in the report of that committee, the majority of whom were Conservatives, we would have said that that was fine. But they did not do that.
With respect to the First point of the Hon. Member, I am sure that there are cases where the Government and Conservative Members have shown sympathy and have adopted the correct measures. I was pleased yesterday when the Secretary of State for External Affairs announced further aid to the southern African states in their attempt to deal with economic and social problems. I thought that that was a good move. For one reason or another, the Government did not do the same thing in Central America, and it is not doing the same thing in this Bill.
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I do not accuse the Hon. Member of being of bad faith, but I ask him to look again at what has been recommended by all the groups in Canada that are concerned with this issue. Obviously, there are parts of Bill C-84 which are wrong and should be corrected. The government Members are not listening, and that is unfortunate.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, I must say that it is not with any great pleasure that I rise this afternoon once again to debate Bill C-84. It seems to me that it is deplorable that we have had to do this so many times with a repetition of many of the same points, and the same points that have been made by many responsible groups across Canada. Again today we are repeating ourselves.
Of course, we felt that it was a very impulsive response to incidents last summer which instigated this Bill to amend the Immigration Act in the first place. In my view, it was not necessary to take such a punitive and hysterical approach to a boatload of people who arrived on our eastern shores. It certainly was not necessary to respond in the manner in which the Government did. I remember last summer in Vancouver how Conservative Members, and I regret to say even the Hon. Member for Capilano (Mrs. Collins), was saying, "We have to get back to the House. This is a crisis". In turn, that type of response encouraged more and more people to become inflamed about a situation that it was not necessary to become so inflamed about.
1 know in my riding it resulted in many phone calls that had a racist tone. I very much regret that, instead of dealing with this in a positive manner, we were almost feeding into it by the way the Conservatives whipped us all back to Ottawa and said that we had to deal with this great crisis. That was on August 11, 1987. Here we are in late January, 1988, still dealing with this, and there does not seem to me to have been any great crisis at all.
The other thing I wish to say is that the Government has been stubborn and persistent in not making the changes that were obviously needed. The Government let the Bill go to the Senate, and now we have to go through this round again. Perhaps the Government did not want to listen to those of us in opposition. Perhaps the Government did not feel that we were being non-partisan in our comments. As Canadians, most of us do feel that the immigration and refugee policy is a humanitarian issue. It is not a partisan issue. We want to be sure it is just, and in the interest of both refugees and immigrants, as well as in the interests of Canada.
If the Government was not willing to listen to us, why did it not take very seriously the same type of comments that were coming from many independent groups across the country, people who had probably far more expertise than most of us in the House? In my riding there are refugee settlement groups, and groups of volunteers with a great deal of experience and commitment. Those groups have given much of their time without pay because they feel so strongly about this. They have spent a great deal of time helping to reach out and assist
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refugees or potential refugees and to provide support groups once they arrived in Canada.
Those groups certainly criticized this Bill in the same manner that we did, and in the same manner that the Senate has now done. Across the country there were immigration lawyers with great expertise who stated that many aspects of this Bill contravened the Charter of Rights. I understand from the analysis that the Senate has done that this is still the case. Yet, apparently the Government does not accept this.
Many church groups and humanitarian groups appealed on this matter. People, like Rabbi Plaut, who indeed has great expertise, have been trying for years to reform our immigration policy in order that we could handle it more effectively and not have the type of chaotic situation that we had last summer, and still have. There were many recommendations from Members of the House, and ones that were presented very seriously.
It was not always easy to take the opposition side last summer. This was an issue that people felt very strongly about. The Government's interpretation of the so-called crisis did not help people to look at it in a rational and objective manner.
Since last summer, I have met with a number of groups. The concern about this Bill and Bill C-55 has continued in many meetings that I have attended. In Vancouver East we have a great number of immigrants, people arriving from many different countries, for example, many countries in Asia, the South Pacific, and from Spanish-speaking countries in Central and South America.
Many groups have formed in support of immigrants and refugees. I recall a very large meeting that was held at the native education centre in Vancouver. It was very interesting to note that the native people were the ones who hosted this meeting, yet it was a meeting of people from a range of backgrounds who were very worried about Bill C-84 and Bill C-55. At that meeting there was a woman from the United States who was a refugee support person. She was helping refugees who wanted to come to Canada to get to the border. She was extremely concerned, especially with regard to Salvadorans and Guatemalans. She was quite convinced that they would be forcibly sent back to their countries and not allowed to come into Canada. She had no way of helping them once they got to that state either.
There was a very senior representative of the Anglican Church, I recall. I know the Hon. Member for Spadina (Mr. Heap) would know about this. This representative has been in the forefront of helping refugees not only in Canada but worldwide. Senior people of his church had been meeting and taking very strong positions. They were very concerned about these Bills. There were lawyers from Simon Fraser University who had a great deal of expertise. I was particularly impressed with native leaders who said, "This is unfair. We don't want people to be treated in this way". Most groups who were there

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formed a coalition to oppose these Bills, and I hope they will continue to oppose them because both Bills are contrary to many things that most Canadians believe in.
Why do we oppose Bill C-84? Again, we have said this many times, but I want to repeat it. The New Democratic Party strongly opposed Bill C-84 in the Commons when it was here in the last round. It is monstrously unfair both to refugees and to Canadians who help refugees. It violates our Charter of the U.N. Convention on Refugees. I heard a Member from Vancouver Island a moment ago saying that the Bill does not contravene any of the U.N. conventions. This, however, does not seem to be the opinion of other experts. The Senate held hearings and heard some 37 witnesses after the Bill was passed in the House of Commons. There were lots of complaints about how much time the Senators were taking. It is unfortunate the Senate had to make all the amendments because the Bill should have been amended more strongly when it was here in the House. That is the House of Commons' job. It is our job as parliamentarians, elected to this House, to be responsive. It is the Government's job to be far more responsive and to integrate amendments that are valid and amendments that were proved to be matters that offended the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The Government accepted very few amendments. The Minister of Immigration (Mr. Bouchard), in particular was extremely obstinate and stubborn. I do not like to say that about anyone but I am afraid that this is the way he appeared to me. He was determined to push this Bill through, that he was right and the public of Canada was wrong.
As I said, the Bill went to the Senate. The Senate held hearings and heard 37 witnesses, many of whom appeared at the legislative committee in the Commons on Bill C-84. All of these witnesses, except immigration staff-and one knows to whom they are accountable-criticized the Bill and opposed it, all 37 of them. The Senate made 13 amendments before it adopted the Bill. As Members know, these have been set out in the Minutes of the Proceedings of the Senate for Tuesday, December 15. The 13 amendments remedy nearly all of the objections made by the witnesses. We commend the Senators for that job. We do not think it is their role. We think that job should have been done here in the House. All of those amendments were ones which the New Democratic Party had spoken to and had presented in the House.
These amendments remedy those parts of the Bill considered to offend the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Surely that is a standard against which to measure policies that are implicit in this Bill. Why on earth is the Government so obstinate in not accepting amendments that are trying to make this Bill concur with the requirements of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? As I understand it, if this Bill is tested again in the courts it will be back to square one and there will be a need for changes once more. The government knows what the criticisms are. Why would the Government not try to make the Bill conform completely to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? That is why we have our Charter of Rights. If the Government rejects
all or most of these amendments in its coming motion to the Commons, we feel that we must oppose it.
May I quickly just review what the amendments are without going into any detail and as well review the Government's response? Amendment 1 clarifies the purposes of the Bill as opposing clandestine entry rather than smuggling. Then we have the whole question of security certificates in Amendments 2 and 3, which restore the right of a person accused of being a security risk to hear the case against him or her except where a judge decides that that would endanger national security or the safety of persons. Then there is the right of claim to refugee status covered by Amendment 4 from the Senate. This restores the right of a person accused of being a security risk nevertheless to have his refugee claim determined so that even people who may be a security risk have the right to due process. This would keep Canada's obligation under the U.N. convention relating to the status of refugees intact and enable the person, if deported, to have U.N. assistance in finding a safe country other than the one he or she has fled.
Another point is that of turning ships around. This seems to me to be the one most impractical and illogical. I was appalled when I heard the comment from the Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Turner)-and again I was surprised he was so impulsive when he gave his reaction-that he agreed that ships coming to our East Coast should be sent back to sea without people having a just hearing. I notice that his critics thereafter took opposite points of view.


James Douglas Manly: He changed himself.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: He has changed himself. We are getting accustomed to that flip-flop approach. It is a little hard to know what the Leader of the Official Opposition means when he changes so readily.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


James Douglas Manly: Everyone in the House agrees.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Margaret Anne Mitchell: The question of turning ships around was dealt with by the Senate in Amendment 5. It requires a ship suspected of bringing in illegal refugees to be brought to port in Canada and the occupants dealt with according to Canadian law. My colleagues have spoken to this several times today. It seems only logical not to leave people drifting at sea but to bring them ashore and, if necessary, increase the penalties on the captain of the ship, which would be a deterrent to any kind of illegitimate sponsorship. But claimants to refugee status should have the opportunity to be processed the same as other refugees. Who is to know there are no refugees on the ship? We will never know unless they get to shore and get processed.
I get very emotional about that because I have heard repeatedly in British Columbia the story of the Japanese ship in, I believe, 1913 which brought many Sikhs to Vancouver who were suffering religious persecution and wanted to settle
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in Canada. It breaks my heart that here was another case of deplorable injustice. The authorities in Vancouver turned that ship away. The people did not have water or adequate food. It was a terrible tragedy for the Sikhs who were on that ship.
Amendments 6 and 7 deal with aiding and abetting. In the Senate's view this is restricting targets on only those who intentionally encourage false refugee claims or who assist clandestine entry.
The whole question of search, seizure and forfeiture is dealt with in amendments 9 to 12, which would ensure that this part of the Bill would allow search, seizure and forfeiture only on reasonable grounds and with reasonable procedures. This is in keeping with Section 8 of the Charter.
Finally, detention for identification or security is dealt with in amendment 13 which would provide for the independent review of the detention of persons held for identification or security purposes. Again, this is in compliance with Sections 7, 9 and 10 of our Charter of Rights. Why is the Minister not listening?
The Government has given these amendments only token recognition just to be expedient and to try once again to settle this urgent matter that brought us all back to the House last August. It has accepted in principle only Amendments 1 and 2. It rejected Amendment 2(b) dealing with security certificates, and it also rejected Amendment 4. It has accepted in principle Amendment 3, but I do not think I will take the time of the House to go through all the amendments because they are well documented.
We agree with the Senate. We agree with all the points it has presented. We think it is justified because the Government must surely comply with the Charter of Rights. Again, I cannot see why the Government was so stubborn that it ignored these very same arguments when we brought them up before.
I see that my time is almost up. We have such a proud history of immigration and refugee settlement in Canada. Many years ago I worked with Hungarian refugees who came through Vienna and settled in Canada. I know that many of us have worked with refugees in our own communities. In Vancouver, Polish seamen jumped a ship and were welcomed as refugees almost immediately, but of course they were from an Eastern Bloc country. There seems to be no problem with people from those countries. There are many Latin American people who have come to British Columbia and other parts of Canada and are having much more difficulty. I cannot understand why there is this double standard and why we would even consider deporting people back to countries like Guatemala and El Salvador where there are death squads, killing and police states.
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1 fully support my Party's position on this matter. We do not agree with the Government which, in essence, has refused to accept the important amendments of the Senate.


Gabriel Fontaine: Mr. Speaker, during the three and a half years I have been in the House, I have heard people in the Socialist Party talk about El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Costa Rica. Why don't they talk about Canada? Weren't they elected to the Parliament of Canada? I think they should give an account of themselves to their constituents in their respective ridings and of what they have been doing in the House of Commons to help Canadians.
That is their duty and that is their mandate received from their constituents. Mr. Speaker, I suggest they give an account of themselves to their constituents and talk a little more about Canada.
As far as the Bill now before the House is concerned, it is clear that the Socialists heard the Liberal Leader's message about forming a Liberal-Socialist coalition against our Bill, a coalition that is becoming increasingly widespread, causing a shift of all malcontents in Canada to the extreme left.
Earlier, the Hon. Member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace- Lachine-East (Mr. Allmand) responded to my remark about this coalition. We said we had a coalition with the PQ opposition party. We in the Conservative Party do not have a coalition with the PQ opposition, but today, there is a coalition for free trade that enjoys unanimous support in Quebec, including the support of the aspirant leader of the Parti quebecois and of one of the Hon. Member's fellow Liberals, Premier Robert Bourrassa. And today, Mr. Speaker, I think we should be proud of the fact that for the first time in Canada's history, a premier of the Province of Quebec, a Liberal-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I am reluctant to interrupt the Hon. Member, but I think we are getting away from the subject and the speech by the Hon. Member for Vancouver-East (Ms. Mitchell). The Hon. Member for Levis (Mr. Fontaine).


Gabriel Fontaine: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry I got carried away by one of our outstanding achievements, and I will continue my comments on the position taken by the comrades of the Socialist-Liberal Coalition. 1 ask them whether they still want Canada to be a haven for those who trade in phony refugees. They have no objection. They will let Canada be a destination for traders in phony refugees. So if they agree with that, let them keep their coalition, let them continue their common cause with the Senate and let them keep urging the Senate to defy democracy, something that has not been done in 120 years. Let them go on defying democracy! Since that is what they want, they might as well do it. Canadians will tell them what they think in the next election, Mr. Speaker!

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Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, that was quite a harangue. It is hard to tell just which part of it I should respond to. I feel like going into a harangue when that Minister-when that Member who will never be a Minister-tells me, if I understood him correctly, that I do not speak up for my constituents or for Canadians. That I take as a great insult, and I think my constituents would as well.
By far the majority of the people of the constituency of Vancouver East have come from other countries. The Hon. Member spoke of Latin American countries. There are representatives of 42 Spanish-speaking countries in my riding. Well over half of my riding is comprised of people of Chinese origin who came from many different parts of the world. There are Italians and Portuguese and more Koreans than in any other place in Canada.
I can tell the Hon. Member that I work hard for my constituents and I have for the nine years I have been here. I will not sit down and take the kind of comment he just made.
If I understood the Hon. Member, he asked if we want Canada to be a refuge for false refugees. Now, that is inane. Do we want Canada to be the kind of country that bars people from having a chance to be refugee claimants? We do not. That is a democratic right. How will we know who the refugee claimants are and whether they are legitimate or not if they do not have a chance to make their claims and go through all the procedures that are justified in a refugee-claimant system?
I wish that many more people could come to Canada under regular landed-immigrant status. Of course, there are poor and deprived people, many of whom have talked to me, who have come from other countries and will probably not be judged as legitimate refugees because it is a very narrow definition. What will happen to those people? They will go back to their countries, I suppose, but they will never get to Canada by other means so we have to look at other ways of opening the door.


James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed the Hon. Member's speech. I would like to make one comment with regard to the last question. I do not know of any Member in this House who does a better job for her constituents than the Hon. Member for Vancouver East (Ms. Mitchell). She does not need to take a back seat to anyone in that regard.
I wonder if the Hon. Member would care to comment on the story in today's Globe and Mail which says that Canada has begun discussions with several countries to find out if they would be willing to accept people turned back by Canadian officials under the proposed refugee determination law. Canada, the country that won the Nansen award from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees two years ago for support for refugees, is now turning to other countries and asking them to take people we will turn away. I wonder if the Hon. Member would care to comment on that?


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, I certainly would. I think it is absolutely disgraceful that this is the reputation we are beginning to have under this Conservative Government. Even the Liberals were better than the Conservative Government in that respect. There were lots of things they did not do that we will do much better when we get into government next year.
It is deplorable that we are getting an image of intolerance in the world. We sometimes pat ourselves on the back too much about having been very humanitarian and taking a lot of refugees. We have taken hardly anyone. For example, we did not take anyone from Hungary who was sick. We left them to the Austrians to look after. So many of the Indo-Chinese refugees are still there and will never be accepted here because we do not accept people who have a bit of history of mental illness or some other problem. We are not that great, but I can tell you that the Conservative Government is giving our reputation a black mark.


Mary Collins: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity at this fairly late hour in our Friday session to speak on Bill C-84 and the Senate amendments. I guess I start off with a feeling of astonishment. After months of debate here and in committee where I was involved, we are still debating the issue and facing a filibuster. This is the end of the fourth day of debate on this issue this week and it is obvious that the opposition Parties are trying to draw out the debate.
I would like to ask them this question. Are they prepared to take the responsibility for the refugees who are not legitimate and who are continuing to come to our borders? Bill C-84 has not yet received Royal Assent, we do not have the legislative tools we need, so are they willing to take responsibility for those people?
I am sure they are aware of the really astonishing numbers. In 1980 only 1,600 people claimed refugee status. Obviously it was not a problem. However, because of world problems and changes which have taken place, we were faced with 30,000 people claiming refugee status in 1987. We know that on average 70 per cent of those people are not genuine refugees. Even of the remaining 30 per cent, about half already have protection in some other country. They are coming to Canada basically to improve their economic status. That is understandable, but that is not the purpose of the refugee system.
We have a backlog of thousands and thousands of people in the refugee system, 70 per cent of whom are not genuine refugees, and they should not be here. Under the rules we have set down, by all international criteria, those people should not be here. It is not fair to them or to genuine refugees who are being held up because of the backlog. It is more difficult for them to get on with their lives and the whole thing is blatantly unfair.
I found it interesting that my friend from Vancouver East accused me in her remarks of inflaming the situation. Last

August, when we had a boatload of people coming to our shores off Halifax, I, like many of my colleagues, as well as my constituents, concerned about maintaining the integrity of the refugee system, called for the recall of Parliament and tough new legislation to remedy the situation. That was not inflaming the situation. That was a legitimate concern expressed by millions of Canadians across this country and Members in this House who wanted something done about the situation.
1 am appalled that for month after month we have been faced with this obstructionism. Even this week, as hundreds of people come to our borders, this situation is creating false expectations. It is cruel. It is inhumane. Members of the NDP may claim they are the Party of humanity and genuine compassion, but I do not agree. This is unfair and I ask them, as I did last summer and last fall when we debated this Bill, let us get on with it, get the rules in place so people around the world will know what they are and will not come here under false pretenses.
We are sometimes accused, because of Bill C-84 and its companion, Bill C-55, which is still in the Senate, of lacking compassion. That is not true. Neither are Canadians lacking in compassion. The record shows very clearly the exact opposite.
We are a country of immigrants. My father emigrated from England around 1917. I am sure the parents of most of the people in this House, in fact many Members themselves, have come here as immigrants. We have a long-standing reputation for tolerance and compassion. I think that is so important. I care about it so much that I do not want to see it undermined because people are getting frustrated by what they feel is abuse of that genuine sense of tolerance and compassion. Unfortunately, that is what 1 have seen happen over the past months. People feel that Parliament is not dealing quickly enough with this issue.
We have a comprehensive system of aid for refugees. I have dealt with refugee organizations in Vancouver, Mosaic and others, who do excellent work. We as a Government have continued with the funding required to assist those groups. We received the Nansen Medal in 1986 for our response to refugees. The measures we have in Bill C-84, to my mind, do not negate that tradition. They deal with a new reality which requires different measures than were required in the past. What we want to do is to respond to genuine refugees. Over the years we have been very effective, but in recent years that effectiveness has been reduced because of the acceleration in the number of people who arrive here claiming refugee status when they are not refugees.
We all know there are people who try to use the refugee system to profit from those who want to come to Canada. We heard the stories last summer. We saw examples even last fall. It was evident that these people had been counselled to come to Canada, after paying money to someone in their own country, and claim refugee status. It was very evident that they were not genuine refugees. They were economic migrants looking for a better life. That is fine, but it is not fair that they should
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jump the queue. There are of course many people who would like to come to Canada in the regular immigration stream, but we have rules, regulations and quotas and people have to follow the rules or else you get these outbursts of frustration and antagonism which I have seen in many parts of the country about our over-all immigration system. I do not think it is fair, but because people feel the refugee situation has gotten out of control they damn the total immigration system.
Obviously we have to deal with these unscrupulous swindlers. We have to have measures in place which will ensure that they do not get off scot-free as has happened in the past. Bill C-84 will put many of those measures in place. Those kinds of people abuse our system for their own benefit. That in itself has reduced our ability to deal with genuine refugees. Because of the massive numbers already backlogged in the system, frustration has been caused to those who want the system to help the genuine refugee. That is what this Bill is directed toward.
There are thousands of people experiencing life-threatening dangers who came to Canada as refugees. They include people displaced by World War II and the refugees from Uganda who arrived in the early 1970s, many of whom are on the West Coast and have been wonderful citizens. They include more than 100,000 Indo-Chinese refugees who arrived here between 1970 and 1985 and thousands of refugees from Central and South America brought to Canada under special measures. Canadians welcome these unfortunate people with open arms. On behalf of Canadians we now seek to protect the meaning of "refugee status" because it seems to have taken on a new meaning and has caused confusion.
As I mentioned, in 1987 almost 30,000 people arrived in this country claiming refugee status. The dramatic jump which took place between 1985 and 1987 means that there are 44,000 people at one stage or another of the process. Because of the Charter of Rights and an appropriate desire for the rule of law, it is a long system with appropriate checks and balances.
In Bill C-55 we have introduced some changes to tighten up and streamline that system so that decisions can be made more quickly. We know that among those 44,000 there is a large number of economic migrants. It is pretty hard for them to get on with their lives if they are here under the pretense of being genuine refugees but are really economic migrants. If they are deported at the end of the process, they could have wasted anywhere from two to five years of their lives. That is not fair to them.
We have heard stories of this and the Government looks awful because it deported them, but they did not follow the rules, they were not genuine refugees, and I think the expectation of citizens of this country is that under those circumstances they should not stay. Therefore, they must once once again go through the process of displacement. That is an

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extremely unfortunate outcome of a situation in which we are not able to pass laws and deal with situations appropriately.
In the past year and a half we were confronted with two very highly publicized incidents of irregular arrivals on our shores. It was these two incidents which caused the outburst and reaction. 1 am not sure that most Canadians realize that approximately 500 people per week come to Canada claiming refugee status. Because of the media attention which surrounded those two incidents they brought the issue to the fore of people's minds and demanded a response from the Government.
1 do not want myself or my colleagues to be misunderstood on this issue. Canadians want to help genuine refugees. Through government sponsorship and dedication and thousands of private sponsors, church groups, and other organizations, we maintain a compassionate tradition. Millions of dollars are spent helping refugees adjust and settle when they arrive in Canada. We also show our commitment through international organizations to assist refugees. Food aid is a major component of economic assistance and service to refugees, both through the Government and the voluntary sector. There have been many programs during the past three years which are very important in that regard.
We understand the anger of Canadians over the blatant abuse of our refugee system. As borders around the world shut down Canada becomes more vulnerable to such abuse. Bill C-84 protects genuine refugees and legitimate immigrants. This legislation is carefully aimed at a very small minority, the smugglers who bring people in illegally and the conspirators who take advantage of the generosity of Canadians and the desperation and gullibility of would-be migrants. Canadians have been angered by this abuse of our system and horrified by the traffic in human misery which it generates.
We do not want to deny protection to those in genuine need. It is time to redefine just whom we want to help, to make it clear that our refugee policy exists to aid refugees, and that within this policy the person who claims refugee status must merit it. As well, we must make it clear that people who flaunt Canada's immigration laws will not get away with it. They must be shown that they can no longer be allowed to make a mockery of our country and our genuine generosity.
As they say, there is no one more angry than a person wronged. We have been very genuine in our generosity and when our generosity is abused it does cause a backlash. People really went out of their way and are now being taken advantage of. We must ensure that that does not exist in our country.
I hope that my colleagues in both opposition Parties see the importance of this Bill and move quickly to give it final approval. The Senate has recommended various amendments. We have accepted some of the amendments, either in whole or in principle, but 11 of them we cannot accept. The Minister has gone through them one by one as could I. I have looked at them carefully and was involved in discussing them in
committee. They just would not make sense. They would undermine the Bill and would not allow it to accomplish what 1 believe it should accomplish.
For example, Canadians do not want people who have committed a serious crime in another country to have the right to make a refugee claim. That is the kind of thing about which they are angry.
We must be able to turn ships away. The Minister has agreed to an amendment which would provide for this only in exigent circumstances. The responsible Minister will have to be involved in such a decision, so safeguards are included. However, we have ensured that this will be in compliance with our obligations under the convention and will take into account the safety and health of the passengers.
This would obviously be an extraordinary measure. However, in those extraordinary circumstances where the information is clear that a boatload of persons will be arriving on our shore and the evidence is that they are not genuine refugees, the Minister must have those powers. It is obviously a deterrent power which we hope we will not have to use. We hope that it will send a signal to the international community and that it and the accompanying increased fines will stop such carriage of people around the world.
The Senate made other suggestions on limiting search and seizure to daytime hours. That is unrealistic in Canada. In the North there are no daytime hours in the winter-time. We would be totally stymied in dealing with a plane coming into the Arctic. We would not be able to use search and seizure methods for almost six months of the year. People would only make entry at night-time. It just does not make any sense if we seriously want to deal with the problem with which we are dealing in Bill C-84.
Those amendments put forward by the Senate are not acceptable. They would seriously undermine the objectives of this Bill. I believe that the most important thing which we must accomplish through this Bill and the accompanying Bill, C-55, is to reassure the Canadian public that this Parliament, including all Members on all sides, have a genuine concern about maintaining the basic integrity of our refugee system, with the provisions of this Bill we will indeed have in place the necessary safeguards to ensure that that occurs.


James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Capilano (Mrs. Collins) urged haste in passing this legislation. Let me remind her that the Plaut report was tabled in 1985. Instead of acting on it, the Government referred it to the Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration. Rather than act on the recommendations of the standing committee, which would have provided for a rational and reasoned system that would have dealt with refugee determination, the Government procrastinated and did not act.
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When it finally acted, it was not in the humane and reasoned manner as prescribed by Rabbi Plaut who said that declaring a claimant to be a refugee is not a privilege we grant but a right we recognize. Instead, the Government took some very negative measures that will cause much difficulty for legitimate refugees.
I would like the Member to deal particularly with the section dealing with aiding and abetting. It does not distinguish between people who are working with refugees, many of whom do not have proper documentation since that is part of the fact of being a refugee, and those unscrupulous immigration agents who use the refugee process as a way of getting people here. The Government is using a scatter-gun approach, and many people in church groups and refugee aid groups are very concerned, with good reason, that this legislation can be used to target them for their activities which the majority of Canadians believe are perfectly legitimate.
The Government says that it has no intention of targeting those people, but has not brought in the kind of amendments that would exempt them. Surely if the Government is in the process of writing legislation it should be able to do so in a way that will target more specifically the kinds of people at whom it is aiming, and not take the scatter-gun approach that will harm innocent citizens who are working to help genuine refugees in Canada?


Mary Collins: Mr. Speaker, while 1 might feel that we did not act soon enough, when we took action I think it was entirely responsible and appropriate. I realize that my colleague may not agree and may have wanted a different response, but that does not mean that it undermines our response. I believe our response is the appropriate one and indeed protects genuine refugees while dealing appropriately with the problem of deterring illegitimate refugees.
I am sure the Hon. Member heard the Minister when he spoke earlier this week. Furthermore, we had a long discussion in committee about the question of those who work for humanitarian organizations involved in assisting refugees to come to the border. It was certainly my view, shared by my colleagues, that one cannot differentiate in law between different groups, attempting to indicate that one group is better than another.
The Minister is handling that situation by agreeing to the proposal that in all prosecutions under the provision that deals with clandestine entry, consent in writing of the Attorney General of Canada will be required before prosecutions are undertaken. As he stated, this measures adds substance to the Government's undertaking that a person who violates the Act in the cause of rendering needed humanitarian assistance to refugees will not be prosecuted.
I thought my colleague would be very pleased by that commitment of the Minister. It seems to me to deal very appropriately with the concern we heard at committee without in any way watering down or changing the offence which I
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believe would have created so many loopholes that we would have been right back to square one.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for Capilano (Mrs. Collins) for her response to the Member for Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands (Mr. Manly) in the matter of the Attorney General's permission. However, I would ask her to consider whether it is not an unsatisfactory and even an unfair writing of the law to write the law so that it describes the actions of thousands of Canadians, including for example, a person who recently won the Pearson Medal for Peace, Nancy Pocock, for a good many kinds of peace activity but in the last half dozen years primarily doing the very thing that is described in the Act, namely assisting undocumented persons to come to Canada.
She has been scrupulously legal. I am not talking about whether she has status. I am not talking about whether she is a Member of Parliament, whether she is a member of a church, whether she is ordained, whether she is a nun. It is not a question of who it is, it is a question of what the person is doing. Is it in accordance with the law or not in accordance with the law?
As the law is written, there is no distinction between what she does when she goes, say, to Fort Erie and conducts a Salvadoran refugee claimant across the bridge and, at the first step into Canada, takes him to the immigration office and says, "This Salvadoran without a visa is claiming refugee status in Canada. He has grounds to say he cannot return to Salvador and it will not be safe for him to return even to the United States". Of course, that becomes the matter of the Immigration Department, to put the process in motion to determine whether his claim is justifiable.
But that has been regarded entirely as a legal action up until Bill C-84 was introduced. People have been praised for that and praised for it by the Minister, by Members of the Government and, as I say, by orders of the Peace Medal and the Governor General who presented it.
Surely it is unsatisfactory to say that that is illegal, but to suggest that on a sort of person by person basis, if the Attorney General or his deputy likes the colour of her eyes he will say: "We won't prosecute you", surely it is necessary in law to say what it is that we are objecting to, and surely what we are objecting to is the attempt to deceive or to cheat, that is to get a person in, as one Hon. Member said a few moments ago, by circumventing the law. That suggests hiding, sneaking, smuggling, coming in secretly or dishonestly with lies or by evading the proper officials.
Surely it is necessary to distinguish between the person who evades or seeks to evade and a person who seeks not to evade but to go directly to the appropriate legal authorities. Will the Hon. Member not accept that a law is much more workable when it does not require the Attorney General to exempt the majority of Canadians who are condemned under that law?

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Immigration Act, 1976


Mary Collins: Mr. Speaker, 1 recall this provision. Of course, we had a great deal of discussion on it.
The Senate has recommended a change in the wording. The original legislation used the word "smuggling", which I noticed the Hon. Member used as well. There were many problems with that word but we were unable to find anything better. 1 presume the Senate arrived at the word "clandestine".
The Minister said he will consider using the word "illegal" which will give it some consistency, making it those who organize illegal immigration who would be in contravention of that section and subject to prosecution. They will be subject to prosecution, with the caveat that the Attorney General would have to consent.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: That is not in the operative section. That is only in the introduction.


Mary Collins: I do not believe the Hon. Member has the floor.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: No, but you should not be misleading the House.


Mary Collins: If the Hon. Member wishes the floor, 1 am sure he can comment at the conclusion of my remarks.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: May I ask the Hon. Member to conclude.


Mary Collins: I think the point about which the Hon. Member was concerned was how do we distinguish those who are in the practice of helping, and the Hon. Member mentioned a person. I do not think we can have a law which says that someone who is conducting something illegally but is doing it for good purposes is not in contravention, whereas someone else is. That does not seem to be workable. We cannot make that distinction. I think the provision the Minister has put forward, requiring the consent of the Attorney General, will look after that problem in an appropriate manner.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in this debate once again today. One would have wished that the Government would have seen the light after all the controversy it has caused with this Bill and would have decided at least to heed the recommendations of the Senate and the recommendations that opposition Members have suggested in a very positive way.
Let us remember where we come from when we are discussing this Bill. First, we know that in 1983 or 1984 it became apparent that the number of applicants to become refugees was increasing at a substantial rate. The Government appointed a commission under Rabbi Gunther Plaut and the commission produced a report in 1985 which made certain recommendations to the Government. Meanwhile, the flow of refugee claimants coming to this country was increasing at an
accelerated rate. The intensity was increasing dramatically as time went by.	'
In 1986 there was again a marked increase in the numbers of refugee applicants, to the point where last summer we had somewhere in the order of 18,000 people claiming refugee status in the space of a year. One day last summer, Canadians discovered that 174 people had landed on the coast of the Maritimes. What was the first reaction of Canadians when that happened? It was the usual reaction we expect, the reaction of tolerance and kindness which we have displayed historically to newcomers to this land. The first gesture, I believe, by Canadians at that time was to offer sandwiches and tea to these new people. I was proud that first day. However, that pride was very short-lived.
I saw not long afterwards messages coming from the Government side which seemed to feed on that unfortunate small element of intolerance that is ever so present in any society. With the encouragement, in my view, of the Government, people began to resent the arrival of these people. The whole incident was not even taken into context. I said moments ago that 18,000 people had made application in one year and that on one day 174 of them arrived. We must realize that not a week goes by in which we do not have 174 applicants. But this incident created national attention because they arrived all at once in a manner I described initially, and then in another manner which was not as pleasant, at least not pleasant for me as a Canadian to see.
The Government then took its next step. It decided this country was being invaded by refugees. It asked the Speaker to reconvene Parliament to deal with this so-called crisis. Initially, of course, the Speaker was reluctant to accept this proposition but, of course, it is not the Speaker's role to govern and for that I do not criticize the Chair. It is the Government's role to govern. The Government called back the House and brought forward Bill C-84, which has everything to do with satisfying the right-wing element and very little to do with assisting the refugee process, tightening it up or making it better for our country.
What this country really needed was to have a new refugee policy some three years ago at the time when both opposition Parties asked for it. But the Government did not produce it. It initially had the report and it did not do anything with it. It referred the matter to a parliamentary committee. The parliamentary committee made a report and the Government did not do anything with that. The Government acted swiftly when the issue became something we saw on national television that day last summer.

What the Government, what the party in power today should have done three years ago is take steps to ensure that competent staff was in place when people arrived in Canada and applied for refugee status. Instead of waiting two years to determine a person's refugee status, we should have a policy aimed at determining that status within four to six weeks. If
January 29, 1988

that were the case, Mr. Speaker, a person who applies for refugee status and is sent back to his country four to six weeks later will not be as likely to come right back if that person was making a false claim. On the other hand, people with valid claims would always have the assurance of being allowed to settle in this country, and I think that is what we all want. We want to separate those who make phony claims from those whose claims are genuine. Unfortunately, the present Bill is not satisfactory in this respect.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, 1 wonder if you could ask the House whether there would be unanimous consent perhaps not to see the clock? If the Opposition has essentially said all it wants to say on this Bill, we might not see the clock for five minutes and be able to finish debate today rather than continue the filibuster.
Immigration Act, 1976


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


Don Boudria: I will speak to that point of order. There are a number of amendments to deal with. A vote cannot even be taken on one of them, let alone on all of them, until Monday. So that proposition by the Member is not only ridiculous, as one would expect it to be, but it is not even workable. Obviously, I refuse to give my consent, and I see it is almost three o'clock.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It is three o'clock. Therefore, this House stands adjourned until Monday at 11 a. m., pursuant to Standing Order 3(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 3 p. m.
[Stage Direction]

Monday, February 1, 1988
[Stage Direction]
Prayers