1988-05-05

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Hon. Doug Lewis (Minister of State and Minister of State (Treasury Board)):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 106(8), I have the honour of tabling, in both official languages, the Government's response to eight petitions numbered as follows: 332-4185, 332-4187 to 332-4191, inclusive; 3324211 and 332-4213.
[Editor's Note: For above petitions, see today's Votes and Proceedings.]



SCRUTINY OF REGULATIONS


Hon. Bob Kaplan (York Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour of tabling, in both official languages, the Ninth Report of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations.
Pursuant to Standing Order 99(2), the Joint Committee requests that the Government table a comprehensive response to this report.
[Editor's Note: For above report, see today's Votes and Proceedings.]



STATUS OF DISABLED PERSONS


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions
among the Parties and I think you would find that there is consent to put the following motion immediately without notice. I move:
That the Standing Committee on the Status of Disabled Persons be
empowered to videotape its proceedings of Monday, May 30, 1988 and that an
edited version be used solely for educational purposes.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: The House has had 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.

Mr. Dan Heap (Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, it is my honour and duty, in accordance with Standing Order 106, to present a petition signed by some 200 residents of the constituency of Spadina and nearby in Toronto. They point out that Canadian sovereignty is threatened by the proposed trade deal between the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and the President of the United States, for which the Prime Minister has no mandate.
Further, it would reduce Canada's ability to plan the programs we need for economic, social, and cultural needs, and would integrate us further into the North American defence industrial base.
Therefore, they request that Parliament make sure that there will be a debate in a national general election before this agreement is finalized.


Mr. Norman Warner (Stormont-Dundas):: Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to present a petition on behalf of many residents of Stormont-Dundas concerning schizophrenia and the amount of money presently being spent. Over one per cent of the Canadian population is affected by this disease, and the petitioners hope that the Government would encourage further research in this area.

May 5, 1988
Order Paper Questions PROHIBITION WITH REGARD TO KNIVES


Ms. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, once again I rise to present a petition with respect to the problem of killings and injuries as a result of people carrying knives.
I have petitions from residents of Burnaby, Surrey, Langley, New Westminster, Vancouver, and Richmond, British Columbia, as well as from other cities across the country. I hope the Minister of Justice (Mr. Hnatyshyn) will respond.
The petitioners state that whereas the incidents of crimes committed with knives, including murder, robbery and sexual assault, are on the increase in all major cities across Canada, and the federal Criminal Code and court decisions allow citizens to carry knives, and whereas the carrying of knives by persons in public places is directly responsible for a variety of crimes, therefore these petitioners call upon Parliament to amend the federal Criminal Code to prohibit the carrying of knives by citizens in public places, except for those where knives are an integral part of legitimate work or carried for religious reasons, such as with the Sikh religion.


Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to table a petition in the name of some 200 constituents. They ask the House of Commons to encourage further research into schizophrenia because it is a major illness in Canada affecting about 1 per cent of the population, causes severe mental anguish and suffering to the patients and their relatives, and costs Canadian society more than $3 billion annually.
The petitioners state that recent research findings obtained in Canada have shown the illness to be a biochemical brain disorder, in part caused by genetic malfunction. Schizophrenic patients, their relatives and friends desperately hope that a cure and method of prevention can be found as soon as possible through larger research efforts dedicated to schizophrenia.
Whereas the research effort in Canada dedicated to schizophrenia is very small and not commensurate with the seriousness and cost of the illness in Canada, the undersigned petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to make sure that the research efforts on schizophrenia in the future will be commensurate with the seriousness of this illness in Canada.


Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops-Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 106, I am pleased to have an opportunity to present a petition on behalf of a number of constituents. They are concerned about the way the Government has handled the determination of those areas eligible for northern residents tax benefits. They see no rhyme nor reason for which communities are in and which are out, particularly those south of 55.
They are asking that Parliament declare all communities in what it calls Tier 3 ridings across Canada eligible for the northern residents deduction.


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


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Shall all questions be allowed to stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Wednesday, May 4, consideration of the motion of Mr. McMillan that Bill C-74, an Act respecting the protection of the environment and of human life and health, be read the third time and passed, and the Motion of Mr. Hawkes:
That this question be now put.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: When the House rose yesterday there were four minutes remaining for questions and comments on the speech by the Hon. Member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin).


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest when my hon. friend was making a delightful presentation on the environmental protection legislation. He has been a Member of the House of Commons for a number of years and has seen successive Liberal and Conservative administrations. In fact, he will be celebrating his twentieth anniversary here in just a few days.
Today we are debating the environmental protection Bill brought forward by the Government. While we plan to support it because it is a small step forward, will he pass some judgment on why we have waited so many years to debate the introduction of an environmental protection legislation? What have successive Conservative and Liberal administrations done in this regard?


Mr. Benjamin:: Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question and his comments about my twentieth anniversary here. I wish I looked and felt 20 years old. My hon. friend is perfectly correct that I have seen Governments and Ministers of Environment come and go.
May 5, 1988

The main reason there has been slow and inadequate action in Canada is that this Government, like previous Governments, believes that the so-called market forces, free enterprise principles, and business practices should take priority. As long as there is a buck to be made, the control of dangerous and hazardous products will take second place.
For example, this legislation exempts pesticides used on farms. As my hon. friend, the Hon. Member for Prince Albert (Mr. Hovdebo) pointed out yesterday, 86 per cent of nonoccupational exposure to pesticides and herbicides comes from our food, 11 per cent from our water, and 3 per cent from air. Obviously it has been apparent for many years that the vulnerability of every citizen to the bad effects of these substances is still very high.
I do not know why this legislation would exclude substances that are regulated by other Acts of Parliament because it should encompass all of them. Emissions from motor vehicles are excluded from this legislation because they are the jurisdiction of the Department of Transport. Pesticides and herbicides are excluded from this legislation because they come under the Pest Control Products Act.
We have a multiplicity of legislation scattered through several Departments, and one does not know what the other is doing. There is conflict among the Departments, the public, and the interests of those who manufacture, distribute, and sell dangerous and hazardous products. It will require some real political courage and determination by any Government to gather all of these laws under one jurisdiction. We can have the best law in the world and the best regulations, but they are only as good as the paper they are written on if they are not enforced. Without adequate inspection and enforcement, the law is meaningless. Inspection and enforcement both at the federal and provincial levels have been woefully inadequate all these years.
While the Bill is fine in principle, it leaves out a lot. I hope the Government is persuaded to move substantial amendments and accept some significant amendments from Members on all sides of the House in order to make this legislation a world leader.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The time for questions and comments has now terminated. Debate.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, 1 must say with all sincerity how delighted I am to participate in the debate today on the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. In just 25 days Canada will begin to celebrate Environment Week, which is set aside to encourage people to reflect on the importance of environmental issues. That will be relatively easy to do, because recent public opinion surveys reveal that 70 per cent of Canadians describe themselves as being more concerned about their environment than ever before.
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
If there is an issue that brings people out from the comforts of their homes to a public gathering, it is the area of environmental concerns. In my own constituency, when there is a problem of pollution of the Shuswap Lake system, we can be guaranteed that hundreds, if not thousands, of people will show up to hear the issues presented by the various experts. Right now one major issues is whether or not the central part of British Columbia should become a waste disposal area for western North America. I must say that is something that concerns me a great deal. I cannot be very enthusiastic about having our community becoming famous for its waste disposal facilities.
These are the issues we are facing today. We have increased pollution of our soils, our atmosphere, and our river and riverine systems. As a result of various levels of government bringing these problems to the attention of Canadians, we are becoming more and more concerned. I remember the publication that discussed acid rain a few years ago, in the early 1980s. The Government thought it was appropriate that people understand this issue. Most of us had never heard of acid rain. Now it is a household word, I suspect. Young people in particular have a real understanding and appreciation of this problem, which I think bodes well for our future. We have seen this concern develop in the United States over the years, as we have educated Americans to the realities of the acid rain phenomenon.
As we in the House of Commons speak on this subject today, we are all aware that between the rocks of our walls the mortar is falling out and that the stone itself is deteriorating as a result of the acid rain we find around us. When you and I, Mr. Speaker, attempt to go fly-fishing on some of the beautiful lakes surrounding Parliament Hill, we find that although the lakes look clear and we can see right down to the bottom, we cannot see anything in them. There are no bugs, no worms, no fish; there is no life, the lakes have been turned into a lifeless hole. These are the concerns about which we are aware, and today we have an opportunity to discuss the Government's effort at bringing in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
I want to say right off the top that we plan to support this initiative, although we feel it is a minute step in the right direction. I really must emphasize that I find it difficult to become enthusiastic about this initiative. I find it impossible to be laudatory in my remarks, but I want to say that at least we have an Environmental Protection Act. At least we have taken that initiative as a Parliament, and I am pleased about it. However, while we certainly recognize that this is a movement in the right direction, we still have a long way to go.
I had the opportunity the other day to read the report of a fellow named Ross Hume Hall, who is a member of the Canadian Environmental Advisory Council, a body which advised the federal Minister of the Environment between the years 1975 and 1982. He is presently a professor of biochemistry at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He presented us with an incredibly valuable insight into just how

May 5, 1988
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
serious the situation is. I think we all recognize that there are something like 100,000 industrial chemicals in existence in the environment today. Each year approximately 1,000 more chemicals are added. It is out of hand. As Mr. Hall points out, almost all these chemicals have never been tested for any toxicological effect whatsoever. Of the other chemicals, we know very little. We are filling up our environment with tens of thousands of new chemicals, one thousand each year, and we know very little about them. Obviously, that causes a lot of concern.
Mr. Hall makes the case that the blame lies not so much with the Department of the Environment, because the officials working for that Department have had some serious handicaps which prevented them from doing a lot of their work over the last number of years. He indicates in his article that we have seen a parade of 11 Ministers of the Environment, when he calls either disinterested or politically feeble, passing through the Department since 1972. He says successive federal Governments, both Liberal and Conservative, have encouraged weak management, so that the Department of the Environment has become a declawed and neutered tom-cat, showy but unaggressive and docile. It is an interesting observation. When we consider that so many Ministers of the Environment have passed through the system, we see how difficult it is for any Minister to take real control and provide strong leadership for the Department. I think that has been one of the problems for the last number of years.
This particular legislation should be worked on in terms of improvement. We made that effort as a political Party. The New Democrats submitted literally hundreds of suggestions and amendments to improve this particular piece of legislation. While the Government accepted some of the amendments, it rejected an overwhelming number of amendments that we put forward. What I believe we are getting with this Environmental Protection Act is not really the Bill Canadians want in terms of protecting the environment of Canada and, indeed, the environment of the world.
I can say without any hesitation that the legislation is quite weak. While it is called the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, or Bill C-74, it is very modest in scope. It is not really an Environmental Protection Act. It is really an update of the Environmental Contaminates Act, with some aspects of the Ocean Dumping Control Act and the Clear Air Act thrown in. In some cases there has actually been a regression in protection because of a weakening in the regulatory power which used to be in some of these other Acts.
To be fair, Bill C-74 gives the Government the scope to identify toxic substances and the scope to regulate these toxic substances once they have been identified. It gives the Government the ability to screen the substances before they are used in the environment. There is one fundamental improvement in the approach, and that is the change in the onus of proof.
Industry could bring in virtually anything it wanted, after the fact people had to go to a great deal of trouble in order to prove that the substance was toxic, and then some regulation would be brought in. In other words, an industry could introduce some chemical into the environment, and unless one could prove it had adverse toxic effects on our environment, nothing was really done. We have changed the onus, and I think that is a major improvement to the legislation. Industry will now have to convince regulators that substances are safe to use. It will have to show the criteria that it used to prove that point, and the substances we presently use in the system will have to be put on a priority list and tested.
We have some means of redressing the mistakes made in the past. However, let us be very clear that this is a very cumbersome and flawed process. Largely, it relies overwhelmingly on laboratory tests of various sorts. Laboratories deal with substances as you well know, Mr. Speaker, one at a time, and they do not take into account the cumulative effects of different kinds of toxic contaminants. Therefore they do not consider what is happening in the real world, or the environment per se. It is one thing to test a chemical for its toxic qualities in a laboratory setting and quite another to see what happens in the real world when, in fact, there could be a serious cumulative effect or an intermixing of chemicals from the natural environment. Let us recognize that it is certainly better than what we have had in the past.
Under the Environmental Protection Act Canadians will have the right to complain to the Government when substances are not identified or regulated to their satisfaction. As a Party, we had amendments in this case which would reduce the number of people necessary to complain in order to initiate some action. However, this is another positive aspect of the Bill.
The Bill will also ban the export of toxic substances when the use of the substances is banned in Canada. You might think, Mr. Speaker, who on earth would export a toxic substance that was banned in Canada to another country, often a Third World country. You would be surprised, Mr. Speaker, since there are literally hundreds of cases of not very scrupulous exporters taking advantage of products that have been banned in our country for obvious reasons, that is, because of their harmful effects on the environment, and then exporting those to other countries. That now will be stopped. This is a major step forward that this legislation has provided us.
The Bill will also give the Government the right to regulate fuels on the basis of environment quality. Here again, this is something that we are very pleased to see because emissions from motor vehicles are a prime source of pollution, particularly in our metropolitan areas. Also, it is well known that the emissions contribute to acid rain. This particular element gives the Government an opportunity to act in the future in order to keep down the pollutants going into our atmosphere.
May 5, 1988

I was encouraged to see the fact that the Bill gives the Government regulatory authority over nutrients and water conditioners. I suppose this is really a relatively minor matter, but, again, it is a step in the right direction. This is particularly important to myself and others because we have seen in some of our very pristine western lakes an element of pollution creeping in through the use of houseboats.
Houseboating has become a very popular recreational activity. On some lakes such as the Shuswap Lake system we have literally hundreds of houseboats floating around. When people are on those houseboats for a few days they have to do certain things. Often those things are not necessarily done in the proper way. I think you will understand what I am referring to, Mr. Speaker.
Not only are those things people end up doing to the environment in a direct way a problem but, more important, is what is called grey water. You are a person familiar with this concept, Mr. Speaker, being a recreationalist yourself. Grey water is the kind of thing from dishwashing and showers, when we use soap and detergents and dump that into the water. That is one problem.
You will remember, Mr. Speaker, an experience I told you about some time back when I was having a chance to do some boating in the Gulf Islands. We tied up in a little cove with about 35 or 40 other boats for the evening. It was very shallow but protected from the wind conditions and other problems to boating. I got up in the morning and jumped in for a refreshing dip, only to notice an awful lot of material floating in the water that seemed to be foreign. Indeed, when I recognized exactly what it was, I wondered what on earth we were doing in this little protected cove. I cannot imagine that we have a country that would allow people literally to flush out toilets from hundreds of people, sitting in a little cove, directly out into the salt chuck. But that is what has happened. It is a bit of an aside, but in a very vivid and personal way it points out how important it is for us to have a Canadian Environmental Protection Act that hopefully will deal with these sorts of horrible situations in the future.
The Bill before us legislates governmental authority to make environmental regulations with respect to federal Departments and Crown agencies. This clarifies something that many of us have been concerned about for some time. I want to draw to your attention, Mr. Speaker, a letter that was sent recently by the Thompson-Nicola Regional District to the Minister of the Environment (Mr. McMillan). It states:
The Board of Directors of the Thompson-Nicola Regional District considered the following recommendations of the Union of B.C. Municipalities with respect to the Draft Environmental Protection Act:
1.	The liability of local government be more clearly and reasonably defined in line with the tone and substance of our specific concerns.
2.	The Federal Government establish a mechanism whereby potential conflicts between Environment Canada and local government can be resolved in a co-operative fashion.
3.	The Federal Government agrees to compensate local government for any added regulatory costs this legislation may place on it.
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
4.	The Federal Government take a balanced approach to environmental
concerns and make a commitment to fund infrastructure costs.
These are concerns that reflect a region in British Columbia trying to identify clearly who is responsible for what kind of activity. Often in the past when we have seen problems of environmental pollution everyone passed the buck. It was said that it was not a local concern but a provincial concern, or others said that it was not their concern but a federal concern and the federal Government said that it was not its concern but someone else's. As a result the pollution continues, environmental degradation continues, and everyone steps back and blames it on someone else's incompetency. The Bill provides us with an excellent opportunity to take federal leadership on these issues. Again, this is one of the woeful inadequacies of this Bill. It fails to do that as the request comes to us from the Thompson-Nicola Regional District.
There is one aspect that the Government, if it is concerned about environmental conditions and, in particular, the pollution of our waterways, ought to consider more seriously. It is the issue that was put before us by the Association of Canadian Municipalities. That organization represents the urban areas of Canada where they, in co-operation with the provincial Governments, have proposed to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) a cost-sharing program in which, for sewage treatment facilities, for example, the local taxpayers, the local Government, would assume one-third of the costs. The provincial Government would assume one-third of the costs, as would the federal Government. This would allow municipalities, both large and small, to develop the necessary sewage treatment facilities.
It is a sad situation when we still have many, many communities, both large and small, some as large as the City of Montreal, that are for all intents and purposes still depositing raw sewage into our river systems and our lakes. Yet that goes on in 1988. It is almost hard to believe. One of the reasons that a great many smaller municipalities indicate why they do it is that they do not have the tax base to perform. This is one way that the federal Government could co-operate to do that. All the cities agree. All the provinces and territories agree. There is only one hold-up, that is, our Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson). We have to put a little heat on him to take action.
This legislation is encouraging because it establishes the possibility for boards of review to be created upon the petition of individuals who are dissatisfied with the regulations under this Act. If there are citizens who want to take a petition to ask that a board of review be set up to examine a particular component of his Bill, that mechanism is provided. I think that is another major step, as well as the fact that the Bill finally provides for some reasonable fines for those people who simply ignore environmental regulations. I am referring to Fines of up to $1 million a day for offenders in terms of environmental crimes under this Bill, and also prison sentences if necessary. We are finally getting gutsy and saying that the environment is important and, if one is going to conduct crimes against the environment, then an individual or a company must pay the

May 5, 1988
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
price. Fines of up to $1 million a day and jail sentences are long overdue.
This is also a very clear signal that we can provide to the people of Canada that we are serious. If one is going to go out and dump toxic wastes into a river system or into our atmosphere, then we will be prepared to lay charges.
There is a number of things that I should mention that the Bill does not do. I have one minute left, so I will mention only one of the major flaws. The Bill fails to incorporate the much demanded environmental bill of rights. The overwhelming majority of Canadians who are concerned about this issue want an environmental bill of rights. It is very clear where we stand on the whole matter of environmental pollution. As a society, we are against it. A comprehensive environmental bill of rights would do just that. As you well know, Mr. Speaker, all we have is a preamble at the beginning of this Bill which goes in that direction. Rather than having a preamble, let us have the development of a comprehensive environmental bill of rights. Every Canadian should have the right to a healthy environment and should not have to be exposed to a polluted environment, whether it is on land, or water, or in the atmosphere.
The Canadian Environmental Protection Act has not done anything on some of the major environmental issues. I refer to the issue of pesticides which is set aside. The Bill does not address acid rain, the issue of the nuclear industry, or the packaging and the treatment of consumer products and the pollution that occurs there. In other words the Bill does not address some of the most critical environmental issues in our country-nuclear energy, acid rain, and the use of pesticides, which is out of control these days. Obviously, this is a very major weakness in the legislation.
In this Bill the Government fails to put a time limit on how long the Government can take to decide if a substance is toxic after it has been put on the priority list. This again is a major failing, because we do not want to take 35 years to determine if a chemical is adversely toxic.
I could go on, but I know there are others who want to say a few words on this critical issue before we vote on it, presumably later in the day. I appreciate this opportunity and look forward to the next debate when we take this legislation and upgrade it in order that when we have a Canadian Environmental Protection Act it is an Act that protects Canadians from a polluted environment.


Mr. Murphy:: The Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) commenced an explanation of why he believed it was important to have an environmental bill of rights. He mentioned that there was only one minute left in his speech and, therefore, he did not have adequate time to expand upon that point. I wonder if in using the time available for questions and comments the Hon. Member could expand upon that and
explain to us why he believes that an environmental bill of rights would be useful in our Canadian context.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) realizes that I gave him an extra couple of minutes, so if he would wind up I would appreciate it.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Absolutely, Mr. Speaker, I would be only too pleased to co-operate with your request.
My friend, the Hon. Member for Churchill (Mr. Murphy), has indicated that there is obviously a need for an environmental bill of rights. I do not think there is anyone in the House who would say that that is not a reasonable request or suggestion.
While I indicated at the outset of my comments that Bill C-74 is a minute step in the right direction, it is not a comprehensive piece of legislation. It excludes pesticides, no matter how toxic they are. It excludes nuclear contaminants, no matter how toxic or dangerous they are. Obviously it is not comprehensive legislation. It is actually very narrowly focused. It does not provide any standards of environmental quality. What we have in the legislation are guidelines and objectives, but they are not as strong as the standards that must be met. I feel that we should be setting very specific standards. Therefore, this is again one of the major deficiencies in the legislation.
We all agree that Canadians have the right to a healthy environment. If there is any country in the world that is in a position to provide that, it must be Canada. We are extremely fortunate that in most of Canada the environment is relatively clean. In other parts, unfortunately that is not the case. We ought to focus our efforts not only on cleaning up the waste material and the pollution that exists in certain zones of the country but on taking steps to ensure that this stops and that we simply do not have those types of contaminants in our atmosphere, soils, and water.
There have been repeated demands to the Government to provide the necessary clout to give citizens the right to take polluters to court. For example, citizens on behalf of future generations, on behalf of their children, and on behalf of their neighbours ought to have the opportunity to do that. That is not provided in this legislation. It is only if a person has a direct financial stake that he or she can take the polluter to court.
We can have a very narrow focus that pollution may cause some immediate harm that can be dealt with, but there is not the real understanding that pollution is harmful to everyone. We are all in this together. Pollution in one area will move to another; underground rivers can eventually unite and mix these toxic chemicals and other contaminants. What a person does in one part of Canada might have a profound effect on an individual in another part of the country, to say nothing of the toxic chemicals that are in the atmosphere.


May 5, 1988

Pesticides that are sprayed on a field in Alabama will eventually turn up in the Great Lakes system. Do you know how long it will take to do that, Mr. Speaker? Sometimes it will take less than five days from the time that the fields are sprayed in Alabama to the time those chemicals reach the Great Lakes system. It is quite incredible how quickly those contaminants can move about the continent.
A Canadian Environmental Protection Act of a comprehensive nature that would include an environmental bill of rights would not only provide a safer environment for people, but it would send a very clear signal to all Canadians of how serious we are as a country in terms of a clean environment. Once that signal is made and that leadership is provided, many Canadians would be more inclined in their own personal lives to clean up their act when it comes to dealing with perhaps something as simple as recycling garbage. They look to see if it is a serious problem, then of course they can expect the Parliament of Canada to act. That is why we are a little less than gleeful as we close off debate on the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, because it fails to provide this necessary environmental bill of rights for which most thoughtful Canadians have called for years. Now, as the polls indicate, the majority of Canadians have indicated a sincere interest in seeing it produced.


Ms. Dewar:: My colleague referred to the study that was conducted by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and indeed the type of pollution that is taking place by urban living, the industrialization of the urban society, and the types of things that are happening to the degeneration of the sewage systems where there are treatment centres. He also referred to the areas of some cities where no treatment is taking place.
I would like to ask the Hon. Member if, when looking at this type of study, he sees the ability to implement the results and the recommendations if this Bill were strengthened to give us some control in environmental assessment?


Nelson Andrew Riis: I appreciate the comment of my colleague, the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain (Ms. Dewar). The point that she makes is very valid. There is certainly an interrelationship between the position of the urban areas in terms of their ability to treat sewage and deal with other environmental matters, and I can think here of all types of waste material.
If this Bill had been stronger in terms of requiring action and setting very clear standards as opposed to guidelines, we could make a much stronger case that the Minister of Finance ought to act in terms of providing the necessary sewage treatment facilities which are obviously needed, but a useful spin-off would be the tremendous amount of employment that would be generated over the years these new systems are being introduced. In terms of job creation, taking people off the unemployment insurance roll and giving them an opportunity to participate in meaningful and useful work in their communities, as well as cleaning up the environment, it would certainly be worth the money invested.
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
When it comes to dealing with the environment it is a nonpartisan issue. That is why it is in the interest of all of us on all sides of the House to do what we can as cabinet Members, front-benchers, and back-benchers, to bring as much pressure to bear on the Minister of Finance as we possibly can so that he joins with his political colleagues from every part of Canada and every level of government to deal with the very tragic crisis facing our country and, in this case, our municipalities. They do not have the tax base to allow them to develop the necessary sewage treatment facilities and infrastructure in most cases, so it requires a partnership. We are all concerned about it because if one municipality upstream is polluting the river system and we are sitting downstream taking a glass of water out of that system, we want to make sure it is as pristine as possible. We all have a vested interest in ensuring that all municipalities have the ability to deal with their sewage problems in a proper way.
I want to thank my hon. friend for the suggestion that if we had the necessary standards that we want in this legislation, we would obviously be able to make a much stronger case to our municipal, regional, and provincial counterparts that we must all join together in a co-operative effort to clean up the environment.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated. Debate.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a privilege for me to have the opportunity to enter this debate. One of the reasons I became a Member of Parliament was my concern for our environment in general, as well as our work environment. As our House Leader said earlier, the NDP caucus will support this legislation but we do so with some reluctance. We are seeing a step-by-step process to ensure the quality of our environment, but the steps are small. Indeed, with the number of new chemicals and contaminants being developed every year, we are in a very serious race just to try and maintain the quality of the environment as it is now, let alone restoring it to the condition it should be.
This debate reminds me of other debates we have had in that quite often the legislation being debated looks quite sound. The ideals are there. The general direction outlined is where we would like to progress to. However, we then discover that through the regulation-making process the concept of the legislation is often diminished. Let me give a couple of examples outside the environmental field.
There is an amendment to Bill C-79, dealing with the Elections Act, which says that the average size of a poll in Canada, presently 250 voters, will be changed. It will set the minimum size of a poll at 250 voters. The legislation has not yet been passed by Parliament, but we have already heard that the Chief Electoral Officer has instructed some returning officers to read that legislation as saying that the minimum size of a poll in Canada would be 400 to 450. That shows us

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Canadian Environmental Protection Act
that when Parliament changes one word in some legislation, or a very small clause, further down the road someone can use that small change to make a drastic change in the effect of the legislation.
If this was the only example of that kind of thing, then perhaps we would not be worried about what happens to the regulations concerning the environment after this legislation is passed. However, there are other examples. Bill C-124 has not been passed by this House, but we are told that the industry is waiting for it to be passed so that it can increase the number of dust particles in the air in the coal mines of Cape Breton. The legislation does not indicate that there will be an increase in those particles which create a fire or health hazard, but we know there are people who have been working behind the scenes to make sure that the regulations allow the corporations to do so.
A third example relates to an issue which has been dealt with in Question Period over the last couple of days. The American film industry has said in a circular it sent to its membership that it has the agreement of the Government of Canada to be involved in the setting of regulations after the House finally deals with legislation concerning film distribution. This legislation has not even been debated in the House, yet the lobbyists for the American industry are saying they already have the Government's agreement that they will be in a position to make sure the regulations fit the needs and concerns of the American film industry, not those of the Canadian film industry or Canadian distributors. What does that do to the debate in the House? We will be dealing with legislation which seems to indicate that the Government is to stand firm and ensure that there is a healthy Canadian film industry, but with this statement by the Americans that they have won their battle, the whole process that we go through becomes a joke.
This kind of situation occurs in so many pieces of legislation that the lobbyists know it is not what is in the legislation that counts as long as it is vague enough; it is what is done by the bureaucrats and cabinet officials after the legislation has passed that really matters.
I have seen, as I am sure have others including yourself, situations where companies and individuals dealing with government officials make sure that the regulations concerning the legislation are either very weak, watered down, or are not capable of being enforced properly. That happens on a consistent basis, and every time it does Parliament is the loser. The people are losers as well.
There are groups in this country that have been fighting for a strong Environmental Protection Act. They have talked to Members of the House. They have made their presentations to the committee that studied Bill C-74. They talked with cabinet Ministers. They assume that is the process they should be going through. They assume that when the House passes the various amendments it will produce legislation to protect the environment. What they have never been told about is the
silent lobbying, the quiet voices that are getting to the Ministers behind the scenes. This has become a routine, Mr. Speaker. While those of us in the House and the groups out in society are fighting for the actual wording of legislation, making sure that as many of the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed as possible, quiet conversations are going on, not behind the curtains of Parliament, but in the offices and in the board rooms of the nation. Those are the places where too many decisions are being made.
When I looked at this Environmental Protection Bill I had those same concerns. There are some good ideas in this Bill, ideas that we accept, but we are not sure what will happen when the regulations are passed. This Bill gives the Government scope to identify toxic substances. But, how will that be done? The Bill gives the Government scope to regulate those toxic substances it has identified. Again, how will that take place? The Bill gives the Government the ability to screen new substances before they are used in the environment. Again, there is no indication of what the regulations and the requirements will be. The Bill gives Canadians the right to complain to the Government when substances are not identified or regulated to their satisfaction. But, what happens after those complaints are heard?
Canadians are writing letters and phoning their Members of Parliament and government offices across the country on a daily basis. It is what happens there after that becomes important. Again, this legislation does not give any guarantee that those complaints will be listened to. I could list each and every area where the Bill gives the Government power to act, but it does not say what will happen. That is our concern.
It is a major problem with much legislation passed in this House of Commons. We pass Bills in good faith and assume things will happen. We know though that there have already been some quiet deals made, such as is the case with the film distribution legislation which is yet to be introduced in this House. We know the same thing will happen with the labour legislation. We have had this experience with past legislation affecting health and safety in the workplace. Will the same thing happen with the environment Bill as well? It will be very interesting to see, once this legislation is passed, what the regulations are that result from the Bill and what effect they will have on our nation.
There are many areas not covered by the environmental protection legislation before us. For example, this Bill does not deal with many of the destructive substances in use today. Specifically it excludes substances that are regulated by other Acts of Parliament. Pesticides and motor vehicle emissions are examples.
The federal Government took this same approach with regard to the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System. We passed that legislation approximately a year ago. The Bill stipulated that if hazardous goods were being used in
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the workplace labels must be affixed to the containers listing the chemicals. Within that workplace there must be information sheets explaining the dangers of the various chemicals, what safety measures can be used and if there is an accident, what action should be taken. This was very useful legislation which resulted from negotiations among the unions, the corporations, and the provinces. We approved of this legislation. However, the same exemptions were there-pesticides, agricultural products, tobacco, and a number of other products which affect workers.
It became obvious to us that that was an example the Government wanted to follow in many areas. In Bill C-74 we see the same process. The Government says that we do not have to deal with pesticides, even though they are known to be a danger to the environment of this nation, in the Environmental Protection Act because they can be dealt with through some other Act of Parliament. We do not have to deal with emissions for motor vehicles because they, too, can be dealt with through some other Act of Parliament.
Pesticides and most vehicle emissions have been a major problem to the environment of Canada. If we keep excluding them from a Bill which is supposed to be protecting our environment, then we are forgetting the whole purpose of the Environmental Protection Act. We do not have one Act which is supreme when it comes to dealing with the environment.
When it came to the workplace hazardous material legislation we compromised. We said that the Government could pass the legislation and that it could exclude all these areas from having to provide information about what is dangerous in the workplace. However, we insisted upon a parliamentary review of each and every one of those exceptions within a two-year period. After a bit of bargaining the Government agreed to the compromise. This was done to make sure the Government would take some action within the next two-year period. Industries excluded from the workplace hazardous material legislation will automatically report to a committee of the House of Commons within a year from now.
This creates some motivation for industries and government Departments affected to provide protection for their workers. The compromise was very substantial and important, but we did not achieve the same type of compromise in this legislation. We have no guarantee in the Environmental Protection Bill that pesticides, motor vehicle emissions, and a number of other areas that are excluded by Bill C-74, will ever provide the protection to the environment that is needed. The very fact that the complaint procedure listed in Bill C-74 will not apply to pesticides or motor vehicle emissions means that the public does not have the same protection from environmental contaminants coming from these sources. We have no guarantee that the appropriate Act of Parliament to control pesticides, to control emissions from motor vehicles, et cetera, will ever be changed to provide similar protection for the Canadian environment and our population.
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This is the type of perverted logic which makes people very skeptical of this legislation. We are seeing major areas of environmental pollution exempted and no indication that the Government will act in these areas in a short period of time. One must then question the sincerity of the Government. I really must question what lies behind this legislation.
In his final remarks the Hon. Member for Kamloops- Shuswap (Mr. Riis) talked about the need for an environmental bill of rights. When we pass Bill C-74 we will be failing to meet that request of many Canadians who believe that we must have an adequate bill of rights to protect our environment. We must ensure that people who have a complaint about major polluters, or even about minor polluters, can take advantage of some due process that would see that their complaints are studied and that there is some appeal mechanism if they feel that officials or industries have ignored their concerns.
We know that this legislation can be a step in the right direction. Regulations can be drafted to protect the environment. We know that there could be adequate legislation on those excluded industries and products, but that did not happen. I see that you are signalling that my time is up, Mr. Speaker, but I find those to be the major flaws in the legislation that I really must wonder if the Government is attempting to pass legislation that looks good but, in a year or two, will not any better protect the environment.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, I was very interested in the remarks of the Hon. Member for Churchill (Mr. Murphy) about the large areas of concern that have been excluded from the effect of this Bill, and I would like him to comment a little further on the process which he touched on, the process for determining by which members of the public may raise issues about the regulations.
Is it the case that through that process they may raise issues or questions or that they are excluded from raising questions about the limitations of the Bill in regard to auto emissions, in regard to pesticides, in regard to nuclear wastes, or in regard to acid rain, or is there any kind of mechanism provided by which those issues can be raised by interested members of the public through this Bill?


Rodney Edward Murphy: Mr. Speaker, that is a very valid question. As I said, this legislation takes a number of small steps which are important. One of them is that it establishes boards of review to be created if there are petitions or if individuals are dissatisfied with some of the regulations that are put in place under the Bill. That is a step in the right direction. It does not guarantee that there will be an adequate review, but it provides a process for reviewing some of the regulations that will be put in place.
As I stated earlier, I really believe that quite often, regulations are even more important than the legislation itself. If we have weak regulations, it does not matter if the legislation is

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fairly strong; the regulations will allow the polluters to get away with environmental murder.
As the Hon. Member for Spadina (Mr. Heap) has pointed out, if things such as pesticides, the nuclear industry, and motor vehicle emissions are exempt from the Act in the first place, then there will be no regulations under the Environmental Protection Act pertaining to these substances, and that obviously means that there will be no appeal mechanism for members of the public who have very major concerns with pesticides and the other substances I mentioned earlier.
I would like to amplify on that for a few seconds, because it seems to me-


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Amplify? What's that? Expand.


Rodney Edward Murphy: The Deputy Government House Leader wants me to expand rather than to amplify, so I will lower my voice and will speak longer, at his request.
If we have a piece of legislation, the main purpose of which is to protect the environment, the legislation should have an over-all effect. It should cover all bases. Let me give an example of that.
In 1983, the industries that fell under federal legislation for occupational health and safety reported to 17 different Departments and agencies. If there was an accident at a work site or a problem related to health and safety at the work site, one of 17 different agencies or Departments would be involved. Obviously, that created an administrative nightmare and meant that there were areas for which there was no proper enforcement.
In 1984, we changed the Canada Labour Code and put most of those 17 different Departments or agencies under one roof. When it came to occupational health and safety, most of the industries fell under the Labour Code and it was up to the Department of Labour to ensure that the Labour Code was being enforced. That is not happening with Bill C-74.
We are not seeing the Department of the Environment taking over major responsibility for the environment. We are not seeing all the various pieces of legislation and categories of pollution being put under the Department of the Environment, and that is what is causing the problems to which 1 have referred.
After this legislation is passed and after the regulations, whatever they may be, are finally put in place, those people who are concerned about the environment will not automatically go to the Department of the Environment. They will not know to which Department they will have to speak, whether they will have to speak to nuclear regulatory boards, to one of the government Departments, to Energy, Mines and Resources, to the Department of Agriculture or to the Department of the Environment.
If it is the environment that is being threatened and if people have legitimate concerns about what pesticides or other
contaminants are doing to their environment, they should know that one Department has over-all responsibility for pollution, whatever the cause. That does not exist in this legislation, and that is one of the major problems with it.
Quite often we talk about trying to simplify laws. We talk about making it easier for the average concerned citizen to know where to go with his complaints. In many areas we have tried to achieve that simplicity but, when it comes to the environment, Bill C-74 still allows a number of other different government agencies to have their own fiefdoms. This means that concerned citizens will have to bring in expensive lawyers and go through a very complicated process just to try to clean up the environment in their own neighbourhoods, and that is unacceptable.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret that questions and comments are now terminated. Debate.


Mr. Pat Binns (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to move at this point:
That the House continue to sit through the lunch hour for the purpose of
continuing consideration of third reading of Bill C-74, an Act respecting the
protection of the environment and of human life and health.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Will those Members who object to the motion please rise in their places?
And fewer than 15 Members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Fewer than 15 Members having risen, pursuant to Standing Order 9(4) (b), the motion is adopted.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Marion Dewar: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on this Bill to which many of us looked forward. When the Minister described Bill C-74 as probably the most progressive environmental Act in the western world, he certainly did not take into consideration the many things which he neglected to put into this Bill. All we really have is a continuation of the identification of toxic substances and an unchanged Ocean Dumping Act combined in one Bill.
The Brundtland Commission, which reported in 1987, caught the vision and imagination of all Canadians and all people internationally. One of the recommendations in the report Our Common Future was that national Governments should establish clear environmental goals and enforce environmental laws, regulations, incentives, and standards on industrial enterprises. This should normally be done at the national level with local Governments being empowered to exceed but not to lower national norms.
After that report was published there was a great surge in the opinion polls in this country. Canadians want to protect the environment not only for today but for the future. If this Parliament is to leave any kind of credible legacy for the
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future, it should be strengthening this Bill. If we had a strong Environmental Protection Act with the necessary legislative power, we would not have the major concerns which we have about what the environmental impacts of the Canada-U.S. trade agreement will be. There are some major concerns in that area.
I come from a riding where there are very deep concerns about industrial pollution of the environment. The industries are now taking steps to attempt to improve this situation. A major initiative by a group of citizens who call themselves the stakeholders, identified and put forward on the public agenda the need to protect Hamilton Harbour from further pollution and to restore it to the state it was in when our ancestors were enjoying it.
The federal Government should be commended for announcing a grant to clean up the Windermere Basin in conjunction with the province, the Hamilton-Wentworth region, and the United States. However, it gives me great grief that the environmental Act before us will not give us the legislative power to restrict types of pollution in the future. I say that with deep regret because there has been much debate in this country on the U.S. trade agreement. Yet there has been absolutely no commitment by the Government to protect the environment with any international trade agreements, and this gives me great concern.
We will, however, be supporting this Bill since it is at least a small step toward identifying more toxic substances and stopping them from being dumped into our environment. We have a vision for this country. It will not be long before there is a change in government. A New Democratic Government will protect the environment because it will believe in a country with total environmental protection. That will certainly have to come to pass before this dreadful trade agreement is implemented.
I have a study which was done by the Canadian Environmental Law Association which is very concerned. It says that the environmental implications of these changes are profound. We face significant restrictions on our options to develop conservation strategies for our resources. It must put fear into all Canadians to realize that we will have to supply the U.S. market in the same proportions, even in times of shortages. That means that we will have to continue to exploit our resources far beyond what our needs would be because we entered into this agreement.
If we look at what is happening with regard to the harmonization of agricultural technical regulations, we soon recognize that the provisions provide that technical regulations and standards for agricultural food, beverage, and certain related goods, are to be harmonized, defined as "made identical". The standards to be harmonized include animal quarantine restrictions, accreditation procedures for inspections, approval requirements for new goods and processes, and technical regulations, including levels of quality, performance, and safety or dimensions. Working groups will be established to
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harmonize standards on various agricultural issues including veterinary drugs and fees; food, beverage, and colour additives; unavoidable contaminants, pesticides; and labelling and packaging of agricultural food, beverages, and certain related goods for human consumption.
The Government has consistently refused to include pesticides in this Bill. To identify that there will be a need to harmonize this with the trade agreement is very serious. In Canada we do not concede that a category of unavoidable contaminant is permissible in food products, and I hope that we never reach that stage. The Canadian Environmental Law Association has a very deep concern with the implications of what this regulation and harmonization for the regulation of pesticides are all about.
According to federal officials, between 1971 and 1981 total pesticide sales in Canada increased twelve-fold in current dollars, from $57.3 million to $698 million, and more than four-fold when adjusted according to Statistics Canada price of index pesticides. At least 10 million acres in 1975 were treated with herbicides on the Canadian Prairies. By 1978 this had increased to about 15.5 million acres. In 1976 alone Canada imported almost 117 million pounds of pesticides from the United States. Yet, at this time we are refusing to include pesticides as part of our Environmental Protection Act. One must question what the word "protection" means in the title of this Act.
We know that the use of pesticides involves the deliberate application to land and water of chemicals which are intended to be poisonous to selected organisms. Two categories of undesirable affects resulting from pesticide use have been identified. These are the development of the resistance in pest species and the impact on non-target species and organisms.
The United Nations Environment Program has stated that even when properly used chemical pesticides have a number of unavoidable side effects. These include three million bird deaths in New Brunswick during 1975 from aerial spraying of approximately seven million acres of forest with phosphamidon and penitrothion; the death of a farm worker in 1983 in British Columbia from pesticide poisoning; the possibility that 10 per cent of Alberta grain farmers may be experiencing pesticide poisoning every year; and the Canada-Ontario report on pollution of the St. Clair River, estimating that about 70 per cent of the 2.5 million kilograms of agricultural pesticides used annually on the lands draining into connecting channels of the Detroit and St. Clair Rivers are potentially environmentally hazardous.
In addition, the presence of agricultural pesticides and residues in food has also been identified in Ontario. It seems insane to exclude pesticides from an environmental protection Bill when we know these facts.
Currently in Canada our regulatory scheme for pesticides has received increased scrutiny with the publication of the Law

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Reform Commission Report on pesticides regulation, and the legal political controversy surrounding the federal Government's decision to cancel the registration in Canada of pesticides. Several hundred public interest and environmental groups in Canada are involved in research and advocacy issues related to pesticide use, particularly on how it affects the environment and our health.
The free trade agreement provides for the harmonization of standards and regulations regarding pesticides. Not only does this Bill exclude pesticides, further legislation will be introduced requiring us to harmonize these regulations with the United States.
The trade deal raises great uncertainty about the future of environmental protection standards. It remains to be seen how legitimate domestic objectives will be applied. At a minimum, the Canadian Government and public policy groups will be required to lobby in the United States for standards that are affecting our environment. Surely this is unacceptable to Canadians. The deal provides for no public participation in the harmonization process, so Canadians will find out after the fact rather than be part of that process. This undermines the movement toward wider public interest in participation and debate over setting the standards for product safety and environmental protection.
We know that the environment is one of the greatest concerns of Canadians. Yet, the Government is entering into an agreement with the United States that reduces our ability to participate in a discussion of those environmental standards.
Canadians have tended to ignore the importance of the service sector in our country. Services account for about 70 per cent of our jobs, and the service sector is the only major sector in the United States which manages to generate a trade surplus. Therefore, American business seeks to expand its trade services world-wide and most countries in the world, including the poor and undeveloped ones, recognize the importance of this sector for employment and have resisted American penetration. However, the Conservative Government has tried to sell this to Canadians as a good deal. Thankfully they are resisting such promotion.
It entails treatment no less favourable than that accorded in like circumstances to Canadian companies with respect to measures that are covered by Chapter 14. This Chapter specifically obliges states and provinces to follow the same policy with respect to service investments from another country.
In other words, if the legislation itself cannot be strengthened, how will we have any legislative clout when these regulations must be harmonized with the provinces and the states?
Another problem arises as a result of Article 2010 regarding monopolies. A monopoly is any entity, including any consortium that in any relevant market in the territory of a party that is the sole provider of a good or a covered service. The
agreement prevents anti-competitive practices by monopolies and compensates any enterprise which could be deprived of business opportunities through the establishment of a monopoly in any sector of the market.
If we establish a national program, it could be identified as a monopoly. This would reduce public policy options including those that are meant to protect our environment. I believe the only way to proceed is through public policy. The Government rejects this option when it refuses to strengthen the legislation.
The free trade agreement raises further questions when we consider the Ontario reforestation practices. Under forest management agreements, the licensing system which covers 70 per cent of our forested lands in the Province of Ontario subsidizes the holder of a license to replant logged forest lands. This practice could be attacked by the American forestry service as an anti-competitive practice.
Surely, when we are dealing with the protection of our environment and our resources, we are also talking about our ability to practice reforestation. That cannot take place if we are giving any of that decision-making power to the United States.
The analysis of the trade agreement indicates that there will be significant impacts on the environment, as there are with most economic development proposals. It is only in the last 10 to 15 years that we have seriously considered the impact of economic development proposals on our environment.
It was clearly pointed out in the Brundtland report that we must have regard for the protection of the environment when we are considering sustained development.
This deal is the Government's blueprint for Canadian economic development of the future. It entrenches a market oriented approach to economic decision making which will accelerate resource development in Canada and put added stress on the environment. However, there is absolutely no involvement in the negotiations by Canadian federal or provincial environmental Ministers. There is no government assessment of the environmental impact of the deal and absolutely no opportunity for examination of these impacts or for any form of public participation in the negotiations.
With the surrender of both the federal and provincial powers to enact environmental protection through various policy alternatives, the actions of the federal Government in negotiating the agreement are in direct contradiction with its claim to adopt the approach and recommendations of the report of the National Task Force on the Environment and the Economy.
When we look at Bill C-74 we firmly believe there was absolutely no sense of that goodwill. Bill C-74 represents a good public relations exercise to make Canadians believe that the Government cares about the environment and will introduce legislation so that people will think it cares about the environment. However, it certainly does not give us the legislative ability to deal with the importance of Canada's environment. It does not give us the ability to say that we are
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to include acid rain as one of the non-negotiable items and that we are to make sure pesticides are included in that and the replacement of any polluting forms of energy with environmental benign sources. We want to ensure that we have the legislative ability to stop any nuclear damage to our environment. Certainly we want to stop the overuse of environmental packaging materials.
If the Government were sincere about environmental protection, there is no question in my mind that not only would this Bill be strengthened, but it would have originally been a strong Bill, one which says that the future of Canada's environment is important, that the environment will be part of the negotiations of any trade Bill which we would be part of with any country. Let us when we look at the weakness of this Bill and the great giveaway, which is what the U.S. trade deal is all about. There does not seem to be any kind of consistency in the words the Government uses when it says that it cares about the Canadian environment.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, I was very interested in what the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain (Ms. Dewar) had to say about pesticides since that is, as she said, a widespread serious problem in Canada. She seems to have gone into it in very specific detail, more so than many of us have been able to, perhaps. I wonder if she would comment on an aspect of the problem as presented to me by someone who has some familiarity with government regulations. It was suggested that the general mistake of Governments-and I think this would apply to this Bill-is that when there is a problem such as pests they deal with it by allowing private industry to find some saleable product that will apparently get rid of the pests. If that saleable product, the pesticide, causes problems, then the Government tries to regulate the pesticide. In other words, the Government does not deal with the original problem, the pest. It does not look for the best way of doing whatever the pesticide was supposed to do. It does not look to see if there is a better chemical, or perhaps a better biological agent, to get rid of the pest until the pesticide has caused great damage. Then there is a desperate search to find an alternative because the control mechanism is inadequate.
I wonder if the Hon. Member can comment on whether this Bill improves on that approach, or does it fall into the category of simply attacking the attacker instead of attacking the original problem, the pest?


Marion Dewar: Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for a question that is certainly very important. I think what he is really addressing is our inability to deal with ecology. Ecology is the very delicate balance which exists within our environment. This Bill refuses to be inclusive as far as pesticides are concerned. It is refusing to protect the ecology that is so important to us.
The pests have been there and have been a concern for years but we can usually define some of those so-called pests as
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
having a role to play within the total environment. Surely what we should be defining is the role these pests play, and how we can counteract it so that it becomes a constructive and not a destructive role.
One of the good things about the Bill is that it gives us the ability to screen new substances before they are used in the environment. I certainly applaud that. However, when they talk about these new substances, they exclude the use of pesticides. I think we should recognize that in the past we have been ignorant of and have ignored our ecology, and this Bill does not address that. The Government is saying, after the fact, that it will spend much more money and perhaps never be successful in restoring the fine balance which was needed in the first place. One of our major concerns is that pesticides be included in the Bill.
Surely our approach to environmental control in legislation should be a preventative approach. It should be one which protects the ecology and one which ensures that the fine balance is always there. We should not try to remedy it after the fact. We should use that approach in our health care system. I am constantly frustrated by the fact that we allow diseases to happen and then spend billions of dollars trying to cure them. We should be looking in the first place at how we could prevent many of these diseases, maintaining a level of health. We should look at that as we look at our environment. I think a lot of research is being done now with respect to the disease AIDS to find some immunity or protection against it. Over the years we have been able to eliminate smallpox. I think that is the kind of thing we should look at when we talk about immunization. We could immunize our environment with respect to further pollution if we were willing to put forward the kind of law that says our environment is important to us.
We do not need a weak-kneed legislation that is afraid to include the things we know are very destructive to our ecology. The Canadian people have a right to have their legacy protected. I would hope that it would not be very long before the Canadian people are given that right, but obviously the only way they will get it is by throwing this Government out and voting in the kind of government which will implement legislation that really protects the environment.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I will entertain another question from the Hon. Member for Spadina (Mr. Heap).


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain made the striking point that this legislation, if it goes through, might allow Canada and Canadian interests to be dangerously vulnerable to the so-called free trade agreement with the United States, if it becomes law. Her point of focus was Chapter 14, I believe, which concerns equal treatment in the sale of services.
Does she mean, for example, that if a certain pesticide or pesticide service in the United States does not meet Canadian health standards or Canadian environmental standards, and

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therefore is excluded from Canada, that Canada may find itself under pressure to reduce our environmental or health standards so as to allow that pesticide service in the United States to compete on equal terms with Canadian services which have been meeting the higher standard?


Marion Dewar: Mr. Speaker, 1 think it is part of our concern. If we have established a higher standard and do not have the legislative ability to implement it in this Environmental Protection Act, and because there is absolutely no negotiations about the environment in the trade agreement, we will have to treat the national standard as the national standard in the United States. What I said earlier is that we will find ourselves lobbying particular state legislatures and Congress to protect our environment here in Canada. To me that does not make any sense.
Many people have said that people are attempting to define what our sovereignty is all about. What we are finding is that we are being accused of wrapping ourselves in the flag. One does not wrap oneself in one's flag when the Parliament of Canada is elected to put in place laws that protect our environment. Instead, what is happening is that it is refusing to put a law through that has the type of clout to it that would give us that type of protection. Therefore the trade agreement could be annulled if we had the protection in the legislation. However, the trade negotiation did not once involve any of the environmental Ministers, either at the federal level or at the provincial level.
What we do know is that at the federal level, both in Canada and in the United States, current administrations have downgraded environmental protection. This Government has cut funding to Environment Canada. We know that American environmental protection assessment has also experienced great funding cuts. The administration is downgrading both its standards and enforcement in the United States.
When we have to be treated on national standards we will find that we will be downgrading our own. This is a very serious concern with what is happening, both in the trade agreement and in the environment. I wish government Members would look seriously at not isolating one law from another. Unless they are looked at in an holistic way, what we will find is that we are in an irreversible position down the road and hanging our heads in shame with the legacy of the environment that we will leave to our children and our grandchildren. That is a very serious implication. It becomes much greater than just partisan legislation.
What it concerns is the ability to comprehend that delicate balance in our society that protects our environment. We must recognize that every economic development agreement we make and every undertaking we make in economic development must be included in terms of what are the environmental implications. To say that that is nonsense is irresponsible.
Until we get to the point that that becomes conclusive, we are going forward in mass destruction.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The time allotted for questions and comments has now terminated. The Chair recognizes the Hon. Member for New Westminster- Coquitlam (Ms. Jewett) on debate.


Ms. Pauline Jewett (New Westminster-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the debate on this very important Bill with great interest. I feel that my colleagues in the New Democratic Party have raised a number of very important points, some of which have been accepted by the Government but many of which have not been. I suppose at this stage that it is unlikely that the Government will take anything further that we say very seriously, which is a pity because in my view at any rate many of our suggestions have been worth while.
Indeed, many of the suggestions made to the legislative committee which have not been adopted by the Government were also very worth while. I am thinking at the moment of the brief from the Environmental Law Centre in your own community, Mr. Speaker, Edmonton, and the subsequent letter written by the Environmental Law Centre to the chairperson of the legislative committee on Bill C-74, regarding in particular the legal entrenching of federal-provincial cooperation and equivalency agreements.
The Environmental Law Centre's letter points out that the centre has no particular objection, nor should it, to a policy of federal-provincial co-operation in environmental protection. However, the centre is concerned with the implications of imposing statutory requirements in federal laws which will have the effect of fettering federal powers to legislate in areas of their own competency. Therefore, while having in the Bill a mandatory requirement on the Minister of the Environment (Mr. McMillan) to establish a federal-provincial advisory committee for the purpose of review of proposed regulations sounds like a good thing, because we all approve of federal-provincial co-operation it would in fact impose a legal requirement of consultation, rather than simply a provision to require consultation that would say that one has to do this legally.
The centre points out that the issue of required consultation on regulation-making is quite separate from the issue of providing for agreements that specific regulations already in effect will not apply in certain provinces or territories.
By way of example, the federal Government may wish to make regulations for proper handling and storage of hazardous wastes generated on federal lands such as national parks, Indian lands, or the Northwest Territories. The centre goes on to state that while it may make practical sense to consult with those provincial authorities with legislative experience in this area, it is totally inappropriate to presume that provincial Governments should exert any jurisdiction in this area. These are areas of federal jurisdiction such as parks, Indian lands, the Northwest Territories, and so on. It seems to me very
May 5, 1988

anomalous that federal jurisdiction should be limited by a legal requirement of provincial consultation in areas of clear federal jurisdiction.
The centre also states that for similar reasons it expresses serious reservations about amendments which require consultation not only with the federal-provincial advisory committee prior to the making of federal regulations but also an opportunity to render its advice. Apart from the delay factor involved, this requirement again imposes a degree of provincial control over the federal law-making power which appears most inappropriate. The provincial advisory committee should be established in its more appropriate advisory role.
As a final comment in this matter, the Environmental Law Centre queries why the requirements of legally entrenching federal-provincial co-operation are being proposed only for federal laws for the protection of the environment. If the true objective is to avoid unnecessary duplication and to embellish a co-operative approach in regulation-making, then similar provisions should, as a matter of course, be included in all provincial laws. I think it made a very good point on that. One wonders why the Government did not take such a significant brief into consideration when we were proposing amendments at the time of the committee hearings.
We have argued many times in favour of a high degree of federal-provincial consultation. However, to have legally binding provincial power over the federal Government in areas of federal jurisdiction, we feel lends an aura of deference to provincial authority that is far too excessive in the field of regulatory control. One wonders if this is indicative of the Conservative penchant for deregulation entirely, and perhaps this is a way of getting not national standards on the environment but a highly deregulated regime across the country.
I had hoped to go on, but owing to another engagement, which I believe that you perhaps also have, Mr. Speaker, I will not be able to go on any further.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is the House ready for the question?


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The question is as follows. Mr. McMillan moved that Bill C-74, an Act respecting the protection of the environment and of human life and health, be now read a third time and passed, and on the motion of Mr. Hawkes:
That this question be now put.
Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Pauline Jewett: On division.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I declare the motion carried on division.
Motion (Mr. Hawkes) agreed to.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the third time and passed.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It being after one o'clock, I do now leave the chair until two o'clock this day.
At 1.03 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, Allied Signal and Du Pont Canada are the only producers of chlorofluorocarbons in Canada. These are chemicals used in refrigerators, air conditioners, some aerosol sprays, foam products, and electronics.
CFCs released into the atmosphere contribute to the depletion of the ozone layer and the greenhouse effect, increasing the incidence of skin cancer. Friends of the Earth approached grocery chains urging an end to the use of egg cartons and vegetable and meat trays made with CFCs. So far, Provigo of Montreal is the only chain committed to phasing out such products. For refrigerators and air conditioners, Du Pont and Allied are considering a new compound called HFC-134A.
While all this goes on, the Government of Canada remains silent, offering Canadian consumers no leadership on this important matter. Yet it is urgent that Canadians realize how vital it is to stop purchasing and using products containing CFCs. A rejection of such products by consumers would tell manufacturers and retailers that the public wants harmless alternatives. Chlorofluorocarbons has become a bad word.

May 5, 1988



HISTORIC EVENTS


Mr. Bob Pennock (Etobicoke North):: Mr. Speaker, today the Netherlands celebrates Liberation Day, a day of celebration which, better than any other, demonstrates the strong bonds between Canadians and the Dutch. On this day in 1945 the Netherlands were liberated from German occupation. I am proud to say that Canadians played a prominent role in freeing the Dutch people from Nazi oppression.
The tulips which brighten Ottawa's and Toronto's spring remind us of the ties we share with the Netherlands. Canada and the Netherlands will always share a special attachment based on history and friendship. From the sheltering of the Dutch royal family during World War II, through liberation from the Nazis, to the current enrichment by immigration, our bonds have only been strengthened.
As the Member of Parliament for Etobicoke North, I would like to offer my congratulations, on the occasion of Liberation Day, to Canadians of Dutch heritage and the people of the Netherlands.



FORESTRY


Mr. Ernie Epp (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Mr. Speaker, during the 1984 election campaign the Conservative Party promised to establish a Department of Forestry to oversee this important Canadian industry. It employs nearly 900,000 workers directly or indirectly. Its value of shipments exceeds $30 billion annually, and its annual exports exceed $16 billion. New Democrats continue to support the establishment of a separate Department but the Conservative Government now appears to have abandoned this promise.
New Democrats have been calling upon the Government to bring in a new National Forest Act to replace the old one dating back to 1966. Research expenditure in the industry is at an extremely low level. It is currently running at less than half the level of expenditure of our major competitors. It is also below the Canadian average for industrial sectors and other resource sectors such as agriculture and mining. Silviculture expenditures need to be increased at both government and industry levels.
New Democrats call upon the Government to give Canada's number one industry the attention it requires. Only then will this renewable resource be able to continue to provide its benefits to all Canadians and do so indefinitely.



FORUM FOR YOUNG CANADIANS


Mr. Geoff Scott (Hamilton-Wentworth):: Mr. Speaker, as you know, today we welcome the leaders of tomorrow, the Forum for Young Canadians.
The program is rich and varied, thanks to the co-operation and assistance of Ministers, Senators, and all Members of this House.

I loved the thoughts from a counsellor who described the shared impressions of the participants as anxious, energetic, polite, boisterous, cute, intelligent, bright, calculated, receptive, merciless, fun-loving, handsome, motivated, durable, hungry, warm, physically fit, talented, pleasant, comical, and above all, truly Canadian. We welcome the Forum for Young Canadians.



CANADA POST CORPORATION


Mr. Keith Penner (Cochrane-Superior):: Mr. Speaker, in the constituency of Cochrane-Superior there is only one community which receives door-to-door mail delivery. That community is the town of Kapuskasing.
Recently three new homes were erected on Progress Crescent. To the owners' astonishment and dismay, Sir, they will not get home delivery of mail. Progress Crescent gets instead, can you believe it, a supermailbox. It is located about 100 feet away from where the letter carrier's route abruptly ends.
What justification is offered by Canada Post for this absurdity? The reason given is, and I quote: "This diversity of service is a natural result of geography and the diverse demographic patterns of our country".
When meaningless mush like that becomes a substitute for common sense, need we ask any more whether Canada Post has gone utterly mad?



U405) MINES AND MINING ANNOUNCEMENT OF CANADIAN EXPLORATION INCENTIVE PROGRAM

Mr. John A. MacDougall (Timiskaming):: Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday afternoon the Minister of State for Mines (Mr. May 5, 1988

Merrithew) announced the Canadian Exploration Incentive Program for junior exploration companies across Canada. Along with this good news, he advised of the six-month extension of the 133-1/3 per cent earned depletion allowance.
At this time, may I say to the Minister of Mines and his staff; Eveline Kasner, Chairperson, Canadian Save Flowthrough Committee; John Larch, President, Prospectors and Developers; the mayors, reeves and councillors from across Canada; the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Masse); the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson), and the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) that, working together, we have achieved a bright and stable future for the junior mining companies and the communities across the northern regions of Canada. Congratulations, and thank you to all.



IMMIGRATION


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, our new Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mrs. MacDougall) ought to deal quickly with a problem she has inherited, that is, the double standard that our immigration officers abroad apparently use in selecting Central American refugees.
In 1987, for example, the Canadian consulate in the United States gave refugee status in Canada to 168 Nicaraguans living in the United States but only 71 Guatemalans. This smacks of a two to one political bias. These are not the ones who come to the Canadian border seeking refuge. These are people living in the U.S. who ask to be resettled in Canada as refugees from Nicaragua or Guatemala.
We know that the big majority of Nicaraguans claiming refugee status in the U.S. are accepted there, but scarcely any Guatemalans. Yet, on the other hand, Nicaragua has no pattern of death squad activity such as reigns in Guatemala.
Why then does Immigration Canada bring in twice as many Nicaraguan as Guatemalan refugees?

[ Translation]



INDUSTRY

[Stage Direction]
OPPORTUNITY TO ESTABLISH DURAL PLANT IN JONQUlfeRE
Mr. Jean-Pierre Blackburn (Jonquiere):: Mr. Speaker, this week, Jonquiere's socio-economic partners held an economic summit and made it clear to the authorities at Alcan that they wanted the new plant that will manufacture an entirely new product, dural, to be located in Jonquieres. The new product, which combines the stength of steel with the light weight of aluminum, is said to have great potential.
Mr. Speaker, in our region, this plant is a symbol of the ongoing struggle and efforts to diversify our economy and lessen the loss of jobs due to technological change. Alcan's involvement with the academic world, its research centre, the employment committee, the work that has been done on aluminum processing, and the company's involvement in SOCCRENT, all these elements point the way to further involvement by locating the new plant in Jonquiere.



REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT


Mr. Fernand Robichaud (Westmorland-Kent):: Mr. Speaker, we are told that the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) is going to be in New Brunswick later this week. It is hoped that the Prime Minister will put the time to good use instead of playing politics.
There remain some outstanding issues in New Brunswick which the federal Government has yet to deal with, not the least of which is the closure of the Moncton rail shops. The Prime Minister received a rude welcome on a previous visit because of this issue, and I remind him that he has yet to offer any concrete solutions to this problem.
Also, there is the matter of New Brunswick being the only province in Canada without full CBC broadcasting services. This is an important issue, and his Minister of Communications (Miss MacDonald) is refusing to act. New Brunswick is also a victim of discrimination with regard to the designation of communities for the northern allowance. While practically every community along the Gaspe coast as well as 65 communities in Nova Scotia have been designated, only one island community in New Brunswick is on the list.
I respectfully ask the Prime Minister to deal with these issues and bring justice to the people of New Brunswick. Now is the time to show to New Brunswickers that they have the right to receive the same treatment as all the people in the other provinces of Canada.



CANADA-UNITED STATES FREE TRADE AGREEMENT-CANADA WEST FOUNDATION'S STUDY

Mr. Brian White (Dauphin-Swan River):: Mr. Speaker, over the past four years the Canada West Foundation has done extensive research on the free trade issue. Its most recent

May 5, 1988
report is entitled "Evaluating the Fine Print-The Free Trade Agreement and Western Canada".
The foundation concludes that for workers 83 per cent will notice little change, 2 per cent are in industries that assistance programs should focus on, and 15 per cent or over half a million are in industries that will benefit. Elowever, these half million people work in industries that now produce one-quarter of our Gross Domestic Product, so one can expect expansion and job creation in these dynamic Canadian industries.
The report also states that perhaps the biggest winners from the free trade agreement are consumers on both sides of the border. As part of its conclusion, the report said:
While there are individual winners and losers in the short run, none of us
should neglect to place the free trade agreement in a nation building and
international trade perspective. This agreement represents a landmark
decision.
Such independent studies emphasize the critical importance of the free trade agreement to western Canada.



AWARDS AND DECORATIONS


Mr. John Nunziata (York South-Weston):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to address the issue of the Fire Services Exemplary Service Medal. This medal is awarded by the Chancellery of Canadian Orders and Decorations to fire-fighters who have served 20 years or more. However, fire-fighters who were retired on or before August 29, 1985, are not eligible to receive this honour due to the fact that the medal did not exist before that day.
The Province of Ontario recognizes fire-fighters with long service regardless of when they retire. The same should apply to the federal Fire Services Exemplary Service Medal. This medal represents the sole compensation to fire-fighters for putting their lives on the line fighting fires for 20, 30 or 40 years.
These individuals, some of whom are Second World War veterans, have put forth a great contribution to our society throughout their many years of service. They have saved many lives. It is unjust that, simply because the medal did not exist before August of 1985, fire-fighters who were retired on or before that date should not be recognized for their great contribution.
Fire-fighters across Canada are concerned about this particular issue. I urge the Government of Canada to amend its policy in order to recognize fire-fighters who retired on or before August of 1985. This will allow these fire-fighters to wear this medal of honour proudly which they so rightly deserve.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member's time has expired.



DAY CARE


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, the Government seems determined to ignore its obligation to address serious flaws in the way Canada cares for the children of working parents. The current system suffers from chronic lack of day care services which are exorbitantly expensive and exploits the dedicated child care providers, most of whom are women, by paying them disgracefully low wages.
Care giver wages, according to Statistics Canada, average $8,900 per year. That is below the wages of housekeepers, waitresses, bartenders, and farm labourers. In fact child care is the worst paid job in the country.
If the Government values the work of women who care for children, if it cares about the quality of care our children receive, it will listen to the parents and workers who are concerned. If it does not care, it will follow the advice of an arrogant Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Epp) who has turned his back on the child care community.
The Minister says that he is not impressed by noise and lobbyists. Why then did he prefer to participate in partisan provincial politics instead of accepting his invitation to participate in the recent national child care conference? He should resign.



EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


Mr. Andrew Witer (Parkdale-High Park):: Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Polish community is outraged over the planned visit to Canada next week of a Polish parliamentary delegation headed by Deputy Speaker Rakowski.
The Government of Poland continues to violate fundamental human rights by refusing to restore full legal status to the trade union Solidarity, outlawed in 1982, by refusing to rehire all workers who were dismissed under martial law, and by refusing to release all political prisoners.
I call upon the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark) to cancel the visit of the Polish delegation to Canada next week to demonstrate Canada's protest of the Polish regime's flagrant suppression and denial of workers' rights.
(I

May 5, 1988



ROAD SAFETY YEAR IN QUEBEC


Mrs. Therese Killens (Saint-Michel-Ahuntsic):: Mr. Speaker, today I wish to pay tribute to a young woman from Quebec, Helene Simard, who is a paraplegic. Ms. Simard has agreed to be Honorary Chairman of the Regional Action Committee for Road Safety Year in Quebec. Ms. Simard considers it unacceptable that 90 per cent of road accidents are caused by human negligence. The fact that I have to organize a campaign of petitions to have shoulder seat belts for back seat passengers and inflatable bags in front, shows that we still have a long way to go in this country.
We all have a responsibility in this respect. Drivers should learn and practise defensive driving. The police should enforce traffic regulations. Manufacturers should make vehicles safer, and finally, legislators at all levels of government should make this a priority.
I therefore ask the Minister of Transport (Mr. Bouchard) who has just arrived in the House to take this opportunity to make road safety a genuine priority. I may remind Hon. Members that accidents can happen to all of us.



THE CONSTITUTION


Mr. Jim Jepson (London East):: Mr. Speaker, it was a distinct pleasure and honour for me to second the main motion, M-8, of the Hon. Member for Kitchener (Mr. Reimer), which would amend Section 7 of the Charter of Rights to include property rights. It was encouraging to see such overwhelming support in the House, with the notable exception of a few Liberals and all the NDP or socialist Members who would want Canada to be a truly socialist country where the state owns everything.
I am sure that many who have chosen Canada as their new home and fled from Communist oppression must treasure this motion and be confused by the socialist NDP and some Liberals who voted against this most important and basic human right. I hope that Canadians will not forget that Mr. Trudeau and the Leader of the NDP (Mr. Broadbent) would not include property rights in the Charter.
I urge the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and the Government to ensure that property rights are put on the agenda for the next First Ministers' Conference this fall.
Oral Questions



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Mr. Speaker, when meeting with the film industry representatives yesterday in Montreal the Minister of Communications, skating as per usual, refused to acknowledge that her film policy will contain the long-promised, tough legislative measures designed to break the stranglehold of the American distributors on the Canadian film market. The Prime Minister believes he can save his trade deal by having his Communications Minister dupe the distributors and attempt to buy their peace while he concocts secret deals with President Reagan to sell out their interests to American movie moguls.
Does the Prime Minister not realize that giving the industry more funds is just a temporary measure and is no substitute for a policy implemented by legislation, and that such legislation with fair regulations is the only way Canadian distributors can permanently recover more than their present 3 per cent of the Canadian film distribution market?


Hon. John C. Crosbie (Minister for International Trade):: Mr. Speaker, it is very difficult to figure out what the question is in the speech the hon. lady just made. As she should know, the Minister of Communications is meeting with representatives of the Canadian film industry later this afternoon and she will be making an announcement then. A full information package will be given to those who are so anxious to have information, including the Hon. Member opposite. She will have that before the meeting.
The Government has certainly realized that it is necessary to take action. That is why legislation has been introduced, and that is why we have established a $165 million fund to assist the Canadian feature film industry and have taken other steps to assist in the cultural area.


Sheila Finestone: Mr. Speaker, that is why the Minister of Finance cut the capital cost allowance. I suggest that the Government has dropped its fair film policy.


RESTRICTION ON FOREIGN FILM IMPORT PERMITS- GOVERNMENT POSITION
Sheila Finestone: Does the Government intend to maintain its position and limit import permits for foreign films to foreign distributors who financed the films and have the world rights?
What kind of message does the Government have for our Canadian distributors who are going to Cannes next week? Is it that the rich American movie moguls I can go on as usual and keep their monopoly on distribution rights for the Canadian market? Or can the Canadian film industry expect

May 5, 1988
Oral Questions
new legislation that would create a new market for our distributors?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, after years of neglect by our predecessors in this area the Minister of Communications and the Government have taken an initiative to assist Canadian film distributors and the Canadian film industry.
The exact contents of that policy will be announced by the Minister of Communications this afternoon in Toronto, I believe, where a healthy representation of the Canadian film industry resides. Once that has been done, we will welcome questions on interpretation of the details of the policy.
The Minister is creating a separate market for Canadian film distribution. That is the principle of the steps she will be announcing.


REPORTED VISIT TO CANNES FILM FESTIVAL BY FORMER TELEFILM OFFICIAL
Sheila Finestone: Mr. Speaker, April 13 is the anniversary of the last day at Telefilm Canada of the Prime Minister's friend, Jean Sirois. We now learn that he too is travelling to the Cannes Film Festival at public expense. Will the Prime Minister tell Canadians why his friend, Jean Sirois, is going to Cannes after he was canned by Telefilm? Does he not think it is rather a disgrace that he is having another free treat from the public purse-


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Minister.


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, if I can I would like to take notice of that question because I had not heard about this visit. I am not the Minister of Communications.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: We know that.


John Carnell Crosbie: She is my desk mate. I will certainly pass on the Member's question and provide her with an answer in due course.


HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES
Mr. Dave Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Labour. He
will know that yesterday Dr. Albert Liston, Assistant Deputy Health Minister, was quoted as saying that: "The manufacturer of Pam oil spray is already working on removing freon and the intent of our discussions is to see how quickly we can bring that to fruition".
In light of the fact that the Government has Finally recognized the seriousness of this situation, does the Minister not think it prudent and wise for the Government of Canada to remove this product from Canadian shelves until such time as the manufacturer finds a suitable substitute for freon?


Hon. Pierre H. Cadieux (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, as Dr. Liston indicated yesterday, there will be discussions with the manufacturer in order to see how the reformulation can be accelerated. As a matter of fact, discussions on that particular subject are going on this afternoon.


David Charles Dingwall: I say respectfully to the Minister that this is a situation which requires immediate leadership by him and the Departments involved, not next week or the week after.


REQUEST THAT MINISTER BAN PRODUCT
David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, the Minister is aware that in other jurisdictions, in the United States, freon is removed from that product. It is removed from hairspray and deodorants. We know that there are substitutes for freon. We want the Minister to put a ban on that product until such time as the manufacturer comes up with that substitute. Why is the Minister risking the health and the environment of Canadians by allowing this product to remain on the shelves for Canadian consumers?


Pierre H. Cadieux: Mr. Speaker, as I have been indicating for a few days now, the terrible incidents that have occurred with respect to this product were a result of the misuse of the product. It is misuse of a product that has caused terrible injury and death which would not have occurred if the product had been used for its intended purpose. It has been abused.
It is very important that people know that this product should not be abused in the way it has. I will not go into the details that were reported in the papers.
Since these incidents I have acted responsibly and asked the Department of Health and Welfare to communicate with the manufacturers to get them to Ottawa in order to discuss the acceleration of the reformulation. Those discussions are going on this afternoon.
May 5, 1988


FILM DISTRIBUTION INDUSTRY
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister who is handling culture today, the Minister for International Trade. The Minister will recall that a couple of days ago I asked the Minister of Communications a question based on a memo prepared by representatives of the U.S. film industry in Canada which alleged that the Government was about to water down completely its commitments to the film industry. At the same time it said it was important to support the Government because this was related to the free trade agreement.
The Minister then said she was not interested in hearing what the Americans had to say but wanted to know what Canadians had to say.
Considering that she met with Canadian representatives yesterday in Montreal to go over the details of the package she will be announcing later today, and they agreed with the American lobby group that the Bill had been substantially gutted and watered down, will the Minister, who is now responsible for the trade deal, explain to the House why the Government has sacrificed the Canadian film industry in order to get an undesirable trade deal for Canada?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, I believe that any objective observer, when he hears the policy the Minister is outlining today-


Some Hon. Members:: Or she.


John Carnell Crosbie: -he or she-when they see the legislation that is introduced, they will realize that the legislation has done precisely what we said it would do. It will put an end to Canada being part of the domestic market of the United States in connection with film distribution.
I might note that the president of the Quebec Distributors Association stated that the new policy must do exactly that, put an end to Canada being part of the domestic market of the United States. This is going to be a major step forward and the Hon. Leader of the second opposition Party should welcome that.


GOVERNMENT POLICY
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, the Bill ought to do what the Minister has said. The representatives of the Canadian film industry actually had access to the information yesterday, and with all due respect to the Minister I say to him we are more inclined to accept their judgment than the Minister's judgment. They have said that the Government has betrayed them, that their interests have been sold out once again.
Oral Questions
Considering that last October, when this deal was first announced, briefing notes prepared for the trade representative, Mr. Yeutter, in the United States, and Secretary of the Treasury Baker, said then that Mr. Valenti's interests would be met, that the Canadian Government would abandon its commitment to the film industry, why is it that the Canadian Government denied it then, denied it earlier this week, and the Minister is denying it today? Just for once, why does the Government not be frank and come clean with the Canadian people?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, if the Hon. Member would only accept his own advice and start being frank and clean with the Canadian people, we might be able to have a sensible debate on the free trade agreement with the United States, which we cannot do now because of the misstatements of fact and errors the hon. gentleman and his Party continually promulgate about the country.
With reference to this question, it is a question of opinion, and it is our firm opinion that this is a major step forward for the Canadian film distribution industry.
The hon. gentleman opposite likes to take the opinion of anyone who might be critical of this Government. It does not matter whether they are Americans or what nationality they are. If that is the opinion he chooses to take, then he can take it.


CONFLICTING STATEMENTS
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I am not asking the Minister to accept our opinion. I ask him to consider they were briefing notes for Mr. Yeutter and Mr. Baker, American sources, not ours. It was a memo, an American briefing memo, three days ago that said the Canadian Government had sold out. It was the Canadian film industry spokesman in Montreal yesterday who said the Government had made a secret behind-the-scenes deal on free trade. Why is it that everyone, whether on the American side of the border or on the Canadian side of the border, says one thing, and the Canadian Government says the other on this important matter?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, this is another case of anticipatory indignation from the hon. gentleman who seems to specialize in indignation. What do briefing notes from Mr. Yeutter have to do with it? This Government does not prepare briefing notes for Mr. Yeutter, or briefing notes for the Motion Picture Association, or briefing notes for anyone else. We prepare briefing notes for ourselves. Why does the hon. gentleman not quote from some relevant document, not from some American document, prepared by Americans for Americans?

May 5, 1988
Oral Questions


AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY
Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister for International Trade. On March 31 of last year the arrangements Canada had for restraining imports of Japanese and Korean cars into Canada expired. More than a year has gone by and the Government still has not completed negotiations for new arrangements. I would like an explanation for this from the Minister.
Has the Government abandoned the policy of restraining imports of Japanese and Korean cars into Canada? If not, why has so much time gone by without any new arrangements which are important for the preservation of jobs and production in the Canadian automotive industry?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, there is no reason for any change in the policy or approach at the moment. I have had no representations that there should be any change in that direction. If the hon. gentleman is concerned that there may be dangers here, I will undertake to look into them.


GOVERNMENT POSITION
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, I understand that offshore cars, cars imported from abroad, now take up some 35 per cent of new car registrations in Canada. These are mostly from Japan and Korea.
Over a year ago the Hon. Member for Langelier, when he was the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion, said that the Government would soon create a national automotive strategy. Last September his successor, the current Minister, pledged that there would also be a national automotive strategy from the Government. Nothing has happened so far.
Has the Government abandoned this commitment, as it has so many others? Will it have a strategy? If not, what explanation can it give for abandoning this pledge, a pledge which if carried out would be important in preserving tens of thousands of jobs in the Canadian automotive sector?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, the Minister for Regional Industrial Expansion is not here today. That is the Minister to whom the hon. gentleman is referring. I suggest that he hold his indignation and perhaps splutter later in the week when the Minister returns.


CANADA-UNITED STATES FREE TRADE AGREEMENT-EFFECT ON GRAPE PRODUCERS
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. He will likely recall that during the last election campaign on the Prime Minister's tour through the Niagara Peninsula the Prime Minister promised the grape and wine producers there that the Government would keep farmers on the land, that the Government would promote Canadian wines, and adopt other protective measures because it would be "far less costly to the public treasury than to allow this vital Niagara industry to literally wither on the vine."
My question to the Deputy Prime Minister is this. Why did the Prime Minister break his promise to the grape producers of the Niagara Peninsula when he signed a trade deal which essentially has devastated this industry?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that this kind of silly and partisan question is asked in the House of Commons.


John Edward Broadbent: He's quoting the Prime Minister.


John Carnell Crosbie: The Prime Minister has not broken any commitments or promises to the grape growers of the Niagara Peninsula, or any other peninsula.
The grape growers of Canada are in a difficult position for several reasons. The first is because certain practices adopted by the provinces were contrary to the GATT, and had been contrary to the GATT for many years. A GATT panel report came in to this effect some months ago, which has to be observed if we believe in the GATT system. The members of the New Democratic Party have told Canada-the world- that they are great believers in the GATT system. That is the basic reason why the grape industry is having some difficulty.
In addition, the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement also has an effect on the grape industry that has to be dealt with.
Third, the grape growers of the country were in some difficulty anyway because of an over-production of the wrong kind of grapes.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Carnell Crosbie: All of those problems are being dealt with. The Minister of Agriculture has a report recommending certain steps be taken for adjustment measures to help the grape industry. That will be done.
The Prime Minister is not going back and has not gone back on any commitments made to grape growers in Canada.


REQUEST FOR COMPENSATION PACKAGE
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, what has become perfectly clear in that response is that the
May 5, 1988

Government has decided to sacrifice the grape producers and wine producers on the altar of the free trade deal with the United States. That is what has happened.
Howard Staff, a grape grower in the Niagara Peninsula, said recently: "Everyone has been gearing up in this industry, replanting and expanding, and suddenly the umpire has called us out. They changed the rules in the third inning and we didn't even know it."
Since the deal has devastated this industry, does the Government plan to introduce a compensation package for all of those thousands of people who will lose their livelihood as a result of the trade deal? When will the Government announce the contents of that particular package?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, if there is any umpire involved in this situation the umpire is the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the GATT organization to which this country has belonged since its inception. We are proud supporters of GATT.
When this country adopts practices that are contrary to the GATT rules, the rules that govern civilized international trade, then we have to comply. That is who the umpire is. We are going to act to assist the grape industry.
I would recommend to the hon. gentleman that he read an article by Mr. George Bain in The Halifax-Chronicle Herald that deals with a matter he brought up about a week ago which throws a lot of light on some other sensational approach that he tried a week or 10 days ago.


AIR SAFETY
[Stage Direction]
1985 GANDER AIR DISASTER-REPORT OF POSSIBLE EXPLOSION PRECEDING CRASH
Mr. George Baker (Gander-Twillingate):: Mr. Speaker, two weeks ago I questioned the Minister of Transport regarding the preliminary report of the Canadian Aviation Safety Board into the 1985 Gander air crash which killed 258 people. I pointed out that the autopsy report, which suggested that perhaps there was a fire on board the aircraft before it crashed, was not included in any part of that preliminary report.
Is the Minister aware of a report by Irving Pinkel Associates of California, explosives experts, which outlines the possibility that "an explosion tore a piece of the fuselage free prior to crash impact and that it was ingested by number 3 engine". Is the Minister aware of that report? Is he aware that none of that was included in the preliminary report of the Aviation Safety Board?


Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, what I am aware of is that the answer today has to be the same as the one I gave two weeks ago. My friend knows
Oral Questions
very well that this report in December was a preliminary report. He said that himself. It has to be provided to the parties for their comments. When we have those comments, and when the final report is issued, I think at that time it would be wise for the Minister to make comments if he has any to make. In the meantime I believe that it is better to wait for the final report of the CASB.


CANADIAN AVIATION SAFETY BOARD
George Baker: Mr. Speaker, two weeks ago I also suggested that perhaps the Government should investigate the investigators. Little did I know that that is exactly what the Government has done.
I ask the Minister of Transport is he aware of a report dated a couple of months ago, February 3, written by a Mr. John Sopinka, Q.C., in which he states he was retained as a consultant by the Minister of Transport, and that the board members of the Canadian Aviation Safety Board which inspected the crash "have been unable to obtain investigation of facts which they consider essential in order to carry out their function."
Is he also aware that the investigators themselves have been called into question, along with their competence, and the quality of their investigations? Is the Minister aware of that outright condemnation of the board that investigated the Gander crash? If he is, is he now prepared to order a completely new investigation into the Gander air disaster?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, my friend knows I never comment on that type of document. He knows very well why I do not.
What I can say is that the Canadian Aviation Safety Board is an independent body. My friend knows that it is not the role of the Minister of Transport to take over its responsibilities.
The Hon. Member also knows that shortly I will introduce a Bill in the House dealing with accident investigation and the different modes of transportation. At that time I think it will be possible to correct some ambiguity we may have in the actual Act. We are dealing with the Canadian Aviation Safety Board. But in the meantime I repeat that it would not be relevant for the Minister to comment on the operations of what we call an independent body.


AIR TRANSPORT
Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport. In light of the middle of the night wire story from the senior person in charge of inspections in his Department that the airlines in

May 5, 1988
Oral Questions
Canada will be allowed to do their own inspections and certify them, which is like putting a coyote in charge of the chicken coop, will the Minister see to it that the Government does not try to get by on the cheap, that it hires enough inspectors to do it itself, and does not leave it up to the airlines to judge themselves?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, I am very surprised because the Hon. Member is an experienced Member of the House of Commons. He should know that we have done this since 1968. For the last 20 years the companies have had the right, under inspection by Transport Canada, to do what he said, and it is a question, if I understand it, that we should expand that authority to other companies.
The Hon. Member knows full well that those inspections have always been controlled by inspectors of Transport Canada. They are well certified if there is any security problem.


OLDER AIRCRAFT-REQUEST FOR EXHAUSTIVE INSPECTION
Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, 1 am sorry that the Hon. Minister does not know what his own Department is doing. Those airlines will sign the final authorization on work previously reviewed and approved, whether it is maintenance, repairs, or anything else, and no government inspector need look at it. They will sign it off.
Is the Minister prepared to go through this nonsense of having convertible aircraft where the roof lifts off when a plane is in flight? In light of the experience in the United States and the recent incident in Hawaii, is the Government seeing to it that all aircraft over 10 to 15 years old, Boeing 727s, 737s, DC-9s, and DC-8s, are being exhaustively inspected by government inspectors for metal fatigue, aircraft and fuselage cracks, or is he leaving it up to the airlines to do it?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, I wish to repeat what I already said. All those inspections were already done by the companies, with personnel certified by Transport Canada, through licences and operating certificates. Everything is controlled by my Department, and for 20 years we have been doing that. I do not believe that it has to be changed, because it has proven to be effective.

[ Translation]


AIR CANADA
Mr. Jacques Guilbault (Saint-Jacques):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also directed to the Minister of Transport, but concerns another topic. It concerns transfers of Air Canada
flight personnel from Montreal to Toronto. When the Minister was still Minister of State (Transport) three years ago, he was very reassuring. In a statement on January 29, 1985, he said that Air Canada had suspended all transfers related to personnel training and flight operations from Montreal to Toronto. He was very reassuring. He said the process had been stopped, so there would be no turning back. If bilingualism and the French fact at Air Canada must be centred in Montreal, we will make sure that is the case.
Now that the Minister has full control over the Department of Transport, I would like to ask him how he can tolerate the erosion of Air Canada's base in Montreal, as flight personnel transfers to Toronto continue. Is the Minister already acknowledging that privatization will have an impact and that the pilots and the Montreal area will just have to hold their noses and let it happen?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, I think the Hon. Member will admit we cannot compare apples and oranges. This has no connection with privatization, which has yet to take effect. Furthermore, I agree that in 1985, I asked Air Canada to put a stop to the transfer of pilot training from Montreal to Toronto. That was done, and Air Canada has not departed from its decision since then. In other words, there have been no transfers with respect to training. If we look at operations, it is true that flights to and from Toronto have increased. Once again, I think the Hon. Member will have to admit that in Toronto, operations have increased by 54 per cent over the last three years. However, what I said in 1985 still applies, namely that Air Canada pilots are still being trained in Montreal, on the same terms that existed at the time.


PILOTS BASED IN MONTREAL-MINISTER'S POSITION
Jacques Guilbault: Mr. Speaker, it is no fun for people in the Montreal area to see how little clout they have with this Government that has no Minister from the Island of Montreal in Cabinet.
The Minister tells us that much of the training will continue to be done in Montreal, but that people will continue to work elsewhere. And he would like us to accept that.
So I shall ask the Minister what guarantee that pilots can continue to be based in Montreal he will obtain from Air Canada. Fifty were transferred in the last three years. What guarantee can he obtain, especially before privatization takes place?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, first of all, it makes me smile when the Liberal Party says that there is no Minister from the Island of Montreal in the Government. When there were six from Montreal, between 1976 and 1984, Montreal lost almost all its economic development. Even the Prime Minister himself was from Montreal!
May 5, 1988

Mr. Speaker, I must once again correct an impression that my colleague is trying to give. The number of employees who are now in Montreal is about 8,500, exactly the same as it was in 1982 when you were in power.


IMMIGRATION
Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration. In 1987, according to the Department's records, Canadian consulates in the United States, in New York, Atlanta, San Francisco, and so on, selected 168 Nicaraguans who were living in the United States to be resettled in Canada as refugees, but in the same year only 71 Guatemalans who were living in the United States were to be resettled in Canada.
Given the well known fact the opponents of the Nicaraguan Government are not subject to the death squad reign of terror that exists in Guatemala, why accept more than twice as many Nicaraguans from the United States for resettlement in Canada?


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member well knows that we deal with all of these cases on a case by case basis, and with some considerable sensitivity. The people who are in the field of selecting immigrants do so on the basis of sensitive judgments about the position that a particular person is in. We have brought in a considerable number of Guatemalans one way and another.
We also notice, and I have received this information from some of my human rights advisers, that the regime in Guatemala is less volatile than it used to be. We are watching this situation very carefully. We regard refugees as individuals, and look at them one at a time.


STANDARD USED IN SELECTING REFUGEES
Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, the fact that the situation in Guatemala is less volatile than it was three years ago does not mean that the death squads still do not terrorize people with murders and kidnappings in Guatemala. If the Minister is talking with human rights specialists she should know that.
Is there not a double standard used in which Nicaraguans are more easily accepted from the United States, in spite of the fact that Nicaraguans as a majority of the applicants can be accepted as refugees in the United States, whereas scarcely any Guatemalans are accepted as refugees in the United States?
Oral Questions
Does that not suggest that a different standard is used for selecting Nicaraguans than that used for selecting Guatemalans when the standard ought to be essentially the refugee standard-is this person in danger of persecution if he goes back to his country?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, I thought that is what I just said. We do look at these as individual cases and we do consider them on an individual basis. If they are in danger, then we ensure they do not get sent back. That is exactly what I replied to the first question.


NATIONAL REVENUE
Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Revenue. Will he give favourable consideration to amending or rescinding any and all interpretation bulletins or other documents issued or used by the Department of National Revenue which permit employees of that Department in effect to change or alter the list price of manufacturers and/or the invoices of farmers when a used machine is traded in on a new machine?


Hon. Elmer M. MacKay (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this question from the Hon. Member who has been particularly conscientious in focusing on this matter which is, of course, of great importance to western farmers, indeed all farmers. I want to assure him that my Department is always anxious to administer this program in an equitable manner.
I will take his question as a representation and remind him that we cancelled the special audit over a year ago and are endeavouring to find ways to give special attention to farmers who feel that the question of over-evaluation or otherwise of used equipment has not been dealt with properly. We are sensitive to this and will continue to monitor it.


OFFICIAL LANGUAGES
Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I would appreciate some details about what this Government intends to do with Bill C-72. Some of us think the Government is hiding behind Members of its Caucus referred to as dinosaurs, which the Government has ordered to do its "dirty work". According to some Members, the only future this Bill

May 5, 1988
Oral Questions
has is a third class burial. I would like to ask the Minister-I am not sure which Minister, since the Minister of Justice is not in the House-when the Government will order these backbenchers who are opposed to this enlightened and progressive legislation to stop the filibuster they have been conducting during the past month in committee.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I would remind the Hon. Member that the Bill passed the House at second reading with unanimous consent, after considerable filibustering by the Opposition. The committee is engaged in hearing witnesses and it is our understanding that there is another week or so for witnesses to appear. The Government is committed to pursuing this legislation but, at the same time, I would tell my hon. friend that we are not going to be pushing around our members on the committee. We want to allow for full hearing of witnesses and full development of the clause-by-clause stage.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, the Conservative Member for Charlevoix said yesterday that the only thing he knows for sure about the plans of the Government regarding official languages is that they are going around in circles in the caucus.


Mr. Grise:: You better take care of your own caucus.


APPROVAL OF LEGISLATION
Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, what specific measures does the Government intend to take to make sure this Bill is approved by the House before the end of June? What can the Minister tell the House about the future plans of the Government?


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, if the Government were to order committee members to take certain actions, my hon. friend would be the first one up on his feet complaining about it. 1 say to him as a member of the committee: Do the committee's work in committee, not on the floor of the House.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Jim Manly (Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Right Hon. Secretary of State for External Affairs. A fact finding mission for peace team just returned from a tour of Honduras and Nicaragua. Among other things it recommended that Canada assist with a reconciliation fund to provide economic incentives for the repatriation of thousands of Nicaraguans presently living along the Nicaraguan-Honduras border, rather than prematurely providing for the possibility of resettlement in Canada.
Is Canada prepared to assist with a resettlement and reconciliation fund to help those people reintegrate themselves into the life of Nicaragua, as part of our contribution to the peace process?
Right Hon. Joe Clark (Secretary of State for External
Affairs): Mr. Speaker, I have not yet had an opportunity to see or study that report. I will certainly look at it.
The Hon. Member will know that a parliamentary committee will be visiting the region this month as a result of unanimous party agreement here that Canada should be looking at every constructive way open to it to encourage peace in the region. He will also know that the Foreign Ministers of the five Central American countries have agreed to submit a request to the Secretary General of the UN to establish auspices under which designated countries, including Canada, might be able to play a specific role in aiding the peace process in that region. We are prepared to respond to that kind of invitation if it comes and naturally if it takes account, as we think it will, of legitimate Canadian security requirements.


REQUEST FOR REVIEW OF CANADIAN ASSISTANCE TO HONDURAS
James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, is the Minister prepared to respond to another recommendation of the committee that, in light of the instability of the human rights situation in Honduras, increased militarization, and the fragility of civilian democracy in that country, we are prepared to review the level and nature of our development assistance program in Honduras, which gets more of such assistance than any other country in Central America and which is making poorer use of it?


Right Hon. Joe Clark (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, the question of the effectiveness of the use of development assistance is almost always subjective. I will look at the recommendations to which the Hon. Member refers. He will know the income situation in Honduras, in a region where poverty is endemic and extensive, is particularly acute. That is one of the factors taken into account in our development assistance program.
I repeat, the general attitude of this Government is that it is interested in being helpful in any way it can and we are looking at options which might be open to us, in this particular case by way of an all-Party committee visiting the region.


HORTICULTURE
Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Agriculture. Over a year ago he promised the Canadian Horticultural Council and fruit and vegetable producers that he would bring in amendments to the
May 5, 1988

Canada Agricultural Products Standards Act to control bulk shipments of fruit and vegetables to Canada on consignment from the U.S. from its massive surplus stocks. The Minister failed to act and the entire cherry crop, for example, was left to rot because there was no market.
Can the Minister say why he broke his promise and why the legislation was not brought in to protect these producers?


Hon. Pierre Blais (Minister of State (Agriculture)):: Mr. Speaker, this matter is still under consideration before Cabinet and I hope it will be possible to give details as soon as possible.


REQUEST THAT AMENDING LEGISLATION BE ENACTED
Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, the Minister is in danger of becoming the Rip van Winkle of the Government. He has been asleep at the switch for over a year on this thing. Entire crops are being lost.
Can he assure these producers that this is not being held up by the free trade deal with the U.S. and that the proper legislation will be put in place to save the crop this year from unfair competition from the U.S?


Pierre Blais: Mr. Speaker, no Government has ever taken the interests of Canadian farmers as seriously as we have. Government expenditures in the agricultural sector have increased more than 400 per cent. As far as the free trade agreement is concerned, the industry stands to benefit very substantially. We will develop markets in the United States that we did not have before. The lowering of tariff barriers between our two countries will benefit many regions in Canada in the fresh fruits and vegetables sector. I hardly think anyone in the Liberal Party would object to expanding markets for Canadian market gardeners, Mr. Speaker!


AIRPORTS
Mr. Terry Clifford (London-Middlesex):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. Several of my constituents have expressed concern with regard to airport security. No doubt the recent escapades of the armed flying bandit in Ontario skies has heightened their concerns. My constituents and I would like to know how this armed flying bandit can use Transport Canada's airports as a means of a getaway for his guns and stolen money. People want to know why baggage, both checked and unchecked, is not looked after properly.
Privilege-Mr. Manly
The Government has talked about safety as being a primary concern. What steps are being taking to ensure some safety and security at Canada's airports, particularly the London airport?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, my predecessor put over S63 million into security controls at our airports.
In London as in any other airport in Canada we are increasing the security system all the time. I will be meeting this afternoon with Canadian Airlines, Air Canada, and Wardair to see how we can again improve the system. It is the policy of this Government to make improvements to the system, and I believe we can say that we have one of the best systems in the world.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Humboldt-Lake Centre, just a single question, and that will end Question Period.
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NATIONAL REVENUE
Mr. Vic Althouse (Humboldt-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, in olden times tax assessors used extortion to extract the maximum tax from their victims rather than following a strict tax schedule and regime.
Revenue Canada seems to be reverting to that long dead practice with regard to machinery evaluation and the amount of tax owing. Can the Minister tell us why?


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, my colleague knows that our Department is trying, and is, I am sure, administering this program in a very objective way. 1 have met with many colleagues and farm organizations. We cancelled the special audit over a year ago.
There is an obligation that our Department has to administer tax programs. We are trying to do this very sensitively and we are giving extra attention to farmers who feel they have a grievance.
v *
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PRIVILEGE
James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, I rise with respect to Citations 48 to 51 of Beau-chesne's Fifth Edition which come under the heading "Reflections on Members".

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Business of the House
I refer to a letter written by the Elon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn) to the Right Hon. Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark) and dated April 11, 1988 which reads:
Dear Joe:
Enclosed is some material from my constituent, John Hart.
Three black ministers from the UNITA side were here under the auspices of
the United Church of Canada (Joe, this is the red church that I belong to,
indeed I sometimes call it the "communist church of Canada").
I rise both as a Member of this House and as a member and an ordained minister of the United Church of Canada to say that this description of the United Church of Canada infringes upon my rights as a Member of Parliament to be able to speak out on a wide variety of issues. It casts a reflection on me when I attempt to articulate positions that have been taken by the United Church of Canada. It casts reflections upon members of all three Parties who happen to be members of the United Church of Canada, and I submit that this is a violation of my privilege.
The letter might be dismissed as a facetious comment from a Member who is known sometimes for making facetious comments, but on further reflection I do not believe that it can be so lightly dismissed. First, the letterhead clearly defines the Hon. Member as the Chairman of the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs.


Mr. Speaker:: I have listened carefully to the Hon. Member who very kindly gave me a copy of the letter prior to Question Period. I am having some difficulty, although there may be a complaint here, in seeing a question of privilege.
First, the Hon. Member for Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands (Mr. Manly) is not named. He is one among many hundreds of thousands of Canadians who are members of this particular church. Whether the remark is said facetiously or otherwise, it is difficult to see just in what way that makes it more difficult for the Hon. Member for Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands to carry out his duties as a Member of Parliament.
I do not know whether other Members wish to intervene. While there may be and obviously there is to the Hon. Member a complaint here, I am afraid that I cannot find a question of privilege.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Deputy Government House Leader for his customary statement of Government Business.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise that
tomorrow will be an allotted day. Monday will also be an allotted day.
The House will know that on Tuesday at 11 a.m. there will be an address in the Chamber by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. In the afternoon we will sit at two o'clock for Members' Statements and Question Period, followed by Government Orders. On Tuesday afternoon we will proceed either with Bill C-103, dealing with the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, and/or we will try to complete Bill C-113, the western diversification legislation.
However, I should point out that we may have to debate the time allocation motion we were forced to put on the floor in an effort to get this very important Bill through the House because there was a filibuster from the New Democratic Party. Either way, that will be the Business of the House until next Tuesday.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Hon. Doug Lewis (for the Prime Minister) moved: that Bill C-103, an Act to increase opportunity for economic development in Atlantic Canada, to establish the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed.


Mr. Lawrence I. O'Neil (Cape Breton Highlands-Canso):: Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise at this time and participate in the debate on Bill C-103, an Act to increase opportunity for economic development in Atlantic Canada, to establish the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation. It gives me particular pleasure to speak on this important regional development initiative. I entered public life in an effort to improve the economic circumstances of the region that I represent and in an effort to participate in the process of improving the economic lot of the ordinary men and women in the region of Nova Scotia that I represent.
We live in an area of Canada that is a so-called "have not" area, which simply means in the Canadian context that the economic opportunities are less than in the more prosperous areas of Canada like Ontario and parts of Quebec. Nevertheless over the years we have worked at the national level and through our provincial representatives to put in place a series of initiatives and incentives that were to go a long way toward erasing national economic inequality. There has been some success.


May 5, 1988

I do not wish to use this opportunity to say that the previous Government did not try to address the problem. I believe that there is widespread agreement in all political Parties that the initiatives of the past were not as successful as Atlantic Canadians would have liked nor as the national Government would have liked. We had DRIE and we had DREE. Now the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency has been established by the Government.
What is different about the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency? I would like to take this opportunity to review with Hon. Members what I believe to be the strengths of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. I believe it is these attributes that are ensuring that the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency will succeed. I believe that these attributes are a reflection of our Government's commitment to regional development.
These changes were not achieved without a great political effort on the part of the Government. We had to stand on end the long-standing philosophies of economic development in the regions that prevailed here in Ottawa. We had to literally tear out of the Ottawa bureaucracy the mandate for regional economic development. It is never an easy task to take from the established bureaucracy authority and to transfer it to the regions, but this Government has done so. The Cabinet and the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) have taken the important and tough decisions to ensure that there are improved economic opportunities in Atlantic Canada.
You will hear, Mr. Speaker, that our Government has done a lot about unemployment, about inflation, and about interest rates, but that it has been of no effect in Atlantic Canada. That, however, is far from the truth. Atlantic Canadians benefit from lower interest rates. Atlantic Canadians benefit from a lower deficit. Atlantic Canadians benefit from a lower inflation rate.
It is not true to say that the national economic process of which we all know is of no impact in Atlantic Canada. The people I represent benefit from lower interest rates when they buy homes, build homes, or buy cars. When the people of Atlantic Canada want new policies, social or economic, which will cost money, they know that we have to have the national finances under control.
The people I represent in Atlantic Canada and indeed all Atlantic Canadians know full well that fiscal management at the national level is important and critical to the long-term economic well-being of Atlantic Canada. Therefore, we have put in place significant economic goals and we achieved them at the national level.
The unemployment rate is down across the country including in every province of Atlantic Canada. Within this context of national economic growth with Canada leading the western world, this Government has not merely stood by and said that that is enough. This Government has said that we must do
Government Organization Act, Atlantic Canada, 1987
more for the regions. We must increase the standard of living and the opportunities for Atlantic Canada. That is why the Prime Minister announced the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, an agency with $1 billion of additional resources to spend in the Atlantic region, $1 billion to be directed at small and medium-sized business. This is new and additional money directed at the entrepreneurs of Atlantic Canada. That is a major commitment.
That money is to be delivered by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, an agency which will be headquartered in Moncton, New Brunswick, an agency which has a local board of directors. It is an agency with local offices, whether in Sydney, Halifax, Moncton, Saint John, or Charlottetown. Those local offices are manned by people who live in the communities and can make important decisions about the viability of proposals for economic development that are put before those officers.
Just to highlight the contrast, in the past these same officers working for DRIE, would receive an application and do some kind of preliminary analysis of it. Then they would send it to Halifax. Then it would go to Ottawa. Then it would be evaluated by a sector analysis branch, and it would then go to a Deputy Minister. In the end, it would go to a Minister. However, it might not make it to a Minister.
In fact, during the first part of my term as an MP, the people of Atlantic Canada were told that their applications could not be approved because they would impact on industries in British Columbia or because the bureaucracy wanted another market study costing another $50,000. These decisions showed an insensitivity to the region. The bureaucracy was overly cautious. It was not prepared to take the risk. It had a different attitude.
Now the bureaucracy, the people who man the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, know that their job is to spur economic development, their mandate is to work with local economic groups to ensure that the community can put ideas forward to government. ACOA has money to help the industrial commissions and the small communities of Atlantic Canada, to help the entrepreneurs. For example, if there is an innovation project through which something new will be advanced, as much as 60 per cent of it will be made available through assistance. We as a Government recognize that we must build a stronger entrepreneurial base in Atlantic Canada, that Atlantic Canadians who have good ideas and who need capital must be given a little extra help.
We have taken the bold step of putting the economic development task in the hands of the people who live in the regions. We make no apologies for that. In fact, that is what was recommended by the Standing Committee on Regional Economic Development one year ago.
In June, 1987 the House of Commons Standing Committee on Regional Industrial Expansion which I chaired gave to the Government of Canada a long list of recommendations as a strategy to be followed in regional economic development. I

May 5, 1988
Government Organization Act, Atlantic Canada, 1987
would like to take the time of the House to review with my colleagues and with Canadians what some of those recommendations were, and whether or not they are reflected in the new policy of economic development envisioned by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.
The first recommendation was that the regional economic development task must be carried out by separate responsibility centres, sensitive to the regional needs. We now have that. Each of the provinces have offices with a certain degree of autonomy, and the headquarters of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency is in Moncton, New Brunswick.
The second recommendation was that the federal Government should continue to maintain a strong role in Canada's regional development efforts while recognizing the contributions that provincial and municipal Governments can and should make in this effort. The reason for this recommendation is quite simple. We want the federal Government in the regions because the federal Government has at its disposal certain levers of national economic development. It has financial resources and expertise that can be employed in the regions.
We also want the provincial and municipal Governments to recognize that they too have a role to play, that the provincial or the municipal Government can no longer say that there is an economic problem in the community because of the federal Government. The people in the regions must recognize and in fact do recognize that they have the ability and the mandate to address their economic problems and to move forward from that point onward.
Another recommendation was that areas of weak economic performance should be eligible for assistance aimed at diversifying and strengthening the local economy. Economic development assistance for such areas should vary in accordance with the needs of the local economy. We see that in Bill C-103. Bill C-103 has an explicit provision for the Minister to designate an area for special economic treatment even within the Atlantic Canada region. That shows the flexibility and sensitivity which the committee recommended one year ago.
The committee believes that the federal Government's efforts to promote economic development in Canada could be considerably improved by establishing a stronger federal presence in the regions of Canada. We see this recommendation as well reflected in Bill C-103. We also recommended that communities and local development groups should be eligible to accept responsibility and financial resources from the Government of Canada so that they can participate in the task of economic development. In other words, people who live in a region of perhaps a radius of 30 miles may have recognized a peculiar economic opportunity which, until that time, had not been recognized. There is now a mechanism under which they can promote their idea which, hopefully, will result in longterm economic development.
The regional development eligibility criteria for prospective business investments should be broadened to include all forms of business activities in all sectors of the Canadian economy. Under program coverage one year ago the committee advised the Government to recognize that there were businesses which require loan insurance, there are other businesses which would prefer an interest buy-down, there were businesses which are short of capital and would prefer a grant, and there were other businesses which might prefer some help on infrastructure. The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency reflects all of these recommendations of the House of Commons committee which reported one year ago.
I came to this House with the intention of participating in the development of national economic policy. I chaired this committee which was able to bring forward recommendations that we believed to be in the best interests of economic development in the regions of Canada. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to see that these recommendations were accepted and are reflected in the regional development policy which we are discussing today.
Another very important and specific recommendations that the committee made one year ago was that progress payments be made to investors. In other words, as an investor puts up a building or acquires machinery a progress payment should be available in order that the investor does not have the burden of bridge financing over a number of months, which is costly and often very difficult because our national banks have not been supportive of regional economic development.
Our banks have not accepted what I believe is their responsibility, that is, to play a role in regional economic development. They want a nice, safe, secure investment. This recommendation recognizes that progress payments will make it a lot easier for many investors to acquire the necessary financing and get their business up and operating. That very specific recommendation was accepted and announced as government policy by the Minister some time ago as part of the action program.
Industrial development policies and assistance are continued as well. National industrial development policy is continued under DRIE. Businesses in Atlantic Canada are not restricted to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. They can take full advantage of the industrial policies which apply across the country.
We recommended that federal procurement policies, and in particular defence contracts, should play an even greater role in the federal-regional development effort. I am proud to say that since that recommendation was made one year ago the Government of Canada has confirmed that the remaining frigates will be built at the Saint John shipyard. That means security for thousands of New Brunswick workers. That is federal procurement policy working for the benefit of Atlantic Canada. That is another reason I take particular pride in the initiatives of our Government in Atlantic Canada.
All purchasing departments of Government must also be ordered to review the specifications put on goods which they


May 5, 1988

are acquiring. The reality is that when a clerk draws up purchasing specifications he or she often specifies a product which is not available in Atlantic Canada. The specification may not be an essential part of the item being purchased, but when specifications are drafted people believe that they are bound to follow them to the T. As part of the regional development effort we must continue to study specifications to ensure that they are broad enough and flexible enough to reflect the capacity of the regions of the country to supply the product sought by the Government.
Another recommendation was that the federal Government should continue to lend its support to the development of large-scale investment initiatives in Canada. One of those initiatives, of course, would be the Hibernia development. I was pleased to read in the papers this week of an indication of a commitment by the Government of Canada to ensure that this important regional development project gets under way in the near future.
The Government is not restricting its support for Atlantic Canadians to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. There are many other avenues, but the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency has special funding and special programs. It provides for a local board of directors and input, not only from the board of directors but from advisory groups throughout the region. There is an opportunity for local industrial commissions to tap into expertise and come forward with ideas which they believe to be good for their communities.
That, Mr. Speaker, is far more than I, as a Member of Parliament, thought could be realized in terms of economic development strategy in my first term in Parliament. It is, in fact, a revolutionary change in the attitude toward regional development in this country. I am proud that it was this Government that made that change. We learned from the past and are looking to the future with new expertise and new strategies. I believe that these changes are producing important results. We must realize that ACOA is not a trial balloon.
The Government established the Enterprise Cape Breton Agency in the spring of 1985, which agency reflected many of these principles. It has special development tools including the Cape Breton Investment Tax Credit, the topping-up assistance, and the IRDP assistance. It administers loan insurance and interest buy-down. All of this is reflected in the Enterprise Cape Breton Agency which has been successful. No one has said otherwise. In fact, there is widespread agreement that the Enterprise Cape Breton Agency has been successful and that jobs have been created as a result.
Our economic development efforts in the region of Cape Breton have not been restricted to those instruments available to the Enterprise Cape Breton Agency. The Government saw that the forest resource in eastern Nova Scotia could be developed, that the full potential had not been realized. The Government put in place ERDA agreements which applied to Nova Scotia in general with relation to forestry and a special forestry agreement for the Cape Breton area of Nova Scotia
Government Organization Act, Atlantic Canada, 1987
with a full $10 million. We put that money into the forests and put people to work to build up the forests which had been destroyed by the spruce budworm and to build a healthier forest.
We did not stop with forestry. We put in place a special Cape Breton Attractions Program designed to bring tourists into eastern Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. We want tourists to come into that region because tourism is a tremendous growth industry in all of Canada, and Nova Scotia is no exception. There is a great opportunity throughout all of my riding to increase the job opportunities flowing from the tourism industry. We put the $14 million Cape Breton Attractions Program in place in conjunction with the provinces. The idea was to establish special attractions, so-called travel generators, that would bring in Canadians, Americans and people from outside North America to this region of Canada to enjoy our culture, scenery and people. In turn, we will have a stronger economy.
We have established special agreements to help the agricultural sector and the fishery. We know that more can be done and are prepared to do so.
However, in less than four years tremendous changes in regional economic strategies have occurred in Atlantic Canada, and I am proud to say that it is the Government of which I am a part that brought forward this initiative. I am proud that many of the recommendations put forward by the committee which I chaired a year ago were accepted and are reflected in the regional economic policies of the Government. Those recommendations were put forward and unanimously agreed upon by the committee. We did not fully expect that so many of them would be accepted and acted upon.
I want to pay tribute to my colleagues who travelled throughout Atlantic Canada during the hearings relating to Bill C-103. I want to pay tribute to them for their attention and genuine interest in listening to Atlantic Canadians and supporting a number of amendments affecting this legislation.
One of those amendments relates to the extension of the Enterprise Cape Breton mandate to an area on the mainland side of the Strait of Canso, which includes industrial land in the Town of Mulgrave and thousands of acres in the adjacent municipality of the County of Guysborough.
This was a major and important change. This was one of the primary areas affected by the closure of the Atomic Energy of Canada Limited heavy water plant in Point Tupper. It was directly affected by the closure of an oil refinery during the term of my predecessor, and was directly affected by the closure of a fish plant in the 1970s. This area faced severe economic set-backs in the last 15 years, and the amendment to the Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation Bill means that this area will benefit from those special benefits that this corporation brings to the area. That is consistent with the mandate of the Enterprise Cape Breton Agency that was set up at the time

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Government Organization Act, Atlantic Canada, 1987
of the closure of the heavy water plant to help in the process of economic rejuvenation in that area. Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation will have the same mandate.
I have made representations to extend the mandate of both these corporations throughout all my riding. I have worked particularly with the Town of Canso in making representations in this regard. The reality is that the boundary would stop in that area directly affected by the closure of the heavy water plant, which in a direct way forms part of the port. While that was not the best result for me, it was a big improvement.
It was consistently argued in respect of the mainland side of the Strait of Canso that we cannot take the incentives off Cape Breton without knowing where to draw the line. It was a difficult question and presumably explains why my predecessor, who represented both sides of the Strait of Canso, did not expand the special programs that applied to Cape Breton to the mainland side of the causeway. That had a negative impact on the community just across the water.
This measure helps alleviate some of that difficulty. I look forward to the day when these boundaries are expanded again to include all of Guysborough County and Antigonish County, two areas that I also represent. I believe that we have set an important precedent. The boundaries do not have to stop at Cape Breton because a balanced strategy of economic development can and should be achieved. I am proud that I have been able to convince the Government to move the boundary further west because that did not happen under the previous Government.
I know there are Members in the House who would like those benefits extended to their ridings, and even some who would like them extended to Newfoundland. We should not deny the people who have this benefit the opportunity to participate because it does not extend far enough.
This amendment is an important achievement because it brings these incentives to thousands of industrial acres in the County of Guysborough. That fact alone will benefit many additional thousands of people. Hopefully, with economic development, they will be able to commute to this area for employment. I welcome the support of my colleagues for this important change.
There are other features of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency that I believe will result in improved economic opportunities. I have already mentioned participation and local control, but have not touched on another mandate of this agency, namely, its advocacy role. What does that mean? This agency will play a role when important decisions are being made by other government Departments. ACOA has been given the opportunity to inject itself into the policy-making and decision-making of other Departments. ACOA can be represented at the cabinet table. Atlantic Canadians can give their input into decisions because ACOA is mandated by the Government to be its advocate. For example, it can advocate that more defence spending occur in the Atlantic region.
Let there be no mistake about the important role that a bureaucracy can play when it is given the mandate as public servants to be advocates who will ensure that we are involved in any decisions affecting the interests of Atlantic Canada that reach the cabinet table.
This should not be an indication of weakness on the part of Members from Atlantic Canada. We too have an important political role to play, but ACOA gives support and I, as a Member of Parliament, welcome that support from the region. That is another important role to be played by this regional agency.
We know that policies in the past have not realized the goals we had hoped to reach and we have committed ourselves as a Government to put in place a new strategy, and that is what we have done. There is local input, local control, a new budget and additional money. We have said to the people of Atlantic Canada: "You have a role to play and we want you to play it. We want your ideas and input and we want you to participate in achieving greater economic opportunities". That is the mandate we have given this corporation, and it is a mandate that is welcomed by the people of Atlantic Canada.
In closing, I would like to make a few comments on the establishment of the Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation itself. That corporation is something which takes the industrial development division of Devco, puts it into a new separate Crown corporation, mandated by this legislation, an Act of Parliament, and tells it to go forward and do that which the industrial development division of Devco was doing but in a new corporate entity with a new board of directors. I support that. There are some who do not. It seems to me they do not support it because they are attempting to hold onto the past. The fact is that the Cape Breton Development Corporation was established to wind down the coal mines. We have the industrial development division which is supposed to improve economic opportunities for Cape Breton. What would happen if the coal industry turned around? Since the early 1970s Devco has been chiefly a coal mining company.
The priorities of industrial development in Cape Breton have not received the adequate attention of a board of directors. There are always priorities in the coal industry. This new corporation, which has the powers of the industrial development division of Devco, will be able to focus on industrial development. It will be able to do so with a separate board of directors, which does not have to worry about coal prices for that day or about negotiating contracts with the many hundreds of coal miners. We have a new Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation, which is an improvement, an autonomous industrial development corporation, that will work with the Enterprise Cape Breton Agency.
The Enterprise Cape Breton Agency has worked, and so will the Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation. The Enterprise Cape Breton Agency has committed over $150 million to business
May 5, 1988

development in Cape Breton and more than $50 million in the Cape Breton investment tax credit in addition to that. We have the ERDAs I mentioned earlier. This is not only going to big business. It is going to the farmer who can use the tax credit to put up a new barn or to acquire farming machinery. These are incentives not available in other parts of Nova Scotia but they are available in Cape Breton. They highlight the commitment of our Government to deal with a very serious economic problem in Cape Breton and eastern Nova Scotia. If money is the test of our commitment, then I point out to the critics that there has been a commitment of more than $500 million to Cape Breton and eastern Nova Scotia.
The financial commitment of the Government of Canada is clear, but money is not enough. If money were enough our problems would have been solved decades ago. If the industrial development division of Devco were the answer, these problems would be solved. But the people voted for a new strategy. They have it. They have the money, they have the opportunity, and they have proven results. We see results in this region. These principles form the basis of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. Because of its success, I look at ACOA and to the future of Atlantic Canada with confidence and optimism knowing that, with this new opportunity, Atlantic Canadians will improve their economic lot. I look forward to passage of this Bill so that all of Atlantic Canada can get on with enjoying the benefits of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.


Mr. Harris:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order to seek the unanimous consent of the House to vary the order of speaking in this debate. I realize that Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition has the right to speak next and for unlimited time, but I would ask for the consent of the House that I be permitted to speak next for 20 minutes only, forgoing questions and comments. I do have to catch flight in a very short period of time. I would seek the consent of the House to do that.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Jack Harris: Mr. Speaker, I thank Hon. Members for granting their unanimous consent. It shows a spirit of co-operation that we have not seen in the House for the last few days. I am pleased to see it today.
I want to speak on this very important piece of legislation. I want to say at the outset that although I may not be present for a vote on this Bill, it would be my intention to vote in support of this legislation. I think it does a part of what needs to be done for Atlantic Canada. In saying that, however, I want to outline very serious problems I see with this Government's approach and its attitude toward regional development.
Perhaps it is best exemplified by a comment first made by the Minister of Public Works in March of 1987. In speaking to a construction management labour bureau in Halifax, the Minister is reported to have said that the Atlantic Canada
Government Organization Act, Atlantic Canada, 1987
Opportunities Agency may be the last kick at the can as far as development programs for this region are concerned from a federal Government bent on financial efficiency. What has not been tried in the Atlantic region? Just about everything has been tried. That attitude expressed by a Minister of the Crown is, I think, a most shocking attitude when it comes to an important region of Canada. One would have expected that Senator Murray, the Minister responsible for this agency, would have repudiated that attitude when asked. But he did not. He confirmed it both in committee, when he was asked, and to the media.
On top of that attitude, we have an attitude which was expressed in this House the other day when the Bill at report stage .was being debated with a number of important amendments being considered by the House. The Minister for International Trade (Mr. Crosbie) criticized and derided a member of the New Democratic Party for speaking in support of amendments to the legislation, for speaking in favour of regional development in Atlantic Canada, on the basis that the Member represented a riding in Hamilton, Ontario. The Minister for International Trade was joined in this attack by the Minister of State and Deputy House Leader. This was an attack on Members of this Party who were speaking out in favour of regional development for Atlantic Canada. These attitudes, which were expressed by four separate Ministers of the Crown, are part of the reason we recognize that this Government's approach to regional development is entirely different from what one would find on this side of the House.
What kind of problems are we dealing with when we talk about regional development? I look to the Economic Council of Canada, which stated in a press release on September 30, 1987, that the national economy is likely to expand in the coming years but uneven regional growth will be the country's major economic problem. It stated that a prime economic target for Canadians should be regionally balanced growth, job opportunities and social services. According to the Economic Council of Canada this is the major economic problem our country faces today.
From what other economic body have we heard in the last year but the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development? In its annual report, which was released last August, it states that the starkness of regional disparity in Canada was especially noteworthy in the previous years. So not only does our own Economic Council recognize it as the priority problem in Canada, it is also recognized by the body which is composed of the 15 wealthiest nations in the world which does studies on economies and which makes economic predictions.
How do we treat it in Canada? How do Ministers of the Crown treat it? They say that this will be the last kick at the can, that we will try this for a few years and if it does not work it is all over. If people who are not from Atlantic Canada stand up in the House to talk about it and to bring it to the attention

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Government Organization Act, Atlantic Canada, 1987
of the House, speaking out for the region of Atlantic Canada, they get told that they have no right to do so. That is not good enough for this Party. It is not good enough for Canada. It is not good enough for any part of Canada. It certainly will not be accepted by Atlantic Canada, Atlantic Canadians and Newfoundlanders.
We heard the previous speaker from the government side talk about spending money, which has not solved the problem, and that this will not work and that that will not work. What is happening is that the situation in Atlantic Canada is not getting better. It is either getting worse or standing still.
There was a recent presentation to the Standing Committee on Finance which dealt with the issue of interest rates in Canada. A political science professor from the University of Ottawa, Duncan Campbell, said that the unemployment rate in the regions of Canada is higher now than it was just prior to the 1981-82 recession. We have gone through a recession, an economic downturn which affected all of Canada, and we have what appears to be a recovery in certain parts of Ontario. It has been so much of a recovery that the Bank of Canada is afraid to cut the interest rates because it does not want it to overheat the economy and cause inflation in certain parts of Ontario. However, in Atlantic Canada and the regions the unemployment rate is now worse than it was before the recession.
The Hon. Member said further that in Atlantic Canada, even though we have the highest unemployment rate in the country, 50 per cent of those who are working part time are doing so because they cannot find full-time employment. Yet they are considered employed in the unemployment statistics. They are part-time employees, many of them. Those who are part-time are not part-time because they choose to be so. They are part-time because they cannot get full-time jobs.
Speaking of the unemployment rate, I want to remind Members of the House that the unemployment rate in my own Province of Newfoundland in March was 17.8 per cent. That was more than double the national rate in Canada of 7.8 per cent. That is the place that Newfoundlanders have in terms of opportunities for jobs in Canada.
When we look at the unemployment rate in Atlantic Canada and in Newfoundland we see that over the last number of years the situation has not much changed. In fact, it has got worse. In 1976, it was at 13.4 per cent and hovered around 15 per cent and 16 per cent up until early 1980. It was down to 13 per cent in 1980 and 1981. In 1982, it started going up. It was 16.8 per cent in 1982. In 1983, it was 18.9 per cent. In 1984, when the Government came in, we hit 20 per cent. In 1985, it was 21 per cent. In 1986, it was 20 per cent. We are now down to 17.8 per cent. However, we are still over double the national average. Not only have we fared poorly and are worse off now than we were before the recession, we are also at still more than twice the national average in Canada.
That is the situation. It has to be addressed by a very serious attack on regional development. We now have a Bill before us.
I want to commend the Chairman of the legislative committee, for when we travelled through Atlantic Canada and heard briefs, the Hon. Member from Fredericton held open airs and was very kind and polite. He listened to all the things that were said. Unfortunately, in the end, the Government was not prepared to accept motions that would insist that this agency take on regional development as a goal with the reduction of regional disparity as a commitment and an objective.
We have a refusal to establish this as an objective. We have assistance for small and medium-sized business in the Atlantic region. That is a laudable activity to undertake.
As even the government spokesman today mentioned, spending money will not solve the problem. He did not have the courage to say what needs to be undertaken. We have to tell Ministers of the Crown to stop talking about Atlantic Canada as if it were a basket case that needed to be kicked like a can in the hopes that that will do something to improve things. We have to recognize that Atlantic Canadians, whether they be from a metropolitan area such as Halifax or even St. John's, deserve to have the same kind of opportunity as other Canadians, opportunities for a decent job, to be able to raise their families in the place of their birth, and to be able to develop their communities and live in them.
That will have to be done by all Members of the House recognizing it as a priority. If we do not do that, we are giving up on the regions of Canada. To spend what this Government has allocated toward this particular agency and suggest that this is going to solve the problem, or is even a serious attempt to solve the problem, is an act of sheer dishonesty.
What we now have to recognize as the most serious economic problem in the country is uneven regional growth. We have to recognize that in order to tackle that problem we are going to have to take serious measures. They cannot be just spending money. They will have to involve certain structural changes. We have to do something to reverse the unlimited and unrelenting concentration of money, of jobs and of opportunities in the central parts of this country. We have to do that by structuring our economy in such a way that jobs are spread out across the country.
We have gone some way in attempting at least to redistribute income from the wealthy to the poor. We recognize at least that we have an obligation to do that. We recognize that we have an obligation to keep people in decent housing. We recognize that we have an obligation to ensure that they do not starve, and that we are prepared to redistribute income from the tax system to do that. There has to be a redistribution in Canada across the regions in terms of opportunities for work and opportunities for jobs.
There are numerous ways in which this can be done. I will not lay out a total economic program at the present time. There hardly seems any point in telling the Government how it should behave in terms of regional development in view of the
May 5, 1988

attitude of the Ministers responsible for this program. They are only willing to go so far as to provide money or support for business enterprises in the Atlantic region. I think that is an important thing that has to be done. But it cannot be done in the way in which the Government is undertaking it without doing little to resolve the problem, and in fact it may well be exacerbating it.
The Government refuses to accept an amendment which would guarantee that there would be equity between the provinces in terms of access and use of this agency. To a certain degree at least this would have ensured that the money and the programs of ACOA would not be concentrated in those areas which already have economic development. Unfortunately, there is no mechanism within the ACOA program and within the legislation to ensure that those areas, cities, and towns that are already doing well will not take up the lion's share of this regional development funding. Of course, the most important thing is that this agency, which has other mandates in terms of advocacy for the Atlantic region, is not given sufficient funds to undertake this gigantic task.
The allocation of an additional $200 million, which is 15 per cent of 1 per cent of the national budget, is a very minuscule amount when one looks at the total picture. It is a very minuscule amount to spend on what is regarded as the most serious economic problem facing the country.
I look forward to the day when Members of Parliament from across Canada, not only Members from the Atlantic region or those of us from my province, can join together and insist on putting in place a program that will tackle and genuinely do what has to be done in order to ensure that Atlantic Canada receives its fair share of economic and regional development, and that opportunities in Atlantic Canada and those parts of Atlantic Canada that are doing badly exist and are created by the Government.
There have to be structural changes that will not come unfortunately from the vision of Canada held by this Government. Its vision of Canada is made up of people acting for private motives and making a profit. The Government is extending our borders in that field to include the United States of America in the trade agreement. It is preventing us in Atlantic Canada from using our natural resources such as oil and electricity to give favourable treatment to businesses and opportunities in the Atlantic region. That is a structural change that would be required in order to assist Atlantic Canadians in developing their economy. The Government does not see the wisdom of that. In fact, it is throwing it to the wind and stating that it will only give money to small enterprises and hoping against hope that this will do something to alleviate regional disparity. I am afraid that that will not do so. I am sorry it will not do so.
I have to support this legislation because it does provide a first step, but I am sorry that the Government does not have the will to reduce and eliminate regional disparities.
Government Organization Act, Atlantic Canada, 1987



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 66, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the Hon. Member for Burnaby (Mr. Robinson)-Correctional Services-Funding of agency to assist ex-prisoners in Nova Scotia; the Hon. Member for Cochrane-Superior (Mr. Penner)-Finance-Northern tax allowances-Geographical delineation of affected communities/Request that regulations be amended; and the Hon. Member for Western Arctic (Mr. Nickerson)-Northern Development-Negotiation of energy accord with Northwest Territories.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Mulroney that Bill C-103, an Act to increase opportunity for economic development in Atlantic Canada, to establish the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed.
David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I wish to join in the debate on a public policy issue which has concerned me for quite some time.
Many Members of Parliament who have been elected to this Chamber and who are presently in this Chamber have been hoping and working toward the elimination of regional disparities in this country. Whether one resides in Newfoundland or Cape Breton, or in parts of western Canada, Quebec, or Ontario, it is clear that the issue of regional disparities is an important and all-encompassing issue.
When Governments formulate public policy to address serious situations in the country, in my view it is their role, after broad consultation, to come forward with meaningful and concrete programs within a reasonable period of time.
Dr. Donald Savoie is an economist by profession and for quite some time has been studying regional disparities within Atlantic Canada. He has prepared a report, and in that document he has highlighted the fact that agencies or Departments, private as well as public, do not and will not be the panacea for resolving regional inequalities in the country.
Some of us can look back to the days when we passed and amended the Canadian Constitution. A provision of the

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Government Organization Act, Atlantic Canada, 1987
Constitution dealt with equality of opportunity for all Canadians, something which, rather sadly, is rarely referred to in this Chamber. There are those of us in the Chamber, as evidenced by the previous Speaker, who believe it to be the most important issue facing Canada today.
When we talk about regional disparities and the inequalities that exist within regions, what we are really talking about in a fundamental way is nation-building. For Governments to be effective in serving the people they represent, there must be an underlying political will to resolve and to address those situations.
Unfortunately, I have noted, not with partisanship but with regret, that what was said in July, 1984 has conveniently been forgotten for quite some time. In July, 1984 and in August, 1984 the Canadian people, particularly in my region of Atlantic Canada, felt that the panacea for the elimination of those disparities was to vote for the Conservative Party of Canada. We have seen the evidence of that falsehood. It has taken almost four years for the Government of the day to put a program before the Parliament of Canada.
It was once said that time is of the essence. But if the problem is so serious, as evidenced by Members opposite, if the problem is all-encompassing, as they have stated, surely it is not unreasonable for the Canadian people in Atlantic Canada to ask, "Why have you not moved with some sense of dispatch in this most serious situation?"
Consultations took place in committee. The committee travelled across the region but did not consult broadly within the region itself. It went to some areas but refused to go to others. The package of programs it drafted, if looked at in isolation, may be seen as if it really going to do something. However, on closer examination I think you will find the opposite to be true.
Attitude and political will are important ingredients in developing good public policy. We have had Ministers of the Crown say to the people of Atlantic Canada that this is their last opportunity. The implication is that if this is not successful, there will be no more. However, I suggest that that attitude is a tragedy for our efforts to build a better nation.
The Government developed this Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, gave it a relatively small amount of money, and tried to promote it as the new Cadillac of economic development in Atlantic Canada. The fact is that this agency, with some goals and objectives I concur with, as I have said before, is not and will not be the vehicle by which disparities in my region are eliminated.
We had some consultation, although it was not broad consultation. We had a four-year lapse of time. We have an allocation of some $200 million over five years. We now have an agency with a board of advisers, I guess you would call them, who are going to try to advise on the public policy that
the agency will be implementing. However, it breaches a number of fundamentals. We were led to believe that the decision-making would be in the Atlantic provinces. Decisionmaking will not lie with that board and executive. The decisions will be made here in Ottawa.
On page 63 of Donald Savoie's report he said that above all the agency will require clout. It must be in a position to influence policy as it is being created. It will thus require direct access to central agency processes and cabinet level decision-making. However, the Act incorporating the agency merely makes passing reference to other Departments of the Government of Canada.
Some years ago I had an opportunity to speak with a former Minister of the Crown, a tremendously astute politician in the person of Donald Jamieson. He said at a policy conference that I attended that we must be cognizant of the fact that if Governments try to place in the hands of one single agency the complete role of regional economic development, it will not work. What has the Government done? It is clear that it is putting all its eggs in one basket. Yes, the Bill says in Clause 5(2):
The Minister shall co-ordinate the policies and programs of the Government
of Canada in relation to opportunity for economic development in Atlantic
Canada.
As a bare minimum the Government ought to provide clear, concise objectives regarding employment, transport and the various agencies of Government. That has not been done nor is it being worked on. All this Minister of the Crown and this agency will be able to do is to shuffle papers off to another Department in the hope that somewhere along the line some consideration may be given to regional economic development.
Another shortcoming is the A-base budgeting, $200 million. You know what other Departments of the Government will be saying to that particular agency? There is $200 million allotted, if you want projects out of Transport you go over to ACOA. This will happen even if they are somewhat, shall we say, in co-operation with the private sector. This agency will become the single tool of regional economic development. What an unmitigated disaster for nation-building. We are leaving to one small agency the responsibility of addressing the concerns of the people of Atlantic Canada.
It is important, when we talk about public policy regarding regional economic development, that we not think merely of one or two items. There are many. Tax reform is one. What is the Government's position regarding tax reform and how it will benefit Atlantic Canadians and spur our economy? Procurement is another one. The procurement policies of the Government are not working. It requires political will by a Government of some 211 Members of Parliament to put forward a legislative package which will say that a percentage must go to Atlantic Canada. This cannot be discretionary. That could help trigger thousands of new jobs, as has been done in other countries. The U.S. has been able to lever procurement policies with private sector moneys to create the
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necessary jobs for people to lead a dignified life. Yet there is nothing in this agency in that regard. All there is, is passing reference to consultation with other Departments, hence the folly of the Bill.
The objective of the agency is to promote and assist small and medium-sized business. If one had been listening to broadly-based consultation one would have clearly and unequivocally heard that the people of Atlantic Canada want some form of state funding for infrastructure. Infrastructure takes on many forms. I believe one of the fundamental factors in turning around an economy is the human resource. That resource has to be educated and well-informed about what is going on domestically as well as internationally. All we have is passing reference to the Government trying to co-ordinate efforts with other agencies of the Government of Canada.
My colleague and I travelled extensively in Atlantic Canada. We heard brief after brief after brief from concerned individuals and organizations requiring and asking the Government of Canada to provide some infrastructure moneys whether on the human resource side or on the municipal side. The services and amenities that we have in Atlantic Canada are not on a par with other regions of the country. There have been some moneys directed in that regard, but suffice it to say that an insufficient amount of moneys has been directed in that regard. I think, with regard to infrastructure, notwithstanding the fears of provincial Premiers-provincial Premiers of a different political stripe than mine but the same as the Governments-there are no moneys for infrastructure, none whatsoever. I suggest to the Government that that is a mistake on its part.
The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, I am told, and I hope government Members will avail themselves of the opportunity to correct me, will be centered in Moncton, with its President living in Halifax, travelling back and forth, and with offices in the various provinces. The inadequacies of this agency are clearly spelled out in this way.
The estimates for 1988 to 1989 show the research and analytical staff complement of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agencies as representing 49 management person-years, 140 administration and foreign services, and just a mere 19 scientific professional staff. Is this agency equipped with the scientific and professional staff to do the job in the shortest period of time humanly possible and equipped to do its job well? The answer will be unmitigated delay after delay after delay as the agency checks with another Department to shuffle paper from there over to the agency and back to another agency. We will be in a time-locked situation where applicants will become frustrated, where entrepreneurs and people of goodwill and good intention will become frustrated to the extent that they will want to go elsewhere.
The Government has introduced this Bill to establish among others the Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation. If there has
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ever been a situation that is so stupid, it has been the Government's decision to do what it is doing in this particular Bill. A previous speaker today talked about the money of Enterprise Cape Breton and the opportunities it is trying to provide in that particular region. The Bill does not recognize the history which has been associated with the Cape Breton Development Division for some 20 years. This was an industrial development division that worked hand in hand with another division, the coal division, in assisting workers who may have had to be replaced in trying to start new businesses or getting into a new line of employment. They worked together. If there is one thing that I have learned about regional economic development policy it is that it takes time. Yes, it takes money and political will, but it also takes time. What the Government is doing by gutting the industrial development division of DEVCO and placing it in a separate Crown corporation is taking 20 years of working with the community, business in the private and in the public sector, and wiping it off.
I do not share-and I say that with great respect-the comments of the Hon. Member for Cape Breton Highlands- Canso (Mr. O'Neil) when he said, "you are turning back to the past". What unmitigated nonsense, Mr. Speaker. Every economist in the regional economic field will tell you that when you address that particular subject there are long time frames. We saw it in the Richmond County Development Corporation where, for a four or five year period, people were falling over themselves. Wrong management decisions were made, but because of the mistakes and the educational process that goes on within, management has been able to turn it around and has made the corporation a positive force for that particular area of our province. This agency, the Cape Breton Development Corporation, in its industrial development division has assisted countless numbers of individuals in Cape Breton.
Of course, the critics will ask, what is wrong with making it a separate Crown corporation? What is wrong with doing that? It is very clear. The mandates are different. The programs may appear to be similar, but there are different mandates. The Cape Breton Development Corporation has a coal division and an industrial development division. By separating the two, this Government is trying to position the coal industry in one corner and the industrial development somewhere else. We know, through the number of actions over the last number of years, that the Government's commitment to the coal industry of Cape Breton has a lot to be desired. There are 604 men, Mr. Speaker, not four individuals, not five, but 604 who have gone from the payroll. We have a situation now where men on pre-retirement leave, who have no hope of getting employment, have to pay unemployment insurance, whereas in other pre-retirement leave plans they do not have to do that.
We have a situation with the coal industry where the Government of Canada, is considering the possibility of providing funds for a new coal mine in Pictou County to the detriment of the Cape Breton Development Corporation coal

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division. What stupidity, what idiotic public policy by a Government which is taking jobs from one poor region and giving them to another poor region of the province.
The industrial development division of the Cape Breton Development Corporation has had its share of failures too. There is no question about that and I would be the first to admit it, Mr. Speaker. Over time, however, it has been successful on many accounts. Perhaps what is not talked about often, to which reference ought to be made now, is the industrial development of DEVCO. It includes the development of individuals and the over-all community.
To individuals who are not familiar with regional economic development and to those individuals who live in the major urban centres of our country who cannot appreciate this kind of development, not for lack of desire or caring but because of lack of exposure, it is fundamental to changing an economy and changing a community. It is a vision not easily attained but nevertheless a vision to improve, to assist and to facilitate individuals in the community at large. What do we have in Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation? A mere mishmash of programs administered from an agency whose President will also be the President of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, who lives in Halifax, whose head office is in Moncton, but who is supposed to do work in Cape Breton. I have seen some pretty good ballet dancers and some pretty good running backs. That goes a long way. I think that is very telling.
In my view, the intent to create the Crown corporation spells the end of the Cape Breton Development Corporation. The Government is not committed to future coal development in Cape Breton, as evidenced by its action to date. Every miner who works within the coal division of that corporation will concur that there is not a commitment there.
There is now in Cape Breton a coal mine called the Donkin coal mine which is ready to start up. Yet the Government of Canada will provide money for a new coal mine in Pictou County which will be operating in competition with that of the Cape Breton Development Corporation. If that does not spell out very clearly what the intent of this particular Bill is, I do not know what else does.
It is very obvious to me that there is a plan, and the plan is not to assist and to facilitate research and development of the coal division. It is to wind it down. The best way to do that is to separate the two: put the coal division on one side, and Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation on the other side.
If that is done, we will lose on two counts. We will lose our coal industry, which has been the backbone of eastern Nova Scotia for decades, and we will lose, on the industrial development side, because the knowledge that has been acquired, the sense of confidence and stability, the esprit de corps, the aims and the objectives and the decisions being made there and not somewhere else will be lost. Those things are pretty fundamental to developing regional economic development policies. For
Hon. Members opposite to say that all is well with the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency is for them to say something that is not correct.
The industrial development division of the Cape Breton Development Corporation has a developmental role in ensuring that Cape Bretoners have the education, the technical and managerial skills and the entrepreneurial ability to carry through the economic plans they set for themselves. That is very well stated, and it was submitted by senior members of the Cape Breton Development Corporation.
That is not to suggest in any way that the present industrial development division of DEVCO does not have a way to go in terms of improvement. However, to change it for the mere sake of changing it does not make good policy sense. We only change things because common sense demands that we change them.
I say now, as I have said in my constituency, that we are fundamentally altering a Crown corporation which has served us well for a good number of years, a Crown corporation which has accumulated the information, the knowledge and the know-how to do things in that particular environment. To change it at this time for a convenient label, Enterprise Cape Breton Development Corporation, will not meet the test of good public policy.
I hope that the Government of Canada will reconsider the serious mistake it is making. There are a number of individuals on the Island of Cape Breton, and even in the galleries-


Mr. Beatty:: There's not a dry eye in the House.


David Charles Dingwall: I thank the Hon. Minister. These individuals would agree that this change will mean the end of our coal mining and the way we operate other businesses on the Island of Cape Breton.
This new agency does not have, nor is it likely to have, the empathy and the understanding that is needed to foster the attainment of regional economic development objectives. I would hope that the Government, notwithstanding its huge majority, would rethink this issue, not on the basis of partisan politics but on the basis of what is right for a people who live in a region of Canada and have contributed greatly to this country in various ways. They ought to be given the same opportunities that are given to other Canadians.
I am afraid, and I say this with regret, that the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, containing these particular provisions, will lessen opportunities for the people of my region.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Debate.


Patrick George Binns: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise to participate in this debate. The reason for that is quite simple. As a Member from Atlantic Canada, I was one of those on the government side who was anxious to see our
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approach to regional development change. Why that is the case is quite simple. It is simply because the approach that was being taken toward regional development in Atlantic Canada was not working.
We were seeing ourselves slip further and further behind the rest of Canada in terms of earned income and the ability of people to support themselves. If there is one thing that Atlantic Canadians want to be, it is to be self-sufficient in as many ways as possible. Of course, as a Member on the government side, I was anxious, along with my colleagues, to put a new program in place which would be made in Atlantic Canada to serve the needs of Atlantic Canadians.
Of course, we began to consult with people in Atlantic Canada, and Mr. Savoie, who has been mentioned at various times during this debate, was engaged to talk to leaders in the business community and within government circles and to any other interested parties to begin to put together the elements of a program that would work for Atlantic Canada.
What we see in this legislation is something quite different from anything we have had since the years of Prime Minister Diefenbaker who established the Atlantic Development Board and began to put major funding into infrastructure developments in Atlantic Canada. At that time, we saw a great expansion in facilities such as wharfs and highways. There was a tremendous improvement in the transportation system in Atlantic Canada.
Unfortunately, since the years of Mr. Diefenbaker, what we have had for regional development has basically been a national program which was modified a bit for the region. The process was such that if a person had an idea, it had to fit into the national performance criteria. It could not be an idea for a program that would fit Atlantic Canada itself. We saw that perhaps nine out of 10 or even 99 out of 100 people who had good ideas for development in Atlantic Canada would submit applications to DRIE or to DREE, as it then was, and would find that those applications were being turned down because they did not fit the national criteria for the programs. That was especially apparent during the latter years of DRIE, after the DREE programs were changed to give a different direction to the program. We got into tiers of support. If you were in one area of Atlantic Canada you got a little more than somewhere else, but everyone right across the country received some support under the national program.
Our approach was that development should start from the ground up and that if a person in Atlantic Canada had a good idea for development it should be encouraged locally and considered by people in the region who would judge the application on its merits and determine whether or not it would fly. That is exactly the way in which the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency has been structured.
As has been pointed out, the head office of the corporation is in Moncton. There are independent offices in each province
Government Organization Act, Atlantic Canada, 1987
with a fantastic amount of local decision-making authority. In fact, there is a vice-president in each of the four Atlantic provinces. For example, the vice-president of the agency in Charlottetown can make decisions on all applications which come into his office up to $1 million. Those applications need not go before a screening process in Moncton, Ottawa, or elsewhere. They are considered on their own merits in terms of their contribution to Prince Edward Island. That is the kind of process which we wanted with this new agency.
If an individual has a good idea for a business which is going to create something new through manufacturing or processing, whether agriculture or fisheries products, it will be encouraged rather than discouraged. In the past, when an application was made the approach was to say that it would never work, that the idea made no sense. The new approach of the agency is to sit down with the applicant and flesh out his idea. If it is determined that it would not work initially, a little more research may be done on it, in which case we will fund up to 75 per cent of the research cost. If the research concludes that the idea is good, the person can get on with receiving government assistance through the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency in order that the idea can proceed.
To ensure that the program is going in the right direction the Minister responsible, Senator Murray, has established a local board within the Atlantic area to advise on the general policy direction. That board is made up of Atlantic Canadians. These are not people sent out from Upper Canada, western Canada, or elsewhere to advise Atlantic Canadians on how to do their business. These are local business people who have been successful and can provide advice to the Minister in terms of how the program should be run. They can provide advice to the local vice-president on how best to carry out the program.
The approach is different. The decisions are being made locally. Those ventures which are sound will receive support. I was surprised when some of the Hon. Members opposite suggested that the agency would be very cumbersome and awkward in terms of reviewing projects and that it would take a long time to get approvals. In the last couple of weeks a project based in my constituency was approved by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency in a matter of days.
This was a project to expand the shipyard in the town of Georgetown. The shipyard saw an opportunity to do some computer-assisted design and manufacturing and to expand into the manufacture of aluminum vessels. With that opportunity identified an application went into the agency and within a very few days the decision was made that it should proceed.
That is a radical departure from the past. Under the programs which the former administration had in place, applications would often take three months, six months, nine months, or maybe a year before they received a "no". We are trying to change that process. If the answer is going to be no, the individual will know in a very short period of time.

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What kind of assistance can a person expect when he or she puts in an application? Two old programs have been consolidated and streamlined into one new program which will assist in three different ways. The first way is to provide loan insurance to the applicant. In fact, 85 per cent of a loan from a bank can be insured under this program.
The second major element is that an interest buy-down will be provided to the applicant. Up to 6 per cent of his interest payments at the bank can be bought down by virtue of this program. In other words, instead of paying 13 per cent interest the applicant would end up paying 7 per cent. Anyone in business today realizes that when you are using financing over 10, 15 or 20 years to operate a business, a 6 per cent writedown amounts to a substantial amount of money and makes it very much easier to make the business a success.
There are also grants and contributions available through the agency. The following types of assistance are available. There is business support, study support and technical assistance, innovation establishment, new product establishment, and expansion or modernization.
There are also increased levels of contributions under the new authority. For example, if it is a new business the funding level can go to 65 per cent of the total capital cost as opposed to 50 per cent under the old programs. Of course, it is not only 65 per cent as opposed to 50 per cent, but the eligible criteria are greatly broadened. If the business is going to modernize or expand, it can receive 30 per cent assistance versus 25 per cent in the past. If the project is for innovation it can receive up to 60 per cent as opposed to 40 per cent as previously. With regard to studies or research, we will now pay 75 per cent versus a maximum of 37.5 per cent as previously. We doubled that component because we know that there are a great many ideas which, if researched properly, can become viable business ventures in the Atlantic area.
In addition, there is a totally new program element called new product expansion which allows for 40 per cent of eligible capital cost. That is a very important part of the program in Atlantic Canada because, if there is one thing we can do, it is to get into new product lines. As I am sure all Members in the House appreciate, Atlantic Canada is dependent primarily on agriculture and fisheries. If we are to be successful in developing those industries we must develop new products related to those two primary industries. We have been dependent in the fishing industry in the past, for the most part, in the fishing industry, on catching the fish, doing some very basic processing, and usually exporting.
We have not developed many new consumer items which can capture a larger market or add more value to the primary product. Other countries such as Japan have made tremendous strides toward changing fish products to add value and to utilize new markets. We believe that this is an important area and that Atlantic Canada can have a considerable amount of new product development by assisting our fishing processors to
develop new lines, to package things differently, and to ensure that the consumer demand is met.
The same applies to agriculture. We have tended to produce traditional products in the past, but there are a great many opportunities for new products in agriculture. That is exactly what we want to do with this program.
The Hon. Member who was speaking a few moments ago indicated that he was surprised and disappointed that there was not enough assistance for infrastructure, or that infrastructure would not be assisted under the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. I want to clarify this because it is simply not true. It is quite possible that under the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency a provincial Government can enter into an economic and regional development agreement with the federal Government that will provide for infrastructure. We believe that can be approached through these economic development agreements, provided that they contribute to business development in the region.
Let me give an example of another way the infrastructure can be assisted in the region. If a road or wharf is necessary for a new business that is being proposed, that infrastructure requirement can become part of the application. In those two ways, infrastructure can be assisted in the region. It is incorrect to suggest that there is no room for infrastructure assistance under this particular program.
The Hon. Member suggested that the Government should not have changed the industrial development section of the Cape Breton Development Corporation. Let me point out that it was a recommendation of the advisory committee that was established in September, 1985, lead by Theresa MacNeil who is now chairperson of Devco, that recommended the establishment of Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation instead of continuing with the industrial development division. The Government accepted that recommendation, and that is why it is presented as it is in this Bill.
I believe the House would agree that the worst thing a business person can experience is trying to find out what assistance is available from Government and not being able to get all the information from one location. If there is an industrial development division on one side of the street providing grants and loans and another government agency on the other side of the street providing grants and loans, whose programs do not mesh, it leaves much confusion and unwarranted bureaucracy. We did not want that to happen, and that is why Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation is outlined in this Bill as it is.
I have great faith that this corporation will do a lot for Atlantic Canada, more than we have seen any corporation or government agency do in the last 25 years. It represents over $1 billion in new funding, above existing programs, which is earmarked for economic development in Atlantic Canada. The Government is saying very clearly to the businessmen that if
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they want to make something, process a product or put new products on the market, we have a program that will help them do that. This is clearly a major pronunciation by our Government in addressing a problem that we know exists. I urge all Members to ensure that this Bill proceeds through the House as quickly as possible and clears the Senate so that this program can be taken advantage of as soon as possible.
We are still operating under old legislation. Some businesses in Atlantic Canada are still unable to do certain things because this legislation has not passed. Once it is passed the Minister and his officials will have more flexibility to meet the needs in Atlantic Canada. Some applications are still not being approved because they do not fit the old industrial development classifications. With this legislation, we will be able to meet the needs and respond to the ideas being developed in Atlantic Canada by Atlantic Canadians. I believe that prosperity in the region will increase and I hope all Members will join me in supporting this legislation.


Mr. Caldwell:: Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment the Hon. Member on his speech and for being very forthright about previous programs and infrastructures that were drawing some criticism.
Some people will say that we should not put money into infrastructure. I think it is correct to suggest that in the past Governments tended to create regional jobs with these infrastructure programs, calling it regional development or enterprise in the area.
We know that this type of system does not work. We can build the best wharfs, but if there is nothing to put on them there is not much point in building them.
I am pleased that the thrust of this program, according to the Hon. Member, is that if one has an idea that might be of benefit to that particular area, one will have an opportunity to participate in the program. However, one need not bother coming to the corporation with an idea from the past or for a grant to build another wharf. Is that the thrust of the program?


Patrick George Binns: Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate the support of my colleague. He is correct that we are looking for ideas for new business development that makes sense and can be assisted.
I should point out, however, that the Government has a very ambitious program in Atlantic Canada, indeed across the country, to revitalize wharf facilities. If there is another program this Government has introduced in the last two years that is important to Atlantic Canada, it has been our Harbour Revitalization Program. We have increased what is generally known as the A-base for small craft harbours. We have put millions of dollars in additional funds into a program that would allow us to rebuild wharfs that have been condemned and are no longer safe for fishermen or other vessel owners who use those facilities.
Government Organization Act, Atlantic Canada, 1987
The two go hand in glove. Many of our business institutions in Atlantic Canada are fish plants and firms that have to be located on or next to wharfs, first to bring products in from the sea and, in some cases, to export to other areas. Wharfs are very important to the development of Atlantic Canada.
For example, in my riding we face a desperate situation, with many wharfs being condemned. As a result of the Small Craft Harbours Program, new wharfs are being constructed and new projects are being implemented in many fishing communities. In my riding there is presently almost $20 million in expenditures for new wharfs. That is very important to the area.
I think the two programs are complementary. Certainly, the business component of this is absolutely paramount. If a person has a good idea that will facilitate development, we want to look at it.


James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, when we are talking about the economy of an area such as the Atlantic provinces, not only to stimulate new development but to protect what we already have, one of the concerns which have been dominant in the House of Commons over the past year has been the refusal of the Government to stand up for Canadian fishing rights in the Gulf of St. Lawrence vis-a-vis the incursion of the French into the areas around St. Pierre and Miquelon. I have just received information that a French naval tug has arrested the Canadian fishing vessel, the Maritimer, and is presently escorting it to St. Pierre. The Canadian Consulate has been advised and will be meeting the vessel.
I wonder if the Hon. Member, who is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, would care to comment on this failure of the Canadian Government to make very clear our intentions and to stand up for the Canadian fishing industry in a way that would prevent this kind of French chauvinism from intruding upon our historic fishing grounds?


Patrick George Binns: Mr. Speaker, I can assure the Hon. Member that the Government is doing everything it can to ensure that fish stocks in Atlantic Canada are preserved for fishermen in Atlantic Canada and that they present the most economic opportunity possible to the Atlantic area. I suppose that is why we have a dispute with the St. Pierre area at the present time. We have set a quota for that whole region which we feel will preserve the stocks for the future. The French have not recognized the quota which we feel is important to ensure that the stock is maintained in future years. That has produced the situation we are in today.
We are simply not going to allow overfishing of that stock if it jeopardizes our own Canadian fishing industry in the long haul. Moving into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, to which I think the Hon. Member is referring as well, it is our intention, wherever possible, to ensure that the maximum amount of fish is available to Atlantic Canadian fishermen and is processed in

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Canadian fish plants. It simply makes good sense for us to do that, and that will continue to be our objective.


James Douglas Manly: On a brief supplementary, I would like to know what the Government is going to do about this latest affront to Canadian sovereignty, this assault upon Canada's right to manage its own fish stocks? Even if that area is disputed, we still have rights there. Are we going to allow the French to act with impunity, arresting a Canadian fishing vessel operating in Canadian waters?


Patrick George Binns: Mr. Speaker, I do not have the benefit of the note which was just passed to the Elon. Member with respect to this issue. Elowever, I can assure the House that the Government of Canada will do everything possible to ensure that Canadian fishing interests are maintained. We have been heavily involved in negotiations with the French. There have been ongoing activities. There have now been arrests on both sides, apparently. We will, as we have in the past, continue to stick up for the interests of Canadian fishermen.


James Eber Caldwell: Mr. Speaker, I thank you for recognizing me again. I did not realize that I would be allowed a supplementary question. I thought we might be finished at five o'clock. I think the Hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Binns) somewhat misunderstood the question I asked him the first time, although I appreciate the answer he gave to me. What I was trying to get at, and I am certainly not downplaying the idea that wharfs are important to a fishing area because I want the Hon. Member to realize that I represent a riding which has the largest fresh water fishery in the world, that is, Wheatley, Ontario. I would like the Hon. Member to realize that, as well as the fact that fishing is important to my riding.
I was trying to get the Hon. Member to explain the difference between the idea of this program, developed by this Government, as compared to the ideas in the past of regional development and diversity under previous Governments, which did not seem to be working. That is the question I was asking him. Could he do that for me?


Patrick George Binns: Mr. Speaker, I think the difference is clearly that what we had in the past was a national program that was applied regionally. For instance, one could get the same benefits in Prince Edward Island as one could in Ontario, except that it might be in a different tier or different level of support. One might get 25 per cent support in Ontario and 35 per cent support in Prince Edward Island or another area of Atlantic Canada which is depressed. This is not a national program. This is an Atlantic program set up under a new agency which is independent. It has a president located in the region and it has its head office in the region. It can spend millions of dollars without ever consulting with Ottawa.
The $1.05 billion which the corporation will spend will be spent regionally, based on ideas that are developed in the communities and in the provinces. We think it will serve the best interests of Atlantic Canada.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The time for questions and comments has now terminated. Debate.


James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak briefly in the debate on Bill C-103 which establishes the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. As my colleague, the Hon. Member for St. John's East (Mr. Harris), indicated, while we support this Bill as one measure that will be helpful, there are a number of concerns we have both in terms of the way in which the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency is structured and set up as well as the fact that it does not really go far enough in dealing with the very serious problems of Atlantic Canada.
Our concerns fall into three main categories. First, there is no goal in this legislation to reduce regional disparity. It is not mandated to move toward certain goals as the Government moved, for example, to institute the six and five program of a number of years ago to cut back wages, and as the Government has moved to do other things by setting goals. It does not have a mandate in Bill C-103 to reduce regional disparity. It is a vague hope.
Second, there is no insurance of equity or fairness among the different provinces. There is no insurance within individual provinces that the regions that most need help in development will be getting the assistance. Finally, there is no real commitment of significant new money. There is $200 million per year over five years. That is for all of the Atlantic region. It simply does not begin to address the very serious regional economic disparity which has existed and which groups such as the Economic Council of Canada and OECD have singled out as being of critical importance for Canada to attack.
We have to ask the question whether the $1.05 billion over the next Five years is actually new money. According to the Minister for International Trade (Mr. Crosbie) when he appeared before the committee in St. John's on March 7, 1988, there are no actual ACOA projects as yet. Yet we hear over and over again that the $1.05 billion is actually new money. If it is new money, when is it going to become available for program funding?
The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) has often referred to the Economic Council of Canada as an authoritative agency which supports his free trade inititive with the United States. It is interesting that in its latest annual report it indicates that programs administered by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency are "likely to be the targets of U.S. countervailing action". Atlantic Canada knows what that U.S. countervailing action is all about because it has had its groundfish attacked by countervail. In fact, in the U.S. action against Atlantic groundfish, over 50 federal and provincial programs were cited by the ITC as constituting unfair subsidies to the Atlantic fishery.
Here we have another program that we are putting in place which the Government hopes will do something to reduce regional disparity. It does not have goals but it does have the



:
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hope. It is contributing some money, not enough but some. The Economic Council of Canada says that the programs administered by the agency are likely to be the targets of countervailing agencies. In response to this concern that has been raised by the Economic Council all we have is the assurance of the Minister for International Trade that it is complete nonsense to believe that the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency would be threatened by U.S. actions. He makes a great many statements that the concerns that are raised by certain organizations, including very reputable and supposedly impartial organizations such as the Economic Council, are complete nonsense. The Minister is full of bluff and bluster and stonewalling, but he does not deal with the substance of the concern.
Why should we believe the Minister on this issue when we have seen American actions on the whole question of ground-fish, and when the trade arrangement itself provides for a period of five years to determine what is and what is not an unfair subsidy? That is the very period over which this $1.05 billion will be running, at the end of which it will have expired. Perhaps the Government expects itself that it will be targeted for being unfair and so it will just let it run out at the end of five years. In this way it will not be embarrassed when it is indicated by the United States that it constitutes an unfair subsidy.
Considering that the Government has made many statements, repeated statements time after time, that approvals for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency will be determined on the merits of the application, it is worth noting that the President of the Economic Council of New Brunswick, Mr. Reno Volpe, who is also a member of the Advisory Board to ACOA, expressed the concern that urban centres might be given a greater degree of development. He said that they would have an advantage over rural areas. In other words, there is a concern that the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency is going to continue on a regional basis the kind of centralist tendencies that we have seen in the Canadian economy over the last number of years in which more and more of our industry, our development and our commerce tend to be concentrated in the region around Toronto. So with this attempt to have some development in Atlantic Canada we will have a sort of minor centralization. But it is not getting out to the small communities where development is really needed.
In this connection it might be helpful to look at some of the testimony that was put before the committee studying Bill C-113 which deals with the Department of Western Economic Diversification. The two Bills are somewhat similar. Appearing before the legislative committee was Mr. Dennis Young who is the President of the Canadian Association of Single Industry Towns. Mr. Young pointed out that over the past 100 years there have been over 400 single industry towns close cross Canada, many of them in Atlantic Canada, western Canada and northern Ontario. These towns represent single industries
Government Organization Act, Atlantic Canada, 1987
such as mining, forestry, fishing, oil and gas and agriculture. The association is trying to take a leadership role to prevent this from happening to other communities, and to encourage all communities to take greater control of their own future through the design, the development and implementation of community self-reliance principles and mechanisms. That is what Mr. Young said to the committee.
But the question that I have, both with regard to Bill C-103 and the western diversification Bill, is how do these Bills really help small communities to do this? Rather what is happening is that proposals will be brought forward. They will be approved on a proposal-by-proposal basis in accordance with what the Minister himself thinks in the final analysis. There is not any real focus. Again, this is a critique of the western development program. It points out that the western diversification initiative was launched without any articulated development policies or principles. Consequently, they came off the mark with no focus. To this day the public is still confused as to what it is all about. We believe that when a shotgun approach is used one will end up shooting oneself in the foot. What was said about western diversification is also true about the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.
It has been called a very haphazard, reactionary approach to development which will likely result in our spending another $1 billion of taxpayers' money without ever achieving the longterm goal of diversification for western Canada. The same goes for the $1 billion that will be spent in Atlantic Canada. It is likely to be spent without achieving the goals of reducing regional disparity.
For example, in both Bills municipalities are not eligible for assistance to support community-based economic development initiatives. They are not eligible to receive assistance for infrastructure.
The Association of Single Industry Towns went on to make a number of recommendations. I would like to read them because I think they apply not only to western diversification but also to Atlantic Canada. First, the association suggests that we adopt a truly bottom-up approach to development which focuses on removing constraints to development and the real barriers to economic growth and diversification. WDO should review the association's frontier development policy and use it as a guide to develop a comprehensive set of development principles, policies, programs and services which will serve as a framework for the future of western diversification for this generation and for the next. In other words, we need to have principles in place. It is not just enough to say that individual proposals will be considered on their merit.
The WDO should develop ways and means of supporting and mobilizing community-based economic development, first, by allowing municipalities to be eligible applicants for western development funds. In view of the fact that the entrepreneurial energy is still a relatively untapped resource in Canada, western diversification should develop ways and means of

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Government Organization Act, Atlantic Canada, 1987
identifying entrepreneurial spirit and encouraging the entrepreneurial development process in every community in western Canada. Again, it should play a lead role in developing a world class market information system to focus our entrepreneurial energy into the areas of highest opportunity.
So there is the concern that, again, we have this centralist tendency. Neither the Western Diversification Office nor the Atlantic Opportunities Agency is really fighting against this and working to get development and opportunity into small communities where it is most needed.
There is nothing in this Bill that has changed the meaning of the statement made by Senator Lowell Murray last June in which he said that final decisions will be made by him with respect to ACOA's decisions, in spite of a great number of witnesses who appeared before the committee examining Bill C-103 who expressed concern over the need for regional responsibility for the agency.
It is worth-while pointing out that there is no mandate in setting up the agency to ensure that a certain number of women are represented on the advisory board. There is no mandate to ensure that academia, labour and small business are represented. Rather, they are people who have been picked by the Ministers involved. That means that they will tend to be responsible to the Ministers rather than to their communities.
Perhaps at this point a few remarks on the role of women might be helpful. Between 1972 and 1983, the number of women entrepreneurs increased nationally by 140 per cent. The number of male entrepreneurs increased by only 10.7 per cent. There is a great growth in the number of women who are getting into business. A study prepared for the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women predicted that 65 per cent of the new businesses started in Canada would be created by women. Here I am quoting from the Newfoundland and Labrador Advisory Council on the Status of Women which stated, "Women are responsible for starting two-thirds of new businesses and they succeed in keeping businesses going 47 per cent of the time compared with 25 per cent in male owned business, and new businesses are responsible for creating 70 per cent of new jobs".
Here we have a situation where the new jobs are being created by small businesses, and the great percentage of those small businesses which start and succeed are started by women. Yet there is an agency which is attempting to create opportunities in Atlantic Canada, and its advisory board is not mandated to have a certain number of women.
The Royal Commission on Employment in Newfoundland recommended that the federal Government should "appoint approximately the same percentage of females as males". There is a need to use a whole range of support and promotion strategies to encourage women actively to undertake enterprise initiatives.
According to the Newfoundland and Labrador Provincial Advisory Council there should be a means by which ACOA can make affirmative action policies a component of its terms of reference. In other words, it should not be simply left to the good intentions of the different Ministers from Atlantic Canada to pick people who might be women who represent labour, or people who may be small business people. They should have a right to be represented on this advisory board, if it is to be truly representative.
In looking at the function of the board, there have been recommendations that the board should have much more say in how the funds will actually be distributed. Again the Minister for International Trade the Minister from Newfoundland, feels that this not desirable. When appearing before the committee he said, "How could we do that and have ACOA's budget spent by an independent board? We would have no control at the political level; the Ministers would have no control over where the money is being spent; Atlantic Ministers would have no input or influence over it". That is what it is all about, Mr. Speaker. It is over political control. The Minister, the Hon. Member for St. John's West, wants political control. He is not willing to trust a representative board that could be established that would represent a broad cross-section of people from Atlantic Canada to make decisions that would be in the best interests of the entire region. He wants to have that political control centralized in his hands.
That suggests to me, and I am sure it suggests to the people of Atlantic Canada, that the Minister sees the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency as an agency that will give a great opportunity to that Minister and to other cabinet Ministers to have control over patronage. They see this as an opportunity agency for patronage. That is one of our concerns. The manner in which this is structured does not put it all at arm's length from being used as a means of rewarding friends and punishing those who are no so friendly to the Government.
The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency needs a mandate targeted to reduce economic disparity. We need an advisory board that will be independent and at arm's length from the Minister, and not dependent upon the Minister's appointment, one that would be truly representative and would have some power.
I urge the Government to look at some of the recommendations made by the New Democratic Party over the last two years when we studied the whole question of the need for development in Canada. These suggestions were made with respect to Canada as a whole, but they certainly apply very concretely to Atlantic Canada.
First, there is a need for upgrading municipal infrastructure. In co-operation with the municipalities across Canada we have suggested a $1.2 billion annual investment toward upgrading municipal infrastructure. We would like to see a $200 million single industry community diversification fund that is in line with the type of recommendations that were referred to earlier.
May 5, 1988

That would provide single industry communities with the means to explore diversification options in terms of economic activities.
Money should be spent on affordable housing. An allocation of $500 million in this area would help with some 500,000 housing units. We need a community initiative fund, a youth initiative fund, and a technological change fund. These are the ways in which we could put money out into communities that would stimulate real development and provide real opportunities for development for small communities and also larger communities in Atlantic Canada, western Canada, northern Ontario and, in fact, for Canada as a whole. They would help to reduce the economic disparity that has plagued Atlantic Canada for so long.


Marion Dewar: 1 certainly did appreciate the comments of the Hon. Member for Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands (Mr. Manly) on the whole development of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. As we talk about it and recognize that there is not the type of representation of the ordinary person from Atlantic Canada and a broad perspective of representation, does the Hon. Member think that there can be the ability to do some grass-root strategic planning and economic development?
I heard the Hon. Member and the Parliamentary Secretary say that the agency will be sitting back and waiting for people to come to it with projects, and then it would react. If we have a commitment to economic development taking place within a community, some of that has to be in over-all strategic planning of the skills that lie in that community, and how they can be developed.
I would like to hear from the Hon. Member exactly how he thinks that that could work with an amendment to the establishment of this agency, or the type of representation that is presently there, and what he would propose.


James Douglas Manly: I believe that the whole suggestion that this will be done on a proposal-by-proposal basis and that the proposals will be judged on their individual merit ignores the fact that we need proposals that will have ramifications throughout the region and the sub-regions, in order that the proposals will result in development of the area rather than proposals that will succeed by themselves. If we want proposals like that, then they have to come not only from individual entrepreneurs. We are all in favour of individual entrepreneurs receiving some assistance and being able to do their thing. That is important. They can create some development in that manner.
Even more fundamental than helping individual entrepreneurs is the need to help communities to develop their plans for economic development, to get their act together to see in what direction they want to go as communities, to assess their strengths, talents, and resources, and how they can develop a game plan that will lead them from being in a fragile situation where their economy is threatened to one where they will be able to establish a more diversified base. A community plan
Government Organization Act, Atlantic Canada, 1987
would be developed and then proposals would come in that were in accordance with those community plans. I would like to see the agency make way for that kind of proposal to be developed, submitted and accepted.


Marion Dewar: Mr. Speaker, it has come to my attention that a couple of admirals were speaking in Halifax about six weeks ago saying that they certainly expected the people in Atlantic Canada to support construction of the nuclear submarines. If they did not support that kind of program, how could they expect to get all the things they thought were due to them? It seems to me that when you address the agency structure, you address the kind of control Ministers will have. When you look at the structure and know that there are these economic threats, and given the militarization in the Halifax area, is there some concern that this agency will not truly speak for the people? Rather, will it be controlled by a Government that seems to be bent on making sure that militarization, and expansion of the military-industrial complex, takes place through economic development? I would like the Hon. Member to comment on that.


James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for her question, which I think is extremely important. The Minister said he wanted to keep political control. If we have a Government in place, as we do now, that sees militarization of the economy as the way to go, and it is proceeding full steam ahead, then there will be a great deal of pressure on different regions. If you have the possibility of military contracts, there will be pressure on those regions to accept them even though the long-term consequences are negative for Canada, negative for our world, indeed negative for those individual areas.
I think this ties in with something I mentioned earlier about how this agency might be subject to U.S. countervailing duty pressure. All these programs might be regarded as being unfair subsidies. However, the one area that the Mulroney-Reagan trade deal exempts from charges of unfair subsidy is military procurement. Any program supposedly in the interests of national security cannot be targeted as involving unfair subsidies. This will result in increased pressure upon regions to accept military contracts as the one way in which the Government can intervene to prop up an economy facing difficulties. That is not the future I want to see for Atlantic Canada or western Canada or any other part of Canada.


Mr. McMillan:: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the Hon. Member would clarify for me and the House whether an NDP Government would be opposed to defence procurement in the Atlantic region. In addition, would he clarify an apparent ambiguity between what he said and what the defence critic for his Party seems to have said in the country at large, that an NDP Government would actually increase defence expenditures, not decrease them?


James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, certainly we are not opposed to defence procurement in Atlantic Canada any more than we are

May 5, 1988
Government Organization Act, Atlantic Canada, 1987
opposed to it in western Canada or central Canada. What we are very strongly opposed to and will continue to be opposed to is the militarization of the economy. We are opposed to a trade deal which the Government is rushing into that will make it possible for the U.S. to say that a whole range of Canadian programs constitute unfair subsidies.
The Economic Council of Canada very seriously suggested that the programs of this agency can be targeted as constituting unfair subsidies. The one area exempt from that is defence procurement. We are saying that this is the wrong way to be going with respect to regional development. We should have other options available to us than simply saying something was in the interest of national security, therefore we are going to be giving defence contracts to different parts of the country.
That is the way things are done in the U.S. They do not have our kind of regional development programs to assist parts of the country facing economic difficulty. What they do have are military procurement contracts which are dropped on practically every congressional district to try to maintain support by the people for the military industrial complex. We are opposed to that complex, and I would like to see members of the Government opposed to it as well.


Thomas Michael McMillan: Mr. Speaker, my two questions require a yes or no answer. Is the NDP committed to increasing expenditures or decreasing expenditures for defence purposes? In addition, would an NDP Government have given the defence procurement contract for the naval frigates to the City of Saint John, New Brunswick?


James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, we have not arrived at any final figures with respect to what our defence expenditures are going to be. However, I can guarantee they will be less than the price tag for the fancy new submarines that "Little Boy Blue" wants to buy.
Second, with respect to the contracts which have already been let to Saint John, certainly we support those contracts, and that is where they would stay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated. Debate.


George Baker: Mr. Speaker, I have just a few words concerning this Bill.
The attitude of the federal Government towards Atlantic Canada, as you know, leaves a lot to be desired. Nowhere in this Bill is the fishery or agriculture mentioned. I just got off the phone speaking to a lady who is the mother of a fishing captain off the south coast of Newfoundland. His name his Mr. Willy Bolt. He is from Grand Le Pierre and he got in his boat this morning at five o'clock and sailed out of Fortune Bay with five crew members aboard, two from Port aux Basques and three from Grand Le Pierre. They steamed out towards St. Pierre and Miquelon. At this very moment, and for the next 10 minutes, they are being towed into port in St. Pierre, having been arrested by the Government of France. It is a 65-foot
dragger that was dragging for codfish in the disputed zone around St. Pierre and Miquelon off the south coast of Newfoundland.
You know what we as a Canadian Government did recently, and I applauded the Government for its attitude towards Atlantic Canada in this case. It arrested a French boat that came into Canadian waters and said: "Please arrest me because I am fishing illegally". However, at this very moment there is a French patrol vessel towing a 65-foot Canadian dragger that was fishing legally in the disputed zone off the south coast of Newfoundland with Five crew members aboard.
We talk about the attitude of the Canadian Government. I will tell you what its attitude is. Over this vessel being towed flies an RCMP helicopter. Then there is a fixed-wing aircraft belonging to the Coast Guard. There is a Fisheries patrol vessel in the area. What did the Government of Canada do in the past three hours since the vessel had a cable forcibly hooked on, was forcibly boarded and is being dragged into port at this very moment? It will be in port in exactly 12 minutes from now. What did the Canadian Government do? I have been speaking to the family members of that vessel and I know, putting the time together, that the Canadian Government was notified 15 minutes before the vessel was boarded. It was noted by official text from the Government of France that a "Canadian vessel, the Maritimer, has violated the 12-mile territorial sea around the nation of France off the east coast of Canada and will therefore be arrested". We, of course, have to thank the RCMP for notifying the families of what took place.
Some arrangements have been made for the crew members aboard to telephone home between ten and twelve o'clock this evening, that is, Newfoundland time, which is two and a half hours beyond our time here. That is all well, fine and good. But there was not one single word of complaint or objection from the Government of Canada to the Government of France up to this very moment while the vessel is being forcibly towed to port. There was not one word of official objection.
I suggested to the Government-perhaps you might consider it to be a bit too forceful, Sir,-that at least what should be done is for the Canadian patrol vessel in the area to stick its nose in front of the French patrol vessel, communicate with it and say, "Look, you are not allowed to arrest somebody aboard a vessel in the disputed zone according to the agreement", which the Government keeps referring to in the House, the 1972 agreement which says that neither nation shall board another's fishing vessel in the disputed zone of area 3ps. But no, Mr. Speaker, the Government did not do that. In fact, the Government has not objected to the fact that this action took place by the Government of France. We will be hearing more about this in the next 24 hours.
The Official Opposition has put together a motion to be dealt with tomorrow in the House deploring the fact that the Government of France has carried out an illegal act in a
May 5, 1988

disputed zone. We also condemn the Government of Canada for its handling of this entire dispute with the Government of France. This demonstrates the attitude of the federal Government toward Atlantic Canada. I just wanted to mention that because I think it is important, and everybody should realize that right now there is another six or seven minutes left before the vessel ties up. The Government notified the Honorary Consul General, who is perhaps watching what I am saying here in the House. That was the Government's action. There is television hook-up there and he is probably watching me now because he has to go to the port in another seven minutes. His instructions from the Department of External Affairs are to look at how the crew members are being treated.
Just imagine, Mr. Speaker, that is the action of the federal Government, namely, to notify the Honorary Consul General to go down to the wharf in six minutes time and watch this vessel being hauled forcibly into port and watch the crew members being taken off the boat and taken to what I am sure will not be a hotel. We all know what the French Government said about our jails in St. John's, Newfoundland. However, I will know what is going on tonight because I will be speaking to the crew members anywhere between ten to twelve o'clock. I will report on it in the House tomorrow while our motion is being debated.
Getting back to the Bill, there is not one mention of fisheries in it. In the entire Bill that deals with opportunity for economic development in Atlantic Canada there is not a single mention in the Bill of fisheries. There is not a single mention in the Bill of primary resources. There is not a single mention in the Bill of agriculture. There is not one single mention in the Bill of infrastructure. In fact, Mr. Speaker, when we say infrastructure we mean roads, water and sewage systems and the things that are lacking in Atlantic Canada today and which need some attention paid to them. Here is a Bill through which the Government of Canada will spend $1 billion, but there is not a single mention of those items.
We have highly paid people in charge of this Atlantic Opportunities Agency. About 110 of them are working for it. They are fine people, doing an excellent job-they must be because they can make over $100,000 a year. Where can you find a comparable salary scale in the present federal bureaucracy in Atlantic Canada? I do not know. I have searched. None of the agencies or departments we have have a salary scale that goes over $100,000 a year.


Thomas Michael McMillan: How many people are there? One?


George Baker: No.


Thomas Michael McMillan: Two?


George Baker: No. I can get the exact numbers, but the majority of people listed are in what is called middle and upper management. That amounts to over 200 people altogether. The middle management salary runs, I believe, to $75,000 or $76,000. In other words, I do not care what you look for in the
Government Organization Act, Atlantic Canada, 1987
federal or in the provincial Government, this is one fine, dandy pay scale for 350 employees.


Maurice Brydon Foster: It is more than a provincial cabinet Minister would make.


George Baker: That is right. More than a provincial cabinet Minister would make.
Now, Mr. Speaker, what does the Government do, according to the Bill? We tried to move an amendment to this Bill to force the agency to spend equal amounts of money throughout the region or to try to initiate industry in Atlantic Canada where it was needed. If this agency is just handling applications, do you know where the applications will come from in Atlantic Canada? If you talk about Newfoundland, they will come from St. John's. If you are talking about Nova Scotia, they will come from Halifax. For sure they will not come automatically from Cape Breton Island. For sure they will not come automatically from any of the rural areas where the unemployment rates are the highest.
We tried to impress upon the Government during the committee meetings and through the amendments presented to the House that if the Government is to pay people lots of money, if it is to create a bureaucracy in Atlantic Canada whose members are being paid such wonderful salaries, a great many of them at a hundred grand a year, in poor Atlantic Canada, sitting in an office in St. John's, Newfoundland, then the least it could do is to put in the legislation the demands of these people that the bureaucracy generate the jobs which are needed in the high unemployment areas of Atlantic Canada and not in the cities.
Do you know, Mr. Speaker, that there are more employees of this agency in Ottawa than there are in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, or in St. John's, Newfoundland?


Some Hon. Members:: Shame!


George Baker: They even have a vice president here. Oh, yes, the Vice President of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency-we should call it the Atlantic Canada overblown agency-is in Ottawa.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Is that right?


George Baker: Yes. There are more employees in Ottawa than there are in Newfoundland.
The Government really has a problem. There are so many things that I could bring up about this Bill. Government Members told every Premier that they will not accept any applications for what they call infrastructure, harbour developments, the cleaning up of neighbourhoods, the installation of water and sewer where it is needed or the paving of roads because there are so many unpaved roads-

May 5, 1988
Adjournment Debate


David Charles Dingwall: Environmental clean-ups. They should be important.


George Baker: Environmental clean-ups should be important but are not allowed. The provincial Governments are told that there is no sense in applying for this, but there is $1 billion here. If the Liberals or the NDP hold it up in the House of Commons, they are preventing this $1 billion from being spent. That is what they have said.
They have not mentioned where the bureaucracy is. They have not mentioned the very things that are important to Atlantic Canada. There is no doubt that some programs do receive quite a bit of funding. There is a program called Section 38 which receives a lot of money. Under that program, people go to work but they cannot collect unemployment insurance from their work. It is a big program in Atlantic Canada.
There is another program with hundreds of millions of dollars called Job Development. Under that program, people have to be trained to do something. There is no attention paid to what they are doing, as long as they are being trained to do something. Ever since this Government took office, thousands and thousands of people have been hired to learn a trade. What trades are being learned? Carpentry work or the use of chain-saws in the woods are being learned. People can only get into the project if they do not know how to do it.
These positions are advertised on the radio. People cannot go to Canada Manpower any more to register. No, that has been removed. Any jobs that come up are announced on the radio. People have to listen to their radios. There are jokes being heard all over the place in Atlantic Canada about listening to the radio, and you can imagine what some of them are, Mr. Speaker.
Somebody says: "Well, you know, I want to get a job in the Public Service. Well, I have to bring my radio wherever I go. If I'm working at another job, I have to bring in the radio and listen to the radio at the time the jobs come on". When the jobs come on, they say: "Five carpenters needed at such and such a job site, please consult with your local Manpower Office, but if you are a carpenter, you can't get one of the jobs". Just imagine, an electrician needed, only qualification is no experience.
Bowater and Abitibi-Price laid off a lot of workers because of a cut-back in logging operations. The Government of Canada, in its wisdom, decided to have a reforestation program-are you saying that I am at the end of my time, Mr. Speaker?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Yes, but I hate to say that because I really enjoy the Hon. Member's debate. Is there unanimous consent to let him carry on until 6 p.m.?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


George Baker: The boat The Maritimer, skippered by Willie Bolt himself of Grand Le Pierre, two minutes ago arrived in St. Pierre with a cable on from a French fisheries patrol vessel, hauled into the port. I presume Willie and the boys are now being escorted to some accommodations as the Government of France said that the nation violated the 12-mile territorial sea around the nation of France off the coast of Canada. I presume that they are being given good French hospitality.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: French cuisine.


George Baker: Yes, French cuisine. The people who were arrested in Newfoundland complained that all they got was pizza. What did they expect, Beaujolais Nouveau?
I suppose I could conclude by saying that what will happen to these fishermen over the next three or four hours on St. Pierre and Miquelon will be very important to the Government of Canada and to what happens in the negotiations between Canada and France. A lot of people are very, very angry. As I say, I have spoken to the family members, and they do have the House of Commons cable down there. Maybe Willie is watching the broadcast. Everyone is very concerned about the crew members. Hopefully the thing will be resolved this evening, but you will hear about it in the House tomorrow, Mr. Speaker, and I can guarantee that the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark), the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Siddon) and that other Minister from St. John's had better be prepared.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is the House ready for the question?


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


Some Hon. Members:: No.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 66 deemed to have been moved.

Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby):: Mr. Speaker, on April 29 of this year, I asked a question of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Hnatyshyn) in his capacity as the Acting Solicitor General. At that time, I asked the Minister about the decision of the Correctional Service of Canada to cut funding in the amount of some $127,000 to a very important service for exprisoners in the Province of Nova Scotia.
This particular service is known as ROPE, the Real Opportunities for Prisoner Employment Program, and it assists ex-prisoners in getting re-established in the community and in
May 5, 1988

finding jobs. The program is headed by an outstanding Nova Scotian named Rocky Jones, and as I say, it has had all federal government funding, some $127,000 in total, cut by the Conservative Government.
I asked the Minister at the time to look into this cut in funding for this important agency and, in fact, to restore the funding to the agency which helps so many hundreds of exconvicts every year. In responding, the Minister of Justice indicated that he would indeed take up the matter with his colleague, the Solicitor General (Mr. Kelleher), and ensure that he gets back to me within an appropriate time with the information required. We are still waiting for an explanation from the Solicitor General as to this very callous cut in funding for an important community organization which helps ex-prisoners get reintegrated into society.
Real Opportunities for Prisoner Employment, or ROPE, was created in 1979 as a short-term research project which operated from the Carleton Community Correctional Centre. It was incorporated as a society in February of 1982. It operated with the basic premise that lack of employment and subsequent income hastened an offender's involvement in criminal activities, both prior to his involvement with the criminal justice system and during.
The key elements of job creation and job placement are the primary indicators for evaluation of programs for funding sources but, as ROPE points out, the root causes of the clients' problems are far deeper than their inability to obtain and maintain employment. They note that the majority of exprisoners have drug and alcohol problems and that many suffer from severe addiction. The instability of their life style prevents most from maintaining stable employment. Thus, Mr. Speaker, employment-related programs for the offender must provide for interventions that deal with the root causes of the person's problems.
Since 1982 the Correctional Service of Canada has provided CORE funding for ROPE. That involves administrative costs including administrative staff and job placement or peer counsellors. The program evaluations of this excellent program have been glowing. In fact, the latest written program evaluation of ROPE was conducted in 1985 by Jack Stewart of the Correctional Service of Canada which stated:
The CORE program of the ROPE Association providing job search and placement services is extremely successful and competitive and deserves the strongest possible support from CSC in maintaining the service and assisting in the broadening of the financial base of the CORE program.
The program got top marks for the work that it was doing with former prisoners to help them reintegrate in the community. Despite that, as of April 30 of this year their funding was totally cut. My New Democratic Party colleague in the provincial legislature in Nova Scotia, Mr. Bob Levy, the NDP justice spokesperson in Nova Scotia, gave a notice of motion on Wednesday, April 13, as follows:
Adjournment Debate
Whereas Real Opportunities for Prisoner Employment, also known as ROPE, has provided an invaluable service to ex-prisoners in getting reestablished in the community and not ending up back in prison; and
Whereas it costs between $50,000 to $60,000 per year to keep one person in prison while ROPE served 200 people a year with an annual budget of less than $150,000; and
Whereas Correctional Services Canada has arbitrarily decided to terminate its support for this innovative and important service to Atlantic Canada;
Therefore be it resolved that this House call upon the federal Solicitor General to reverse Correctional Services' decision to cancel its funding of ROPE and to consider greater support of community correctional services.
I support that call by my distinguished colleague in Nova Scotia, Mr. Levy. Indeed, by cutting funding for this important program the Government is doing a grave disservice to people in the Halifax-Dartmouth metro area. Indeed, there have been a number of questions raised as to why this decision has been made. The community has called on the Conservative Government to reinstate the funding.
The Executive Director, Rocky Jones, has said that the agency's role has been to "meet guys at the railway station that no one else is going to meet... We work with the total person, trying to deal with his self-esteem, to get him away from his former life".
On Tuesday of this week I was at the special handling unit, the super maximum institution in Archambault in Quebec. I talked there with prisoners who asked what they are supposed to do when they are released from a maximum security institution, given $50, and told to be on their way. It is no wonder that many of these prisoners are not able to function and to cope.
Here is an agency that is actually assisting these former prisoners to reintegrate in the community. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary to the Solicitor General (Mr. Cardiff) will rise in his place today to say that yes, the federal Conservative Government recognizes that a mistake has been made and that this community agency that works with ex-prisoners in the Nova Scotia area does an outstanding job. I hope it will reinstate the funds that are so badly needed to keep this important service going.
It is an independent agency, independent of the Correctional Service. We hope this is not a step by the Correctional Service to try to weaken the role of community agencies which are, in fact, independent.


Mr. Murray Cardiff (Parliamentary Secretary to Solicitor General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak further on the issue raised on April 29, 1988, by the Hon. Member for Burnaby (Mr. Robinson) on the organization known as Real Opportunities for Prisoner Employment and the reasons why the Correctional Service of Canada has not renewed its funding.
In the 1986-87 fiscal year, the Correctional Service of Canada could not maintain the level of growth of previous

May 5, 1988
Adjournment Debate
years and was forced to reduce funding to ROPE from $150,000 to $75,000. Their other major funder, Employment and Immigration Canada, was unable to increase its funding to offset the reduced funding from the Correctional Service of Canada.
The Correctional Service of Canada, at ROPE's request, did manage toward the end of the fiscal year to provide additional funding. This increased the level of funding to $95,000. The agency was informed that it would have to find alternate sources of funding in the future because the need for straight job placement had decreased.
In August, 1987, the Halifax parole office conducted a needs analysis of its offender population. The results indicated that offenders had major problems in the area of substance abuse.
Unemployment was ranked as fifth in their list of needs. In fact, they found that the unemployment rate in the offender population was at parity with that of the general population in the community and that the lack of jobs was not the real issue but rather the lack of job skills. Consequently, the Halifax parole office approached each of the agencies under contract which offered employment services, ROPE being one of them, to submit proposals which addressed training offenders in the area of job skills.
The ROPE organization failed to submit a proposal which clearly addressed the training issue. It was decided by the Correctional Service of Canada, in December, 1987, not to renew their contract with ROPE and to use the money toward dealing with the substance abuse problem and other employment training programs.
Presently, the Correctional Service of Canada is contracting with the Coalition Support Services, a private agency which offers not only job placements but also job training and development. It also contracts with community residential centres that provide employment counselling and job skill training.
Unfortunately, Real Opportunities for Prisoner Employment does not meet the present needs of the Correctional Service of Canada. This does not mean, however, that its services will not be required at some future date.


FINANCE-NORTHERN TAX ALLOWANCES-GEOGRAPHICAL
[Stage Direction]
DELINEATION OF AFFECTED COMMUNITIES/REQUEST THAT REGULATIONS BE AMENDED
B. Keith Penner: Mr. Speaker, it has been said frequently that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I believe that the Government was well intentioned when it decided to broaden the prescribed areas which qualify for the northern residents tax deduction. After all, it is a generous scheme and a welcome tax measure for those who live in northern and isolated areas. It is a just and fair proposal which helps to provide at least a measure of economic equity for our citizens who live a good distance away from the larger urban centres of Canada. It is another useful
tool in regional development and I believe it is a necessary cost in the process of building a nation.
So much for the good news. In implementing this excellent tax measure, however, the Government has bungled in spades. In drawing up the criteria for eligibility, the Government has opened for itself a troublesome can of worms in terms of who qualifies and who does not. The Government knows that it has maladministered the program and it knows what has to be done, but it draws back. It draws back because it fears the subsequent loss of revenue and fears the costs of making the appropriate adjustments.
Instead of facing up to the mess it has created and making those corrections, it shrinks from its responsibility and hides behind another phoney task force. This task force will do nothing except cost the taxpayers of Canada $3 million and will take about a year-and-a-half to report. In my opinion, the proposed task force is nothing more than a pricey P.C. patronage plum. It cannot come up with any answers. It cannot solve the problem. The proof of that is taken from the terms of reference provided by the Minister of Finance. First, there will be no retroactivity. Any communities which will be added because the task force deems them eligible will receive the tax benefit only in 1988, not retroactive to 1987 as do those who now qualify.
Second, I quote from the terms of reference:
The task force should bring forward proposals that are essentially revenue
neutral.
That means very simply that there is no additional money for the program. Thus if other communities are added as a result of the task force work, something must be taken from the benefits now received by taxpayers in other communities who are presently eligible. For example, if my constituency of Marathon is added to the list, and it now does not qualify because it is 18 kilometres short of the distance, then Manitou-wadge, a nearby community, is going to have to receive a watered-down benefit. Thus it will go on and on across the country. That is inevitable. Therefore, the three million dollar task force will only compound the Government's problem. It is a sham and a farce and should be called off before it begins.
I do not know why I should try to keep the Government out of trouble but I predict that this task force will only make matters worse for the Government unless it is stopped now. Let the officials work with those Members of Parliament from all political Parties whose ridings are affected by this maladministered program. I tell you, Sir, that in relatively short order-it will not take long at all-we can devise a fair and reasonable set of criteria. That is the sensible way to proceed. I plead with the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) to think again about what he has done.


Mr. Pierre H. Vincent (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, we have said many times
May 5, 1988

that the Government is committed to providing a sensible and equitable taxation system for residents of isolated northern communities. The new system is far more generous and equitable than the old remission order system. It gives many more communities and individuals access to the allowance, including owners of small businesses, pensioners, native peoples and employees who did not benefit under the old remission orders because they did not receive an accommodation allowance from their employers.
The new taxation system for northern regions reflects the same community eligibility criteria as the former remission orders, which were based on the Treasury Board directive on isolated posts. The criteria gauge factors such as population, access to road networks, climate and geographical location, and distance from large urban centres, to assess the degree of isolation. They are also used to determine whether a community can finance its own health care services, schools, recreational activities and social and business services, or whether residents must travel long distances to have access to such services.
The Hon. Member suggested making the distance factor part of the points system. This suggestion, which was carefully examined by the Minister of Finance, would increase the number of points required to make a given region eligible, but would give more points to communities located more than 200 kilometres from urban centres with a population of at least 50,000.
Mr. Speaker, this proposal is not a satisfactory answer to the boundary problem, since it merely shifts the emphasis. Furthermore, it ignores concerns raised by communities that are not eligible because they are too close to centres with a population of 10,000 or more. I may add that under the present rules, population and distance factors take precedence over the number of points. We would have to assess carefully the relevance of any proposals to change our approach.
The boundaries problem is not confined to the existing rules. It would arise in any case. Although experts at the Department of Finance have looked at various scenarios, they have been unable to agree on a solution that was immediately and fully satisfactory. We therefore set up a task force to evaluate the relevance of the criteria and make appropriate recommendations. The task force will examine the problems that are specific to each region, so that we can ensure the equity of eligibility criteria for the allowance granted to residents of northern regions.
Mr. Speaker, the existing criteria now form the best basis for setting up the new tax system for northern regions. The task force will hold extensive consultations across Canada with a view to making recommendations for improving the system.
Although we believe our approach meets the expectations of most Northern residents, we share their concerns about the eligibility criteria, and we are convinced that an acceptable solution will be found. We realize it will not be easy and that it
Adjournment Debate
will take a lot of time and resources. The task force is expected to provide an objective response to these complex problems.


NORTHERN DEVELOPMENT-NEGOTIATION OF ENERGY ACCORD WITH NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Mr. Speaker, on March 1 I asked the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. McKnight) what progress has been made with respect to the northern accord. We have to know what the northern accord is all about.
This, Sir, is to be an agreement negotiated between the Government of Canada and the Government of the Northwest Territories, along the lines of the agreements that we have in place in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland dealing with the offshore resources of those provinces, although of course in the territories it would apply equally to the onshore resources.
The accord would deal basically with two things. First, it would deal with the revenue sharing component of the agreement. Second, it would establish a joint management regime.
There is, as 1 have said before, two distinct parts to this agreement. First, there is the offshore areas in which the resources will continue within the foreseeable future and reside in the ownership of the Government of Canada. Then, there is the land area in which the situation is today that the Government of Canada holds those lands and the resources therein in trust for an eventual province to be established in the North.
It is important that we have a management system that will replace COGLA. COGLA has some good people working in the field but, basically, it is an absentee landlord organization in which the decisions are all made in Ottawa. This has to be replaced with a better system in which there can be a greater component of local control.
Revenue sharing is very important in the North because, as we have gone along the road of devolution, those things which have been devolved, recent examples of which are forest management, health and electrical energy, have all been in the field of expending money. They have all been costs to the Government of the territories. There has not been much in the way of a transfer of those things which will bring in revenue to the Government.
In about 1977 the territories enacted its own Income Tax Act because of the small population and the large area and the expenses of administration. That brings in only a small fraction of the moneys needed to administer that vast area.
We can look at the present day situation in the territories as being analogous to that in the early days of Alberta where it was dependent upon mainly land sales for its revenues in its days before the population built up. The same is in effect in the North now. Thus we need to have access to moneys to meet

May 5, 1988
Adjournment Debate
the necessary expenditures of the Government of those territories.
Financial independence is necessary the same way that political independence is necessary. In fact, the two go together. One cannot pretend to be in control of one's own policies and one's own politics unless one also has the money and the revenues that go with it. Otherwise the territories will always find themselves tied to Ottawa's apron strings.
Over the last three years considerable progress has been made on the northern accord. When I asked this question on March 1, it seemed that the final Cabinet touches had been put to the accord, it could be put to bed, a big announcement would be made, and everything would be sweetness and light. Something happened in between. Since that time there has been nothing but stony silence on the issue from the Government. One of the things that I would like to find out in the Parliamentary Secretary's reply is what has happened. We know that the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development has always been a very strong proponent of the accord. He acknowledges that this is part and parcel of the devolution policy of the Government of Canada.
Was there any opposition in Cabinet? Why has this not gone ahead, as we thought it would? Within the agreement there is obviously going to be room for different details respecting technicalities, but it is absolutely essential for the future of the territories that there be an accord and that there be one soon.


Mr. Jack Shields (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, during the past two years the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs has been having extensive discussions with the territorial Governments, northern aboriginal groups, and the oil industry, to determine how best to apply the frontier energy policy in the North.
The cornerstone of this policy is its commitment to "shared management" arrangements with Canada's coastal provinces and territories for the management of frontier oil and gas resources. The Atlantic and Nova Scotia Oil and Gas Accords exemplify the spirit of the frontier energy policy. The largest area still to be brought within the frontier energy policy is the North.
In June, 1987, the federal Government reaffirmed its commitment to the political evolution of the North by approving a policy framework which has as a fundamental
goal the strengthening of political and economic institutions in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.
The framework reflects the significant political and economic changes that have occurred in the North over the past 20 years, and confirms the federal Government's commitment to the evolution of responsible and independent Governments in the North within the Canadian federation.
The following are the essential elements of this policy framework. First, to transfer remaining programs which, in the rest of Canada, are normally provincial responsibilities. Second, to pursue early settlement of land claims. Third, to develop sound and stable economies in the North by working with territorial Governments to encourage economic diversification, with special emphasis on renewable resource development and tourism. Fourth, to encourage the generation of wealth in the North and in Canada as a whole by improving the business climate for investors and entrepreneurs through joint federal-territorial implementation of the northern mineral policy and the development of a northern oil and gas accord.
The frontier energy policy and the Government's commitment to the political and economic development in the North provide the context or framework within which northerners can share in the management of oil and gas and benefit directly from the development of the North's resources. Any agreement must also be consistent with the Government's commitment to aboriginal people, as provided in the comprehensive claims policy. Ultimately, the objective of a northern accord is to provide a stable and fair regime for industry needed to encourage and support the timely development of the North's resources.
A northern oil and gas accord will reflect this policy. The terms will be developed in consultation with the territorial Governments. The Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. McKnight), and colleagues in other Departments, are developing a mandate for negotiations with territorial Governments, which should begin in the near future.
This Government, in the tradition of John Diefenbaker, is committed, with the co-operation of the people of the North, to develop the North.


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


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.25 p.m.
[Stage Direction]

Friday, May 6, 1988
[Stage Direction]
Prayers