1988-06-27

Mr. Jim Hawkes (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 106(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the Government's response to nine petitions numbered as follows: 332-4648, 3324649, 332-4688, 332-4780, 332-4790 to 332-4792 inclusive, 332-4825 and 332-4826.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



INTERPARLIAMENTARY DELEGATION


Hon. Lloyd R. Crouse (South Shore):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 101,1 have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, the report of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association on the nineteenth annual conference of the African Region which was held in Harare, Zimbabwe from May 23 to May 27, 1988.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



BLUE WATER BRIDGE AUTHORITY ACT


Mr. Ken James (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Supply and Services):: Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the report of the legislative committee
on Bill C-210, an Act to amend the Blue Water Bridge Authority Act.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



CANADIAN EXPLORATION INCENTIVE PROGRAM ACT


[Stage Direction]
Hon. Doug Lewis (for the Minister of State (Forestry and
Mines)) moved for leave to introduce Bill C-137, an Act to provide for incentives to assist in financing exploration for mineral resources and hydrocarbons in Canada and to amend the Canadian Exploration and Development Incentive Program Act.
Mr. Speaker:: Shall the Hon. Minister have leave to introduce the Bill?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


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

[DOT] (ino)

Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina West):: Mr. Speaker, it is my honour and duty to present a petition from Canadians who reside in Toronto, Scarborough, Mississauga, Richmond Hill, and a few other places. They exercise their ancient and undoubted right to present a grievance.
They say that the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) promised, in the course of bilateral trade negotiations, that Canadian sovereignty would not be compromised and that the proposed trade agreement denies Canadians secure access to the U.S. market which was the key objective in these negotiations.
Therefore, the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon Parliament to dissolve and allow the people of Canada the opportunity to accept or reject the proposed free trade agreement during a national general election.

June 27, 1988
Petitions


Mr. Bill Domm (Peterborough):: Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present to the House. The first is from the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada and contains signatures from residents of Havelock, Norwood, and Peterborough. It deals with the issue of abortion.
The petition calls upon Parliament to pass into law legislation which will protect the life of the unborn child from conception through all stages of development, with the exception of the extremely rare situation in which an abortion is performed in order to save the life of the mother.


William Henry (Bill) Domm: Mr. Speaker, I have a second petition from the Peterborough Chapter of the Friends of Schizophrenics. It contains over 500 signatures and deals with research into schizophrenia.
The petition calls on Parliament to ensure that research efforts related to schizophrenia will in future be commensurate with the seriousness of this illness in Canada.


Mr. Stan Darling (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour and duty to present a petition signed by over 5,580 residents of the riding of Parry Sound-Muskoka. The petitioners are calling upon Parliament to pass into law legislation respecting Essiac. Essiac is a remedy which has had very encouraging effects on cancer patients. My constituents believe that this treatment should be made available across Canada at a reasonable cost for the millions who may suffer from this dreaded disease.
Therefore, the petitioners humbly pray and call upon the House of Commons to ensure that the Government of Canada proceeds swiftly with such legislation.


Mr. Mike Cassidy (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, it is my honour and privilege to present a petition on behalf of a number of residents of the City of Toronto who call on Parliament to raise its voice with respect to the trade deal between Canada and the United States because it would reduce Canada's ability to plan the economic, social, and cultural program which Canadians need; because it would integrate Canada further into the North American defence industrial base; and because they believe that the very fabric of Canadian sovereignty is threatened by the proposed trade deal.
Since the Government had no mandate to negotiate a free trade deal with the United States, they call upon Parliament to ensure that there is a national debate and that this debate results in a national general election before any trade deal with the United States is signed and ratified.
Mr. Speaker, I have two further petitions, also from residents in Toronto and surrounding areas who believe that
the Conservative Government had no mandate from the Canadian people to conclude a free trade agreement with the United States.
They believe that the promise of secure access to the United States market, which was the key objective in the negotiations, has not been achieved. They fear that hundreds of thousands of jobs in Canada will be affected and they, therefore, humbly pray and call upon Parliament to dissolve and allow the people of Canada the opportunity to accept or reject the proposed free trade agreement during a national general election.


Mr. Stan J. Hovdebo (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour and duty to present, on behalf of a number of citizens of Canada, mostly from the Toronto area, a petition which calls upon the Government of Canada, since it has no mandate to conclude a free trade agreement with the United States, to put the issue before the people in the form of a national general election and give the people an opportunity to accept or reject the proposed free trade agreement during such an election.


Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-Walkerville):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to table a number of petitions which have come to us from Hamilton, Toronto, Scarborough, Guelph, and Peterborough, all of which have been properly certified by the Clerk of Petitions according to Standing Order 106.
The petitioners point out to Parliament that the free trade agreement would compromise Canadian sovereignty, that it would deny Canada the policy freedom to determine its own economic future, and that it would undermine our ability to build a society distinct from the United States. The proposed free trade agreement denies Canada secure access to the U.S. market, which was supposed to be the key objective of the negotiations.
Therefore, the undersigned ask of this Parliament that there be an election in order that the people's will can be determined with respect to the future of Canada on whether it will be an independent country or another state of the U.S. union.


Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, I also have the honour to present a petition signed by Canadians who express their concern that the free trade deal would threaten sovereignty. They point out that the Government has no mandate to negotiate a free trade deal with the United States.
We know, of course, that the Government actually campaigned against a free trade deal with the United States. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and many leading Ministers actually said that this would not be an acceptable idea and that it would threaten Canadian sovereignty.
Therefore, the people who have signed this petition ask that there be a national debate on the trade deal and that the debate result in a general election before such a deal is ratified.
June 27, 1988


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Shall all questions be allowed to stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Before proceeding to consider the motion of the Hon. President of the Treasury Board, today being the last day for the supply period, the House will proceed as usual to consider and pass a supply Bill.
In view of recent practices, do the Hon. Members agree to have this Bill distributed now?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Hon. Doug Lewis (for the President of the Treasury Board) moved:: That the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1989, laid
upon the Table, Tuesday, February 23, 1988, less the amounts voted in
Interim Supply, be concurred in.
He said: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend opposite has asked for a copy of the Bill. It would be our intention to debate the concurrence motion through the day and then move to the Bill. However, as a matter of courtesy, I have absolutely no objection to the Bill being distributed now.
I welcome the opportunity to participate today in the debate on the 1988-89 Main Estimates, because it gives me an opportunity to describe to Hon. Members of the House the broad policy thrusts and the certain specific expenditure measures which are reflected in our spending plans. The Main Estimates, which were tabled in the House by my colleague, the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski), last February 23, is a clear expression of the Government's commitments- its commitment to controlling expenditure growth, its commitment to increasing public service efficiency, and its commitment to introducing new initiatives which respond to the needs of Canadians in a number of high priority areas.
The spending plans which are detailed in these Estimates confirm the Government's ongoing commitment to its program of economic renewal. It is a program which we firmly believe
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could only be successfully implemented if we regain control of the federal Government's fiscal situation.
Details of our spending plan highlight the successes we have achieved in our sustained and continuing efforts to reverse the previously uncontrolled spending growth and ever-rising deficits and to make public sector management more responsive and productive.
We believe that results matter more than good intentions, and it is specifically about results I wish to speak today. The total budgetary Main Estimates of $119.4 billion are 7.7 per cent higher than the comparable Estimates of the previous fiscal year. In addition to Main Estimate expenditures, which are by far its largest component, the Government's total spending plan for 1988-89 includes reserves for Supplementary Estimates to be brought to Parliament during the course of the year, and certain expenditures that will be financed through separately funded special purpose accounts or will arise from the re-evaluation of the Government's assets and liabilities.
The 7.7 per cent increase in the Main Estimates over last year is fully covered in the 5.5 per cent growth in planned budgetary spending for the year. The growth in the Main Estimates is larger than originally targeted for total spending for the year because the Government has included more of its new initiatives in this year's Main Estimates than it was able to do last year. This means that fewer resources will be needed for adjustments during the year through the course of Supplementary Estimates.
Total budgetary expenditures in 1988-89 are forecast at SI32.3 billion. That is an increase of 5.5 per cent over the estimated expenditures of $125.3 billion in 1987-88.
I want to point out to the House that while those numbers may not seem very impressive, what is impressive is that since 1984-85 the average annual increase in budgetary expenditures has been 4.9 per cent. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to contrast this to the average increases of more than 15 per cent a year over the preceding five-year period of the previous administration which was in control of government spending. In fact, if one excludes public debt charges built on the deficits of the previous years and focuses exclusively on program expenditures, the average increase is only 3.7 per cent between 198586 and 1988-89. That is less than the rate of inflation over the same period and a mere fraction of the average annual increases between 1980-81 and 1984-85 which ran at more than 14 per cent.
When we took office in the fall of 1985, we launched a three-part strategy for economic renewal. It was focused first on restoring fiscal responsibility, second on removing obstacles to growth, and third on encouraging new investment.
As part of the first strategy, we realized the pressing need to reduce the size of the deficit in an orderly, balanced, and fair manner and to control the growing burden of the public debt.
Our first priority in achieving these goals was to get spending under control. I believe the results to date and the
COMMONS DEBATES_________________ June 27, 1988
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intentions set out by my colleague, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson), in his last Budget provide ample proof of our achievements and continuing resolve.
In 1984-85, after five years of uninterrupted increases, budgetary expenditures peaked at nearly 25 per cent of Canada's Gross Domestic Product. Since then budgetary expenditures have consistently declined as a share of the Gross Domestic Product. For the current fiscal year these expenditures are forecast to represent 22.5 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product and, as my colleague, the Minister of Finance, indicated in his medium term projections in the February Budget, their proportion is expected to decline substantially to just over 19 per cent by 1992-93.
Not since the late 1970's have the federal Government's expenditures consistently represented less than 20 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product. Our determined and unrelenting efforts to control expenditures have paid off. They have paid off with increased prosperity and decreased pressures on the Treasury.
Reduced expenditure growth, along with increased revenues, largely the result of greater economic activity across Canada, have led to systematic reductions in the deficit. While it is not where we want it yet, there is no question that the trend line is positive.
With budgetary expenditures of some SI32 billion and revenues of over $103 billion, the projected deficit for 1988-89 is less than $29 billion. That is a reduction of $9.4 billion over 1984-85 when it was a massive, unworkable $38.3 billion.
Our commitment to controlling expenditures, reducing the size of the deficit, and responding to the needs of Canadians in a challenging and changing environment shows in the major elements of the 1988-89 Main Estimates.
Of the $119.4 billion in total budgetary Main Estimates, $78.5 billion or two-thirds are for statutory programs. The remainder, some $40.9 billion, is what is included in the appropriation Bill to be approved at the end of today.
More than 90 per cent of statutory spending is by four Departments: Finance, Health and Welfare, Employment and Immigration, and Secretary of State.
These statutory expenditures include public debt charges, major transfer payments to individuals, transfers to provinces, grants to municipalities, the Government's contribution to the unemployment insurance account, and agricultural and transportation subsidies.
Public debt charges at $32.1 billion are the largest single component of expenditures. They represent 41 per cent of the statutory spending and nearly one-quarter of the Government's total projected spending in 1988-89. That is the legacy left to us by the previous Government. The increase of nearly $3.9 billion in these charges accounts for approximately two-thirds of the total increase in statutory estimates.
Other statutory payments, such as transfers to the provinces and territories for hospital insurance, medicare, extended health care, post-secondary education, and social assistance and services, are all projected to rise this year. Federal Government cash payments to the provinces for health and post-secondary education are included in the Main Estimates at just over $9.4 billion, an increase of some $200 million over 1987-88.
Canada Assistance Plan payments, covering half the cost of provincial social assistance and social services for people in need, will amount to nearly $4.5 billion in 1988-89. That is a $280 million increase over last year.
Fiscal transfer payments, contained principally in the estimates of the Department of Finance, are made up essentially of the unconditional fiscal equalization payments to the poorer provinces. These are expected to rise by over $800 million in this year.

In addition to these cash payments from the federal Government, the provincial Governments will benefit from fiscal transfers that should exceed $9 billion in 1988-89. Thus, federal assistance for health care, education, welfare and other public services should total nearly $30 billion this year.

Nearly $1 billion has been added to this year's Estimates to meet the higher benefit payments to Canada's elderly under Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement. These increases are the result of two factors-higher monthly payments indexed to changes in consumer prices and the growth in the size of the eligible population. Combined income support payments to Canada's elderly will account for $15.5 billion in expenditures this year. They represent the second largest component of the Government's total spending plan.
Since taking office our Government has introduced a number of measures to improve the incomes of elderly Canadians. These have included modifications to the rules governing private pension plans, among them higher RRSP contribution levels,-


Michael Morris Cassidy: What about deindexing?


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: -changes to the Canada Pension Plan, and improvements in benefits to the elderly.


Michael Morris Cassidy: Let's make sure your efforts in deindexing are recorded in Hansard.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: The Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy) has arrived. It is nice to see you here, Sir.
In that regard I would remind the House that we extended the spouses' allowances program to cover low-income widows and widowers between the ages of 60 years to 64 years, a move
June 27, 1988

that increased benefits to a great number of elderly Canadians, the majority of whom were women.
I want to turn now to the voted expenditures. Over one-quarter of the nearly $40.9 billion in voted expenditures contained in the 1988-89 Main Estimates will be made by the Department of National Defence. The remaining 75 per cent or $30.6 billion is some $1.5 billion or 5.3 per cent higher than last year's corresponding amount. The annually voted expenditures category, in addition to containing the costs associated with the operations of government, also includes the costs of several new initiatives to respond to the pressing needs of Canadians announced by the Government over the past year.
I want to detail some of these initiatives, if I may. They include the $306 million for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. That Bill is presently held up in the Senate. We certainly hope that it will be released by the Senate so that we can do for the Atlantic provinces what my good friends opposite know should be done. It is unfortunate that it is delayed there. We hope my friends opposite will use their best efforts with the Liberal Senators to free that particular Bill as soon as possible.
There is $312 million for the Western Diversification Office and $197 million in increased regional development funding for regions such as northern Ontario.
The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and the Western Diversifiation Fund include the 1988-89 portions of the Government's $1.5 billion and $1.2 billion five-year commitment to the Atlantic and western regions. With these and other regionally directed initiatives this Government will continue to promote the diffusion of economic well-being to all areas of Canada.
Excluding the almost one-half billion dollars in incremental funding for these new agencies and the voted expenditures of defence, the remaining annual appropriations in the Main Estimates exhibit an annual increase of only 3.6 per cent, which is below the projected increase in consumer prices. We have been able to achieve this lower growth in voted programs by reducing the cost of program delivery, on the one hand, and by curtailing and eliminating programs that have outlived their usefulness, on the other.
Reduced program delivery costs are a direct result of determined efforts to improve management in the federal public sector. Public service managers have been challenged to find ways of improving the productivity of government administration, and the results show that their efforts have been successful. Operations throughout government have benefited from improvements in both efficiency and effectiveness. High standards of program delivery have been maintained with fewer human and financial resources. I will return to this point in a moment.
I would like to emphasize that our efforts have not been a blind pursuit of lower growth rates in federal expenditures. If we take a look at the details of those expenditures in the 1988-
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89 Main Estimates, along with the record of our actions since September, 1984, we find they clearly show that notwithstanding a determined commitment to control spending growth and reducing the size of the federal deficit, this Government is aware of and responds to the special needs of various groups as and when they occur. Wherever possible, we have reallocated resources to provide better increases than average in certain priority areas.
Over the years these areas have included defence spending, official development assistance funding for regional development, and assistance to particular groups such as Canada's grain producers. With its foreign aid the Government has moved resolutely to give concrete expression to the concerns of Canadians about the peoples of less developed countries.


Michael Morris Cassidy: By deferring your commitments?


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Deferring our commitments? Is that like saying we are going to stay in NATO for the first term in office and then get out the second term? Would that be a deferral? Would you like to ponder that for a moment?
Canada's Official Development Assistance in 1988-89 is expected to reach nearly $2.9 billion. This represents an increase of 8.3 per cent over 1987-88. In the four years since 1984-1985 Canada's Official Development Assistance is up by nearly $800 million or 37.3 per cent. These increases clearly reflect our Government's determination to meet Canada's commitment to maintain Official Development Assistance at one-half of one per cent of Gross Domestic Product to the end of the decade.
Our international development and assistance efforts have been strengthened by decisions to provide all financial assistance in the form of grants rather than concessional loans, to declare a debt moratorium in favour of sub-Saharan African countries, and to put in place the Caribcan agreement. This particular agreement recognizes that Canada has a special relationship with the Commonwealth Caribbean countries. Among other things, it provides them with duty-free access to our market for a number of specified goods.
The budgetary Main Estimates for defence at $11.2 billion are projected to increase by $860 million or 8.3 per cent over the 1987-88 Main Estimates. This increase is essential if Canada is to meet its sovereignty objectives, honour its international defence commitments within NATO and NORAD, and promote international stability by providing military assistance to United Nations sponsored peacekeeping operations.
Re-equipment and modernization of the Canadian Armed Forces, priorities of this Government, are proceeding in a staged and orderly manner. Some $188 million of the total increase of the budget of the Department of National Defence has been allocated to capital. At nearly $3 billion in 1988-89, National Defence's capital budget is intended to support normal capital and construction requirements and to contribute to the costs of major capital acquisition programs. I am

June 27, 1988
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referring to the Canadian Patrol Frigate Program, the Low Level Air Defence System, the Tribal Class Update and Modernization Program, North American air defence modernization, and the CF-18 fighter aircraft. This much needed re-equipment and increase in the size of the Forces will serve to meet our goal of enhancing the operational effectiveness of the Canadian Armed Forces and maintaining a strong defence capability.
The Main Estimates are full of other examples that demonstrate how the Government has been able to reallocate resources to respond to those priority areas it has identified. I would like to describe a few of these examples briefly, for the benefit of my colleagues.
If there is one area of economic progress about which we are particularly pleased, it is in the creation of jobs. Since the Government took office 1.3 million jobs have been created, and we are continuing to devote considerable funds to the Canadian Jobs Strategy, a comprehensive approach to training and job creation which we adopted in the summer of 1985. Our goals are to create lasting employment and to increase the level of skills of Canadian workers.
If I may just digress from my notes, Mr. Speaker, the interesting thing to note is that 87 per cent of the jobs which we have created have been full-time jobs, whereas 80 per cent of the jobs created by the previous administration were parttime ones.
I appreciate that I am drawing to the end of my time.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Yes, in office.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: I close off by saying that I could go on and give my colleagues figure after figure, but what we want to point out is that these Estimates clearly reflect a commitment by the Government to control the rate of expenditure growth, to enhance the efficiency of the Public Service, and at the same time be in a position to respond to the needs of Canadians.
In so doing we have made some difficult choices, but we have succeeded in reducing that growth rate, especially in the day-to-day operations of the Government. These Estimates continue to reflect our commitment to controlling government expenditure, as well as the deficit, while at the same time improving efficiency in the federal Public Service.


Hon. William Rompkey (Grand Falls-White Bay- Labrador):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to reply to the Minister. He has just taken the opportunity to recount the progress that the Government has made in accordance with its policy measures. He made two points to which I wish to refer.
The Minister talked about getting the debt under control. One of the main objectives of the Government has been to get the debt under control. The question is: Who has borne the burden of getting it under control?
I submit that it is those people and those areas of the country which can least afford to bear that burden. I say that because if government programs are cut everyone is not equally affected. The people who are affected most are those who depend on government programs.
Which parts of the country depend on government programs? It is those less developed areas of the country which depend on them. I submit that when cuts are made in transport, fisheries, and in programs of the Government of Canada in terms of transfer payments, those areas of the country that have weak private sectors and which depend on government programs are impacted upon negatively.
It is all very well to talk about getting the debt under control, but if we look behind the lines and read between the lines-which is a rather mixed metaphor; one cannot do both at the same time-we see that getting the debt under control has been borne by those people in the country who can least afford to bear it.
Let me take an example to consider. The Minister talked about an increase in EPF, which is true. However, what is the increase? The increase is 5 per cent, whereas there was a signed agreement between the Government of Canada and the provinces to increase EPF by 7 per cent. Thus over $1 billion less was going to the provinces for post-secondary education and health than was anticipated. All of that will have to come out of the provincial budgets which will impact on students, young people who have the highest unemployment rate of any sector in the population in the country. For example, in the Province of Newfoundland, according to Statistics Canada, youth unemployment is close to 50 per cent. That is the type of impact that there is on the regions when government programs are cut.
I wish to make some comments about another point that the Minister made, that is, the removal of obstacles to growth. I want to take this opportunity to dwell on it at length, because we do not get very many opportunities in the House to talk about things that are important to our areas and to us. The Government just removed what it thought was an obstacle to growth. It was called the Newfoundland Railway. I want to comment on the amount of dollars that were allocated to that province in supposed compensation for what was considered to be an obstacle to growth.
The post-mortems are just starting to come in on that particular move by the Government of Canada. Here is what The Sunday Express stated yesterday in the province. It polled the other Maritime provinces to see how they felt about what had happened. Mr. MacKenzie, Director of the Transportation Division for the Prince Edward Island Government, said:
I guess most people feel that when they look at the $800 million figure,
Newfoundland has been dealt with generously. However when you stop to
analyse it, it is not such a great deal.
The other provinces are now looking at the deal and saying that it is not a good one and that, in fact, the Province of Newfoundland has been sold out. It has been sold out in what
June 27, 1988

The Sunday Express called "The great train robbery". This is an example of getting the public debt under control and removing obstacles to growth. This is what was written in The Sunday Express about the latest measure taken by the Government of Canada:
Why should Newfoundlanders have to trade their railway in order to get an upgraded Trans-Canada Highway? No other part of the country had to face that demeaning choice. Following the same logic, will Ottawa suggest, and the province meekly agree somewhere down the road, that Newfoundlanders must accept cuts in their postal service in order to upgrade their ferry service. Will improved air service be linked to cutbacks in the RCMP? Absurd, yes, but it is exactly what happened in the closure of the Newfoundland railway.
No other province has had to do that. No other province will do it. New Brunswick says that it wants $1 billion to upgrade its portion of the Trans-Canada Highway, but Premier McKenna will not be bargaining away the province's main rail lines to get it. He said that they would never sign a deal like the one Premier Peckford agreed to.
The Sunday Express went on to state:
The great train robbery has not gone unnoticed in Newfoundland. The road-builders association sees the deal as too little too late. As a short term analysis of the situation that is a devastating indictment. Port aux Basques fears for its civic life, and rightfully so; seven million dollars can never replace the towns raison d'etre. From cabin owners who will now not be able to reach their summer places, to ordinary citizens who realize that something has been taken from the province that every other Canadian province takes for granted, there is an oceanic sense that politicians have sold the province out.
What are the factors here? First, there was an obligation, a constitutional obligation on the part of the Government of Canada. What was stated in the Terms of Union in 1949 when we joined this country was that the Government of Canada would relieve the province of the burden of providing a transportation system up to national standards. That is what was written in the Constitution of Canada according to the Terms of Union which was signed in 1949.
In 1949 there were no roads.


An Hon. Member:: We had the Bullet instead.


Bill Rompkey: That is right, we had the Bullet. What happened?


An Hon. Member:: You cancelled it.


Bill Rompkey: The Bullet stayed and Liberal Governments not only maintained the Bullet but built roads. It was the Pearson Government that built and constructed totally the Trans-Canada Highway across the Island of Newfoundland. That is what the Pearson Government did.
It was the Trudeau Government that started the TransLabrador Highway. So road-building has gone on under other programs, not in a trade for the railway but under other programs of the Government of Canada. For example, there was the Atlantic Development Agency going back to the 1960s, and then after that there was DREE. More recently there was the Department of Economic and Regional Development. All these agencies of the Government of Canada had built roads in areas where they were needed without any trade
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for the railroad. But this particular Government has said: "If you want to go on building roads now and in the future you must trade your railway for that".
What does the trade involve? What do we get in the trade? We get $700 million in federal dollars over 15 years. This is how the Government of Canada reduces debts. This is how it removes obstacles to growth. We got $700 million over 15 years. After 15 years that is the end. That has never happened before. When John Diefenbaker dealt with term 29 involving transfer payments to the province, he agreed that there was an obligation in perpetuity, not ending after 15 years. Here we get $700 million over 15 years. What does that involve? The Government of Canada was paying $40 million a year to support the Newfoundland Railway anyway. I was never strong on math, and it is a wonder therefore that I was ever appointed Minister of Revenue, but if I divide 15 into 700 it is approximately $46 million a year. The Government of Canada was paying $40 million a year anyway, and what we are getting is $46 million a year. The Minister of International Trade (Mr. Crosbie) has bargained for an additional $6 million a year, the $6-million man. That is what is happening. I do not see how anybody in his right mind can say that that is a fair, just, and equitable deal for the province.
Out of that $700 million how much is going into the area of Labrador? Twelve million dollars is going into the TransLabrador Highway, an extremely important initiative for that particular area of the country. It does not have a train except the one built by the company that the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) was formerly president of-the Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railway which is a private operation. Apart from that there are no trains at all. We do have the start of a highway system. What did the Government of Canada do? It put $12 million into the Trans-Labrador Highway which is less than was put in in 1983. When that road was started in 1983, $14 million was allocated. If one adds inflation to $14 million, one gets probably twice as much as the $12 million that was allocated under this particular deal.
That is what we get in exchange for that trade-away. That is what we get in spite of the fact that the Sullivan Commission, which was set up to recommend on the terms of phasing out the railroad, said that one of the conditions should be building a road across Labrador. What did Sullivan actually say? He made many important recommendations. He recommended the termination of the Newfoundland Railway, and no one is objecting to that. What we are objecting to is the terms of how the railway is being terminated.
Sullivan recommended the termination of the Newfoundland Railway in return for appropriate guarantees for alternate federal commitments to provide transportation service; the upgrading of the Trans-Canada Highway; the strengthening of the role of direct water shipments, port development in St. John's, Corner Brook, and in the Baie d'Espoir area; improvements to air services to remote communities on the

June 27, 1988
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coast of Labrador, which is already being done at the cost of some $40 million; and a total transportation plan for Labrador to support resource development. That included the building of the Trans-Labrador Highway from the Straits of Belle Isle through Goose Bay and on to Labrador West. None of that has been addressed in this particular transportation package. What we have received is a token amount of $12 million, nothing at all close to what Sullivan recommended.
Again, I point out that this is a trade in spite of the obligation of the Government of Canada. At the present time the Government is spending money to sell this deal. This deal is so bad that there is a necessity to have a public information program, and ads are now being published in newspapers to tell the people how good this deal really is. If some of that money could be used to build roads or to advance the cause of the Trans-Labrador Highway, how much better off would we be?
The post-mortem is still not complete on this particular deal. What we are hearing so far, from those who build roads and from those who use them, is that this is absolutely and completely inadequate and a total sell-out as far as the Province of Newfoundland is concerned.
In terms of the record of this particular Party, we have always taken the position that one does not trade one for the other. One builds the roads and the railway exists at the same time. It was the Pearson Government who built the Trans-Canada Highway in Newfoundland, and it was the Trudeau Government who allocated the first funds for the construction of the Trans-Labrador Highway. Our position as a Party is that that type of policy must continue.
If we were the Government of Canada, here is what we would have done; if we become the Government of Canada, here is the position that we will take. We would consider respect number one for constitutional obligations. We would not hold the people of Newfoundland and Labrador liable for the signatures on Section 10(1) of the Memorandum of Understanding which relieves Canada of all constitutional obligations with respect to the Newfoundland Railway.
It is one thing to build a road, but how is that road maintained? The Government of Newfoundland has the least fiscal capacity of any Government in this country. Yet the Government of Canada now states that it wants to build a Cadillac road and not give the province a Chevette maintenance plan, not give any maintenance plan at all. How will that province maintain such a highway once it is built?
We think that the Government of Canada must continue its constitutional obligations, not only to build a transportation system of national standards, but to maintain a transportation system of national standards, whether it be rail or road.
Second, we think that there should be an amendment to the Terms of Union to transfer Canada's constitutional obligations to the Newfoundland Railway to a new federal obligation to maintain the Trans-Canada Highway. We recognize that the
present financial compensation package is grossly inadequate. We believe that there should be a renegotiating to a more realistic and equitable financial package for the people of the province. We recognize that the present financial compensation of $15 million for community adjustment is totally inadequate. We believe that this amount should be renegotiated with the provincial Government in consultation with those communities affected by the closure of the railway. We believe in the principle of the reconstruction of the Trans-Canada Highway. In that regard we see the Labrador highway as an integral part of any such highway system. We believe that federal funding must be made available for its completion.
This railroad has been phased out without putting any roads in its place. What is now happening is that the railroad is going as of September 1; as of September there will be no more railroad in Newfoundland, yet the reconstruction of the highway does not start until 1991. In other words, the Government of Canada is taking something away before it has even started to put something else in its place.
For all those reasons, we can only condemn this particular initiative on the part of the Government of Canada. First, it does not meet the Government's constitutional obligation. Second, it treats Newfoundland differently from any other province in that it asks it to trade a railroad for another system of transportation. Third, the package is completely inadequate and does not address the needs of the whole province, particularly the area of Labrador which will receive 2 per cent or $ 12 million of the total package in order to construct the Labrador highway, and it does not nearly meet the recommendations of the Sullivan Commission set up to advise on the phase out of the Newfoundland Railway.
Truly the Government of Canada has the debt of the country under control, and truly it is removing obstacles to growth. However, the unfortunate thing is that the Government is doing that on the backs of those people of the regions of Canada who can least afford to bear it.


Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I want to talk a bit about the Estimates. This is a frustrating exercise. We are now being asked to consider Estimates of over $100 billion and to do so in a very short period of time, according to a time honoured ritual, one which in my opinion does not give adequate scope for Members of the House of Commons to get into the nitty-gritty of the Estimates of individual Departments.
I am a Member of Parliament who has had a great deal of experience at the provincial level as well. As such, I believe that when we look at the reform of the rules of the House of Commons anew as we should after the next election, in addition to the general discussions of policy, there should be opportunity for the different committees to look more specifically at the spending of the different Departments. In my view the current situation is not satisfactory. Ministers are expected
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to defend their Estimates for a matter of a couple of hours before a committee and then are expected to do no more.
The Estimates represent the heart of the priority setting exercise of any Government. We are not at all at ease with the priorities of this particular Government. We will oppose the Bill which will be coming forward this afternoon for concurrence in the Estimates because we are very disturbed at the directions taken by the Government in economic management and in spending. As I have suggested, I think that there must be a better way. I believe as well that there must be a way for Parliament to look at spending without the Government simply saying that this is a matter of confidence and therefore no change, no scrutiny, and no information will be provided in any meaningful way.
I think we have moved a fair distance since 1984 when the Government indicated that the deficit above all would be the priority for the Progressive Conservative Government. There has been some economic recovery since that time, but it has been largely concentrated in central Canada and, more specifically, in southern Ontario. If I travel 25 miles outside my constituency of Ottawa Centre, I begin to see the problems of the other Canada, those Canadians who do not have access to job opportunities in the way those in southern Ontario have started to have.
The Government has taken the view that it is all hunky-dory. It seems to have taken the view that because things have started to move in southern Ontario, things are under control and it does not need to worry about the rest of the country. The Government has also changed its view with respect to the importance of bringing down the deficit.
Hon. Members will recall the rhetoric that came from both the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) when they were talking about economic renewal and about bringing changes into force in a way "that is fair, open and consistent with the basic sense of compassion, tolerance and justice that is characteristic of Canadian society". They said in 1984 that "we will not weaken the basic income support programs that have served Canadians well. Indeed, we will seek to provide even greater assistance to those Canadians who truly need it".
You may recall, Mr. Speaker, that it was not long after that that the Government began its effort to try to undermine the basic income support for senior citizens by deindexing old age pensions. I was struck by the selective amnesia demonstrated by the Government House Leader in his introduction just a few minutes ago. He forgot the Government's efforts to deindex the old age pension, the centre-piece of its 1985 Budget.
I am also struck by the fact that the Government said in 1984 that after two or three years of economic recovery real action would be needed on the deficit. The Government brought the deficit down below the S30 billion mark and then stalled. Perhaps it stalled because of the realities of Canadian politics. Perhaps it ran out of ideological fervour. I am not
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quite sure, but it stalled in its attempt to bring the deficit below the $29 billion mark. There was always a reason why it could not be done now. The impact of the Minister of Finance in pursuing that particular quest became less and less until we came to the situation we have seen in recent weeks.
The Government, in some despair, because of the failure of Canadians to respond to its management of the economy, has decided that the way back to power is not by reducing the deficit but is in fact by seeking to spend its way back into the affections of Canadians from coast to coast. We saw an example of that in the Lac-Saint-Jean by-election. I am really struck by what I saw there.

It was a clear demonstration that the Government is prepared to spend whatever it takes to win seats in the House of Commons and to come back after the next election.
Mr. Speaker, if we look at Lac-Saint-Jean, they promised to pay for a new highway that would connect the riding with James Bay, for all those people who want to go to James Bay from Lac-Saint-Jean. Frankly, I think people in the area would rather have a better highway between Alma and Quebec City, but the fact remains they were promised a highway to James Bay.
After considerable procrastination, a promise was made to help Saskatchewan Francophones. The Government promised $120 million for regional development in Lac-Saint-Jean. After ignoring the needs of this area since 1984, all of a sudden the Conservatives felt it was time to do something.
Did the Tories launch any programs to improve the economy in Lac-Saint-Jean under former MP Clement Cote? No. Did they set up regional development programs for the people of Lac-Saint-Jean? The anwer is no. Did they worry about the 14 per cent unemployment rate in Lac-Saint-Jean? The answer is no.
However, during the by-election that was held to win a seat in the House of Commons for an old friend of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney), former Ambassador Lucien Bouchard, the Government felt that no price was too high.

The Government demonstrated that if the Prime Minister could spend three days in a riding and could spend $160 million there, the riding would probably be won for the Progressive Conservatives. We expected to see-


Miss MacDonald:: Is that what happened to the NDP?


Michael Morris Cassidy: -an amendment to the Elections Act in order to provide that the next Canadian election campaign would be more than 480 days long to permit the Prime Minister to spend three days apiece in 160 ridings across the country. At the rate of spending in Lac-Saint-Jean, he would spend some $40 billion of Canadian taxpayers' money in an effort to try to get the Conservatives back to power with a majority in each

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riding. Across Canada, it would have cost $40 billion in election promises to duplicate what happened in Lac-Saint-Jean.


Finlay MacDonald: Nine per cent for the NDP.


Michael Morris Cassidy: I notice that the Conservatives are beginning to respond a bit. This is the Party that said that the deficits had to be controlled. This is the Party that said that we had to bring down government spending. This is the Party that said that the Liberals had been profligate. Yet it was prepared to spend, at a national rate, $40 billion to bring Mr. Bouchard into the House of Commons.


Mr. Blenkarn:: Where's your deposit? You lost your deposit.


Michael Morris Cassidy: My friend, the Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn), is beginning to protest a little bit too vehemently. I was reading about him in Air Canada's magazine the other day. It was about the Conservatives' Conservative, and how it is that us lefties like him. I ask myself that question when I look in the mirror as well.
The real fact is that the Government has abandoned many of its principles over the course of the last three or four years in order to get itself re-elected. No one demonstrates that more clearly than the new Secretary of State, Mr. Clean, who said that he would clean up election financing.
He was going to collect his money from the people, he said, with a maximum of $3,000 from all those who could afford it from their back pockets to help in his election campaign. How Mr. Clean compromised his principles. I did not see him protesting when the Government came up with $120 million for the electors of Lac-Saint-Jean. I did not see him protesting when the Government promised $40 million for a road to nowhere. In fact, the Secretary of State was wandering through his constituency and he enunciated a new principle. He said that the need for an incubator for economic development in his constituency happened to hit him in his eye. Celui qui la frappe. He happened to notice that this new centre needed $1.4 million. Almost before the request was in the cheque was wafting its way to Lac-Saint-Jean, while a number of other incubators had been waiting for months until a government program and a policy was in place to encourage economic development.


Finlay MacDonald: Seventy-five seats and 9 per cent.


Michael Morris Cassidy: This is a very serious question in terms of government spending priorities. When the Secretary of State happened to notice and feel a political need, he responded by writing a cheque, and $1.4 million was granted right away.
I spoke to a meeting of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. Back in 1983 the Federation of Canadian Municipalities came to the Government of Canada-and it has come back every year since-with a request to try to renew the
infrastructure of our Canadian cities and towns. This is a program which has been very carefully costed and thought out, a program which would have the effect of ensuring and putting in place very substantial renewal of roads, sewage systems, recreational facilities, and municipal infrastructure of all kinds in order to maintain our Canadian cities and towns as liveable places for our Canadian families. That is also a program which can be regionally oriented toward areas of high unemployment. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities was looking not for $40 billion, not for $20 billion, not for $16 billion; it was looking for the federal Government to share in a portion of the total costs spent. What happened, Mr. Speaker? The Federation was given the back of the hand from the Government of Canada.
On the other hand, let us look at when a few admirals and generals got going in trying to reorient Canadian defence priorities. Where these cities and towns of Canada could not get the federal Government to share one-third of the $7 billion cost of renewal of infrastructure of Canadians cities and towns over the course of a five or six year period, the admirals and generals were able to get in the defence White Paper a commitment to a new fleet of nuclear submarines, which is currently costed at $8 billion and which every Canadians knows will cost $12 billion or $15 billion or $16 billion before that fleet is built. Over the course of the weekend the Environ-ics poll indicated that support for the proposal had dropped to less than one-third of Canadians and that 60 per cent of Canadians said that $16 billion or $8 billion was too much to spend on the nuclear submarines. Canadians are saying that it is a priority which the Government should drop.
What is happening in this particular Estimates exercise today is quite clear. On the one hand, spending on defence prior to nuclear submarines is going up by $860 million, an increase of 8.3 per cent, the largest percentage increase of any major Department of the Government of Canada. Let us look at the contrast. We spend $800 million or $900 million on defence in 1988-89 while the increase in the budget for CIDA, the Canadian International Development Agency, according to the Estimates, is approximately $122 million. We spend seven times more on defence than we spend on our major aid granting agency, CIDA.
Recently it has come to my attention that the percentage of Canada's Gross National Product going into aid this year is down by a fraction of a per cent from what it was a year ago. Rather than moving steadfastly and determinately to increase our spending on aid, we are reducing it. At the same time the proportion of our GNP which is going into spending on national defence is equally and steadfastly going up year after year after year.
The admirals went public back in 1983 asking for nuclear subs, but have they come back to meet with Cabinet year after year and been turned away? Have they been ignored in their requests? They did not need to because they had the inside track. Canada cannot afford to renew a road to a sewage system and that kind of thing. The federal Government turns
June 27, 1988

its back on the efforts of Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton to renew the Green Creek collector sewage treatment system here in my City of Ottawa, yet it can come up with $8 billion nominal and $16 billion in actual terms for the nuclear submarines, infrastructure, training, and other things. A very serious debate is taking place within Cabinet over this issue between the hawks and the doves. As a Canadian, I hope the doves win.
If the doves win it will not, I suspect, mean that the Government will abandon the proposal for nuclear submarines but will mean that the proposal will be stretched out, knowing that a new Government will scrap it because it is unlikely the Conservatives will have a majority after the next general election. As my Leader, the Hon. Member for Oshawa (Mr. Broadbent), indicated in Thunder Bay over the course of the weekend at the Ontario New Democratic Convention, some priorities once selected by government have to be respected by an opposition Party, but where an opposition Party indicates clearly that it is in fundamental disagreement with a priority of government and will not go along with it, we are entitled to abandon a commitment even if the commitment is signed under contract, which I believe some of the Conservatives want to do. We are making it clear that Canada does not need to spend $16 billion on nuclear submarines. That is not a priority of the New Democratic Party. If we form the next Government of Canada we will scrap that priority; if we are part of the next Government of Canada we will scrap that priority. We will not be a part of that, and 60 per cent of Canadians agree with us that that should not be a priority.
I would point out that currently the New Democratic Party, according to the latest opinion polls, is locked in a battle-


Finlay MacDonald: In last place.


Michael Morris Cassidy: -for government in the next election. We are one of the three major Parties in this country with strength from coast to coast. That was the situation that prevailed during the course of the last election campaign and we came up 10 per cent. If that same situation were to occur during the coming campaign we would, in fact, form a majority Government.
I want to conclude by talking about another priority of the Government. It believes that it is okay to have two Canadas. Unemployment is down to 3 per cent or 4 per cent in certain parts of southern Ontario. At the same time it is upwards of 13 per cent in Lac-Saint-Jean and upwards of 16 per cent or 17 per cent in the interior of British Columbia and in parts of Newfoundland. Will the Government tolerate that, Mr. Speaker? Yes, the Government has and it has continued to do so over a number of years. The Government is in agreement with the monetary policy of the Bank of Canada which has seen us jack up interest rates to substantial levels, and has seen the Canadian dollar rise from 69 cents three years ago through 72 cents and 76 cents. Since the trade agreement was signed last October the dollar has gone up by some 10 per cent relative to the United States to 83 cents.
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Premier Bourassa and Premier Peterson are objecting to this policy. The resource industries are objecting, the Canadian Exporters' Association is objecting, and the Canadian Manufacturers' Association is protesting. Yet, the Government does not listen. The consequence is that we are tolerating the actions of the Bank of Canada, which are largely directed to southern Ontario and are perpetuating underdevelopment and unemployment in most of this country.
Not only that, if we ask whether everyone in Toronto is prosperous, the answer is definitely no. There are homeless people in Toronto, which never occurred when I was growing up in that city in the 1940s and 1950s. That did not occur in the 1960s and 1970s, but there are now homeless people and food banks. There are hundreds of thousands of Toronto residents who cannot afford a BMW or a Mercedes. They cannot afford the policies which are being pursued by the federal Conservatives and the provincial Liberals. They cannot afford the average price of a home which, in the City of Toronto itself, has now risen to more than $200,000. Such a home used to be considered a working-class house and would rent for a couple of hundred dollars a month.
The Progressive Conservatives believe in two Canadas just as Mrs. Thatcher, who came here to preach her gospel last week, believes in two Britains and just as President Reagan believes in two United States. I do not accept that at all. A society is judged by how it deals with its unemployed, its poor, and its disadvantaged. It is not judged on how the very rich live but on how the very poor are treated. A society is judged on whether there is compassion and social justice or a Government which ignores the real needs of average people.
By jacking up interest rates, making our industries uncompetitive, failing to act in terms of regional development, and failing to act for the needs of the million Canadians who are still unemployed and the half-million Canadians on social assistance who have been discouraged from finding jobs, the Government has demonstrated that it is not qualified to govern with social justice for all Canadians.
Those are several of the reasons my Party is opposed to the priorities in these Estimates. You, Mr. Speaker, are generally impartial, particularly when sitting in the chair. Why do you not join with me and suggest to your erstwhile colleagues on the Conservative side that we take the $16 billion allotted for nuclear subs and use it for child care, for renewing municipal infrastructure, for social services, for adequate postal services, for foreign aid, and for peace and development? Those are the kinds of priorities we should be pursuing rather than putting Canada's dollars into building submarines to keep the Americans out of our Arctic.


Mr. Redway:: Mr. Speaker, I was very disturbed by the inaccuracies in the comments of the Hon. Member. There were so many of them that I could continue to ask a variety of

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questions all afternoon. However, I will single out one or two areas which particularly disturbed me.
One area had to do with his comments about building roads in northern Quebec. I think he said that it would be a road to nowhere. That reminded me somewhat of comments that the Liberal Party made back in the days of the Diefenbaker Government when Mr. Diefenbaker's Government was suggesting building roads to resources. The Liberal Party of that day talked about roads from igloo to igloo.
That policy, as you know, Mr. Speaker, laid the basis for the great prosperity which Canada is experiencing today, albeit not universal but certainly greater than it has ever experienced before. That led the way to the development of oil and gas resources in northern Canada. It certainly was not roads from igloo to igloo, and I am sure that roads in northern Quebec would similarly open up northern Quebec and would not be considered roads to nowhere as the NDP is suggesting.
That comment brought to mind, as well, comments made in this House not too long ago by the NDP Member for Regina West who said that no more businesses should be allowed to open in the Metropolitan Toronto area because things were just too good there. He implied that the NDP would not allow any more businesses to open in Metropolitan Toronto.
I was also reminded of asking the Minister of Finance a question a few days ago in this House on the subject of deductibility of mortgage interest to assist crisis housing areas such as Metropolitan Toronto. The NDP Member for Brant shouted at that time: "Absolutely no help for Toronto, there shouldn't be any help for Toronto".
In view of all these comments, what is it that the NDP has against northern development in this country and what is it that the NDP has against Metropolitan Toronto?


Michael Morris Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, perhaps my hon. friend failed to notice the very strong and effective efforts of my colleague, the Hon. Member for Yukon (Ms. McLaughlin), in leading the battle in the House by going personally to the British House of Commons to fight the misguided effort by the British to legislate adverse fur labelling restrictions, which would have had an enormous negative impact on northern development and the livelihood of tens of thousands of fur trappers. I was proud that all Members of the House of Commons joined in that particular effort. To suggest that New Democrats are opposed to northern development is, of course, to misrepresent the facts.
I was simply pointing out that I believe that the electors of Lac-Saint-Jean would have preferred improvements on the road from Alma to Chicoutimi, which has been badly in need of improvement for many years, than improvements on the road from Chibougamau, which I believe is about 150 miles away from Lac-Saint-Jean in the direction of Baie James. In relative terms their orientation is toward Chicoutimi and Quebec. I was only trying to suggest that that would be their priority.
The Hon. Member suggests that New Democrats are not concerned about what is happening to Toronto. Perhaps he was not listening when I pointed out that there are two Canadas, not only in terms of the disparity between the rich in Toronto and people who are unemployed or having trouble earning a living in Newfoundland or western Canada, but in terms of the disparities between the rich and the not so rich in Toronto itself.
My friend from York East has from time to time raised questions about housing. I would have liked him to have commented on the fact that the government agency responsible for housing, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, has in these current Estimates a reduction in its spending from $1,548 billion to $1,523 billion, a reduction of 2 per cent. While we have money for an 8 per cent increase in defence spending, there is no money even to maintain, let alone increase, spending on social housing through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
The Hon. Member for York East (Mr. Redway) prides himself on raising the plight of the homeless and people in need of affordable housing in Toronto. Yet I have not heard him say a word about the fact that the Government's spending priorities, far from supporting his concern, go directly opposite. If he is prepared to join with my Party and vote against these Estimates, we can get a new set of Estimates in place which will ensure more adequate spending on housing and will also mean that we can take effective action for those Torontonians, including people in the riding of York East, who cannot afford housing and for whom affordable housing, cooperative and non-profit housing, is it not being built because of the cut-backs in the Government's own spending.
However, if the Hon. Member for York East persists in supporting these Estimates we will know that he is being hypocritical, because on the one hand he preaches the need for more housing in Toronto and on the other hand votes against effective efforts in this regard. He votes for the Government's decision to provide less rather than more for housing in the current Estimates.


Mr. Gabriel Fontaine (Levis):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity today to speak to the Main Estimates for the year 1988-89, layed upon the table on February 23 by the Deputy Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Mazankowski).
Mr. Speaker, before I start my comments on the Main Estimates, I must say I have just survived one of the most trying 20-minute periods of my life, but I suppose that is the price you pay for democracy. It means listening to silly speeches by people who don't know whether they are coming or going. Every morning I say to myself: Fontaine, you have to put up with the socialists because that's the price you pay for democracy!
June 27, 1988

Mr. Speaker, today we can announce to the people of Canada that we have a balanced budget that is based on Canadians' ability to pay. In fact, the Government, through the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson), has released information about our tax reform, and today we can inform Canadians that because of the Government's good management, we have been able to control our budget; the annual deficit has declined from $38 billion to $29 billion; and as of July 1, 1988, on the first paycheck of that week, around July 8 or 9, each Canadian will have more money to take home because for the first time since 1917, there will be a significant change in the application of our income tax legislation.
And this is thanks to a Conservative Government, a Government that provides good management. Retroactive to January 1, 9.7 million Canadian households will pay fewer taxes. They will notice it on the paycheck they get around July 8 this year. I say to all Canadians, Mr. Speaker: Around the beginning of July, when you get that additional money in your pockets, remember you are getting it thanks to the good management of the Progressive Conservative Party. And 850,000 Canadians will no longer pay income tax. This again is thanks to good management, and I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate my colleague, the Minister of Communications (Miss MacDonald). Because of this Government's excellent management, the Minister was able to find more money so that she could announce to Canadians how we can further enhance our culture and our Canadian identity and how the CBC will protect that culture and give all Canadians a chance to enjoy its benefits.
If we hadn't put a stop to the reckless spending of the previous Government, the Minister of Communications would never have been able to table that kind of legislation today.
Mr. Speaker, what else did we do? But first I would like to comment on what was said by the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy). During his 20 minutes, the Hon. Member attacked my riding in a very destructive way when he said, and his Leader and his Party have said the same: "No submarines for Canadians." And we all know that the riding of Levis will be able to live on this magnificent Government contract for twenty-five years.
I find it particularly annoying to be faced daily, both in this House and in the media, with negative comments on the greater Quebec City area and on the province of Quebec, because it is a fact that the submarines will have to be built in the province of Quebec.
When Members of the other Party, the socialists, tell us this would cost $16 billion, that is just not true, Mr. Speaker. Experts with the Department of the National Defence have told us the submarines would cost $8 billion, and $8 billion spread over twenty-five years is $300 million annually, while in Canada, we spend $60 billion annually on social benefits.
This means that the budget for submarines is 0.5 per cent of the amount spent annually on social affairs in this country. So
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when we are accused of spending indecently, the representatives of the socialist party should once again explain their position to the people.
I also want to point out a comment on the by-election in Lac-Saint-Jean made by the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre. Mr. Speaker, the result in Lac-Saint-Jean is a real opinion poll, a wonderful sampling of public opinion. In Lac-Saint-Jean, we saw the socialist candidate, who we must admit was an intelligent man, a local man, a scientist involved in the community, a son of a former mayor, a union activist in a region where there are many unions. So in theory, he had everything going for him, Mr. Speaker, but he did not even get enough votes to avoid losing his deposit. That is the real opinion poll and that is what the members of the socialist Party deserved.
That is the message they deserved to get from Canadians. At the same time, Mr. Speaker, another by-election was being held in Quebec, in the riding of Anjou, and there, one of the candidates, the socialist candidate-we know that the socialist Party does not distinguish between the provincial Party and the federal Party, it is the national party throughout the country; it was a candidate from this Party who ran for the thirteenth time in Anjou, and the thirteenth consecutive defeat for Mr. Morin, the socialist candidate in Anjou! He got less than 2 per cent of the votes, about 440 votes. This shows that the public has had enough of this party's wild ideas. This shows that the people see that for the past two weeks, this Party has used the time of the House of Commons in a completely disagreeable, shameful way, by proposing Bills whose only purpose is to take up the time of this House and delay our free trade legislation.
And here too, I comment on a remark made by the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre, who unfortunately has left, Mr. Speaker, to the effect that there are two Canadas. Two Canadas-that makes me think of the official position of Bob White, President of the United Auto Workers, in the riding of Oshawa. Bob White is the one who takes money from the workers to finance the socialist Party. So the definition of Canada that Bob White and the Hon. Member for Oshawa have is really two Canadas: there is Oshawa and southern Ontario where free trade has been in effect successfully since 1965, resulting in $30 billion of sales to the United States, and the rest of Canada, where these people, the highly paid United Auto Workers, do not want all Canadians to benefit from free trade, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. So they are the ones who have a vision of two Canadas: a rich and powerful Canada in Oshawa and a relatively poor Canada in all other parts of this country.
Mr. Speaker, I come back to our legislative effort and budgetary control. Our budget has increased at a rate of 5.5 per cent since 1984, which is very different from the 15 per cent in the years before we came to power. Our Government's expenditures have increased at less than the rate of inflation. That means that our expenses have been cut, which is all the more difficult because many of our expenditures are statutory.

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For example, we spend $60 billion for social affairs and we can do very little about that.
There is also interest expense. You know that when we took power, our Government was $200 billion in debt. The interest alone on that was $20 billion. Today, debt service amounts to nearly $30 billion because we got into the habit of spending unaccountably when the Liberals tried to govern this country.
We have also established a number of priority areas. For instance, spending cuts do not mean that the elderly should benefit less from our collective wealth. We have decided to send a clear message to the elderly. They will not be allowed to suffer the negative impact of a difficult financial situation in this country. In fact, the $60 billion available for the elderly, the disabled, young people, and federal participation in provincial social programs will be maintained.
However, we have tried to stop the incredible growth of our bureaucracy by aiming for leaner government. The Liberals tried to create Crown corporations that would compete with the State. Under this Government, the role of the State is to distribute our collective wealth, but the State will no longer compete with the private sector. That is why, for instance, we have divested the Government of corporations like de Havil-land and Canadair. At the time, these companies were responsible for spending not millions but billions of dollars. These billions were borrowed and handed over to administrators who were accountable to Parliament, not to shareholders. They were accountable to something that to them was very remote, and that is why Crown corporations have never made a profit. That is why we decided to privatize them, to return them to the private sector where they will be responsible to their shareholders and will have an obligation to make a profit.
When a Government decides to privatize, it is sending a message that the State is now a partner in the distribution of wealth and no longer competing with the private sector, because it is wrong for the State to compete with private enterprise. It is wrong for a company that manufactures aircraft to compete with a private company that also manufactures aircraft and has to make a profit, while the other company can ask Parliament for funds at the end of each year. That is why we are turning over manufacturing and services to the private sector.
The purpose of our program to enhance productivity within the Government and the public sector is to regain control over the growth of government spending, improve labour relations, negotiate responsible collective bargaining agreements, restructure the supply of government services, review activities to determine the function of the private sector, abolish undue regulatory contraints and reduce the paper burden on the private sector, introduce a better management philosophy-I will get back to all these topics later on, Mr. Speaker-and give managers increased responsibility so they can be more effective.
I referred to controlling the growth of government spending and the public sector, and I must say that, since 1974, the number of public service employees has never been as low as it is now. In fact, in 1984 we told Canadians that the Canadian public service had to be trimmed of its "excess fat". The departments have 235,000 employees, and we thought that an initial reduction of 15,000 was necessary. We also reduced the rate of growth of expenditures, as I said earlier, to a level below the inflation rate.
Labour relations have improved. Since 1986, sixty collective agreements were signed involving annual increases of 3.6 per cent, which compares favourably with the private sector and the provinces, where the average was, respectively, 3.3 and 4.7 per cent. Why is this, Mr. Speaker? Because we feel that public servants should be treated the same way as people who work in private enterprise; we owe it to people in private enterprise who, for all practical purposes, create our collective wealth. Why should we give the public sector preferential treatment, since wealth must first be created by private enterprise, by those who manufacture, provide services, trade, hire Canadians and pay taxes, which are later used to pay Public Servants?
At the present time, Mr. Speaker, we have a new agreement for some 180,000 public servants. We shall try to settle it by negotiating and our goal is a negotiated settlement, not an imposed one, so that we can continue to enjoy excellent working relations with our Public Service and so that Public Servants will be motivated to do excellent work for us.
Another thing we did, Mr. Speaker, was to restructure the provision of government services. In many cases, Canadians who needed government services obtained them at a price that was clearly insufficient and less than the cost of production. That means that if I needed information from Statistics Canada, I obtained it at a lower cost, but I was in a way being subsidized by the taxes of other Canadians to have access to this source of information.
So we have increasingly asked our officials to evaluate the cost of the services provided by the Government and to set the rates accordingly so that those who really benefit from these services pay for them.
We have also sent a message to private enterprise about the burden of procedures and regulations they have to bear. We have put in place systems that put the burden of proof on the Minister before new regulations or procedures can be implemented.
Previously, a Minister would decide one morning to impose additional regulations on Canadians, to impose additional costs on them and often excessive production costs, although this contributed nothing to the community. That is not possible anymore, because the Minister has first of all to prove to his colleagues on the Treasury Board that he was justified in asking for additional funds and in laying down new regulations applying to Canadians.
June 27, 1988

For example, the 15 000 different forms Employment and Immigration Canada was using before 1984 are now down to 3 500. This means a very sizeable decrease in the costs the firms had to incur in order to fill those forms. All our efforts serve that purpose. That is why we are able each year to reduce our operational deficit.
Finally, we have changed our managerial philosophy. In the past, everything in the federal Government was controlled by the Treasury Board and a handful of ministers. For every administrative matter, the rest of the ministers had to consult with the Treasury Board, and to ask permission. It was the same story inside the departments, whether it be the deputy Minister, the directors generals, or even the specialists dealing with a particular file. In no way was it possible to give greater accountability to civil servants.
Now that we have changed that philosophy, the departments are more autonomous, and the Government does not audit the means, but rather the results. The liberals, while they were in power, would never have developed such a concept, it would never have crossed their minds. They were evaluating the means, with no consideration whatsoever for the results.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, for all these reasons, we can say that our Government is gradually regaining control over its budget. I will conclude by saying that we went from a deficit of 38 billion dollars a year in 1984, which would be 50 billion dollars this year if the Liberals were still in power, to an annual deficit of 29 billion dollars this year. We succeeded in reducing the deficit and we will continue doing it. Today, we ask the two Opposition parties to speed up the process so that we can vote on these Estimates.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Questions and comments? Debate.
Hon. Warren AUmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine
East): Mr. Speaker, when the Minister of State for the Treasury Board (Mr. Lewis) was speaking this morning, he patted himself on the back for having cut government spending. What the Minister did not say was that very often the wrong programs were cut. He did not point out how this Government promised to spend approximately $165 million to win the by-election in Lac-Saint-Jean, nor did he explain in detail why the Government will spend over $10 billion to purchase nuclear submarines while at the same time cut programs for employment and training by 32 per cent since 1984. This Government has cut a budget which stood at $2.2 billion in 1984 to $1.5 billion in 1988.
The principal program for training and employment under this Government is the Canadian Jobs Strategy. In the Estimates before us today the Government has made a cut in employment and training in real dollars of $125 million from last year. That is a cut of 7.3 per cent. However if we add in the inflation component, the fact that inflation has increased
Supply
by 4 per cent to 5 per cent between 1987 and 1988, that cut amounts to 11 per cent or approximately $188 million. The Government is making cuts such as that while we still have over one million Canadians unemployed.
In a Gallup poll survey taken in this month of June, the following question was asked of Canadians: "What do you believe the biggest single problem in this country to be?" Well, 27 per cent of all Canadians felt that unemployment was the single largest problem in the country. That stood well ahead of 14 per cent who believed that inflation or the economy was a major problem. If we look at the breakdown in those figures we note that in Atlantic Canada 57 per cent thought that unemployment was the major problem, in Quebec it was 26 per cent, on the Prairies it was 31 per cent, and in British Columbia it was 37 per cent. It was only in Ontario that it was not considered to be a major problem.
Why do Canadians feel this way if the Government is doing such a wonderful job with employment? Day after day it brags about the jobs it has created and how the unemployment rate has come down. Canadians feel this way because these figures, which are quoted very often by the Government, are an illusion and do not tell the whole story. To begin with, the great majority of those new jobs have been created in Ontario, particularly in southern Ontario. I do not have the up-to-date figures for this year, but in 1987 more than 95 per cent of the additional jobs created in that year were located in the Province of Ontario.
In an article in Le Devoir French business counsellors are advising business investors in France to invest in Ontario and not in Quebec. The headline in Le Devoir reads:

Quebec is no longer with it, it is now in Ontario that we must invest. [English]
That is one reason Canadians feel that unemployment is still the major problem. The great decrease in unemployment has taken place in Ontario. It has not taken place in Atlantic Canada, in most parts of Quebec, in British Columbia, and in many parts of the Prairies. Another major reason for the unrest of Canadians with respect to unemployment can be found in a report published last week by the advisory council to the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mrs. McDougall). The report was tabled on June 22. The opening sentences of the press release relating to the report reads: "The problem of unemployed older workers is becoming more severe as the Canadian population ages and as new technology and other economic factors force older worker lay-offs".
The report goes on to say: "It is evident that the employment situation of older workers, particularly those in the 55 to 64 age group, has not improved since 1985". That is when the same advisory council made a report entitled Older Workers: An Imminent Crisis in the Labour Market. In fact, since that report was published the situation has deteriorated. That is another example of why Canadians are concerned about the

June 27, 1988
unemployment situation. They are concerned because the improvement has basically been in Ontario, but it has not helped older workers.
A third reason is that the improvement has failed to help the youth of the country. Again I quote from a report that was tabled in Quebec at the end of last week. It was published by the La Foundation Rennaissance-Jeunesse au Quebec. The study showed that one out of three unemployed persons in Quebec was between the ages of 14 years and 25 years. While one out of three of every unemployed person in Quebec between those ages only makes up one-fifth of the population in Quebec, the report goes on to say that it is a very serious situation in Quebec.
It is interesting but sad to note that the situation of unemployment among young people in Quebec goes hand in hand with an increase in suicides. A recent report from Quebec points out that there has been an increase of 400 per cent in suicides of those between the ages of 15 years and 20 years of age in the last 10 years. This is a very disturbing figure. One must wonder why the Government is so complacent with those kind of unemployment and suicide figures relating to youths. One would think that instead of cutting training and employment budgets and instead of cutting education budgets, particularly budgets for post-secondary education, the Government would be vastly increasing those budgets.
I note that it is one o'clock, Mr. Speaker, and I will continue my speech after lunch.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It being one o'clock p.m., I do now leave the chair until two o'clock this day.
At 1 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, in Toronto last week as you know the Summit Leaders endorsed the concept of sustainable development. The United Nations General Assembly did the same last December. Yet, despite having twice endorsed sustainable development, the U.S.A. and the U.K. continue to pollute and dump their acid-rain causing gases on their neighbours. In addition, Italy now sends toxic wastes to Africa. Europe has no pollution control measures on automobiles. Japan continues to hunt whales, while here at home we still over-harvest our resources.
Almost one year ago the National Task Force on Environment and Economy wrote a report. Of the 40 recommendations made, so far none has been implemented. As we all know, actions speak louder than words. To endorse environmentally sustainable economic development is one thing. To implement it is another.
Rhetoric is coming out our ears. What really counts is when the Summit Leaders will start practising what they preach.



ABORTION


Mr. Gus Mitges (Grey-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, there is no question that the medical profession has a long-standing tradition of responsibility for caring for people. However, the medical profession is now in danger of self-destructing unless it ceases to be prostituted to bestow an appearance of supporting the anti-child, non-medical, and non-therapeutic act of abortion.
Conducting abortions in which the patient is not suffering a life-threatening situation has nothing remotely to do with healing, or the healing arts, at whatever stage the pregnancy is terminated. As one doctor stated: "It is now past time for doctors and medicine to dissociate themselves from both abortion on demand and from the abortion of the unborn who are thought to suffer from grave mental or physical disability". This doctor also advocated: "Physicians performing an abortion when the life of the mother is not in jeopardy should have their licence suspended".
There is now an ever-growing list of Doctors for Life who will not perform abortions because they believe that unborn children are, indeed, human beings. It is our hope that more and more doctors will join Doctors for Life for the sake of all our unborn children.



FREE TRADE BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY CONFERENCES

Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Mr. Speaker, tomorrow and Wednesday we see the Conservative propaganda machine in action as the Free Trade Business Opportunity Conferences start in Toronto. "Canadian business," the ad states, "needs to know about the opportunities flowing from..." the U.S. trade deal. So there will be "experts on exports" there, especially the keynote speakers, those well-known trade experts, the Minister for International Trade (Mr. Crosbie) and the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mrs. MacDougall).
June 27, 1988

Will they tell their audiences about the tragic loss of independence that this deal would bring Canada? Will they explain how we will not have the right to require performance requirements from foreign firms? Will they explain how U.S. health management companies and labs will get the right to come forth and undercut our not-for-profit health system? Will they explain the risk to our regional development programs?
I bet that the answer is no. The program ends at 3 p.m.- early for a serious export conference, but just in time for television deadlines.



HIGHWAYS


Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Mr. Speaker, the sinews of a nation are its transportation links. We move over 250 billion tons of freight annually over our highways. Over the last 15 years the number of registered trucks per kilometre has nearly doubled.
We expect more from our highways but are spending less. If our highway system is to be kept up to date and expanded, then all levels of government must be prepared to allocate more resources to this end. In particular, funding for roads in the Territories has slowed to a trickle. This is unacceptable in an area where there is a desperate need for new and improved highways.



THE LATE DR. STANLEY HUDECKI

Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: Mr. Speaker, the whole of Hamilton mourned yesterday when we heard of the death of former Member of Parliament for Hamilton West, Dr. Stan Hudecki. Although Dr. Hudecki was here in Parliament for a period of only four years he touched the city of Hamilton in a much greater way. Dr. Hudecki was well respected throughout the community for his work with St. Joseph's Hospital, and for his strong commitment to his religious and family values.
I can remember knocking on doors with Stan and as we went from house to house, in his stolid way, those of us who knew Stan, would say: "Come on Stan, let's get to the door". Stan would say: "I operated on this woman", or "I knew this man."
He had a reputation in the community that spoke above Party lines. You will remember, Mr. Speaker, that he was one of the few Members in the Liberal Party who did not support the repatriation of the Constitution because of his strong belief in the values and the rights of the unborn.
He was a man of principle. Although he was a representative of one particular political Party, he had valour and integrity that rose above Party lines. I see my colleague, the Hon. Member for Muskoka (Mr. Darling), nodding his head.
Stan will be missed. To Leona and family we send our sympathies. He had a strong community and family commitment with literally the whole family behind him. Stan, we will really miss you.



SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY


Mrs. Suzanne Duplessis (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State (Science and Technology)):: Mr. Speaker, a few days ago I had the pleasure, along with the Minister of State for Science and Technology (Mr. Oberle), to officially open the National Optics Institute in Sainte-Foy in the riding of Louis-Hebert.
During the electoral campaign, I had promised to have this important institute settle in Sainte-Foy and I am very proud to say today that I have delivered the goods.
I must mention that this 35 million dollar project was made possible through the co-operative efforts of all interested parties: Laval University, CRIQ, GATIQ, INRS, the Chamber of Commerce, Inter-Port, the private sector, as well as the constant co-operation of the Quebec Government and the Federal Government.
Today I would also like to thank the Minister of State (Science and Technology), the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion and Minister of State for Science and Technology (Mr. de Cotret) for their relentless support and to recall the vision of Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) when he visited Louis-Hebert in 1982: In this riding and in this region, he said, you have everything it takes to become a key research and development center.
Today, the vision has come true thanks to the commitment of our Prime Minister and our Government and this shows once again that the Progressive Conservative Government keeps its promises.

June 27, 1988



AEROSPACE INDUSTRY


Mr. Cyril Keeper (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, when the F-5 fighter repair and upgrading contract was awarded to Bristol Aerospace in Winnipeg, Winnipeg was promised a world-wide mandate for upgrading and repair of these airplanes.
Now we hear through Canadian press reports from Northrop Corporation, Bristol, and from federal government sources, that no such mandate ever was possible. An industry official was quoted as saying:
"I've been hearing all this talk about all this work they're going to get and I'm just not sure it's there ... I think they're talking about a big deal that just doesn't exist."
It is time for the Government to come clean and admit that it was making inflated promises to Winnipeg. It is time for the Government to get serious about aerospace in this country and develop an aerospace strategy that will be fair for Winnipeg and effective for Canada.
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REGIONAL INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT


[Stage Direction]
(1410)


Mr. Brian Tobin (Humber-Port au Port-St. Barbe):: Mr. Speaker, Newfoundlanders witnessed the signing, a little over a week ago, of an agreement between the Government of Ottawa and the Government of Newfoundland to phase out of existence totally the 100-year old Newfoundland Railway. This deal was done by putting forward a package of dollars to be spent over 15 years to upgrade the highway, amounting to some $700 million, and to shut down the railway almost immediately, effective September 1, 1988.
Newfoundlanders accept the notion that a railway can be phased out for a better highway system if it is not competitive. What we cannot accept is that the amount of money involved will not upgrade the highway. More important, as part of the deal the Government of Canada forced the Government of Newfoundland, and the Government of Newfoundland accepted this, to give up an obligation under the 1949 Terms of Union between Newfoundland and Canada for the Government in Ottawa to provide part of the cost of a national transportation system in the Province of Newfoundland. Ottawa, with the Government of Newfoundland, negotiated away that obligation under the Terms of Union.
We in this Party do not accept making the poorest province in Canada pay that kind of price for a decent transportation system. We commit ourselves to effecting a constitutional amendment to ensure that that Term of Union of 1949 is protected in the Constitution of Canada.


Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, the Senneterre Business Assistance Centre was established thanks to an Employment and Immigration Canada program and especially to persons concerned with the economic and industrial development in the Barraute, Senneterre, Lebel-sur-Quevillon and Malartic areas.
The Centre began its operations on July 15, 1985 and has responded to more than 350 technical and/or financial assistance applications. It has co-operated with promoters and owners of small and medium businesses in the investment of 1.1 million dollar in loans. These promoters and owners have themselves invested 1.3 million dollars. This co-operation has generated total investments of 5 million dollars. The 38 assisted businesses have created 66 jobs and maintained 54 others, for a grand total of 120 jobs.
Mr. Speaker, such is the excellent work accomplished by Mr. Jean G. Gobeil, Director General, his permanent staff and the board of directors.



CANADA-UNITED STATES FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

Mr. Ron Stewart (Simcoe South):: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Mulroney) favours free trade. The President of the U.S. extols free trade. The "Iron Lady" Prime Minister of Britain praises free trade. The Chancellor of West Germany epitomizes free trade. All of these people spoke eloquently and convincingly in this Chamber of the great future of this nation with free trade. The remaining Toronto Summiteers exuded confidence in free trade, praised our deal with the U.S. and decried protectionism.
The majority of Canadians favour free trade, with numbers increasing daily in lock-step with growing Conservative popularity. Who opposes free trade? It is left-wing jingoes, the two Leaders of the opposition Parties, and the fast-slipping in popularity Premier of Ontario.
June 27, 1988

Who favours free trade? Eighty per cent of Canadian manufacturers by poll, Liberal Senator Van Roggen and exLiberal Minister of Finance Donald Macdonald. Now Milton Harris, Liberal bagman, has left the Party because he favours free trade and in opposition to the head-in-the-sand attitudes of the Hon. Member for Windsor West (Mr. Gray) and the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Fort Garry (Mr. Axworthy), uncontrolled by their Leader, and destroying fund-raising efforts as well. We Canadians win with free trade with more and better jobs and a real future.
1 strongly urge the Minister to review the Criminal Code to bring in tough penalties of equal value for those who kidnap and for those who avail themselves of their services. A minimum of 25 years with no possibility of parole should be the starting point. Our society must be protected from these human flesh predators.

*
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CANADA POST CORPORATION


Ms. Marion Dewar (Hamilton Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, on three separate occasions last week, Westcliff Mall Post Office in my riding was closed for the afternoon. While this fact may not appear to be of great importance, it was significant to the customers who entered the mall expecting to get services from the post office. There had been no prior notification of the closures and no explanation, just a sign on the window saying "closed".
The two clerks who work in the post office had received a telephone call from their wicket supervisor asking them to close up immediately in order to perform relief work in other parts of the city. What else can this be but a blatant attempt by Canada Post to discredit the service provided by the Westcliff Mall Post Office? Customers entering the mall would understandably become upset when they realized that postal services were not available. It is another example of the corporation's insidious efforts to implement its corporate franchising plan by undermining the image of the Westcliff Mall Post Office.



SAULT STE. MARIE SHIP CANAL

Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Mr. Speaker, almost a year ago the Sault Ste. Marie Ship Canal developed a fault which closed it down and resulted in the lay-off of over one dozen employees. The canal has been stabilized but no decision has been made to replace it.
The City of Sault Ste. Marie and other people concerned have called on the Government to replace this major shipping link between Lake Superior and Lake Huron, yet the Government has failed to act. It has not even committed enough money for the engineering to take place to decide whether a project should go ahead. When a decision is finally made it will take over two years for construction.
I call on the Government to make a commitment today not only to do the engineering to determine that the ship canal should be replaced but to go ahead and complete the replacement and rehabilitation of this major tourist and shipping link in Sault Ste. Marie.



INCOME TAX


Mr. John Oostrom (Willowdale):: Mr. Speaker, a report to the Western European Justice Ministers states that over one million children are kidnapped and sold into prostitution each year as part of a billion-dollar international sex racket. The trafficking in children is becoming the fastest growing criminal activity in the world.
This type of crime, in my eyes, is no different from murder. One cannot imagine the anguish, terror, and suffering that the children and families involved go through when these kidnappings occur.


Gabriel Fontaine: Mr. Speaker, for the first time since the implementation, in 1917, of the Income Tax Act, Canadian citizens are paying less income tax.
Effective January 1, 1988-as every Canadian will find out from his or her paycheck covering the first week of July 88, 9,7 million households representing over 85 per cent of Canadians will benefit from an average tax savings of $490 and 850 000 low-income citizens will no longer pay any income tax.
While cutting down the deficit and maintaining service to our citizens in need, we managed to reduce income tax. It is welcome news for Canadian consumers and a boost to this country's builders.
Many thanks to our Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson)!

June 27, 1988
Oral Questions



EXTERNAL AID


Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, today the Eritrean Canadian community is holding a demonstration on Parliament Hill and at the Soviet Embassy in support of emergency relief and Eritrean self-determination and in opposition to Ethiopian aggression and the massacre of civilians by Soviet supplied napalm and cluster-bombs.
According to the Eritrean Relief Association more than 180,000 Eritreans, mostly women and children, have been displaced from their villages. Emergency relief aid is desperately needed.
1 call upon the Minister for External Relations (Mrs. Landry) to send emergency relief directly to Eritrea on an urgent basis and call upon the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark) to demand that the Ethiopian Government stop using Soviet napalm and cluster-bombs on women and children.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Right Hon. John N. Turner (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. On the one hand, today in Toronto the Prime Minister was talking about world drought, the greenhouse effect, and the problems posed for the entire world by climatic change. On the other hand, Canada has a disastrous drought in western Canada. Twenty-four thousand farmers have left the land in the last year and the Government spends almost three times more on propaganda for its trade deal than it does on a concrete program for western farmers and the drought.
Why doesn't the Government introduce a really comprehensive program to aid the farmers of western Canada who are being driven from the land because of drought?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I am really quite surprised by the comment of the Leader of the Opposition because Canadian farmers will be happy to tell him that aid from Ottawa to the agricultural community has increased by about 400 per cent since our Government took office.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: With regard to the very special problem of the drought which is debilitating many parts of western
Canada and the industrialized world, the Minister of Agriculture has already put together the first part of an important package to assist farmers. The second is on its way and will be announced just as soon as we can.


PROPOSED DISASTER RELIEF FUND
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister was speaking in general terms about global climatic change in Toronto today. What might have changed is also affecting in a long term way the future of Canadian farmers. Increasing droughts and a hotter world climate are not something the Prime Minister surely discovered today in Toronto. Granted, we cannot solve the problems alone, but there are things that the Government can do for Canadians within our own territory.
Three years ago, during another drought season, I called upon the Government of Canada to promote and present a federal-provincial agricultural disaster relief fund. In response to that, on November 27, 1985, the Minister of Agriculture announced, in his words: "We are working toward having a long term disaster assistance program in place for this year's planting season".
1985 has gone by as well as 1986, 1987, and half of 1988, and we still do not have in place a long-term program for agricultural disaster relief. How is that delay going to be explained to the farmers of western Canada?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, we have been working with regard to programs such as soil conservation and water resource management with provincial Governments on behalf of farmers. We have worked very closely with the farm organizations.
I met them again just before the Summit and I believe one of them pointed out publicly that that was the seventh meeting I had held with them since I had become Prime Minister, and that it was the first time the Prime Minister of Canada had held such a series of meetings with agricultural leaders across Canada.
We have provided, as I think we should have, a great amount of assistance with regard to drought, when there were floods, and when the problem of grasshoppers arose in western Canada. We provided the largest single deficiency payment in the history of Canada to the agricultural community.
When the agricultural community has been in difficulty it has known that this Government would respond to assist in its problems. We have in the past and we will again in the future.


REQUEST FOR LONG-TERM ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, it is all very well for the Prime Minister to go to Toronto and talk in general global terms about the problem, but western farmers are still awaiting the results of a promise
June 27, 1988

made by his Government two and a half years ago to come up with a long-term drought program.
When I was in Saskatoon last week I received questions which 1 am now going to put to the Prime Minister. Where is the long-term drought assistance program? Where is the support for long-term water storage programs in western Canada? Where are the projects to move water to the drought areas? Where are the programs to move feed to the drought areas? Where are the programs to move cattle to areas outside those areas?
Those are the programs western farmers are asking for and they are not going to be overly impressed by the Prime Minister's speech in Toronto.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my recollection is that in the Prince Albert declaration a little more than four years ago we made some 57 or 58 commitments to western agriculture. We have delivered on between 85 and 90 per cent of the entire package.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: I do not know, Mr. Speaker, why my right hon. friend suggests that it was inappropriate for me to go to Toronto this morning to discuss the important matters of the environment. Surely he would not disagree with my obligation to do that. We certainly do not do this to the exclusion of the agricultural industry or without profound sympathy for it facing the drought which is affecting Canadian agriculture at the moment.
Even my right hon. friend would not blame me for the drought. I know he blames me for everything else, but even he wouldn't try that one.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Well, it's caused by hot air.


Martin Brian Mulroney: If my hon. friend visited with western farmers he would find that most of them would tell him that this Government has done more for western agriculture than any other Government.


REQUEST FOR ANNOUNCEMENT OF LIVESTOCK STABILIZATION PROGRAM
Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, since last fall the moisture reserves in western Canada have been at an alltime low. The Minister of Agriculture has been talking about committee meetings since the first of the year. It is almost the first of July. Many crops are not even being planted this year.
When is the Government going to announce a program for stabilization of the livestock industry? Feed prices are going up. Cattle prices are going down. Western farmers want to know when the Government is going to put in place a livestock stabilization program so that they will know they can keep their herds throughout the summer.
Oral Questions
The Government has been talking about committee meetings and consultations. Western farmers want to know when there will be action.


Mr. Lee Clark (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, unlike the previous Government, our Government believes in consultation because in the end the results demonstrate its utility.
Some four weeks ago the Minister of Agriculture, the Minister responsible for the Wheat Board, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and myself met with our counterparts and industry representatives in Calgary. We worked out a timetable which we have been following very closely since then.
Since those meetings some four weeks ago, industry representatives, in consultation with the federal Government and the provinces, have worked closely on a package that we suspect will be put in place soon. In the meantime, we announced in Calgary some $12 million to assist PFRA, which is part of a long-term strategy to work closely with the cattle industry and effect the transportation of water. In addition, there have been some changes to regulations with respect to crop insurance, which are also designed to meet the needs of the farmers in the short term.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


TIMING OF PROGRAMS
Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, we heard the Parliamentary Secretary and the Prime Minister give a recitation of what they are talking about and thinking about. Western Canadians want to know when the Government will act. When will the Government bring in a livestock stabilization program? When will it provide an income tax deferral mechanism for herds that have to be dispersed? When will the Government provide assistance for moving cattle out of the drought area? We want to know when the Government will act. Why does it refuse to act?


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Mr. Speaker, when the Hon. Member talks about the Government refusing to act, I can only assume he is looking back into history. Unlike that administration, this Government, this Prime Minister, the Minister of Agriculture and others-


Sheila Maureen Copps: You have been there four years.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: -have been working on behalf of Canadian farmers since we were elected in 1984. We will continue to do so.
In addition, there is a crop insurance program that was not in place a year ago.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Twenty-four thousand have left.

June 27, 1988
Oral Questions


Sheila Maureen Copps: Issue the writ.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: We are following the advice of people like Stan Wilson, who are giving us a timetable-


Sheila Maureen Copps: Call the election-


Maurice Brydon Foster: Twenty-four thousand have left.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: The farmers are looking for action, not for advice such as they are receiving from Hon. Members like those from the Hamilton area.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: This Government has been there on behalf of Canadian farmers in the past and we will continue to be there in the future.


REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE FOR LIVESTOCK PRODUCERS
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister said a few weeks ago that something would be done soon about the impact of the drought on western producers. The Parliamentary Secretary said a month ago that something was put in the works and a timetable established.
When I was there two weeks ago, farmers in western Canada were saying that they had been waiting two weeks which, for them, was already two weeks too long in meeting the needs of the cattle producers in particular.
A one-shot deal of perhaps $80 to $100 per head of cattle would cost the federal Government about $100 million now. The federal Government has only spent $12 million since the drought began, to deal with the problem. Will the Government commit itself to a one-time assistance program of $80 to $100 per head now so that western producers can make the decision either to get water and feed to their cattle, or get their cattle to the water and feed? Will the Government make that decision now rather than some point down the road?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, when the farmers on the Prairies, through their Governments, asked us to respond to very serious problems some time ago with respect to grain production, we responded, as my friend knows, with the largest deficiency payment in the history of Canadian agriculture. So I think that indicates the sensitivity that we try to bring to bear to these very legitimate problems affecting Canadian agriculture.
There is not a problem more legitimate than the one being discussed now and we view it with great care and concern and will continue to do so. My hon. friend, the Parliamentary Secretary, has indicated we are following, with the concurrence of agricultural leaders, a very strict timetable. I can assure my hon. friend that the farmers of Canada who, through no fault of their own, are suffering severely because of
these climatic conditions, will find in the Government of Canada, as they have in the past, a strong friend and ally.


FEDERAL FUNDING REQUEST
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I say to the Prime Minister that the farmers are looking for an immediate answer to their needs. The Prime Minister referred to the large deficiency payment the Government granted. He did not mention this announcement was made in the middle of a Saskatchewan election.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. McDermid:: It was delivered, Ed.


John Edward Broadbent: Considering the Government did not hesitate to promise to spend $163 million to the voters in the by-election at Lac-Saint-Jean recently, will the Government commit itself to what would amount to $63 million less than this amount for all four of the western provinces affected in this particular circumstance? Will the Government spend that money now when it is needed instead of waiting for byelections to be called in every region across western Canada?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I am sort of surprised to hear my hon friend speaking so disparagingly of by-elections. He was calling for one and he predicted he was going to win.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Hnatyshyn:: One of the best 10 you have in Quebec.


John Edward Broadbent: No, let's have a general one!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Then I find my hon. friend is saying that the farmers are looking for some quick answers. I am informed by the Minister of Justice that, when the Leader of the New Democratic Party was in Regina, he was asked for his drought program and he said it would be issued during the next election campaign.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: That is exactly right. We had to wait a long time.


An Hon. Member:: That will be a drought for the NDP.


Martin Brian Mulroney: I can't think of anything more offensive than issuing those things during election campaigns. My hon. friend, if he has anything to say on behalf of the farmers, should say them now. Canadian farmers, east and west, have found in this Government a ready friend and trusting ally. We have responded with alacrity before and we will again. Right now the farmers are hurting and this Government will help them.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I say to the Prime Minister that the Minister of Justice is wrong again. If he had attended the press conference, he would have heard that we called on the federal Government to produce the $80 to $100 per head
June 27, 1988

of cattle. We also called for an emergency program of the kind the Government promised in 1985 and still has not delivered.


REQUEST FOR IMMEDIATE ANNOUNCEMENT OF ASSISTANCE
John Edward Broadbent: Since the need is pressing now on the Prairies and since the Government could find $163 million to spend in a by-election, will it announce the $100 million that is badly needed by the farmers on the Prairies today instead of waiting for an election when the Government can find money to spend?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, it is more and more disturbing to see the socialist leader reproach the federal Government for spending money in Quebec or elsewhere, whether during an election campaign or not. That fact is, as he very well knows, that the Canadian Government in no way spent $163 million in Lac-Saint-Jean- he knows that very well. It is a falsehood that he is no doubt repeating inadvertently.
Regarding farmers in western Canada, Quebec and throughout the country, they know very well that unlike the previous Government, we never told farmers that they could go sell their own wheat.

We never said: "Go sell your own wheat". We said we were going to help the farmers of Canada and that is what we have done consistently since we have been here.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF KENYAN MINISTER OF ENERGY
Mr. Speaker:: I wish to draw to the attention of Hon. Members the presence in the gallery of the Hon. Minister of Energy, the Hon. Nicholas Biwott, of the Government of Kenya.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


AIR CANADA
Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, if manure production is the mark of expertise in farming, the Prime Minister takes the hat hands down.


An Hon. Member:: Look whose talking!
Oral Questions


Brian Vincent Tobin: My question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. It concerns Air Canada's announced planned replacement of its fleet of 727s. The reported leading candidate for replacement of the 727s is the Airbus A-320. The Deputy Prime Minister will know that yesterday in France, during a demonstration flight, an Airbus 320 crashed resulting in three deaths and nearly 100 injuries. Indeed, I am sure all Members regret the loss of life and the injuries. The cause of that crash is yet unknown.
Can the Deputy Prime Minister assure the House that Air Canada will not proceed with what is reported to be a $3 billion purchase of new aircraft until a full and complete investigation is undertaken to ensure the air worthiness and safety integrity of the Airbus 320 aircraft?


Hon. Gerry St. Germain (Minister of State (Transport)):: Mr. Speaker, like the Hon. Member, we would offer as a Government our sympathy to the victims of that unfortunate incident in France.
With respect to the Member's question, I believe it is best answered by reading the press release of Air Canada. President Pierre Jeanniot has said no decision has been made on which new aircraft it will buy. The airline is also considering planes from Boeing and MacDonald Douglas. No decision has been made at this point and I believe it would be premature to pass judgment on any decision at this time.


REQUEST DECISION BE POSTPONED PENDING INVESTIGATION OF CRASH
Brian Vincent Tobin: The
Airbus 320 is the first non-military aircraft in the world to use a fully computerized flight control system. Outside of military aircraft that kind of system is not being utilized anywhere else. Today in France the company's official spokesman indicated that the crash may have been caused by pilot error. That comment was made before any investigation whatsoever was carried out. The company has an interest in saying that.
Once again, can the Minister of State for Transport give the House the assurance that Air Canada will not consider, nor will it take any decision to buy the A-320 Airbus aircraft until such time as a complete investigation has been carried out and that investigation has been verified independently by Canadian officials to ensure that, if that aircraft flies in Canada, it is an aircraft that meets with the kind of standards we set in this country?


Gerry St. Germain: Mr. Speaker, as the Hon. Member knows, the investigation of the French civil aviation authorities is under way. I think it would be premature for anyone in this House or anywhere else to pass judgment or to make any comment with respect to this investigation because it may prejudice the investigation.
As far as the decision being made is concerned, I cite the words, I have full faith in the board and the management of Air Canada. They are still in the process of making their

June 27, 1988
Oral Questions
evaluations. They have not made a choice. We have said this in the House before and we are saying it today. I am sure all in this House would agree that a thorough evaluation should be done before a selection is made.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Vic Althouse (Humboldt-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture. More than two million head of cattle are caught in the severe drought zone in western Canada. Farmers and ranchers have been moving old hay at considerable expense to maintain this herd. Has the Government yet decided what the crop insurance rule should be for turning cattle into the dried out crop as cattle feed before it, too, turns brown and blows away?


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Mr. Speaker, as I indicated in response to an earlier question, there have already been some modifications announced by provincial officials with respect to crop insurance. I do know, and the Hon. Member will appreciate, that the recommendation he suggests is one which has already been offered by the industry and is a point of the discussions currently taking place between the federal Minister of Agriculture, the provincial Ministers, and those officials representing them. I would suspect there will be some announcement in the very near future.


SUGGESTED USE OF PASTURE LAND IN WILDLIFE SANCTUARIES
Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that we will eventually hear an announcement on this matter. For several weeks people have been waiting. Some crops have now gone beyond the pasture stage and have been completely lost to those cattle.
Is it the Government's intention to make any use of the close to 40,000 acres, or 15,600 hectares, of pastureland in the wildlife sanctuaries, including the Last Mountain Bird Sanctuary in my riding, since the birds do not eat the grass and will not be using it in July and August anyway? It would be a nice reciprocal arrangement in this time of stress since they were eating and have always eaten farmers' crops in the surrounding areas in years past.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Mr. Speaker, I do know that with respect to the Hon. Member's last point certainly one of the ongoing conflicts between the farming community and the supporters
of the wildlife community is the type of conflict of which he speaks.
Having said that, I know that officials are trying to find all available resources for feed which can be used in the shortterm. As the Hon. Member knows, a number of cattle have been moved off the range to northern areas. Some have been brought into Manitoba. In addition to that-


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: No thanks to you.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: The Hon. Member for Regina West says: "No thanks to you". One of the things that farmers in western Canada know is that when the drought took place in 1984-85 we were there with assistance to cattle producers with respect to so much per head. They also have faith in our record. They know that because we were there in the past we will be there in the future. They believe in us. Quite frankly, they are very grateful. One of the things for which they can be grateful is the fact that we are the Government of the day rather than the Party of the Hon. Member.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Hon. Andre Ouellet (Papineau):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs and concerns our relations with the Government of the Soviet Union. The diplomatic saga is taking on very worrying and regrettable proportions and I would like to ask the Secretary of State whether he intends to take measures to restore normal relations with the Soviet Union as soon as possible.


Right Hon. Joe Clark (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member and the House know that the Soviet Union was involved in activities here which were unacceptable to Canada. I addressed those in a statement in the House the other day.
This afternoon I will be meeting the Ambassador of the Soviet Union to Canada. I have called him into my office.
The Hon. Member will also know that I have been in touch with him, representatives of the New Democratic Party, and with the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the House, with respect to a confidential briefing this afternoon on some of the circumstances which have led Canada to take this action.
June 27, 1988


NATIONAL SECURITY
André Ouellet: Mr. Speaker, on June 22, the Minister told this House:
We are confident that Canadian security was not compromised and that
Canadian authorities have acted to preserve our security.
Can the Minister still maintain this position and confirm for us that this statement made last week still stands today?


Charles Joseph Clark: Yes, Mr. Speaker.


RAILWAYS
Mr. Jack Harris (St. John's East):: Mr. Speaker, the Deputy Prime Minister stated in this House last Monday that the railway workers of the Newfoundland Railway supported the financial package which closed the Newfoundland Railway and would provide $70 million for labour adjustment. Was it because they had been deceived by the statements of the Minister for International Trade and the President of CN into thinking that the $70 million was available for negotiated benefits over and above what their collective agreement or employment contracts required?
Will the Deputy Prime Minister end the uncertainty among workers and confirm, first, that there is no extra $70 million available to the employees in addition to the contractual obligation of CN; and, second, that this money is not part of the Government's contribution since CN is already obliged to make these payments to its workers?


Gerry St. Germain: Mr. Speaker, I believe the Hon. Member knows that the negotiations will take place on July 5. I think anything that we do at this point in time could possibly damage any negotiations that will take place. The package that will be put in place will be one of the most generous that this country has ever seen.


GOVERNMENT POSITION
Jack Harris: Mr. Speaker, the confusion that the Government has created among the workers of CN in Newfoundland is astounding. The workers were convinced that the Government has a package of $70 million over and above their contractual obligations. I now hear that this is not the case. Why does the Minister not come clean and tell the people the truth?
Oral Questions


Gerry St. Germain: Mr. Speaker, I repeat again that it would be premature and irresponsible to make any statements until we have sat down and properly negotiated the agreements as laid out.


HOUSING
Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State for the Treasury Board. It involves the disposal of federal surplus lands. When the federal Government is disposing of surplus lands it has a policy of offering them first to provincial Governments, and then to municipal Governments, before making them available for housing.
Will the Minister direct the Bureau of Real Property Management of the Treasury Board to adopt a housing first policy so that when surplus lands are disposed of, particularly in areas where there is a housing crisis such as Metropolitan Toronto, they will be offered first for badly needed housing before anything else?


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, the House should know that since we took office in 1984 we have adopted a policy of reviewing the federal Government's landholdings and wherever possible disposing of excess federal property. To date we have sold some 492 properties. That has returned to the Treasury some $171 million.
Specifically with respect to the Hon. Member's question, I would tell my hon. friend that a review of federal landholdings in the Toronto area is presently under way. Once that is completed it is a question of discussing the matter with the provincial and municipal authorities and deciding on the best use of that property. That decision will be taken at that time.


LABOUR RELATIONS
Mr. Jacques Guilbault (Saint-Jacques):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to raise the issue of the operators' and technicians' strike at Bell Canada, which threatens to affect telephone services for about seven million Canadians who reside in Quebec, Ontario and the North West Territories. Those most likely to be affected are people with a hearing disability and the physically disabled who need operator assistance to make a call. Furthermore, people who are trying to communicate an

June 27, 1988
Oral Questions
emergency situation cannot make do with a tape recorder that answers "This is a recording".


Mr. Grise:: Don't call us, we'll call you.


Jacques Guilbault: I therefore want to ask the Government, which certainly has a responsibility to ensure that such services are maintained, to inform the House what it intends to do so that the disabled can continue to make calls during the strike and emergency situations can still be reported.


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I understand from my colleague, the Minister of Labour, that officers of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service have been in contact with the parties and are following the developments in the dispute. There was a conciliation process in place earlier that failed to win the support of the union members.
I understand that under its terms of licence the company must continue to provide service and that it is prepared to do
so.
We will of course continue to monitor the situation. It is a legal strike. My colleague, the Minister of Labour, will be following the situation to ensure that for those in need there will be the necessary services.
[ Translation]


Jacques Guilbault: Mr. Speaker, while I was asking my question, the Member for Beauce thought he was being funny when he said: "Don't call us, we'll call you!" That shows the extent of his concern for the disabled.


Sheila Maureen Copps: The clown from Beauce.


CONCILIATION COMMISSIONER'S REPORT
Jacques Guilbault: We are aware that a report had been commissioned from Mr. Warren Edmunson, a conciliation commissioner. We know the Government has a copy of the report in hand. I would like to ask if the Government is in a position to table the report forthwith, or at least to release the essential elements of the report in order that Canadians may better understand the issues at stake, especially as they threaten a service that they have paid for and to which they feel entitled?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, I am clearly not in a position to commit my honourable colleague to releasing a report, and the Hon. Member knows that.
In other very sensitive situations like this, I know that he has taken a very active role behind the scenes in a way that has been helpful to the parties. That will continue in this case. I am sure when he returns he will be able to respond directly.


CANADA POST CORPORATION
Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister responsible for the Post Office. For some time Canadians have been protesting the Government's destructive post office policy which has meant the closure of rural post offices, and the denial of door-to-door service in suburban areas in an arbitrary fashion.
Does the Minister believe that Canadians will accept, as a substitute for a change in policy, the appointment of a paper tiger that has no decision-making power, headed by a known Tory who makes donations to his political Party?
Does the Minister not realize that Canadians will see through this effort to escape the political heat on the eve of an election?


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that the rhetoric in the Hon. Member's question is evidence in itself why it would be useful to have an independent third party evaluate questions as to changes in service policies, rates, and so on.
For example, the Hon. Member talks about concerns regarding changes in rural post office delivery mechanisms, yet in his own province independent polls indicate that those affected by the changes find them quite proper and over 85 per cent approve the changes. It is far preferable to have an independent third party look at those questions than to have the type of rhetoric put forward by the Hon. Member as some basis for making decisions.


APPOINTMENT OF CHAIRMAN
Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the same Minister. If this Committee is going to be as objective as those polls were then Canadians are in for a mean surprise.
If the Minister wanted this committee to be independent and wanted the Post Office to operate independently, why did the Minister not give it decision-making authority? Why did he choose to appoint a known Tory to head this committee, if he wanted it to be seen as an independent body?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, the board will have five members. The appointments were made today of Mr. Alan Marchment, who did an excellent job of studying the Post Office and task force report, and who is clearly one of the Canadians most knowledgeable about the operation of the Post Office; Mrs. Sally Hall, past President of the Consumers' Association of Canada; and Mr. Claude Senneville, a former member of the National Energy Board. To suggest those three people, plus the other two who have not been appointed yet, are somehow not to be trusted, are going to do all kinds of damage, as opposed to the kind of advice the Hon. Member is getting from Jean-Claude Parrot, is an absurdity.
June 27, 1988


EMPLOYMENT
Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Employment and Immigration. Last week, on June 22, the Advisory Council to the Minister of Employment and Immigration submitted a report which stated: "It is evident that the employment situation of older workers has not improved since 1985 when the Advisory Council report on Older Workers was published and, in fact, it has deteriorated".
In the 1985 report the Advisory Council made 10 recommendations to assist unemployed older workers. After three years none of those recommendations has been implemented, including the Program for Older Worker Adjustment promised by the Government in February, 1986.
When does the Minister intend to start listening to her advisory council? Why is she ignoring older workers?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, the Government has not in any way ignored older workers. My colleague, the Minister of Labour, has been developing a policy on older workers. The unemployment rate among older workers is improved, as it is throughout the whole economic system.
In respect to the report that the Hon. Member speaks of, I met with the advisory board this morning at its meeting in Ottawa. We discussed older workers, among other things. I am prepared to take all of its recommendations into account.


MINISTER'S POSITION
[Stage Direction]
Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine
East): Mr. Speaker, there has not been an improvement for older workers. That is why last week the Minister's advisory council recommended that she take action on the 10 recommendations that it made in 1985, on which nothing has been done.
The Minister states that a new program for older workers is being negotiated. The Minister and her predecessor have been doing that for two years, and the Minister has not got agreement with the provinces. She should have kept in place the Labour Adjustment Benefit Program which was helping older workers, and not cancelled it before the other program was ready.
I wish to ask the Minister, what are her reasons for not acting on the advisory council report? What reasons does she have for ignoring this problem?
Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, we are not ignoring this problem. The Hon. Member, as usual, is not correct. The unemployment rate for older workers is 5.2 per cent, well below the national average for all workers. Employment among older workers has increased by 119,000 jobs.
Oral Questions
We do regard this as a particular problem, and we do understand the uniqueness of older workers. Older workers also qualify for all of the programs within the Canadian Jobs Strategy, and many of them have been taking advantage of it. That is one reason that many of them are able to find new occupations.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. As a result of the closure of the railway in Newfoundland a great deal of equipment suitable for narrow-gauge railways will be available. There are indications that South Africa has expressed an interest.
What will Canada's response be if South Africa does indeed enter into negotiations in an attempt to purchase this equipment?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member is bringing that possibility-and he made it clear that it was no more than a possibility, no more than a hypothesis-to my attention for the first time. I will look into it.


SOUTH AFRICA-POSSIBILITY OF ASSISTING FRONTLINE STATES
Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, when looking into the issue of possible South African purchase of this equipment, will the Secretary of State also engage in consideration of the possibility of making that equipment available to the frontline States where narrow-gauge equipment is also employed?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member knows two things which I will take the opportunity to bring to his attention again. One, the Government has been very active and remains very active in the fight against apartheid, and in seeking practically and positively to indicate to that regime in South Africa that it should change a policy which Canadians find unacceptable. Second, the Government has been very active in providing practical help to the frontline States.
If it turns out that there may be some other practical help that we can provide to them, we will in the future, as we have in the past, do that.
I will take the Hon. Member's representations in that light and see if there is any action that should be taken.

June 27, 1988
Business of the House


OFFICIAL LANGUAGES
Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister and concerns the fate of the francophone minority in Alberta. If I am not mistaken, the Government of Alberta intends to agree to give its language minority rights it already has under the Canadian Constitution and only in two areas: the courts and education. Could the Prime Minister give the House the assurance that any accord, agreement or contract signed by the federal Government and the Government of Alberta will include a requirement by the federal Government of full accountability on the part of the Province of Alberta, so that once and for all, we can be certain that educational rights as defined under Section 23 of the Constitution will be assured, and that we will see some progress on access to the courts very shortly in Alberta?


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, as the Hon. Member will know, the statement made by the Province of Alberta has been responded to by the Minister of State for Federal-Provincial Relations who has set out, as has been confirmed by the Deputy Prime Minister in the House, our disappointment with respect to the response of the Alberta Government. Having said that, we are quite prepared to co-operate, as we have demonstrated with the Province of Saskatchewan, in entering into arrangements with the Province of Alberta to make resources available to ensure that minority rights in the Province of Alberta are in fact protected.
Indeed, I am very pleased to be able to announce that the Secretary of State has today entered into an agreement with the Province of Prince Edward Island with respect to a general agreement on official languages. The Premier of the Province of Prince Edward Island said that he was delighted that Prince Edward Island had obtained the Canadian Government's cooperation in its efforts to increase its capability to interact with the French-speaking people of Prince Edward Island in French.
We are taking action. This is another example of the way in which we have been able to work with the provinces to ensure the rights of minorities in the provinces.


GOVERNMENT POSITION
Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker,
I am not surprised that an agreement was signed with Prince Edward Island which has a Liberal Government in place. I can
tell the Minister right now that it was much easier to settle with Prince Edward Island than it will be to settle with the Tory Government of Alberta.
Since Alberta has refused to concede and to open its arms generously to its minority, as Saskatchewan, the Minister's own province, did, will the Minister at least give the House a guarantee that if the Government accedes to some request from Alberta in terms of the language of the courts and educational rights, rights which are at this time in the Constitution but which for the last seven or eight years Francophones in alberta have been refused, will the Minister make sure that the federal Government is accountable to the House and to the people of Canada for the expenditure of those funds?


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, I hope that the Hon. Member's observation with respect to the political stripe of the Government of Prince Edward Island was in jest. I know that he of all people in this House would not want to politicize this very important issue.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: I didn't ask about P.E.I., you raised it.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: I raised the fact that we in the federal Government indeed had entered into another agreement, first with Saskatchewan, now with Prince Edward Island. We have committed ourselves to a full process of consultation and discussion with the Province of Alberta. Indeed, these discussions are ongoing and we are quite prepared to do the same thing we have demonstrated we have been able to do in the other provinces. I think the Hon. Member would be the first one to compliment the federal Government for the progress in Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island, and we are going to make progress in Alberta as well.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the Parties, and I think you would find that there would be unanimous consent to revert to presenting reports from committees to consider the presentation of a report.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I just want to make sure that the report we are dealing with is the one about Bill C-72, the new official languages Bill. If it is, then it is in keeping with the spirit of today's question, and I would approve it.


Mr. Speaker:: Is there such agreement?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
June 27, 1988



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Marcel Danis: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the representatives for the two Opposition Parties for giving me this opportunity to present a report by the Legislative Committee on Bill C-72, an Act respecting the status and use of the official languages of Canada.
I would like to thank the Clerk of the Committee and all Committee members for the work they have done during the last three months, and especially the Elon. Member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes), who worked very hard to establish a consensus on nearly all the amendments in our report.
[Editor's Note: For above report, see today's Votes and Proceedings.]



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Miss Carney:
That the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1989, laid
upon the Table, Tuesday, February 23, 1988, less the amounts voted in
Interim Supply be concurred in.
Mr. Speaker:: When the House rose at 1 p.m. the Hon. Member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine East had the floor.
Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine
East): Mr. Speaker, when this debate was adjourned for lunch, I was saying that it was wrong for the Government to cut funds for employment and training when unemployment was still a serious problem and felt to be a serious problem in Canada. To support my position, I referred to the report published last week by the advisory council to the Minister of Employment and Immigration with respect to older workers.
As Hon. Members know, we do not have much opportunity during Question Period to respond to the answers of the Minister. We have two questions and she has two answers, and she gets the last answer. She said that the unemployment rate for older workers went down. Obviously she has not read the report.
It is true that the official unemployment figure went down, but the Minister did not say that 41 per cent of older workers between the ages of 55 and 64 who had lost their jobs in the last number of years had withdrawn from the labour force
Supply
because they had given up hope. Consequently, they are not counted in the unemployment figures. If the Minister would take the time to read the report which was published last week on June 22 entitled Unemployed Older Worker Phenomena: A Problem That Will Not Go Away, she might be stirred to action.
In my remarks this morning, I pointed out that the unemployment figure of 7.8 per cent is misleading and does not tell the whole story because the great improvement in the employment situation has occurred in southern Ontario. There are still five provinces with serious unemployment rates. In addition, we have the problem of older workers. I also referred to the report just published on Thursday in Quebec pointing out that one out of three unemployed persons in Quebec is a young person between the ages of 14 and 25. Once again, we have a serious employment problem that deserves more investment and funding, not less.
All of this goes toward explaining the Gallup poll results published last week indicating that 27 per cent of Canadians believe that unemployment is the biggest single problem in Canada. That figure of 27 per cent leads the percentage for all the other problems identified in the survey. One would think that the Government would take serious note of these Gallup polls.
If everything is going as well as the Government says it is, why does 27 per cent of the population indicate that unemployment is still the most serious problem? These people are saying that it is the most serious problem because the improvement has other been regional and there is still serious unemployment in the regions. They are saying that it is serious because it is a very drastic problem among older workers.
I have here the report on older workers entitled Older Workers: An Imminent Crisis in the Labour Market. The advisory council to the Minister is calling this an imminent crisis in the labour market. That is why we get Gallup poll results like the results to which I referred. We also get those results because of the report published in Quebec dealing with young people in that province referred to in this morning's Le Devoir.
There are other serious underlying problems with respect to employment that are hidden by the national figures published from month to month. One such problem is the growing trend toward part-time and temporary work. This type of work has been increasing since about 1979 or 1980. The previous Government appointed the Wallace Royal Commission to study this phenomenon and to come up with recommendations, which it did, but the recommendations have not yet been implemented by the Government. Wallace and her commission recommended that unemployment and other benefits be prorated for part-time workers because of this growing phenomenon.

June 27, 1988
Supply
It is these kinds of things which are providing insecurity to Canadian workers in the labour market. Even if Canadians workers have jobs they are fearful of what will happen tomorrow because they are working usually in part-time or temporary work. Now, as opposed to the past, these jobs are at minimum wages, are low paying, non-union, and without benefits.
As you well know, Mr. Speaker, during the recession of 1982-83 many full-time industrial jobs were eliminated and were replaced by a high percentage of service jobs which on the whole, do not provide the wages, the benefits, and the security provided by the former industrial jobs. This is a serious problem to be addressed by the Government, and the Government is not addressing it. With the unemployment rate alone at 7.8 per cent, it is really nothing in which to take great comfort. Certainly, as a national figure, it is an improvement over the rate we had in the depth of the recession in 1982-83, when we registered the highest rate of unemployment in January, 1983. In the year prior to the recession, in 1981, the rate of unemployment nationally was 7.5 per cent in Canada. It jumped to 11 per cent in 1982 and to 11.9 per cent in 1983; then unemployment started to decline after January, 1983. This Government takes a laissez-faire approach to the problem and believes that if it withdraws from the market and from its spending and intervention into the economy everything will turn out well. Of course it is turning out well in the Golden Horseshoe surrounding Toronto and in southern Ontario generally, but that approach is not helping the Atlantic provinces, B.C., Quebec, or pockets in the other provinces where there is still very high unemployment.
I should point out that in the period 1965 to 1980, a period of 15 years under a Liberal Government, the average rate of unemployment was 5.6 per cent. That is what the Government should be comparing itself with, not with the figures in the depth of the 1982-83 recession. If the Government had a policy and the political will, that rate of 7.8 per cent would be lower than it is. This morning the Minister of State for the Treasury Board stood in the House and boasted that the Government had cut spending on government programs. As I said then, we have to examine which programs have been cut and which ones have not been cut. We note that the Government has promised to spend over $10 billion on nuclear submarines, whereas it has cut by 32 per cent the programs for employment and training while still over one million Canadians are unemployed.
In 1984 we were spending $2.2 billion on employment and training programs. This year we are spending $1.5 billion which is a cut of 32 per cent. That is not an acceptable situation when we still have the problems to which I referred- high unemployment rates in five provinces, high unemployment rates and getting worse for older workers, high unemployment rates for our youth, and the growing trend to parttime and temporary work which is low paid, non-unionized, and without benefits. No wonder we get Gallup poll results
which indicate that Canadians still feel that unemployment is the biggest problem in the country.
It is not good enough for the Prime Minister (Mr. Mul-roney), the Minister of Employment and Immigration and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson), whenever we ask a question about this serious problem, to stand and continually repeat the global figures that apply to the whole country. Of course Ontario has a 4.5 rate of unemployment. Good for Ontario, Mr. Speaker. There is a Liberal Government in Ontario which is willing to intervene and do something. The rate is good in Ontario and in a few western provinces, but the policies of the Government to lower the rate of unemployment right across the nation are inadequate. The advisory council to the Minister, appointed by the Minister and her predecessors, is saying very frankly that what is being done is not enough.
The Government's neo-Conservative, laissez-faire economic policies are misguided and are not working. The rate of fulltime job creation is inadequate. It is overwhelmingly centred in southern Ontario and it has bypassed youth and older workers; nor is there any political will to deal effectively with part-time work, regional development, functional illiteracy, labour market adjustment, and the transfer from school to work by young people.
I urge the Government to increase its spending on training, employment, and education rather than to cut those budgets. Let the Government start by cutting the program for nuclear submarines and putting the money into something that will benefit all Canadians.


Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, I was most interested in the comments of the Hon. Member urging us to put more instead of less money into the government Estimates. I note that over the last few months there has been a number of suggestions by the Liberal Party for the Government to spend more money. For instance, at one stage the Liberal Party called for an increase in the budget for Indian Affairs and Northern Development. At another stage the Liberal Party called for more money to be spent on multiculturalism. Then another Liberal Member of Parliament called for $3 billion to be spent on child care spaces. In addition, I understand that the Liberal Party, if it is ever re-elected, will institute home delivery for everyone. As well, today we heard the Liberals suggesting very substantial farm subsidies. We know the Liberals want an increase in foreign aid spending, and they have called for more people to be eligible for spouses' allowances. They also want the unemployment insurance system to provide more benefits. They have suggested subsidization for prices paid to oil producers. Those are only a few of the suggestions for increases in spending made by the Liberal Party in the last few months.
Could the Hon. Member tell us how much all that will likely cost the Canadian taxpayers and from where will the money come?
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William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, it is correct that we have suggested there be additional spending in many areas, areas which we believe would stimulate the economy because it is expenditure on investment rather than expenditure on matters which will do nothing to help the economy. It will be very difficult for us as Liberals to match the side-show put on two weeks ago when the Government decided to spend $163 million in one constituency simply to win one by-election. That has been worked out to, I think, around $6,000 per elector in Lac-Saint-Jean. When the Government wants to win a byelection it starts spending money like crazy without any attention to what the outcome of the expenditure will be.
Let me say that there are areas where we must spend more money. We must do it in order to bring about social justice, and we must spend more money to stimulate the economy. The area I was talking about, training and education, is as much an investment in infrastructure of this country as investment in airports, ports, roads, and economic infrastructure. A trained work force is essential for a modern economy. To cut money in training our work force and putting people to work is complete nonsense. It is the kind of thing one cannot stop and start easily. Once it is stopped it is very difficult then to start it up and hope to bear the fruit of that start-up in a short period of time.
We all know that it takes five to six years to train an engineer after university. It takes a long time to train archaeologists, metallurgists, and so on. Trained personnel are not trained overnight. Once you cut programs for these people and they become unemployed, or there is no opportunity for young people and middle-aged people to go into these fields of work, you are left without skilled workers and professionals for a period of time. I see, in Toronto, in the area from which the Hon. Member comes, there is now a shortage of skilled workers. Of course, what happens is, we have a shortage of skilled workers in Toronto and a high rate of unemployed unskilled workers in Atlantic Canada and elsewhere.
I would submit, Mr. Speaker, not enough attention has been paid to training, employment and education in this country by this Government.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for York East.


Alan Redway: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. The Hon. Member referred to money announced to be spent in the Province of Quebec recently. The Hon. Member is aware that on June 9, the federal and Quebec Governments signed a Regional Economic Development Agreement for some $970 million over the next five years, and that agreement, of course, was one of a number of agreements, with every province and region in the country and that agreement was in fact replacing a prior ERDA Agreement with Quebec, that was signed originally in 1985, and due to expire next year.
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I wonder if the Hon. Member could tell the House if he believes that the federal Government should not enter into ERDA Agreements with the Province of Quebec, or other provinces, but should just let those funds lapse.


William Warren Allmand: Of course not, Mr. Speaker. We in this Party have been urging the signature of new agreements, with respect to regional development, for over a year now. It is unfortunate that we need a by-election to move the Government off their seats to sign the agreement.


Some Hon. Member:: Nonsense.


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, I personally applied to this Government for an Employment Incubator Assistance Grant for my area, about two years ago, and I couldn't get one. I have heard other Members havetried to get them. We have here in the middle of the election campaign, without any application forms or any set program announced, all of a sudden an Employment Incubator Program approved for the Lac-Saint-Jean area. We are happy for Lac-Saint-Jean, but there appears an unevenness of approach to all constituencies in this country. If the Government had a policy, they would let us know what the policy was, and we would all be able to apply and take advantage of the program.
The way this Government is acting, simply trying to buy votes at a time of a by-election, or a general election, is not acceptable by the people of this country.


Mr. Speaker:: Resuming debate with the Hon. Member for Guelph.


Mr. William C. Winegard (Guelph):: Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to be able to participate in this debate today on the Estimates for the fiscal year 1988-89. In the time available to me, Sir, I would like to discuss one portion of the Estimates, mainly transfer payments. In doing so, perhaps I might indicate to the House and to members of the general public just how much money we do transfer to individuals, to other provinces, to organizations, during the course of the year.
The federal Government is involved very deeply in the whole question of transfers and in particular say to individuals. But if we look at the Main Estimates for this year, we will find that $57 billion, nearly half of the total federal Government budget, $57 billion, is included for transfer payments. Also, grants to individuals, groups, associations, other levels of government, but unlike the operating and the capital expenditures, these grants that are made to these organizations or individuals are not made in exchange for any good or any service. They are outright transfer payments.
Generally, the transfer of payments can be grouped into broad categories. Individuals, subsidies, payments made to organizations and groups and, finally, the payments made to other levels of government.

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The dynamic, as we now know, the dynamic economy of this country, certainly for the last four years, is recognized as a challenge to this Government in particular. We must sustain it and we must be prepared to respond to the positive thinking of Canadians. Effective social policies will continue to be needed. If we look at the spending in the area of transfers to persons, to individuals, it represents over $22 billion. Twenty-two billion dollars, or 40 per cent of all the transfer payments made, are made to individuals.
I don't have the time here this afternoon to go through all of those transfer payments. I would like to pick out just a few and give some numbers. I don't think most Canadians realize just how much is involved. Canadian seniors, if we look at them, Sir, what a marvellous group they are. They need and deserve our support. Payments made to the elderly in the form of Old Age Security benefits, Spousal Allowances, Guaranteed Income Supplements, those alone will exceed $15 billion this current year. That is an increase of over $900 million over the previous year.
Mr. Speaker, that tells me that you have a Government sensitive to the needs of the people growing a little older, sensitive to the social needs of our time. An increase of $900 million in one year alone, that is over 7 per cent, Sir.
Let me break those down. Old Age Security payments, as you know, they are made to all eligible Canadians who are over 65 years of age. They will exceed $11 billion in the year in which we are talking. This is some 8 per cent more than last year. More people coming into the group and, of course, the amount going up, in terms of the CPI. The total Guaranteed Income Supplement, which many Canadians regretfully must be on, will amount to almost $4 billion this current year.
Spousal Allowances. As you know, we took a dramatic action in terms of Spousal Allowances early in our mandate. They are forecast at $525 million in the current year. You remember, as I said earlier, we extended that down to 60 years of age, so people between the ages of 60 and 64 could take advantage of that significant program.
Now, I think all Members of this House know that this Government is dedicated to defend and strengthen the institution of the Canadian family. The Main Estimates for 1988-89, include $2.6 billion in Family Allowance payments, to families with dependent children. Beginning in 1986, you will remember that the Child Tax Credit was increased and it will reach a level of $524 for each child in 1988, an increase of $140 a year since we restructured that particular tax section. Further, beginning in 1989, the Child Tax Credit will be indexed to increases in the CPI, in excess of 3 percentage points. Another one, obviously, and somewhat dear to my heart, is what we have done for veterans. The contributions and sacrifices made by Canadian veterans have long been held in deep respect by all Canadians. The Government continues to provide benefits, some $1.2 billion, to this group through Veterans' pensions, training and education assistance to the children of those who gave their lives for our protection, in
World Wars I and II. This assistance is provided always through the Department of Veterans Affairs. It covers the cost of the Aging Veterans' Program, health care services not provided by the provincial schemes, and one of the ones that have been, in my estimate, Sir, the most significant. The veterans in the Home Program, improvement to the home program, which I know hundreds of veterans in my riding have taken advantage of.
There are other examples of transfers. Some examples of agricultural subsidies include those grants to producers which are under the Special Canadian Grains Program, freight assistance on western feed grains for livestock, assistance for the storage costs of grain, premiums on livestock, and subsidies on milk and other agricultural commodities. Payments to producers for named agricultural commodities under the Agricultural Stabilization Act will be in the order of $300 million for 1988-89.
We have demonstrated over and over again our commitment to producers and farmers, particularly in the West, through an additional contribution in 1988-89 of $289 million to the Special Canadian Grains Program. That is the balance of the $1.1 billion assistance package for 1987. In addition, as you know, we contributed over $1 billion in 1986 to help overcome the subsidy problem. The total support to grain producers for 1986 and 1987 under the Special Canadian Grains Program amounted to over $2 billion.
I could include as well, Sir, the $663 million for subsidies to railway companies under the Western Grain Transportation Act for this fiscal year alone. This reflects again the positive outlook of the Government in terms of helping those in difficulty and generating the Canadian economy across the country.
We make transfer payments of another $10 billion to various organizations and groups of people under a wide variety of programs including, for example, our Official Development Assistance Program to developing countries. Canada need not take a back seat in terms of our ODA or external aid. We contribute 0.5 per cent of our Gross National Product each year and not many countries do better than that. We continue to support the International Monetary Fund, and the Government is now embarked on a major change in how we develop our Official Development Assistance Program as a result of what Canadians told us when we travelled the country.
On another matter, we must recognize that almost $2 billion will be paid to organizations, corporations, groups, communities, employers, and businessmen to help improve the employability of Canadians through training and work experience programs, which programs are designed to take people from one job to another, to update people, to move them into the age of current technology, even to help people who, in many cases,
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do not know how to work. They have never had the opportunity to work and have to be told how to do it and what is required of them. We must teach them the discipline of the workplace.
I do not have the time today to go into all the details, but no review of the federal Government's expenditure plan, and in particular the broad category of expenditures called transfers, would be complete without some mention at least of the transfers to other levels of government. In 1988-89, cash transfers to the provinces, territories, and municipalities will amount to nearly $23 billion. This represents roughly 40 per cent of the total transfer payments or nearly 20 per cent of total budgetary Main Estimates. This does not include tax sharing with the provinces to give them tax room. The federal Government has backed off in certain areas so that the provinces can take them over. I think that is what all federal Governments must do in order to be fair in terms of tax distribution across the country.
Payments to other levels of government will, as in the past, continue to be channelled through a wide variety of transfer programs. There are unconditional programs, or general purpose transfers; general support arrangements, such as those in health and post-secondary education; and a variety of specific purpose transfers.
It is not my intention to deliver a history lesson to Members of Parliament, many of whom, I am sure, have more experience in this than I. I would, however, like to spend a few moments describing the mechanisms that have been implemented over the years to promote the other two aspects of intergovernmental fiscal relations and indicate how this Government has furthered their development.
With regard to fiscal harmonization, the measures that have been put in place, such as the tax collection agreements, the reciprocal taxation agreements, and the grants in lieu of municipal or local taxes-and I may say that in some instances that represents a lot of money to municipalities-are all intended to permit the federal and provincial Governments to exercise fully their respective taxing powers in such a way as to foster fiscal harmonization and eliminate needless complexity in the income tax system. It is always going to be complex, but the very fact that the federal, provincial, and municipal Governments have been able to share some of these responsibilities has made it much simpler than it might have been.
Over the years the federal Government has recognized the provinces' demands for greater flexibility and autonomy in pursuing the achievement of certain social and economic objectives. We have agreed to various changes which have been requested such as tax credits and tax rebates. However, in permitting these changes the federal Government has had to be selective in order to ensure the progressivity of the combined federal and provincial tax systems, to maintain the administrative benefits which accrue from an integrated tax system, and to avoid compromising the operation of the Canadian economic union by the erecting of fiscal barriers to
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the normal flow of capital. We must recognize that the provinces have their rights as well. I think all federal Governments have tried to be very sensitive to that.
I spoke earlier about the Municipal Grants Act under which the federal Government will transfer funding to certain municipalities in lieu of the collection of taxes on federal property. That is of some significance in my riding and I know that it is of very great significance in the ridings of some Members where there is a preponderance of federal government land and buildings. Consider the situation right here in Ottawa if the federal Government did not follow through on its promise under the Municipal Grants Act.
It is true that much of Ontario has been very prosperous and that some other provinces are doing very well. However, that prosperity does not extend across the whole of the country. The equalization program is meant to overcome that regrettable situation. It has been a major source of revenue for certain provincial Governments. Transfers under the Canada Assistance Plan and Equalization Payment Fund represent 40 per cent or more of total provincial revenues of the Atlantic provinces, one third of the total provincial revenues of Quebec and Manitoba. In the past, EPF and CAP payments represented between 20 per cent and 25 per cent of the provincial revenues of Ontario, Saskatchewan and British Columbia, and about 15 per cent in Alberta.
It would be a mistake for someone to believe that all is well in Ontario and that it receives no funding at all from the federal Government. Ontario is a great recipient of EPF alone for health care and post-secondary education. Probably 50 per cent or more of the post-secondary system in Ontario is funded by the federal government transfers.
The most important component of current federal-provincial arrangements for lower income provinces, with which we should be concerned today, is the fiscal equalization program which has been referred to as the cornerstone of Confederation because it shares across the country. It was introduced as a distinct program in 1957 and has continued to receive the support of all Parties in this Parliament since that time. We recently extended it for a further five-year period.
The Constitution of 1982 states that the purpose of these payments is to ensure that provincial Governments have sufficient revenues to provide reasonably comparable levels of public service at reasonably comparable rates of taxation. That is an important point in terms of our Confederation.
Payments under this program raise the per capita revenue generating capacity of the lower income provinces to a prescribed level which is currently the average per capita revenue generating capacity of the Provinces of Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia.
There are absolutely no conditions applied to these funds. Provinces are free to use them as they wish, to raise their level

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of public service, lower the level of taxation, or undertake some combination of both. The largest transfers are those arrangements made through Established Programs Financing. That is the program I mentioned earlier and about which I grew to know a great deal in my career. Under these arrangements, the federal Government, via a combination of cash and tax transfers, contributes on an equal per capita basis to the financing of provincial and territorial insured health services, extended health care services and post-secondary education. The total cash and tax transfers under the EPF arrangements is expected to be $18.5 billion in 1988-89. That is a 5.3 per cent increase over last year. The provinces may do what they wish within that general bound.
In conclusion, the Government has repeatedly stated its commitment to the objective of national reconciliation, social justice, economic renewal and constructive internationalism. These Estimates that were tabled by the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. de Cotret) show a reaffirmation of those objectives and a reaffirmation of what this Government has and will continue to stand for.


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, I have news for the Hon. Member for Guelph (Mr. Winegard) about the deeds of the Government he supports that will most likely dampen his unwarranted enthusiasm.
I will put it in the context of the environment, particularly the environment in Toronto where the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) spoke to an international scientific conference. The Prime Minister attempted to portray the Government of Canada as a great protector and defender of the environment.
In these very Estimates before us in the House today for debate, the facts and figures reveal the real face of the Government, which has mercilessly cut the Department of the Environment since it took office in 1984. Let me give the facts that will remove the facade the Prime Minister attempted to erect this morning.
First, let us look at the over-all picture. Since September, 1984, when the Government took office, the Department of the Environment has steadily and systematically lost to inflation. Its estimates have not managed to keep at par with inflation while other Departments have managed to do better than inflation. The net result of this erosion caused by inflation has been a loss of $71 million in revenue to Environment Canada just to keep at par with where it was. The Member for Guelph and the Member for York East (Mr. Redway), who is very keen on the environment, will be interested in those figures.
What does that mean in terms of people? The net result is that over 300 person-years have been lost to the Department. When we raise this matter in committee, the Minister defends his position by saying that while his Department is not doing well with inflation, other Departments are developing environmental policies across the board. While this may sound good in theory, the fact is that these Departments have been carrying out these functions for virtually the last 10 years. Whether it is
the Department of Agriculture, CIDA, Consumer and Corporate Affairs, Energy, Mines and Resources, Fisheries and Oceans, National Health and Welfare, Indian Affairs and Northern Development, the National Research Council, the Science Council or the Department of Transport, those functions are nothing new. There is nothing new going on here in terms of environmental programs and mandates that other Departments have.
Who is the Minister trying to fool with that kind of explanation? The fact is that when one starts to analyse the situation, one finds that, in addition to loss to inflation in the range of $71 million and 336 person-years over the last four years, there is cancellation of programs. For example, there is the cancellation of the Guelph-Toronto Toxic Chemical Research Centre in the very city from which the Hon. Member for Guelph comes. That was an $8 million project. We find a cut of $3.8 million, resulting in a loss of 72 person-years, in the Canadian Wildlife Service. We find the termination of the Water Resources Research Grants Program. There is the elimination of research of renewable energy sources at the National Research Council. This is at a time when we are becoming more and more conscious of the fact that in the long term nonrenewable sources of energy will be running out and we must develop the know-how and technology needed to replace gradually non-renewable sources of energy. But the Government cuts research in that field. That is a shame.
Research on PCBs was eliminated. Research on toxic chemicals at the National Research Council was eliminated as well. On top of that, as you know, Mr. Speaker, there was the closure of the Marine Ecology Laboratory in Nova Scotia in recent months.
If Members would like a detailed analysis of what happens this year in the Estimates before us for debate and scrutiny, I will take Members through them step by step. Referring to the 1988-89 Estimates of Environment Canada, first, we find that the Department of the Environment this year has lost 1 per cent to inflation. It has lost 78 persons. The breakdown is rather revealing. In conservation and protection, we find in the field of inland water activities, Environment Canada this year is losing 14 persons. In the field of conservation of wildlife, budget cuts mean the elimination of five officials. In the field of management and common support, which is a general term to describe technical people, support people and office staff, no fewer than 36 people will be lost this year. So much for conservation and protection.
Let us move to the weather services. Here we find a reduction in weather services of 32 person-years this year. Last year there were 1,925 people employed across Canada. This year there will be 1,893, a loss of 32 persons. In addition to that, in the climate services, which is an emerging issue-we hear and read in the media about the greenhouse effect, the changes in climate in the years ahead-one person is eliminated. To make it even more ironic, this year the Government will
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close the weather stations in Vancouver harbour and in Sachs harbour. That is not all.
We can look at Parks Canada which plays an important role for a variety of reasons. Canadians enjoy our parks. There is a recreational and cultural component there. There is also a number of jobs that depend on the activities of Parks Canada. Nine individuals will be out this year in the Resource Protection Branch of Parks Canada. In the very necessary activity of providing information and interpretation services to visitors, the Government is laying off 21 individuals from Parks Canada. When it comes to parks maintenance, we find in the Estimates a lay-off of 25 individuals. With respect to research and planning and policy development, which is very important in a Crown agency of that size, we find a lay-off of seven persons. That is not the end of it.
We used to have a Wildlife Toxicology Fund. This fund was meant to carry out research in wildlife that would give us signals and information as to what is happening inside the bodies of wildlife species with respect to accumulation of toxic chemicals and traces of toxic substances so we know what is happening in the food chain. It is a very important alert system for human beings. It is highly regrettable to discover that this fund was reduced from $1 million a year to one-third of a million dollars in the Estimates of 1988-89.
In addition, there will be the termination of the Sewage Treatment Facility Construction Program. Last year there was still left something like $2 million. This year we find nothing. I see present here a former Mayor of York East who is, I am sure, extremely receptive to this kind of problem. He has demonstrated that in committee on a number of occasions in a very progressive and helpful manner.
The Government of Canada, at a time when everyone is increasingly preoccupied about the quality of our water, at a time when the Science Council of Canada produces a report called the Year 2020 and the condition of our waters at this time, we find in 1988 the elimination of such a program. The municipalities every year at the convention of a Federation of Canadian Municipalities repeatedly asked for a federal participation. My Party is committed to provide the federal share in an amount that runs into the billions of dollars.
We find the cancellation of the Sewage Treatment Facility Construction Program, but the Government is capable and has the political will to find the necessary money to build nuclear submarines. For that project the priority is valid, but for the protection of our waters, the political will has disappeared. There is nothing left. This is the first year in my recollection that the fund available for the construction of sewers is zero. That is quite an indictment. It is a sham and a real disgrace.
The last item in the review of Environment Canada's budget for this year is in its development budget. Parks Canada has lost almost $4 million. In other words, it has lost the funds that are required to maintain and expand its network. It is interesting to compare the performance of Environment Canada, the issue which the Prime Minister invoked as being a high
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priority in Toronto only a few hours ago, in terms of its Estimates with that of other Departments. What do you find? You will find, Mr. Speaker, that in this fiscal year the budget of Environment Canada goes up 3.6 per cent, which is roughly one percentage point below the rate of inflation.
How does the over-all Government increase in performance run this year? We find that the spending of the Government of Canada increases by 8 per cent in this fiscal year. Yet if we start to examine Department by Department we find some pretty startling information.
For instance, we find that the budget of the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources goes up 30 per cent, while that of the Department of Agriculture goes up 24 per cent. We find that the budget of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans increases by 23 per cent while the budget of the Department of Finance manages to command an increase of 13.5 per cent. We find that the budget of the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs goes up 11.5 per cent, while the Department of Communications budget goes up 11 per cent. We see that the budget of the Department of National Defence increases by 8.3 per cent, while the budget of the Department of Transport increases 7.3 per cent.
Yet what does Environment Canada get in this fiscal year? It gets 3.6 per cent. At the same time we have in Toronto the Prime Minister of Canada making grandiose speeches about his Government's priorities for the environment, a grandiose mask that he puts on. Contrast that with the reality of the figures that are embedded in the Estimates where the facts are to be found. What a sham. What a Government we have.
It is a Government of public relations, of claims that are not supported by facts. It preaches one way and acts another. It is simply disgusting. That is all I can say to you, Mr. Speaker.
It is the same Government that in 1985 decided to impose a 6 per cent tax on insulation materials and equipment that go with the maintenance and construction of renewable energy machinery. It is the same Government which in the Budget this year had not one item that directly or indirectly related to the protection of the environment or incentives that would give encouragement to the development of an environmental industry in Canada. There was not one word on accelerated write-offs on pollution abatement equipment to create new industries and new jobs for which competitors, such as Japan, are extremely active these days.
Japan knows that there is an emerging market in this area. It knows that there is a potential for new jobs and for markets abroad. Yet there was not one word in the Government's Budget despite the great claims of the Prime Minister in Toronto this morning. There was nothing in the Budget of this year on energy efficiency-not one word on energy conservation. Yet we know that Japan, for instance, is a very clever and capable energy efficient nation. It is capable of producing at

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lower costs its products because it knows how to use to its maximum the limited energy that it is dependent upon.
There was nothing in the Budget, something which I said before and something which I will not belabour unduly, with respect to helping municipalities modernize and build sewers and water treatment plants.
One conclusion is only fair and justified in relation to these Estimates and to the Budget this year. It is that they make a mockery of the claim of the Minister of Environment, which he made in 1986 in this House when he said: "We continue as a Government to be totally committed to protecting the environment". It makes a mockery of that sentence. It puts the Prime Minister in a most embarrassing position for saying one thing in Toronto in the presence of an international audience, claiming that the Government gives environment a high priority on its agenda, compared to the reality of the Estimates and the reality of the Budget of this year.
I would like to say a few words if time permits about trade because under the Estimates we have to deal as well with current issues. Trade is a very important matter that has an impact on the environment despite claims to the contrary made in the House by the Minister of the Environment.
It is very revealing to notice that if there has been one Department that is silent on the question of trade, a Department which has not produced a brochure claiming the miracles that the trade deal would achieve for Canada, it is the Department of the Environment. That is very revealing. There is not only that to consider but the fact that at Estimates time officials of the Department have confirmed that no internal study has been conducted as to what the impacts of the trade deal would be and how they would impact upon the environment. I am referring in particular to the question of pesticides which is included in the trade deal and the requirement in that section that American and Canadian regulations be harmonized.
What does harmonize mean? No one knows. What will be the repercussions of harmonizing American with Canadian regulations? No one knows because no one has studied them.
In Question Period there have been a number of questions in your presence, Mr. Speaker, on various occasions in which we have asked from this side of the House why beer is excluded from the trade deal. Not a word has been mentioned about water. Why has lumber been referred to in the trade deal as being exempted but there has not been a word about water? Why was processed fish mentioned as an item to be exempted by the deal and not water?
We cannot get an answer to those questions. Yet we find it very strange that the Government would go to great lengths to identify and itemize three items in our economy to be exempted but has not mentioned water which is such an important natural resource to us.
Time does not permit me to go into greater depths in a debate such as this on the implication of the trade deal on the
environment. I thank you for the opportunity to speak, Mr. Speaker, as well as for your patience.
Mir. Redway: Mr. Speaker, I have had a good deal to do with the Hon. Member in the past four years. I have come to feel that he is a most sincere Member of Parliament, particularly in his dealings with the environment. I know of his commitment to the environment. However, as he went through the Estimates of the Department of the Environment for this year I had the sense that he equated wholly and solely the question of an effective federal environmental policy with the question of how much money is being spent on it.
One of the items I noticed, for instance, was that he talked about the fact that the weather service was going to be reduced by one person. In May of this year I had occasion to travel to the Northwest Territories and to visit Resolute Bay, among other places. We have a weather station at Resolute Bay. I had an opportunity to see that weather station. It was pointed out to me that a very sophisticated computerized piece of machinery had been installed recently at that weather station which would give us a great deal more information about the weather than we had ever had before. It would give us a great deal more information about the ozone layer over the Arctic than we have ever had before. In fact, it had already disclosed important new facts about the ozone layer in the Arctic. The strange and interesting part is that all of this was going to be accomplished with the elimination of one person from the weather service. I do not think the Hon. Member's conclusion follows that, by throwing more money at a thing and by having more people on staff, automatically there will be a better Department of the Environment, by any manner of means.
The Hon. Member is most sincere in his comments. I know that he is really expressing a frustration with the Liberal Government of which he used to be a member. As the Minister of State for the Treasury Board (Mr. Lewis) said earlier in the debate during the five years that preceded the Government taking office, when the Hon. Member was a member of the former administration, government spending went up an average of 15 per cent a year across the board. In spite of that, as the Hon. Member is aware, there was no program developed with targets for reducing acid rain emissions, as there has been with this Government. There was no program with targets for reducing nitrogen oxide emissions, as there has been with this Government. There was no agreement between Canada, the United States, the State of New York, and the Province of Ontario with respect to reducing the amount of toxic chemicals going into the Niagara River and the Great Lakes, as there has been with this Government. There was no national park on Ellesmere Island under the previous Government, in spite of that 15 per cent increase in spending each year, but there is under this Government. There was no national park on the Bruce Peninsula, but there has been under the Government. In addition to all of that, there was not a Canadian Environmental Protection Act under the former Government of which the
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Hon. Member was Minister of the Environment, but there has been under this Government.
I would like to put it to the Hon. Member, does he not really wish that he would be, should be, and could be a member of this Government, a Government with a truly effective environmental policy?


Mr. Caccia:: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for York East (Mr. Redway) is a good politician, but a poor psychologist. In interpreting people's frustrations he should do better. I am sure he could do better if he were to try a bit harder.
The point that he made on the sophistication of computerized equipment in weather reporting is quite accurate. The statistics of the Estimates this year that I put on record refer to a cut of 32 people in the weather service and one person in the climate service for a total of 33, which is a considerable cut that cannot only be attributed to sophisticated computerized equipment. In addition to that, in Vancouver the closing of a weather station is a development which is rejected very strenuously by the fishermen's union because they have had a number of instances where even the most sophisticated equipment could not forecast a sudden change in weather as a human being does by way of binocular observation. Therefore, that is a very serious matter from the point of view of preventing the loss of life.
In analysing the performance of the previous Government- the Hon. Member was not in Parliament at that time, otherwise he would know-one finds that in March, 1984, the Liberal Government launched two initiatives, a federal-provincial one in which all seven provinces including the Province of Ontario, which was represented by the Party to which he belongs, agreed to a reduction program of sulphur dioxide. That commitment in March, 1984, was renewed in June, 1984, when the economic and financial distribution of responsibilities was tackled.
In the same period Canada also launched an international initiative on sulphur dioxide, which led to some 21 nations getting together and agreeing that we should have a protocol, which was subsequently signed in Helsinki in 1985. In regard to sulphur dioxide, it is on record as being a good day's work before the Government of the Hon. Member came to power.
On NIX I cannot say the same. That summer we launched the concept of having a public consultations force first under the auspices of Transport Canada on car and truck emissions. Those consultations were conducted and completed in December, 1985, and then carried out by way of regulations which came into effect under the present Government. I am glad and readily recognize that evolution, but the Hon. Member for York East should not make the mistake of thinking that the world began in September, 1984. It would be historically naive, and he is too sophisticated a man to be naive. I know him well enough and I respect him for that.
On the creation of parks, we are happy that Ellesmere was created. It is in addition to the 21 or 22 national parks that
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were created in preceding decades by successive Liberal and Conservative Governments. I do not think that national parks is the monopoly of any Party. We all believe in that policy. We are glad to see Ellesmere added. In addition, both Ellesmere and Bruce Peninsula came pretty close to being announced before September, 1984, but things being complicated in life, one does not always get his or her way when he or she wishes things would happen.
Nevertheless, I do appreciate the question from the Hon. Member. I can assure him that I am very happy where I am.


Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity this afternoon to say a few words in connection with the matter before the House, which is officially referred to as an Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Government of Canada for the financial year ending March 31, 1989. That is a large mouthful. In simple terms it boils down to something that we know in this House and the federal Government talks about as the main spending Estimates for 1988-89.
To the average Canadian it is not a question of spending Estimates, it is something that they know in their own terms as their Budget. Every Canadian has a formal or informal budget by which he or she spends his or her money. By and large Canadians know where their money is coming from, how much they will earn in a year, and how much they have available to spend. Therefore, they set their spending priorities in terms of their own budgetary arrangements in order to spend a certain amount and hopefully save a certain amount of that total income.
One of the things that differs between the average, ordinary Canadian and Government is that the ordinary Canadian cannot spend more than is coming in, whereas Government always seems to have that facility. In fact, on a regular basis it seems to spend more than it earns, or that it takes in through the tax system whether it be income taxes, customs or excise taxes, or federal sales taxes. The Canadian public knows one cannot spend more than is taken in, unless one borrows some money to pick up the difference. That is what has been happening for a substantial number of years. That is why we have the enormous accumulated deficit that we have, and that is why we have an ongoing series of annual spending deficits. Fortunately, however, in the last four years, those have been getting progressively less, and now we are under $30 billion a year, but $30 billion a year is still a heck of a lot of money and it is still a great problem for the Government and for all Canadians when trying to get a handle on the finances of Canada.
I have always tried to follow the principle in public life, whether municipal or federal, that Canadians as a whole want to see the Government looking after their money and spending their money as effectively and as efficiently as possible and keeping the waste down to an absolute bare minimum, if not

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eliminating it altogether. That is a principle with which all of us would agree. When we look at the spending Estimates or, in layman's terms, the Budget for 1988-89, that is the sort of thing that I feel and that I believe the Canadian public feels we should always keep in mind. If we are going to collect money in taxes and then spend it, how can we keep those expenditures to an absolute minimum and still do an effective job? How can we make sure that not a dollar of it is wasted?
This year, the proposed Main Estimates total something that, to the average Canadian, would boggle the mind. It totals something in the vicinity of $119 billion. That amount is broken down into a portion which is called statutory spending. That means that we have already passed laws saying that no matter what else happens, we will have to spend that money each and every year unless we repeal those laws. Then there is a portion called discretionary spending, and in that portion, we do have some leeway as to whether we spend more, less or the same amount in a given year.
Statutory spending is the kind of spending that most of us would not quarrel with whatsoever. It is spending on things like social transfer payments. I see the Hon. Stanley Knowles sitting at the Table. He knows how hard he fought for old age security, for unemployment insurance and for family allowances. All of these things are part of what we know as statutory expenditures, and part of the statutory authority for those expenditures involves indexation according to the Consumer Price Index or according to inflation.
Each year, regardless of what sort of deficit we are running and what kind of money we are bringing in, we have to continue to spend money in accordance with statutory requirements, and each year we have to spend more money because the statutes providing those funds provide for indexing in each and every year. That portion of the annual expenditures, the annual Estimates or the annual Budget of the Government, continue to rise as long as the Consumer Price Index continues to rise, and no one seems to have been able to do very much about that for a long time, probably since the 1930s, and none of us would want to go back to that time. It is inevitable that that portion of our expenditures will keep going up each year, whether we like it or not.
The second part has to do with discretionary expenditures. When we talk about discretionary expenditures, someone always suggests that we reduce some of them. We hear our colleagues in the Liberal Party and the NDP saying, "Oh, no, you can't reduce that expenditure, you should actually be spending more money on it rather than less". Whatever it is that we try to reduce, tighten up or spend more effectively and efficiently on, someone in either the Liberal Party or the NDP will say: "No, no, don't cut that, cut something else. We don't know what you should cut but don't cut that. In fact, you should be spending more money on that".


Mr. Nicholson (Niagara Falls):: They only want to cut defence spending.


Alan Redway: That's right. They do not want to do that either, though. Although members of the NDP say that we should not be spending money on nuclear-powered submarines, they do say that they themselves would spend at least that amount if not more on conventional weapons and another kind of defence system. They are not suggesting that anything should be cut; they are suggesting that there should be more expenditures.
How do we go about trying to ensure that the money we spend as a Government and as a Parliament is spent as efficiently and as effectively as possible? I could spend a long time on that, but I would like to touch on just two things. The first has to do with taking a close look at the way Government operates and seeing if there is not another way of doing it better. In that respect, I would like to single out one example of how Government can do something better, and in fact, how Government has been doing something better in the last four years.
I am talking about the question of cash management, the management of the cash the Government takes in and the matter of how it expends that cash. That is something that has been commented on before by the Auditor General. In his 1984 report, he had a good deal to say about the way we were managing our cash flow in Government and about the savings that could be effected if we did it differently.
The Public Accounts Committee, of which I am a member and of which I was a member in 1985, examined officials of the Treasury Board, the Finance Department and the Department of National Revenue. Through our questioning, we were able to identify and get commitments from these officials about things they would do to try to improve the cash management of the Government. In fact, as reported in the press in 1985, we got out of them that in the next year, the 1986-87 fiscal year, they would commit themselves to savings of something like $40 million through better cash management.
It is interesting to note that in March of this year, the President of the Treasury Board (Miss Carney) made an announcement on the steps that had been taken in cash management. Even better than the commitment made back in 1985, the President of the Treasury Board indicated that a progress report on cash management in the Government of Canada showed estimated savings by the end of the last fiscal year of some $220 million, and there was a forecast of further savings of $120 million for the current year, the year for which we are now debating the Estimates, and another $419 million in cash pulled back into the Consolidated Revenue Fund from Crown corporations.
It was estimated at that time that the total savings from improved cash management in the Government would reach the figure of $1.2 billion. That is a very substantial savings in revenue. It is a savings that has been accomplished by doing things better, not by doing things the same old way. This has shown that we can spend the people's money more efficiently and more effectively and not waste as much as we have been
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wasting. It shows that we can do things better, save some money and help cut back on the deficit without savaging the other spending Estimates that concern the Opposition so much.
How has this been accomplished? A number of things have been brought to bear. A number of new policies have been instituted, and I would like to touch on just a few of them. The first of these has to do with the way the Government pays its bills. In the past, as soon as the bill arrived, the Government issued a cheque. Even if the bill provided 30 days to pay for it, right away the cheque went out and the bill was paid. In fact, by using a process that all business utilizes, namely, paying bills due in 30 days in 30 days so that you do not have to pay an interest penalty but you are then not putting out money ahead of time, losing interest that you would get on it if it were sitting in your own bank account, by making payments on time rather than ahead of time it is estimated that the Government will save approximately $50 million each year.
Second, there is the whole question of making payments to Crown corporations, which need some extra infusion of cash because they are not taking in enough money to pay for all the things on which they spent. In order to save some money, to do things better and to manage our cash more effectively it was suggested that, instead of handing Crown corporations a lump sum payment once a year, perhaps we should make periodic payments to them when needed and not just hand money over to them when we get the bill which says we are supposed to pay them some money. The Government has been following that procedure in the last three years or so. As a result, instead of Crown corporations having a surplus of cash in their bank accounts while the Government was borrowing money to cover its immediate expenditures, money has been sitting in the Government's bank account. In the meantime, it is earning some interest. That has amounted to a saving of more than $400 million.
Other practices have been instituted as far as money management is concerned. One is the use of travellers' cheques and travellers' credit cards, a standard business and personal practice on the part of most Canadians, something which the Government had not been doing in the regular course of events. That is significant because each year the Government spends something in excess of $500 million on travel expenses for its employees. Any particular savings in that area obviously will be significant.
Another area is modern banking methods, the use of direct deposit of cheques and the electronic transfer of funds. This is something which the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) when he was Leader of the Opposition spoke about prior to the last election. He spoke about the way in which money could be saved. The Government is now starting to institute this sort of policy and there is more coming down the pipe very shortly of which I am personally aware. Again, there is more money to be saved by doing it better through better money management.
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Another method is to ask people to pay the money owed to the Government. Instead of being slack and letting things slide we are now starting to ask for the money when it is due and getting it in. That has amounted to a savings of approximately $100 million over the last three years by asking people to pay their bills.
The Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) has amended the requirements with respect to withholding taxes by large corporations. Instead of the payments being made monthly they are required to be made twice monthly. That has had a one-time revenue impact of $1.2 billion for the Government of Canada. You can see that in all of these ways the Government has acted during the last three years on the advice of the Public Accounts Committee, the Auditor General, the initiatives of the President of the Treasury Board and other Ministers, and it has come up with some very substantial savings and ways of doing things better. That is the sort of thing in my view that I am looking for as a Canadian taxpayer. I am sure all other Canadians are looking for that as well.
I would like to comment on another way that we can do things better to make sure taxpayers' money is not wasted and is spent as effectively and efficiently as possible. It has to do with the way we treat the estimate or budget process as far as Government is concerned. The estimate or the budget process as you know, Mr. Speaker and as I know, is really at the root of the British parliamentary system. This is a process whereby, theoretically at least, you and I and the other Members of Parliament sitting here are supposed to control the expenditures of government. The Government is supposed to come to us cap in hand and say, "We need money to spend this year. Will you please grant us the spending authority?" That is not the way it works in practice. The Government puts together its spending Estimates. Hopefully, the Government is very careful in the way it is put together, and the Minister of State for the Treasury Board (Mr. Lewis) indicated in his comments that that has been the case in the last four years because the average increase in expenditures in the last four years, as I understand it, has been only 3.7 per cent, less than inflation, whereas with the previous Government, for the five previous years the average increase was 15 per cent.
The Treasury Board and the Government have been careful, and I commend them for that. But we should be looking at a better way of doing things as far as Parliament and Members of Parliament are concerned. We should be looking at a process whereby there is a true estimates-budget committee which examines in detail the budgets of each Department and has the authority and the right to reduce spending expenditures and budget items so that Canadians can feel that Parliament is there to protect and to look after their dollars to make sure money is being spent effectively and not wasted. The only way we can really do that is if the Government will concede that its spending Estimates are not absolutely and essentially a matter of confidence in the Government. There is no reason why Parliament as a whole cannot act to reduce the Government's spending Estimates on any particular item or

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across the board or why the Government should have to feel that it is a vote of non-confidence in the Government. For heavens' sake, the next day or the same day a motion can be put before the House saying, "Does this House have confidence in the Government?" I am sure that 99.99999 per cent of the time the House would pass that motion of confidence notwithstanding the fact that it felt the Government could have been cut back on its expenditures in one or two items.
That is why the Public Accounts Committee, in its twelfth report to Parliament, recommended that sort of process. That is why the Public Accounts Committee approved the other day a special study on improving parliamentary control of the budgetary process. That is why I hope that in the fall we will have a new type of budgetary process with an estimates committee which can actually reduce government expenditures without causing the Government to fall. That would be a very significant step forward in assuring the people of this country that they have a Parliament which will make sure and do everything in its power to see that their hard earned tax dollars are spent as efficiently and effectively as possible and are not wasted.


Jack Harris: Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech made by the Hon. Member for York East (Mr. Redway). Would he care to comment on the following situation, of which I am sure he is aware being a diligent Member of Parliament? He will know that in the City of Toronto in his own riding the unemployment rate, the last time I looked, was 3.9 per cent. It hovers between 3.5 per cent and 4.2 per cent. In some parts of Newfoundland the unemployment rate is around 28 per cent in some large regions, according to officials of Statistics Canada. The Member will also know, having listened to the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) last August talk about the OECD report on Canada's performance and growth, that part of the report said that in Canada in the last year the economic disparity between the regions was noteworthy for its starkness. The Member will also know that the Economic Council of Canada in October said that uneven regional growth in Canada is the most serious economic problem facing the country.
In view of those facts, of which I am sure the Hon. Member is well aware as are you, Mr. Speaker, would he care to comment on the fairness to the Atlantic region of Canada which contains one-tenth of all Canadians? Would he care to comment on the fairness of this Government putting into the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, an agency supposedly designed to assist Atlantic Canada to overcome the economic disparity, putting into that part of the budget 15 per cent of 1 per cent, a very, very miniscule commitment from this Government to a problem that has been identified as the most serious economic problem in Canada? To say that we will spend an additional $200 million, 15 per cent of 1 per cent of the national budget of Canada, surely does not sound like a commitment by this Government to overcome this problem.
I know the Hon. Member is from Toronto, and I know the people of Toronto are doing very well financially in this country, in terms of unemployment rates and whatnot, but the people of Atlantic Canada are still suffering. I am afraid this Government has not seen fit to do anything about it. I would like to ask for his comments on that. I am sure he is sympathetic to that, even though he is from a part of the country that is doing very well.
Mr. Red way: I would like to thank the Hon. Member for his comment, his question. I am pleased that he has drawn attention to the fact that, according to OECD figures, which represent figures for the industrialized nations of the western world, over the last four years Canada has had the best rate of job creation of any country in the industrialized western world. Over those years, Canada has had the best rate of economic growth, generally, of any of the countries in the industrialized western world.
The Hon. Member pointed out the fact that in the Metropolitan Toronto area, in particular, the employment situation has been extremely good, and there is no question about that. In fact, the latest figures that I have show that the unemployment rate is in fact less than what the Hon. Member referred to. I believe they are presently at the rate of 3.2 per cent, and traditionally, economists have considered 3 per cent as full employment.
So, it is quite clear that in the Metropolitan Toronto area, there is full employment even in the traditional sense of the economists of the Second World War era, that now, the economic situation in Metropolitan Toronto is excellent, indeed. That can be seen regularly by the fact that there are signs in virtually every business window, help wanted signs, asking people to come in because they desperately need help.
I am aware that there is a very substantial rate of unemployment in the Province of Newfoundland, but I am also aware that that has fallen as well over the last four years. The most recent figures, and unfortunately I don't have up-to-date ones-but the most recent figures I have in front of me are from December, 1984, to January, 1988. In that period of time there was a drop in the unemployment rate in the Province of Newfoundland by 6.4 per cent, over the rate in September of 1984, when this Government took office.
Now, I realize that people in Newfoundland do not necessarily want to come to Toronto to work, even though there are jobs in Toronto. That is understandable. I certainly would not want to contribute to the depopulation of Newfoundland by suggesting that all Newfoundlanders, or a good portion of them, should come to Toronto to seek employment.
We do have a very interesting problem now in this country, where we have an actual shortage of help in a good many areas in the Metropolitan Toronto area, while we have a surplus of people who are unemployed in other areas of the country.
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The employers in Metropolitan Toronto would dearly love the people from Newfoundland to come to join them and to obtain work there. Alternatively to that, the employers in Metropolitan Toronto say to me, "If the people of Newfoundland and other parts of the country, where there is unemployment, do not want to come to Toronto, we need workers. We understand that they would not want to come. We understand that they do not want to depopulate their own communities and their own provinces, but if they do not want to do that, we do need workers. We do need them desperately. Please allow an increase in immigration from other countries so that people will come to Toronto and fill these jobs that are desperately needed".
I agree with the Hon. Member, that there is still a problem, in spite of the fact that progress has been made, not only in Toronto and in Newfoundland and all across the country, as the Hon. Member knows, but there is a very substantial improvement. In fact, we have in the country today, I think everyone would have to agree, the greatest prosperity that Canada has ever experienced, although that does not say that it couldn't be better and that there are not other parts of the country where we wouldn't like to see it better.
I wonder if the Hon. Member would be prepared, in return for further commitments of effort and assistance on the part of the people in central Canada, in Metropolitan Toronto, to support a policy of increased immigration to this country so that we could actually get more people to do the jobs that are there waiting to be done in the Metropolitan Toronto area.


Mr. Speaker:: On debate, the Hon. Member for Windsor- Walkerville.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, I found that exchange a very interesting one. It is no wonder that the people of Newfoundland, the Maritimes and the West look with such aggrieved eyes upon the City of Toronto. The Hon. Member just suggested that if the people from Newfoundland, and presumably the rest of the country, do not want to move to Toronto, and presumably in large numbers constitute a portion of the food lines and victims of a housing shortage there, then we should fill the need in Toronto by inviting more immigrants. No one more than I favours increased immigration to Canada, under the proper circumstances, in which we have the kind of economic growth that would allow that immigration not only to occur but to lead to the prosperity of Canada.
First of all we should take cognizance of the fact that, in all probability, those invited to Toronto from Newfoundland or elsewhere to Fill the job vacancy needs, would likely not have the kind of training they ought to have in order to fill those jobs, and that would be because of the decrease in expenditures for training that this Government has forced upon the country since it came into office.
My hon. colleague on the Liberal benches indicated earlier that they have cut, since coming to office, programs for
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training from $2.2 billion to $1.5 billion. It seems to me that it is impertinent and arrogant for Toronto to say, "We are doing great, come on down, and if you don't want to come down and leave your home, then come on, let's have somebody take your place in Toronto". I think that is just unacceptable. But, Mr. Speaker, that would be consistent with the attitude of this Government and is related indeed to some of the questions that I had hoped to have had an opportunity to explore in my intervention this afternoon.
In thinking about this debate, I became aware of some speculations about the purposes of free trade. You will recall that at the time that this Government came to office, there was a great deal of optimism in the big business sector of this country that this was a Government that at last would give the cutting of the deficit a high priority, cut the number of civil servants, cut down on social programs, and in general use as victims the poor, the elderly, and others, in order to enhance the profitability of major industry and major investors.
You will recall, however, that among the initiatives was the cut-back on pensions through deindexation. I am sure you will remember the confrontation between a little old lady and the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) before these very doors. She convinced the Prime Minister that it would lead to a rather severe political punishment if the Government proceeded with the approach of enhancing the comfort of big business in Canada at the expense of ordinary Canadians who have perceived this land for a very long time as being socially just. For all three Parties, until this Party came to office, social justice had a very high priority and it was not tampered with in the interests of the relatively few rich. This lesson learned by the Prime Minister was kind of disappointing but gave the Prime Minister an opportunity to think in other terms.
Someone has suggested a scenario during the meeting between the Prime Minister and the President of the United States. The Prime Minister was expressing a great deal of regret that he was unable to pursue this kind of approach to cutting social expenditures, and the President of the United States said, "Well, Brian, if you were more like us you would not have problems with people protesting when your Government attempts to cut back on social programs".
He suggested an approach which would permit the Government to fulfil the requests of its large contributors, the big business people and big corporations which have wanted cutbacks in government expenditures and lay-offs of civil servants and so on. He said that one of the first things to do was to start privatizing and start deregulating. He said that in order to deal with the question of social expenditures, unemployment insurance, medicare, pensions and all the rest, he was going to have to become more like the United States, and that the only way to become more like the United States was to become commercially part of the United States. He said that if the Government did that, business decisions would be made in the American competitive context in which there is no medicare,

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no unemployment insurance, no proper workers' compensation program, and no family allowance. He said that the pressure which would be exerted by the threat of American companies saying that they would bring their subsidiaries home and so on would ensure that we cave in, but that it would be business pressure and the inevitable consequence of the competitive, market-driven environment which will be established when free trade is established.
The President of the United States said, "By God, Brian, you won't have to stand up as the Prime Minister and as a government and say that this is being done, it will inevitably be done". The Prime Minister said that that was a good idea, that up until now he has been against free trade but if that is the only way he can cut social expenditures without suffering the political consequences, then maybe this is what we should do.
My hon. colleague says that that is not what the Prime Minister described as the reasons for entering into the free trade agreement. He said that the free trade agreement would allow Canadian businesses to have a larger market. To those of us who said that that is not what this is all about, that it is about all that Canada is about, he said that those who oppose this do not believe that Canadians can compete, that we are the Chicken Littles who think the sky will fall in if we are faced with competitiveness with the United States.
We had to look at this seriously. Did the Prime Minister really think that Canada would be in a position to survive in a competitive environment? Let us look at what has been transpiring in this country as a consequence of government action or inaction and see whether there is any realistic opportunity for us to compete.
One of the clear elements of competitiveness in international trade is research and development, the availability of a highly educated workforce and a well trained workforce. If we are going to compete with a country like the United States we had better have the capacity to innovate, to create new products, and to enhance our manufacturing.
The question which must then be posed is whether Canada is now or is likely in the immediate future to be in a position to compete effectively and whether the Government is doing the things necessary for that competition. In other words, the question is whether the Government really believes that the country is in a position now, or will be in the short term, to compete with the United States or any of the other OECD countries on the basis of what exists or those initiatives which have been taken.
Let us look at our situation. It has been repeated over and over again in this House that Canada's rate of expenditure for research and development is only one half of that of the other OECD countries. Canada spends only 1.34 per cent of its GNP on research as compared to about 2.5 per cent spent by other countries. We rank twelfth in the rate of research expenditure among the OECD countries.
Japan has 240 scientists and engineers per 100,000 population, the United States has 260 per 100,000, and we have 90. With regard to the percentage of research investment in this country done by industry as compared to the other players, Canada's research effort is funded by industry only to the extent of around 50 per cent as compared to as much as 70 per cent in, for example, Switzerland.
This is a ridiculous situation which obtains in our country which is symtomatic of our failure to have made the investments in research and development which we ought to have. It is ridiculous that 80 per cent of the equipment used for resource extraction in this country is imported. Eighty per cent of the equipment required for getting our oil, coal, and minerals out of the ground is imported.
I am sure my hon. colleague from St. John's East understands that if we were really being competitive those big business people, mainly foreign-controlled, would have invested in manufacturing capacity. In fact, this country suffers a $7 billion technology deficit in trade. This figure has doubled in the last 10 years. The whole thing deteriorates.
When we look at government promises to increase the commitment to research and development, what do we find? Since the present Government has come to office, research and development expenditures have actually decreased. They have decreased as a percentage of government expenditures in every year since the Government has been in power, this in spite of the fact that the Prime Minister has made innumerable promises to make Canada a leader in research and development. He has failed utterly. Granted, there has been a lot of symbolism and a lot of rhetoric.
We must congratulate the Hon. Minister of State for Science and Technology (Mr. Oberle) who has done a journeyman's job of trying to sell the notion that research and development ought to be increased in this country. However, he has failed utterly with the Prime Minister. For example, the Prime Minister promised in January that an additional $1.3 billion would go into research and development and that of that some $200 million would go to the granting councils.
One of the interesting things which the Prime Minister did was to form an advisory committee on research. A member of that committee wrote a report which said that over the next two years there ought to be a doubling of the investment in the granting councils and that thereafter there ought to be a rate of increase of 1.5 per cent, the rate of increase in the Gross Domestic Product. Instead, $200 million has been spread over five years. That results in a 2.7 per cent increase for NSERC. There has been a significant increase in the commitment to the expenditure on the space station. It was supposed to cost $800 million. There was a great deal of concern expressed that this would distort expenditures in other areas of research and development which the country just as desperately needs.
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Now we discover that it will not be $800 million, but $1.2 billion. A great part of the increased expenditure will come from the $1.3 billion in additional money in research and development that the Prime Minister promised. We learn further that there are likely to be increasing demands for increased expenditures for that space station.
The Government has set aside $240 million of that $1.3 billion for centres of excellence. A great deal of those expenditures will be concentrated in Ontario and Quebec which, as the Hon. Member for York East (Mr. Redway) has already recognized, have benefited to a great extent already.
Our comparative position with the rest of the world with respect to research has not significantly improved as a result of government action. I have cited the $1.3 billion promised by the Prime Minister, spread over five years. When the Government first came to office it cut expenditures in the Departments of Fisheries and Oceans, Environment, and Agriculture. It ravaged the National Research Council. Much of the increased expenditures being touted now really are a compensation for cuts made in the past.
The core of the issue is that there has been no net increase in the position of this country with respect to its competitiveness in research and development and consequently its general competitiveness, since the Government came to office. Free trade is supposed to be a great boost to our competitiveness. We understand that competitiveness is founded on capacity for innovation which, in turn, is dependent upon research and development. Everyone recognizes that as a consequence of free trade there will be a good deal more dominance in our economy by American owned companies.
One must recognize that one of the reasons for our pitiful performance in research and development has been that many of our industries owned by American and other foreign investors do very little research. Compared to Canadian-owned companies, American-owned companies spend about half for research. The rate of investment in research and development by Canadian-owned companies is about 9 per cent or 10 per cent of sales. However, the rate of investment in research and development by American-owned companies in Canada is about 4 per cent to 5 per cent of sales. The deficiency in the amount of investment in research and development by industry in this country is largely because our industries are dominated by foreign, particularly American-owned industries that have no reason to do research in Canada.
It is of particular interest to note the example of the Auto Pact. Although the Auto Pact has provided assurance of a certain level of employment and production in the automobile sector in Canada, one result has been the repatriation of all engineering design and research to the United States. My City of Windsor, which had a significant engineering and managerial capacity, no longer has it because of the tendency for the parent plants to concentrate research and development and management in the United States.
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In spite of the fact that the Prime Minister said we were minor league with respect to research and development, little has been accomplished in this area in the last four years, whether it be in universities or industry.
This contrasts with a very vigorous and concentrated program to enhance research and development in all the countries against which we must compete. Of course, there is the question of universities themselves. I am sure the House is familiar with reports emanating from all across the country, most recently from Ontario, which indicate that our universities are in a sorry state. The Government has failed to ensure that the provinces have an adequate level of transfer payments. It has also failed to come to grips with the necessity that the provinces must pay their share. It is another example of tragic neglect.
If one looks at what has happened in the United States as compared to Canada in the last several years in terms of the recognition of the need to have a solid level of investment in universities and colleges, one must fear for the fate of our country's future when we are confronted with direct competition with the United States. The United States spends 25 per cent more of its GNP on universities than we do here.
The rate of increase in the level of funding of universities in Canadian provinces since 1983 has ranged from about 5 per cent to about 10 per cent. On the other hand, there has been roughly a 50 per cent increase in the rate of expenditure in places like Alabama and California. Through the United States there have been increases in the rates of funding for post-secondary education from 10 per cent to 60 per cent. In Canada it has been much less.
Surely this indicates that the Estimates we are discussing today, and the Government policy with respect to competition, have ignored an elemental fact in any trading relationship we will have with the rest of the world, let alone the United States. It is a prescription for dependency and for failure to obtain the kind of growth from innovation we might have had if we maintained our future independence and placed the investment in research and development and education and training to make this a prosperous country in the twenty-first century.


Mr. Oberle:: Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to comment on a couple of remarks made by the Hon. Member. Unfortunately, some of his assertions are false. I know he would be the first to want to correct them.
He said that over-all spending for research and science-related activities in Canada has decreased every year since the Government assumed its mandate. That statement is false. The over-all spending in these areas is measured in accordance with the Gross Domestic Product. We have experienced a spectacular growth in the economy. This rate of growth has outclassed every industrial nation in the world. If one measures our performance in research and development spending in accordance with the GNP, the Hon. Member would agree that

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spending has increased. I admit that we only made marginal gains in terms of the percentage of GNP we are spending on research and development. But we did keep pace with the growth, and it is a nominal 3.5 per cent. So there has been a 3.5 per cent real growth in the spending of R & D before we talk about the additional increases that have been made. Likewise, the Hon. Member said we have only boosted the granting council's funding from previous years by 2.7 per cent. That, too, is absolutely false. If the Hon. Member looked at the real figures he would discover that in the current five year projection, the rate of increase will be in the neighbourhood of 16 per cent.
The Hon. Member has been selective, but I do not blame him for that. It is true that the $1.3 billion has been made available as a result of the Prime Minister's announcement in January for research and development this year. There was a substantial increment last year, and I cannot predict, because I do not know what the growth of the economy will be next year, what moneys will be available to boost that effort next year. However, $1.3 billion is available this year. Of that amount, $200 million is given to the granting councils to be allocated to universities in the normal fashion. I am certain all of that money will go into basic theoretical and curiosity type research.
In addition, the Hon. Member knows we have announced a Centre of Excellence Program to which we have committed $240 million. That money also will be allocated by the funding council directly to universities. It is true that the program, of course, seeks to establish these critical linkages between government laboratories and the private sector, but any private sector participation in any of these programs will be supplemented with private sector contributions to the program. So the $240 million, I hope, will become $500 million, I do not know, but the federal Government is putting in $240 million and that money goes to universities.
In addition, the Hon. Member knows we have announced in connection with this program a scholarship program which will cost $80 million over a four year period. It will give 10,000 students over the four year period a scholarship that will encourage them to pursue these future oriented careers of which the Member spoke and in which there are critical shortages, such as engineering and the natural sciences. It will entice women to aim for those kind of future careers more than they did in the past. All in all, it is not a bad record when we compare it with what we inherited when we came on the scene.
My performance is measured against what we did before. As the Hon. Member knows, the performance of the previous Government was measured in bricks and mortar. The previous Government built buildings all over the place. I confess I am pleased we have facilities such as the Biotechnology Centre in Montreal, the Marine Dynamics Institute in St. John's, Newfoundland, and the Industrial Technology Centre in
Winnipeg. Tens of millions of dollars were spent. But that was not research, it was construction.
As well, we had a so-called SRTC Program. When it was first started it was designed to encourage the private sector to spend more money on research. It did spend a lot of money, but it spent it on innovative tax accounting instead of industrial innovation, and $2 billion was lost over a 18 month period in property flips. We stopped that program. What I have put in place is a program that truly does give the private sector the incentive to do research. In fact, next to Singapore, Canada today has the most lucrative and advanced tax regime to encourage private sector research, and the results are showing in the sense that private sector has increased by 16 per cent its effort towards the total national research effort since I came on the scene.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: The Minister of State for Science and Technology is a man I admire for his efforts not only on behalf of research and science but for what little success he has achieved with this Government. But in fact it has to be measured against the target which was described by the Prime Minister. He said: "In my term, Canada will achieve 2.5 per cent of GNP in investment and research". That has not happened.
The Minister says that I fail to tell the truth when I say that the rate of government expenditures for research and development have decreased. My God, these are figures from his own Department. In 1985-86, the rate of government expenditures for research dropped by 2.5 per cent. In 1986-87, it dropped by .3 per cent.


Frank Oberle: False.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: In 1987-88, it dropped by 1.3 per cent.


Frank Oberle: False.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Those figures come from the publications of the Minister's own Department. With respect to this great $200 million that is going to be given to the granting council, what the Minister did not say is that that is going to be back end loaded. NSERC will receive 2.7 per cent in the next fiscal year out of the $200 million. The Minister no doubt will say there is additional money available from matching funds in the Industrial Matching Program. That is fine, but I am talking about the $200 million. Dr. Lortie, a member of the Prime Minister's own advisory council, said the level that has been accorded by Government should be doubled not only over five years but over two years. The Prime Minister's own advisory council is saying that what Government is doing is not nearly enough. We could have all of these weasel words that, yes, we have increased over-all Canadian expenditures for research and development because our percentage of GNP rate of expenditures has been maintained, but that is no excuse. What are we going to do, double the GNP next year and have our percentage devoted to research and development and once more claim that, yes, we spent a little more?
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This country is far behind every other country against which it must compete-most particularly, the United States-in research and development. All the weasel words and all the little progress that has been made is not going to meet the needs of this country if it is going to compete, particularly in a free trade environment. The fact is that the Minister knows that in a free trade environment, our chances of ever developing in terms of adequate science or research will be utterly killed because the United States Government right now spends some $70 billion a year on research and development. Almost half of that is for defence research, or it uses defence research as an excuse for expenditures. We are expected to compete against that with a Government which puts pennies here and there and still has not decided what it is going to do with the other half of the $1.3 billion the Prime Minister said we are going to make available for progress.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Resuming debate.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Mr. Speaker, as I begin, I cannot help but regret publicly the inclination of some within the House to equate progress and expenditure money as necessarily being synonymous because, unfortunately, as you know, Mr. Speaker, that type of comparison in itself can be very incomplete and can in fact be very misleading. Unfortunately, when one looks at Estimates, one talks entirely in terms of the dollars and cents. So there is, naturally, this inclination to think in terms of money spent as somehow demonstrating in itself a commitment or lack thereof on the part of any Government towards the objectives of those moneys being spent.
I would suggest in passing that that type of philosophy while it might be, to some degree politically popular can, in the long run, be injurious to a country. It has led to some of the excessive spending which we have seen in this country and in others in the last decade or so.
The objective before the House today is to talk about the Estimates. I am pleased to be able to do so with specific reference to the Estimates of the Department of Agriculture. In the absence of the Minister I am pleased as his Parliamentary Secretary to be able to explain and, if necessary, to defend the Estimates before the Members of the House.
Having done that, and without any excessive remarks on my part, I can say in all conscience that I believe that this Government's record and commitment to agriculture is unprecedented in the history of Canada. I readily concede that the problems which we have encountered have been very substantial. That certainly justifies the expenditures of the moneys which we are now presenting to the House.
I can also say that this is not the first time in Canadian history that we have had problems in agriculture, nor will it be the last time. While we cannot resolve those problems through the mere expenditure of money, I feel that the commitment of the Government, and the commitment which is most evident in
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the work and leadership provided by the various Ministers responsible for agriculture and the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney), is unprecedented. The Prime Minister has met with national farm leaders on, I believe, seven different occasions.
I say to those who are directly concerned with these Estimates that I think that the number of new programs which we initiated and the support which we are providing financially and otherwise does without a doubt indicate the commitment which the Government has to agriculture, and appropriately so. Because of the problems to which I have already referred it is no surprise that our support of agriculture financially is increasing. Despite the partisan differences that sometimes surface in the House I think that that type of financial support is welcomed by all Members of the House.
Spending plans for Agriculture Canada this fiscal year total some $2.16 billion, an increase of $421 million over last year's Main Estimates of $1.74 billion. In addition, there is also provision in this year's Estimates for a net increase of 66 person years, which is a point worth stressing. I hear on occasion people speaking of cut-backs within the Department of Agriculture. Of course, the reality is that we are talking about 66 additional person-years rather than a reduction in personnel.
The largest single new item in this year's Estimates is some $296 million, the bulk of which is the last part of the $1.1 billion program which will be expended during the course of this fiscal year. In fact, if I recall correctly, about 85 per cent or 90 per cent of the final cheques are being mailed this week. The balance is being mailed next week which is, of course, good news for farmers wherever they may be located. Within this $296 million there is some provision for additional personnel to be hired to administer the Special Grains and Oilseeds Program No. 2.
In 1987-88, provision for the $1 billion program which, of course, at that time was unprecedented, was provided through the Supplementary Estimates. By the end of June a total of 208,000 grain producers will have received payments under the Special Grains and Oilseeds Program No. 2. While the average payment works out to some $4,500, statistics are often misleading. I know that the farmers in my constituency are receiving on average substantially more than that. I can also report that I have had many farmers say to me quite candidly that if it were not for this program and for the payments under the Western Grain Stabilization Program they would not be able to continue farming as they are at the moment.
The purpose of the Special Grains Program is to reduce- not to eliminate-the impact on Canadian farmers of the trade war which has been taking place between the European Economic Community and the United States. It is a trade war which in all minds is evidence of the insanity which is in the international grain trading community. While we cannot match the resources of others, we are trying to lessen the impact. In addition, and something which is probably more

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important, we are trying to provide the necessary leadership which we hope will mean the end of that trade war at some point in the reasonably near future.
Within this year's current Estimates there is $26 million for payments into the Western Grain Stabilization Fund, and $5 million for payments into the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Program. These programs fall within the jurisdiction of the Minister of State for Grains and Oilseeds (Mr. Mayer).
Elsewhere, a spending increase of just under $20 million is foreseen for various provincial agri-food agreements. These are regional development agreements which are intended to improve farm productivity, to explore export opportunities, and to help develop secondary industries. These are programs which are very important, particularly to the primary sector of agriculture which is in such difficulty. Our share of these agreements amounts to $40.3 million in 1988-89.
Another program provides $11.5 million which is needed to help tobacco producers adjust to the market realities of the 1980s. This is an industry which has undergone in many ways revolutionary changes over the last two to three years.
The alternative enterprise initiative encourages research, new crop development and market development projects in tobacco-producing areas in Ontario and Quebec. There is also a tobacco transition adjustment initiative program which provides payments to producers to help them leave the tobacco industry. This program applies also to Prince Edward Island producers, as well as to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick farmers.
Estimated statutory payments under the Agriculture Stabilization Act this year are expected to total $65 million.
The Main Estimates reflect our continuing commitment to agriculture, to the farm community and to the agri-food system through new initiatives and the maintaining of longstanding programs. It is important that I take a moment to mention some of the other initiatives which the Department of Agriculture is undertaking.
In April of this year the Minister of State for Grains and Oilseeds officially opened the National Grains Bureau in Winnipeg. Last year, a grains and oilseeds branch of Agriculture Canada was formed because of the very large and very special role these commodities play in Canadian agriculture. The National Grains Bureau is the policy and planning arm of the grains and oilseeds branch. Its purpose is to serve as a focal point for the federal Government to participate more effectively in and to respond to grains issues. It made sense that this National Grains Bureau should be located in Winnipeg which is in many ways the heart of the Canadian grain industry.
We have also started a new program called Grains 2000. The name says it all. This program will help us design longterm policy options for grains. You will recall, Mr. Speaker, the focus during Question Period on the appropriate need for long-term policy. I am delighted that Grains 2000 is working in that direction. I think that it is an initiative welcomed by
others in the House. The idea is to give people within the grains industry, farmers, representatives of the various grain buying companies, universities, provincial Governments, and other agencies a chance to participate with the federal Government in policy development.
Having attended a number of meetings with the Minister of State for Grains and Oilseeds in which he has consulted with the industry on an informal basis, I find this type of consultation to be very effective. I think the investment which we are making as a Government and as a country in this type of program, and others, will be money very well spent.
Also in effect now is a transfer of the Grain Marketing Bureau to Agriculture Canada from the Department of External Affairs. There are a number of people certainly within the farming community who think that that is a change which is certainly warranted. This results in an increase in expenditure of $3.9 million, which includes 27 person-years.
For more than a year Agriculture Canada has been developing a strategic plan to guide the research branch into the 21st century. The plan is founded on something that the Minister and I, as well as everybody else interested in agriculture, really believe in-a stronger partnership between Agriculture Canada research stations and the agricultural industry, as well as our research partners in the provinces and universities.
What the plan hopes to do is to strengthen the links between Agriculture Canada research stations and organizations in the agri-food industry to bring about more joint research ventures. What is happening is that there is more of a realization that world research should indeed be a world in which government and others participate as partners. Certainly, the federal research station which has been an integral part of our history in Canada, since 1886 if my memory serves me correctly, has made an invaluable contribution. Nevertheless, having said that, we believe quite strongly that there is a role for the universities and for the provinces. For example, the University of Manitoba has a very valuable agricultural research activity. One of my alma maters, the University of Saskatchewan, also has a distinguished record in the same area. In the future, this type of partnership will be quite fruitful. We have had joint ventures before, but this type of plan will spark more research in the agri-food industry, especially for private food processing firms.
It has been said before, but it is worth saying again that Agriculture Canada has no intention whatsoever of relinquishing its historic role as a leader in the agri-food industry, but wishes a clear definition of where others fit in. That is an appropriate request, and it is probably also an objective with which it will be comfortable. It also sees government and research as being areas where there is an opportunity for partnership, and it simply wants to know what its role and the rules will be.
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In accordance with the Government's commitment to deregulation, discussions on the privatization of the record of performance programs will continue with groups from both industry and provincial Governments. Privatization of recording activities is already well under way in the swine and dairy sectors. Generally speaking, it has been well received.
Our very important five-year dairy policy, outlined in January, 1986, continues to ensure that efficient producers of milk and cream receive a fair return for their labour and investment. This fiscal year the federal commitment to that program is $227 million.
Another area where we have put a great amount of effort, and perhaps to some degree with slightly disappointing results, although we see progress, is in the area of tripartite stabilization. The progress has certainly been slower than we wished, but indeed there is progress. In recent weeks there have been a number of meetings. The federal Minister will be meeting with provincial counterparts in Toronto on the 12th of July, or the week thereof, and I hope there to be more progress at that particular time. These meetings have become even more important since meetings last March in which the federal Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Wise) met with his provincial counterparts. There are differences, but there is a continuing commitment to resolve those differences. We will see some progress in the not too distant future.
Every Member of the House, whether a representative of urban Canada or rural Canada, is well aware of the international crisis which exists in the grain industry and is also aware of the leadership that the Government has been attempting to provide.
In our opinion, the trade agreement negotiated with the United States is helpful both as an example to the international trading community, and also in lessening some of the trade impediments which have plagued agriculture in the last two to three years.
We also believe that our participation in the current round of multilateral trade talks is exceedingly important. It is through those types of discussion that we will find the longterm solutions that we are seeking. All too often in politics the media, and to some degree the politicians, focus on the crisis of the moment. This morning's The Globe and Mail carried a story on the drought which is so significant on the Prairies. Predictably, and borne out by what happened in the House a few hours ago, much of the thrust of Question Period focused on that drought, in part because of the publicity provided to the issue by one of Canada's leading daily newspapers.
The problems which exist in agriculture exist irrespective of whether they receive the attention of journalists, or indeed the attention of Members of the House. That is why discussions which have been taking place in the international trade community are so vital. Those ongoing discussions are absolutely essential if we are to end the war in subsidies, which means that Canadians who produce a very high quality
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product have been compelled to sell the product at substantially reduced prices. That is why the GATT round is so important. Our commitment and support of GATT is of absolute importance. In many ways we see that as being the real solution that the farming community and those of us who are interested in the farm community are seeking.
Those of us who are interested in agriculture, particularly those of us from the Prairies, know that we live in a world where exports are predominant. Fifty per cent of agricultural income comes from exports. Sometimes members of the urban community look at the supply management sector and ask: "Why do we not use that as a strategy to resolve all of our problems?" I have heard people on phone-in programs suggest that we sell in Canada and build a trade wall around Canada and meet the needs of the Canadian farmer. Tragically, that would mean a loss in agricultural income of 50 per cent. It would automatically mean a reduction in personnel of 50 per cent.
Our future in agriculture lies in the development of markets. To a large degree those markets will be found outside the country. There are really only two industrialized nations in the world that do not have guaranteed access to a market of at least 100 million. We are one, and Australia is the other. That is why the trade talks are so important, and why the free trade agreement is important. It provides us with an example to the rest of the multilateral trading communities of a direction in which we can go.
The GATT talks are of the utmost importance. The meetings in Montreal which will take place, the mid-term evaluations meeting in December, will give us an indication as to where we are headed. Our future lies in that type of activity. I am proud to be part of a Government that has made this a priority.
The main Estimates do not include all the expenditures which will take place in the world of agriculture. Some of those will be included in Supplementary Estimates after program specifications are provided by the Treasury Board. We are extending the Farm Debt Review Boards until 1991, which represents a further commitment of $39 million. I wish we did not need Farm Debt Review Boards, but the reality of the matter is that we do. I have spoken to many constituents who are able to stay in farming because of that type of program and financial commitment on the part of the Government and the people of Canada.
The main Estimates also do not show an additional commitment of $270 million through 1991 to the Farm Credit Corporation. That will enable FCC to enter into arrangements reached with the Farm Debt Review Board process to give it some much needed extra flexibility. FCC has been in a very severe financial crisis. If it operated within the private sector it would have been out of business some time ago. We as a Government are attempting to provide it with the necessary financial support to give it the flexibility which it needs to address its programs.

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Another program we might wish that we did not need, but which is exceedingly important, is the Canadian Rural Transition Program. It has also been extended to 1991 at a cost of $28 million. Certainly, it is very difficult to think of this program in terms of successes because it is addressing the needs of people who have to leave the farm. When some must, or some choose to, it is very important that someone be there with a helping hand. That is basically where the rural transition program fits in.
In Manitoba, as a model, there have been services provided through a research institute which is located in my own community. 1 know the people who work there. I know many people who have made use of the service. It is money well spent, and money that is necessary to help in that type of transition.
Last December the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) announced a $75 million National Soil Conservation Program to be carried out over the next three years. This is subject to matching funds from the provinces. All the evidence indicates that the provinces are extremely interested. Anyone who travels the Prairies these days is exceedingly conscious, perhaps even painfully conscious, of the need for soil conservation programs. In some areas the ditches are full of quality soil that is the victim of soil and wind erosion. This will be an investment in the future of the country. The Farm Fuel Tax Rebate Program often talked about in the House will save farmers approximately $440 million.
When we talk about the farm community today we talk about men and women working together. That has always been the case, but perhaps we are more conscious of it today than we have been in the past. One of the expenditures in this program which pleases me is that there will be some more money, not an awful lot, but some more money available to support Agricultural Canada's farm women's program this year. That will facilitate farm women coming together to discuss the problems that are so crucial to them. Furthermore, we hope that it will also provide them with an avenue by which they can approach the Government of Canada and be part of the consultative process.
Quite frankly, the objective of all of us and of the Government is to serve the needs of the Canadian farm community by working in co-operation with them. Too often in the past Governments have attempted to devise programs which were allegedly going to solve the problems of the people of Canada. We are attempting to work with the people of Canada in order to address the problems of the day.


Marion Dewar: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in this debate because our Party will oppose the Estimates that are before us. Many of the things the Hon. Member opposite has suggested are happening in his community are certainly not happening in our communities. First and foremost, the Government is going to spend, at a minimum, $8
billion on nuclear submarines. Yet it cannot find the money to increase the Estimates for the Canadian Jobs Strategy.
The Canadian Jobs Strategy has been cut by $125 million. That $125 million could have gone toward providing programs for older workers. Three times I have heard a program announced for older workers. First, a program is announced and then a year later, the Government says that it has to negotiate with the provinces. Then when it is asked what the provinces are doing, the Government says that it is just on the verge of an agreement, so it announces again that there will be a program. Sometimes Canadians are not aware of the details of what happens here, and they keep thinking that there is a program for older workers.
I want Hon. Members to know that 1,300 employees of Firestone in Hamilton were laid off this past year. I also want Hon. Members to know that many of those workers were older workers and there is no program for them. The federal Government is using the excuse that it cannot get an agreement with the provinces. It has agreements with many of the provinces now, but until it has an agreement with all the provinces, it simply will not worry about older workers. That is a very callous attitude and it is one to which I take great exception.
I also feel very strongly about the fact that the federal Government made a promise during the last election campaign of a child care program for the children of Canada. We know that two million children do not have child care spaces. There is no money in the Estimates to increase the child care that is provided to Canadian children.
I think these Estimates are a classic example of hypocrisy on the part of the federal Government. Yet, the Government can afford to put another $20 million into propaganda for selling a trade agreement with the United States that the Government calls a free trade agreement. Yes, it is free. It freely gives our country away. The Government is willing to spend money in order to convince Canadians with their own money that they should give their country away. That certainly does not make very much sense to me.
Looking at the Estimates, I recognize that the Government wants to provide some money for transition houses. I know that a million women are being battered, and the federal Government said during the last federal election campaign that money would not be an issue when serving the needs of battered women. Unfortunately, all the Government can find now is $10 per battered woman.
The Government talks about making allowances for the needs of society today. It says that it will reach out to the people. Words are cheap and the Government has been able to use those words during election campaigns. What we are looking for in the Estimates are programs. We are looking for dollars that will implement programs to give relief to the people who are suffering. The Government is not doing anything to provide for people's needs. It can spend all the money it wants to win a by-election. It can spend all the money
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it chooses to buy nuclear submarines. It can spend all sorts of-


Mr. Crofton:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Hon. Member who is addressing the House referred several times in her speech to expenditures in the present Estimates for nuclear submarines. I would invite her to tell us just where in the Estimates these numbers are contained. She is talking about hypocrisy and falsehoods. I would suggest that that is a large one, because those figures are not in the Estimates.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: That is not a point of order, it is a matter of debate. The Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain (Ms. Dewar) has the floor.


Marion Dewar: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and certainly we do not want to confuse the issue with reality, reality being that the Government has not only defended nuclear submarines in the House but has also said that the submarines would not be in any conflict with the environment. The Government has no expenditures in the Estimates to clean up the environment. At the same time, it has announced several times that it will spend money on nuclear submarines. It is in the process of letting the contract for those submarines in the next couple of months. It seems to me that the Government certainly has its priorities skewed, and I am very concerned about the fact that with that kind of hypocrisy that is being sold to the Canadian people, this Government does not deserve to govern. I hope we will be able to put an end to it in the not-too-distant future. It will not be too long before the Canadian people will realize that the great fear of this Government is dealing with what the Canadian people really want.
I would also suggest that we do not see spending programs for housing in the Estimates. We know that housing is job creation. We know that the needs across Canada for housing are crucial. Certainly looking at what is happening in my own community makes me recognize that. A study has shown that applications for social housing in Hamilton are up by 25 per cent over this time last year. With the Hamilton-Wentworth housing authority, there are 1,253 families on the waiting list for non-profit housing.
What can the federal Government do? Certainly Canada Mortgage and Housing could look at the situation and act on some solutions. Educational programs to improve community acceptance of social housing are very important. There has been a program like this in the City of Toronto. Certainly we could use this kind of program in Hamilton. It is something that not only creates jobs but gives people a sense of security in their own communities.
I have just been looking at Canadian Business of June, 1988, not necessarily a New Democratic publication, but certainly one that has taken a very good look at the problem with employment in Canada. This publication says that politicians focus too much on job-creation programs and not enough on policies that address the more fundamental problems in the economy, and that without such direction,
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lower unemployment rates will only be temporary. I think it is really important-


Alan Redway: Free trade.


Marion Dewar: No, if we look at what the trade agreement does, it deals with low-paid trades and the creation of low-paid jobs. It is a fundamental erosion of our economic base.
According to a survey done in 1982 by Labour Canada's micro-electronics task force, we were investing 25 hours per worker on annual retraining programs and education as compared to 35 hours in the United States and 65 hours in Japan. We must recognize that when dealing with the long term, we have to look at skills training that is outside that provided by the companies that look at the short term. Certainly these are the kinds of recommendations that came out of the study done by the micro-electronics task force.
A positive way of spending money certainly would be to invest in labour and in what the real jobs are in society without giving our country away. That would be the proper way to put the Estimates before the House. Rather than that, the Government is setting the priorities it thinks are important, not those that are important to the Canadian people, and expecting that the Members of the House of Commons will support those Estimates. I think we would be irresponsible as Members of Parliament if we approved these Estimates. Certainly with the majority that the Government has, it can do what it likes, or so it keeps telling us, both through the procedures of the House of Commons and the spending of the money of the people of Canada.
It is really important to recognize that it is the money of the people of Canada that is being spent. Certain things are not available. I see, for instance, immigrant women in this country who cannot get language training or access to the labour market and find it very difficult to integrate within society itself. They have children in schools and have to go for interviews. They need help from the health care system but cannot get access to it because of language problems. This is not a surprise to the Government. Studies have been done. We have asked questions in the House and constantly we have been told there will be movement on those programs, yet the Estimates before us do not allow for any language training for immigrant women.
These are the kinds of things that demonstrate whether or not a country cares about its society and the people who live in it. These are the kinds of programs that say not only that we welcome immigrants into society but that we want to assist them become full participants. Because of the lack of programs people coming into the country often feel intimidated and feel they are second-class citizens because they cannot participate with their family members because of a very rigid language barrier. There is discrimination between men and women. There are language programs for men but not for immigrant women. This is not only a very serious economic

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obstacle but also a serious social obstacle hindering people from participating full time in society. It is more than discouraging; immigrant women are thus unable to be the kind of care deliverers for their families which they could be if there were adequate programs for them.
It is a disgrace to be asked to accept the kind of Estimates we are being asked to accept today. Those Estimates do not reflect the promises given by the Conservative Government during the last election. Things have not come to fruition. What have we got instead? We have a great PR program which is trying to tell Canadians what they should like whether they like it or not, trying to put them in a situation where they are threatened, whether they are threatened or not. We are supposed to be imagining some kind of great attack from over the Arctic Ocean, and therefore we are supposed to put all our resources toward saving us from that. We would be a lot better off if we were building a really constructive multilateral kind of trade policy to say that the country is important, that Canadians are competitive and can be multilateral traders, instead of having only one trading partner. But that is exactly what the Government is trying to do.
What is happening? The Government is spending money foolishly. It is cutting back on useful programs. The Canadian Jobs Strategy Program, as I have said often in the House and in committee, has taken on the proper direction, but it needs to be fine-tuned. It does not need cut-backs. That kind of investment will not only help reduce the deficit in the long term but it will also help build a stable economic base, which is much more important than spending $25 million telling Canadians they have a good agreement with the U.S. when it is a lousy one. That kind of hypocrisy is not what we stand for on this side of the House.
We look at programs that are important for people. We look at those things that will build a caring society and a society with some stability. When we look at those things we realize that the priorities in these Estimates are all wrong. This is not the kind of Canada we look toward. It is not the kind of spending we think is responsible spending of Canadians' own money. For that reason, Mr. Speaker, we will oppose these Estimates. We hope they will be the last Estimates that ever come forward to the Parliament of Canada by this Government.


Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, I was overwhelmed by the comments of the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain (Ms. Dewar). First, on a number of occasions she indicated the question of nuclear-powered submarines were in the current Estimates. Of course they are not, as you are well aware. All of her remarks with respect to that were irrelevant and out of order because they had nothing to do with the issue before us, that of the spending Estimates for 1988-89.
Second, the Hon. Member referred to the fact that the Estimates and the expenditure plan of the Government was a disgrace because it did nothing for people. As you are well aware, Mr. Speaker, the expenditure plan and the policy of the
Government over the last four years have had a significant effect on those living below the poverty line. In fact, the incidence of low income people has decreased from 17.3 per cent of the population in 1984 to 14.9 per cent, which is the latest figure for 1986. It is quite clear that the policies of the Government as reflected in the spending Estimates have been a significant helping hand to low income people about whom the Hon. Member has expressed concern.
In job creation, Canada has led the industrialized western world in those four years. Canada led in economic growth in those four years. All of the things which the Hon. Member has spoken about seem to imply that her Party, the New Democratic Party, has a different approach to things. The New Democrats would have a different industrial strategy for the whole operation.
In this House recently the member of the New Democratic Party, the Hon. Member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin), made a statement. He said that the NDP's industrial strategy:
-could well mean less growth, or a bit of a standstill in growth, in the golden triangle form Quebec to Windsor.
I put this question. Why do we want Toronto or Montreal to get any bigger? What for? Glorified anthills is what they are. Why would one want to establish another manufacturing plant in that part of the country? As far as I am concerned Toronto needs another manufacturing plant like it needs a hole in the head.
Is that the Member's policy and the policy of the NDP as set out by the Hon. NDP Member for Regina West recently in this House?


Marion Dewar: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin) certainly does not have the authority to make or break a policy of the New Democrats, and I think we all know that. As New Democrats we have spoken about making sure there are economic policies to reduce regional disparity.
We are very concerned about the amount of unemployment existing in the interior of British Columbia, northern Canada, Newfoundland and Atlantic Canada. The present Government should be appalled by its actions which have allowed the level of unemployment to grow as it has in those regions of the country while there is an overheated economy in southwestern Ontario. It is certainly bad economic policy.


Mr. Speaker:: It being six o'clock p.m., pursuant to Order made Thursday, June 23, 1988, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the Business of Supply pursuant to Standing Order 82(11).
Accordingly, the question is as follows: Mr. Lewis (for the President of the Treasury Board) moved that the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1989, laid upon the Table Tuesday, February 23, 1988, less the amounts voted in interim Supply, be concurred in.
Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?
June 27, 1988


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion carried.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: That Supplementary Estimates (A) for the fiscal year ending March 31,
1989, laid upon the Table, Wednesday, May 18, 1988, be concurred in.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: that Bill C-138, an Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Government of Canada for the financial year ending March 31, 1989, be read the first time.
Motion agreed to and Bill read the first time.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: that Bill C-138, an Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Government of Canada for the financial year ending March 31, 1989, be read the second time and referred to Committee of the Whole.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the second time and the House went into committee thereon, Mr. Danis in the chair.
Mr. Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the President of the Treasury Board personally to assure the House that she has personally inspected this Bill, and can confirm to the House that it is in the usual and proper form. Do I have that assurance personally from the President of the Treasury Board?


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the President of the Treasury Board, I am pleased to advise the Hon. House Leader of the Official Opposition that the form of this Bill is the same as that passed in previous years.


Marcel Danis: Shall Clause 2 carry?


Some Hon. Members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Marcel Danis: Shall Clause 3 carry?


Some Hon. Members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Marcel Danis: Shall Clause 4 carry?


Some Hon. Members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Supply
Marcel Danis: Shall Clause 5 carry?


Some Hon. Members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Marcel Danis: Shall Clause 6 carry?


Some Hon. Members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Schedule A agreed to.
Schedule B agreed to.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Preamble agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill agreed to.
Marcel Danis: Shall I rise and report the Bill?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
Bill reported.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: that the Bill be concurred in.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: that the Bill be read the third time and passed.
Motion agreed to and Bill read the third time and passed.



[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Thursday, June 23, consideration of the motion of Mr. Rodriguez:
That the Nineteenth Report of the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs, respecting bank charges, presented to the House on Monday, June 6, 1988, be concurred in, and that the adoption of this motion shall not be considered to be a question of confidence in the government.
Mr. Speaker:: The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred division on the motion of the Hon. Member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Rodriguez) in relation to the Business of Supply. Shall I dispense with the ringing of the bells?


An Hon. Member:: No.

June 27, 1988
Supply


Mr. Speaker:: Call in the Members.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion lost.
St. Germain
St-Julien
Schellenberg
(Nanaimo-Alberni) Scowen Sparrow Stewart Tardif
(Charlesbourg)
Taylor
Thacker
Hamilton	McCrossan	TowersMembers	Hardey	McDermid	TupperHawkes	McDougall	TurnerHnatyshyn	(St. Paul's)	(Ottawa-Carlet<Allmand	Guilbault	McDonald	Hockin	McKenzie	Van De WalleAlthouse	(Saint-Jacques)	(Broadview-	Holtmann	McKinnon	VankoughnetBaker	Harris	Greenwood)	Horner	McKnight	VezinaBlackburn	Henderson	McLaughlin	James	Merrithew	Vincent(Brant)	Hopkins	Nystrom	Jardine	Mitges	WarnerBlaikie	Hovdebo	Ouellet	Jelinek	Nicholson	WenmanDewar	Isabelle	Parry	Jepson	(Niagara Falls)	WilsonFoster	Jewett	Riis	Johnson	Nickerson	(Swift CurrentFulton	Keeper	Rodriguez	(Bonavista-Trinity-	Nowlan	-Maple Creek)Garneau	Killens	Rompkey	Conception)	Oberle	WilsonGauthier	McCurdy	Young-30	Joncas	Oostrom	(EtobicokeGray	Jourdenais	Pietz	Centre)(Windsor West)	Kelleher	Plourde	WinegardKempling	Porter	WiseNAYS	Kilgour	Price	Witer-120Ladouceur	Ravis	Members	Lawrence	Redway	Layton	Reimer	Lewis	Ricard	
It being 6.30 o'clock p.m., pursuant to Order made Thursday, June 23, 1988, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 11 o'clock a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 3(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.39 p.m.
[Stage Direction]

Tuesday, June 28, 1988
[Stage Direction]
Prayers