1989-12-15

[Stage Direction]
The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-28, an Act to amend the Income Tax Act, the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements and Federal Post-Secondary Education and Health Contributions Act, the Old Age Security Act, the Public Utilities Income Tax Transfer Act, the War Veterans Allowance Act and a related act, as reported (without amendment) from a legislative committee.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: There are 10 motions in amendment on the Notice Paper for the report stage of Bill C-28, an act to amend the Income Tax Act, the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements and Federal Post-Secondary Education and Health Contributions Act, the Old Age Security Act, the Public Utilities Income Tax Transfer Act, the War Veterans Allowance Act and a related act.
These motions are standing in the name of the hon. members for Sault Ste. Marie, Mr. Butland, and Ottawa South, Mr. Manley. I have reviewed them and I am now ready to make a ruling.
Motions Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 10 are admissible and each of them will be debated and voted upon separately. Motions Nos. 4, 6, and 7 will be debated together but voted upon as follows: (a) an affirmative vote on Motion No. 4 obviates the necessity for a vote on Motions Nos. 6 and 7; (b) a negative vote on Motion No. 4 necessitates a vote on Motion No. 6. Any such vote would be applied to Motion No. 7. Motion No. 5 is identical to Motion No. 4
and therefore Motion No. 5 will not be selected. Motions Nos. 8 and 9 raise procedural difficulties for the Chair. As hon. members are aware, it is not competent within our parliamentary practice for a private member to move to increase the amount of tax or a charge on people in a bill which is based on ways and means motions.
In my view, both of these proposed motions are attempting to do just that by attempting to lower a deduction from $10 million to $1 million. I must therefore rule Motions Nos. 8 and 9 inadmissible. In this connection, I would refer hon. members in the House to the various citations of Beauchesne's Fifth Edition and May's Parliamentary Practice.
The hon. member for Kamloops on a point of order.


Mr. Riis:: Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, the member for Sault Ste. Marie in whose name the various motions have been put is not here. He is away on other business.
I wonder if I could seek the unanimous consent of the House to have the motions in his name be put in the name of the hon. member for Mission-Coquitlam.


Mr. Cooper:: Mr. Speaker, in the spirit of Christmas, kindness and generosity, we are more than happy to allow this.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is there unanimous consent?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier on a point of order.


Mr. Gauthier:: Mr. Speaker, I would like some clarification. You stated that Motions Nos. 4, 6 and 7 will be debated together, but a negative vote on Motion No. 4 necessitates a vote on Motion No. 6, and the words that I have a problem with are "any such vote would be applied to Motion No. 7".
I take it that it is the result of the second vote that would be applied to Motion No. 7, not the results of the first vote? Is that the correct interpretation?

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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: That is correct.


MEASURE TO AMEND
Ms. Joy Langan (for Mr. Butland) moved:: Motion No. 1.
That Bill C-28 be amended in Clause 7
(a)	by striking out line 26 at page 12 and substituting the following therefor:
"April 26, 1990, other than"
(b)	by striking out line 30 at page 12 and substituting the following therefor:
"Time, April 26, 1990 under which the"
(c)	by striking out line 37 at page 12 and substituting the following therefor:

(d)	by striking out lines 40 and 41 at page 12 and substituting the following therefor:
"Daylight Saving Time, April 26,1990 and before June 12,1990,
subsection 16.1(1) of".
She said: Mr. Speaker, this proposed amendment to Bill C-28 is to change the date of implementation of the clause from April 26, 1989, to April 26, 1990. This clause is poorly drafted and the fear of leasing companies is that this change will cause many small leasing companies to go out of business, therefore, we should be taking a very careful second look at this clause.
The Income Tax Act amendments on leasing are an attempt by the Department of Finance to close off an area of tax revenue loss. The department feels that some firms are using leasing in preference to outright purchases because the leasing companies can capture some tax advantages that the lessee firms themselves cannot.
The strategy behind the amendments is to treat leasing companies as if they are financing companies making loans and to allow those lessee firms which can claim tax advantages to do so if they want to, but the assets are to be treated as a purchase of the lease asset for tax purposes.
The goal seems to be to make those lessees who were only leasing for tax reasons indifferent between leasing and buying with the purchase being financed by loan, and to put those lessees who were leasing for non-tax reasons in exactly the same financial position as before.
As I said earlier, the clause is poorly drafted primarily because it describes how lessees are to be treated under the new clause only, with the description of how lessors are to be treated under new income tax regulations as opposed to insertion of an entirely new clause into the Income Tax Act which is what clause 7 is.
The culmination of this new clause in the Income Thx Act and the new regulations introduce a fundamental change in the way leasing is viewed by the Department of Finance.
It is rather peculiar to do one-half of the changes through amendments to the Income Thx Act and the other half through amendments to the regulations.
The new regulations introduced a considerable change in the complexity of a leasing agreement. The calculations required are not of themselves difficult, nor do they require any information.
On the other hand, the old system is clearly designed to minimize bookkeeping by allowing aggregation over property classes. The new system does show a different approach by the Department of Finance to the ending of perceived tax abuses. Normally, the Department of Finance rewrites the act or regulations to stop the abuses directly by saying "you cannot". The new system for leasing requires the lessor to compare two options and choose the least favourable.
In the words of the legislative committee's researcher, it is not hard to believe that the conclusion of this computation is not foregone. If the Department of Finance had done its job of identifying loopholes in the tax system and found a mathematical formula that catches the abuse, then it is hard to argue that direct regulations or amendments could not be written that could equally well attack the abuse at lower compliance costs.
This confusing approach called "treatment by loan analogy" by finance officials has engendered fear within the leasing industry that the increasing administrative complexity it introduces will drive up costs.
On the other hand, companies that lease equipment fear that the disappearance of tax advantages for leasing as opposed to outright purchasing will constrain their cash flows. Both are problems, especially for smaller companies. The change of the date of implementation is designed to allow finance officials to implement the
December 15, 1989

change to lessors through either an additional amendment to the Income Tax Act or, preferably, to redraft the entire clause in a technical bill which they will introduce in either January or February.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The question is on Motion No. 1. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), the recorded division on the Motion No. 1 stands deferred.


Joy Langan: Motion No. 2
That Bill C-28 be amended in Clause 18 by striking out lines 5 to
10 at page 24.
She said: Mr. Speaker, the reason for this change is to nullify the effect of the gross up. The gross up of a quarter on income earned from dividends has the effect of driving up many seniors' incomes solely for the purpose of income tax calculation, if they earn part of their retirement income through dividends. This means that even if they do not earn $50,000 a year, the threshold for the clawback, they will be pushed over this mark and, as a result, have part or all of their old age security taxed back.
The grossup was originally introduced in order to avoid the double taxation of dividends. Dividends are taxed both at the corporate level and at the individual level. By including the gross up in his or her income tax calcula-
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tions, the individual taxpayer receives a tax credit to avoid being taxed at the individual level. This is not a problem until the introduction of the clawback which has the effect that I have just described.


Mr. Vic Althouse (Mackenzie):: Mr. Speaker, I would just like to add to the words of our friend from Mission- Coquitlam. The whole concept of the gross up is to create some fictional income for purposes of income tax. The hon. member has correctly described what the reasoning behind it is. The idea was to avoid any perception of double taxation on dividends, and individual taxing on dividends would occur at a fairer level since some of those dividends had already had tax paid on them at the corporate level.
As the hon. member pointed out, what we have here is a situation where, assuming that the pensioner has retired with stocks which yield him or her something in the order of $40,000, with the 25 per cent gross up for reporting purposes that becomes $50,000, and suddenly the pensioner is in the position of losing the old age pension through the clawback. It was not real income, they still have the $40,000 to spend, but for a bookkeeping nicety they lose their pension income. That is the reasoning behind the proposed amendment. Once government members and backbenchers have a few moments to think about it, they will see that this particular clause ought to be deleted in the interest of fairness to pensioners.


Mr. John Manley (Ottawa South):: Mr. Speaker, I have raised this matter of the dividend gross up a number of times in the context of questions to the minister in the House on the issue of the clawback. I am not sure that I agree with the amendment because I do not think it directs itself to the key issue. I think the amendment relating to the gross up in this context has to do with certain dividend rental arrangements that are provided for elsewhere in the amendments to the Income Tax Act contained in Bill C-28.
The point that my colleagues in the NDP are making with respect to the threshold and how it is calculated under the Income Tax Act for purposes of the clawback is an important one to make, that being that for the purposes of the clawback, which we will come to later on in the amendments, the threshold of $50,000 income is defined as income under Part I of the Income Tax Act.

December 15, 1989
And more than five members having risen:
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That means that all dividends received from Canadian corporations will be grossed up by 25 per cent and that grossed up amount is the amount that is considered income for the purposes of the threshold of $50,000.
It has been pointed out by departmental officials that that is okay because to generate that many dividends, you have to have a lot of stocks, and that is true. But I would suggest that the essential inequity of treating different kinds of income differently for the purposes of the Income Tax Act undermines the integrity of the system. Whether we like the clawback or not, which clearly we on our side do not, if you are going to say that the threshold is $50,000 of income then let it be $50,000 of real income, not the notional gross up received on dividends.
Whether a senior puts his or her assets into interest earning investments or dividend earning investments should not make any difference in determining whether or not they have reached the threshold for clawback purposes. One of the most distressing things that has happened in this Chamber over the last 10 days is that the Minister of Finance in answering questions did not seem to understand what the dividend gross up was.
All of that being said, I do not think that this particular amendment addresses that problem. If there is going to be an amendment to address that problem, it needs to be done elsewhere in the act.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The question is on Motion No. 2. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: In my opinion the nays have it.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), the recorded division on the motion stands deferred.
That Bill C-28 be amended in Clause 47 by striking out line 1 at
page 45 and substituting the following therefor:
"(a) 0.05 percent of tax payable under Part 1 by".
She said: Mr. Speaker, the reason for the changes in this clause which reduce the surtax from 5 per cent to .05 per cent, is to greatly reduce the amount of the surtax. The finance minister indicated that he would get rid of the 3 per cent surtax on individual income once sales tax changes were announced. Instead, as with many promises which have been made by this government, he has done exactly the opposite. In fact, he wants to raise it, despite the introduction of the goods and services tax, to 5 per cent.
Originally, it was suggested that the clause describing the surtax be deleted altogether. However, the Parliamentary Law Clerk has indicated to us that for technical reasons this would be very difficult. Therefore, we present to this House the proposal that the percentage be changed to a much smaller level to at least prove to be fair and equitable and certainly much closer and in keeping with the commitment that the finance minister made regarding getting rid of the 3 per cent surtax.


John Paul Manley: Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak in support of this amendment. This amendment raises an issue that is very bothersome to many Canadians. When we had phase one of tax reform and were promised phase two, which was to be sales tax reform, it was clearly stated that phase two was going to be revenue neutral. This concept of revenue neutrality went through a whole series of phases. Revenue neutrality meant that the new tax was just going to replace the old federal sales tax, then revenue neutrality meant replacing the federal sales tax, eliminating the surtaxes, and reducing the middle-income tax rate, and there were other things thrown in. The concept of revenue neutrality, as far as the goods and services tax is concerned, became a moving target. Whatever the minister happens to feel like on a given day, is what revenue neutrality meant that day.


Joy Langan: Motion No. 3
December 15, 1989

One of the principles behind revenue neutrality was that we were going to do away with the surtaxes, either temporary, for a special purpose, or they are an attempt to fool around with provincial revenues. Because as the government well knows, provincial income tax revenues are based on a percentage of the base income tax revenue collected under the federal income tax system for almost all of the provinces. To impose a surtax is a way of milking the taxpayer and avoiding letting the provinces get their fair share.
Bill C-28 is an attempt to make permanent the surtax, to avoid letting the provinces get their fair share of income tax revenue, and also to renege on a promise of revenue neutrality, and that promise should be respected. Canadian taxpayers are fed up with what they are having to pay. The goods and services tax, bad as it is, should be replacing the surtaxes so that we go back to a reasonable, comprehensible and fair tax system in Canada.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, I will be very brief. On the lead up to tax reform the Minister of Finance indicated several times that he would get rid of these surtaxes as soon as he had a policy on sales taxes. The sales tax changes were announced in this past budget. It was announced that it would be 9 per cent. There are now some rumours that perhaps it will be 7 per cent. That is irrelevant. The fact is there has been a decision made to go to a sales tax.
I do not think, and I am sure my colleagues agree me, that we should put into the basic tax law as is being proposed here this 5 per cent surtax when we had a commitment by the Minister of Finance that this would be temporary. It is not temporary when you put it into the basic law. The minister can do what he wants to do by regulation, I submit. I do not think this has any place in here at all. We would have preferred to have deleted it altogether but apparently there were some procedural problems with that so we will make it to a fraction of a per cent and I hope that the House would concur with that move.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Question.
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Yes.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: All those in favour of the motion, will please say yea.


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: All those opposed, will please say nay.


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8) the recorded division stands deferred.


John Paul Manley: Motion No. 4.
That Bill C-15 be amended in Clause 73 by striking out line 14 at page 37 and substituting the following therefor:
"73. (1) The Minister shall constitute an".


Joy Langan: Motion No. 6.
That Bill C-15 be amended in Clause 75 by adding immediately after line 5 at page 38 the following:
"in consultation with the advisory committee,".
Motion No. 7.
That Bill C-15 be amended in Clause 77 by striking out line 24 at page 41 and substituting the following therefor:
"expiration of the period of seven years begin-".


John Paul Manley: Mr. Speaker, the effect of this amendment is very simple. It is to delete the provisions of Bill C-28 that would introduce the clawback of old age pensions and family allowance benefits. I think it is fair to say that this one provision of Bill C-28 is the single most important social policy change in a generation in Canada. This, as the hon. member for Mississauga South, chairman of the finance committee has said, is the end of universality of social programs in Canada.
First, let me say that it is a disgrace this kind of social policy change is being made in the context of a budget bill so that there is no adequate opportunity for Canadians to debate this kind of change.

December 15, 1989
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In January, 1985, that government issued a discussion paper under the name of the Minister of National Health and Welfare dealing with the universality of social programs and saying specifically that the clawback-it wasn't called that at the time-the idea of taxing back old age pensions, was unacceptable. It did suggest that maybe it was not so bad with family allowances, that is something we can debate, but it put it forward as a change in social policy that needed to be considered by Canadians, discussed and debated, in order to go forward with the evolution of social policy in Canada. That is the way it should have been done. It went to a parliamentary committee and nothing more was heard of it.
Then, in this year's budget, out comes the clawback as a fiscal measure. Yet it is changing a fundamental social policy in Canada. We could debate universality here, but we are not going to get very far in this forum on this kind of debate. Nor has there been an opportunity for the social agencies, for those groups representing the poor, those groups which are concerned with issues of social policy, to come forward and discuss this and give their input to it, given that it is put forward in a budget measure.
When you begin to change the principle of universality, the change goes far beyond affecting those few people who the government recognizes may be earning more than $50,000 a year at the present time. We believe that many of the programs that we offer, at all levels of government in Canada, should be made available equally to Canadians at whatever their income level. That has been true of the old age pension since 1952. That has been true of medicare. That has been true of education in the provincial jurisdiction. We say that Canadians should all receive the same basic social benefits, regardless of what their income is. That has been the principle. In abandoning that principle without full debate the government is doing a great disservice to Canadians across the country.
Government members will say, as the Minister has said, that this is not the end of universality. They think Canadians are so dumb that if they put money in one pocket and take it out the other, they will think they have been getting a universal benefit.
Let me put it to them this way. If this is not the end of universality, then what the government has introduced
with this measure is a discriminatory tax. It is a tax not based on ability to pay, as our other income taxes are supposed to be, it is a tax based on age or family size. No other groups in our society pay 100 per cent of any kind of income except, after this is fully implemented, those over 65 and have $50,000 of other income or those who are families.
I know I have very little time on this amendment. On old age pensions the fact is that Canadian pensioners paid for this pension. They paid with a special tax that was on their income tax forms from 1952 to 1971. If you go back to the debates in this Chamber in those years and read the words that were then spoken, it is clear the intention of the House of Commons was to ensure that all Canadians, regardless of their level of income, were entitled to the old age pension and that they were paying for it. When we changed the system in order to simplify it in 1971, Mr. Stanley Knowles rose at that time and expressed his concern that this was the beginning of the end of universality. Promises were made at that time that it was not going to be the end of universality. But here we are in 1989, and that is exactly what the government is doing.
What the government has forgotten on family allowances is the basic principle of fairness that should underlie the income tax system of horizontal equity; the fact that taxpayers who may have the same level of income carry different burdens on the part of our society. Taxpayers with families, with young children, contribute greatly to the future of Canada and that burden of doing so should be borne by all Canadians. This clawback measure does several things.
First, it puts families who have one income on a different footing from those who have two incomes. Two income families, in which both spouses earn $49,000 a year, do not face the clawback. A one income family, in which that one parent earns $60,000 a year, loses all of its family allowance. Is that fair?
The second thing is that years ago the government froze the child tax exemption and it changed it to credits. The government has whittled away the support for families and now, for many families, it has eliminated the family allowance benefit. It is clear that this government no longer believes that all Canadians have a stake in helping families with young children to contribute to the future. It has forgotten the basic principle of horizontal equity, if it ever understood it in the first place.
December 15, 1989

There is only one solution for this bill and that is to remove the discriminatory tax, the clawback tax, and send it into a discussion on social policy where it should have been in the first place so that all Canadians have an opportunity to present their concerns about it.


Mr. Rey Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, I speak in support of the amendment proposed by my colleague, the hon. member for Ottawa South. I would just enunciate the danger that if this clawback tax is allowed to pass it will end the principle of universality in Canada.
I spoke earlier on this bill and I called it an attack on the very principle that has made the people of our country secure and which has been the cornerstone of our social policy.
This morning I would like, as a last attempt to change the heart of the government, to read from some of the thoughts of the very people who will be affected by this proposed tax by the government.
The National Council of Welfare, in its press release of September 13, 1989, said: "The elderly have already paid for their old age pensions through a lifetime of paying income taxes".
A letter from the President of the Senior Citizens Federation to Prime Minister Mulroney on June 23, 1989 stated: "We view this proposal as a serious breach of faith by our government and an insidious effort to undercut the social security programs that you have on numerous times stated are a sacred trust".
One Voice Canada indicated: "That penalizes people who receive benefits, specifically pensioners and families, and destroys the universal nature of the benefit."
The Coalition of Quebec Seniors, in a letter to Finance Minister Wilson on May 24 stated: "Your proposal creates a steeper tax rate for seniors than for others at similar income levels. Seniors who, with great difficulty, have succeeded over the years in saving for their retirement are being penalized".
The Coalition of Quebec Seniors in essence truly reflects the voice of seniors across the country. Not giving up the fight, in a letter addressed to most members of Parliament on November 29, 1989, they
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again call to our attention that the implications of the clawback would be to reduce the purchasing power of seniors, to discriminate against them and to deal a death blow to the universality principle that we have so long cherished in Canada.
I would like to remind the government that the then hon. Minister for Health and Welfare, who is from my home province of Manitoba, promised on December 21, 1984, about this season of the year that: "All savings generated from any changes will be redistributed to social programs and will be applied to deficit reduction". And he continued: "The benefits from old age pensions will be taxed no differently from any other form of income".
That was a sacred promise of an hon. gentleman- whom I continue to esteem, a member of this government, a member of the cabinet in 1984-not so long ago, and this government today is doing just the opposite.
This government has broken a lot of promises and I submit that a litany of broken promises does not create a rosary of sacred trust. I am adamantly opposed to this clawback taxation of the pensions of the seniors of our country. I truly hope that in this spirit of Christmas there can be a change of heart, a change of mind and that the House will adopt the amendment proposed by my hon. colleague.


Mrs. Beryl Gaffney (Nepean):: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to stand here this morning and speak to the amendment to remove the clawback portion from the bill. I have spoken on this previously in the House and expressed my point of view on behalf of constituents of my riding of Nepean. This morning I would like to read excerpts from letters. We have all received hundreds of letters speaking out against this dreadful proposal to clawback seniors pensions. These are from individual people, not from large organizations. This letter from D. Atkinson says:
I am very disillusioned with the current trend by government to get itself elected by whatever means and by whatever promise. I want to speak out, however plaintively, of my outrage over how the government reneged in an '84 denial of free trade, and now in the recent denial of the campaign promise not to meddle with the universality of the OAS.
I thought that Mr. Wilson was once our last bastion of integrity on this bill, now I am not so sure anyone is.
The next letter is from a P. Payne who says:

December 15, 1989

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The Finance Minister's budget abolishes universality of old age pensions-. But that is precisely what the government solemnly promised not to do before the last election. Prime Minister Mulroney said that if the Conservatives did anything to old age pensions they would improve them.
I personally do not believe that the rationale behind the tax grab is sound. I do not think that the national debt versus the tax grab of OAS payments make sense.
But the fact that the people of Canada have seen that the Government of Canada has discriminated against people of 65 years of age is a significant point which they will remember-
This next correspondence from D'Omellas reads:
Seniors of Canada expect that the integrity of the PM should be beyond reproach-.the PM promised that any government he led would improve pensions rather than downgrading them.
There are other vehicles government could utilize in meetings its objectives for reducing the national deficit instead of the unethical and illegal proposal to progressively increase the bite on seniors on fixed income.
The next letter is from M. Messel who writes:
We seniors are being asked, basically on a fixed income, to curb our standard of living so that the present government can have more money to spend, in my opinion much of it carelessly. Have the "members of Parliament" made any sacrifices personally to help the Canadian debt situation -if so what?
The next letter is from R. Paskell who says:
I must protest the proposed budget provision for the taxing of old age security pensions -
It is intolerable that this lack of trust now pervades both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance. Mr. Wilson has the nerve to maintain that this budget proposal maintains universality. How stupid does the minister think the electorate is?
-taxpayers have paid their premiums and if this were a private plan there would be no question of full entitlement regardless of other income.
Do you realize that we still must pay the old age security tax included in general taxes, plus showing the old age pension as taxable income -
If taxes must be raised, adjust the tax rates progressively against income, not against classes of people.
The next letter is from Mr. F. Reynolds:
We seniors paid for the right to have the old age pension at age 65 through our taxes in past years. I feel that just because many of us have through the years denied ourselves of some luxuries to provide a comfortable income in our old age, we should not be penalized for this. Had we spent frivolously and at age 65 had only our old age pension to live on, we would be entitled to the "Supplement". Under Mr. Wilson's proposed "clawback" we are going to suffer for being careful during our working years.
Mr. G. Tessier writes:
Why does the Government of Canada discriminate against seniors on OAS and on family allowances-
Under the Charter of Rights are we not guaranteed equal treatment? Since Canadian seniors and families making more than $50,000 a year are not the only Canadians to have contributed to the national debt, why should they be penalized?
A letter from P.R. Webb reads:
As one affected, I urge you to oppose the OAS clawback.
We've got to get rid of the right wing group manipulated by big business who are in the process of destroying Canada. I'm strongly tempted to pull out and join my daughter in Los Angeles!


Mr. McDermid:: Oh yeah? Then see what her heart bypass costs her.


Beryl Gaffney: Mr. and Mrs. Woodward write:
We are writing to express our objections to the clawback of the Old Age Pension -
Many seniors have declining health and must pay large amounts of money for additional help and transportation and to pay for expensive medication. Not all provinces give financial help with these.
This next letter was written by C. Monette to the Minister of State for Seniors and copied to me. It reads:
I am a chartered accountant, worked hard to earn a middle class income, contributed my services during my working years in the community and for my church, and gave as generously to charity as I could. I paid the old age tax from its inception.
The clawback gives the lie to election promises, and breaks faith with those of us who built this country after our services in the Armed Forces, -this is our reward for 45 years of service to the Crown and to the country!
Surely someone who has worked a lifetime and paid taxes all those years is entitled to what he has accumulated to use for his own living purposes. His planning for retirement has included the OAP which he had a complete right to expect to receive. This attempt at clawback is a breach of contract to be compared to a life insurance company's failure to honour the terms of annuity.
This next letter is a from Mr. and Mrs. Larocque who write:
My husband and I would like to add our names to the growing list of pensioners who are protesting the government's cutback-

December 15, 1989

We understand that cutbacks are necessary, but we feel that attacks on the old age security payments are an unfair and irresponsible means of doing this.
The last letter is from a Mr. and Mrs. Neveu. They write:
My wife and I wish to voice our protest against Mr. Wilson's proposed "clawback" of OAS payments. Even though these proposals will presently affect the rich-we believe that they will eventually affect those with much lower income.
The universality of the old age pension should, in our opinion, be respected as a right of every Canadian.
We believe the proposals made by the Minister of Finance threatened the financial stability of our retirement years. We have been retired for the past nine years and hope to be able to afford to stay in our own house for many more years.
These are not my comments, Mr. Speaker. I have expressed my comments before in the House of Commons. These are written comments of only a minute number of retired people within my community who have written to me as their member of Parliament. I am not the only one who has received hundreds of such letters. I am sure that everyone on the opposite side of the House has received hundreds of such letters as well but for some reason or other they have not got the courage to go against their Minister of Finance and vote out this clawback.


Joy Langan: Mr. Speaker, I was concerned about some of the other clauses that we have been discussing this morning, but I am downright outraged about the proposed clawbacks of the old age security pension and the family allowance.
I have said before in this House, and I will say it again, that measures like the old age security and family allowance clawbacks are turning social policy into welfare policy and it is all being done in the name of harmonization.
My colleague, the member for Sault Ste. Marie, said that under the Prime Minister Canada's national vision has been replaced by a completely corporate vision. This government has sold off, shut down, privatized or cut back the best parts of that national vision. Air Canada, VIA Rail, Canada Post and CBC are only a few examples. Now, under this bill, the attack is on the most precious part of our national vision, universality of social programs.
Government Orders
Universal programs first attacked our old age security and family allowance. The question becomes what universal programs are going to be attacked second, third, fourth and fifth?
One of the members discussing this motion earlier talked about a CP wire story of 1984 which quoted the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister said: "Our position is simple and straightforward. We are in favour of universality in social programs and it shall not be touched". Has the Prime Minister lost touch? Has he lost control? Has he forgotten that promise?
I wanted to believe him during the last election campaign, as most Canadians wanted to believe him, that universality would not be touched. Seniors certainly wanted to believe him. But I submit to you, Sir, that actions speak louder than words. This legislation was introduced in a very secretive way, not through social policy as somebody earlier said, nor with any proper discussion in committees. It was in fact slipped through in this sort of catch-all of amendments in the hope that we would all forget and not notice. I suggest that this is not acceptable to Canadians.
Under the system of the finance minister, the income level at which the clawback starts will move upwards according to the same deindexing formula that exists in the tax system. In other words, a worker earning $40,000 a year and watching his or her income rise with inflation would be earning enough to put his or her income over the clawback level for family allowance of $56,309 by 1997.
For retirees the clawback is even more complex and phases in more slowly. But a simple rule of thumb is that a worker who earns his or her age, say a 28-year-old worker earning $28,000, or the average industrial wage today, will be hit by the clawback by the time he or she retires. This assumes that income keeps pace with inflation and that retirement income is 70 per cent of a pre-retirement income.
It follows that at $28,000 for a 28-year-old worker, $40,000 for a 40-year-old worker, $50,000 for a 50-year-old worker, within 20 years one in four Canadians will have all or part of their pensions clawed back. One million pensioners, within 20 years, will be caught in this clawback grab.


John Horton McDermid: If we got back to a balanced budget you wouldn't have to worry about it.

December 15, 1989


Joy Langan: I am sure that the minister across the way who wants to interject will have an opportunity to speak to this too if he so wishes. The clawback will move our pension system closer to that of the U.S. where workers are covered by contributory pensions like RCPP and QPP or by means-tested programs like our Guaranteed Income Supplement, but not by a universal pension program like our Old Age Security. No pension exists in the United States, as a right of citizenship, for those over the age of 65.
It has been the finance minister's mission to shatter the universality barrier and once that principle is gone it will be a very simple matter to refine the clawback even further and make the programs more and more selective by taxing back higher and higher levels of benefits.
This clawback requires that some fundamental questions be asked. Why should an individual be entitled to receive $100,000 in capital gains, tax free, but lose the $4,000 he or she gets in Old Age Security simply because it was paid as a universal social benefit?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It being 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 35, the House will now proceed to Statements by Members Pursuant to Standing Order 31.
The member will have three minutes remaining for debate when the bill is next called.


STATEMENTS PURSUANT TO S. O. 31
Hon. David MacDonald (Rosedale):: Mr. Speaker, Canadians and human rights activists around the world will mourn the passing of Mr. Andrei Sakharov. We will remember that more than 20 years ago Sakharov led that early fragile movement within the Soviet Union on behalf of human rights and international peace.
Sakharov was an individual who gave true meaning to the words of "courage" and "heart" and was concerned with his fellow men and women everywhere.
Sakharov, even in the last days of his existence, was challenging the present regime in the Soviet Union to move toward more progressive, open and democratic institutions. During his lifetime he challenged four separate Soviet institutions and in 1975 received the Nobel Peace Prize.
We mourn his passing. We recognize his great heart and his contribution to human rights world-wide.


THE LATE ANDREI SAKHAROV
Rey D. Pagtakhan: Mr. Speaker, I too was deeply aggrieved to hear that Soviet human rights activist Andrei Sakharov died of a heart attack last night.
Mr. Sakharov, correctly called "the conscience of the Soviet Union", was recently elected to the Congress of the Peoples' Deputies and was working on constitutional reform of the Soviet political system when he died.
Mr. Sakharov in a real sense was a man of beautiful contrast. He built his eminence as a Soviet physicist who contributed to the development of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, but he did not allow that that tool of destruction should continue to be, for he later won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1975 for his advocacy of atomic disarmament, U.S.-Soviet co-operation in solving world problems and intellectual freedom in the U.S.S.R.
He was arrested in 1980 and sentenced to internal exile for his public opposition to Soviet foreign policies and for the Soviet government's suppression of dissidents and human rights activists. Later he was released. Despite personal persecution and exile, Mr. Sakharov worked tirelessly to promote the human rights issue in the Soviet Union and, indeed, the world over.
He will be remembered for his courage, his honourable principles and his selfless devotion toward peace. He died, but his mission to promote international respect for human rights as a guarantee of world peace will continue to live. We mourn his death. We are the beneficiaries of his mission.
December 15, 1989



Ms. Lynn Hunter (Saanich-Gulf Islands):: Mr. Speaker, today the world mourns the passing of human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrei Sakharov.
Sakharov will go down in history as a man dedicated to peace and protection of individual liberties. As we watch the swirl of change in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union we often associate that change with the name Gorbachev, but for most of his adult life Andrei Sakharov was persecuted for promoting greater freedom and democracy for the Soviet people.
From his forced exile in Gorky, Sakharov was a beacon of hope for his compatriots and a symbol of dissent for peoples from around the world. He not only criticized the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but U.S. involvement in Vietnam, repression in the Middle East and racism in South Africa.
With his wife Yelena Bonner, Sakharov worked to change what was thought for so many years to be the unchangeable. Although we mourn the death of a great world figure and transmit our condolences to his wife and partner, Yelena Bonner, we take solace in the knowledge that Andrei Sakharov was able to see the fruits of his life work and long persecution.
The transformation of geopolitics we have experienced over the past months is a direct result of Andrei Sakharov. The world and our children's future are brighter for him.


IMMIGRATION
Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Mr. Speaker, the minister of immigration recently responded to the forced deportation of Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong by the British Government by criticizing their actions but did not offer any assistance on our behalf; nor did the minister show any international leadership to help the boat people who have been interned in refugee camps for years.
In fact the Canadian government's assistance to the Indo-Chinese over the next three years plans to accommodate only 16,000 people, which sadly pales in comparison to the 90,000 brought to Canada during the 1979-1980 period.
Conversely, under this government, the largest group of the wealthiest immigrants arriving in Canada under the immigrant investor program is from the same country in which the Vietnamese are presently being interned.
By refusing to assist the Indo-Chinese properly in their hour of need, the Minister of Immigration has set a course toward the rich and powerful. That is not only a dangerous course; it is also a colossal shame.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Marcel R. Tremblay (Quebec-Est):: Mr. Speaker, despite record economic growth and the increasing prosperity of Canadians, NDP and Liberal members are busy perpetuating the myth that Canadians have been worse off since the Conservatives came to power. According to the statistics, the opposite is true. The number of Canadians living below the poverty line today is three-quarters of a million less than the figure recorded in 1984. Poverty levels have declined since 1984, from nearly 17 per cent to 13 per cent. The average family income has reached its highest level ever, with an increase of 1.8 per cent over 1987, after adjustment for inflation. Low income levels for children under 16 declined between 1984 and 1988 from 20.1 per cent to 15.4 per cent. The number of adult women-16 years of age or over-living below the poverty line dropped by 30,000 last year, adding up to a total decline of 229,000 since 1984. Poverty levels for senior citizens dropped between 1984 and 1988, from 21.6 per cent to 17.2 per cent. This is good news, Mr. Speaker! Our economic recovery program works. I think we should tell Canadians, and I hope the media will help us explain what is really happening in our society!


PROPOSED GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Beryl Gaffney: Mr. Speaker, on October 30 and again on December 6 constituents of Nepean and myself met in open fora to discuss the government's proposed GST. In addition, hundreds of letters have

December 15, 1989
been received in my office and, with the exception of a handful, all are opposed to the goods and services tax.
Nepean constituents are telling the government something very important. Despite the government's condemnation of people who dare to speak out against the GST and the assumption that they do not understand it, these people do indeed understand what the proposed GST is all about. They are vehemently opposed to it.
I find it appalling that this government seems not to care what the people are saying. I find it appalling that this government is ignoring the cries of millions of Canadians. I say these millions are right and the 167 members on the government side are wrong.
Canada is a democracy and Canadians are disillusioned and have lost faith because of the actions of this government. Canadians are saying: "Listen to us and drop this GST".


TRANSPORTATION OF GRAIN
Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, the House should know that despite the rhetoric of several Conservative back-benchers, grain movement is proceeding normally off the prairies. Before freeze-up the Wheat Board always tries to empty Thunder Bay and leave lower St. Lawrence elevators full to meet sales commitments over winter.
Thunder Bay is still cleaning out. There are some 1.3 million tonnes of grain in stock; ample to fill the one ship loading, the two that are waiting and the six expected to arrive later in the week.
Lower St. Lawrence ports have plenty of grain to fill export demand. The flow to market has not changed.
There are problems within the seaway system with St. Lambert locks, as well as other operational problems, and recently the government has been unable to manage its labour relations. Back to work legislation only masks this point. Bill C-49 fails to live up to the government's own legislation on pay equity.
However, the bottom line is: the farmers' ability to deliver grain has not been affected. The Wheat Board has grain in position at the lower St. Lawrence in store and available for ocean ships. Thunder Bay will have space to receive prairie grain during the coming winter freeze-up.
[Translation\


ROBERT GIFFARD HOSPITAL
Mr. Charles DeBlois (Montmorency-Orleans):: Mr. Speaker, the Robert-Giffard Hospital near Quebec City is one of the most prestigious health care institutions in Canada. It is now conducting major research on psychiatric risk factors in children. This study is part of the Laval University-Robert Giffard Research Centre's clinical epidemiology program and follows a ten-year pilot study of child behaviour.
Mr. Speaker, today I wish to pay tribute to researchers at Robert Giffard Hospital who, under the supervision of Dr. Michel Maziade, an internationally known psychiatrist, are making an impressive contribution to the advancement of our medical knowledge of mental illness.
The people of Quebec and Canada owe a debt of gratitude to the Robert-Giffard Hospital for helping to improve the quality of life of the mentally ill and of society in general. I also wish to congratulate the Robert-Giffard Foundation which, together with the Government of Canada, provides financial support for this major research project.


FISHERIES
Mr. Lawrence MacAulay (Cardigan):: Mr. Speaker, I want to draw the attention of the House to the deplorable condition of wharfs in my riding such as Graham's Pond, Georgetown and Launching, to name but a few.
If repairs are not done immediately, these wharfs will be washed into the sea by next spring. The harbour at Launching is well on its way. Part of the sea wall has given way and sands are filling the harbour.
At MacAulay's wharf the disrepair is threatening the environment. Diesel fuel tanks are sitting on a section of wharf that is sinking and diesel fuel is leaking into the harbour.

Once again I implore the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to recognize the gravity of this situation, make Prince Edward Island fishermen a priority, and commit funds for the repair of wharfs today.


HIGHWAY SAFETY
Mr. Stan Wilbee (Delta):: Mr. Speaker, two weeks ago we were all shocked and saddened by the senseless killing of 14 of the cream of our youth in Montreal.
I wish to draw to the attention of the House today that every day, 365 days of the year, we are killing 12 Canadians in traffic related accidents. In other words, over 4,000 Canadians lost their lives on our highways last year. At this time of year the carnage usually increases due to darkness, poor road conditions and increased alcohol consumption.
I call on all Canadians to use extra care in driving at all times, especially during the holiday season.
I call on all levels of government to pass and enforce whatever laws are necessary to reduce this terrible carnage on our highways.
I also make a special plea for support for research to help solve this escalating problem.


HUMAN RIGHTS
Mr. Mark Assad (Gatineau-La Lievre):: Mr. Speaker, for years the world has been concerned about the flagrant situation of human rights in Iran.
Reliable reports indicate that 90,000 political executions have taken place. The Peoples Organization of Iran has published a list of names and particulars of more than 16,000 of these victims which exemplifies the dimensions of human rights violations by the ruling regime in Iran.
While human rights violations continue unabated and news of mass executions in public are reported every day, international pressures and efforts of the Iranian Peoples National Resistance are taking place.
Those are the testimonies from the people who have escaped from the prisons and appeared before the United Nations special reporters. What is basically happening is violations of human rights according to the United Nations Charter which are unprecedented anywhere in the world.
S. ft 31
The Canadian government could offer its assistance to the special committee that will be going to Iran in a relatively few short weeks. The Canadian government could offer the help that is needed to substantiate all these charges against Iran and thereby call the regime in Iran to task to prevent such violations of basic human rights.


CHILDREN'S RIGHTS
Joy Langan: Mr. Speaker, the United Nations Children's Fund in its 1990 report on the state of the world's children spelled out that 38,000 children a day die and 100 million children in the next decade will die from hunger and its effects.
One must question the Canadian government's commitment to the 1.2 million Canadian children living in poverty when the Canadian government continually threatens to break our deficit over the backs of our children through measures like clawbacks on family allowance, reneging on child care, an ill-conceived 9 per cent tax grab, and threatened cut-backs on transfer payments under the Canada Assistance Plan.
The U.S. spends $1.5 million a day on military aid to El Salvador; twice as much as would be required to ensure that all of the children who die in the world each day would have been immunized and fed. Yet our federal government turns a blind eye.
What kind of credibility can Canada have at the UN on the matter of children's rights when the government is so negligent at home and abroad?


TRIBUTE TO MARGUERITE BERNIER
Mr. Jacques Tetreault (Laval-des-Rapides):: Mr. Speaker, today I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Mrs. Marguerite Bernier, to whom I had the privilege of transmitting, on behalf of the Minister of National Health and Welfare, the Volunteer Canada Award's certificate of merit. The certificate is awarded annually to recognize and encourage the dedication of Canadian men and women who volunteer their time to improve the health and the quality of life of their fellow citizens.

December 15, 1989
Oral Questions
Mrs. Marguerite Bernier has been a dedicated fundraiser for the Eye Bank Foundation of Quebec, the Canadian Cancer Society, the Canadian Heart Foundation and the Multiple Sclerosis Society.
President of the Saint-CIaude-de-Laval senior citizens club since 1977, she has given her fellow members a new lease on life by organizing recreational activities and providing the help they need to have a better quality of life.
Mrs. Bernier, who will be 80 years old on March 3, 1990, is still an active member of the Laval-des-Rapides meals-on-wheels program and has been since 1982.


CANADA-ITALY INCOME TAX CONVENTION
Mr. Vincent Della Noce (Duvemay):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to the comments made yesterday by the member for Sault Ste. Marie concerning the recent protocol amending the tax convention between Canada and Italy which addresses the taxation of certain pensions paid by the Italian state to residents of Canada.
At the outset I wish to indicate that the purpose of the new protocol was not to provide a fairer system of taxing pensions covered by the Canada-Italy Income Tax Convention.
Although the government believes that the protocol largely benefits Canadians in receipt of pensions from Italy, it should be pointed out that its purpose was not to secure a special or preferential status to a specific class of taxpayers but, rather, to ensure that the taxation of Canadian and Italian pensioners would be in accordance with Canadian tax policy.
An Italian pensioner with a small pension who is a resident of Canada receives the Guaranteed Income Supplement despite his level of other income.
To ensure that those in lower income brackets receive the exemption a threshold of $24,000 was provided. Residents earnings less than this amount receive their supplement free of tax; I repeat, free of tax.
For the majority of Canadian recipients Italy does not withhold tax. Where tax is withheld by Italy the Canadian resident can deduct the Italian tax from any Canadian tax
payable on their pension. There is no double taxation; I repeat, there is no double taxation.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to pose a question to the Minister of Finance.
Over the last several weeks this government has attempted to sugar coat the emerging economic crisis in this country. As the President of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association said yesterday, "there is clear evidence that we are slipping into a recession".
Is the Minister of Finance not alarmed by the fact that a Statistics Canada report points out that there will be 100,000 less jobs created this year than last year?
When is the Minister of Finance going to take his responsibilities seriously and correct the serious structural deficiencies the Prime Minister talked about yesterday?
When is he going to do something about the accelerating interest rates and the high exchange rates which are killing our exports?
When is the Minister going to start taking his responsibilities as the Minister of Finance and put some growth back in this economy, put some exports back in this economy, and do something about the people who are unemployed?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I think if one looks at the record of this government and the ability and commitment of this government to deal with issues and to deal with problems as they come up, one can seriously understand why we are doing the things we are doing and why we have been successful over the last five years in having growth that is second only to the growth of Japan and just marginally behind the growth rate of Japan which is the fastest in the major industrialized countries.

The hon. member mentions structural problems. Are we dealing with structural problems? Yes, we are dealing with structural problems. One of the ways is the goods and services tax.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Wappel:: That's a problem all right.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Hon. members do not like me to mention this. The goods and services tax has been a major structural deterrent in the tax system for the last 50 years.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: It's going to be in future years is what you mean.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: The hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier is giving me his advice.
Quite frankly, I will take the advice of the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development and the International Monetary Fund, which organizations are saying that the importance of moving from the existing federal sales tax to the goods and services tax is a major structural change, a major initiative of this government. I intend to have something more to say about this with a statement in the House next Tuesday.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I certainly agree with the minister that the proposed GST is a major structural problem. It is going to force up the inflation rate. It is going to force up interest rates. It is going to cause even more unemployment.
We now see the Canadian dollar at the highest rate in a decade. Interest rates are way beyond the historical average of 4.5 base points above American interest rates. Yet in his remarks yesterday the Governor of the Bank of Canada showed himself to be totally oblivious to the fact that the high interest rate policy is acting as a major deterrent to our exports, is having a crippling effect upon our regional economies, and is pushing this country into a recession.
When is the Minister of Finance going to assume his responsibility as the chief public policy maker in finance and to start setting guidelines that will bring interest rates down, bring the exchange rate down and start putting this economy back on track?
Oral Questions


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I think I have demonstrated over the last five years that I understand fully the importance of low interest rates. That was clearly a very important part of the strength of the economy during these past five years.
The hon. member says that the Governor of the Bank of Canada is oblivious to the problems. The person who is oblivious to these problems is the hon. member himself.
Let me quote from the report of the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development which states: "Recent Canadian economic performance has been impressive and has brought the economy back to full capacity utilization". However, it noted that inflation and the budget deficit remain problematic and need to be addressed.
These are exactly the two issues that we are addressing. We addressed them in the 1989 budget. We are addressing them through monetary policy. We are going to continue to address them until we have these two problems solved.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, it is a tragedy that we have a Minister of Finance who prefers to listen to international bureaucrats and refuses to look at the reality in his own country.

Mr. Speaker, considering the latest alarming figures on Canada's international trade balance, will the Minister confirm that his government will not make any cutbacks in the export development program's budget? In other words, considering the major decline in our exports, would the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Trade not agree that any action to diminish the export development program would be disastrous?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I delayed standing because I wanted to give my colleague, the Minister for International Trade, an opportunity to say what we are doing to promote international trade. I wanted him to talk about the broad program he has put in place which is supporting trade development both in Europe and the Far East as well as in the United States.

December 15, 1989
Oral Questions
These initiatives are all very carefully co-ordinated so that the Canadian exporting community will have good support from the Government of Canada in order to ensure that we are able to tap these markets and bring the jobs that will come from expanding international trade.
One key element of this is that we can have all the trade promotion in the world but if we do not have access to markets, then we do not get the trade coming back from it. The free trade agreement is so important to Canada in order for us to have access to the United States market and so that we do have the opportunities that will flow from that. That will come from the veiy aggressive trade promotion program my colleague has put in place.


Mr. Jim Peterson (Willowdale):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. To pretend that that free trade agreement has given us major enhanced access to the U.S. is a pot of nonsense.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: To pretend that the record level of the Canadian dollar is enhancing our exports is again misleading the country.
Is the minister not going to recognize now the new economic realities? We are into a recession. Is he not going to alleviate and get away from this stubborn, bull-headed, pig-headed, one-way track of high interest rates?
Is he going to change his policy, which he is taking out on the backs of the unemployed, the farmers, the fishermen, the manufacturers and the exporters?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, that sort of excessive language is not going to make his points any better than the comments of his colleague from Winnipeg-
Let me just make reference to what the Pace University study on U.S.-Canada business had to say. It was announced just yesterday. It states: "The free trade agreement has had an extraordinary effect in stimulating the Canadian economy".


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Michael Holcombe Wilson: It is going to continue to have an extraordinary effect on ensuring that the
opportunities open to us in the United States economy will be there because of the free trade agreement.
The hon. member makes reference to monetary policy, as did his colleague in his earlier question. We understand the impact that this has on the economy, but we also understand that we have an inflation problem.
If the hon. member wants to look at the inflation statistics released just this morning, he will see that the inflation performance is still too high. We have to get this done because we know that far from having a temporary problem now with high interest rates we will have a long-term problem of lost productivity and lost competitive position. That will rob us of those opportunities in the United States on a long-term basis.
We learned some lessons in the 1970s. We on this side are not going to forget those lessons, not like the people on the other side of the House did. Clearly, they have forgotten the mess they got this country into in 1981.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: Mr. Speaker, with a record high Canadian dollar we are effectively shutting ourselves out of that American market.
The minister, in addition to giving us the second highest interest rates of all major industrialized countries in the world is also, according to the Prime Minister's statement in the House last week, on another type of economic mission: it is to increase the record level of foreign investment in Canada. We already have the world's highest record of foreign control over our economy.
Let us look at the facts about foreign investment. Statistics Canada has shown over the last 10 years that we have brought in $1.2 billion through foreign investment. The outflow to those foreign investors over that 10-year period has been $128 billion. If for every one dollar of foreign investment that is brought in there is $107 that flows out, who is benefiting, Canada, or is it the foreign investors who are buying up Canada?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion and Minister of State for Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member asks who benefits from investment. Canada benefits from investment by the jobs that are created and so on.

We applaud when GM expands its automobile plant in Oshawa. We applaud when Freightliner opens up a Greenfields plant in St. Thomas, Ontario. We applaud those investments.
Incidentally, Canadians are investing overseas in record amounts as well. However, over the last decade, in fact the percentage of foreign ownership in Canada has decreased, not increased.
The hon. member raises a valid question about foreign borrowings and the need to service that debt. He might ask the Government of Ontario about its extensive foreign borrowings, particularly the utilities. If you look at where the borrowings are occurring, it is more at the provincial level than at the federal level, particularly by Ontario and Quebec utilities.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. David Barrett (Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance. I am not quite sure who he is, whether it is Mr. Crow or the member who is sitting there, but one of them can answer.
The government has created over one million fighters against inflation. There are over one million inflation fighters out there. The only problem is that they are all unemployed. I would like to know the minister's position on the following facts. According to the Canadian Exporters Association, every one cent increase in the value of the dollar costs us $1.3 billion in exports. In the lumber industry alone every one cent appreciation of the dollar costs us $100 million. This affects my province of British Columbia.
I would like to know when I go home and answer questions of people there who is running this show. Is it the minister or is it Mr. Crow? Who is responsible and who is making the decisions?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, it is a curious question the hon. member asked. They ask me that same type of question. They say: "Who is asking the questions, the member for Esquimalt or the President of the Canadian Labour Congress".


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Michael Holcombe Wilson: The simple answer to the question is that the government and the Governor of
Oral Questions
the Bank of Canada have extensive discussions on monetary policy. As a matter of fact, I had my regular weekly meeting with the Governor of the Bank of Canada just before coming to Question Period this morning. We have an ongoing relationship, an ongoing dialogue with the Governor of the Bank of Canada. We support the approach that the Governor is taking because we know the importance of getting the level of inflation down in order to avoid the problems that we got into as a country in 1981-82.
I remind the hon. member that the level of inflation was about 5.5 per cent in 1976. The government of the day forgot about that problem. It swept it under the carpet. Inflation started to creep up year after year. It reached a peak of 13 per cent in 1981. That led us directly into the huge mess that we got into with high interest rates of 20 and 25 per cent.


Mrs. Campbell (South West Nova):: Every country did.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: The hon. member says every country did. The hon. member should go back and check the numbers. She will see that the recession that we got into in Canada was far worse than that of the other industrialized countries.


David Barrett: Mr. Speaker, I am interested in hearing the minister respond by saying he met with Mr. Crow this morning and I am glad that he got his instructions from him. The instructions are what concern me.
Mr. Crow is suggesting that an unemployment rate of around 8 per cent is necessary to control inflation in Canada. Eight per cent will mean over 1.5 million unemployed in this country, all of whom will either have to go on unemployment insurance or social assistance.
Is it this government's policy to substitute a lower interest rate that would create jobs in this country by Canadians for Canadians? Is it the policy to substitute that for an increase in costs of welfare and unemployment insurance as a social and economic policy of welfare by the Canadian Manufacturers' Association and Mr. Crow?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I understand the hon. member's frustration with high interest rates. I would like to get interest rates down as well. I know the difficulty of doing that in the face of the inflationary pressures in the economy today.

Oral Questions
The growth in business credit was at 11 or 11.5 per cent in recent months. The growth in household credit, while it has come down from about 18 per cent to 15 per cent, is still high. Those two levels of growth of bank credit at a time when the economy is growing at a nominal rate of 7 or 8 per cent is clearly inflationary.
The hon. member is suggesting that we jack up this growth in business credit, jack up this growth in household credit. What will that bring, Mr. Speaker? A great big bout of inflation and that is something we have to avoid in this country if we want to get back to the level of sustainable non-inflationary growth that we had in the last few years.


David Barrett: Mr. Speaker, it is a question of choices. The minister knows very well that by moving in the goods and services tax the government will move into the economy in a way that will draw more disposable income out of consumers' hands into the government's hands. That is number one. Number two, the minister knows very well that by keeping interest rates high the cost of borrowing by his government and previous Liberal governments continues to be high. That money is drained out of the economy as well. Therefore, you have to make choices.
The choice by this government is obvious. It would rather pay high interest charges, pay money out of general revenue to offshore borrowers and not create more wealth inside this country with manageable inflation figures. The choice is clear. I ask the minister: is it his decision, is it Mr. Crow's decision or is it the government's decision to keep paying high interest on borrowing and keep people unemployed in this country in order to serve some right wing mania?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question of the hon. member, but I ask him to reflect on his own record. When he came into office as Premier of the province of B.C., there was a hundred million dollar surplus. When he left, there was a hundred million dollar deficit. That is how much that hon. member knows about how he should run a government and run government policy.
The hon. member has said this is all about choices. Yes, it is about choices. There are very important choices
to be made here and we have made those choices. I think the record stands for itself over the last five years of what we have been able to do.
The hon. member has pointed out high interest rates and the effect that can have on the fiscal position of the Government of Canada as well as on the economy. We understand this. There has to be a reason why we have chosen this course of having a government fiscal policy and a monetary policy which is designed to get inflation down. That is because we understand what inflation will do to this country. We understand what that will do to interest rates on an ongoing basis and we understand how high inflation will damage the competitive position and the productivity of this economy on a long-term basis. This is what we are trying to stop. That is the choice we have made and I will stand by that choice.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. John Harvard (Winnipeg St. James):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Agriculture. Prairie farmers are facing the worst financial crisis in 50 years. In my province of Manitoba it is estimated that next year farm income will drop, not just a few percentage points, but a whopping 87 per cent. These are the minister's own figures. This is the man who has to be held accountable. This is the man who slashed farm support programs. My question is this: what is this minister going to do about this impending farm calamity?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister, President of the Privy Council and Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, just to set the record straight, between 1981 and 1984, when the Liberal party was in power, net realized farm income averaged $3.1 billion per year. In the last five years that average of realized net income has risen to over $4 billion, an increase of 30 per cent over the Liberal years. Therefore, Conservative years are certainly much better for the farmers of Canada than Liberal years.
In terms of direct assistance, between 1981 and 1984 under the Liberals some $500 million to $550 million in direct assistance was provided. Between 1985 and 1989 some $2.5 billion in direct assistance was provided. That is more than a fourfold increase.
December 15, 1989

We acknowledge that the projections for 1989 are not very good. It is a combination of low commodity prices, drought and a whole other host of factors. They are preliminary projections. We are as concerned as the hon. member. I appreciate him raising this. We are looking at it with the provinces. We are assessing it. As before, when the need is there, we will be there.


John Harvard: Mr. Speaker, I will tell you what the record is. The record is that 8,000 farmers in Saskatchewan are facing foreclosure. In that province food plants have closed and communities are dying. One person leaves Saskatchewan every 23 minutes. In the province of Saskatchewan, farm incomes are estimated to drop 100 per cent next year, worse than Manitoba. My question is this: how can this minister rip the guts out of farm support programs when farmers are losing their land and losing their livelihoods?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, when the Liberals were in office in 1984 there were some 550 bankruptcies occurring on the farm. That has dropped to around 200 in this year, which is still not good enough.
We have announced in the form of the Green Paper Growing Together the need for the establishment of new stabilization programs and safety nets. That is precisely what the agriculture conference this week was all about. That is a track that we are on, a program that we are proceeding with, in consultation with the provinces and with the producers.
As to whether there is a need for interim assistance, we are assessing that at the present time. As I have indicated before, the farmers know that this government has stood behind them in the past and it will stand with them again in the future.


FISHERIES
Mr. Dave Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. The President of the United States has turned thumbs down on Atlantic Canada lobster fishermen. So much for the Prime Minister's cosy relationship with the President of the United States.
Oral Questions
The minister will know that as a result of this particular decision, lobster fishermen in Atlantic Canada will lose $30 million a year for the next three years. Since we are not certain as to what sanction might be imposed under the free trade panel, which this issue has now been referred to, I ask the minister specifically whether he is prepared to provide today compensation for those fishermen in Atlantic Canada who are going to lose as a result of this negative decision by the President of the United States under the auspices of the free trade agreement.


Hon. John C. Crosbie (Minister for International TVade):: Mr. Speaker, the problem caused for the lobster fishermen of eastern Canada is a problem caused by the Congress of the United States, the Democratic majority leader in particular, Senator Mitchell, and the main delegation, who had Congress pass this particular law which the President signed for whatever his reasons were.
We have already taken steps to ensure that the matter is resolved as quickly as possible. We have asked the United States to expedite the free trade panel procedure so that we might have a decision at least a month earlier than would otherwise normally be the case. The estimate is that the damage to Canadian lobster fishermen could be in the area of $20 million to $30 million in a year. We hope to have the matter resolved in under a year.
With respect to the question of compensation, I am afraid this is not damage caused anyone by the Government of Canada. Therefore, there is no plan to give compensation to anyone in this connection.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, during the last election it was debated very vigorously by government members that we would have guaranteed access to the United States market. As a result of this decision by the American Congress, supported by the American President, that guarantee of access is no longer possible. This decision on the Atlantic fisheries is causing a major crisis, along with a lot of other issues in the fisheries.
I am fully aware of the representations that have been made and the fact that the minister is trying to expedite a decision under the free trade panel. We do not know what the sanction will be. As a measure of good faith, does the minister not think it appropriate, fair and just for him to place on the floor of the House of Commons an undertaking to Atlantic lobster fishermen to the effect that he will provide compensation up to $30

December 15, 1989
Oral Questions
million to those who are losing as a result of a regressive, negative attack on Canadian fishermen, particularly those in Atlantic Canada? Will the minister give us that undertaking?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, the rhetoric of the hon. member is certainly very impressive. I wonder if he could refer me to any precedent of a previous government, particularly our Liberal predecessors, where such compensation was arranged in any case similar to this.
No country has an alienable right to export its goods to any other country. Each receiving country decides what its domestic laws are and what laws that country will pass. We are taking steps under the GATT and under the free trade agreement, which is an improvement on the GATT, to have this action by the U.S. Congress and the administration reversed. If we are successful and the Congress does not reverse this legislation, we will proceed in accordance with international practice to impose a penalty on American exports to Canada. That is why the system works, and that is the way we will be pursuing this vigorously and I hope effectively.


NORTHERN ALLOWANCES
Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: My question is to the Minister of Finance. As the industry knows, the minister has had for the last two years the northern tax benefit which has benefited many Canadians.
He also knows that many thousands of communities could be cut off from that benefit unless he makes a decision soon. As 1990 is only a couple of weeks away and the House is only sitting one more week, will he reassure Canadians in northern communities that they will have a full tax benefit next year?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, there has been a task force report. It has made some recommendations. Those recommendations are being considered by the government. I can say to the hon. member as well as to colleagues on this side of the House who have a concern about this that whatever decision is taken by the government, it will not affect taxation in 1990.


Rodney Edward Murphy: In the same sense of fairness, will the minister assure those northern communities and a number of provinces right across the country which lost part of their benefits last year that they will receive a full benefit next year, a benefit they were entitled to two years ago.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I repeat the same answer. There will be no change in the northern benefit in the isolated post allowance as it affects taxation in 1990.


HIGHWAY SAFETY
Godfrey Stanley (Stan) Wilbee: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Health. I made a statement earlier today in which I pointed out that over 4,000 Canadians have lost their lives on our highways in the last year. This amounts to 12 people every day who are killed on our highways. It is particularly true at this time of year. In the statement I implored all levels of government to do whatever they can to improve this record.
I ask the Minister of Health today just what the federal government is doing to reduce this carnage on our highways.
Hon. Perrin Beatty (Minister of National Health and
Welfare): Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's question is particularly timely at this time of year when issues related to impaired driving are particularly important.
Today my department is releasing a major survey as to Canadian's attitudes and practices in drinking and driving. One of the things that it shows is that in the year that preceded the survey, two and one half million Canadians had driven with a driver whom they felt was impaired, whom they felt had had too much to drink.
This also indicates the degree of danger that there is to the rest of us on the highways. The problem is particularly acute among young Canadians between the ages of 16 and 24 who represent only a small part of the total population. But when it comes to all impaired drivers, they account for some 36 per cent of impaired drivers. The federal government has a program on impaired driving which is designed to discourage impaired driving and to do everything we can, particularly among young Canadians, to ensure that highways remain safe.
December 15, 1989


NATIVE PEOPLES
Mr. Robert D. Nault (Kenora-Rainy River):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also to the Minister of Health. Canada's aboriginal peoples are living in this country as they do in the Third World countries.
My question basically is based on the fact that we have an undue amount of violence, alcoholism, drug abuse and suicide. Will the government now admit that the programs it has in place do not work? Will the minister immediately implement a government-wide strategy to support the aboriginal peoples of Canada?


Hon. Perrin Beatty (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, indeed we do have such a strategy. There are a number of elements to it. We have programs designed specifically to deal with problems related to alcoholism and drug abuse on reserves.
In addition, we believe strongly that a program of transferring responsibility for health services on reserves to the native populations allows local control in terms of planning and delivery of health services. We believe that something is vital.
There have been many examples, most strikingly in the Hobbema reserve outside of Edmonton, where there has been dramatic progress by the local community working to bring down, first, the suicide rate and, second, to dramatically bring down the rate of problems related to drinking and to drug abuse. It is an example of how things can be done. The department continues to work closely with native groups in terms of assisting them.


Robert Daniel Nault: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is to the Minister of Justice. The horrible social conditions faced by aboriginal peoples is borne out over and over again in evidence brought before several judicial inquiries.
There have been many calls for a native justice system. Will the minister inform this House when the government will take steps to establish such a system?


Hon. Doug Lewis (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, the government has been following, with great interest the Marshall inquiry in Nova Scotia, the inquiry in Manitoba and also the inquiry in Alberta-I think it is on the Blood reserve- with a view to taking the information that comes from
Oral Questions
those inquiries and making whatever improvements we can to the justice system.
As far as a separate native justice system is concerned, that idea has been brought forward. At the present time the government has no intention of implementing a separate native justice system. We have every intention of doing what we can to improve the present system for native people.


ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Mr. Gilles Rocheleau (Hull-Aylmer):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Justice.
As you know, the American judiciary is still detaining trucker Richard Bilodeau, and there seems to be a great deal of confusion here in Ottawa about the extradition treaty.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to hear from the Minister of Justice whether today, the government, which been dragging its feet from November 29 to December 15, whether the Minister of Justice could inform the House whether he intends to do everything he can so that Mr. Bilodeau can go home, considering the fact that today, the court refused to reduce bail from $500,000 to $50,000, because of the federal government's failure to do its homework on the extradition treaty.


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, the kind of exaggerated and unfair criticisms inserted in questions here are certainly illustrated by that question.
The government has been working and members of the government, including the Minister of State (Youth) and the Minister of Justice on this matter since Mr. Bilodeau was first detained in New Hampshire after the terrible accident in which he was involved. The case has been followed very closely.
I have instructed the embassy in Washington to review the judgment with the appropriate U.S. authorities with a view to finding a satisfactory solution as soon as possible. Our officials are maintaining consultation with our colleagues in Quebec. Several of our ministers have been in touch with the prosecuting attorney in the state that is involved. We have assured and reassured the

December 15, 1989
Oral Questions
Americans that manslaughter is an extraditable offence under the legislation. Everything possible has been done to assist this unfortunate Canadian citizen, Mr. Bilodeau.
It is unfortunate that the hon. member wants to grandstand and get up with unfair and unjustified criticism. Everything possible has been done for the Canadian citizen in the United States who is involved with the judicial authorities there.


Gilles Rocheleau: Mr. Speaker, I wish the government and the minister would remember that Mr. Bilodeau's wife and children are waiting for him to come home and that Mr. Bilodeau is bearing the brunt of this unfair situation which was created because the extradition treaty is apparently not crystal clear.
I want to ask the minister whether the Canadian government intends to underwrite Mr. Bilodeau's bail so that he can return home immediately, while the problem is being cleared up.


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, I have just explained that ever since the government learned of this situation, it has been doing everything possible to assist Mr. Bilodeau so that he can have a reasonable bail hearing, reasonable bail set and return to his own home. He will of course have to show up for trial. It was a very serious accident that occurred and the judicial authorities in New Hampshire are entitled to proceed with the trial they have initiated.
The government is doing everything it can for him, his wife and family and because of our obligations as a government concerned about every one of our citizens. The Minister of State for Youth, the Minister of Justice and our department will continue to make every effort to see that Mr. Bilodeau is released because everyone is presumed innocent until they have been proven guilty.


CANADA MORTGAGE AND HOUSING CORPORATION
Mr. Jim Karpoff (Surrey North):: I have a question for the Minister of Housing concerning Mr. Jarvis, president of CMHC, and his failure to follow the very clear CMHC conflict of interest policy. On page 3 of his policy it states that a confidential report on conflict of interest must be provided within 60 days of employment.
Is it acceptable to the minister that Mr. Jarvis failed to file his confidential report until three months after the deadline and then only after I raised questions in the House and only after there was a public disclosure that he had not complied with CMHC policy?


Hon. Alan Redway (Minister of State (Housing)):: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member I am sure is well aware, having examined the CMHC conflict of interest guidelines, the matter was before the board of directors of CMHC in June of this year and it was only in July of this year that it was finally approved and put into effect. Obviously there have been some delays in the filings in relation to those guidelines but, as the hon. member confirms, Mr. Jarvis has in fact made his appropriate filing at the present time.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: He has made it within the last few days. I know that the minister, as a lawyer and a minister of the Crown, is very concerned about due and proper process. On page 2 of the conflict of interest guidelines it states:
Before or upon employment board members must sign the certification documents certifying that they have read and understood the policy and that they will observe them as a condition of their appointment.
Did Mr. Jarvis sign the certification as required and if so, why did he continue to serve when he was in violation?


Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, most definitely I am absolutely concerned about compliance with all of the rules and regulations and conflict of interest guidelines. In this instance Mr. Jarvis has confirmed that he was certainly well aware of those guidelines and that he would comply with them. In fact, as a member of the board of directors which approved the guidelines, he obviously was aware of them and now has complied with the requirements as indicated.
December 15, 1989


ETHIOPIA
David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs or in his absence, the acting secretary of state, with respect to the very rapidly deteriorating situation in the northern part of Ethiopia, the resumed threat of famine to as many as 5 million people, the increasing civil conflict that prevents many of those people from being reached under the present circumstances.
In light of the call this week by the President of Kenya for open relief corridors into the most affected parts of northern Ethiopia, can the acting secretary of state indicate what actions the Government of Canada is taking to ensure that badly needed Canadian relief assistance and relief from around the world will get to these people who are so very much going to be in need in the early part of next year?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who just asked that question of course has had extensive experience in Ethiopia and I know his concern is very genuine. We have been working with other donors. We have been working with UN organizations and international relief agencies to persuade the Government of Ethiopia to allow access to those who are starving in northern Ethiopia. We were encouraging the UN organizations to ensure that a co-ordinator, either in New York or Addis Ababa as was the case in 1984 and 1988, act as a focal point for the relief organizations and strive to win co-operation of the parties in Ethiopia.
Finally, the government has approved $17.7 million in food aid and emergency relief assistance to Ethiopia this year: $13.4 million to the Canadian non-governmental organizations and $4.25 million to the World Food Program and UNICEF.
I might also inform the hon. member that CIDA's country program manager for the Horn of Africa has just returned from a visit to Ethiopia and Sudan where he reviewed the situation on the ground. His report is being reviewed urgently to try to ensure that we have in place a mechanism which is adequate to meet the challenge. This is being given every attention and priority.
Oral Questions TIEM CANADA


Mr. Ronald J. Duhamel (St. Boniface):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Employment and Immigration I would like to address my question to the Deputy Prime Minister.
TIEM Canada was a national company located in five cities including Winnipeg. TIEM was designed to assist small and medium sized businesses. It received huge amounts of public funds. In May this year it closed its doors.
Why did the ministers involved in providing huge amounts of public funds refuse to renew its contracts?

Why didn't those departments, including the Department of Employment and Immigration, the Department of Industry, Science and Technology and the Federal Business Development Bank, renew these contracts and why won't they give us the report on this company's performance?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, I carried a file around for several months on that particular company.
I do not happen to have it here today, so I will have to take that question as notice and I will get back to the hon. member.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Vancouver East, followed by the hon. member for York West on single questions.


IMMIGRATION
Ms. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State for Employment and Immigration. Federal regulations and bureaucratic delays are barring children of refugee claimants from attending school until their parents have passed the credible basis test. This can take up to four months in the Kitchener, Toronto, and Vancouver areas.

December 15, 1989
Routine proceedings
Will the minister of immigration waive the present regulations and issue a no objection letter as was done in the past to allow children to attend school while their parents are waiting?


Hon. Monique Vezina (Minister of State (Employment and Immigration) and Minister of State (Seniors)):: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to remind my colleague that schools are a provincial jurisdiction. However, we have an administrative agreement allowing us to reduce the backlog of applications.
Our officials send an information letter to school authorities and this normally gives very good results.

Officials are now working on regulations to resolve any remaining problems. The regulations will give such personal legal status as students. We expect the regulations to be ready in the very near future.


Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, my question is also for the Minister of State for Employment and Immigration. It concerns her government's response to the forced deportation of Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong by the British Government.
The minister has said to be against the forced deportation, but her planned levels to accept Indo-Chinese refugees for the next three years is only 16,000 which pales by comparison to the 90,000 accepted by Canada in the 1980 period.
My question is very straightforward and very simple. In light of these numbers, why is this government turning a blind eye to the boat people while at the same time embracing and extending an arm to the yacht people from the same part of the world?


Monique Vézina: Mr. Speaker, our colleague knows full well that our immigration level is reviewed annually. Our policy has five components. However, we are contemplating flexible measures which could take new developments into account. The situation described today involves one component of our immigration policy and our government will consider any humanitarian aspect as it has in the past.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. Minister of Justice on a point of order.


INCOME TAX ACT
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise the House that an agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Orders 78(1) and 78(2) with respect to an allocation of time to the report stage and third reading stage of Bill C-28, an act to amend the Income Tax Act and the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements and Federal Post-Secondary Education and Health Contributions Act, the Old Age Security Act, the Public Utilities Income Tax Transfer Act, the War Veterans Allowance Act and a related act.
Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice of my intention to move a time allocation motion at the next sitting of the House for the purpose of allocating a specified number of days for consideration and disposal of proceedings at those stages of the bill.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Hon. Robert de Cotret (President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table, in both official languages, a briefing paper completing the statement I will make in a few minutes.


PETITIONS
Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both

official languages, the government's response to several petitions.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURES


Robert René de Cotret: Mr. Speaker, as a result of the government's expenditure review process, I am in a position today to announce a package of initiatives designed to make government operations more efficient and to save Canadian taxpayers $1.4 billion over the next three years.
These actions are the latest step in our constant efforts since 1984 to manage frugally. They follow the hard decisions announced last spring in the budget.
I would like to underline that the Minister of Finance and I will be announcing further reductions in spending in the new year. The government is continuing to review expenditures in order to adhere to our fiscal plan as we prepare early in the new year for the next budget and the Main Estimates.
When Canadians used to look at the federal government operations they would see red: red tape and red ink. The measures I am announcing today will help us make solid progress on both.

Mr. Speaker, the very real success we have had in bringing government spending under control is sometimes overlooked. Since 1984, we have taken a number of steps, often difficult and sometimes unpopular, to eliminate wasteful practices and spending by introducing a more businesslike approach to the operations of government. These have included expenditure and program reviews, reductions in payments to and privatization of Crown corporations, reductions in the size of the Public Service and cost-recovery measures.
As a result of these measures, we have kept annual growth in program expenditures to 3.6 per cent, well below the inflation rate. Compare that, Mr. Speaker, to the annual 14.1 per cent growth which occurred during the last five years of the Liberal administration.
Routine proceedings
We have met our objective of reducing the size of the Public Service. It is now the size it was 17 years ago, and that in spite of a heavier workload.

We have improved cash management. This alone has saved taxpayers nearly $1 billion since 1985. We have been leading the country in terms of leadership vis-a-vis wage settlements.
In the last round we have averaged an increase of 4.2 per cent per year for the total of the federal Public Service. We have reduced program spending to the point where we expect budgetary revenues to exceed programs spending by about $9 billion this year. That is a very significant improvement. We inherited on coming into office a $12 billion deficit in program spending, and we now have a $9 billion surplus.
This government has done more to control spending and to improve programs and services than any other government in recent history. We know that Canadians have not found it easy to accept many of the restraint measures that were necessary to manage the economy and ensure our future. I want Canadians to know that the government has been tightening its belt and will continue to do so.
Today's package is real. It is difficult. In fact it will not only mean doing better and more with less; in some cases it will mean doing without. However that is what leadership is all about and there is no better place to start than right here in this great institution.
This week the Board of Internal Economy which oversees the expenditures of the House of Commons reached an all-party agreement on a number of measures which will save Canadian taxpayers several million dollars. First of all we will save half a million dollars by cutting grants to parliamentary associations and by cutting budgets for foreign travels and visits by parliamentarians by 20 per cent.
We will save up to $730,000 by closing two parliamentary cafeterias and a private dining room and lounge for members of parliament, as well as reducing cafeteria operating hours. We will be raising prices to increase cost recovery from the parliamentary dining room and catering services.

December 15, 1989
Routine proceedings
We will save $300,000 by implementing a two-year freeze on certain aspects of members' non-salary budgets.

We will terminate a broadcasting studio service to Members of Parliament for an immediate saving of $300,000 and we will save over $1 million through a 20 per cent reduction in the cost of pamphlets which Members send to their constituents.
Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate Members of all parties on the Board of Internal Economy for deciding to take these measures because they have shown their willingness to provide leadership during a period of fiscal restraint. In so doing, we, as Parliamentarians, are setting an example in our own house.
That is why the govemmeent will reduce the budget of the National Capital Commission by $8 million a year. It will also defer expenditures on projects such as underground parking and statues on Parliament Hill.
Furthermore, we will reduce spending on Confederation Boulevard and official residences. Specifically, renovation of 7 Rideau Gate, the government's guest house, will not proceed. This alone will make it possible to save $3 million over the next three years.
Other major capital projects, totalling $3 million, at Rideau Hall, 24 Sussex and Harrington Lake are also being deferred.

We have ordered an immediate 20 per cent reduction in international travel by public servants.
In addition, we will sell two of the eight Challenger jets used by the government for ministerial travel. One reason we can do without the two Challenger jets is that ministerial travel has decreased very significantly since 1983-1984. The average number of flying hours per month has dropped by 25 per cent. The average number of flights per month has decreased by 37 per cent.
There is much more that we as a government will do to make major savings of taxpayers' dollars and make those dollars work harder and better. We have decided to extend by two years the two per cent cap on increases to the operating and maintenance budgets of government departments.
This 2 per cent ceiling has been in effect for the past four years and was due to expire. Extending the ceiling two more years will challenge managers in the Public Service to do better with less. In some cases it will lead to trimming in some programs and services. This measure, which is the largest single saving in the package, will require ongoing restraint in government departments and will realize roughly $450 million a year.
We have ordered a two-year freeze on construction projects worth some $460 million planned for the national capital region. Only those projects required for safety or health reasons or to maintain essential operations will be allowed to proceed with construction during this period. This will save $70 million over the two-year period.
We will reduce the operating budget of External Affairs by $70 million over the next four years. In addition, we will cut Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's administration and research budget by $3 million.

We will introduce a "blue box" paper recycling program and related measures which will improve the environment and save more than $1 million a year.
The government will also be taking a series of cost-recovery initiatives, totalling $390 million over three years. This reflects a new policy which gives departments the opportunity to retain a portion of cost-recovered revenue. The following initatives will be taken: we will increase fees for processing immigration and visitor visa applications and for entering and using national parks; we will add new administrative fees for processing student loans and improve the collection of overdue payments on those loans; and we will eliminate the $175 million annual subsidy to the Post Office and replace it with a better-targeted program of direct support to Canadian publishers. Part of the savings will be redirected to other programs of the Department of Communications.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert René de Cotret: As I said earlier, these cost-saving measures will challenge managers in the Public Service to do better with less. A supporting component of today's package, therefore, is an important set of measures to improve the management and delivery of government programs and services. This includes incentives for more effective program and budget management, as well as the restructuring of several government agencies and organizations. A major innovation will be to allow Public
December 15, 1989

Service managers to carry over three per cent of non-salary operating and maintenance funds into the following fiscal year. This should allow wiser spending by putting an end to the pressure on managers to use funds at the end of the fiscal year just to avoid losing them.

We are also introducing an innovative concept of management in government called special operating agencies. These agencies are pilot projects to improve the delivery and cost efficiency of services offered by the government. They will operate within government in a business-like manner with flexibility that is necessary to achieve agreed upon bottom line results.
Some of these agencies will compete with the private sector as suppliers of services to the government and will have to give account for the results at the end of each year. We will convert the passport office, the government telecommunications agency and the Public Service Commission staff training program into special operating agencies. As a result they will have multi-year business plans and specific business goals.
We are merging the publishing and printing operations of Supply and Services Canada and the mapping service of Energy, Mines and Resources Canada. They will then become one special operating agency.
Two other divisions of Supply and Services-the Audit Services Bureau and the Bureau of Management Consulting-will also be consolidated and converted into one special operating agency.
We are closing down the government's exhibit production facility and the Canadian government photo centre.
We will use computer based systems to improve asset management. We will provide incentives to managers to dispose of surplus assets and to increase fees for service by allowing departments to retain a portion of the proceeds for reinvestment to improve the services that generate the revenue.
Routine proceedings
We will contract out the operations of the Canada Student Loans Program and increase contracting for translation services.

Mr. Speaker, these are all substancial measures. As I said earlier, they are designed to cut red tape and red ink.
Canadians have demanded that the government improve its performance and budget management. We have heard them loud and clear.
As the Prime Minister said recently when he announced the Public Service 2000 Program, it is essential that the Public Service be modernized to meet changing conditions and to provide better services.
He also rightly pointed out that the Public Service has to be improved as an institution that can offer careers to people devoted to serving their fellow citizens.
Mr. Speaker, the measures I have announced today are substantial, but more has to be done. That is why I say that today's announcement is part of an on-going process.
Mr. Speaker, this government is committed to more than the bottom line. It is committed, in a thoughtful and on-going way, to providing Canadians the quality of service and the quality of life which they so richly deserve.
I had the pleasure to table, in both official languages, detailed information on the package I have just announced.


Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to respond this afternoon to the statement made by the President of the Treasury Board who henceforth will be renamed Ebenezer Bob. Ebenezer Bob has perpetrated the announcement this afternoon on Canadians just before the Christmas season.
In large measure this statement is a smoke screen announcement. It is to hide the real biggy which will happen next Tuesday, as admitted by the Minister of Finance a little earlier this morning in response to a question by one of my colleagues.

December 15, 1989
Routine proceedings
Next Tuesday, I predict, the Minister of Finance will be announcing the biggy to which I referred previously. It will be a sledgehammer on Canadians, his much dreaded GST which is known as the goods and services tax or perhaps more appropriately the grief and suffering tax.
The GST the minister will announce in a few days at whatever rate will be unacceptable to Canadians. The measures announced today will not camouflage or hide the fact that Canadians are displeased with what the government is proposing.

Mr. Speaker, there are in fact three main components in today's government statement. For openers, there is a reference to cut-backs in parliamentary services. I will get back to this point later on, but for now I want to point out that when services are reduced the immediate victims are always the people who are on the lowest rung of the salary scale. I have in mind the employees in the parliamentary cafeterias who will hear this news in a few minutes. Again the lowest-paid workers bear the brunt of these tragic circumstances. I hope none of them will lose his or her job.
Capital expenditures and public services will also be curtailed and, finally, higher fees will be paid by all Canadians.

Let me deal first with the cut-backs in the previously announced national capital region projects. Your Honour will notice that I said "national capital region".
I am going to name a few projects that are cancelled: underground parking and other measures on Parliament Hill, repairs to the Rideau Canal, new headquarters for the National Archives, new headquarters for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, new headquarters for the Federal Court, and so on.
The one thing all these announcements have in common is that these were projects in the national capital area. I see the minister responsible for the national capital area here with us today. I say to him that this is probably not one of his better days as a cabinet minister.
In fact, all cut-backs in construction projects are in the national capital area. We are talking about cancelling projects to the Rideau Canal system, not the Trent-Sev-ern system, not any other system across the country, but merely in the national capital area.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Don Boudria: I hear some of the Tories across the way saying "Hear, hear". Let me read to the members across the way and remind them of something.
In The Ottawa Citizen of November 24, 1988 the hon. member for Mississauga South was interviewed. Here is what the article said: " 'If Ottawa voters felt neglected before, they don't know the meaning of the world', said Don Blenkam, chairman of the commons finance committee".
Listen to this, Mr. Speaker: "Why would you bring any goodies to Ottawa? Why wouldn't you cut back on everything you could in Ottawa? Why wouldn't you take some departments that have good employees and move them into areas where there is some slack? Who's to care about a bunch of public servants who lose their jobs?"
Those are comments by the member for Mississauga South. Today those things are coming to pass.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Don Boudria: We are now seeing the face of the Conservative government.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell has the floor.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I am upset by these announcements and by this attack on the national capital region on the part of the government across the way. I would be upset if any member of the government had done that. The President of the Treasury Board only a few years ago was the member of Parliament for Ottawa Centre. It is difficult for the people of the national capital area. The people of this city and this region will clearly not swallow that.
The Tories may have elected only two out of fourteen members in eastern Ontario, but the next time they will lose every single seat in this area. It is that kind of arrogance, combined with the failure of the few mem-
December 15, 1989

bers from eastern Ontario to defend the interests of this area, which will make it such, I predict.
Members opposite and the President of the Treasury Board were telling us a few moments ago how the number of public servants had gone down. They were saying what a great thing this was in their view. What a great thing it is to cut back on services to Canadians, according to the Tories across the way.
Just in case the government is trying to fool all Canadians, let me remind Your Honour of what was said in an article of The Financial Times-and I am sure it is a publication read frequently by the Minister of Finance and the President of the Treasury Board-as reprinted in The Ottawa Citizen.
This particular story, of which I have a copy dated December 5, speaks of the number of consultants which the government has hired at the same time as cutting back civil servants and pretending to save money.
The Department of Supply and Services-and the minister is right here listening to this-spent $143 million on consultants in 1986-1987. In 1987-1988, in the continuing restraint of the government across the way, it spent $247 million. Now, that is restraint from this government. What they are doing is cutting back on civil servants and hiring consultants, hiring friends of the government, hiring people on contract and otherwise, in an attempt to fool the people of Canada that they are cutting back when they are not. It is simply not true and that needs to be repeated in this House.
I want to discuss the individual cuts that have been made by the government. I mentioned a moment ago the freeze in capital projects that will be only in the national capital area, but nowhere else in the country. I also want to speak about the cutbacks at the National Capital Commission. I know my colleague for Hull-Aylmer is very upset about these cuts. We have built a beautiful museum across the way and now many of the ancillary facilities to surround it will be terminated or at least will be delayed.
We were told this morning that Canada Mortgage and Housing will be imposing user fees. As my distinguished colleague for Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke men-
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tioned at that time, this will cause additional charges to municipalities and others that need services from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. This is not a cut, this is not a saving, this is a transfer of the burden from the federal government to the municipalities.


Mr. Hopkins:: Passing the buck!


Don Boudria: Passing the buck, as my colleague for Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke has so eloquently stated.
There is one provision that the minister is trying to implement and I would ask him to withdraw it above all others. On page 6 of the minister's document, which was provided to us today, it speaks of mandatory direct deposit for government employees pay cheques. This will also apply to people on pensions.
I do not see how this government could in all conscience tell a 73 year old widow that she has to give her bank account number to the President of the Treasury Board or his staff, otherwise her cheques will be cancelled. That was what we were told this morning and it is not right. I ask the minister to consult with the Privacy Commissioner and with others and to please withdraw at least that provision.
We may disagree in certain policy areas, but on this particular one I hope that the minister will understand the impact that this could have on the individual rights and freedoms of Canadians. If I do not want to have a bank account or if a civil servant does not want to have a bank account, he or she should not be forced to have one and to provide the number of that bank account to the President of the Treasury Board or to anyone else. If the minister wants to impose such a measure on new employees, we could argue about that. To impose that not only on present employees but on people who have retired and are receiving superannuation benefits, is not right and I really question the legality of such a measure.
I hope the President of the Treasury Board is a fair person and that he will look at this measure again. I had some discussions with his staff this morning and suggested to them that they have a second look at that measure. I know that sometimes staff or bureaucrats prepare documents for us and when they are looked at again by someone in elected office they are seen in a different light. I ask the minister to do this in that regard.

December 15, 1989
Routine proceedings

Earlier today, Mr. Speaker, the minister said there will be cut-backs at Canada Post. Well, this is not quite true because if this is a reference to subsidies concerning publications it is in fact a subsidy offered to companies that publish magazines and small newspapers, mainly weeklies, to enable them to sell papers at prices Canadians in rural areas can afford to pay. Mr. Speaker, the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. de Cotret) is familiar with the town of Hawkesbury in my riding. Indeed I believe his wife was born in Hawkesbury and that he goes to my riding quite often. He would know just how important it is to publishers of small newspapers and magazines to do everything they can so that as many Canadians as possible have access to the news out of rural ridings.
I do not see this as a charitable gesture. I rather think it is intended to maintain proper balance between small newspapers in the various regions of Canada and the major dailies in urban centres. The same goes for magazines. Sure enough, the widely published magazines can do without government assistance, but most smaller Canadian publications will be hard-pressed to face higher costs.

A little earlier I consulted my colleague, the member for York West. He mentioned to me some features of this new so-called Immigration Cost Recovery Program. He reminded me that in 1984 when this government was sworn into office, the cost of processing an immigration document was zero. It was then set at $125 and today it is $250. A new Canadian or anyone else who wants to sponsor their brother, mother, or sister in Lebanon or another country will now have to pay $250 in order to be able to present an application to the government across the way.
Not all new Canadians are rich. Not all people applying to come to this country are rich. As a matter of fact, in many cases it is the opposite. They have, of course, many resources in terms of their energy and their willingness, but their financial resources are very often small. These potential new Canadians deserve our compassion and should be assisted in a fairer way than
charging them $250 before we decide whether or not we want to roll out the welcome mat.
My colleagues, the member for Ottawa West and the member for Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke and I will be making further comments later this afternoon on the cuts announced today and this cost recovery package.
I want to remind the minister of one topic where I think he is in error, and that is the cutbacks at External Affairs and International Trade. We learned this week that for the first time in many years, we now find ourselves with a trade deficit. That is all the more reason why the minister should look at the expenditures of those departments. But not to take the money out of the department, not to cut back. Reallocate it, make better use of it, and even increase those budgets in order to ensure that we can once again find our place in international trade and have the trade surpluses that we have had in this country in prior years.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I must say I could not believe what I heard from the President of the Treasury Board. What he said today in the House of Commons is an insult to the intelligence of Canadians everywhere in this country, to think that they are going to buy this kind of line. Here he is, the artful dodger of the cabinet. It reminded me of the old riverboat gambler who would play out and lose a couple of hands to lure in the gamblers and then put it to them.
He is trying to lure in Canadians today. If I had the opportunity, the first question I would like to put to the minister would be, how much is the government going to spend on convincing Canadians that these are serious cuts he has announced today? What are those expenditures going to be?
What is this all about? The government has on its hands a goods and services tax of 9 per cent or 7 per cent that has been rejected by people right across this country. Virtually every single organization that has spoken out on this issue has been against it. The government has to find some way to recoup and to try to convince, or fool with a snow job, a con job, a smoke and mirrors trick, to give the impression that the government is cutting back on its expenditures. The President of the Treasury Board has the gall to stand up and announce a number of these cosmetic cuts today.
December 15, 1989

We are trying to sell a goods and services tax that is unsaleable, that is unpalatable and unsavoury to virtually every Canadian, and the government is going to say: "Here is what we have done. We have cut back".
I noticed that the President of the Treasury Board did not mention the government propaganda machine. He has already spent $9 million trying to convince Canadians that the goods and services tax is good for them. God knows how many millions will be spent next year. Has he any cuts in that area? Has he any cuts in the advertising of government programs, or any cuts in the propaganda department? Not a single cut.
We notice that there are some cuts to the services of members of Parliament. Fair enough, Mr. Speaker. However, are there any announced cuts to the ministers' budgets? Are there any announced cuts to any of the budgets of one of the largest cabinets in Canadian history? No other government has had so many people in cabinet. Are there any announcements that the cabinet ministers are cutting back on their political staff and the huge entourages that surround them? No, there are no cuts there, and no cuts at all to the slush funds that the ministers have for handing out plums to their friends.
What about our Prime Minister? Here is a Prime Minister that gallivants around on the international stage trying to impress, not everybody in the world, but the people back home, with these huge shows that he conducts when he goes around the globe. He should be called the Mick Jagger of international politics, out there with a lot of flash, a huge stage and a lot of sound. He travels with a huge entourage and a number of planes wherever he goes. By leaps and bounds it is becoming the largest entourage following a prime minister that we have ever seen in this country. Are there any cuts there, Mr. Speaker? There are no cuts in those areas.
If the government was serious about sending a signal to the people of Canada that it was going to cut back on its expenditures, it would have cut back on the budgets of the ministers. It would have cut back on the gallivanting of the Prime Minister. It would have cut back on the massive advertising propaganda of the government.
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There was one area that the minister did not even mention, and that is the whole area of corporate tax expenditures. If the government was serious and went through the list of not the hundreds of millions, but billions and billions of dollars that the taxpayers of Canada lose eveiy year because of corporate tax expenditures, he could have come up with billions of dollars in cuts. Then the people of Canada would have applauded him. But no. He chipped away, for example, at the area for encouraging Canadian publishers. Canadian publishers are struggling under the threat of the free trade deal, trying to withstand the pressures from the United States. What does the minister announce? They are going to cut back on support to the publishers of Canada.
There is another group that has been hit right between the eyes. Time and time again, not only has this government cut back on support for universities, colleges, technical and vocational schools, they have cut back on the support for students in terms of loans and bursaries. Now they are going to add new charges to the student loan process, an administrative fee of 3 per cent to all new Canada student loans. Well, isn't that the perfect way to encourage Canadian students and send them a clear signal that we appreciate the efforts of young people to improve themselves in terms of post-secondary education by adding more fees to this area.
Obviously we are seeing the free trade agreement poking its head into the minister's discussion today. The Americans have said that they do not want to see the Government of Canada helping out Canadian publishers. So the government today announced that that is fine. Once again, like it did on the unemployment insurance area, the Government of Canada is backing off in the support it provides to those small Canadian publishers.
What about user fees to national parks? The fees for Canadians visiting a national park will go up. These parks are a common heritage of all Canadians, but slowly and surely as a result of privatization programs, user fees on the various aspects of the federal government's park programs are now making the parks not for all Canadians, but for those Canadians with money.
Let us talk about new Canadians and the doubling of the immigration application fee. While we have the entrepreneurial program that says if you have $200,000, you can just buy your passport, for those people who do

December 15, 1989
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not have lots of money, we are going to make it even more difficult by doubling the amount of fees they have to pay simply to apply to visit and to enter Canada as a landed immigrant.
I could go on and on. If the minister thinks that this snow job is going to fool Canadians, this little smoke and mirrors show, this little cosmetic act that he has performed today in the House of Commons, which is an insult to the intelligence of every Canadian, is going to somehow say to the people of Canada that the government is cutting back on expenditures while at the same time smashing the people of Canada between the eyes with the goods and services tax, that this is going to make the selling of your goods and services tax any easier, you have something coming.



COMMITTEES OF THE HOUSE


Mr. Jim Hawkes (Calgary West):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the twenty-seventh report of the Striking Committee.
If the House gives its consent, I intend to move concurrence in the report later this day.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings]



SMALL BUSINESSES LOANS ACT


Hon. Tom Hockin (for Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion and Minister of State for Science and Technology and Acting Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-56, an act to amend the Small Businesses Loans Act.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: 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.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, I should like at this time to move concurrence in the twenty-seventh report of the Striking Committee presented earlier this day.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Beryl Gaffney: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand in the House, pursuant to Standing Order 36, and present petitions from many residents of my constituency of Nepean who are opposed to the establishment of a goods and services tax.
These petitioners come from all walks of life and yet their voice is as one. "Do not implement the GST", they are saying, and they call upon Parliament to reject the proposed tax implementation.


Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour and the pleasure to introduce a motion on behalf of Canadian citizens who are requesting the Minister of Employment and Immigration Canada and Health and Welfare Canada to revise the medical standards for admission to Canada with a view to compliance with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the enhancement of the human rights and dignity of persons with disability.


Mr. Lyle Dean MacWilliam (Okanagan -Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure, pursuant to Standing Order 36, to rise and present to you 96 petitions. In order to facilitate the perusal of petitions, they have been condensed into nine major petitions, but there are 96 petitions here with a total of 3,900 names of residents of the Okanagan-Shuswap area in British Columbia.
These residents are asking the government to reject the proposed goods and services tax, to consult with business, labour and consumer groups, in order to reach
December 15, 1989

a broad consensus on reform of the tax system before implementing any further changes, and to ensure that there is a process of fair tax reform that will provide a healthy climate for future economic growth in Canada.


Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to stand in this House today and present a petition on behalf of my constituents and those, in particular, in the Montague area. My constituents feel it is grossly unfair that the goods and services tax be levelled on skating expenses, including instructional fees, rentals and purchases. Instructional skating is an educational service, therefore it should not be taxed.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 129,134,154,155, 170 and 171.


Mr. Brewin: 1.	From 1985 to the present, have there been parole hearings which adjourned from month to month due to lack of case preparation by the Correctional Service of Canada and, if so, by region (a) has their number been growing (b) what proportion have been (i) full parole (ii) day parole hearings (c) has the same prisoner's case been adjourned more than once and, if so, what number of times (d) what number of prisoners are required to double-bunk with other inmates as a result of delays in Parole Board hearings?
2.	What is the cost per day to keep a prisoner in (a) a medium-security (b) a minimum-security institution?
3.	What is the estimated cost of hiring sufficient staff to perform the case studies and evaluations required by the Parole Board without undue delay to the parole process?
4.	What number of new employees have been hired by the Correctional Service to prepare the assessments needed by the Parole Board?


Hon. Pierre Blais (Solicitor General of Canada and Minister of State (Agriculture)):: 1. Yes, there have been parole hearings which were adjourned or waived, however, the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) does not
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have data on waivers available prior to the 1988-89 fiscal year.
(a)	Yes, when comparing the period of April 1 to September 30 for the fiscal years 1988-89 and 1989-90, the total waivers issued, by region, were as follows:
Region	1988-89	1989-90Atlantic	3	15Quebec	72	58Ontario	109	168Prairie	8*	16Pacific	11*	15203	272
* Full reports were not received from the Prairie and Pacific regions during the first quarter of the 1988-89 fiscal year.
(b)	(i), (ii) Statistics are not kept in a manner to differentiate day parole and full parole hearings. However, a system to provide this type of information is currently being developed.
(c)	It is not possible to isolate individual cases that have been adjourned more that once. In order to provide such information, a case-by-case review of every inmate's file would have to be conducted. CSC does not have the resources available to conduct such a review.
(d)	Statistics on inmates double-bunked solely as a result of delays in the National Parole Board (NPB) hearings are not available.
Double-bunking is reserved primarily for newcomers. Inmates are moved into single cells as soon as they become available. Normally, inmates awaiting parole decisions would have progressed to single accommodations. 2. (a) The annual cost of maintaining an inmate in a medium security institution during the fiscal year 1987-88 was $40,783, thus resulting in a daily average cost of $111.73.
(b) The annual cost of maintaining an inmate in a minimum security institution during the fiscal year 1987-88 was $28,797, thus resulting in a daily average cost of $78.90.
3. It is not possible to estimate this exact cost as the case preparation work for NPB is only one segment of the total workload of case managers. Other factors include supervision, preparing regular ongoing reports,

December 15, 1989
Routine proceedings
intervening in crisis situations, suspensions and followup, liaison with different community members or organizations important to the parolee (i.e. family, employer, social agencies, etc.)
4. CSC recognized that additional resources were required and reallocated 28 person-years prior to
1989-90. For the next three fiscal years, 1989-92 inclusive, the following reallocations are planned:
1989-	90-75.5 person-years
1990-	91-47.0 person-years
1991-	92-16.0 person-years


Mr. Heap: In planning for labour market needs, has the government made predictions as to employment in Metro Toronto and, if so, according to these predictions (a) what will the absolute number of manufacturing jobs be there in (i) 1994 (ii) 1999 (b) what percentage will that be of the current level (c) which ten manufacturing subsectors will experience the greatest net job loss over the above time-frames (d) what size will that loss be (e) what is the predicted employment level in the clothing industry for the above time-frames (f) what job categories, overall, are expected to have the greatest absolute increase through 1994 and 1999 (g) in each case, what is their average expected pay level?


Hon. Barbara Jean McDougall (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Employment and Immigration Canada has not produced any official projections relating to the industrial and occupational configuration of the Metro Toronto labour market to the year 1999. The technical difficulties, the most serious being the lack of reliable data, involved in such an exercise are many. Until these constraints can be overcome, small area projections, rather than providing a useful planning tool, may in fact give an unrealistic picture of the future Metro labour market.
"GREENPRINT FOR CANADA: A FEDERAL AGENDA FOR THE ENVIRONMENT"


Mr. Caccia: Is it the intention of the government to make an official response to "Greenprint for Canada: A Federal Agenda for the Environment", given to the Prime Minister on June 22, 1989 by the Greenprint for Canada Committee and, if so (a) by whom will the response be prepared (b) by what time and, if not, for what reasons?


Hon. Lucien Bouchard (Minister of the Environment):: a) Environment Canada Officials are presently preparing
a response to the Greenprint for Canada: A Federal Agenda for the Environment. This document has been Central in establishing a proposed framework for the Environmental Agenda for Canada.
b) Environment Canada hopes that representatives of the Greenprint Coalition group will be able to meet with departmental representatives in a Pre-Agenda discussion before the end of this year.


Ms. Hunter: Is it the intention of the government to conduct an investigation into the refugee status of Mr. Francisco Nota Moises and into the possibility of violations of the Immigration Act by him and, if so (a) on what date will the investigation commence (b) what are its terms and mandate (c) is the Department of External Affairs or the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to be involved in the investigation and, if so, in what way?


Barbara Jean McDougall: A careful and thorough investigation has been conducted regarding Mr. Moises who was granted refugee status. This investigation was conducted in conjunction with the Department of External Affairs and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). No evidence was established to conclude that Mr. Moises' admission to Canada was irregular or that he could now be removed from Canada under the Immigration Act.


Mr. Murphy: Is it the policy of the government to investigate alleged infractions of the Parliament of Canada Act by (a) Members of the House of Commons (b) Senators?


Pierre Blais: The polity of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) is to investigate offences against any Federal Statute where a complaint has been received and there is sufficient grounds to believe that an offence may have been committed.
Should the RCMP receive a complaint relative to an infraction of the Parliament of Canada Act and the complainant provides sufficient evidence that an offence may have been committed then the matter would be duly investigated.


Mr. Milliken: For (a) 1985 (b) 1986 (c) 1987 (d) 1988(e) 1989 to date, what is the
volume of water per month removed from Lake Michigan through the
Chicago Ship Canal?


Lucien Bouchard: The Chicago Diversion, initiated in 1848, removes water from Lake Michigan at Chicago for the purposes of domestic, sanitary, navigation and hydro-electric power in the Illinois Waterway. The waterway connects with the upper Mississippi River. Diversion prior to 1900 averaged about 500 cubic feet per second (cfs). Upon completion of the Sanitary and Ship Canal, diversions progressively increased to a maximum of about 10,000 cfs in 1928. Due to challenges from other states (mainly Wisconsin), there have been several U.S. Supreme Court decrees issued (1922, 1925, 1930 and 1967). The 1967 decree limited the diversion to an average of 3,200 cfs effective March 1, 1970. A 1980 court amendment allows the use of a 40-year period in calculating longterm average diversion for compliance.
Lake Michigan is located entirely within the United States territory and is not considered as "boundary water" according to the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909. However, it is connected to, and flows into Lake Huron and downstream, thus affecting the rest of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River System. The present diversion rate of 3,200 cfs causes reductions in the flows in the St. Clair-Detroit River System by 1.7 percent, in the Niagara River by 1.5 percent, and in the St. Lawrence River by 1,3 percent.
The 3,200 cfs is equivalent to 7.8 billion litres per day, or 1.7 billion imperial gallons per day.


Albert Glen Cooper: I ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The questions as enumerated by the hon. parliamentary secretary have been answered. Shall the remaining questions stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
Government Orders


[Stage Direction]
Mr. Francis G. LeBlanc (Cape Breton Highlands-
Canso): Mr. Speaker, I wish to resubmit the application I made yesterday. I believe you have my notice.
Mr. Speaker:: I thank the hon. member. As hon. members will know, the hon. member for Cape Breton Highlands-Canso has been rising repeatedly with requests for an emergency debate on fisheries matters in the maritimes and Newfoundland and Labrador. I am acceding to the request and I am setting the debate for eight o'clock on Monday night.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Friday, November 3, consideration of the motion of Mr. Masse that Bill C-40, an act respecting broadcasting and to amend certain acts in relation thereto and in relation to radiocommunication be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I wish to inform the House that because of the ministerial statement, Government Orders will be extended 39 minutes. Therefore, private members' hour will begin at 2.39 p.m.
When the House rose at three o'clock p.m., Friday, November 3, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Communications had completed his speech. The question and comment period following the hon. member's speech is now available. Otherwise, the Chair is prepared to recognize other members. The hon. member for Winnipeg.


John Harvard: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate. I consider it an important one. I must say at the beginning that I find the process extremely slow. There was a bill in the last Parliament and this bill is the successor to the one that died with the last Parliament. It did reach the House on November 3 and here it is getting close to Christmas and we are now just trying our best to finish second reading. I find the process slow and frustrating. I sometimes think

Government Orders
that the games played by government with respect to introduction of bills and the processing of bills are rather puerile and not becoming of grown up men and women. It is very little consolation to me that it is played by all parties when they are in power.
It goes without saying that broadcasting touches all of our lives and it is extremely important to this country. In my opinion, broadcasting is to the 1990s what the railways were to Canada in the 1880s. Broadcasting ties us together, it binds us, and it makes us one family. At least, that should be the result.
It is important to our parliamentary democracy, and if the system works well, broadcasting, in my opinion, gets a lot of credit for that and plays a huge role. Broadcasting is as important an institution as this institution right here in which I am speaking. That is the kind of rating I give it. It is little wonder that we refer to it along with newspapers as the fourth estate.
It is also important to our unity, and it is important to Canadian identity. If our unity is tenuous and a little weak, broadcasting has to take some small blame for that. If our identity is fuzzy, again broadcasting is partly to blame for that. In my opinion, broadcasting has not always done a very good job vis-a-vis national unity. That issue should be addressed in this particular bill that we are talking about today.
Before I deal with some of the specific provisions of the bill, I would like to discuss where we stand today in broadcasting. The statistics are staggering. Our children spend more time watching television than they do in school. Watching television is the favourite pastime of a vast majority of Canadians.
At the same time, 95 per cent of Canadians are radio listeners. More than half of Canadians say that broadcasting is their principal source of news and information. For these reasons, the legislation before us today is of critical importance as it will affect virtually every Canadian every day of the year. The ongoing problem of low levels of Canadian content in broadcasting continue. In fact, 71 per cent of all programs viewed by Englishspeaking Canadians on television are American. That is disturbing. Less than 7 per cent of television drama
available to us in English is Canadian, yet we spend nearly half of our viewing time watching it.
In the face of technological change, the threat to Canadian content will only increase through more and more foreign programming entering our country via satellite dishes and other technologies. In my opinion, we must develop quality Canadian programming which can compete with the continuing onslaught of foreign programming in the years to come.
I want to turn my attention to some of the specific shortcomings of the bill as I see them. There is the matter of national unity which I referred to earlier. The current CBC mandate specifically refers to the development of national unity. This new act does not do that. I think that this is a serious omission and I find it disturbing. The new act refers only to the maintenance and the enhancement of national identity and cultural sovereignty. The word "unity" is gone, Mr. Speaker, you will not find it. I do not think that that is good enough.
Back in the days when the current act was drafted, which was 20 years ago, there was a perceived threat to national unity. You will remember those days, Mr. Speaker, as well as I do. There was restlessness in the country. Quebec had awakened. There was the B & B commission. There were many passions stirring in the country. National unity was on people's minds. The new Broadcasting Act of the day recognized and responded to that situation.
National unity is still on the minds of Canadians. It is still very much an issue. It is as worrisome as ever. For example, there are the stresses and strains that emanate from the Meech Lake Accord, and with the Prime Minister refusing to lead, constitutional difficulties grow.
I believe that in the absence of a strong federalist voice, strident provincial voices get louder. They do not get quieter, they get louder. Witness what has happened in the province of Alberta with a loud party called the reform party. Witness the proclamations of the leader of the Parti Quebecois in that province. Instead of all of us fighting for one strong Canada what we find very often is a free-for-all emerging, one province against another.
Consequently, in the midst of the inevitable discord we get last month a cartoonist in Quebec equating Manitobans with the Ku Klux Klan. I am sorry to say that the same has happened vice versa. There have been intoler-
December 15, 1989

ant expressions in so-called English Canada vis-a-vis Quebec. That does not make me very happy as a Canadian.
I believe national unity is very important and deletion of a specific reference to the development of national unity from the CBC's mandate is therefore of very great concern to me. The major function of the CBC in times when the country is divided over issues such as Meech Lake and free trade must be to foster national unity. So I suggest that we address ourselves to this particular weakness in the bill and I would hope we will spend a considerable time on that aspect when the bill reaches committee.
I want to refer to the CBC in somewhat greater detail. I was delighted, as I think most Canadians were, when I heard that Patrick Watson was appointed chairman of the CBC, a new position for the CBC. I think Mr. Watson is a great broadcaster. He belongs to the CBC family. I was once a member of the CBC family. He is a child of the corporation. He understands it, and I think that augurs well for public broadcasting in this country. I can tell you that when his appointment was announced it worked as a morale booster for the staff of the CBC. I think he is going to do a good job.
It bewilders me, however, that he was appointed as a part-time chairman. Here we have this man whom I could describe as a national treasure with respect to broadcasting, and we appoint him as a part-time chairman. Why? If we have this resource, why do we squander it? If he is worth half-time, I would suggest he is worth full-time. I think it was a serious mistake to appoint Mr. Watson only on a part-time basis.
There is another aspect of this which concerns me and it has to do with an appointment for only five years. As you know, up until now the president of the corporation has been appointed to seven-year terms, not five. Now, under this act, the government is proposing five years. I find that somewhat disturbing because I think it is better to have what I might call an overlap from one administration to another or from one Parliament to another. To me there is too much convenience in having a five-year term. It sort of fits with the life of a Parliament. I think that we may have changes from one government to another or from one Parliament to another and I believe
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that an overlap would work much better. That is something else that we are going to have to look at very closely when this bill gets to committee.
The state of the CBC is not good and has not been for a number of years. It is in a real financial bind. It has the enormous job of fostering national unity and promoting our identity. Yet, it does not have the resources to do that.
Telling the story of Canada is not easy for anyone. It is not easy for the CBC because in that mandate the CBC has to reflect Canadians to Canadians. The CBC cannot just be satisfied, in my opinion, with doing what it is doing now, it has to do more. It has to present more drama, for example. There are limitations on journalism. I think the CBC does a pretty good job of journalism, but there are limitations to it. I think if you truly want to get the Canadian story across, truly reflect one region to another, you have to spend more money and devote more resources to drama. That is how you get to the guts of Canadians. You get to their insides through drama. Journalism can do only so much.
I know that the CBC is working on a plan to wrestle with some of these problems but there is still concern that when it is all said and done, when the re-organization is completed, the CBC will still face a serious financial shortfall. As I understand it, the CBC is working on a plan to change the face of the CBC in two or three years, particularly for those who are working there. Hopefully there will not be any serious program cuts in the next two or three years.
As I understand it, when all is said and done, even after all the organization is completed, the CBC will still be facing a financial shortfall of perhaps as much as $100 million. Certainly as much as $50 million. That is disturbing. The government is going to have to come to grips with that. There is a point when the government is going to have to say: "Is the CBC worth what it is? Has the CBC done its job in trimming fat and that kind of thing?" And if so it is going to have to come up with the cash. I feel the day is going to come when the government is going to have to support the CBC. If I am right in believing that the corporation is as important as an institution as is this place and as is the Supreme Court, then we have got to fund it and we have got to fund it properly.

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There are other parts of this bill which concern me. There is in the bill this proposition for what is called "alternative programming" for the CBC. That has got to be the joke of the year. In my opinion, this so-called "alternative service" for the CBC is a sham. I do not see any evidence that there would be money for it. What is it supposed to do? When I read that section I got the impression that somebody somewhere, some bureaucrat, thought, gee whiz, wouldn't it sound good, throw "alternative service" for the CBC into the bill. That will sound great. That will turn people on. Well, it does not seem to make much sense to me.
I want to say a few words about what is called cabinet power of direction and review. I think the bill will jeopardize the CRTC's ability to carry out its role. The bill will grant both the power to review and to provide policy direction over the CRTC. The bill would give cabinet enough power to override the commission.
In my opinion, the bill would make cabinet both the legislator and the judge. That is pretty serious business. The government does not have to take my word for it. If it wants to consider someone who occupies a very senior position perhaps it should listen to its own appointee, Mr. Keith Spicer, who was appointed chairman of the CRTC not too long ago. I will tell you what he said about combining the power of review with the power of direction. I think it is worthwhile repeating.
Just as an aside, when I was in television I used to have a director who would give me time signals. You do not do that but I wish you would, Mr. Speaker. I have six minutes? All right. I think you would make a great television director. You should consider it as a possible future after you have finished this place. That is not to suggest you are not doing a good job.
Mr. Spicer offered these words at a committee meeting about power of review and power of direction. He said:
I do not like the tandem of the power of direction in the government's hand and the power of review. I think it is very unhealthy. It is the law, and bad law even administered by good people is still bad law.
I have had no worries about the present people whom I have been dealing with in the government, but this is a law that is going to stick around for a while and I think they ought to take a little look at it again. If I could suggest a compromise, is that in a given case that they have
one or the other, but not both; they have the power of general direction policy or review, but not both in the end. Because, otherwise they are going to make the CRTC into a way-station. We are going to be the monkey and they will be the organ grinder and people will say: "Why bother, let us go to the organ grinder."
That is what Mr. Spicer says. Those are pretty powerful words. We are going to have to look at that extremely carefully when we come to committee.
There is the limitation of the role of cable. I think that we must limit the role of cable television systems in providing programming that is complementary to that offered by licensed Canadian stations and networks. Cable should have a special limited role and should contribute to the system. There is a real possibility of unfair competition and conflicts of interest in the present legislation.
There is also the matter of regulation. The new legislation, in my opinion again, must provide some means to regulate cable television. The essential role of cable systems is to distribute Canadian radio and TV signals in both official languages. An important question in cable TV regulation is priority. In many parts of Canada tens of channels are now available. With more and more channels available, only a handful can now be made available on ageing equipment.
By the way, some of that equipment is 20 years old or older. Much of the television equipment presently in use is of that age. The older the equipment gets, the more it falls apart. There are a lot of people in this country who can get only from channel 2 to 13.
There is also the matter of programming in representative native languages. The new bill does not specifically refer to aboriginal languages but only to aboriginal culture. The danger to native languages is very real and it is very apparent, particularly in southern Canada. In my city, the city of Winnipeg, for example, where there is a significant native population, services are not available in native languages.
I think the act should specifically refer to the need to protect representative native languages lest they be lost forever. We must stop the erosion of native culture foremost through the protection of native languages. Language, after all, as we all know, is an important

component of a cultural identity. Its importance must be reflected by specific reference to it in the legislation. The lack of reference to the protection of native languages in this legislation is of grave concern to our native peoples and the Liberal Party as they fight the erosion of their cultural heritage.
On another aspect of the bill, there is no provision to protect exclusive rights which Canadian broadcasters acquire to show programs in Canada. The difficulties arising from non-simultaneous substitution must be redressed otherwise exclusive rights mean absolutely nothing. When you combine increased pressure from U.S. broadcasters for access to Canada and the refusal by the government to limit access through legislation, it is sure to lead to rapid erosion in our home programs.
Let me just finish by talking about the need for licensing foreign networks. There is presently no requirement for foreign networks which do business in our country, and that I think is quite incredible. Foreign networks receive increased revenues and viewing audiences by being carried in Canada and at the same time they are not required to be licensed. On the surface certainly that is unfair. I think it goes beyond the surface though. The same rules which apply to Canadian broadcasters should be applied to foreign broadcasters earning revenue directly in this country.
They also contribute to the country by providing Canadian programming. I am talking about our programs. American networks receive expanded audiences and advertising revenues by being carried in Canada and as a result they should have to contribute through a licensing fee.
In closing, I want to say that the bill is important because of the industry that we are talking about. I was fortunate enough to work in the industry for more than 30 years. You get a sense, when you work inside the industry, of just how important it is to the country. That is not to suggest that people who are outside of it do not appreciate its importance, but it is a paramount industry. We as politicians, as parliamentarians, have to come to grips with this. Whatever we can do to strengthen this bill, which will ultimately lead not only to better programming and a better industry but to foster national unity to promote the Canadian identity, is well and good. In fact, I think that should be our primary motivation. So
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I look forward to this bill going to committee where perhaps we can do a lot more work to strengthen it.


Mr. Ross Harvey (Edmonton East):: Mr. Speaker, I hope to be able to keep my remarks mercifully brief this afternoon. I will be emphasizing some of the points made by my colleague, the hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam and our caucus's communications and culture critic, in his excellent address to second reading of Bill C-40 on November 3. I do not expect to be repeating much.
I would like instead during the course of my remarks today to propose perhaps something of a context in which this bill can be considered by this House. To do that I would like to call reference to what I consider to be one of the most important books published in Canada, certainly since the 1960s, put out a couple of years ago. It is by a west coast author named Brian Fawcett and the book is called Cambodia: A Book For People Who Find Television Too Slow. It is a series of loosely-related stories, observations, essays, pensees, all of which take as their central consideration how it is that a society, how it is that a culture maintains its history, its collective memory, and how vital that is to the health and survival of that culture and society.
Culture can be defined in many, many ways. It can be defined as narrowly as the fashion in which we choose to sing and dance for our own amusement, to as broadly as including those aspects of education, indeed of our working lives, that allow us to express and rework over time that which we are individually. So coming up with a definition of culture is not an easy thing. But I think we can all agree that one of the crucial aspects of culture in a societal sense is that culture is the vehicle through which a separate and distinct people maintain and distil their history and, hence, maintain their memory of who they are and what they are for. It is how we continually recreate ourselves.
It is in this context, with reference to this definition of culture that I would like, if I may, to consider this bill and some of the other aspects of culture in Canada that help to context, if I may use a noun as a verb, this bill.
I think it is must be agreed that there are two conditions that must be present for culture, as I have defined it, to work for a society. The first is that that society, obviously, must have a history and a memory of that history. It must have a culture. The second is that it

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must have a means or several means of distribution, of conveyance, of duplication, of inculcation of that culture.
It is in this regard that we are in grave peril in Canada. We are on the verge of losing, perhaps finally, our history, our cultural memory of who, what, and for what we are. This is because we have failed to retain national control over our principal means of cultural transmission which in our modem age have got to be seen, first, as television but as well must include things like books, films, newspapers and other such means of mass communications, because it is through mass communication that we transmit to ourselves our images, our ideas, our understanding of who and what we are. It is through such mass communication means that we retain our memory.
Examples abound of recent and not so recent alienation of these means of communication in Canada. As we know, prior to the last election under the leadership of Flora MacDonald the department which she headed was preparing to bring forward a bill that would have the effect of loosening the 97 per cent stranglehold the Americans now have on our film distribution industry.
It is pointless to speculate here but, for whatever reason, that legislation was abandoned. It seems none other will be brought forward to take its place and in consequence that American stranglehold of one of those most vital aspects of our culture will remain and perhaps deepen, although I cannot imagine they would be too anxious to scramble up the last 3 per cent when they have the 97 per cent.
This has implications, coupled with the ongoing overwhelming American content of our television broadcast media, for all sorts of Canadian means of cultural communication, even those areas in which there is unquestionably at the moment a vital, alive, thriving Canadian cultural community.
I think especially, for example, of live theatre and, to a lesser degree, Canadian film production-not distribution, but production. In terms of live theatre I think of the incredible array of new plays created and produced in Edmonton, my own town, every year and, indeed, exported across this country. Theatres from St. John's to
Victoria are hosting plays written and originally produced in Edmonton.
I think as well of film works such as the works of Ann Wheeler from Alberta, her most recent hit, Bye Bye Blues, being a stirring example. There is no question that the cultural product is there. Ken Brown's Life After Hockey, from Edmonton, is an example. The attempt to maintain and, indeed, enlarge upon the Canadian memory is there and is thriving.
What is lacking is the means of conveying that memory and the expression of that memory to the broad majority of Canadian people. Those avenues are cut off in film distribution and increasingly those avenues are cut off in television broadcasting. That is where the great problem lies. I do not think anyone will argue this point.
The private sector has failed dismally to advance the cause of the dissemination, the growth, the maintenance of Canadian culture and, again, I do not mean song and dance. I mean Canadian culture in the sense of what we understand it is to be Canadian, how we dream of ourselves when we dream. Because the private sector has failed miserably, we must absolutely maintain a strong, effective, wildly dispersed public sector role in culture conveyance in this country.
The Caplan-Sauvageau committee put it very succinctly and very well in their report when they noted: "The reasons for this problem"-the problem being the lack of access to Canadian cultural markets by Canadian cultural producers-"are clear. The public sector, which must be the chief purveyor of quality Canadian programming, is inadequately scaled and funded. The private sector which should complement the public sector is not doing its job".
That is very clear, very straightforward, very correct. Instead of heeding this fundamental Canadian wisdom the government is in this bill creating a so-called alternative television network, a whole new alternate network without, when the bill was introduced, specifying what that network might be, without assigning any resources to it, without, indeed, describing it in any fashion by which we might come to judge it.
Perhaps this is intimately connected to the events which occurred yesterday. Mr. Izzy Asper finally, after years of struggle with his erstwhile partners, achieved effective control over the Global Television empire in Canada, an empire which has a great deal of growth
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potential yet, as I am sure every member of this House will agree, an empire which may come to be understood as the alternate network originally envisaged in this bill.
The point is that we risk the gradual but unending constriction of our societal memory, and in so doing we risk the future of the country itself. It matters not if there remains on the northern half of the North American continent a country called Canada. It matters not that that country maintains a flag with two red bars and a red maple leaf in its centre. It matters not that at the beginning of every hockey, football or other sporting game people who call themselves Canadians get up and sing a national anthem called O Canada if those are simply hollow symbols of what once was. If we lose our collective memory as Canadians, which is the price we will pay, if we lose the means of recreating that memory constantly and conveying it among ourselves, then Canada may exist as a name, but it will most definitely not exist as a country.
That is the context in which I want this bill viewed and that is the reason that I think this House, in all fairness, must reject the bill as it is currently constituted. The principle of the bill that we are debating at second reading is a principle for the governance of the growth of private sector, principally American broadcasting in Canada. It is a principle with which I cannot agree.
We should have before us instead a bill, the principle of which should be fostering the rapid growth of broadcasting that will convey Canada to us. That is not the principle of this bill. Neither I nor my caucus can support it.


Mr. Dennis Mills (Broadview-Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on behalf of the approximately 3,000 people in my riding who are employed in cultural industries.
I must tell you that the first time I read this bill I did not really notice a big difference from the previous bill. At first blush it seemed to be consistent with the national objectives. Upon review and some support from my colleagues, it was brought to my attention that the government has removed the words, "to contribute to the development of national unity and provide for a continuing expression of Canadian identity". The words that were put in place were, "to contribute to shared
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national consciousness and identity". I looked at these words and my first reaction was why would the minister want to remove those words at a time when our national will is being assaulted by tendencies in every region of our country to balkanize? We have taken our most powerful instrument of galvanization, our broadcast systems, and we seem to have removed the spirit of what their main purpose is supposed to be.
I tried to think of an example that people on the street might understand when we talk about national unity and the frustrations that people experience in every region of our country. I go back to an experience that I had last January when I was studying French in Quebec City with my colleague from Brampton. One evening we were at a concert and witnessed the Quebec francophone recording artist, Richard Seguin. I left that concert and could not get over how much talent this man had. I returned to Toronto and told my wife about this artist. I went to Yonge Street and went into seven record stores before I finally found a Richard Seguin tape. It was on the third floor, in the back comer, one cassette.
About two weeks later I went to Montreal. I visited with Richard Seguin and I told him this story. He said: "Dennis, this is the frustration, this is the problem we face as francophone recording artists in this country and this is part of the reason why we sometimes say 'what's in Canada for us'?" Richard Seguin can sell 100,000 albums in Quebec but beyond Quebec he is not heard. He is not heard on the CHUMs or the Qs. He is not heard. He is heard on one instrument of communication that is national on a consistent basis, MuchMusic.
The frustration that people feel is that their music and artistic endeavours are not given a national presentation. I have tested this over the last few months. If you go into a university or a grade school and say: "How many people have heard of Rita MacNeil or Gordon Lightfoot or Blue Rodeo?" most will put up their hands in recognition. When you mention francophone recording artists, very few do outside Quebec.
I think this bill is here to promote all recording artists, not just in each region but from coast to coast in every region. That is not happening today. I realize that this bill is going to committee. I think there has to be a way that we can be a little bit more progressive and that we

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can dare to challenge our broadcasters, even the private broadcasters, with promoting Canadian recording artists on all radio stations in Canada, making sure that our national specials promote Canadian content in not just greater percentage but also of quality which will make all Canadians proud.
We have had several studies on the importance of our broadcast systems. There was the mass media study by Senator Davey and his committee many years ago that talked about the importance of using our broadcast and communications instruments for cultural survival. One of the better Canadian programs today is The Journal. The producer of this show is a fellow by the name of Mark Starowitz whom I have never met but who has been quoted repeatedly. He said: "It has become apparent to Canadian legislators that one of the definitions of a sovereign, political entity in the 20th century was the ability to control its national airwaves. Further, it has become equally obvious that a broadcasting system, based entirely on private profit, could not deliver the desired end".
He went on to say: "The reason the issue of television and national identity is felt so viscerally in many countries these days is because television is not simply an entertainment issue, it is a political issue. Television has become essential to the maintenance and functioning of any industrial body politic today".
We have to be sensitive to these men and women who are experts and who are working in the broadcast field.
I consider this bill to be more important than the free trade bill because this is the bill that makes sure that we become and stay galvanized as Canadians. I am concerned that if we do not keep that thrust on promoting the national spirit, then we are going to balkanize and we are going to become regionalized in our communications thrusts.
The other thing that I am concerned about in this bill is the fact that there seems to be some question as to whether or not the CRTC has the ability to regulate all of our broadcast systems. In fact I have had a little bit of legal advice on this. Section (2)(3) states that the act should be applied in a manner that is consistent with journalistic independence enjoyed by broadcasters. This flies in the face of the ability of the CRTC to regulate. I
think we are going to have to clarify that when we go to committee.
We have a very special opportunity over the next period to make sure that our broadcast systems are here to promote national unity in every respect. We should make sure that we do not as legislators give any position out there that we want to decentralize it and we want the regions to have sort of a priority position.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to prolong this debate because I know there has been an agreement reached. It was mentioned in the hon. member's speech and I want to add just a little bit to what he said about Mr. Seguin, the Quebec artist.
He has just finished a cross Canada tour which was very successful. It was sold out. I think Mr. Seguin-I don't know if the hon. member has spoken to him since the tour-made the statement that he was very surprised. This was his first cross Canada tour. He was very surprised that he had sellouts across this country. He could not believe the wonderful reception he received.
Since that tour I am now hearing his music on more and more English stations. He has some very wonderful French-Canadian music that is very catchy and is now being played. I think it is because of the tour.
I would not want the hon. member's comments today to make it sound like artists are being isolated and not being listened to in other parts of the country. Primarily they are not being listened to in other parts of the country because we are not getting them out into those other parts of the country. If we promoted the artists in Quebec and took them into the rest of Canada and displayed that talent across Canada, I think that you would not find one tape in one store in Toronto but you would find a huge number.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to that. I would like to inform my hon. friend that we met with Standard Broadcasting three months ago. We told them of the frustrations of the Seguins of the world. It was Standard Broadcasting which took the initiative and organized at the Canadian Association of Broadcasters a joint concert with Sash Jordan and Richard Seguin. That concert was syndicated last Sunday night to over 300

English radio stations. This was a private initiative. I think they are on track. We applaud them.
Richard Seguin has said to me personally that the reason you sell albums, the reason people come to your concerts is because you are heard on the radio first or you are seen on television first.


John Horton McDermid: It is the chicken and the egg.


Dennis Joseph Mills: No, it is not the chicken and the egg. This is the artist's view. It is a standard understanding. When you see something on television or hear something on the radio that is what motivates you to go to these concerts and that is what sells albums.
I think I am well aware of the concerts he is selling out. He is a prime example of why we must continue to add support to our artists for them to travel in all parts of the country. I think that feeling of interaction, that feeling of confidence that there is something in every part of the country for all Canadian artists is the thing that is going to galvanize us. It is the thing that is going to sort of contribute to national unity much more than sometimes the legal documents we prepare in this Chamber.


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity today to speak to a bill that I consider to be an important piece of legislation. There are three points I would like to make. First, what I like about the bill, second, what I don't really like because it is not up to standard, and third, the fact that perhaps we should look at potential improvements in this area.
As we all know, this bill is much like the previous one. There is not much difference between the two. However, a number of changes would have been desirable to deal with certain fundamental problems.
I must admit, and I am also very pleased, that a number of provisions have been included that are very positive with respect to women, children, cultural minorities, aboriginal peoples and disabled persons. I am glad to see this.
I also admit that the bill recognizes the French language environment. To me, this is a step forward, not just for Quebec but also for the areas outside Quebec.
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I am pleased as well that the orginators of program signals will be protected and that educational broadcasting becomes an integral part of the law. I shall have more to say about that shortly.
I am pleased that local stations have priority when carried by cable and that broadcasting is defined to give CRTC more flexibility in dealing with new types of programming services.
Some of the concerns that I have are as follows. The fact that national unity, Tunite nationale, has been left out causes me some concern because I, like a number of my colleagues from all sides of the House, believe that the country has never been in greater need of some unifying force or forces. It appears to me and to many other Canadians as well that this is indeed a vehicle that could reach that particular objective. I shall want to expand on that briefly.
I am concerned as well about the part-time position for the CBC chairman. The questions of course that are being asked are why, because of the prominence of the individual, was it primarily motivated as a PR gesture? Was the half-time position to limit the person's influence and role?
You will note as well, Mr. Speaker, that the CBC president is to be appointed by cabinet. Some people have suggested, and I certainly appreciate what they are saying and can see the possibility, that it could involve more political control.
We have talked about a new alternative programming service, and my colleagues have referred to this point. It seems to me when one looks at the way the CBC has been severed in a number of ways, reduced by cut-backs and what have you, that this will be a challenge indeed, and one which we will follow with a great deal of interest.
I am concerned as well because I believe that the Canadian Broadcasting System should be owned and controlled by Canadians. I would have liked the bill to require that at least 80 per cent be Canadian owned and that no single foreign shareholder own more than 10 per cent.
I note that while there is some acknowledgement of les peuples aborigines, or aboriginal people, there is no

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guarantee for aboriginal people to receive service in representative native languages. I would have liked that to have occurred.
Foreign networks, I believe, should be licensed. There is no provision, to my knowledge, for this to happen, for them to have to obtain a licence.
I want to ensure that people understand the following point. While I am wholly supportive of cable operators I think that they should be encouraged, and I say this in a very positive way, to offer programming that is different and complementary to that which exists.
The cabinet power with respect to direction and review is one that I think we need to be sensitive to. It will be recalled that cabinet can review CRTC decisions and provide policy direction to the CRTC. Of course the question that comes to mind is: "Is there some potential for abuse? Is there some potential for political interference?" I believe that it might be possible-in fact desirable-for cabinet to review CRTC decisions when they go contrary to cabinet directions, or when that decision has national policy implications.
There is no provision for non-simultaneous substitution. When Canadians buy a foreign service it seems to me that that service should not be shown to Canadians at a different time by that foreign power, if you wish, that is the one that sold us the service. There again there is potential for abuse.
The status is unclear for MATV systems. Condominium and apartment dwellers need to know where they stand with respect to this issue.
The final point that I want to raise before I talk about the educational role is the seven-year versus a five-year term of office for the chairman of the CBC. It may reduce the ability to operate at arm's length from government. I have reviewed some of the positives, and perhaps some of the negatives, and some of the issues that I think we need to be sensitive to.

At this point, I would like to discuss one role I believe is very important, and I am referring to the educational role, in the broadest sense of the word. Earlier, it was said, and I have noticed this many times, that our young people spend more time watching television than they do in the classroom. I do not recall exactly how many hours
adults spend watching television, but I know it is quite a lot. We tend to point to young people and children as the culprits, not adults. Not so. The vast majority of Canadian men and women spend a lot of time watching television.
It was also said that the majority of our programs come from other countries. Now this raises two very important questions. If we spend as much time watching television as people say, and I think we do, this is a golden opportunity to learn more about what is going on in our society, to be informed, to be aware and to increase our knowledge.
Furthermore, if most of our programs come from outside Canada, the question arises: What are we learning? Is it really what we need to develop our abilities and gain a better understanding of what we are, what our country is all about and its place in the world?
Personally, and a number of colleagues have said this as well, I think one of the most important roles of television, radio and the media generally is to educate, to share information honestly and accurately. I think this educational role could build Canadian unity, something we already have but which, we must admit, is gradually deteriorating.
I wish we would consider the possibility of increasing the role and impact of radio, television and other media with respect to our primary objective in this House which, I think all members will agree, is to present national unity.

Quite apart from making a major contribution to national unity broadcasting can foster racial, religious and linguistic tolerance. To me that is part of the package of national unity. What better medium is there to sensitize us to those differences, to bring out the similarities and yet at the same time permit us to grow in tolerance, understanding and sensitivity?
I think as well that there might be a prime role for language education for our official languages of course, but also for the languages of our own aboriginal peoples, languages which are disappearing. And of course a number of languages spoken by new Canadians.
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This medium, that is television, radio and others, can in fact contribute to not only the appreciation of the different languages used in this country, but as well to the learning of those particular languages.

Cultural education is another role. We do not always have a very clear understanding of the meaning of the word "culture". To many people, it means the clothes people wear and the holidays they celebrate throughout the year. It goes deeper than that, and there is a real dilemma because we have not tried to go further and understand more about this. To me, culture is not just what I wear, what I eat or the holidays I celebrate. It is the way I look at the world, receive and interpret information, and try to solve problems.
Providing cultural education is so important because it means explaining to people what culture is and what impact it has, and how one culture's perception of a given problem differs from that of another culture.

Regional concerns are another wonderful opportunity for broadcasting. We know that we have a wonderful country. It is not one of the most wonderful-it is the most wonderful. We need only consider the small province of Prince Edward Island with roughly 120,000 people; the giant province of Ontario with over 9.5 million people; and the Northwest Territories with one-third of Canada's land mass and a little over 50,000 inhabitants.
We have in the western Arctic roughly seven native languages that are being used on a daily basis without a whole lot of friction. We have special problems in each of those regions. The smallness of P.E.I. makes it unique and wonderful in a number of ways, but it creates certain unique problems as well. With the largeness of Ontario and its uniqueness, the distinctiveness, if I may say, of Quebec and the Yukon, there are special and unique concerns.
It seems to me that broadcasting could play a greater role than it now plays in helping us understand those regions, in helping us to understand the problems that
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exist in our cities with our rates of crime, alcoholism and abuses of different kinds. Surely these are regional concerns, but they are real. They include the problems of our rural population, the depopulation of the rural areas, the farming problem, those tremendous difficulties that have to be surmounted on a regular basis.
Distance education for remote areas is another golden opportunity. What about providing learning opportunities for men and women who do not have flexible schedules for a number of reasons, be it because of work, family responsibilities or what have you?
As well, I would like to see the consideration of continuing education, including literacy. All of us know that we must keep learning continually on a regular basis in order to be able to contribute to society as we would want to. Many of us know that there are roughly 5 million Canadians in Canada today who are considered functionally illiterate. It is not a disease. It simply suggests that they do not have the literacy and the numeracy skills that will permit them to develop their full potential. This costs Canada roughly $10 billion a year. What better opportunity is there to try to reach those particular individuals to give them the kind of confidence they need and want in order to participate fully in Canadian life?

It seems to me there is another objective that is very useful and extremely important, and that is to explain government to Canadians, and I am talking about federal, provincial and municipal governments.
It is often said that today's young people do not understand politics and are not terribly interested in the subject. This is only partly true. We must also recognize the fact that among young people today, and I believe this very strongly, there is as much, if not more, knowledge about the political process at various levels of government as there is among adults. I believe that we have a democracy which has certain great strengths and certain weaknesses but is not as well known as it should be to each and every citizen across Canada.
We could consider another extremely important objective: the impact of our domestic economy on social programs. Let me give a few examples.

December 15, 1989
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Let us talk about the economy to Canadians via our media. Let us make sure that they understand what it is that we are trying to do. It is necessary in a democracy to have different values, a different vision and different priorities. Let us explain that to Canadians so that they can participate more fully, more meaningfully in understanding economic development, in understanding what it means to have a deficit and in understanding the different kinds of approaches that various parties or governments would take in order to reduce that debt and deficit.

Let's talk about the constitutional crisis. Let's do it. It is quite obvious that at this very moment, there is a constitutional crisis in this country. Let's talk about it. There are people who have various points of view, and I think it is very important for us to be aware of these differences so that even if we do not agree, we can appreciate the fact that there is a problem. But there are ways of getting at the problem and untying all these knots.

Cultural misunderstanding is another objective. I mentioned it briefly, but I need to mention it again. I am alarmed and I am hurt in fact when I see people defining culture as dress, food and dance. I simplify perhaps a bit too much. I do not do it to denigrate. I would welcome to be challenged in an open debate on this question if anyone should like to do so.
Culture is more than dress, food and dance, music and feasting. It is how I see the world, you see the world, how I receive information, decode information and approach the solution of problems. One of the problems we have in this country is we have oversimplified what the cultural differences are without identifying the similarities.
Let us talk as well about racism and bigotry because it exists. I am not proud of it. I am not happy. But let us talk about this. Let us make sure that our media makes its contribution.
At the same time we could talk about major health issues, the question of ageing. What are the implications
on Canadians, on Canada, on the economy, on social affairs? What about major health problems such as AIDS? This is a wonderful mechanism in order to explain the difficulties and in order to teach people more about this difficult situation.
What about international affairs? If one looks recently at countries such as Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, one notices massive changes. I was delighted to see last night a major program trying to explain what the economic, social and cultural implications will be of those political changes. What better medium than our media to do that. Let us talk about global pollution, let us talk about famine and world hunger. Perhaps the most significant point that I want to make with respect to broadcasting and all that surrounds it, is a marvellous opportunity to learn about Canada and its place in this world. It is a wonderful mechanism for helping parents, schools, colleges and universities to educate the Canadian people. If we want to be leaders and not followers, especially when comparing and talking about the importance of education, training and retraining, the teaching of science and technology, research and development, we have to consider that broadcasting has the same kind of potential.
I feel that we need a very close link between our educational institutions and the media. Together, they provide information to Canadians. Together, they can make me more aware of things and provide information on subjects I feel are very important, so that I can make my full contribution to Canada's development.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: 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, bill read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
Translation]
[Stage Direction]
December 15, 1989

Hon. Gerry Weiner (for the President of the Privy Council) moved: that Bill C-47, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I believe you will find there is consent that this particular bill be referred to committee of the whole rather than the legislative committee.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Mr. Speaker, there was not only consent to that but we have already agreed with the government that we would go through all three stages today.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion.


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and the House went into committee thereon, Mr. Paproski in the Chair.
Steve Eugene Paproski: House in committee of the whole on Bill C-47, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act.
On Clause 1-Qualifications of candidates


Mr. Cardiff:: Mr. Speaker, if I could be permitted to make a few very short comments about this legislation with respect to Bill C-47, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act.
The bill corrects an omission in the Canada Elections Act of the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1985. By inadvertence, former Section 20 of the act in the first supplement to the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1970 which required that candidates at an election qualifies electors was omitted from the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1985.
The bill is very short and technical in nature. Clause 1(1) adds former Section 20, now proposed Section 76.1 to the Canada Elections Act. This section specifies that a person who qualifies as an elector may be a candidate.
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Clause 1(2) establishes as the date for the coming into force of the amendment as December 12, 1985, the day on which the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1985 came into force. It is unfortunate that former Section 20 was omitted in the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1985. It is crucial that the bill be enacted as soon as possible as it affects the qualifications of candidates in elections.
Without this amendment, persons who do not qualify as electors, that is, minors and non-Canadian citizens could be candidates in future elections. Given the technical and non-controversial nature of the bill I am very pleased that we have had agreement with the other parties of the House to rapidly deal with this situation.
I believe it would be in order to present the amendments at this time. Would I read them or would I dispense with reading them? I believe the other members have copies of the amendments. They are in both official languages.


Steve Eugene Paproski: I believe all members have seen the amendment. I do not think it is necessary for him to read it.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Clause agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported.
Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: that the bill be concurred in.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: that the bill be read the third time and do pass.


Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to participate in the debate on this important bill this afternoon. My friend the parliamentaiy secretary, will appreciate the co-operation that has been shown by all parties in agreeing to pass this bill through all stages today.
We recognize the importance of correcting this portion of the law. Having shown such co-operation, I would like to draw to his attention the lack of co-operation shown

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by the government in respect of the appointment of the commission to look into the matters affecting the electoral law of Canada.
During our break in November, we came back to find that the Prime Minister had named a commission without any consultation, either as to the members of the commission or as to its terms of reference. We had had in an undertaking by the Deputy Prime Minister by way of a statement in answer to a question in this House that he would, in fact, consult with the members on this side of the House.
I regret very much that that consultation did not take place and I am sure that my friends in the New Democratic Party share my concern. Here we are co-operating with the government in expediting passage of a bill today and I wish we had had the same co-operation with respect to the appointment of that commission. I just wanted to make that point. Otherwise, we support this bill fully.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Mr. Speaker, I just wish to re-emphasize the point made by my Liberal colleague. We are also concerned, certainly not with the calibre of the person representing the New Democratic Party, but the process that was followed was inadequate. It shows a lack of real commitment to the parliamentary dialogue and consultations by this government.
With regard to the bill in front of us, we have agreed to the quick passage of this legislation after we were reassured by officials of Elections Canada and the department that this, in no way, would prevent people who did not live in an area where there was the by-election from seeking election. There was some concern over the actual wording and the meaning, but I believe all those concerns have been dealt with and that people who wish to run in the Chambly by-election or other by-elections that will be called in the next six months, once the Prime Minister calls it, that those people, all Canadian citizens who are electors will be able to seek election.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the third time and passed.

Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: that Bill C-16, an act to establish the Canadian Space Agency and to provide for other matters in relation to space, be read the third time and passed.


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


Some Hon. Members:: On division.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Agreed to on division.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Parliamentary Secretary to the House Leader.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, that completes the legislation which the government had on the Order Paper for today. I would ask at this time that we suspend the House to the call of the Chair so that we may later in the afternoon receive Royal Assent.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the government on its co-operation today and, as usual, the opposition is always available to co-operate with this government when it wants to.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is there agreement to suspend? The hon. member for Churchill.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Mr. Speaker, we are agreeable to this with the understanding that the motion standing in the name of the hon. member for Essex-Windsor would be just dropped to the bottom of the Order Paper to be dealt with at a future time.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I have received written notice from the hon. member for Prince Albert-Churchill River that he is unable to move his motion during the hour for Private Members' Business on Monday, December 18, 1989.

It has not been possible to arrange an exchange of positions in order of precedence pursuant to Standing Order 94. Accordingly, I am directing the table officers to drop the item of business to the bottom of the order of precedence. The hour for Private Members' Business will thus be cancelled and pursuant to Standing Order 94, the House will continue with the business before it prior to that hour.
In accordance with Standing Order 94, notice was published for consideration today of a motion standing in the name of the hon. member for Essex-Windsor. Since the member is not present to move his motion at this time, the motion will, in accordance with Standing Order 42, be dropped to the bottom of the Order Paper.


SITTING SUSPENDED
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: There being no business before the House at this time, is it the wish of the House to suspend the sitting to the call of the Chair?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
The sitting of the House was suspended at 2.14 p.m.


SITTING RESUMED
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed at 4 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed Bill C-49, an act to provide for the resumption of certain government services, without amendment.



THE ROYAL ASSENT

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received as follows:
Royal Assent
Rideau hall Ottawa,
December 15, 1989 Sir,
I have the honour to inform you that the Hon. John Sopinka, Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court of Canada, in his capacity as Deputy Governor General, will proceed to the Senate Chamber today, the 15th day of December, 1989, at 3:45 p.m., for the purpose of giving Royal Assent to certain Bills
Yours sincerely,
Leopold H. Amyot Secretary to the Governor General



[Stage Direction]
A message was delivered by the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod as follows:
Mr. Speaker, the Honourable Deputy to the Governor General desires the immediate attendance of this honourable House in the chamber of the honourable the Senate.
Accordingly, Mr. Speaker with the House went up to the Senate chamber.
And being returned:
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I have the honour to inform the House that when the House went up to the Senate chamber, the Deputy Governor General was pleased to give, in Her Majesty's name, the Royal Assent to the following bills:
Bill C-49, an act to provide for the resumption of certain government services-Chapter No. 24.
Bill C-10, an act relating to the forgiveness of debts incurred or assumed in respect of certain official development assistance loans made by the Government of Canada to the governments of certain countries in sub-Saharan Africa-Chapter No. 25.
Bill C-36, an act to amend the Advance Payments for Crops Act and the Prairie Grain Advance Payments Act-Chapter No. 26.
It being 4.16 p.m., this House stands adjourned until Monday next at 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 4.16 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Monday, December 18, 1989