1989-05-16

Mr. J. W. Bud Bird (Fredericton) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-241, an Act to change the name of the electoral district of Fredericton.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


John Williston (Bud) Bird: Mr. Speaker, the name of Fredericton was assigned to my riding at the time of redistribution. It does not adequately reflect the geographic or traditional description of the riding and so we propose to change the name to Fredericton-York-Sunbury.


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

Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present a petition pursuant to Standing Order 36 on behalf of a number of constituents who are concerned that the Government of Canada has failed to provide the necessary resources to fulfil its promise to expand VIA rail into a modern, efficient passenger transportation service. They are also of the opinion that the Government has now made it clear that it will be either cutting back or eliminating VIA Rail completely. The petitioners are asking Parliament to maintain, improve and modernize VIA Rail services in those areas of the country where it can provide a more rapid, economical, safe, convenient, environmentally sound and energy efficient alternative to other means of transportation.


Mr. Dan Heap (TVinity-Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, it is my honour and duty, in accordance with Standing Order 36, to present a petition duly certified by the Clerk, from a number of residents of my constituency who are concerned for the humanitarian treatment of refugee claimants in the back-log. They point out that many of them are here primarily because of the Government's mismanaging of the election of the immigration refugee process and they request the House to ensure that the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mrs. McDou-gall) will see that all refugee claimants shall be considered eligible for immediate employment authorization and a case-by-case review of their claims to include humanitarian and compassionate grounds traditionally used by Canadian immigration, including the presence in Canada of relatives and successful establishment and that special consideration be given to those refugee claimants fleeing war zones, oppressive governments and natural disasters.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, I also have a petition from a number of residents of Spadina, again duly certified by the Clerk, who are concerned with the environmental problems around the South Moresby Park situation allowing for mining or drilling in parkland and exploring for hydrocarbons in waters where it is a potentially very dangerous operation. They ask that the House therefore ensure that these explorations be stopped.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: I have a third petition from the residents of Spadina, also certified by the Clerk, who are concerned that in February, 1985, the Government ordered the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs to prepare a report on equality rights. In the same year, the Sub-Committee on Equality Rights of the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs submitted a report to the House recommending

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that the Canadian Human Rights Act be amended to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
My constituents are concerned that nothing has yet been done. Therefore, the undersigned, request Parliament to insure that the Government and Parliament will act to bring in such an amendment, as specified above, with all due haste and speed as in duty bound your Petitioners will ever pray


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it agreed?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.

I have an application under Standing Order 52, for a motion to adjourn House for an emergency debate. I will hear the Hon. Member for Dartmouth.


Mr. Ron MacDonald (Dartmouth):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 52, I ask leave to propose a motion to adjourn the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter requiring urgent consideration, namely, the unprecedented and devastating cuts in regional development programs for Atlantic Canada and the callous manner in which these cuts were announced by the Government last evening.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Dartmouth has complied with the rules and given appropriate notice. The Chair is aware of the purpose of the application and the serious matter that he wishes to discuss. However, under all the circumstances, it is not appropriate, at least
at the moment, to proceed with an emergency debate. Orders of the Day.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from May 2, consideration of the motion of Mr. Wilson (Etobicoke Centre) that Bill C-ll, an Act to provide borrowing authority, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have a chance to speak on Bill C-ll, the Bill to borrow $24.8 billion. Since this Government will doubtless spend this money according to the Budget that the Minister has brought in, I cannot agree with burdening our country with further debt at this time. What the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) proposes is a budget for big business. It is not the budget that a great many people in Canada have asked for. It is a budget that was asked for by a very few pressure groups such as the Business Council on National Issues, the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. The sort of things that they asked for were to make a big issue of cutting the deficit, and that this should be cut by $7 billion, and that the cuts should be done largely in expenditure and particularly in the social programs of the Government.
They also asked that social programs be "targeted to those in need". In other words, they asked that there be an end to the principle of universality. They have asked that tax hikes only be temporary, and that the manufacturers' tax be replaced with a sales tax. Obviously, they did not ask that that be temporary. These groups asked that there should be a discontinuation or reduction of industrial grants and subsidies for regional development, and that preference be given to keeping the interest rates high until the deficit goes down, rather than vice versa. It was never once suggested that the deficit be
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reduced by having companies pay the $30 billion or so of deferred taxes which would have wiped out at least one year's deficit.
Generally speaking, this Budget has followed their requests very closely. In the constituency that I represent, Trinity-Spadina, there has been some study of the Budget and questioning of people on the streets to get their opinions. A few of the comments we have received in the course of that inquiry are as follows: A writer tells me that her income has been cut by 10 per cent by order of the Cabinet, in that what was originally for her a $40 fee for the library's use of her book is now only a $36 fee.
There is also a problem with regard to our university in that we could now more easily lose our scientists to the United States because the free trade deal makes it more inviting for post-doctoral students to go to the United States. The student's spouse can more easily find employment there. Naturally, that could be very attractive to those two individuals. It means, however, that we will probably lose potential scientists from Canada. Also, the Government's funding program holds back on direct funding to basic science at the university and ties government funding more and more to the interests of specific private enterprises; that is to say, dollar for dollar matching of grants from industries. Therefore, the study of science is suffering, and that is of great concern to many people in Trinity-Spadina.
There are other concerns. For example, the carving away of something like $800 million from our unemployment insurance benefits. The people of Spadina are not encouraged when they find that after the benefits have been restricted, some of the money that they pay for unemployment insurance will be used for the Government's training programs for which they have very limited respect, if any. In addition to that, they point out that the Government is getting out of its responsibility for keeping the unemployment insurance viable, especially by regional supplements. Almost half a century of undertakings have been broken by the Governments of Canada to the people of Canada to provide a cushion for people who are forced into transition.
My constituents are also concerned that the Government's promise that the social programs will not be cut, promises that were made not very credibly by leaders of business before the election, have not been met. Some business leaders have since clarified their credibility by
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reneging on those promises and demanding exactly what we knew they were privately demanding, that the social programs be cut. Therefore, the Government has cut about $175 million this year out of the promised child care program, and it is cutting about $4 billion over the next four years in what would have provided spaces for some of the 200,000 who badly need them. At the same time, the Government is continuing with a $4,000 child care tax deduction which can benefit only the more affluent members of society.
I have a long list. I cannot go through all of it, though I would like to. They are particularly concerned with the attack on universality by renaming it with a newly coined word, the "claw-back". They agree that what is implied there is that the rich in Canada are not taxed now by this Government according to their ability to pay.
The Government has sharply reduced the tax on rich people and, therefore, has raised the tax on middle and low income people. As a supposed substitute for fair taxation, it now wishes to establish the principle of taking back with the right hand what it gives with the left hand. It gives people the old age security pension and then takes it away again, not by taxing them according to their ability to pay, but by taxing them because, as Canadian citizens, they relied on what was understood to be their right, and to which they had been contributing through their work and their taxes. In fact, it will mean that some people who earn over $50,000 who are not pensioners will pay less tax than some people earning over $50,000 who are pensioners. There is no reason or rationale for that distinction.
There have been further cuts to our cultural industries, and that is a very strong concern in the Trinity- Spadina area of Toronto. Many people work in the cultural industries and many people are heavy users of the cultural industries. The CBC has been cut back in four successive years. Now it has been cut back by a further $140 million. After promising up and down that the cultural industries were not on the bargaining table with the United States, the Government does what the competitors in the United States dearly wanted, and it is cutting the $55 million postal subsidy that we have been giving to our publishers and periodicals. Part of the means of keeping Canada together over great distances has been the subsidy to our publishers and periodicals and the Government has decided to wipe that out, no

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doubt on the principle of harmonizing with the United States.
According to the Budget, we are taxing a working poor family 44 per cent more than the Government found when it came into office four years ago. Tkxes have already gone up for the poorest workers by 44 per cent, for middle income people by 10 per cent, and for upper income families taxes have been reduced by six per cent. It is no wonder that people are complaining about the taxes while the Government puts up a show of being concerned about the deficit. The Government will not tax those who have the money. It will not even force those who owe the tax to pay the tax, if they are wealthy corporations. Yet, if they are individuals, they have to pay interest on unpaid tax, and that has been increased from one per cent to two per cent.
The Government is accelerating a trend which has been in the wrong direction for some years. For example, comparing personal and corporation income tax and sales tax between 1984-85 and 1987-88, personal tax increased by 54 per cent in total. Between 1984-85 and 1987 corporate tax increased only 16 per cent. Sales tax increased by 48 per cent. The taxes paid by low and middle income people, equally with rich people, have increased. The taxes that are the special moral and social responsibility of rich people have not, by any means, kept pace with them.
In Toronto we have a very serious housing problem. It is not the only part of the country with this problem, but there is a serious housing problem in Toronto. It is even hitting the corporations now because their employees quit their jobs and move out of town, or desired employees refuse to come to town because of house prices. For example, in Toronto a detached bungalow costs one-third more than it cost one year ago, according to a report in The Globe and Mail yesterday. There are also significant increases in places such as Kingston, Kitchener, Calgary, North Vancouver, and Victoria.
However, the rate of increase in Toronto is twice the rate of increase in the highest other city. The only immediate manner in which to check that would be to increase the budget for social housing. Instead, the Government has cut $2.3 million out of the funds for co-op and non-profit housing. A more long range way to put a brake on unreasonable house price increases would
be a speculation tax. Obviously that would take longer, being a legislative matter, but it should also be done. However, the Government shows no interest in that either.
Finally, the Government is putting on this big song and dance about cutting the deficit, not loading things on to future generations, and not even looking after children in this generation, but it still maintains the billion dollar give-away that it gave last year in order to win the by-election in Lac-Saint-Jean for a future Tory Cabinet Minister. The Government's claim that it has to cut the deficit is not believed by the people in the riding of Trinity-Spadina, or elsewhere in Canada.
I wish to move on to another matter that also concerns many of the people who live in the riding of Trinity- Spadina and elsewhere. That is the Government's military budget. It is called Defence, but in some ways it is not a Defence budget, it is a war budget. There is a great deal of pleasure in the fact that the nuclear powered submarines have been dropped, at least for this year. There was overwhelming pressure from the Canadian public to do that, and it has also been reported that, for its own reasons, the American Government was not supportive of letting us have the technology for the nuclear powered submarines. However, whatever the reasons, people were glad that it was done. However, they notice that otherwise the Government has made the cuts in the wrong places.
It chose to cut Canadian bases, including the one at Summerside which provides an important search and rescue service. This is important for civilians as well as for the military. However, there has been no cut in the wholly unnecessary $1.2 billion funding for Canadian troops in Europe. Whatever was the rationale 40 years ago has disappeared with changes in western Europe, changes in eastern Europe, and changes in the world as a whole. To continue blowing over $1 billion to keep a token force there in order to keep alive the fears generated 40 years ago is both a waste of money and is burdening our children and grandchildren, as the Minister keeps warning us. It is also a disservice to the cause of peace and the resolution of the arms race.
The Government is also still blowing hundreds of millions of dollars, perhaps not all in one year, but over a period of time, in building up its base at Goose Bay in the
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hope that we can peddle it to NATO for a NATO training base. It is willing to ignore the protests of the Innu people, as it is willing to ignore the protests of the Quebec people who are affected by the same low-level flight training, because of a greedy notion that, if NATO establishes a base at Goose Bay, there will be big revenues to Canada. It continues with the low level flight training which is damaging the environment and ruining the lives of people who have lived in that area, some of them for generations, up to 8,000 years.
Furthermore, the Government is still subsidizing the export of military goods. Call them arms or weapons or military equipment, they are used by people who use force either against another country or against their own citizens.
The DIPP grants in the range of $250 million will be cut by $25 million per year perhaps starting two years from now if the Government does not change its mind, as it often does.
Some of the companies that receive the subsidies for manufacturing arms will be coming as exhibitors to the Annex fair in a couple of weeks at Landsdowne Park in this city. The Government will send its military representatives to give their blessing to the arms fair and it will give free entry to people from countries like Chile, El Salvador, South Korea, Indonesia, Thrkey and many Middle Eastern countries that have very bad records for using such weapons against their civilian population. There is no interest in justice as a basis for peace in this Government. It is simply a matter of any opportunity for its friends to make a buck.
The same attitude applies to the Third World, the former European colonies, colonies from which European nations over the centuries took untold billions of dollars worth of gold, silver, lumber, agricultural products and forced labour. They are now, in the reckoning of our banks, debtors to us and they are being pressured by Governments, including Canada, putting pressure on little Guyana, for example, to accept so-called austerity measures which means more starvation for those people so the wealthy of Canada can grow still wealthier.
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The Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) worries about our future children. According to UNICEF, in these countries children are dying. According to their reckoning, in the past 24 hours almost 40,000 children under five died unnecessarily. This is so the chief executive officers of companies like American Barrick Resources, Cineplex Odeon Corporation, Palcer Dome, Gulf Canada Resources Limited, Inco Limited can receive cash compensation annually of $2 million or more-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret that the Hon. Member's time has expired but I will let him have a minute to wind up.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, I will finish simply by saying that one recommendation being made publicly for a fairer tax system and a fairer Budget is the wealth tax. The Government makes a tiny gesture toward that in its large corporation tax but it excludes many of the people and corporations that ought to be paying under a wealth tax. I believe the Government ought to look at the whole matter of a wealth tax as a way of paying the deficit without destroying the lives and working potential of Canada's workforce.


Mr. Crosby (Halifax West):: Mr. Speaker, I listened with some interest to the remarks of the Hon. Member. I want to make a comment and then ask him a question.
My comment is with respect to national defence. During the 1988 election campaign and for months prior to that, we heard from Members of the New Democratic Party and, unfortunately, in many cases from Members of the Liberal Party that the cure to financing child care and a variety of social programs was to cut back on national defence expenditures. They said this country was spending too much on national defence. In the 1988-89 fiscal year, our nation spent over $11 billion in our national defence effort. That is very close to 10 per cent of the total Budget, if one excludes debt carrying charges, so one gets an idea of what an enormous expense it was. Yet this country was willing to bear that expense because it is in our national interest and the interest of our international sovereignty.
Notwithstanding that, time and time again we were told to cut national defence, cut this program and that program. In the Budget recently passed by this House, we did reduce our national defence increase in expenditures. But what do we hear from the Opposition? We hear howls of protest. They say we should not have cut back on this expenditure or cut back on that program. Every day in the House we hear complaints about the closing of bases like Summerside. What were they

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talking about when they said to cut back on national defence expenditures? Did they not realize that this would be the result? Did they not realize that service personnel numbers would have to be reduced, that bases would have to be reduced, and programs would have to be reduced?
How many times have we heard a Member of the New Democratic Party and, unfortunately, Members of the Liberal Party say no to nuclear powered submarines? We cancelled that program, but what do we hear? We hear complaints about national defence cut-backs. We just heard them from the Member of the New Democratic Party.
The Hon. Member said if we tax the rich and the corporations, we can solve our financial problems. As a matter of record, personal income as a percentage of gross domestic product has increased fairly dramatically in the past number of years. It now amounts to some 86 per cent of GDP as opposed to 76 per cent a few years ago. There is a reason why there is a new balance between personal incomes and corporate incomes.
If we tax the rich, and take every penny that the so-called rich of Canada make and put them in our tax coffers, and if we tax the large corporations and profit-producing corporations even to the last penny, what will happen? Will the rich not leave the country? We will have no one to tax. Will the corporations not find other means to finance themselves? Do not all Canadian citizens pay all the corporate expenses?
I do not understand how a Member can stand in the House of Commons and suggest that as a solution, unless he tells us what will happen if that action is taken by the Government with respect to the so-called rich of Canada and the so-called rich corporations.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for his two questions, one implied and the other explicit.
The implied question was about our attitude to cuts in defence. Yes, we wanted cuts in the defence budget. We wanted cuts particularly in the nuclear powered submarines and we are very glad that public pressure has brought that about. However, we also wanted cuts in the useless and provocative expenditure in Europe. That has
not been touched. Instead, the Government appears to have played a little game.
Years ago I was on city council. If there was talk of cutting the public works budget, the proposal that was always made by the very clever commissioner of public works would be to cut out the men and women who go down the street with a broom and bag to pick up the litter. Of course there would be a public outcry not to cut those jobs.
In other words, the Government has chosen to make the most unpopular cuts that it could, mostly in opposition ridings, as was pointed out, in order to take public attention away from the fact that it is still intends to increase the arms budget by about 5 per cent per year. It has been going up by about 6 per cent per year, much higher than the general rate of government expenditure. It still intends to continue that foolish expenditure in Europe. Our position is not that there should be no defence-none of us has said that. I do not know about the Liberals, however, what we want is a more reasonable approach to the expense. That is what the Government has refused.
As for the matter of whether or not the wealthy people will leave Canada, if we consider the wealth tax that I have suggested we will see that we are almost the only industrial country in the world that does not have a wealth tax. If we tax the wealthy in Canada they cannot run to the United States, Britain, France or Germany to escape a wealth tax.
Furthermore, if we tax them now they will not have time to take all our oil, all our gas, all our lumber, all our minerals, all our fresh water and all our electrical power with them. In other words, if they leave the country they will to that extent begin to lose control over that which gives them wealth. I believe they will do as they do in other countries. That is to say stay here and accept a more reasonable net income rather than the extraordinary incomes the owners of wealth receive in Canada now.


Mr. Mifflin:: Mr. Speaker, I have a few remarks to make on both the question of my hon. colleague from Halifax West and the presentation of my colleague from Trinity-Spadina.
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I would like to set the record straight on a number of issues. To begin with, since I have been a Member of this House I do not remember one member of the Liberal Party making any comments about reducing defence, or the moneys to be allocated to defence. As a matter of fact, I believe that we are very cognizant of the spending on defence. I did a quick survey about three and a half years ago and found that the money that was being spent on defence even by the Government across the way was equivalent per capita to what Canadians spend eating in restaurants.
On the second point concerning the nuclear submarines, I want to make a couple of things clear. This Party has always been very much in favour of a strong navy, a three-ocean navy.
In terms of the issue of nuclear submarines, they were sold to us on the basis that their acquisition was to guard our sovereignty. We had French fishermen catching four times what they were allocated in the southern part of Newfoundland and the Government did not seem to do anything about that sovereignty issue. We did not need nuclear submarines to go under the ice to tell us what is happening in southern Newfoundland. If we could not do anything about the sovereignty in the south of Newfoundland, what were we going to do under the ice if we did see a submarine there that was not Canadian? What were we going to do? I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, and you can take it from me that if you do not know in the nuclear submarine business what you are going to do within seconds after detecting another one, you are just as well off not being in the business.
My main concern right now in defence is quite opposite from what the Hon. Member has said with respect to NATO. I am concerned now that we have made some commitments. We have 6,000 troops in Europe. We have a commitment to reinforce them with 5,000 more. We have plans for tanks for $2.4 billion to be delivered in 1992. What has happened to all that? What are the Europeans saying? What will the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) say when he goes over to Europe at the end of May? I would be very interested to know that.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I will allow the Hon. Member a minute for rebuttal, if there is anything he would like to rebut.
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Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, I will just say briefly to the Hon. Member that I understand from his remarks that he wants to continue the useless and dangerous expenditure on military activities in Europe. My point is we should stick to the defence of Canada and work with those in the world who are negotiating for arms reduction.


Mr. Ross Reid (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to have the opportunity today to comment on the borrowing Bill. This is something that I have been looking forward to with great anticipation as the machinations of this place carry on. It is something that a number of Members have made comments on.
I apologize in advance if perhaps occasionally I appear parochial and talk a little bit too much about Newfoundland and Labrador.


Mr. Boudria:: So long as you are not partisan.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: I am never partisan-perhaps parochial. However, the interests of my province are something that matter a great deal to me and, if I may point out, something that matters a great deal to the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and the Government.
This is a Budget that is important to the country and important to everyone in it. It is a Budget that without question takes some very stiff measures, but measures that only react to very stiff times. It is a Budget that we were told in advance would demand sacrifice of all Canadians. However, we were told quite specifically by both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) that those Canadians who were least able to bear the burden would be those who would not be asked to bear the burden.
While the Budget may be tough, it is also fair. It is fair primarily for that reason. The people in the country, either geographically or economically, have been asked to make the least of the sacrifices. That is particularly the case in Newfoundland and Labrador.
We have to deal with the growing national debt, the debt that is growing by $3 million an hour, $80 million a day-and $1 billibn every two weeks. It is a debt that is demanding interest that totals $39 billion this year and will consume 35 cents of every dollar we take in to pay the debt and the interest on that debt. That is more than health care, family allowances, Old Age Security and social assistance put together.

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When Members opposite speak about protecting our social programs, surely there can be no better way than protect the amount of resources that go into those programs from going out in interest and in principal payments on the debt. If we do not address that problem quickly it will get bigger and the pressures will get bigger. If there is nothing more in hand to do to address the needs of social programs and protect those social programs for all Canadians, it is attacking the debt and the burden that the debt puts upon us.


Mr. Milliken:: Why didn't you do it before the election?


Ian Angus Ross Reid: It took this Government two terms to undo the situation the Liberal Government of 1980-84 put us in, to get us back to where the Hon. Member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie), the Minister of Finance in the previous Government, had us. He had us at $13 billion, and by 1993 we will get there. We continue to carry the burden of the hon. crowd opposite. I suspect we will for years to come.
With $6 billion more this year in interest payments, we had to take action. If we are to have an increase of $6 billion, we have to take it from a number of other places. The balance between tax increases and reductions is fair. It addresses the problem. More important, it allows us in the years to come to be able to continue to address our problems, and at the same time to continue to be able to provide the services, to provide the programs that Canadians so long have expected and so long have depended upon.
I would like to comment a little, if I may, on the economic performance of the last few years, the economic performance of the Government in partnership and co-operation with Canadians, provincial Governments, businesses, workers and those who want to create jobs and wealth so that more jobs can be created. Together, it has been successful.
In the last four years we have seen one and a half million new jobs in Canada. It is important for Canadians to know that together with their Government they can create jobs, that together we can move ahead to create new opportunities.
In Newfoundland and Labrador, and again I apologize for being parochial but it is important and this is a good story to tell, we have seen strong economic growth-10,000 new jobs in 1988 alone, in one year, were created. In four years we had a fall in the unemployment
rate of more than 8 per cent-the largest decrease in the unemployment rate for any province in the country over that period of time.
The outlook for the economies are good, with 2 per cent growth through the balance of this year and into next year, and 3 per cent growth after that.
I would like to comment if I could on regional development which is something that I am sure my friend opposite from Burgeo will comment on later this morning or later today.


Mr. Simmons:: Burin-St. George's.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: Burin-St. George's, I'm sorry. It goes back a long time.
Spending on regional development has grown by almost 50 per cent in the last five years, over the previous five-year period. In the coming five years, funding for regional development will rise by 35 per cent over the last five years, over the previous 50 per cent increase. The average for 1989 to 1994 will be something approaching $425 million in Atlantic Canada. We will spend an average of $425 million every year on regional development. In no one year will it be less than $400 million.
The last five years, the first five-year period of many for this Government, the average was $282 million. The five years before that, from 1979 to 1984, when my friends opposite were so concerned about regional development, the average was $185 million; $185 million to $425 million, even to me,is a substantial increase and that is something to be proud of.
Newfoundland and Labrador, and again I have to be parochial, will be receiving more per capita than the other Maritime provinces. This year we will have the highest level of expenditures ever for regional development in Atlantic Canada.
In Newfoundland and Labrador alone, the federal Government will spend over $100 million on regional development in this fiscal year.
We know the effect of ACOA. I had the opportunity and the privilege of addressing this House last night on the same topic. The impact has been absolutely remarkable in my province. ACOA's activities so far are expected to generate 3,274 new jobs and help maintain
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more than 7,000 others. That is a total of 10,000 jobs either created or maintained.
The dollars are very important as well. In 1987, under the old programs of IRDP, the Atlantic Enterprise programs and ERDA's, we saw $21.7 million. Last year we saw $134.3 million. We will see over the next number of years, as I say, an average of $400 million. Just before we get into great harangues about certain announcements that have been made lately-


An Hon. Member:: More cuts.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: -before our friends opposite depend too much on headlines in morning newspapers, be they national or not-
An. Hon. Member: Table the press release.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: -I think it is important that we respond and react realistically to what has happened. First of all, the only thing that has happened is the Prime Minister and this Government made a commitment to spend $1.05 billion over a period of five years. As my friend for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception has rightly recognized, some five or six days ago, in fact I think the date was May 11, that is being spread out over a couple of years more, between six and seven.


An Hon. Member:: Another broken promise.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: There is no great surprise in this.


An Hon. Member:: Not to you.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: My learned friend opposite was aware of it, recognized it and pointed it out. It is not something that we are particularly ashamed of, particularly when this year we are spending $500 million in regional development funding and in the next years down the road we will continue to spend an average of over $420 million in regional funding. In the next years down the road we will continue to spend an average of over $420 million in regional funding.
The other changes that have been announced are merely to look after a period of time when there is less new money available because of the peak that we are in now. So many Atlantic Canadians have said: "Yes, I want to tiy. Yes, if you'll help me, I will go out and create some jobs so that more jobs can be created." The response has been phenomenal throughout the region. As a result the commitments have been phenomenally high this year. The position that we are in is that to get
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over that period of time some of the programs will be adjusted.
I think it is important to recognize that while there is a $2 million cap for the big, big projects that will be affected, we are talking about 5 per cent of the projects that have been approved so far. Medium sized projects between $200,000 and $2 million will be eligible for interest buy-down and loan insurance, and innovation programs will be eligible for direct contributions. There is no change in the eligibility for the small business projects, the projects that make up 75 per cent of the projects that have been approved under ACOA and the others are there. We may not see the maximums reached in the contributions, but ACOA is open for business and continues to be open for business.
I would like to comment on the question of transfers to the provinces. The accusations that health care is being thrown to the wind, that education spending is being cut off and there is no more, that there are cuts everywhere, let us look at the situation realistically. Again, I will go back to the situation in Newfoundland and Labrador, my province. Transfers to that provincial government for this year, 1989-90 will be $1.4 billion, a 6 per cent increase over last year. About $1.3 billion of that comes from three programs: Equalization, Canada Assistance Plan, CAP, and Established Programs Financing, EPF. These make up almost 45 per cent of the provincial Government revenue. That is an important number to keep in mind: $2,350 per person in Newfoundland and Labrador, more than any other province in this country. That is the level of commitment that this Government has to the provincial Government.
Just so that we understand the cuts, the destruction of the health care program, the destruction of the education system, CAP and Equalization are unaffected. There is no change. The totals transferred from the federal Government to the provincial Government in 1989-90 will be just under $1 billion, an increase of $50 million from 1988-89.
EPF is unaffected for 1989-90. The federal Government's contribution to those programs, which we must remember, go into the pot. They can be used for anything, they just get dumped into the Consolidated Revenue Fund. They go in and they make up 45 per cent of that pot.

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Time flies, Mr. Speaker. Time flies. The change in the formula for 1990-91 will be a reduction in the growth, not a reduction in absolute terms but a reduction in the growth of 1 per cent. What is the effect of that? The provincial Government in 1990-91 will receive $448 million out of this program, an increase of $19 million. This is $4 million less than it expected. Four million dollars out of $1,400 million.
I would suggest that in an era of balanced provincial budgets when 45 per cent of Newfoundland's budget and many other Atlantic province's budgets are coming from the federal Government, that continued support of this Government for those provinces that need it most is clear, is evident and is unending.
Where to go now. I would like quickly to comment on unemployment insurance, something that I had the opportunity to hear my hon. friend for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception comment on briefly and it is something that is of great concern and great importance to the people of my province.
We all know that the employee premiums will rise from $1.95 to $2.25, which is less than the rate that my friends opposite put in place in 1983 and which was in place until 1988. Employers will continue to pay 1.4 times the employee rate. The question is cutting unemployment and cutting unemployment insurance. I had the privilege of being in Comer Brook, a city in western Newfoundland. I was on the CBC with the Hon. Member from Labrador (Mr. Rompkey)-three great Canadian institutions if I may say, Mr. Speaker. We talked about unemployment insurance. We talked with Doug House who was chairman of a Royal Commission three or four years ago in Newfoundland on employment and unemployment. This is a marvellous document that has become a resource used all across this country by Governments.
What we heard from the people of Comer Brook and the people of that area was that unemployment insurance, as it sat, had to be changed. It had to be more responsive. It had to allow people some initiative. It had to allow people to move on.
I have no hesitation, Mr. Speaker, in saying in this House-I have spoken publicly on this-that I personally favour moving toward a guaranteed annual income. It is something that over time this country is coming to, and I think it is important. We have seen changes in the unemployment insurance system. In Newfoundland we get $830 million next year for unemployment insurance. There has been a realignment in Newfoundland, as my hon. friend said, of approximately $1.3 billion. In Newfoundland, Mr. Speaker, $30 million out of $1.3 billion was realigned. What came in behind it, which sometimes Opposition Members forget to tell us? There is $45 million in new money, Mr. Speaker, to do the things that people in my province have told me and I think have told all of us that we need, namely, mobility and community futures, a very important program to allow our communities to try to solve their own economic programs.
What about co-operative education? We are also saying to people that if they want to make their lives better and go back to school, we will be able to help them more, we will be able to encourage that improvement as opposed to discourage it. Those are the changes. Yes, there will be some effects felt, most of them are in my constituency, and I acknowledge that. There will continue to be some problems that I and others on both sides of the House will continue to try to work out with Ministers and the Government. But it has to be recognized that we have also taken out some of the flaws. Repeater provisions are gone, so there is no huge waiting period. The huge fluctuation from 10 weeks to 16 weeks is gone. People will be able to predict how they will react to the unemployment insurance system.
Let us make no mistake. People in my province who deal with the unemployment insurance deal with it because they have to and they deal with it in a straightforward, honest, upfront way, in a way that the rest of us deal with other programs, be it the tax system or whatever. They make the decisions that are important to them and their families. They make the decisions that benefit them the most. What we must do is move to change the unemployment system over time so that it encourages people and allows them decisions in a productive way.
Let me now conclude quickly. Members opposite forget the doubling of the sales tax credit. That item does not get mentioned often. What about the 67 per cent increase in seniors and dependants programs? They do
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not get mentioned very often either. It is unfortunate that these things tend to get left out on occasion.
The refundable sales tax credit will help 145,000 families in my constituency. But Members opposite do not talk about that. We do not hear about that sort of thing in the Budget. They do not talk about tax reform as it develops in an attempt to make sure that families earning less than $30,000 are better off after tax reform with the enhanced prepaid refundable sales tax credit making the system progressive and fair.
The Budget is tough. We all have been asked to make contributions. We in Newfoundland and Labrador and Atlantic Canada will do that. We are grateful and we will continue to make sure the Government recognizes that those of us who have the least capability to bear the burden will do that.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) have assured us that that will continue to be the case. A commitment to regional development is as strong as ever. A commitment to the Atlantic region will never waiver.


Mr. Jordan:: Mr. Speaker, I have come to the conclusion that you can read just about anything into the Budget that you want to read into it, as my friend has indicated. I just want to ask him a couple of very simple questions.
What did the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) mean when he said throughout the election campaign from north to south and east to west that the deficit was under control? All programs announced had been built into the fiscal policy of the Government. What did the Minister mean by that?
Second, what did the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) mean when he said in October in Winnipeg during the election campaign that if this Government were elected he would institute a child care program allowing for
200,000	new places and he would do it in the first session of the new Parliament? What did he mean by that? What did the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mrs. McDougall) mean yesterday as reported in The Globe and Mail of May 16, when she stated, "And we have agreed that before the mandate is over - "? Previously, it had been during the first session. But the Minister said yesterday "We have agreed that before the mandate is
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over we will meet all of the objectives of our child care policy".
The institution of child care polity keeps sliding back on us. Would it be fair to think that what the Government really means is that it will be in place within the next decade, or perhaps by the year 2010? I just wondered if my hon. friend would zero in on those kinds of fraudulent statements, as they have amounted to, because the Government keeps setting the date back farther and farther. Mine is just a layman's opinion on those statements which came out loud and clear throughout the election. I would like the Member's reaction to those questions.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: Mr. Speaker, it would be my pleasure. I, like 194 others, am just a layperson who made a decision that one would change one's life and through that period I, like the Hon. Member opposite, was meeting with thousands of people who were asking a great number of the same questions. I do not pretend to speak for individuals within this Government, but I will tell you this, Sir. When the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) said to the Canadian people that the commitments which have been made and the track we were on was within the fiscal plan, you can depend that it was. You can bet your last dollar that it was perfectly straightforward. What we have to come to terms with some nine months later are changing world interest and currency rates.
I am sure the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands (Mr. Milliken) knows much more about these sorts of things than I. But when you are faced with a $6 billion increase in the interest rate or the bill for maintaining the debt in order to stay ahead of it, a government, be it a Prime Minister or a Minister of Finance, must take responsible decisions. They must show and exhibit the leadership for which this Prime Minister and this Government was re-elected in November, 1988.
Now to the question of child care. I was looking for a copy of the Speech from the Throne in my desk. I am sure the Hon. Member from Kingston and the Islands has it memorized.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: It is in Hansard.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: While I am not as fluent or relaxed with the rules and methods of the House as my hon. friend, it is quite clear that child care will move ahead in this mandate. That program will help 1.4 million Canadian families with the cost of caring for their children. We will also meet the commitment of spending $100 million to be provided for special support initiatives to improve

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child care services. We continue to fund CAP, a program used by the provinces.
The commitments are there. Sometimes decisions are taken that will not suit every Canadian or every Member of Parliament, but we have the leadership required to take those decisions. The decisions that have been taken by the Government are fair to Canadians, and the Government continues to be willing to take such decisions in the interests of this countiy and all the people in it.


Mr. Brewin:: Mr. Speaker, this Budget provided for cutbacks to the CBC.


An Hon. Member:: Hear, hear!


John F. Brewin: I hear a "hear, hear" from the Conservative benches. We in Victoria have no CBC production facilities in either radio or television. We have limited transmission facilities for both television and radio. This situation has persisted since the founding of the CBC. Victoria is the only capital in Canada without CBC production facilities. It is time the Government provided sufficient funds to the CBC to preserve its position as an institution that ties Canada together and for the CBC to provide to Victoria the facilities which other capitals across Canada have. I would ask the Hon. Member to comment on that.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: Mr. Speaker, this is a new topic. The CBC is an institution that I personally have a lot of respect for. It is an institution which we in my province have depended upon quite heavily. I should point out to the Hon. Member that for years we had the same problem. There was not a CBC station in the capital of my province and I will not comment as to why. I will not comment on the conditions that led up to that situation, the conditions that involved party politics, perhaps, and the owners of private stations-


Roger Simmons: You said you wouldn't.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: And I will not. I will go no further. The CBC, like virtually every other Crown corporation and institution, will have to take some decisions. I wish I knew the number, but I think it approaches $950 million that we give to the CBC. That is almost what we give to the Province of Newfoundland.
Everyone has to take a bit of a step. Fortunately for the CBC, unlike others, it has some options. It can be creative in generating funds, and I have faith that the board and management of the CBC will respond in that way.


John F. Brewin: I have your support?


Ian Angus Ross Reid: The CBC has my support, absolutely.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated. I recognize the Hon. Member for Burin-St. George's (Mr. Simmons) on debate.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: Why don't you stand up, Roger?


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, I think the Hon. Member for St. John's East (Mr. Reid) just made what perhaps will be his most profound interjection in this Parliament. I say to him that my height does not rely on my physical stature.
I was looking for the Borrowing Bill, but I believe we all know to a "T" what is in it. I am sure we all read it as a bedtime story before we went to sleep last night.
So they want to borrow some money, surprise, surprise. Is this not the same crowd that has been preaching restraint, that tells us we are almost in debtors' prison, that says it was those big, bad Liberals who ran up the public debt? Is this the same crowd, this group that is looking for more money, a few more billions, that asked the public to look the other way, to forget that it was Tory restraint that doubled the public debt over the past four years from $177 million to $330 million?
In all the time since confederation in 1867-1 must digress for just a moment. The confederation that you learned about in your history lessons, Mr. Speaker, was the 1867 confederation. That was just the penultimate Act. The real confederation, of course, took place in 1949 when Newfoundland agreed to take on Canada as a continuing responsibility. I thought for the sake of the mainland ers in our audience, we should mention that the confederation I am talking about here is the first of the two, the preliminary Act of 1867.
In all those years since 1867 until 1984, all the governments of whatever stripe, including men of the ilk of John Diefenbaker and the present Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark), plus a number of men who happened to be Liberals, managed to run up a debt of $177 million. Our boy from Baie Comeau, in four years, has managed to do what it took all the Prime
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Ministers of Canada before him to do, double the public debt.
I ask Hon. Members, is this the same crowd, led by that right hon. gentleman from Baie Comeau, that is now asking the public to look the other way, to forget that it doubled the public debt in four years? What then is Tory restraint? Is it different from ordinary, run-of-the-mill fiscal restraint as we have come to know it? Does this Tory restraint have certain identifying and distinguishing characteristics or qualities, a certain uniqueness all its own? You bet your spare Lamborghini it does, Mr. Speaker.
What if you do not happen to be a Tory, Mr. Speaker, not one of those starry-eyed disciples of the new creed that preaches short-term pain for long-term pain? What if you happen to have the audacity to believe that this Budget is not the best thing since sliced bread, or are one of those who are out of a job in Summerside or in Barrington? My friend will know all about Barrington. He has nightmares about Barrington. Barrington has nightmares about him. What if you are one of those who is out of a job or are a trawler man in Burgeo, which is in my riding of Burin-St. George's, who had his income very swiftly cut to zero last Thursday because the Government caved in to the French over-allocations?
This Government stood idly by and let the Spanish and the Portuguese rape our cod stocks on the nose and tail of the Grand Bank. This Government, as big as it wants to pretend to be, has not got the gall, the gumption or the guts of Iceland. It cannot say to Spain, Portugal and the other economic rapists out there on the high seas what Iceland said to Britain a few years back. Iceland said to Britain, "You come and rape our fish stock and you do it at your own peril". Iceland put its money where its mouth was. It is time we began talking tough to the people who are not prepared to be governed by the rule of international law. It is time that the Prime Minister of this country put the fishery on his national agenda and sent a signal to all and sundry, whether France, Spain, Portugal or whatever other country, that he fights first for the fishermen, the trawlermen and the plant workers on the south coast and all over Newfoundland, Atlantic Canada and all over Canada.
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If you are one of those trawlermen who lost his income last week, or one of the millions being pulverized by the cruel measures in this Budget of April 27, if you are any of these, you may just not have a spare Lamborghini- you may not even have one Lamborghini to bet. In that case, you will have to bet something a little more modest, maybe a few shekels from your unemployment cheque. But do it soon, because you will not have a lot of spare betting money left once the new Tory national sales tax is triggered in 1990.
What then, Mr. Speaker, is Tory restraint as distinct from ordinary run-of-the-mill fiscal restraint? What special quality does it have? I will tell you. It is restraining yourself, as a good Tbry. It is restraining yourself from doing what you should be doing to be worthy of the name government. It is restraining yourself from keeping the election promises that you made last November. Let us have a look at a few of those promises. I have a list of 12 of them. That is all I could get on that page. I have more pages, of course.
You will recognize this one, Mr. Speaker. You were there in the trenches with this piece of paper. One, maintain the sacred trust of universality. Of course, the Budget effectively ends universality of old age security and family allowance. We know that.
Promise number two, create a national system of child care with 200,000 new spaces. While an extra billion was announced in the Budget by the then Minister of Health in July, 1988, the program has been cut, not by $1 billion, or as that great Newfoundland legend, Joey Smallwood, used to say, not by $1 billion, not by $2 billion, not by $3 billion but cut in the Budget by $4 billion. How is that for a promise kept, Mr. Speaker?
Promise number three, no changes to the unemployment insurance program, and the Government has cut it by $2.9 billion. It has cut the bottom out of that particular program. It has attacked the very principle that the UI system is founded on. Promise number four, no reduction in the Government's commitment to regional development, and it cut that by $300 million in the Budget. I have to skip some of these promises as I do not have time to talk about all the failings of the Government. But another promise was to maintain adequate support for fishermen and farmers. Do you realize this Budget, announced two or three weeks ago, instead of maintaining the support base for fishermen and farmers,

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it has actually cut out the fishing and farm fuel rebate and crop insurance funding for farmers? I could go on. Another promise, improve women's programs, and the Budget cut that by $2 million.
Some of the Tories, and people labelled as Tories, masquerading as Tories over there, who are wishing their cake dough, must be saying how in the name of everything that is rational did I get caught up with this thing? How did I get here and have to stand up and vote for a Budget that cuts the guts out of my people in Barrington and Lockeport? Of course, the real message of this Budget is beginning to sink in, even for Tories. I admire the courageous stand taken by the gentleman from Portage-Interlake (Mr. Holtmann) yesterday. It was a very courageous step made by one of the Tory Members. How long he will be a Tory Member is another question, but it was a courageous step taken by him yesterday in at least not voting for this foul Budget.
I would say to him, were he here, he might as well go all the way because he has burnt his bridges. I wish he had had the extra bit of courage it takes to have stood up and voted against the Budget. But we should not be too unkind. He did a very courageous thing. Those Damascus Road experiences, Mr. Speaker, sometimes happen in stages. First you embrace it, then you condone it. Then you eventually abhor it, and then you speak out against it. He is at the stage where he will soon be speaking out against this Budget and we will have one more voice in this Chamber for reason.
That is Tory restraint: Restraining yourself from being the Government worthy of the name, restraining yourself from keeping all the promises, all the commitments you made when you were looking for votes last November. That is Tory restraint.
In the interests of brevity, I will have to tell you, I am not going to proceed to a more thorough definition. I was going to do so, but my good friend from St. John's East (Mr. Reid) did it for me. His whole speech was really a manifestation of what constitutes Tory restraint. Did you hear him? He said that UI is an absolute cup of tea. What do mean that we have done anything with UI? He said that we just improved it. Health care never had it so good, he said. Everything is fantastic. As we say back
home, hunky-dory. Then he said, and this is the piece de resistance, and I quote him correctly, I believe-this is the man who would know because he worked in the office of the Prime Minister and he worked for the Member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie) so he comes to this Chamber with a great deal of expertise; a great deal of baggage, yes, but a great deal of expertise. He said, Mr. Speaker, and I quote him correctly, "The Prime Minister has assured us that-". That is the only important part of the quote I want to mention. "The Prime Minister has assured us that-". That should be worth a lot, an assurance from this Prime Minister. That is not the kind of assurance that I would stake my life on.
This is the same Prime Minister who in 1984 told the people of Canada that old age pensions were a sacred trust. That assurance did not stop him, about six months later in the Budget of 1985, from making a clumsy attempt at beginning to unravel the old age security net that Liberal Governments over many years had put into place.
I know my time must be running short, Mr. Speaker, but what then are others saying about this Budget? We have heard what the Member from St. John's East said about the Budget. What are some others saying about it? It is going to come as an awful shock to the system of the Member from St. John's East that everybody is actually not agreeing with him. Has he taken the time to see what the Consumers Association of Canada is saying about this Budget? I will tell him in case he has not had the time. "The Government is waging a crusade against the deficit on the backs of the consumer. It is a staggering consumption tax grab." What does the Canadian Labour Congress say? It says, "It's a cruel, brutal Budget. It is a brutal blow to working people. It will kill jobs and increase line-ups at food banks." What does the Canadian Council of Social Development say? It says, "A minimum wage worker making $10,000 a year will pay another $100 a year more in consumption taxes as a result of this Budget".
In direct contradiction to what the Hon. Member for St. John's East states, the Canadian Association of University Teachers state: "A reduction in the growth of
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transfer payments to the provinces for post-secondary education and health are a blow for higher education".
If we were to accept the words of the Member for St. John's East, there are no reductions. The Canadian Association of University Teachers states that there are reductions. The Budget will show who is right on that.
There is no question that the Member for St. John's East has certainly given us hjs version of reality. However, what will the Budget really do? The Member has told us what he thinks it will do for Newfoundland, but what will it really do? I happen to have with me a few sheets of paper titled: "The Effect of the Budget on Newfoundland and Labrador". I only have a couple of minutes left, so I will just mention a few quickies to teaste the palate of my friend from St. John's East.
Number one states that established program reductions will amount to $4.6 million in 1991, and $9.7 million in 1991-92.1 say to the Hon. Member that these are the Government's own figures. If Newfoundland is going to have $9.7 million less in 1991-92, does that mean that we will have to get our hospital beds cheaper, or somehow get university course cheaper? Does it not mean that $9.7 million can fund fewer hospital beds and fewer seats at a university than if we had that $9.7 million? That is what we are really talking about. We have less money in a province with very scarce financial resources to put our people in hospitals who need to be there, or to put our young people in universities who need to be there. There is $9.7 million less than we had but for this Budget. In my language that means $9.7 million less in 1991-92.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: No, no.


Roger Simmons: The Hon. Member is now going to get into this song and dance about what it would have been if it wasn't that. I am saying to the gentleman from St. John's East and to the House, very clearly that, if the additional reduction of 1 per cent in transfer payments-


Ian Angus Ross Reid: Reduction in the growth.


Roger Simmons: I understand the Hon. Member would like to say it his way, but I want to say it my way.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: My way is right.
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Mr. Dick:: One way is honest and one way is dishonest.


Roger Simmons: You will want to withdraw that comment. The Minister will want to withdraw that comment, or else we will know him for what he is.


Paul Wyatt Dick: What is that? Honest.


Roger Simmons: A deceptive person, if he keeps insisting.


Paul Wyatt Dick: You are deceptive. You want to be dishonest.


Roger Simmons: If the Speaker thinks that is parliamentary, that is his business.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret to interrupt the Hon. Member. I do not recall hearing anything from here, as far as whatever the Hon. Minister or anybody else in the House has said. I will check the "blues" and if there is something there that is not parliamentary, I will naturally bring it to the attention of the Minister, or whoever said it.
The Hon. Member for Burin-St. George's has another 1.5 minutes.


Roger Simmons: In his statement, the Minister of Finance-and I hope the Minister will accept that what the Minister of Finance says is correct-said very specifically that there is going to be a 1 per cent reduction in the growth.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: Thank you.


Roger Simmons: I think I have got it.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: I think so.


Roger Simmons: In the growth of Established Programs Financing. I say to the gentleman for St. John's East, if that 1 per cent growth is applied, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, through their public treasury, will receive $9.7 million less in 1991-92 than they would have received without the application of that 1 per cent reduction. In other words, it is as a direct result of the Budget measure of April. I see the Hon. Member does not argue with me.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: Absolutely not.


Roger Simmons: I am delighted that he and I see eye to eye on something. There are so many other things that we see eye to eye on, including our commitment to fight for the best interests of Newfoundland. We fight from

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opposite sides, but that is what makes this system so virile and healthy. I thank Hon. Members for taking the time to listen to me.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: On questions and comments I would like to give the Hon. Member for St. John's East the first question, and then the Hon. Member for Halifax West.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: It is not proper for me to engage in any long debate. I have had my crack, and I am supposed to make comments or ask questions. There is so much that I do not know where to begin.
I have a quick comment on the fishermen's fuel rebate question. It is not a change. Last year it was extended for one year. It was due to expire at the end of this year, as it had been announced and was in the cards. The sales tax rebate is still there. The extra 3 per cent special rebate is still there. It has not changed, and it is maintained. It is important that we recognize there is no change in that.
I stand in the House very much as a messenger. The comments that I have made about reductions, changes, or commitments to the provinces I am getting out of the Budget. I am getting them from the documents. The Canadian Association of University Teachers is a great organization that has done a tremendous amount in this country. If Members want to accept what they say as the truth, then please be my guest, but I would suggest that Members, and eventually their constituents, will be sadly misled, unless one goes by what is in the Budget.
With respect to the comment that the Hon. Member made about the Prime Minister, I said that the Prime Minister had assured us. The Prime Minister assured us that those least able to bear the burden would not bear the burden. The Minister of Finance assured us the same thing. The Budget has shown that. Whatever the Member opposite thinks, 169 communities in this country last November said that the assurance of the Prime Minister is something on which they would depend. That is why we are on this side of the House and the Hon. Member is on the other side of the House. Canadians depended upon that leadership and the assurance of the Prime Minister.
The Hon. Member opposite talks about the cuts that we have made and the things that we have not done, and the burden in going ahead with that. I would like the Hon. Member to tell us what he would do that is different. Assuming all of the things that he has criticized are in the Budget, how would he deal with the
deficit and the debt? I should remind the Hon. Member, who tended to forget or go around this fact, the deficit was $38 billion. It is now down to $30 billion. In three years it will be down to $15 billion.


Mr. Fontana:: You said that same thing five years ago.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: How would the Hon. Member balance the books? Would he tell Canadians how he would deal with it?


Roger Simmons: I thank my good friend from St. John's East. First, I will address a couple of the less substantive points that he made. The Hon. Member is on that side because his business friends bought the election for him. He is on that side despite the fact that 57 per cent of the Canadian people voted against him. In Newfoundland he is known by a very particular name, a rare breed, a Tory in office.
The Hon. Member mentioned the public debt. I believe that he misunderstood me, so I will say it one more time. I did not say that I was asking him to forget. In my series of questions I said: Are the Tories asking the people of Canada to forget? I implore him implicitly to do the opposite and to remember that in all the years since Confederation from 1867 to 1984 the total debt was approximately $177 billion, and it has doubled under one Prime Minister who happens to be his leader. That is what I want the Hon. Member to remember.
He talks about fishermen and gasoline taxes. Let us put it in perspective. There will be a one cent increase in the excise tax on gasoline, effective immediately, as a result of the Budget. There will be another one cent a litre increase in the excise tax on gasoline in January, 1990. The Hon. Member skated over those two figures but he did mention that there will be the elimination of the two cent a litre excise tax rebate as of January, 1990.
The argument that they were told there would be an expiry date does not buy many gallons of gasoline at the pump. The poor fisherman has already had it socked to him left, right and centre with reduced quotas, foreign overfishing and the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) kowtowing to the French. He can hardly find enough fish to pay for the gas at present prices let alone to buy the groceries, pay for the mortgage and the loan on the boat. As a result of this Budget, as of 1990 he is asked to pay another four cents a litre, or 18 cents more per gallon to get out and try to catch enough fish to pay for the few

gallons of gas. If the Hon. Member for St. John's East can defend that, I wish him luck because I cannot.


Howard Edward Crosby: Mr. Speaker, what we have heard from the Member for Burin-St. Georges (Mr. Simmons) is a litany of complaints about cut-backs in spending and increases in taxes. We are dealing with Bill C-ll, which is a borrowing Bill. I assume from his remarks that he will support the borrowing of funds to finance goods and services to the Canadian people because he wants more services, less taxes and is forcing us further and further into debt with his demands and the adverse results that will have. I will not comment further on that.
He mentioned many statistics and referred to statistical material in his presentation. I would have thought for a Member from the Province of Newfoundland, with the high levels of unemployment that Newfoundlanders have suffered over the years, that the statistic to which he would have drawn our attention is the unemployment rate in Canada which has progressively gone down over the mandate of the Progressive Conservative Government. In 1988 it was an average of 7.8 per cent, lower than the double digit unemployment rate we saw in the Liberal years. I hope he would at least give credit for that statistic.
I want to ask the Member about the matter of equalization payments which we in the Atlantic provinces benefit from to an enormous extent. Recently in The Globe and Mail an article was written by Kevin Cox pointing out that the windfall that has occurred to Atlantic Canada from equalization payments is $186 million in the last fiscal year, which has allowed Prince Edward Island to balance its budget. Prince Edward Island expenditures, including debt charges, now equal the revenues.
In Nova Scotia there was a windfall of $48 million that will allow Nova Scotia to balance its budget over the next two fiscal years. The same has occurred in the Province of New Brunswick.
Will the Member comment on equalization payments and perhaps give the Government credit for aiding our region of Atlantic Canada, particularly in this regard?
Borrowing Authority


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, I must say that it is great being back in the same Chamber with the gentleman from Halifax West. First, he talked about a litany that I am alleged to have unloaded on this honourable Chamber. I must say to him that there is a place even for litanies as long as they have their basis in fact. I tell him that the litany he heard from me is actually just an abridged list. I could have taken the time of the House to give the full litany that I am hearing from the people of Burin-St. Georges, the people of Halifax West and all Canadians about this Budget, which litany I happen to have in front of me. I mentioned the end of universality. I could have mentioned the personal income surtax, the sales tax measures, the excise tax measures, the cut in regional development funding. I agree with him that there is quite a litany.
The Hon. Member mentions windfall, in the same breath incidentally, that he asked me to give the Government credit. Which is it? Is it a windfall which connotes somehow it is a happening that was not planned? How can he suggest that the Government ought to get credit even for accidental happenings as far as Established Programs Financing is concerned? Surely he is not standing there as the Member for Halifax West and defending the cuts to health care and post-secondary education?
He does put up a good front, but do you not get the impression that his heart is not really in it?


Mr. Bill Attewell (Markham):: Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to speak today on this borrowing Bill and about the debt and deficits of the country. I believe historians will look back on these debates at this time in Canada's history and see it as a strategic time when the Government of the people had to act decisively. That is exactly what our Government is doing.
I am proud to represent the riding of Markham, which also takes in Whitchurch and Stouffville. It has 160,000 people and includes many small and large businesses. Most important, it has a lot of astute people.
I have been quite impressed with the general comments on the Budget. The only complaints I have received so far are that we did not go far enough in expenditure cuts. That is a topic that I intend to pursue.

May 16, 1989
Borrowing Authority
This Government introduced a massive review of expenditures under the Neilsen task force. Over a thousand programs were reviewed, and hundreds of people with expertise in the private sector reviewed it. I want to ensure that we got every bit of value we could from that excellent and thorough review.
In September, 1984, Canadians gave the Government a mandate to get the economy back on track. In November, 1988, that mandate was reaffirmed. In 1984 we made a thorough study of the nation's economic problems and came to some sobering conclusions. Not only were these problems deep rooted, they had been aggravated over the years by misdirected government efforts to deal with them.
What past Governments really had been trying to deal with were the symptoms of economic weakness, not the causes. We decided it was time to get back to basics, time to get to the source of the country's difficulties. We introduced a comprehensive agenda for economic renewal in the fall of 1984. This agenda was designed to rebuild the foundations and provide a strong framework of economic growth. It was meant to provide a better climate of confidence.
One step was to change FIRA, the investment agency. Not only did we change the name to Investment Canada, we changed its mandate to welcome investment in this country.
Another step was the privatization of a number of Crown Corporations. If it does not serve a public policy role, it should not be run by Government.
De Havilland was privatized and we know the success story of that company. Forty-five per cent of Air Canada is in private hands now and I understand that the other 55 per cent will be moved shortly.
A number of these steps gave investors and Canadian business men and women more confidence in this country. There has been an explosion of jobs since we began those efforts in 1984, with over 1.5 million jobs. The unemployment rate dropped sharply.
Between 1984 and 1988, jobs were created at a faster rate in Canada than any other major OECD nation. The report shows that the Canadian economy grew faster in 1988 than any of the seven OECD nations, except Japan, with real economic growth last year of 4.3 per cent. This
surpassed the OECD June 1988 projection of only 4 per cent.
The OECD projects that Canada's economic growth will slow to 3.1 per cent this year, following behind that of Japan and Italy, and to 2.9 per cent in 1990, second only to Japan. The report also shows that Canada led the G-7 nations in employment growth in 1988, and will continue to do so both this year and in 1990, with the unemployment rate falling again.
These results are proof positive that the agenda of the Conservative Government is working and that Canadians are responding to the opportunities presented by our actions. That does not mean that we should rest on our laurels. Canadians must make their way in an increasingly competitive world economy. To succeed in world markets we must continue the progress we have made in implementing our agenda. One of the keys to success is deficit reduction.
We cannot pass on to our children and grandchildren a crippling legacy of debt. We have already made great strides toward fiscal responsibility, but we cannot rest.
When we came to office the deficit was more than $38 billion, as my colleague mentioned in a question a few minutes ago. The national debt had doubled in just three years. The private sector was being stifled by regulation and wasteful Government intervention in its affairs.
We acted quickly. Since we took office the deficit has been cut by almost one-quarter in dollar terms and almost in half in relation to the economy. However, there is still much to be done.
Canada's current deficit of $30 billion is quite simply the difference between what the Government spends and what it collects in revenue. For every $3 the Government spends it borrows $1 at this time. That is how serious the situation is.
Just to dwell on the background a little, in the second half of the 1970s real growth dropped sharply while the rate of inflation was high. Combined with the income tax indexation in 1974, and the indexation of major transfers to provinces, these factors generally took a significant drop in revenue growth at a time when expenditures were rising rapidly. Weak economic growth led to a number of measures to promote growth in employment during the second half of the 1970s, including the federal tax reduction, the exemption for interest and
May 16, 1989

dividend income and selective sales tax exemptions. These measures intensified the deficit problem.
In the early 1980s real interest rates rose sharply and the economy was hit by a severe recession. Expenditures aimed at mitigating the effects of the recession rose rapidly. Revenue growth dropped sharply because of the weakness of the economy. Interest rates rose to record levels as the deficit widened, leading to unprecedented increases in debt service charges. These developments led to a rapid increase in the public debt which now stands at $325 billion.
The national debt has and will continue to increase rapidly. By the end of the Trudeau era the debt had reached over $200 billion. Since then it has continued to grow, largely due to the interest charges it has accumulated.
You may be interested to know, Mr. Speaker, if you go back to 1958, which is not so long ago, that our entire expenditures as a Government amounted to $5.8 billion. The current Budget is $142 billion. The size of Government has to be attacked, and that is being done by this Government.
To see when the last surplus was, we have to go back to 1969-70 when there was a surplus of $332 million. At the end of the next five years ending in 1974-75 we saw the deficit rise to a mere $2 billion. In the next five years which ended in 1979-80 the deficit had risen five times to over $11 billion. In the next five-year period under the Liberals it grew to over an astonishing $38 billion. That is when we took over as a Government, when we started to steer the country in the proper healthy direction.
Speaking of the current Budget, I would like to quote the words of a constituent of mine, Rhoda Spencer. She phoned in on April 28. She supports the Budget. She says that it is about time someone had the guts to do what has to be done. She called the NDP and Liberal Party to tell them they should have co-operated with the Government.
I would like to cite another article from The Toronto Star of April 8, 1989. It is an editorial about the deficit in which it is stated:
Borrowing Authority
In other words, Ottawa's exploding interest payments have been crowding out spending on the valuable programs Ottawa provides.
The only way for Wilson to stop this erosion of essential programs is to reduce the growth and interest payments on the public debt.
While lower interest rates would certainly help, Wilson must also slow the growth in the federal debt. And the only way he can do that is to keep the deficit on a downward track.
Either Wilson cuts the deficit in his April 27th budget, or programs Canadians need and cherish will suffer a slow, but sure death by a thousand cuts.
I would like to read part of an article which appeared in The Globe and Mail authored by Jeffrey Simpson on May 2, 1989. It states:
When the history of our time is written a generation hence, the period 1973-1983 will be remembered for having sown many of the seeds for the fiscal jungle in which Canada now finds itself.
In the 1973-1983 period, the Liberals confronted two recessions, and they stoked up Government spending to deal with both. But in the good times, they also spent like drunken sailors-either directly, or indirectly through a dizzying variety of tax loopholes, incentives and other so-called tax expenditures.
Liberal John Timer understood both the gravity of the mess and who was responsible for it when he assumed his party's leadership.
The deficit was so high that Mr. Timer pledged to halve it over seven years should his party win the 1984 election. Mr. Timer knew then-even if he subsequently forgot-what had to be done.
Next, I would like to quote from another editorial which appeared in The Globe and Mail on May 2, 1989. It states:
Now we should be hearing the important debate, the one about how the country's finances should be run.
About the Finance Minister's Budget it states:
It is a budget that cries out for reasoned criticism. Instead, there has been nothing but a cacophony of catcalls.
Maureen Farrow, President of the C.D. Howe Research Institute, had this to say: "-the deficit reflects the enormous jump in interest payments of the national debt-a factor caused by sky-rocketing interest rates- more than any failure in Wilson's budget". She is encouraged by the Finance Minister's commitment to cut the deficit in half, to $15 billion within five years.
Douglas Peters, Chief Economist with the Toronto Dominion Bank, stated that business lobby groups had been unrealistic to count in big spending cuts. The size of the deficit was very close to what he expected.
Clarkson Gordon had this to say:

May 16, 1989
Mr. Wilson projects a target deficit in the range of $15 billion by fiscal 1993-94, a level which we believe could be justified by the roughly equivalent level of spending by the Government on longterm assets. This target will be achieved through lower interest rates that keep deficit financing costs from rising, and by curbing the growth rate of expenditures to below the rate of growth of the economy.
In an editorial in The Financial Post of April 27, 1989, it was stated:
The budget contains its share of surprises, most notably the elimination of the submarine program. In itself, this is a welcome sign of the government's seriousness. Other reductions, though less surprising, are a move in the right direction, notably the reduction of the subsidy to VIA Rail.
The tax increase which has been announced spread the pain favourably over the population. For those who see this as a "pro-business budget", an increase of $1 billion in corporate taxation is proof that the business community was not spared.
It was stated in The Ottawa Citizen of April 27: "In all, Wilson's budget does what a Conservative budget should: It builds for the future rather than borrows from it".
Roger Hamel, President of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce had this to say: "The country needs a financial blueprint and Michael Wilson is still viewed by the business community as the man to produce that blueprint-we, (the Chamber) still have great faith in him".
I have much more information I wanted to share with Members of the House and my constituents in Markham. However, I happen to think our current Finance Minister is one of the best we have had in decades. I am totally 100 per cent behind him in this, as are the majority of Canadians.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Before I call it 1 o'clock, if the Hon. Member wishes to carry on his remarks he will have five minutes left after 3 p.m., plus 10 minutes for questions and comments.
It being 1 p.m. I do now leave the Chair until 2 p.m. this day.
At 1 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.


Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, it is National Tourism Awareness Week, from May 15 to May 21.
The tourist industry is of primary importance to the national economy. It generates revenues of up to $21 billion, provides jobs for nearly 600,000 Canadians and ranks third among the various sectors of our economy on exports. It is a major asset for this country because it promotes economic growth and prosperity.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate and thank all those who through their work have contributed to the expansion of tourism in this country.



EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


Mr. Maurizio Bevilacqua (York North):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today in this House to express my deepest concerns about human rights violations occurring in Zimbabwe. As the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark) is well aware, there are many people in Zimbabwe who have been in jail for more than 18 months with no charges laid and therefore have no judicial means of obtaining freedom.
It has been a longstanding policy of the Liberal Party of Canada and past Liberal Governments that Canada should promote the international observance of human rights, for the rights of people as individuals are as sacred in Zimbabwe as they are in Canada. Equality of rights is unequivocal, its meaning is not based on geography or race. Canada must promote equality of individual rights throughout the world.
I urge this Government to immediately act on all known human rights violations that affect the people of Zimbabwe.
May 16, 1989



FOREST FIRES


Mr. Ray Funk (Prince Albert-Churchill River):: Mr. Speaker, last weekend, in spite of the best efforts of 1400 firefighters and hundreds more volunteers, 150,000 acres of valuable forests burned in my constituency. The fires in Manitoba were even worse.
Unfortunately, the help expected from the federal Government was not there. This is because the federal-provincial forestry agreements which provided for significant enhancement of our fire-fighting capacity have not been renewed. We might well be facing our worst fire season ever.
Therefore, I call on the Minister of State (Forestry) (Mr. Oberle) to convene an emergency meeting of provincial forestry ministers in order to get these agreements renewed, and the needed resources into place.
I also call on the Government to institute a community conservation brigade program to hire and train the youth of our forest areas to prevent and fight these disastrous fires.
These actions must be taken now, because Canadians are not going up to put up with stockbrokers from Toronto telling them that we have to watch our forests bum in order to fight the deficit.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



TOURISM


Mr. Gus Mitges (Bruce-Grey):: Mr. Speaker, the week of May 15 to 21 is National Tourism Awareness Week in Canada. The tourist industry plays a very important economic and social role in Canada, including my own riding of Bruce-Grey, where tourism and the benefits derived are an important mainstay of our economy.
Tourism in Canada is a $21 billion industry and brings in about $6 billion in foreign exchange each year. Tourism helps pay for entertainment and recreation facilities as well as fostering a better understanding
among all Canadians from our different regions. Tourism is also an important vital force in promoting peace around the world on a world-wide basis.
The amount that is spent on tourism around the world is double the $900 billion spent each year on military establishments and weapons. Tourism is indeed a tremendous industry and growing each year.
In order to ensure continued success in our tourist industry we must always strive for excellence to ensure that Canada as a tourist destination will continue to rank among the finest in the world.



AGRICULTURE


Hon. Ralph Ferguson (Lambton-Middlesex):: Mr. Speaker, the Canadian dairy industry is facing a very serious crisis. While the Government claims that it is defending our producer controlled marketing systems, which are totally permissible under the General Agreement on Thrifts and Trade, the Government has decided to cap industrial milk prices until December, 1990 to implement decreases in industrial milk prices, and if the cost of production formula goes down, to ask the provinces to extend the cap on prices of fluid milk.
These decisions have been made as a result of the April, 1989 GATT negotiations and are contrary to the clear advice given by the dairy farmers of Canada. To add insult to injury, the Wilson Budget is reducing dairy programs by $14 million.
Clearly, Mr. Speaker, our marketing systems here in Canada are permissible under Article 11 of GATT, yet this Government has completely ignored that status. In fact, it is like shutting the door after the cows have left the bam.
The decision to cap milk prices makes no sense under the circumstances. Milk prices respond to changes in cost of production. Production is controlled through the quota system with the producer carrying the cost of surplus disposal, if any. Canadian producers and the Canadian market are not distorting export markets.


An Hon. Member:: Time.

May 16, 1989


Ralph Ferguson: Mr. Speaker, the only thing this Government knows about milking is milking the taxpayers of this country.


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



TOURISM


Mr. Jean-Guy Guilbault (Drummond):: Mr. Speaker, this week we are celebrating National Tourism Awareness Week. The tourist industry is of primary importance to the national economy because it generates annual revenues of as much as $21 billion and provides employment for nearly 600,000 Canadians. The industry ranks third in Canada. National Tourism Awareness Week was initiated to make Canadians across this country more aware of the fact that tourism is an asset to this country. We have a lot to offer: a distinct culture, a unique heritage and, of course, our magnificent country.
The riding of Drummond is fortunate in that it has many sights that attract visitors. We are ready to receive the tourists who come for the world folklore festival from July 7 to July 16, those who visit the Parc des Voltigeurs, the Manoir Trent, the Village quebecois d'antan and Moulin Blanchette, to name only a few attractions. Every municipality in my riding organizes a wide range of popular festivities every weekend during the summer. I invite you all to visit the beautiful riding of Drummond, which is full of friendly people.



THE BUDGET


Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg TVanscona):: Mr. Speaker, if the federal Government wanted to take a serious look at how it could save money in the Canadian defence budget, it could have used a little imagination and linked the withdrawal of Canadian troops from the central flank in Europe to the conventional force reduction talks that are going on right now in Europe. Instead, it chose to betray communities like Portage la Prairie, wreck regional economies and leave Canada more defenceless than it
already is as a result of the Conservative cut-backs in military spending here at home.
We know that today we have a delegation from Portage la Prairie here, an all-party, broadly based delegation consisting of the local reeve and the mayor and the leaders of all the political parties in Manitoba.
On behalf of the NDP Caucus, I would like to urge the Minister of National Defence (Mr. McKnight) and the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) to take seriously the representations that these people are making, reconsider the cut-backs and take an imaginative look at what Canada could do in the way of saving money in Europe, instead of wrecking Canadian communities and withdrawing from Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



TOURISM


Mr. Walter Van  de Walle@St. Albert: Mr. Speaker, May 15 through 19 is Canada's third annual National Tourism Awareness Week. This year's theme, "Canada Grows with Tourism" is very appropriate. Tourism is one of our country's fastest growing industries, taking in such sectors as accommodation, transportation, food services, attractions and travel services.
In my home Province of Alberta, the tourism industry accounts for $2.3 million in revenues and a total of
83,000	direct and indirect jobs.
During the Edmonton Klondike days and the Calgary Stampede, tourists from Japan, Europe and all over the world become hometown Albertans. Canada's tourism industry ranks third and generates an estimated $20 billion annually.
Mr. Speaker, I believe, however, the essence of tourism in Canada is found in sharing our culture and our heritage with people from other countries.



NATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR ACTION ON TOBACCO

Mr. Rey Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, the Government of Canada must "treat the tobacco epidemic like an epidemic". This is the theme of the

National Campaign for Action on Tobacco which begins today.
Last year, more than 35,000 Canadians died from diseases caused by tobacco. This total is greater than the total number of people who died as a result of accidents, suicides, homicides, AIDS, alcohol and alcohol-related fatalities all combined.
Indeed, the Government has acknowledged that cigarette smoking is a national health problem of substantial and pressing concern and one that is of epidemic proportions.
Thus, it is a sad commentary that the Non-Smokers' Health Act, which was passed by Parliament in June, 1988, with support from all three political Parties, has still not been proclaimed by this Government almost a year later.
I submit, Mr. Speaker, that now would be a fitting time for the Government of Canada to take action: to proclaim this Act and make it law and thereby allow the will of Parliament to prevail.



HEALTH CARE


Mr. Gilles Bernier (Beauce):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to offer some words of encouragement to male and female nurses in Beauce, Quebec, and throughout Canada who are a credit to the nursing profession and work very hard to alleviate the pain and suffering of hospital patients. I pay tribute to them because they go beyond what they are professionally trained to do: they bring compassion to nursing care.
It takes more than just knowledge to do this work, Mr. Speaker. It takes tireless dedication and respect for every human being. It used to be called a vocation, and even in our modem society, there is still room for nurses who give their patients sympathy and hope. In addition to their work, there is always a high degree of personal dedication.
Mr. Speaker, I hope that health care authorities will give these guardians of the health of the people of Beauce, the people of Quebec and the people of Canada the consideration they deserve. On the other hand,
members of the nursing profession would be better off if they stayed on the job and relied on public opinion, which is behind them all the way.



NATIONAL HEALTH AND WELFARE


Mr. Francis G. LeBlanc (Cape Breton Highlands- Canso):: Mr. Speaker, Health and Welfare Canada currently maintains a district office for income security programs in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. This office processes claims for Canada pension plan benefits, family allowance and old age security payments from local offices in Amherst, Truro, and New Glasgow. In addition, it receives claims directly from the counties of Antigonish and Guysborough.
This office has been providing efficient service to the public since 1966. The public facilities there are ideally suited to this purpose. The staff is competent and dedicated. However, I have recently learned that plans are afoot to move the district office to New Glasgow. I suggest that this would be a serious mistake. Service to our seniors would be disrupted and in all likelihood new office facilities will have to be constructed. I cannot see how this could be justified either from a program delivery or cost-effectiveness viewpoint.
I urge this Government to have regard for the service to our growing seniors population in eastern Nova Scotia and not to proceed with this move.



FREE TRADE AGREEMENT


Mr. Girve Fretz (Erie):: Mr. Speaker, it is with great interest that I have noted a change in the song Premier Peterson is singing about the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. We have all known Mr. Peterson as a great opponent of the trade agreement before it was signed. Recently, however, Mr. Peterson was in France extolling the virtues of the trade agreement. He is now encouraging the French business community to take advantage of the agreement and the decision by the European community to form a single market in 1992 by expanding and liberalizing trade between Europe and North America.

May 16, 1989
Our federal Minister for International Trade (Mr. Crosbie) is being echoed by the Ontario Trade Minister who has told French investors that the agreement provides them with an excellent opportunity to enter the U.S. market through Canada.
It is good to know that opponents of the Free Trade Agreement are finally recognizing the benefits it provides.



COPYRIGHT ACT


Hon. Bob Layton (Lachine-Lac-Saint-Louis):: Mr. Speaker, Canada's copyright legislation has for many years protected the handicapped. In the past, an approach to the creators was made and accommodation was granted.
Bill C-60 amended the Copyright Act in 1988 to bring it into line with today's world of television, photocopiers and satellites. The handicapped have consistently requested that a new exception be put in the copyright law for the production of the special format materials such as Braille and talking books. Such an exemption would eliminate existing requirements to obtain the copyright owner's permission.
Until these amendments are introduced, Mr. Speaker, the visually handicapped and the institutions which serve them, including the CNIB, the MAB and the Institute Nazareth Louise Braille could be faced with charges which would gravely compromise their operations. Our Government must act to perpetuate essential services to the visually handicapped.



THE BUDGET


Ms. Joy Langan (Mission-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) failed to respond to the allegation that the Minister responsible for seniors said nine out of 10 pension groups she has spoken with has supported the government's old age pension claw-back. Last night the Minister's office refused to provide the list, indeed, refused to name one organization that supports the Government.
I would like to place on the record the names of a number of seniors' organizations who have written or telegraphed their disapproval of the attack on pensions. They are: One Voice. National Pensioners and Senior Citizens Federation, Action Now, Canadian Council of Retirees, Nova Scotia Federation of Senior Citizens, Cape Breton Council of Senior Citizens and Pensioners, United Senior Citizens of Ontario, Golden Age Club of Montreal, Federal Superannuates, Association of Jewish Seniors, Ontario Seniors Coalition, and SOAR, the Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees. The Minister must name those seniors' groups who support the Government's pension measures or apologize to all seniors in their organizations for putting words in their words and speaking on their behalf.



CANADA POST


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, from the weird and wonderful world of Canada Post we now have a secret laboratory featuring a fantasy town named Paraville, Alberta, fantasy addresses and make-believe customers.
Paraville, Alberta has a population of zero; number of customers, zero; location, a warehouse at 1257 Algoma Road in Ottawa. Meanwhile, in the real world out there rural post offices are being shut down and urban residents are being subjected to supermailboxes, while these people at Canada Post are walking around with white coats pretending they are doctors and trying to deliver the mail to customers that do not exist.
The secret mysterious paradigm project cited a little earlier was produced by the same garrulous and awkward characters who just last month gave employees 65,000 video cassettes praising the management virtues at Canada Post.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!



TRANSPORT


Mr. Bill Casey (Cumberland-Colchester):: Mr. Speaker, the Salmon River bridge near Truro, Nova Scotia is a CN overhead bridge crossing six sets of railway tracks and is in a drastic state of deterioration. The capacity rating of this CN bridge has been repeatedly reduced to
May 16, 1989

the point where it cannot legally accommodate anything more than a half ton truck.
The National Transportation Agency, CN, the Department of Highways, consulting engineers, and anyone with common sense, agree that this must be replaced immediately. The tracks in question divide the community of Salmon River right down the middle and are a barrier for school buses, ambulances, firefighting equipment. The bridge is absolutely essential as a main thoroughfare.
On January 27 of this year the NTA issued an order to CN to provide plans for a new bridge within 90 days. That time has now come and gone. With all due respect, I call on the Minister of Transport (Mr. Bouchard) to apply his influence and to expedite the process to replace this hazardous CN bridge which affects the lives of everybody in Salmon River.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Right Hon. John N. Timer@Leader of the Opposition: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Public Works. In a single month the Conservative Government has sold out Atlantic fishermen to foreign interests, slashed unemployment insurance programs to Atlantic Canada, reduced commitments to post-secondary education and health in Atlantic Canada, failed to renew regional development agreements for Atlantic Canada, closed Armed Forces bases in Atlantic Canada, allowed all the oil rigs in Atlantic Canada to shut down and failed to commit on the Hibernia project.
Now in the late-night gutless move by the Government, the Minister has slashed the Atlantic development programs by 25 per cent. The knife was wielded by a Minister from Atlantic Canada. How could the Minister agree to this savaging of programs for the Atlantic provinces?
Oral Questions


Hon. Elmer M. MacKay (Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, I am surprised to see that the Leader of the Opposition is so lachrymose when he talks about what this Government has done for Atlantic Canada.


Mrs. Finestone:: Lachrymose?


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: The right hon. gentleman should know, if he has taken the time to study this situation, this Government has maintained economic and regional development assistance at an unprecedented high level compared with the past five years and, indeed, for the five years before that.
Just to reinforce this national perspective-


Mr. McCurdy:: Are you going to read it?


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Yes, I am going to read this. My hon. colleague from the NDP did not want me to put this on the record last night. This particular comment from Canada's national newspaper points out that in the wake of the Budget, which The Globe and Mail felt did not cut enough, they called profligate the way that the Government of the day, our Government, looked after Atlantic regional development. The Globe and Mail asks the question, "What do we see? Annual spending on regional development which averaged $597 million from 1979-80 to 1983-84 and jumped to an average of $823 million during the Conservative's first term will be boosted an average of $1.8 billion over the next five years".


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


CUTS TO ATLANTIC OPPORTUNITIES AGENCY
Right Hon. John N. Tirner (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister was brought up in Atlantic Canada but he really must think that the people of the Maritimes and Atlantic Canada are stupid, even those who read The Globe and Mail occasionally down there. The Government cuts the Atlantic Opportunities Agency by 25 per cent. The Government fails to renew $700 million in regional economic development programs for Atlantic Canada. Then the Minister had the unmitigated nerve to say last night to the committee, and again to the House, that regional spending in Atlantic Canada is increasing.

May 16, 1989
Oral Questions
I turn to the Prime Minister and ask him to rise to his feet to admit to the House that the real reason his Government is savaging Atlantic Canada is because Atlantic Canadians voted against him and voted for the Liberal Party in the last election.


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I think that question is all the more astonishing coming from the Leader of a Party that voted against the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, giving a brand new meaning to hypocrisy. Not only are they against Atlantic Canada, they voted against the most important economic instrument that favours Atlantic Canada. That is what the Liberal Party did.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: My right hon. friend asks for some information. From 1979 to 1984, regional development expenditure in Atlantic Canada averaged $185 million per year. From 1984 to 1989, it rose to $282 million per year. Over the next five years, average spending levels will rise from $282 million to $425 million in Atlantic Canada, an increase of 51 per cent.


ANNUAL CUT OF 25 PER CENT TO ATLANTIC PROGRAMS
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Public Works, by lengthening the application of those programs, has on an annual basis severely cut the programs by 25 per cent. Since the Prime Minister rose to his feet, I would to recite to him, through you, Your Honour, a statement he made to the people of Saint John, New Brunswick, on October 13 during the last general election campaign. These are the Prime Minister's wordg:
As someone who went to high school in Chatham, and to college in Antigonish, I know something about the maritimes. As one whose first seat in Parliament was Central Nova, I feel something special for Atlantic Canada and its needs.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: By the way, that was a rented seat from the current Minister of Public Works.
What special feeling does the Prime Minister have for Atlantic Canada that allows him to slash Atlantic programs by 25 per cent?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my right hon. friend points to a statement made in Saint John, New Brunswick. That is appropriate because in Saint John, New Brunswick, this Government put the frigate contact which is the largest expenditure of public funds ever in the history of Atlantic Canada.


Mr. Gauthier:: That was a Liberal program.


Martin Brian Mulroney: A Liberal program? My hon. friend is asking about Atlantic Canada development to which we attach such a great deal of importance. ACOA was established and at the end of a period of time, it is appropriate to find out whether it bore fruit. Since September of 1984, and my right hon. friend is wrong, expenditures in Atlantic Canada have increased very substantially, not decreased. There has been an increase. As well, 34,000 more jobs have been created in Newfoundland, 9,000 in Prince Edward Island, 43,000 in Nova Scotia and 39,000 in New Brunswick. That is regional development.


THE BUDGET
Mr. George S. Baker (Gander-Grand Falls):: Mr. Speaker, the Budget has not been good to Atlantic Canadians. We have seen an increase in the long distance telephone tax. We have seen an increase in the income tax. We will see a new sales tax coming in at the end of the next year. We have seen cuts in health care. We have seen cuts in education. Now we see cuts in regional development agreements for Atlantic Canada. Whenever the Prime Minister mentions that a thief stole the Budget, Atlantic Canadians say, "Too bad he didn't keep it".
I want to ask the Minister responsible for regional development agreements what exactly did the Minister mean when he said last night:
The provinces will be asked to shoulder a greater part of the burden.
We are not necessarily going to go ahead on the same basis as before.
What is the new deal? Is it 70-30 as we always had? Is it 60-40? Is it 50-50? The provinces have been paying 100
!

May 16, 1989

per cent since March 31 waiting for a signature from the Government. Why is the Government treating Newfoundlanders and Maritimers like poor cousins waiting for a package of hand-me-downs from Uncle Ottawa?


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, with apologies to the late Ogden Nash, I would say that one thing the Hon. Member's questions would be very much the better for would be a more restricted use of simile and metaphor.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: You can keep the hyperbole. I do not need to shout, Mr. Speaker. I have the facts on my side.
One thing that has been cut in Newfoundland is the rate of unemployment, and my friend knows that there are 26 ERDAs still in effect in Atlantic Canada with a value of $260 million. The Government will continue to negotiate with the provinces after we decide what proportion of funds we will deliver directly after we talk to our provincial colleagues and see what their priorities are. As I said before, and as the Government has said, we are very much committed to economic assistance for Atlantic Canada.


VIOLATION OF MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING
George Baker: Mr. Speaker, in these Budget cuts, the Government has violated a Memorandum of Understanding. This Memorandum of Understanding was signed with each one of the four Atlantic provinces in 1984 and was to last for ten years. The Memorandum of Understanding, the MOU, says:
The term of this agreement shall be from the day of its execution to March 31, 1994-this agreement may be terminated-by either party giving to the other at least two clear fiscal years' notice in writing thereof.
How can the Government violate a signed ten-year agreement, a Memorandum of Understanding an MOU? The MOU has become an IOU and Atlantic Canadians say shame on you.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, under the Liberal Party, it was a COD.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, I want to tell my colleague again that there has been no violation of any MOUs or
Oral Questions
any other agreement. We are still prepared to organize ourselves and to deal with our provincial colleagues on the same basis as before, but we are asking their co-operation and their input. They will see, as they have seen in the past, that this Government has the best interests of Atlantic Canada at heart.


REGIONAL ECONOMIC EXPANSION
Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a very serious question of the Minister who is responsible for AC AO. When we asked him last month about regional development cuts, he said to this House of Commons, and I quote:
This is an absolute lie which has been put out.
Last night the Minister came to committee and he told committee there had been $80 million cut from ERDA grants for Atlantic Canada. He also told committee that he had to stretch his ACAO action plan from five years out to six and a half years. This is very clearly a cut. It is very clearly a case of the absolute lie turning into the truth after his first free trade Budget. I ask the Minister, is he prepared to stand up and apologize to this country for misleading Atlantic Canada and all Canadians?


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, the Member's knowledge of Atlantic Canada is betrayed by the fact that he calls this organization ICAO which I thought was the International Civil Aviation Organization. It is ACOA.
Second, I want to tell my colleague that there were no lies of any kind. I don't know what he is talking about, and he should know, if he paid attention to the committee, that we have had to reprofile our spending but at an absolute higher level than was ever the case before because, as the Minister of Finance pointed out, it is incumbent upon this Government to do something responsible to deal with the horrendous debt problem in this country, in case he has forgotten about that.
As far as our commitment to regional development in Atlantic Canada, I want to remind him, as the Prime Minister has reminded his other colleagues, that this Government has a level of assistance available for

May 16, 1989
Oral Questions
Atlantic Canada that is far in excess of any that was available before from any government in Ottawa.


CUTS IN PROGRAMS FOR ATLANTIC CANADA
Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister who is obviously responsible for newspeak in this Government, the Minister who is responsible for telling us that reprofiling means something other than cuts, how he can justify standing up in this House and still trying to persuade Canadians that what he is doing is something other than a savage attack on Atlantic Canada and the people in Atlantic Canada?


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, only a socialist could possibly interpret as a cut that which is an increase over the next five years of many, many millions of dollars compared to previous levels of spending. I do not know how he does that. Maybe after he explains that to me, I will be able to give him some more information.


Steven W. Langdon: In fact, it is the Minister who last night told us how his own Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency was going to have to cut the aid to every part of the economy which it has provided.


IMPACT OF BUDGETARY CUT-BACKS
Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, I have another question for the Prime Minister. We have heard there are a lot of cutbacks in the offering for the Atlantic provinces. What I want to know is this: Will the same apply to other parts of Canada? What cutbacks in regional development are being planned for other parts of Canada, considering the cutbacks we have now seen in the Atlantic provinces?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the Minister just explained there have been no cutbacks in that area. In fact, as far as the Atlantic region is concerned, there has been a major increase in funds for economic development. And the same applies to Western Canada under the Western Diversification Initiative, another important federal program. In any event, I think the Hon. Member must be interested in the results since he was talking about the Atlantic region. From 1984 to 1989, the unemployment rate in Nova Scotia dropped from 13.8 to 10.4 per cent; in New Brunswick, the unemployment rate dropped from 16.3 to
12.1	per cent and-last but not least! -in Newfoundland, the unemployment rate dropped from 23.5 to 14.5 per cent. Not bad, eh!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Martin Brian Mulroney: And one major reason for this economic growth is programs like the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. These programs have been receiving more and more federal funding.


FISHERIES
Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, 1989 may well go down in history as the year the fishery died in Canada. In February, the Minister of Fisheries, who I am glad to see back in his seat-


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Roger Simmons: The Minister of Fisheries reduced northern cod quotas by 40 per cent in March. Unfortunately he knuckled under to the Prime Minister who wanted to cave in and did cave in to the French demands. In April, the Finance Minister drove up gas costs for fishermen by 18 cents a gallon. Last week the National Sea backed cuts, and now the cod review panel wants further cuts. In view of the dire consequences of all these actions and events, will the Minister of Fisheries now tell the House what specific contingency plans he has to ensure that the fishing industry does not completely collapse in Atlantic Canada?


Hon. Thomas Siddon (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Hon. Member for his kind remarks. I will undertake to appear before the Standing Committee next week to describe in detail the plans which he has asked me to enumerate today. In the short space of Question Period, I can but tell him that the Government is extremely concerned about the trend in declining quotas, particularly in the Scotia Fundy region, and the situation that presents itself with regard to the northern cod stocks. I will be making a fuller response next week as to improved measures of enforcement and scientific assessment to deal with the stock question, but at the same time the Government and several Ministers are working on a comprehensive initiative to deal with the genuine human hardships that
May 16, 1989

will occur in the coming months if we do not address this question as a high priority.


ALLEGED GOVERNMENT MISMANAGEMENT
Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, what do you say to thousands of fishermen and plant workers whose livelihoods are being wiped out by this Government's mismanagement and its lack of policy on foreign overfishing? If the Government is as bankrupt of ideas and plans as is suggested by the Minister's answer, maybe it would consider a suggestion or two. How about biting the bullet before our fishermen become an extinct species in this country? How about extending Canada's jurisdiction to the nose and the tail of the Grand Banks? What does he think of that idea?


Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, first I want to assure the House that the situation is not nearly as dire as projected by the Hon. Member. Second, I want to point out that under this Government we have in fact eliminated all foreign fishing on non-surplus stocks in Canadian waters with the exception of a small quantity for France which happens to be less than 40 per cent of the quantity of fish that was allocated to France under the Government of which the Hon. Member was a part for many years.


Some Hon. Members:: Shame, shame!


Thomas Edward Siddon: Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, it was that same Government that entered into an agreement with France granting France undefined and perpetual fishing rights in Canadian waters. It had the opportunity to address the question of an extended jurisdiction in 1976 when the 200-mile limit was proclaimed, and it failed to do anything about the problem at that time.


OVER-FISHING BY FOREIGN VESSELS-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Mr. Fernand Robichaud (Beausejour):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. I am very glad to see him in good health.
The fishermen and the fish plant workers-men and women-are facing a disastrous situation. Such a situation is unprecedented. There is no more fish to catch.
Oral Questions
The Minister knows that foreign fleets are overfishing ten times their quota outside the 200-mile limit. These ships are plundering our stocks.
My question for the Minister is: What extraordinary measures does the Government intend to take immediately to stop this plundering of this resource which belongs to the fishermen and plant workers in the Atlantic region? What immediate measures does it intend to take?


Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question. It would be inappropriate to suggest that the problems of declining stocks and excessive processing capacity are all to be laid at the doorstep of foreign vessels fishing beyond Canada's 200 mile limit.
The Government is taking that problem very seriously, as was reflected in an undertaking contained within the recent Throne Speech. Ministers, including the Minister of External Affairs, the Minister for International Trade, and myself are developing an enhanced strategy to deal with the problem of foreign over-fishing.
I must repeat that the problem of declining quotas is not as severe as the Hon. Member indicates. In fact, in his region, the Gulf region, the quotas are relatively stable. The problem is concentrated in South West Nova, largely because of domestic over-fishing, and on the northern cod stocks for biological reasons which I will more fully explain next week.


JOB LOSSES-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Fernand Robichaud: My supplementary question is for the same Minister. I am very disappointed. The Minister does not seem to understand the gravity of the situation.
How can one explain this to workers who are losing their jobs and to fishermen who have no more fish to catch?

The Minister knows that this situation is brought about because of the over-fishing by foreign fleets.
Will the Minister and the Government consider taking trade sanctions against those countries that do this

Oral Questions
over-fishing? Those countries are behaving like pirates and we cannot let them continue that practice. Will the Minister consider trade sanctions?


Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, it is not within my sole authority to deal with the question of trade sanctions. I should point out that it is an inappropriate suggestion to imply that the declining stocks problem in Atlantic Canada is due solely to foreign over-fishing.
It was this Government that removed all foreign fishing on our non-surplus stocks from Canadian waters, a practice the previous Liberal Government permitted for decades, and which the Government ended.
With regard to sanctions, I ask the Hon. Member to consider the impact on lobster exports or salt-cod exports to the European market, if we were to do what he is recommending at this time.


QUOTAS-NEGOTIATIONS WITH FRENCH AUTHORITIES
Mr. David Barrett (Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca):: Mr. Speaker, I too would like to welcome back the Minister of Fisheries who was absent from the House because of an illness. I hope he has returned fit and well to continue his service to this Chamber.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


David Barrett: I wanted to address my question to the Minister for International Trade, but I am forced now to address it to the Minister of Fisheries.
Can the Minister tell the House whether or not during the negotiations with the French authorities for additional quota or a resolution through arbitration for a quota settlement, was any presentation made to the Canadian Government before or during the process of negotiation by industry spokespersons, or persons in general, and National Seafood in particular? Was their position given to the Government before or during those negotiations about the position that Canada should take relative to their industry from their point of view?


Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, the answer to that question is quite simple. Since early 1987 when Canada initialled an agreement to proceed to negotiate a referral of the St. Pierre and Miquelon boundary issue to an international court of arbitration, there has been a continuous and
unbroken dialogue with the fishing industry in Atlantic Canada and with affected provincial Governments.
Yves Fortier acquitted himself with great skill and dexterity in concluding an historic agreement with France on this matter. He took every measure necessary to involve and consult with the industry throughout that period.


ACQUISITION OF FRENCH PROCESSING PLANTS
David Barrett: Mr. Speaker, I take it from the Minister's answer that he is confirming that National Seafood, together with other parts of the industry, were a part of the consultative process in arriving at an agreement.
I would like to put the following question to the Minister. I would like him to listen very carefully, and consider his answer very carefully.
During those negotiations, was the Minister aware that, in August of 1988, National Seafood Products made a bid on two fisheries entities in France? One of them was Bretagne Exporters, which is a marketing agency based in France. The significance of that I will make clear in a moment. The other was the La Surgelation Lorientaise, which is a fish processing plant in France. The offer was made in August, 1988. The purchase was made on January 3, 1989.
Can the Minister assure the House that National Seafood Products, with the information it had in the negotiations, is not now in a position through the acquisition of those companies to buy fish from Canadians and to process that fish in its plants? Can the Minister assure us that the purchase of those French plants do not permit the loss of jobs through the export of Canadian fish to those plants?


Thomas Edward Siddon: When the Hon. Member finally got to the question, Mr. Speaker, and if I understood it correctly, the Hon. Member was suggesting that the Government should not have consulted with representatives of the Canadian fishing industry. I must also indicate that the details of Government strategy were not at any time disclosed to the industry, although its advice and input was sought.
National Sea Products is an international fishing company which markets our fish products around the world. We do not encourage or allow the export of raw fish to Europe for such purposes. If such an acquisition was in fact and indeed made it was for the purpose of
May 16, 1989

selling more fish to the European market, for processing it in Atlantic Canada, and producing more employment and income to Canadians and Canadian fish plant workers.


COPYRIGHT ACT
Robert E.J. Layton: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Communications. The copyright legislation, Bill C-60, adopted by Parliament last summer, could have negative impacts on the visually handicapped and their institutions, including the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, the Montreal Association for the Blind, and Institut de Nazareth/Louis Braille.
Can the Minister assure the House and all Canadians that an exception for the handicapped will be introduced in phase two of the copyright amendments?


Hon. Marcel Masse (Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question and it is veiy important for those affected. It is now the subject of meetings and negotiations among the parties concerned. There is every reason to believe that an exception for the handicapped, including the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, will be part of the second series of legislative amendments that in all probability will be tabled in this House next fall.


REGIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Ronald MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister who is supposedly responsible for Atlantic development. Over the last 24 hours we have seen the true Tory agenda for development in Atlantic Canada unfold. We have seen the Minister responsible for Atlantic development play a game of hide and seek with the true figures for the
Oral Questions
funding for ACOA until he was forced to admit in the dead of night to a savage 25 per cent cut.
Given the fact that on March 31, some $720 million worth of regional development agreements for Atlantic Canada were allowed to expire by the Government, will the Minister stand in his place today and give the House the real figures on what his Government has allocated for the ERDA renewals for this year and the coming four years or will this cruel shell game dealing with the future of Atlantic Canada be allowed to continue?


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, I expected that the Hon. Member would have pointed out again at a time when there are a few problems with the fishing industry that this Government has allocated half a billion dollars to flow into Atlantic Canada through ACOA at a time when it is most needed.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: In the Member's own riding, for example, just so he knows, 536 jobs have been created with an estimated total eligible cost of $52 million and 179-


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


Some Hon. Members:: More, more.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member is calling for order. The question was at least argumentative and I think the Minister is allowed to come back with some figures.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to be argumentative with my colleague. I know that he is interested, as we all are, in regional economic development. I just want to point out to him that this Government has done a very good job in promoting economic development in Atlantic Canada.
Let me also point out that the Premier of Nova Scotia was attacked by the Opposition Parties there when he did a very good job in very nearly balancing his budget. They said he could not have done it if it was not for transfers from Ottawa. They should get their act straight.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Ronald MacDonald: This is funny math. It must be Tory math when cuts mean more for Atlantic Canada. Atlantic Canadians know how to add and they know there was some subtraction done last night.

May 16, 1989
Oral Questions


EXPENDITURES IN ATLANTIC CANADA
Ronald MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the same Minister. He knows that he is supposed to be the voice for Atlantic Canada in his Government. Instead, he has allowed himself to be the mouthpiece for a Government that is intent on destroying the economy of Atlantic Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: I think we should take a look at the time. There are still a lot of Members who want to be heard. Preambles perhaps do not need to be quite as long as they might be at the beginning of Question Period. The Hon. Member.


Ronald MacDonald: Does the Minister stand by his statement that he made in the committee last night that maybe his Government has spent too much money in Atlantic Canada? Can he tell us where in Atlantic Canada he thinks his Government has spent too much money? Is it in Summerside, P.E.I.; is it Lockeport, Nova Scotia, or is it Gander, Newfoundland? I would like the Minister to clarify what he said last evening.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, I would like the Member to clarify what he has just said because, as he knows and the Minister of Finance has pointed out, this Government cannot sustain a half billion dollar a year expenditure on regional development. That is an unprecedented figure. What we can and will sustain is an amount well over $400 million which is an unprecedented high level over the last 10 years for Atlantic Canada.


JUSTICE
Claude Girvin (Girve) Fretz: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Justice. Charles Ng who faces charges in California for murder and kidnapping in a series of 12 brutal killings has been in Canada since 1985. When will the Minister bring in amendments to Canada's Extradition Act to provide for the swift expulsion of accused killers like Ng?


Hon. Doug Lewis (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, the case in question is
still before the courts. The House will know that extradition and the process balances our obligations under treaties, our obligations under the Extradition Act and due process of law. The Government will continue to follow all obligations in this case.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Mr. John Harvard (Winnipeg St. James):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Defence. The closure of CFB Portage will have a destructive impact on Portage la Prairie. In fact, there is a delegation from Manitoba here in Ottawa today to meet with the Government and fight the closure.
Will the Minister tell the delegation that he now realizes the destructive impact of his decision and that he will indeed reverse that decision?


Hon. Bill McKnight (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, as I and other colleagues have informed the House, when the Budget was brought down, with the necessity of the Government to attack a deficit that was crippling Canada, all Departments made a contribution to that effort. The Department of National Defence also made a contribution.
The reductions that took place in stations and bases, and the closures, took place because of the necessity to acquire additional efficiencies and not to jeopardize the military operations of the Government of Canada. If the Member is suggesting that we should continue with bases that do not have military impact or efficiencies, I suggest to the Hon. Member that the Government feels that is not appropriate.


DELEGATION FROM PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE
John Harvard: Mr. Speaker, I take it that he will not reverse his decision. I just want to point out that the delegation from Manitoba had to come to Ottawa because he does not have the guts to go to Portage la Prairie to face his own troops and meet the people-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Trinity-Spadina.


EMPLOYMENT
Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Employment and Immigration. Today with my colleagues I joined a demonstration of 150 workers who will be laid off or are being laid off as a result of plant closures announced since the election and the trade deal finalization.
These workers and their unions are worried about the Government's unemployment insurance cuts on top of all that. Many of them suspect that the Government's impact studies already show that women and immigrants will be hurt very badly.
Will the Minister tell the House why she has flatly refused to release those impact studies which were promised to Members of Parliament early in April? What is she trying to hide and for how long?


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I did indeed say that I would issue the impact studies. We will probably be doing that during the legislative stage, once the Bill is tabled in the House and we have an opportunity for discussion in committee and at second reading. I am sure the Hon. Member will be pleased with what he sees because we will see better training programs for immigrant workers, better training programs for older workers, better training programs for laid-off workers that will help exactly the people he is talking about.


METRO SKILLS AND EDUCATION TRAINING CENTRE
Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, I am glad the Minister spoke about retraining programs because my supplementary question concerns the Metro Skills and Education Training Centre which for the last two years, partly with federal Government assistance, has been helping workers who were laid off to upgrade their language skills, mathematic skills, and become suitable for retraining in the modem time, with an 86 per cent success rate. Many of the workers concerned with that training are here today.
When the community of workers is trying to solve the problem caused by lay-offs, why is the Minister cutting off that solution by cutting off the money?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, I want to make two
Oral Questions
things clear. First, my Department and my staff are always willing to look at alternative forms of funding for projects that are no longer eligible for particular kinds of assistance.
I also want to make it very clear that this project was funded under the Innovations program, which is a program that funds things temporarily. It is made clear to people from the beginning, when they come under the Innovations program, that when the time is up, the program will have to be reassessed for alternative forms of funding. We have not received any formal request for alternative forms of funding in the form of a proposal.
Having said that, my officials and my office are meeting with the Metro Labour Council this afternoon. We recognize that they have done some good work. There is other good work in other programs. At the beginning of this project the people involved knew that after the Innovations period was over the funding may well cease.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF LEADER OF NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF MANITOBA
Mr. Speaker:: I want to draw to Members' attention the presence in the gallery of Mr. Gary Doer, Leader of the New Democratic Party of Manitoba.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
Mr. Speaker There will be a single question from the Hon. Member for Cape Breton-The Sydneys, followed by a single question from the Hon. Member for Churchill.


THE BUDGET
Mr. Russell MacLellan (Cape Breton-The Sydneys):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. The Small Explorers and Producers Association of Canada has written to the Minister criticizing him for, in particular, singling them out for harsh treatment in the Budget. The letter is dated May 9.

May 16, 1989
Borrowing Authority
His arbitrary action in cancelling the Canadian Exploration Development Incentive Program will mean that there will be $250 million less of planned development next year. The large corporation tax will hurt these small corporations because it is a tax on assets.
When these corporations went to the Minister for assistance why did he think that he would assist them by confiscating their assets?


Hon. Jake Epp (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, I want to remind the Hon. Member of two things. He refers to the CEDIP regulations and the legislation that included the six-month clause. In the past the Government observed this six-month clause.
There are two things which the Hon. Member should remember. The first is the extraordinary circumstances in respect to the Budget and the deficit that we had to address.
The second is that if one takes a look at the projected expenditures that were in place for CEDIP, which were well known in the industry, and the amount of expenditure that has already been applied for, the expenditure is well over $1 billion. If he takes a serious look at when CEDIP came into place and price of oil at the time and the price of oil today, the Hon. Member will find that not only is it fair but what the Minister of Finance did in his Budget made a lot of sense.


TRANSPORT
Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport.
Last night at a closed meeting of the all-party committee of the Manitoba Legislature on the Port of Churchill his provincial counterpart said that the federal Minister would not commit himself to the long-term future of the Port of Churchill.
In addition to that I have been told that Ports Canada has not called back the workers for this season, something which is usually done by now, and that for the first time in history the port may not receive any grain whatsoever for shipping. Will the Minister confirm or deny that this is the case?


Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, as a matter of fact, I met last week with the Minister of Transport from Manitoba, Mr. Driedger. We agreed together that it was unlikely that we could have any shipments of grain through the Port of Churchill this summer, but that we were ready to look at the future of the port. Officers from my Department and the Department of Transport of Manitoba will do that next fall.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Wilson (Etobicoke Centre) that Bill C-ll, an Act to provide borrowing authority, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
Mr. Speaker:: When the House rose at 1 p.m. the Hon. Member for Markham (Mr. Attewell) had the floor.


Bill Attewell: Mr. Speaker, I had pretty much finished my remarks, as you will recall, prior to 1 p.m. When the House settles down a bit I would like to deal with questions from Hon. Members.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I have a question to ask of my hon. friend. In his speech he referred on a number of occasions to the concern that the Government has regarding the country's deficit. I wonder if he would share with the House his thoughts on the appropriateness of introducing a minimum corporate tax along the same lines as the American administration did in 1986. It is a method to raise additional revenues that could be used to reduce the deficit.


Bill Attewell: companies in certain industries agree, that they should be bearing a fair share of the tax burden.


Mr. Wilson (Swift Current-Maple Creek-Assini-boia):: Mr. Speaker, I want to make a comment and direct a question to my hon. colleague from Markham. The comment relates to the composition of the annual deficit. It is interesting to note what has happened over the last five years.
The year 1984-85 was the last year the previous administration was in charge of the country's finances. In that year the deficit reached a record $38 billion of which $16 billion represented program over-expenditures and $22 billion represented interest on the national debt which at that time was $200 billion.
Since that last year the program over-expenditure aspect of the deficit was reduced to $9 billion during the first year, the 1985-86 year, to $4 billion the next, and since then it has been in surplus.
In other words, the Government is actually taking in more revenue than is required for program expenditures. The excess money goes toward servicing the debt, that is, paying interest on the national debt. Unfortunately, that figure continues to mushroom owing to that legacy, that $200 billion that was left to us by our predecessors.
Has the Hon. Member heard anything from the Opposition in this debate that is constructive and can help with the problems we face? Interest is going out of sight. It is obvious we have to take in more revenue and we have to spend less. There are no other options, no other alternatives.
Has the Hon. Member heard anything at all of a constructive nature from the opposition Parties? I particularly recall some comments made by the Hon. Member from Etobicoke North (Mr. MacLaren) who suggested the very things that the Minister of Finance has done. I believe in fact that the Liberal finance critic suggested that there be program reductions and some tax increases, and that there is no other way to do it. It appears he is being contradicted time and time again by those who have contributed to this debate.
Has the Hon. Member from Markham been disappointed with the alternatives and the suggestions that
Borrowing Authority
have been forthcoming from Members opposite, with the exception of the Hon. Member from Etobicoke North?


Bill Attewell: Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question. The short answer is no, I have heard very little in terms of constructive ideas. The Hon. Member for Etobicoke North I think did speak up either in a book or an article about the fact that people earning higher incomes need not really enjoy the full family allowance or even the pension benefits.
I will just quote from a Globe and Mail article dated May 16, 1989.
The reality of the taxback is that it reduces the government's outlay by isolating those Canadians who can most afford to pay. Taxpayers whose net income (minus any tax payable) is at least $50,000 will pay back part of their benefits; those who earn more will pay back more.
To answer directly, I think this is the concept that the Hon. Member from the other side had in mind.
There is another article, Mr. Speaker, dated April 28. The title is "Impact of Income Thx Changes Greatest on Affluent Families". In my remarks before lunch I spoke about some of the objectives that the Hon. Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Timer) mentioned during his days before he returned to Parliament, and that of course was filled with common business sense. When there is more money going out than coming in, some responsible action has to be taken to reduce that outlay. In a nutshell, that is really what this Government is facing.
I do want to take issue with some of the simplistic solutions that Members opposite have put forth. It concerns part of the debate on the growth of the debt. Yes, the Opposition is not totally responsible for every dollar of the accumulated debt.


An Hon. Member:: Just about, though.


Bill Attewell: But anybody that knows something about business and how it works, when things are going wrong, you just do not turn the tap and it turns off. As a matter of fact, the increases in debt got so out of hand and the deficit got so mismanaged that it became a virtual forest fire, and we know we do not put a forest fire out in a couple of days or a couple of weeks. So Canadians are paying the price for that 20 years of mismanagement. The men and women in our Government are facing it as a responsible government. I am proud of the way the

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Finance Minister is tackling it but I am getting a little restive or tired, Mr. Speaker, of these simplistic notions.
Members over there have many years of experience and they know better than the misleading statements that they have been making over this Budget debate and the borrowing bill debate.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated. Debate. The Hon. Member for Kenora-Rainy River.


Mr. Robert D. Nault (Kenora-Rainy River):: Mr. Speaker, the Government is asking Members today to adopt Bill C-ll, giving it the authority to borrow $24.8 billion. Members on this side of the House obviously cannot support this legislation, and let me tell you why.
Since the tabling of the Budget last month, constituents in Kenora-Rainy River have been flooding my office with telephone calls, asking me how this Government can be so insensitive and inconsiderate.
Many of my constituents recognize the need to reduce the deficit, but they feel that doing so at the expense of those less fortunate is a serious error in judgment on the part of this Government. My constituents also believe that this Government could have reduced spending. Instead, the Government is asking to borrow billions and billions of dollars.
I never thought it possible for a government to tax dreams but obviously I was wrong. This Government has broken so many promises, it is no wonder that Canadians have become skeptical of the political process. This Government has put an end to Canada's unique social programs. It has jeopardized Canada's unity by slashing funds to VIA Rail. It has threatened regional development programs, and the list goes on and on. Many Canadians are skeptical and cynical towards elected representatives today because of these broken promises.
If the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) had been doing a good job in managing the Canadian economy, he would have known prior to the last election that the deficit and public debt were out of control. The Minister could have used his influence and prevented the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) from making promises he could
not keep. He would not be asking Members to approve a borrowing authority of some $24.8 billion.
The threat to Canada's social programs is real. This Government promised to maintain the sacred trust of universality. Instead, the Minister of Finance has once again decided that senior citizens are second-class citizens. This Government is taking advantage of the vulnerability of seniors by taxing back old age security pensions. Canadians preparing for their retirement years are now doing so with the knowledge that their future may not be as secure as they had thought.
There are many single parent families in Canada today, Mr. Speaker, earning $50,000 a year and supporting one, two or three children on this salary. In my riding, there are 2,100 single parent families, with over 76.7 per cent of them in the labour force. Fifty thousand dollars is not a lot of money when you are raising children. The Budget measure taxing family allowance benefits for these families is not only unfair, it is criminal.
The Government talks about restraint and the need to reduce the deficit. This Government would be wise to practice what it preaches.


An Hon. Member:: Hear, hear!


Robert Daniel Nault: This Government has just spent some $2.7 million of hard-earned Canadian taxpayers' money to promote this Budget. How can the Government talk about restraint when it spends, spends, spends? This is the kind of government spending that my constituents oppose. Money is being wasted on promoting a Budget which severely affects Canadians.
During the November election campaign the Minister of International Trade (Mr. Crosbie) made a promise on behalf of his Government. He said there would be no changes to the Unemployment Insurance Program. Well, Mr. Speaker, what we have here is another broken promise. This Government has not only made it more difficult for the unemployed in this country to collect UI benefits, it has also withdrawn from the program completely. The Government's commitment to social programs is shameful. This Government, Mr. Speaker, cannot be trusted.
The changes to the Unemployment Insurance Program will cause undue hardships for many of my constituents. Because the riding of Kenora-Rainy River is included in the Thunder Bay statistics, the unemploy-

ment rate of 7.3 per cent is clouded. The 1986 census figures show an unemployment rate of 9.9 per cent. Individuals between the ages of 15 and 24 are faced with an unemployment rate of some 14.8 per cent. It is Canada's young people who will be severely affected by the changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act.
When the Government talks about securing the future for the next generation, it should look at what it is doing to future generations with these measures.
This Government cannot be trusted to pursue deficit reduction in a manner which is fair and equitable to all Canadians. Low and middle-income families have seen their taxes rise faster than taxes on upper-income families. Taxes paid by the traditional family, with one income and two children, earning only a poverty line income, has seen their taxes increase by 61 per cent, compared to 8 per cent for a family making $100,000. Where is the fairness in the tax system?
This Budget is nothing but a Tory tax grab. Once again large corporations walk away without having to pay taxes and Canadian citizens cany the burden. When you combine all the tax increases announced in this Budget, individuals are paying six times greater than corporations. Tax increases totalling some $2.6 billion for individuals, versus tax increases for corporations of $410 million, are not what I call a fair distribution of the burden, nor do I call this tax reform.
The excise tax measures announced in this Budget, and more particularly, the two-cent a litre increase in gasoline prices will contribute further to an already depressed region in my riding.
People from northwestern Ontario pay astronomical prices for gasoline. In Pickle Lake, for example, one litre of unleaded gasoline is sold for 61.9 cents. Two border towns in my riding, Rainy River and Fort Frances are faced with Canadians crossing over to the United States to buy gas at a much lower rate. Many service stations in those two communities are facing bankruptcy as a result.
Residents of northwestern Ontario are fed up with this Government's taxation policies. They want a tax system which is fair and equitable. They are prepared to share the burden, but they are not prepared to carry the burden alone. My constituents have told me that deficit reduction was of primary importance to them. But they also told me that government spending was out of control and that they wanted to see measures which
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would narrow the gap between the rich and the poor. I am afraid, Mr. Speaker, that my constituents have been thoroughly disappointed.
This Government also said it was committed to regional development. The Prime Minister first demonstrated this Government's commitment to regional development when he failed to appoint a Cabinet Minister from northern Ontario. People from northern Ontario are not represented at the cabinet table and do not believe this Government is committed to regional development. The Budget promises to take a special interest in northern Ontario. With this Government's record of broken promises, northern Ontario is not about to believe anything this Government says.
The programs offered by FEDNOR discriminate against the softwood lumber industry in northern Ontario. This industry is in severe financial difficulty. Softwood lumber companies have to pay a 15 per cent export tax on its products. The industry is in bad need of modernization in order to compete in world markets, yet it cannot benefit from regional development programs.
More than 900 jobs have been lost in the softwood lumber industry since the imposition of this tax. Many more jobs are threatened. Why has this Government singled out the softwood industry? Of all industries in the North, this one should be at the top of the Government's priority list when it comes to regional development programs.
Before entering politics I worked for the railway industry. I have seen the deterioration of passenger rail service in this country. The cuts to VIA Rail's subsidy over the next four years will lead to a further deterioration and eventually this Government will destroy VIA Rail piece by piece. The president of VIA Rail was fired because he dared to denounce the policies of this Government with respect to this vital mode of transportation.
Canadians living in rural areas, many of whom live in my riding, fear that VIA Rail will have to abandon routes in their communities. For many, passenger rail service is the only link they have to the outside world. Many people using VIA Rail are seniors and students. Contrary to what the Government says, people are using VIA Rail. One of my former constituents called my office yesterday and said he has not been able to get a

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reservation to head north. Why? Because the trains are booked solid.
The reduction in VIA Rail's subsidy will mean increased fares, a further deterioration of its service to rural areas and lower maintenance standards. The rail industry in Canada is a strong symbol of national unity. To do away with passenger rail service will only weaken the link in the chain and throw one region against the other. VIA Rail needs to replace its antiquated equipment with modem equipment. This will allow it to remain competitive. It must be allowed to keep its fares at competitive rates. It needs to expand its routes in order to meet the objectives of its mandate. This Government does not understand the railway industry and, quite frankly, I do not think it cares.
Many northern and remote communities in my riding have been attempting to get CBC service for several years now. Indian communities whose only connection to the outside world is through services provided by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, have been told repeatedly by Mr. Juneau that due to budget restrictions, the CBC is not in a position to provide any services to these communities. How long will these communities have to wait before they get CBC services?
The Government said it was committed to the growth and development of this country's cultural life. In a questionnaire circulated by the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists, the Conservatives responded by promising to increase CBC's funding in order to help the corporation achieve its leadership role. ACTRA estimates that by 1993-94 the CBC's shortfall in real terms will be in the area of $300 million. There is no doubt in my mind that the CBC will have no other alternative but to reduce services, Canadian programming, and it will be forced to close stations across the country and lay off a significant number of people.
Once again, Canadians in rural areas will be the recipients of these cut-backs. Once again, this Government has broken its promise. The Government claims to be committed to the agricultural industry in this country, yet the Budget measures announced will cut more than $324 million from agricultural programs over the next two years. The most significant of these cuts is to the
Crop Insurance Program. The federal Government is once again attempting to shift the burden to the provinces.
The most frightening thing for Canada's agricultural industry is the complete review of all federal agriculture programs. While a review of programs can be beneficial to a government in making it more efficient and effective, this particular review is frightening, given this Government's track record. It appears that the Government is preparing to overhaul the entire agricultural system in Canada. The primary purpose is to get Government out of the business of subsidizing farmers in an effort to reduce the deficit further.
I have touched on only a few of the key areas which affect my riding. I have only scratched the surface. There is so much to say about this Budget. This Bill, when passed, will approve a borrowing authority of $24.8 billion. Knowing the Government's history of management I am certain it will be back for more.
In the Conference Board's economic forecast in response to the Budget it states:
Virtually no growth is now forecast for the second half of this year and recession is a distinct possibility.
The Conference Board goes on to state that the financial and business communities were disappointed with the federal Budget. They were expecting larger expenditure cuts and less tax increases to consumers.


Mr. Bosley:: Are you for that?


Robert Daniel Nault: I am certain the Conference Board's prediction of a recession will come true. Consumers will once again put their money into savings accounts in order to cash in on high interest rates and they will not spend their earnings on consumer goods and services. The Canadian economy will grind to a halt.
This Government has destroyed the dreams of many Canadians with this Budget and its monetary policies. It says it does not want to hand over this deficit to our next generation. I know that many of my constituents and many more Canadians refuse to believe anything this Government says because there have been too many broken promises.


Mr. Parent:: Mr. Speaker, I compliment the Hon. Member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Nault) on his speech and on the depth of the research that he undertook for it.
The Hon. Member mentioned that there were a great many tax increases and he spoke about their inequity.
I believe he stated that in this Budget it seemed that wealthy corporations were paying much less than their share and that individual Canadians were carrying the full burden. My question is a two-part one. Perhaps the Hon. Member could clarify for me why it is that large corporations seem to get away with not paying their fair share of taxes while middle-income earners keep getting hit again and again.
The Member mentioned something about gasoline prices in northern Ontario. I am appalled to think that one litre of gasoline in the Member's riding would cost 61 cents a litre. Has he given any thought about how these high prices could be brought down and, therefore, shared more equitably among all Canadians? If the Member could address those two questions, I would appreciate it.


Robert Daniel Nault: Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his questions.
Contrary to what people on the other side of the House would like to think, we on this side have a very strong belief that the deficit must be reduced. We believe strongly that it can be done but it has to be done in a fair and equitable manner. One of the problems we foresee in the Budget is that yet again lower and middle-income Canadians are carrying the total burden.
If Members want to look at some statistics, 1.3 million who make less than $25,000 were taxed in this last Budget. Out of a total of 8.3 million households, only 600,000 were from that sector of our population who make over $100,000 a year. That shows that the Government and the Conservative agenda has come through. It has let the rich get off scot-free and made middle and lower-income Canadians carry the burden of paying for the deficit.
I believe very strongly that the deficit has to be reduced. I believe, and my constituents have told me over and over again during the last six months that if we do anything right in the next four years we have to reduce the deficit. But it has to be done in a fair and
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equitable manner. I do not see that happening through this Budget.
In relation to the gas tax, I wrote a letter to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) a few months ago explaining in detail the problems that we were having in Kenora-Rainy River. In border towns different gas stations were closing down because consumers-we cannot blame them-were going to the United States to buy cheap gas. It is a known fact that consumers will save themselves $10 on one tank of gas. As a fair minded individual I can understand why consumers would go across to the American side to buy gas. In essence, the Canadians who live along the border are subsidizing the building of American roads.
I suggested to the Minister that he would be wise to reduce the amount of tax on gasoline in areas with regional development problems, and Kenora-Rainy River is obviously one of those areas. The people of Toronto would certainly be screaming blue murder if they had to pay 61 cents a litre. We have been screaming for a long time over the legitimate problem of gasoline taxes, and we have not received a reply from the Minister as yet. In case he has not heard it from his staff, I will tell the Minister now that it would be more appropriate to reduce taxes in places along the border so that the businesses will not go bankrupt and will pay taxes rather than to let them close down and not pay any taxes at all.


Mr. Fee:: Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the Hon. Member on his speech. He may not believe this, but there are some elements of it with which I agreed. Many of the arguments he made I heard from my constituents fairly recently as well. They were criticizing the Government for the fact that it has not reduced expenditures or attacked the deficit enough, and the Hon. Member said that over and over in his speech. At the same time, he also criticized the Government over and over for the cuts that were made. He cannot have it both ways.
Where would the Hon. Member propose that major cuts be made, cuts that we both agree have to be made in order to enable us to live within our means? It is not enough to say that it has to be done in a fair and equitable manner. We all know that. I want to know what expenditures he proposes we cut.

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Robert Daniel Nault: Mr. Speaker, I will be glad to respond to the Hon. Member's question because I firmly believe that there has been a lot of rhetoric lately and that it would be to our benefit to answer questions as quickly and as explicitly as we can.
On the one hand, the Government is telling the people of Canada that we must reduce the deficit, but on the other hand it spends up to $90 million a year on advertising such things as the Budget and various programs. I would love to have $90 million for regional development in Kenora-Rainy River rather than have it spent on advertisements which say absolutely nothing to me except that we have a deficit problem. I could have told the Government that years ago based on a survey I did in my own riding. Everyone kept telling me that there is a problem with the deficit and that it was rated the number one problem on everyone's hit parade.
Those are the kinds of expenditures that can be cut quickly without any damage to individuals. The Hon. Member criticized my speech because I said that we should reduce the deficit but not certain programs. That is true. I firmly believe that CBC, VIA Rail and unemployment insurance, just to name a few, cannot be cut in order to reduce the deficit. Those are very important parts of what we call the national dream, if there is still such a thing in Canada. The reason I am here is because I believe in the national dream. Those programs have to be maintained.
I suggest that the Government ensure that it starts taxing the individuals who do not pay any tax, the individuals who are getting off scot-free. It is time for them to share some of the burden. I do not mind sharing my portion of it.


Mr. Malone:: Name them.


Robert Daniel Nault: Oh, let us name them. All the big industries do not pay nearly as much as the Hon. Member pays. They pay 6 per cent, and we paid 60 per cent in the last four years. Is that fair and equitable? The Hon. Member for Red Deer told me not to talk about being fair and equitable. I do not mind paying my share, but I suggest that the Government take a look at what it is cutting and who it is affecting when it makes those cuts.


Mr. Loiselle:: Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the Hon. Member on his intervention. I would remind him that in this Budget we have gone to some length to tackle the corporations which he tells us we are not taxing enough. There will be a new tax on large corporations which will bring in $1 billion. This is certainly a step in the right direction.
Second, I would like to remind the Hon. Member who talked about rich people getting away scot-free that he should ask them how they feel about an additional surtax of 2 per cent and 3 per cent in addition for higher income earners. These, I believe, are steps in the right direction. We have been very careful to try to ensure that those who can afford to make an additional contribution to our debt situation do so.
The Hon. Member mentioned advertising. It is very easy to play around with a large number like $90 million, but this includes all the advertising done by government agencies and Departments, and much of it is service advertising. He may have his own views about budget advertising. I respect his position, but when it comes to government services, the CBC and Crown corporations have to advertise services to make the people aware of them. We live in the 20th century and it is very difficult for any organization to ignore that. This $90 million is what we pay in interest in one day. It would not solve the deficit problem. I think the Hon. Member would have to look at larger cuts, and I would ask him where he would cut.


Robert Daniel Nault: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Minister's question. I will try to make my response brief, but he asked three or four questions. I would like to touch on his very specific question about the deficit. The deficit is a big problem for me and for all Canadians. As an old friend of mine who just happens to be Jewish always says, it is better to ask a question than to give an answer, so I will ask the Minister a question and then I will go on with my response.
If this Budget were so well put together and did what it intended to do, why has the deficit gone up, not down? I have difficulty with the concept of short-term pain for long-term gain. In the last four to five years there has been an economic boom in Canada, but we have not reduced the deficit. What will take place when the economy takes a downturn? What will the Government do then.
I think it is very important for the Minister to realize that I will have my chance in government if I stick around long enough. I hope I do and, when I do, I will tell him my ideas and he will have an opportunity to criticize me. The Government has mismanaged the economy in the last five years, otherwise the deficit

would have been reduced by now, considering the economic boom we have had.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret to say that the period for questions and comments is now terminated. The Hon. Member has had 13 minutes of questions and comments.
Under Standing Order 74, this will be the last speaker who will speak for 20 minutes, with 10 minutes of questions and comments. After that, all speeches will be 10 minutes long.


Mr. Jean-Marc Robitaille (Terrebonne):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise again in the House and take part in the debate on Bill C-ll, known under its short title as the Borrowing Authority Act, 1989-90.
Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to get a clear picture of the present budgetary situation if we are to understand what the Budget brought down by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) will do. Canadians have a serious problem: a large and growing public debt. An hour from now, that debt will have grown by $3 million. In just two weeks, it will have grown by more than $1 billion. The interest payments on the debt are also increasing rapidly. Only 20 years ago, just 12 cents of every dollar taxpayers sent to Ottawa went to interest payments. When the Progressive Conservative Government came to power in September 1984, that figure had already increased to 32 cents. This year, 35 cents of every tax dollar will be used to service the debt. The recent surge of interest rates shows how much our huge debt has left us exposed. In just one year, the projected cost of paying the interest on the debt has risen by more than $6 billion. This year alone, interest will cost us $39 billion, and a sudden rise in interest rates would have a devastating effect.
Mr. Speaker, how did we acquire this enormous debt? Quite simply, Canada did it by living beyond its means. The debt put us in an untenable position, and the present Government is determined to take the necessary measures. This Budget acknowledges the fact that maintaining social programs and the standard of living that Canadians want for themselves and for their children
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requires a vigorous debt reduction program. The Progressive Conservative Government has already made considerable progress in this respect. We have succeeded in reducing the growth of the debt from almost 24 per cent in 1984 to less than 10 per cent last year. Despite that progress, the debt is continuing to grow more rapidly than our national income. That is why, considering the urgency of the situation, the Minister of Finance has embarked on this series of budgetary restrictions. We shall proceed with reductions in Government spending affecting a wide range of programs.
Mr. Speaker, the Budget also proposes revenue increases affecting corporate and personal income taxes, sales taxation and the financing of the unemployment insurance program. These debt control actions will amount to more than $5 billion this year and $9 billion next year. The Budget measures will cut the annual deficit in half to $15 billion by 1993-94. Financial requirements, in other words, the money the Government must borrow, will be down from $20 billion this year to $3 billion. As the deficit goes down, the debt will shrink as a proportion of our national income.
Mr. Speaker, it is not easy to reduce the deficit, but the Budget ensures that the total package of measures is balanced, reflecting regional circumstances and placing the greater burden on those who are better able to cany it.
That is why this Budget talks about building for the future, not borrowing from it. That is why this Budget deals vigorously with the main obstacles that separate us from that future, the problems of a growing debt. Successful debt control seems to entail a very high cost, but it is nothing compared to the price we will have to pay if we fail. One of the measures in this Budget, Mr. Speaker, which clearly reflects the balance and fairness of this Budget and this Government, concerns repayment of family allowance and old age security benefits by high-income taxpayers. The Government is spending $30 million more in 1988-89 on direct income support for Canadians than on any other program, and we cannot make significant fiscal progress without examining this area of spending as well.
Canadians 65 and older are entitled to the old age security pension and families with dependent children under 18 are entitled to family allowance payments.

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Regardless of the assistance they really need, these payments are subject to individual income tax.
Mr. Speaker, this Budget proposes to claw-back these payments from high-income Canadians. They will refund old age security and family allowance benefits at the rate of 15 per cent of individual net income over $50,000. The repayments will be calculated on the income tax return and will be deductible in computing the balance of tax payable.
The $50,000 cut-off means that only high-income Canadians will have to repay benefits. Low- and middle-income taxpayers will not be affected.
This measure will be phased in over three years. In 1989, actual repayments will only be one third of the amounts repayable. In 1990, they will be two thirds. Full repayments will only be required starting in 1991.
Once the system is in place, 54,000 old age pension recipients with high incomes will repay all their benefits and 74,000 will repay part. Overall, Mr. Speaker, only 4.3 per cent of all old age pensioners will be affected, with 1.8 per cent repaying all their old age security pensions.
As for family allowances, it is expected that 368,000 high-income families will repay all the allowances received and that 167,000 will repay part. In all, 14 per cent of family allowance recipients will be affected.
This measure is in keeping with the universality of these transfer programs. All eligible individuals will continue to receive benefits, regardless of their income. Those most in need of assistance, Mr. Speaker, will continue to keep all their benefits. Thus social security nets are maintained, while helping to ensure a solid financial basis for social programs in the future.
Mr. Speaker, very recently in this House, we saw the ardent defender of widows and orphans, the Hon. Member for Laurier-Sainte-Marie (Mr. Malepart), rise to defend the rich and thus abandon those whom he has long claimed to defend.
Mr. Speaker, we saw the same reactions from Liberal and New Democratic Members, these Robin Hoods get up in the House and protect and defend those whom they usually consider to be rich. Such hypocrites, Mr. Speaker! And Canadians have been witnesses to this hypocrisy, Mr. Speaker.
And what about the most recent attempt, which I could not overlook today, by the Liberal Senate, once again, to override the will of the people democratically expressed last November 21, by acting again in a way that is unacceptable to the people, Mr. Speaker. This really shows us the rage and frustration of those who not so long ago were responsible for Canada's present financial situation, who believe that power is theirs by divine right and use the pretext of tradition to trample underfoot the democratic will of a whole people.
This also shows us, Mr. Speaker, the need to do some house-cleaning there. When we hear Senator Gigantes say, as he did this morning on the radio: "We want to teach the Government a lesson, to show it that it is misbehaving."
Mr. Speaker, it is not misbehaving to serve the people and to shoulder one's responsibilities as a government and we certainly have no lesson to learn from those people. It is a hostage-taking and again, the hostages are the Canadian people.
It is never pleasant for anyone, any Canadian, to have money taken from them in order to pay off debts. It is not fun for me either and we should certainly not expect people to shout and jump for joy over this situation. Nevertheless, Mr. Speaker, I am banking on the maturity of Canadians and of my constituents who understand the situation very well, who know the causes very well and who are satisfied with the performance of the Government and its Finance Minister who, instead of taking one-shot measures and hiding the truth as our predecessors did, is proposing solutions that will protect and guarantee the future of all of us and will help reach that high level of excellence of which we are capable.
Excellence, Mr. Speaker, does not just happen. It is the reward of hard labour. Only great strength of character makes it possible to persevere, to make efforts whose effects are not perceived, like the movement of the hand of a watch, tireless but imperceptible.
Reaching a high level of excellence is difficult and maintaining it is even harder, for the search for excellence implies continual striving to do better.
That, Mr. Speaker, is the real tradition to which Canadians are attached, values of excellence, values of democracy and the desire for a better, prosperous future.
May 16, 1989

This Budget will give back to this country the freedom of action needed to maintain social programs and our quality of life.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: On questions and comments the Hon. Member for London East.


Joseph Frank (Joe) Fontana: I was interested to hear the comments of the Hon. Member with regard to the Budget, especially how the Government views the situation.
Could the Hon. Member elaborate on the point that much of the deficit and the doubling of the debt which has occurred over the past five years cannot be put squarely on the doorstep of the Government.
As my colleague mentioned, during the best of economic times, and the past six years have been boom economic times for the majority of regions of Canada and for most people, the debt in this country increased from $140 billion to $370 billion. Now, because of mismanagement of resources, the Government wants to transfer that pain not to itself but to the taxpayers, and precisely to those in the middle income group who over the past five years are paying approximately $2,000 more in tax.
Could the Hon. Member tell me how he can truthfully say that the problem is Canadians, that they are living too high off the hog and that everybody has to pull in his or her belt, yet over five years the Government has managed to double the debt in the country? Perhaps the Hon. Member could answer that question, and then I will have another one.


Jean-Marc Robitaille: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Hon. Member for his comments and his question. I would say that the previous Liberal Government increased program spending by an average of 15.1 per cent per year. We, as the Government, brought this figure down to 5 per cent during our first term, and from 1988 to 1993, expenditures will increase by only 3.9 per cent annually.
The Hon. Member-Mr. Speaker, I was asked the same question when I made my last speech in the House and I will give the same answer-seems to be saying that the debt increased by nearly $100 billion, but I may remind him that despite the fact that we reduced the
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deficit by $10 billion, we still have the $28 billion that has accumulated and will add to the national debt.
Mr. Speaker, the growth rate of the public debt was reduced from almost 24 per cent in 1984 to less than 10 per cent last year. For the first time in 15 years, the growth of the debt did not exceed 10 per cent. I think that is a perfectly valid answer. What I find rather amusing, Mr. Speaker, is that the Hon. Member seems to say we are putting the burden of the debt on middle-income Canadians. I find it rather amusing, Mr. Speaker, because I have here an article by the former Liberal candidate in my riding. I think it explains clearly what the Hon. Member is trying to tell me. I will just read a few lines. Mrs. Brouillette, who was the Liberal candidate, said: "I am not a tax expert, but I am entirely opposed to the Toiy policy that takes sides with the poor against the rich." Imagine, Mr. Speaker! I think no further comment is necessary. They keep accusing us of putting the burden of the debt on the poor in this country. The Hon. Member rises in the House and he says that we are putting the burden on middle-income Canadians. A former Liberal candidate and a good friend of the Hon. Member for Laurier-Sainte-Marie (Mr. Malepart), said in the press that the Tory Government was a Robin Hood, and that this was unacceptable. Curiouser and curiouser, Mr. Speaker. I think I will leave it at that.


Joseph Frank (Joe) Fontana: I am not sure I received an answer to my question. Perhaps I will leave it to other Members to ask the same question.
Yesterday evening at the finance committee meeting, Mr. Peters, a senior vice-president of the Toronto-Do-minion Bank, indicated that $5 billion was added to the deficit because of the monetary and borrowing practices of the Government. Keeping interest rates 2 per cent to 3 per cent higher than those of the United States has caused the Government to pay more to borrow money in the short-term money markets and has essentially added $5 million to the deficit in 1988 because I suggest of mismanagement.
The documentation will prove that his analysis has indicated that because of the high interest rate policy of the Government $5 billion has been added to the deficit in 1988, and essentially now the Government is asking middle and low income Canadians to pay for its mistakes. If that is repeated in 1989 through another borrowing

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borrowing Bill the Government will again penalize those in the middle income groups.
In the opinion of the Hon. Member what effect has the high interest rate policy supported by his Government had on the deficit?


Jean-Marc Robitaille: Mr. Speaker, to begin with, I would remind the Hon. Member that in 1982, the inflation rate was 11 or 12 per cent.
The Hon. Member refers to interest rates; he will recall that in my speech, I did say that in the present budget situation, we are very sensitive to interest rates- we are really at their mercy. I think that I already said that very clearly. The matter of interest rates means- and that, I think, Mr. Speaker, shows how vulnerable we are to interest rates with the danger caused by the present deficit and our national debt. Mr. Speaker, as for the national debt, we have no more room to manoeuvre and the purpose of the measures taken in this Budget is to give us back the room to manoeuvre we need to protect ourselves from sudden rises in interest rates.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The period for questions and comments is now over. Before giving the floor to the Hon. Member for Prince Albert (Mr. Funk), I must inform the House of the questions to be raised this evening at the time of adjournment.


PROCEEDINGS ON AJOURNMENT MOTION
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the Hon. Member for Cape Breton Highlands-Canso (Mr. LeBlanc)-Free Trade Agreement-Interpretation of unfair subsidies /Participation of provinces in negotiations-Government position; the Hon. Member for Egmont (Mr. McGuire)-The Budget-Impact of closure of CF base at Summerside, P.E.I; the Hon. Member for Halifax (Ms Clancy)-Status of Women-Funding of REAL Women organization.




[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Wilson (Etobicoke Centre) that Bill C-ll, an Act to provide borrowing authority, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: As I mentioned prior to the speech by the Hon. Member for Terrebonne (Mr. Robitaille), speeches will now be ten minutes.


Raymond John Funk: Mr. Speaker, while it gives me great pleasure to debate the borrowing authority Bill which allows the Government to implement its budgetary plans, I am not pleased to have to talk about the Budget itself.
The Budget was brought to us by millionaire's row in the middle of the night. It introduces the brave new world of free trade in which ordinary Canadians will pay $1,700 more in taxes while big business calls the shots. Even the Government's friends in the forecasting business say that the Budget will cause a recession that will affect all Canadians.
Members opposite know that my constituency of Prince Albert used to be represented by the late John Diefenbaker. It is quite clear the Government has abandoned the legacy of John Diefenbaker and taken up the legacy of Margaret Thatcher. In the next election the words of John Diefenbaker, that the Conservatives were not protected by election laws but by endangered species laws, will again hold true in western Canada.
Anyone who cannot vote NDP will vote either Reform or Liberal in western Canada. There will be very few Conservatives. I have heard deep anger and disgust at the direction the Government is taking. There is a clear feeling that the Conservative Party, which western Canadians nurtured through its years as opposition, has turned its back on western Canada now that it is the Government.
May 16, 1989

My criticism of the Budget is simply that I believe it is bone-headed economics. All Canadians recognize that there is a debt problem and that we cannot indefinitely spend money that we do not take in. We all want to be able to afford future programs.
However, I believe the way to solve this type of problem is to create opportunities for people who do not have those opportunities and are not contributing taxes to the nation. The Government should create opportunities for people who are unable to develop businesses or create jobs so they may have the futures they would like.
There are many people in my constituency who would like to contribute more, but the Government has taken away that opportunity.
For instance, the people in the co-operative sector can contribute much to this country. Forty-three per cent of Canadians belong to a co-op, and 70,000 people work for co-ops. The financial co-ops have $60 billion in assets, while retail co-ops have $16 billion in sales. It is a major sector of the economy that could play a key role, particularly in the post-free trade era, in ensuring that development was sustained in the communities and regions affected by the Free Trade Agreement.
The co-op sector was looking for some help in regard to dividends. Presently, there is a serious disincentive for people to invest in co-ops compared to other forms of business.
The housing co-op sector feels strongly that it was sold out when its commitment of 5,000 housing units was cut to 1,800. The co-operative sector was disappointed that the Government took no action when Ministers responsible for co-operatives identified health and worker co-ops as ways to save money and jobs in this country.
Official development assistance was drastically cut, yet the co-op sector has played a key role in providing international assistance and developing links between Canadians and people in other countries. They helped to ensure that Canada would play its role in the world community. We cannot continue to prosper as a nation if we turn our neighbours throughout the world into beggars.
The community development sector would also like to contribute. One would think a Conservative Govem-
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ment that supposedly believes in self-reliance and initiative would want to encourage groups that help people pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Instead, the Government cut Secretary of State programs which allowed those groups to organize.
The Government also cut ERDAs. The chairman of the Finance Committee stated that according to the Blue Book regional development had not been cut. I consulted the Blue Book, only to find that the Department of Industry, Science and Technology was cut by $150 million. Money for ERDAs was cut by $50 million. Grants and contributions to the Western Diversification Office were cut by $40 million. I realize the Conservatives are saving some money to have a slush fund for the next election, but that is not the kind of development that will help communities.
The old agreements were very useful in developing sectors in my constituency, including forestry, the inland fishery and tourism. They helped the communities take advantage of those opportunities.
Finally, I want to talk about my constituency of Prince Albert-Churchill River. Certainly we want to contribute more because it is one of the greatest areas in the country with the potential for wealth creation. My constituency covers half the area of the province.
But what has the Government done for Prince Albert-Churchill River? It has not dealt with interest rates which are killing small business. How can small business create jobs when interest rates keep rising? How can farmers borrow money to put in their crops, finance new equipment and enhance their farming operations when the Government keeps jacking up interest rates?
Last week I was in my constituency. Not only did I see forest fires, I saw dust blowing in a way that I have not seen in 40 years. Even the oldtimers said they had not even seen dust like that during the dirty thirties.
Not only has the Government not come to terms with how it will deal with this possible drought situation, it has not even finished with the mess it created with the last drought payment. It has come up with only $425 of the $850 it promised. It is trying to shake down the broke provincial treasuries for the rest.

May 16, 1989
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At a time when the farmers in my constituency in Saskatchewan look to the Government for some help and support, the Government is still cleaning up its mess from last year.
I was in Rosthem, the hometown of the Member for Surrey-White Rock (Mr. Friesen), as well as the place I went to high school-


Mr. Friesen:: It doesn't show.


Raymond John Funk: I heard the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) say that the Conservative Party could always be relied on to stand behind farmers in Canada because they always have and always will. He went on to say that the Conservatives would provide twice as much money as any New Democratic Government would.
New Democrats would not be sitting here, with a new drought coming on, still trying to clean up the mess from the last drought payment.
Another cut which affects my constituency is branch line rehabilitation. There is a cut of $48 million in branch line rehabilitation. During the election, Conservative candidates in my constituency promised that the railway subdivision to Paddockwood and the railway from Holbein to Shellbrook would be upgraded if a Conservative Government was re-elected. The roadbeds already exist but they need heavy steel. That has been cut from the Budget. It is another broken promise to the farmers of my constituency.
Next, there are the changes to the Unemployment Insurance Program. There is a lot of seasonal unemployment in my constituency and the cuts announced recently by the Government will mean a loss of some $3.5 million to these unemployed people.
The goods and services tax will have a serious impact on a constituency like mine. Goods and services already cost twice as much in remote communities. The Government will tack on this cost for those people who already cannot afford to pay, and are already paying more than other Canadians.
The co-operative sector wants to help. The community development sector wants to help. The people of Prince Albert-Churchill River want to help pay the deficit. But we cannot do it if the Government keeps cutting us off at the knees.


Mr. Rob Nicholson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to say a few words in this debate on the borrowing Bill.
I have listened with interest to what Members opposite have said about fiscal responsibility. Perhaps they can talk to their friends down the hall, and talk some fiscal responsibility into them. Every minute that they are holding up passage of those warrants is depriving senior citizens and people who depend on government cheques and government employment of their money. That is the way they can begin to help fiscal responsibility in this country. We are talking about borrowing money for the Government of Canada. There has been quite a bit of criticism from Members opposite as to how we got into this situation. It should be pointed out that it is necessary for the Government of Canada to borrow money to meet its obligations.
As the Budget indicated, the deficit for this fiscal year will be $30.5 billion. I think that is quite remarkable in view of the upward pressure on interest rates and the huge responsibilities that fall to the federal Government. This figure is down from the $38 billion annual deficit that we inherited in 1984.
It is important to discuss for a few moments just how we got into the present situation. How is that we are borrowing $30 billion this year? How is it that we had to borrow $38 billion in fiscal year 1984-85?


Arnold John Malone: The Liberals.


Rob Nicholson: The Hon. Member on this side of the House says that it was the Liberals. Of course it was the Liberal Party. Members of that Party are responsible for it.
The game plan of Members opposite is very clear at this point. They are hoping that after four years of not being in office that Canadians will forget. I will tell them what the facts are.


Mr. Duhamel:: Stop the excuses.


Rob Nicholson: The facts are that when we took office in September of 1984 the deficit stood at $200 billion. That is a fact. It is not a partisan comment.


Ron J. Duhamel: Check your figures.

May 16, 1989


Rob Nicholson: Canadians cannot be fooled. They are too sharp. They know that on $200 billion the interest alone is $20 billion the first year, and then it is $25 billion the next. The debt today is over $300 billion. It is all attributable to the previous Government.


Ron J. Duhamel: You doubled it in four years.


Rob Nicholson: I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, what else is a fact. Every cent that the Government presently spends on programs is paid for by the people of Canada in this fiscal year. The only borrowing that goes on in the country is to pay for the Liberal legacy that was left to us in 1984-every cent of it.
Let me deal now with members of the NDP. They were giving a standing ovation to the Liberals for all those years that they were building up that debt. The Liberals were being cheered on by members of the New Democratic Party.


Ron J. Duhamel: The people forgot last time. They won't forget this time.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member for Niagara Falls has the floor.


Robert Daniel Nault: He should go over the falls, in a barrel.


Rob Nicholson: I was just talking about the game plan of Hon. Members opposite. I consider it my role as a responsible Member for my constituency of Niagara Falls to continue to remind people how we got here. It is my responsibility to remind them that how we got into the fiscal mess is because the previous Government took over Crown corporations. The old philosophy was that if it lost money the Government of Canada should own it.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: And if it makes money, sell it off.


Rob Nicholson: We have the spectacle of Crown corporations that lost billions of dollars. There were issues such ajs the scientific tax credits with respect to which officials in the Department of Finance pointed out the problems. They lost hundreds of millions of dollars but they did not want to admit their mistake.
We had in place before 1984 a Government which could not run a lottery without losing millions of dollars. That may be unique in the annals of civilization. However, that was the legacy of the previous Government. I am very pleased to remind Hon. Members of how we got into the situation that we are in today.
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I think what Canadians realize and what Members opposite realize as well is that the only individuals, the only people who are ready to be responsible with the finances of the country are people like the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson)
I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, why I think they think that on the other side. A couple of weeks ago they were all screaming for the Minister of Finance to resign. They did not want to talk about the Budget, they just wanted to talk about trying to get the resignation of the Minister of Finance. I know what happened. They went home on that weekend and found out from their constituents that they were wrong. They found out that Canadians did not want to get rid of the Minister of Finance.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: You are right. They wanted the whole Government to resign.


Rob Nicholson: Canadians wanted the Minister of Finance. They did not want what they had before 1984. That is what they did not want. We have not heard a peep out of Members opposite on the subject since that time. They know, and I think all Canadians know, that the Minister of Finance is the only one capable, with the support of the Prime Minister and this political Party, to put the country's finances back on the rails the way it should have been all the years during the 1970s.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: It's funny you should mention rails.


Rob Nicholson: I do not want to leave the impression that I am placing all this at the doorstep of the Liberal Party. I would like to pass some comments to my friends in the New Democratic Party. I am sure that when they get either to their leadership convention or, I suppose, all the conventions that the NDP have had in the past, one of the things on the agenda will be: "Why do we always lose?" I am sure this is a subject of seminars and workshops for members of the NDP. I am going to give them some advice. I never mind giving advice to members of the NDP because I know that they will never take it. One of the things they might want to consider is this. Canadians are too smart to believe that a Government can continue to spend more and more money even on worth-while projects and at the same time never increase government revenues. Most Canadians know that that will not wash.

May 16, 1989
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I remember during the election the NDP quit talking about the Free Trade Agreement. One of the reasons reported in the paper for that was that the office of the NDP figured out that Canadians felt the NDP was weak on economic issues so they did not want to talk about free trade. I was so happy to hear that because I knew that if I lived long enough I would hear something that came out of the NDP office with which I agreed. They are weak on the economy. The Hon. Member down at the end of the Chamber is making all types of predictions about the Conservative Party disappearing. He only has to look in the mirror to figure out where he and his Party are going to be. They will be down at the end of the Chamber as long as this Chamber exists because they have not figured out that fiscal responsibility is part of political success. This Party knows it and it is going to stay on this side of the House.
It is up to the Government and this Party to do something about the debt. One of the things about which Hon. Members opposite have not come to grips with is the fact that every child in the country is bom with a $12,000 debt. Instead of coming across with constructive solutions as to how to deal with that, or giving support to the Minister of Finance who is trying to run the country properly, they oppose all decreases in expenditures. They oppose all attempts to increase government revenue. Instead, what they are in fact doing is mortgaging the future of our children and grandchildren. I believe that is a disgrace. I believe it is something that Canadians are not going to stand for.
I believe the Government was elected to make tough decisions. I believe we were elected to make fair decisions. It is not easy I know for anyone on this side of the House not to increase spending in areas that we all believe are worth while. It is tough to increase taxes on Canadians but we believe that that is the mandate we have been given. We have been given a mandate that is tough but fair. It is to put the fiscal house of the country back in order. That is exactly what the Minister of Finance has done.


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be able to speak on Bill C-ll. What I want to do is share with all Members here the comments I have received from my constituents over the last few months, particularly with respect to the Budget.
During the election campaign the major issue was honesty and integrity in Government. As I went door to door, clearly, that was the question that was raised most frequently. Frankly, I can tell Hon. Members, and I say this with a great deal of sincerity, the Canadian public is starting to lose faith in political Parties and politicians generally.
They have also spoken to me about the Throne Speech. They feel, and they are not necessarily members of my Party, that there were a lot of old ideas that were rehashed, and that there were repeated statements and announcements to make the Government look good.
For example, we heard before the election about the Centre for Sustainable Development. We heard it mentioned again in the Throne Speech. We look in the Budget and yet we can find no trace of it. We have not heard recently either of the National Centre for Disease Control that was promised for Manitoba, or the research into aging, or the Diagnostic Research Centre at St. Boniface Hospital. We are wondering what has happened to all of those great statements because frankly, there were many Manitobans who had hoped that they might come through.
What is the Budget all about? Canadians, not only in my constituency but people with whom I have talked across the country, have described it as the most massive tax grab that we have ever had in this country. It is a Budget of broken promises and misleading statements. Where is the vision in the Throne Speech or in the Budget? Where can Canadians, the poor, the middle class, the older worker, the seniors, the students, the women and the single parents go for solace? Where do they go for hope, for comfort, for reassurance that things will be better in the future. Clearly, ladies and gentlemen, not to this Government.
It is a Budget of broken promises and misleading information. This Government has practised that with a great deal of skill. Let me share some of these with you that are on the public record. The Government talks about the deficit being over $38 billion in 1984. It forgets to remind Canadians, however, that it was in power for more than half the year. If it had not been, its line would be, of course, "It would be greater than what it was." The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) was saying during the election and prior to that that the deficit was under control. Well, he forgot to say that they had doubled the
May 16, 1989

debt. It will have doubled in over five years. The deficit is higher today than it was during last year, and it is about the same as it was the year before.
Conservative Members like to brag about the 1.5 million jobs that have been created. However, they do not want to tell us where those jobs are and what proportion are part-time jobs. They fail to tell us how many jobs were destroyed along the way, what kind of jobs were removed and what kind of jobs were lost. You know, Mr. Speaker, one of their favourite lines is to blame the Liberals. We just heard it a few moments ago. Blame the Liberals. I know of a young man who is having certain problems right now and he likes to say that it is not really his fault, it is his parents' fault for the way in which they raised him. Well, lo and behold, the Government of the day, if it could not blame the Liberals, most of its Members would have to cut their speeches in half, and frankly, and the rest would not have anything to say at all.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Ron J. Duhamel: This is the Government that tried to deindex the pensions for the aged. It was unsuccessful because the seniors stood up to it. I am proud that the seniors were able to do that. Now the Government comes in with a more clever scheme. It is called clawback. What are people saying about that? Well, initially if one examines it, one feels somewhat sympathetic to people having more money returned. However, if we look into it further, if we realize that if we were to change that figure one little bit, the ravages of inflation of one year will cut that roughly by half.
We also realize that the Government can change that figure at any time, and of course Canadians believe that that figure will change. They remember the Minister of International Trade (Mr. Crosbie) saying that unemployment would not be touched. This is what I mean by a misleading statement. Well, it was not touched, it was mangled. It was destroyed. It is now being paid on the backs of the workers and the backs of the unemployed.
The Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) has received a lot of good comments from his colleagues, and I appreciate that they think so highly of him, but this same Minister-some people call him "Honest Mike"-did say during the election that all of that which was being promised were not promises, they were election commitments. They were within the fiscal framework of the
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Government. Well, let me ask the Minister and his colleagues to tell that to the women regarding child care. Tell that to Canadian people. Ask them whether or not those were in fact commitments rather than promises. You know, Mr. Speaker, it was the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski) who said that VIA Rail would be improved, that all would be rosy for VIA Rail. What has happened? It is another misleading statement. It was another statement that was not carried through. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) said that Air Canada was not for sale. Well, they sold one-half of it and they are about to sell the other half.
The Prime Minister said that they would increase foreign aid and it has been reduced. Many Ministers said that there would be no cuts in regional development. If you believe that you were not at Question Period today, and you have not been listening to what has been happening in western Canada.
This Government said that it would be a fair government. We just heard that comment a moment ago from the Member opposite. Ask the people from Summerside if it is a fair government. Ask the people from Portage la Prairie if it is a fair government. Ask the people from any number of communities across Canada how fair it has been.
What has it done to the commitment to housing? Nothing. What has it done to the CBC? Reductions, gutting it. What has it done to the Post Office? Reduced the service. It brought in privatization and deregulation en masse that are going to cause us all kinds of difficulties.
Look at the area of health and education. There are reductions in transfer payments, reductions in training and retraining, reductions or freezes in student aid. It has made no significant advances in the area of education. I cannot imagine how one could possibly be a Member of this Government and brag. I would not dare brag. I would be too humiliated to do so.
The people of Canada are starting to react to this Budget. Let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, there will be some significant reaction as they get to know more clearly the massive impact that this Budget will have on Canadians. They will be standing up. Some of us think that this flood of information that they have received has been deliberate and it has been confusing people because there has been so much of it. We have been using large numbers with which they are not terribly familiar. Once they get

May 16, 1989
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through all of that, you mark my words, there are going to be reactions that you have never dreamt possible.
The Government has the gall to call its advertising program education. We all know it is not education. Let us call it what it is. It is propaganda.
It is propaganda to try to make us feel guilty about the standard of living that we have accumulated in this country, to try to make us feel guilty about all of the social programs that we have. Government Members have not told us that there are a number of countries in this world that are spending more of their wealth toward social programs. They are trying to pit us against each other in order to come out the winners.
There has been a massive and unfair tax grab. The top 1 per cent are now gaining $3,570, the bottom 10 per cent, $90. The average disposable income is down by 1.4 per cent since 1984. Some people paid tax increases of over 60 per cent. They pretend that education is the cornerstone of competitive society and they have slashed programs in those areas. They have slashed them in a very savage kind of way.

Mr. Speaker, if we look, for instance at education and especially at transfer payments, we see that in 1985, there was a cutback of over $8 billion in the areas of health and education. Another more recent cutback will probably get us down to $4 billion. In training and skills upgrading, we see that over $200 million, originally earmarked for community colleges, has been redirected. On research and development, despite recent increases, the Government is spending only half the amount spent by the United States, Sweden and Japan. Student assistance funding has been frozen, and the criteria have not changed since 1984. In the area of literacy programs, for instance, the Government announced a subsidy of $110 million but didn't say this will be spread over four or five years, and will cover five million Canadians.
That is just a few dollars for every person in need of this training. There is talk of capping post-secondary education grants for Native people. Classes for new Canadians have been abolished and with them the
language training they were receiving. There were also reductions and cutbacks in the multiculturalism program and funding for groups representing women, official language minorities and again, our Native people. And there are some very important items in education.
Mr. Speaker, in concluding, I want to say that the honesty and integrity of this Government are being questioned. There is a growing sense of cynicism across Canada and, I say this in all sincerity, what the Government has done is shift money around. Cutbacks will put the tax burden on Canadians in the provinces and the territories, and we will see that individuals will have to pay more, a lot more!
I know, and I promise you that Canadians are going to rebel against these measures.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I am sorry to interrupt the Hon. Member but his time has expired.


Gilbert Parent: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join in this debate on Bill C-ll, a borrowing Bill through which the Government hopes to borrow at least $25 billion. I must say that through its own incompetence in managing the affairs of this country over the last four years, the Government is indeed mortgaging the future of our youth, perhaps to a degree that will cause the young men and women of Canada not only to lose their exuberance for life but perhaps even their faith in this country.
Young people have dreams, and how cruel it would be to take them all away in one fell swoop. What would this one fell swoop be? It is commonly known as the dastardly Budget. This is exactly what the Government is doing when it cuts back on funds to education, training and research. These cuts lead directly to missed opportunities and, for these young people, to a loss of the fulfilment of their dreams. There is so much promise in our youth. Why is it that they cannot have the same hopes that we had when we were growing up? But, no, this Government chooses to cut back, to take away the tools that they will need for the fulfilment of their hopes.
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Are you aware that after accidents suicide is the second highest cause of death among today's teens, Mr. Speaker? This is a chilling indictment for Canada and I would suggest for the present Government. Education is more than a right. It is an investment.
This Government wants to talk about free trade. I have a feeling that the Minister, who is pushing free trade and the almighty dollar, is looking at this investment in education as only an expenditure. Education must be in line with other aspects of free trade because our young people must compete sooner or later with their American and Japanese counterparts in business.
In my home town of Welland a science fair was organized recently, and this was what The Welland Tribune had to say about it on April 3, 1989:
Environment issues appear to be important to many of today's elementary and secondary school students. It shows in the entries at this year's Niagara Regional Science and Engineering Fair, now being held at Niagara College. Be it recycling, acid rain, the greenhouse effect, cleaning up of oil spills-
I could refer to the one we have just experienced on the West Coast. It continued:
-or keeping our air and water clean, there is a research project or experiment about it.
The interest is so great in this fair that the community has had to impose a maximum participation of 300 entries for the simple reason that there is no more space to display other experiments.
I mentioned that the Government is mortgaging the future of our youth. The least it could do is to give our young the tools with which to work. That is education. By cutting back the Government is taking away the tools of our children.
In spite of this accounting sleight of hand in the Budget, it is obvious that post-secondary funding has decreased under the terms of the present Budget. In fact, we are looking at a decrease here in Ontario of $70 million to $75 million in the year 1990-91 and about $200 million across the country. If this is not taking the money out of the hands of our youth, I do not know what is. I suggest that this Government is seriously short changing our most precious asset, our youth, our leaders of tomorrow.
I see two Members in the House who, like me, are from the Niagara Peninsula. I am sure the House is aware that 75 per cent of the tender fruit of Canada is
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produced in the Niagara Peninsula. Why am I mentioning this now? It is because I want to underline something which has taken place in the very recent past having to do with the Chilean grapes being taken off stands. Two grapes in a shipment of 200,000 cases showed the presence of three-tenths of a milligram of cyanide. The Government immediately took not only Chilean grapes off the shelves but also all vegetables from Chile. What does that have to do with us? This is no more or no less than agricultural terrorism.
Can we imagine what would happen if some deviant dumped some cyanide into a grain car? Our prairie farmers would be devastated. What would happen if someone found a tainted British Columbia apple at Christmas time? Would all the apples be taken off the market? God forbid. What would happen in the Niagara Peninsula if this year someone were to find cyanide in some of our magnificent peaches, cherries, raspberries or strawberries? Would the whole crop be cancelled if only two were found to be tainted? I suggest the drastic over-reaction of the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Beatty) left Canada vulnerable to all sorts of bizarre scenarios and to agricultural terrorism.
Canada's image as a trustworthy trading partner has suffered severely. Some countries are already requesting cash for their produce when our credit was acceptable before.
The impact on consumers when the Chilean grapes were taken off the market was immediate. Consumers paid $4 to $6 per pound for grapes while Chilean grapes could have been sold for $2 a pound. I wonder who pocketed all that extra money. For fruit importers the effects were also immediately devastating and will affect them for a long time to come.
We learned of one importer who had a weekly payroll of $70,000. Some 40 per cent of his business was in Chilean grapes. He sent urgent pleas for help to the Government which went unheeded and unanswered. Importers asked the Government for inspection so that they would not have to throw away perfectly good fruit. In one case the produce from one company had a value of $1 million. A simple inspection could have averted extreme measures and unnecessary loss of money and food. The industry even offered to pay for the inspections, but all urgent appeals to save businesses were not acknowledged.

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I have researched this matter, Mr. Speaker. On April 4, Mr. Art Fisher of Fisher Brothers in Montreal, sent a letter to a Dr. Liston, Health and Welfare, which read:
-the detention orders which were issued only for the older fruits by Agriculture Canada's inspectors state that all fruits are now suspected of violation. Would you be kind enough to advise what tests and efforts, if any, were made by Agriculture Canada or Health and Welfare to confirm these suspicions. Are new fruits the subject of the same suspicion? If so, on what basis?
I would like to know which statutory law governs the alleged violations. Is it a violation of a particular regulation or not? If so, which one?
Aren't these legitimate questions, Mr. Speaker? The writer went on to say:
I feel that I have the right to know under which authority and on what basis you claim to have the right to seize our produce.
I believe that we in this House have the right to know on what basis the Government made this particular decision.
Mr. Fisher and all other fruit importers and producers rightly feel cheated, abandoned and ignored by the Government. Americans sold the same produce and seem to be making money. It should be noted that there was not even one incident of ill effects reported from the consumption of the produce.
I appeal to the House and to Ministers involved not to react so quickly in these cases. Sooner or later we in Canada will be drastically affected by this agricultural terrorism.


Mr. Rod Laporte (Moose Jaw-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on the borrowing Bill which is of concern to all Canadians. The people of my riding are deeply concerned about this Bill. Small businesses, seniors, and agricultural producers all have great concerns.
Interest rates are at an all time high. This is not good for small businesses. It may be good for the people of Toronto and it may help to keep the economy of Toronto down, but it is certainly not doing any good for the City of Moose Jaw and the businesses there. Saskatchewan has the highest percentage of small businesses of any place in Canada. Small business people are drastically hurt by high interest rates.
Small business has been hurt by the recent cuts of $2.6 billion in the unemployment insurance scheme. This has put pressure on not only workers but on small businesses. The unemployment insurance scheme is to be funded solely by the workers and the employers. That will mean that premiums will increase. It is unfortunate that unemployment insurance will have to be funded on the backs of small businesses.
The federal sales tax which will be introduced in the near future will be very disruptive for small businesses. Certainly the tax will remove billions of dollars of purchasing power from consumers. The federal sales tax is a regressive tax in that it hits middle income earners much harder than it will hit higher income earners. When it hits middle income earners, they spend less. Middle income earners spend a larger percentage of their dollars on consumer goods than higher income earners. This will hurt the small businesses of my community as well as those right across Canada.
The Canada Pension Plan has been attacked by the Government's claw back. The pensions of those earning more than $50,000 will be affected. The unfortunate aspect of that is that it is the beginning of the end of universality. The figure is $50,000 this year, but it could easily be moved down. Even if it remains at $50,000, as inflation increases over the years it will affect more and more pensioners. No one on this side of the House disagrees that higher income earners should pay proper and fair taxes, but the tax should be on high incomes rather than on pensions.
The federal sales tax will also hurt seniors. As I said, it is a regressive tax which will eat into the fixed incomes of pensioners. Canadian pensioners live on fixed incomes and many have a difficult time, as it is, managing to get by. A 9 per cent and later on a 10 per cent or 11 per cent federal sales tax will adversely affect them.
Pensioners should not be surprised that the Government did not take them into account when it was drafting the Budget. As Hon. Members will recall this is the same Government which in 1985 wanted to deindex old age pensions. The only reason it backed away from that was that pensioners rose up in great numbers and vehemently opposed that move. In this case, the Government has taken a more tactical route and is removing universality through the back door. This is the same Government that did not consider seniors when it passed the drug patent Act in the last Parliament, an Act which
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unfortunately for seniors will mean higher drug prices. That is most unfortunate not only for seniors, but all Canadians.
The agricultural sector is of great importance to the Moose Jaw-Lake Centre riding. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) indicated in his budget remarks that the situation in agriculture is improving. The Minister, however, has obviously not visited western Canada lately. He certainly has not been to Saskatchewan where last week it seemed as if half the province was blowing away. There are still severe problems in agriculture in western Canada, and the agricultural sector is still going through a very difficult phase.
The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Mazankowski) suggested that producers buy crop insurance. That is all very well, but in the Budget, we note that crop insurance will be cut by $90 million this year and $110 million next year. This will force the provinces, if they wish to continue the program, to increase the funding of the program drastically.
The Government is in the process of dismantling the entire infrastructure of western Canada. In Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba, there is in existence an infrastructure that supports the many small communities and family farms that depend on that infrastructure. A life-style has developed since 1905 when the three provinces were incorporated and the Province of Manitoba was expanded. That life-style has developed an infrastructure, and that is now being dismantled.
The branch line rehabilitation program has been cut. This will cause severe hardships for communities as the movement of grain will become much more difficult and expensive. As well, advance payments have been cut. In the past, farmers could get interest-free loans on their grain. Now they will have to borrow money at present interest rates, making it much more expensive for producers.
Before the election the Government was telling a different stoiy. It announced that there would be a drought payment of $850 million to Canadian producers. That promise was made in a last ditch effort to try to save seats in western Canada. Now, according to the Budget, the Government has come up with only $425 million, half of what was originally promised. This is another example of commitments the Government made which
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turned out to be nothing more than election profiteering.
I have spoken briefly on things that affect seniors, agricultural producers, and small business. The Budget affects all Canadians. It is an unfortunate fact that the average family is now paying $710 a year more as a result of the Budget. Once the federal sales tax is introduced, it will be paying $1,700 per year more. This is a very unfortunate Budget for the people of my riding and for the people of Canada.


Joseph Frank (Joe) Fontana: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-ll, respecting the borrowing authority. This Bill is reflective and indicative of the Government's mismanagement of monetary and fiscal policy.
If we look at the Government's high interest policy and borrowing practices in the 1988 fiscal year, $5 billion was added to the deficit at interest rates two to three points above the U.S. rate. This self-inflicted pain by the Government is now being transferred to Canadian taxpayers. It now wants Canadians to pay for their mistakes. I hope this Government will lower interest rates this year and thereby reduce the borrowing cost and in turn the budget deficit without inflicting such unbelievable pain on the middle and lower income groups.
Just over two weeks ago the House heard the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. de Cotret) deliver an eloquent speech on the Main Estimates and indirectly the Budget. The Minister gave us his vision for Canada, and I will concede that it was a lovely vision indeed: a competitive nation, a caring, compassionate society, a stronger country with healthy viable regions. I was nearly swept off my feet in the moment myself. I spent the rest of that afternoon trying to find the embodiment of these goals in the Budget. Let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, that they are not there. When the Budget axe fell, they were its first victims.
I would like to address each one of these goals and point out the Government's failure to deliver at every step of the way. First the Government called for a competitive nation. This country must be competitive if it is to survive the Free Hade Agreement. If this country is to become competitive, it needs to show a real commitment to research and development. The National Advisory Board on Science and Technology, a Board set up by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) himself, said

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that $500 million at a minimum was needed to ensure our future competitiveness. However, the Conservatives have not even set aside half that much.
We are not headed toward self-sufficiency in research and development. We are going in the opposite direction. In fact the numbers show that we have had the lowest commitment to R and D in the G-7 nations.
Where are those worker adjustment programs that were promised? Where are the training and retraining programs that were also promised? Where is the assistance for small business that was promised? So much for our international competitiveness.
Before the Government took office we used to have a caring and compassionate society. Today, care and compassion have become hollow words. Government members pay lip-service to them, but I do not think that they really believe what they are saying. After all, last week we saw Canada's social programs bludgeoned. Universal social programs are now a thing of the past. The Government no longer contributes to UIC, and the programs that remain are increasingly funded on the backs of the people who can least afford to pay. The Tory Government has ended the universality of care and compassion, too.
All this is supposed to lead to a stronger Canada with healthy viable regions. Somewhere there has been a lapse in logic.
The first few months of this Government's mandate has seen the biggest sell-out of regional development programs that this country has ever experienced. Years from now I believe that the Budget will be seen as the measure that ended the viability of our regions once and for all. This may be a vision to the Conservative Government, but to the rest of the country it is a bloody nightmare.
Government members would have us believe that Canadians are dancing in the streets because of the Budget. The reverse is true. Canadians and Londoners specifically genuinely want to help their country in the debt and deficit crises. They also want the Government to put its financial house in order first. Let us not forget that the best of times it has taxed, taxed and taxed in the
past five years, yet it still managed to double the debt. Figure that out. Canadians have.
Second, Canadians want the burden to be shared fairly, especially by higher income groups and large corporations, not on the backs of the middle class. I applaud the efforts of small business, labour, consumers, women's groups, seniors, and others who are now saying that enough is enough.
I would like to turn my attention to the way the Budget will affect my home Town of London. Looking at it from the point of view of the average London family with a moderate income and a couple of children, the Budget is the largest tax grab in Canadian history. Never before have we asked individuals to pay so much more in taxes than we did in previous year.
Naturally we have the tendency to look at the Budget in terms of one year at a time. Let us look back to when the present Conservative Government first came into office. When we do this, we find that the Budget is just one in a long series of massive tax grabs. When we take all of these together, we see that the picture painted by the current Budget of the Finance Minister becomes even uglier. Tbday, after five consecutive Budgets, the average London family earning $32,000 in 1984 has been clobbered by extra taxes amounting to $680 a year and over $2,000 over that five-budget period. In other words, most Londoners today are having to contribute nine more days of wages to the tax man than when the Ibries first came to office.
If only the tax grab were going to stop there, if only the Government would be content with nine more days of a family's wages. Unfortunately Canadians are not so lucky. The fact of the matter is that the Finance Minister has only just begun to pick our pockets. At the beginning of 1991 we are all going to be hit by a goods and services tax, a 9 per cent tax placed on everything we buy and on every service we use. The Government protests that the tax will be revenue neutral.


An Hon. Member:: What a joke.


Joseph Frank (Joe) Fontana: Yes, it is a joke. We have found out that in fact it is going to be a government money machine that will produce some $10 billion more. In personal terms that represents another $400 a year for every single person, man, women or child or $1,600 for a family of four. The Government has said that some of this money
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will be returned to Canadians through the tax system, but even with this, the bottom line is that the goods and services tax means money out of their pockets.
In the Budget, London has also been hit very hard by the savage cut to the federal transfer commitments to the provinces. These payments are used to help pay for hospitals and post-secondary institutions. London just happens to be one of the most important centres in the Province of Ontario for both of these. London is one of the province's major medical centres. We have several of the finest hospitals and medical research centres in the world. The loss of funding means first that cuts to services are going to have to be made, throwing trained medical professionals out of work, closing top notch facilities and forcing even more of our top workers to move to the United States. Also over time the quality of health care that Londoners deserve will deteriorate, perhaps at the cost of innocent lives.
As for post-secondary education, I would like to point out that the University of Western Ontario is one of the best in the country. However, the school is already functioning with less money than it needs, and further cuts will seriously affect its academic health. A good university takes decades to build, but only a few years to destroy. The damage done by the Government to the University of Western Ontario will affect this generation and probably the next few ones to follow.
Thus far I have been building a case to prove that the Budget of the Finance Minister is wrong-headed and hurtful to the City of London and the people who live there. However, I have been saving the toughest for last. This cut above everything else makes the Budget totally unacceptable to Londoners, that is, the closing of CFB London. It is nearly impossible to zero in on any one reason the base should be kept open, but CFB London has been at the heart and soul of the City of London for more than a century. The links between the Royal Canadian Regiment and the City of London are strong and deep. Many of my constituents have an emotional attachment both to the regiment and to the Wolsley Barracks buildings. It will take more than a leaked Budget to convince us that they no longer have a place in our city.
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The loss of the armed forces base will change London economically, too. There are various estimates about what the base contributes to the economy, but it seems that it is at least $65 million a year. That is a big blow to the economy of any town, no matter what size it is. The closure of the base represents a substantial loss of jobs to the city.
CFB London employs about 1,100 people, just over 700 military personnel and about 400 civilians. Each of these people is presented with a difficult choice. They can either move to Petawawa where the Royal Canadian Regiment is slated to go, or they can become unemployed. Either way, it is a traumatic experience and a tragic one when one knows what it can take to be avoided. Yet, it is clear from the documentation supplied by the Minister of National Defence (Mr. McKnight) that the annual savings to the Canadian Government in wages, operations and maintenance will be virtually non-existent.
In closing I say that Canadians are prepared to contribute toward deficit reduction and the debt, but it must be done fairly and equitably. We can build a strong country, a compassionate country, if in fact we start believing in people, investing in people and investing in our institutions so that we can become more competitive in the world tomorrow.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It being five o'clock, the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.


PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS - MOTIONS   THE ENVIRONMENT PROPOSED CRIMINAL SANCTIONS-VIOLATION OF REGULATIONS
Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena) moved:: That, in the opinion of this House, the Government should provide criminal sanctions against corporate officers who knowingly allow their companies to violate Government environmental regulations or otherwise endanger the health and safety of Canadians.

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He said: Mr. Speaker, I am quite sure most Members of the House, and certainly most Canadians, would like to see M-100 become an item for consideration by the Government of Canada, and that the appropriate new sections of the Criminal Code be drafted and soon passed by the House.
First, I wish to quote from the April 27, 1987 Department of Justice Criminal Law Review. The Law Reform Commission of Canada published Working Paper No. 44 entitled "Crimes against the Environment" in November, 1985. In that working paper the Commission recommended that Canada's Criminal Code should be amended to create a new offence which would make it a crime to cause or create a risk of death or serious bodily harm by acts and omissions which seriously violate environmental protection laws. It also recommended that there should be a crime of causing or risking an environmental catastrophe even in cases where there are no accompanying harmful human health effects.
There have been many recent issues. There have been, for example, poisoned fuel, the Valdez matter, other oil spills, problems with toxic and hazardous wastes, or atmospheric problems. There are many problems that require this type of addition to the Criminal Code.
As recently as May 11, 1989, The Gazette ran an article entitled: "Most Canadians favour tough action on spills". In that article is states:
Stiff fines, criminal charges against senior oil company executives, tougher regulations and a cleanup fund created by a special tax on shipped oil are among measures finding strong public support-
Nine of 10 respondents saw the Valdez accident as a sign that the government should take a closer look at oil transportation and consider introducing tougher regulations. Fewer than one in 10 were happy with current regulations-
Almost nine of 10 Canadians-94 per cent of Quebecers-favour stiff fines for companies that spill oil while shipping. 84 per cent support criminal charges against senior oil company executives if their company is found to be wilfully negligent in observing safety regulations.
Regarding existing Criminal Code sections the Justice Law Review states:
A number of Provinces suggested that a new crime would be unnecessary if existing sections on criminal negligence, nuisance and mischief were more imaginatively used or amended to enable more effective enforcement.
The only gaps noted were: (a) endangerment of human health and
safety, (b) transporter pollution, and (c) protection of the
environment per se.
Recently, our task force in British Columbia heard from Dr. Murray Rankin of the University of Victoria Law School. He had undertaken an evaluation of waste management permits in British Columbia and found that a staggering three-quarters of waste management permits in areas of the province had been in significant non-compliance for more than one year.
We now know that not only industry is involved in not complying with existing pollution control regulations, but the Government often does not do anything about it.
There has been a series of recent amendments around the world dealing with the serious criminal nature of this matter. In Austria, the Penal Code was amended in 1975 adding sections to punish for wilful or negligent pollution. Portugal's penal code creates a crime for public community dangers and general dangers to human life and health or valuable property. Japan's penal code creates a crime for polluting or adding poisonous material to drinking water or water supply systems. In the United States, states such as New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, following the Model Penal Code have as crimes reckless endangering and crimes causing or risking catastrophes.
We very much need similar types of action here in Canada.
I now wish to quote from a Study Paper in the Administrative Law Series of the Law Reform Commission of Canada. At page 29 it states:
Increasingly, legislation is being amended to provide courts with more innovative sentencing options than simply fines or imprisonment, including powers to suspend licenses in default of payment of any fine owed, to order remedial and preventive action and compensation for pollution victims, to require offenders to publicize their offences and pay for the investigative expenses of agencies.
It is time that we started moving in that direction. Rather than having the environment take all the damage and then forcing taxpayers to pay, it is time that we took the type of innovative Criminal Code sanctions that I am suggesting in relation to those who knowingly and wantonly destroy the environment and put public health at risk.
May 16, 1989


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


James Ross Fulton: In the same Study Paper under the heading: "Characterization of the Pollution Offence" it states:
In Canada, prior to the 1970s, courts and legislatures tended to classify offences into essentially two categories: absolute liability and criminal. With absolute liability offences, only proof that the violating act took place is necessary, and a conviction will ensue. The intentions of the accused are not relevant, regardless of whether the offending act was maliciously planned, recklessly negligent, or morally innocent. At the other end of the spectrum, mens rea-a "guilty mind"-must be proven before a conviction for a criminal offence is secured.
At least in relation to the recent criminal conspiracy in relation to poison fuel, I am confident, Mr. Speaker, that you would agree that mens rea could be found.
Under that same heading, it further states:
Characterization of pollution offences as either criminal or absolute liability often determines whether or not an accused will be convicted. If a court concludes that a pollution offence is criminal, so that mens rea must be proven, it can be very difficult to secure convictions, since many acts of pollution are not deliberate (for example, spills) and are perpetrated by corporations (in which case establishing intent for a corporate body can be an extremely onerous task). On the other hand, court characterization of a pollution offence as one of absolute liability means that polluters can be convicted even though they had done everything possible to avoid the discharge.
Prior to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in SaultSte. Marie, in 1978, courts in Canada were reaching inconsistent conclusions- some finding mens rea to be a necessary element, some finding it unnecessary, some providing defences, some not providing defences.
That is why I am suggesting the most broadly based sanctions under the Criminal Code that I quoted earlier.
Under the heading: "Pro-development Tendencies of Government", which is something we must look at very carefully, it states:
For all the media attention it receives, environmental protection often has a relatively low priority in government. This can partly be explained by the fact that, unlike other regulated activities, pollution is usually the by-product of an activity otherwise encouraged by government and society. The extraction and refining of raw materials, the manufacturing of new chemicals and commercial products are activities which are intended to improve our quality of life, and are generally welcomed as such. In addition to the benefits to society, such activities bring many rewards to government by way of personal and corporate tax revenues and the political benefits which flow to governments taking credit for economic prosperity and full employment.
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In Canada, government and industry often have an extremely close relationship, wedded by common objectives, common attitudes and more concrete ties such as government loans, grants and subsidies. Governments are hungry for revenue and employment-generating projects. In this broader context of government-industry partnerships, environmental protection may not receive the priority it should. Departments of environment are usually considered a junior portfolio within Cabinet, in terms of prestige and power-
Bureaucrats may choose to invoke or not invoke a legal instrument provided him or her for reasons which do not reflect problems with legislation, courts, or his or her political masters.
Bureaucrats may resist initiating formal sanctions because this may mean relinquishing control over a polluter to "the lawyers", an admission of failure of bureaucratic negotiatory techniques. Bureaucrats, many of whom are engineers or scientists, may feel uncomfortable or unfamiliar when dealing with legal jargon, and may prefer to keep communications at a technical level. Some may fear that formal legal sanctions will put bureaucratic practices as much on trial as those of the polluter, and may attract unwanted media attention-Some bureaucrats may be reluctant to adopt an adversarial role with regulatees they have been dealing with a non-confrontational basis for an extended period.
There you have the second major point, Mr. Speaker, and that is that the bureaucracy often fails to live up to the intention of Parliament, or of the Minister, in terms of legislation passed by this House or other Chambers, as well as the problems that they create by not actually laying charges and proceeding with them to the courts as they should. I now want to quote from the report "Improved Program Delivery, Environmental Qualities Strategic Review". It is a follow-on report of the Task Force on Program Review, February 21, 1986. This is the follow-on from the famed Nielsen task force reports. I quote from page 12 where we find the third problem in relation to not having the kind of criminal sanction I suggest:
A thorough comparative analysis be made of the environmental practices followed by Canada and the United States to assess whether they are harmonious both in their design and implementation and that any major discrepancies be taken into account in the ongoing negotiations on free trade between the two countries; new Canadian environmental measures be so designed as to minimize the possibility of countervailing actions.
We now know where the Government is heading. It is hoping to minimize and harmonize, by taking us to the lowest common denominator of environmental control rather than the best.

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Let me continue to quote from the report because even those who were studying it knew what the problems would be:
The regulatory approach is the dominant approach in the United States, and, to a lesser degree in Canada.
There are a number of serious difficulties with the regulatory approach. The first is that the sanctions are often imposed primarily through court actions, and action against each breach of regulations must be the subject of a new court action. Given the difficulty and length of time to implement each action through the court system, the sanctions or fines levied can result in very minimal penalties. Even if legal costs are included, the total cost to the polluter can represent a modest pollution fee. The longer each charge can be prolonged in the court system, the less frequently the fee must be paid, so that the regulatory approach frequently winds up as a battle between lawyers to delay and minimize the payment of pollution charges. In addition, the cost of such actions to the regulator is high.
Once again it is the taxpayer who carries the can and the environment which carries the damage. Certainly that is not an approach to sustainable development for which the Government can continue to pat itself on the back.
A little history is in order. I quote from page 110 of the report:
When the Fathers of Confederation drafted the Constitution Act of 1867, they did not allocate legislative authority on environmental matters to either the federal Parliament or to the Legislatures of the provinces. Without clear responsibility for, or guidance in, the matter of environmental concerns, both levels of Government have, over the years, been able to claim authority for managing environmental problems by taking the position that various aspects of the subject matter fall within their respective areas of competence.
It is generally accepted that the federal argument in favour of its role in environmental protection relies primarily on the "Peace, Order and Good Government" clause of S.91 of the 1867 Constitution Act. Other sources of power, which have been cited to claim the validity of federal environmental legislation, include the regulation of trade 91(2), taxation 91(3), navigation and shipping 91(10), fisheries 91(12) the criminal law 91(27) and the regulation of works or undertakings that are interprovincial or international in nature 92(10)(a) or ones that are declared to be for the general advantage of Canada 92(10)(c). These powers have generally been used in relation to the national interest, international imperatives, health, well being and prosperity of the people of Canada.
I suggest that all of those powers stand behind the argument that I am making here today for amendments to the Criminal Code.
I continue:
Environmental legislation in Canada dates as far back as 1873 with the Navigable Water Protection Act.
The Minister of the Environment has a general responsibility for the resources held in common, such as air (Clean Air Act) and water (Canada Water Act) and for several multi-sectoral issues affecting the environment (Ocean Dumping Control Act, Environmental Contaminants Act).
First, the overlaps and resulting confusion. It should be pointed out that, regarding environmental protection of water alone, eleven major items of legislation can be listed:
the Fisheries Act, the Canada Water Act, the Navigable Waters Act, the International River Improvements Act, the International Boundary Waters Treaty Act, the Northern Inland Waters Act, the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act, the Ocean Dumping Control Act, the Canada Shipping Act, the Canada Oil and Gas Act, and the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act.
Of course we can add to that the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. I quote:
This abundance of legislation has produced confusion as to the occasions on which it is appropriate to use each statute.
The second set of difficulties which should be addressed is with compliance. This can either be encouraged through a variety of means such as formal incentives (licensing, permits, tax expenditures, subsidies, grants, publicity on corporate behaviour) or enforced through disincentives (persuasion, action on licences, Ministerial Orders, civil suits or criminal prosecutions). Federal regulators, in applying some legislation such as the Fisheries Act, generally tend to revert to an ex post facto approach based on disincentives rather than taking the less adversarial, yet more difficult, approach of incentives.
Others, who rely more on voluntary compliance, such as Environment, do not appear to have made full me of the plethora of incentive means available. Part of the reason was attributed to inadequate administrative provisions in the acts they administer.
That is a problem we have created:
Clearly, civil and criminal court actions ought to be considered as
remedies of last resort, when every other effort has failed to produce
appropriate environmental behaviour.
We have reached that stage. There are many corporations that simply do not live up to the regulations passed by Parliament, by provincial legislators or by municipalities. Therefore we must have a broadly-based criminal sanction that can put those kinds of polluters and wilfully negligent individuals behind bars, in some cases for life where they so fully deserve to be. I return to the report:
The allocation of environmental statutes among different responsibility sectors, however, unfortunately gives rise to an ill-structured and uncoordinated federal approach to compliance. For instance, lesser environmental offenders under one federal statute sometimes sustain stiffer penalties than those imposed on other
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offenders under another statute, for a more serious environmental offence of a similar nature.
Worse yet, some environmental offenders under one given statute, such as Section 33 of the Fisheries Act, often receive a disproportionately low penalty in one region, as compared to that imposed for a very similar offence in another region.
As was said before, the Study Team had access to little information on the extent to which federal regulations, other than S. 33 of the Fisheries Act, are monitored and acted upon. It nevertheless looked at one particular sector of interest: the pulp and paper industry. In the early 1970s, this sector was identified as a major source of pollution and became the first industrial sector subjected to comprehensive effluent standards promulgated, in 1971, under S.33 of the Fisheries Act.
Little action was taken until 1979, when the federal and provincial governments joined forces through the General Development Agreement 1974-1984. The sub-agreements on the Pulp and Paper Modernization Program, implemented through DREE, involved some $544 million of federal/provincial funding ($276 million federal) over a five-year period and were designed to assist in the modernizing of the pulp and paper industry for international competitiveness in keeping with the pre-determined pollution abatement objectives.
Recent media reports and public documents published by DOE suggest that, as a whole, compliance by this industrial sector with the negotiated standards is uneven and lower than had been anticipated in relation to the magnitude of the capital infusion.
Compliance for two of the stated measurement parameters appears to be only 60 per cent and 70 per cent, and for a third (toxicity) it is only approximately 40 per cent.
That simply is not good enough. That is abuse of public trust and of public money.
I conclude with this quote:
The use of criminal sanctions is the fourth area of difficulty which could be addressed. Most federal environmental statutes contain sections of a criminal nature. The Clean Air Act, for instance, prescribes a fine of not more than $200,000 for each offence relating to any emission into the ambient air in contravention of a standard set pursuant to that Act.
The Environmental Contaminants Act sets out a fine of not more than $ 100,000 or a term of imprisonment of not more than one year for any wilful release of a substance specified in the schedule to the Act into the environment, in a quantity or concentration that exceeds the prescribed maximum. The Canada Water Act indicates that a fine of not more than $5,000 per day may be imposed for either the deposit of waste of any type in waters comprising a water quality management area, or for the manufacture or importation into Canada of a cleaning agent that contains a prescribed nutrient in a concentration greater than the prescribed maximum. As pointed out earlier in this report, these statutes have given rise to
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very few prosecutions: to under the Clean Air Act and none under
each of the Water and Environmental Contaminants Acts.
Those Acts are not working to protect our environment:
In addition to those offences established by the various environmental laws, there exist in the Criminal Code certain offences which could in principle be used to "denounce, condemn and penalize" actions which result in harm to the environment. The most important ones among these are criminal negligence, common nuisance, mischief, causing disturbance, offensive volatile substance, explosive substances and offences against animals. However, as reported by the Law Reform Commission of Canada, "criminal Code offences are seldom used as the basis of prosecutions for conduct seriously harmful or endangering to the environment. Even more seldom are such prosecutions successful".
The Commission attributes this weakness to the narrow and limited arrangement and formulation of the Code in protecting the environment.
At present, the Code contains various offences against persons and other offences against property. The Law Reform Commission's proposal is to add to these a new category of offences against the environment. The principal element of this category of offences would be a single, conceptually unified "crime against the environment". Its role and justification would be to repudiate and deter conduct which seriously compromised the fundamental societal value and right to a safe environment.
The new offence could be formulated broadly enough so that it would be made applicable to a wide range of activities and especially so as not to distinguish between harm to the air, water, land or any combination of these. It could apply to "conduct which seriously damages or endangers the environment by means of direct physical acts or in the course of the manufacture, transportation, use, storage or disposal of any hazardous or potentially hazardous goods, wastes or other contaminants."
The Study Team has not delved into the legal ramifications of the LRC proposal but finds it conceptually compatible with the "cradle to grave" approach espoused by the Minister of the Environment-
I hope all Members will support it, Mr. Speaker.


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the Hon. Member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton) for his motion and for the creative, imaginative and vibrant approach that he always brings to matters that are environmental.
His proposal to include crimes against the environment in the Criminal Code definitely appears attractive. Yet the better way is to work on improving and enforcing civil law and, in particular, to improve enforcing and broadening the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. For example, it would be a good step to make clear in the

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Environmental Protection Act the fact that corporate executives are personally accountable for the pollution of their corporations. This personal accountability has to be established.
The Hon. Member made reference in the last few minutes of his extremely fast overview to the Law Reform Commission report. It is necessary to do that because in the same breath the Law Reform Commission pointed out that the Criminal Code perse cannot protect the environment for its own sake, but only if there is a threat to property, to a person or to human life in general.
On the other hand, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act could protect the environment for its own sake. I am sure that that is what the Hon. member for Skeena has in mind as a major thrust of his motion. Therefore criminal action alone has a very narrow application.
In addition to that we have to keep an eye on the enforcement, application and compliance of existing laws, an aspect which is of immense importance. Yet here, Mr. Speaker, I must draw to your attention that unfortunately today in Canada we have weak enforcement at the federal level. We have weak compliance. Why? Because of the lack of funds resulting from budgetary cuts in November, 1984, and in subsequent years by the present Government. It is because of the fact that Environment Canada was for years denied in its budgets the ability at least to keep up with inflation. In essence it is because the Government does not practice what it preaches when it comes to the crunch.
The second point that must be made in this debate is that when in committee a year ago we debated the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, the Government refused to move on some very important elements which would have helped enormously to achieve the major goal and thrust of the motion by the Hon. Member for Skeena today. For instance, because of the ideology that is embedded in the Meech Lake Accord the then Minister of the Environment had to come to committee to ask for a change in his own Bill to abandon the power to issue enforceable national standards. Imagine that, Mr. Speaker. That occurred in committee on the initiative of the Minister himself who came and asked to dilute and water down his own Bill. The debate was hot and heavy on that occasion. When the matter came to report stage in this House the Speaker even allowed an
amendment which had been defeated in committee, which would rule it out in principle because of the significance of this issue, namely, the setting of national standards.
When it came to the question of PCBs all the provinces had been exempted from federal PCB storage programs except for Prince Edward Island, as reported in The Globe and Mail just a few days ago. This scenario was predicted by the proponents, those of us who insisted on national standards. However, the Government claimed it would never happen. We knew at that time that no province can impose, for instance, a fine of $1 million as envisaged under the Environmental Protection Act. At this stage the federal Minister can only enforce his law in one province and the territories when it comes to PCB storage standards.
It is important also to bring to your attention, Mr. Speaker, that because of the opposition of the Government a citizen cannot seek an injunction under the Environmental Protection Act, something which we urged the Government to do when we debated the Bill. Under the Act as it is written now the Minister of the Environment is the only person in Canada who can seek an injunction to stop pollution.
Because of the negativism of the Government when we were in committee we could not make the release of any toxic substance a violation by inserting a clause in that Bill called a general prohibition clause. This would have allowed the Minister to stop any pollution and not just the release of the nine substances listed in the schedules of the Act.
The Government said no to removing the requirement that makes mandatory in the drafting of regulations, consultation with the provinces. The new PCB standards are the evidence of the inability of the present federal Government to provide a strong federal presence in the environment.
Finally, the Government again said no last year to the idea that would have made the Minister of the Environment responsible for the monitoring and enforcement of environmental performance by other federal Departments and by federal agencies. As the Act was finally written by sheer majority force-and brutish force I would say-the Minister of the Environment must get the concurrence today under the Act. He must get the blessing, the permission of the Minister responsible for the pollution created by another federal Department or
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agency before regulations can be made or before the Canadian Environmental Act can be enforced.
You can see here, Mr. Speaker, what is emerging is the necessity of an integrated broad approach, mostly on the front of civil legislation, mostly in terms of giving muscle to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, if we are to mean business in ensuring that we will have environmentally sustainable development.
I see that my time is up, Mr. Speaker. I thank Your Honour for his patience.


Mr. Terry Clifford (London-Middlesex):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this motion. I support the suggestion by the Hon. Member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton) that anyone who contaminates the environment should be penalized. This suggestion is compatible with the "polluter-pay" principle. It is an excellent deterrent. In this way, we would give economic value to our natural resources which support life itself: the air we breathe, the water we drink and the ground that produces our food.
The Hon. Member's suggestion, although a good one, is nevertheless unoriginal. In June 1988, the Government acquired the tools it needed to prosecute polluters by proclaiming the Environmental Protection Act. This law is intended to protect the health and environment of Canadians through the management of toxic substances that pollute the environment.

The Canadian Environmental Protection Act addresses pollution problems on land, in animal and plant life, in lakes, rivers and oceans, and in the air. It provides the legislative basis for controlling international environmental degradation through restrictions on the import and export of toxic and hazardous substances and through the regulation of Canadian sources of transboundary air pollution.
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The Act deals with organic and inorganic substances, the products of biotechnology, emissions, effluents and wastes. The Act also establishes a comprehensive scheme for management of toxic substances. However, it is in the area of enforcement where we find coincidence with the motion presented by the Hon. Member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton)
Enforcement is a vital aspect of the legislation. A program of inspections complemented by spot checks is being put in place to verify compliance with the new Act and its regulations. The frequency of inspections will be determined by the risk that a substance or activity presents to the environment or to human health, and the compliance record of the given individual, company or government Department or agency.
Violators can be subject to warnings, orders, tickets, prosecution, and recovery of costs. The particular response will depend on the nature of the violation, the effectiveness of achieving compliance with the Act within the shortest possible time frame, and the likelihood of no further occurrence of the violation. The Act includes significant penalties, ranging from fines of $200,000 a day and six months in jail, to fines of $1 million a day and three to five years in jail. For offences involving criminal negligence life imprisonment is possible.
Jail sentences are an importance enforcement tool under CEPA. There are, however, a number of other effective sanctions specified in the law. We have heard some talk from the opposition Members about sanctions. I think it is important for them to hear what some of them are: seizure and detention, forfeiture, prosecution under the Criminal Code for serious offences resulting in death or bodily harm to another person, court orders, publication by the Minister of the facts relating to an offence, additional fines to negate the financial benefits of an offence, compensation for loss of or damage to property, ticketing, court injunctions on the application of the Minister, civil suits and injunctions on the application of those damaged by the polluter.
I believe that an example is in order with respect to these options and the actions one can foresee by following them. As spelled out, for example, in the court orders in Section 130 of the Act, not only might an individual or a corporation be found guilty of violating a regulatory requirement, they might also be obliged by the courts to keep the peace and be of good behaviour, report to and be under the supervision of a probation officer, remedy or prevent any harm to the environment,

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publish the facts relating to a conviction, notify an aggrieved party of the facts of a prosecution, post a bond to ensure compliance with court order, submit information with respect to subsequent activities, pay the cost of any remedial preventive actions, perform community service, and pay for research into the ecological use and disposal of the substance in respect of which an offence was committed. The thesis behind the enforcement provisions of CEPA is quite clearly to encourage compliance through strong disincentives.
Under Section 122 of the legislation, directors and officers can be held personally liable for offences committed by their corporations. The statement was made on the other side of the House that the whole law was too lax and that there were no actions to be taken against gross polluters. Clearly there is an action in a court order against corporations. While this Government is not planning to undertake witch-hunts or to make scapegoats of individual employees, we will take a tough stand on polluters. The CEPA specifies in Section 115 that those persons or corporations who knowingly disregard regulations will be prosecuted under the Criminal Code. It is these sections in CEPA that makes the Member's motion redundant.
I would like to clarify that our objective is to protect the environment. We plan to pursue that objective. The prosecution of corporate officers or other individuals within a company is but one of the approaches available to us under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.


An Hon. Member:: Then use them.


Terrence (Terry) Clifford: Clearly, we can see these actions unfolding daily. We can see actions by the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bouchard) who is actively working with the provincial Ministers of the environment to make sure that we have a set of laws and regulations that will help Canadians live their fondest dreams, that is, to have an untouched, unblemished environment to pass on to future generations.


An Hon. Member:: It is too late.


Terrence (Terry) Clifford: Actions are definitely taking place. We are not just doing this within our country, within our provinces, but clearly we are reaching out and being a leader with our Environmental Protection Act. We are
showing the rest of the world that Canada means business, that the environment is on the front page of our agenda. We are very serious about it. Our Government has taken steps on the international scene to show that Canada wants clean air, wants an international law of the atmosphere, wants to be a leader, and has challenged all the countries in the world to meet this expectation by 1992.
In fact to have this law in place will mean a greater environment, a greater possibility for environmental enhancement for the future and the goal we all-a good environment, an environment that we can give our children who in turn will pass this legacy on to their children.
It is very important now that this Government maintain its course through things like the Environmental Protection Act to have Acts and regulations which will ensure that Canadians and indeed the citizens of the world work together to form a global environmental policy that will enhance the future that I have talked about.
We think we are on track. We are working at it every day. The Minister has made it very clear that he has both a national and international bases to work from. Those of us in this House would be well advised to work together on these issues so that we can in fact achieve what has been set out for us. Canada will be the leading nation in the world. We have the opportunity. The window is there to show leadership internationally. We are there. We are on the doorstep. We are ready to go through the door. I ask Members opposite to join with us in things like the Environmental Protection Act and laws and regulations to come. They should join with us and we together, through Canada, will make the world a better place for the young people of the future.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr.   Maurice@: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to take part today in the debate on environmental protection. I cannot but praise the interest shown by the Hon. Member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton) and the initiative he has taken, but I have some

doubts as to the effectiveness of the approach he has suggested.
Environmental issues are very important to Canadians. Our Government shares that view and has made environmental protection one of its priorities, both nationally and internationally. We are aware of the real cost of the deterioration of the environment, and we have established a powerful battery of legislation to fight pollution, one example being the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
To manage the environment, we have taken the offensive on two fronts. First, we mainly try to anticipate and prevent environmental damage before it occurs. We have also built a legal foundation that will help us reach that objective. Second, the Government is aware of the need to deal with pollution problems that have their origins in the past. Together with various companies and with provincial and municipal governments, we have embarked on a number of projects designed to provide solutions to the problems in their present form. I shall, if I may, expand on each of those approaches.
First, anticipation and prevention. On June 30, 1988, after a year's consideration in the House, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act was ratified. Its objective is to prevent all forms of toxic contamination that are a threat to human and environmental health. The legislation enables us to deal with questions as complex as air and water pollution, management of toxic substances, elimination of waste, acid rain and the warming of our climate. The Canadian Environmental Protection Act is based on previous environmental protection legislation including the former Environmental Contaminants Act and the Clean Air Act.
Invoking the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, our Government has established a number of national regulatory standards aimed at eliminating or reducing the threat to our environment. We have also adopted regulations providing for a 50 per cent reduction in ozone-depleting substances, and we also plan to introduce additional control measures that will virtually eliminate such substances.
We are demanding that lead additives be virtually eliminated from the manufacture of gasoline as of December 1,1990. We have issued national standards for the storage of PCBs. We are anxious to take steps in
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connection with Canada's contribution to the acid rain problem and have established standards for the reduction of sulphur dioxide emissions. Enforcement of these standards currently comes under provincial jurisdiction but could be covered by regulations adopted under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
The Canadian Environmental Protection Act is the prime instrument of environmental protection in Canada and the cornerstone of the Government's efforts to protect the environment. These efforts are assisted by other effective legislation including the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, which sets standards for the packaging and labelling of toxic substances and waste for transportation in Canada. The Motor Vehicle Safety Act, another federal Act, also enables the Government to restrict exhaust gas emissions of cars, trucks and buses, to avoid the problems caused by smog and ground level ozone. As we announced on April 21, our Government will reinforce its current international standards on exhaust gas emissions.
The Pest Control Products Act is also part of the environmental arsenal. Its purpose is to screen pesticides and herbicides before their use in Canada. To ensure that environmental concerns are given due consideration, we have started a review of the Pest Control Products Act.
As further proof of our comitment to environmental protection, we intend to add legislation on environmental and water quality assessment to the instruments I mentioned earlier.
In addition to these legal measures, our Government has initiated round table discussions, attracting representatives from industry, public interest groups and government, to establish connection between environmental concerns and decisions made for purposes of economic development.
As for environmental clean-ups, Mr. Speaker, our Government is also trying to eliminate the pollution caused by past carelessness or failure to act. On April 19, the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bouchard) inaugurated a new era in the treatment of waste substances and the pollution problems they cause. With the provinces, we will set aside $250 million for cleaning up abandoned dumps. Everything will be done to find those responsible and make them foot the bill for the clean-

May 16, 1989
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up. This is important work that will be done at many dumps in the provinces and the territories.
In eveiy case, our instructions will be to see to it that the polluter pays the cost of corrective measures. However, if the guilty party cannot be found, the Government is prepared to take corrective action as required and to do so promptly.
Mr. Speaker, we also want to upgrade water quality in the Great Lakes. More than $125 million has been spent on this activity. We are now working on the Niagara River and Hamilton harbour. We have also earmarked $110 million for cleaning up waters downstream in the St. Lawrence river. This initiative will be matched by others on the part of the industry and by additional funding.
In 1988 we started to clean up the tar ponds in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Sysco, the polluter in this case, is taking an active part in the clean-up. Still in Nova Scotia, we are examining the pollution problem in Halifax harbour.
Mr. Speaker, the motion before the House today is a very interesting one but, as you can see, what it proposes is already there in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, the cornerstone of federal environmental legislation. The best way to use our Government's time and resources would be to take effective steps against polluters, using the instruments provided by the legislation, instead of discussing proposals for measures that are already in our federal legislation.


Mr. Lyle Dean MacWilliam (Okanagan-Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, the motion before us reads:
That, in the opinion of this House, the Government should provide criminal sanctions against corporate officers who knowingly allow their companies to violate government environmental regulations or otherwise endanger the health and safety of Canadians.
I am pleased to support this motion put forward by the Hon. Member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton). I think it focuses on the fact that crimes against our environment are really crimes against the people of Canada. The proposal in this motion which can be implemented in legislation would send a very clear signal to the industry right throughout Canada, a signal for the Government of
Canada to take the issue of environmental pollution very seriously indeed.
We have seen environment come from a word that very few people understood a few years ago until the Silent Spring by Rachael Carson came out which first made us the aware that problems were on the horizon. We had later works by the Club of Rome and the Brundtland commission report. These documents have outlined the very serious global nature of the problem we face as a country. Through the implementation of this kind of legislation, Canada would have a marvellous opportunity to lead the way by demonstrating to other nations throughout the world that it is time to take decisive action against those entities that continue to defile our environment to the ultimate expense of mankind. It would be a perfect opportunity for Canada to become a leader in environmental legislation.
The motion before us provides a legislative mechanism to force major polluters to recognize the very serious nature of the problem. I know my time is very limited, but I want to point out that 50 per cent of marine pollution in Canada comes from one industrial source, the pulp mills, and much of that pollution is extremely toxic. Chlorinated hydrocarbons, dioxins, organophos-phates and very poisonous, dangerous compounds, once in the food chain, accumulate in organisms higher up the food chain, ultimately becoming lethal. It is through that bio-concentration that the problems of pollution begin to manifest themselves. We have relied for far too long on the fallacious argument that dilution is the solution, because it no longer holds true.
There are many miles of coastline in Canada, both on the west and the east coasts. It is the intertidal zones that generate the majority of the carbon fixation that takes place on this planet, the photosynthesis, the production of oxygen as it comes out of the oceans and into the air. The first 100 feet of ocean water is the area where most of the pollution impacts upon. In fact, we are endangering intertidal life with continual pollution of pulp mills and many other industrial sources. This is something we continue to ignore, simply because we cannot see it happening and if we cannot see it, it cannot be there. That is no longer true.
May 16, 1989

If we destroy our marine life, and we are in the process of doing so, we will knock out a very crucial link in the web of life. It is time that we came down hard on those industries that continue to ignore this very serious reality that faces us. I am talking not only about industries but about cities and municipalities that continue to dump raw sewage into inland waters, lakes and oceans. Vancouver, for example, dumps 200 million gallons of raw sewage a day. That has an incredible impact on the west coast environment. Other cities throughout Canada also dump untreated raw sewage into inland waters and oceans. That has to stop. Towns and municipalities across Canada are guilty, as well as major corporations, of taking part in this ongoing process of pollution and concentrations of toxins in the environment.
These companies and municipalities will not change their ways unless we get serious and put some teeth into environmental legislation. One way of putting teeth into the legislation is by adopting this motion that my colleague has put before the House today. I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me the opportunity to address this motion.


Mr.   Brian@: Mr. Speaker, as always, it is an honour and a privilege to speak to the House of Commons on such an important issue.
The Hon. Member's motion reflects the current intolerance of the Canadian people for corporate behaviour which causes damage to the environment or endangers human life or health. Society's revulsion for such conduct is expressed in various federal statutes and particularly in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, otherwise known as CEPA. Jail terms and fines are among the array of sanctions provided for in CEPA, sanctions commonly understood as being criminal, as the Hon. Member would agree. A contravention of any provision of the Act will expose the offender to the possibility of, at the very least, a fine of $200,000 plus six months in prison.
One offence is actually prosecuted under the Criminal Code and the penalty is up to life in prison and an unlimited fine. This sanction is possible on conviction for a contravention of CEPA where the offender has shown wanton or reckless disregard for the lives or safety of other persons and, thereby, has caused death or bodily harm to another person.
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For some offences, there is a $1 million fine plus five years in prison. Section 115 of CEPA closely parallels the recommendation in the Law Reform Commission study paper on crimes against the environment wherein two new Criminal Code offences were proposed. Section 115(1) of CEPA creates offences of intentionally or recklessly causing a disaster that results in the loss of use of the environment and showing wanton or reckless disregard for the lives or safety of others, thereby causing a risk of death or harm to another person. These offences are indictable and give rise to liability to an unlimited fine plus five years in prison. For the more serious offence in contravention of CEPA where the offender has shown wanton or reckless disregard for the lives or safety of other persons and thereby causes death or bodily harm to another person, the Act provides for prosecution and conviction under the Criminal Code where the liability is life in prison plus an unlimited fine.
Offences that continue for more than one day give rise to liability to prosecution for a separate offence for each day with the accompanying multiple exposure to fines and imprisonment for each conviction. Special provision is made for officers, directors and agents of a corporation who in any way participated in or were made aware of but did nothing to prevent the commission of an offence by the corporation. Such corporate officials are parties to and guilty of the offence and are liable to the punishment for the offence, whether or not the corporation is prosecuted or convicted.
The Act also simplifies the proof of such offences by corporations by providing that it is sufficient to establish that the offence was committed by an employee or agent of the accused corporation, whether or not the employee or agent is identified or prosecuted for the offence.
CEPA takes into account the position of the Law Reform Commission on the criminalization of certain environmental offences and, in fact in some circumstances, provides for prosecution and conviction under the Criminal Code.
The federal Government has not made a final decision in respect to environmental crimes, although options under consideration include amendments to the Criminal Code, amendments to federal regulatory legislation such as the Fisheries Act, Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, Oil and Gas Conservation Act, Pest Control Products Act, and omnibus legislation amending all federal laws that are directed to the protection of human health and the environment. Because this matter is under very active review and consideration by the federal

May 16, 1989
Adjournment Debate
Government, I find that the Hon. Member's motion is redundant and cannot therefore recommend its adoption by this House.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired. Pursuant to Standing Order 96(1), the order is dropped from the Order Paper.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

Francis G. LeBlanc: Mr. Speaker, on April 18, in reaction to statements by the Minister for International Trade (Mr. Crosbie) regarding provincial participation in subsidy negotiations with the U.S. Government, I asked the Minister two things.
What is the Canadian definition of subsidy, given that the U.S. definition is well known and being directed in countervail cases against provincial programs? Why then not include the provinces in these subsidy negotiations.
There are three reasons for asking these questions.
First, contrary to the Minister's statement that these negotiations are purely a federal matter, provinces do have a well established constitutional role when it comes to international treaties. Second, federal-provincial consultation during the negotiations that led to the FTA was clearly inadequate. Third, the federal Government's performance to date ought to make us very suspicious of its capacity and determination to defend Canadian interests on its own.
On April 18, the Minister for Trade told this House that he did not intend to let the provinces participate in subsidy negotiations. He said:
We believe quite clearly that international trade is under federal
jurisdiction.
If this is the Minister's position, he is forgetting some rather fundamental Canadian constitutional law.

I remind the Minister of the following fact: the implementation of an international agreement signed by the federal Government requires the willing participation of the provinces. The situation in the United States is obviously quite different. For our southern neighbours, President Bush must have any international agreement ratified by the American Senate. As a result, this treaty automatically amends the relevant American laws, by virtue of article 6 of their Constitution.
In other words, the U.S. federal government has the power to bind the individual states. In Canada, the situation is quite different. An agreement that requires changing the laws of the land can only be implemented by promulgating laws to make those changes. This is not an automatic process.
Does the federal Parliament have the authority to promulgate such laws if they infringe on provincial powers? Certainly not. That has been clear since the 1937 Privy Council Labour Conventions decision. In it, the Privy Council ruled that if a law needed to implement a treaty falls under one of the subjects listed in Section 92 of our Constitution, only a province can pass such a law. This has important consequences for the subsidy negotiations, for if it were decided that some provincial subsidies were unfair, the federal Government could not legislate to abolish them. Neither could the federal Government force the provinces to do so. The provinces would have to agree, but they would certainly have the option not to comply with the demands of the federal Government.

The provinces therefore had a definite constitutional claim to be included in the negotiations. Furthermore, if the federal Government is serious about protecting Canadian interests, the provinces could prove to be
May 16, 1989

useful watch dogs. It is obvious this help would be needed, given the Government's previous track record.
Consultation with the provinces during two years of FTA negotiation was far from adequate. A blatant example of this is that 24 hours to 48 hours prior to the signing of the Accord, provincial trade reps had been told that energy provisions would not be included. They were told that this would be far too complicated. Imagine their surprise when they finally held the Accord in then-hands and discovered a chapter on energy had been included.
The Minister for Trade has recently said that subsidy negotiations would proceed in the same manner as with the FTA. It should be clear from the example I have given that this is not good enough.
Moreover, if we look more closely at the Accord's energy subsidy provisions, we find yet another reason to let the provinces participate in the negotiations. Allowing for subsidies in energy was clearly to the advantage of the United States. In most areas of Canada-United States energy trade, energy flows from north to south. This means that we are allowed to subsidize the exploitation of our energy resources with Canadian taxpayers' money.
However, Article 904(b) of the Free Trade Agreement forbids us to charge Americans more for that energy than we charge ourselves. In other words, Canadians pay for their energy twice. Tax money pays for the exploitation of the resources, then Canadians pay again to buy that energy. Americans only pay once.
If the Government is serious about defending Canadian social and regional development programs in future subsidy negotiations with the United States, the provinces could have a useful role. They could assist Canadian negotiators by acting as a backstop. The negotiators would simply be prevented from unwittingly sacrificing Canadian interests by objections from the provinces. This would help to reassure Canadians that our interests are indeed being defended.


Rob Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a couple of points with respect
Adjournment Debate
to the concerns of the Member on the Free Trade Agreement. As Hon. Members are aware, Canada and the United States were unable to reach an agreement on changes to our respective subsidy and trade remedy practices during negotiations leading to the conclusion of the Free Trade Agreement. Article 1907 of the Free Trade Agreement requires the two Parties to establish a working group to develop more effective rules and disciplines concerning the use of government subsidies and a substitute system of rules for dealing with unfair pricing and government subsidies.
As the Minister for International Trade (Mr. Crosbie) has pointed out, while these are indeed important issues for discussion we do not intend to be rushed. No negotiations have begun. No demands have been made by either side.
Within the operations branch of the Department of External Affairs a unit has been established to support the Canadian side of the working group. The Minister has indicated that the Canadian chairperson for the working group will be named shortly.
The issue of appropriate international disciplines for subsidy and countervailing measures is a complex one. The subsidies countervail code agreed to during the Tokyo Round of multilateral trade negotiations provided only limited progress toward the goal of international discipline. The issue is under intense scrutiny again in Geneva as part of the current Uruguay NTN Round. Much of the preparatory work being done in this regard will serve us well in the bilateral context, as well as our experience with these negotiations as they progress.
With respect to definition, authorities both in Canada and in the United States responsible for the administration of our respective countervailing duty laws have made determinations of what constitutes a subsidy in specific cases. Under the GATT we have the right to challenge the consistency of American laws with their intemational commitments.
Finally, determinations of subsidy can now be reviewed under the FTA by a binational panel, which we are confident will ensure greater fairness in the application of existing trade remedy laws.
I would suggest that it is premature to attempt to anticipate the position that either we or the United States will be taking in eventual negotiations, or whether

Adjournment Debate
a mutually agreed definition of actionable and non-actionable subsidies can emerge from this process.
As the Minister for International Trade has pointed out, from the FTA negotiations there appears to be a wide gap between our views and that of the Americans on some of these matters. That does not lead one to expect that a solution will be found very quickly.
Nonetheless, over the five to seven year period contemplated by the FTA, the Government is prepared to work diligently in seeking a better regime. I invite Hon. Members and Members opposite to join us in a constructive approach to those important questions. We will be consulting actively and widely throughout this process with the private sector and the provinces.
With regard to the question of whether there should be direct provincial participation in these negotiations, I would like to remind Hon. Members, as stated by the Minister for International Trade in the House on April 18, that international trade is within federal jurisdiction and is a federal responsibility. In carrying out this responsibility the Government-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member for Egmont.


THE BUDGET-IMPACT OF CLOSURE OF CF BASE AT SUMMERSIDE, RE.I.
Mr. Joe McGuire (Egmont):: Mr. Speaker, Prince Edward Islanders and all Canadians realized before the "Great Budget Leak" that they would be asked to make a sacrifice to help reduce the national debt. They were prepared to pay their share. They knew the time was coming to pay the piper, and they were willing to join with Canadians to make do with less in order to assist the Government of Canada to get out of the financial mess it refused to address over the past four years.
However, they were not and are not prepared to pay five times the price being asked of other Canadians. They were not and are not prepared to sustain a critical blow to the economy of the province and a mortal blow to the economy of western Prince Edward Island.
Prince Edward Islanders were not, have never been, and are not prepared to accept the closure of Canadian Forces Base Summerside. In the words of a past Deputy
Minister of Finance: "CFB Summerside means as much to Prince Edward Island as the automotive industry does to Ontario".
Therefore, I conclude that the Government did not know what it was actually doing when it made the decision to close CFB Summerside.
Canadian Forces Base Summerside, which is located in the Village of St. Eleanors, and the RCAF base in Mount Pleasant were established during the Second World War to train flyers for overseas duty.
These bases were established by the Minister of War, Colonel James Ralston, the Member of Parliament from Prince which is now Egmont, and a native of Nova Scotia. These bases played a crucial role in advanced training for our fighter pilots which were desperately needed in Europe during World War II.
After that War, the Mount Pleasant facility was abandoned, leaving St. Eleanors as the only military facility in Prince Edward Island.
In 1980 the Minister of National Defence, the Hon. Gilles Lamontagne, made a government commitment that every province would have at least one regular forces base.
What happened to that commitment? The Government has abandoned that commitment under the guise of fiscal restraint.
What happened to the statement by the Hon. Member for Calgary Centre (Mr. Andre) that "there is no question that defence is an important economic tool" and "there is no question regional development will be taken into account"? What happened to the statement in the White Paper on defence which stated at page 85:
Defence programs also make a significant contribution to overcoming regional economic disparities. Over the years, it has been frequently possible to use scarce defence dollars to strengthen local and regional economies while at the same time satisfying defence requirements.
The following statement is also found in the Government's While Paper on defence. At page 84 it states:
Defence expenditures in Canada contribute economic benefits to all sectors of Canadian society.
In fiscal year 1985-86 defence spending accounted for approximately $12 billion of Gross Domestic Product. It produced $1.6 billion in taxes and generated approximately 294,000 jobs, 178,000 in the private sector. Is
May 16, 1989

Prince Edward Island not entitled to any of this spending and any of this job creation?
Let me briefly state what the economic impact will be to Summerside and Prince Edward Island: 1,304 direct jobs will be lost; 1,730 private sector jobs will be lost, for a total of 3,034 jobs, which is 5.39 per cent of the total number of jobs in the province.
Furthermore, base employment supports 5,500 people or 34 per cent of the entire Summerside area population. An annual payroll and expenditure of more than $50 million will be lost. Closure of the base will remove a minimum of 33 per cent of the total income from the Summerside area. In other words, $1 in every $3 would disappear.
St. Eleanors will lose 40 per cent of its tax revenues. The province will lose over $20 million in tax revenue out of a total budget of $167 million, which is one-eighth of its total budget. This is the economic impact. The social impact would be equally devastating.
Many questions are yet to be answered. Who will do fisheries surveillance? Where will search and rescue go? Will the medic-vac service be lost to P.E.I? Does P.E.I have a constitutional right to have a regular forces base? What will happen to our environmental response on the East Coast? What will happen to the monitoring of drug smuggling on the East Coast?
Obviously the province cannot sustain the loss of our Canadian Forces Base. I am sure you will agree that the price we are being asked to pay is too great.
It is often not appreciated or understood that Prince Edward Island is a very small province where even minor readjustment in government policy has a major effect on the province.
For example, take the changes to the unemployment insurance system. Our major industries are all seasonal. Farming, fishing and tourism, in which the majority of our people are engaged, are seasonal activities. It is impossible to fish lobster in the months of December, January, February, March, and April because the gulf is full of ice. Therefore, all people who are engaged in fishing are without work for the winter months. They depend on unemployment insurance.
Adjournment Debate
Yet with the changes in the present system, Prince Edward Island will have a 10.3 per cent negative impact. The nation's net negative impact is 5.6 per cent. P.E.I. will have double the nation's negative impact and more than double the Atlantic impact of 4.7 per cent.
The closure of CFB Summerside cannot be allowed to happen.


Mr. Jean-Guy Hudon (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, today all Canadians are being asked to make sacrifices because of our large and growing debt. The Department of National Defence has not been excluded and, in fact, has been asked to slow its spending.
I would like to remind the Hon. Member that the first goal of defence spending is the protection of national security and sovereignty. To achieve that goal during this period of restraint some very difficult decisions had to be taken. Seven bases and stations will be closed along with the reduction in size of seven others. No one likes to close military bases. I can assure the Hon. Member that the decision to close CFB Summerside was not taken lightly.
Most of Canada's fleet of Tracker aircraft operate out of CFB Summerside along with a search and rescue squadron. The Trackers are now over 30 years old. Maintenance has become extremely costly and difficult.
By 1992, only three years away, these aircraft will need to be re-engined to keep them flying. As well, the fuel they require will no longer be readily available. In other words, the aircraft will be obsolete.
For these reasons, along with fiscal restraints, the decision was made to retire the Trackers, which meant that there was no further purpose for CFB Summerside but to close it.
Civilian employees who are presently working at CFB Summerside will be assisted to find alternate employment through our Workforce Adjustment Program. I can assure the Hon. Member that it is a generous package that will be provided to the employees.
Yesterday in this Chamber the Associate Minister of National Defence (Mrs. Collins) pointed out that the military base is not the only option for Prince Edward

May 16, 1989
Adjournment Debate
Islanders. She called upon Members to participate in the task force to work with the community to look at alternative development for Prince Edward Island.
I am confident that through the combined efforts of this task force an alternative can be found to the base, one that will provide economic stability to the people of the area of Summerside.


STATUS OF WOMEN-FUNDING OF REAL WOMEN ORGANIZATION
Ms. Mary Clancy (Halifax):: Mr. Speaker, on April 17 last, Equality Day, I raised a very important and crucial issue, one that faces all women in Canada. I am speaking, of course, about the issue of employment equity or, perhaps in these unhappy circumstances, employment inequity.
I was concerned at the time about the glib response provided by the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mrs. McDougall) to the question I raised. At that time she could only say that it was her Party and not mine that had tabled employment equity legislation, making the current provisions passed in Bill C-62 sound as if they had completely solved this terrible problem. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only is this legislation riddled with flaws, but it also fails utterly to provide the fundamental enforcement mechanism that can effectively protect Canadian women.
I would like to take a few minutes to examine the Minister's assertion that the Government has introduced legislation that is responding to the need for equity in the workplace. Employment equity is the foundation of gender equity. Unfortunately, in spite of some progress made by women, particularly in areas of non-traditional employment, equal pay for work of equal value remains a far-off dream for the majority of working females in Canada.
To make matters worse, groups such as REAL Women continue to fight against equality, charging that women are not equal to men in certain areas. Surely this is the greatest betrayal of women's interests, and the funding of this group is an admission by Government of its lack of belief in equality for women.
Reading REAL'S testimony in which they present their incredibly dinosaur-like views, I am truly astounded that
the Secretary of State could consider funding such a group whose views fly in the face of everything for which women continue to fight. I can assure you that employment equity is not the sole area in which REAL are out of step with the mainstream of Canadian women. They fall behind on child care, on women's participation in active combat duty, in the workforce, and the list goes on.
Employment equity received thoughtful and meaningful treatment when it was dealt with in a variety of committees including the parliamentary committee on equality rights, a subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs. In their comprehensive and far-reaching report, this committee fleshed out very effectively the evolution of the employment equity debate as it has evolved in Canada.
Employment equity has a solid foundation in Canada's constitutional law, which continues to point Canadian legislators in the direction of comprehensive and far-reaching legal regimes that enshrine equality in the workplace. The Charter pays specific attention to a number of designated groups such as disabled persons, native people, visible minorities and, of course, women.
All groups that have studied the issue and who have testified before the various committees studying employment equity are agreed as to how extensive inequality in the workplace actually is.
The picture, however, while not altogether bleak, needs the active attention of the Minister and of her Government.
Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms specifically says that special programs for assuring employment equity do not constitute a discriminatory practices. Under Section 15, the Human Rights Commission can be called upon to assist employers who want to adopt special programs for employment equity.
The Human Rights Commission has published some useful guidelines called "Special Programs in Employment: Criteria for Compliance", but few employers have used these guidelines to set up meaningful programs. What is needed is enforcement and contract compliance, elements which are sorely lacking in this Government's employment equity legislation.
May 16, 1989

The issue is a simple one. How can women be protected from discrimination in the workplace when there are no provisions for such enforcement?
Many of the witnesses testifying before parliamentaiy committees on equality rights were sharply critical of the shortcomings of Bill C-62 for these reasons. One, Ms. Shari Stein from the Coalition for Employment Equity stated: "One of our main areas of concern is the lack of an enforcement mechanism in the proposals-what essentially was announced is a voluntary equity program. This means that employees should be encouraged-not required by law rather encouraged-to implement employment equity programs. The only mandatory feature of the proposal is a mandatory reporting requirement for certain kinds of employers. Without an enforcement agency the proposal is just not going to work and I would hate to be back here five years from now sitting in this same chair and saying that the proposal just hasn't worked."
Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, we now find ourselves nearly five years down the road, and I am sure that Ms. Stein, if she were given a chance to testify again today, would be equally disappointed as she was when she testified before the parliamentary committee.
I reiterate my call to the Minister of Employment and Immigration to take these concerns seriously and to introduce compliance and enforcement measures that give teeth to the legislation and that give Canadian women meaningful equality in the workplace.


Mr. Bill Kempling (Burlington):: Mr. Speaker, in her question the Hon. Member for Halifax (Ms. Clancy) stated that in 1984 the Government promised Canadian women both employment equity legislation and contract compliance in those areas of the private sector under federal Government influence. That is very important. Then the Hon. Member asked: "Why must we wait and when will this waiting end", and the Minister pointed out that of course the waiting has ended.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, the federal contractors program applies to those companies doing business with the federal Government who are not covered by the Employment Equity Act. That is to say, those contractors who are not subject to federal regulations. The program was initiated in 1986 and requires that federal Government suppliers of goods and services with more than 100 employers bidding on Government contracts worth $200,000 or more commit themselves to implement employment equity as a condition of their bid. Suppliers
Adjournment Debate
who make an employment equity commitment and who are awarded contracts will be subject to on site reviews. Since 1986, more than 175 compliance reviews have been initiated and 30 are now completed.
The Minister of State for Employment and Immigration (Mrs. Vezina) has advised me that altogether somewhere around 1,173 employers, representing 897,359 employees, have signed certificates of commitment to implement employment equity under the Federal Contractors Program. Of these, 582 contractors representing a total labour force of 693,283 employees are subject to review by virtue of having won government contracts. More and more companies are coming into the program every day as new contracts are awarded. Companies may be denied the opportunity to bid on future government contracts until such time as they have implemented an employment equity plan.
All companies falling under the Federal Contractors Program are required to develop comprehensive employment equity plans by which to improve the representation in the work force of women, aboriginal people, visible minorities and persons with disabilities.
The process of employment equity is well under way. Already we see positive developments in attitudes toward hiring and promoting members of the designated groups. The nearly 150 compliance reviews now under way and the 30 already concluded confirm this. However, changing the proportionate numbers in a company's work force cannot be achieved overnight.
The Employment Equity Act is landmark legislation. For the first time we have a benchmark and we have benchmark data against which Canadians can judge a company's progress in the area of equity. With the Federal Contractors Program we can determine where discrimination exists. We can initiate investigations under the Canadian Human Rights Act and these investigations are not based on allegations but on basic precise data. Action was taken in the area of equity, progress is being made and our work force will be more representative of the people of Canada in the future.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.27 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, May 17,1989