1989-10-13

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Tuesday, October 10, consideration of Bill C-20, an act to amend the Excise Tax Act and the Excise Act, as reported (without amendment) from a legislative committee; and the motion of Ms. McLaughlin:
Motion No. 10.
That Bill C-20 be amended in Clause 8 by striking out line 10 at
page 5 and substituting the following therefor:
"8. Non-bio-degradable laundry detergents."
and the motion of Mr. Kindy:
Motion No. 11.
That Bill C-20 be amended by deleting Clause 8.
Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on this critical motion. The point is that the government wants to include laundry detergent in the schedule of goods which are taxed under the manufacturers' sales tax. I think it is time that we start looking at our tax system as a way to accomplish priorities that we set as a Parliament.
I believe that there is a lot of rhetoric these days about the concern regarding environmental deterioration which we see in almost every environmental area. Perhaps the government ought to give consideration to taxing only those detergents that are harmful to the environment and to giving a tax incentive for or not taxing soaps which are environmentally friendly.
In other words, if people have a choice between using detergent that will obviously harm the environment and using a detergent that is friendly to the environment in the sense that it will not do damage, why would we not then take the advantage and not tax that environmentally friendly detergent?
It would send a very clear signal that we are serious, that we are prepared to give up revenue in the hope of altering people's purchasing patterns and encouraging people to purchase environmentally friendly products and at the same time send a clear signal to those firms which are marketing goods that are in a sense against the environment to reconsider what they are doing.
It seems to me that this provides us with an excellent opportunity to send that signal, both in terms of encouraging an incentive to purchase environmentally friendly products and a signal against those firms that continue, in spite of the evidence, to market very unfriendly products.


Mr. Len Taylor (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: Madam Speaker, I too want to say a few words about this motion. I think, as my colleague from Kamloops said just a few moments ago, this is quite an opportunity for the government to actually put into action some of the things that it has been talking about.
There is very little that is more important to us than the environment right now. The point is that here we have an opportunity to actually use our tax system to promote a healthy environment here in Canada. We have a situation where the Conservative government is now asking us to include laundry detergent in the schedule of goods which are taxed under the manufacturers' sales tax provisions.
As much as we have argued in other debates in this House that the manufacturers' sales tax is a bad tax and a killer of jobs, as the Minister of Finance has indicated if it is going to amend it, it should do it in such a way that the entire country benefits since the tax itself is such a negative tax to begin with.

October 13, 1989
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We argue that this government should tax only those products which are harmful to the environment and should in fact provide a tax incentive for those laundry detergents and other products which are environmentally friendly.
The government, I think, should increasingly be including environmental incentives in its tax policy in order to encourage companies to devise less harmful products, rather than just using the system to encourage manufacturers to do whatever they wish and to meet consumer demand.
As we know the consumers are not always correct in our system. In an economy such as ours they tend to buy the cheapest product, the product that is most easily available to them and is not always the most environmentally friendly.
This amendment before us today is a fine opportunity for us to deal with putting some action to the words that have been spoken, not just by members of the opposition but by many members of the government as well.


Mr. Ross Harvey (Edmonton East):: Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest and even touches of joy as the hon. Minister of the Environment stated after the last federal general election that every piece of legislation placed before this House, every element of the government's program, would be subject to rigorous testing against its environmental effects and the advisability of that program or legislation from an environmentalist point of view.
I was willing to herald this and in fact did so in my riding on a number of occasions, as a major advance by an otherwise, let us say, at best tepidly enthusiastic government at least in this regard.


Mr. Milliken:: That is very generous.


Ross Harvey: I am a generous man by nature. It is for this reason that I rise to state my certainty that this amendment will enjoy support on all sides of the House.
I cannot imagine that a government, which numbers among it so passionately eloquent and obviously dedicated a minister as is the hon. Minister of the Environment, would conduct itself in any other fashion when confronted with so sensible, reasonable and unobjectionable an amendment as that proposed by the hon. member for Yukon. It seeks to penalize no one. It seeks to prevent no consumer option. It merely attempts to foster the use by the Canadian people in one small area of a buying pattern that will be the less environmentally destructive.
Biodegradable laundry detergents are not the answer to the pollution problem in this country. By encouraging consumers to move to biodegradable laundry detergents we will not thereby have solved the environmental problems that confront this Chamber but we will have taken one small step. As the Chinese have noted a journey of a thousand li begins with a single step.
Given the pronouncements of the hon. Minister of the Environment, I assume the desires of the members opposite, and certainly those of the members on this side, I look forward to the unanimous support of this amendment in this Chamber.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Is the House ready for the question?


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The question is on Motion No. 10 standing in the name of the hon. member for Yukon. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


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


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), a recorded division on the proposed motion stands deferred. We will now move to Motions Nos. 17 and 18 which will be grouped for debate. An affirmative vote on Motion No. 17 obviates the need to a vote on Motion No. 18, and a negative vote on Motion No. 17 necessitates a vote on Motion No. 18.

Is there consent for somebody else to move the motion presented by the hon. member for Yukon?


Ross Harvey: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I was wondering if I might seek unanimous consent of the House to move Motions Nos.
17	and 18, seconded by the hon. member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake.


Mr. Albert Cooper (Peace River):: Madam Speaker, I have no problem with the member moving Motion No. 17, but I do have a problem with the consent for Motion No. 18. We will give consent for Motion No. 17 but not on Motion No. 18, standing in the name of the member for Calgary Northeast.


Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: I cannot let the occasion go by, Madam Speaker, without noting that the government is disavowing one of its own members, but the Liberal side will have no objections to unanimous consent being given to the member who wants to propose this in the absence of the member in whose name the motion is.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Motion No.
18	is dropped.


Ross Harvey: Motion No. 17
That Bill C-20 be amended in Clause 14 by striking out line 9 at
page 7 and substituting the following therefor:
"come into force on April 29, 1989."
He said: Madam Speaker, the point of this amendment is obvious. The provisions of the clause, the coming into effect provisions, should be back dated to the date where those provisions became public; this is to say, the night of the famous press conference budget.
A lot of stores, in fact almost all of them, that night increased the price of cigarettes to the amount noted in the finance minister's budget before they actually needed to. Therefore, they stand the possibility at very least of reaping a windfall profit on a day's sale of cigarettes that the government given the current dating of these provisions will not collect.
It is in the interest of fairness, as well as that of fiscal responsibility for the government, to change the effective date of the act to April 27 so that it is the government that achieves the benefit of the boost in the tax rather than cigarette vendors. That is the simple and entire point of the amendment.
Government Orders


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Is the House ready for the question?


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The question is on Motion No. 17 standing in the name of the Hon. Member for Yukon. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


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


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), the recorded division on the proposed motion stands deferred.
Normally at this time the House would proceed to the taking of the deferred divisions at the report stage of the bill now before the House.
However, pursuant to Standing Order 45(6) the recorded divisions will stand deferred until six o'clock p.m. Monday, October 16, 1989.


MULTICULTURALISM AND CITIZENSHIP DEPARTMENT ACT
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Tuesday, October 3, consideration of the motion of Mr. Mulroney that Bill C-18, an act to establish the Department of Multiculturalism and Citizenship and to amend certain acts in relation thereto, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
Ross Harvey: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to get up and speak on this bill if for no other reason than I hail from a riding and indeed a city that is in many respects a microcosm of the multicultural reality

Government Orders
which many in Canada seek to see this nation become.
Edmonton is, in the term once popularized by the Right Hon. Secretary of State for External Affairs, "a community of communities". There are numerous language groups, numerous individual communities in Edmonton comprising members of cultures from around the globe, all of whom in Edmonton have come to live in a kind of harmony, a kind of over-all co-operative civic spirit that I think does the city proud and I think can act as a model for the rest of the country. This is not to say that we do not have problems in Edmonton. We do. But we have many assets in consequence of this fundamental fact.
This is most obvious in the annual heritage days festival in Edmonton. It occurs every August and is a three-day long weekend extravaganza in which the various cultures present in Edmonton get together, establish booths down in William Hawrelak Park and spend those three days marvelling at the richness and variety of each other's cultures.
I would note as well that in Edmonton, indeed in Edmonton East, there is a variety of publications in various heritage languages. We have two Italian newspapers; we have three Chinese language newspapers; we have two newspapers that are published partly in Cree; we have a Portuguese newspaper; we have a Ukrainian newspaper; and we have The Prairie Link, which is devoted to the furtherance of all these multicultural perspectives.
In the last two months I attended ceremonies to mark African Awareness Day. I attended the founding meeting of the Keiping Association of Alberta. I attended the opening of the new headquarters of the Hakka Association, and of course last summer I attended at the celebration of the Veisakha by the Sikh community in Edmonton.
This is not to say, as I noted earlier, that we are devoid of frictions in Edmonton. They are there, just as they have been there historically in Canada and I must say especially in western Canada.
There are such shameful episodes as the Komagata Maru incident, the imposition of the Chinese immigration head tax and thereafter the Immigration Exclusion Act; the systematic discrimination against Ukrainian settlers at the beginning of the century; the appalling
crimes committed against the Japanese Canadian people during the Second World War; and more recently the real racial discrimination faced by new immigrants such as the Vietnamese, the Latinos, especially Chileans and El Salvadorans, people from the Arab countries and the Sikh community.
All these are witness to the fact that racial discrimination has not been abolished from our communities, not even in a community as young and essentially open-minded as that which one will find in Edmonton.
And of course always for some reason, lurking in the background, is that particular European curse, antiSemitism, which continues to raise its ugly head from time to time in acts of vandalism in Edmonton and across Alberta.
There is no question, therefore, that in this bill we have a proposal for an act which is commendable in that it celebrates the fact of diversity in Canada and which is necessary because it seeks to foster public celebration and acceptance of that fact.
In this regard I commend, without reservation, the efforts of the government and of the minister. I note as well that on the day that this bill was moved for second reading we had the introduction of the heritage languages bill. This will create the institute, centred in Edmonton most appropriately, and is as well another commendable piece of legislation by this government. I will have more on that at second reading of that bill.
I would just like to close by noting that the term multiculturalism, that field of attitude which is intended to cover the openness of spirit, generosity and goodwill expressed toward people who are apparently different from us or toward people who apparently pursue different cultural values, is and always has been a fundamental precept of the party of which I am proud to be a member.
From the days in which the CCF opposed the Exclusion Act in B.C. and from the days in which the CCF opposed the relocation of Japanese Canadians in the Second World War to the present, our party has always stood for justice for and a welcoming of people from around the world into the project that is the building of the Canadian nation.
In some senses this was best expressed by our founding leader James Shaver Woodsworth who concluded his grace before meat with the words: "What we desire for
October 13, 1989


STATEMENTS PURSUANT TO S.O. 31
[Stage Direction]
ourselves we wish for all." That is the spirit that animates this bill, and I celebrate it.
The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Is the House ready for the question?


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, were there no objections at all to the bill? I want to double check on that because I thought that we would probably end up with a vote.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: No objections at all.


Albert Glen Cooper: Because it is now 10.30 a.m. and the House would normally adjourn at this point, we would like to have the House adjourn for a few moments and come back in time for Question Period, which would then be followed by Private Members' Business.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The House has heard the parliamentary secretary. I have not heard anyone speak against the bill being read the second time so it has carried.


SITTING SUSPENDED
The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: If everyone has agreed I will suspend the sitting until eleven o'clock.


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
The sitting of the House was suspended at 10.31 a.m.


SITTING RESUMED
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed at 11 a.m.
Mr. Speaker:: It being eleven o'clock, pursuant to Standing Order 35, the House will now proceed to Statements by Members pursuant to Standing Order 31.


OFFICIAL LANGUAGES
Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, we learned with amazement and indignation of the resolution proposed by aldermen Darrel Kent, Jac-quelin Holzman and Michael McSweeney and passed by a committee of the City of Ottawa to abolish the French services advisory board.
This reprisal for Bill 178 is frightfully and unacceptably cynical. Nothing is more vicious and two-faced than an elected bigot who holds a minority group hostage and punishes, or seeks to punish, it for an action beyond its control and for which it is in no way responsible.
In the capital of this country which should reflect Canada's linguistic duality, tolerance and generosity, it is unacceptable for some city councillors to show such ignorance, narrow-mindedness and intolerance.
Mr. Speaker, if these elected representatives of the people are unable to act with dignity and understanding, they should resign and be replaced!


NATIONAL UNITY
Mr.   Brian@: Mr. Speaker, national unity is one of the most important topics of our time. Our challenge as Canadians is to find a balance between our need to express our uniqueness and our need to identify with the common national purpose.
It is important to express our individuality. It is important to show others what makes us special as Canadians. In some cases it may also be appropriate to promote the differences among us. Indeed, most Canadians will agree that it is our differences that have in fact given our country its strength.
However, rather than dwelling on our differences let us focus instead on what makes us the same as Canadians. Now is the time to celebrate our national identity. Now is the time to work together in the national interest. Let us all work together to face the economic challenges in Canada.

October 13, 1989
Let us work together as one Canada to build a better future for our children. Let us all, Canadians from sea to sea, work together to build a better Canada.


HUMAN RIGHTS
Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize an El Salvadoran woman of courage and dedication, Magdalena Hernandez, who is currently visiting Canada.
Ms. Hernandez is a member of the village council and president of the women's council of the village of Las Vueltas in El Salvador. Ten years ago the people of many villages in El Salvador, including Las Vueltas, fled their homes because of bombings and death squads.
Two years ago today these refugees started returning to their homes from the Honduras refugee camps, from San Salvador and elsewhere. Indeed, just next week over 1,600 people will be going back to their home villages from the refugee camp of Mesa Grande, which I had the privilege of visiting last month. This will be the fourth return of these people.
Given the increasing level of violence in El Salvador since Christiani came to power, I call upon the Government of Canada to support these people in their courageous return. I call upon the Government of Canada to condemn the human rights violations which have been taking place in El Salvador, the wave of assassinations, of abductions, of disappearances.
Finally, I urge our government to call upon the United Nations to provide all the necessary support so that the people of Las Vueltas and the people of other villages throughout El Salvador can join with courageous villagers, such as Magdalena Hernandez who is in the gallery, today in rebuilding a new El Salvador, an El Salvador of peace, an El Salvador of democracy and of justice.


ADDRESS BY KING HUSSEIN
Mr. Bob Corbett (Fundy-Royal):: Mr. Speaker, this week witnessed an historic moment in this chamber when His Majesty King Hussein of Jordan became the first head of state of an Arab country to address both Houses of the Canadian Parliament.
Those of us who have favoured dialogue and promoted moderation were particularly impressed with the eloquent, reasonable and pragmatic approach to peace outlined by our guest.
I also commend our Prime Minister for reiterating Canada's support for the concept of land for peace.
To bring peace to a region fraught with violence, the voices of moderation such as those of King Hussein deserve our unconditional support.
The peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the crux of the problem, can be attained by the creation of an independent Palestinian state to complement all of the others in the region.


ATLANTIC CANADA OPPORTUNITIES AGENCY
Mr. Ron MacDonald (Dartmouth):: Mr. Speaker, a secret document prepared for the Premier of Nova Scotia is nothing short of a scathing indictment of this government's policies on regional development and its pure deception in trying to mislead the people of Atlantic Canada about the activities of ACOA.
On May 17 the minister responsible for ACOA told a Commons committee that ACOA had spent nearly $600 million in Atlantic Canada. This claim was repeated on July 4 by the then president of ACOA, and again on October 6 by the minister responsible.
However, this confidential document that I have clearly shows that the actual investment by ACOA was some 40 per cent less than that claimed by the minister and this government. The credibility of this minister and the ACOA officials is now being seriously questioned as is this government's stated commitment to regional development. To quote from the premier's document: "At the moment, Atlantic Canada is practically depraved of incentives to attract industry and investment-this is not acceptable and cannot continue. We demand equal fair treatment in this Confederation".
I now call upon this government to initiate a full public inquiry into the operations of ACOA and this government's actions, not rhetoric, as it relates to regional economic development.


VIA RAIL
Mr. Ken James (Sarnia-Lambton):: Mr. Speaker, since the announcement of VIA's new reference levels, the 11 government members of southwestern and western Ontario have consistently and unrelentlessly asserted the importance of passenger rail service for our area.
The retention of both the north and south line routes in southwestern Ontario as part of VIA's new national network has reaffirmed this importance for both my riding of Sarnia-Lambton and southwestern Ontario in general.
In my riding a group of community representatives have already taken another step forward. Rather than dwell on the supposed demise of passenger rail services, they have become involved in a local task force to help ascertain what type of new schedule and equipment could best address the area's travelling needs. Coupled with my personal meeting with VIA officials, I believe that this group will provide a valuable forum through which viable suggestions can be offered for optimal local passenger rail service.
The efforts of this task force, I think, are both timely and constructive. Certainly they demonstrate that some are fully committed to a national and local rail system that is sustainable and affordable, and one that can be built upon in the future.


KIDS' HELP PHONE
Ms. Joy Langan (Mission-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge the government to meet the needs of Canadian children by approving the funding application for the Kids' Help Phone.
Since May, this line has handled 45,000 calls from children across the country. More than 3,000 calls have been from children reporting abuse. More than 1,300 calls have been threats of suicide.
Without federal funds, the Kids' Help Phone is in jeopardy. At first they requested $1.3 million. Now they need $2 million just to keep up. Meetings with the Minister of National Health and Welfare have resulted in nothing.
Make no mistake, Mr. Speaker, I am not suggesting that the government can get off lightly in its responsibility to Canadian kids by only providing funds for this one help line. What this line tells us is that there is a desperate need for more services for our children, especially in rural, remote and isolated areas.
If this govenment can spend millions to advertise the trade deal, $2.7 million to advertise its budget and take out full page ads to laud a tax bill not yet passed by Parliament, then surely it can provide money to a service responding to the pleas for help from our children.


Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to pay tribute to Michel Juneau of Val d'Or. In 1982, 3,000 feet underground, the platform on which he was working gave way and Michel fell 50 feet. This accident was to change his life painfully: at 27, he became a paraplegic.
Recently, he confided that the first year was the hardest. "Still wearing pyjamas at five in the afternoon is not living. I had to get out of my shell." That is what he did. He regained his taste for sport with the Val d'Or Passe-partout, a wheelchair basketball club.
In the most recent Canadian championships on June 18 in Winnipeg, he finished only 26 seconds behind Andre Viger. On November 5, he will be at the world championships in Japan, but Michel says: What I am proudest of is not the victories and the travel. It is rather that I managed as a disabled person to join the rest of society. Most people now see me as a real athlete.
Mr. Speaker, that is a true champion and a model of perseverance!
 * *


APARTHEID
Mr. Bob Speller (Haldimand-Norfolk):: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for External Affairs are misreading the intentions of the South African government to provide real change in South Africa.

October 13, 1989
The Canadian government should not let up on the pressure just because South Africa is talking a good story. There must be some real change.
Canada, by not proposing new sanctions in Kuala Lumpur, is telling the world that South Africa is prepared to make changes. I ask the Prime Minister, where are these real changes? Actions speak louder than words. Real change would be to release all political prisoners and to say when there will be real elections in South Africa.
The Prime Minister has advocated total economic sanctions against South Africa if it did not make progress toward dismantling apartheid. This government should show real leadership and call for more sanctions to show the South African government that it will not accept petty apartheid talk as concrete indications of its willingness to make real change in South Africa.


KIDS' HELP PHONE
Mr. Maurizio Bevilacqua (York North):: Mr. Speaker, Canada's first hotline for troubled children, the Kids' Help Phone, averages 800 calls a day. These calls range from suicide threats, fights with their parents, teen pregnancies and many other problems associated with being a troubled child.
Kids' Help Phone will have to end its service if this government does not come through with a $1.3 million dollar grant by the end of the month.
The best statement department officials could make was that the proposal was under review. Is the government reviewing whether the little girl who gets beaten by her drunk parents needs help, whether the teenager who finds out she is pregnant and has no where to turn needs advice, or whether the young boy who is having problems dealing with the fear of drug addiction needs guidance? Or is it reviewing whether $1.3 million is too high a price to pay to reach the seven million children in Canada?
Kids' Help Phone needs the government's help. Kids in this country need the government's help. I urge this government not to let them down.


UNEMPLOYMENT
Mr. Peter L. McCreath (South Shore):: Mr. Speaker, during hearings of Bill C-21 by the unemployment insurance committee much rhetoric was heard from opponents about money being taken out of the UI system.
In fact, this money is being reinvested to assist unemployed or laid-off Canadians to prepare for, find and achieve full-time permanent employment, something for which this government has an enviable and impressive record.
In particular, 50 million additional dollars will go for the Community Futures Program and 15 million additional dollars for the industrial adjustment service. Used this way, these funds represent a valuable, long-term benefit for currently unemployed Canadians.
I urge the government to target much of these additional funds for use in areas hit hard by the downturn in the Atlantic fishery or impacted by base closures. In particular, I urge the immediate designation of Shelburne and Queens counties in Nova Scotia for the Community Futures Program.


CASH ADVANCES FOR GRAIN PAYMENTS
Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Mr. Speaker, yesterday in my office I received a telephone call from a farmer who works in northwest Saskatchewan near The Battlefords. He told me to pass a message to the government across the way. He said he is a long-time Conservative who is now a former supporter of the government party.
The government, he said, has forgotten about the farmer. Grain is not moving from the elevators. He cannot sell his grain and his debts have to be paid. The situation leaves him in a heck of a spot.
If the government realized the true situation, it would maintain the cash advance payments for grain. The cash advance is not a loan and should not be subject to the interest payments. The program was put in place to provide payments for grain, some of which cannot be sold because quotas are off or elevators are plugged.
October 13, 1989

If this government wants to help western farmers, it would bring forth the statutes under the existing legislation to allow advance payments to be made and at the same time bring in legislation to reduce interest rates for all farm loans for Canadian farmers.


INDUSTRY
Mrs. Pauline Browes (Scarborough Centre):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday 2,700 workers at the General Motors plant in Scarborough were told by the company that the plant's operations are under review.
I contacted General Motors last night to express my concern about this announcement. I will be holding further meetings with their officials early next week.
The General Motors plant has been an important part of Scarborough's economy for over 35 years. In that time it has changed its production lines three times. However, yesterday's announcement has raised serious concerns among the workers and their families about the status of the plant.
In my meetings with General Motors I will urge the company to work closely with the workers to ensure that the Scarborough facility remains an important part of our community.


OFFICIAL LANGUAGES
Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday a committee of three aldermen of the City of Ottawa, three well-known Conservatives, including the "babysitter" alderman Michael McSween-ey, passed a resolution to eliminate the city's advisory committee on official languages.
Mr. Speaker, this gesture was apparently as a form of reprisal against the Quebec National Assembly's passage of Bill 178.
Ottawa is the capital of our country and as such has an important role to play in preserving and promoting Canadian unity.
Mr. Speaker, I want to appeal to all Members in the House of Commons and all my colleagues at the provincial and municipal levels in the National Capital Region to dissociate themselves from the comments made by the three aldermen. I think it is high time the Prime Minister told his friend Michael McSweeney about Canada's linguistic duality.


COMMONWEALTH GAMES
Mr. John Brewin (Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, I notice that the Minister of State for Fitness and Amateur Sport is in the House.
Next week at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers meeting there will be an opportunity for the Government of Canada to persuade other governments in the Commonwealth to follow the sports policy that this government has introduced in respect of apartheid in South Africa. I would urge the government to use this opportunity and to ensure that from here on the Commonwealth Games are boycott free.


TAXATION
Mr. Charles A. Langlois (Manicouagan):: Mr. Speaker, Canada must adjust to current economic conditions and adopt a fair taxation system. Our new approach to taxation must include changes in the present federal sales tax. This is what the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) had in mind when he proposed a new sales tax system called the goods and services tax. It is widely agreed that our present system, which puts a 13.5 per cent tax on most products manufactured and purchased in Canada, no longer reflects the economic situation in this country. The tax is obsolete and is detrimental to business development.
The system proposed by our government is modem, more flexible, and, most important, takes into account the situation of senior citizens and families on incomes below $30,000 annually. Mr. Speaker, it is clear the new system must be implemented as soon as possible.


Mr. Duhamel:: Eighty per cent of Canadians don't agree.

October 13, 1989
Oral Questions



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I will pose my question to the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion.
We learned yesterday that 2,500 jobs at the General Motors plant in Scarborough, plus hundreds more in the auto parts industry that supplies that factory, are now being put on the chopping block as a direct consequence of the free trade agreement.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Lloyd Axworthy: I want to point out to the House that the loss of 2,500 jobs is no laughing matter. The Tories should not laugh about it.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lloyd Axworthy: I want to ask the minister a very simple question. What does the government intend to do to prevent the loss of these jobs in the vital auto industry in this country?


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion and Minister of State for Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, I should first point out that in automobiles there has been free trade since 1965.
In the last few years this particular company has invested about $8 million in Canada, quite a lot of it in the constituency of the member for Oshawa. This is a van production facility. There were two equal sized facilities, one in Ohio and one in Scarborough, which they are phasing out.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Guess which one they're keeping open.


Harvie Andre: They are closing both of them, as a matter of fact. They are closing both lines and consolidating in Flint, Michigan. In the meantime, they are looking for an alternate product line to produce in Scarborough.
What happened yesterday was the prudent kind of indication to employees that changes are coming. But that is a part of the operations of this company which has been operating under free trade since 1965, much to Canada's benefit.
Mr. Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre) Mr. Speaker, I want to simply point out to the minister that there was an auto pact in this country. It is this government that removed the safeguards and removed the tariffs. It is this government that is responsible for the loss of jobs.
As a consequence, we want to know from this government what proposals it is going to make at the automobile working group. Is it supporting a 60 per cent content rule? What proposals will the government make to provide for the protection and enhancement of jobs in the vital automobile industry?
This government has the responsibility. This government has to take some action. This government cannot avoid the basic consequence that it signed a rotten deal.


Harvie Andre: If the hon. member is assigning responsibility for these things, presumably he will equally assign credit to this government for the over million and a half jobs generated. Surely he will assign credit to this government for the tremendous automobile trade surplus we have been enjoying and continue to enjoy because of the policies of this government. Perhaps he will recognize all of those factors.
As his colleague and former finance critic had indicated, the Liberals will attempt to blame every sparrow that falls on the free trade agreement. This is another attempt in this regard.
I remind him again, in terms of trade in automobiles, the operation of the automobile industry, the rules in place today have been in place since 1965.


Lloyd Axworthy: I have a supplementary, Mr. Speaker. The Minister says there will be more jobs. However, according to the report based on serious studies on free trade conducted by this Government, and according to other studies by the private sector, and also according to the Canadian Labour Congress, 60,000 jobs have already been lost as a result of free trade. When will this Government start taking seriously the right of Canadians to know what the consequences are of free trade? I request a public examination by Parliament on the subject of free trade and Canadians jobs.
October 13, 1989


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member and Shirley Carr are surely the only two people in Canada who take that list and those numbers seriously. That was a pathetic, ridiculous list. I am surprised that an aspirant to the leadership of his party would be so naive as to repeat those numbers.


Lloyd Axworthy: Where are your studies?


Harvie Andre: Our studies show that since free trade was introduced, the number of new jobs created in Canada is 189,000. The hon. member over there is talking about the studies. These are Statistics Canada numbers. These are not inventions of Shirley Carr. They are Statistics Canada numbers.


Ron J. Duhamel: Are they your invention?


Harvie Andre: The numbers indicate the economy is continuing to percolate along, as it has over the last five years. As long as we are saved from the kinds of policies the hon. member would introduce, the economy will continue to percolate along.


Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, I, too, have a question for the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion. I want to say to him that his words are no consolation for the 2,500 Canadian workers in Scarborough who are going to lose their jobs because of the government's lack of commitment and action.
I also want to say this to the minister: Does he not realize he is not here to make excuses for General Motors? I ask the minister, therefore, why will he not make a commitment today to preserve those 2,500 jobs at Scarborough? Why will he not on behalf of the government stand up today for Canada and Canadian workers?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, what happened yesterday was a corporation, General Motors, indicated that it is changing the production because of changing markets, because of changing needs in its company. The vans that had been produced there and in Ohio in roughly equal numbers will no longer be produced. They informed their employees of that fact. They are looking for other operations.
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General Motors is well aware, as are most Canadians, that Canadian auto workers are very productive. In fact, that is the reason we enjoy a tremendous surplus in automobile trade with the United States.
General Motors has a facility there with very productive workers. It is searching for a replacement for the van. It is in their interests to find that replacement.
I do not know why the hon. member feels it is appropriate today to do the Chicken Little routine and say the sky is falling. It may not be falling.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, before this government came into office and before this minister became the minister, the automotive industry was sufficiently competitive that jobs were moving to Canada and staying in Canada.

I want to ask the Minister to acknowledge that since the Government's free trade agreement was implemented, we have lost jobs and plants to the United States. Why won't the Government admit today that the Free Trade Agreement is a disaster for our country?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, the unemployment rate is lower than it has been for some eight or nine years. Since January there have been 189,000 new jobs created in Canada to add on to the over 1.5 million over the last four years. I realize that it is disappointing news to the opposition to have the economy continue to perform that way, but we do not think that is disappointing news.


Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the same minister. I choose my words with care. Just a minute ago he misled the House. I want to find out if he did it deliberately or inadvertently. I want to give him a chance to clear the record.


Mr. Charest:: Order.


John Edward Broadbent: That is perfectly in order. I want the minister to clarify it.
He said that we are operating under the same rules today as we were in 1965. In 1965 investment requirements were established in Canada for U.S. firms in this industry to make sure we got our jobs. As a result of the free trade agreement in place now, those investment requirements are gone. That is to say the rules are

October 13, 1989
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different today because of what the Conservative Government did than what they were in 1965.
Will the minister confirm that the rules have changed, that there are no longer Canadian investment requirements, and that they have been removed by this government? Second, what is to prevent in the future GM, Chrysler in Brampton or Ford in Oakville from moving lock, stock and barrel if it is in their financial interest out of Canada into the U.S. as a result of the removal of the investment safeguards by the Conservative Government?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, this debate was had last year. We went over it ad nauseam last year.
The hon. member is talking about safeguards which are so far away from the reality today as to be totally meaningless. That debate was held last year. The people decided. I do not understand. Is he a sore loser? Why does he keep coming back to something that is over and done with and established?
He surely is not claiming that the decisions announced yesterday had anything to do with that safety mechanism that was there in 1965 which was proven to be unnecessary, irrelevant and totally divorced from the reality of what is going on.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, the minister knows that his own government ministers since 1984 have cited the investment requirements-they used to-and correctly pointed out that General Motors normally exceeded the requirements. Now that the government has removed the requirements they pretend they are useless.
I want to ask the minister this. Given the great rationalization that is going on in that industry throughout this continent, why should any Canadian now working in the industry, and there are over 100,000, believe that when future investment decisions are made, whether by General Motors, Chrysler or Ford, that these investments will take place in Canada? They are no longer required to do it. Immense political pressure is building up in the U.S. Why, I ask again, will the industry-given the choice between expanding in Canada and the U.S.-not move to the U.S.? What is going to keep those jobs?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, I hope the hon. member is not suggesting that the $8 billion of investment by
General Motors was because of the safeguards and I hope he will agree with me that that money was invested by GM because it recognized that Canadian workers are very productive, that it can make a good profit margin on production in Canada. That is why it made the investment.
The hon. member seems to suggest the only way we can keep investment in Canada is by putting up barriers and forcing people to stay. Today's The Globe and Mail has an interesting article which states: "Freightliner Canada Ltd. plans to build a freight truck assembly plant in the southwestern city of St. Thomas and should eventually employ up to 1,200 people". They are not forced to do that. They are doing it because it makes good sense to them. Those 1,200 people are going to appreciate the work.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, today it was reported that Chiysler, which currently has plants in Brampton, is about to make a decision to transfer its production to the United States within a few years. My question to the Minister is quite straightforward: Tuesday, the Government refused to entertain the findings of to studies on the impact of the FTA on employment in this major industry. Would the Minister be prepared to talk directly to the presidents of Chiysler, General Motors and Ford about their intentions for the future, in order to protect investment and employment here in Canada?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, we have an ongoing dialogue with the automobile industry, both the big assembler and the pack-parts companies and so on, to ensure that Canada remains a good place to do business and to ensure that they continue to invest here. The success of those kinds of discussions is evidenced by the tremendous investment we have had in this industry. For instance there is the indication from Freightliner of a new truck assembly plant in Canada. We will continue to do that in the future.
I would ask the hon. member to have more confidence in Canadians, we can compete. We have shown in the past and we will show it in the future.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Acting Minister of the Environment, the minister who is acting on behalf of Canadians.
This week we learned that contaminants which potentially cause cancer and brain damage are being found in the Great Lakes. The situation is so serious that the minister of health himself pointed to problems with foetuses, native populations and others.
Can the Acting Minister of the Environment explain who in the federal government authorized the dredging in the St. Clair River, the dumping of contaminants which are potential cancer causing contaminants directly into the open waters? Who authorized that and why was there not an environmental assessment done?


Hon. Frank Oberle (Minister of State (Forestry)):: Mr. Speaker, some of these questions were raised yesterday and it was pointed out that the government has acted, monitoring has taken place. The results of this monitoring process, which has been ongoing for some time, does not give rise to the kind of alarmist statements that have been made by the hon. member and by others. In fact, one of the authors of the report pointed to the need for further research before some of these so-called health effects can be substantiated.
It would behove us to get behind the new programs that have been worked out with American jurisdictions, the provinces and municipalities in the area and, indeed, the industry, to make sure that the $125 million that has been announced to address some of these questions; the health effects, remedial action and preventive action, is used to lever similar initiatives from other jurisdictions and that we get on with job.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, Canada was embarrassed on the international stage yesterday when the Council of Three Fires of Walpole Island told the IJC that they are forced to take the Canadian Government to court to stop the dumping of hundreds of contaminants, which have the potential to cause cancer and brain damage, in the drinking water of approximately 45 million people living on the Canadian and American sides of the border.
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I would like to ask the Acting Minister of the Environment; who authorized the open dumping of the contaminants that are now being dumped by the Canadian Government, by the Department of Public Works, into the St. Clair River? Who authorized that and who is going to take the responsibility for the potential health damages?


Frank Oberle: Mr. Speaker, I can tell the hon. member that my colleague the minister who-


Sheila Maureen Copps: He's in Paris.


Frank Oberle: -is on an urgent trip to Europe to consult with environment ministers there. She herself would admit that the issue of the environment is a global issue, an international issue. We are recognized as having assumed a leadership role in certain critical areas. My colleague would want to verify the evidence that has been induced before we would want to examine it any further.


Sheila Maureen Copps: It's in the courts.


MUNICIPALITIES
Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. In Newfoundland there are approximately 49,000 homes without adequate water or sewers. This will only be remedied if $1.3 billion is found.
Is the Deputy Prime Minister aware of raw sewage being dumped into lakes, rivers and harbours across Canada and would his government today, in this House, make a financial commitment to Canadians to address this potential environmental disaster as recommended by the Institute for Research and Public Policy?


Frank Oberle: Mr. Speaker, the government is aware of situations where municipal sewers are discharged into harbours and into other environments. I can tell the hon. member that, yes, we take this situation very seriously. We have signalled our concerns to the provinces and municipalities which have the principal responsibility for the clean-up and the adherence to the environmental standards that we have already.


Mac Harb: Mr. Speaker, using the minister's own words that the provinces and the municipalities should pay for the repairs of their sewage systems, where does he

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expect the people of Newfoundland to come up with $1,300,000 to repair their sewer systems? The total package is $5.7 billion to repair the sewage systems in Newfoundland. Where does he expect the people of Newfoundland to come up with that kind of money?


Frank Oberle: I do
not want to appear flippant or parenthetical about my answer, but the people of Newfoundland have the same sources to come up with money as has the federal government. As the hon. member knows, we are in a very tight fiscal situation. Unfortunately, there is only one source of money and that is the taxpayers of Canada. We are dipping into the same pocket that the province of Newfoundland would have to dip into.
I should, however, point out to the hon. member that there are programs that the federal government has engaged in with the province of Newfoundland, such as transfer payments and other assistance, that help the provinces to maintain certain minimum standards that are desirable throughout our country.


HOUSING
Mr. Jim Karpoff (Surrey North):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Housing. Yesterday the minister announced the release of federal lands at Vaughan near Toronto for housing.
The minister indicated that only 25 per cent or 600 units of the 2,500 homes, will be affordable housing. Is the minister aware that already this morning four respected Toronto housing groups have, in a press statement, criticized him for not specifying how many co-operative and non-profit housing units will be built. Will the minister now tell this House how many nonprofit and co-operative housing units will be built on the lands at Vaughan?


Hon. Alan Redway (Minister of State (Housing)):: Mr. Speaker, as I am sure the hon. member is well aware, the whole process of developing land for housing entails the putting together of a plan of development and the obtaining of approval of that plan from the local municipality and all of the other authorities that are involved in that process.
Obviously until the firm plan is settled and has been worked out with the town of Vaughan, the region of York and the province of Ontario, it is impossible to designate specifically where the housing that will be available for
non-profit groups and for co-operative housing groups will be located.
But we are committed to providing a minimum of 25 per cent affordable housing in accordance with the province of Ontario's guidelines. We will be doing our best to maximize the amounts available not only for first-time home buyers but also for the non-profit groups.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, the minister is aware that the 25 per cent affordable housing provision is simply the minimum requirement of Ontario. Why is the minister acting like any other developer? He is only doing what is required by Ontario. How can he justify a policy that subsidizes the rich and slams the door on the poor?


Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member has stated, the 25 per cent is indeed a minimum. That is what the announcement I made yesterday indicated, that it certainly was a minimum and that we were going to do our best to make sure that it was much higher than that. Affordable housing, in the definition of the province of Ontario, does not just include non-profit and co-op housing but, of course, includes housing for first time home buyers.
We would hope that we would be able to maximize the number of homes available for first time home buyers and also for the social housing groups as well. I am sure the hon. member and all Canadians will be most happy when this development has been built and completed.


PROPOSED GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. Lee Richardson (Calgary Southeast):: Mr. Speaker, the finance committee is currently holding hearings in Ottawa and across the country on the goods and services tax. These have been and continue to be very productive meetings across the country. However, rumours and reports today indicated that the Minister of Finance is about to introduce GST legislation. Would the minister assure the House that this is merely a draft bill for discussion purposes?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I can confirm that to the hon. member. We are proposing only to release draft legislation. The draft will put into legal language a number of elements that were set out in the technical paper. We have been encouraged to do this by the chairman of the finance committee, as my colleague fully understands, as well as by the legal and accounting communities who are anxious to see what

the legal words of the technical requirements of the proposal are so that they can make specific comments on the technical aspects of the proposed bill.


CANADIAN ARMED FORCES
Mr. Joe McGuire (Egmont):: Mr. Speaker, last Friday the Minister of National Defence quoted a statement from an editorial in the Summerside Journal-Pioneer to support his decision to close CFB Summerside. It was a misrepresentation of the newspaper's position and the minister knew it. He also deliberately misled the House when he quoted these-


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


Joseph Blair (Joe) McGuire: -search and rescue statistics.
A statement from the Journal-Pioneer last Tuesday really demonstrates how the paper feels, and I quote: "Defence Minister Bill McKnight has displayed both arrogance and truculence while questioned in the House. But he added a new ingredient during Question Period on Friday, deception".
Will the minister apologize to the Journal-Pioneer for his misleading statements of last Friday. Will he stop playing politics with people's lives, and will he open a public inquiry to determine what the real situation is in regard to search and rescue?


Mr. Speaker:: I want some clarification from the hon. member who just put the question. I heard "misleading". I did not hear "deliberately". I want a clarification of that.


Mr. Jelinek:: He said "deliberately".


Mr. McKnight:: I want an apology, not a clarification.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Oh sit down.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: How about Prince Edward Island?


Lloyd Axworthy: Now you're being arrogant and truculent again.
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Mr. Speaker:: I am sorry, I would like to know what the hon. member said and then I will decide whether there should be an apology.


Joseph Blair (Joe) McGuire: If I used the word "deliberately", I did not mean it, but I did mean "misleading".


Harvie Andre: You said he knowingly mislead the House. That's what you said.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Well he did.


Otto John Jelinek: You have it written down right on your notes. Liar. You have it written down on your notes.


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Mr. Speaker, I serve notice now that I will raise a question of privilege at the conclusion of Question Period.


Otto John Jelinek: He has it written down.


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: The hon. member suggests that I misled the House. Mr. Speaker, the article is under the heading called "Editorial", located where the editorial is usually located in the Journal-Pioneer. It was not an Op-Ed. There was no attribution to another newspaper that would suggest that this was not. What it does say is: "It is unfortunate, however, that one shall benefit-" There is one line, "but we are ready to receive it nevertheless, says the Halifax Chronicle-Herald."
This does not say in any way that it was an editorial reprinted from the Halifax Chronicle-Herald. It says,
It is unfortunate, however, that one shall benefit while another suffers. Nova Scotia did not seek the major source of Summerside's pride and economic support, but we are ready to receive it nevertheless, says the Halifax Chronicle-Herald.
What I am saying and what I will continue to say-


Some Hon. Members:: Apologize.


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Hon. members are yelling "apologize". If I implied there was any intent to the lack of editorial integrity or the lack of editorial ability by the Summer-side Pioneer-Journal, which has to take an editorial and place it as an editorial from another newspaper, I apologize.
What I would like to say to the hon. member and to the people of Summerside is, this decision was not an easy decision. This decision was made because $2.74 billion was reduced from the defence department's

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budget. The $2.74 billion meant we had to change what we were doing. Operational efficiencies have not been jeopardized. A savings of some $900 million will be acquired by the Government of Canada over the next 15 years to use in the security of Canada through the Department of National Defence.


Ms. Catherine Callbeck (Malpeque):: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is to the Minister of Employment and Immigration, who is also the chairperson of the federal-provincial task force looking into the closure of CFB Summerside.
Since the announcement of the closure approximately six months ago, the economy of Summerside and area has been devastated, mainly due to lack of confidence. Immediate action is required. The people of Summer-side need a real federal commitment, otherwise the damage may be irreversible. When is the minister going to make an announcement that will provide jobs and will restore the much needed confidence within the community?


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her question. We have been working very hard on this issue, together with the province.
We have three federal-provincial working groups looking at alternate uses of the physical assets of CFB Summerside, potential alternate public sector activities for the Summerside area, on which I am working very closely with my colleagues here, and industrial incentives and activities necessary to attract private sector investment to Summerside.
I have had two meetings of the federal-provincial joint committee with Mr. Morrissey. The task forces have been meeting and Mr. Morrissey and I will be meeting again in the very near future to discuss our progress.
Like the hon. member, I am anxious to work with the province so that the two of us can come up with something that will be helpful to the future of Summer-side.


PUBLIC SERVICE
Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the President of the Treasury Board.
In prisons across Canada over 1,000 workers, including correction services officers, parole officers, recreation and training programmers have been without a contract for over two years. Next Friday they will be in a legal position to strike, erecting picket lines that guards will not cross. With the security of Canadian prisons at stake, why has the minister let things get so far out of hand, and what will the minister do now to settle this lengthy dispute?


Hon. Robert de Cotret (President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, we negotiated in good faith with all the groups in the Public Service Alliance of Canada and reached a settlement that was not ratified by this particular group of some 1,500 employees. They elected to ask the PSSRB to appoint a conciliation board. That conciliation board has yet to report, and until it does, I think it would be inappropriate for me to give a government response to a report that we have yet to receive.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, the member did not ask for a response to the report, the member asked for action. My supplementary question is directed to the Solicitor General.
If these workers do go on strike, as may happen, 8,000 parolees will be without supervision in towns and cities all across Canada. Inmates in prisons will be without training or recreational opportunities and, in my view, lives will be endangered. When is the minister going to act?


Hon. Pierre Blais (Solicitor General of Canada and Minister of State (Agriculture)):: Mr. Speaker, I can say that Correctional Services Canada is well aware of the situation. We are waiting for the report, as my colleague, the President of Treasury Board said earlier. We already have a contingency plan, which includes the assistance of police authorities, to ensure the security of Canadians, because the security of our citizens is paramount. Furthermore, my officials, both at Correctional Services and those involved in the contingency plan, have assured me that in any case, if anything happens and people cannot be supervised in the usual way, the security of our citizens will be guaranted at all times, Mr. Speaker.
October 13, 1989


PORK INDUSTRY
Ross Harvey: Mr. Speaker, late last week the Alberta government decided to step in and clean up the mess left by Peter Pocklington at his Gainers meat packing plant in Edmonton. At least 1,200 jobs have been saved.
Now we read where Bill Janklow, the former governor of South Dakota, and the man who called out the state troopers to block Canadian hogs from his state, says this bail-out is countervailable under the free trade agreement. He wants new duties imposed against Canadian hogs. And the American National Pork Producers Council is watching.
In the absence of the Minister for International Trade my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. What is the government going to do to let our American cousins know, with all due respect, that actions taken by our governments to preserve our meat packing industry and the jobs of hundreds of our citizens is none of their business?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister, President of the Privy Council and Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member is aware that there is, at the present time, a 3.6 cent per pound countervail that has been imposed as a result of a countervail claim that was made by the United States of America. That issue is being fought by the Canadian Government and by the pork producers and the Meat Council of Canada through two specific areas, through the GATT and through section 19 of the free trade agreement.
Thanks to the free trade agreement, we have an opportunity now to deal with this dispute in an objective and an impartial way, and I am confident about the outcome.
The fact that the Alberta government has taken over Gainers certainly has no bearing upon this at this particular time. Just because there has been a change in ownership, I do not believe that would constitute an action for countervail.


Ross Harvey: Mr. Speaker, thanks to the free trade agreement, as the minister well knows, we have the opportunity now to find out whether or not the Americans are applying their own law fairly
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according to their law. He knows, further, that especially the $10 million guarantee that the Alberta government is giving to Gainers is precisely that which, among others, the American Pork Producers Council is considering as to whether or not it is countervailable.
Again I ask the minister. What is this government going to do to stick up for Canadian jobs in Canadian meat packing plants against the predations of Americans?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Well, I am making progress, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member now says the American government is considering. It is quite well in order for producers in America to make representations to their government, as producers in Canada make representations to this government.
The producers in this country know very well that this government stands up for them, and we are working together in fighting this issue. It is based upon a GATT decision but fortunately we have a free trade dispute resolving mechanism which will be more effective, more impartial, more objective, and more successful.


FISHERIES
Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister for International Trade but, in his absence, I will address it to the minister responsible for small business and tourism.
There is considerable concern among lobster fishermen in southern Nova Scotia about a protectionist piece of legislation now before the U.S. Congress and supported by Senate majority leader George Mitchell of Maine, that could block the export of Nova Scotia lobsters to the United States.
Clearly the bill represents a trade distorting action that violates both the GATT and the free trade agreement. What action is the Government of Canada prepared to take to protect Nova Scotia's $100 million lobster industry?


Hon. Tom Hockin (Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism)):: Mr. Speaker, in reply to my hon. friend, I remind him that of course this is just a proposal. It is not a passed piece of legislation. It is a proposal which we find objectionable on scientific grounds. We also find it objectionable in terms of enforcement. We do not find it consistent at all with GATT or with the FTA and we

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delivered a message to that effect a week ago today. We will continue to pursue this very vigorously.


FAMILY VIOLENCE
Ms. Mary Clancy (Halifax):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister responsible for the status of women. In June, 1988 this government committed $40 million to a so-called family violence initiative. Twenty-two million dollars of this was to go to CMHC for something called Project Haven. As of 9.30 this morning, 16 months later, the total moneys taken up in Project Haven amount to $803,120 for a total of 20 rooms.
One million Canadian women can expect to be assaulted in this country in the near future. Could the minister tell us how much good she thinks 20 rooms will do?


Hon. Gerry Weiner (Secretary of State of Canada and Minister of State (Multiculturalism and Citizenship)):: Mr. Speaker, we commissioned a report which was released at the meeting in Montreal. We find it very helpful in aiding our understanding and raising awareness of the issue. We share the very serious concerns that the authors have raised and we will use our program effectively in combating those most disturbing attitudes and practices.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that is very reassuring to the one in four women in this country who are assaulted before the age of 17.
The Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women says that workers against family violence across this country are saying, "Where is the money, what has been done with the other $18 million?"
My question again is for the minister responsible for the status of women. Would she commit herself to report to the House what is being done with this money, can we see where the money is going and can we do something rather than raise the awareness? The awareness is there. Let us have some action and let us see where the dollars are.


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's concern, and I think that she knows it is shared by myself and the members of this government.
The $40 million that we announced in June, 1988 was the largest single increase ever in funding on family violence issues. There are a variety of components in it, as well as public awareness. I will be veiy happy to look into the particular issue that she has raised, and she knows that I have done that before and will continue to do it.
However, I do want the House to know that this government has made very strong efforts on behalf of the women who face these very terrible difficulties.


VIA RAIL
Mr. Guy H. Arseneault (Restigouche-Chaleur):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. Recent cut-backs to VIA Rail services, combined with curtailment of other railway activities, intentionally promoted by this government in the past have caused undue hardship throughout my province of New Brunswick and Canada.
If the government persists with these actions, can the minister explain what economic adjustment programs will be put in place to assist communities and those segments of the population, like senior citizens and students, which will be severely affected by these cutbacks?


Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, indeed the government is aware of the different applications of decisions that we have made. We have at different levels and different departments, like employment and immigration, regional development, ACOA, and so on, different ways in which we will be able to help people.
However, I do not believe that it is basically something which has anything to do with the cuts at VIA Rail. I believe, once again, that the decision has been made in the best interest, and if there are any hardships anywhere, they will be considered under all government programs.
October 13, 1989


Guy H. Arseneault: I have a supplementary question. New Brunswick needs financial assistance from the federal government to repair and improve its highway system, which is in pitiful condition.
Following the VIA Rail cuts, can the Minister explain to us what he intends to do to help New Brunswick and the other provinces whose highway systems are in the same deplorable condition?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, I think that my colleague is aware that Canada's highway system is in provincial jurisdiction. So the responsibility for such an initiative rests with the province of New Brunswick.
However, at the last meeting of provincial transport ministers and myself a few weeks ago in Calgary, we decided to continue work on a national highway polity. We are at the third stage of determining some technical points.
Obviously, the federal government in its present financial condition cannot make any commitment to give money to the provinces.
Nevertheless, as this policy is developed, some points are taken into consideration and I think that when the time comes, we will be able to have the necessary discussions.
Once again, I do not want to leave the impression that we will invest any money, for now. We cannot afford it. We will continue to work with the provinces, as was agreed in Calgary in September.


PROPOSED GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. I have a copy of a study done by Tristad Resources based on a Statistics Canada model. It shows that after one year of GST,
100.000	poor people who got the tax credit the first year will receive nothing in terms of a tax credit and after five years of operation, because of partial indexation, some
400.000	families will not receive a tax credit.
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What I want to know from the Minister of Finance is whether or not he will confirm those figures and that because of partial indexation the poor people of this country, some 100,000 families, after one year will receive nothing, and after five years 400,000 families will receive nothing from this Minister of Finance.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, let us start from ground zero. When we came into office there were no refundable sales tax credits to low income Canadians to offset the burden of sales tax. We introduced a refundable sales tax credit in 1986. We increased the threshold from $15,000 to $16,000 a year later-to $18,000 recently-and it will be going to $25,000 with the introduction of the goods and services tax.
I think the hon. member will acknowledge, I am sure, that the number of people who will be receiving this sales tax credit has increased considerably over the years and will increase even more as we move toward the introduction of the goods and services tax.
Just to put a dollar amount on this, the federal sales tax credit is $1.2 billion now and will be $3.6 billion with the introduction of the goods and services tax credit.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, the refusal of the minister to answer the question of course confirms that the GST means that after five years
400,000	families that are poor will lose the entire tax credit, and another 300,000 families will lose part of their tax credit.
I want to know from this Minister of Finance why he is taking a mean spirited approach in attacking poor people in this country by introducing the GST which will take money out of their pockets.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I do not know how he can characterize me as being mean spirited when I have been at the heart of the introduction of the refundable sales tax credit that is providing the offset to those people in low income brackets.
Now in specific response to the question, surely he understands that we review these matters, these thresholds on a regular basis. As I have indicated, the threshold was originally $15,000, then we increased it to $16,000, then to $18,000, and with the goods and services tax credit we will be proposing to increase it to $25,000. With the amount of people who are benefiting from the reform of the income tax system as a result of the review

Privilege
of the thresholds at which people start paying tax,
850,000	Canadians were taken off the tax rolls. This is an indication of how this government is responding to the needs of low income Canadians.


PRIVILEGE
William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Mr. Speaker, I take this opportunity to ask the House and to ask you to review a question that was put by the hon. member for Egmont. He is a member with whom I have no difficulty in putting forward the cause of his constituents and those who sent him to this House. However, in suggesting when reading from an editorial of September 26 from the Summerside Journal-Pioneer that I have deliberately mislead this House, I ask you, Sir, to let me read from an editorial of October 10 from Summerside's The Journal-Pioneer entitled, "An Apology and Clarification from Minister McKnight is now in Order". I will read one part. "Speaking of an error in judgment perhaps The Journal-Pioneer learned a lesson as to how not to do things in the future. If one is going to reprint an editorial from another newspaper that is opposite of the editorial stance, and in this case, The Journal Pioneer, one should choose carefully the position on the editorial stage to which to reproduce that editorial. If it is reproduced at the top left-hand side of the page under editorial heading, then perhaps there should be a lead paragraph emphasizing that the comments are being reflected and reflect the editorial position not of The Journal Pioneer. Perhaps more than one credit line should appear throughout the reproduced editorial so there would be absolutely no doubt that the editorial was being reproduced from another newspaper."
I believe that the hon. member who read his question into Hansard may wish an opportunity to observe what he said. Again, I emphasize that I have no problem whatsoever with the hon. member putting forward a position on behalf of his constituents, but I do request that the rules and traditions of this House be maintained.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Egmont.


Joseph Blair (Joe) McGuire: Mr. Speaker, in the same editorial that the minister just quoted from, they also make it clear that in their editorial The Journal Pioneer clearly attributed the reproduced article to the Chronicle Herald.
In the answer last Friday, the minister did not give any credit to the Chronicle Herald. He gave the full credit to the The Journal-Pioneer and its editorial stance. This is why we asked for the apology. The minister had to know since last spring that The Journal-Pioneer in no way supported the move of the 880 Squadron or the 413 Squadron from Summerside to anywhere else in Canada. The minister knew that and when he answered my question last Friday I think he misled the people of Canada, the people of Prince Edward Island, and the people of this House that this was not the editorial stance of The Journal-Pioneer.
But if I said "deliberately" earlier in Question Period, I withdraw those remarks and apologize.


POINT OF ORDER
Frank Oberle: Mr. Speaker, perhaps you would permit me to set the record straight in a response to a question from the hon. member for Hamilton East. In that answer perhaps I was too evasive. The reason is that the matter of the dumping or the dredging of the St. Clair River is a serious issue, but it is before the courts so I was intentionally evasive.
However, I should have pointed out to the specific question of the hon. member that the area where the material is being dumped is under the jurisdiction of the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. It is that agency that issued the permit for the dumping of the material.
The Departments of the Environment and of Public Works did examine the material and there is no evidence of any toxicity within it.


PRIVILEGE
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. Earlier today in the Question Period the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion made a mis-statement. I said that he misled the House- and I did not say at the time when I raised it whether it was deliberate or otherwise-when he said that the rules
October 13, 1989

in place in automotive trade between Canada and the U.S. today are the same as they were in 1965.
That, of course, as I pointed out in my question is totally false. They were changed. From 1965 up to the trade deal there was a Canadian content requirement in law, in the agreement, between the two countries. The trade deal negotiated between the Government of Canada and the United States removed that Canadian investment requirement, i.e., the rules have changed. They are not the same today as they were in 1965. I gave the minister an opportunity to correct that statement. He did not so in the answer. I give him the opportunity again right now.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, in my reply to the hon. member's question earlier I did indicate that the safeguards to which he is referring are totally irrelevant to what is, in fact, happening now. For example, if Canada were only to produce to the level of the safeguards that were in the Auto Pact Agreement, we would have one-half of the number of people employed in the auto industry that we have today and one-third the activity.
In other words, these safeguards are totally irrelevant to what in fact is happening. That there are safeguards is beyond dispute. We argued that ad nauseam for months and months and had an election where that was the sole issue.


John Edward Broadbent: The rules are different now.


Harvie Andre: The question is whether, in fact, those safeguards had anything to do with the decision today. I maintain emphatically that the decision announced by General Motors had nothing to do with safeguards. The safeguards are irrelevant and they have been for 20 years.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. leader of the New Democratic Party has raised, by way of a question of privilege, what is essentially a disagreement between two hon. members of this place, the minister and himself. I do not know that it is going to be settled at this time. Both the hon. leader of the New Democratic Party and the hon. minister have given explanations of their positions. I think it is for
Routine Proceedings
others to judge how that is to be resolved. I must advise the hon. member that it is not a question of privilege.
The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands on a point of order.


POINT OF ORDER
Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, today the Acting Minister of the Environment, the Minister of State for Forestry rose on a question of privilege or a point of order in relation to an answer he had given during Question Period. The hon. member for Hamilton East who had asked the question has left the House and I would simply like to reserve, on her behalf, her right to address the House should there be a continuing point arising out of the minister's statement.


Mr. Speaker:: We have a situation here where a minister, very properly, in order to clarify something that he had said in answer to a question from the hon. member for Hamilton East, rose at the first opportunity to give clarification. Naturally, if the hon. member for Hamilton East wishes to respond to that and she was not able to be in the House at that moment because she was, no doubt, busy with other duties I will, of course, hear her.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 32(1), I have the honour to table in the House, in both official languages, a report of the Commission to Review Allowances of Members of Parliament.
As has been the custom in the past, I would presume that this report be referred to the Standing Committee on Management and Members' Services pursuant to Standing Order 32(5).

Routine Proceedings


PROPOSED GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 32(2), I wish to table at this time, in both official languages, copies of the government's draft legislation for the proposed goods and services tax and comprehensive explanatory notes.
This document fully reflects, in draft bill form, what the August technical paper would look like if it were put into bill form. I am tabling this document simply to fulfil our promise made in August when we released the technical paper to do so.
By translating the technical design of the proposed GST into legal language, the draft legislative provisions elaborate on the mechanics of the proposed tax and give greater precision to its operational detail.
As we indicated this summer, this is a further step in the GST consultation process and will assist the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance as well as the professional community in their study of the GST technical paper.
To be clear, this is not a bill introduced into the House. That step must await the government's consideration of the report of the finance committee on the goods and services tax.


HOUSING
Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, since my appointment as Minister of State for Housing, I have always been concerned about the problem of affordable housing. I try to help prospective homeowners and Canadians who are having trouble becoming homeowners.

We are all aware that some housing markets, such as the greater Toronto area, are overheated with demand outstripping supply. There is a serious affordability problem within the Toronto region and an important factor in this is the limited supply of suitable land available for housing.
Some months ago the federal government announced that 50 hectares, that is 135 acres of surplus federal lands at the Downsview Airport site in North York would be made available for housing, and at that time Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the federal housing agency for which I am responsible, was given the responsibility for the development of that site.
Yesterday, I had the honour of announcing that the federal government has released another major site within the greater Toronto area in order to help address the housing needs of the region. The surplus land which the federal government is releasing on this occasion is a parcel of approximately 43 hectares, 106 acres. It is located in the town of Vaughan. This is expected to provide for up to 2,500 new homes.
Again, in keeping with the government policy with respect to the Downsview lands, it is our intention to serve a wide range of types of households. I anticipate that the new neighbourhood will be the home of between
6,000	and 8,000 people. The federal government expects that at least 25 per cent of the homes will meet the needs of young couples just starting out, of senior citizens and of disabled persons. What CMHC is striving for is an income-mixed community, providing a broad range of housing forms.
I might just say at this point that certainly that 23 per cent figure is a minimum, as I indicated in Question Period, but it remains to be worked out with the town of Vaughan as to the exact mix and the exact kind of community.

The federal Government will develop this land in close co-operation with the Town of Vaughan, the York region and the Ontario government, to ensure that this project is a success and benefits all concerned.

The town of Vaughan has been most interested in how this land would be developed since the time that it was declared surplus by Environment Canada with the decision to relocate the facilities of the Atmosphere Environment Service. I have therefore offered my assurances to the mayor and members of the Vaughan council that we will be working closely with them and their officials toward the realization of common objectives.
October 13, 1989



This land is being released as part of the Government's current policy of better management and reducing its land holdings, while taking steps to meet the housing needs of Canadians. These measures have made individual parcels of land available, like the Downsview property which CMHC is now developing.

As I have said since I was appointed Minister of State with the responsibility for housing, I have been looking for ways to address the very urgent needs for affordable housing in certain high-cost areas of our country. It was for this reason that I was particularly pleased to make this announcement. For me this is another step which I hope will bring really tangible results.
I want to thank my colleagues in the government for making this possible. It is a product of co-operation as well as a reflection of our commitment to sound management and the leadership role we are playing in housing in Canada.
The release of the Vaughan land is a result of a CMHC analysis of the development potential of the site which was conducted for the Treasury Board with the support of Public Works Canada. If we are to meaningfully deal with the housing needs of Canadians it will require the same spirit of co-operation on the part of all levels of government as well as from private and nonprofit sectors, indeed from all Canadians.
At this time I would like to invite all Canadians to make their concerns known to individual members of Parliament and to the Government of Canada with respect to housing.
I would like to add special thanks to some of my colleagues, including the President of the Treasury Board, the Hon. Robert de Cotret, the Minister of Public Works, the Hon. Elmer MacKay, all the Treasury Board Ministers, my colleagues in the cabinet from the Toronto region, the Hon. Michael Wilson, the Minister of Finance, the Hon. Barbara McDougall, the Minister of Employment and Immigration, the Hon. John McDer-mid, the Minister of State for Finance and Privatization,
Routine Proceedings
and to say that this would not have happened without their help and co-operation.
One other very brief point I would like to make, Madam Speaker, is to point out and congratulate a former member of this House, the former member for Willowdale, John Oostrom, who played an important role in bringing this particular parcel of land to the attention of the House some many months ago. If it had not been for Mr. Oostrom's efforts at that time this land undoubtedly would not have been used for housing, and I think it is appropriate that we all express our thanks to John Oostrom and to all of our colleagues who have played a part in this announcement of yesterday.


Mr. Paul Martin (LaSalle-Emard):: Madam Speaker, the decision announced by the Minister of State for Housing regarding the transfer of the Vaughan lands is to be applauded. The principle of surrendering unused government lands for housing development must be encouraged. It is unfortunate that no action is being taken elsewhere in the country where the needs are also acute.
In his statement the minister states that he is concerned about the problem of affordable housing, but nothing in his announcement guarantees that a good portion of these new homes will respond to that very need. What will these homes cost? What type of homes will they be? For whom are they really intended? How does the minister define affordable housing? There is no indication except to parrot what has been said, very properly, in Ontario. How much real consultation has there been with the municipality? The question is, what is the substance behind this announcement?
For several weeks now the Liberal task force on housing has been covering the country. Everywhere we have gone groups have denounced this government's withdrawal, its lack of interest in housing, its obvious lack of leadership in solving what is a fundamental crisis of poverty, affordability and accessibility in the country, the budget cuts which have crippled Canadians who seek affordable housing and the high interest rates which have added and exacerbated the very real problem.
For example, last spring this government announced the end of the rental program, the RRAP. This program was vital in order to renovate the existing low quality housing stock in the country. It was a program vital to allow families to live in decent and affordable housing.

Routine Proceedings
No government which cut that basic program can claim to have any interest in the housing crisis in this country.
When I heard of the most recent announcement-I understand the Minister made many references to Downsview and I wish I could quote his comments on the lack of attention to Downsview when he was a private member as opposed to the minister-it really did bring to mind the inaction of this government. In that case, despite the statements, the good intentions, the laudable declarations, the heartfelt promises that we have heard, not one thing has been done. Not one unit has been constructed. Not a thought has been given to sewage systems or any of the tremendous costs of providing infrastructure. We do not know who is going to develop the land, who is going to pay for it or who is going to supervise it. This government makes announcement after announcement and then does nothing about it. There is no execution, no implementation because there is no commitment to solving the problem.
Is this what is in store now, Madam Speaker, for the Vaughan land? Must the community simply sit around and wait as people have waited for the Downsview implementation? When are we going to see something concrete coming out of this announcement? What Canada needs is a comprehensive housing policy that recognizes the real needs of this country. The government's decision to apply this land is one we all welcome, but it must ensure that it is done within the framework of a coherent policy, one that responds to the expectations of the people and to their socioeconomic problems.
[Translation}
Madam Speaker, Canadian men and women need affordable housing. The Government's programs should be aimed at filling this need.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Madam Speaker, I am new to this House, and I guess I am a little bewildered. I had thought minister's statements were used to announce significant policy changes or significant programs, not used to do basically a small PR job which was already done in a press conference yesterday.
The minister has announced the release of the Downsview lands on which there are going to be 600 affordable houses. Canada has 1.2 million children living in poverty. Canada needs 100,000 affordable houses built every year, this year, next year, for the next five years, and the minister is announcing 600.
When asked by the press how he defined affordable houses he said, $150,000 to $200,000. What are we talking about in affordability? He has made no commitment that any of the 600 units will, in fact, be non-profit housing or co-op housing. He says that the government is going to meet the 25 per cent minimum required by Ontario. Where is government leadership? Why is the government not talking about 50 per cent or 75 per cent of the housing being affordable? We have a serious problem in this country. Thirty per cent to 40 per cent of Canadians do not have access to affordable, good quality housing. There are 1.2 million children living in poverty, and the minister is talking about fiddling around with 600 housing units.
When I heard yesterday that the minister was going to make a statement I thought we were going to have a statement that the government was embarking on a bold program that was going to attack the question of affordability of housing across Canada.
The Canadian Real Estate Association says there are 27 regions in this country which have severe affordability problems. The minister has made two peanut announcements dealing with one of them, in his own backyard of Toronto. This does not do anything for people in Edmonton, Calgary, Halifax or Vancouver.
There is an increasing question of credibility emerging around the Minister of Housing. When he was a backbencher he spoke eloquently. Since he has become minister he has taken no action. His announcement is like someone sitting on a sinking ship and bailing with a teacup-it is not even a teacup, it is a spoon.
Six hundred units of affordable housing does nothing to alleviate the problem across this country. I had hoped he was going announce a program where interest rates or mortgages were going to be reduced by 4 per cent, or that the government was going to fund municipal infrastructure, or triple or double the number of co-operative or non-profit housing, or bring in his favourite pet, a
October 13, 1989

speculators' tax which he advocated before he was a minister or restore the RRAP program. But we heard about none of these.
I am left with a bewildered feeling, and I think most housing organizations in Canada are being left with that same feeling. Where is the leadership? Where is the commitment? How long is the minister going to think that platitudes and inaction are going to really solve the problem?


UNITED STATES CONGRESS BICENTENNIAL
Jean J. Charest: Madam Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to present a motion anticipating the anniversary of an institution that is well known to the U.S. government and U.S. citizens, and with which Canada and Canadians are also familiar. I introduce this motion in a non-partisan spirit, Madam Speaker, since it refers to an event that a major institution will be celebrating very shortly, and that is the bicentennial of the United States Congress.
I shall now read the motion:

That the Speaker of the House of Commons convey to the
Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and the
President of the United States Senate the good wishes of the House
of Commons of Canada on the occasion of the bicentennial of the
Congress of the United States of America.

Those were the contents of the motion, Madam Speaker.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Madam Speaker, I want to simply say on behalf of the New Democratic Party that once again a similar motion has come before the House. We are quite prepared to support it and to send a message to our American friends.
I must say that it is tempting to enter into some debate, which of course we could do, to point out the advantages of the American system in terms of its checks
Routine Proceedings
and balances on the powers of the executive when it is acting not necessarily in the best interests of the people.
Since perhaps this is not the appropriate time to carry on with that debate, I simply say on behalf of our party that we are quite prepared to join with the government and with the Official Opposition in sending our greetings.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Nelson Andrew Riis: Madam Speaker, it is an honour for me to present a petition on behalf of a number of residents of Kamloops, British Columbia, pursuant to Standing Order 36 and certified correct by the clerk of petitions. These people are very concerned with the government's intention to curtail VIA Rail service.
VIA Rail service plays an important role in our community. Many businesses depend upon it and thousands of people use it each year.
The government has not curtailed the service totally but has essentially gutted it. People are asking the government to reconsider this decision, to consider upgrading VIA Rail with new equipment, and to give it a sufficient budget to maintain its national mandate for passenger service.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to present a petition pursuant to Standing Order 36.
The petitioners note with dismay the activities at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa this week. They call upon the government to take steps to resolve the difficulties that seem to be plaguing the National Arts Centre to save this jewel in Canada's cultural crown.


Mr. Lyle Kristiansen (Kootenay West-Revelstoke):: Madam Speaker, I rise to present a petition under the provisions of Standing Order 36. This is one of many from my constituents.

October 13, 1989
Routine Proceedings
This petition is from the communities of Rossland, Trail, Warfield, Nelson, Fruitvale, Slocan and Winlan on the subject of the goods and services tax. It has been approved by the clerk of petitions.
The petitioners ask that Parliament reform the taxation system so that there is an effective minimum tax on wealthy individuals and corporations.
They further ask that Parliament cause the government to cease with the proposal which will shift the tax burden on to ordinary Canadians through our aggressive consumption tax instead of through real tax reform.


Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Madam Speaker, I rise under Standing Order 36 to bring to the attention of the House the serious crisis being faced by the National Arts Centre and the National Arts Centre Orchestra, which is considered an excellent world-class orchestra that has brought fame to Canada and its capital city.
There is the belief that the National Arts Centre Orchestra is in imminent danger of being damaged or even destroyed, and the petitioners call upon this House to implore the minister to see to some settlement of this very serious matter and ensure that the National Arts Centre maintain its orchestra at its current size and present standard of excellence.


Sheila Finestone: Madam Speaker, I have petitions with respect to the goods and services tax.
The grievance common to your petitioners is in the certain assurance that the House will pay some attention and provide remedy to the petitioners who believe that the goods and services tax is an unprecedented tax.
It is a grab from the pockets of Canadians and will hit them with not only higher taxes but with higher inflation, higher interest rates, and higher unemployment. They plead with the government to withdraw this tax.


Mr. Lyle Dean MacWilliam (Okanagan-Shuswap):: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise under the provisions of Standing Order 36 to present to the House this
afternoon two petitions, both duly signed and authorized.
These petitions come from one of the small businesses in the Vernon area of my constituency, Athens Pizza, a number of whose customers have signed their concerns regarding the goods and services tax.
They feel that it is an unfair form of taxation because of its lack of regard for the taxpayers' ability to pay. They call upon the government to reject the current proposal for a goods and services tax and to cease with this proposal which will shift the tax burden on to ordinary Canadians through a regressive consumption tax rather than through real tax reform.


Guy H. Arseneault: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36,1 have here a petition in which petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to reject the proposed goods and services tax.


Mrs. Beryl Gaffney (Nepean):: Madam Speaker, I stand here today pursuant to Standing Order 36 to present a petition duly certified by the clerk of petitions.
I am pleased to present this petition on behalf of some of the small businesses in Nepean and on behalf of their employees who are in strong opposition to the proposed 9 per cent goods and services tax. These constituents strongly oppose the tax as something that would have a deleterious effect not only on the economy but would cause inflation, unemployment and higher interest rates.
They humbly pray and call upon Parliament to reject the GST.


Beryl Gaffney: Madam Speaker, I have a petition to present pursuant to Standing Order 36 with regard to patrons of the National Art Centre and its fine orchestra, the National Arts Centre Orchestra.
They are very concerned that different measures being taken at the National Arts Centre in terms of its administration and in terms of the effect on the orchestra are going to have a very serious effect which they will not be able to overcome.
October 13, 1989

They humbly pray and call upon Parliament or the Minister of Communications to take steps that will eradicate this very difficult problem.


Mr. Rey Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North):: Madam Speaker, I too am honoured to present additional petitions duly certified to be true and correct as to form and content pursuant to Standing Order 36.
On behalf of my constituents of Winnipeg North and of other Canadians beyond my constituency these petitioners oppose the proposed goods and services tax. They are convinced that the proposed tax will impose serious and unfair hardship on low and middle income Canadians. They further believe that it will impose onerous problems on small businesses.
The petitioners trust that this House will provide the necessary remedy and that the remedy is for Parliament to reject this proposed goods and services tax. They humbly pray and call upon Parliament to take the appropriate action.


Don Boudria: Madam Speaker, I have the honour and privilege, pursuant to Standing Order 36,to present a petition duly signed by a number of constituents who are protesting the government's grief and suffering tax.
These Canadians call upon the government to rescind this most unfair tax immediately.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, I ask that all the questions be allowed to stand.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Shall all questions stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: As agreed earlier today, the House will now proceed to consideration of Private Members' Business.
Private Members' Business

Do I understand that there is unanimous consent?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill) moved:: That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider
the advisability of providing long-term regional planning for the
Atlantic region through an expanded Atlantic Canada Opportunities
Agency.
He said: Madam Speaker, it is with some fear that I rise today to bring this motion before the House, because last May 15 I had a similar motion before the House.
As the member for St. John's East will remember, government members talked about the need for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, its importance, and what great demand there was for that agency. They agreed with me about the subject matter that we were dealing with. They talked about the thousands of requests that were out there, and how important it was to the businesses in Atlantic Canada, how important it was to each of the provinces and the communities in Atlantic Canada. Unknown to them, I believe, at the same time the minister responsible for this agency was in front of a committee of the House of Commons announcing that he was cutting the budget for that agency.
I do not know how government members felt that day, but I think a number of members on the opposition side felt betrayed by the actions of the minister. Three government members rose to speak that afternoon. I suspect that government members felt very awkward having defended the agency that afternoon in the House of Commons.
They went through that exercise, explaining the need for that agency, only to find out that their minister, a minister from Nova Scotia, was in a committee room of this House saying that for budgetary reasons the agency was going to have to use its money over a much longer period of time, effectively reducing the amount of money available in each and every year for the next five years.

October 13, 1989
Private Members' Business
Obviously the demands which the members of all three parties had spoken about with some eloquence were not going to be met.
Since that time other announcements have been made by this same minister which have restricted the ability of the Atlantic agency to deal with the problems in that region. I remember the member for St. John's East getting up and saying that it is very important that decisions be made in Atlantic Canada by Atlantic Canadians. He made that one of the focal points in challenging the motion I had put before the House.
What I find interesting is that not only did the minister cut the funding which the Tory members had found to be so important for Atlantic Canada, he decided without consulting the board to change the criteria with regard to whom and what corporations are eligible for funding.
Let me explain that. Under the new criteria only certain firms will be eligible for funding. Only proposals that would require funding for over $200,000 would be eligible for grants. Well, that is a change in the emphasis of the program. It was a change made by the minister and by his officials in Ottawa; not by people in Atlantic Canada; not with the knowledge of the Conservative MPs, I suspect; not with the knowledge of the Conservative Premier of Nova Scotia; not with the knowledge of the people who are on the board, the people who are supposed to be "making the decisions on behalf of Atlantic Canada, by Atlantic Canadians", to quote Conservative members.
I am quite interested to hear the speeches later today to see what the minister might do to reverse himself yet again in the future.
I wanted to speak seriously about the importance of providing more funding to Atlantic Canada and how important it is to restrict through change the program criteria that the minister announced last spring.
One of the documents I want to refer to is a leaked document prepared by the Nova Scotia Government. It reads:
ACOA's focus on very small companies weakens the ability of the province to attract medium and large industrial development.
That is a quote from the Nova Scotia Conservative government's response to what the federal Conservatives have done. In other words, it has said that the new criteria restricting the funding to less than $200,000 is
preventing development of medium and large operations in Atlantic Canada.
It is not a New Democratic statement. It is not a statement on behalf of the Liberal party. It is a statement of the Nova Scotia Conservative government attacking the cut-backs and the change in criteria made by the minister responsible. I have forgotten his riding, but it used to be represented by the Prime Minister when he was looking for a seat before he received a seat in Quebec.
I remember going out to campaign against him in the by-election. One of the things the Prime Minister said at that time was; "Elect me and we will look after you. Elect me and I will make sure that the concerns of Atlantic Canadians are on the front burner. Elect me and I will make sure that you have the funding that you need".
That is not what the government of Nova Scotia or the Premier of Nova Scotia who campaigned for the Prime Minister in those days are saying. They are saying that by cutting back the funding, restricting the amount of money that is available and changing the criteria you are preventing Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, P.E.I, and "the rock" from developing in the way that they need to develop.
Let us look at the other cut-backs. Which part of the country was hurt most by the VIA cuts? Atlantic Canada. Where does the most vociferous protest come from with regard to the cuts? Atlantic Canada. Which area has improved its usage of VIA in response to the Deputy Prime Minister's challenge? It was Atlantic Canada. Which area of Canada feels most betrayed by this government with regard to the VIA cuts? Again it is Atlantic Canada.
Let us consider other areas of economic development. The federal government basically announced this fall that there will be half as much money for tourism in Atlantic Canada as there was in the past, in an area which is starting to boom, where there is growth. There are more American tourists coming up and more Canadians going to Atlantic Canada. This is a sector which employs people, where small businesses do very well, where the local communities all benefit, and the federal government says: "We are cutting that back".
Not only is it cutting it back by half but it has decided that from now on it will not be a separate fund. It has to come from the funding for ACOA. In other words, the
October 13, 1989

funds that were just cut on May 15 not only have to cover all existing programs, all existing requests, but now have to look after tourism as well because tourism will not be a separate development.
I had a press conference on these issues in September and I called it a triple whammy. The federal government is socking it to Atlantic Canada time after time after time, and it is doing all it can to make sure that the economy of Atlantic Canada is devastated by the budget measures of the Minister of Finance.
After being betrayed by their own Prime Minister and by their own cabinet minister, I wonder how Conservative members of Parliament will have the courage to get up yet again in this House and say that my motion is going in the wrong direction.
How will they be able to say that the federal government, the federal Conservatives would never hurt Atlantic Canada? The last time they got up to speak, to defend their minister, to defend their Prime Minister at the same time, without telling them the minister was down the hall in a committee of this House taking money from Atlantic Canada. He was taking money that had been promised to Atlantic Canada, taking money that was supposed to be part of an agreement with Atlantic Canada. He said: "You are not getting it in the next three years. We will give you the same amount over the next five years". I do not know how some of those Conservative back-benchers feel, but I suspect they feel betrayed.
Certainly their constituents feel betrayed. Certainly there is a growing feeling in Atlantic Canada that they are being ignored. It does not matter whether it is the fisheries. It does not matter whether it is tourism. It does not matter whether it is those people who rely on VIA Rail. It does not matter whether it is the seniors who look at their pension plans being eroded by this government. There is a very strong growing sense that this government has ignored, betrayed and is abandoning Atlantic Canada. That feeling was there. I do not think any Conservative member is going to deny that feeling because it is growing and they must be hearing it back home.
Private Members' Business
What I am calling for in the motion is a positive approach. First, we have to get rid of the cut-back mentality of the federal Conservatives. In its place we have to make sure that those agencies which are established actually have the power to make decisions affecting Atlantic Canada, and that those decisions are, again to quote the Conservatives, "Made by Atlantic Canadians". That is not happening. The area feels devastated.
The government is producing programs which are hurting people in that region. The government is showing it has absolutely no concern for Atlantic Canada. What we need is a statement by this House in the form of a motion which I hope the Conservative members present can support. It is a votable motion. We can vote on it if the Conservatives agree to it. We can vote on a motion that states:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider
the advisability of providing long-term regional planning for the
Atlantic region through an expanded Atlantic Canada Opportunities
Agency.
This is not a motion condemning the government. This is a motion giving direction to the government. This is a motion saying that we want an expanded role. It does not even mention extra money, only an expanded role. It calls for "long-term regional planning", and it explains that the agency that should do so is the very agency Conservative members got up and spoke about with such eloquence just a few short months ago.
I do not want to take all the time available in this debate. I want the Conservative members here to have a chance to explain why they too support this motion and why they too believe that we need an expanded role, that we need long-term regional planning for Atlantic Canada, and that we cannot have a continuation of the betrayals of the Prime Minister and the betrayals of the minister responsible for the agency as we have had in the past.
We no longer want to be in a situation of such short-term planning as we had in the past where a Conservative member is speaking in defence of an agency in the House, not knowing that the cabinet minister is down the hall cutting the funding for that agency. Stand up for your region, stand up for funding for Atlantic Canada, stand up for long-term planning for that region.

October 13, 1989
Private Members' Business


Peter L. McCreath: Speaker, I rise with great pleasure today to participate in this debate. I thank the hon. member for Churchill for providing an opportunity for myself and other members of the House to get up and talk about the excellent things that are being done by this government in Atlantic Canada.
The member's motion calls for long-term planning. That is precisely the role that the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency plays. He calls for an expanded Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. There is absolutely no question that the overwhelmingly positive response that has been received from business across Atlantic Canada to ACOA means precisely that it is an overwhelming success, and I hope some day we will find more funding.
It is a fact that $1.05 billion were committed, were made available, by this government. In the first two years $600 million of those dollars were committed already and in this year $400 million will be spent by ACOA. This indicates that the government in fact has a very impressive record in Atlantic Canada and that this government has and will continue to have a very substantial commitment to Atlantic Canada and to long range planning for Atlantic Canadians.
Needless to say, as with any agency there is an ongoing review and dialogue taking place. As new needs occur they will be responded to, and I was particularly pleased to see this government's response earlier this year to the burgeoning crisis in the Atlantic fishery in setting up a special cabinet committee which will assist ACOA and other agencies in responding to the needs of Atlantic Canada.
ACOA, quite simply, is an Atlantic Canadian success story. It has been a tremendous value to the economy and to the people of Atlantic Canada. I might say, Madam Speaker, that credit for this has to go to the individual whose vision led to the establishment of ACOA, and that is the Prime Minister of Canada. We as Atlantic Canadians and I as a member of Parliament from Atlantic Canada, and I am sure my colleagues on this side from Atlantic Canada, are proud to stand with that Prime Minister and recognize the leadership he has provided in bringing about ACOA and the fact that he knows our region so well.
We have also benefited I might say from leadership from three ministers-the minister from the other place, the Minister for Federal-Provincial Relations, the now Minister of Veterans Affairs, and indeed the current minister of ACOA, a man who I might say is probably as well respected and popular as any person in the province of Nova Scotia for the leadership that he has provided many, many years in this Parliament, in the governments of Canada, and the tremendous leadership that he has provided for our province.
ACOA's staff have worked diligently. The problem that the 300 people who work for ACOA have had has been keeping up with the volume and demand for the opportunity to participate in the many programs of ACOA. I look forward to ACOA playing a very positive role under its new president, Mr. Lesault, who I know will maintain the quality of leadership that we have had from ACOA.
The basis of success of ACOA, unlike any other regional development program to date, is the fact that ACOA is based in Atlantic Canada and the decisions for ACOA are made in Atlantic Canada. ACOA, naturally as an agency of government, receives its funding from the government of Canada.
Just as any other department of government, decisions are made by cabinet, funds are allocated, structures are created. The significant thing about ACOA is that it is based in Atlantic Canada. The project decisions and the various other co-operative efforts in which ACOA gets involved are made by Atlantic Canadians in Atlantic Canada. There is nowhere in Canada where there are people with greater initiative, greater energy or better ideas than the people of Atlantic Canada. The result is that we are seeing on a daily basis the benefits coming from the 1.05 billion new dollars that were brought in.
My hon. friend made reference to a document that was released in Nova Scotia. I am sure that it was not his intention to in any way mislead this House by suggesting that it was a document of the government of Nova Scotia.
I just want to set the record straight. The Minister of Development of the province of Nova Scotia commissioned a study of ACOA by an outside person, a professor from Acadia University who did a study and submitted it to the government of Nova Scotia. In the opinion of the minister it was so outrageous that he sent
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it back and refused to accept the document. He suggested that there be more facts and less opinion in the document.
Instead of revising the document, as should have been done, he released it to the New Democratic Party. The Leader of the New Democratic Party of Nova Scotia got up and made all sorts of statements about ACOA based on a document that had been rejected. It was indeed not the document of the Government of Nova Scotia. I think we should refer to that as the document of the New Democratic Party of Nova Scotia. It is not by any means a document of the Government of Nova Scotia.
The action program of ACOA has had a profound impact in supporting new ideas, expanding businesses and facilitating the diversification of industry throughout Atlantic Canada. It has been particularly helpful to small business. It has also been beneficial to large businesses.
From time to time people ask me why the government makes grants to business. Are business people not wealthy? Why do they need money from the government? People do not understand that the role of an industrial incentive program is to make things happen where we want them to happen, in this case in Atlantic Canada as opposed to other places. Funding and support through the various means that come with the action program means that industries and expansions happen in Atlantic Canada and not somewhere else where they might otherwise happen. That is the concept of incentive.
If ACOA makes a contribution to the development of a business, it is only a contribution towards that happening. They are not giving money to somebody. They are creating opportunities for Atlantic Canada. The people who own those businesses make investments. They are no more interested in losing on their investments than are the Government of Canada or the people of the maritimes in terms of those investments. We have to understand that the benefit that comes back is a benefit to all Atlantic Canadians. In employment opportunities the money eventually comes back to the government through taxation and through expenditures in those communities. Everybody wins all around.
Private Members' Business
Reference was made to the suggestion that the ACOA decisions are made in Ottawa rather than in Atlantic Canada. Decisions in ACOA are made by a highly competent team of public servants. Some people suggests that ACOA decisions are made by politicians. There are times when it might be very helpful to me and some of my colleagues from Atlantic Canada if we had funds to dispense for encouraging businesses and so on. It does not work that way. Everything is done above board. Decisions are made in accordance with clearly established criteria.
Suggestions are made with respect to the fact that there has been a modification in the process by which ACOA's funds are being spent. Members opposite seem completely unaware that in this country we have, as a result of many years of overspending, a serious debt problem. All Canadians are aware of that debt problem. All areas of government have to participate in dealing with that debt problem. All regional development agencies in Canada, as with all other aspects of the government, have had to participate in coming to grips with this.
The important thing to note is that the money that was committed at the beginning of ACOA is still there. The $1.5 billion to assist in job creation in Atlantic Canada is still there. It will be spent in Atlantic Canada for the benefit of Atlantic Canadians.
I recall last spring when the budget came down hearing from members opposite that there would be no money for other regional development. The term "cut" is constantly used. They said there would not be any money for ERDAs or co-operative agreements. It is interesting to note that the minister responsible has now reached agreements in all four Atlantic provinces.
Newfoundland recently announced agreements for coastal Labrador and rural development.
Several agreements in principle have been reached in Prince Edward Island. One was the signing of a $25 million agri-food agreement.
A package of agreements involving a commitment of $97.7 million by the Government of Canada in New Brunswick, including a $32 million agri-food agreement, was signed by the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Veterans Affairs just last week.

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Private Members' Business
In my province of Nova Scotia we now have five co-operative agreements, including a $200 million-plus agreement to deal with the Halifax harbour pollution problem, an agri-food agreement and most recently, forestry, fishery and mining agreements.
Between ACOA and these co-operation development agreements, this government has committed over $2 billion to regional development in Atlantic Canada. It is indeed a very impressive record.
I have no reservations at all in going back to Atlantic Canada as a member of Parliament in support of this government. No government in the history of this country has done as much for Atlantic Canada as this government is doing and will continue to do.
In closing, I want to quote from a statement made by the Prime Minister of Canada in Halifax this summer. He said: "ACOA is about the future, about helping business people improve productivity, exploit new technology, develop new markets and create new jobs. ACOA represents a new approach and a new commitment on our part to Atlantic regional economic development".
That approach is working. That commitment is producing results. ACOA is here to stay and our government commitment, reinforced by success, is even greater.
Atlantic Canada and Atlantic Canadians have never been better served than they are being served and will continue to be served by this government.


Guy H. Arseneault: Madam Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise and speak in this debate concerning the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.
You are no doubt aware, Madam Speaker, that Atlantic Canada depends heavily on federal regional development assistance. Indeed, the federal government established ACOA to help alleviate the economic disparity which has plagued Atlantic Canada.
However, in looking at ACOA's record I cannot help but feel that the agency possesses serious shortcomings. The motion put forward by the member for Churchill states veiy clearly that the government ought to consider implementing long term regional planning in Atlantic
Canada by expanding the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.
While the motion seems very good, and I can very easily support it, the truth is that although ACOA was launched by the Conservative Government amid a great deal of fanfare, it has fallen far short of the mark. My hon. colleague from the other side quotes the right hon. Prime Minister. I have a quote here also.
When addressing the Saint John Board of Trade in October of last year, the Prime Minister said: "The federal government has a responsibility for regional development in the interests of national unity and as well in the interest of fairness. We will not have two Canadas in the economic sense anymore than in the constitutional sense. We will not have one Canada that is prospering at the centre while other regions do not receive a fair share of economic opportunity".
They are great words. Everyone in this House I am sure would agree with them. They sound fantastic. But words are cheap.
Let us look at what the government has been doing not only to Atlantic Canada but right across the country. First, there is VIA Rail, the recent announcement by the Minister of Transport on VIA Rail, the cut-backs. We look at the new proposed tax. Speaking of taxes it is this very same government that increased taxes 31 times since 1984. The hon. member talked about the deficit, the debt. Since 1984 this government has doubled it. We talk about UIC and the changes proposed to it. Again, it is going to affect Atlantic Canada.
The hon. member from the other side sort of praised ACOA and all its benefits. To be honest, there are some benefits to ACOA. There is no doubt about it. We need ACOA. We need other programs as well. But there are some problems with ACOA. There are some problems with the direction the government is going in.
I have a few articles. I want to point out some of the headlines that have come out since the budget and since the announced cut-backs to ACOA. What amazes me is how members on the government side seem to say that ACOA has not been cut. Well, here are a few headlines with regard to statements made by the hon. minister responsible for ACOA.
October 13, 1989

One is from The Toronto Star. It states: "Ottawa slashes Atlantic funding". The article is about the proposed changes in ACOA.
Here is another one from a local paper in New Brunswick. It states: "ACOA cuts called sell-out of Maritimes".
I have another one which states: "Tories to slash cash for regions by $2 billion". Down below there is a little sub-article entitled: "Budget leak suspect may not be charged".
Another article states: "Ottawa cuts Atlantic Canada development aid", again referring to the hon. minister and his program of spreading the same amount of money over a period of seven years rather than the original five years.
Here is a good one, Madam Speaker. It states: "Half-baked ideas and half-measures". There is a big question mark there. They are talking about the regional development policies of this government.
Another one states: "Atlantic Canada, the nation's economic wasteland gets wasted again". The article goes on to explain how Atlantic Canadians are not being treated fairly or equally, as the Prime Minister indicated it should be throughout Canada.
Madam Speaker, I have another article here from VAcadie nouvelle, New Brunswick's francophone newspaper, and the headlines are incredible: The ACOA has no way of knowing whether the funding it provides is spent on the projets submitted. All this doesn't make sense. The article quotes the Minister responsible for ACOA as saying: We don't have the financial and human resources for providing follow-up. A projet follow-up would be very expensive, and I am not convinced it would be worthwhile.

The minister is telling us in his own words that they have no way of checking to see if the money that he is giving out through ACOA is actually being spent on those projects. He says: "We do not have enough personnel, and even if we did, I do not even know whether we would check. It may not be a good idea".
I want to go to a more localized problem that has been underlined just recently in my own riding. The article that I am referring to is an article that appeared in a local
Private Members' Business
paper of the city of Campbellton. The headline here states: "ACOA tactics jeopardizing developments in Ccunty". The mandate of ACOA was to develop industry, to develop enterprises. The article goes on to quote the industrial commissioner of the Restigouche Industrial Commission. This is a neutral group, a group that has the good of the region in mind. It is a group that is trying to do exactly what ACOA is doing.
Here is what the industrial commissioner had to say: "Clients have been kept waiting for months. We are being kept in the dark and they have made so many changes to the program, it is unbelievable". That is what the industrial commissioner in one of the regions in New Brunswick is saying.
Another point that the article goes on to explain is that the old mistakes of changing the regional policies in mid-stream is creating havoc. It is the same old problem that we have had before whereby the government announces a program. It sounds great. There is a big fanfare. The Prime Minister gives a big speech. A year or so down the road, there is a change. They have all sorts of reasons. There is the debt, the deficit, whatever, all sorts of reasons that they can well explain.
I should also point out to show the seriousness of it-and I do not want to discuss the case-that ACOA is being taken to court in the region as well because of problems created by the agency.
When we look at ACOA in general, it sounds as if I am very critical of it. I am. I am critical because it should have been a good tool. It should have been the answer to our problems. But it is not. There are a lot of problems with the ACOA program as it now stands.
One of the things that I want to point out is that I am not criticizing the personnel. The personnel are doing their best at whatever they do, whenever they do it. They do not have the backing of this government. That is the problem. They do not have enough personnel or the finances.
When we talk about a long range plan, this government has no long range plans. It has no long range for anything in Canada, let alone for Atlantic Canada. Maybe the motion should have been expanded to include other areas. They have been in government since 1984, which is actually too long. They have ruined the economy. There is no doubt about that. They are ruining the transportation system across Canada. Now they want to investigate it while they are ruining it. When the investi-

October 13, 1989
Private Members' Business
gation is over, we are just going to find out that it is ruined. It will be too late.
I have a few constructive ideas, if hon. members are listening. Perhaps we could increase the personnel of ACOA. Another constructive idea is to go back to the original five-year commitment, rather than a seven-year commitment.
One other thing that I should point out, and the hon. member opposite also mentioned it, is that decisions for ACOA are made by civil servants. The new president of ACOA has already stated publicly that the $200,000 limit on the action plan was a mistake. Let us see that changed as soon as possible.


Robert Alfred Corbett: Madam Speaker, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to participate in the debate this afternoon. As a member from Atlantic Canada, I have watched over the years a state of economic decline, fortunately reversed by the government elected in 1984. I can tell you, Madam Speaker, that I serve with a great deal of enthusiasm as the member from Fundy-Royal, and I am in total support of the types of policies that this government has initiated over the past five or six years.
I have listened with a great deal of interest to the mover of the motion, as well as to my hon. colleague from New Brunswick, the member for Restigouche- Chaleur. I must say that I find a similarity that develops among opposition members that is rather strange, particularly in view of the historic relationship that the party of the hon. member for Restigouche-Chaleur had with Atlantic Canada, which was to put it into a desperate state of morass and decline for all of those years when they were in charge. The correlation that I draw between the two members' speeches is that it is more significant of what they have not said, as opposed to what they did say.
It is to the credit of this government that in a period when restraint is obviously the key word-and it is difficult to find funds of any significance to go into disadvantaged regions, such as Atlantic Canada-that this government was able to come up with in excess of $1.2 billion for a program of great vision through the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency when previous administrations were able to do nothing but recycle old
funds again, again, and again, of dollars going into Atlantic Canada. There have been thousands of jobs created. Hundreds of families which were previously disadvantaged and are now able to provide themselves a decent standard of living, something which before just simply did not exist.
I want to remind you that it was not that the previous administration had not attempted from time to time to deal with the discrepancies and the disparities in Atlantic Canada because, indeed, it paid lip-service. The disturbing thing is that during a great deal of that time the party of the member who moved the motion, the NDP, was supporting and propping up the Liberal government which continued to contribute to such a deplorable state of the economy in Atlantic Canada.
I think it is important to recognize that there are some substantial developments over the last few years that perhaps are not given the profile they deserve.
I want to talk particularly about education and research. My hon. colleague from South Shore only had a short time to deal with some of the problems and some of the positive things that have taken place with reference to his area. Education and research are as important to Atlantic Canada as it is to the rest of the nation.
The best and the brightest of young Atlantic Canadians are often forced to leave home. We saw a lot of that during my earlier years when it was the norm that young Atlantic Canadians left Atlantic Canada. I had to leave Atlantic Canada because I was unable to find a job. Many hundreds and thousands of other young people during that period of time found themselves in the same situation. They are often forced, even today, to leave home to seek opportunities elsewhere. However, that is changing because of the initiatives and the foresight of this government.
The region which has been deprived of the talent, ambition and vigour of part of its younger generation, could not possibly continue to survive under those types of conditions. Atlantic Canadians, like all Canadians, are loyal to the province of their birth. Given equal opportunity they would gladly stay home and participate to make whatever contribution they could to its wealth. Part of
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ACOA's task, as this government saw and perceived it, was to give them the opportunity to do just that.
Let me mention today just a few of the projects, particularly in the field of education, which are being or will soon be undertaken with at least partial funding, if not total funding, from ACOA that will make it possible for Atlantic Canada's brightest and best to stay at home, to grow and to contribute.
The programs designed to educate the next generation of entrepreneurs must be effective. We must first describe the strengths and weaknesses of the present public school system and university curricula and we must do this in relation to the field in which the initiative is directed. By so doing we can discover how the educational system can foster entrepreneurial spirit by teaching the necessary appropriate skills.
Entrepreneurship Project, PEP, is a research program undertaken jointly by Mount Allison University and the Universite de Moncton. Its work will establish what attitudes toward and conceptions of entrepreneurship are prevalent in the school system, both among students and teaching personnel; what courses and entrepreneurial skills are being offered and how they are taught; how school curricula may be modified to give the students the opportunity to increase their knowledge and ability in the field of business development; and how the subject of entrepreneurship is treated in the teacher training institutions.
PEP is designed to attack the roots of the economic problems in the Atlantic provinces. New products, new production methods and new markets do not create themselves. They are created by people but people need the tools to exploit those opportunities, to discover new products and markets. ACOA believes that PEP is Canada with the tools they need to achieve economic equality with the rest of Canada.
Another project which complements PEP at the university level is the establishment at the University of New Brunswick of a chair of technological management and entrepreneurship. Too often, students of engineering and other applied sciences, while well educated in their particular discipline, receive no training whatsoever in the entrepreneurial skills which would enable them to exploit to the fullest, and to the benefit of their commu-
Private Members' Business
nity as well as themselves, the practical knowledge they have gained at the cost of long, hard studies.
Innovative ideas, because of the lack of ability to create a market for them, are lost. The chair of technology management and entrepreneurship will develop courses designed to give these students the business development skills to complement their scientific knowledge. The University of New Brunswick will assume the funding and ensure the continuation of the chair of technology management and entrepreneurship after ACOA funding for the project expires.
In addition, a chair of international marketing has been established at the Universite de Moncton. This chair is also partially funded by ACOA in collaboration with the province of New Brunswick and the private sector. Once again, the university will pick up the funding after the ACOA program expires.
Telemedicine and Educational Technology Resources is a joint project of the Telemedicine Centre and the School of Continuing Studies of Memorial University of Newfoundland. The goal of this project is to establish and operate a facility providing a network of educational communications, using the latest electronic technology, throughout the province of Newfoundland.
The communications network will be capable of delivering training programs to remote areas of that province. These programs will be directed toward a variety of groups, including industry, business and professional associations, as well as community groups and others requiring specialized training.
There is one industry which is important equally to all of us in Atlantic Canada and that is the one of tourism. In fact, it is an important source of revenue for all of Canada, both provincially and federally. In the Atlantic provinces it is equally important. It is certainly an important employer.
Therefore, ACOA is proud to contribute, in co-operation with the province of Nova Scotia, the private sector, and Mount Saint Vincent University, to the funding of an expansion of the tourism and hospitality degree program offered by that university.
These are just some of the education projects that ACOA is working with and developing in Atlantic Canada. I would like to say, in closing, that I am convinced ACOA will continue to build on the excellent

Private Members' Business
start it has made and it deserves the continued support of the people it serves and the support of this Chamber.


Mr. Darryl L. Gray (Bonaventure-iles-de-la-Made-leine):: Madam Speaker, like my hon. colleague who just spoke, I also welcome this opportunity to take part in the debate this afternoon. I think that if we look at past events and consider other regional development programs introduced by this Government since 1984, it is all very reminiscent of our Plan de Vest in the Gaspe, in Eastern Quebec. I think we can find a parallel with the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, in the way it works in disadvantaged areas where a tool is needed, as the Hon. Member said earlier. In order to stimulate the economy in our regions, it is very important that the federal Government be able to provide, not only human resources, but also the funding we need to develop our own economy as we see fit. With the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, we already have some concrete examples. We can talk about Cape Breton Island, where Micronav Ltd. will create 120 new jobs providing systems for airports throughout our country and even internationally. Madam Speaker, I think it is important that all Canadians understand that in regions like ours, the Atlantic, the West, the Far North, new technology will help us provide more jobs for our youth and we have something to offer.
Also, Madam Speaker, for sure not all Canadians want to live in Montreal or Toronto. Programs like ACOA in the Atlantic today are the way to keep our young people where they live.

It is very nice for the opposition always to shoot and attack.
I am very familiar with the Atlantic region. My colleague mentioned Mount Allison University. I was fortunate enough to have good professors and I graduated from there many moons ago. I am glad to see that that university is taking part in the ACOA program.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Darryl L. Gray: I am
not sure whether that applause was for my graduation or for ACOA taking part in Mount Allison. As you are very well aware, Madam Speaker, that in terms of spending federal dollars, the dollars must come from somewhere. We shall never have enough money to have everyone drive a Cadillac. But we shall all drive Cadillacs when the federal government continues with programs such as ACOA and the eastern Quebec plan, to use two examples. With continued federal help in the regions, with programs such as ACOA along with the dynamism that we have in the Maritimes and other areas outside central Canada, we shall prove that the money of the federal government has not been poorly spent, and we shall continue doing that.


Mr. Ross Reid (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak again on ACOA, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, in this House. My hon. friend across the way keeps coming up with suggestions for ACOA that are inherent in ACOA today. I need not remind hon. members that the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency is the first attempt, after a number of attempts by a variety of governments, to deal specifically and effectively with the problems of regional development in Atlantic Canada.
The fundamental problem with programs in the past has been that the direction, the policy framework, and the decisions came from the centre, from here in Ottawa. I need not remind any member in this House of the problems of developing policy inside across the country. There have been problems. ACOA is so successful, as my friend from the South Shore has pointed out, because the decisions are made in the region by people from the region who are dealing every day with the problems, the challenges, the innovations, the imagination of people in the region. It has four components. The first is action and we have seen that in the action plan. The second is co-operation. The third is co-ordination and the fourth is advocacy.
I think it is important to get on the record the success of ACOA, what ACOA has been able to do in the 19 or 20 months since it has been active. Up until early September ACOA had approved 6,336 projects, committed $607 million and leveraged, seen other people invest, $1.7 billion. That is co-operation. That is using federal government programs and federal government resources to generate other resources, to increase in-

vestment in co-operation with the people who live and work in the Atlantic provinces. We have helped to create 16,714 jobs and maintain another 18,936 jobs. Those are results. That is progress. In 19 months of existence, close to 70,000 inquiries have been received, 13,000 applications have been received; 10 times the rate of any other program.
The other thing that I think is particularly important is to recognize that what has happened in the last 19 or 20 months is that this government has provided more funding assistance to assist business than has been provided in the last 25 years. If that is not results, if that is not commitment, if that is not progress, then, Madam Speaker, I do not know what is.
We have, as my hon. friend has said, seen 22 new co-operation agreements put in place. We have seen the federal government sitting down with the individual provinces and saying: "Okay, what is important to you is to develop in the longer term the economic base of your province, and how can we, as the federal government, with our money, with our knowledge, with our expertise, help you do that?"
We have seen 22 new co-operation agreements; $274 million, and there are more to come. That is one of the roles of ACOA in developing and providing that long term strategic approach-that hands-on at the table, what's the problem, how are we going to solve it, approach-to try to deal with economic development, job creation and expansion in the Atlantic provinces.
Seventy-five per cent of the approved projects of ACOA had a capital investment of less than $200,000; small projects, one or two people, six or seven people, maybe much larger but the government's participation was much less smaller, or that was what was asked for. Twenty-two per cent were from that level up to $2 million.
Two of the missions of the agency, two of the things that the agency is said to have to deal with, are co-ordination and advocacy. Unfortunately, you do not see that all the time. There are not press releases, there are not news clips. You do not see it every day as you walk down the street as sometimes you do with new plants and new jobs. I see it all the time in my dealings in Newfoundland and Labrador in how we come to deal with our problems. ACOA is at the table dealing with the challenges that we have in the short term and in the long term with our fish problem, in advice to the Clark committee, in active,
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strong participation with the Stein group. Hibernia and offshore oil development has the full participation of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. They are providing the big picture. They are providing the longer term view. They are providing the other side to economic development as opposed to just the immediate problem at hand.
The youth strategy is such a critical step to dealing with the long term problem that the young people in my province have had in getting from school to work. ACOA is playing a substantial role in how to make that happen, not only in providing advice, but in bringing together other departments of this government and of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador with the people dealing with the youth strategy and with the private sector. How can we deal with the problem together in the longer term? How, over time, can we attack the problem of young people not being suitably employed, young people not getting from school to work? What is the problem? How do we get through it? We see it in forestry.
I had the privilege of being at the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council meetings last week in Moncton where the new president of ACOA, Mr. Leseau, who has been referred to here today, is bringing a fresh approach. He recognizes clearly and stated before these people that we have a particular challenge and that ACOA has a role to play in developing a strategy. ACOA has a role to play in moving the Atlantic provinces ahead. That role that this motion calls for is very much there with the vice-presidents and with the people who work for them in each of the regions.
A number of my colleagues have been able to illustrate projects which have been very successful. There is one that I am very proud of and that is a project sponsored by the Newfoundland and Labrador Status of Women's Council under the direction of Anne Bell and the participation of people like Wendy Williams.
What we are doing through that program is saying, her e is $800,000 plus-I think that is the right number-go out and hire people. They will hire six people to work as field workers. Women are badly under-represented in this economy and badly under-represented in the Newfoundland economy, and there is no question that they have a huge contribution to make, not just to women but to the whole economy and to the whole society. But women are not getting taken care of by the system. Their ideas and their innovations are being lost.

October 13, 1989
Private Members' Business


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: With deep regret I must interrupt the hon. member. 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.

It being 1.41 p.m., the House stands adjourned until Monday next at 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 1.41 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Monday, October 16, 1989