1989-05-29

Mr. Jim Hawkes (Calgary West):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the fifth report of the Striking Committee.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]


PETITIONS
Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to present a petition on behalf of a number of residents who are pointing out their concern about the Government's intentions with regard to VIA Rail. They indicate the tremendous successes that VIA Rail has experienced in terms of providing effective passenger rail service. They are calling upon Parliament to maintain, improve, and modernize VIA Rail service in those areas of the country where it can provide a more rapid, economic, safe, convenient, environmentally sound, and energy efficient alternative to other means of transportation.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I have a second petition to present on behalf of a number of petitioners from Kamloops, British Columbia who are concerned about the Government's militarization of the economy as reflected most recently in ARMX '89.
They are concerned that Canada is sending military or paramilitary equipment and policing equipment to countries which have a record of human rights violations. They are asking Parliament to take steps to stop the Government from continuing this process.


Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour and privilege to present a petition that has been certified correct as to form and content by the Clerk of Petitions.
This petition which deals with the continuation of VIA Rail is signed by an incredible range of Canadians from one end of the country to the other. The signatures were collected at the train station in Thunder Bay on May 10 and represents the feelings of the passengers of the Transcontinental who desperately want to make sure that there remains a transcontinental train in this country.


Mr. Doug Fee (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a group of 22 petitions which have all been certified by the Clerk as being correct as to form and content pursuant to Standing Order 36.
These petitions call on the Government to revise the extradition laws to allow the Minister of Justice to order extradition of fugitives and not allow them to hide within our penal system. I join with these petitioners in urging our Government to make the necessary revisions to prevent Canada from becoming a haven for foreign fugitives.


Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure to present a petition signed by a number of constituents in Kingston and the Islands who are protesting the Government's proposed cutbacks in \TA Rail train service in Canada.
The petitioners call upon the Government not to cancel in whole or in part VIA passenger rail service in Canada which, they indicate by signing this petition, they believe has played an integral part in the economic development of our country.

May 29, 1989
Order Paper Questions


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Government House Leader):: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 47 and 58.


Mr. Rodriguez: Table 1. Estimates of Earnings by Occupation and Sex, Canada, 1984-
	Men	Women
Managerial and Other Professional	31 854	19 176Clerical	20 098	13 001Sales	19 386	9 584Service	15 364	7 725Primary Occupations	15 090	8 474Processing, Machining and Fabricating	21 139	11043Construction	19 754	11 430Transport Equipment Operating	20 613	10 368Materials Handling	20 535	10 658SOURCE: Statistics Canada	
For each year since 1984, what has been the average annual income of jobs created for (a) men (b) women (c) each occupational category for which figures are kept?


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: The attached Table 1 contains estimates of average earnings in Canada by occupation and sex for 1984, 1985, 1986 and 1987. The figures are averages of earnings of persons employed in an occupational category in a particular year; data are not available on average annual incomes of new jobs created in a particular year.
Also attached is Table 2 presenting data on jobs created between 1984 and 1988 by occupation and sex.
1985	1986	1987Men	Women	Men	Women	Men	Women(dollars)	33 856	19 681	35 275	21 004	36 955	22 24820 735	13 647	21 545	14 606	22 160	14 99321 796	10 509	22 732	10 455	24 208	12 15415 852	7 838	16 717	8 545	18 093	8 89515 324	7 810	16 230	8 030	18 698	11 69222 649	12 624	24 009	12 635	25 024	13 40520 290	15 563	21 455	13 458	23 280	15 07321425	11 004	22 928	11939	24 695	15 35519 227	11 800	21 892	12 624	21891	12 445
Table 2. Estimates of Employment Growth by Occupation and Sex, Canada, Annual Averages 1984-1988 (Thousands)
	1984 to 1985	
	Men	Women
Managerial and Other Professional	99	98Clerical	-4	36Sales	-5	15Services	11	42Primary Occupations	-15	-1Processing, Machining and Fabricating	2	-15Construction	23	0Transport Equipment Operating	17	1Materials Handling	-6	-8ALL OCCUPATIONS*	120	1701985 to 1986	1986 to 1987	1987 to 1988Men	Women	Men	Women	Men	Women37	88	50	96	73	80-2	17	18	48	12	6738	21	-19	34	20	217	6	-8	19	15	20-21	-2	0	-4	-5 .	017	17	17	-7	33	2337	1	47	1	24	310	2	24	3	-1	216	20	12	-2	-4	0139	170	141	188	168	216
May 29, 1989

SOURCE: Based on data from Statistics Canada
'Components may not add to total because of rounding.


Mrs. Stewart: 1.	What is the (a) number of PCB storage sites in the constituency of Northumberland (b) frequency with which these sites are checked to ensure they comply with health and safety guidelines?
2.	Have any of these sites failed to pass such inspections and, if so (a) which sites (b) on what dates (i) did they fail (ii) will they be retested?
3.	Are the PCBs in Northumberland being transferred for destruction and, if so, (a) to what location (b) by what means?


Hon. Lucien Bouchard (Minister of the Environment):: 1.	(a) There are 20 sites (2 federal, 18 private), (b) Each site's owner is responsible for a monthly inspection of its premises. Environment Canada inspects all federal sites and the Ontario Ministry of Environment inspects all non-federal sites at least once a year.
2.	(a) 2 sites-both federal, (b) (i) CFB Trenton Main Base- March 31, 1989. Cameco (Eldorado Nuclear)-March 30, 1989. (ii) CFB Trenton Main Base to be reinspected in May, 1989. Cameco (Eldorado Nuclear) to be reinspected in May, 1989.
3.	There are currently no plans to transfer PCBs stored in Northumberland for destruction.


Mr. Speaker:: The questions as enumerated by the Parliamentary Secretary have been answered.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, would you be so kind as to call Starred Questions Nos. 5 and 32.


Mr. Speaker:: Starred Questions 5 and 32 are called.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, regarding Question No. 5, due to the length of the reply, I would ask that it be printed in Hansard as if read.


Mr. Speaker:: Is that agreed?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.

DERAILMENTS IN QUEBEC *


Mr. St-Julien: Order Paper Questions
1.	Since January 1,1987, have there been any derailments of cars, locomotives or cabooses belonging to the Canadian National Railway Company in the province of Quebec on (a) Chapais (b) Cran (c) Roberval (d) Lac Saint-Jean (e) La Tuque (f) St-Maurice (g) Matagami and (h) Taschereau subdivision and, if so, in each case (i) in what numbers (ii) what were the costs involved (iii) for what length of time was rail service interrupted?
2.	Were CN trains to (a) Noranda (b) Senneterre (c) Matagami (d) Lebel-sur-Quevillon routed through other railway systems outside the province of Quebec?


Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of Transport):: The
Canadian National Railway Company advises as follows: 1. (a to h)-Yes- a total of 25 since January 1, 1987. (i), (ii) and (iii)-See attachment.
2. Following a derailment on the St-Maurice Subdivision, two (2) trains were rerouted via Ontario Northland Railway between North Bay and Noranda on February 20 and 21, 1988.
Following the earthquake of November 25, 1988, four (4) trains were rerouted via Ontario Northland Railway between North Bay and Noranda on November 28, 29 and 30, 1988 and December 1, 1988.


[Stage Direction]
Subdivisions	Number	Costs 1987	DelaysLac St-Jean	5	$197, 587	81 hours 10 minutesRoberval	1	$63 ,701	4 hours 0 minutesChapais	2	$81 ,681	9 hours 0 minutesSt-Maurice	2	831 ,179	83 hours 30 minutesLa Tbque	1	$1 ,008	2 hours 5 minutes1988	Lac St-Jean	6	$1,726 ,903	185 hours 27 minutesRoberval	1	$1, 745	NoneChapais	1	$107, 319	11 hours 35 minutesLa TUque	1	$70, 842	18 hours 30 minutesSt-Maurice	3	$593 621	161 hours 30 minutes1989	Lac St-Jean	1	$76 ,285	NoneLa Tbque	1	$109 ,442	21 hours 30 minutes
Albert Glen Cooper: Regarding Question No. 32, again because of its length, if it could be made an order for return, this return would be tabled immediately.


Mr. Speaker:: Is that agreed?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.

May 29, 1989
Supply



QUESTION PASSED AS ORDER FOR RETURN


[Stage Direction]
*
Mr. Fulton: For each year from 1979 to 1988, did any firms operating in (a) British Columbia (b) Alberta (c) Saskatchewan (d) Manitoba (e) Ontario (f) Quebec (g) New Brunswick (h) Nova Scotia (i) Prince Edward Island (j) Newfoundland (k) Yukon (1) Northwest Territories apply for funds under the Defence Industry Productivity Program and, if so, (i) what firms received grants under the program (ii) what was the amount of the grant (iii) what were the general objectives of the projects funded?
Return tabled.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if you could look at Questions Nos. 45, 52, 53, 62, 64, 83, and 88 in relation to Standing Order 39(6).
I would ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Speaker:: I should advise the House that the Hon. Member for Peace River gave some indication prior to the House sitting that he would stand and proceed, or ask that the House proceed, pursuant to Standing Order 39(6). I understand that this has not been done for a great many years. I know that the Hon. Member will understand why I think it is advisable that the Chair consider the procedure very carefully. It may also be that others may want to comment on this.
I do not intend to make a ruling on it immediately. Perhaps, if other Members wish to address this or might be able to assist the Chair, they would get their messages back to my office and some arrangement can be made, if necessary, to discuss it further.
I do not want to take Members by surprise. [Translation]
Shall the remaining questions stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



POINT OF ORDER


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Last week, in a statement I made in the House of Commons, I inadvertently presented wrong information.
When referring to the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Komagata Maru incident, I gave the impression that only Sikhs were on board that ship.
As you well know, Mr. Speaker, there were a number of people from India of various religious backgrounds on board that ship. The majority were Sikhs, but there were also Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Bengalis, and others. I simply wanted to make that clarification.


Mr. Speaker:: I thank the Hon. Member.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Mr. George S. Baker (Gander-Grand Falls) moved:: That this House condemns the Government for initiating a series
of policies that are causing unprecedented economic devastation to
Atlantic Canada.
He said: Mr. Speaker, the reason for this motion is well known, and that is that a series of policies brought in by the Government of Canada is having a devastating effect on Atlantic Canada.
I am going to let my colleagues address the devastation that those policies are causing as far as increased taxes and government cuts are concerned, and I will restrict my remarks today to what the Government of Canada is doing to destroy the fishery off the East Coast of Canada totally.
This morning we heard on the news that the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) had spoken to the Government of Spain and told it to cut back its fishing activities just
May 29, 1989

outside the 200-mile zone off Canada's East Coast. I do not want to talk about what is happening outside the 200-mile zone. This morning I want to talk about what is happening inside the 200-mile zone with licences issued by the Government.
Today, at this very moment, due east of the City of Halifax there are no fewer than 35 Soviet factory freezer trawlers, floating fish plants, not 200 miles out into the ocean, not out past the 200-mile zone, but licensed to fish to within 12 miles of Halifax Harbour. They are licensed to fish within 12 miles of the Nova Scotia coast.
If that were not bad enough, off that same Halifax Harbour there are nine factory freezer trawlers from Cuba, licensed by the Government in the past six weeks, with more to come.
They go into the Port of Halifax in a tugboat, walk into the fisheries office, and get their licences signed by the Department of External Affairs. There are floating fish plants right off Halifax Harbour today. Each one of those boats is equal to a fish plant on shore. There are 35 Soviet floating fish plants, and 9 Cuban floating fish plants due east of Halifax.
At this very moment, today, there are seven Russian factory freezer trawlers due east of St. John's, Newfoundland. They are not out past the 200-mile limit, but they are inside the 200-mile limit, 30 and 40 miles offshore. There are seven of them.
What are those gigantic floating fish plants doing? They are licensed by the Government of Canada, the very Government that states that our fishery is in a crisis, the very Government that is reducing our quotas and closing our fish plants, the very Government that has appointed a cabinet committee to work out the money to be paid to people who will be on welfare. That committee is headed by the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark). You remember him, Mr. Speaker; he is the fellow who wrote to France and said: "We will never forsake the people of St. Malo. Never, jamais." He is the guy who promised to give France all the Canadian fish it wanted. That same person is heading a cabinet committee to see what can be done for the devastation now of the reduced quotas all around the East Coast of Canada.
Supply
That Minister and that Government have issued those licences to Russian boats to fish right now off the coast of Nova Scotia and off the coast of Newfoundland.
What are they fishing for? Well, I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, what they are fishing for. The Government of Canada states that they are fishing for underutilized species. There are no underutilized species off the East Coast of Canada today. The only underutilized species off the East Coast of Canada are fishermen and fish plant workers. Under this Government they are not only an underutilized species, but they are fast becoming an endangered species.
Those 35 factory freezer trawlers off Halifax have an allocation of 58,000 tonnes of what is called silver hake. They also carry with it what is called a by-catch of 3,000 tonnes of cod fish, 3,000 tonnes of pollack, and 1,000 tonnes of haddock. If one adds up 3,000 tonnes of cod fish, 3,000 tonnes of pollack, and 1,000 tonnes of haddock, that would keep any large fish plant going in Atlantic Canada for an entire year.


Mr. Reid:: Oh, come on. A pretty small fish plant.


George Baker: The hon. gentleman says "a pretty small fish plant." The average fish plant takes 10 million pounds of fish a year and employs 450 people, and a cabinet Minister says: "Oh, pretty small stuff". Maybe he is from central Canada-


Ian Angus Ross Reid: Hold it.


George Baker: -but he sure isn't from Atlantic Canada.


Mr. Tobin:: It was the Member for St. John's East.


George Baker: The average fish plant in Atlantic Canada takes in 10 million pounds of fish.
That is what is licensed to the Russians who are fishing in what we call the silver hake box east of Halifax harbour, together with the Cubans.
What are the Russians doing with these factory freezer trawlers just east of the City of St. John's? They are catching fish called capelin. Capelin is the main food of the cod fish. Capelin are the fish for which over 400 Newfoundlanders were refused licences to fish this year. Yet there are seven Soviet factory freezer trawlers within Canada's 200 mile zone, just east of the City of St. John's, today, fishing the very resource that Newfound-

May 29, 1989
Supply
landers were refused licences to fish this year because the Government says it is a restricted fishery.
Is that equal rights? Those boat owners from Newfoundland do not have equal rights with the Russians within our own 200-mile zone.
To make matters worse, today the Government of Canada is issuing licences to foreign countries which are excluded from a Canadian law outlined in the fisheries legislation. From time to time Nova Scotians and Newfoundlanders are dragged into court and charged with keeping an incidental catch. It could be salmon for which they are not licensed, or it could be sole for which they are not licensed, but they are charged. The cases come up quite often in the courts in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Those foreign boats fishing off Nova Scotia and Newfoundland today are exempt from that regulation. They are allowed to keep an incidental catch.
When the observer on board sees that they are catching too much fish which they are not supposed to catch, the Government simply moves the boats two miles north, east, or west. However, they are allowed to keep that catch even though they are not licensed for it, while Newfoundlanders and Nova Scotian fishermen are dragged into court and jailed.
The Government began issuing licences for inside the 200-mile zone about eight weeks ago. In other words, the Japanese, the East Germans, the Poles, the Russians, the Cubans and fishermen from the Faro Islands all received these allocations just eight or nine weeks ago from the Government of Canada. Many of them have not even picked up their licences, yet. The Government of Canada says that it is giving this fish because we are not really using it in Canada.
I want the Government to explain why the Government of Poland is fishing grey sole around the coastline of eastern Canada. Grey sole is the prime fish on the table. Why is the Government of Canada giving Poland but not Canadians the right to fish grey sole?
During the press conference on Friday afternoon, at which cabinet Ministers were present, in St. John's, Newfoundland, in the fisheries offices there on the white hills overlooking the city, in that same building, the Government was conducting negotiations for a bilateral agreement with Denmark to allow 15 large ships from the Faro Islands to come in and catch turbot in the northern cod stock area, which is the very area the Government was announcing that Canadians would have
to be drastically cut back. It was allowing 15 boats from the Faro Islands.
We do not mind perhaps one boat from the Faro Islands coming in to catch the poor beagle shark on the Scotian Shelf, because that is what they use to make shark fin soup. There is a factory freezer trawler that goes there every year to catch the poor beagle shark. However, 15 of those large ships that catch turbot are being licensed through a bilateral agreement with the Government of Canada to fish turbot in the area of the northern cod stock. Where is the northern cod stock? It is not way up in the north Atlantic. It extends around every riding in Newfoundland except the south coast. That is the northern cod stock.
The same turbot for which Denmark will get licences to catch, as agreed on Friday, is the turbot that the long liner from Shelbourne must travel 800 miles to catch off the coast of Newfoundland. That is not the worst of it. All this is happening within Canada's 200-mile zone and is licensed by the Government which says there is a crisis in the fishery in Atlantic Canada. It has issued licences to the Russians which Newfoundlanders and Nova Scotians cannot get. Licences that have been refused to Canadians to fish capelin are being issued to the Russians. It is absolutely outrageous. The Government is allowing them to fish and keep incidental catch for which Canadians are jailed.
That is the cosiness of international relations as it pertains in this case to the Soviet Union, East Germany, Poland, Cuba, the Faro Islands, and Japan. This year the Government of Canada will license over 200 floating fish plants from foreign countries to fish within 12 miles of our coastline off the East Coast of Canada. There are 250 licences to be granted to factory freezer trawlers, floating fish plants from foreign nations, to fish within 12 miles of the coast of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Quebec. Yet fish plants in Canada are being closed down. Lockeport is closed. An announcement is about to be made on further reduction in quotas.
Thousands of Atlantic Canadians will be laid off. This will happen while the Government of Canada, through the Department of External Affairs, makes deals behind the scenes to issue licences to the Russians, the Cubans, the Japanese, the East Germans and the Danish to come within 12 miles of the coastline of our provinces in eastern Canada. If one were to stand on the headland in Cape Breton today, one could see a French factory freezer trawler catching cod. If one were to stand on a headliner on the northeast coast of Newfoundland in
May 29, 1989

another month's time, one would see three and four factory freezer trawlers from three and four different countries catching fish to within 12 miles of our coastline.
This year is worse than last year. Why? It is because the Government of Canada said it had a problem with boundaries and wanted to be nice to France. You know, Mr. Speaker, this year the French factory freezer trawlers which are just making their way across the Atlantic today will be fishing cod in northern New Brunswick. There must be lots of fish there to allow French factory freezer trawlers flying the French flag to fish codfish in northern New Brunswick. Off Prince Edward Island and Quebec they will be catching cod to the tune of 4,000 tonnes. That means that another fish plant will be gone. Off Nova Scotia the catch will be 4,000 silver hake with a legal by-catch of cod, pollock, haddock, redfish and squid. In the northern cod zone there will be new licences issued this year, licences which were never issued before by the Government. It has never happened before in our history.
Some 2,000 tonnes of halibut will be caught in the northern cod zone area, while 4,500 tonnes of codfish,
3.000	tonnes of halibut, 4,000 tonnes of flounder and
2.000	tonnes of redfish will be caught.
Mr. Speaker, you are saying that I only have two minutes left. I have not even gotten to the main point of my argument.
The main point is this. Canadians are being treated like second-class citizens, second-class to the Russians, the Cubans, the Japanese, the East Germans and the people from the Faro Islands by the Government of Canada. Whereas on the one hand Members of the Government say: "Oh, there is a problem in the fishery", on the other hand they are dishing out these licences every day to foreign countries to fish within 12 miles of the coast of Canada for cod, halibut, redfish, squid and capelin. Licences which Newfoundlanders and Nova Scotians have been refused are being issued to these
Supply
foreign countries. These licences exclude them from the fishery's regulations of Canada as passed by Parliament.


An Hon. Member:: Read it.


George Baker: Read it? "Release of incidentally caught fish-shall forthwith return that fish to the waters in which it was caught". That is what a Canadian is put in jail for. That is what two cases are pending for now in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Oh, no, Mr. Speaker, not for the Russians. They can go 12 miles off our coast now, as they are, and fish to their heart's content with licences issued by the Government of Canada.
That is why this motion is being moved today. We want to know why these people are not subject to the same regulations as Canadian fishermen are subject to. We want to know why they are given capelin licences when 440 Newfoundlanders were refused this year. We want to know why they are able to catch by-catches of cod and everything else. Why are they out there in the first place? We are not over there. Mr. Speaker, do you see any Canadian boats off the Soviet Union, England, France, Spain? No.
In conclusion, we have nothing against the Government of Canada having meetings with Spain and Portugal about what is being done outside the 200-mile zone, but there are only 160 ships outside, 80 of them factory freezer trawlers. However, there are 250 foreign factory freezer trawlers inside the 200-mile zone licensed by the Government. The Government should be ashamed of itself. This is absolute madness.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Caccia:: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Gander-Grand Falls (Mr. Baker) made a very interesting speech. He gave us quite a picture with respect to what is going on right now. However, toward the end of his remarks he seemed to be anxious to make some additional points which time did not permit him to make. I would like to ask him whether he would give us a summary of the additional points that he intended to make in the first instance.


George Baker: Mr. Speaker, I want to tell you how important this issue is. We have fishplant workers and fishermen who are out of work. They are watching off their coast foreign boats which are licensed by the Government. In the past six weeks, over 60 factory freezer trawler licences have been issue to foreign

May 29, 1989
Supply
countries by the Government of Canada to fish within 12 miles of our coast. That is where our inshore fishermen fish. They are not fishing offshore. They are fishing in the area that our inshore fishermen fish with boats that are 300 feet and 400 feet long in some cases. These are gigantic floating fishplants. Each one of them is a fishplant. There are 250 fishplants fishing all around the coastline 12 miles off our coast licensed by the Government of Canada while the Government of Canada is trying to find out what economic aid to give to Nova Scotians and Newfoundlanders who are being laid off. Has foreign aid been replaced by fish aid? Is that what has happened here? The unemployed fishplant workers and the fishermen want to limit the 200-mile limit to Canadians. They want to restrict it so that they can use that resource.
The Government of Canada can talk all it wants and try to persuade foreign nations to do this, that and the other thing 200 miles or more off the coast of Canada, but we are asking a simple question. Why give the Polish Government licences to fish grey sole? Why, on Friday, did the Government give the Faro Islands 15 licences to fish turbot? That is turbot that we fish. Why is the Government going to give the East Germans another 20 or 30 factory freezer trawler licences to fish the very fish that we fish?
Just listen to the list of fish that they will be able to catch, Mr. Speaker: cod, redfish, halibut, silver hake, witch-that is flounder-squid, capelin, grenadier. Perhaps we do not need grenadier. We do not fish it. It is a deep water fish, a little scrawny fish with a big head, like some politicians we know. We do not need that fish, that is fine. The list also includes the poor beagle shark, as I mentioned before. Why issue licences to countries to fish at all? If they need that fish, why not catch it and sell it to them? In the meantime, do not issue licences that have been refused to Canadian boats. Every Member here on the east coast has constituents who wanted capelin licences this year.
There are hundreds and hundreds of boat owners who cannot get capelin licences, and they are looking out at the Russian fleet now, 12 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, fishing capelin. The problem is in their own backyard. We do not want the future of Eastern Canada and our fishery to be run like a social club in External Affairs. We want justice. We want those licences cancelled. The first thing the Government of Canada must do is to clean up its own act.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: No further questions or comments. Debate. The Hon. Minister of Public Works.


Mr. Gauthier:: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: A point of order. The Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, all Parties have had negotiations concerning the length of speeches today. I have a proposal that could be a start toward allowing more Members to debate. For today, the Opposition Parties would propose that after the first three speakers have concluded their remarks, the Opposition Parties be allowed to divide the times allowed to them into two periods each of 10 minutes, followed by five minutes each for questions and comments. In other words, the Opposition Parties elect today to divide their 20 minutes plus 10 into two periods of 10 plus five. The Government may want to do that, but I am told that for today the short notice does not allow for that. If that could be made an order of the House, I would appreciate it.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, we on the Government side have no problem with this. We think it is a good idea that may have some future application to all the different Parties. The one thing we would want to make sure of is that we as a Government keep our full time-slots available to us today because of the subject matter and because of the points we wish to make on this particular debate. But we have no problem with that proposition. We are quite happy to agree to the Opposition Members splitting their time.


Mr. Murphy:: Mr. Speaker, we also agree with the suggestion. It was brought up at a Whips' meeting last week. Just so the public understands what we are doing, we are allowing more members to speak on the issue of Atlantic Canada today. It is our belief that this does not necessarily set a precedent, but it will be something that we will deal with as each Opposition motion comes up. Perhaps the Government may wish to deal with some of its bills in the same way. However, we do not believe it
May 29, 1989

can be a general practice. It really has to be decided upon once we know the subject matter that is to be before us.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: That is fine. The Chair will take that into consideration.


An Hon. Member:: Order.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: You want to put a House Order in today.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: I am not asking for consideration from the Chair. I am asking for the House to agree that the Opposition Parties may today, by exception, split their times, their 20 minutes plus 10, into two periods of 10 plus five. What I want is an Order or an agreement amongst all of us here to that effect.


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I believe that there is that agreement. Debate. The Hon. Minister of Public Works.


Hon. Elmer M. MacKay (Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, I would first like to congratulate my hon. friend who has just spoken on his usual eloquent and somewhat, if I may say so, exaggerated rhetoric. Nonetheless, I know that my colleague from St. John's East will be making some very timely remarks to rebut some of the points that he has made.
I would just like to point out to him that some of the points he has made are hardly new. Way back in the early 1970s, the foreign fleets were even closer to our shores. Some of the difficulties which the Hon. Member refers to with respect to our friends from France are the result of treaties that his Government made, which are now quite difficult from which to extricate ourselves. Having said that, I was kind of hoping that I would hear from my colleague opposite, who is a very knowledgeable Member, some timely remarks on some constructive things that he might be suggesting to deal with some of these problems he is talking about. Instead of that, we get the usual lugubrious and exaggerated kinds of rhetoric that sometimes makes me think vaudeville is on the way back.
I would like to say this morning that perhaps it would be more appropriate, at least in my case, if I could deal just briefly with some of the other issues which I think might be timely in response to this motion that has been put forward by my colleague. Our Government is, as this House knows upon reflection, very conscious of the need to provide increasing economic assistance and leadership
Supply
in Atlantic Canada. It has done so more than any other Government in history. The facts speak for themselves.
To put it in perspective, the interest charges on the present public debt are about $39 billion, which incidentally is about the level of the deficit that the former Government left us when it was rejected by Canadians five years and two elections ago.


An Hon. Member:: Which you have doubled.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: At that time, when we had this very critical time in Atlantic Canada, the Liberal Government allotted $185 million on average to help Atlantic Canada, not the half a billion dollars that our Government has made available this fiscal year, not to mention for the moment the rest of the transfers that flow into Atlantic Canada through increasing equalization, CAP and other programs. Consider these as well. Remember, colleagues and Mr. Speaker, that during the last tenure of the Liberal Government, right in the middle of it, when things were at their nadir in Atlantic Canada, when things were really down in the heel, to put it in the vernacular-interest rates, inflation, unemployment all up-we were allocated only $150 million to assist us for regional development. As Casey Stengel would say: "You can look it up." Three times more money is available today for Atlantic Canada at a time when, as my hon. friend suggests, the fisheries are in some difficulty and there is a need for some assistance. This year, we have half a billion dollars ready to flow into Atlantic Canada.
That figure is very interesting because, thanks to the legacy of debt that we received, right now it takes over 20 times more than is allocated for regional development just to pay the interest on the public debt. I think people in Atlantic Canada would certainly be appreciative of the fact that at this time, when the Government is under such pressure because of the debt that we inherited, we are allocating over three times more in regional development aid to help Atlantic Canada than was the case in 1982 and 1983.
It is the federal Government that made it possible, and is making it possible, for the Governments in Atlantic Canada, the provincial treasurers and the premiers, to proudly announce-and we are happy for them-that they are making considerable progress in coming to grips with their own economic difficulties, in coming close and in some cases succeeding in balancing their budgets. Does the federal Government get any credit for this? To listen to the litany of doom coming from across the other side of the House, you would think that the opposite were true. Mr. Speaker, Canadians are fair. They know very well that this country has certain economic difficulties, not the least of which is a debt problem, and they

May 29, 1989
Supply
realize that in Atlantic Canada this Government is putting forward the kinds of resources that are unprecedented to help that part of Canada. Mr. Speaker, Liberals have a strange unique perspective in politics.


An Hon. Member:: So I noticed.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: It is no good unless they do it. My hon. friend from Nickel Belt says yes, so do Tories. So do New Democrats. I can tell him that I certainly admire some of the unique perspectives that he brings to his work.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: I think that this kind of motion takes a certain amount of poetic licence with the facts, when they say that we have initiated policies to devastate Atlantic Canada. When this comes from a Party that voted against ACOA, it has to be looked at with a certain amount of cynicism.
The Liberal opposition voted against having a unique and very useful agency located in Atlantic Canada to do something constructive and make decisions. After ACOA became a success, the Opposition said "Oh, my, you are spending the money too fast. You are spending too much money". Then, when we try to modify the program and certain policies a bit, what did we hear then? "Oh, this is terrible, you are cutting back". The Opposition really does not know what it wants.
The one thing the Opposition very clearly wants is power. Liberals understand that. Power to Liberals is like sex to puritans. They pretend to loathe it, but they lust after it and they are very, very uneasy with the exercise of it by anyone but themselves.
When it comes to looking objectively at economic development policy, I think it is worthwhile to refer briefly to an excerpt from a book by Professor Donald Savoie, who wrote a very excellent treatise on economic development. I was interested in it because, like some of my colleagues here in the House, I have been following the various transmogrifications of recent development
policy for many years. One of the things that DREE was very, veiy keen on doing was promoting growth centres.


Brian Vincent Tobin: You called it DRIE.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: DREE then became DRIE and under the Liberals it became DRIFT.
This is what Professor Savoie said:
But we also learned from social scientists not only in Canada but abroad as well, that the growth-pole concept was only one of a series of "fashions and fads" that was seized upon 'only to be abandoned- when it turned out that it was not a unique or complete solution -
The growth pole gave way to the "comprehensive" GDA approach, which in turn gave way to the equally comprehensive ERDA approach. Putting aside the issue of political viability, ERDAs thus far have offered little that is new in terms of regional development programs.
Now, social scientists insist that perhaps never in the history of economic thought has so much government activity taken place and so much money been invested in the foundation of so confused a concept as the growth pole became in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I put that on the record to show that there is no unique or necessarily proper solution for regional economic development. It is something that is evolving.


Ms. Clancy:: This one certainly isn't.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: My colleague from Halifax says this one certainly isn't. I think she would concede that ACOA has done a great deal in Atlantic Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Let us look at the record then.
In 1984, when this Government came to power, the unemployment rate was over 15 per cent. Today, that rate is below 12 per cent. In 1984, there were 805,000 people employed in Atlantic Canada. Today there are almost 100,000 more. In 1984, capital investment in Atlantic Canada totalled $6.1 billion. This year it will amount to $8.6 billion. In 1984, there were 10,800 housing starts. This year there will be approximately
13,000	housing starts. I will go on, if I may, for a couple more. I know my colleagues opposite want to hear this because they are interested.
May 29, 1989


Brian Vincent Tobin: There is a Liberal Government in New Brunswick, P.E.I., Newfoundland, and there will be one in Nova Scotia.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: It just goes to show that unlike the SCRAP Program my friends opposite proposed before the last election and which was a highly politically motivated affair, ACOA is far from that. We in the federal Government want to help Atlantic Canada.


Brian Vincent Tobin: You have more nerve than a toothache.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: I can back up those figures. The Hon. Member for Cape Breton Highlands-Canso (Mr. LeBlanc) is a fair man and he knows that $12 million was spent for a wharf in Mulgrave under the SCRAP program. I was glad to see that happen, but I will say one thing. The scraps were really scraps when it came to many constituencies. I didn't get a dollar in mine. The Canadian people were not too impressed with the SCRAP program because they scrapped the Government that brought it in, so that was not a particularly good initiative for them.
This year there will be over 120,000 business establishments, compared with 85,000 in 1984. In 1984, the gross domestic product in Atlantic Canada, which is a baseline measure of economic output in the region, amounted to $23.7 billion. This year it will reach $33.7 billion, a tremendous increase of 50 per cent over five years. There can be no dispute, if one looks at it objectively, that the economy of Atlantic Canada is strong and growing stronger under the policies of this Government.


Brian Vincent Tobin: When did you last go home?


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Atlantic Canadians can be assured, as stated clearly in the Speech from the Throne and as confirmed in the Budget, that this Government is firmly committed to supporting regional development.
Federal spending in regional development in Atlantic Canada this year, as my colleagues know, will reach a record level of $500 million. Over the next five years, spending will remain at record high levels, averaging $425 million per year. For purposes of comparison, federal expenditures on regional development in Atlantic Canada during the past five years were $282 million per year. These are facts. Clearly, this Government is committed to a very healthy expenditure plan as an integral part of a purposeful approach to regional development.
Supply


Mary Catherine Clancy: Welfare will go through the roof.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Nevertheless, as previous Governments have discovered, throwing money alone at problems is not enough. It seldom achieved the right solutions and this is certainly the real challenge of ACOA today in developing the Atlantic economy to its maximum. That is why this Government has taken the extraordinary step of establishing a new agency dedicated solely to Atlantic Canada.
After listening carefully to the views of Atlantic Canadians, the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney), in June of 1987 announced the creation of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. He announced it in St. John's, Newfoundland, a very appropriate place. This is not a traditional department of government. It is a bold, innovative and new approach which more closely resembles a private sector model. The agency is located in Atlantic Canada, not in Ottawa. The president, and through him the Minister, is guided by a private sector advisory board. The agency's programs and policies are conceived and delivered in Atlantic Canada by Atlantic Canadians. This is a far cry from the centralist approach that characterized regional economic development in the past.
For the first time, the people of Atlantic Canada have the opportunity to choose their own course and to shape their own destiny. The agency has been given a full mandate and it has appropriate powers to develop it. The legislation which created ACOA, to which my hon. colleagues across the aisle objected, provided the agency with four broad powers. The action plan includes the ability to create programs of direct assistance to organizations, advocacy, which gives capacity to promote the interests of Atlantic Canada in national policies and programs, co-operation, which is the right to make agreements with provinces for joint action and co-ordination, and the responsibility to co-ordinate all federal programs having an impact on regional development in Atlantic Canada.
The most visible of ACOA's roles is the action program. Through this very successful vehicle, almost every Atlantic business and the institutions supporting them know about ACOA. Through the action program this agency has committed more than half a billion dollars to solid economic development projects. This program has been a tremendous success since its introduction in February, 1988, and its acceptance by Atlantic entrepreneurs has been overwhelming, as evidenced by the more than 60,000 inquiries and over 12,000 applications for assistance which have been received to date. Applications have been submitted at ten times the rate experienced under predecessor programs. There has been no

May 29, 1989
Supply
indication of any drop in this level of interest. In fact, during April, ACOA experienced its two busiest weeks in terms of applications received. This is certainly an encouraging sign that ACOA is making real progress in its basic mission to stimulate entrepreneurism in Atlantic Canada.
I may say to my friend from Newfoundland that when I was in Newfoundland last week it was obvious to me that this program had done a lot of good things for his province in the fishing sector, as he will concede if he wants to check the figures. I realize it is never enough, no matter how much is put into a regional program. But ACOA, if my hon. friend wants to be fair about it, has done a lot of good things to Atlantic Canada.
My colleague said "Don't make any assumptions about fairness". I don't necessarily believe that. I believe my colleague opposite realizes, within the bounds of partisanship, that this is a good agency for his province as it is for other provinces in the region.
Mr.Tobin: You are building cold storage and there is no fish to put in it.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: The program is generating a very significant economic impact. There is no question about it. Some 5,100 applications have been approved involving commitments of assistance totalling some $600 million which over the coming months will leave approximately $1.4 billion in direct private sector investment. This, of course, is reflected in job creation.
There are additional indirect economic benefits of a similar magnitude through the multiplier effect. These projects are expected to create, directly, 13,000 new jobs, and this impetus to the economic climate will largely be felt in the coming year as the projects reach commercial production, a very timely boost to the Atlantic region.
This program will remain vital to ACOA, but it cannot, in spite of the ongoing commitment to it, carry the load alone. The advocacy function is also very important. The Act creating ACOA specifically sets out this mandate to ensure that ACOA can exercise legitimate influence on
the major policy and program decisions made by the federal Government.
In its first two years of existence, ACOA has focused on advocacy activities primarily in the field of federal procurement. Atlantic Canada needs the kind of procurement contracts which can help its industries build new technologies and skills. Too few of these kinds of procurement contracts are placed outside central Canada. ACOA has targeted a number of key purchasing decisions and is working to help both the client departments and Atlantic Canada businesses get the best possible deal.
The objective of both the co-operation and co-ordination mandates is to draw together the regional development efforts of federal and provincial Governments. While the achievements in this field will be limited by the independent mandates of all the players, ACOA has been given the necessary powers, both financial and legal, to do the job. The nature of its role is clear in its legislation which says that its Minister shall co-ordinate the activities of all federal Departments and agencies which affect economic development in Atlantic Canada. Of course, this includes some of the policies to help support fisheries about which my hon. friend has spoken previously.
It also accords to the Minister the right to enter into agreements with provincial Governments, and the extent of the powers given to ACOA is perhaps best evident in the recent budget papers tabled with the 1989 Budget. These documents outline an allotment of funds for regional development in Atlantic Canada which go well beyond ACOA's own reference levels. The allotment for regional development in the Atlantic region includes all of ACOA's budget, plus the money that will be spent by other federal Departments on programs cost shared with the provinces or on special federal initiatives for regional development. The budget papers further state explicitly that the use of the funds in the allotment will be determined by the Minister responsible for ACOA.
The most important single focus of these co-ordination efforts is in the field of federal-provincial agreements which enable the provinces to undertake tasks they could not otherwise afford. The agreements also provide a mechanism for the drawing together of federal and provincial programs. The agreements, by placing
May 29, 1989

ACOA in a strategic position to influence the size and content of such agreements, allow the federal Government greatly to improve its capacity to shape these key influences on regional development in the national interest.
By exercising its mandate, ACOA has developed, in consultation with other federal Departments, a set of priority themes which will guide the application of the funds within the allotment, and these priorities focus on the keys to development which are entrepreneurship, technology, trade, human resource development, and the environment. These priority themes will be used to measure the various programs put forward by federal Departments or provinces and play an important role in setting the federal agenda.
I understand that my time is about to expire. Perhaps I can simply conclude by saying that this is the first time that Atlantic Canadians have within their region an agency with a broad mandate for action and co-ordination, whose whole focus is specifically the needs and opportunities of Atlantic Canada. The success of the agency will lie in its ability to have influence beyond the boundaries of its own programs.
No regional development program can, by itself, compare with the over-all impact of broad federal government action. ACOA must be effective in influencing these broad federal policies so that they enhance the development opportunities of the region. ACOA has the tools to do this and has taken the first moves toward this success. Sustained effort and support from all Atlantic Canadians including my hon. friends opposite will ensure that the job gets done.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, let me say first that I have a great deal of compassion for the Minister who has just spoken. It is an awesome burden for a Member from Atlantic Canada, a Member from the riding of Central Nova, to be forced to stand in his place to defend the Government's record over the last number of years.
For Atlantic Canadians, nothing could more painfully illustrate the difficulties and the problems we have than comparing the speech made by the Hon. Member for Gander-Grand Falls (Mr. Baker) with the speech made by the Hon. Member for Central Nova (Mr. MacKay). The Hon. Member for Gander-Grand Falls spoke from his heart and with passion. The Hon. Member for
Supply
Central Nova spoke from a text. The Hon. Member for Gander-Grand Falls was the voice of the people of Atlantic Canada in the House of Commons. The Hon. Member for Central Nova was merely the voice of official Ottawa, the apologist of the Government of Canada.
The Minister wonders why we on this side of the House are cynical about the speech we just heard about the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency while we are talking about a crisis in our region.
We had assurances from the Government during the election campaign that UIC would never be touched. The Government announced right after the election that it was getting out of the UIC business and saving itself billions. We had assurances from the Government during the election campaign that ACOA would never be cut. The Budget came in and ACOA was slashed. We had assurances last summer that Hibernia was going ahead and that the legal contract would be signed by March 1989.1 see on the calendar in front of me that it is now May 29 and there is still no legal contract on Hibernia and no indication, other than indications that it has gone into the quicksand of failed Tory promises, that Hibernia will go ahead. There is a healthy degree of cynicism acquired based on the experience of Atlantic Canadians and Members on this side about the value and worth of the commitments given from those on that side of the House.
The Hon. Member for Central Nova has the terrible burden as an Atlantic Canadian of defending the Government's record. He does it with all the passion of a telex machine, spouting out the words prepared by the bureaucrats in the officialdom of Ottawa. He said that he did not hear any constructive suggestions from the Hon. Member for Gander-Grand Falls. The Hon. Member for Gander-Grand Falls made, as his primary argument with respect to the crisis in the fishery, the suggestion that the Government has to disallow the quotas that have been given to foreign countries fishing in Canadian waters, catching Canadian fish at a time when Canadian fishermen are being told to haul up their boats and stay home. He is saying that it is time to stand up for the
100,000	people of Atlantic Canada who depend upon the fishery, and he is saying that surely this is a legitimate time to say that if we cannot provide fish for our own fishermen and fish plant workers, it is the time to say no

May 29, 1989
Supply
to foreign factory freezer trawlers that are raping the resource. That was his very positive suggestion.
I want to ask a question of the Minister from Atlantic Canada, the Hon. Member for Central Nova, the Member who, when he came here a dozen years ago, had a bit of passion in his blood. I can remember that as a rookie MP, he used to stand up and defend the interests of Atlantic Canada. I want to ask that bloodless Minister opposite to find again his passion and his reason for being here, his commitment to his region, and stand up and say that he will cut those foreign quotas and give the people of Atlantic Canada a chance to restore to themselves the dignity of a pay cheque because they do not want welfare. Does the Minister opposite not realize that?


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, regardless of passion, I never believed that rhetoric was any substitute for reason. In law, they used to say: "If you have the law on your side, you pound the law. If you have the facts on your side, you pound the facts. If you have nothing, you pound the desk". These people opposite are pounding the desk.
Concerning my hon. friend's comments about the fishery, he, in his simplistic passion, as he calls it, would have us believe that we can blithely, by some xenophobic policy, disregard some of the obligations that past Governments, principally his, have arranged with some of our friends, including some of the nations in NAFO that support and strengthen the Canadian fisheries. This is the usual treatment we get from the Opposition, full of passion, full of fire, absolutely devoid of reason.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister a question with regard to his own Province of Nova Scotia. In his speech he spoke with as much passion as we expected with regard to federal-provincial agreements. He said how valuable those were to the region.
Could he explain how many of the economic and regional development agreements between the federal Government and the provincial Government of his own province, which have been signed and have expired, are to be renewed?


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that very constructive question. I can tell him, as he probably knows, that approximately half the ERDA
agreements or economic co-operation agreements are still in place between the federal Government and Nova Scotia. Of the half that have recently expired, we are going to be negotiating to see, with respect to the provincial Government's priority, which ones it wants to have renewed or if it wishes to have other priorities or other types of agreements.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, with the no less passionate and perhaps slightly cooler methods that abound in Nova Scotia as opposed to those in Newfoundland, I might ask the Hon. Minister a question.
After many, many engagements with Members on this side of the House in committee and in the House, and after having told us that the economy of Atlantic Canada is strong, and after commenting to my honourable friend about the Economic Regional Development Agreements, could he possibly give us some idea of just how much money we can expect in negotiating these ERDAs? How much money will he be going to the provinces with when they make their priority decisions so that they have some idea as to where they stand, or are we yet to get no answer from the Hon. Minister?


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: I am glad that my colleague opposite recognizes the buoyant economy of Nova Scotia. As the Prime Minister has indicated, 43,000 more people are working in Nova Scotia today than were working in 1984. I can understand her sincere interest in how much money we are going to have to enter into negotiations with the various provinces. As I tried to indicate in committee, this is not a figure that I can give her today; perhaps not for some time.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Why?


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: For one reason, we have funds that are going to be delivered through the action program, which is a direct delivery from the federal Government. We have other funds that will be allocated to the Economic Development Agreements. I cannot negotiate in public by telling her globally what we are going to do until I speak with the various Premiers and the Ministers.


Mr. LeBlanc (Cape Breton Highlands-Canso):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister has consistently trotted out $500 million as being the amount of money which will be spent for development in Atlantic Canada this year. Would he explain to the House what is included in that $500 million? Second, what is projected for subsequent years, given that the ACOA budget of $1 billion has been spread out over two extra years and 60 per cent of that
May 29, 1989

budget, I might add, was committed during the period up to the end of November?


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, there are a number of elements in that question. The amount of money that was committed earlier in the mandate has allowed us in Atlantic Canada to establish a base for future economic development assistance, which is considerably higher than it was in the past and higher, incidentally, than it is with respect to WD.
I think that the money put out was done so in a constructive and timely fashion. I am the first to concede, as I did in committee, that we have not seen the results of all these applications yet. There may be some failures. In fact, I would be surprised if there were not. There was a lot of funding put out over a short period of time. I think, judging by the statistics, that it did a lot of good.
In terms of the half-billion dollars-and I am quoting by memory-I think my honourable friend would remember that by examining the blue books in committee there was something like $380 million shown in the Estimates. The rest of the $500 million comes from the line Departments which are also included in economic development spending. There are some of the remnants from the old IRDP program and the former DRIE program of which I think the IRDP is the principle remnant.
As far as funds that will be available for economic development assistance in subsequent years, as I have indicated to his colleague from Halifax, I think upon reflection he would realize that it would be unwise for me, if I could give him an exact figure, to do so publicly before I had a chance to get down to some serious negotiations with the provinces.
All I can tell him is that we are very much committed to continuing this form of regional economic development assistance. At the risk of sounding partisan, we have done more on this side of the House, particularly this year when the fisheries and other sectors may be needing special assistance, to provide an unprecedented level of funds which will flow into Atlantic Canada and provide stimulus where it is most needed.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Mr. Speaker, the motion before us today is that this House condemns the Government for initiating a series of policies that are causing
Supply
unprecedented economic devastation to Atlantic Canada. In speaking to that motion, I wish to cover four different areas if time permits. First, with regard to regional development; second, unemployment insurance; third, Established Programs Financing; and, last, the Atlantic fisheries.
The question I asked the Minister just a few minutes ago dealt with regional development. He had indicated in his speech that he was all for the federal-provincial agreements. We know that as of March 31 of this year 26 of the 44 economic and regional development agreements in Atlantic Canada expired. In raising my specific question to the Minister, I asked him how he felt about the agreements that expired in his own Province of Nova Scotia and whether or not those agreements would be renewed because the indications we have been given are that some of these agreements will not be renewed.
The Minister in his reply indicated that they would have to get a hold of the provincial Government in Nova Scotia and after that they could get together and have discussions about the Economic Regional Development Agreements.
The Government of Nova Scotia is a Conservative Government. It has been in place for many, many years. The federal Government is a Conservative Government. It has been in place for many years. It is not as if suddenly, at the end of March 1989, the federal Government and the provincial Government discovered these agreements had expired. Each and every one of the provincial Governments in Atlantic Canada and across Canada and the federal Government knew that these agreements were going to expire on March 31, 1989.
Indeed, some of these agreements had expired before then. In some cases there had been extensions for one or two years in order that they would expire on March 31, 1989, by which time the federal Government would be in a position to know what it was going to do with the ERDA agreements.
Therefore, either the Minister's answer is lacking or his commitment and that of his Government is lacking. They have the Department. They have the officials. They have the resources, and there certainly is the need to have these agreements in place. Here we are two months after the March 31 expiry date, and he says: "We will have to get hold of the Buchanan Government in Nova

May 29, 1989
Supply
Scotia to see which of these agreements it would like to have renewed."
Can you believe, Mr. Speaker, that people concerned about fisheries, about forestry, about tourism have not had any ideas since March 31, 1989? Can you believe, Mr. Speaker, that the people concerned about economic development, people concerned about DEVCO, people concerned about all these things that are important to Atlantic Canada have just sat still, have never talked to their Premiers, have never talked to the federal cabinet Ministers or federal departmental officials? Obviously that is not true.
Obviously the common denominator is that the federal Government has not got its act together on regional development and is unwilling to make the commitments that are necessary. In an interview immediately after the November 1988 election, Mickey Cohen, a former Deputy Minister of Finance who has been both a defender and proponent of the federal government philosophy, indicated one of the directions that the Government should take in light of the Free Trade Agreement. He stated: "I guess I would go after regional development and universality. I would cut out most of the industrial programs, particularly the ones geared to the regions. If you want to cut spending, you have got to cut programs. You have got to say to Atlantic Canada: you are on your own".
As I said, Mickey Cohen is a former Deputy Minister of Finance and has defended and proposed many of the government programs. I believe that his advice given after the November 1988 election is the advice that the Government is following. It will not admit that, because it would be politically devastating, but it is obviously the direction the Government is taking.
The Minister spoke about the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and said that it was important, that it was being used, that it was something the region really needed, and that the decisions were finally made in Atlantic Canada. Only two weeks ago he announced that the program funding was going to be cut for this agency. According to the Minister, it was important, it is being used, and the decisions are being made in the region. He went on to say that all the small businesses understood the importance of the program and were aware that the
program was available. Available? Yes. But, funds? No. Again, Atlantic Canada is being hurt.
The direction of the Government is obvious. It is not only happening here one day and over there some other day. When we saw the well leaked Budget of the Minister of Finance we saw that this year there would be $1.4 billion for regional development but that next year there would only be $1 billion for regional development in this country. There is $1.4 billion one year and $1 billion the next year, and in subsequent years there is an indication that there might be further cut-backs.
We know that regional development has been a prime target of the Americans since the Free Trade Agreement was signed. We know that the Americans got most of what they wanted at the negotiating table, but one area in which they have not had complete success is regional development. By the actions of the Government, whether it is cutting the regional development program by $.4 billion each year, whether it is cutting the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency each year, or whether it is cutting back on the Economic Regional Development Agreements that existed between the federal Government and the provinces, it is fulfilling the American mandate. The Government is not fulfilling a Canadian mandate. It is not fulfilling the requirements of the Canadian Constitution with regard to regional development, but it is meeting the goals of the American negotiators. That is exactly what the Government is doing.
It is a sham for the Minister to pretend that he has to find out what the Nova Scotia Government wants with regard to Economic and Regional Development Agreements. That shows exactly what the federal Government is attempting to do. It is attempting to get out of a significant role for regional development. It will devastate the country and guarantee that the inequities that exist at the present time will only become worse with the passage of time. That is the goal of the Government, because it wants to make sure that the American negotiating position is the ultimate winner in the battle for control of this continent.
I would like to address that issue longer, however, there are many other things that are hurting Atlantic Canada. I am only allowed 20 minutes to cover all those issues, so I will move on to an issue that I believe is
May 29, 1989

equally important, and that is the issue of unemployment insurance.
As one of the previous intervenors mentioned, during the election campaign the Member for St. John East indicated: "No one is planning any changes in the Unemployment Insurance Program. There haven't been any changes proposed". At that time that may have been true. That is just like the Government stating that it would not be cutting funding for regional development, or stating that it was going to keep full funding for the Atlantic Agency. All those things were true at one moment in time. It is like the statement of Richard Nixon when he was President: "They are no longer operative". It may have been true on Wednesday, not true Thursday, and may not be true on Friday. That is the problem.
The Government ran an election campaign and stated that it was going to do certain things to help Atlantic Canada, in the same manner as it stated the same things to the other regions of the country. Yet, right after the election in the first Budget, those programs disappear, or the financing is drastically reduced, or the Government refuses to renegotiate existing federal-provincial agreements.
Exactly the same situation exists with regard to unemployment insurance. We were told that our Unemployment Insurance Program was not going to be affected by free trade. We were told that we were going to help those people who were unemployed, and this is especially important in Atlantic Canada. However, what does the Government do? Even before the Budget, it becomes obvious that the Government is conducting a major restructuring of the Unemployment Insurance Program to deny benefits to many Canadians. Now, as a result of the Budget, the federal Government is also being taken out of any funding role or unemployment insurance. That role has existed for years.
The Government is saying that the employers and employees have to pay for a program which will not meet their needs. However, the federal Government still wants to be able to control the funding and be able to deny the program to many Canadians, but at the same time it wants to be the piper that does not pay. It wants to give the direction, deny people programs, and deny benefits to certain regions of the country, but it does not
Supply
want to make any financial contribution to the program. Again, in Atlantic Canada, as the Premier of Nova Scotia stated, it could be a real threat to the social security budgets of the provinces. That is what he stated when describing this program.
Another area that concerned me with regard to the Budget is the further reduction in the federal Government's commitment to Established Programs Financing. This is not the first time that the Conservative Government has cut the level of financing for universities, community colleges, and hospitals. It has been done before. The Government is following a precedent that was set by the previous Liberal Government when the MacEachen and Lalonde Budgets reduced the level of funding.
While the federal Government talks in terms of reducing its commitment, fighting the deficit, or stating that it is still contributing more than it did the previous year, the Government knows that what it is actually doing is reducing its role and commitment to health care and post-secondary education. Each time the Government does that, it means that there will be fewer young women and young men going to universities or community colleges. It means that hospital beds will be closed in various provinces. It means that there will be another operation postponed. In all likelihood, it means that there will be more deaths because the hospital beds were not there, the operations could not be performed, the nurses were not being trained, the doctors were not being trained, and the facilities may indeed be closed, even although in some cases they are already built.
The other day I spoke to Kathleen Connors, President of the National Federation of Nurses Unions in Canada. She pointed out that in each province people tend to think that the health problems are strictly a provincial crisis. In the Province of Manitoba they would say if the provincial Government would do more we would not have to close those hospital beds. In Nova Scotia, they would say there would be more nurses if the provincial Government would put more money into Medicare. One would hear the same comments in Prince Edward Island.
The basic reason for these situations is not because the provinces are not committed but because federal governments in the last 15 years have continued to reduce their

May 29, 1989
Supply
level of financial commitment to our post-secondary and health programs.
We know that with an aging population more hospital beds will be required. We can do more for all our citizens with the development in technology. That costs money. We know that health costs are rising above the cost of living. Yet the federal Government insists that it cannot contribute as much to health care and post-secondary education as it had promised in the past.
I noticed recently that Saint John Shipbuilding in New Brunswick was advertising offshore for people to work in its shipbuilding facilities. Here is an area of high unemployment in New Brunswick, an area with a local industry in which young people would love to work. However, as a result of cut-backs to post-secondary education, there are not enough qualified people in our nation to build our own ships. We know that contracts are forthcoming, but what sort of commitment is there to post-secondary education? The federal Government is the major contractor for Saint John Shipbuilding, yet there are not enough trained people to fill those jobs.
The final area with which I want to deal today is the Atlantic fishery. It was the issue raised by the Member who spoke first on this motion and it is indeed a crisis situation. Again, it is a situation in which the federal Government has direct involvement. It is a situation about which the federal Government said one thing months ago and is doing something else now.
While we knew there was a problem with the fisheries in the past, admittedly we did not have all the information that is now available as a result of scientific studies. We knew that the fish stocks in Atlantic Canada were not healthy and that something would have to be done. But let us consider what has happened. Canadian ships are sitting in the harbour because the federal Government will not send them out to inspect the cod stocks. Federally owned ships, whose primary purpose it is to do scientific research into what is happening in our area, are sitting in the harbours because of cut-backs in the past. The federal Government would not be so surprised to learn that there is not as much fish as it thought if it had sent those ships to do the very research for which they are designed.
The same is true with foreign overfishing. The Member for St. John's East (Mr. Reid) got up in the House and said that they do not really know what is going on out there. They should know what is happening. Rather than try to find out what is happening out there, as he puts it, the Government is doing the exact opposite. It is allowing the French to overfish.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) is in Spain today saying that he is concerned about the Spanish overfishing. He has been the Prime Minister for five years and there has been a problem with Spanish overfishing for five years. A glass of sangria or a cup of tea with Mr. Gonzalez will not solve the problem for the Atlantic fishery. There has been no attempt whatsoever to protect the stocks outside the 200 mile limit. Other nations facing the same situation with stocks beyond the international border have made some provision to guarantee that the stock beyond the 200 mile limit is healthy. They make some attempt to enforce quotas beyond that limit. Canada has not done so.
We have known this has happened year after year. As a result, Canadians are losing jobs, Canadian plants are being shut down and Canadians towns are being hurt.


Mr. Crosby:: Mr. Speaker, as a Member from Atlantic Canada I want to acknowledge to the representative of the New Democratic Party that we appreciate his interest in Atlantic Canada but when one views Atlantic Canada from the prospect of Manitoba it may be a little difficult to get the realities of the place and determine what is occurring with the economic situation in a province like Nova Scotia. I wonder if the Hon. Member knows that over the past five years there has been a dramatic change in the economic situation in Nova Scotia.
I have a graph from a Halifax newspaper, a neutral authority, which shows very clearly that while federal transfer payments have escalated dramatically, the annual provincial deficit has gone down to the point at which in the year 1991 there will be no budgetary deficit. It is very clearly said that that is a result of the increase in transfer payments.
The Member from the NDP may also want to know that in this month of May, when the Government of Nova Scotia introduced its budget, it was able to announce that the budgetary deficit for the current fiscal year was $47 million less than anticipated. It was down

from $70 million. The reason was an increase in transfer payments from the federal authority. It allowed the Province of Nova Scotia to show a reduced budget deficit of almost $48 million.
Of course, the Government of Nova Scotia claimed good financial management, but the Leader of the New Democratic Party said no, that it was because of the actions of the federal Government that the Province of Nova Scotia was able to show such a dramatic change in its financial picture. She called it a windfall of federal funding to the Province of Nova Scotia.
Does the Hon. Member agree with his colleague from the NDP in Nova Scotia about the advantages of the increase in federal funding to Nova Scotia, and does he not agree that it will enhance the economic position of the province and enable Nova Scotia to better deal with the problems that it may face in the future?


Rodney Edward Murphy: Mr. Speaker, it is quite interesting that the Conservative Member from the Halifax region does not know whether to support his Conservative Premier or the Conservative Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney). I think that is part of the problem.
When he looks at his province and the unemployment rate, he will see that the provincial Government could be doing more. If he looks at the funding for the very many campuses in Nova Scotia, he will see that both the federal and provincial Governments could be doing more.
Whether the Nova Scotia deficit is going up or down is not a primary concern of this House. What is a primary concern of the House is whether those programs that we believe are important for the regions can be financed. If it is a situation where the Nova Scotia Government does not want to do these things, as the Member from Halifax indicates, then perhaps we should be putting strings on some of the funding, as was suggested by the NDP many years ago. We should be making sure that money is going into Medicare and post-secondary education. We should be making sure when there are ERDAs that the money is not directed for politically expedient programs to where there might be a by-election, a federal Cabinet Minister
Supply
or a new road to be built because there are a few votes out on the street which have not been gotten yet.
For the Hon. Member from Halifax to get up to say that his own Premier is not doing enough is something I can hardly fight him about. He must know. I have travelled in his own riding. As a result of his hard work it is now a New Democratic riding. I am not surprised that the people in Nova Scotia feel-


Mr. Blenkarn:: How many New Democratic seats do you have in Nova Scotia?


Rodney Edward Murphy: Having done a good job for the Liberals in Ottawa, the Hon. Member now wants to do something good for the New Democrats in eastern Canada.
The situation is that the people in Nova Scotia know that the provincial Government is not doing enough in those areas. All one has to do to see that is to travel along the various coastlines to the interior of Nova Scotia and into Cape Breton to know that the provincial Government could be doing more and that the federal Government could be doing a great deal more. I thank the Hon. Member for his question.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: Mr. Speaker, I have been quite liberally quoted this morning. I take that as a compliment, I guess. I would appreciate it if the Hon. Member would tell me where the words came from so I could pursue them.
I would certainly like to comment on one thing and ask the Hon. Member perhaps to explain better. On the one hand, he said, the federal Government has done nothing about foreign overfishing. On the other hand he talks about the Prime Minister's initiative in dealing with the Government of Spain. This is a situation about which there have been calls for action many times in this House, certainly by Members opposite. What we saw yesterday was the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) being very forceful with the Government of Spain. He made it very clear to the Government of Spain that this sort of activity is endangering Canadian fishermen and the Canadian fishery and that it is something that would affect the relationship between this country and Spain and this country and the European Community.
We have had an opportunity to hear so much about supposedly what the Government has not done. We have closed our ports to countries that fish outside their agreement with NAFO. We have told them that they

May 29, 1989
Supply
cannot come into this country, tranship and change crews. They cannot come into this country for water and food. If they insist on overfishing we will continue our action. Regardless of what fishery they are in, regardless of what it is that they do, they cannot enter into our ports.
We have increased surveillance. We have 100 per cent observers on foreign trawlers.
The Minister for International Trade (Mr. Crosbie) will be meeting with his European counterparts. He will make the same points. It continues to be said at the highest level. The country is unhappy. We will not continue to tolerate overfishing. It is not in the interests of the world that this happens. Will the Hon. Member comment on the inconsistency of that?


Rodney Edward Murphy: Mr. Speaker, first, I apologize to the Hon. Member for attributing statements to him. I meant his colleague who is in Cabinet from St. John's. If I mentioned the wrong riding in some of my comments, I am sure the Hansard reporters will correct that.
With regard to having tea or coffee with the Prime Minister of Spain, I do not think that is enough. We have known about the situation with regard to Spain for many, many years. Because the Prime Minister happens to be in Europe this week, happens to have a free day and goes to Spain, is not something which indicates a very forceful position whatsoever. That is the truth.
I remind the Hon. Member that I understand his desire to defend the Government. The day I had my Private Member's motion on Atlantic Canada before the House, he got up and spoke with some eloquence, I must admit, about the need for the Atlantic agency. I think he spoke at about five or ten minutes to six. Just one-half an hour later it was his Minister who went before the committee to announce that the Government was cutting the funding for the Atlantic agency.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The time allotted for questions and comments has now terminated. We are now going forward with the suggestion made by the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier). As the
House agreed, there will be 10-minute speeches and five minutes for questions and comments.
The Hon. Member for Moncton.


Mr. George S. Rideout (Moncton):: Mr. Speaker, the issue we are dealing with today as Atlantic Canadians and as Members of the House is an issue of fairness. We submit that there has not been fairness and equality of treatment as far as Atlantic Canadians are concerned. Is it fair that the Government should cut 1,200 jobs at the CNR Shops in Moncton, New Brunswick, putting 1,200 people out of work? Should the Government now talk about cutting jobs at VIA Rail, putting another 200 people out of work? In fairness, should the Government talk about closing CFB Moncton and putting another 215 people out of work? Is that fair? Is that fair to Moncton? Is it fair to Atlantic Canadians?
What Members opposite usually do is quote statistics for all the jobs they have created. However, they have not gone through the CNR Shops and looked one worker in the eye and felt his concern and despair. He wonders what will happen to his family, his career and whether or not he has to move and if his family has to go on welfare. Those are the things people have to face.
The Government is concerned about the bottom line, about trying to manage the economy. Atlantic Canadians say: "We are prepared to co-operate and work, but we do not have to suffer and suffer in this way". I look at the infrastructure in this country and the fact that we were to have a rail line running from sea to sea to be constructed after Confederation. We now read that subsidies to VIA will be cut. Only nine VIA lines will be protected. Is it fair that none of those protected lines are in Atlantic Canada? I say that it is not fair.
There has been a recent announcement that CN and CP can apply for abandonment of unprofitable lines, but western lines are protected until the year 2000. However, Atlantic Canadian lines are not protected at all. Is that fair to Atlantic Canadians? Again, I suggest it is not.
When one analyses the approach the Government is taking, one sees that it is trying to solve the problems of deficits and the problems of upper Canadians on the backs of Atlantic Canadians. We do not feel that is fair.
May 29, 1989

The Minister spoke about ACOA. He outlined all the fine things it has done and all the money it has put into the Atlantic economy. The little business man is the fellow who is being adversely affected by the recent decisions and cut-backs. They will try to tell us that it is aimed at the little guy. It is not. It is the big fellows who get the money out of ACOA, not the little guys. We say that is not fair, and not fair to Atlantic Canadians.
When we consider the cuts to the ERDAs and the amounts that either have not been announced or are being looked at again, we see there is a question of fairness or unfairness. The ERDAs dealing with agriculture and forestry have yet to be signed. It is creating a great deal of uncertainty and concern for Atlantic Canadian farmers and forestry workers. They are not sure what will happen to them.
When we look at hospitals and universities and our opportunity to pull ourselves out of the quagmire of unemployment, we see that universities are being cut. That is indicative of unfairness.
Hospitals in Atlantic Canada presently have beds, but they do not have the money to open wings. They have people literally in the corridors of hospitals. Now there will be more cuts. There will be more people in the corridors of hospitals. Is that fair to Atlantic Canadians? I again suggest it is not.
The Government's policy with respect to transportation seems to be that it is for planes, no trains or automobiles. There will be no trains in Atlantic Canada, or just one line running from Halifax to Montreal. This is totally unacceptable, both for passengers and for freight service. Is that fair to Atlantic Canadians?
One of the conditions of Confederation was that we be linked together. Are we trying to throw the railroad and the passenger rail service out of business so that all of the people will have an opportunity to travel on our dilapidated and deplorable Trans-Canada Highway without any upgrading of that roadway? All we are doing is creating a hazard to all motorists. If we are going to try to drive people and businesses to utilize trucking services, again that is going to put great pressure on the Trans-Canada Highway, which is totally inadequate.
Supply
As I said at the outset, it is a question of fairness. We in Atlantic Canada are prepared to do our share but we feel that there has been an unequal sharing of the burden of this deficit. I believe that it is proven from all of the facts and figures that we have talked about and will continue to talk about today, that Atlantic Canadians are bearing an unfair burden of the deficit problems, with the economic conditions as we find them.
I say with all sincerity that we Atlantic Canadians are tired of begging. We are tired of kneeling down and asking Ottawa or Upper Canadians for help and assistance. We look forward to the time when we can stand up and say that we are an equal partner in this Confederation and are an equal member in a have-province or a have-region, rather than a have-not province or region. With Government policies of unfairness to Atlantic Canadians, that opportunity will never be presented to us.
I would like to conclude with a quote from Rod Archibald, who is president of the New Brunswick Federation of Agriculture. I believe his comments really typify what all Atlantic Canadians, in particular New Brunswickers, feel. I quote: "I know New Brunswick has only 3 per cent of the Canadian population and maybe that's the problem. Perhaps the federal level thinks we are too insignificant to bother with. I believe being a Canadian gives me the right to be treated fairly and on the same level as all other Canadians. We are good farmers here in New Brunswick and given equal conditions we can compete, but the playing field must be the same for all Canadian farmers." I think the playing field has to be same for all Atlantic Canadians and all Canadians rather than the way it is set up now.
In conclusion, and given the importance of this debate and the great interest from all sides of the House, I would move, according to Standing Order 26(1), seconded by my colleague, the Member from Cape Breton Highlands-Canso (Mr. LeBlanc):
That the House continue to sit through the lunch hour today for the purpose of continuing consideration of the motion moved by my colleague from Gander-Grand Falls (Mr. Baker) now before the House.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The House has heard the motion. All those who object to the motion will please rise.
And more than 15 Members having risen:

May 29, 1989


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The motion is defeated. Debate. The Hon. Member for Bonavista- Trinity-Conception.


Mr. Fred J. Mifflin (Bonavista-THnity-Conception):: Mr. Speaker, by way of a comment I would like to commiserate with my colleague from Moncton. He talked about his concern about the 1200 workers in Moncton. I know Moncton. I have visited there. He talked about his concern about the reneging on the promise of building the badly needed Canadian Forces supply depot. We are dealing with plant and infrastructure that have been in existence there since before World War II. In the area of VIA Rail and transportion in Eastern Canada and, relevant to his point on VIA Rail in Moncton, Newfoundlanders are very conscious of the bum deal they got from this Government in which the Newfoundland railroad was closed down in September of last year for a sum that on the surface looks very large, $800 million.
But when you consider how much the railway was losing each year-I think it amounted to somewhere in the vicinity of $50 million-if we multiply that by 15 years, that is $750 million that is being lost in now-year dollars. That is $750 million alone. If we add to that the $100 million that was necessary to look after the communities of Bishop Falls and Port aux Basques that were suffering because of this and to also pay off the unfortunate people who lost their jobs, $800 million is not very much money.
We have no roads. We have no railroad. It is going to cost us $2.25 billion to pave a four-lane highway across Newfoundland. We are now in the position where major transportation is under a great impediment. We certainly have no passenger service. That went out in 1967 or 1968. We are in a very, very difficult situation with respect to transportation. The Hon. Member from Moncton, I believe, is giving warning and is the harbinger of bad things to come for Eastern Canada. As a Newfoundlander, and as a Member from Eastern Canada, I will tell you that this is something that we should not be looking forward to. It is something that we should fight until there is not a breath of air left in our body.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It being awfully close to one o'clock, I will call it one o'clock. The House will resume again at two o'clock this day.
At 12.58 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.


Hon. Andre Ouellet (Papineau -Saint-Michel):: Mr. Speaker, on Friday the Arab Summit in Casablanca called for a political settlement for the Lebanese crisis, based on a reform of the system followed by the election of a president of the republic.
With all our heart, we hope that the kings of Morocco and Saudi Arabia and the Algerian Head of State who are handling this sensitive issue will succeed in this mission as soon as possible.
Nevertheless, we deeply regret that the Arab Summit did not recognize that it will be almost impossible to hold free presidential elections, to form a new government or to develop the constitution until the non-Lebanese armed forces have left the country.
I ask the Canadian Government to use all the resources at its disposal, especially its seat on the United Nations Security Council, to help the Lebanese determine their own future and their own government and be able finally to live in freedom and peace.



NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY


Mr. Rene Soetens (Ontario):: Mr. Speaker, on May 26, the Hon. Member for Port Moody-Coquitlam (Mr. Waddell) boasted that skirting the edges of the rules of procedure of this House was not a dangerous precedent but instead was a good opening shot on his leadership campaign.
On Tuesday, May 9, the Hon. Member for Port Moody-Coquitlam announced his intentions to seek the leadership of the New Democratic Party of Canada.
May 29, 1989

When asked during his press conference how he would lead his Party to win more seats in Ontario, his response included a statement that he was originally from the Toronto area, although he would never admit it publicly.
The reason I rise today is to wish the Member well in his leadership bid.


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



THE LATE WILLIAM P. OLIVER

Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the Reverend William P. Oliver, Order of Canada, who died in Halifax on Friday last. Reverend Oliver for 53 years was a spiritual leader and human rights activist throughout Nova Scotia. One of our province's first black university graduates, he ministered for 53 years in the Annapolis Valley, Halifax and Beech-ville. He was a founder of the NSAACP, the Black United Front and the Black Cultural Centre.
A gentleman in every sense of the word, the Reverend Oliver advanced the cause of equality and human dignity by untiring commitment and indefatigable spirit. While these goals are still to be realized, the awareness and sensitivity to human rights that exist in Nova Scotia today are due in no small part to Doctor Oliver.
Our sympathy goes to his wife Pearleen, his sons and his family, as well as to the black community and the larger community of Nova Scotia. We will not see his like again.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



THE HANDICAPPED


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, next week, June 4 to June 10, is National Access Awareness Week. The purpose of the week is to heighten awareness of the need for integration of people with disabilities.
The campaign will focus on five main areas: transportation, housing, employment, recreation, and education. National Access Awareness Week is a time for communities to examine the accessibility of services and facilities, to set goals for future progress, to make practical improvements, and to celebrate achievements. The goal is to make Canada the best place in the world for people with disabilities to live.
A local committee in my riding has organized public events to promote the access awareness theme. These events include model information displays, open houses, a film festival, school presentations, a kick-off luncheon, a baseball game, and poster contests.
I want to take this opportunity to wish the National Access Awareness Committee of Grande Prairie a veiy successful week.



THE BUDGET


Mr. Stan J. Hovdebo (Saskatoon-Humboldt):: Mr. Speaker, when the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) lost control of the budget process on April 26, he was quick to quote editorials supporting him. He has not been quoting newspapers this week. Here is why.
On Friday the Winnipeg Free Press had an editorial entitled "Mr. Wilson Should Resign". It suggested that while a new Minister could gain credibility with the business community, what is needed now is a Minister who has credibility with the Canadian people. Friday's edition of The Ottawa Citizen said "Stonewalling Wrong-Wilson should offer to resign", while the Ottawa Sun of the same day said that the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) should accept his resignation.


An Hon. Member:: Good idea!


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Even the Conservative Globe and Mail stated "Mr. Wilson's defence is a strange but politically expedient redefinition of ministerial responsibility".
The Toronto Star stated: "Michael Wilson must step down". The Montreal Gazette said: "Wilson Must Go".
The media of this country know what is needed. The people know what is needed. It is time for the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister to catch up with the rest of the country.

May 29, 1989



REQUEST THAT FILM MAKER DENYS ARCAND RETRACT CERTAIN ASPERSIONS

Mr. Gabriel Desjardins (Temiscamingue):: Mr. Speaker, fame and celebrity do not necessarily go together with good judgement. The people of Abitibi-Temiscamingue and Rouyn-Noranda will long remember what filmmaker Denys Arcand said on the program Clap broadcast by Radio-Quebec on Saturday, May 27: "-a prize won in Cannes is worth more than a prize won in Rouyn- Noranda."
Mr. Speaker, that is an insult not only to my constituents but especially to the whole team of the Abitibi- Temiscamingue International Film Festival who year after year give unstintingly to make this event something special.
Fortunately, such prestigious stars as Claude Le-louche, Margot Kidder and Philippe de Broca have a quite different impression and hold the Rouyn-Noranda International Film Festival in high esteem.
I therefore ask Denys Arcand to apologize publicly for his inappropriate comments about my region and especially about the excellent team who have made this event internationally famous and something of undeniable quality.



NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION


Hon. William Rompkey (Labrador):: Mr. Speaker, today is the fortieth anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Canada can take a great deal of pride in its role in this organization from its very beginning. As a matter of fact,
Article II is known as the Canadian Article. At the end of 40 years, as NATO looks back and also looks ahead, it is very important for us as Canadians and our partners within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to consider how this organization can be made more effective in the future.
I submit it is true that with the creative use of Article II emphasizing economic and cultural things that we hold in common with our partners we can make the greatest contribution to world peace.
Now is the time for security, but now is the time also for looking for initiatives that can really bring about world peace through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization which we salute today.



THE BUDGET


Mr. Bill Casey (Cumberland-Colchester):: Mr. Speaker, day after day the Opposition goes on about the great Canadian budget leak. As a new Member of Parliament I am amazed at the time devoted to this issue when there are so many other issues far more important. Certainly it was unfortunate that there was a budget leak at all, but we cannot bring the Government to a stand still. The Opposition has made its point. Now let us get on with the matter at hand and do the job we were sent here to do.
People in my riding in Nova Scotia contact me every single day about important matters concerning fisheries, forestry, agriculture, regional development, unemployment insurance, and on and on. The fact of the matter is that not one constituent has ever contacted me about the budget leak or discussed the matter of the budget leak with me, and I respectfully request that we get on with the business at hand, that of running the country and serving the public.



EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, the situation in Lebanon has recently taken a turn for the worse. A few days ago Syria set up a blockade around Beirut preventing all goods from entering the capital. This has seriously reduced the already drastic shortages of fuel, fresh food, water, and electricity in this war-tom city.

I would ask the Government to exert pressure through the Arab League and the United Nations to have the Syrian blockade lifted.
May 29, 1989



I would also like to suggest that if these measures to halt the blockade are not successful then Canada should recall the Ambassador to Syria for consultation as a symbolic gesture of disapproval of that country's decision against the people of Lebanon.



NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION


Mr. Alex Kindy (Calgary Northeast):: Mr. Speaker, as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization celebrates today its fortieth anniversary, it is facing a new reality, changes in the Soviet Union with glasnost, and movement toward more freedom and democracy.
NATO has performed very successfully since its inception 40 years ago and can take credit for Europe being free of war for 45 years, but it is confronted today with a new challenge because of those new realities. There is a desire in the world today to make it a safer place to live and at the same time the need to remain vigilant and militarily strong so as to prevent another world war.
As the Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Mulroney) put it so eloquently: "NATO speaks for freedom. We don't have to apologize to anybody".
The Leaders in Brussels should keep this in mind during their deliberations about the question of reduction of NATO Forces in Europe.



THE BUDGET


Mr. John R. Rodriguez (Nickel Belt):: Mr. Speaker, on April 27, the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) could say he had the sympathy of the public and the media. The media rushed to defend the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson). The Government, they said, was not directly responsible for the Global leak, and Michael Wilson had acted quickly and appropriately. I know the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance and their staff are avid readers, and I will tell you what they read:
On May 26, Raymond Giroux said in Le Soleil: "By falling into the duplicity trap, Mr. Wilson has caused the Canadian dollar to drop. International speculators sense that the Minister is not in control". On May 27, Alain Dubuc said in La Presse: "This incident has serious consequences. First of all, Mr. Wilson looks very foolish. Second, he has shown a serious lack of judgment in the way he presented the facts. Finally, he is losing credibility. A minister of Finance must be credible, frank and transparent. Mr. Wilson is not". On May 27, Paul-Andre Comeau said in Le Devoir. "As for Mr. Wilson, he should have the good grace to tender his resignation and to-


Mr. Speaker:: I am sorry to interrupt the Hon. Member but his time has expired.



PHYSICAL FITNESS


Mrs. Monique Tardif (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Supply and Services):: Mr. Speaker, on the occasion of Canada's Fitweek, I would like to draw the attention of the House to what is being done at this very minute by marathon runner Phil Latulippe of Lorette-ville in the beautiful riding of Charlesbourg. On March 16 this year, on his 70th birthday, Mr. Latulippe announced he would be leaving on his second trip across Canada on foot, with another marathon runner, Andre Jean.
After leaving Vancouver on April 1, on his 6,754 kilometre trip, Mr. Latulippe expects to finish in 150 days. After 59 days, he and his partner have already left British Columbia, Alberta and a large part of Manitoba behind them, and we expect to see them in Ottawa on July 27. Why get involved in this kind of undertaking instead of enjoying a rest? The answer is simple: For fun, to collect money for his friend that will help disabled Canadians improve their fitness and to promote physical fitness among Canadians of all ages.
Canada's Fitweek is the greatest celebration of physical fitness in the world. Phil Latulippe, with his courage and determination, is a shining example of-


Mr. Speaker:: I am sorry to interrupt the Hon. Member but her time has expired.

May 29, 1989
Oral Questions



NATIONAL HEALTH


Mr. Robert D. Nault (Kenora-Rainy River):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to inform the House of what the Government is doing to the future viability of occupational health and safety research in Canada. The Government is in the process of closing the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety located in Hamilton. The centre will be progressively stripped of its $10 million in annual federal financing by 1991.
The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety has been an invaluable source of information for labour groups, management, government, health and safety organizations, the media and educational institutions. The Government has lost complete control of its collective senses. It believes the centre could eventually end up as a free-standing private institution operating on a non-profit basis or on a for-profit basis. Does the Government really think businesses will donate funds to the centre for the purpose of investigating their own shortcomings?
This is a time when most Canadians require as much information as possible about the safety and conditions of the work environment. To dismantle or privatize the centre would be irresponsible and callous. I urge the Minister of Labour (Mr. Cadieux) to wake up to the realities-


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



FREE TRADE AGREEMENT


Mr. A1 Johnson (Calgary North):: Mr. Speaker, with the Free Trade Agreement with the United States in place, it is now time for the Government of Canada and the Governments of the provinces and territories to make a comprehensive review of all the interior barriers that have been set up that prevent free trade within Canada.
Canada's coal industry is particularly concerned that federal and provincial diesel fuel taxes for mining and
transportation of low sulphur coal from western Canada to Ontario can amount to as much as $2.50 per tonne. This puts our clean western coal at a disadvantage to American coal which does not face such taxation and which is being introduced into southern Ontario. I urge the Government to review this matter as soon as possible and to take steps to remove all such barriers to trade within Canada.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Right Hon. John N. Dimer@Leader of the Opposition: Mr. Speaker, for 33 days the Government has misled Parliament. At 1.30 p.m. on April 27, the President of the Mutual Life Assurance Company advised the office of the Minister of Finance that his company had been in possession of the Budget in Brief for three days. The Deputy Prime Minister, who is here today, and I both know how the system works.
Mr. Fred Gorbet, the Deputy Minister of Finance, was advised of the second leak. Surely Mr. Gorbet must have immediately informed his Minister, the Minister of Finance. It is frankly inconceivable to me that he did not.
Paul Tellier, the Clerk of the Privy Council, and Stanley Hartt, the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff, must also have been informed almost immediately. Surely they would have told both the Prime Minister and the chief of operations, the Deputy Prime Minister of Canada, but the Minister of Finance says that he was not informed until later in the afternoon after Question Period.
If this is so, on whose authority was the Minister of Finance not informed? Surely senior officials would not have taken this upon their responsibility alone. Exactly when was the Deputy Prime Minister himself advised of this second leak, and did he order officials not to inform the Minister of Finance?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister, President of the Privy Council and Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition's assertions about misleading the House are
May 29, 1989

totally, absolutely untrue, and he knows it and he should refrain from making statements like that.
Simply, the manner in which the Budget was going to be handled as a result of the extraordinary circumstances that occurred on Wednesday, April 26, was first to seek the co-operation of the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the New Democratic Party to allow the House to be reconvened so that a proper presentation and statement could be made. That was not forthcoming.
The issue of the Doug Small leak was a matter of public knowledge at that particular time. It was turned over to the RCMP at that time, and that investigation was started, and any other relationship to any other allegations. The next day there was a whole series of allegations and suggestions about further leaks. As a matter of fact, an article in The Globe and Mail indicates that many leaks were reported to the RCMP special unit. "Mounties suggest one suspect linked to both budget leaks". "Police probe reveals widespread leaks".
I am saying that at that time, the process for the introduction of the Budget which took place on Wednesday, April 26, at about 10 p.m. or 10.30 p.m., was in fact the de facto presentation of the Budget to the people of Canada. Anything else related to any suggestions or potential leaks was immaterial because the die had been cast, and it had now become a matter for the law enforcement agencies to take its proper course. That is exactly what was done.


Mr. Tiirner (Vancouver Quadra):: Mr. Speaker, the House will note, as will the country, that the Deputy Prime Minister has not replied to my question as to when he personally was advised of the leak to the Mutual Life Assurance Company, and he did not reply as to whether or not he ordered officials not to inform the Minister of Finance.


REQUEST AS TO WHEN PRIME MINISTER WAS INFORMED OF SECOND LEAK
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the Government is not only engaged in a cover-up, it is also thumbing its nose at Canadians.
I have the following question for the Deputy Prime Minister. Why did the Prime Minister refuse to say exactly when he was informed of the second leak, the
Oral Questions
one to Mutual Life of Canada? Was it because the Prime Minister wanted to avoid having to explain to the House why he misled it during Question Period on April 27?
When was the Prime Minister informed? Was it the Prime Minister who decided not to inform the Minister of Finance immediately?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I apologize to the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition for not answering one aspect of a many faceted question. When I returned to my office from Question Period on April 27, I had received a call from the Clerk of the Privy Council which I returned. It was some time, I would suspect, about 3.30 or toward four o'clock that I returned the call. I was advised of additional information that had been drawn to his attention. I can assume that about approximately the same time he would have informed the Prime Minister. But, Mr. Speaker, this information is immaterial to the case because it was part and parcel-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Max Keeping had suggested that he had evidence of a further leak. Now are we supposed to treat Mr. Max Keeping and other allegations or potential leaks a little differently?
The fact of the matter is that the Budget was tabled to the people of Canada the night before, Wednesday, April 26, and anything that occurred thereafter was irrelevant to that fact. It then became a law enforcement matter, and he knows the consequences of commenting on something that is before the RCMP, unless my learned friend wants to conduct an RCMP investigation on the floor of the House of Commons. He knows that that is not the proper course.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I have no inclination to conduct an RCMP investigation on the floor of the House of Commons, but I do intend to conduct a parliamentary investigation on the floor of the House of Commons.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!

May 29, 1989
Oral Questions


APPEARANCE OF SENIOR OFFICIALS BEFORE BAR OF HOUSE
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I want to suggest to the Deputy Prime Minister that if cabinet Ministers have nothing to hide, they should not fear the truth. The entire Conservative front bench seems to have a case of collective amnesia as to what happened after that telephone call was received.
It seems inconceivable to me that a decision to keep the information from the Minister of Finance should have been made on the authority of senior officials alone. Either the Deputy Prime Minister or the Prime Minister must have had something to do with it, on the assumption that the Minister of Finance did not know, as he told the House.
Will the Deputy Prime Minister agree to a procedure which we have not used here for some time but which is part of the rules of the House of Commons, which will allow all Canadians to find out what really happened after that phone call was received and will allow them to decide for themselves whether or not the Government has acted properly or improperly? Will the Government agree to call before the bar of the House of Commons Mr. Paul Tellier, the Clerk of the Privy Council, Mr. Stanley Hartt, chief of staff of the Prime Minister of Canada, and Mr. Fred Gorbet, the Deputy Minister of Finance, to answer questions about when and how they advised the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, and the Minister of Finance of this second leak?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition was not here on Friday, and I would suggest that since he was not here he should have taken the time to read the exchange that took place.


John Napier Turner: Where is the Minister of Finance, by the way?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: The Minister of Finance is attending to important financial matters.


An Hon. Member:: He should be here.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: To respond to the charade from the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition, nonsense. He has more important things to do like defending the interests
of Canada, defending the interests of the Canadian economy and the dollar.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: It is this kind of misleading information that is hurled across the House of Commons that has made it difficult to deal with this issue.
The Minister of Finance made it very clear that he was informed some time after Question Period on the 27th. He made that very clear. Now the Leader of the Opposition stands up and says for some reason or other that I withheld information from him. If you have proof of that, sir, come on, bring out the facts and stop the political run around.



Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Deputy Prime Minister. I am sad to hear that the Deputy Prime Minister thinks that there are better things to do than to be accountable to the people of Canada.
First Canadians learned of the budget leak through a television reporter who received the Budget in a gas station. Then we found out about another copy of the Budget being circulated in a bar in the east end, later the same document was found at a racetrack, and then to an $11 billion financial institution.
Given the latest revelations that the Budget was found where else but on a bus in the City of Ottawa, is this not proof enough of the incompetence of this Government? Does this not prove to the Deputy Prime Minister that the Minister of Finance should be recalled home immediately and the officials should be called before the bar to answer to the people of Canada through the House of Commons?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member suggests that he is apologizing to me for my not being accountable to the people of Canada.


John Napier Turner: That is not what he said.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, that is what he said. I have been accountable to the people of Canada for 21 years and 7 elections, and I have been accountable for
May 29, 1989

every action of this Government in this House of Commons.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: The Hon. Member may disagree with the decision of the Government and the process that was enacted after the extraordinary events on Wednesday night, April 26. They can disagree with that. It is quite obvious that they have because from the outset they were not prepared to co-operate with the Government.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I hear some Members across the way saying cover-up. Mr. Speaker, how preposterous. How could this be a cover-up when everything the Government had become aware of was turned over to the RCMP? Then surely, at the appropriate time, the RCMP will deal with this issue in a proper manner.
I would ask the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition to go back to what he said on May 2, 1989:"We will wait to see what comes out of this investigation. We will want to see what the RCMP report says about the incident". Why doesn't he live up to his words, Mr. Speaker?


Don Boudria: I say to the Deputy Prime Minister: Thank you very much, Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver Maz. I want to ask him the following supplementary question.


THE SECOND BUDGET LEAK-DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER'S POSITION
Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, last Friday the Minister of Finance admitted in the House that Cabinet, in the widest sense of the word, had been informed and had collectively decided to hide the truth from the House of Commons because there was an investigation by the RCMP. I would like to know-


Mr. Speaker:: I may not have heard completely what the Hon. Member was saying, but it seems to me what he is saying is that one of the Ministers has deliberately hid the truth from the House.


Don Boudria: No.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the Hon. Member could put his question again.
Oral Questions


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, my question to the Deputy Prime Minister is this: Exactly who in the Cabinet decided not to inform the House about the second Budget leak? Was it the Minister of Finance, was it the Deputy Prime Minister himself or was it the Prime Minister? Could we have the truth and have it now?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, that question has been answered before. The decision about the way in which the Budget was going to be handled was taken on Wednesday night. The Budget was released at that particular time. The Budget was in the public domain.
The Opposition were making all sorts of charges and allegations and suggestions that there was more than one leak. We said: "If you have that information, it should be reported to the RCMP". This matter on Thursday became a matter for the law enforcement agency to look after; it became a law enforcement matter and no longer a budgetary matter. It is in the hands of the RCMP. Let them do their work. What we have here again is-


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville.


INQUIRY AS TO DELAY IN INFORMING MINISTER OF FINANCE
Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. I remember very well on the evening of the leak, April 26, when the Minister of Justice stated on television that the Government would be open and above board regarding the leak.
In light of that, in light of the fact that last week the Minister of Finance would not say why his staff had not informed him of the Mutual leak either before or during Question Period, in light of the fact that the Minister would not say when his staff had made a phone call to the Prime Minister's Office to let the Prime Minister know, and in light of the fact that the Minister of Finance would not say who on his staff had taken the call from Mr. Masterman at about 1.30 on that afternoon, and assuming that the Minister of Finance did not know until after Question Period, what I want to know and what the Canadian people want to know is who made the decision to keep the Minister of Finance in the dark for

May 29, 1989
Oral Questions
at least 90 minutes? Who made that decision? Surely to goodness after almost one week the Deputy Prime Minister now knows who made that decision.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance answered that question in the House on Friday. As I said before, the decision about the way in which the Budget was going to be handled was taken on Wednesday night.
If Hon. Members had any information about further leaks, they were duty-bound to inform the RCMP, not to raise it on the floor of the House of Commons. That is what was done. That was the proper course of action.
After the Budget was released to the Canadian people, the issue with respect to the investigation of unauthorized possession of the document was a law-enforcement matter, and that is where it stands.


DUTY OF OFFICIALS
Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that the Minister's officials were duty-bound to tell the Minister that they had received a call about 1.30 from Mr. Masterman, who is the President of a life insurance company with assets of around $11 billion.
What I want to know is who made the decision to keep the Minister of Finance in the dark for at least 90 minutes?
I remember Rosemary Woods. I remember Richard Nixon. What I want to know is who-


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Minister.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, that is the same question and I have answered it, so has the Minister of Finance.


COMPETENCE OF MINISTERIAL STAFF UNDER QUESTION
Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, I will put the question a different way.
People out in the countryside are asking the following question. They are saying that either the Minister's staff panicked and were incompetent, or else the Minister's staff had received orders from higher up to keep the Minister in the dark.
I want to know from the Deputy Prime Minister which one was it? Was the staff incompetent and they panicked and did not tell the Minister of Finance, or were they operating on orders from above to keep him in the dark until after Question Period?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, what Canadians are wondering is why we are engaged in this charade, which is driving down the dollar and undermining the confidence of the Canadian economy. That is what many people are wondering.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: It is about time for a little responsibility and a little sense of fair play. The opposition Parties can disagree very fundamentally with the course that was chosen. The course was chosen on Wednesday night when it became evident that there was unauthorized possession of a budgetary leak.
The matter was turned over to the RCMP. Efforts were made to bring the House of Commons back so the Minister of Finance could introduce his Budget in the House of Commons, as is the tradition. That support and co-operation was not forthcoming, so the Budget was tabled.
Anything about any further leaks or suggested leaks or associated leaks or potential leaks was a matter for the RCMP. It then became a law enforcement matter. Surely the Hon. Member understands that.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF THE RIGHT HON. MALCOLM FRASER, FORMER PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA
Mr. Speaker:: I wish to draw to the attention of Members the presence in the gallery of the Right Hon. Malcolm Fraser, Former Prime Minister of Australia and Chairman of the United Nations Expert Group on African Commodity Problems.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
May 29, 1989


CONSEQUENCES OF GRISE AFFAIR
Hon. Bob Kaplan (York Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Deputy Prime Minister whether the Government is as concerned as the Official Opposition about the continued presence in the House of a Member of Parliament, twice elected as a Conservative, who has been convicted of fraud and breach of trust?
If the Government is concerned about that, I would like to ask the Minister what the Government intends to do about it?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the answer is yes and, to a large extent, the matter is for the House of Commons to deal with as well as Members on the government side.
This matter has been raised in the House of Commons. The Prime Minister is seized of the issue. He will be returning some time later this week and I would expect that he would want to deal with it.
In the meantime Mr. Grise may very well take the opportunity to choose an honourable course of action. Perhaps Members may want to consider that as well.
At the present time, Mr. Speaker, you have been seized with this issue. It is not only a matter for Government. It is a matter for the House of Commons. Needless to say, we are very disturbed about it.


STATEMENTS MADE BY CABINET MINISTERS
Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, in the light of that answer, I would like to ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will dissociate the Government from statements made by the Minister of Transport and the junior Minister of Finance that the Member should be allowed to make up his own mind, and from the Chairman of the Caucus that it is not up to us to judge him, of the Minister of Justice that this individual should be given a break-


Mr. Speaker:: We have been through this line of questioning a few days ago. The Speaker is in the position where the question is really out of order unless it relates to the administration of the Government. That
Oral Questions
is why I think the Hon. Member is probably on difficult ground in pursuing it.
The Hon. Minister may want to respond.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I thought that I had responded in an appropriate fashion, but perhaps not to the satisfaction of the Hon. Member.
However, I want to remind him and other Members that he is not a member of the Progressive Conservative Caucus. He does sit as an independent Member. I am as disturbed as he is, and I am sure other Members are, about this particular issue.
Anything that we can do individually and/or collectively to deal with this issue in a proper manner so as not to undermine the integrity of the House of Commons and all Hon. Members is something that we would all be interested in doing.
Simply to assure the Hon. Member, from a government point of view we are seized with the issue notwithstanding the fact that it becomes more than a government issue, but we hope that we can deal with it in a proper manner.


THE BUDGET
Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, I want to repeat a question to the Deputy Prime Minister that perhaps he has either failed to understand or-and I would hate to suspect this-refuses to answer. The question is quite simple.
When the Government became aware of the second leak to an $ 11-billion financial institution, we are asked to believe that no Minister of the Crown, neither the Deputy Prime Minister, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, or the Minister of Justice knew about it for nearly two hours.
However, once those Ministers I have just named knew about it, I want to ask the Deputy Prime Minister, who took the decision not to come into Parliament that day, the next day, or any subsequent day in the next 27 days and tell Parliament about that second leak? Whose decision was that? The Prime Minister's? The Deputy Prime Minister's? The Minister of Finance's? Who made the decision?

May 29, 1989
Oral Questions


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member states "When the Government became aware of the second leak". I understand that perhaps the Hon. Member was aware of a second leak. If he is aware of a second leak, he should make it very clear.
A May 25 headline states: "Mounties suggest one suspect linked to both Budget leaks". As I said before, and I find it very difficult that the Hon. Member cannot comprehend a very simple answer, he may very well disagree with the course of action that the Government had taken as a result of the revelations on Wednesday, April 26.


Some Hon. Members:: Who?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: The Government made the decision-


Mr. Harvard:: Who?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: The Government made the decision-


Some Hon. Members:: Who?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: The Government made the decision to release the Budget on Wednesday, April 26, and anything that followed thereafter became a matter for the law enforcement agencies. That is a decision that we stood with.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, the reason we are still on the subject in Question Period is that the Government withheld information from Canadians and from the Parliament of Canada. It is not just the opposition Parties who are upset by that. The Sun demands the Minister's resignation. The Winnipeg Free Press demands the Minister's resignation. The Citizen demands the Minister's resignation. The Gazette demands the resignation, La Presse, Le Devoir, The Toronto Star-


Mr. Valcourt:: Ask the people.


Brian Vincent Tobin: -all demand the Minister's resignation.


CONFIDENCE IN MINISTER OF FINANCE
Brian Vincent Tobin: My supplementary question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. Does he not realize that this is not a partisan issue-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Brian Vincent Tobin: The people of Canada cannot put trust in a Minister who has lost the right to hold the public trust. Will he resign?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the Government did not withhold information. The Government took the only course of action it had available to it.


Ms. Copps:: It covered up.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: As soon as the information about the unauthorized possession of the Budget in Brief document was flashed on television, immediately decisions were made to proceed with the introduction of the Budget that evening, and decisions were made on Thursday on the basis of the Budget that was introduced.


Sheila Maureen Copps: To cover-up the second leak.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: There was no cover-up.


Brian Vincent Tobin: The whole country says: "Go, Michael, go". Wake up. Fire the Minister.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: How could there be a cover-up when all of this information was turned over to the RCMP as part of the investigation that is ongoing right now? If there had been an attempt to cover up, surely the Minister of Finance and others would not have turned this information over to the-


Brian Vincent Tobin: If you had an ounce of shame you would be crawling out of here on your knees.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: The Hon. Members across can disagree with the decision that was taken-


Brian Vincent Tobin: The whole country disagrees. Wake up.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: -but I ask them to seriously consider the step-by-step process. If they do, in an objective and rational way, they will agree with the position of the Government as was outlined by the Minister of Finance on Friday.


MINISTER AND PARLIAMENT KEPT IN THE DARK
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. I will ask him about a step-by-step process. He will be aware that he has now had a month to check out all the details. Once the Minister of Finance's office was informed that there was a second leak, at least half an hour transpired. Someone in that office, some official, decided that it was not in the interest of the Minister of Finance to be informed of that, and later, of course, as the previous

questioner indicated, Ministers were aware of the situation of the second leak and chose not to inform the House of Commons and the people of Canada.


Mr. Andre:: They informed the RCMP.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Can the Deputy Prime Minister identify who the Ollie North north is in the Minister of Finance's office who chose to cover up and not inform the Minister of Finance during Question Period? Second, which Minister was it who decided to keep Parliament in the dark and the people of Canada in the dark on this issue?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, on April 27 we had allegations of further leaks from the Member for Hamilton East. We had allegations of further leaks from the Member for Oshawa. We had allegations of further leaks from the Member for York South-Weston. We had allegations of further leaks from the Member for Winnipeg South Centre. We had allegations of further leaks from the Member for Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte. We had allegations and suggestions of further leaks from the Member for Kamloops. We had a whole series in the newspapers, on television, and all of this information was part and parcel of the subject of the RCMP investigation. If the Hon. Member had any information, he suggested that he did, did he go to the RCMP and give them the information, or did he withhold information from the RCMP? Did he know?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


TIME THAT INFORMATION GIVEN TO DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, earlier in Question Period the Deputy Prime Minister said that he learned of the second leak late in the day.


Mr. McDermid:: What did you do with your information?


Nelson Andrew Riis: There have been a number of discussions between Members on the Opposition side, both from the Official Opposition and the New Democratic Party, who remember very clearly the following set of events: During the latter stages of Question Period on April 27, a page came in and called out the Deputy Prime Minister. The Deputy Prime Minister left, went behind the curtains, returned with an ashen look on his face,
Oral Questions
informing the Minister of Finance. Both went out behind the curtain with the Minister of Justice. Was that not the time when the Deputy Prime Minister was first aware that there had been a second leak?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member has either imputed motives or come awfully close to imputing motives about my personal integrity. I want him to reconsider the statement that he made.
I did find out after Question Period as a result of a call that was put into my office, sometime I presume during Question Period.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Which leak?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: We are talking about the Mutual Life issue. I was called by the Privy Council Office. I returned the call sometime after I returned from Question Period. I can tell you that given the information that was imparted to me at that particular time, I can only assure the House and all Hon. Members that it simply confirmed that the course we took on Wednesday night was the right, logical and only course to take.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Alex Kindy: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Secretary of State for External Affairs, my question is directed to the acting Minister. It concerns the situation in China, where hundreds of thousands of students and workers are having a sit-in and demonstration for freedom and democracy.
As we know, the Chinese Government itself is divided on this issue and certain forces within the Government lean toward democracy and reform. Could the acting Minister inform the House what is the position of the Canadian Government on this important question? Does it support glasnost in China?


Hon. John C. Crosbie (Minister for International Trade):: Mr. Speaker, we have been following the situation in China closely, as one might imagine. We are pleased to see that both the authorities and the students in Beijing have shown restraint and that the demonstra-

May 29, 1989
Oral Questions
tions and the reaction to them in general have not been violent.
It is my understanding that the demonstrations appear to have lost momentum at the moment and the Prime Minister and Deng Xiaoping seemed to have made headway in their efforts to exert control over the party, state and military. I am happy to say that we are not aware of any Canadians being in any danger there and that the situation appears to be calmer now. If the hon. gentlemen opposite are not interested they should have at least the good manners to listen. Others may be.


THE BUDGET
Mr. Paul Martin (LaSalle-Emard):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. While Canadians are asking for clear and straightforward answers about the leaks, the Minister of Finance has shamefully fled Parliament.
The annual OECD meeting may be extremely important, but why, Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: The absence of a Minister is not something new in the House. An explanation has been given as to where the Minister is. The Hon. Member's question is getting veiy close to impugning the motives of the Hon. Minister and I know he would not want to do that. Please proceed with the question.


Paul Edgar Philippe Martin: Why, Mr. Speaker, didn't the Prime Minister get his priorities straight and demand that the Minister of Finance act responsibly and face the House and the confidence crisis he himself created?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance has duties and obligations in Canada. He has duties and obligations internationally. He is very much in command. I am happy
to announce to the Hon. Member that it is business as usual.


CREDIBILITY OF MINISTER QUESTIONED
Paul Edgar Philippe Martin: Mr. Speaker, the Minister who does not have the confidence of this House and the population of Canada cannot represent his country adequately abroad.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the Hon. Member can put his question.


Paul Edgar Philippe Martin: Mr. Speaker, the Minister is a lame duck. According to the Government he cannot even be told the truth by his own officials.


Some Hon. Members:: Sit down!


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member will please put his question.


Paul Edgar Philippe Martin: Mr. Speaker, given the crisis and the responsibility of the Minister, why did the Government not send another Minister whose credibility would not be in question?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member is questioning the fact that the Minister of Finance does not have the confidence of the House. If he is so sure of that, then let him put a motion of confidence about our Minister of Finance before the House and then we will see what happens.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


ABILITY TO PROFIT FROM BUDGET LEAKS
Hon. Roy MacLaren (Etobicoke North):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Finance my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister.
On May 26, the Minister of Finance stated that "members of the financial community believe that there is not a basis on which people would be able to make money based on the information that was in the Budget in Brief'.
May 29, 1989

Over the weekend, however, members of the financial community have confirmed, by example after example, the ways in which individuals could have profited from information contained in the leaked Budget.
Will the Deputy Prime Minister now acknowledge that in deciding to proceed with the Budget on April 27 the Government did so in the full awareness that some Canadians were in a position to profit from advance knowledge of the Budget's contents, the very thing that the principle of budget secrecy is supposed to prevent?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, that is part of the ongoing investigation as well. As the Solicitor General has suggested, whenever he has been able to bring information to the House, he has. Members opposite suggest-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Members opposite do not like what I say. They want their own little answers to their own little questions.


Mary Catherine Clancy: We want the truth.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: This is a political partisan agenda for them. They do not want the facts.
The Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition is trying to settle an old score here. The Minister of Finance called his bluff during the election campaign. He is still smarting from it. He cannot get over it.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


ALLEGATION THAT OPPORTUNITY FOR PROFIT WAS IGNORED
Roy MacLaren: Mr. Speaker, on the afternoon of April 27 the decision was taken by the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance to proceed with the tabling of the Budget in the full knowledge that both corporations and individuals-


Mr. Lewis:: It was tabled the night before.


Roy MacLaren: -had in their possession for two days or more the Budget in Brief. This was nothing to do with an RCMP investigation. It was a decision of the Ministers involved.
Oral Questions
On what grounds was it decided that the many risks of profiteering would be given no priority in the decision to proceed with the Budget?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member knows that the Budget was unveiled to the Canadian public the night of April 26. That was a de facto release of the Budget. As a matter of fact, everybody knew that. As a matter of fact, the Opposition called the formalized tabling of the Budget in the House of Commons a non-event and walked out. They did not consider that to be a relevant issue.
What was relevant was the release of the Budget on April 26 at 10 p.m. or 10.30 p.m. That is when the Budget took effect.


MUTUAL LIFE LEAK SUBJECT OF RCMP INVESTIGATION
Mr. David Barrett (Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca):: Mr. Speaker, on April 27, at 1.30 in the afternoon, Mr. Masterson of Mutual Life phoned the RCMP and established the fact that he had budget information leaked to his office. He also phoned the Government and said that he had budget information leaked to his company. That was not an allegation but a fact.
Why was Mr. Masterson's call not reported to the House of Commons rather than hidden behind an allegation that it is going to be investigated by the RCMP?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure whether the Hon. Member is hard of hearing or not, but that question has been answered many times.


ALLUSION TO STATEMENT OF MR. MASTERSON
David Barrett: Mr. Speaker, that question has been asked but it has not been answered. Mr. Masterson did not make an allegation. Mr. Masterson established the fact that he had a leak. He told the Government. It is right there in his statement. Are you calling Mr. Masterson a liar? Are you calling him a liar?

May 29, 1989
Points of Order


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member knows that questions must be put through the Speaker. The Minister may want to respond.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member may have been able to act as a buffoon in the B.C. Legislature. This is no place for buffoonery.


DOUBLE STANDARD ALLEGED
Mrs. Diane Marleau (Sudbury):: Mr. Speaker, when Ben Johnson did not play by the rules the Government banned him from competition for life. When a Conservative Member of Parliament pleads guilty to a criminal offence, or a Finance Minister does not come clean with Canadians-


Some Hon. Members:: Order!


Mr. Speaker:: I do not know where the Hon. Member's question is going, but perhaps she could put the question.


Diane Marleau: Does the Government really think that double standard is acceptable to Canadians?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, there is no double standard. As I said earlier, the Hon. Member may very well disagree with the position the Government took on Wednesday, April 26, in terms of how it handled the Budget. That is fair comment. However, Members opposite, because of that difference of opinion, should not engage in the kind of character destruction that is going on at the present time.


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


PRINCIPLES OF JUSTICE CITED
Diane Marleau: Mr. Speaker, a fundamental principle of justice is that justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done. Does the Government not realize that Canadians see in the Government an administration prepared to sacrifice public trust for partisan considerations?


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: I would ask the Hon. Member to put her question.


Diane Marleau: Do Canadians not deserve better?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I agree with the Hon. Member when she said that justice must not only be done but it must be seen to be done. I think that is a very worthy axiom that has been the guide for those of us who seek justice.
What we have here is a situation in which the Opposition differs violently from the position that the Government took in terms of how it handled the Budget.


David Barrett: You have not told the truth.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Not the Budget, the leak-how you handled the leak.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: On April 28 there was some very sage advice emanating from an editorial in the Ottawa Citizen .


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: "Leave the budget leak to the RCMP". That is what we have done. I suggest that Hon. Members opposite should engage-
Mr. Speaker The Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition on a point of order.


POINTS OF ORDER
John Napier Turner: I take it, Mr. Speaker, Question Period is finished. I have a point of order I want to suggest to the Deputy Prime Minister. During the course of the Question Period, I suggested a course of action to him which I have reduced to a motion which I would like to read to him and to the House through Your Honour.
That Paul Tellier, Esq., Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet; Fred Gorbet, Esq., Deputy Minister of Finance; and Stanley Hartt, Esq., Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister, attend at the Bar of the House when Orders of the Day are reached in the sitting of the House following the day on which this Order is made, for the purpose of providing information to the House concerning the receipt
May 29, 1989

of information about the improper and unauthorized possession and distribution of Budget material and the manner and time in which Members of the Cabinet were provided with this information;
That the aforementioned persons bring with them such papers and records as may be required for these purposes;
That the Clerk and Sergeant-at-Arms of the House take necessary actions for compliance with this Order.
That is the text of my motion, Your Honour. I would like to know whether the Government will agree to have the House of Commons make this Order now, or would it prefer to set down a time for debate when this motion can be put and debated.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, that is a rather strange way of conducting the parliamentary business of the House of Commons.


An Hon. Member:: This is Opposition day.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Timer) knows that the normal way in which matters are brought before the House is through the consultation of the House Leaders. I do not know whether the House Leader has had any advance knowledge of this, or what the agenda of the right hon. gentleman really is. They have Opposition days. They have an Opposition day today. There are further Opposition days in the future. There are Estimates before the respective standing committees. They can pursue this matter through various avenues.


An Hon. Member:: What have you got to hide?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: If the Hon. Member wants to raise it with his House Leader, I am sure the House Leaders can talk about it.


Mr. Speaker:: Orders of the Day. Same point of order. The Hon. Member for Kamloops.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I want to simply say that we certainly would entertain a discussion but perhaps to expedite the matter, and we recognize that this is a rather extraordinary moment, since we are debating an important issue today, perhaps the House Leaders could meet and, if there was agreement, we could continue on for the rest of the day to debate this issue and vote on this matter before the end of the day.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
Points of Order


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, one can only question the seriousness of this, when I was just handed a copy of the proposed motion today. The Right Hon. Leader is not serious and neither is the Member over there. If they had been, they would have chosen the normal course of dealing with this issue through the House Leaders process.


Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, the normal House Leaders' meeting does not take place until tomorrow. To show our sincerity in this matter, we are quite prepared to give up the rest of our Opposition Day to debate this matter. I put the Government to the test. Will it agree to change the order of business to begin debating the motion of the Leader of the Opposition right now? Yes or no?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Horton McDermid: Point of Order. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the House whether there is unanimous consent-


Some Hon. Members:: No.


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


Some Hon. Members:: No, no.


An Hon. Member:: Do business in the normal way. You have been around here long enough.


John Horton McDermid: Point of Order.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Minister on a point of order.


COMMENTS DURING QUESTION PERIOD
John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I would ask that the Chair check the" blues". During the Question Period there was some unparliamentary language passed at the Deputy Prime Minister from the Hon. Member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca (Mr. Barrett). This is language that is not befitting the Hon. Member.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order. If there was unparliamentary language from some Hon. Member, then I would hope the Hon. Member would rise and-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: -apologize, otherwise we will check the "blues" tomorrow. The Hon. Member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca.

May 29, 1989
Supply


David Barrett: If any Member has any accusation against me, put it on the Order Paper and bring a motion into this House.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Orders of the Day, the Hon. Member for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Baker:
That this House condemns the Government for initiating a series of policies that are causing unprecedented economic devastation to Atlantic Canada.
Fred J. Mifflin: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception has a 10-minute speech plus five minutes.


Fred J. Mifflin: Ten minutes, Mr. Speaker. I am very pleased to finally rise today to speak on Atlantic Canada. I am always pleased to speak on Atlantic Canada because that is what I was elected to come here and do, along with 19 other Atlantic Canada Liberals, one-quarter of them, by the way, making up the Liberal caucus.
I do regret, however, that the tone of my presentation could not be more positive. With the cumulative effect of the events and the happenings that have so adversely affected Atlantic Canada since the beginning of 1989, this is an occasion for concern. It is an occasion for the loyal Opposition to speak. It is an occasion for the Government to listen and to pay attention to this motion. I will read it to you, Mr. Speaker:
That this House condemns the Government for initiating a series of policies that are causing unprecedented economic devastation to Atlantic Canada.
Our people are hurting in Atlantic Canada. It is not something to be ignored in the blind hope that it will go
away. It is impossible to hide because it is so enormous that in the end it is bound to come out. Members of Parliament on this side of the House will not allow it to be ignored. We will not allow it to be hidden. Why are Atlantic Canadians hurting? If anybody in this House has to ask that question, I suggest that they are not with it. They have not been with it for some time and they were certainly not with it in the last few months. Asking that question is a little bit like asking Hitler why the Allies invaded Europe in World War II.
Down East one does not have to be a member of the technical priesthood or the bureaucratic brotherhood to know when you are in trouble. If anybody has any doubt, just take a trip to the East and ask a few questions. Ask the Mayor of Summerside, Prince Edward Island. Ask the workers at the National Sea Plant in Lockeport, Nova Scotia. Ask the fisherman in Shippegan, New Brunswick. Ask a plant worker at the FPI fish plant in Port Union which employs 1,200 people on the Bonavista Peninsula that will be shut down for 19 weeks in 1989. Because of the recent announcements and quota cuts, it will be cut down even more in 1990.
The effect of the Wilson Budget is devastating. This is a Budget that makes a mockery of social economic management. It does nothing for jobs and does nothing for the hopes of a brighter tomorrow. That hits Atlantic Canadians hard.
Ask any of the 65,000 registered commercial fishermen in the Atlantic. Ask any of the 30,000 fish plant workers who work in 900 plants in 1,300 communities in Eastern Canada. The future of the fishing industry is bleak. Tougher times than we have had are ahead, due to the quota cuts, European community and French over-fishing and the shrinking cod stocks. Federal scientists have recently recommended the total catch be reduced to a
125.000	tonnes in 1990, down from the 1988 level of
266.000	tonnes. Mr. Speaker, I do not have to tell you, this is going to have a devastatingly negative effect on fishermen, fish plants and the fish plant workers in my riding.


An Hon. Member:: Tory mismanagement.


Fred J. Mifflin: This morning, we heard that the Member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie) is reported to have said that we do not know what is going on out there. He was

referring to surveillance in the fishery. It was attributed to the Hon. Member from St. John's East (Mr. Reid) but I do not think he would say something like that.
At a time when greater surveillance is needed to ensure the strict fisheries quotas, the Government now, as a result of the Budget, plans to disband the 29 Tracker fleet of aircraft based at Summerside whose job it is to provide more than half the surveillance hours. That is very difficult to understand. If there is still some question, ask someone collecting unemployment insurance. This Government has cut unemployment insurance funding in the last couple of months by $4.2 billion. That is an average of $1,400 per unemployed worker.
Ask a businessman or an entrepreneur who has been working with ACOA. Its budget has been reduced by $60 million per year for seven years despite all the flip-flop and the reprofiling on all the goods and various figures that have been trotted out. Ask a businessman about the new ground rules and limits on expansion and establishment. Ask him about the turnaround time, how that is to be increased.
Ask the Newfoundland Government about regional development agreements in critical areas to the tune of $100 billion which have not been renegotiated. Ask the average working class person. The tax grab of an average of $700 for each family in Canada will be hard on everyone, and in 1991 Newfoundland will face a 21 per cent federal and provincial tax on goods and services at the point of purchase. This is not a pretty picture.
Ask somebody working at the Albright-Wilson phosphorus plant in Long Harbour which is in the riding of the Hon. Member for St. John's West. That plant will shut down in early August this year. This shutdown will affect the 340 employees, many of whom live in my constituency in the Isthmus and the Trinity Bay area. These people will not have jobs and will be unable to collect unemployment insurance because of a ruling by this Government three years ago which precludes them from doing so when they receive a modest severance allowance. This is unfair, unjust and callous.
Ask the residents of Cape Freels in Bonavista Bay who have to drive to get water from a pond in winter in this
Supply
day and age. Ask anyone in some of the towns and communities in my riding that don't yet have water and sewage facilities. Ask the Mayor of Clarenville, with a population of 2,967, who is living day to day in the hope that something will finally happen with the Hibernia project.
Ask the people of Harbour Grace and Conception Bay North who were promised a penitentiary in their area. It was taken away with one fell swoop of the pen in this Budget. Ask the people who are trying desperately to get some assistance to help turn the tourist industry into a viable industry in Newfoundland. Ask them about some of the difficulties they are having.
We are used to hoping. We would not be Newfoundlanders if we did not have good defences against the curve balls of life which have been thrown our way. We do not feel put upon or feel sorry for ourselves. We do not want something for nothing but history, hindsight and bitter experience made for splendid development of solid defence which allows Newfoundlanders to face harsh facts without denying them. This hope is the backbone of our defence and in the long run helps resolve our difficulties.
Newfoundlanders enjoy music. I recall the words of some of our favourite folk songs which point out over and over the Newfoundlanders' capacity to face the most devastating possibilities with humour. What about Hard, Hard, Times. The song points out the excitement of port life in the midst of starvation. A Great Big Sea Hove in Long Beach makes fun of the tidal wave of 1929 along the beach about a gunshot from my home in Bonavista. Tickle Cove Pond relates an exciting experience of a horse falling through the ice in the spring of the year hauling logs over a not-too-frozen pond.
Something positive has to be done and has to be done soon. I am sick and tired of standing in this House, sitting in this seat, and listening to questions across this floor to a Government which I do not believe is as sensitive to the circumstances as it should be. The Government would not even sit through lunch today to hear some of the concerns of Atlantic Canada. I would say the Government is responsible for bringing about a lot of these effects. How can we expect the Government to do something about the situation if it is responsible for it?

May 29, 1989
Supply
The words of the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazan-kowski) were: "Don't worry about it. It's business as usual". I said we did not expect something for nothing. We do expect something for something in return. What we expect is a stop in our downward economic slide and the growing unemployment. We expect an end to the draining of our people to other parts of Canada and we expect to keep our young people, their talents, potential, ideas and energy at home to build our future.
What we are going to give in return are some positive ideas, some of which were heard here today, some ideas that stand a chance of implementation. Ideas such as income supplements to sustain people who are in the worst need now, better job opportunities through programs like Community Futures and other diversifications, an international initiative to bring nations over-fishing to the table with an aim to setting enforceable quotas. Iceland did it, why not Canada?
In conclusion, Atlantic Canada does not want Ottawa to do it for us. We have more self-respect than that. We want to do it ourselves but we want a fair chance, as the Hon. Member for Moncton (Mr. Rideout) said this morning. We want a fair chance and an equitable share of the pie, a share dispensed wisely to support economic growth which will make our hope and the hope of all our children a reality.


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I welcome this opportunity to take part in the debate on the motion of the Hon. Member for Gander-Grand Falls (Mr. Baker), alleging that the Government should be condemned for the policies it has visited on Canada's Atlantic region.

I have listened since early this morning to speeches made by Members opposite on Atlantic Canada. I would like to say that I hope that Atlantic Canadians are watching this debate because what I have heard is a bunch of disgruntled Grits and a few members of the NDP talking about Atlantic Canada in the same way as the Liberals have always talked about Atlantic Canada, about being a bunch of incompetent people who cannot do anything by themselves and need big brother Ottawa to do everything for them.
I have listened carefully to the Hon. Member for Gander-Grand Falls (Mr. Baker) on the fisheries issue. Later on one of my colleagues will set the record straight on the fisheries issue. The Liberals have not changed. They think they have the comer on everything.


Bill Rompkey: And the 200-mile limit we brought in.


Bernard Valcourt: Yes, the 200-mile limit. Yet these are the very people who are criticizing this Government for having inflicted these measures on Atlantic Canada. The Hon. Member was a Minister in the former Liberal Government. I also listened to the Member from Porte-aux-Porte-St. Barbe this morning. He was a member of the Liberal Government from 1980 to 1984. The Liberals were in power for a long time but it took the people of Canada to put them where they belong, sitting in opposition. It took the Liberals a long time to learn something about Atlantic Canada. Today they criticize this Government for the way we have treated Atlantic Canada. I invite the Liberal Members to take a sober, second look at what they have been saying and faire travailler les meninges, get their little heads to function and recall what they did to Atlantic Canada.
In 1984 one of the reasons that prompted me to enter federal politics was exactly the heritage left by the Liberals who were in power for 16 years and who inflicted upon Atlantic Canada the kinds of problems we encountered then. That is why I entered politics as an Atlantic Canadian. I am from Atlantic Canada. I listened to them this morning. These are the same people who, in 1984, just a few weeks after the people of Canada decided they had had enough of that bunch, attacked the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) for his economic renewal plan, arguing that it would kill the economy of Atlantic Canada. The Government's economic renewal policy for Atlantic Canada was about entrepreneurship. It was about telling the people to pick themselves up by their bootstraps and do what they can. We said that we are the tool that can help them, but we will not do it for them.
The Liberals have a recipe for everyone. They had a recipe for Atlantic Canada for 20 years, but what was done? Shortly after 1984, when we laid out a policy for economic renewal for the whole of Atlantic Canada, the
May 29, 1989

Liberals were the prophets of doom and gloom and have opposed that plan in every way possible.
When I hear a Liberal talking about regional development at the federal level, I feel-I will not say how it makes me feel. It is awful to hear that coming from those people who devised a regional economic policy that saw 90 per cent of all federal moneys in regional development being spent in Ontario and Quebec, in central Canada.
The Hon. Member for Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte (Mr. Tobin), who I call "to tete a Papineau de Terre-Neuve, " knows everything and has all the solutions. According to his rhetoric, he can put fish back into the sea. He was a Member of that Government from 1980 to 1984. If the measure of support to Atlantic Canada is in dollars, then I invite Hon. Members to look at the record. If the measure of support and caring for Atlantic Canada by the Liberal Party is dollars, Liberal Members did not care very much. While they were spending money like drunken sailors all across Canada, they ran up by 1984 a Budget deficit of $40 billion. In terms of regional development, all they could spend in Atlantic Canada was an average of about $182 million a year. Today the Liberals have the gall to criticize the Government for having doubled that commitment to Atlantic Canada in the first four years and for proposing in the next five years to increase that by 35 per cent.
If the measure of caring for Atlantic Canada is in dollars, we score much higher than the Grits at any time of the day. The Liberals' record has been to devise policies that were geared for central Canada. I have nothing against the well being of central Canada, in fact I applaud it. However, we in the regions should have a fair crack at succeeding and at getting jobs and opportunities for the future into our communities so that our kids can grow in Atlantic Canada as well as spend their whole lives there and die there too, having made a few bucks.
When I say I am not saddened by what I have heard from Hon. Members, it is because they have not changed. The people of Atlantic Canada realize that the Liberals have not changed. They are the same old-


Bill Rompkey: That is why we got 20 seats.


Bernard Valcourt: I know why we have 12 seats. It is because Members like that Member went across Atlantic
Supply
Canada during the last federal election campaign scaring the hell out of the poor people and the old people. He was going to senior citizens' homes and lying to those old people, telling them that they would not get their cheques. Next time around, the Liberals will have to come clean with Atlantic Canadians and they will have to apologize to those poor old people that they have scared.
The people who have put forward the motion today are the same people who advocate depriving Atlantic Canada of the benefits of the Free Trade Agreement. Instead of being positive and trying to come up with ways to positively change the situation in Atlantic Canada, they are against everything, and Atlantic Canada will benefit from the Free Trade Agreement. Today the question is not whether or not there is free trade, the question is how do we take advantage of it. This question should not be answered in Ottawa, it should be answered in Atlantic Canada.


Mary Catherine Clancy: You drowned the Maritimes.


Bernard Valcourt: Yes? The Hon. Member who is so proud to be a big Grit in Halifax should recall that in 1981, 1982, 1983 and 1984, families were being thrown out of their houses, people were losing their businesses, bankruptcies were at the highest levels ever under the previous Liberal Government.


Mary Catherine Clancy: This is 1989.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: There will be an opportunity for questions and comments later.


Bernard Valcourt: They say the truth is always hard to swallow.
Mme Maheu: It certainly is.


Bernard Valcourt: Yes, and the truth is that the Liberal Party ignored Atlantic Canada for 20 years, and as soon as we try to do something to change all that, they protest. They opposed the Free Trade Agreement, Mr. Speaker, and they opposed our economic renewal policy.

All the money for regional development was being spent in central Canada. We have little money to try to reduce those disparities. Surely that money should be spent where there is more need, and that is in Atlantic Canada.

May 29, 1989
Supply
We devised the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, and just to show the people-


Mrs. Maheu:: You cut it by 20 per cent.


Bernard Valcourt: The Hon. Member says ACOA has been cut. She does not know what she is talking about. ACOA has not been cut. There was a commitment by the Government to spend $1 billion in Atlantic Canada over a five-year period. That was a five-year plan and this has gone on for two and a half years. The Government sees that this is a good program which is doing great things for Atlantic Canada, and we have extended the life of this agency by another five years at least with a commitment of spending in Atlantic Canada $425 million a year on average in the next four years.


Mary Catherine Clancy: That is a 20 per cent cut.


Bernard Valcourt: No, only a Liberal could say that. Five years ago, it was $282 million a year. Only a Grit can, with a straight face, say that $425 million is less than $282 million. Only the Liberals can do that.
Back home, the people understand. We are spending more than the Grits ever dreamed of spending in Atlantic Canada, but that is not what matters. It is not the amount of money that matters, what matters is that if we in Atlantic Canada are to get out of the mess that these people have inflicted on Atlantic Canada for 20 years, we will have to change attitudes. I was listening to those people talking about the UI reform changes. All the members from Newfoundland are grandstanding. I invite the Liberals, especially the Member who is from Newfoundland to read this.


Bill Rompkey: That is Labrador.


Bernard Valcourt: He should read Building on our Strengths. It talks about Labrador. It is the result of a royal commission in Newfoundland. I recommend it to the Liberal Party of Canada, especially Atlantic Canada Members. You will note that the report makes a lot of recommendations that are exactly in line with what the Minister of Employment and Immigration is attempting to do to help Atlantic Canada.
The Member before me spoke again about income supplement dependency-keep us, feed us, we are poor, we are weak. That was the theme of their campaign. Unfortunately there is a culture supported by the Liberals who are dependent, and we are going to change that. Those people are capable of meeting the challenges in the future but not the way the Liberals do it.
They criticize the Government because there are no more fish in the sea. If the Liberal Party has a recipe to put fish in the sea, sell it. You might even be able to pay off the debt of the Liberal Party of Canada. We want that recipe. If the Liberals know how to put fish in the water, tell us. We need that solution. Those great Grits will come up and fill the sea with fish.
I have listened intently to Members opposite. I just hope that people in Atlantic Canada do also. For example, they are critcizing UI reform. I am a product of Atlantic Canada. What I see in my riding and in my province are children growing up-they are now 10, 12, 14 years old-and the only work ethic that these kids have had as an example in their entire life is mom and dad working 10 weeks out of a year. This is what the Liberals left us.
We want to make profound changes in the way we develop as a region of Canada. We can do it. We have resources. They are not all renewable. We know that, but we have resources. The best resource we have is people. When we created the agency, we said that it should be located in Atlantic Canada and staffed as much as possible with people from that region so they could work with the local communities to build a better future. The Liberals, for purely political partisan reasons, voted against the agency in the House. They voted against the very instrument they have been complaining about for weeks. We are funding this agency more than in the previous four years. Yet they voted against it.
We will hear today a lot of rhetoric by Members opposite. But I trust Atlantic Canadians will just look at what is taking place, all the tools that we have put in place. Those prophets of doom and gloom on the other side should listen to the business people in Atlantic Canada.


Mary Catherine Clancy: We are.


Bernard Valcourt: I have met several business leaders. I have found very few against free trade. The hon. Member was babbling her mouth against it all across Halifax.


Mary Catherine Clancy: And I got elected.
May 29, 1989


Bernard Valcourt: Oh, yes, but you see this is a Grit, both sides of the mouth, but it does not work. People will not buy it. Atlantic Canada has received more attention from this Government, not the lip service they were used to from the Grits. We have been given the tools and provided that Atlantic Canadians want to pull together things will happen. Instead of being a bunch of pessimists and prophets of doom and gloom, they should come up with positive recommendations and work positively in their communities and we will all be better for it.


Mac Harb: Mr. Speaker, I was having a coffee and watching the speaker on the television screen. It made me jump about two and a half feet to see the level of discussion going down that low. This is not an issue of Liberals against Tories or NDP against Tories. This is not an issue of the past versus the present or the future. This is an issue of Canadian people, some of whom are suffering due to disparity, some of whom are looking for some sort of an initiative on the part of the Government.
I have to commend the Hon. Minister for his initiative and his commitment to Atlantic Canada. However, I have to deplore some of the statements the Hon. Member made passing on the blame to the Liberal Party of Canada of 1980s, 1981s, 1982s and 1983s. This is not an issue of free trade versus the issue of non-free trade. This is an issue of great importance. That is why this motion was brought to the attention of the House so we can debate it and discuss it on a non-partisan basis. The unfortunate thing is that there are people who at every opportunity like to score points by passing on the blame to the Liberals or to the former government. I do not approve of that. I do not think this is the way we should be addressing this particular issue.
I wish that the Hon. Member could have spent five minutes attacking past government actions and then spent another 15 minutes addressing the issue at hand. I hoped he would try to make suggestions on how we can deal with the issue of higher employment in Newfoundland and other parts of the country, of how we can encourage economic development in those parts of the country and how we can get people back to work rather than shouting from one end of his speech to the next. This is is very unfortunate, Mr. Speaker, and I hope that
Supply
after I sit down that the tone of the discussion will change so that we can provide alternatives, so we can state facts.
If we are not doing enough for the Government, fine. If the people of Atlantic Canada say that we are not doing enough, then let us say, that we are going to do more. Let us acknowledge the fact. If Atlantic Canada is happy about what is taking place, then why would Hon. Members on this side of the House stand up in order to ask the Government to do more? Why would someone from another part of Canada where his or her territories are prospering not bring in a motion to the House?
Obviously we as an Opposition have a role to play. That is, every time we see certain parts of this country not prospering, not flourishing, and are passing through a difficult time, it is our mandate as an Opposition to bring the issue to the attention of the House. It is the responsibility of the Minister to say to the House what he is planning to do. Members from all sides of the House should stand up on a non-partisan basis and either defend the action of the Government or at least make a statement in order to recognize what is taking place.
We have to stop passing on the blame. We have to start living in the future and present rather than the past. If you look at the actions of the Conservative Government in the 1900s and thereafter, or the Liberal Government in the 1930s and thereafter, we could spend days, hours and years talking about the past. We have a responsibility and a mandate as Members of Parliament to start living in the present and move on toward the future. When we recognize a certain part of this land passing through a difficult time, it is our responsibility to stand up and be counted whether we are Tories, Liberals or NDP.
It broke my heart, Mr. Speaker, when I was reading in the paper that there is a quota now limiting the number of fishermen who can go out and fish. It broke my heart when I realized this is a part of this country where they have to depend on one single industry in order to survive. It is our responsibility as parliamentarians to provide them with alternatives, to start other industries, to encourage economic growth. Then when certain parts of their industry are not doing so well, they can move to other industries and do well elsewhere.

May 29, 1989
Supply


Bernard Valcourt: I want to thank the Member for his lesson in how we should address the issue contained in the motion before us today. We should not be political. I invite him to speak to his caucus colleagues. If he had listened to what his colleagues stated this morning in the House, perhaps he would react a little differently.
I happen to agree with the Hon. Member. We should be fair and reasonable and look at the problems in Atlantic Canada, instead of condemning the Government for doing what it is doing now, which I suggest to the Hon. Member is a lot more than has ever been done in the history of Canada. Members rise and blame the Government and my colleague, the Minister of Public Works (Mr. MacKay). The only thing that we are guilty of as a Government is increasing the spending in Atlantic Canada to a record level of $425 million a year.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Thke the blinkers off.


Bernard Valcourt: The Hon. Member should talk to his colleagues and tell them not to be partisan. We have put in place, together with the provincial Governments, ways whereby we can address those issues.
When the Hon. Member states that he deplores the fact that it is heartbreaking to see a region rely solely on one commodity, such as cod, I welcome him to Canada. Look at the farmers in western Canada who were affected by the drought. What was the response of the Government? Today, some members of his Party suggested that this was only a political scam to buy votes in western Canada. I suggest to the Hon. Member that he go and see the farmers on the land. They know.
In Atlantic Canada we are facing a crisis with the depletion of the fish stocks. The colleagues of the Hon. Member are blaming the Government because the fish are disappearing from the sea.


Mary Catherine Clancy: By magic, or overfishing?


Bernard Valcourt: We will let Canadians decide. We have to ask ourselves how we can cope with the situation. That is why, well in advance of this issue being raised in the House, the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) appointed a special subcommittee of Cabinet to deal with the situation in Atlantic Canada. I believe that that is the positive way to deal with the problems there. There are other
problems. I fully agree with the Hon. Member. We will have a chat one day, because I like his attitude. However, he should talk to his colleagues in Atlantic Canada. I know they outnumber the others from elsewhere in Canada.


Mary Catherine Clancy: There is a reason for that, too.


Bernard Valcourt: Provided there is goodwill there, we can do a lot to improve the situation in Atlantic Canada.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated. On debate, the Hon. Member for Restigouche.


Mr. Guy H. Arseneault (Restigouche):: Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise in the House to give this speech in support of the motion of the Hon. Member for Gander-Grand Falls (Mr. Baker).
What we are debating is the federal Government's harsh treatment of Atlantic Canada. Since the last federal election, for some reason, the Atlantic region seems to have been earmarked by the Tory Government. Indeed, the Government has initiated a series of policies that are causing unprecedented economic devastation to Atlantic Canada.
The Toiy Government has repeatedly declared its support for what it called "sacred trusts", such as universality of social programs, railway transportation, and regional development, only to go back on its word time and time again.
For example, a few weeks ago the Government attempted to convince the people of Canada that regional spending was not being cut, that it was actually increasing. It is completely beyond me how the Government can claim that it is not a budget cut to spread a five-year spending program over seven years. The facts confirm that the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency will have its $1.05 billion budget stretched over six or seven years. That is a drop of up to 29 per cent in average annual spending. If that is not a cut, I do not know what it is.
The truth is that the Atlantic provinces are already facing a nearly disastrous situation, with the disembowel-ment of VIA Rail and the reduced fishing quotas. Add to that a reduction in ACOA spending, and one has a recipe for a very serious situation indeed.
May 29, 1989

There is also a big question mark surrounding the Tory Government's continued funding of regional development in the rest of Canada. The last Budget clearly indicated that federal spending on regional development will drop to $1 billion a year over the next five years, from a peak of $1.4 billion in the present fiscal year. It just happened that this was an election year.
The Tory agenda is quite clear. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) is treating regional development like a yo-yo; the final spending is anybody's guess. All this uncertainty is especially troubling and will likely have very serious repercussions for Atlantic Canada.
The Government is slashing funds for economic development in the Atlantic Canada area-the country's poorest region-in an attempt to help it reduce its budgetary deficit. The Atlantic region should not have to bear the brunt of the Government's spending cuts.
Last April the Council of Maritime Premiers convened to discuss federal-provincial resource development agreements. During this meeting, the Premier of my home province of New Brunswick, the Hon. Frank McKenna stated that if the money were to expire, employees whose jobs are directly dependent on the agreements quite simply will be out of work. The province is obviously not in a financial position to carry its share of the burden as well as the federal Government's share.
Indirectly, hundreds and perhaps even thousands of people who work in reforestation, build fishing boats, and who work on mineral exploration projects, and who perform all the tasks connected with the delivery of resource agreements, will lose their jobs if the federal Government does not commit itself to a sensible development program.
Regional development agreements have been a valuable tool in helping key areas of the Atlantic economy which have potential to lift the region out of economic disparity. The Government must cease its Draconian treatment of Atlantic Canada, and provide the area with the resources that it needs to achieve its full potential.
Another area of the Atlantic economy which has been ravaged by the Tory Government is passenger rail service. The slashing of VIA Rail funding is a clear
Supply
indication that the Government has turned its back on the people of Atlantic Canada.
Sir John A. Macdonald had a national dream. If he could only see what the Party he once led has done to his dream, he would surely roll over in his grave.
The gradual shutting down of Atlantic Canada's transportation infrastructure is an obvious attempt to isolate the region, and virtually ensures that economic disparity will be one of its permanent features.
The dream of a modem and efficient inter-city rail service in Atlantic Canada is gone, probably forever, because of the Government's recklessness. If VIA Rail is shut down, the Tories will have to answer for this hasty action. Atlantic Canadians want VIA Rail retained and expanded. Last year, VIA's Atlantic branch carried more than 230,000 passengers. In the first three months of this year there is a 10 per cent increase in the number of people using the railway.
Without VIA Rail, Atlantic Canada will become more isolated, jobs will disappear, and inadequate highway systems will suffer more wear and tear. The Tory Party will forever be remembered as the Party which shut down Atlantic Canada.
Atlantic Canada's fisheries are in serious trouble because of the Government's ineptitude. Foreign ships are pillaging Canadian fish stocks with the blessing of the federal Government. The simple truth is that the Government has no policy to deal with foreign overfishing. People have lost jobs, and more may yet lose their jobs because of fisheries troubles.
The drop in cod stocks off Atlantic Canada's coast, confirmed by a recent scientific study, has forced a reduction in fishing quotas. The result has been the closing of fish plants in both Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) urged Spanish Prime Minister, Felipe Gonzalez, to reduce his country's overfishing of cod stocks outside Canada's 320 kilometre limit. It is high time the Prime Minister started telling the Spanish Prime Minister and leaders of the European Community countries to stop overfishing our waters. Since 1986, the federal Government has permitted member nations of the European Economic Community to overfish Canadian waters. When Spain and Portugal joined the European Community, the European Communities Council of Fisheries Ministers

May 29, 1989
Supply
unilaterally set quotas much higher than those set by the North Atlantic Fisheries Organization. This situation has been permitted to prevail by the Government. It must now account for the disaster facing the Canadian fishing industry.
The Government's concentrated attack on Atlantic Canada includes the undermining of transfer payments, which seriously threatens to harm health care and post-secondary education. It includes the Government's withdrawal of contributions to unemployment insurance, which virtually ensures that people in this region will have to depend on the welfare rolls in order to make ends meet. It includes the closing of rural post offices and a whole slew of other mean-spirited initiatives.
In conclusion, Atlantic Canada should not be victimized by the Tory Government's drastic cuts. This region entered Confederation for very specific reasons, and the present Government has no mandate to undermine the nation building which has gone on for more than 100 years.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the Hon. Member for Halifax (Ms. Clancy)-Status of Women-Refusal to meet with NAC-Reduced funding to women's groups / Resignation of President of PC Women's Federation; the Hon. Member for Nanaimo-Cowichan (Mr. Stupich)-External Affairs-Drift-net fishing-Agreement with Japanese / Observers on fishing vessels; the Hon. Member for South West Nova (Mrs. Campbell)-Fisheries-Closure of fish plants-Quotas / Cape North factory freezer trawler.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Baker:
That this House condemns the Government for initiating a series of
policies that are causing unprecedented economic devastation to
Atlantic Canada.
Mr. Francis G. LeBlanc (Cape Breton Highlands -
Canso): Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to participate in this debate on Atlantic development. At the outset let me say that it is not just a regional issue affecting Atlantic Canada but a national issue that concerns the fundamental character of the country. It is an issue that addresses one of the challenges Canada has faced since Confederation, the equitable sharing of opportunities across all parts of this country, the opportunities which being Canadian ought to provide.
Every weekend I travel back and forth to and from my riding. As I travel from Ottawa to my riding of Cape Breton Highlands-Canso I see concrete manifestations of the challenge we face in promoting regional development in Atlantic Canada.
Let me cite three examples. The community of Why-cocomagh is located in central Cape Breton along the Bras d'Or Lakes. It is a picturesque community with lots of potential for tourism and for aquaculture. However, it is stranded because it does not have basic sewer and water services. It is caught in a catch-22 situation. For the lack of some $1 million in federal funding, it has been denied sewer and water for years. Without sewer and water there is no business development and no expansion of the tax base to pay for the sewer and water.
Another example is the Strait of Canso, one of the best deep water ports in the world. The potential for the port and the industries that could develop around it are still unrealized. Much has to be done to make that port a source of jobs for our area.
The third example is Antigonish, the site of St. Francis Xavier University, one of the best undergraduate colleges in North America. When I was at the convocation a couple of weeks ago I realized that most of the students
[Stage Direction]
Supply
who passed in front of me to receive their degrees were from that area but were faced with the prospect of having to leave the region in order to find work. These young people, who are a resource in our area, earn their degrees there but are forced to go elsewhere to earn a living. That is the reality of what we face in Atlantic Canada, particularly in the rural parts like my riding.
I drive through Central Nova on my way to Halifax to catch the plane to Ottawa. I have to drive through the riding of the Minister who is responsible for Atlantic development and who has been presiding over the dismantling of regional development policies by the Government. There has been a virtual abdication of Atlantic Canada through a whole network of policies, like the abandonment of VIA Rail, the closure of defence bases, cut-backs in ACOA and the failure to renew some of our essential economic and regional development agreements. There is a whole litany of withdrawals in support of necessary development policies for Atlantic Canada. The Minister is from Atlantic Canada and I know he is concerned about the welfare of this part of the country. I wonder how he can sit in Cabinet and preside over this dismantling of the Government's commitment to Atlantic Canada.
[Stage Direction]
Mr. Speaker, recently I read Donald Savoie's report on regional development policies for Atlantic Canada. It is an excellent report that gives a very good summary of our history and the policies we have had in the Atlantic region, as well as summarizing the successes and the failures of those policies.
One thing that is clear from this report is the importance of having federal policies that reflect a firm commitment to the Atlantic region and the ability to work with the provincial governments and the Atlantic region's various economic sectors, if we are to have consistent policy for Atlantic development. At the same time, we need a policy to improve transportation, to enhance market access and to attract human resources. These are the basic elements of this report and they are lacking in this Government's policies.
[Stage Direction]
In the few minutes that remain I want to talk about one unwieldly word, infrastructure. What is infrastructure, and what does it mean in the context of development? A good comparison is to drive down the 401 toward Toronto. The first thing one notices is the quality of the road and its size. As one approaches the city of Toronto, one will notice the expanse of concrete, asphalt and overpasses within the system of transportation that feeds into that city. As one gets closer still, one can see the subway system, the parks, the hospitals, and harbour facilities, as well as the schools and network of public facilities. All of these are financed by government, whether it is federal, provincial or municipal, and together constitute billions of dollars of infrastructure that is publicly financed in this one city.
The same thing is true when one visits other centres like Montreal, Vancouver and, to a lesser degree perhaps, Halifax and some other cities in our country.
The point I am making is that infrastructure, that collection of publicly financed expenditures over a long period which make up the cities, acts as a magnet to attract industries, investment and jobs. The infrastructure that makes up that city attracts people from all over the country.
Even if business does not receive a nickel in specific assistance to locate in a city like Toronto or Montreal, that business is already benefiting from hundreds of thousands of dollars in infrastructure paid for by government.
There is no way a region like Atlantic Canada, particularly the rural portion, can compete with that unless there is a firm commitment from governments, federal, provincial and municipal, to work together to build up our transportation network, our rail system, our roads, our sewer and water, schools and hospitals in order to develop the infrastructure which makes it possible for businesses to locate there. That is what is missing in the policies of the Government. It is a denial of that long-term continuing commitment.
It is a denial of that long-term continuing commitment to Atlantic Canada to enable our economy to compete fundamentally for what is really necessary to attract and hold jobs as well as to hold our economies together. That is why we on this side of the House consider the renewal at the existing level of the ERDAs so important. They are the main lever by which the federal Government
[Stage Direction]
May 29, 1989
Supply
contributes with the provincial Governments toward ongoing financing of our infrastructure facilities. That is why we need continued transportation assistance and why we defend the VIA Rail network and, in general, our transportation structure in Atlantic Canada in the face of the cut-backs of the Government. It is shortsighted economics to consider solving the deficit by cutting out this infrastructure. It is exactly what will be needed in the future to be able to compete for jobs with the rest of the country.
In closing, if in 20 years Atlantic Canada is depopulated because our young people have left to find jobs in central Canada because that is where the market takes them, what will be required in order to preserve and build up Atlantic Canada? I suggest that will be the legacy of the Government. What we have to do is turn back this short-sighted economic policy that is being preached to us by the Government.
Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the Hon. Member on an excellent speech. As an outside observer, not being a Member from Atlantic Canada, I would like to make a comment about one of the things I had occasion to observe recently there. During the Newfoundland election the then Premier of Newfoundland, the Conservative Premier, the late Conservative Premier in one sense of being late, was able to make statements that he had arranged a deal with Ottawa on ERDAs. The Hon. Member in his speech spoke about ERDAs and the fact that those appear to be on the skids, possibly. We have not yet heard any details from the Government on that issue.
The then Premier of Newfoundland made statements throughout the campaign that in fact he had negotiated a deal with Ottawa for millions of dollars worth of aid in ERDAs. The statements were uncontradicted by the Government in Ottawa. Once the election was over and the then Premier was soundly defeated at the polls, as I am sure he deserved to be by the good people of Newfoundland, the Government here announced that the question of ERDAs was in fact under negotiation and had not been settled.
Does the Hon. Member agree that the silence of the Government during the Newfoundland election amounted to an outright deceit of the people of Newfoundland in terms of their knowledge of what was going on in respect of these agreements? Would the Hon. Member care to comment on that?


Francis G. LeBlanc: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for his question. Yes, I agree that it is deceitful. Unfortunately, it is not only deceitful but characteristic of the attitude which we have begun to see from the Government.
I mentioned some other examples. Before the election the Government said there would be no cut-backs in regional development, that they were secure, nor would there be cut-backs in financial programs. As a result of the Free Trade Agreement being signed, what we have seen is that the whole political agenda of the Government has been turned around. The people who have paid for this turn around in the political agenda are the people of Atlantic Canada who voted against the Government.
I might also add that the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, which was supposed to have $1 billion over five years, committed 60 per cent of its budget during the period before the election. After the election, when the Government did not receive the support of Atlantic Canada, it decided to stretch out the remaining 40 per cent over an extended period of time, not to mention that it was cutting the ERDAs and is unwilling to renew those coming up for renewal. The Government lumped the Forestry Renewal Development Agreement into the Budget for ACOA which itself has been cut.
This is the kind of double-talk we have been hearing from the Government all along.


Howard Edward Crosby: Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the remarks of my colleague, the Hon. Member for Cape Breton Highlands-Canso (Mr. Leblanc). I took it all into account. Memories are short, particularly among politicians. I guess the Hon. Member does not remember the double digit inflation of the early 1980s, or the 11.8 per cent unemployment nationally, or the interest rates at 19 per cent and 20 per cent. What was the cause of all this economic chaos of the early 1980s? It was a spendthrift national Government, a Government that did not recognize the need to balance revenues and expenditures. What the Government today is trying to do is to introduce financial responsibility to the national scene and to ensure that we have a strong national economy. It is a bankrupt Treasury which threatens regional develop-
May 29, 1989

ment and social programs, and all the programs that are so necessary to Atlantic Canada.
Even with that great effort in economy, we are still able to increase dramatically payments to Atlantic Canada. In the current fiscal year $186 million additional in transfer payments will be made, money which allowed P.E.I. to balance its budget. It allowed Nova Scotia to reduce its budget deficit.
Does the Hon. Member think that we can just go on spending for the benefit of Atlantic Canada without regard to the economic facts that prevail nationally? Does he want to disregard the fact that there is a $320 billion national debt, or does he want to go on spending, get interest rates for residential mortgages back up to 20 per cent, get inflation back up to 12 per cent and get unemployment back up to double digit figures? Is that what he wants for a national policy?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I will allow the Hon. Member an opportunity to answer that question.


Francis G. LeBlanc: Mr. Speaker, first, the recovery started before this Government came to power. Second, the recession was worldwide. Third, to a large extent the debt has been accumulated by Members opposite. Fourth, they did nothing for four years about the deficit and the debt except to let it accumulate. Fifth, the sudden preoccupation with the deficit was a post-election phenomenon, totally at variance with the spending promises they made before the election. They were made at a time in the recovery process when we should be expecting the economy to be stimulating rather than contracting because, as economists are saying, we will face a recession soon, and Atlantic Canada will be the first to pay the price.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure for me to be able to participate in this debate today. I have had the privilege today of hearing my hon. friend from Gander-Grand Falls. I have had the privilege of hearing him quite a bit in the last 10 days, on radio and television. Certainly, he has been widely reported in the print media in St. John's and in other places in Newfoundland and Labrador. This gives me a particular opportunity to be able to put some order and some sense
Supply
into what I know is real compassion and passion but which unfortunately clouds reality and the facts.
We are talking today about the motion that he has put forward in this House which condemns the Government for initiating a series of policies that are causing unprecedented economic devastation to Atlantic Canada. I would argue that the policies of this Government, particularly over the last five years, have done absolutely the opposite. In my province, we have seen a reduction in the unemployment rate of some 8 per cent, the highest reduction in the unemployment rate in any province in this country. Last year alone, we saw the creation of 10,000 jobs in Newfoundland and Labrador. This is an accomplishment that we have never seen before, certainly in the 40 years we have been part of this great country and the 400 years before that.
My colleagues have talked extensively about the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and other things. I would like, if I may, to concentrate on the fishery. The lifeblood of Newfoundland and Labrador is and has always been, and I would suggest will always be, the fishery. It brought us to what is now that province. It has kept us there. It has gone through a series of good times and it has gone through a series of bad times.
There is no question that I, and I think all Members in this House, recognize that in the next few years we will have a very difficult time in the fishery in Eastern Canada. It is a very difficult time for all of us, whether we are in the fishery or whatever part of the economy that we are in. The problem is serious. Potentially, the problem is one that we must all work together to find solutions for.
The Harris interim report that was released last Friday has told us that we may face some serious cut-backs in the northern cod stock. It has told us that we have much work to do to be sure of the state of that stock. It has told us that there is much that has to be done over a period of time to ensure that that stock is there. I think that all Members of this House, on whatever side they sit, will agree that the conservation of all our fish stocks must be our first concern because it is the long-term viability of the fishery that is vital to those thousands of people, as my hon. friend from Bonavista-Trinity-Conception has told us, those tens of thousands of people who depend

May 29, 1989
Supply
on the fishery. The solutions to this problem are not going to be found overnight.
The solutions to this problem are only going to be found with much consultation and co-operation from all of the parties that are involved in the fishery, be they fishermen or the union, be they plant workers or people who work on trawlers, or the companies or the provincial Government and the federal Government. It is only working together, recognizing what the problem is and recognizing what the impact of those problems will be, and working together to find solutions that address the fishery, the economy and the social net that we must have to ensure that as many people in Atlantic Canada as possible can work and live in that fishery. It is the policies of this Government that will ensure that we have a viable and strong fishery.
Let us just talk a little bit about where we have been in the last few years. From 1984 to 1987, the value of landings, this is the effect of the Tory policies. The value of landings has increased by 88 per cent. In the ground-fish sector, landed values increased by 93 per cent. In the shellfish sector, landed values increased by 81 per cent. The value of production increased by 75 per cent, to $2.4 billion. In 1987, Atlantic coast production amounted to $2.4 billion, an increase of 15.6 per cent from $2.1 billion in 1986. The value of landings compared to the previous year was up 27 per cent. The value of groundfish was up 41 per cent. I could go into other species but I will not.
I want to speak directly to what my friend from Gander-Grand Falls said this morning. There are two or three things that he referred to that I think demand a response. First, I want to talk about the general problem of overfishing. There is no question that overfishing by foreign countries and fishing by foreign countries have taken fish out of our waters. Let us put it into some context. If we first of all believe that that is the only problem facing our fishery, that that is the only reason we face a reduced total allowable catch perhaps next year or the year after, we are sadly deluding ourselves and all of those who have elected us to represent them.
There are a series of problems, just as there are a series of solutions. We must recognize those problems in reality and then get solutions in terms of reality. The Member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Harb) has said that
there has to be co-operation. There has to be a sense of reality. There has to be a sense of proportion here. I think that all of us at the end of the day would like to find that.
The overfishing or foreign fishing in the last two years has reduced dramatically. The catches are down from 1986 of 171,000 tonnes to 66,000 tonnes in 1988. Overfishing is down in somewhat the same proportion.
This Government has taken a whole series of actions to address and attack the problem of overfishing. We recognize it is a problem. It has been going on for years. There have been agreements historically and agreements that have been renegotiated that have gone back over a period of time. There is precedent that we have to deal with. Part of having a 200-mile limit that is respected because of international law and international precedent demands that we do certain things. Part of that is to make available surplus stocks, species that we do not take, to international fisheries and to other countries. We are complying with those obligations. I will go back to that.
In terms of overfishing, we have closed our ports to ships of countries that continue to overfish against their obligations. We refuse allocations inside our zone to those same countries. Surveillance and enforcement along the 200-mile limit has been improved to prevent illegal incursions. Penalties have been increased substantially to provide a deterrent to those captains, those countries, and those fish companies for offshore that want to come in and think that they can abuse our fish stocks.
This Government will continue its efforts to gamer international acceptance of the enhanced coastal state preferential rights with respect to management and conservation of straddling stocks. This is something that there is clearly an opportunity to pursue, and pursue it we will and we are. The statement of this Government, the first Speech from the Throne of this new Government made quite clear its concern and its intention to address overfishing.


An Hon. Member:: Second.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: Indeed, Mr. Speaker, as usual the Member from Kingston and the Islands (Mr. Milliken) is absolutely right. Certainly, in my experience, Mr. Speaker, I-
May 29, 1989


An Hon. Member:: Once he gets beyond one and two, he's in trouble.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: Another one, another one. The Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Mulroney) has brought this matter to the attention of the President of France. The Prime Minister of Canada has brought this matter to the attention of the Spanish Prime Minister-not just telling him, as someone has suggested, over a cup of tea or sangria, God forbid, but to the point of saying that this matter is something that if it is not corrected will affect our relationship. It is something that is serious enough to cause problems between us in a practical way. This Government will continue to pursue this matter at the highest level.
The Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark) and the Minister of International Trade (Mr. Crosbie) will be meeting European counterparts in the coming weeks, and they will make very clear our concern that this practice must stop, not just in the interests of Canadian fishermen but in a time of international acceptance of the premise and the understanding of development and responsible management of the environment, where sustainable development has become a catch word. Management is a critical component of that.
If I may briefly turn to some of the comments made by my friend from Gander-Grand Falls. His constituents welcomed him into that great paper city. I am sure he entertains them as much as he has the people of Gander and parts of the northeast coast of Newfoundland, but unfortunately we are not talking here about entertainment. In fact, it is very unentertaining. It is very serious and is not serving anyone's interest if we continue to use scare tactics, to inflate the situation and make the people of this country insecure based on something that is not there. If we continue to do this, we will get nowhere.
The attitude of the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Harb) and what I was hearing from my friend, the Hon. Member for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception (Mr. Mifflin) and some others is that we must all recognize the seriousness of this issue.
We talked about the 35 Soviet fish plants and the nine Cuban fish plants due east of St. John's licensed to fish off the coast of Halifax for silver hake bycatches of 3,000
Supply
tonnes of cod, 3,000 tonnes of pollock and 1,000 tonnes of haddock. I stand corrected if I am wrong. Those numbers are not realistic. Those numbers are perhaps the tolerance that are provided for in bycatch. You cannot avoid a bycatch. If we are going to allow these countries to take a species that we are not equipped or not prepared to take, there will be a bycatch. I think it is important to recognize what the bycatches were in 1988. The bycatches for all three of those species for the Soviets were 1,500 tonnes, not the 7,000 tonnes about which the Hon. Member is talking. The bycatches were 1,500 tonnes for all of the species. That is less than .3 per cent of the total fishery. The Hon. Member talks about 250 fish plants floating around out there. This is simply not the case. It is not happening.
The Hon. Member talks about capelin and how others are allowed to take capelin while Newfoundland fishermen are not allowed to. Let us recognize how capelin is licensed in Newfoundland and Labrador. The licensing for capelin and the allowable catches for capelin are based on the market. It is the market that dictates what can be taken, how much is going to be purchased. Therefore, we take what we know will be sold based on female roe capelin. As a result the limits are dictated by that. Capelin are being caught for the fish. It is apples and oranges and any denial of a Newfoundlander for a licence in an attempt to make sure we only catch what we can sell would not be affected by whoever was out there. If no one was out there, it would not change. It would be exactly the same.
Newfoundlanders are charged and fined for incidental catches, but not foreign vessels? There have been foreign vessels fined this year. One Soviet vessel was charged for dumping fish and another was ordered out of the zone for not reporting bycatches.
The Soviets and the Cubans are not coming anywhere near the bycatch levels. In 1988 the haddock limit was 1 per cent. They caught .59 per cent. In 4W where the limit on cod is 5 per cent, the Soviets caught .16 per cent. Of course, they are not charged because they are nowhere near the limits. If we are catching a total 1,500 tonnes of fish out of a total that is being presented to us in terms of
7,000	tonnes, of course, they are not charged. Why are there 250 factory-freezer trawlers inside the 200-mile zone?

May 29, 1989
Supply
We have issued 61 fishing licences. Vessels are issued licences for a number of things such as research or perhaps over-the-side-sales. You need a licence for the different fisheries. It also denies the fact that the quota is not based on the amount of fish a ship catches. The quota is fixed. Fleets are given an amount of fish based on our obligations and are based entirely on a block. They could have 15,000 ships out there and it would not affect the amount of fish caught. Anyone inside the 200-mile limit has a Canadian observer on that ship 100 per cent of the time. This observer reports to the Department of Fisheries so that the Department knows exactly how much fish is being caught.
The policy on allowing people to fish in our waters is very clear. Canada has an obligation under international law to make surplus stocks available to other countries with which it has bilateral fisheries agreements. Examples, as we know, are silver hake, capelin, argentine, grenadier. When and if-this is very important-these fisheries are developed by Canadians then the present foreign effort will be reduced accordingly.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has undertaken a whole series of programs to address the opportunities of underdeveloped species. We know about exploratory licences for crab, clams and scallops. We know about moving further north with exploratory licences for shrimp. We know about the work done for aquaculture. We know about the Icelandic scallop fishery, the offshore clam fishery, the work we have done with native fishermen to try to get them involved in the fishery.
The fishing effort and the landed value has tripled in the last three years. There continues to be movements of allocations so that when the fish are not caught, we are in the position that we can move it to someone else. For instance, in the case of the Soviets where there was a particular type of fish they were unable to catch, we exchanged it for a fish for which we had quotas available that Canadians were not catching. In that case we were able to take cod back. It is that type of innovation, creativity and co-operation why we continue to have growth in the value of our fishery, why our fishermen continue to do well and want to continue in the fishery and why we have confidence in addressing what we recognize as a serious problem. The base is there. The good policy that is being condemned by the Hon. Member is there. It is a policy that will allow us to develop and adapt.
The Prime Minister has appointed a cabinet committee which will address specifically these opportunities and problems to make sure we maximize the fishery and to make sure we use all of the tools available to us to make sure as many people in Atlantic Canada who want to live and work in the fishery in Atlantic Canada know they will have an income that is dependable and will have a strong future for themselves and their communities. Those are the policies which the Opposition want to condemn. Those are the policies that the crowd opposite want to condemn which will ensure that whatever happens in the future, we will have that strong, viable fishery.


Fred J. Mifflin: I want to thank the Hon. Member for St. John's East (Mr. Reid) for his presentation. I found some of the figures very interesting and some of the qualitative descriptions also very interesting.
I would like to make a few comments. First, I would remind the House that it was the Government composed of those of us who are on this side of the House that commissioned the Kirby Commission to put the Atlantic fisheries in a better position than it had been in some time. It was also the Liberal Government that spearheaded the whole business of the change to the 200-mile economic zone in 1977 and organized forces in the Canadian Government to carry out surveillance. Indeed, it was the Liberal Government that set the policy that put us in a pretty good position.
I would like to talk about some of the things that are going on right now. I do not think that there is any question that over the last four or five years, our quotas, for whatever reason, and I am in no position to make any judgment on that, have not been the kind of quotas we should have had. A more serious environmental problem has been the overfishing by the European Community. I will not talk about that now because I think it was covered by the Hon. Member for Gander-Grand Falls (Mr. Baker) this morning.
I want to talk about fishing outside the 200-mile economic zone. I would like to refer to some figures. Last year, the Economic Community's quota in international waters off Newfoundland was 19,000 metric tons, but the European Community ships and craft hauled in
80,000	metric tons, over four times what they were allocated. Quotas in that area are voluntary and set on the basis of scientific information and evidence compiled by the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization,

NAFO, a voluntary group in which Canada and the European Community are members.
This year, 1989, this voluntary organization established a quota of 13,000 tonnes one more time for the Economic Community, but the Economic Community fisheries ministers, prodded by Portugal and Spain, no doubt, responded in December by setting their own quotas of from 13,000 to 160,000 metric tons. We talk about conservation while this sort of thing is going on.
I am sure the Hon. Member and other Hon. Members would say that the Prime Minister is over there talking about this and that he will do something about it. This has been going on for a long time. If we want to do something about it, and if we soon do not reach an accommodation on overfishing, I suggest that we take a look at some trade sanctions. We could direct them to some of the main European Community players.
Let me give Hon. Members an indication of what we could do. I am not sure how easy it will be in the case of Portugal. Portugal had a two-way trade with Canada last year of $286 million. There was a deficit of $48 million, but in the case of Spain which has been brought to the attention of the House this morning, it is certainly the more vulnerable of the two and last year enjoyed a $485 million trade surplus with Canada on the total two-way trade of $945 million. I think we can make use of this in some way, shape or form.
The other point I want to make is that in the last three and a half or four years, the French have been allocated around 6,400 tonnes of northern cod in 3PS, the south of Newfoundland. We have heard a lot about 3PS. The French have been catching four times that, 26,000 tonnes. We negotiated a deal with them so that we can come back to the table in two or three years' time and allocate a quota which is virtually the same amount, not 6,400 tonnes but around 25,000 tonnes while we are waiting for negotiations three years from now.
If we are concerned about conservation, I do not know how we can allow these things to happen without taking advantage of trade sanctions in support of conversation. I
Supply
wonder if my hon. friend from St. John's East would like to make some comment on that.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: Mr. Speaker, I would love to. There is no question that when the hon. crowd opposite formed the Government and we were over there, it did a number of things and Senator Kirby did a lot of very hard work and some very good work. I cannot say it was all terrific work, but there is no question that he did a tremendous amount vis-a-vis the increase in surveillance and the 200-mile limit. The Hon. Member will recognize that at one point, the current Minister of Fisheries in Newfoundland was with the crowd here but now he is with the crowd opposite with no change in sides. He was quite involved in 1977 when he was a Progressive Conservative Member for St. John's West.
I could talk about agreements that were signed in 1972, but I will not because it accomplishes nothing. We deal with the problem we have today. I find it intriguing, as my hon. friend has said, that the European Community has whacked its NAFO quota of 13,000 tonnes up to
160,000	tonnes. I suspect it reflects, more than anything else, a recognition by the European Community that it will get a considerable amount of pressure to move it back down. It can be noble as only Europeans can be noble and talk about how much it has given up as it moves back down from 160,000 tonnes. The European Community does not have a prayer of catching that much. There is not a hope that it will catch it.
I do not want to go into the 80,000 versus what it was the year before. That overfishing by the European Community and others has dropped down and continues to drop down. The key is, and I think we all agree that that number of 80,000, though I would say it closer to 65,000, should be zero, but we cannot automatically do that.
I would like the opportunity to comment quickly on trade sanctions, an evidently easy target, something that appears to be easy. If I were the Commissioner of Trade at the European Community and Canada decided to move on trade sanctions, the first thing I would do is say that we get $450 million worth of fish a year from Canada and that is all we would touch, so all that lobster and salmon would get wiped out like that. What would we do? We would decide to do something else, so-

May 29, 1989
Supply


Fred J. Mifflin: Sell it to somebody else.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: The Hon. Member knows, probably better that I, that it ain't as easy as that. We establish historic markets over a period of time, we develop markets that know our products. So much of selling fish is confidence, so much of the mechanics of selling fish is contacts. If the Hon. Member opposite suggests that all of a sudden, we could sell $450 million worth of fish a year somewhere else, we should be selling fish that is sitting in freezers around the world.
To me, getting into a trade war is senseless. It is totally contrary to what we have been doing. It is contrary to the way most of the rest of the world has been going. If we move to a position in which we start slapping each other on the face, eventually not only will our faces get sore but our hands will get sore.
I would suggest that we in Atlantic Canada would be the most quickly hurt by taking action on trade. It will not serve our interests. There are other ways to do it, other ways that will give us a strong and stable relationship based on an agreement that overfishing our fish is not in anyone's interest.
We have avoided the Canada-France issue, I suggest for a number of reasons. I think there is beginning to be a sense of reality that in fact, it was as good a deal as we could get, and frankly a better deal than I ever thought possible. Tb blame what has happened now on an agreement that was signed two months ago is ludicrous. I do not say that my friend is doing that, because clearly he is not. However, the Government was able to get a commitment from the Government of France to reduce its committed overfishing in 3PS, a zone whose control we conflict on. We have conflicting claims over that zone. We have allowed them a catch of cod in 2J3KL that is less than 2 per cent of the total catch but is tied to the quota as it is reduced. We have an agreement that if they overfish outside, everything inside is off.
At the same time the key is that we continue down the road to have the dispute between the two countries adjudicated. That is ultimately the goal of any government, to get that dispute over the limits around St. Pierre-Miquelon decided so that we know who controls the fishery, so we can impose a management plan. Like so many of our policies, it is well thought out, far-sighted and responsible.


John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, I could not help in listening to the Hon. Member for St. John's East (Mr. Reid) when he was responding to a question from the Opposition. He was getting quite rattled and said that the Opposition was making people feel insecure, and that we should not be making people in the Atlantic feel insecure. I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, what makes people feel insecure. It ought to make people, not only in Atlantic Canada, but all Canadians very insecure. I want to put on the record the latest unemployment figures for the various Atlantic provinces unadjusted in April, 1989. The unemployment rate in Prince Edward Island was 17.8 per cent, Newfoundland, 17.2 per cent, Nova Scotia, 12.2 per cent and in New Brunswick, it is 14.4 per cent.
These figures would make anybody insecure. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves. The unemployment rate for 15 to 24 year old males in Newfoundland is 30.5 per cent, in Nova Scotia it is 18.4 per cent, in New Brunswick, it is 28.8 per cent. For women 15 to 24 years old in Newfoundland, it is 20.7 per cent, Nova Scotia, 15.6 per cent and New Brunswick, 14.6 per cent. For P.E.I., the numbers are too small to give a reading.
It is not what the Opposition does or says in this House that creates insecurity in Atlantic Canada. These are the unemployment realities. Yet the Government's full employment rate for all of Canada is somewhere between 7.5 per cent and 8 per cent. That is the Government's vision of full employment in this nation. These figures are not any different than what they were in 1972. Nothing much has changed. We have had Liberals sitting in Government and we have had Tories. When we do not like the Liberals, we put the Tories in. When we do not like the Tories in the Atlantic, we elect Liberals. It is the old story of Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee. The people of Atlantic Canada put their faith in those they elect. They believe that some change might occur but no changes occur. This is a blatant abuse of the trust and faith of Atlantic Canadians.
We just finished the federal election. Before that election was called, the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and his government stood up and made a promise about Hibernia. That was a spending commitment. It was not like what the New Democrats were saying and what the Liberals were saying. We were making election promises. They said, believe us, and their noses grew and grew until like Pinocchio, his nose was as long as his chin. Then the Minister for Newfoundland, the mouth from
May 29, 1989

eastern Canada who is the Minister for International Trade, the Member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie) said in October, 1988 that it is just scaremongers in the Opposition. We do not intend to change. The unemployment insurance program will not change one jot or tittle.
After the election, what have we got? We have the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mrs. McDou-gall), who knows all about unemployment in Rosedale getting up in the House, saying we have come up with a new plan. The unemployment insurance program is going to be cut back. When we in the Opposition were saying during that campaign that the Free Trade Agreement threatens the regional development programs and threatens the social programs, the same voices like that of the Member for St. John's East was saying "You are only scaring Canadians, there is nothing to that, you are creating insecurity".
The Conservatives had their friends in the big corporations spending $5 million to tell Canadians what a great deal it was. Is that not funny? Having convinced Canadians to vote Conservative because free trade would not threaten social programs or regional development, they then turn around and get Canadians to give them a tax break for their expenditures. You make the victims pay for the pickle that you put them in. Is that not something? Is it not great?
All those things we were told was a lot of rumour mongering. They were not true. After the election, Mickey Cohen who was the Deputy Minister of Finance under the previous Liberal Government, and continued for the Tories for a little while until he joined Molson, had this to say, Mr. Speaker. He said this after the election was over, not before. "I would go after regional development and universality. I would cut out most of the industrial programs particularly the ones geared to the regions but if you want to cut spending, you have to cut programs. You have to say, Atlantic Canada, you are on your own."
Imagine that. After the election, we get the truth, and it is as if Mickey Cohen was not telling all the truth. We get a Government that comes in here and barefacedly attacks the Atlantic region, a region which is much like my own in northern Ontario. It attacks by cutting back regional development spending in the Atlantic, a place
Supply
where there ought to be more spending, not less. As the figures indicate, the problems are far more serious than in Toronto or most other parts of this country.
So what do we have? We have a cut-back in regional development programs. We have a cut-back in unemployment insurance. Unemployment insurance was probably the only lifeline between people who become unemployed in the Atlantic and some kind of dignity. At least they are paid premiums. There is dignity collecting on the basis of premiums you have paid while you were working. They are eliminating that by increasing the number of weeks you have to work and cutting back on the number of weeks that you collect. It is no wonder the commission set up to study post-free trade said that what you need is not a net, what you need is a trampoline. Atlantic Canadians are going to be trampolined all the way to Toronto so they can work selling John Bulloch suits and Mary Dosie's shoes for $9 or $6 an hour for a grand total of about $15,000 to $16,000 a year and 60 of them will live in one apartment. So they are living on the edge of poverty in the Atlantic or will be living in dire poverty in Toronto. It is bad enough living in Toronto but then to have to live on those wages as well is a punishment only Tories deserve.
There is no question that this Government, as the motion states, has cut back programs to the Atlantic.
Last week I was in Prince Edward Island, and lo and behold the Government announced that it was closing a base at Summerside. Only an insensitive stockbroker from Bay Street would understand closing the only industry on which 90 per cent of the community of Summerside depends. Not only has this economic activity for the people of Summerside been eliminated in one fell swoop, but it also serves as a tracker station for supervising our 200-mile limit. I am not the only one who has stated that, but also the people in leadership positions locally in Prince Edward Island are asking the Government why it is doing that to them. It is cruel.
We never heard a word about deficit or debt during the campaign. Suddenly, after the election campaign, I am faced with the prospect of my sons and daughters and their children's children for generation after generation having to live with a mortgaged country. I would rather

May 29, 1989
Supply
they lived with a mortgaged country than have to live with rundown hospitals where services cannot be provided. I would rather they lived with a mortgaged country than to have schools that cannot be supportive and cannot provide opportunities for them to earn a living and to live with dignity in their communities. That is the option we have been given. Cut back post-secondary education and cut-back health care. That is it.
Then the Government turns around and spends the taxpayers' money to tell them a pack of lies on television about one-third of the loony being taken to pay for the interest on the debt. The Government takes out one-third of the loony, Mr. Speaker. I think that what we have to do is take the loonies out of the Government over there and put the country straight.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: On questions or comments the Hon. Member for Halton-Peel.
Mr. 'Rimer (Halton-Peel): I found the comments of the Hon. Member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Rodriguez) highly interesting, and I think that a couple of points bear some comment.
The Hon. Member is somewhat correct in his statement that during the election campaign the issues of the debt and the deficit were not adequately addressed. It needs to be said that many candidates during the election campaign did want to talk about this situation. I wanted to talk about it, and I know that many colleagues did.
The debt and the deficit have not materialized overnight. They have not come out of thin air. The Hon. Member has been in the House a long time and he knows very well that we have run annual deficits as a matter of course in this country for most of the past 20 years. It did not materialize overnight.
What happened during the election was that the issue of free trade was made by the opposition Parties, particularly the Liberals, as the one and only issue that had to be addressed.
The Hon. Member states that he would rather live in a mortgaged country than have reduced services. Does the Hon. Member not recognize that, at some point living in a mortgaged country, it gets to the point where the mortgage is so large that we cannot make both those mortgage payments plus fund the social services the
Hon. Member is talking about. I agree with the Hon. Member that we need good schools, roads, and hospitals. We need to help regions of the country that are deserving of it, or are down on their luck for one reason or another. Is the Hon. Member not concerned that at some point we will not be able to fund those very programs because we are being shackled and dragged down by the interest payments? How can the Hon. Member deny that this is an economic fact? What should be done to address that?


John R. Rodriguez: I thank the Hon. Member for his question. I do not know if all of those who here remember the period leading up to the election and the period during the election. In the period leading up to the election, whenever questions were posed about the economy or the health of the economy, government Members took a considerable amount of credit and assured us and Canadians that everything was under control, and that the deficit was in line with the projections of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson). Everything is under control, have no fear, Mike is here. That was the slogan.
While I agree with the Hon. Member that during the election free trade was the overriding issue, the fact is that any single time the question was put to the Prime Minister or to the Minister of Finance during the campaign, we were not told that we had a problem. Everything was under control. Mike is on the bridge. As far as I knew, the Titanic was on course at that time. Somebody moved a giant iceberg in front of the Titanic after November 21, and now they are all arranging the deck seats on the Titanic.
The Hon. Member mentioned the deficit. I would not mind if the Government would at least tell us the truth. Two weeks ago there was an interesting article in one of the newspapers. It was an open statement by approximately 21 Canadian economists, some of whom were very well known. They took the Government to task. Since the Hon. Member is the Chairman of the Committee on Consumer and Corporate Affairs, I suggest to him that he ought to look seriously at the fact that the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Val-court) should be asked to investigate misleading and false advertising.

In that article I read that the Government is not telling the people the truth about the deficit. In fact, the credit demands of the Crown will only be $20 billion, and another $3 billion for foreign reserve borrowing. Therefore, it is not $28 billion and $29 billion of borrowing that the Government will have to do. The economists presented an entirely different picture that the deficit was quite manageable.
In light of how I commenced my speech today, I say to my friend that the greater emphasis ought to be to ensure that every Canadian who wants to work has a job. There is far greater dignity in people having a job, earning, being productive, paying taxes, buying goods, buying services, and paying municipal, provincial and federal taxes. Those are the types of positive moves, not accepting 7.5 per cent unemployment, but actually moving to zero per cent unemployment, or as close to it as we can get. I think that anything else is regressive. That is why we call the Government the "regressive" Conservatives.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated. On debate the Hon. Member for Windsor-Lake St. Clair. I am sure the Hon. Member realizes that he will have 10 minutes, plus five minutes for questions and comments.


Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-Lake St. Clair):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure you appreciate that I find myself in the difficult position of following my dear colleague, the Hon. Member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Rodriguez), who inspires us all with his analysis of the economic situation in which the Government has cast us. Nevertheless, I will plunge ahead.
Today we are dealing with the Liberal motion which states:
That this House condemns the Government for initiating a series of policies that are causing unprecedented economic devastation to Atlantic Canada.
I would only change the motion in one respect, and that is: "That this House condemns the Government for continuing a series of policies that are causing unprecedented economic devastation to Atlantic Canada". What we have here is only a continuation of the same old song. The silent song that is sung to earn votes, but not after all to bring any substantial change to the situation in Atlantic Canada which would make itself sustaining and
Supply
equal in the confederation to the core of Canada which seems otherwise so blessed.
It is absolutely astounding to me that the experience we had two weeks ago when the Minister responsible for ACOA came to our committee and without any warning announced that the funding for ACOA would be stretched over seven years rather than five years, thus imposing essentially a 28 per cent cut in the annual rate of expenditures to that program. That has to be seen as a devastating attack and a terrible reneging on a promise made to Atlantic Canada, as made to other parts of the country, that a sincere effort would be made to sustain regional economic development. In fact, regional economic development has been cut throughout the country, but Atlantic Canada is suffering a great deal.
While perhaps we can accept for a moment the necessity for fiscal restraint and some pulling back, even those on the other side of the House must understand that Atlantic Canada is a particularly special case. Even now it is experiencing the prospect of a job loss of 9,000 on account of the cuts in the cod quota. Those cuts are themselves a result in large measure of the policies of the Government. Consider the fact that the cuts in quotas are attributable to decreases in the cod stock which admittedly are a result of foreign fishing, but in part perhaps due to overfishing by domestic fishermen as well. Yet we will see another 1,200 jobs cut from Summerside which already was deficient in one key role it could have been executing, to wit, the surveillance of the cod fishery to ensure that overfishing does not occur.
Even before the Budget there was the announcement of changes to the UIC which, more than any other part of the country, would affect Atlantic Canada. There were cuts in the Established Programs Financing. Perhaps 1,000 jobs will be lost as a result of events occurring over the last two months, and the Minister has the nerve and the Government has the duplicity to enter a committee meeting to try to make an announcement under conditions where it would not see the light of day that it was cutting drastically. How could a Government be so insensitive? How could a Government be so brutal in its treatment of a significant and historical part of Canada? Is it that the Government is mean? Is it that the Government is so insensitive? No, we must look for other motives. The other motive must be what has been

May 29, 1989
Supply
clear to us from the beginning, that those regional development programs like ACOA and UIC are all things the Americans do not like.
I see the Hon. Member from the Conservative Party giggling. Evidently she does not read decisions that have already been made on the American side with respect to what will be considered to be subsidies. Programs such as ACOA, DREE, DRIE, UIC, have already been cited as subsidies by the Americans in trade disputes. Let her giggle about that.
Furthermore it has been alleged that many of these programs are really not efforts to seriously affect the economic situation in the regions to which they apply. I said that the Minister came into the committee meeting two weeks ago to announce, in effect, 28 per cent cuts in ACOA. But that is only half the story. As of March 21,26 of 44 ERDAs lapsed and the Government of Nova Scotia said that only one in five would likely be renegotiated.
I do not want to get into the games that were being played by the Minister with respect to what might be negotiated between ACOA and ERDA, and changes in the relative contributions of the federal Government, but there is a most amazing consideration. My colleague, the Member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Rodriguez), said that the deficit was not mentioned before the election. There was some real activity before the election. The Government already spent $500 million of a five-year program before election day. Up until today the Government has spent $580 million.
In other words, of the $1.05 billion supposedly available to ACOA, $500 million has already been spent. When one considers that it costs $35 million a year to administer the program, there is only $200 million left until the program lapses. This would suggest that rather than an economic strategy, it was an election-winning strategy.
The House may recall that it was Mr. Savoie who pointed out that DREE, DRIE and the Atlantic Canada Development Programs all failed. He pointed out that there needed to be some means of regional economic development that would ensure the sustaining of effective economic growth in the Atlantic provinces.
However, what they received was more of the same. Let me explain. The Government sure spent money
quickly. It spent $90,000 for a company that did not exist; $54,000 for a hotel study that had already been done three times; $100,000 in market studies for four tourist developments within a few miles of one another; tens of thousands of dollars for a struggling little J.C. Irving company. Meanwhile, we are told by the author than unless there is enhancement of education and training and infrastructure, and more research and development and long-term planning with more control to the regions, it will not work. That is from the author of the report that motivated ACOA.
Members opposite should be sitting there shamefacedly over the almost deliberate failure the Government has imposed upon a program that could have been of great use to a part of this country that needs the help of Canadians generally and which should not be burdened any longer with the dominance of the core of Canada, which even today is making it more difficult. The interest rates rise not in response to the needs of Atlantic Canada but to the needs of Toronto. There has to be a stop to that, and I know you share that point of view.


Mr. J. W. Bud Bird (Fredericton):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak about this motion which condemns:
-the Government for initiating a series of policies that are causing unprecedented economic devastation to Atlantic Canada.
I have with me the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council report for April. It states that the Newfoundland economy is stronger than at any other time in the 1980s. Is that devastation?
It says that Prince Edward Island surprised everyone in 1988 and has had good impetus going into 1989. Is that economic devastation?
It says that Nova Scotia has one of the best records of job creation on record and its unemployment rate has dipped sharply. Is that economic devastation?
It says that New Brunswick has put together a string of good years thanks to its resource based production. While some of the bloom has now gone, newly diversified forestry production, the frigate building program and new mines offer hope for further progress. Is that economic devastation?
The report goes on to say that in APEC's eighth consecutive survey of major projects in Atlantic Canada,
May 29, 1989

there are 220 projects totalling $49 billion, up 25 per cent from the figure in 1988. Is that economic devastation?
It states further that Government plays a dominant role in the investment prospects for Atlantic Canada, accounting for two-thirds of all projects in the area by value. Is that economic devastation?
As many of my colleagues have expressed today, we have a serious fishing industry problem, a resource scarcity problem, in Atlantic Canada. That is a development that is shocking and startling and of great concern, not only to those of us in Atlantic Canada but to all the people of Canada.
Some tough decisions have been made with respect to the quotas because the intent of the Government is to manage the resource. The resource will be managed, and it will be saved.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I hesitate to interrupt my colleague. However, I am not clear whether this is debate or a question or a comment.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member is on debate.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Thank you veiy much, Mr. Speaker.


John Williston (Bud) Bird: With regard to the fishery, while the decisions which have been made are difficult, they are not decisions of an economic policy nature made by the Government. They are decisions of a conservation nature. They are management decisions that the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Siddon) has made in terms of cutting quotas. They are political decisions that have been made in reaching agreement with France about St. Pierre and Miquelon, as my colleague from St. John's East has described them. I believe that we have to give credit to the Government and to the Minister of Fisheries for facing up to those difficult kinds of decisions.
We also face some difficult restraints and some difficult reductions in Canadian Forces Base establishments in Atlantic Canada. Those tragedies and those difficulties will be addressed. The people involved in the fishery and in the Canadian Forces Base closings will receive the help to make economic and social adjustments that will be required. I would like to return to this subject in a few moments.
Supply
I would now like to speak a bit about the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency which was established by this Government two years ago. This policy approach was based on the principle that lasting economic development must come largely from within the region itself, from the ideas and the initiatives of entrepreneurs and business people.
It was apparent that if the federal Government was to play a useful role in assisting business people to translate their ideas into projects that would create additional wealth for the region, then major changes were required in the structure and organization of the Government's Business Incentives Program.
The programs created by the previous Government in the early 1980s were hampered by rigid eligibility criteria, complicated application requirements, and by the fact that government support for projects over $100,000 had to be approved in Ottawa.
Just a little over a year ago, on February 15, 1988, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency introduced its Action Program. This program was tailor-made to the needs of the region's small and medium-sized business community in a number of ways, including a streamlined and simplified application program, the introduction of a progress payment to assist with bridge financing costs, and expanded coverage to important parts of the services sector. The services sector is where the majority of new business formations and employment gains are taking place.
It provided for increased support for the establishment of new business where the risks are the greatest. It provided for increased support for studies, to help business people refine business ideas and to examine ways to improve the competitiveness of their operations. It increased support for the risky and high-cost areas of innovation projects to develop new products and new services. It provided support to build up the infrastructure to support business development by making assistance available to organizations such as universities and industrial development associations to provide services to small businesses. In addition, decision-making was decentralized from Ottawa to the Atlantic region so that now over 90 per cent of all the investment decisions and applications by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency are made in the Atlantic region.

May 29, 1989
Supply
The Action Program, by its very name, promised to cut the bureaucratic red tape which was clogging the process. More than 5,200 applications have already been approved from a total of 12,000 applications received. This is more than 10 times the number of applications received under any of the old programs, and almost 15 times the number approved for implementation. The record is impressive to say the least.
Close to $600 million has been committed in the form of contributions to business investments. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, does that sound like economic devastation?
These funds will be expended over a two or three-year period as the business investment is put in place and as the government support is drawn down. Expenditures on incentives were in the order of $160 million in the past fiscal year alone. ACOA's main estimate forecast for the coming year is $280 million in financial assistance to business as a majority of the projects supported to date complete their investment plans.
How does this compare to previous Government policies? In the five-year period from 1982 to 1987, prior to the creation of ACOA, federal spending on business incentives averaged between $30 million and $35 million per year. The 1989-90 forecast of $280 million represents an eight-fold increase in historical average. The impact on the Atlantic economy of course goes beyond contributions by Government. Associated with every dollar of Government funds is close to $2 of private investment.
The Action Program has reinforced and contributed to a major resurgence of private investment in the Atlantic region, for example, capital investment was up 13 per cent in 1988. this year, the regional increase in capital investment is expected to exceed that for the country as a whole. I say to the hon. member for Gander-Grand Falls (Mr. Baker) who put forward this motion, this is hardly an indication of economic devastation.
A particular objective of the Action Program is to help foster the start-up of new companies. As I have indicated, the program was designed to respond to the special needs of business.
I have had some experience in starting new businesses in the Atlantic provinces. I am pleased to say that for 30
years one of those I have started has survived the ups and downs, sometimes barely, and manages to exist still.
While financial assistance provided under the ACOA program in the past year has contributed to more than 400 people getting into business in Atlantic Canada for the first time, an idea of the impact of the program can be seen by the fact that small business formations, that is, firms with less than 50 employees, have increased by 12 per cent in the Atlantic region in 1988 as compared to 10 per cent in Canada as a whole.
The Action Program has also introduced a comprehensive and flexible program of support for the study of business planning and new innovative business ideas. As anyone familiar with the business world knows, good planning is essential to success.
Nearly 1,000 studies have been financed under the Action Program. About two-thirds of these studies were undertaken to examine the feasibility of starting a new business.
Innovation is commonly thought to be an embracing of the development of new products in the so-called growth technologies, such as microelectronics, computer software, bio-technology and advanced industrial materials. I can recite a number of cases where, with ACOA's assistance, products that are fast becoming the way of the future are already being developed in Atlantic Canada.
ACOA has also committed over $100 million in support to non-commercial organizations such as universities and business associations. I am pleased to say that in the capital city area of Fredericton close to $25 million- and I am not sure of the exact figure-has been contributed to the New Brunswick Research and Productivity Council and to the University of New Brunswick for the development of science and technology based innovative support for business and industry not just in New Brunswick but throughout Atlantic Canada.
The Fisheries Association of Newfoundland and Labrador, for example, is one indication of the kind of innovative support provided by ACOA which has received close to $1 million-$945,000 to be exact-to undertake a three-year program to promote the sale of Newfoundland capelin roe in the Japanese market.
May 29, 1989

Mr. Speaker, the changes announced recently in our action programs will largely help small and mediumsized businesses. Since the vast majority of the projects are small, 85 per cent of applications will continue to be favourably received. Projects below $200,000 will continue to qualify under the ACOA. I believe I have demonstrated that the Government's regional development policies are an unparallelled success. That success is recognized in the Atlantic Provinces, despite the rhetoric we are hearing from the other side of this House.

As I have said earlier, there is no doubt that we are facing some severe difficulties in Atlantic Canada. Those difficulties, to some extent, touch on this whole concept of sustainable development that we have heard so much about from the World Commission on Development and the Environment. What we are seeing in the fisheries is the reality of a resource that has not been as abundant as we had thought. It is not capable of supporting the industrial infrastructure we have put in place. We have come to the difficult decisions which cause us to reduce our exploitation of that resource now in favour of maintaining that resource on into the future. There is a dramatic need for support for those people and those institutions who are both economically and socially affected by this developing dilemma. I have every confidence that this Government will provide that support in those adjustment periods.
The same applies for those decisions in the name of economic restraint and fiscal responsibility which we must practice in this nation and in the concept of sustainable development which we must come to grips with. Those Canadian Forces bases closings and reductions will require major adjustment support. I have confidence that this Government will provide it.
In terms of regional development, I think that the figures speak not of economic devastation in the Atlantic region but of economic support which has been unprecedented. Five hundred million dollars is being spent in 1989 versus an average of $285 million in the previous five years and $185 million averaged in the five years before that. The average in the current five year period,
Supply
while it will drop from $500 million to perhaps $400 million one year from now and then gradually ascend, the average over the next five years will be $425 million. This is hardly a contribution to economic devastation. On the contrary, it is the commitment of this Government to economic prosperity and economic development in the Atlantic region.
It is unreasonable to claim, as one Hon. Member has claimed, that this Government's budget constitutes a rape of Atlantic Canada. That is not only unreasonable, it is irresponsible. The facts are that this Government, in a manner without precedent, has addressed economic development in the Atlantic region in very full measure. While we have to face up to a reduction in the developing thrust and in the momentum of that development, it is not by any means a return to the old days.
In terms of this Government's commitment to financial responsibility, there is one figure that has struck me, and I frequently get asked the question: "Why does the Government itself not cut its own administration? Why does restraint not begin at home?" An interesting statistic is that since this Government took office in 1984, the Public Service has been reduced by 11,000 person-years. The Public Service today is the same size that it was in 1973. I wonder how many businesses in Canada could make that kind of a claim in terms of keeping their own house in order.
There are four things that I would like to say briefly that we must do in Atlantic Canada, and in fact in Canada. First, all Canadians, including Atlantic Canadians must recognize the deeply serious debt dilemma in which our country finds itself. Unless we demonstrate the financial responsibility, strength and courage to deal with that debt, to get it down, to alleviate the constant interest growth and the constant interest component of our spending, we will not be able to deal with any special problems, let alone address development in places like the Atlantic region, as we have. Second, we must accept and support the restraint measures. I believe that Canadians do accept and support the restraint measures that this Government is practising. I know it is difficult for all of us to see a service like VIA Rail diminished or in prospect be diminished. I hope that the operators of VIA Rail will find a way to maintain a large part of that

May 29, 1989
Supply
service, and to find innovative and exciting ways to serve Canadians with it.
The figures are absolutely staggering. VIA Rail is such an expensive service and program that it conflicts with the very possibility of developing such major infrastructure projects so central to the development of Atlantic Canada. For example, the Trans-Canada Highway system in New Brunswick. Therefore, to face up to the cost of VIA Rail, to measure the fact that it serves only 5 per cent or less of the transportation market, to recognize that it has consumed $3 billion in subsidies over the past eight years while its ridership has diminished, is only to be financially responsible.
Third, we must emphasize the priorities for which Atlantic Canadians are famous. We must exercise priorities toward entrepreneurship which ACOA has done, toward the export on a free trade basis of our services, such as engineering, to the development of our forest industry, to aquaculture, to mining and to the attraction to Atlantic Canada of viable new industries. Atlantic Canada is a great place to live, work and to build a career.
Fourth, we must, and I believe that this Government will, establish those support programs, that adjustment assistance for those distressed situations that I have described, in the fishery, in the Canadian Forces base reductions.
I would like to tell the people of Atlantic Canada that they are well represented in this Government. We are 12 strong on this side of the House from Atlantic Canada. The message for Atlantic Canada does get delivered. The response will be forthcoming. The Throne Speech set out a mission for all of Canada. In four parts it talked of economic growth, of the environmental imperative, of a caring and compassionate society, and of a unified and distinctive Canadian identity. In many ways, Atlantic Canada will measure up to that Throne Speech challenge as a model.
In closing, I would like to make one more point about the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, and to draw the parallel to the motion about economic devastation. Donald Savoie, the developer, or at least the author of many of the principles of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency has been quoted several times today in context and out of context.
He credits the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency with avoiding the pitfalls of previous regional economic programs that poured hundreds and millions of dollars into white elephants, such as heavy water plants and importing outside industries that collapsed when the grants dried up. He said rather that "75 per cent of ACOA's money has gone to locally based ventures valued at less than $200,000 and 90 per cent has gone to aid projects of less than $1 million." He said that: "they have done"-and he is referring to the Government-"an excellent job in building up credibility with local entrepreneurs, so I think the question should not be whether ACOA spends the remaining half a billion dollars in three years or five years, but how it spends the remaining money." That remaining money is going to be well spent developing entrepreneurs, developing economic prosperity in the Atlantic region. I undertake, and my colleagues from Atlantic Canada and this Government undertake to ensure that that does happen.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments. The hon. member for Moncton.


George Saunders Rideout: Mr. Speaker, I assume from the Hon. Member's comments that Atlantic Canada has been so well represented that he thinks it fair that VIA has nine protected routes and that none are in Atlantic Canada. Does he think it fair that CNCP is allowed to abandon routes in Atlantic Canada immediately while western routes are protected until the year 2000? Is it fair that ACOA will be cut back and spread over a longer period of time just when we need it the most? Is it fair that people will be in corridors of hospitals rather than in beds that are waiting there to be manned and looked after? Is it fair that the Government cut back on our educational institutions which need support so that we in Atlantic Canada can educate our children and make them productive members of Atlantic Canada society? Are we well represented by a government that does those things to Atlantic Canada? I submit we are not but I presume that Atlantic Canada Members think that that is in order.


John Williston (Bud) Bird: Mr. Speaker, if all of those emotional and dramatic analogies were absolutely accurate, it would not be fair. It is unfortunate that this Government has had to take the financially responsible steps of addressing itself to the deficit and interest cost problems and has had to restrain the momentum of its activities in many ways. It is also unfortunate that we cannot continue to be all things to all people such as in the retention of a VIA
May 29, 1989

Rail system that less than 5 per cent of the population of this country uses. My understanding from the Minister of Transport (Mr. Bouchard) is that the nine protected routes represent isolated communities to which there is no other means of travel. Is it fair that the 95 per cent or 98 per cent of the people of New Brunswick who use the TransCanada Highway system should be denied its rebuilding or imperilled in its use for years because we spend half a billion dollars each year in subsidies to maintain a passenger rail service that less than 5 per cent of the population uses. I do not think that is fair.
In so far as freight transport rates are concerned, I have spoken in this House in the past two weeks about the retention of freight rail service to the Saint John River valley. If it is viable on analysis, then I would certainly fight for it to be retained. I have spoken extensively about the impact of ACOA this afternoon. ACOA has created immense economic activity in Atlantic Canada which will be reflected over the next two or three years when the money now committed is drawn down and the projects are started.
I believe that is fair and I believe that if you talk about fairness it seems to me that for this Government to average $425 million in Atlantic regional economic aid over the next five years as compared to $285 million in the previous five years, that is veiy fair. The figures vaiy on what the increase will actually be, but there will be somewhere between 35 per cent and 50 per cent more regional development spending in the next five than the last five years, and the last five years were 50 per cent higher than the best Liberal record of development spending ever. On the basis of fairness, I believe we are not only fair but we are far and away more productive and more beneficial to Atlantic Canada than any Liberal Government has been.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: There are no more questions or comments. Debate. Point of order, the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier).


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, earlier today the Government requested that the Speaker transfer written questions Nos. 45, 52, 53, 62, 64, 83 and 88 to Notice of Motions for the Production of Papers pursuant to Standing Order 39(6).
Supply
At the time the Speaker asked for comments from interested Members. I would like to give notice now that whenever the Speaker deems it appropriate I would like in the name of my Party to make comments on that procedure.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member for Halifax (Ms. Clancy) on debate.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in this debate of crucial importance and paramount interest to my region of Atlantic Canada. My region has been battered and beaten by a cruel and uncaring Government. The list is long and the sorrows are many. Procrastination and bad planning has devastated the Atlantic fishery. Cuts to VIA Rail threaten the lifestyle and mobility of thousands of Atlantic Canadians including seniors and students. The slashing of the UI program will throw workers on to hard pressed provincial welfare rolls, and still the government juggernaut rolls on.
ACOA cuts mark the death knell for viable regional development. Uncertainty and the refusal of the Government to give us any certainty with regard to ERDA wounds our resource industries, especially forestry, as well as highways, tourism and the environment. Cuts to established program funding attack health care and post-secondary education.
My riding of Halifax which is the commercial centre of Atlantic Canada, will reel from the shock waves created by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson). It will also suffer directly from this tornado of a Budget. The Atlantic East subsidy was established to encourage the continued use of the eastern ports for the export of grain and flour and to ensure that rates established would provide inducement and incentive to shippers to use the facilities of the Atlantic ports.
The Canada Grains Council noted that both the Crow rate and the Atlantic East should be considered complimentary and indeed the existence of these subsidies has been the basis of investment and marketing. Business interests, while aware that a phase-out might be equally expected, thought that this would occur with both a reasonable period of adjustment and in such a way as to not affect adversely the balance of east-west trade. This has not happened. The Government, like a thief in the night, has cut off eastern Canada while maintaining $680,000 in subsidies to the West. Further, Transport Canada has told grain shippers not to expect transitional

May 29, 1989
Supply
assistance. At the same time the federal Government, through the Department of Transport, continues to provide free ice-breaker service in the St. Lawrence Seaway, free service that costs the taxpayers $60 million per year.
This radical change in policy completely reverses the former objective to decentralize and thus promote regional development. The Minister of Finance has arbitrarily directed a reorganization of export grain and flour thereby concentrating this industry on the West Coast and the ports of Quebec taking it away from Atlantic Canada. The fact that this was done without warning and with seemingly no appeal precludes and prevents negotiation and an opportunity for fair treatment for the Port of Halifax.
Did this Government study the impact of this move on the economy before it once again delivered a crushing blow to Atlantic Canada? If it did, I challenge this Government to offer some explanation to Haligonians and to Atlantic Canadians as to why their city, their province, their region, has been singled out for crushing under the Government's heavy boot. The increasingly weak reply is the deficit.
I ask this Government if it really believes cancelling Atlantic East will lower the deficit or will it, in fact, increase it? Does the crippling of Canada's most government-dependent region really add to the nation's fiscal well-being? What is the Government's real agenda for Atlantic Canada? Is it some misguided small "c" conservative belief that a total withdrawal of federal dollars will suddenly draw entrepreneurs and investors? Surely not. Or is it a new plan for Canada that concentrates every effort on our major centres to the detriment of regional and small town Canada? Can we in the Atlantic look forward to becoming one vast national park?
Atlantic Canada's universities, some of the best institutions of higher learning, not just in Canada but in the world, are gasping under the weight of their financial burdens. This Budget not only did nothing to alleviate their problems, it revealed a cut to established program funding of 1 per cent a year for five years.
Dalhousie University for well over a century has provided lawyers, doctors, teachers, scientists and business people to Canada and the world. Dalhousie's facilities are straining and the tuition fees are among the
highest in the country. Salaries and benefits are barely competitive, and a proud tradition in education is in danger of a loss in standards. Smaller institutions in the region fear total collapse.
I think today of the travesties inflicted on a riding not far from mine, the beautiful South Shore of Nova Scotia. With the possible exception of Egmont in Prince Edward Island which encompasses Summerside, the South Shore of Nova Scotia has taken the worst of the Government's bizarre and mismanaged policies. There has been the closure of the Barrington radar station with the loss of $12 million, the closure of the Lockport fish plant, the cuts to UI which will force many seasonal workers on to welfare.
What will become of beautiful small centres like Bridgewater, Lunenburg, Liverpool and Lockport? Indeed, what will become of all our smaller centres as the Government continues its systemic destruction of the infrastructure of Canada as we know it and as we and all Canadians want it to be?


Ian Angus Ross Reid: Systemic destruction?


Mary Catherine Clancy: Systemic, yes, learn the new word. I will teach you how to spell it later.
Let us look at Sydney, a hard hit area in a hard hit region. The radar station closure removes 179 jobs. The most recent Devco cuts will destroy another 150. I suppose the Government figures that Cape Bretoners are so tough, they can take anything. They can take a lot, but the betrayal handed them by this whited sepulchre of a Government is not deserved, it is not fair and it is not acceptable.


Some Hon. Members:: Shame!


Mary Catherine Clancy: Right, it is a shame. Canadians deserve fair treatment wherever they live. When this country was forged nearly 122 years ago, its very survival was improbable. The joining of diverse cultures over a vast geographical area, the regional differences, the conflicting loyalties collectively created major problems, but through strong central governments sensitive to all our diversities, we have survived and yes, to a degree, even in Atlantic Canada we have managed to thrive until now. Canadians are, however, aware that this survival has a price tag. It does cost more to be a Canadian. Whether one lives in the East, the West or the North, part of our
May 29, 1989

national psychology is this awareness that we must pay to live as Canadians wish to live.
Atlantic Canadians are doubly aware of this. When we entered Confederation 122 years ago, we gave up some of the prosperity we had enjoyed as a maritime nation dealing more north-south than east-west. Our rich cultural mix, our peaceful lifestyle and our social services safety net were some of the things we got in return.
We know that our unique country does not come cheap, but we do not begrudge these costs because of our commitment to this country. We do not begrudge them if we see a method that benefits our country and our region. There is no method in this madness. There is no sense in this nonsense.
Atlantic Canadians, bloodied by the savage attacks of this Budget, gaze across the miles as I gaze across this Chamber, at their fellow citizens as I gaze at fellow Atlantic Canadians Members of Parliament, and ask, is this really what we want? Is this the kind of fair play we can expect? Is this what it means now in 1989 to be a Canadian?


Ian Angus Ross Reid: Mr. Speaker, my friend from Halifax has given me the opportunity to comment on something we have not discussed today, but as my friend from Bonavis-ta-Trinity-Conception will attest, it is something we discussed about two weeks ago, the question of transfer payments. If I may quote the Hon. Member back to herself, there is no sense in this nonsense.
The Hon. Member is talking about tornadoes of budgets and the systemic destruction of the infrastructure-


Mary Catherine Clancy: You forgot the juggernaut, Ross. I will teach you how to spell that.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: I forgot about the juggernaut and the sepulchre I missed entirely.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Whited sepulchre. You can look it up.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: Okay. If this is the way the Hon. Member will speak to a constituent, there will be a serious communications gap.
Let us talk about transfer payments. If the Hon. Member will excuse me, I will use the Newfoundland example, one with which I am more familiar. The Government of Canada supports the poorer provinces of
Supply
this country as do the richer provinces of this country support the poorer provinces, through a number of ways including cash and tax transfers through the system. It is worked out on a formula and it is something that the provinces, particularly provinces like mine, have come to depend on.
With budgets today approaching $2.5 billion in the case of Newfoundland and Labrador, the provinces expect from the Government of Canada and from the taxpayers who pay their money to the Government of Canada, $1,400 million, about 45 per cent of the budget. They get it in three ways. They get it through transfer payments under equalization. They get it through CAP and they get it through EPE The first two-


Jean-Robert Gauthier: He is making a speech.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: These are comments, Mr. Speaker. The first two are unaffected and the third one is unaffected this year, but in the case of Newfoundland and Labrador, these cuts that we keep hearing about will mean a reduction in the growth of 1 per cent, and the effect is $4 million out of $1.4 billion. That is what will destroy these universities.
There is no sense in this nonsense. If the Hon. Member would like to comment on this, I would love to hear her. Perhaps she could comment on the fact that in the next five years, regional spending will have increased by 35 per cent over the last five years when it increased by 50 per cent over the five years previously. Cuts that go up are cuts that I do not understand. There is no sense in this nonsense.


Mary Catherine Clancy: We understand all too well that the Hon. Member does not understand. Indeed, the Established Programs Financing will sustain a 1 per cent cut per year over the next five years. This is a blow in actual dollars to the universities in Atlantic Canada and indeed, if the Hon. Member for St. John's East (Mr. Reid) had attended my university, he might understand phrases like "whited sepulchre". I know that the Hon. Member for Halifax West (Mr. Crosbie) did, but obviously it did not work.
The dollars that are coming to universities in Atlantic Canada are fewer. The dollars that are coming to hard-pressed universities are insufficient to maintain the high educational and research standards and the traditional services provided by Atlantic Canadians to the rest of the country in providing people who can speak articulately for their region and for their country. If the

May 29, 1989
Supply
Government does to Atlantic Canada what it has started to do, then beware, because on your heads it will be.


John Williston (Bud) Bird: Mr. Speaker, while the hon. intellectual lady from Halifax has given us a literary lesson this afternoon, she did not mention that the federal Budget of April 27, 1989, did not in any way-


Shirley Maheu: Or the 26th, whenever he read it.


John Williston (Bud) Bird: Well, you got it both days, as a matter of fact, except that you left the Chamber and decided you did not want to hear the good news.
The Hon. Member did not say that the Budget did not include any reduction in the Atlantic Region Freight Assistance Program which is one of the foundations of regional economic development for the Atlantic region and has been there for many decades. It remains sacrosanct. How is that for a word?


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for Fredericton (Mr. Bird) for his comment and I also thank him for his compliment. Again, I am a little distressed by my hon. colleagues for Atlantic Canada who did not see fit to give up their lunch break today to discuss the problems affecting our region. Those cuts that have not yet been inflicted upon the Atlantic region will unfortunately do so, given the way this Government behaves, and if I can throw in a little Latin, operatio sequitur esse, which means," your manners reveal your being". I would say that we in Atlantic Canada, will just have to wait for the next load of bad news.


Hon. Roger E. Simmons (Burin-St. George's):: Mr. Speaker, I assure you this is going to be debate. A lot of things that I will have to say may well be debatable to some of the people on the other side of the Chamber, judging by some things I have heard this afternoon and during the day.
My friend from Gander-Grand Falls has certainly put his finger on the issue. For the benefit of those opposite who have just dropped in to join us for a few minutes, welcome, that gentleman moved this morning that this House condemns the Government for initiating a series of policies that are causing unprecedented economic
devastation to Atlantic Canada. I have listened with great admiration to the gentleman from Gander-Grand Falls over the years. He has said some astounding and revealing things but always truthful things. I would submit that never was he nearer the mark as today in the wording of his resolution. The "unprecedented economic devastation" that is being wreaked on Atlantic Canada by this Government is the talk of the town everywhere. Tory Members have made such eloquent-I was going to say made eloquent speeches-read such eloquent texts is what I ought to say. Surely they do not believe what they read today.
Surely they have their blinkers on. Surely they did not see the lead story in Maclean's Canadian section last week which confirms what the gentleman from Gander-Grand Falls has been saying and what we on this side are saying. It is the whole business of the parent with a young fellow in the military who was out of step. Everybody else was marching to the drum, and the mother decided that her son was the only one in step. Is this the issue? That they are the only people in step? Are all the newspapers wrong? Are all the people in Atlantic Canada who are without jobs tonight wrong? Is it really as good as the gentleman from St. John's East (Mr. Reid) has made it sound? I listened to him today and I actually said to myself for a fraction of a second, he was so convincing, that maybe I read this wrong. So I rushed back to Maclean's again to see if I missed a verb or something.
I go to the illustrious Toronto Star-I mean, what kind of evidence do you need? The Toronto Star tells me as recently as the 27th, just two or three days ago: "It is clear that the big ticket development funds for Atlantic Canada et cetera, are being reduced. It is also clear"- The Toronto Star says-they do not want to hear it. Do you have something against The Toronto Star? "It is also clear that dozens of regional development agreements with the provinces totalling more than $1 billion and covering everything from fish to tourism to forestry are in jeopardy". That is what we are trying to say today.


An Hon. Member:: That is wishful thinking.


An Hon. Member:: Why don't you do your own research?
May 29, 1989


Roger Simmons: That is right. Get it all out. They have such pent up frustration that they have to stand and read prepared texts that they do not believe. Is it any wonder they want to babble on-


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, I thought the real tell-tale sign was a moment ago when my good friend from Halifax spoke and had to do what other Members ought to have been doing all day. Instead of singing the false praises of this Government, the Members from Nova Scotia, South Shore and Cumberland ought to have been up saying what she finally had to say. What did she, the Member from Halifax say today? The region worst hit is down the south shore, but it took a Liberal, an opposition Member of Parliament, to speak for those people because the Members they sent here to speak for them are so busy playing the violin on the Government's side, they have not got time or-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member from Fredericton on a point of order.


John Williston (Bud) Bird: Mr. Speaker, the facts are that the Hon. Member for the South Shore (Mr. McCreath) is in the South Shore today working for those people, talking to those people and representing those people.


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the people of South Shore, I want to thank publicly the Member for Halifax for standing up today on their behalf and fighting their cause and that of people of other parts of Nova Scotia, and yes, the people for Fredericton because when that gentleman was up speaking, he said nothing about the havoc being created on his own constituents. He was so busy telling us what a great utopia we have arrived at since this Government took over. Well, I and a good many of this constituents have news for him. It is not quite as good as he says it is. I would go as far as to say that he has grossly and badly misrepresented the situation here today. For that he will answer to his constituents in due time.
The Minister from Central Nova calls it a reprofiling. They are not cuts, the Minister says. It is not a cut to take x dollars that had been designated for a five-year expenditure, and stretch those same x dollars over a seven year period. In the Minister's special math, five goes into x the same number of times as seven goes into x. So where is the cut? That is clearly a reprofiling. I
Adjournment Debate
come to the defence of the Minister for Central Nova for introducing a whole new set of concepts into our mathematics. I say to him that he is a great man, a fantastic fellow, a gentleman, but he is caught up in a terrible web. He is trying to defend the indefensible.
I could refer him to two applicants in my riding. I will not mention the communities because they are sufficiently small that the individuals concerned might be immediately known. I will just say generally that the two applicants I have in mind spoke to me on this particular weekend about having been told by his people in ACOA that their applications were approved. Then the rules got changed. They got a second phone call saying they were not approved.
Do not, I say to the Minister, try to explain to those people that there have been no cuts. Do not try to tell those people that everything is as it was or even better. They represents many dozens of other applicants in Atlantic Canada who were told and accepted in good faith that their applications were approved and that they could expect funding to be forthcoming. They went out and incurred certain expenditures and made certain plans. I am prepared to give the Minister the names of those two applicants. These two individual companies have been treated unfairly by the changes, by the cuts, by what the Minister characterizes as the reprofiling of the ACOA funding. These two would-be applicants are experiencing real hardship. They are absorbing expenditure losses, funding losses that they should not have had to absorb had the rules not changed in the middle of the game.
There are so many other things that need to be said, and it is nearly six o'clock. I guess this thing finishes as six, does it?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Pursuant to Standing Order 81(17), the proceedings of the motion have expired.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
In accordance with Standing Order 38, a motion to adjourn the House is deemed to have been moved.
[Stage Direction]
May 29, 1989
Adjournment Debate
STATUS OF WOMEN-REFUSAL TO MEET WITH NAC-REDUCED FUNDING TO WOMEN'S GROUPS/RESIGNATION OF PRESIDENT OF PC WOMEN'S FEDERATION
Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, I rise pursuant to a question I asked on May 15 last, regarding the National Action Committee on the Status of Women and the Government's decision not to attend that lobby. When the Hon. Minister destroyed a 15 year tradition of the Government attending the NAC lobby, she denied a huge constituency of Canadian women the opportunity to question Cabinet Ministers openly in the presence of the media. She denied this constituency which represents women of all backgrounds their right to hear just what the Government intends to do to fulfil its promises to Canadian women.
These women had a right to hear from the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Beatty) why there is no national child care program after the promises made. They had a right to hear from the Minister responsible for the status of women why contract compliance in the area of pay equity is a joke. They had a right to ask the same Minister, in her role as the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mrs. McDougall) to know why women, the last hired and the first fired, will find it more and more difficult to qualify for UI benefits.
I understand why the Government cancelled that lobby. It is neither easy nor pleasant to spend an hour in that lobby for any Canadian politician. However, I can assure the Government that life today for the vast majority of Canadian women is neither pleasant nor easy. There is a frustration in the ranks of women activists that has been aggravated by years of empty promises, inadequate programs, and the patriarchal, patronizing poses of the Government. There is a frustration in the ranks of all Canadian women as to when the Government will begin to take those problems seriously.
The Minister and her Government have exploited the difficulties that the National Action Committee has undergone in the past year. As with any umbrella organization, there are naturally strongly held and divergent views on a number of issues. There are also varying and different styles of lobbying. Some of those styles are more abrasive than others. Again, the fact that some
Canadian women live lives of quiet desperation creates a certain abrasion in manner.
While I understand the Government's reluctance to attend on that lobby, I can hardly credit that a desire not to be insulted would lead it to break such a long tradition. No, the real reason behind this abdication is that the Government has no commitment to gender equality, no commitment to child care, no commitment to contract compliance in the area of pay equity. In short, it has no commitment to the millions of Canadian women who suffer under the inequities of systemic discrimination in Canadian society.
NAC is not a perfect organization. Perfect organizations are hard to come by. Neither, by any stretch of the imagination, is this a perfect Government, certainly not in the eyes of Canadian women. Nor is it a fair Government. Indeed, it is a Government that is too callous even to spare an hour for the National Action Committee on the Status of Women; it is too uncaring to provide child care spaces for one million latchkey kids; it is too cavalier about its responsibility to equality to continue to fund adequately a national umbrella group that strives to attain goals to which the vast majority of women adhere and for which the vast majority of Canadian women yearn.
I remind the Government that attacks on the National Action Committee may cripple that organization, but it will not cripple the millions of Canadian women who will continue to demand equality and to demand of the Government a fair deal. I remind government Members of this, and I suggest that they act soon to redress those inequities. If they do not, the outcries and the protests will overflow this Hill. They will certainly overflow Room 200 in the West Block, and there will be no place for the Ministers and the Government to hide.


Mrs. Lise Bourgault (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to respond to the question put by the Hon. Member for Halifax (Ms. Clancy) to the Minister responsible for the Status of Women on May 15, 1989.
Mr. Speaker, in her preamble the Hon. Member said that the Minister had refused to meet the National Action Committee on the Status of Women. That is not altogether true. The Minister privately met with the
May 29, 1989

Committee on several occasions, as did the Prime Minister. In fact, Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister himself met the NAC lobby.
Mr. Speaker, it is easy for the Hon. Member for Halifax to complain about unfair treatment, but the Conservative Government's record is there to prove that if any Government ever did something for the status of women it was certainly the Conservative Government. She knows perfectly well that her Party, which was in power for a quarter of a century, did nothing. It was a Party that did nothing about the status of women.
Mr. Speaker, I will not bore you with a litany of all the matters we dealt with ever since we came to power. However, I may remind the Hon. Member, who is so close to the NAC, that on July 13, 1988, as a Member of this House, I wrote a letter to the president of the NAC, who has yet to answer my letter. Mr. Speaker, I should be delighted to send the Hon. Member a copy of this letter which I think is a very good letter-and not just because I wrote it-and deserves a reply. Mr. Speaker, I have yet to receive a reply. I wish the Hon. Member, who has privileged access to the president of the NAC, would ask her why she did not bother to answer my letter.
I would also like to say that the Hon. Member knows very well that NAC is not the only one to speak for Canadian women. It is a very important group. The Government has considered the recommendations- many recommendations made by this action group. But the Government listens to that group as it does to other groups and makes its decision based on all the factors involved.
I would also like to say that we are human and obviously, NAC chose a sort of confrontation. That is their right, it is normal to criticize the Government, we understand that very well, except it is not easy to be booed at a meeting and in my opinion, the constructive approach, as she will see in my letter, is much more positive.
So, Mr. Speaker, once again, I would like to conclude by saying that the Conservative Government has acted. If the Hon. Member wishes to know all the women's issues we have settled, I will be pleased to send her a copy.
Adjournment Debate
EXTERNAL AFFAIRS-DRIFT-NET FISHING-AGREEMENT WITH JAPANESE/OBSERVERS ON FISHING VESSELS


Mr. David D. Stupich (Nanaimo-Cowichan):: Mr. Speaker, my question concerns the drift-net fishery and the fact that the Canadian Government was not taking a strong enough stand in imposing an extension of the boundary north, among other things.
I was appointed as our Party's critic for fisheries in the middle of January, just four and one half months ago. Until then I had really heard nothing about the drift-net fishery and doubt that I had even heard the term.
From what I have heard, read and seen about it during the intervening period, I believe that if I do nothing less than bring this terrible situation taking place in the Pacific Ocean to the attention of Canadians, particularly on the West Coast, it will have been worth my while being here.
According to my latest information, there are some
50,000	miles of these invisible nets which reportedly cover an area of just less than three million square miles. These nets are operating in an area roughly 400 miles north and south and 7,000 miles east-west. There are enough drift-nets to cover that area seven times over. They can be suspended at any depth to catch anything and everything that comes into contact with them.
I have a letter dated May 16, 1989, from a constituent who states:
I have been a commercial fisherman for 15 years and believe the high seas drift-net fishery presently expanding in the Pacific is the beginning of the end to our salmon stocks.
This is a fisherman who has been watching it happen:
In my travels I have found seven monofilament drift-nets on beaches from Cape Cook to Masset on the north end of the Queen Charlotte Islands, one-mile net adrift off San Joseph Bay, one net tangled in a friend's propeller 70 miles northwest of Bull Harbour, and thousands of corks from these nets on beaches and adrift. I might add that I get very few chances to go ashore in my profession.
Yet he is seeing all this evidence of the expansion of this type of fishery. He goes on to state: "Please do everything in your power to stop the interception of our salmon stocks by foreign fleets". That is a very narrow

Adjournment Debate
concern compared to what I have in mind at the moment.
The Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark) in a letter to my colleague, the Hon. Member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton), stated that Canada opposes Japan's proposal for alternate fishing areas and for a change in the northern boundary of its squid fishery in the north Pacific which, if implemented, would result in increased interception of Canadian original salmonics. Yet Canada agreed to the Japanese request to move that boundary north some 2 degrees, 120 miles. The Japanese have unilaterally announced that they will move their boundary for the squid fishing area 2 degrees further north. There is overwhelming evidence that the line needs to be moved further south to prevent the taking of salmon and steelhead. The Japanese maintain that they are not harvesting North American salmon or steelhead. Yet there is much evidence available of pirating of these salmon, not by the Japanese in particular, but by the drift-net fleets in total, and selling them in the markets of the world.
What is Canada doing about it? Canada's attitude is that we had to agree to what the Japanese demanded. If we are just a patsy in this game of international powers, why are we bothering to go there? If we are not going there with our own agenda, if we are not going there determined to do something to stop this, to control the situation at least, and hopefully to stop it, then why bother pretending? Canada does have muscle, I submit, muscle that it could use. However, Canada prefers to take it easy and not upset anybody.
There have been reports of people being charged, but they are not being charged by Canadians but by Americans. There are names and everything else available.
A pact has been agreed to among Japan, the United States and Canada. Canada agreed to the 2 degrees north and to put five observers on some 500 boats-one per hundred. That was a major victory. I suppose five is better than none.
You will recall, Mr. Speaker, the concern about cutting back on nuclear arms and the necessity of having inspection. Would the United States be satisfied if the Russians said: "We will have our own observers and we will tell you what they see. You can bring one, two or
three if you like and we will look after them while they are here". Would that be satisfactory? It would not be satisfactory to the Americans. It would not be satisfactory to the Russians. Yet that is what we have agreed to. We have said: "Yes, we will have five observers. You put them wherever you want and look after them". We will rely on the Japanese observers to observe their own fleet.
Korea has also come in lately and said: "Yes, we will agree to the procedure as well". However, there has been no mention of how many observers, if any, just that they will abide by the rules.
This is an important issue. Can we rely on the people who we believe are breaking the rules to police themselves? I would suggest not.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to reply to the question and the comments made by the Hon. Member for Nanaimo-Cowichan (Mr. Stupich).
Canada is opposed to the current use of drift-nets in the Pacific Ocean because the drift-net fisheries operated by Japan, Korea and Taiwan intercept North American salmonid stock and kill large numbers of other marine species, as well as sea birds.
Since 1982, Canada has been taking a leading role in international efforts to bring this fishery under control. Recent actions by the Government with regard to the Japanese squid drift-net fishery in the north Pacific have provided a breakthrough in this effort. There will be, in 1989, for the first time, a substantial observer program in the Japanese squid drift-net fishery, including Japanese, Canadian and U.S. observers.
It must be understood that Canada does not have the legislative authority over the Pacific squid drift-net fishery as the fishery occurs entirely in international waters. There are no international treaties or agreements in place with Japan or any other nation which governs squid drift-net fishing.
Contrary to what is sometimes assumed, the squid fishery is not under the authority of the International North Pacific Fisheries Commission.
The Japanese squid drift-net fleet is subject to some restrictions pursuant to understandings reached between Canada, the United States and Japan. It is prohibited
May 29, 1989

from any direct salmon fisheries and the retention of incidentally caught salmon is prohibited.
Japan has argued strongly in international meetings that it has set the northern boundary for its squid drift-net fleet in accordance with scientific advice which shows that the incidental catch of salmon south of the boundary will be minimal. In 1981, Japan, by regulation, set the over-all northern limit for the squid drift-net fishery at 46 degrees latitude. This has not changed. Within this limit, the actual northern boundary varies, in accordance with Japanese regulations, from month to month. Until this summer, and in the absence of solid scientific data on salmon and squid abundance in northern latitudes, Japan had set the northern limit in July and August of each year at 42 and 44 degrees respectively. Japan has now noted that experience and scientific cruises in the northern boundary area have demonstrated that the boundary has been set too far to the south, and that moving it to the north would result in good squid catches with no increase in incidental salmon catches. Consequently, Japan has announced the northward extension of its squid drift-net fishery in July and August to 44 and 46 degrees respectively, still conforming to the over-all northern limit it set in 1981.
It must be emphasized that this was a unilateral decision by Japan. Neither Canada nor the U.S.A. agreed with, or accepted this decision. In fact, both Canada and the U.S.A. strongly opposed the decision, arguing the lack of scientific evidence satisfactory to North American scientists to justify this extension as a measure that would not lead to increases in interception of salmon. Nonetheless, and despite the strong objections by Canada and the U.S.A., the Japanese would not be deterred, and went ahead with their unilateral decision.
Are you cutting me off, Mr. Speaker?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Parliamentary Secretary's time has expired. The Hon. Member for South West Nova.
Adjournment Debate
FISHERIES-CLOSURE OF FISH PLANTS-QUOTAS / CAPE NORTH FACTORY FREEZER TRAWLER


Mrs. Coline Campbell (South West Nova):: Mr. Speaker, I rose on May 12 to offer to this Government and to the Minister of Fisheries who was absent some of the options that I felt would be viable in this time on the Atlantic Coast. A crisis atmosphere now pervades the Atlantic Coast fishery. Some people are making comparisons to the Prairie drought that existed in the West in 1988.
I only offered the two solutions because I thought it was an effort to try to get this Government to focus on the problems. I am glad to see my colleague from the West Coast raising another point that shows that this Government is not addressing the needs and concerns of the fishing industry. I say to the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Siddon), we cannot keep blaming the lack of quotas. We need a study to look at the quotas in the water. He will not take a look at the quotas in the Scotia-Fundy area; the overfishing, whether it be foreigners, the fishermen or the inshore or the offshore; as well, we cannot have a policy that makes the fishermen throw good fish back into the water. This is what this Government is doing. Millions and thousands of tonnes have gone back into the water because of the overfishing-I may have exaggerated on the millions-but thousands of tonnes that have gone back into the water dead.
The Parliamentary Secretary may laugh but it is not funny. The Minister blames the over-capacity. What about the three freezer factory ships that were given by this Government to go out and fish in the utilized species of what our fleets in the past have caught?
A crisis means a danger. Any crisis also means opportunity. It means danger in that we might again devote our attention solely to rescuing the giants, an approach which in the past created many of the problems we face today. The opportunity for the Government is in the new sense of urgency which may allow us to re-examine the fundamental structure of the flawed Atlantic groundfish management plan. This is a chance for this Government to reform the whole industry.
I would like to talk about this. My solutions referred to foreign overfishing and the foreign fishing. One of the problems is foreign overfishing. When I say foreign overfishing, I mean that there has to be a political

May 29, 1989
Adjournment Debate
fortitude on the part of this Government to go out and claim our natural rights to what is within our 200-mile limit. We have had a Government with a toothless policy, vis-a-vis foreign overfishing. December 10, 1988, the European Council of Ministers announced unilateral quotas 12 times higher than those permitted by NAFO. Ministerial response was a press release denouncing the plan and calling on his European counterparts to be more far-sighted in their thinking. Since then, how many freezer factories took the Minister's advice to heart? Precise control of overfishing requires surveillance and enforcement, the lack of which led to the demise of ICNAF and will likely spell the end of NAFO also.
As an aside, this Government does not even know if this over-harvesting by foreigners is affecting the underutilized species and the food chain for the fish caught inshore. After decades of politely being brushed off in our effort to strengthen international institutions, we must now know that we have to rely on our own enforcement capabilities to protect our fish stock. The 200-mile limit will be respected only if there is reason to. It is fundamentally unacceptable that the Government stands by as dually negotiated international agreements are flouted while domestic fishermen squabble over what is left of a steady dwindling resource.
Let me talk about foreign overfishing, Mr. Speaker. Let me assure you that out of 170 boats outside the 200-mile limit, two weeks ago, the average catch was probably 40 to 80 tonnes per boat. Seventeen days of production for one of those boats equals the total production of one inshore plant in South West Nova that employs up to 30 people. This plant is modem but today has no access to fish to continue operating. We have 40 to 60 foreign boats within the 200-mile limit doing the same amount of damage. I say to this Government and to the Governments in the Atlantic that they have to have political fortitude. There are hard decisions to be made. Those decisions mean that National Sea and Fisheries Products, if there is over-capacity, should go out and claim the 200-mile limit. Do not resort to going against the equity principle the Department of Fisheries own policy on equity. It is the inshore communities that need to benefit from the resource on their doorstep.
The current crisis is severe, but we must not permit ourselves to be blinded to the over-all health of a good Atlantic groundfisheiy. We must have better enforced protection of fish stocks from overfishing. We must reform the enterprise allocation system to protect the interests of a once thriving inshore sector better. If we do
not, a way of life in thousands of small towns may not survive.
Do we have the political will? I say to the federal Government and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. Siddon) that I have not seen it. The offshore has not been responsible. It should be made to go to the 200-mile limit. The inshore fish gets a better price than the offshore. It needs less fish to get that price and less fish are needed to create a job onshore. What about quotas? The quotas from 1984 to 1989 in the inshore decreased 44 per cent while the offshore decreased 3.2 per cent.
If the Government follows the path that it seems to be following in protecting our giants in the fishing industry which is not the direction that I feel it should be going, that direction should be to save the many hundreds of inshore communities all along the east coast of the Atlantic provinces.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to respond to the Hon. Member for South West Nova (Mrs. Campbell). I promise to be more succinct than perhaps I was the last time, but that denies me the opportunity to respond in as vigorous a way as I would like to considering some of her comments.
Under the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Atlantic Groundfish Management Plan, there are not, and there have never been, any "plant quotas" or "community quotas" in either the offshore or the inshore sector. Licences and quotas are allocated to individual fishermen or companies, which are free to land and process fish at the location of their choice. This is a long-established principle of the Atlantic groundfish management accepted by all components of the industry. This allows companies and fishermen to improve operational flexibility and provide for integrated harvesting, processing and marketing.
Reallocating part of fish quotas given to companies might only result in displacing the problem as other communities would be affected. The problem is one of major reductions in groundfish quotas over the past several years. In such a context, companies must be allowed to make the decisions which will ensure their long-term viability.
Under the 1989 groundfish management plan, a permanent transfer of 12,000 tonnes of cod, haddock, pollock, redfish and flatfish has already been made from
May 29, 1989

the offshore sector to the inshore and almost all of this came from National Sea Products.
The factory freezer trawler Cape North operates with a five-year experimental licence under conditions which expire at the end of 1990. This arrangement will then be reviewed. The main restrictions regarding this vessel's operations are that at least 50 per cent of the catch must be of previously under-utilized enterprise allocations and that no more than 6,000 tonnes of 2J3KL cod be harvested in any one year.
The Cape North fishes stocks which would not be otherwise harvested and processed by National Sea Products' regular fleet. For example, the Cape North is currently fishing 4VWX redfish near Cape Breton. This stock has a 28,000 tonne Canadian quota of which the maximum yearly harvest has been 21,000 tonnes in 1987. In 1989, the Cape North is targeting more the under-utilized stocks which should compensate somewhat for the reduction in traditional stocks.
Adjournment Debate
The factory freezer trawler technology may be the most appropriate if Canada is to increase its harvest of some of the stocks which are currently under-utilized and which are not within reach of the inshore fleets, for example under-utilized groundfish off northern Labrador. The five-year arrangement will allow National Sea Products to test the feasibility and viability of this technology.
If I have any time left, Mr. Speaker, I am more than willing to give it to the Hon. Member for South West Nova.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I would love to hear the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary, but I regret that the Hon. Member's time has expired.

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. The House therefore stands adjourned until 11 a.m. tomorrow, pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.27 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Tuesday, May 30, 1989