1989-06-27

Mrs. Christine Stewart (Northumberland):: Mr. Speaker, in recent meetings with dairy farmers from my riding of Northumberland, they have conveyed to me a desperation concerning their ability to survive the Government's new policies.
The recent freezing of industrial milk prices for the next 20 months, along with the budget cuts of $14 million a year from dairy spending, including the dropping of federal export subsidies and the cutting of funding for the Canadian Dairy Commission, all point to the fact that the Government is not interested in preserving the Canadian dairy industry.
Dairy farmers in my riding and across Canada want to know why they are being singled out for income freezes which will not allow their incomes to rise by as little as the rate of inflation.
I urge the Minister of Agriculture to reconsider his destructive policies which are contrary to the Government's own long-term dairy policy that included a complete commitment to supply management. The family farm dairy industry must be maintained.



Mr. Lyle Dean MacWilliam (Okanagan -Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, the Government of British Columbia has publicly threatened to withdraw from the national milk
marketing system. This has caused great concern to the province's 1,000 dairy producers, the majority of whom support the national milk marketing program.
One of the reasons for opting out is that the present distribution of the national market sharing quota or MSQ is completely unfair. British Columbia, with 12 per cent of Canada's population, has only 3.6 per cent of the national quota. Quebec, with 26 per cent of Canada's population, has 47 per cent, while Ontario and Quebec combined hold 78 per cent of the total national milk quota. This is a discriminatory allocation and must be rectified.
B.C. must stay within the national milk marketing system to protect the B.C. Dairymen's Association and to ensure the economic stability of the B.C. dairy industry. The only way to accomplish this is to adjust immediately the milk quota plan and give British Columbia its fair share.


THE IMPORTANCE OF MAJOR JUNIOR HOCKEY
Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, If the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League is important to the central regions, it is also important to the remote regions. The Western Hockey League in Canada covers four provinces and a number of American states. The Ontario Hockey League covers a large territoiy.
However, in Quebec the situation is different. The Quebec Major Hockey League is based almost exclusively in the central regions, with the exception of Chicoutimi.
Abitibi and Temiscamingue contribute to the economy of Quebec's central regions. Our ore and wood chips are processed in Montreal and Trois-Rivieres.
Mr. Speaker, the Quebec Government should apply the principles of Canada-Quebec agreements on economic development to junior hockey and consider allow-

June 27, 1989
ing two divisions so that Quebec's resource regions would be represented as well.


MULTICULTURALISM
Mr. Harry Chadwick (Brampton-Malton):: Mr. Speaker, on July 7, 8, and 9 Brampton plays host to the biggest and best multicultural event in Canada.
For three days, visit the Ming dynasty court; relive the wild days of the Cossack brotherhood; shake hands with a real leprechaun, retrace the voyages of Prince Henry the navigator; dance the hula; meet the descendants of Canada's first settlers; celebrate Octoberfest early; star in a music hall variety show; view the exotic temple dances of India; do the Philippine bamboo pole dance of Tiniklang; hear the skirl of bagpipes and poetry of Robbie Burns; dance the mazurka in a Polish castle; travel with the Croatian people through 2,500 years of history; take a leisurely stroll from the Alps to the rugged terrain of Sicily; do the Zorba dance in an authentic Greek tavern; hear the old legends of the Caribbean Islands; visit the people of the desert in the Arabian pavilion which will take one back to biblical times. All this in just three days at Carabram in Brampton, Ontario.


IMMIGRATION
Mr. Dan Heap (Trinity-Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, a Chinese citizen in Canada recently applied for refugee status and was rejected and taken to the Chinese Consulate to get his passport for the purpose of deportation to China.
If he was not a refugee before, the Canadian Government made him a refugee by reporting him to the consulate, since Canada told China that he had embarrassed the Government of China by trying to stay in Canada.
Already a Somali citizen, Abdi Aden, rejected by the refugee board and deported to Somalia, has been imprisoned because Somalia has the same sort of laws.
The Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mrs. McDougall) must take steps to avoid endangering more such innocent persons and to stop violating the United Nations law that forbids forcing a person to return to face persecution.
The Immigration Act has a remedy under the "self-exiled persons designated class", which authorizes the Government to protect citizens of the Soviet Union and five other Eastern European countries whose laws also provide punishment for embarrassing unauthorized departure or absence.
I call upon the Minister of Employment and Immigration to exercise her authority under the Immigration Act to save the liberty and life of Chinese and Somalians in Canada by adding China and Somalia to the countries on the self-exiled persons designated class list.


OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY
Mr. Stan Keyes (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, located in the great riding of Hamilton West, is under siege by the Tory Government.
For the last decade the centre has provided Canadians with comprehensive information on occupational health and safety matters. Last year alone, the centre provided Canadians with 350,000 copies of technical publications, had 1,200 Canadian firms communicate over 40,000 times with the centre's data base, and fielded over 100 hot line calls a day.
Obviously, the Conservative Government fails to understand that the centre needs government funding, because it has decided to eliminate the centre's $10 million grant by 1991.
The Hon. Member for Lincoln (Mrs. Martin) attempts to explain it all away by stating that the funding was "seed money for the difficult start-up period". A decade of support can hardly be labelled a start-up period.
Canadians cannot afford to lose such an important resource. I call upon the Government to reinstate funding for the centre immediately.
June 27, 1989


HISTORIC EVENTS
Mr. Lee Clark (Brandon-Souris):: Mr. Speaker, all Canadians have been painfully reminded these last few weeks of the fact that many citizens of the world do not enjoy the same basic democratic privileges which we often take for granted. We have also been reminded of the fact that democratic privileges must sometimes be protected from those who would destroy them by force.
Therefore, it is important to pause for a moment on this the forty-fifth anniversary of the Normandy invasion by the Allied Forces to express a few sincere words of gratitude to those Canadians who in the past were willing to fight and to die, if necessary, to ensure the survival of democracy as we have known it.
Yesterday morning I had the opportunity to speak briefly to the delegates attending the thirty-fourth biennial convention of the Manitoba and North-West Ontario Command of the Royal Canadian Legion. On behalf of my constituents, I would now like to say a sincere thank you to the entire membership of the Royal Canadian Legion and indeed to all those veterans who fought in order that we could be free.
We will always be indebted to them.


THE LATE HON. HOWARD CHARLES GREEN
Mr. Ross Belsher (Fraser Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, today British Columbians and all Canadians mourn the loss of a dedicated politician and Canadian, Howard Charles Green.
Howard Green was bom in British Columbia five years before the turn of the century. After attending regular school in British Columbia and graduating from law school in Toronto, he served overseas with the fifty-fourth Kootenay Battalion during the First World War.
In 1935, at the age of 40, Mr. Green was elected to the House of Commons by the people of Vancouver South. He remained an active Member of Parliament until 1963, representing Vancouver Quadra for the last 14 years. First, as Minister of Public Works in the Cabinet of another great Canadian, John Diefenbaker, and then as
Secretary of State for External Affairs from June 1959 to April 1963, Howard Green took an active role in international discussions which greatly raised Canada's profile world-wide.
To the family of the late Hon. Howard Green, all in this Chamber extend our deepest sympathies.


Right Hon. John N. Turner (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to join with my colleague across the way in paying tribute to the Late Howard Green. He was a formidable Member of Parliament. He was the first Member for the then new riding of Quadra. He held that seat for a long period of time. He was our Member of Parliament when you and I, Mr. Speaker, grew up in Vancouver.
I remember him as one who kept in touch, particularly with young people at the university when we were attending the University of British Columbia. He was also a great Member of Parliament and a first-rate Secretary of State for External Affairs under the Late John George Diefenbaker. His quest for peace and for international comity was well known to the House and the country. He will be remembered with affection and with respect by everyone in Vancouver, British Columbia, and throughout the country.


Mr. David Barrett (Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca):: Mr. Speaker, I am saddened by the news today of the loss of a very great Canadian, the Hon. Howard Charles Green.
Howard Green was a son of British Columbia and a great Canadian. He brought with him the spirit of the West, that fighting independence that he took with him into the Conservative Party and into the Diefenbaker Cabinet.
He fought for British Columbia as strongly as he fought for all of Canada. In his role as Secretary of State for External Affairs, Howard Green carved out the last important independent stand, pro-Canadian in international affairs. He had a pan-Canadian view of this country. He loved his Province of British Columbia. We will miss him and we will remember him.


Mr. Speaker:: I am asking the indulgence of the House to recognize, as would not normally be done, the Hon. Secretary of State for External Affairs on this matter.

June 27, 1989


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Right Hon. Joe Clark (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I simply wanted to add my sense of great regret at the death of Howard Green and words of appreciation for his distinguished career, a career particularly worthy of commendation for two reasons that recommend themselves to the House of Commons.
He was a pre-eminent parliamentarian, a man who understood the House of Commons, had a deep faith and commitment to it, and always conducted himself in accordance with the highest standards of this place.
On the international stage, the late Howard Green served this country with both conscience and effectiveness. He demonstrated that a country like Canada can make a difference in international affairs, and make a difference on those issues of conscience and principle which are important to all of our countiy.
He is very much a part of our tradition, and all of us mourn the loss of this extraordinary western Canadian and Canadian.


Mr. Speaker:: I would also ask the indulgence of the House to allow the Speaker, who cannot speak, to say something on this matter.


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: I grew up in Vancouver Quadra. Howard Green was always our Member of Parliament. My father-this may come as a great shock to some of you-was a Liberal.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: But, this will not come as a surprise to you, he always voted for Howard Green.
I once asked my mother: "Isn't father a Liberal?" She said: "Yes". I asked: "Why does he vote for Howard Green who is a Conservative?" She said: "Your father and Howard Green enlisted together from British Columbia and went to France and fought together in the trenches, and that is all there is to that".
It was, I think, an expression of the kind of faith that people had in Howard Green. It came from a lot of different places, a lot of humble places. He has left us now. However, I think it is appropriate to say that he
would be listening with a quiet and perhaps bemused smile to what we are saying.
The Right Hon. Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark) said that he loved this place. He did; but he loved his country more. He loved the people whom he served.


VOLUNTEER FIRE-FIGHTERS LIMIT OF TAX EXEMPTION
Mr. Bob Speller (Haldimand-Norfolk):: Mr. Speaker, there is no question in anyone's mind with respect to the splendid work done by volunteer fire-fighters, not only in my riding of Haldimand-Norfolk but all across Canada.
Volunteer fire-fighters served their municipalities with very little compensation. Generally, they are given honorariums to cover out-of-pocket expenses. I am confident that no one in this House would disagree with such remuneration. One would agree that their service is worthy of every penny.
The Government presently allows them a $500 tax exemption on honorariums that they receive. However, the inflationary costs incurred in the course of duty expenses often exceed the $500 tax exemption limit and volunteers are now being forced to pay income tax on these expenses.
These volunteers are donating their time and often risking their lives on behalf of others. Surely, we owe them more thanks than this.
Tax exemptions for volunteer fire-fighters in Canada should be mcreased to at least $1,000. This sum should be increased periodically to keep up with added costs and inflation.
This is the least Canada can do to recognize the great contribution these volunteers make to our country and offer some incentive for the civic minded individuals to continue this service to their communities and to Canada.


TRANSPORTATION
Mr. John Reimer (Kitchener):: Mr. Speaker, within a few days we are expecting the business plan for VIA Rail as requested by the Government of Canada. I urge the Government of Canada, in considering its response to
June 27, 1989

this report, to seize the golden opportunity and the need for fiscal restraint present to us and therefore respond with a national transportation strategy design for the next century.
From a southern Ontario perspective, we have Canada's busiest airport in Toronto, the most congested highways in the nation, and the most heavily used rail and bus services in Canada.
Whatever the Government's options on VIA within the vital corridor from Windsor to Quebec City, I urge the Government to study them, not in isolation of rail service only, but within an integrated transportation strategy of rail, air, car and bus traffic.
While considering this strategy I implore the Government to develop it in consultation with the provinces and in a manner that is in harmony with sound environmental considerations for the future.


SOCIAL PROGRAMS
Ms. Mary Clancy (Halifax):: Mr. Speaker, to be poor and unemployed in the City of Halifax is now going to be tougher than ever. Due to changes in cost sharing agreements the Halifax city Government has its back to the wall.
Cuts in social assistance are being forced that will create hardship not seen in our city since the terrible days of R. B. Bennett-$50 less per month in the shelter allowance alone. All this before the effects of the Government's ill-conceived, all-out attack on Atlantic Canadians through its pernicious Budget are truly felt.
The Nova Scotia Nutrition Council says that the children on social assistance do not receive proper nutrition in our province. They cannot because social assistance does not pay enough to provide it. The situation is now critical.
I call on the federal Government to reverse its search and destroy policy in the Atlantic region. Cuts to UI, to EPF, to ERDAs, closures of bases and fish plants will strain our municipalities beyond their endurance.
Tories, provincial and federal, must stop this wholesale slaughter of our social service safety net.


THE MEMBER FOR LEVIS-ALLEGATIONS OF FRAUD
Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-Lake St. Clair):: Mr. Speaker, we socialists on the other side of the House were shocked and appalled when we read in the papers this morning that the Hon. Member for Levis (Mr. Fontaine) was being investigated by the police following allegations of abuse of public funds. The Hon. Member for Levis has played a veiy important role in our lives as socialists. When we were plagued by self-doubt and thought that the Government no longer took us seriously, he was always there to remind us that nothing could be further from the truth. We knew he was speaking in affectionate terms when he accused us of being financed by the unions, and we appreciated the kindness and courtesy of his comments. Well, Mr. Speaker, we New Democrats have always kept our hands firmly in our pockets where public funds were concerned, and we hope that the police investigation will show that the Hon. Member for Levis exercised more discipline and common sense in the performance of his duties than in his comments in this House.


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


TRIBUTES TO PAGES
Mr. Speaker:: I would like to take a moment to thank some very special people who have made our jobs a little easier in this Chamber, the parliamentary pages.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: This is their last week with us. I have not asked them what they are thinking, nor would I. However, I know that Members would want me to express our sincere thanks and appreciation for all that they have done to help the House of Commons.

In addition to serving Hon. Members efficiently and with great dedication, these young people took part in a number of deserving projects outside the House, includ-

June 27, 1989
Oral Questions
ing the United Appeal Campaign and the CHEO telethon.

On behalf of all Members, I express my gratitude to the pages and to the page program staff for the fine work they have done for our country.
Thank you very much.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. It is about his new national sales tax. You know the tax we are talking of, Mr. Speaker. It is that tax which the Minister says is so simple, so simple that for two years neither he nor his Department can come up with a booklet to explain it. That is the tax we are talking about.
Will the Minister confirm that he is slapping a new national sales tax of 9 per cent on reforestation equipment which is currently exempt from manufacturers' sales tax? At the same time will he confirm that he is slapping a new national sales tax of 9 per cent on pollution control equipment which is currently exempt, and on product safety testing equipment which is currently exempt, and on farmers' irrigation systems which are currently exempt?
Why does the Minister want to discourage anti-pollution equipment, reforestation, and safety equipment?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition has asked a number of questions. Let me comment on farmers' irrigation systems. Because of the nature of this tax there will be a total refund of the tax paid on all inputs farmers pay on any of the products they buy.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


APPLICATION OF NEW TAX
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, if the Minister is saying that there are some new exemptions, since he has only said food and medical equipment so far, then let us hear a list of those exemptions. The definition of his tax value added includes labour.
Will the Minister confirm that for the first time ever he is slapping a sales tax on safety clothing used in nuclear power plants, for the first time ever he is slapping a sales tax on oxygen air packs used by people fighting fires, including chemical fires? Will he confirm that for the first time ever he is slapping a sales tax on carbon monoxide alarms, for the first time ever he is slapping a tax on life preservers used by loggers? Will he confirm that to the House?


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, clearly from the way the Leader of the Opposition has phrased these questions, I do not think he understands the way this tax works. I believe it would be important for him to wait for the technical paper and to read that paper. Then I think he will get all his answers.


John Napier Turner: Either the Minister will confirm that they are not exempt or he will admit that his paper adds value to labour added and a value added tax that would englobe them. If it is so simple, why do we not have the booklet that he has been trying to produce for two years so that we can we explain it to the House of Commons and the people of Canada.


APPLICATION OF NEW SALES TAX-GOVERNMENT POSITION
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, can the Minister confirm to us that, for the first time, he will hit safety belts, safety cables, safety hooks, safety boots and safety glasses with a new 9 per cent national sales tax? Can he confirm to the House that, for the first time, he will impose a new 9 per cent sales tax on equipment used to control the safety of aircraft and on baby diapers? Finally, can he confirm to us, once and for all, that he will impose a new 9 per cent sales tax on burials and funerals?
June 27, 1989


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, again I think we have another example of the Leader of the Opposition trying to ride two horses. For the last two weeks he has been railing away about the fact that this tax is invisible. In fact, it is. But all he is saying to us is that he wants to go back to the highly invisible tax-


An Hon. Member:: That he is responsible for.


Mr. Wilson (Etobicoke Centre):: -the very arbitrary, capricious tax, the same tax that he administered when he was Minister of Finance. He wants to go back to a tax which has 22,000 separate deals between Revenue Canada and individual taxpayers.


Mr. Mulroney:: Shame.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: That is the mess we are trying to get away from. Surely the Hon. Leader of the Opposition understands that.


TOURISM
Mr. Mark Assad (Gatineau-La Lievre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister responsible for tourism. The tourist industry of Canada, Ministers of Tourism in every province and now the respected Conference Board of Canada have indicated that the 9 per cent sales tax will penalize the tourist industry by $1 billion a year. Since 80 per cent of tourist activity in this country is by Canadians themselves, what does the Minister intend to do to prevent such a substantial loss of revenue, the erosion of confidence and international competitiveness in our tourist industry?


Hon. Tom Hockin (Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism)):: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member will know that three weeks ago I met with the provinces and the Conference Board made their presentation. It is interesting to note that the Conference Board presentation made it clear that after four or five years the tourist industry will be better off with the goods and services tax. That is even without seeing the improvements that will obviously come in the technical paper as well.
Oral Questions


REFUNDS-MINISTER'S POSITION
Mark Joseph Assad: Mr. Speaker, we know that the Minister does not intend to renew the marketing contracts or agreements with the provinces, especially the Eastern provinces. Does the Minister at least intend to respond to the requests of the tourism industry for rebates for tourists visiting our country?


Thomas Hockin: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member knows full well that through the goods and services tax we will enhance our exports as a country. One of our exports is, in fact, tourism.


Ms. Copps:: Tourists?


Thomas Hockin: In other words, it is an export because we attract Americans, Europeans and Asians to Canada. As a result of the goods and services tax, not only will we be in a stronger position in three or four years after the tax is implemented, more important, there will be special approaches within the tax that the Minister of Finance will announce, which will also address the problem, I am sure.


ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General.
According to a newspaper today, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is investigating a Conservative MP. According to another newspaper, the RCMP is conducting two investigations regarding two Conservative MPs. And according to a third newspaper, there may be more.
Would the Solicitor General tell the House of Commons how many investigations and how many Members of Parliament?


Hon. Pierre Blais (Solicitor General of Canada and Minister of State (Agriculture)):: Mr. Speaker, I am a little surprised by my colleague's question. With his experience, he knows very well that it is not customary for the Solicitor General to comment on investigations

June 27, 1989
Oral Questions
that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police conducts from time to time. I can only refer you to what you read in the newspapers. I think that in one case it was confirmed by the individual in question.
Mr. Speaker, I also think that it is quite inappropriate to comment in the House on investigations that are now under way or that might be carried out by the RCMP. We must let the RCMP do its work!


REQUEST FOR LEGISLATION ON STANDARDS OF BEHAVIOUR
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, the Minister is right. One Member has confirmed this himself. My supplementary questions are directed to the Prime Minister. As early as September, 1985, the Prime Minister promised the people of Canada that there would be "a new standard of ethics package of proposals that would be brought forward at an early date and adopted by a Conservative Government". No fewer than five times leading up to last August, on behalf of my Party, I asked for the Government to move on this promise. Nothing was done.
Given that commitment he made in September, 1985, given the new accusations today in addition to a report concerning allegations of conflict of interest activities concerning a Senator, when will the Prime Minister deliver on his promise to bring in comprehensive reform concerning standards of behaviour for elected Members of Parliament?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend has heard the Solicitor General advise that it would be completely inappropriate to comment in respect of any investigation that may or may not be ongoing. Clearly there are difficulties from time to time involving Members of this House, involving members of Houses of other jurisdictions, of other political Parties. Regrettably, this is a fact of political life, and the police conduct inquiries pursuant to information received from time to time, as they should.
In regard to the question raised by my hon. friend, it is our intention to proceed with the appointment of a Royal Commission respecting electoral financing and electoral
laws. It is our intention as well to bring forward legislation in the autumn in respect of some of the matters that concern my friend, quite properly, and which we have discussed before in the House.


DEADLINE FOR INTRODUCTION OF LEGISLATION
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, of course the Government announced this Royal Commission on one aspect of what has been raised. As I pointed out, as early as September, 1985, and subsequent to that, the Prime Minister, the present Minister of Justice and the Deputy Prime Minister promised the House time after time that there would be action. It is one thing to say that there has been wrongdoing in various jurisdictions but it is quite another to sit back and do nothing about it. The people of Canada want some action.
Is it now the Prime Minister's solemn commitment that when the House comes back in September, within say four weeks of returning to Parliament we will have introduced a package of proposals that the Government has been promising since it was elected in 1984?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, we introduced a piece of legislation, which passed the House, dealing with lobbyists. I think most people acknowledged that it was a substantial step forward, a first for Parliament.
We introduced other legislation last year in respect of conflicts of interest, declarations by Members of the House of Commons and Members of the Senate in regard to their holdings and so on. There did not appear to be an enormous amount of celerity by the opposition Parties in regard to passing this, as a result of which it did not pass at the time.
My hon. friend makes pejorative references in regard to the conduct of the Government. We went to the people in the intervening period. We were strongly re-elected, retaining the confidence of the people of Canada. I suspect that one of the reasons that we were re-elected is that the people of Canada were expressing confidence in the Government in respect of the integrity of all of its members.
June 27, 1989


COMMUNICATIONS
Ms. Ethel Blondin (Western Arctic):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Communications. In the Northwest Territories there are francophone residents who have been trying for the past several years to acquire radio and television service in their official language, but the federal Government continues to delay and postpone its requirements to provide communication services to French speaking people residing in the North.
Will the Minister explain why the Government can spend billions of dollars on bilingual programming and completely exclude Yellowknife, for instance, one of the capital cities of Canada, where it has jurisdiction and the responsibility to provide both official languages on radio and television?


Hon. Marcel Masse (Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, this morning I met the Federation des francophones hors Quebec, and this is one of the issues that was discussed.
I can inform the Hon. Member that the situation with respect to bilingual services at the CBC, for instance, has greatly improved in recent years, thanks to the use of satellites and CBC stations broadcasting directly.
There is still work to be done, and I can assure the Hon. Member that the Government is taking this question very seriously.


NORTHWEST TERRITORIES -REQUEST THAT MINISTER INTERVENE
Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary. The Northwest Territories will become officially bilingual on January 1, 1990.
They have asked the federal Government's financial assistance in order to implement their action plan. They have had no news so far. It has now been six months since the federal Government promised them $716,000.
Furthermore, there is no French network of the CBC in the Northwest Territories.
Oral Questions
The Minister has $21 million to serve outlying communities. Is he prepared to do his share and give the Northwest Territories the money they need so that CBC's French network can provide television and radio broadcasting in French?


Marcel Masse: Mr. Speaker, of course the Government is aware of these questions, as are the Members of this House, who know perfectly well that it is not up to the Minister of Communications to issue direct orders to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which has its own mandate and is an independent institution.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF B.C. MINISTER OF FORESTRY
Mr. Speaker:: I wish to draw to the attention of Hon. Members the presence in the gallery of the Hon. David Parker, Minister of Forestry of the Province of British Columbia.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF MAJORITY LEADER IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE
Mr. Speaker:: I also wish to draw to the attention of Hon. Members the presence in the gallery of Senator George Mitchell, Majority Leader in the United States Senate.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Hon. Bill Rompkey (Labrador):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Defence.
The Commissioner of Official Languages stated that the Department of National Defence failed to implement its undertaking to apply the official languages guidelines to all its activities. There are translation delays, and military training in French has proved to be unsatisfactory.

June 27, 1989
Oral Questions
Considering these harsh criticisms, could the Minister explain why his Department has failed to implement the Official Languages Act firmly and fairly and how he intends to ensure equality between Francophones and Anglophones in the armed forces?


Hon. Bill McKnight (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, I believe the Hon. Member misinterpreted what the Commissioner of Official Languages said. This is a very serious matter and it has been taken veiy seriously by myself and the Government.
The Commissioner of Official Languages recognized that there had been positive steps made by the Department of National Defence. Bilingual manning was increased in real terms, active offer of service at NDHQ was improved dramatically. The official languages co-ordinator network has been improved and we were subject in the Department, Mr. Speaker, to fewer complaints over the last two years than we had been in the past.
It is important to recognize that the opportunities that we provide in second language training, both English and French, the opportunities to work in one's language, and the location of the different units throughout Canada make it difficult to maintain that second language training which we initiate when people are inducted into Canada's armed forces.


POSITION OF MINISTER
Bill Rompkey: Mr. Speaker, this particular criticism of the Commissioner is a very clear interpretation. He says that on the most senior management bodies, the Defence Council and the Defence Management Committee, there are 11 Anglophones and no Francophones. That is very clear. Is this not unfair in view of the linguistic make-up of this country? What does he intend to do about it?


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Mr. Speaker, no one would suggest, and I know the Hon. Member is not suggesting, that promotion in Canada's military comes about from the ability to speak one or other of Canada's official languages. Promotion comes about in Canada's military for service and capability and the ability to speak both of Canada's official languages.
I can inform the Hon. Member that in 1983, in the general officers ranks in Canada's military 14.3 per cent were Francophone. Today, 1989, 23.2 per cent are Francophone.


THE MEMBER FOR LEVIS-RESIGNATION FROM COMMITTEE VICE-CHAIRMANSHIP-PRIME MINISTER'S POSITION
Mr. John R. Rodriguez (Nickel Belt):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. It is reported that the Member for Levis is now being investigated by the RCMP. Now this Member, Gabriel Fontaine, is vice-chairman of the Committee on Privileges and Elections. Will the Prime Minister ask the Member for Levis to resign his position until the RCMP completes its investigation?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member raises a question which I suppose affects the operation of the House. The Member in question has already indicated that since he is being investigated, he would withdraw from the Progressive Conservative caucus and I presume that he will also withdraw from other official functions related to the application of the Standing Orders of the House.


SUGGESTED RESIGNATION FROM TORY CAUCUS
John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Prime Minister. I think the Prime Minister was anticipating my next question. The first question I asked was, in light of the fact that the Member for Levis is the Vice-Chairman of the Committee on Privileges and Elections will the Prime Minister ask him to remove himself from that committee?
Second, will he follow the example set by Mr. Grise and remove himself from the Tory caucus? Will he and any other Member who is being investigated remove themselves from the Tory caucus until such investigation is made public? That is the question I am asking.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend says, and I am quoting him, that
June 27, 1989

I was anticipating his next question. Indeed I was because his question in English was exactly the same as his question in French.


John R. Rodriguez: No it wasn't.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member has put his question and the Right Hon. Prime Minister has answered it. I just want to remind Hon. Members that the question was getting a long way away from the administration of government.


NUCLEAR ENERGY
Mr. Len Hopkins (Renfrew):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources.
In his March 31 news release, the Minister announced the establishment of a co-ordinating committee consisting of himself, Dr. Hatcher, the Acting President of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and Mr. Bruce Howe, Deputy Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, to consider future directions for the corporation.
Given the importance of energy, medical research and high technology to both the short and long-term future requirements of our country, can the Minister say when that report on the future of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited will be ready for presentation to Cabinet? Will he be making the report public? The Minister will know that there are precedents for such reports having been made public in the past.


Hon. Jake Epp (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member is correct in his facts as to the organization of the work that is being undertaken regarding the future of AECL. He is also correct in terms of the importance of the work of AECL, and he outlined that.
I cannot confirm for him when Cabinet will be discussing the future of AECL. I think he understands Cabinet confidences. But I can say to him, as I mentioned to the Energy Committee when asked whether I would release the consultant's report, that if possible, I would release
Oral Questions
it. However, I cannot release the report or even consider its release until I have it in my hands.


LETTER TO AECL EMPLOYEES
Leonard Donald Hopkins: Mr. Speaker, in his letter to the Atomic Energy of Canada employees, the Minister stated that the sources for continuing the necessary level of research and development funding are uncertain. Then, in the same letter, he told them that the federal Government fully supports the Canadian nuclear program.
How can the Minister say that the Government fully supports AECL's medical research, its energy program, its engineering projects such as the Canadarm, and at the same time tell the employees that he does not know where the next dollar is coming from? This is a very key question.
Will the Minister leave the company's profits with the corporation for future research and development, and will he not continue to sell off to private enterprise its profitable assets such as the radio medical isotopes operation and its cobalt therapy cancer treatment production? All of these have been developed with public funds.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, I can tell the Hon. Member that some of the next dollars for AECL will continue to come from the public purse. What I also have to tell the Hon. Member is that AECL, as any other nuclear company, whether privately or publicly owned, are looking for more and more of their resources from the utilities and from the users of that technology.
If he is asking me where I hope to get more money, I hope to get more money from Ontario Hydro. I hope to get more money from the Ontario Government. I hope to get more money from the users of the technology. I would hope that he would want to back that up as well for the very reasons that we are looking for support for the continuation of AECL. Its problem has been that it has not had a relationship with the private sector, and has not been getting money back for the technology that it has developed. I thought the Hon. Member, who also supports AECL as I have done for many years, would understand that and back me up. I hope he does.

June 27, 1989
Oral Questions THE CONSTITUTION


MEECH LAKE ACCORD
Miss Deborah Grey (Beaver River):: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has said that a Constitution should bring Canadians together and should be accepted by all Canadians.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Since it is now clear that most Canadians outside central Canada reject the Meech Lake Accord and that public opinion will make it politically impossible for certain provinces to accept the Accord, will the Prime Minister now urge negotiation of a new Accord that will address the concerns of these provinces as well as the concerns of Quebec?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I am surprised to hear the comment from my hon. friend. The Premiers of Canada met in Edmonton under the chairmanship of the Premier of Alberta, a province represented by my hon. friend. They said in 1986 that it was very important, given the incomplete nature of the work in 1982, that the Premiers request the federal Government engage in what was referred to as the "Quebec round" to bring Quebec back into Confederation.
That having been accomplished, it was their hope and that of the Leaders of every Party of this House, that we would then move on in a second round to deal with those matters of substance and concern to other Canadians. For example, the question of Senate reform is of great interest to the people of Alberta and western Canada. But clearly it was the considered view of all of the Premiers, particularly those from western Canada, as well as myself and the Leaders of the political Parties in this Chamber, that these other matters could not be dealt with properly until such time as the constitutional loop was closed.
Quebec was brought in on terms that were both reasonable and fair. That is what the Meech Lake Accord was all about. That is why it was endorsed by 10 premiers representing four different political parties from British Columbia to Newfoundland and Labrador. That is why it was endorsed very enthusiastically by the Leader of the Opposition, the Leader of the NDP and myself as Leader of the Progressive Conservative Party.
I want to tell my hon. friend that among other things, under the previous Constitution there was an inequality vis-a-vis the provinces where some provinces had vetoes and others did not. Alberta is now a first class province under the Meech Lake Accord and it was not before.


SENATE REFORM
Deborah C. Grey: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. In my maiden speech a couple of months ago I said something about executive federalism. Yes, in fact the Premier of Alberta did endorse the Meech Lake Accord. The people of Alberta did not.
We in Alberta are also interested in seeing a meaningful Senate reform proposal from this Government, and we have not seen such to this date. We are looking forward to seeing that.
The Prime Minister will be aware that a recent poll in the Montreal Gazette shows that even in Quebec, only 44 per cent of the people actually support the Meech Lake Accord. Since these are hardly the kinds of numbers necessary to provoke a national unity crisis, why does the Prime Minister not urge the Government of Quebec to also show some flexibility instead of just twisting the arms of the smaller and politically weaker provinces?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend says that while the Premier of Alberta endorsed the Meech Lake Accord, the people of Alberta did not. On November 21 last, there was a general election and the Progressive Conservative Government which stood for a strong support of the Meech Lake Accord won 25 out of 26 seats in Alberta. That is a major endorsement.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Now my hon. friend refers to a very fundamental question of Senate reform which all of us I think desire to bring about in Canadian federalism. Senate reform can only be achieved if Quebec is brought back into the Constitution. It cannot be done without that condition precedent.
The Premier of Alberta understood that, the Leader of the Opposition understood it, the Leader of the NDP understood it. I think my hon. friend understands full well that if Alberta desires Senate reform, which it does, and if Senate reform would be beneficial to Canadian federalism, which it indeed would, then first and foremost we must find terms on which Quebec can honourably rejoin the Canadian constitutional family. We have
June 27, 1989

found them in Meech Lake, and I urge my hon. friend to strongly defend Meech Lake and endorse it across western Canada.


ENVIRONMENT
Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Public Works. In municipalities across Canada children and their families are denied access to our public beaches because of pollution caused in many cases by sewage discharge.
In Newfoundland and Nova Scotia raw sewage is being dumped into the Atlantic Ocean. Here in Ottawa-Carle-ton, sewage is polluting our rivers. In Hamilton the sewage is polluting the harbour.
Given that the Minister is aware of a $200 million grant given to Nova Scotia to build a sewage treatment facility in Halifax, is the Minister and this Government prepared to make a similar commitment to other cities across Canada?


Hon. Lucien Bouchard (Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, the question of municipal infrastructure and the problems of maintaining it are well known and the solution is well known too. We all know that the price of water in Canada is the cause of the problem and that Canadians do not pay as much for water as they should. If Canadians paid the same for water as our American friends, we would have no problem maintaining sewage and water systems in Canada. The municipalities would have all the money they would need. So the municipalities and the provinces must fulfill their responsibilities in this area.


ROLE OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN MUNICIPAL INFRASTRUCTURE
Mac Harb: Mr. Speaker, historically the federal Government has played a role that goes back to 1938 as a partner working with the provinces and
Oral Questions
the municipalities to build and upgrade infrastructure across the country.
Will this Government move today to resume its traditional role and stop the rapid decay of our cities and towns?


Lucien Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, the federal Government recognizes its responsibility for technology. We are quite prepared to support the municipalities and the provinces in the area of water purification, with research funds and considerable assistance from the federal Government. But responsibility for the environment must be shared. The provinces claim relative autonomy for the environment: they are right, within their jurisdiction. The federal Government must discharge its own responsibilities, but the provinces must also discharge theirs.


CANCER STATISTICS FOR SYDNEY, NOVA SCOTIA
Mr. Lyle Kristiansen (Kootenay West-Revelstoke):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Health and Welfare. I want to bring to the Minister's attention a health crisis in Sydney, Nova Scotia.
Cancer statistics from the Minister's own Department now show that the alarming rate of cancer mortality in Sydney, Nova Scotia, first noticed among Dosco coke oven workers, has now spilled out and is confirmed among the entire city population at a rate of 76.12 per cent above the Canadian norm. What measures has the Minister taken to deal with this life and death situation?
Will he agree now to take the lead and launch an immediate study and plan of action to clean up the tar ponds and the whole mess that clearly threatens the lives of workers and residents alike?
Hon. Perrin Beatty (Minister of National Health and
Welfare): Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Hon. Member raising the question. I will gladly take it as notice and be in touch with provincial authorities as well.

June 27, 1989
Oral Questions


ENERGY, MINES AND RESOURCES CONCENTRATION OF RADIOACTIVE URANIUM AT CIGAR LAKE
Mr. Ray Funk (Prince Albert-Churchill River):: Mr. Speaker, because the best way to deal with cancer is to prevent it, I would like to direct my supplementary to the other "A" student in the cabinet, the Minister of the Environment.
In light of the fact that the ore body at the proposed Cigar Lake uranium mine in my constituency is up to 800 times as concentrated and radioactive as the one at Elliot Lake, and since full-scale public hearings are being held in the Northwest Territories with respect to the Baker Lake mine which is not nearly as problematic as Cigar Lake, will the Minister undertake a public inquiry into the Cigar Lake Mine as requested yesterday in Saskatoon by Greenpeace and the steelworkers?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, I do not think I can comment with respect to the Member's direct request but we will look at it.
I say to him that whether one looks at Rabbit Lake or Cluff Lake, and now Cigar Lake, Canada, specifically the Province of Saskatchewan is sitting on a mine of great value for energy for the future. I point out to the Member as well that it was the former NDP Government of Saskatchewan that first started the development of those mines. When we develop those mines we will make sure not only that health and safety is protected but also that Canada's energy future is advanced.


AGRICULTURE
Hon. Ralph Ferguson (Lambton-Middlesex):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Agriculture.
Will he stop discriminating against Canadian farmers, and against Ontario farmers in particular? The Farm
Credit Corporation is asking fanners in Ontario to sign covenants when they are negotiating settlements. These covenants are illegal in some provinces.
One middle-aged farmer in my constituency who lost his hands is being asked to sign a covenant for $140,000. He is being charged interest on interest on overdue accounts. He is being pushed to accept a deal that will let him keep his home and 50 acres of land plus a mortgage of $150,000 and a covenant of another $140,000. This is a direct contravention of the Charter of Rights.
Will the Minister stop this cold-hearted action, stop this discrimination and return the Farm Credit Corporation to its rightful place as a credible lender?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister, President of the Privy Council and Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member knows that the Farm Credit Corporation and this Government has not discriminated against any farmers in Ontario or anywhere else and is not doing so.


Ralph Ferguson: Alberta farmers don't sign them.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: The Hon. Member raises a very important matter. I will be glad to look into it personally. I hope he treats it seriously. I will treat it seriously and I ask him to bring the matter to my attention and I will be glad to look into it in detail.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg Transcona):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Right Hon. Secretary of State for External Affairs and concerns the visit of President Herzog to Canada.
Could the Secretary of State for External Affairs tell the House whether he has taken the opportunity, or intends to take the opportunity during President Herzog's visit, to express to the President a concern that many Canadians have over human rights violations in the occupied territories by Israel.
I think that many of us felt in the remarks this morning made by the Prime Minister prior to the speech that the Government treaded a little too softly on that issue. I hope the Minister will be taking the opportunity to make
June 27, 1989

absolutely clear the offence taken by Canadians at some of the practices adopted by the Israeli Government in the occupied territories.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, as the Hon. Member indicated, the Prime Minister raised directly in his remarks in this House the question of the concern of Canadians about human rights situations in the Middle East. Indeed, I found it interesting and important that the President of Israel in his own remarks made reference to the anguish that question causes within Israel, elsewhere in the Middle East and in this country.
The Prime Minister and I took the opportunity at lunch today to speak directly to the President of Israel about questions relating to detentions and, of course, about questions relating to the application in Israel of the Geneva Convention.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I hope that the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for External Affairs were more forceful in their private conversations and I trust that they will take whatever further opportunities present themselves to make that point over and over again.


GOVERNMENT POLICY RESPECTING ELECTIONS IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: I would like to ask the Secretary of State a further question with respect to the proposal by the Israeli Government for elections in the occupied territories. It is not clear to me exactly what the Canadian government position is with respect to the proposal by the Israeli Government. Could the Secretary of State for External Affairs say what the Canadian position is on these elections, because obviously there are many important questions that remain to be answered before we could regard this election proposal as a suitable object of the peace process?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, two things. First, the Prime Minister addressed directly those questions of human rights as Members of this House who were present here today know.
Second, I answered a question from the Hon. Member for Calgary Southwest the other day in this House with respect to the question of the Shamir proposal. We believe it is a significant and important proposal on the
Oral Questions
part of Israel. There are obviously a great many details that remain to be worked out. We think that it does provide a basis for movement toward a peaceful settlement in that region, based upon Resolution 242. In that spirit we support it actively and we will try to continue our efforts to encourage the Palestinians to respond in a positive way to that initiative.


Mr. Speaker:: I want to advise the House that there will be a question from the Hon. Member for Hillsborough and a very short supplemental, followed by a question from the Hon. Member for Don Valley North and that will close off Question Period. The Hon. Member for Hillsborough.


CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL-GOVERNMENT POLICY RESPECTING CONTRACTING TO PRIVATE INDUSTRY
Mr. George Proud (Hillsborough):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Labour. In the latest report of the Government's own Construction Industry Development Council, the Council recommended the contracting out of Government contracts to private industry. In other words, privatization.
It appears that the Government has established a general policy of contracting out and that it is encouraging private industry to follow its lead.
Is the Minister aware of the Council's recommendation and, if so, is this in fact a Government policy?


Hon. Jean Corbeil (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to restate again that the Minister of Labour, as well as this Government, is very proud of what the Centre has been doing over the past few years.
I am also proud to report to the critic of the Liberal Party that at a recent meeting in Calgary, the Council of Governors adopted the following resolution:
The President and Chief Executive Officer, with a Thsk Force representing stakeholders, start the preparation of alternative plans for the future of the Centre which are in accordance with principles of individual free access previously agreed to by the Council of Governors.
We wholeheartedly agree with this resolution.

June 27, 1989
Point of Order-Mr. Riis EFFECT OF PRIVATIZATION ON JOB SECURITY


George Albert Proud: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is to the same Minister. Privatization of the workplace is driving Canadians toward the poverty line. When an industry goes from the unionized public sector to the non-unionized private sector, workers see their incomes decrease by some 35 per cent to 75 per cent.
The question is, is the Government funding this Council and, if so, what is the financial commitment? Are Canadian tax dollars being spent on ads that may ultimately cost workers their jobs and their security?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure that I correctly understood the question I was asked. But if the question was whether the Government in the past financed this centre, and we were talking about the same centre, I would recall an answer that I already gave previously. In the first six years since it was created in 1969, under a Liberal Government, it was granted $3.3 million a year. Since it has come under a Conservative Government, it has received a subsidy averaging $8 million a year.


COPYRIGHT
Ms. Barbara Greene (Don Valley North):: Mr. Speaker, educators across Canada are deeply concerned about the impact of Bill C-60, the copyright legislation, on their ability to teach mandatory courses and provide students with examples and experiences which are current and relevant.
Will the Minister of Communications be introducing exemptions to the Act which will guarantee educators access to Canadian materials comparable to that which they have to American materials?


Marcel Masse: Mr. Speaker, the Copyright Act is intended to compensate creators while giving users of protected works easy access at reasonable cost.
We have already passed the first stage of legislation and Parliament will soon be presented with a second stage dealing with various types of limited exemption, including those for educational institutions.
In this second stage, we will try in particular to update existing exemptions by taking account of the recommendations of an advisory board set up for that purpose. This board is made up of representatives of the creators and the teaching community.


TABLING OF UPDATED STANDING ORDERS
Mr. Speaker:: 
POINT OF ORDER
Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Yesterday was the first occurrence in the history of the House that a debate under closure collapsed before the allotted voting hour.
Closure, as the House knows, has been moved fewer than 30 times in the past 75 years. It is designed to shorten debates which would otherwise continue at such lengths as to impede the reasonable progress of the Government's legislative program. It was not designed as a way of extending hours. In fact, it originally cut an hour off the sitting day. The collapse of the debate on Bill C-20 yesterday is clear evidence of the misapplication of the heavy hand of the Government on this House. Before the Government moved closure-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Taking into account all of the circumstances, I think perhaps it is appropriate that Hon. Members listen to the House Leader of the New Democratic Party on this important point of order. The Hon. Member for Kamloops.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I will be very, very quick. The collapse of the debate on Bill C-20 yesterday is obviously clear evidence of the misapplication of the heavy hand of the Government on this House. Before the Government
June 27, 1989

3693 moved closure, Bill C-20 had been debated at second reading for less than two hours. It is a very routine Bill.
As parliamentarians, we know that amendments to the Excise Act are proposed following virtually every budget. I do not think the House has shown itself to be veiy constructive in the passage of these Bills. Quite the contrary. I simply want to make the point that closure is an unpleasant method of running the Government. It is essentially undemocratic in that it seeks to limit dissent. When closure is used in a routine way, as it appears this Government has done on occasion, at least, and when it is used to stampede an opposition that is not even attempting to impede the Government's right to pass legislation, then this is an abuse of the House and an abuse of Standing Order 57.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Hon. Doug Lewis (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I note with some humour my hon. friend's comments with respect to the question of closure. It is a legitimate tool which is in the Standing Orders. It is just as legitimate as forcing a vote on the introduction of one's own private Bill, which my friends in the New Democratic Party have done on several occasions in an effort to blow some time.
In an effort to make up for some time, we have used the device of closure. It is much more expedient than time allocation. I would only suggest this to my hon. friend, in a rhetorical way, that had he come to me and suggested that a mere extension of hours would have done the job, we would have done it.


Mr. Speaker:: There are occasions in the life of the House of Commons when all Members on both sides should tread with great caution, and this is perhaps one of those afternoons. However, I have listened very carefully to what the Hon. Member for Kamloops (Mr. Riis) has said on behalf of the New Democratic Party. I will consider his comments.
I do not think that a ruling is required. He has made clear his grievance and there has been a response from the Government House Leader, the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lewis). However, I am going to examine carefully what the Hon. Member for Kamloops has said and reflect upon it.
Tabling of Documents



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 67(2), I table the code of ethics, in both official languages, for Canadian companies in South Africa.


REGULATORY AFFAIRS
Hon. John McDermid (Minister of State (Privatization and Regulatory Affairs)):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 32(2), I have the honour to table copies in both official languages of several remission orders and government reports presented to Parliament concerning the remission orders approved for the six-month period ending March 31, 1989.


ACCESS TO INFORMATION AND PRIVACY
Hon. Robert de Cotret (President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the First Annual Comprehensive Report on the Implementation of the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act.


ORDER IN COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table, in both official languages, a number of Order in Council appointments which were made by the Government. Pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 110(1),

June 27, 1989
Committee Reports
these are deemed referred to the appropriate standing committees, a list of which is attached.


PETITIONS
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the Government's response to thirty petitions.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



LAW REFORM COMMISSION OF CANADA


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 32(2), I have the honour to lay upon the table copies, in both official languages, of the Seventeenth Annual Report of the Law Reform Commission of Canada.



COMMITTEES OF THE HOUSE


Mr. Jim Hawkes (Calgary West):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the Twelfth Report of the Striking Committee.
He He He




Mr. Arnold Malone (Crowfoot):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the First Report of the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs.



TABUNG OF THIRD REPORT OF JOINT COMMITTEE ON SCRUTINY OF REGULATIONS

Mr. Tom Wappel (Scarborough West):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour of tabling, in both official languages, the Third Report of the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations.

The report concerns the formal documents regulations made under Section 4 of the Seals Act. These regulations specify the classes of public documents which must be passed under the Royal Seals. It is the view of the Joint Committee that the current regulations are invalid in that they were not approved by Her Majesty the Queen as required by Section 4 of the Seals Act.

The predecessor of the present Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs disagreed with the Committee's views but nevertheless agreed to table a Bill to amend the Seals Act in order to remove the requirement which provides that the regulations must be approved by the Sovereign.

As noted in the Third Report, "It will be for Parliament to decide whether to amend the Act in this fashion". The only recommendation of the Joint Committee is that any proposed legislation retroactively validate the existing regulations for greater certainty. I invite Hon. Members who wish a more complete explanation of the issues involved to read the Third Report of the Joint Committee.



COMMITTEES OF THE HOUSE


Mr. Felix Holtmann (Portage-Interlake):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the First and Second Reports of the Standing Committee on Communications, Culture, Citizenship and Multiculturalism. The First Report deals with the committee's unanimous decision to request the re-establishment of the Standing Committee on Multiculturalism and Citizenship. The

Second Report deals with the fact that the National Film Board won an Oscar and it is the committee's desire that this Oscar be displayed in the House of Commons.



POINT OF ORDER


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, one of the recommendations made in the report reminds me that the Hon. Member for Saint-Laurent (Mrs. Maheu) rose yesterday to make a statement regarding the Hon. Member for Vancouver East (Ms. Mitchell). I would simply like to reply on behalf of the Hon. Member for Vancouver East to clarify any misunderstanding that may exist regarding her question of June 22, as reported at page 3557 of Hansard, which was directed to the Hon. Member for York West (Mr. Marchi). When she said that the Liberal critic for multiculturalism would oppose the re-establishment of a separate Standing Committee on Multiculturalism, she was referring to the Hon. Member for Broadview-Greenwood (Mr. Mills), she was not referring to his co-critic, the Hon. Member for Saint-Laurent, who yesterday clarified that she supported a separate Standing Committee on Multiculturalism.


Mr. Speaker:: The Chair thanks the Hon. Member.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been discussions with the Parties and I think you would find unanimous consent for the Government to introduce two Bills which are shown on the notice paper. The purpose of introducing these today would be to enable them to be printed and to allow some time over the next few weeks for them to be considered. I am referring to the Bills presently on the Order Paper standing the name of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson), a Bill entitled an Act to amend the Federal Provincial Fiscal Arrangements and Federal Post-secondary Education and Health Contributions Act, and a Bill standing in the name of the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Mazankowski) entitled an Act to establish the Canadian Centre for Management Development and to amend certain other Acts in consequence thereof.
Introduction of Bills


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, we have noticed the Bills on the notice paper and while we have some concerns with some of them, we will certainly support their introduction to expedite the matter. I would simply like to inform the Government House Leader that we are still waiting for Bills on an ethics package, a federal environmental assessment process, a child care program, broadcasting copyright, bankruptcy law and water quality. There is a whole list of Bills for which we are waiting and I was hoping we could see those on the notice paper today. Perhaps the Minister could give us an indication of when we would see some of these Bills brought forward.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend will remember that on November 21, we were elected for five years. During the course of our mandate, he will see those Bills.


Mr. Milliken:: Mr. Speaker, I want to confirm the arrangement to permit the introduction of the two Bills that the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lewis) is seeking leave to introduce today. I must say that I agree with my hon. friend from Kamloops with respect to the dilatory nature of the movement on some of these other matters, but that is not a matter that we can usefully debate in the House this afternoon.



FEDERAL-PROVINCIAL FISCAL ARRANGEMENTS AND FEDERAL POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION AND HEALTH CONTRIBUTIONS ACT MEASURE TO AMEND

Hon. Doug Lewis (for the Minister of Finance) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-33, an Act to amend the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements and Federal Post-Secondary Education and Health Contributions Act.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.
[Stage Direction]
June 27, 1989
Committee Reports

[Stage Direction]
Hon. Doug Lewis (for the Deputy Prime Minister, President of the Privy Council and Minister of Agriculture), with unanimous consent, moved for leave to introduce Bill C-34, an Act to establish the Canadian Centre for Management Development and to amend certain Acts in consequence thereof.
Mr. Speaker:: Does the Minister have leave to introduce the Bill?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.
Mr. Speaker:: When shall the Bill be read the second time? At the next sitting of the House?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



CRIMINAL CODE


Hon. Bob Kaplan (York Centre) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-255, an Act to amend the Criminal Code (lotteries).


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, this is an amendment to the Criminal Code which would have the effect, I hope, of reducing the amount of gambling in Canadian society. The way it would work is to prohibit advertising of lotteries.
Gambling is a human weakness. For some people, it is a very serious disease. The Bill makes the point that, while our laws should accommodate those who must gamble, to have legislation in place that allows Governments through advertising to encourage gambling is unacceptable.


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


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the Parties, and you will find that there is unanimous consent for the following motions to be put by myself and voted upon immediately without debate. The first motion is the following. I move:
That the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations be authorized to travel to London, England to attend the Third Commonwealth Conference on Delegated Legislation from November 20 to 23,1989, and that the necessary staff accompany the committee.


Mr. Speaker:: Does the Hon. Leader of the Government in the House of Commons have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, the second motion is the following. I move:
That the Standing Committee on the Environment be authorized to travel to Washington, D.C. during summer recess, not to exceed three days, for the purpose of discussion with U.S. Congressmen on acid rain.


Mr. Speaker:: Does the government House Leader have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?
June 27, 1989


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I move:
That, notwithstanding any Standing Order of this House, the chairman of any legislative committee shall be empowered to call a meeting for the purposes of organization, pursuant to Standing Order 113(3), at his or her discretion but, in any case, shall do so no later than lO sitting days after this House resumes sitting in September, 1989;
Provided that this Order does not apply to the legislative committee on Bill C-21.


Mr. Speaker:: Does the Hon. Leader of the Government in the House of Commons have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I move:
That, notwithstanding any Standing or other Order of this House, the membership of the legislative committee on Bill C-21, an Act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act and the Employment and Immigration Department and Commission Act, be increased from eight to 14 members;
That the additional members to serve on the said committee be: Mrs. Anderson, Ms. Langan, Mr. F. LeBlanc, Ms. Catterall, Mr. Vien and Mr. Worthy.
That the said committee, accompanied by the necessary staff be empowered to adjourn from place to place within Canada; and
That the said committee report the Bill no later than TUesday, October 10, 1989.


Mr. Speaker:: Does the Hon. government House Leader have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
Motions


Mr. Speaker:: The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the Hon. Minister of Justice might stand down for a moment, and because it is today I will make a great exception and recognize the Hon. Member for York Centre on the presentation of a petition.



PETITION


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition from a number of members of Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda Synagogue who are presenting a petition on behalf of Georgy Belitsky of Vilnius, U.S.S.R. who is seeking to leave the Soviet Union to emigrate to Israel.
The petitioners urge the Government of Canada to make representations to the Government of the Soviet Union to grant an exit visa to Georgy Belitsky.



MOTIONS


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the Parties. As the House knows, there has been considerable progress made on the business before the House, thanks to the efforts of all Members of the House.
There is an understanding between the Parties that we will complete the items on the Projected Order of Business in the following order. First, the appropriation Bill re the drought payments; second, Bill C-16, the space agency Act to complete second reading; Bill C-19 to complete third reading of the Energy Act; Bill C-22 to complete third reading of the Environmental Protection Act amendments; and Bill C-15, plant breeders' rights Act second reading.
It may very well be that we will have to invoke closure on Bill C-15, the plant breeders" rights at second reading.
However, on that understanding, I move:

June 27, 1989
Petitions
That, when the House completes, later today, proceedings on the motion for second reading of Bill C-15, an Act respecting plant breeders' rights, it shall stand adjourned until Monday, September 25, 1989, provided that
(I)	If at any time a Bill or Bills be ready for the granting of Royal Assent, the Speaker may, after consultation with the Government, fix a time at which the House shall meet for that sole purpose, after which the House shall once again stand adjourned in accordance with this Order, and
(II)	Further to the Order of the House made April 4, 1989 (respecting supply): the number of allotted days in the period following Labour Day be eleven, with one of them in September, five in October, three in November and two in December; the date in Section "C)" of the said Order be changed to Wednesday, October 11, the date in Section "D)a)" of the said Order be changed to October 11, the date in Section "D)b)" of the said Order be changed to October 18, and the date in Section "E)" of the said Order be changed to Thursday, October 19.


Mr. Speaker:: Does the Hon. Minister of Justice have unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: Mr. Speaker, I would like to move a motion which I think will receive the unanimous consent of the House.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Nipissing (Mr. Wood):
That the First Report of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations, presented to the House on Wednesday, June 14, 1989, be concurred in.


Mr. Speaker:: Does the Hon. Member have the unanimous consent of the House to move this motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am not necessarily against this motion. I must say that I am unaware of it. I do not know what it includes. I would like to suggest that we stand it down for a few moments in order to have some consultations.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps Hon. Members could have a discussion. I will certainly hear them both in a minute or two.
I wish to bring to the attention of the Hon. Member for Kamloops the fact that the motion the Hon. Member has just moved is on the Order Paper and does not need consent. However, there is a second motion on which he will need consent. Perhaps we could put that one aside for a few minutes.
Coming back to the original motion, I take it that the House will accept it. The second motion, which has not yet been called, needs consent. Perhaps the two Hon. Members could discuss it and indicate to the Chair when they are prepared to have it called.
Just to keep the record straight, there is agreement on the first motion.


PETITIONS
William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, with regard to petitions, I would like to congratulate the students of John De Graff School in my riding for gathering together signatures on a petition against the proposed gold mine in Shoal Lake, Ontario, a mine which is to be constructed right in the midst of Winnipeg's drinking water supply.
In that respect I would like to present a petition which represents the concerns of the students and which calls upon Parliament to stop the application by Consolidated Professor Mines until a full federal environmental impact assessment shows the plant to be safe, and to introduce a safe drinking water Act that would give secure access of Canadians to drinking water a greater priority than industrial development.


Mr. Speaker:: Before we continue with petitions, I would like to advise the House that there will be a reception for Members in Room 16 starting this evening at 9 p.m.
June 27, 1989


Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale -High Park):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36 I have the honour to present a petition from residents of Parkdale-High Park who wish to save Postal Station V as a full service post office.
The petitioners of Parkdale-High Park oppose the reduced services offered by Postal Station V that forces them to go to the other side of the riding to Postal Station M to receive their mail, registered letters and parcels. They have already had to accommodate this Government's obsession with privatization by having to use postal services at a local drug store which then went bankrupt, wherefore the services were returned to Postal Station V.
They have been assured that at least the reduced services would remain at Postal Station V but they now see a big "For Rent" sign on the post office. The petitioners urge the Post Office to return full service to Postal Station V as it is their right for accessibility to essential postal services.


Mr. Lee Richardson (Calgary Southeast):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to present to the House a petition duly certified correct as to form and content pursuant to Standing Order 36.
This petition has been prepared and signed by hundreds of concerned Calgarians deeply grieved by the tragedy of events in the People's Republic of China.
The petitioners call upon Parliament to condemn the Chinese Government for the recent massacre, to boycott any international activities hosted by the Chinese Government, and to take economic sanctions against the Chinese Government.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour and duty pursuant to Standing Order 36 to present to the House a petition on behalf of some 40 members of local churches, including Westdale United Church in my riding of Hamilton West.
The petitioners call upon the Government to provide full disclosure of all Canadian military exports, including
Petitions
the type and producers, the vendor, purchaser, transporter, as well as the immediate and final destinations of the exports, to be printed in register form and available to the Canadian public upon request.


Mr. Ron MacDonald (Dartmouth):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today pursuant to Standing Order 36 to present to the House three petitions concerning the proposed new national sales tax and its possible application to music studies.
I believe, as do the petitioners, that with a sales tax on music lessons Canadian children will suffer, talent will be underdeveloped and the future of Canadian music both nationally and internationally will be jeopardized.
I join with the petitioners to call upon Parliament to consider music studies as an educational process and therefore exempt music education from the proposed national sales tax.


Mr. Jerry Pickard (Essex-Kent):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to encourage the Government to do all it can to facilitate the immigration of those who are still understress in Lebanon. The people are having difficulties daily. We listened this morning to some reports on what is happening there. I ask the Government to do what it can to facilitate immigration.
I would also ask the Government to have an emergency debate, or call upon the UN to have an emergency debate with regard to that issue and the issue in the Middle East.


Jerry Pickard: Mr. Speaker, I have a second petition which relates to the closing of the air force base in London. Several residents have signed this petition. They ask the Government to consider that situation and to please stop the closing there.


Ms. Catherine Callbeck (Malpeque):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36 it is my privilege to present a petition signed by people from my constituency of Malpeque. They are objecting to changes in the unemployment insurance system.

June 27, 1989
Petitions
The Government is withdrawing its contribution of $2.9 billion to the unemployment insurance fund, leaving the financing to workers and employers, which means an increase in premiums for the employers and employees.
The Government is making other changes to the unemployment insurance system. These changes, along with the closure of CFB Summerside, will mean the loss of millions of dollars to the economy of Prince Edward Island.


Mr. Lyle Vanclief (Prince Edward -Hastings):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to present two positions today. The first one is from constituents in my riding of Prince Edward- Hastings.
They are concerned with the possible tax on fees for students of music and dance. They feel that such a tax would result in the deprivation of some students of instruction in these areas. They ask that students obtaining instruction in dance and music be exempt from the payment of such tax.


Lyle Vanclief: Mr. Speaker, the other petition is from constituents of Prince Edward-Hastings as well. It concerns the cancellation of the Government's promises to proceed with a national child care program.
The petitioners have been shouldering the responsibility for a local program in their community. They have been funding child care centres through various moneymaking activities such as bake sales and raffles to make child care possible.
The petitioners are asking for the development of a federal policy with appropriate and on-going funding to support the Canadian child care system.


Ralph Ferguson: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present petitions on behalf of the constituents living in the London-Sarnia VIA Rail corridor. These constituents come from the Town of Stra-throy, the Village of Watford, Wyoming and the Town of
Petrolia and other communities within the constituency. As well, they are signed by various municipal officials.
The petitioners call upon Parliament to maintain and upgrade VIA's services across Canada and offer the Canadian people an alternative to highway congestion and airport delays.


Ralph Ferguson: Mr. Speaker, in addition to those seven petitions regarding VIA Rail I have the honour to present two more petitions concerning the Canadian Forces Base in London. The petitioners call upon Parliament to rescind its recent decision to close CFB London and to reassure the people of London that CFB London will remain open.


Mr. Ross Harvey (Edmonton East):: Mr. Speaker, before we adjourn I am going to try one last time. I rise under Standing Order 36 with a petition duly certified by the Clerk of Petitions. It is a petition to the Government, asking that it live up to its original pledge to support VIA Rail, to abandon plans for further cuts to VIA's budget, and to provide the necessary resources to allow VIA to operate as a modern, effective transportation company rather than as a museum.
It is my last chance before the Government makes its decision. Please do consider wisely.


Mr. Rex Crawford (Kent):: Mr. Speaker, I have several petitions containing several hundred names concerning the Canadian Forces Base London. The Canadian Forces Base London represents an annual direct boost to the London economy of more than $60 million and several millions more in direct funds.
Wherefore the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon Parliament to rescind its recent decision to close Canadian Forces Base London, and reassure the people of London that the Canadian Forces base London will remain open.


Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition on behalf of the Port of Churchill. This petition is signed by residents of Flin Flon, Brandon, Beausejour, Stonewall and Winnipeg. They indicate that they believe the Port of Churchill
June 27, 1989

obviously has great potential because it is Canada's only inland seaport to the Arctic. We also believe it is a situation where the Minister responsible for the Wheat Board must ensure that at least 3 per cent of Canada's grain shipments on an annual basis be shipped through the Port of Churchill, and that the Government aggressively pursue additional ways to utilize this important seaport to ship exports other than grain.


Mr. Joe McGuire (Egmont):: Mr. Speaker, it is my honour and privilege today to present to the House the duly certified second and final instalment of petitions from 6,500 concerned citizens of Prince Edward Island. This petition was circulated by Mr. Frank Lewis of Radio Station CFCY, Charlottetown, and Mr. Ken Simms of the Guardian and Patriot newspapers in Charlottetown on behalf of those who wish to retain CFB Summerside as Prince Edward Island's only military base.
Because the socio-economic and emotional impact of this decision is of great concern to all islanders, they request that the Government of Canada reconsider its decision to close the Summerside base.
In addition, the fishermen of Prince Edward Island cannot afford to lose the fishery surveillance role that CFB Summerside now provides, nor can the people of P.E.I. afford to lose the search and rescue surveillance now provided.


Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to table two sets of petitions today. The first petition has been certified correct according to Standing Order 36, and has been signed by 433 residents of the City of Thunder Bay and surrounding area, along with other passengers on the VIA Rail Transcontinental. They point out that the Conservative Government, like its Liberal predecessor, has refused to provide VIA the necessary support to fully realize its potential to develop the kind of national passenger rail network that Canadians want and deserve. They call upon the Government to live up to its original pledge to support VIA Rail, to abandon plans for further cuts, and to provide the necessary resources to allow VIA to operate as a modem, effective transportation company rather than a museum.
Petitions
The second petition is signed by 6,839 residents of 72 communities in the Province of Saskatchewan. They basically call for the same thing, that rail passenger service continue to exist as a national network on all main routes in this country and in a manner that provides the best and most desirable travel service for the public in the most efficient way.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to table a petition pursuant to Standing Order 36 from residents of Kingston and the Islands and the neighbouring constituency of Hastings- Frontenac-Lennox and Addington. The petitioners request that the Government live up to its prior election commitments to increase benefits and reduce waiting periods under the Unemployment Insurance Act, and to reverse its decision reflected in Bill C-21, to reduce benefits and extend waiting periods, in accordance with the report originally proposed by the Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration, in its first report in the Second Session of the Thirty-Third Parliament. I table this petition on behalf of those petitioners.


Mr. Robert E. Skelly (Comox-Alberni):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to present a petition certified correct pursuant to Standing Order 36. My constituents call upon the Government to live up to its original pledge to support VIA Rail, abandon plans for further cuts to VIA's budget, and provide the necessary resources to allow VIA to operate as a modern, effective transportation company.
Furthermore, my constituents would like the Government to keep the Vancouver Island VIA Rail service operating.


Mr. Joe Fontana (London East):: Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and privilege to rise again in the House, as I have on numerous occasions in the past number of weeks, to present petitions on behalf of residents of London and area in support of CFB London.
Despite the fact that the Minister of National Defence (Mr. McKnight) has indicated to the mayor and everyone else that it is no use calling or coming to see him because he does not intend to change his mind, it is important to note that the people of London and area feel that CFB

June 27, 1989
Petitions
London is important to their community. We hope the Government decides to change its mind.


Lyle Stuart Kristiansen: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36 I am pleased to present a petition with some six pages of signatures of residents of Terrace, British Columbia in the northwest, the City of Revelstoke in my constituency of Kootenay West-Revelstoke.
The petitioners point out that the Conservative Party, prior to the election, promised that federal transportation spending priority should be reorganized to put a greater emphasis on rail passenger services. They further point out the alternating positions of the Liberal Party which, when it was in power, also took steps to cut VIA Rail's budget. The signatories call upon the Government to live up to its original pledge to support VIA Rail and to abandon plans for further cuts to the budget and provide the necessary resources to allow VIA to operate as a modern, effective transportation company.
As one who has personally used VIA Rail some 16 times as a paying customer with my family over the previous two years, I heartily endorse the feelings of the signatories to this petition.


Raymond John Funk: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition duly certified from residents of my constituency, from the community of La Ronge and surrounding area, calling on the Government to recognize that post-secondary education is something that is theirs by treaty right. They call on the Government to honour and respect the treaties and guarantee a free and unrestricted education for all treaty status Indian people.


Raymond John Funk: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition from people of the communities of Prince Albert, Shellbrook, Stump Lake, Parkside and other communities in my constituency who, like other petitioners, believe the proposed sales tax on music lessons and other artistic lessons will jeopardize the development of Canadian talent. They call on the Government to consider music studies an educational
process and therefore exempt music lessons from the proposed sales tax.


Lyle Dean MacWilliam: Mr. Speaker, it is my duty and honour to rise under the provisions of Standing Order 36 to present to the House a petition signed by members of the Trinity United Church in the community of Vernon, British Columbia. The citizens have been outraged at the recent massacre of innocent and defenceless students and bystanders in the City of Beijing, and horrified that the Chinese Government has deliberately fabricated falsehoods to distort the truth and deflect criticism. They call upon the Government to immediately recall the Ambassador, to break diplomatic relations with the Chinese Government, to discontinue all economic ties, and to offer assistance to Chinese people, in particular students presently in Canada, so that they may not be forced to return to face any danger in China.


Mr. Vic Althouse (Mackenzie):: Mr. Speaker, I have petitions on two separate items to present to the House today. They were duly certified yesterday and this may be my last opportunity to present them. The first is from people in the northeast of my constituency. They call upon the Government to place oats and barley under the Wheat Board Act in such a way that in the future farm organizations and Parliament must be consulted before changes are made in the marketing of these products.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, the second petition I have calls on the Government to live up to its original pledge to support VIA Rail. The petitioners therefore call upon the Government to abandon its current plans for further cuts to VIA's budget and to provide the necessary resources to allow VIA to operate as a modern, effective transportation company.


Mr. David D. Stupich (Nanaimo-Cowichan):: Mr. Speaker, I have the responsibility and duty to present two petitions from two separate organizations, but both on the same subject. They have both been certified

correct by the Clerk as to form. They both express opposition to offshore oil exploration and development in the Canadian Pacific.
The petitioners point out that the area is earthquake zone and that the waters in some of those areas are as rough as any in the world. The petitioners hope and pray that the Government will not permit any offshore exploration in those waters.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to raise a petition today on behalf of constituents from Kamloops, Denman Island, Cumberland, Black Creek, Courtney, White Rock, Vancouver and Surrey, British Columbia. The petitioners are basically asking Parliament to take steps to ensure that there is no exploration for oil and natural gas off the West Coast of British Columbia.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, another group of petitioners from Kamloops, British Columbia, are concerned that the Government is making very cruel changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act. A million people who would normally be receiving UI benefits will not receive benefits. The Government is saying that these funds will be used to retrain people. The petitioners say that this is an abuse of the fund and an inappropriate way to arrange for training and upgrading.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
Mr. Albert Cooper Parliamentary Secretary to Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 67, 68, 72, 73 and 90.
Mr. Manley: For each year since 1984, how many copies, including those that were rejected due to printing process errors, of (a) the Budget in Brief (b) other standard budget documents were printed and what security measures were put in place to (i) secure the copies for distribution (ii) destroy the copies that were rejected due to printing process errors?
Order Paper Questions


Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Government House Leader):: I am informed by the Departments of Finance and Supply and Services as follows:
a)	Budget in Brief: 1984-400,500; 1985-707,000;
1986-355,750;	1987-200,000;	1988-291,000;
1989-460,000
b)	Other standard budget documents: 1984-64,500;
1984 (Economic Statement)-50,600; 1985-64,500; 1986-80,750;	1987-95,000;	1988-91,000;
1989-110,000
i)	Because of Budget secrecy requirements, a wide variety of security measures exist. These include ensuring that personnel who are required to work on the preparation, production and distribution of the Budget have undergone an appropriate security screening; and that the locations where Budget materials are handled, including the printing, distribution and waste storage areas, are in a secure environment.
ii)	In accordance with government security policy, all classified Budget "surplus material", including copies that are rejected due to printing process errors, is baled under guard and then held in a secure area until after the Budget is tabled (released). At that time, the now unclassified "surplus material" is turned over to a private sector waste paper disposal firm under contract with the government.


Mrs. Finestone: 1.	For the fiscal years 1986-87, 1987-88, and 1988-89, was any money paid under the Department of Communications Postal Subsidy Program to the Canada Post Corporation in the following categories (a) daily newspapers (b) rural weekly newspapers (c) paid circulation periodicals (d) controlled addressed periodicals (e) foreign periodicals (i) mailed in Canada (ii) mailed and printed in Canada and, if so, what amount?
2.	For the fiscal years 1986-87, 1987-88, and 1988-89, was any money paid under the Publications Mail Infrastructure Payment to the Canada Post Corporation in the following categories (a) daily newspapers (b) rural weekly newspapers (c) paid circulation periodicals (d) controlled addressed periodicals (e) foreign periodicals (i) mailed in Canada (ii) mailed and printed in Canada and, if so, what amount?


Marcel Masse: Concessionary postal rates for books, magazines and newspapers represented an expenditure of $222.1 million in 1986-87 and $219.5 million in each of 1987-88 and 1988-89. For example, in 1986-87 this expenditure is divided into two elements: i) an infrastructure payment of $167.0 million paid to Canada Post through the Minister responsible for the Corporation; and ii) a cultural subsidy of $55.1 million paid to Canada Post by the Minister of Communications. In 1988, the postal

June 27, 1989
Order Paper Questions
subsidy was given the new name of the Publications Distribution Assistance Program.
The table attached describes the allocation of the $222.1 million in 1986-87 over both second class (i.e., the rate codes designed for newspapers and periodicals) as well as the Publishers' Book rate and the Library Book
rate. The allocation of the infrastructure payment and the cultural subsidy is prorated across the components of the Program. It should be noted that Code 5, foreign periodicals mailed in Canada, is not a subsidized rate, and that both Codes 5 and 6 have been closed to new entrants since 1984.


[Stage Direction]
CODE	TITLES	EXAMPLES	VOLUME1	REVENUE	% OF THE	AVERAGE(no.)	(000 000)	FOREGONE1	SUBSIDY	RATE C(000 000 $)	Code-1	(dailies)	145	Guardian and Patriot	32.9	12.6	5.7	12.0Sherbrooke Record	Code-2	(rural weeklies)	434	Canora Courier	42.7	11.2	5.0	5.54LEcho de la Lievre	Code-3	(subscription periodicals)	671	Maclean's Canadian Geographic Vie des Arts	296.0	90.6	40.8	5.5Code-4	(free, "controlled circulation" periodicals)	2 790	Canadian Nurse Oilweek Le Producteur agricole	114.2	28.3	12.7	12.7Code-5	(foreign periodicals mailed in Canada)	304	National Geographic Magazine	48.9	42.3Paris Match	Code-6	(foreign periodicals printed and mailed in Canada)	26	Time Watch Tower	38.5	9.8	4.4	6.6Other2	Book Publishers3 & Distrib-	4 000	Grolier	6.2	0.8	0.4	23.0utors	Prospero Book Store	26.4	66.8	30.1	72.6Public Libraries	St. John's Regional Library	0.6	1.9	0.8	56.0Deep River Library	TOTAL	8 370	606.4	222.15	100.0	1	1986-1987 Data2	Interim mailings subject to final approval of eligibility3	Registered since January 1, 19894	Paid portion only5	Does not total 222.1 due to rounding
June 27, 1989
Mr. Kilgour: Does the government have in its possession files on the nature of the relationship between Herbert Norman and any of the state security organizations of the Soviet Union or any other Warsaw Pact member and, if so, is the government prepared to table them and, if so, on what date?


Pierre Blais: The Government wishes neither to confirm nor deny the facts or allegations mentioned in this Question based on the established tradition adhered to by all Governments, not to comment directly on the details of specific security matters and consistent with provisions of section 13.1,
15.1,	16.1(c) and 19 of the Access to Information Act.


Mr. Mills: 1.	For each year since 1987, what was the operating budget of Canada Film Year Inc. and from what source did it receive its funds?
2.	For 1989-90, what programs did the organization intend to fund and what programs is it currently funding?
3.	Who are the members of the Board of the organization?
4.	For each year since 1987, did the government provide funding to the organization and, if so, in what amount and for what purpose?


Marcel Masse: 1.
Canada Film Year was established to bring Canadians into contact with Canadian films and stars, and to heighten the image Canadians have of Canadian films. From the outset, it was agreed that such a project must be mounted and maintained by the industry itself, and not be government-led. The role of government was to be limited to a supporting one. Industry representatives assumed the development of, and took the active lead in, the Film Year.
Originally it had been intended that the Film Year be jointly financed through a combination of private and public sector funding. However, the private sector's contribution has been less than anticipated. Futhermore, the industry was unsuccessful in securing corporate sponsorship. Telefilm Canada therefore remained the only source of funding for the CFY. There was no operating budget as such established before the decision was taken to discontinue the activities of the Canada Film Year; however, in September 1988, Telefilm Canada committed $2.5 million over three years to the CFY initiative. The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television was selected as the body which would administer
Order Paper Questions
CFY funds, which were committed by Telefilm according
to the following schedule:	
1988/89	$350,000
1989/90	$1,400,000
1990/91	$750,000
Total	$2,500,000
2.	On December 19, 1988 the Board allocated $244,200 for the celebrations of various organizations having anniversaries in 1989. These events were to constitute the launch of CFY. Consequently, la Cinematheque quebecoise received $64,200 for four projects (La Nouvelle Vague, touring of the Unknown McLaren and translation and updating of "The Shape of Rage"); the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television received $100,000 for "Spotlights" television and radio spots; the National Film Board received $50,000 to assist in touring the seminar entitled "Tribute to the Documentary" and the Banff Television Festival received $30,000 for a tribute to the best of the Banff Festival and the best of the NFB to be shown in local Banff theatres.
These funds were to be disbursed on a set schedule. The initial contribution of 20 per cent of these commitments was provided through the funding allocated to the Academy by Telefilm Canada. Telefilm Canada has agreed to honour the commitments made to the organizations celebrating their anniversaries in 1989.
3.	The Board of Directors of Canada Film Year consists of the following industry representatives:
Louise Baillargeon (Association des producteurs de films et de video du Quebec)
Joseph Beaubien (J.F.B. Productions)
Aimee Danis (Les Productions du verseau)
Garth Drabinsky (Cineplex Odeon)
Hannah Fisher (Film Consultant)
Roger Frappier (Max Films)
Harold Greenberg (Astral Bellevue Pathe)
Sam Jephcott (Canadian Film and Television Assoation) Norman Jewison (Yorkton Productions)
Frank Kettner (Motion Picture Association of Canada) Stephane Leclerc (La Cinematheque quebecoise) Serge Losique (Festival des films du monde)
Danny Weinsweig (National Association of Canada Distributors)
Jacques Matte (Festival du cinema international) Peter Mortimer (Association of Canadian Film and Television Producers)
David Patterson (Cineplex Odeon)
Ken Pittman (Red Ochre Productions)

June 27, 1989
Order Paper Questions
Stephen Roth (Cinexus)
Walter Senior (Famous Players)
Allan Stein (Stein/MacLean Productions)
Helga Stephenson (Festival of Festivals)
There was one vacancy on the Board as a result of the resignation of Peter Simpson. Rene Malo also resigned, but was replaced by Danny Weinsweig.
4.	In light of Telefilm's mandate with regard to the funding of the Film Year, the Corporation was responsible for the expenses associated with the developmental phase of the CFY. Telefilm therefore paid $87,230 on behalf of the Film Year initiative for expenses incurred prior to the formation of the organizing committee.
Subsequent to the selection of the Academy of Cinema and Television as the agency responsible for the administration of the Year, Telefilm Canada provided the Academy the following sums:
1988	$123,053
1989	$824,356
Total	$947,409
Of this amount, $600,000 has been returned to Telefilm, $176,448 was disbursed on the above-mentioned project launches, administration, travel, equipment costs, office expenses, etc. The Academy will shortly be returning the bulk of the outstanding funds to Telefilm, aside from a small portion which will be held back for winding-down costs. The physical assets (office equipment) of the Film Year will be purchased by the Academy.


Mr. St-Julien: From November 25, 1988 to December 15, 1988, did the Canadian National Railway Company, as a result of landslides on the St-Maurice subdivision, route ore-carrying cars or freight cars from the Chapais and Faribault subdivisions via Ontario Northland to the towns of Rouyn-Noranda, Val d'Or, Senneterre, Barraute, Lebel-sur-Quevillon and Matagami and, if so, what was the (a) distance covered by these trains to reach Abitibi-Temiscamingue (b) number of trains sent to Abitibi-Temiscamingue during the interruption of service on the St-Maurice subdivision (c) number of cars in these trains carrying hazardous materials (d) number of days required to effect such transportation?


Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of Transport):: The
Canadian National Railway Company advises as follows:
During the landslides, when traffic was interrupted on the St-Maurice subdivision for 8 days, no traffic originating from the Chapais and Faribault subdivision was diverted via Ontario Northland (ONR).


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: 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 Question Nos. 28, 69, 70, 71 and 82? We would be prepared to table the responses to those. Due to the number of Starred Questions being answered, I ask that they be printed in Hansard as if read.


Mr. Keyes: Was a video tape made in honour of the Prime Minister's fiftieth birthday and, if so (a) was the cost $6,000 or more (including directing and editing) (b) was the cost borne by (i) the Prime Minister's Office (ii) the Privy Council Office (iii) the public purse, through any other department or agency (iv) private persons or organizations and, if so, will the Prime Minister make public their name or names?


Mr. Len Gustafson (Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister):: Yes, a video tape was made in honour of the Prime Minister's fiftieth birthday.
a)	No
b)	i) No ii) No iii) No iv) The cost was borne by the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.


Mr. Kilgour: Is the government aware of reasons which led to the re-opening in 1964 of the investigation of Ambassador Egerton Herbert Norman, after the House had been assured in the spring of 1957 that his loyalty to Canada was not open to question and, if so, is the government prepared to table the pertinent documents and, if so, on what date?
June 27, 1989


Pierre Blais: The Government wishes neither to confirm nor deny the facts or allegations mentioned in this Question based on the established tradition adhered to by all Governments, not to comment directly on the details of specific security matters and consistent with provisions of section 13.1,
15.1,	16.1(c) and 19 of the Access to Information Act.


[Stage Direction]
*
Mr. Kilgour: 1.	During World War II did the government sanction any contacts made by Ambassador Egerton Herbert Norman in Ibkyo with the Soviet spy, Victor Sorge?
2.	Did Norman report to the government (a) these contacts with Sorge (b) contacts with the Soviet spy Kim Philby in Egypt in 1957 and, if so, is the government prepared to table the pertinent documents and, if so, on what date?
Hon. Pierre Blais (Solicitor General of Canada and Minister of State (Agriculture))^/? 1 and 2\
The Government wishes neither to confirm nor deny the facts or allegations mentioned in this Question based on the established tradition adhered to by all Governments, not to comment directly on the details of specific security matters and consistent with provisions of section
13.1,	15.1, 16.1(c) and 19 of the Access to Information Act.


[Stage Direction]
*
Mr. Kilgour: Does the government have in its possession copies of the transcripts of Elizabeth Bentley's testimony of August 14, 1951 before the United States Congress together with covering material from the United States government, internal government responses to transmittals and government responses to the United States government and, if so, is the government prepared to table them and, if so, on what date?


Pierre Blais: No.


[Stage Direction]
*
Mr. Jordan: 1. Is there a figure which triggers international bidding on government supply contracts and, if so (a) what is it (b) how is it determined?
Motions for Papers
2. Under the Free Trade Agreement, at whose intervention and at
what interval is the figure re-negotiated?


Hon. John C. Crosbie (Minister for International Trade):: International Bidding on Government Supply Contracts
1.	Contracts for purchases of goods by Canadian Government departments and agencies which are covered by the GATT Agreement on Government Procurement (usually referred to as the "Code") are open to competition among signatories of the Code where the value of the contract is $213,000 or more. The threshold for coverage is the result of agreement among the Code signatories and may only be adjusted by renegotiation pursuant to Article IX.6.
2.	Contracts for purchases of goods by the same departments and agencies covered by the GATT Code are also covered by the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA). The FTA threshold is $31,000. Contracts for eligible goods worth more than this amount and less than $213,000 are covered by the FTA. There is no provision in the FTA specifically requiring renegotiation of the threshold. Further bilateral negotiations on the FTA procurement provisions in general are, however, called for in Article 1307, but these will not take place until the completion of the current GATT round of multilateral trade negotiations.


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


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Shall the remaining questions be allowed to stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Albert Glen Cooper: There have been discussions amongst the Parties, Mr. Speaker, and I think you will find consent for the calling of Notices of Motions for the Production of Papers.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, would you be so kind as to call Notices of Motions for the Production of Papers, P-6, P-7 and P-8 in the name of the Hon. Member for Edmonton Southeast (Mr. Kilgour), and

June 27, 1989
Motions for Papers
Nos. P-10 and P-11 in the name of the Hon. Member for Burnaby-Kingsway (Mr. Robinson).
Motion No. P-6
That an humble Address be presented to Her Excellency praying that she will cause to be laid before this House copies of Herbert Norman's correspondence relating to contacts or meetings with the Soviet spy Richard Sorge in Japan in 1940 and 1941 and of Herbert Norman's correspondence relating to contacts or meetings with the Soviet spy Kim Philby in Egypt in 1957.
Motion No. P-7
That an humble Address be presented to Her Excellency praying that she will cause to be laid before this House copies of the transcripts of Elizabeth Bentley's testimony of August 14, 1951 before the United States Congress together with covering material from the United States government, internal government responses to transmittals and government responses to the United States government.
Motion No. P-8
That an humble Address be presented to Her Excellency praying that she will cause to be laid before this House copies of the government's files on the nature of the relationship between Herbert Norman and any of the state security organizations of the Soviet Union or any other Warsaw Pact member.
Motion No. P-10
That an Humble Address be presented to Her Excellency praying that she will cause to be laid before this House copies of all proposals considered at the Vienna Follow-Up Meeting of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe from August 1, 1987 to January 19, 1989.
Motion No. P-11
That an Humble Address be presented to Her Excellency praying that she will cause to be laid before this House copies of ail documents and proposals considered at the London Information Forum, the first full meeting held as a follow-up to the Vienna Meeting of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, from April 18 to May 12, 1989 in London, England.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, with regard to Motions P-6, P-7 and P-8, the motions proposed by the Hon. Member are unacceptable for the following reasons: First, the three motions made by the Hon. Member relate primarily to the security of Canada which is the responsibility of the Solicitor General whose reply on the Herbert Norman case is provided in response to Question Nos *69, *70, *71 and *72 answered this day.
Second, the Government's position on the Norman case was provided in response to a question during proceedings on adjournment motion on May 28, 1987.
Third, as indicated by the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark) on the matter on April 10, 1987, Herbert Norman was employed by the Department of External Affairs and all information that is permitted under the privacy and freedom of information legislation has been made available. Fourth, External Affairs departmental officials have in the past month re-examined the material reviewed under Access to Information requests received to date. There is no evidence to indicate that Herbert Norman was an intelligence agent of the Soviet Union or any other foreign power.
Fifth, in addition, departmental officials have been instructed to re-affirm that all of the department's documents on Herbert Norman have in fact been collected and reviewed, in other words, to re-affirm that relevant material is not lying unfound on some file in the Archives.
Sixth and finally, this re-examination of the Department's files will be for the entire period of Norman's service with the Department. It is a major undertaking in terms of resources and will take some time. It is hoped that this effort will ensure that history is provided with all possible documents related to Norman's services with the Department.
I would therefore ask the Member to withdraw his motion.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I have a little difficulty with P-6, P-7 and P-8 because the Hon. Member is not in the Chamber. If one of his colleagues would like to transfer them for debate we could do that.


Albert Glen Cooper: Can I do that, Mr. Speaker?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Yes.


Albert Glen Cooper: Then I ask that they be transferred for debate.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: P-6, P-7 and P-8
transferred for debate.
The Hon. Member for Burnaby Kingsway also was not in the Chamber.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to report the answers to the House and then maybe one of the Members of the New Democratic Party may wish to respond.
June 27, 1989

This answer applies to the remaining questions, P-10 and P-11. The motion proposed by the Hon. Member is unacceptable for the following reasons: One, the CSCE is an inter-governmental process which always operates under the procedural rules of consensus. Two, lacking a formal consensus on the part of all 35 CSCE countries to do so, the Canadian Government is not in a position to release the formal proposals submitted at meetings such as the London Information Forum. I would therefore ask the Member to withdraw his motion.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: We have the same problem here. Would one of his colleagues like to transfer them for debate? The Hon. Member for Kamloops (Mr. Riis), transferred for debate?


Nelson Andrew Riis: Yes.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: P-10 and P-11 transferred for debate.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I would ask that other Notices of Motions for the Production of Papers be allowed to stand.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Shall the remaining Notices of Motions stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Shall the remaining questions stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



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 Drummond (Mr. Guilbault)-Royal Canadian Mounted Police-War against drugs; the Hon. Member for Surrey North (Mr. Karpoff)-Housing-Personal housing costs-Minister's position; the Hon. Member for the Battlefords-Meadow Lake ((Mr. Thylor)-Canada Post Corporation-remarks of constituent-Minister's	position/public
relations activities.
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GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Robert René de Cotret: That Supplementary Estimates (A) for the fiscal year ending March
31,1990, laid upon the Table Thursday, June 15,1989, be concurred
in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Mr. de Cotret thereupon moved that Bill C-35, for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Government of Canada for the financial year ending March 31, 1990 be read the first time and printed.
Motion agreed to and Bill read the first time and printed.
Mr. de Cotret thereupon moved that Bill C-35, for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Government of Canada for the financial year ending March 31,1990, be read the second time and referred to Committee of the Whole.
Hon. Charles Mayer (Minister of Western Economic Diversification and Minister of State (Grains and Oilseeds)):: Mr. Speaker, I have a few brief words on second reading. I would like to respond to some of the questions that have been given to us by Members of the New Democratic Party.
First, people will be aware that some very serious problems have been suffered by the grain business in the last three years. Problems in the first two years were as a result of some pretty drastic falls in grain prices internationally and the Government was in a position to respond with payments based on price. In the 1988 growing season, we suffered some pretty severe weather problems. If you look at the records, the weather during 1988 for parts of the Prairies was as bad or worse than some of the worst years during the 1930s. As a result, there was a very poor crop. If you look at where there were some crops in the Prairies such as the northern part of the Prairies and parts of Ontario and Quebec, they had, in some cases, average crops. So when you see the

June 27, 1989
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fall in production, you can realize that there were people that had very little if any crop.
The Government responded by putting in place a drought program based on two criteria: that the money be targeted and directed at the areas that had suffered the most. As I said, there were areas in the Prairies that actually had an average or even a little above average crop.
Second, that it be crop specific, and we did that. The result is what we see here today. I should also point out that this is the third part of the Government's response to the drought situation of 1988. We responded with a water program to assist the livestock producers in the spring of 1988. Second, we responded almost a year ago with a program to assist and encourage producers to produce feed for livestock. Third, we responded with the this drought program that we are here putting the appropriations through for today.
All along we maintained consultations with the producers themselves. We also maintained good consultations with the provinces. We believe very strongly that this type of program, as it has been in the past, needs to be a cost-sharing program. We have worked with the provinces in both developing the program through their crop insurance corporations and we are presently working with them to work out a satisfactory arrangement as far as the cost-sharing is concerned.
We need to mention the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson). He has been very good to Canadian agriculture in some very difficult times. The President of the Treasury Board (Mr. de Cotret) is here, and the Treasury Board has been very good in terms of arranging for cashflow. We are not able to respond to these types of situations as a Government without the co-operation of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) and the President of the Treasury Board. We want to say publicly that we appreciate the kind of support that we have had. I
I have some questions that have been given to me by some of the Members opposite. I believe it is appropriate at this time if I refer to them. The Hon. Member for Prince Albert-Churchill River (Mr. Funk) I notice is in the House. He is concerned that the rules require that an appeal may only be launched by a rural municipality or township on behalf of all landholders within the
township. He wants to know why we cannot do this on an individual basis.
There are two reasons for that. First, the recommendation that we receive from producers or producer organizations such as the Western Wheat Growers, the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, the Ontario Corn-Growers Association, plus the provincial Governments all recommended that we do not run the program on an individual basis, that we run it on an average area basis. The reason for this is quite simple. There is no question that weather was the major problem, but within any region you are going to get variations in the yield based on the amount of fertilizer and the amount of chemical an individual farmer would use. If we went with individual coverage or individual targeting, then you are not giving anyone any credit for the type of management practices that they use themselves. Whereas if you go with an average for an area, you at least take some of those considerations partly into consequence.
Second, while it would be possible to do it on an individual basis, the Member is absolutely correct, administratively it would make it much more cumbersome and it would see the program delayed. Therefore for those two reasons, it was the recommendation of the individual farm groups and the farmers themselves that we use an average area for the reasons outlined, and second, if you look at the administration of it, then you can see that with the number of producers involved that it would lead to some pretty lengthy appeal processes.
I should say something about the appeal process. We are calling them review committees. We have them set up in each of the four provinces. Quebec is being handled a little differently. Of the five provinces, Quebec's money is being channelled through their Crop Insurance Corporation. But there are review committees set up now in the three western provinces and in Ontario to look at the data to see how it looks and how the individual review committees relate the data that we have collected from the Crop Insurance Corporation. Therefore that essentially is the reason. We did consider it and found, for practical reasons, that it would be difficult.
Second, looking at the principles behind it, decided that it would be better to go on an area basis. I should say the area now is a township, not a municipality. So it is a relatively small area. We feel very strongly that once the
June 27, 1989

overall data is in that most of the producers' concerns over the initial maps will be addressed in the final data.
The second question I have is from the Member for Mackenzie (Mr. Althouse) who is concerned, to read at least part of the question, that, "Saskatchewan is the largest recipient of drought aid with more than one-half of the moneys going to the province. Saskatchewan has crop insurance data showing average long-term yield for each quarter section. Why did the Government not take advantage of this existing data to speed the delivery of the drought program?" He goes on to say, "The New Democrats propose such a solution whereby crop insurance holders would have received their extra payment immediately leaving only uninsured producers to apply for assistance. Why that?"
I believe I answered the first part of that question in reply to the Hon. Member for Prince Albert-Churchill River. While it would have been possible, that was not the recommendation of the farmers and the provincial Governments for practical reasons.
As far as the second part of the question, it is a judgment call. It probably would have been easier to make payments to just the people who had crop insurance, but effectively you would be penalizing people who did not have crop insurance. You will find that the person who had crop insurance would get the drought payment; whereas the person who did not have crop insurance would not be eligible for either of them until later on.
Therefore we decided on that basis that we would try to treat everybody the same and make all the payments at the same time.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: And let everybody wait.


Charles James Mayer: The Hon. Member says that you make everybody wait. That may in fact be true, but if you are going to start splitting up the payments, some people get them sooner and some people get them later on. You will find that the overall process is delayed. When you see what is happening-I think I am relatively accurate in these numbers-only about 30 per cent of producers in Ontario are covered by crop insurance. Whereas if you go to Saskatchewan it is 70 per cent.
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Therefore you are going to find some very big discrepancies across the country on the number of producers that would have received payment. So we decided that this program, while it is based on crop insurance numbers and data that we received from crop insurance, that we would use that data to develop the program so that everybody got treated the same in terms of when the payment was made and in terms of the amount of money that was paid.
The third question I have is from the Hon. Member for Moose Jaw-Lake Centre (Mr. Laporte). "The announcement on November 10 was based on a $45 an acre payment being received in the case of wheat. Will that still be a realistic expectation for grain producers? How many farmers will be receiving the maximum amount?" How many farmers will be receiving the maximum amount? At the time we announced that the program that for producers-and this was a prairie number the Ontario number may be different than that-for those on the Prairies in a high yield area such as south of Winnipeg, the Red River Valley or in the Regina Plains or Rosetown, Kindersley that consistently have yeilds and high crop insurance coverage with a total loss of crop will have a payment in the area of $40 to $45 a tonne. That was an estimate, and that estimate still stands.
In response to how many farmers would be receiving the maximum amount, we will not know that until we have everybody's applications and are able to add up to see how many people have that maximum amount, whatever it is. But the estimate still stand, but it stands for people who have been in the highest yielding areas which have received little or no moisture have experienced high temperatures and therefore basically suffered a total loss of crop.
The fourth question I have is again from the Hon. Member from Prince Albert-Churchill River (Mr. Funk). The Special Canadian Grains Program's computer system produced an overpayment situation for many producers. Will this overpayment be deducted from the drought cheques and what about overpayments from the Western Grain Stabilization Program?
The answer to the first question is yes, we will be deducting any overpayments made under the Special Canadian Grains Program. From this program we will not be deducting from Grain Stabilization. I forget the number precisely but when you look at the amount of money that has been repaid under the Special Canadian Grains, I think we are down now to about two-tenths of 1 per cent of the number of producers who are still in an

June 27, 1989
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overpayment position. It is a very small number, but that amount on the Special Grains will be deducted.
In terms of Western Grain Stabilization, we do not have the ability to cross-reference. It would be a very difficult job to do in terms of deducting an overpayment. The decision was made not to do it.
While there was an overpayment made as a result of the 1987-88 Western Grain Stabilization Act payment, it amounts I think to less than a quarter of 1 per cent of all of the money the program has paid out in the last four years. Of the amount of money that was overpaid, over half has been sent back by farmers and 52 per cent of the money has been received and 58 per cent of the farmers have returned their money. So it is over half in both cases. We are deducting the overpayment under Special Canadian Grains. We are not deducting the overpayment under Western Grain Stabilization.
The fifth question from the Hon. Member for Moose Jaw-Lake Centre (Mr. Laporte) is what federal-provincial arrangements have been made to fund future drought disaster programs? For example, we know that Quebec will be applying its drought money to crop insurance to lower producers' premiums. What arrangements are being made with each of the other provinces? The Member is correct, Quebec is using its share of the drought assistance to reduce the premiums in its crop insurance over the next three years. That is the choice the Quebec Government made. It was supported by UPA and that is how the matter is being handled in Quebec.
Second, we are working with the provinces as far as improving crop insurance, to come up with a better crop insurance program. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Mazankowski) has indicated that he is prepared to open the Act to amend crop insurance so that we have more options. Producers ask us if we would like to go from, for instance, 80 per cent to 90 per cent coverage. We respond that there is going to be a considerable increase in premium. The producers say "fine, give us the option". We cannot do that unless we open the Act. We
are going through consultations with the provinces now and for almost a year we have had discussions on the over-all safety net system in this country as far as grain is concerned. We have had quite good discussions with the industry and the provinces and that process is under way. While we do not have anything specific, these kinds of things take time. We are in the process as far as making crop insurance more responsive. Hopefully if we get into a situation like this again we will be in a better position to use crop insurance as a vehicle with more producers involved.
It is pretty tough in a province like Ontario to use crop insurance as a drought delivery program when-I think I am right-certainly less than half of the producers in the province take out crop insurance. If we can get a better crop insurance program with more producers enrolled we will be in a better position to use crop insurance in the future. I think that is the aim of of provincial Governments, producers and the federal Government to have these programs more predictable.
Farmers tell us, I think it is a good observation, that given the same amount of money, if we know about it ahead of time, can plan a budget that same amount of money will be more useful in our budgeting process than the same amount of money on an ad hoc basis without knowing far enough ahead exactly what it is. That is the direction in which we want to go and I believe everybody agrees with that.
The next question I have is from the Hon. Member for Mackenzie (Mr. Althouse). Will the Minister assure farmers that there will be no requirement for part of the drought payment to be used to finance insurance for future years as was the case with livestock. I am not so sure that the premise of the question is correct, Mr. Speaker. There was a requirement that if you are to be eligible for the second half of the livestock feed part of the drought assistance you have to join crop insurance. That was just for one year. I understand what the Member is saying. There was a requirement under the livestock assistance side, the feed security side, of the
June 27, 1989

drought program for producers to enrol. But there is no such requirement on the grains side of this drought payment. There is nothing there.
As far as asking people to sign up for one year, it does not obligate producers to do anything more than join for the present year which is the 1989 growing season or the 1989-90 crop year.
The last question I have is from the Hon. Member for Saskatoon-Humboldt (Mr. Hovdebo). Provincial agriculture Ministers say that they were not consulted prior to the announcement of the drought program. They have since stated clearly that they believe this was a federal program. Why did the Government place this expenditure before the House as two separate estimates when one would have sufficed? Actually the Member has two questions.
First, this has been an ongoing program with the provinces. We wrote to the provinces in the early part of October indicating that we expected the drought program we were developing to be cost-shared. We expected to have co-operation from the provinces in developing it. We have had good co-operation and we are still working with the provinces in terms of cost-sharing. I believe we will be able to reach an agreement that is fair for all of us.
We said again on November 10 when we announced the program-just with regard to that-that "consultations are under way with the provinces regarding program design and cost-sharing". We have said right from the beginning that this is the third stage of the over-all response by the Government to this situation.
I mention the water program, the feed assistance program and drought assistance program as far as grain is concerned. We have said from the beginning and say again that this is a cost-shared program. We believe we will reach an agreement with the provinces to share those costs.
Why did the Government place this expenditure before the House as two separate estimates when one would have sufficed? It is a choice by people at Treasury Board that this was the proper way to proceed. The original estimate of money was there in order that we could cash flow the amount of money we estimated under the initial payment. It comes to a little more than $850 million if you do the arithmetic. There is some money in there for two-price wheat and a couple of other programs. This is the way the Government cash manages. It in no way changes anything from the
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announcement we made back on November 10 or anything we have said heretofore as far as this program is concerned. This Bill does not in any way indicate that the federal Government does not expect the provinces to contribute. It simply means that the federal Government is putting the money in place so that the program can pay the full amount of money. We expect cheques to begin going in the mail at the end of July so the full amount of money can flow depending on whatever financial arrangements we can make with the provinces on how they will participate.
That responds to the questions, Mr. Speaker. I will just leave a little bit more information in terms of estimates. We estimate that somewhere between $20 million and $30 million will be going to the Province of Quebec; $171 million to the Province of Manitoba; $417 million to the Province of Saskatchewan; about $150 million to the Province of Ontario and about $80 million to Alberta. That total will come, I think, fairly close to $850 million.
The initial payment which we made, we estimated that it would have been $260 million to $280 million, or even up to $300 million. We got out $218 million, for a couple of reasons. The people who applied had smaller acreages than we originally anticipated. For some reason, we still estimate that there are about 4,000 producers out there who would have been eligible had they sent in their application forms. There were less people who applied than we would have thought, based on our maps and based on the amount of applications which were sent out as a result of the phone calls and the requests for applications. There was more money available to be sent out, if producers had sent in their applications forms.
The process is well under way. We have had good co-operation with the municipalities and the district agricultural offices, the AGREP offices. We will be using them in terms of how the review process is going to work. I believe very strongly that when this program is all over, it is going to be seen to have been a very good program. We will have been able to accomplish the two objectives which we have stated, and that is to target the amount of assistance directly at producers who suffered the biggest loss.
Second, we will be doing it on the basis of being crop-specific so that we do not pay a person the same for a bushel or for an acre of oats as we do for an acre of com in Ontario, or for an acre of canola, as we do for an acre of some of the horticultural crops in Ontario.

June 27, 1989
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I am pleased to be here this afternoon putting this appropriations Bill through so that the money is there in order that we can meet the timeframe and the targets which we set out in this program so that producers will be in a position to receive their share of this program when the cheques start to go in the mail at the end of July.


Ralph Ferguson: Mr. Speaker, I am relieved to be on my feet today speaking on this Bill and speaking in support of it. The rural community across Canada was very, very disappointed, needless to say, when the Estimates were tabled in the House of Commons a couple of months ago. We were relieved that this money will be finally coming out to them. Even though it willbe the end of July, we are sure it will be much appreciated.
I had the opportunity to be in Saskatoon yesterday and I was looking at the crops and was very much relieved that they appear in very good shape. They have had adequate rainfall this year. I was talking to many people from across the three Prairie provinces and they are very optimistic as far as their crop prospects are concerned.
In terms of Ontario, we too have excellent crop prospects this year, unlike last year when we suffered very severe drought. We will have an excellent crop of wheat, hay, corn, soya beans.
I want to draw this point to the Minister's attention, that in Kent and Essex Counties, which are not in my constituency, they have had so much rain that they have not been able to get their crops planted this year.
I hope that the Minister will remember the precedent that the previous administration set back in 1984 when a similar situation prevailed in northeastern Saskatchewan. We actually had a drought across the southern part of the Prairie provinces. Yet, northeastern Saskatchewan had a severe weather problem and excess rain. They were not able to get their crops planted. Because of that fact alone, they could not plant their crops, and they did not qualify for crop insurance. I
I hope that the Minister will keep an open mind on the situation in southwestern Ontario for these people who have not been able to plant their crops and consequently do not qualify for crop insurance. If they need help later
in the summer, will the Government consider this and give them whatever help they can.
I want to also point out that I appreciated my colleagues here in the House of Commons on this side of the House keeping us abreast of what is happening in terms of the areas that are missed. We all know that rain does not start or stop at a township line or a county line, but it goes across one boundary into the next.
I want to thank my colleagues here for keeping us abreast of what is happening in the various areas, as well as the producers themselves. In my particular constituency of Lambton-Middlesex, we had a tremendous response when I asked them if they would more closely identify those areas that are left out and did not show up on the original maps.
Part of the reason for this is perhaps that if a couple of concessions in a township had adequate rainfall, and in some cases they did, and had reasonably good crops, and the rest of the township was severely affected by the drought, the average of the total township would not bean adequate indication of some of the hardships being faced by those farmers.
There were several who assisted us in this, members of the Federation of Agriculture, both in Lambton and Middlesex counties and people in the Soya Bean Growers Marketing Board. They went up and down the concessions and took statements from all of the farmers to identify those areas that were most severely affected and that were not included in the maps.
I refer here in particular to Metcalfe township, Mosa township and part of Ekford. Also, in the northern end of the Middlesex County, we had part of Adelaide and West Williams.
Going across into Lambton, as strange as it may seem, we had a terrific rain there on July 16 last year. We had between nine inches and ten inches in a matter of couple of hours. That was even more devastating than the drought because it came in such a hurry and created flash floods that packed the ground to the extent that the crops never did recover, because it turned very, very dry for the rest of the summer. I have to pay a special tribute to Ron Huctwith and the people in the central and Warwicktownship for gathering together the information on this particular instance, who were able to make a
June 27, 1989

submission to the Associate Deputy Minister who is in charge of this program.
Then of course, over in the boundary line between Sarnia-Lambton and Lambton-Middlesex and the boundary line of MooreTownship and Enniskillen Township, my colleague for Sarnia-Lambton (Mr. James) and I both put forward information as to the area that was missed in that particular area adjacent to Sombra Township that qualified for both com and soya beans. Yet, right across the town lines they were left out because of the process which was used.
I hope that these areas will be looked at, whether it is by the review committee or by the Minister when the time comes, to make sure that those farmers were not disqualified from this program.
I am also pleased that the assistance is going out to something like 130,000 producers across Canada. Assistance is going out at a time when they have a lot of crop input costs to pay for. It will be prior to the harvest of western Canada but during the wheat harvest in southwestern Ontario.
I hope that from the lessons learned in the administration of this one that we will be able to cope with such an emergency better in the future. I realize that there is a tremendous backlog of people who did not get application forms, and they are very worried, but I have to give credit to the Associate Deputy Minister for trying to put together a program which will meet the needs of those most severely affected.
I do not want to hold up the passage of this Bill. We on this side certainly support it. We want to get this money out in the hands of the farmers as quickly as possible. With those few comments, we will certainly be supporting the Bill on this side of the House.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on this Bill to provide approximately $850 million for the drought assistance program. You will remember, Mr. Speaker, that it was during the election that this program was announced. There was a whole summer when we sat looking at the prospect of drought. My colleagues and I spent the summer preparing a drought program which we introduced in early September or late August, whereby we proposed a method of payment and the kind of program which could be used to provide some
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relief for farmers right across the country who were suffering from the drought.
As farmers in Saskatchewan certainly recall, though the program was not as well discussed in the other provinces, the program would have cost something in the neighbourhood of $1.4 billion. In provinces where average crop insurance coverage is 70 per cent, as in the case of Saskatchewan, there would have been a top-up of an additional 30 per cent under this program, and that 30 per cent of average yield would have been provided whether the farmer had crop insurance or not. Those who had crop insurance, because they would have already been inspected and received cheques, would simply have the crop insurance agency in the province issue the additional 30 per cent and their cases would have been completed.
We recognized that that program would have paid crop insurance holders more rapidly than those who had not taken the precaution of having crop insurance, but we justified that by saying that it was in the best interests of all farmers in Canada to participate in crop insurance and we should not provide the kind of program that would discourage people from participating in crop insurance. Paying early, as soon as possible after the crop insurance inspection was completed, we submitted, would have encouraged participation in crop insurance programs.
At the moment, in Saskatchewan somewhere between 70 and 75 per cent participate in crop insurance. Saskatchewan was also the province that had suffered the most damage. Over half of the money in the program would have gone to Saskatchewan so half or little better than half of the administrative problems would have been solved by adopting that program. It would have paid out on a fairer and more equitable basis. In the event that most of a township save a few sections in one comer got rain, that producer in the comer that did not get rain would not be left without coverage, though the program the Government eventually proposed did leave him without coverage.
The election campaign proceeded. After it had been going on for about five or six weeks, I suspect the Government conducted a poll and found it was having some difficulty with its lack of a policy for drought relief. On November 10, about two weeks before the election date, the Government came out with an announcement of approximately $850 million for the program we are debating today. Government Members attempted to sell the program by saying that it was a Government program that had been well thought out, there had been consultations and that the Government had been working on this

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well thought out move for many years. Many farmers thought that they were finally seeing results from the promises made by the then Minister of Agriculture who said in December 1985 that a disaster program was being planned by his Department so that farmers would not have go through the uncertainty they went through in the previous year of drought.
As the program unfolded, it became very obvious that the Government had not taken precautions and that the bureaucracy was not ready to handle the program as announced. At that time, there was absolutely no data on township average yields or township actual yields on which the program was to be based. The bureaucracy had to commence from scratch to put together a program.
To make the situation worse, expectations were built up very high by government Members who, during the election campaign, said that this was a firm commitment on the part of the Government and that the program could be implemented very quickly. Post-election, the new Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Mazankowski) indicated that cheques would be in the mail. At one point he said that they would be in the mail before Christmas and then he changed that by saying that the applications would be in the mail before Christmas. In fact, we all know that most producers did not receive their applications until well into March. This reinforces my contention that the Government did not do any planning for this program and was not prepared for it. It pulled it out of thin air on the basis of a poll which showed that it would lose certain rural seats on the prairies unless it came up with some sort of a drought program.
That is now water under the bridge. The Government has indicated that it has not managed the program well and that it is incapable of managing such a program. It has not answered questions about the delays in the program to any satisfaction. The civil servants who have been given the task of carrying out the program are now defending themselves by saying that the cheques will be in the mail about the same time as the Special Grains Program payment cheques were in the mail last year, and that therefore the program can be deemed to be a success. We will see. That was not the promise made by the Minister of Agriculture and members of the Government during the election campaign and after the election. They were leaving the impression that payments would be made very quickly.
Government Members also left the clear impression that there was full co-operation with the provinces. That impression began to fall apart very quickly. As recently as March, the Premier of the Province of Saskatchewan who is also the Minister of Agriculture told the legislature in Regina that this was a federal program and the provinces had made no commitment to participate. The question had arisen, of course, because the estimates had been tabled with only half of the money listed in the first draft. Gradually the Government began to admit tacitly that there had been no result from discussions with the provinces that would yield any money, so it introduced as Supplementary Estimates the balance of the funds. Now we have returned to the House for approval from the Agriculture Committee for this amount of money which, in the words of the Minister, is to cover the special drought payments as well as something for two-price wheat and some other programs on which he did not elaborate but about which we expect we will find out more when we go into Committee of the Whole.
In the interests of getting this legislation through the House, even though it provides much less than we thought was necessary to deal with the problem adequately, I suggest that the House now go to Committee of the Whole.


Lyle Vanclief: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support this Bill, but I have a few comments I would like to make. Having said that I support the Bill, I would also like to say that I am somewhat critical of the Bill and the way it was handled by the Government.
I understand that the intent of the Government is to fine tune this Bill so that it applies to townships rather than to counties or districts. The Government should have faced the reality of the situation and realized how difficult this type of fine tuning was to handle. If it had been handled in the manner in which similar types of assistance programs were handled in the past, farmers would have received their money by now and could have been using it. The money that will go to the producers because of the poor crops last year is money needed by those producers to assist in their cash flow for this year and the purchase of seed. Unfortunately, even with the
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best efforts of Agriculture Canada and the Minister's office, they are not going to receive that money as quickly as all of us would have liked.
As mentioned by other Hon. Members, the fine tuning of this Bill has caused a discrepancy between farmers on opposite sides of the same concession roads that happen to be in a different township. The crop insurance figures from townships that are being used basically to calculate who gets what are showing discrepancies.
When bringing this Bill into the House today to grant extra funds, the Minister made the comment that this was an ongoing program. However, he must realize that that is not the accepted explanation in that this announcement, as he said, was interestingly made 11 days before the election last fall. The announcement was that the program would be cost shared on a 50-50 basis with the provinces. More than one province has denied that that consultation process took place. I feel that that should have taken place, and some of those other problems would not have happened.
The Minister also made the comment that there are approximately 4,000 producers who would be eligible if they had sent in an application. The Minister may recall some questions that we asked in the House, and also to some of the members of the ministry and the staff. In Ontario in particular, many, many producers did not receive their form until the deadline was past. I put out two press releases in my riding encouraging producers to make sure they put their application in, and that the Minister has stated that he will honour those. I respect and appreciate that fact. However, there were producers who received the application, looked at the date on the application which they sometimes received weeks after the deadline, did not notice the press release, and there was nothing on the application stating that even though the application was received late, it should be still sent in, and now another deadline has past.
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We worked hard to advise the producers. That money is needed by the farmers, it is owed to the farmers, and they deserve it. We worked hard, but there were producers who decided that it is too late and there is no use sending in the application, so I lost on that one.
I support the Bill. I am sure in hindsight that the Minister and his staff will look at how this was handled. The phone lines were busy and it was difficult. However, I will not hold up the debate in discussion any longer in order that we can pass this Bill and the farmers can receive their money.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Treasury Board on a short comment.


Mr. Crosby:: By way of a point of order, Mr. Speaker, before we move to Committee of the Whole House and following second reading, I simply wanted to state that officials may be available, but the Minister of Western Economic Diversification and Minister of State (Grains and Oilseeds) (Mr. Mayer) is present to answer questions, and I do not believe it is necessary to have the officials.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the second time and the House went into Committee thereon, Mr. Paproski in the chair.
Steve Eugene Paproski: Order. House in Committee of the Whole on Bill C-35, an Act for granting Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Government of Canada for the financial year ending March 31, 1990.
On Clause 2-


Robert (Bob) Speller: I have a question, and I am not sure if it relates to Clause 2. Clause 2 mentions moneys being drawn out. I wonder if the Minister is aware of the situation in the riding of Haldimand-Norfolk where many farmers in my area have been flooded out. Most of those people have not been able to get their crops in. I wonder if any of these moneys, or if other moneys are available, to help those farmers out of this tough situation. The Minister may be aware that many of those same farmers suffered a drought last year. This year they

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are facing a situation of not even being able to get on the land. Are any of these funds available, or any future funds available to help out those farmers in Haldi-mand-Norfolk?


Charles James Mayer: The Hon. Member for Lambton-Middlesex (Mr. Ferguson) raised that issue when he spoke. I certainly take the observation. However, this program is designed for drought assistance. There is no provision in this Bill to assist producers who may now be facing some equally serious problems as far as flooding is concerned.
I stand to be corrected, but I believe that for producers who have decided to take out crop insurance there is a provision in the crop insurance for them to be compensated if they are unable to seed for flooding reasons, or for whatever other reasons. There is some compensation available for producers. I know that that is the case on the prairies. I assume that the same applies in Ontario for producers in the riding of the Hon. Member. There should be compensation if they have in fact taken out crop insurance for the present year.


Lyle Vanclief: I have had discussions with the Minister in the past. There are drought relief committees to be appointed. I believe the Province of Ontario has six, and three that have already been appointed by the federal Government have been in southwestern Ontario. I have had discussions, and I have great concern that no one has been appointed from eastern Ontario, and to the best of my knowledge, there have been no appointees to the other three committees. Horticulture is a major sector of agriculture in Ontario and it is not represented.
What action has been taken on that to date?


Charles James Mayer: The Hon. Member has raised this question, and the two of us have had private discussions. The Hon. Member makes a very good point. Review committees were designed to assist the over-all administration of the program to serve the producers. There are four in Alberta, four in Manitoba, six in Saskatchewan, and six in Ontario. The six in Ontario are made up by three from the federal Government and three from the provincial Government.
We have been rather disappointed that the province has not seen fit to appoint those three. We are going to have to deal with that issue. The Hon. Member is absolutely correct that we need better geographical representation.
The Hon. Member also makes a very good point in terms of horticultural crops. I understand from his own personal background that he has had a very good career as a farmer growing many kinds of special crops, and if anyone is qualified to make those comments, he probably is, as far as the House is concerned. We take his point, and we will do our very best to address it as quickly as we can.


Ralph Ferguson: I wonder if the Minister could outline for us the amounts of additional funding he has in here. For example, he mentioned compensation for the two-price wheat system, and a couple of other items. Could he elaborate on those, and give us some figures?


Charles James Mayer: There is a whole host of programs that do not add up to nearly the amount of money for the drought program. I mentioned two-price wheat. The Canada Grain Commission has a certain amount of funding in here. Stop-off charges for millers are here. The International Grains Institute is here. Fees for membership for International Wheat Council contributions to the Canada Grains Council-the grain related funding that the federal Government is involved in-is here. For instance, we cost-share with the Canadian International Grains Institute, the Canada Grains Council and other kinds of things, depending on the organization. I believe some funding for POS in Saskatoon is in here as well. Those are the types of things I was referring to.


Raymond John Funk: Mr. Chairman, I have a few questions to ask of the Minister.
Before I proceed, however, I would like to pay tribute to my colleague, the Hon. Member for Mackenzie, for the work that he has done on this issue. If it had not been an election period and the Government needed to have a separate program from what the NDP was proposing, it might well have been the Hon. Member's proposal that would have been accepted. I think a lot of difficulties would have been resolved if it had been.
I am still concerned about the business of individual producers versus townships. The Minister suggested that management factors played a big part in this. My own experience in my constituency is that in the parkland areas the rain was very spotty. One of the Minister's officials in committee the other day acknowledged that fact. His family farms 12 miles from where I farm. The rainfall was very spotty. Often, most of a township was in
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relatively good shape but for people on the other side of a forested area or on the other side of a valley it could have been very bad.
I still do not see any mechanism included in this proposal whereby those kinds of real inequities are addressed. The Minister's officials said that fairness, equality and equity were still the objectives of the program. Those individuals caught in this type of situation could be totally wiped out if there is not some mechanism whereby the farmer who has virtually total crop loss falls into a township where the average is relatively good. I am not happy at all. I would hate to see this Bill go through without some assurance that if it is demonstrated after looking at the data that there are cases like this that there might not be some mechanism to address it.
In digging around on this program I noticed that the Minister when talking about the maximum total available per acre still quoted the figure of $40 to $45.1 noted that with interest since it has been told to me that there is still a 10 per cent leeway at the top end of the payments here and that if the totals, once they are run through the computer, exceed $850 million, in fact that will revert to a lower level. Can the Minister confirm that this might still be true?
Third, with respect to the question I raised on the overpayment situations under special grains, it would have been proper if people had been informed of that ahead of time in case they were expecting a full cheque to be there, which a lot of people were doing. I think this is the first public acknowledgment of that fact-at least the first I have heard.
I should pay tribute where tribute is due. It was a staff member of mine, a person by the name of Judy Rice, who raised this possibility with me. She has been dealing with special grains and worked for the Hon. Member for Saskatoon-Humboldt for many years. She is now working in our office on this program. I might close my questioning by suggesting that if the Minister ever needs advice again, perhaps he can consult with Judy Rice.


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Chairman, with regard to the opening comments of the Hon. Member, this Government has responded in record fashion, both with programs and support, in international trade negotiations and with
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dollars. We did it in years when there was no election. We responded three years ago with $1 billion and two years ago with $1.1 billion. If the Hon. Member were to look at our record over the previous mandate he would see that we increased agricultural spending by over 400 per cent. In that period of time we spent something in the order of $11 billion in the grains and oilseeds business in Canada.
I know we do not need any coaching or any suggestions from the Hon. Member's side of the House that the reason we did this was for election purposes. Our record is veiy substantial in this area. We have a Prime Minister who has defended this industry outside of the country. We had a previous Prime Minister who when he came to western Canada gave us the finger and told us to sell our own wheat. This Prime Minister has been raising issues like this in international forums in Tokyo, in Venice and in every forum he has had a chance to do so. I just do not accept some of the things suggested by the Hon. Member for one minute.
As far as targeting is concerned, the Hon. Member raises a fair point. It is a judgment call that we make. We will have to wait to see the final data. We will not be using maps but lists of municipalities with the yields for the various crops. I have not seen them but I know some of the preliminary data has been available to the review committees. One of the people on the review committees has told me that in terms of his own immediate area he thought the data he had now from the final run from information on crop insurance addressed all of the concerns that they had in their own area.
Before the Hon. Member says he is not happy with this, I think he should wait to see what the final data generates. We certainly believe that the way the program is designed we will see most, if not all, of those issues corrected that were associated with the maps. For instance, we knew that when we made the initial payment the only data we had to make the initial payment on was the loss to coverage ratio. We knew that that would not be satisfactory and said so right off the bat.
With regard to the Hon. Member's comment about $45 per acre, that is an estimate that still stands. I can almost do the arithmetic here on the floor of the House. I would be happy to do it with the Hon. Member afterwards.

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If one takes a 27 or 28 bushel average yield from a high producing area and gives full crop insurance coverage with no crop, one will get to that $40 or $45 payment. It will depend, as I said, on how the program runs and how the figures are drawn before we see how many people are involved.
I did not make a note of the third point the Hon. Member raised. Can he refresh my memory, please?


Raymond John Funk: The figure of 10 per cent.


Charles James Mayer: We are still looking at the program. The formula is there. We have published the value of the crops. I can say publicly that we have had presentations made to us on lentil and some of the legume crops, as well as durum wheat. The one we are still considering is durum, if we can justify a higher price. Hard red spring is set at $160. I think there is a case for durum being slightly higher. That is the one we are looking at. The numbers are there as far as price is concerned.
Once we have the yield data available, that will give us the yield. We do the multiplication and then multiply that by the number of acres and we will get the final payment. Until we have all of that we will not know what the numbers are, Mr. Chairman.


Raymond John Funk: Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the Minister for the answers he has provided. I would like to pursue two of the points a little further. I appreciate that at this point in time it behoves us to see how it will come out. However, my question remains. If it is demonstrated that there are some real hardships occurring through no fault of the farmer's own management or any other reason but just because of the rainfall, and if they are in serious financial shape because of the township criteria, then might there be an opportunity to review those situations, say, in the fall when we are back here, or by some other kind of mechanism?
The Minister has talked about adding components to the program and making some adjustments to it. If it turns out that more than $850 million is required, would it be possible for the Minister to go to his colleague and top up this money to run the program properly if that is what is required?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Chairman, the only thing I said is that the one component we are still looking at is the price of durum. That is the only one we are considering.
We have said from the beginning that the $850 million is an estimate. It could be less, or it could be slightly more. We will have to wait to see what the numbers are. The Government has the capacity to cash-manage with a certain amount of latitude. However, again, we think that the original data we have is valid. We still think that the program is going to run very close to $850 million.


Robert (Bob) Speller: The Minister may recall that I sent him a letter in May regarding the situation of red clover in Haldimand. Because Agriculture Canada did not have details of the red clover production, it was considering the use of production figures for soya beans. I sent him a letter from one of my constituents from York, who indicated that he was anticipating 107,000 pounds of seed but only got 2,000 pounds.
People from my area, especially from Haldimand, have sent him figures of their production over the years. Does the Minister have this information and is he considering using it instead of information for soya beans?


Charles James Mayer: With regard to specific crops, we have the capacity to look after applications from producers who have been registered or the commercial seed business that sells and has a record of sales. It will be very difficult for us to handle someone who is in the commercial business that sells farm to farm, or grows it.
Without getting into the specifics of his letter, which I recall in general terms and would be happy to discuss with him later, we are looking for as many ways as possible to accommodate that kind of situation. We will find it difficult to do anything other than for the registered pedigree seed producers. If I said commercial before, I should not have done so. It is the registered and pedigree seed producers of forage crops with which we will be in a position to deal. However, it will be difficult to deal with some of the other commercial ones because we will find it almost impossible to verify records.
If we do not have enough yield data for an individual crop in a township, then we will prorate it or take an average of another crop, whether it is soya beans or com, in the Member's area. Assuming that a farmer suffers a 60 per cent loss in the production of com, we would have to make the assumption that it will be somewhat similar for other crops, even if we do not have enough data to go
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with it. It is a reflective estimate of production in that township.


Raymond John Funk: Mr. Chairman, I had asked the Minister two questions, and perhaps he forgot the first part. Once we have looked at all the data, as we should, and the appeal process has run its course, if it can be demonstrated that there are individuals who have experienced serious financial hardship through no fault of their own, is the Minister considering a mechanism for at least a sympathetic response to that situation? Frankly, I hate to stand here and say tough luck.


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Chairman, as I said, we are being specific down to a township, which is six miles by six miles. We have review committees in place to deal with the municipalities, to look at the data and make sure it is reflective. If there are individual cases, for instance, that are not covered by crop insurance so they would not be in the overall data base, and which can demonstrate that that influences the overall yield in that township, that will be taken into consideration by the review committees.
I do not want to raise false expectations. It can be pretty difficult to deal with an individual farm. I say again that once you see the overall data, I think most people will be very satisfied with the procedure. We will be able to capture a lot of those instances. If there are some special cases, we will do our very best to accommodate them. However, I ask the Member to understand that we cannot go back and review each individual farmer on a case-by-case basis. The Hon. Member from Lambton- Middlesex (Mr. Ferguson) estimated some 130,000; we estimate in the neighbourhood of 120,000 to 130,000 cases. Some of the averages may not be exact but I certainly think they would be reflective enough of the situation so that there will not be that many complaints.


Mr. Taylor:: I want to expand on the answer the Minister just gave to my colleague. What advice is he providing to the individual farmer? Is he or she to approach the municipalities to discuss the individual claim, and will the rural municipality discuss that with the review committee? Is that the process?


Charles James Mayer: Yes. We will be sending kits to all of the municipalities to deal with this, so that is the procedure. It will be a similar procedure to what went on with the
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review committees as far as the livestock feed side of the drought assistance. That will be the process.


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: The Minister also said in response to my colleague that there will be no maps this time around. With the initial announcement of the program, maps with light grey, medium grey and dark grey squares were produced. It gave individuals the opportunity to understand whether or not they qualified for funding under the initial program, whether they would have to wait for payment under the final program, or whether they would receive no funds at all.
The Minister now says that no maps will be produced, only lists. How will the individual producer be able to know whether or not his or her farm is included in this second package?


Charles James Mayer: It will be shown by municipality and township within the municipality, by crop within the municipality. There could be six or seven crops within the township. It will be very difficult to show all of those on a map. We decided that the best way to get the information out is through lists. The producer will have that available to him through agricultural representative offices, municipal offices, district agricultural offices, county offices in Ontario. All that information will be available. I think that kind of system will be much more usable and readily understandable to producers than the previous maps which were used solely to make a blanket payment, regardless of the crop, on an interim basis.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Shall Clause 2 carry?


Some Hon. Members:: Carried.
Clause 2 agreed to.
On Clause 3-Purpose and effect of each item


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: I have some questions arising out of the Minister's comments. During his remarks to the House he said that he could not understand why so many producers had failed to fill in application forms. While I cannot give him an explanation, I know that a number of the several hundred producers who were late applicants under the Special Canadian Grains Program that was completed last year were people who had to go off the farm to work and only got to the paperwork after the deadline arrived to fill out the application forms. As a consequence, they were late.

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I suspect that probably most of the several thousand to which the Minister alluded in his remarks were delayed because the farmer was trying to find some other way of making money to put in a crop and the paperwork piled up so he did not get it done.
The announcements as to final filing dates were fairly clear. I expect many of those people thought they had missed it when they did come across the form and simply failed to file. Is the Minister in the process of encouraging these last few thousand to apply? Has he extended the date? What is he doing to make that clear? The second part of the question alludes to the several hundred applications from the last program that are on the desk of the Minister of Agriculture. Will those late applicants receive approval?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Chairman, with regard to the first part of the question, we took out ads in the farm papers across the country. We ran radio ads. I think enough was written about the program and the Opposition was critical enough of it to raise this issue everywhere. In many ways I do not think it is possible to plead innocence or not guilty about not knowing about it. I do not think I said I do not know why they did not fill them out, I said that there are applications that have not come back in. I do not know why they have not come back in. We have been as accommodating as we can on deadlines but there comes a point at which you have to cut it off because if you keep accepting applications it jeopardizes the way the whole program operates. We cannot continue to extend the deadline for applications and jeopardize the people who have already submitted their applications getting their cheques sent to them. We will be as accommodating as we can as long as that accommodation does not jeopardize the overall process.
With regard to the last point the Member makes about previous, that is a year ago. It is going to be pretty difficult to accommodate people who submit applications that are this long in coming. The Special Grains Program was administered over a year ago. We accepted applications from people as long as we could, into the late summer I believe and maybe even later, I would have to look.
I do not know what you can reasonably expect. When people send applications many months after the fact, there comes a time when you have to cut off the program and decide that those applications can no longer be considered. I am not up-to-date on where those ones are in terms of the Minister of Agriculture, but I would be happy to look into that and respond to the Hon. Member at a later date.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: I would like to point out that those applications were not as much as a year late. They have been sitting on the Minister's desk for many months and those people would appreciate knowing whether they are in or out, whether they will or will not be receiving consideration. Many of them have been waiting for seven or eight months or more. It is not entirely a question of their tardiness.
The Minister should be aware that in spite of all the publicity, if a farmer is working in northern Canada or in downtown Toronto framing houses all winter and into the spring, leaving his return to seed as late as he can, he is not subjected to the information that the rest of us who live in fanning communities are. The only way those people have of knowing about the program is to go through their mail, and mail really piles up after five or six months of absence. It is not easy to get through all of that and to sort out what is important and what is not. As a consequence, people are late in some cases.
I just raised that again hoping that the Minister and his colleagues will recognize that and be a little more lenient about recognizing late payments because there are mitigating circumstances in nearly every one of these cases.


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Chairman, anyone who has their application in during the month of June will be looked after. Beyond that it is going to be very difficult. People who are away for five or six months have to come back if they are farming in order to put their crops in. If they have their applications in by the end of this month we will be in a position to consider them. Beyond then it is going to be difficult. It is going to have to be a judgment call on how that will affect the overall operation of the program and the other people who have already applied.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Just to finish this, where can they apply for application forms if they have been lost in the mail, or lost in the pile somewhere in the office? Where do
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they apply? Is using the phone system adequate for them to hold a spot? There are only a few days left in this month.


Charles James Mayer: Probably the simplest way, Mr. Chairman, is to use the 1-800 number. I do not have it in my head, but that would be the simplest to get it out and back as quickly as possible.
Clauses 3 and 4 agreed to.
On Clause 5-Appropriation charged.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Would the Hon. Minister tell us with some precision how he intends to spend the two-price wheat moneys which are included in these payments? What will the process be? What will the payment be? Who will be eligible for it and how will it be distributed?


Charles James Mayer: The process is under way. It has been paid in one interim payment already, I think only one. There will be a final payment. The Ontario Wheat Producers Marketing Board closes its crop year at the end of this month. The Canadian Wheat Board closes its crop year at the end of July. Part of the money has already been advanced in the form of an interim payment. It will be based on the pooling system. All the grain that is sold in those two areas will be looked after. We are handling it differently in terms of Quebec and the Maritimes. There is some eligibility in the lower mainland of British Columbia but it is all handled basically on the same basis to make up the difference between the market price and $7 a bushel which works out, I think, to $257 a tonne.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Will the payment to producers in the Canadian Wheat Board region be made as well? How will producers in the Canadian Wheat Board region take part in the payment this year?


Charles James Mayer: The money is paid directly into the pool account as any other sale would be and it is worked out on the basis of your sales. Your share is based on your sales.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: I only ask that because it had been skipped over and there is some trepidation about how long the two-price wheat system will be continuing. That had been left out in the original answer.
I thank the Minister for his answers. We understand that there is a disposition for this to go further very quickly to make room for some other Bills. This is the end of my questions, Mr. Chairman.
Clauses 5 and 6 agreed to.
Space Agency


[Stage Direction]
Schedule agreed to.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Preamble agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported and concurred in.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: When shall the Bill be read the third time? By leave, now?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Robert René de Cotret: that the Bill be read the third time and passed.


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to pay tribute to the people who have worked veiy hard in administering this program. This is a $850 million program. The administration costs are going to amount to a little over 1 per cent, we estimate 1.1 per cent of the total program. Anyone who works in government programs knows that that is a very, very minimum figure. The reason we are able to do that is because of the co-operation we received from the provinces in terms of their crop insurance corporations as well as because of the people who have worked here in the Department and the people who have co-operated with us.
I thought it would be useful, Mr. Speaker, to point out that we do have some very capable people working on the administration of this program and they should be recognized. Testimony to how well they have been running the program is, as I said, the small percentage of money that we are using to administer this program.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, can you clarify what number of Bill you have been referring to?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Bill C-35.
Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


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

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Thursday, June 1, consideration of the motion of Mr. Andre that Bill C-16, an Act to establish the Canadian Space Agency and to provide
[Stage Direction]
June 27, 1989
Exploration and Development
for other matters in relation to space, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Monday, June 26, consideration of the motion of Mr. Epp that Bill C-19, an Act to amend the Canadian Exploration and Development Incentive Program Act, be read the third time and passed.
Ross Harvey: Mr. Speaker, as I warned Hon. Members last Friday, they could have either supported the hoist motion advanced by the Hon. Member, the critic for the official Opposition, or failing that, they could hear me yammer on for a few more minutes. The House decided, and here I am.
I would like to say that it is indeed unfortunate that the House seems determined to give third reading to this Bill today to pass it into law. I say this is unfortunate for a variety of reasons; principally because it will hurt the small, independent Canadian oil companies and the independent Canadian companies that supply the oil patch in the Western Sedimentary Basin, especially in Alberta.
It should be noted at the start that the passage of this Bill will in no way affect the large international companies. Indeed, it will not affect the large Canadian companies involved in the patch. Because they already will have made up their allowable exploration and drilling expenditures prior to the termination date set in the Bill, the premature termination of the program. It is the small companies that will have just been undertaking their exploration and drilling programs that will have spread those programs over the four quarters of activity in the year that will be caught short and harmed by the passage of this Bill. In this sense, this Bill is discriminatory
against precisely that sector of the industry which most needs and, indeed, most deserves the assistance that the program otherwise would grant.
Right off the top, this is an inequitable Bill. Indeed, it is a harmful Bill from the point of view of the small, independent Canadian sector. There is no question that the Bill will have impact. The Canadian Association of Oil Well-Drilling Contractors states that the cancellation of CIDA will make their prior second quarter forecast of 153 rigs drilling, down 10 per cent from 171, obsolete. In fact that figure will have to be further reduced. They are now talking about the average number of rigs running in the second quarter to be 89 or 17 per cent utilization.
Let there be no mistake that the cancellation of the CEDIP program will have a substantial impact on the Western Sedimentary Basin.
It is not just on the companies themselves that do the exploration. It is on the service companies in the industry that the negative impact will be felt. It is on those industries, for example, represented by the Petroleum Services Association of Canada which appeared before the legislative committee to make plain theirreservations with regard to the Bill.
However, the damage does not even stop there. Indeed, it extends right to the farm gate. As Mr. Bud Bell, the Vice-President and General Manager of Schlumberger Canada and the First Vice-President of the Petroleum Services Association of Canada, when asked during committee about where the people who work for the companies represented by his association, said:
They come from across Canada, but the majority of them come from Western Canada geographically. Many of them work for the services company in the winter, that are, during the summer, farmers.
This merely reinforces the point that I made at the second reading of this Bill, that many farmers, especially in Alberta, north of central Alberta, rely on farm employment to keep the farm going to tidethem over the tough times of low farm income. This Bill will impact negatively on them as well because there will not be the jobs in the smaller exploration companies and service companies that there would have been had CEDIP been maintained right through to the end of the program, projected for this December.
June 27, 1989

Therefore, there is no question that the Bill harms the small producers. It harms the servicing companies and it harms, in many cases, farmers seeking farm income who work for those companies.
There is another aspect in which this Bill is iniquitous. That is that the Government is using this Parliament to renege on a promise explicit in the previous legislation. The promise was to give six months clear notice of any alteration in the program.
There is no question that legally the Government can do this. The Government is perfectly free to place a bill before this House, have it passed through and become law and thereby simply void any prior commitment it may have incurred as a consequence of previous legislation. It can do that. The point is that it ought not to do that, especially when, in doing that, it is breaking a promise made and accepted in good faith by hard-working, small Canadian companies tiying to do a good job in the Western Sedimentary Basin. It is an improper way to conduct the public business, and for that reason alone, this Bill is unworthy of the support of this House.
As the Independent Petroleum Association of Canada noted in its submission to the legislative committee- they did not appear, but they did supply a written submission-"This measure undermines investor confidence in the integrity of Government." As was noted in its submission by the Small Explorers and Producers Association of Canada, this Bill if enacted constitutes a situation in which:
The Government violated its own covenant to give six months
notice.
This matter has not escaped the attention of the industry. Indeed, those who appeared before the committee stressed over and over again how surprised and how shocked they were that the Government would use Parliament to conduct itself in this fashion.
Last, I would like to make it very clear that it was discovered during the course of the Minister's appearance before the committee that the decision to terminate the CEDIP program was not taken in the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, that it was not even considered within that Department. Rather an edict came from the Finance Department, as part of the Budget, that this program be prematurely terminated to save $80 million. There were no impact studies done on
Environmental Protection
the effects of this cancellation on the Western Sedimentary Basin and on Alberta. Apparently no alternatives were even considered. When the question was put to the Minister's Departmental senior staff as to whether or not consideration had been given to radically lowering the cap on the program, thereby saving at least $40 million but allowing the benefits still to flow to the smaller companies, the response was, no, not to their knowledge.
Therefore, we have a Bill that unfairly singles out small companies for punishment, we have a Bill that cancels a promise previously made by the Government, and we have a Bill the effects of which were not even considered prior to its introduction. For these three reasons, I submit the House cannot support this Bill. To do so would be wrong.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: On division.


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

Charles James Mayer: that Bill C-22, an Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, be concurred in.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Mr. Speaker:: When shall the Bill be read the third time? By leave, now?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.

June 27, 1989
Environmental Protection


Charles James Mayer: that the Bill be read the third time and passed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Before I recognize the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary, is there unanimous consent to allow the chairman of the committee to present his report?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Marcel Prud'homme (Saint-Denis):: Mr. Speaker, I was recently honoured by being chosen chairman of the Legislative Committee on Bill C-10.
Today, I have the honour, Mr. Speaker, to present in both official languages the Committee's report on Bill C-10, an Act relating to the forgiveness of debts incurred or assumed in respect of certain official development assistance loans made by the Government of Canada to the governments of certain countries in sub-Saharan Africa, without amendment and to thank the Committee members and all the staff of the House who supported us.
I have the honour to table this report today. [Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Bouchard (Lac-Saint-Jean) that Bill C-22, an Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act be read the third time and passed.
Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Mr. Speaker, I want to make a few
brief remarks on the occasion of third reading of Bill C-22. Let me begin if I may by thanking the members of the Standing Committee for the very effective and expeditious manner in which they addressed this legislation before the Standing Committee. I would also like to express my own personal thanks to the several departmental officials who were very helpful in that process.
As the members of the Committee understand, the Bill which is before the House now for third reading is very brief and a very straightforward piece of legislation. It was deemed necessary to rectify some legal difficulties encountered in the original legislation since its passage late last June.
In my opinion, the legislation before the House does indeed rectify those deficiencies. It means that we then will be in a position to enforce the regulations which were designed to come into place on July 1 of this year in order to effect the requirements of the Montreal Protocol. The Canadian Government was very happy to provide leadership at the time of the Montreal Protocol and we look forward to these regulations being in place.
I think all of us understand that the proposed emissions of CFCs by some 50 per cent which is provided for in the Montreal Protocol are no longer accepted as adequate. In fact, the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bouchard) has already made a commitment that the Canadian Government will move toward the diminishing of CFC emissions by 80 per cent by the end of the next decade. Furthermore, he has accepted as an objective for the Government that we should move toward the elimination of all CFC emissions by the same date.
It is most important that all Parties work together in ensuring that the regulations in place will be effective and I think that is the case with respect to the Montreal Protocol and like all members of the House, I look forward to continuing to address this exceedingly important issue. Members on all sides now recognize the threat that CFCs represent to the ozone layer and the significance of that to the health of Canadians and citizens throughout the world.
I do hope the House will expedite the passage of this Bill as it has done to date.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, I am most happy to rise in support of this particular Bill. I must admit, however, when the Parliamentaiy Secretary to the Minister invokes the Montreal Protocol he forces
June 27, 1989

me to elaborate a little bit on our Party's position with respect to the whole question of CFCs.
This particular series of amendments was needed. Essentially when the original Canadian Environmental Protection Act was drafted by the former Minister of the Environment, he botched the job and he botched it in such a way that the current Government could not have met its obligations under the Montreal Protocol without a specific interim order unless this legislation went through. We are most happy to assist the Government in getting the legislation through but I was very disappointed that the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bouchard) on February 16, 1989, stated that the CFC question was his number one priority and that he was going to begin immediately drafting regulations. In fact, we did not learn about the botch-up until May 31, so I have to ask the Minister what he was doing between February and May.
More important in the examination of CFCs, I became aware that 4,000 skin cancers every year are linked specifically to the depletion of the ozone layer, something which most Canadians are not aware of. The single largest contributor to the depletion of the ozone layer is the production of chlorofluorocarbons which are used on an ongoing basis in refrigerants and other particular products.
While I respect and understand alternative technologies in many areas are in the process of development, I do not understand nor do Canadians why the Government does not move immediately to force the recycling and recapture of CFCs currently being leaked into the environment.
Last night in our ministry committee we learned that a company in my own community of Hamilton that makes refrigerators, a Canadian subsidiary of General Electric company, Cameo purchases 300,000 pounds of CFCs per year for use in its refrigerators. Those CFCs are now purchased at a paltry sum of $1 per pound. It is very inexpensive and the company tends to use it as an inexpensive commodity. We learned from Cameo that 4 per cent of its CFCs are lost immediately during the manufacture and process and a further 10 per cent to 15 per cent of CFCs are leaked into the atmosphere on an ongoing basis during the life of a refrigerator.
Environmental Protection
We also know that at the moment there are no specific national standards with respect to the development of hermetically sealed air conditioners in automobiles, which is a very large escape source of CFCs. There is no particular national initiative with respect to companies and how they handle CFCs. We even heard by way of a presentation in the committee that VIA Rail, a crown corporation, in the City of Montreal, in the birthplace of the Montreal Protocol-

The Montreal Protocol should take effect in four days. Today is the 27th. As of Canada Day, the Montreal Protocol should take effect in the same place that it began, where it was signed. Every day, Mr. Speaker, a Crown corporation releases CFCs into the atmosphere, CFCs which we already know reduce the ozone layer and cause skin cancer. And what is the answer of the Government and of the companies that are releasing CFCs into the atmosphere?
We heard last night from the officials at Cameo that at this very moment it is in the process of doing repairs to 22,500 refrigerators in Canada and its parent company is in the process of doing repairs to one million refrigerators in the United States. When they are doing those repairs, they are deliberately permitting the leakage of CFCs into the atmosphere.
They claim that the technology is not available, even though we produced evidence that such technology does exist and indeed it is portable technology. We even asked the companies whether they would be willing to set aside or forgo their plan for repairs for a few months until they could satisfy themselves of the technology that can be used to recapture. They refused. Do you know why they refused, Mr. Speaker? Their excuse was that they represent a very small percentage of the market-place. Their percentage of the marketplace is 5 per cent. That is one company which is purchasing 5 per cent of all the CFCs in Canada. By their own declaration, the number of Canadians in their company actually working on the issue of recycling, recapture and research is two people. Two people, and they tell a parliamentary committee that they feel that they are doing enough in this area.

June 27, 1989
Environmental Protection
The company also told us that they could not move immediately because they wanted to preserve the food for Canadians by proper refrigeration. In fact, we had other methods of refrigeration before the arrival of CFCs in the market-place. Do you know, Mr. Speaker, for every 1 per cent increase in CFCs into the atmosphere, the capacity of the earth to produce food is decreased by 1 per cent. That 5 per cent ratio of CFCs used by that single Canadian company, in the Canadian context is responsible for a 5 per cent reduction in the arability of food for the world. We cannot just think about food in the context of what goes into and comes out of our refrigerator. We have to begin to think about the food in the global context.
We are among the heaviest users of chlorofluorocar-bons in the world, and if as a nation we are willing to dodge our responsibility and ignore the exigencies of the Montreal Protocol and the time bomb that is ticking on the very air which we breathe, by passing it off and saying: "Well, we only represent 5 per cent of the market-place", 5 per cent and 5 per cent and 5 per cent and 5 per cent, together a hole in the atmosphere make. That is exactly what we have at the moment with respect to the ozone layer. That is exactly why the federal Government and in particular, the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bouchard) should invoke his powers under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, under Section 35, to issue an interim order to begin to control the disposition of CFCs in refrigerants across Canada.
I was speaking to an industry person only a few days ago. He told me that at the moment CFCs are so cheap and so available that they use them as a replacement for water in cleaning the coils of their commercial refrigerators. Instead of bothering to get a water hose, they are doing repairs and they merely spray the back of the refrigerant with CFCs, which are going right into the atmosphere, which are creating holes and which are warming the climate.
We are entering what probably will turn out to be the hottest Canadian summer on record. That is not a natural phenomenon. The drought, for which Canadian farmers are still waiting to be paid, is in part a result of global warming trends which can directly be linked to the degradation which is being wrought by humankind on our universe.
Surely, if we can take some small step in Parliament, it should be an invocation of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, of the interim orders to make sure that as well as dealing with our obligations under the Montreal Protocol, which are already out of date, that at the same time we ensure the toughest standards in the world in relation to refrigeration and in relation to the veiy things which at the moment are escaping public attention.
I asked that question specifically of the Minister only a few moments ago in the Environment Committee. I asked him if he would be prepared as an interim measure to invoke a section of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act to deal with that particular issue. The Minister, once again, was very fluid and flowery with his rhetoric but, once again, he refused to take specific action. He is studying the question. He is looking at other alternatives. This was a perfect opportunity for him to act. I must say that I amdisappointed that he is not doing more.
I am also disappointed in a decision of the committee to vote down a motion which was presented by the Liberal Party that the Bill be presented on recycled paper. It may be a small thing. It may be a nominal gesture in the fight to build a cleaner environment, but when we moved the motion to have the first piece of environmental legislation in this Parliament printed on recycled paper, it was turned down by the Conservatives.
I have to ask myself, how committed is the Government to environmental questions when it will not even recycle the paper which we use for environmental legislation, and it refuses something as simple as incorporating the concept of sustainable development into the mandate of various ministries.
I think in this particular Bill, yes, we have helped the Government and we have tried to expedite the process because we would like to see the Government meet its obligations under the Montreal Protocol.
However, the Montreal Protocol is only a beginning. We heard from Greenpeace that we have the capacity to do so much more. Then when we heard from industry what is not being done in the very specific area of refrigeration, it shocked me to know that one single company in Canada uses 300,000 pounds of CFCs a year and that most of those 300,000 pounds are put into refrigerators and leak out with very little regard to
June 27, 1989

hermetic sealing, with very little regard to making sure that CFCs do not escape into the atmosphere.
I would say that we have a tremendous amount of work to do in this area. The legislation put forward by the Minister to clear up an anomaly which his own Government created is at least a step in the right direction. We will be waiting anxiously for a further report from the companies involved in the use of CFCs across this country, as well as from the Government, in respect of the attitude and implementation of the Montreal Protocol in relation to Crown corporations.
This first step, while welcome, certainly is long overdue and should be accompanied by strong legislation to deal with the hundreds of thousands of refrigerators which we sell to consumers every year and to deal with the thousands of refrigerators which we import from the United States for disposal. They end up in dumping grounds and they end up leaking CFCs into the atmosphere when they are compressed by being squashed on dump sites. At the moment, the Minister who is responsible for the Montreal Protocol, who should be working for a stronger law, is completely ignoring the danger that the leakage of CFCs is already creating in the atmosphere that we need to breathe, and the ozone layer that we need to survive.
[Translation\


Mr. Francois Germ (Megantic-Compton-Stans [DOT] tead):: Mr. Speaker, I listened to our colleague opposite talk about this Bill and I find that she is going a little fast. I think that instead of making all the criticisms that she made now, she should have taken the oportunity to congratulate the Minister of the Environment Minister (Mr. L. Bouchard) who is perhaps the finest Environment Minister this Parliament ever had. I think that we should all acknowledge this and applaud him, because if we take my colleague's line of argument, for example, repairing a refrigerator which contains a minute quantity of CFCs, chlorofluorocarbons, the way she wants, Mr. Speaker, would mean that people would be without refrigerators for five or six months. Mr. Thompson of Cameo explained this problem to her in committee yesterday and instead of accepting it, she would prefer to have Canadians do without refrigerators for five or six months so that a very small quantity of CFCs, which are
Electoral Boundaries
quite a bit less harmful, do not escape into the atmosphere. You want to stop me, Mr. Speaker.


Albert Glen Cooper: Point of order, Mr. Speaker. I hesitate to interrupt the Hon. Member but we have had consultations with the three Parties and I think you would find that there would be unanimous consent for us to not see the clock for Private Members' hour at this point but to give us a chance for the Hon. Member-I think we have two Members from the Liberal Party, the Hon. Member for Davenport (Mr. Caccia) and the Hon. Member for Gander-Grand Falls (Mr. Baker). Then we have a Member speaking from the NDP. We will do that and then we will proceed into Private Members' hour.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I do not quite understand what we have been asked to agree to do. I understood that we agreed to not see the clock for Private Members' Hour because there were a number of speakers yet and, if there are to be a number of speakers, there are certainly a number of speakers from the New Democratic Party who would want to participate in this debate. Perhaps we ought to have some consultation before agreeing to any change.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: If there is to be further consultation, shall we then move on to Private Members' Hour?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It being six o'clock p.m., according to order made Tbesday, June 13, 1989, the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business pursuant to order made Monday, June 26, 1989.


PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS-PUBLIC BILLS   ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES READJUSTMENT ACT MEASURE TO CHANGE NAME OF ELECTORAL RIDING OF TEMISCAMINGUE
Mr. Gabriel Desjardins (Temiscamingue):: Mr. Speaker, to speed up proceedings in the time allowed for

June 27, 1989
Electoral Boundaries
Private Members' Business, since several Members, including me, are to speak, I would like to have unanimous consent of the parties to withdraw my Bill.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Does the House agree unanimously to allow the Hon. Member to withdraw his Bill?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
Bill withdrawn.


Mr. Corbett:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. With the permission of the Hon. Member for Fredericton (Mr. Bird), who is unable to be here this evening, I would ask to present his Bill in his absence when his turn comes up in due course. I would like unanimous consent to proceed in that way.


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


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, we have no difficulty with that. We on this side may have to do the same thing. It has been a long-standing practice that the House accepts the Bill, as long as the Member has introduced it or someone else is willing to do it for him.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


CHANGE IN THE NAME OF SAINT-LAURENT RIDING
Mrs. Shirley Maheu (Saint-Laurent) moved:: That Bill C-239, an Act to change the name of the electoral district of Saint-Laurent, be read the second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House.
She said: Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure and especially a great honour for me to speak on Bill C-239 to change the name of my constituency, Saint-Laurent, to Saint-Laurent-Cartierville.
The federal riding of Saint-Laurent includes the City of Saint-Laurent as well as the northwestern part of the City of Montreal, known as Cartierville and Saraguay.

The name Saint-Laurent has very strong affiliation with the boundaries of the city. In effect, by having the name of the riding changed, we are removing the
confusion surrounding the actual boundaries of the riding with those of the city.
During the last federal election campaign when I was canvassing door to door, many of the people in the Montreal sector of my riding did not realize that they were in the federal district of Saint-Laurent. By changing the name of the riding to encompass both the Montreal and Saint-Laurent sectors of the area, no confusion will arise.

Mr. Speaker, I can say with pride that I have fulfilled one of my election promises. I heard and listened to the people of Saint-Laurent when they told me they wanted the name of their riding to reflect who they are.

It is for this reason that I tabled this Bill earlier this session. I must express my pleasure with the fact that seven Members of Parliament from all sides of the House have agreed to co-operate and pass through all stages these Bills at this sitting. We must listen to our constituents at all times for it is on their behalf that we sit in this Chamber.
Cartierville represents 25 per cent of the total population of the riding. I am sure that those people will be pleased to see that they will be more openly recognized as an integral part of the new federal riding of Saint-Laurent-Cartierville.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the second time, considered in committee, reported, concurred in, read the third time and passed.

Mr. Bill Attewell (Markham) moved: that Bill C-240, an Act to change the name of the electoral district of Markham, be read the second time and referred to Committee of the Whole.
He said: Mr. Speaker, it is a real privilege to rise to speak to Bill C-240. During the last election campaign, one of the main promises I made to the local people of Whitchurch-Stouffville was that we would recognize them by changing the name of the riding. Before I say a couple of words on that, I would like to thank the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands (Mr. Milliken). We chatted several months ago about a possible way to proceed on this matter.
June 27, 1989

When the House first reconvened before Christmas, I put in a Private Member's Bill. It was drawn to be debated, but it died on the Order Paper. The Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands reminded me of the phrase that we are masters of our own proceedings here and tipped me off to the idea that if I could get the the concurrence of the three House Leaders, we could indeed pass such a Bill. I would like to thank that Hon. Member, as well as the Hon. Member for Kamloops (Mr. Riis), the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier) and our own House Leader, the Hon. Member for Simcoe North (Mr. Lewis).
There are two compelling reasons why the name of the riding should be changed. One is that the riding of Markham actually covers every inch of two towns-the town of Markham and the town of Whitchurch-Stouff-ville. Making this change would recognize the residents of Whitchurch-Stouffville. As a matter of fact, my wife Sandy and I live in the Whitchurch-Stouffville area. There are about 20,000 people there and about another
140,000	in the town of Markham.
The other reason for the name change is that there is a provincial riding of Markham which covers only the town of Markham. I believe this change will also help to remove some confusion between the two ridings. It is with great pleasure that I speak to Bill C-240.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the second time, considered in committee, reported, concurred in, read the third time and passed.

Robert Alfred Corbett: that Bill C-241, an Act to change the name of the electoral district of Fredericton, be read the second time and referred to Committee of the Whole.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the second time, considered in committee, reported and concurred in.
Electoral Boundaries
Robert Alfred Corbett: that the Bill be read the third time and passed.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise the House that the Hon. Member for Fredericton was unable to be here this evening. He asked me to carry forth the Bill on his behalf before the House. Members who are familiar with the constituency of Fredericton will recognize that the boundaries and borders of Fredericton itself go well beyond the City of Fredericton into both the counties of York and Sunbury.
It is for that reason that the Hon. Member for Fredericton, very realistically, would like the name of the constituency to be changed to reflect the composition of the constituency as a whole. In future sessions that will be well recognized by the House. I appreciate the opportunity to carry forward this message this evening.


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

Leonard Donald Hopkins: that Bill C-245, an Act to change the name of the electoral district of Renfrew, be read the second time and referred to Committee of the Whole.
He said: Mr. Speaker, this Bill became necessary because the Electoral Boundaries Commission did not accept the advice that was given to it during the hearings. The name Renfrew refers to Renfrew County and the Town of Renfrew, but the City of Pembroke was left without any identification whatsoever in the riding name. It is the largest municipality between Ottawa and North Bay.
A large part of my constituency includes a large chunk of the District of Nipissing, the eastern half of Algonquin Park and communities such as Whitney and Madawaska. These communities were left without any identification when the word "Nipissing" was dropped from the name of the riding.
I wish to point out that I am not asking for something new in this Bill. I am only asking for what was there before. You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that prior to redistribution my constituency was Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke. If we revert to that name, it will mean that the people who live in the District of Nipissing and

June 27, 1989
Electoral Boundaries
the southwestern part of the constituency will have identification with the title.
It will also mean that the population resident in the City of Pembroke will also have identification. It has always been that way. Now that the three names are back again, when the riding is mentioned people will realize that it is large. It is approximately 160 miles long and 90 miles wide at the widest point.
In rural ridings people like to have their own identification. Reverting to the original name of the riding will give that identification back to the various regions of the riding. That meant that more people were taken into the riding to include the areas of Whitney and Madawaska.
Those areas were in a constituency years ago with the former riding of Renfrew South which was represented by the Hon. Joe Greene, and for some 22 years by Dr. McCann. Now those areas have been included with the Renfrew County area which includes the original Renfrew North, Renfrew South, plus a large section of the District of Nipissing which used to be in a separate riding. A large part of the Nipissing area was included with the North Bay area. Now it is included in the riding of Renfrew and will become part of the riding of Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke.
In conclusion, I wish to make one further comment. The secretary of the Electoral Boundaries Commission spoke to me on two occasions when I appeared before the Electoral Boundaries Commission. He attempted to get me to justify why I wanted the three names in the riding name. I pointed out to him that it had been there before him. I also pointed out to him on the map where those various sections were located. He was not too easily disposed to giving it back the triple name of Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke, and I could see that. As a result, when the Electoral Boundaries Commission reported back it left it as a single-named constituency.
In future, I would hope that Electoral Boundaries Commission would take seriously the identification of the various areas of large rural ridings when people appear before the committee with the proposition that certain areas of the riding should be included. I do not know how long the name of the riding of the present Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Beatty) is at present, but I recall at one time there were approximately five counties included in the name of his riding, and that applies to others in the House as well.
I am pleased today to have the former name of Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke for my constituency.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the second time, considered in committee, reported, concurred in, read the third time and passed.

Jean-Robert Gauthier: That Bill C-252, an Act to change the name of the electoral district of Restigouche, be read the second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House.


Mr. Douglas Young (Gloucester):: Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure for me to take a few minutes to explain why my friend and colleague from Restigouche (Mr. Arseneault) has proposed this change in the name of his constituency.
The wonderful riding of Restigouche, which extends from the limits of the Republic of Madawaska, is a region of New Brunswick that I know very well. It includes several towns and villages such as Kedgewick, Saint-Quentin and Saint-Jean-Baptiste. The main industries are forestry and fishing.
Nevertheless, Mr. Speaker, the region of Campbell-ton, Dalhousie, Balmoral, Pointe Verte, Petit Rocher and Beresford along the Baie des Chaleurs are quite different from the upper part of the riding of Restigouche and, Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to note the reason for the word "Chaleur" which my colleague wants added to describe his riding. It comes from the Baie des Chaleurs, which was discovered, if I am not mistaken-


An Hon. Member:: In 1534!


M. Douglas Young: In 1534! In any event, Mr. Speaker, my colleagues from Quebec know the Baie des Chaleurs very well because this region borders the Gaspe peninsula. I can readily understand why my colleague prefers to have his riding known by the historic name of Restigouche, in recognition of the beautiful Restigouche River, one of the most famous salmon rivers in the world, which all of us know very well, and also, of course, by the Baie des Chaleurs.
June 27, 1989

Environmental Protection Act
I want to join the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier in suggesting to my colleagues in the House that it would be most appropriate that the name of this constituency from now on be Restigouche-Chaleur.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the second time, considered in committee, reported, concurred in, read the third time and passed.

Howard Douglas McCurdy: that Bill C-254, an Act to change the name of the electoral district of Windsor-Lake St. Clair, be read the second time and referred to Committee of the Whole.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I will not speak at great length on this Bill. I think the Bill was adequately explained in my intervention of the other day.
However, the present riding of Windsor-Lake St. Clair is the former riding of Windsor-Walkerville which experienced some minor changes involving perhaps 20 city blocks that resulted in no essential change in the over-all geography of the constituency. Nevertheless the name was changed to Windsor-St. Clair.
The riding is an interesting riding, partly by virtue of the nature of its representation in the House of Commons. It is a riding which I am proud to represent. It is varied in all of its characteristics-demographically, industrially and otherwise. In a manner of speaking it is a prototype for all of Canada in its demographic composition. in the nature of its economy, its industry, and so on.
There is an implication in the name that I find just a little bit unsuitable, that is, the suggestion that there resides in Lake St. Clair any of the electorate of my riding. Of course, that is not true.
The name that I suggest would describe the fact that part of the riding is composed of 40 per cent of the City of Windsor on the eastern side and extends through to Tecumseh, to St. Clair Beach. The name is appropriate in that it calls attention to its circumscription as including those communities. I
I hope this Bill will be passed promptly and with great celebration.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the second time, considered in committee, reported, concurred in, read the third time and passed.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The time for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired.




[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of Bill C-22, an Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, as reported (without amendment) from the Standing Committee on the Environment.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Resuming debate. The Hon. Member for Megantic-Compton-Stanstead (Mr. Germ).


Mr. Gerin:: Mr. Speaker, as I was saying before the House proceeded to Private Members' Business, if we want to eliminate CFCs immediately without giving companies enough time to find substitutes for this dangerous product, if we want to do so immediately, it would mean that Canadians who have problems with their refrigerators today would have to do without for six or seven months.
As I understand it, the Liberal Member is asking us and asking companies to stop fixing refrigerators in Canada because this might release a small amount of CFCs into the atmosphere which, according to the Hon. Member, would be more harmful than the fact that Canadians would not have a refrigerator for five or six months. I think this shows, Mr. Speaker, how frivolous the requests of Liberal Members can be.
Another point I would like to raise with respect to this Bill, Mr. Speaker, concerns a comparison between the French and English versions of the Bill. The fact is, the Bill contains only two clauses. The purpose of the first clause is to replace the English version of the Bill. There is absolutely nothing that amends the French text of the Bill. Why? Because it says in the English version: Subject to subsection (4).

June 27, 1989
Environmental Protection Act
This did not appear in the French version. It was explained to us that this was because in French the text can be understood without any further indication and that our Anglophone friends would not understand if it were not included.
Subject to subsection (4).
That is the only amendment to subsection 33(1). In French there is nothing. Then it says:
(2) Subsection 33 (2) of the said Act is repealed.
And here I understand that it is repealed in French as well as in English.
In the second clause the amendments only appear in English and there are no amendments, except for the addition of the word "decret", in French. The Government's language experts explained that this is because our Francophone linguists draft the legislation without consulting with their Anglophone counterparts, and so we get two legal texts which, we hope, are similar. Mr. Speaker, I still say that, to Canadians who are trying to understand the Bill, both versions don't always mean the same thing. As far as I am concerned, when I look at the English text, the words:
-is given an opportunity to provide its advice
doesn't mean the same thing as the French:
-la possibilite de formuler
It isn't the same. I fail to understand how people can draft legal texts that will make it so hard for Canadians to understand them. However, I realize that voting against bills like that may not be enough.
I would like to add that since both the French and English versions of bills introduced in this House have the same authority, this may be a terrific headache for people who subsequently have to interpret these bills. Instead of having Francophone and Anglophone experts each drafting the same bill separately, they should consult each other and work together and thus avoid the kind of situation we have here in this very short Bill with only two clauses.
Mr. Speaker, that is the point I wanted to make, and I think that in the present case it is a fact, and the experts have said as much, that the French version of the Bill gave a far more faithful rendition of the Department's
and the Government's intentions than the English version. So as a Francophone, I am of course quite pleased, and I will vote in favour of the Bill. However, I wish that Anglophone and Francophone linguists in the Government would consult when drafting the respective versions of the Bill, in order to avoid these problems.


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, I would first of all like to say that on this side of the House, we feel that-

This Bill is veiy narrow in its scope. It is necessary in order to implement measures that were in the intent and spirit of the law, but we have to take this opportunity to register with the Government the fact that the law known under the name of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act is flawed and must be corrected.
The first reason concerns the fact that the federal Government cannot set national enforceable standards as we experienced in the case of PCBs. The next reason is that the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bouchard) is the only person in Canada who can seek an injunction to stop a violation of the Act. Then there is the shortcoming that the law, per se, lacks a prohibition clause which does, for instance, exist in Section 33 of the Fisheries Act and which would make the release of any pollutant, not just those listed in the Schedules of the Act, an offence.
Finally, in the event of an emergency, the federal Government cannot move alone but must have consultations with the affected provinces. This, in the case of an emergency, is not a very desirable requirement.
The enforceable national standards were lost in the discussion in committee when the Canadian Environmental Protection Act eventually became law. It was lost in three stages as it went through the legislative committee process. It was in essence a political decision by the Conservative Government which was ready and willing to give up its right to establish and enforce federal regulations. That development was tantamount to the abdication of federal powers to create and allow for the formation and implementation of federally enforceable national standards.
June 27, 1989

The first practical application came about with the PCB regulations. You will recall that in the aftermath of the Saint-Basile-le-Grand tragedy and disaster the federal Government finally decided to move. The first item on the agenda was safe storage. At that time the then Minister of the Environment was quoted as saying, "The actions I am taking ensure that PCB storage sites in every part of Canada meet high national standards".
Well, within two months nine provinces had sought and obtained exemption from such standards. By May 12, 1989, all provinces except Prince Edward Island and the Territories were granted exemption from the so-called high national standards of the former Minister of the Environment.
In order to be recognized as equivalent standards, the provinces simply have to meet two criteria. The first criterion is that there must be a provincial investigation process similar to the one contained in Sections 108 to 110 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. Briefly, Mr. Speaker, these two sections allow two individuals to request that the Minister of the Environment investigate an alleged violation of the Act. The Minister must then investigate the allegations and report in writing in 90 days on whether or not charges will be laid.
The second requirement which exists under the Environmental Protection Act is that the regulations in the provinces must be the same as the federal regulations. As far as we can determine there is not a province in Canada which has the same provisions for investigation of an offence as are contained in the federal law.
It is astounding that provinces are not required to have the same penalties and fines as are contained in the federal legislation in order to be granted this equivalency. This makes a mockery of the statements made by the previous Minister of the Environment, the present one, and the Government in general that the Canadian Environmental Protection Act is the toughest legislation in the western hemisphere.
If the provinces are able to supersede federal law with penalties that are a fraction of the federal penalties the concept of national standards is evidently seriously eroded. So while the facade looks very strong, behind the facade there is weakness.
Environmental Protection Act
Furthermore, the equivalency provisions of the Environmental Protection Act, as it stands now, and the way that the PCB storage regulations were handled considerably erode our confidence in the commitment of the Government to bring in tough and enforceable national standards for other toxic substances, as in the case of CFCs, dioxins, furans, et cetera.
In their publication Healing the Sky released just a few days ago Friends of the Earth say that under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act the Minister of the Environment has the power to do several things. For instance, the Minister can ban immediately chlorofluoro-carbons in aerosols, in rug underpadding and foam packaging. He can ban chlorofluorocarbons in polystyrene foam insulation, solvents for metal cleaning, and flexible foam by July of next year. He can ban the use of chlorofluorocarbons in new car air conditioners which are not hermetically sealed as of the 1991 model year. He can ban chlorofluorocarbons used as solvents in the electronics industry and for sterilization also by July, 1991. Finally, he can require recycling, recovery, system modifications and selective replacement with alternative chillers by the year 1992.
Taken together these five initiatives, in the opinion of Friends of the Earth, could reduce the production of chlorofluorocarbons in Canada by 67 per cent within the next three years. It is important that this publication be somehow brought to the attention of this House because it is relevant to the purpose and the technical intent- but nevertheless the intent-of the Bill we are debating because it relates to chlorofluorocarbons.
But, Mr. Speaker-and this is a big "but"-in order to proceed with these five suggestions and implement them the Minister must utilize enforceable national standards. Allowing provinces to opt out through the equivalency provisions would seriously endanger the success of such a reduction program because the enforcement that the regulations would end could vary from province to province. This is where the problem would arise.
Therefore, whether it is PCBs, chlorofluorocarbons, dioxins or a toxic substance yet to be identified, the Canadian Environment Protection Act will be successful in cleaning up Canada only if it is implemented and enforced nationally. The Minister of the Environment need not grant equivalency provisions to provinces that seek them. We would urge, on the contrary, the Minister to exert the force of a strong federalism in the protection of the environment. He will achieve that end in relation to the chlorofluorocarbons and the five measures suggested by Friends of the Earth and in relation to other substances that are still to be covered in the Schedule of

June 27, 1989
Environmental Protection Act
the Bill, on which we hope there will be swift movement on the part of the Government once Bill C-22 is passed, only if he invokes national enforceable standards and makes them the instrument and the priority of the Government when it comes to cleaning up the environment.
Bill C-22 allows an opportunity to deal beyond the narrow technical scope of the Bill itself because behind the proposed changes there is this big and important question of national enforceable standards to which the Government, unfortunately, is not paying attention.
We have had this experience with PCBs. You have heard the description of what happened, Mr. Speaker. We would not like to have that experience again whereby the vast majority of the provinces seek an exemption, apply their own so-called equivalency standards, but do not have in place the same measures for compliance, enforcement and penalties as has the federal legislation. This serious shortcoming must be brought to your attention and to the attention of the Government, Mr. Speaker.
I see that the Parliamentary Secretary is listening very attentively, as he always does, and I am sure that he will register these views in discussions with his Minister. Because he believes in strong enforceable national standards I am sure that he will lend a hand in ensuring that in the toxic substances yet to be detected those standards will not be by-passed by way of equivalency sought by the provinces.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret that I did not recognize the Hon. Member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton) before the Hon. Member for Davenport (Mr. Caccia). It was just an oversight. It is getting late in the afternoon.


Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, I know you were very busy just prior to this debate beginning. That probably had something to do with it.
We are on third reading of Bill C-22 which Members of this House know is rather a short Bill. It amends Sections 33 and 34 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. The officials like to describe it as a housekeeping matter, but in fact there are nine families
of toxic substances on Schedule I of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act that simply cannot be regulated at the moment other than through interim orders which are very difficult and unwieldy.
Of particular interest to the House, and I think to Canadians, is the reason for the urgency in getting this Bill through and why Members of this House are working together so that it can become law and so that substances such as chlorofluorocarbons can in fact be more expeditiously regulated.
Unfortunately what we have learned during the rather brief committee hearings that we have had on Bill C-22 on CFCs is that the approach being taken by the Government of Canada, and particularly by the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bouchard), are totally inadequate. As we can see from their most recent publication of April, 1989, called Preserving the Ozone Layer: A Step Beyond, a report on options for meeting Canada's objectives to completely eliminate emissions of controlled ozone depleting substances within the next 10 years, is, by definition, an inadequate response to an extremely serious and severe global problem, namely the depletion of the ozone layer.
In this publication on preserving the ozone layer, the principal culprits or problems that we have throughout the world, and certainly in wide use in Canada, are listed in seven main categories: rigid foam, flexible foam, refrigeration and air conditioning, solvents, sterilants, bromofluorocarbons which are more commonly and widely known as halons, and aerosols. I think the first couple of paragraphs of the publication are worth putting on the record for those who want to have a better understanding of the process that has been gone through by the Government of Canada before I put some other remarks on the record as to what we should really be doing.
Global efforts to address stratospheric ozone depletion have been under way since 1981. The Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer entered into force on September 22, 1988.
As of March 1,1989,37 countries, representing the vast majority of the industrialized nations of the world, had ratified this Convention. The Convention provides the framework for co-operative activities, including the exchange of data or information related to the ozone layer. This Convention provides for the subsequent creation of protocols (free standing treaties) for matters such as control of specific
June 27, 1989

pollutants or families of pollutants. The first such Protocol created was the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.
The Montreal Protocol was signed in Montreal, Canada on September 16, 1987. It is clearly a watershed in co-operative and collaborative international undertakings. It introduces many new features never before established in international law.
The Montreal Protocol has two requirements for entry into force; namely, 11 signatures of ratification by countries and these countries must represent at least two-thirds of global consumption of the controlled substances. The Montreal Protocol entered into force on January 1, 1989 and as of March, 1989 had already obtained 33 ratifications, again representing most of the industrialized states of the world.
In May, 1988, Environment Canada published its first Control Options Report titled: "Preserving the Ozone Layer: a first step". This report set out a series of options to implement regulations to meet Canada's obligations under the Montreal Protocol.
The Montreal Protocol calls for a 50 per cent cut back in the 1986 levels of consumption of five chlorofluorocarbons (CFC 11,12,113, 114, 115) and a freeze at 1986 consumption levels of three brominated fluorocarbons called Halons (Halon 1211, 1301, 2402). At a series of United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) meetings held in the Hague, Netherlands, in October 1988 the world's leading scientists expressed the consensus viewpoint that the Antarctic hole will remain unless the emissions of controlled CFCs are reduced by at least 85 per cent from the 1986 levels. The target reductions contained in the Montreal Protocol are currently undergoing international review. This review is expected to culminate in amendments that will tighten the Montreal Protocol.
Canada contributed to both the organization and conduct of the UNEP meeting in the Hague and fully supports the notion of reducing consumption further.
On February 20, 1989 the Federal Government of Canada announced that it had set as its objective the complete elimination of controlled CFCs within the next ten years.
It also called on the rest of the world to set as its common target a reduction of no less than 85 per cent by no later than 1999.
As I said, at the brief committee meetings that we have had in the last while, we learned a number of interesting things; in particular that not only is Canada not moving fast enough; most countries and most political leaders around the world are not taking this matter in any way seriously enough. I
I pointed out the seven main families of materials in use in our society that need immediate reduction and recycling and re-use. The breakdown in terms of CFCs in Canada right now are aerosols, 9 per cent, rigid foams, 33 per cent, flexible foams, 8 per cent, in the field of
Environmental Protection Act
refrigeration, 36 per cent, domestic refrigerators composing 3 per cent and solvents, 10 per cent.
As we heard from witnesses, we must move to stop the easy ones. Many of those were identified. We must make the technology available now and make the removal of CFCs, for example, from home refrigerators mandatory. Then, if one needs a reinjection of CFCs, one can take it from other units that are being disposed of for other reasons.
In regard to automobiles, as we heard from witnesses yesterday, they lose up to 35 per cent of CFCs from their air conditioning units within the first couple of years of operation because the units are not hermetically sealed. TTien there are the big refrigeration units and so on. There are ways now to immediately and dramatically reduce the amount escaping into the atmosphere. The Government of Canada and the provincial Governments are not taking serious enough action to introduce the technology, to train the maintenance personnel, to make recycling equipment available at auto wreckers, at car dealers, at gas stations and so on, to make sure that CFCs that are escaping or are likely to escape are recovered.
As we heard from witnesses from General Electric last night, one of the problems that is addressable by the Government of Canada is that CFCs right now only cost between $1 or $2 a pound. They are very inexpensive. So in fact there is encouragement to continue to allow the release and the incomplete design and construction of compressors and holding equipment that have CFCs in them.
We heard from the refrigeration people that the foam that has CFCs in it loses 10 per cent of its CFCs over the life of the fridge. As I have said, automobiles lose 35 per cent from their air conditioners. To give some idea of what kind of quantities are in your average size fridge, there are two to four pounds of CFC 11 which is in the insulation and six to eight ounces of CFC 12 which is in the cooling system.
We heard from Mr. John Bennett of Greenpeace before the committee earlier this week who gave an excellent brief called "Stop It Now'' which is its response to the Canadian CFC Control Program. Its suggestions are the following; Ban the production of CFCs and halons in Canada; expand the list of controlled ozone depleting compounds and establish a national recycling and recovery program. These seem to me, Mr. Speaker, to be things on which the Government could move if it were listening seriously enough to what the international

June 27, 1989
Environmental Protection Act
scientific community is saying, not only about the Antarctic ozone hole but about the holes that are now starting to appear over northern Canada. There may, in fact, be other holes and depletion areas within the ozone layer that simply have not yet been identified. The brief goes on to say:
There are millions of tonnes of chlorine floating around in the atmosphere destroying the ozone layer. If we do not stop polluting it now we will not be able to protect our children,-
Also included is a rather appropriate quotation from Dr. Klaus Toepfer, Environment Minister for the Federal Republic of Germany. He said:
"The affluent society is not dependent on CFCs. But even if it were, one would, I believe, have to accept this cut in living standards."
For a CFC control plan the witness from Greenpeace suggested a number of areas that need to be moved on: One, timing. Two, controlled compounds. Three, disclosure of information. Four, environmentally safe alternatives. Under the heading "Timing" we find the following:
The earth can no longer afford the cost of a slow phase-out of CFC production and use.
The Government of Canada must immediately ban the production of CFCs and halons and limit their use to an extremely few exceptions for life-saving applications.
The Government of Canada must immediately increase its commitment to preserving the ozone layer by substantially expanding the resources it devotes to eliminating ozone depletion and expanding its enforcement capability.
The Government of Canada must immediately establish national regulations requiring recovery and recycling of CFC refrigerants in all applications until new technology replaces them.
Let me say the proposal made by Mr. Bennett is so obviously capable of being implemented. The compressor technology for removing CFCs from existing units is available. It could be made substantially more compact and movable to be taken out of utility vans into the home. It can be easily moved around in plants where CFCs need to be moved between different pieces of equipment. The technology, the effort and I am sure the will of the Canadian public is there to participate in such a program even if it costs more, Mr. Speaker. We have learned from poll after poll that Canadians are prepared
to pay significantly more for a safe, healthy, clean environment. What is missing, the fundamental missing link, is political will. That political will is missing right now from the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bouchard) to take the kinds of serious steps he is capable of taking under CEPA. It goes on to say:
The Government of Canada must immediately establish a national recycling program and not leave it up to municipalities or other governments to operate as indicated in "Preserving the Ozone Layer".
We have heard in this House many times the problems right across the country of cars simply being wrecked with their air conditioning systems in them. CFCs are released. The same is true of refrigeration units and many other things. Under the heading "Controlled Compounds" Greenpeace suggests that the list of controlled substances must be expanded to include HCFCs, methyl chloroform and carbon tetrachloride. We have yet to hear from the Minister of the Environment what his plans are on those compounds.
The Environmental Policy Institute and the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in the United States examined various scenarios for eliminating carbon tetrachloride and methyl chloroform in addition to controlled CFCs and halons. The study suggests that if emissions of these CFCs decline to zero by 1995, if carbon tetrachloride growth rate was in the middle of the zero to 3 per cent range cited by the World Meteorological Organization and methyl chloroform grew by less than the WMO's 8 per cent projection, atmospheric chlorine levels would increase from 30 million tons in 1987 to over 90 million tons by the year 2000. Alternatively, if carbon tetrachloride and methyl chloroform were phased out by the year 2000, chlorine levels would fall from 30 million tons to 1.7 million tons by the year 2000. It is essential for the Government of Canada to ban carbon tetrachloride and methyl chloroform and to ensure these compounds are included in the international agreements on the ozone layer.
On international activity, Greenpeace states:
June 27, 1989

The Government of Canada must support an international fund to aid Third World countries in complying with a 100 per cent CFC ban.
Secondly, the Government of Canada should promote a vastly expanded international program which includes banning all CFCs, Halons, HCFCs, methylchloroform and carbon tetrachloride.
On disclosure of information, as suggested by Greenpeace, Canada should support Norway, the U.S.S.R., New Zealand and Zambia in calling for the public release of data on a country-by-countiy and product-byproduct basis for all ozone depleters. For anyone who has been around here for a while, or involved in politics anywhere, knows that access to information is absolutely fundamental to getting public support and political action for safe alternatives.
On environmentally safe alternatives, Canada should move completely away from chlorine-based substitutes, as there are a range of serious toxic pollution problems associated with them quite apart from their ozone depleting and global warming potentials. The solution to the CFC problem is in finding the best alternatives that are not synthetic. We come to the "100 per cent reduction, is it feasible?" In the refrigeration sector, a large volume of CFCs are stored in existing commercial freezer and cold storage systems. Much of the demand for CFCs in this sector is artificially created by wastage and could be met by recovery and recycling. As much as 70 per cent of the CFCs used in refrigeration is lost through leaks and other wastage.
As for foam blowing, packaging for hamburgers and fast foods, other presently available products can be substituted. Insulant foam used in building can be eliminated in most applications by use of alternatives without serious technical or cost consequences. CFCs used in solvents can often be replaced by aqueous cleaning, which preceded the use of CFC-113. Some solvent use can be replaced with organic terpenes and "clean mount" techniques. The use of halons can be avoided by installing other types of systems; for example, carbon dioxide or water sprinklers combined with other measures. Recovery and recycling of existing halons could service existing fire-fighting equipment where halons are used in life-saving applications for which no other substitutes can be found.
Plant Breeders' Rights
On ozone depletion, we find that the earth's ozone layer is being destroyed by chlorine and bromine released into the stratosphere by a group of chemical compounds known as chlorofluorocarbons and halons. The depletion of the ozone layer will result in skin cancers, eye damage and crop destruction as increasing amounts of ultraviolet radiation from the sun reach the earth's surface.
Already, British scientists and NASA have identified a hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica and a thin area of the ozone layer over the northern hemisphere has been observed. Alarmed by the rapid depletion of the ozone layer, more than 40 western nations signed the 1987 Montreal Protocol which calls for a 50 per cent reduction of CFC emissions by 1999.
Joe Farman in the New Scientist for November 1987 said:
A 50 per cent cut in world consumption of CFCs will not be enough to save the ozone layer. The emissions of CFCs are so large that they are accumulating rapidly. If we wish the amounts of CFCs to remain constant, we must cut emissions so that they are equal to the losses, that is to say, roughly 15 per cent of the current level.
Joe Farman, a member of the British Antarctic Survey, is credited with identifying the hole in the ozone layer.
In 1988 the EPA said to maintain stratosphere chlorine at current levels would require a 100 per cent phase-out of the Montreal CFCs with 100 per cent participation. In other words, just to maintain the ozone layer in its present state there must be an immediate 100 per cent reduction of CFC production.
If there is more time, Mr. Speaker, I could go on.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


An Hon. Member:: On division.


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

Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I move:

June 27, 1989
Plant Breeders' Rights
That the debate on second reading and reference to a legislative
committee of Bill C-15, and on any amendments proposed thereto,
shall not be further adjourned.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


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


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Call in the Members.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I declare the motion carried.
June 27, 1989

I believe there is unanimous consent to allow the Hon. Member for Kitchener (Mr. Reimer) and the Hon. Member for Rosedale (Mr. MacDonald) to present committee reports.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


John Henry Reimer: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present in both official languages the first report of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, a review of the Post-secondary Students Assistance Program of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.


ENVIRONMENT-SECOND REPORT OF STANDING COMMITTEE
Hon. David MacDonald (Rosedale):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present in both official languages the second report of the Standing Committee on Environment relating to the Order in Council appointment of Raymond Robinson as Administrator in matters involving federal jurisdiction for the purpose of Sections 22 and 23 of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement.
Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the Government table a comprehensive response.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I regret to say that there have not been discussions among the Parties but we are now debating Bill C-15 at second reading and I want to advise the House that in the event a recorded division is required at the end of debate at second reading of Bill C-15, the Government would be prepared to apply the result of the vote just taken to that recorded division.


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.
Plant Breeders' Rights


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, the Government House Leader's timing is just a hair off tonight.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Nelson Andrew Riis: If the Government is going to invoke closure on this very critical Bill, I think it is appropriate that Government Members be forced to stand up and show the people of Canada how they are voting.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: There is no agreement.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski that Bill C-15, an Act respecting plant breeder's rights, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
Ralph Ferguson: Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to speak to this Bill being brought in under closure at second reading. It is a very complex Bill which will have a profound impact on this country and the potential food supply of this country if allowed to pass in its present form.
I recall as a young child going with my father in a Model A Ford to pick up registered seed grain from a local seed company. I remember him harvesting the wheat the next year when, in turn, he would sell that to other farmers in the area.
The advances in crop technology and plant breeding since that time have more than doubled the yields of those plants. This has been done through research by private companies as well as through the tremendous research and leadership performed by Agriculture Canada and the scientists there.
It is only in recent years that they pushed back the climatic borders by approximately 250 miles for the production of com here in Canada through plant breeding. Just a few years ago only a certain area of Ontario could produce com. Through selective plant breeding they were able to push back those boundaries. Those

June 27, 1989
Plant Breeders' Rights
varieties were developed to a large extent by the scientists who work at Agriculture Canada on our behalf.
This Bill disturbs me when I consider all the hunger in the world today, in places like Ethiopia. We have varieties of sorghum that will grow and thrive under conditions there. In fact, it is grown in the Sudan but is not being made available to the starving Ethiopians. In this context, we can only suggest that food is being used as a weapon. If legislation like this is passed without proper safeguards, it is not inconceivable that a few very large companies could hold the world to ransom in terms of their food supplies.
As a result of a previous drug Bill in the last Parliament, Bill C-22, we saw drug prices double in a veiy few months after that Bill became law, in spite of the assurances that this would never happen. It can happen in this case because this Bill has several flaws that I think have to be corrected, hopefully in committee if the Government intends to put the Bill through.
Let me outline a few areas of concern.
The first is subclause 2(2) and subclause 6(1) wherein there is provision that a country could protect varieties of certain species for 15 years, but in Canada that could be 18 years. I have no problem whatsoever with protecting some varieties for 18 years, but varieties of what? Grapevines or fruit trees, yes, but not seeds, not grain seed or vegetables or other types that mature in a matter of a few months or a year. Many grapevines are over 100 years old and are still producing. In fact, some of them even get better with time.
I could accept the 18-year provision for trees or grapes, but then I find that some of our Canadian scientists, some of whom are working with CIDA in Thailand, have developed new species of trees that will mature in eight years. We also have dwarf apple trees which will produce in a matter of three or four years. In committee we must look very hard at that 18-year provision. The limit for grains must be stipulated in the Bill, whether it is five, six or seven years.
My experience over the years has been that when a new variety of com, wheat, or beans comes on the market, after six or seven years that variety starts to run out, as they say. It is not as good as it was the first year it was put on the market. Therefore, there must be a
constant renewal of varieties, new developments that are disease resistant, resistant to the various types of bacteria, insects, or blights that may affect them.
Another area that I must question is that both federal and provincial Governments must comply with the provisions of plant breeders' rights. Usually what happens within a province is under provincial jurisdiction and what happens in international and interprovincial trade is under federal jurisdiction. I must wonder about why both levels of government must comply. Are we in fact imposing this on the provinces, and will they accept it?
Another area that we must look at in detail is the expansion of farmers' rights. They are mentioned in the Bill. A farmer is only given permission to grow his own seed from that which he has bought. He cannot help out a neighbour by giving him a few bushels to help him get established, or he cannot give some to a son. There was a drought in three of the last four years and farmers are very hard-pressed financially. I think there should be a relaxation of farmers' rights to enable them to give a few bushels to a neighbour or a son or to help someone in need without having to break the law.
This one is a real sleeper because it allows one to purchase seed in another country without infringing on plant breeders' rights as long as one does not plant the seed. I am speaking now of subclause 5(2). This would allow me to go to the State of Michigan in the United States and purchase seed without infringing on plant breeders' rights, but I cannot plant it when I bring it back home. If I cannot plant it, what in the world am I going to do with it? It will be treated with various seed treatments to protect it from insects and various diseases, but what do you do with treated seed? You certainly cannot eat it.
The danger in this clause is that if a multi-national seed company wanted to ensure that we in Canada are not given access to a certain superior variety of seed it can do so under subclause 5(2).
Under subclause 5(4) both the federal and provincial Governments may collect royalties on their varieties. This clause seems to make a great deal of sense until we realize that there is nothing in it that requires these royalties to go back into research in the public interest. The Government has cut research funding dramatically since 1984.1 believe that a major portion of any earnings from royalties should be funnelled back into research in
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the public interest to develop new species and varieties of plant seed.
There is nothing in this Bill to prevent a company from collecting very large royalties under this legislation. In fact in England these fees start out very low and then increase over several years.
It is very simple to see what will happen here. If a company develops any variety of seed, all it needs to do is let a few bushels out on the market for the first few years in test plots and publish the results. It can fertilize these plots very heavily and grow the plants under almost perfect conditions. It can publish the yields and through advertising promote these varieties very extensively. After they are out for a few years and it has done a lot of advertising, it can start jacking up the royalties. There is nothing in this legislation to stop it.
There is nothing in the legislation to stop a company from withdrawing a popular variety of plant from the market-place and replacing it with another on which it can collect a higher level of royalties. I think that is a very dangerous clause to have in the legislation without a ceiling to protect not only the rights of the farmers and producers but, in turn, to give the companies a return on their money.
I need only think back a few years to some of the supposedly new and superior varieties of wheat that were brought into Ontario. They did not originate here. I am not going to name them, but we all know that after a few years of experience with them we found they were not as good as some of our older varieties of wheat that had been on the market for several years. They were more prone to sprouting during a season of more moisture than is normal in Ontario. The heads stood straight up when they were ripe, consequently when the rains hit, the hulls acted as a cup and held the moisture around the germination end of the seed. The older varieties would turn over and shed the rain when they were ripe. A lot of farmers bought these new varieties thinking they were going to increase their yields. Even if they did increase their yields slightly, they ended up with a lot of sprouted wheat.
With regard to the seeds, again I will use the soybean seed as an example. The price of seed went up even though the price of commercial beans dropped dramati-
Plant Breeders' Rights
cally this spring. These companies know that there is a captive market out there, and they charge what the market will bear.
Of course, this is nothing new in terms of farm input costs. For several years one chemical company was selling one particular patented type of herbicide for about twice as much in Canada as it was charging in other countries. I submit that these seed companies will do the same. They will charge whatever the traffic will bear when they get their protective legislation.
Clause 31 permits a variety to be assigned to another person. I presume that a person can be a corporation in the eyes of the law and, of course, if this is the case, there is nothing to stop a company from another country buying a variety and taking it off the market only to comer the market for its own particular products.
In Canada we already have an organization in place to market varieties produced by Agriculture Canada or the universities. That organization is SeCan which collects levies and royalties on the sale of new varieties. SeCan has about 2,200 members and membership is voluntary. In a sense it operates a partial plant breeders' rights system of marketing now, by marketing certified seed, of crops covered by Agriculture Canada's variety registration system.
One thing that is not known at this time is whether the royalties paid by our growers to foreign breeders will exceed or be balanced by royalties paid to Canadian breeders by foreign growers once a significant trade of protected varieties is established. We do not know at this time whether that balance of trade for new varieties developed will be in Canada's favour or will be against us.
I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that if we continue to cut back the research in Agriculture Canada and deprive the research scientists and the plant breeders of the funding they desperately need, the balance will very quickly turn to a deficit trade balance of seed produced in Canada.
We have persons saying that the multinationals will only dominate the industry if the public breeding program is seriously diminished and if the private varieties are superior. However, we have no commitment from the Government that the public programs will continue,

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with the cut-backs in research involved in plant breeding, if it is left to the private sector outside of Canada.
I have some very serious reservations about this Bill. I hope that the Minister and the Government will consider making some major changes in committee. They have not come up with a dollar cost on the administration of this Bill. I think they should do that and look at the areas of concern that we have here in the Official Opposition.
From my own personal experience-I used to be a registered seed grower a few years back-one of the things we have to look at very seriously is the 18-year protection. Just to recap, it is far too long for any grains or seeds with the exception of grapes, orchard trees or fruit trees.
We should have a system of satellite seed banks established across Canada, not just the central bank here in the Ottawa region. We could keep samples of the various types of seeds that are grown in the Prairies, for example, in an environmentally controlled room. They could be stored for up to 300 years. These should be kept in the public trust so that no company could ever get their hands on them and destroy the parent genes and seeds. There should be satellite banks not just in the prairie provinces, but in British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada to protect the public interest. The cost of these would not be that great. A single room of about 400 square feet in the basement of any environmentally controlled building would be sufficient. We have also to beef up the farmers' rights and ensure that it is not a criminal act to give a bag of a particular variety of seed to a neighbour or to a son.
The fourth thing that I want to stress-and these again are my own personal thoughts on this matter-are that the royalties have to be directed back into research by Agriculture Canada. This issue is too important to be left to private corporations or the private sector.
We have some of the best research scientists in Canada. They have developed some of the best varieties in the world. Our western Canadian wheat grown out of Saskatchewan is the highest quality of wheat grown anywhere in the world. We simply cannot let those quality factors be diminished by turning it over to the private sector.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the speech by the Member from Lambton-Middlesex (Mr. Ferguson). I hope that much of what he said will be attended by the government side.
I do not count myself in any way an expert or even significantly knowledgeable about the impact of this legislation on agriculture in Canada or elsewhere. I do know that there are grounds for significant concern.
I am reminded of the debate on Bill C-22 which bore some similarity to this legislation. This legislation, however, has to do with living material. It has to do with germplasm. What this would do is provide a measure of exclusivity, 18 years of exclusivity, to those who have provided by means of genetic manipulation a plant variety that is sufficiently new, sufficiently distinguishable and sufficiently stable to be distinguished from other varieties or cultivars of that species of plant.
It is interesting that this exclusivity is based on the final product. There is nothing here which meets the test that patents are required to fulfil. It might be of use to refer back to a decision by Lord Duneden in Pope Alliance Corporation v. the Spanish River Pulp and Paper Mill, 1929 A.C. 269, page 281, where he states that a patent represents a quid pro quo. The quid to the patentee is the monopoly. The quo is that he presents to the public the knowledge it does not have.
Of course it is quite notable that in producing a new breed of plant, a new cultivar that has some significant utility, its newness, its distinctiveness, its homogeneity, and its stability as a final product are the characteristics which will determine whether a licence in effect will be accorded and whether exclusivity or a monopoly will be provided.
There is no requirement to describe the process of making those plans which have been used in developing the new breed available to others so that they can build on the germplasm pool that resulted in this new cultivar. In according a monopoly, we are denied the knowledge that usually goes with the patent. We are also denied knowledge of what plants, what germplasm needs to be preserved in the event that that new final product, the new breed of plant, the new cultivar should, as plants often do, lose their characteristics so that the process

could in turn be repeated even after the 18 years of exclusivity.
There have been a number of objections raised to this kind of legislation, objections which I think sustain the request, indeed the demand, on the part of many that this Bill be accorded broad hearings so that the public will have an opportunity to make its case.
I think it would be appropriate however to consider just for a moment what is really involved here. I am a biologist. I never really thought that living things should be the particular property of anybody. As we develop these new high-test breeds with fantastic characteristics, with the ability to withstand pests, insects, disease, climates, different soils, and so on, we have operated on the availability of genetic variation that exists within the species throughout the world.
Where did wheat come from? Where did barley come from? Where did potatoes come from? Where did the vast majority of the cultivated plants that serve human needs come from?
They did not come from the major industrial northern nations that now would impose exclusivity on a living thing. Virtually every significant food plant has come originally from the Third World, South America, the Caribbean, Southern Asia, and Africa. From the very beginning, dating from 1492, Columbus grabbed up maize, tobacco and a number of other things. He took them to Europe. In subsequent voyages there was the transport of plants from Africa and Asia back to North America, so there has been established a degree of homogeneity in availability of certain kinds of plants in the tropics. Dating from 1492 the northern industrial first world nations have taken the germplasm from the south to produce the agricultural giants that the northern nations have become.
In fact, right after the Second World War, this process went on to the extent that at the turn of the century 70 per cent of the budget of the American Department of Agriculture was devoted, dare I say it, to stealing the germplasm from the Third World. In contrast to coal, oil, and the forests germplasm was considered to be the calm and property of all mankind. We stand here today talking about taking that very germplasm that was stolen from the Third World and putting a patent on it as it is put into
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new combinations. Those will be secret combinations and will provide the basis for profit for the corporations. They will argue that they have injected human knowledge into this and therefore they should be paid for it. Well, it is possible if one considers, as I did earlier, the decision of Justice Duneden that there be a revelation of the content of an invention. That might put a different shape on it.
This process, as I have said before, of stealing the germplasm from the Third World continues. Much of the variety of the germplasm exists in the land races that are cultivated in the Third World, land races which can provide the kind of variability and the kinds of genes that can be used to create new breeds. These will have new characteristics which will be advantageous in northern climes.
Let me say something about those land races just for a moment. There are two characteristics to those land races. They display a great deal of variability and a field or contiguous fields of land races may have the capacity to withstand with minor losses all kinds of environmental or biological attacks. They have worked out quite well. Those land races are still being used and will be used by the corporations that we seek to protect in this legislation to produce those new varieties with their secret germplasm content, but those land races did not just jump up there on the soil.
Those land races are the product of human knowledge in the Third World. If it is justified to provide huge profits for exclusive knowledge to First World industrial nation corporations, then why is it not of equal importance to ensure that those poor peasant farmers, who with their traditional knowledge have created something new, be similarly awarded for their contribution through human knowledge?
There is an asymmetry there that is not unusual in this world. It seems to me that this country should be seeking to resolve this situation to the benefit not of the multinational corporations but of humankind and defer to the profit of the Third World. It is of interest to us to make sure that those aboriginal species, those land races and other variations that occur in the Third World be maintained. Perhaps we can find means of ensuring the maintenance of that and find a suitable way of compensating the Third World for its contribution. There is no justice in saying that there is property resident in the

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industrial nations but the property of the Third World is a part of a common heritage.
This is a significant and serious consideration and I know that you are pondering it with the greatest seriousness, Mr. Speaker. I hope that your colleagues, the Conservative Members on the other side, will similarly consider it.
There have been a number of other more domestic concerns raised about this legislation. Canada has done quite well really in the production of new plant breeds through the involvement of the Department of Agriculture and the universities. We produce breeds of grain, wheat and so on which are quite suitable to the Canadian climate and conditions. We have invested as a nation in this.
One has to ask a serious question: if we are going to open this up according to the multinational's exclusivity, a licensing of an 18-year exclusivity, is there not a danger that given the history of this Government inevitably the private sector will overtake the Government and industrial sectors?
Those areas will be increasingly devoted to basic research while, in fact, the private industry-and read there multinational corporations-will take over by deliberate intent. Remember this is the privatization Government: "We will take over by a deliberate intent the production of new breeds of plants for the farmers of this land". I
I do not have to tell you what the implications of that might be because the implications are clear. Monopolies and oligopolies will be established in which relatively few large companies will take over and, of course, prices will rise for the farmer and the cost of food will rise for the consumer. There is another element in this that I think should concern everybody. That concern resides in the list of corporations which are engaged in plant breeding. I am sure that you are going to be very interested in this: Shell, Sandoz, deKopp-Pfizer, Upjohn, Ciba-Geigy, and ICI. That sounds like a list of companies that produce chemicals and pesticides.
I know you are not a devious man, Mr. Speaker, and so you would not want a devious company. I am sure that you can understand that there might be a terrible
temptation out there, given the power of genetic engineering, the power of my own field, indeed, biology, to manipulate and that unbeknownst to the farmer those companies might very well be producing plants which are dependent upon pesticides and herbicides. What a trick that would be: sell the plant, you cannot get the new breed from anybody else. You plant that devil and find out it will not grow without 2,4D.
This has been a notion that has been dismissed by some but it is very difficult not to be extremely suspicious when we read the names of the companies which have the greatest interest in all of this. I think that we should know a good deal more about those possibilities before we allow this Government to push this legislation through without considerable thought. We have a good, solid plant breeders' effort in this country right now through Government and the universities that serves the farmer well. If the farmers are served well, the consumers are served well.
I do not see that there has been provided significant justification for a change in that situation, given the considerations involved. So I say to you, Mr. Speaker, not from a position of erudition but of concern, that this is not a piece of legislation which should be passed by one o'clock tonight. I hope that it will be given months of consideration by all of the interested parties, consideration of the interests of Canadians generally, farmers specifically, our role in the world and the interest which we should have as Canadians to ensure fairness not only within our own country but internationally. This would ensure the maintenance of the germplasm so necessary for securing our future and the availability of food, and that nothing will restrict the amount or the availability of the germplasm pool. This is really the common heritage of all of us and not that of Shell, Sandoz or any of those other big guys on the other side of our southern borders.


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, following the thoughtful intervention of the Member for Lambton-Middlesex (Mr. Ferguson) and the Member for Windsor-Lake St. Clair (Mr. McCurdy), it makes me wonder whether there is much that can be added to what has already been put on the record.
On the other hand, some points have to be stressed again, and perhaps some new territory has to be covered. It seems to me that with this plant breeders' rights Bill we are debating what could be described as the heart of
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the concept of sustainable development, particularly as it affects certain parts of the world.
Once again, this Conservative Government has succeeded in not practising what it preaches. Alas, this measure reveals also the limited understanding on the part of this Conservative Government of global environmental and developmental issues. It is a very distressing conclusion that one has to arrive at, after learning by way of a very interesting process, the implications of this plant breeders' rights Bill. It has certainly been quite a learning experience for me. It seems that a background picture needs to be given in order to appreciate the implications of this Bill.
The genetic resources essential to world agriculture- and I am heavily drawing from material prepared by genetic resources of our world organization-are increasingly controlled by multinational corporations. New crops are developed for economic reasons, including higher yields, uniformity, stability and ease of transportation, at the time and expense of public objectives, including nutrition, environmental protection, Third World development, as others have already stressed, and the protection and preservation of smaller-scale farming.
The new varieties are genetically uniform and therefore susceptible to wipe-out by disease or bad weather. The original varieties are disappearing, resulting in a dangerous depletion of the gene pool, to which the Member for Windsor-Lake St. Clair just referred.
What Bill C-15 seems to be doing, if it is implemented, is to reinforce monoculture, chemical agriculture and finally, private control of this precious public resource which is called seed. Plain, important, vital seed. To increase funding to Canada's world-class plant breeding program within Agriculture Canada and the Canadian universities to ensure a truly Canadian response to the environmental and food scarcity problems facing the world today is the objective we would like to see translated by this Bill. However, we do not see it. With the plant breeders' rights legislation, knowledge becomes an industrial secret and research becomes accountable to corporate interests and to considerations related to profit-making. That is not the way to go. In detail, the measure would lead to the use of more pesticides in food and agriculture. In the 1988 edition of
Plant Breeders' Rights
The Economist-l do not know which month exactly-it reported and I quote:
Chemical companies have spent $10 billion or so in as many years buying up seed companies worldwide -
It lists companies such as Pioneer Hi-Bred, Sandoz, Dekalb-Pfizer, Upjohn, Limagrain, Shell Oil, ICI, Ciba-Geigy, Orson and Cargill as the world's 10 largest companies in the business of seed. Seven of these 10 companies are also involved in crop chemicals. That is the important linkage which one has to keep in mind in order to understand the implication and the impact of this measure. At least six of these companies already sell seeds in Canada.
If the plant breeders' rights proposal Bill becomes law, then the trend will escalate. More than 50 per cent of seed research and development within private industry is focused on building the tolerance of new seed varieties to higher and higher concentrations of agricultural chemicals produced by these same companies. That is where the interesting link emerges. Canadian farmers will most likely be forced to bear the cost of seed royalties as well as increased input costs. The increased cost of food production will of course eventually be passed on to Canadian consumers who have already stated loud and clear that they do not want harmful chemicals in their food. Currently there are 4,000 registered commercial and restricted pesticides on the market in Canada.
The second impact of this proposed legislation would be to limit sustainable agriculture. Many farmers see organic farming as being one way to reduce the effects of the current financial and environmental crises facing Canadian agriculture. Fewer inputs are needed in organic farming and costs are much lower. Net income is often much higher in organic farming then in conventional chemical food production. The health of consumers, of the environment, of livestock and of family farm members is, of course, better protected through organic farming. We have seen on The Journal in recent weeks of a farmer who, because of the use of pesticides over a period of time, incurred a form of lymphoma.
If plant breeders' rights are adopted in Canada, organic farmers and converting farmers will not be able to get the seed varieties they need, varieties that are not

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dependent on pesticides and fertilizers to grow well. That is where the crux of the matter lies.
In addition, there is the decline of the gene pool which has been so well covered by those who have spoken before me. It is important to know that when seed companies develop a successful variety, it becomes a dominating seed on the market, but new varieties, I am told, typically rest on a narrow genetic base. The seeds are genetically uniform. Thus if one plant is damaged by disease, pests or bad weather, the entire crop is likely to be affected, creating widespread destruction or even a world-wide catastrophe. When a variety proves susceptible to a particular threat, breeders' usually go back to more robust, traditional varieties in order to find the genetic material they need to overcome the difficulty. According to some estimates, we have already lost over 50 per cent of the world's major traditional agricultural crops.
The danger to the gene pool is particularly great in the Third World where many of the world's centres of genetic diversity are located. Traditional crops face a triple threat of war, environmental degradation and replacement by the same genetically uniform varieties developed and used in industrial nations. We have no idea what genetic material is being destroyed or of its value to future generations. If environmental conditions change through the greenhouse effect, for example, hardy traditional varieties will be essential to breeding new varieties which can adapt to the new conditions.
Some of the threatened genetic resources from Third World countries are now stored in seed banks located in the industrial countries. However, the integrity of these collections is by no means assured, given inadequate funding and the trend toward privatization in the hands of multinationals. For instance, I am told that the repository at Cambridge University is now the property of Unilever.
The impact on the Third World can be summarized by saying that the crops developed by the multinational seed companies are designed to be grown with capital and technology-intensive farming techniques. In Canada this encourages the decline of the family farm in some cases. In the Third World, it exacerbates economic injustice as large land-holders drive peasants off their small plots of land. Third World countries develop
massive debts and balance of payments deficits as the cost of imported agricultural seeds, machinery and chemicals rises much faster than the export price of the crops produced.
It is particularly ironic that the Third World must now buy seeds from the north since the genetic resources on which these seeds are based were taken mostly from the Third World without compensation. Therefore, it would be much better if this Bill were to be withdrawn and Canada were to join in the international debate without committing itself to any single system, especially when these decisions impact so heavily on the economies and the people of the Third World. The changes being considered could also render Third World germplasm subject to patents in the north and additional royalty payments could equal 10 per cent of the total Third World debt per annum.
In response to corporate moves like plant breeders' rights in the industrialized world, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization is currently reviewing its commission on plant genetic resources and is considering farmers' rights, supplying intellectual property rights for Third World farmers, which could profoundly affect Canada's access to its major source of breeding stock in the future.
It may be fairly said that this is the first time the House of Commons is dealing with life patenting. While the Bill is of course limited to plants, the legislation also pledges Canada to participate in the International Union for the Protection of Variety of Plants. It has already announced that it would alter its system in order to allow member states to accommodate wider forms of life patenting including the patenting of specific genes and of livestock.
Finally, the issue that really brings us to our feet is the matter of exclusive monopoly. The notion of plant breeders' rights goes well beyond offering an opportunity for a return on costly breeding investments through royalty payments. The plant breeders' rights as envisaged in this Bill grants exclusive monopoly over access to a plant variety. The plant breeders' rights in countries where it has been adopted has increased crop genetic uniformity, reduced the quality of innovations in plant breeding and allowed corporate power to become even more concentrated. That is something that we Liberals do not like to see happening.
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The problem is that our market is small, much of it is dominated by multinational corporations owned abroad. Effective research and development requires a significant scale of operations. The principal beneficiaries of monopoly rights of plants in Canada are likely to be multinational corporations. This is certainly the case that we have seen with industrial patents. We know that multinational corporations have the resources and the experience to begin claiming breeders' rights immediately and to control the claims of less well-endowed rivals.
With the shift from the public sector to the private sector, another consequence would be that the open exchange of scientific information will be curbed in the interest of commercial secrecy.
In conclusion, plant breeders' rights is a consequence of the development that was set in motion by the Free Trade Agreement. I will be glad to expand on that point at the next opportunity.


Ms. Lynn Hunter (Saanich-Gulf Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise tonight to speak on this Bill. I take it that it is so important a part of the Government's agenda that it invokes closure on such a Bill.
This Bill is much more than an agricultural Bill. Many more people other than farmers are concerned about plant breeders' rights legislation. It concerns all who are concerned with the increasing concentration of power with multinational corporations. It also concerns all of us who are concerned with Canada's food system and the world's food system. That means all of us.
My criticisms of this Bill are based on many things. It is an insidious Bill. The issues are economic, ethical, social, political, moral, and ecological. For tonight's address, I am going to concentrate on three areas. First, I am going to talk about the environmental concerns, then my concerns about the corporate concentration aspects, and finally the international development aspects of the Bill. I hope by then to bring it all together. Although I make each of those three categories distinct for the purposes of my address tonight, they are all interlinked.
First, I will address the environmental concerns. We have heard much from scientific experts, particularly those on the environment committee of the Royal Society about the dangers of mono-cropping. This Bill is pushed by large multinational corporations, those U.S. agri-business firms that have developed mono-cropping
Plant Breeders' Rights
to the state of a high art. They are the ones that are behind this. The environmental degradation that goes along with mono-cropping is well known. The vulnerability that exists through mono-cropping is also well known. Yet, the Bill, because of corporate concentration, will encourage mono-cropping.
Not only do we suffer from environmental vulnerability, but financial vulnerability. As many farmers know, if they have only one crop which is devastated then they are out of luck and do not have anything on which to fall back. We have seen this in North America, and we have also seen it overseas where a farmer has only one crop and it is devastated by pests or blight, and then the farmer is out of business for that year.
We must also be aware of the environmental concerns because of genetic manipulation of seeds. Seeds could be manipulated so that they are dependent upon a particular type of pesticide or will respond only to a particular type of fertilizer. Although we have been assured that no corporation would ever do that, there are enough of us who are sceptical about those assurances that we should reconsider this Bill.
The Bill has a history. This is the fourth time that plant breeders' rights legislation has been brought before the House, and it looks like this one will be successful. We must understand the motivation of why now? Why is this legislation being brought in now? Similar legislation was brought before the House in 1980, but it did not get past second reading. In January, 1988 it died on the Order Paper.
We have to understand that the timing is important. Although Members opposite get tired of us talking about the Free Trade Agreement, it is important for us to understand that the U.S. Government has openly argued that food products should be patentable. It has asked Norway for example, to patent food as well as pharmaceutical products. It is all part of the right wing agenda that we have witnessed over the past year. We saw it with the Drug Patent Act last year, and now it is plant breeders' rights. The free trade agenda is implicit in this legislation. It is through the Government's willingness and lying down in the face of U.S. pressure that it has decided to invoke closure on this plant breeders' rights legislation. This brings me to the corporate concentration. It is the U.S. agenda that we are following here, let us be clear about that. This Bill sets a precedent in life patenting, as my colleagues have pointed out. This Bill has an insidious nature. Although it has been put across

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as an agricultural Bill, as something that we should not worry about, it is much more than that.
Think of what it means to set a precedent for patenting life, Mr. Speaker. Think of where we are going. Think about the path upon which we are embarking and what it means.
Under European and American plant breeders' rights legislation 90 per cent of seed patents are held by a handful of multinationals. After the year 2000, it is forecast that from 10 to 20 major corporations will dominate the seed markets. That does not give me any reassurance since what we are doing is inviting a monopoly situation in terms of controlling not just our food supply but the food supply of the world. I do not like to have large multinational corporations having any more control of my life than they already do.
The type of corporate concentration we have seen in the early months of the Free Trade Agreement will only increase with the passing of this legislation. This legislation should be reconsidered. We should take a long hard look at where we are going, not only in terms of environmental concerns but in our concerns of the path we are going down on life patenting. We are giving over the control of our food supplies to those multinationals which have not exactly shown the kind of sensitivity to the needs of ordinary human beings, whether they be here in Canada or elsewhere in the world.
There is more to this measure than the bottom line. This is where the moral questions come in. I
I would like to address my final comments to the international aspects of this Bill. Although Europe and North America were the first to patent genes, the genetic base for major crops originated in what we now call the Third World. Representatives of countries in North America, Europe and the Soviet Union have collected seed in the developing world and brought this germ plasm back home to store in gene banks. As one expert in the field has pointed out, it does not thrill Third World countries to think that their genetic diversity, something which they have given to us, is now subject to patent.
I visited Africa and in particular northern Ethiopia which happens to be where genetic diversity has been so well developed over many centuries. When the Ice Age was occurring, what is now known as Ethiopia was where the seeds were developing. We have taken from that country, or it has given to us freely, and we are now going to be using what they have given to us for profit. The type of vulnerability that is invited by this Bill will hurt us, but it will hurt those developing countries even more.
Large companies are claiming ownership of products which are the result of farmer genius over thousands of years. When I was in Eritrea, in northern Ethiopia, visiting agricultural research farms, I saw the benefit of the genius about which this article speaks. The farmers of that country have a great respect for their land and for the fact that crops must be diversified. They do not believe in mono-cropping or laying out by the hundreds of acres any one crop. Diversification is practised in order to regenerate the land. This is the same lesson that scientists from the Royal Society have been telling us. Yet this legislation pushes us away from that way of doing things.
As a developed country, we have the responsibility to stand fast in opposition to this legislation. The green revolution promised increased food production in the Third World through high yield wheat and rice varieties and the ingredients of modem agriculture. However, the green revolution has failed those countries. We have to go back and learn from their expertise and not be so ethnocentric as to think we know it all. I think that I have enough humility to know that I do not know it all. I just hope that Members opposite in the government ranks will take a little humility and recognize that they do not know it all either.
The crops that are mono-cropped are more vulnerable to total and widespread failure if faced with less than favourable conditions. That is one of the environmental concerns about which we have been talking. Not just the environment suffers, but the ability to feed ourselves is lost.
Canada has an important role to play. We should be standing fast in opposition to this type of legislation for environmental reasons and because of the resistance to corporate concentration, which is certainly not in our interests, and because of our role in international development. Canada has an integral place in the global village. It is the only developed country other than
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Austria, Finland, Norway and Greece not to adopt plant breeders' rights. We must stand firm against privatization and corporate control, control over the world's food system. That is what we are talking about here. Such control over the world's food system will bring long-term dependence. Dependence on whom? The large multinational corporations. It will bring vulnerability both economically and financially, as well as political instability, not just for the less developed nations but for us. This is a global village. Canada has a role to play as the conscience of the developed world.
I ask that this Bill be reconsidered in that light.


Joseph Blair (Joe) McGuire: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to participate in this one-sided debate on Bill C-15, a Bill which introduces plant breeders' rights to Canada for the first time. As often is the case, this Bill has been and will spark much heated debate within farm groups, church groups, political parties, provincial governments and even labour unions. This Bill has economic, social and moral implications which have not been adequately addressed. With closure having been invoked this evening, those issues will not now be adequately addressed. Therefore this important Bill will be vehemently opposed by many of our citizens who are disillusioned with the way this Government is addressing their legitimate concerns.
On the surface, the idea of plant breeders' rights makes sense. If an inventor designs a new or an improved type of machine, his time, expense and effort are recognized. The inventor patents his invention. He sells the rights to manufacture his invention to other people, if he chooses not to do so himself, and he collects royalties on the sales of his creation. He is rewarded. His rewards spur others on to develop new advances in a broad spectrum of endeavours.
An author is similarly rewarded, if the product of his pen results in sales, whether great or small.
It is well recognized in our society that people will be rewarded for their labour. Canada has never had this system extended to cover the development of new distinctive living organisms. The development of new plant varieties has always been carried out by Government and universities for the public good and the advancement of plant science. These two agencies have
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been quite successful in developing improved plant varieties which are suited to the regions of Canada where special types of seed are needed because of our relatively short growing season. It can be said with certainty that the development of the Marquis variety of wheat by a plant breeder in our Department of Agriculture resulted, to a large degree, in the settlement of the Canadian West.
The development of new varieties of rapeseed, hybrid com, soya beans and potatoes have greatly benefited regions of Canada, and have greatly benefited our farmers and consumers.
Most of our important agriculture crops are subject to variety registration by Agriculture Canada under the Seeds Act of 1923. The Seeds Act covers crop varieties that are made, sold, advertised or imported into Canada. The Seeds Act ensures that inferior varieties, the role of which would be detrimental to Canadian agriculture, do not enter the Canadian market while desirable new varieties can be approved for sale or importation.
Now the Government, with the introduction of this Bill, is extending the opportunity of developing new plant varieties to the private sector who, if their developments qualify under the Seeds Act, would be able to collect royalties for a period of up to 18 years.
The question is: Will the federal Government withdraw its support from Agriculture Canada once the private sector expands its efforts in developing new plant varieties?
Of course, the Government says that it would never do that. But this is the same Government that said during the election campaign of last year that regional development programs would not be affected by free trade. There will be tremendous pressure on any government that is dealing with a large deficit to withdraw from competing with private industry in a duplicating operation, especially if the private industry we are talking about are multinational corporations.
Therefore, there will be pressure from within and without for government to get out of the plant breeding business. The chance is very great that government research will become merely a back-up to private industry rather than a competitor, as has happened in other

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countries like the United States, that have similar legislation.
Also in the initial stages of private industry entering the plant breeding field, the Government will lose many of its top scientists as the multinationals lure them away with large salaries and other inducements.
I would like to believe the Government when it says it will not abandon the field, but I would rest easier if it were embodied in this legislation so that it cannot abandon Canada's commitment in plant breeding that we have had for over a century.
Second, there is absolutely no commitment to fair play to developing countries where, astonishingly, all of the world's major food crops originated. These developing countries have given freely to us in the industrialized world their rich supply of germplasm for crop variety breeding.
We in the industrialized world are almost devoid of primitive or wild seed supply from which we can tap the strong genetic material needed to develop new strains of seeds. The source of that raw material is diminishing as developing countries copy our mono-culture practices.
What we have been doing for the past number of years is collecting the raw material, the genetic material we need to develop new plant varieties from the developing countries and banking them in temperature controlled gene banks. This ensures our supply of raw material while we encourage the source countries to follow our practice of mono-culture and the larger production which results, while decreasing the growing areas of their wild seeds. What must be incorporated in this Bill is an amendment which prevents these gene banks from falling into the hands of the multinationals. If new large companies gain control and ownership over the genetic supply of raw material, as they are beginning to do in the United States, then we will all, here and in the Third World, be totally dependent on the goodwill of these corporations for our food supply.
Corporations do not have a conscience and if they control seed, fertilizer and pesticide production in one company it will spell disaster, especially for developing countries.
Therefore, vigorous public sector breeding programs and government controlled gene banks are absolutely necessary in preventing monopoly control of plant breeding in Canada. Granted, Canada will have access to varieties of plants from other countries which may have a positive impact on our economy, and Canadians will be able to be rewarded monetarily when our new varieties are exported to other countries. This is not happening now. We are exporting our progress in plant development for nothing.
But there is one thing that will happen for sure, the price of seeds will rise higher than the inflation rate. Farmers will be forced to pay the higher costs or risk being left behind when new high volume crop varieties are developed. This has already happened in the United States since plant breeder legislation has been adopted.
Finally, with the new technologies now being applied to the breeding of new plant varieties and indeed in creating new types animal life, perhaps Canada should defer this legislation in order to have it conform to the results of the UN study on the world-wide implications of plant breeding which is now under way.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to speak tonight on Bill C-15, an Act respecting plant breeders' rights.
Several speeches have already been made on this subject tonight and I hope that I will be able to say something of general interest to Members to convince them, especially the Government Members, to vote against this Bill.

One thing we are labouring under tonight is a closure motion. I could not go on with the Bill without expressing my distaste at the activities of the Government in invoking closure again tonight. This is the seventh occasion in this Parliament that the Government has chosen to use closure to cut off debate on its legislation. No other Government in the history of this country has used closure so frequently as this Government. Frankly, it is a disgraceful performance. The Government is obviously fearful of bringing its legislation before Parliament and having it exposed to the light of public scrutiny.
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If I had introduced legislation of the kind the Government has, I would be embarrassed as well.
It seems to be a persistent practice on the part of the Government to move closure at the earliest possible opportunity. This Bill has been debated part of one day, for two and a half hours, prior to tonight's sitting. Tonight the Government introduced closure on this Bill. It did the same thing last night and the same thing on five occasions prior to that. It is becoming a disgraceful habit.
I want to read the words I quoted in the House on December 16, 1988, when I quoted the former Member for Yukon, who said in 1964:
The procedure of closure has been repugnant to the sense of fair play to the Canadian people. My own personal view is that never in Parliamentary debate should there be a muzzling of free debate.
Tonight we are seeing a muzzling of free debate. I submit the Government is ashamed of the Bill. It is ashamed of most of the Bills it has introduced. It is invoking the closure rule to cut off debate and limit it so the public will not hear about the evils of the proposals it is putting before Parliament. It is time the Government discontinued this practice and made a promise to discontinue its use in the future.
I am not seeking to blame the Government for all the evils of this Bill. I think that perhaps it is the result of some misguiding on the part of the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Mazankowski). He made a credible speech in the introduction of the Bill a few weeks ago. I do not think he took an unduly vigorous approach in supporting it. I can understand why, because he must have some doubts about some of the items proposed in the Bill.
The Bill will allow companies and individuals to patent new seed developments. As plant breeders develop new strains or varieties of seed, they will be able to protect those varieties by a patenting process similar to the patent that is given in the development of new business techniques or instruments of production. I
I suggest that this control given to seed companies will lead to a control that can be extended to the whole food production cycle. Let me give some examples to explain why I feel it will lead to the control of the production cycle, not just in Canada but on a world-wide basis. That is a major reason for our concern tonight. If we give away the control of the production of the seeds, which in
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effect we will do under this Bill, the thin edge of the wedge is in and there is potential for control on a much wider scale of the food production industry of the world.
Hybrid seeds are perhaps the easiest example and so I would like to talk about them for a minute. I want to make it perfectly clear to you, Mr. Speaker, and to all Hon. Members, that I do not claim to be an expert on this matter. I am not a farmer and I am not the son of a farmer, nor am I a seed producer or the son of a seed producer. I am not an expert on these matters at all but I have done some reading on this subject and it has caused me great concern.
Hybrid seeds are produced by the crossing of plants which breed on themselves. In other words, they do not require cross-pollination to produce seeds. The hybrid seed that is the result of the cross-breeding of these two types of plants will result in the growth of a plant that often possesses the best characteristics of the two parent plants. The result of that is that the hybrid seed will normally produce a plant that grows twice as fast.
As a gardener, I have grown things like broccoli and I will use broccoli as an example, because Members will understand that. There are hybrid broccoli plants available and non-hybrid plants. The advantage of the hybrid is that it usually grows faster and usually produces larger heads of broccoli than the non-hybrid plant. The disadvantage of the hybrid plant in normal, everyday parlance is that it does not itself produce seeds that reproduce its strong characteristic. If it produces seeds, they fall back to a weaker plant which will not produce as large heads and will not produce as vigorous growth as would the hybrid parent, if there were such a thing. So you need to keep crossing the two in-bred plants in order to produce the hybrid.
If one of these companies patents its hybrid it will retain the right either to produce the seed exclusively or to licence out the production. In other words, the production of the hybrid seed will be the property of the owner of the plant breeders' right, as it were, in this product.
What is the risk of this? Let us suppose there is one strain of broccoli that becomes the leading hybrid strain and it is sold on a world-wide basis and most growers of broccoli grow this particular strain produced by Company A and its licensed affiliates. The sale of the seed is

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obviously then controlled by the patentee, the person who has the plant breeders' right on that seed.
If in a particular year that company were unscrupulous enough to withhold all its seed and refuse to sell any of its seed, clearly the world production of broccoli would drop off substantially, presumably in quality and certainly in quantity. This is because there would not be many other seeds around. If there were one dominant brand, people would not be producing other seeds. Also, the other seeds would be for lesser quality plants of broccoli. One can well imagine, therefore, that the price of broccoli on a world-wide basis would substantially increase by virtue of the operation of the law of supply and demand.
Let us look at what would happen the next year. The company has a great supply of hybrid seeds that it has been building up. It did not sell any the previous season. The price of broccoli has skyrocketed. It is clear that the price of the seeds it is offering for sale would then follow suit and skyrocket. I do not hold the grudge against large multinational companies which my friends in the New Democratic Party obviously do, I do not say that everything they do ipso facto is bad. However, we face the risk that an unscrupulous company might control the production of a particular seed for its own profit advantage at the expense of other people. I am also not a believer in the completely free market concept that is espoused by some of my hon. friends opposite. I think they realize their mistake in adopting that position, at least I hope they do.
The other difficulty is that if we agree to this Bill we become part of an expanding world-wide network controlling the production of seeds because most of the other industrialized nations have already adopted legislation similar to this legislation and they are now part of this expanding network. I suggest that if we avoid joining in this particular network we will not suffer any disadvantage. Indeed, a suggestion was made by the Minister that if we did not join we would not then get seeds that are available elsewhere. However, I have never heard anyone suggest any variety or type of seed which is available elsewhere and not available here because of the lack of plant breeders' rights rules. I tell Hon. Members opposite that before I could possibly be persuaded to vote for
a Bill of this kind I would want some very firm evidence that its non-adoption would be substantially detrimental to the interests of our country because I have seen no such evidence. I suggest there is no such evidence.
The second reason for looking at this Bill with great skepticism, and indeed rejecting it at this point, is the fact that many of the new strains of seeds being developed today-and I am going away from hybrids and talking about almost any seed or plant that is developed-is developed by large multinational companies which also produce chemicals and pesticides. It is clear that those companies would find it to their advantage to produce seeds that grow better when they are subjected to extensive spray from pesticides or other types of pest controls and/or fertilizers.
The production of the fertilizers and the pesticides is done by these companies for the purpose of earning a profit. If they could produce a seed or plant that was dependent on their particular kind of fertilizer or their particular kind of pesticide, sales would clearly increase because if they can sell the seed they will sell the chemicals with it.
In my submission the sale of both the seeds and the chemicals constitutes something which is, in my view, undesirable. We have many natural occurring seeds or seeds which have evolved through hundreds of years of use in cultivation by farmers and growers of seeds in various plant stocks. All of those are currently available throughout Canada for our use to the extent that we wish to have them. We do not need to grow particular ones with pesticides or with fertilizers. Those help in the growth, perhaps, but they are not essential. Why we would aim for the development of strains of plants that are fully dependent on particular chemicals is beyond me. Yet that could be one of the effects, and I suggest that it will be, of the adoption of Bill C-15.1 urge Hon. Members to look at that very carefully before they vote willy-nilly for this Bill.


Mr. Thacker:: Has that occurred in the desert countries?


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: My hon. friend asks whether that has occurred in the desert countries.


Blaine Allen Thacker: The 15 countries that have adopted it.
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Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: No, I do not believe it has happened in the 15 countries that have adopted it because, I suggest to my hon. friend, they have not been able to get control on a world-wide basis at this point and thereby take full advantage of the fact that these seeds are then controlled. However, I will tell him one thing that has happened in those countries as a result of the adoption of this kind of legislation, and that is a very significant reduction in public participation in the development of new seeds through government payments and so on. There has been a significant reduction in many countries. Second, there has been a general takeover by the large multinational companies of the small seed development companies in the countries. That has happened on a regular basis. That is an undisputed fact and I hope that when the Bill goes to committee my hon. friend opposite will get on the committee and hear the evidence of this fact and use it to advantage. It may persuade him to vote against this Bill.
The third reason that we ought to consider rejection of this Bill is that the effect on the Third World I suspect will be ultimately devastating.
I think, Mr. Speaker, you are aware that in times of drought or particular problems in the Third World, the industrialized world ships into that area its seeds, its plants, its products to help get things going again. In other words, there is often the situation where there is a complete dying out or destruction of seed stock in one of the developing countries, and we then fill the gap with seeds that have been developed or produced in some other part of the world. If the parts of the world that become subject to plant breeders' rights end up using a limited variety or a number of strains of seeds, then it will be that limited number of strains that will be sent to the Third World for their use. If they require the use of pesticides or fertilizer for their successful propagation, or if they are ones that are not well suited to their growing conditions, it is going to create additional problems for food production in every part of the world. I
I suggest that the ramifications of this part of the policy have not been fully explored. We need a detailed study on this. The various groups in this country which-have come out against plant breeders' rights have all expressed a very grave concern on this matter. I invite Members to read about and familiarize themselves regarding those concerns because it is an extremely
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serious risk. There is no reason today for Canada to join the expanding, if it is any longer expanding, group of industrialized countries which feel that this kind of legislation is helpful. I suggest that the only persons who really benefit from it are the seed companies.
I am not opposed, and I do not believe anyone in this Party is opposed, to seeing that persons who develop new seed strains or varieties are paid on a reasonable basis for their important work and effort, but it is not necessary to adopt patents in order to ensure that some such arrangement be made. There must be another method the Government could explore.
In preparing for this speech, I do not want to suggest that I read everything on plant breeders' rights and did all the work myself. I want to say that I have been assisted greatly in the preparation of my remarks by Rick Munroe who is one of my constituents. He lives on Howe Island, one of the islands in my riding of Kingston and the Islands. He is a farmer there, and he takes a very great interest in this subject, but not through any particular axe to grind or anything of that kind. He is just interested in this issue. He has thought about it, read extensively about it, and has written a few notes, or perhaps you could call them essays on the subject. I would like to refer to some of his ideas. I am not going to quote directly from his writing, but I want to mention some of the things that have caused him concern which I believe will cause concern for Hon. Members if they think about these things before they cast their vote on this Bill.
He indicated to me that 15 years ago the southern com leaf blight threatened the genetically uniform American hybrid com crop. This is a case where there had been a strain of com developed on a hybrid basis that was used extensively throughout the United States. He indicated that the blight was halted by breeding in genetic material from a very rare com variety from Mexico. The question he asks is, if we are going to adopt this plant breeders' rights business and start exporting our seeds abroad and displace the local seeds that are regionally generic, are we then going to destroy those seeds? Are we going to lose the seeds that are generic to a region and replace them with the hybrids that we in fact have developed? If that happens, will we then put these other generic seeds to the point that they are extinct? Will we in fact destroy them and lose the possibility of transferring the genetic material from these rare seeds to our hybrids to save them from this kind of destruction? I do not think that

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question has been addressed. I do not think it has even been thought of in dealing with this legislation.
Second, he refers to the errors that can occur when one gets into genetic breeding. I see the Hon. Member for Macleod (Mr. Hughes) is here with his cheshire-cat appearance, and I am delighted that he is here because he is very interested in this question. I hope he will vote against this Bill.
The interesting ones that he pointed out as new genetic forms of life were the gypsy moth and the killer bees. He points out that the gypsy moth and the killer bees were introduced quite deliberately by scientists who thought that they knew what they were doing. The mistake was made and these things got out. The Fear is that if we have plant breeders' rights, the plant breeder is liable to make similar mistakes and release a kind of seed or plant that should not be out. If we are going to be rushing through a patent process to get these patents applied for, it may be that there could be errors in the system and that these seeds could be released. We will face the same kinds of problems with these plants as we are facing with killer bees. Maybe we will have killer plants or something that grow up and eat the wheat in the Macleod constituency. I do not know. The risks are there.
I do not in any way make light of them, Mr. Speaker. I think there are risks that ought to be faced by the Government in particular as it considers whether to proceed with this Bill. I
I know, Mr. Speaker, you will realize notwithstanding my comments at the outset dealing with the deplorable use of closure in this case, I have not sought to be partisan in my dealings with this Bill. What I am trying to do is persuade the Hon. Members who support the Government to urge their Ministers of Agriculture- there are three of them for Heaven's sake-to take another look at this legislation and see if they cannot do something to stop it or slow its progress so we can have a long, hard look at the proposals and hopefully reject it.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret that the Hon. Member's time has expired. On a point of order the Hon. Member for York South-Weston (Mr. Nun-ziata).


Mr. Nunziata:: Mr. Speaker, I think if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for my friend and colleague from Kingston to continue with his excellent remarks.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, I am glad for the chance to speak tonight against Bill C-15, an Act respecting plant breeders' rights. The problem with the Bill is that like some of the Members across the way who keep shouting, it does not respect anyone else's rights. TTie Bill respects the rights only of the plant breeders and wants to push them to the exclusion of all other rights except to the extent that plant breeders are taken over by the chemical companies. That is why we in the New Democratic Party oppose it.
Our principle is a democratic socialist principle that production should be carried on to meet the individual and social needs of people and not primarily for profit. That is why we maintain that it is necessary to curb and control and sometimes even put monopolies directly under democratic public control. In fact what we want to do is democratize the economy. Of course that brings us into collision with the Members opposite whose respect for democracy is so little that they are using closure three times within a week because they do not have the patience to debate the subject when they are sure that they can just hammer it through with their majority.
In other words, their principle is, let the monopolies control. Since the monopolies control their Party through the Business Council on National Issues, naturally they are saying: "Let the monopolies control this country".
This debate is very much like the debate of a year or two ago about the patenting of prescription drugs in which the same Party, the same Government, insisted that the drug monopolies should be allowed bigger profits through patenting than they were already getting.
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They promised all kinds of jobs in return for that, but they would not guarantee it, nor would they make that a condition of receiving the profits. Profits were guaranteed and the jobs we can whistle for.
What this legislation wants to do is to patent life forms or to enable those who have the fortunes, the wealth to do research to own life forms and the use of life forms through their patents. This will mean that not only will certain plants become the property or the seed of those plants become the property of a few, but according to the people who are engaged in it, such as the Unionfor Protection for New Varieties of Plants, they will alter their plans to accommodate some aspects of biotechnology, possibly including livestock patenting. In other words, there is no boundary when we get into this field strictly between patenting of plant forms and patenting of animal forms. Nor is there a boundary between the patenting of animal forms and the patenting of human forms. These people are willing to lead right on to try to patent and own human beings in a way that the slave holders of past time never dreamed was possible.
In other words, it is a system of enslavement that these people are pursuing. One of the earliest results of it will be a sharp rise in the cost of seed which will put many farmers in this country and many more farmers in other countries of the world, especially in the south, into a loss position. At present about 4 per cent of the production cost of Canadian wheat is in the seed. Europeans are already spending five times as much but it is predicted that as biotechnical patenting increases, the farmer's share of the cost for the seed and the crop may rise about 50 per cent, 50 per cent of the cost going for seed.
The problem is that these companies producing the seeds are being reduced by takeovers. In the last 20 years there have been over 1,000 corporate takeovers of seed companies. In the 1970s there were about 30 companies that produced crop chemicals. Now there are about a dozen and within a decade the industry predicts there will be only six crop chemical companies. They are the ones which are taking over control of seed production so that in another 10 years or so there may be only 10 or 20 major corporations in the seed market. That is bad news for farmers and it is bad news for people who like to eat. In other words, our eating is going to be controlled by
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these seed companies and by the chemical companies that control the seed companies.
Some of this is illustrated in a very good book published this spring called From Land to Mouth by Brewster Kneen. It is a study on the food system. He points out some interesting examples. For example, a couple of centuries ago Sri Lanka was self-sufficient in food. When the British Empire came along it wanted Sri Lanka to produce tea rather than the rice and textiles needed. Changes were introduced into the agriculture and now after the British and U.S. changes of bringing in wheat, Sri Lanka is being told to grow things like oil palms for the global market and it is not producing so much of its own food.
A further example he gives is that in the GATT discussions the Canadian representative, the Minister for International Trade (Mr. Crosbie), was not speaking for the ordinary people of Canada, he was speaking primarily for the big trading companies of Canada. They point out also, for example, that under an executive exchange program David Gilmour,a vice-president of Cargill Limited, a Canadian subsidiary of Cargill Incorporated, was on loan from Cargill to Agriculture Canada to assist in drafting agricultural policy for the Conservative Government. Cargill continued to pay his salary when he occupied an office on the top floor of the Carling Building beside the Deputy Minister of Agriculture. In other words, under this Government, Cargill, the great grain company dominating the grain markets of the world, was allowed to dictate Canadian government policy at GATT.
In the past we talked about trade, which means trade between partners. In other words, there is some mutual respect between one trading partner and another. Now the emphasis has shifted to export. It does not matter who the other guy is, push it out at him, push the grain out there, push it to the Soviet Union, to China or to Syria. It is not a matter of partnership anymore. It is just a matter of a one-way street. Now, with plant breeders' rights or so-called intellectual property rights, what we will get is control of world trade and export by the companies which have the wealth to own the patents.
For example, Ciba-Geigy, Bayer, Sandoz from Switzerland, Rhone-Poulenc from France, Cyanamid, Du Pont from the United States, BSAF from Germany and ICI from Britain. The people who are actually growing the food will be working, even half way around the world, for these great companies. The people who grow

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the food will not set the wages they get nor the prices at which the food is sold. That will be done by these few companies that will try to reach all around the world just for their own profit.
This sort of thing is not all in the future. Mr. Kneen, and I quote from the bottom of page 103, said that in Thailand today farmers are not permitted to grow the native varieties of rice. The Government requires them to grow only the hybrid varieties, the seed of which the farmers have to buy for each crop. In other words, for thousands of years the farmers have been independent and by their own skill were able to maintain themselves and build communities. Now they will, in effect, be employees of some European or North American company from whom they will have to buy the seed every year. They will become totally dependent upon those seed-producing companies.
The problem is that plant breeders' rights are part of an over-all totalitarian approach by the large companies. When some of us were young we joined the Army, sometimes with misgivings-the Canadian Armed Forces, the Army, Navy or the Air Force-because we were told it was necessary to kill in order to stop Hitler's totalitarian push.
Now we are getting totalitarianism of a different sort based on these large companies which want to control not only the land on which people produce food but the food that people eat. It is part of the over-all drive based on the high interest rates and low commodity prices that dominate most of the Third World, most of the nonwhite former colonies of Britain and North America. In those countries high interest rates and low prices for agricultural products are both fixed by the banks primarily of North America and Britain in which the real interest rates for a decade has been far, far higher than it ever was before. The real interest rate to be calculated isthe difference between the London Inter Bank Offer Rate and the annual per cent change of commodity prices.
For example, in 1981 the London bank rate was 16.6 per cent. The commodity change was a negative 15 per cent. The real difference those countries were paying was 32 per cent. The situation went on like that through most of the 1980s. In 1987 the real interest rate which these countries were paying, taking into account the
price differential as well as the bank rate, was about 10 per cent.
For those years from 1981 to 1987 the average actual interest rate being paid by the so-called developing countries was about 15 per cent. No wonder they are in debt. No wonder there are wars as the allies at the banks try to maintain military control in order to get those debts collected.
The problem that we have is an old, old problem, even though there are some new wrinkles to it. It is at least two and one-half thousand years old, as we find if we read the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, Chapter 5, beginning at verse 8. This is a warning to the people nowadays who want to do as they did then and simply take over other people's land.
"Woe to those who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is no more room, and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land. The Lord of Hosts has sworn in my hearing, surely many houses shall be desolate, large and beautiful houses without inhabitant."
That, of course, was the Jewish Scripture. It comes in very strongly into what we call the New Testament, the Christian Scripture, in the letter of James, Chapter 5.
"Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted. Your garments are moth eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted and their rust will be evidence against you, and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for these last days. Behold, the wages of the labourers who have mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud. Cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts. You have lived on earth in luxury and in pleasure. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned. You have killed the righteous one and he does not resist you."
If we go the way of this plant breeders' rights law, that is what we are asking for: Destruction.


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, at some risk, if I were to take seriously the remarks of the previous speaker, I have decided to participate in this debate. I frankly have succumbed to the temptation because I am simply sick
June 27, 1989

and tired of hearing the twaddle and the nonsense coming from the side opposite.
The fact is that the merits of plant breeders' rights have been debated here and elsewhere, off and on for many years. The suggestion that this legislation has not been adequately discussed is ludicrous.
What we are talking about tonight is simply referring the matter to a legislative committee in order that there can be some hearings and the Bill studied in some detail, and back to the House it comes again.
I believe that the time has come for serious consideration and the passage of the legislation. Plant breeders' rights legislation-I am going to call it PBR from now on in the interests of time-is in place in 18 countries in the world.
In fact, Canada is the only major agricultural nation which does not have such legislation. To listen to opponents of this Bill, one would think otherwise, that plant breeders' rights was something new, something unusual and something from outer space. We are talking about killer plants, Mr. Speaker. Maybe we are going to have killer plants which eat Members with red ties. I do not know, it is possible. However, the facts show otherwise.
Why PBR? The intent clearly is to enable plant breeders to collect reasonable royalties for new and distinct varieties which they develop through research. Breeding new varieties is expensive. It costs money. It is a matter of economics and a matter of simple equity that successful plant breeders should receive the return on their investment of time, of expertise and indeed, of money.
The royalties will encourage private sector plant breeders to increase their research activities. Public sector research will also be enhanced by the royalties which will be ploughed back into further public sector research. The result clearly should be an increase overall in research in this country.
In Canada right now, I believe that we need new varieties which will improve yields and which may be more resistant to pests and diseases. PBR will enable us to have improved and expeditious access to these new varieties.
Plant Breeders' Rights
Bill C-15 will also allow for the injection of higher quality foreign varieties which are adaptable to the Canadian environment. In the absence of PBR, breeders outside of this country are hesitant to market their new varieties here because their product has no legal protection. Canadian farmers are not able to gain access to certain protected varieties which are popular in the rest of the world. This could present a problem to our exporters who find themselves unable to produce the protected varieties which are in demand in some world markets.
Clearly, Bill C-15 will create new opportunities for the export of many excellent Canadian varieties. Without PBR, Canadian breeders may be unwilling to introduce new varieties on which they have spent considerable time and money.
The over-all impact of this legislation will be to strengthen the base for plant breeders in Canada. In the result, the entire agricultural industry in Canada will be strengthened. My Province of Saskatchewan, and my constituency in particular, are heavily dependent on agriculture. PBR will be good for the Saskatchewan food and agriculture industry and that is why I support this legislation. It is also the reason why I hope that my socialist colleagues in the Province of Saskatchewan will see fit to cast aside their philosophical opposition to this much needed legislation.
It is instructive at this point to look at the situation in other nations, the impact of PBR elsewhere. The United Kingdom provides an excellent example. Since their legislation back in 1964, the U.K. has seen a tremendous growth in productivity which has dramatically converted it from being a net importer of cereals in the 1960s to being a net exporter in the 1980s. As much of this growth relates to the improved varieties as it does to improved husbandry and to other increased inputs, the quality has improved as well as the quantity.
British crop varieties are now exported throughout the world. Wheat into Europe. Barley, into New Zealand and Spain, roses and top fruit root stocks, into growers world-wide. As of last year, the British industry, I am told, was comprised of some 52 plant breeders and agents for foreign breeders. The participants range from publicly funded institutes to small private companies, to divisions of multinationals. Dire consequences of multinational take-overs are nowhere to be seen.

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Plant Breeders' Rights
If the U.K. has been able to reap these benefits from PBR, imagine that there are indeed similar advances available to Canada through this legislation. With their knowledge, expertise and creativity, Canadian plant breeders have virtually unlimited opportunities.
At this point I would like to examine some of the opposition to PBR. It appears to me that the Liberals as usual are split. Members have made the halfhearted argument that the 18-year period of exclusivity rights is too long. However, the fact is that the 18-year period complies with the international convention for the protection of new varieties of plants.
If Bill C-15 proposed a seven-year or a ten-year period, we would not be able to satisfy the requirements of that international convention, nor would we be able to enjoy the benefits of reciprocity with the many other nations which are bound by the convention.
Further, 18 years is the maximum period of exclusivity. This right can be terminated sooner in many cases, and probably will be. In fact, Section 6, subsection (2) of the Bill provides for the payment of an annual fee to maintain that right. Under Section 35(l)(c), that right may be revoked for non-payment. Thus, the breeder will only retain protection on a variety if there is a sufficient return to justify payment of the annual fee. If the right is revoked, the variety becomes public property.
We have also heard the concern that Government plant breeding programs will decrease as a result of PBR. The Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Speaker-and I should digress here because I think I heard the Member for Kingston and the Islands (Mr. Milliken) suggest that there was something wrong with there being three Ministers of this Government devoted to agriculture. The fact that there are three Ministers devoted to this area indicates the tremendous importance which the Government of Canada attaches to the agricultural sector.
The Minister of Agriculture reaffirmed recently the commitment of this Government to the maintenance of public sector plant reading research. In this year alone, more than $23 million will be spent by Agriculture Canada on PBR. In the words of the Minister, and I quote: "Agriculture Canada has been in this business. It is in the business and will continue to be in the business".
Our friends in the NDP, of course, are against this Bill, as they are against anything which departs from the status quo. The NDP are misnamed. There is nothing new about them at all. They are against change. They are in fact the arch conservatives in this country. We on this side are the Progressive Conservatives. We on this side see the need for change and the need to move with the times.
While I am digressing on this point, I must say that I was amazed by the comments of the Hon. Member who spoke previously and referred again to the matter of the pharmaceutical patent legislation. I am amazed by the strange attitude displayed by Members opposite relative to innovation, to invention, and to initiative. I recall the remarks made when we were debating Bill C-60 in the previous Parliament, the copyright legislation. At that time, I heard all sorts of sanctimonious mutterings about the imperative to reward artists, musicians, and writers. That is good and that Bill passed.
What I hear from over there is that if we are talking about a song, music, a play, a book or something that is artistic, it should be given all sorts of protection. They want to recognize it and talk about the creative genius of the artist, his remuneration, and recognition. All of that is good, but why on earth would equal treatment not apply to someone who comes up with a new drug for the benefit of mankind or who comes up with a new plant variety which can benefit all of mankind?
Why is it that the inventor, the builder, the creator in a field outside artistic endeavour is someone to be denigrated as members of the Opposition do? All I can say on this topic is that Members of my Party and I say that we should at least afford to plant breeders the same kind of rights and recognition as has been afforded to the artistic community.
The Hon. Member for Mackenzie has warned us of the dire consequences of plant patents. Under this legislation, we are not talking about plant patents or the patenting of any other life form. Bill C-15 deals with plant varieties in an extremely specific way. It proposes a limited right that applies only to the reproductive material of plants. It is the same legislation that is in place in most of the nations with which we trade in seeds and
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other plant reproductive material such as bulbs, rose bushes, and the like.
Opposition Members try to imply that Bill C-15 would reduce the exchange of genetic information. They conclude that a plant breeder, having discovered a new and distinct variety, would secrete it away and not allow anyone access to it. Surely this legislation will increase, not decrease, the exchange of genetic information.
Indeed, with the current set of circumstances, potential useful foreign varieties are not available to Canadian producers. With the passage and implementation of Bill C-15, there will be an incentive for foreign plant breeders to share these varieties with Canadian producers. There will be a two-way street. Plant breeders will be able to obtain a financial reward for their efforts and the producers will have new production opportunities as well as increased potential for even greater yields plus enhanced protection from pests.
It is for these reasons that Bill C-15 is supported by a great number of farm and horticultural organizations from coast to coast. They include the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, the Canadian Horticultural Council, SeCan Association, the Canadian Seed Growers' Association, the Canadian Seed Trade Association, Flowers Canada, the Canadian Ornamental Plant Foundation, the Canadian Nursery Trades Association, the Western Canadian Wheat Growers' Association, the Agricultural Institute of Canada, the Canada Grains Council, and many more. These organizations and their members are fully cognizant of the opportunities they are currently missing.
At this point, it is important to recognize that there is a second way in which this legislation will encourage the sharing of genetic information. The International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties specifically prohibits the monopolizing of the genetic information in plant varieties. Article 5(3) states that authorization by the breeders shall not be required either for the utilization of the variety as an initial source of variation for the purpose of creating other varieties or for the marketing of such varieties. Bill C-15 is written to conform with this convention. The clear intent of the Bill is that plant breeders will continue to use existing varieties for breeding new varieties.
Plant Breeders' Rights
Another opponent of this legislation is the coalition known as GROW, Genetic Resources for Our World. One of its concerns is that this legislation will result in a dramatic increase in the price of seed. One of the outspoken opponents of the legislation has suggested recently that farmers' seed costs will quadruple. What he fails to mention is that farmers are in no way forced to use new seed varieties. They can continue to use their own seed, for example, which is unaffected by PBR, or they can purchase unprotected varieties. Even for protected seed varieties, it is predicted by experts that the increasing costs will be less than changes caused by supply and demand.
As well, one can assume that competition from foreign and new Canadian varieties is expected to hold down price increases. Moreover, improvements in yield, increased resistance to disease, and other positive improvements in available seed stock will far outweigh any increase in seed prices.
Another point that has to be kept in mind is that if a plant breeder is found to be charging excessive royalties or is intentionally keeping the market short in order to collect higher prices, any individual can apply to the commissioner of plant breeders' rights for a compulsory license which would give the individual the right to produce that variety. This measure ensures that all varieties are made available to the public at reasonable prices.
Of course, those on the far left have been telling anyone prepared to listen that this legislation will lead to takeovers of the industry by those nasty multinational corporations. What they fail to understand is that our seed industry is too large and diverse to be effectively taken over by foreign countries or anyone else. To be a target for takeover, a company has to have a breeding program and or protected varieties. At the present, private sector breeding in Canada is a distant third behind Agriculture Canada and university programs. The possibility of a corporate takeover in the industry is simply out of the question.
Furthermore, as indicated earlier, and I invite opponents of this Bill to examine the situation in the U.K., the legislation has been in place there since 1964. There has been plenty of time for this touted corporate takeover, but it simply has not been the case. An examination of other nations with plant breeders' rights

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legislation indicates that there are many, many hundreds of concerns that are involved in the process.
The opponents of the Bill, GROW, Friends of the Earth, and the like, have raised the argument that the Bill will allow the large seed companies to breed seeds that are dependent upon specific weed killers. This view fails to take into account the reality that the so-called dependent varieties would have a limited appeal to a producer who has the option to purchase public sector varieties or unprotected varieties. It seems to me just common sense that farmers would also shy away from a variety with high input costs as a result of its dependency upon a specific chemical.
Those in the left wing coalition have also raised the argument that plant breeders' rights will lead to genetic uniformity which will inevitably result in future catastrophes, another potato famine. Once again, they fail to grasp the true essence of the legislation before us.
By providing an incentive for even greater investment in plant breeders' programs, both in the private and public sectors, the chances of increasing genetic diversity are enhanced because only those varieties which are substantially different from other existing varieties will be recognized under plant breeders' legislation.
In closing, I want to say that perhaps the silliest and most revealing argument against plant breeders' rights is that put forward by GROW and others in the coalition that the Bill is somehow linked to the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. The old free trade bogyman is being dusted off again. The Hon. Member for Etobicoke North, in an unguarded moment, was honest enough to say that every sparrow that falls from the sky will be laid at the feet of the Free Trade Agreement. Here we go with another sparrow.
This legislation has been around in one form or another since 1979. How on earth can it be affected by a 1989 bilateral trade agreement between Canada and the United States? This argument reminds one again of this blind opposition to change, to trade, and to anything new that characterizes the arch-conservatives of Canada, those people in the left wing masquerading as progressive people when in fact they are the most reactionary in this nation.
The Government has great confidence in the people of Canada. We know that with the implementation of Bill C-15, Canadian plant breeders will prosper and so too will producers.
I would like to conclude by saying that there is nothing sinister in the legislation before us. It is a Bill that I believe will increase the level of plant breeding research in Canada, the results of which will enable producers and farmers to stay competitive in a modem world. The legislation does so by providing researchers with an incentive to increase their activities in order to create new varieties with greater yields and enhanced resistance to disease and pests.
Canada is the only major agricultural nation in the world which today lacks legislation of this kind. The time has come for us to get out of the dark ages, get in step, stop talking about PBR, and implement this Bill. Let us get it off to committee where it can be dealt with in some detail. I look forward to the eventual passage and utilization of the Bill for the benefit of all Canadians.


Christine Susan Stewart: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity this evening to address Bill C-15, the plant breeders' rights Bill. I have profound and grave concerns about this Bill, although I would like to state at the outset that I believe that plant breeders are entitled to certain rights. My concern relates to the implications of how far this particular Bill goes. Another concern is the greater implications of this Bill which I feel are not being well addressed and are not well known by many people who are debating the Bill and who will be voting upon it this evening and at other times.
My concerns with regard to this Bill relate to various areas. One relates to the environmental issues, moral and ethical issues, food security issues, and how those food security issues impinge upon the well-being of Third World countries that represent the majority of the population of our world.
Through this particular Bill we are favouring multinational corporations. In fact, the multinational corporations that will most benefit from this Bill are companies involved in the production of chemicals. These companies have the funds and the wherewithal to finance the
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research and development of different seeds. In many cases, they pay for that research themselves.
However, it is well known that in various agricultural colleges, departments of research could not well survive without the funds made available from those companies. Therefore, the independence of research is taken away as research is directed into certain areas. The areas of concern to me are where research and development are put into the production of seeds that are dependent upon the very chemicals that those companies produce. If I were a corporate president whose company produced chemicals, I would love the idea of doing whatever I could to promote the sale of the chemicals. What greater thing could a company think of than having a greater dispersion of its chemicals over the lands all around the world?
In Canada, many farmers who buy the product of producers of seed are not aware of the fact that the seed is so dependent upon the chemicals that must be applied simultaneously with the seed purchased.
In this regard, my experience has been in the Third World. I have had some experience in Africa which has experienced serious drought in the past years. As a member of a committee, I helped to select projects that were to receive Canadian funding for production in Africa. We saw the harmful effects of the seeds that were chemically dependent. It was not only the cost of the seed, but it was the cost of the chemicals, the fertilizers, the insecticides, and the fungicides that had to accompany the particular types of seeds that were being made available and which in the end we did reject despite the grave needs of the area, of which we all know.
The poor people of the world cannot afford the seed, let alone the chemicals upon which those seeds are dependent. It is not only the seeds and the cost of the chemicals themselves, it is the cost of the technology to apply the chemicals. Education and knowledge are required in knowing how to apply those chemicals not only in the correct order and timing, but also safely. I have seen many illnesses develop among poor people who were handling chemicals, who did not have the equipment to apply them safely, and who suffered serious health effects as a result.
In one program in which I was involved in Central America, the program was supported by a northern Government, an aid providing Government through the help of a multinational corporation. Very poor farmers in this country had benefited from a very small land reform program. Landless peasants suddenly had some land.
Plant Breeders' Rights
However, they were given the land on the proviso that that land would be productive.
Those farmers knew how to produce crops for their own self-sufficiency. They could feed themselves with small resources. Instead, those farmers were enticed, with large resources, to move away from the production of self-sufficient and self-sustaining food crops into cash crops for export. They were given many financial and capital resources in order to divert their production into those areas. They were told that they would receive not only the seed and the chemicals, but all the technical assistance necessary in order to produce productive crops that would bring them good cash income.
Many countries in the Third World have been motivated into producing these cash crops. Countries that were self-sufficient in food production are now finding that they experience crop failures for a variety of reasons and that they are now net importers of the food they need to sustain themselves.
What happened with the program to which I was referring was that the farmers took all the resources. They took out loans in order to cover their part of the bargain, so to speak. They received the seed, the chemicals, and the technical expertise. They got their crop off the fields and it was ready for export. This crop was very labour intensive.
At the point when the crop was to be exported, a review was done of the cropping procedure and it was found that, at one point, one application of a chemical was made incorrectly and the crop could not be exported. The poor peasants lost everything. They found themselves without the food they needed to eat because they had been diverted from that type of production into a cash crop for export. They had no cash, they lost their land, and they were deeply in debt.
That example explains one of my concerns about this Bill in that it supports most particularly multinational corporations that will have more and more ability through this Bill to gain control of Canadian breeders and companies that produce.
This Bill has implications as far as getting patents for life form itself. I believe that germplasm is a basic resource for all mankind. It is global resource. It relates very much to world food security in general. There is a profound distinction that must be made between the applying of patents to intellectual property, to technologies of various sorts, and the technology which relates to the very production of food upon which we are all dependent. We have to make a distinction between the various patents which we are approving and making possible. I believe that we must look very carefully at any

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patent that has an effect on the food security of our world.
When companies are paying and supporting the research of seed that is dependent upon chemicals, there are profound environmental problems as well. The application of chemicals or fertilizers, insecticides and pesticides has a very deleterious effect upon the soils of our land and upon the waters into which they flow. This is producing seed which is vulnerable to epidemic. Again, this is a food security problem of which I feel we must be more aware.
I hope that when this Bill is discussed in committee many of these issues will be addressed and that we will bring before the committee witnesses who can speak much more profoundly than I to the issues I have raised this evening.


Mr. Greg Thompson (Carleton-Charlotte):: Mr. Speaker, of all the debate that we have heard tonight I think the Hon. Member for Swift Current-Maple Creek-Assiniboia (Mr. Wilson) had the most articulate position of any taken this evening. I think he fully described what this Bill will do and what it should do. The bottom line of his position is simply this: it will make a stronger agricultural sector in the country from one end to the other.
That is what this Government has been attempting to do since 1984. It has been attempting to create a strong farming community. This measure is part and parcel of that.
This is evident in some of the figures the Minister of Agriculture has used in some of his speeches over the last number of months. Presently in Canada we have a very strong agricultural sector with only one out of twenty farmers at what we would consider a risk stage as far as finances go. Of all the farmers in the country 60 per cent of them do not need operating loans. The reason for that is very simple. It is because we have
looked after the farming community of Canada, something which we will continue to do.
Farmers are extremely hard working and Canadian farmers in particular are very successful. They provide for their families and their communities. They are really the backbone of the nation. They contribute immensely to our economy and to our society as a whole. We do not want to forget that.
This Bill is very important for me. I come from Atlantic Canada where the climatic conditions are different from the other parts of Canada. What this Bill will do is meet some of the needs of a region such as mine. The geography and the climate of eastern Canada, particularly New Brunswick, are somewhat the same as certain parts of Europe. There are certain strains of grains in Europe, potatoes and other root crops which would prove to be very successful in Atlantic Canada. Those particular crops, if we did have the right to use them in Canada, would make us much more successful in Atlantic Canada.
We have to import a great deal of grain into Atlantic Canada. That is subsidized by the federal Government, as most everyone on both sides of this House will realize. Because it is subsidized it means that Canadian taxpayers are actually paying to put grain into eastern Canada. If we could have access to some of those species which would produce a higher grade and survive some of the climatic conditions we have in Atlantic Canada, we would all be better off. For that reason I believe this legislation is very important.
As a Government we feel very strongly that plant breeders' rights legislation is long overdue in Canada. Not having it has been detrimental to the plant breeding industry in Canada. The Member from Saskatchewan alluded to that fact. It has been very difficult without it for a number of people. It has nothing to do, as the Opposition has attempted to point out, with multinational corporations. The fact of the matter is that all the nations of the world that have used plant breeders' rights do have such legislation. There is a multiplication factor present. In other words, it encourages more businesses to get into the business of plant breeding.
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The Netherlands, which was one of the first countries to institute such legislation and which did so in 1941, has 983 businesses in plant breeders' genetics. That number has increased significantly every year. It has nothing to do with multinational corporations. There are many small businesses in that area as well.
Denmark and France have the same proportions. The United States in 1970 instituted the same type of legislation. It has 786 companies involved in this area.
We are one of the few industrialized countries in the world that has not gone that route. I feel that it is time that we do so.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Why?


Gregory Francis Thompson: I will answer that question put to me by the Opposition. At the present time it is difficult for Canadian breeders to ensure that their varieties are protected in other countries. It is plain and simple.
In Nova Scotia, a successful plant variety well suited to processing called Shepody was given to McCain's by Agriculture Canada. As you know, Mr. Speaker, McCain's is located in my riding. It is a very important part of my riding. The potato industry is a very important industry in New Brunswick. The company's French office was able to protect that variety under French plant variety protection, thus securing a return on Canada's research investment.
We had to go to another country via the corporation to get protection for that variety. Obviously, it is preferable to pass our own legislation so that we can consistently enter into reciprocity with other nations and not give away our hard work paid for by Canadian tax dollars or private industry. We do not want to give it away.
Similarly, Canadian growers often face problems when trying to import varieties since many foreign plant breeders are reluctant to export their products to Canada, knowing that they are not protected by any comprehensive legislation. This Government understands their concern and knows it is reasonable since a great many varieties of ornamental plants commercially available in Canada have been copied or pirated from foreign plant materials. The horticultural industry in particular needs access to imported varieties, as do potato growers.
In addition, without plant breeders' rights we may not be in a position to face competition from those who have
Plant Breeders' Rights
not bothered to invest time, money and energy in plant research and development, be they foreigners or Canadians. Our breeders must be compensated through royalties for investments of millions of dollars.
Plant breeding costs money-a lot of money. It involves a great amount of risk. As you know, Mr. Speaker, it generally takes 10 years to 15 years to select a variety that can be sold commercially. During that period breeders have to cross numerous plant varieties and produce numerous parent lines. Seed is then obtained and varieties tested. From these hundreds of varieties only a few make it to the market-place. It demands great patience and can be subject to many pitfalls, which is why plant breeders must be compensated through royalties. Profit is not a dirty word, although I guess it is if you are a socialist. However, that is precisely one of the reasons why we need plant breeders' rights. If we have a healthy agricultural society and Canadians are concerned about feeding the hungry of the world, one way to do it is to develop the varieties that can be used to create wealth in this nation. We know that the wealth in our nation is shared by many nations in the world and, in doing so, we can secure a food policy for all the people of this earth. We are not being narrow at all when we are looking at plant breeders' rights. We are looking to the good of humanity, not being selfish.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Absolute nonsense.


Gregory Francis Thompson: We cannot underestimate the importance of plant breeding in Canada, and we will not lose this opportunity to strengthen the agricultural sector.
Let us consider the comments of a former Minister of Agriculture, Eugene Whelan, in 1980, when that Government attempted to bring in its own plant breeders' legislation. Mr. Whelan had this to say about plant breeders' rights:
The basic idea behind any proposed legislation protecting the work of a plant breeder, is to give recognition to the breeder for the work he's done in breeding and introducing a new plant variety. Right now inventors can patent their gimmicks, and writers get royalties on the books they get published. Plant breeders, although they are pretty much the same as authors and inventors, have no way of benefiting from the work they do.
That is a quote from Eugene Whalen, that fellow with the funny green hat. He was not a bad Agriculture Minister after all.

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Mr. Whelan went on to state:
I'm a strong supporter of our Canadian plant breeders. Their efforts have contributed a great deal to the success of Canadian agriculture today. I want to see them encouraged, and I want to see them get the protection for their work that they deserve.
This legislation will give them the protection for the work they do. They deserve it.
It is surprising to realize the number of people in the House on the opposition side who actually support this legislation. Unfortunately, they are not here tonight. There are a few ragtag renegades from their Party-I am not referring to the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Young) who is a good New Brunswicker. There are a few on that side of the House who support this legislation but they are very silent tonight. I am very pleased with that silence.
It is an historical fact that the settlement of the Canadian West was to a large degree facilitated by the development of a single superior variety of wheat, Marquis, produced in Ottawa by a plant breeder with the federal Department of Agriculture. Members opposite do acknowledge that this was a result of the Canadian Government. It is interesting that they would do so.
Farming has always been crucial to our country and new and improved varieties are the foundation upon which it is built. It is embarrassing to see the role which plant breeders have played in Canada's history when one notes how Canada ommitted itself from the history of plant breeders' rights. The agricultural sector has been waiting for a long time, while other nations passed the legislation they so desire.
In 1923, the Canadian Horticultural Council recommended legislation for plant patents. However, nothing was done at the time. Meanwhile, the Netherlands passed plant breeders' rights in 1941, Germany in 1953, and Denmark in 1962.
By 1961, the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants was drawn up among six European nations to promote continuity and the exchange of plant breeding and germplasm. In 1964 the United Kingdom passed its legislation.
In 1970, the United States introduced the Plant Variety Protection Act. France also adopted plant
breeders' rights in 1970, as did Sweden in 1961. During that decade 11 other countries passed similar legislation.
That same year in Canada, the University of Guelph sponsored a conference on plant breeders' rights which was attended by interested organizations. That conference recommended that PBR was essential to our country and that legislation be passed.
In 1972, the Canadian Agricultural Services Co-ordinating Committee agreed that plant breeders' rights would be desirable in Canada. The committee is a broadly based organization with representation from provincial Departments of Agriculture and industry. It also includes deans of agriculture from Canadian universities. That prominent organization asked Agriculture Canada to draft proposals for legislation.
In 1980, Hon. Eugene Whalen who was an ardent supporter of plant breeders' rights, introduced Bill C-22. It was essentially the same Bill that we are introducing, but it died on the Order Paper. In that same year, Australia and Ireland acted and passed its legislation.
In January, 1988, the Hon. John Wise introduced into Parliament a plant breeder's rights Bill, essentially the same as Mr. Whelan's. Again, it was not passed because an election got in the way.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: The Government never got around to doing anything.


John Horton McDermid: You were not even here.


Gregory Francis Thompson: Had their not been an election, I am sure the Senate would have held it up like it did with so many other Bills that we introduced which were good for the country but which the Senate obviously did not want to pass. That is what they did with the Free Trade Bill and the Child Care Bill. I am sure they would have done that with the plant breeders' rights Bill if it had passed this House.
Except for some minor legalistic changes, it was the same Bill we are debating today. The agricultural sector is behind us and it is time for the Government to adopt that legislation. It will create an incentive for further development of plant varieties, which we need in Canada.
Plant breeders from Hungary, Japan, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland and Australia have already gained from breeders' rights legislation in their own countries. We as Canadians can do the same thing.
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Let Canadian breeders benefit from this proposed legislation too. We know that in order to obtain some return on their varieties, Canadian breeders need reciprocity. Many of their products can sell well elsewhere, but we must act to give them the mechanisms to protect their work domestically and internationally.
Without Bill C-15, our producers are being denied the best varieties from Canadian and foreign sources. The absence of plant breeders' rights legislation leaves Canada out in the cold. Our country and Norway are the only developed nations in the world not to have some sort of mechanism to protect the work of their breeders. We must recognize this fact and move forward with this proposed legislation. I trust that Members of the House will help us do so.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, we have been listening to the twisted malinformed ragtag minds of the group who call themselves Progressive Conservatives. It is unfortunate that none of the regressive convertibles have taken the time to read Bill C-15, something that many Canadians would be interested in knowing about. There was only a couple of hours of debate before the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski), who calls himself a western Canadian, and calls himself the Minister of Agriculture, brought in the guillotine, the savage choking off of debate before Canadians know what is really being brought before the House.
This is a very important debate because it is about the privatization of life forms and genetic material for profit. Of course, this is just the second chip. We saw the drug patent legislation brought forward by the so-called Progressive Conservative Party. That was, of course, just a chip in relation to the free trade deal, a piece of legislation which is now known from coast to coast and from north to south in this country to be harmful to Canadian consumers in terms of drug pricing.
The only Tory plank that we have heard in here all evening is that Eugene Whelan liked the idea. If that is the sole foundation of Conservative policy it should be enough for a few of the rank and file on the government side to smell a rat and to vote against it.
Plant Breeders' Rights
Let us have a look at the Bill, Mr. Speaker, something which I am sure no one on the government side has done. They do not want to be confused with facts. Clause 5 says:
Subject to this Act, the holder of the plant breeder's rights respecting a plant variety has the exclusive right
(a) to sell, and produce in Canada for the purpose of selling, propagating material, as such, of the plant variety;
I think there are a lot of Canadians out there who would like to know what that means. Let us go on to Clause 6 which says:
The term of the grant of plant breeder's rights shall, subject to earlier termination pursuant to this Act, be a period of eighteen years,
Now we know what the Act is for and how long the period is. Let us now look at the offence section. It is always interesting to know where Conservatives are coming from. Let us have a look at what would happen to the granny on the Prairies growing daisy seeds, British Columbians on Vancouver Island who are growing some pear trees and have been giving them away or selling them for many years, or New Brunswickers who are producing their own spud varieties, if they wanted to continue selling or propagating seed and were not participating in this new bureaucracy, this massive red tape being proposed by the Conservatives. They can be convicted under a lot of clauses but Clause 53(4) says:
An individual who commits an offence-
(a)	is liable on summary conviction to a fine of not more than five thousand dollars; or
-if the Minister of Justice decides that he does not like the person particularly-
(b)	is liable on conviction on indictment to a fine of not more than fifteen thousand dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years,
So you go to jail for three years and pay a $15,000 fine for giving somebody some asparagus.
Let us have a look at what some people have to say about that. The cart is, as you know, way before the horse, as is always the case, it seems, with this Government which is wandering all over the map in terms of policy.
We know that Canada desperately needs a debate on genetic engineering and biotechnology. I have had it on the Order Paper for more than one Parliament. Does the Government ever take the opportunity to get involved in an important and fundamental debate that this country

June 27, 1989
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and many countries around the world need? Not a chance, it wants to privatize and give it all over to their pals the multinationals.
How many Members in this House know that already 10 per cent of world trade is in chemicals, pesticides and herbicides? This comes at a time when Canadians are demanding a change in terms of the products that we collectively eat, chemical and pesticide-free food. For example, in the Province of Quebec a provincial poll was done earlier this year. Twenty-five per cent of the residents of the Province of Quebec want chemical and pesticide-free food.
I know that the Deputy Prime Minister often reads Harrowsmith, one of his favourite publications. An article entitled Profitable Patents reads:
While the proposed patent system appears logical and fair on its face, there are those who believe it to be neither necessary nor desirable from the public's point of view. Plant patents will have one inarguable effect: greater profits for those who sell seed. Holding ironclad rights to a particular new seed gives the marketer a new selling tool, with guaranteed royalties-often 10 per cent of the seed price for the breeder, his sponsor or the organization which has bought the patent.
The prospect of these greater profits, along with a growing awareness of the potential value of good seed in an increasingly hungry world has suddenly lured a number of unlikely corporate players into the seed breeding and marketing arena.
As soon as plant patenting systems were planned and legislated in Europe and the United States in recent years, seed companies began to be snapped up by mega-corporations, often those already having interests in agricultural chemicals and food products. Britain's plant patenting system was instigated in 1964. At about that time Ranks-Hovis-McDougall, one of the "Big Three" in baking and flour milling in the British Isles, purchased scores of agriculture-related businesses.
In his report to company stockholders in January, 1964, the chairman of Ranks said that the corporation had "secured substantial additional interests in business trading directly with farmers and we have been engaged during the year in building up this activity-by the acquisition of further businesses and by strengthening the links between the various companies".
Ranks, incidentally, owns several businesses in Canada, among them Georgian Bay Fruit Growers Ltd. and the Gattuso Corporation, manufacturers of spaghetti and pasta products.
This is a very interesting part, this is why I know that the Deputy Prime Minister read this section of Harrowsmith before he came up with this dire Machiavellian plan
of bringing this in hoping that Canadians would not know that second reading was going on under the threat of closure. The article continues:
Seed patent legislation was the subject of a 40-year controversy in the United States, with critics predicting dire consequences if the law were passed. Nevertheless, on Christmas Eve of 1970, the Plant Variety Protection Act was hurriedly approved in Washington. Bernard Leese of the U.S. Plant Variety Protection Office, now says that it was "rather an expeditious act on the part of Congress- everyone wanted to get home for the holidays".
Also in the Harrowsmith article, which I think is particularly true, under "Transient Politicians" is the following:
What very large corporations want, they generally get. Leonard Silk wrote in a March, 1974 editorial in The New York Times, "The danger is not that corporations will pursue their pecuniary interests-but that they will corrupt and capture the powers of government and transfigure national values and institutions to serve their corporate interests."
It is interesting to note that both Ranks-Hovis-McDougall and Ciba-Geigy were known contributors to the Conservative party in Britain and that party, under Sir Alexander Douglas-Home, was in power when the Plant Varieties and Seeds Bill was passed there in 1964. In Canada, both the Liberal and Conservative Parties have expressed support for plant patents.
We are now starting to get to the interesting material, Mr. Speaker. Let us take a look at what actually happens under the heading "Out with the Old".
It reads:
Public breeders routinely produce standard varieties that are economical for the farmer or gardener. It takes seven or eight breeding generations longer to develop a standard rather than a hybrid tomato, for instance, but after that it is very easy to produce additional seed. Hybrid vigour, the aspect that makes hybrid com so attractive, is more prevalent with some crops than others, and is determined in part by the plant's method of reproduction. While hybrid corn is often markedly more productive, standard tomatoes and peppers may be little different from their hybrid counterparts.
"We've tested a thousand or so different hybrids," says Dr. Ernest Kerr, "but none of these were equal to the best standard varieties of tomatoes."
Nevertheless, standard Canadian-bred tomatoes like Veeroma, Sub-Arctic Maxi and Moira may eventually disappear from the catalogues to make room for new, lucrative hybrids and patented varieties -hybrid or standard.
Maclean's of March of this year points out what happened in the United States last year in an article called "A harvest of toxin". It reads:
June 27, 1989

Readers who waded through the exhaustively researched 6,500-word story-
-in the Wall Street Journal, hardly a left-wing magazine, Mr. Speaker-
- learned that last summer's drought may have left up to 30 per cent of the United States' com crop-which provides more than one-third of the world's supplies-contaminated with a natural toxin 100 times more deadly than industrial polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
In fact, the story, in part at least, was already known to most American growers and processors of food, as well as to the Canadian agencies charged with safeguarding the country's food supply. They have known since last autumn that summer-long high temperatures and low rainfall produced ideal growing conditions for Aspergillus Slavus, a fungus that attacks ears and kernels of heat-weakened com.
There was less to reassure Canadians, however, about the safety of more than 340,000 tons of American com-and no fewer than 32 varieties of processed corn ranging from commeal to tacos- imported in Canada each year. That com is supposed to meet standards set by the United States Food and Drag Administration, Blewett told Maclean's. But, as Journal reporter Scott Killman noted, "Those who regulate grain elevators lack money and manpower."
The Quaker Oats Co., which owns the world's largest cereal mill at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, tests six samples from each truckload of com -and last fall was turning away as many as one in five because of aflatoxin contamination. The danger is greater for Third World consumers who are major buyers of U.S. com, and often lacks sophisticated testing facilities or strict food-quality regulations. Indeed, medical journals record the deaths of about 100 people in Indian in 1974 -
And it goes on. So we know what some of the problems are with some of these hybridized, highly patented and restricted varieties that are controlled by the chemical companies.
Tories do not want to talk about monopoly control, but let us have a look at the facts. There have been 1,008 corporate take-overs of seed companies since 1969. Many of the purchasers also sell fertilizers and chemicals. In the 1970s there were 30 companies that produced crop chemicals. Now there are about a dozen and within a decade the industry itself says there will only be six remaining. Under the European and U.S. PBR legislation, 90 per cent of all seed patents are held by a handful of multinationals. After the year 2000, it is forecast that from 10 to 20 major corporations will dominate the seed markets. Seed and fertilizer companies may continue to buy up and hold patents on seeds, making it harder for
Plant Breeders' Rights
farmers in Third World countries to get the seeds they want. These companies are focusing greater research efforts on developing pesticide resistant seeds rather than pest resilient ones.
Let us take a look at how long this debate has been going on. I refer to an article written a decade ago by Carol Allen called: "Life is Not a Bed of Patents". This was written in respect, of course, to the now Conservative icon, Eugene Whelan-the Conservative icon on plant breeders' rights.
What is the difference between patenting a tomato and patenting a light bulb?
That is a question that not too many Tories could answer.
This question was put to me by a querulous Seed Trade Association officer who thinks we should permit patents and royalties on new plant varieties. He appears baffled that the idea of levying royalties in living, growing things, the source of human food, is repugnant to me.
If he really does not understand the difference between living and inanimate matter, he must be vastly perplexed that his 30-watt bulbs do not seed themselves and grow into 100 watts. The self-evident fact is that no one invented the tomato. We do not "invent" life. Nevertheless, many industrial countries (the U.S. and the U.K. among them) do grant plant patents, euphemistically called plant breeders' rights or PBRs. Since Bill C-32, which would give such rights to Canadian breeders, has been placed on the parliamentary order paper by Agriculture Minister Eugene Whelan, this particular bit of lunacy could become a domestic reality unless we scrutinize its implications. The fact is, we may be about to leap on the band wagon just as others, chastened by experience, are preparing to leap off.
Agriculture Canada insists patents are just basic human rights extended to breeders and that they will not affect farmers significantly. But fanners in other countries who have lived with patents are already disillusioned. Swedish, Swiss, U.S., British and German farmers, for instance, are disgruntled about higher seed prices.
Since the advent of patents and the move away from public breeding in the U.S., the National Farmers' Union has complained that seed prices rose 150 per cent between 1972 and 1977, more than any other component of the agricultural inputs. Many of the new patented varieties of seeds, though they do produce higher yields, are more vulnerable to disease.
Furthermore, wherever patents exist or are pending, they have created a virtual stampede to the seed business by multinational chemical and pharmaceutical corporations in pursuit of royalties. Small seed companies are vanishing as motes into a vacuum run by companies like Ciba-Geigy, Upjohn and Royal Dutch/Shell. In the last decade, roughly 40 small U.S. seed companies engulfed in this acquisitive romance. In Canada, Stewart Seeds is now owned by Ciba-Geigy, while Warwick Seeds is owned by Pfizer.

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It all makes corporate sense, but not necessarily good farm policy. What could be more manifoldly profitable than to market seed, fertilizer and pesticide, all neatly interdependent, from one tidy carpetbag? But do we really naively expect the seed arm of a multinational corporation to search eagerly for a patentable variety of plant that requires little input from its pesticide and fertilizer arms?
Patents attract multinationals: multinationals flourish by massmarketing uniform products, not by custom-tailoring products to small, specialized markets like Canada. TWo thousand traditional vegetable varieties were dropped last June from the European Common Catalogue. Britain alone lost 500 vegetable varieties in July when the country's seed regulations made it a crime (punishable by a fine of 400 pounds) to sell or catalogue any variety not on the list.
I suppose this will be the next step by the Tories.
It is estimated that Europe is faced with the loss of three-quarters of its vegetable material in the decade.
Yet Eugene Whelan and Bill C-32 are still holding hands. As prominent a body as the Food and Agricultural Organization Secretariat to the United Nations opposes patents because they restrict free exchange of information and plant material among world breeders. An internal FAO document also states that patents have resulted in monopolistic practices, crop epidemics in the Third World and a narrowing of the genetic base upon which all plant life rests. And this in a field where tolerances are astonishingly thin: though there are 300,000 higher-order plants on the planet, more than 90 per cent of human nutrition derives from only 30 of them; only 30,000 have been studied, and by the turn of the century 50,000 may have vanished forever. Nevertheless, Canada ignores the warnings of informed bodies such as the U.S. National Farmers' Union and blithely considers turning over this fragile balance to a multinational-dominated business.
Why should Canada join this demonic parade to genetic wipeout? To be as neglected in the global seed market as we are in the pesticide field, where we make do with the products designed for warmer climates and larger markets? Make no mistake: in the political world of multinational agri-business, a tasteless tomato can bounce pinkly through a harvester like an Indian-rubber ball and survive a 2,000 Km truck trip undented and collect royalties will win every time over a tastier, more nutritious but squashable and unpatentable tomato. Mass production and mechanization have already produced the rubberized tomato and make traditional varieties shockingly scarce. They have also routed 6,000 small Canadian growers in the last 25 years.
Greater profits and increased uniformity are not everything.
Quality counts, as does designing a crop for its growing conditions; as does, most crucial of all, preserving old plants in the genetic pool that we may need to correct our mistakes. To say nothing of the quaint notion that many of us share that living plants should be accessible to all humankind, without royalties.
This is what I consider to be a truly excellent article by Carol Allen.
There is a growing coalition to which the Government does not want to listen. Let me just give one final quote from a letter by Susan McIntosh, the Coordinator of the Grow Coalition on Pesticides. In 1988, the economists reported:
Chemical companies have spent $10 billion or so in as many years buying up seed companies worldwide -
She lists Pioneer Hi-Bred, Sandoz, Dekalb-Pfizer, Upjohn, Limagrain, Shell Oil, ICI, Ciba-Geigy, Orson and Cargill as the world's ten largest seed companies.
Seven of these ten are also involved in crop chemicals and at least six sell seeds in Canada already. This trend will escalate if PBR should become law.
No Member of Parliament, no Canadian citizen should support Bill C-15 as it is proposed. It is a scurrilous and wrongful Act.


Blaine Allen Thacker: Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to rise again in the House and have a major debate for our fellow Canadians to judge us all by.
This is a Bill that should have been passed by this Parliament, I submit, at least 10 years ago. The question is really whether Canada and young Canadians are going to participate in the future of the world because biotechnology is here, plant breeders' rights are here and it is not going to go away. The question then is which Party can best take Canada into the 21st century.
The question then is which Party can best take Canada into that 21st Centuiy. If the NDP had been in control of this country when the industrial revolution came about, we would not have participated. When we switched from water to rail, from rail to airplanes and trucks and cars, Canada would not have played a part in it if the NDP-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Blaine Allen Thacker: The NDP are clearly more than neoconservatives-nothing would have ever happened the first time.


Raymond John Funk: We would be a country like Japan.
June 27, 1989


Blaine Allen Thacker: I would like to see the New Democrats get back to its roots when it was thinking of the future and coming up with ideas. They were reformers. It was interesting and a lot of us were excited by many of the reforms they came up with. Now you dare not change the time of day without having the NDP up yelling at you.


An Hon. Member:: There are no farmers over there. What are you talking about?


Mr. Fisher:: Hey, hey!


Blaine Allen Thacker: We were through this same debate in the last Parliament over drugs. And before we get into that, what really let the western world develop so that even people who were classified as being in poverty live a standard of life that is higher than aristocracy and how kings and queens lived 200 years ago?


Raymond John Funk: That is because of the Wheat Board.


Blaine Allen Thacker: That indicates the level of debate which some of the NDP Members are able to achieve. They think that nationalizing everything is the answer.
Mr Funk: Don't you like the Wheat Board? It must be doing something right.


Blaine Allen Thacker: They honestly hold that view. In spite of the fact that in every socialist country of the world socialism has failed and failed dismally.
What was the secret, Mr. Speaker? As you well know, it was when we tried that experiment in the western world. It was to say to people "You can own a piece of property. You have the fundamental right to speak. You have the fundamental right to association and you have the fundamental right if you come up with something new and creative, whether it is an industrial design, a piece of music, or whether it is a car or a truck, you have the right to own that and for a period of 17 years you get to develop that product and collect a royalty if someone else wants to build it".
Under that system of private property, of land, fundamental rights, including the rights to patents, we developed wealth and created a lifestyle that has put all of us at a standard of living that is truly incredible. But it all goes back to those fundamental rights.
Then governments came along. During the 1970s, because some drug companies were charging too much, different nations responded in different ways. Some of
Plant Breeders' Rights
them took away their patent rights, which is the way Canada went. Other countries handled things in a different way. They put in price review boards so that they were more regulated. Canada took away those patent rights and we lost tens of thousands of high tech jobs. We got that fixed up in the last Parliament. Now young Canadian men and women can come out of our universities and colleges, take specialized training, do the research and create this new wealth for the 21st Century, Mr. Speaker. It is exactly the same way with patents.
Let me ask the NDP this: what other countries now have plant breeders' rights. You would think that it is all going to go away. It is not going to go away. You either play in the modem world or you become a has-been. Do you want to have Canada as a Third World country? Do you want to have no jobs for your young people, especially the bright ones?


Ron Fisher: You either steal from the Third World or you don't survive.


Blaine Allen Thacker: What about Australia, Belgium, Denmark, France, all socialist nations? Then there is the Federal Republic of Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, many being socialist. What about Spain and Sweden? Great Sweden. The New Democrats continually push Sweden as then-example of Utopia.


Ron Fisher: You said socialism was a failure. Now you are praising it.


Blaine Allen Thacker: The New Democrats push Sweden on us from every angle. Sweden has plant breeders' rights. Why should the Swedish people get jobs and the small royalties rather than us? On that point of royalties, Mr. Speaker, it permits a proprietor to collect a royalty. Estimates are about $4 million a year. Royalties go back into research and development. If we had had ten years of this we would have had over $40 million worth of research. If we had had a 4 per cent royalty on canola, which was developed in Canada and is now marketed all around the world, we would have had no trouble financing all the research and development in the entire Department of Agriculture. We could have dozens of plant varieties like that. Canadians understand that the New Democrats will permanently lock this country into a state of underdevelopment whereas the Progressive Conservative Party will take it into the 21st Century and create the wealth so that our children and grandchildren

June 27, 1989
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will be able to have the same high standard of living that we have. That is a benefit to this nation.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Ron Fisher: Just like Sweden.


Blaine Allen Thacker: I could go on.


Ron Fisher: Please do.


Blaine Allen Thacker: There is this talk of uniformity as if there is something wrong with uniformity. That is what Marquis was. That is what Thatcher grain was. They are all uniform crops. We have millions and millions of acres that we grow with uniform crops and we feed the world because of Canadian research and development.
The New Democrats would block that research and development and as a result we would slowly fall further and further behind. It is a question of whether things will be done by public or private people. Canada is a young country still charging up the mountain and creating wealth, and the New Democrats would make us old before our time. They do not want corporations or private individuals to do anything. With the New Democratic Party everything would be done by a government.
Let us look at what has happened in Argentina. Why don't the New Democrats read the history of Argentina? It got further and further into crown corporations and government control. Only 60 per cent of Argentina's industry was controlled by government but that brought on deficits and a national debt which led to hyper inflation. Argentina cannot get out of the mire. That situation has happened in dozens and dozens of countries. The trail is deficits, high debt, high interest rates and then hyper inflation. That is what the New Democratic Party's policies would do to this country, Mr. Speaker. We are not going to let it happen.
The debate by the New Democrats goes back to anti-profit. God, they cannot stand it if someone makes a profit in spite of the fact that they themselves have enormous profits just from their own salaries. They have savings too. They don't spend everything they make. Then they go after big corporations, especially multinationals. Their final glory is socialism, in spite of the fact that tens of millions of people are trying to get into this country to get away from socialism and the totalitarian aspect of socialism.
New Democrats are not content to take over part of the economy, they want to remake men and women into the perfect ideal as was done during the French Revolution that led to massive slaughter.
That is what happens when we get down that road to socialism.


An Hon. Member:: They are against immigration now.


Blaine Allen Thacker: Against immigration too. My gosh, at 11.10 at night, the NDP Members go absolutely berserk on us. I do not know what gets into them. It must be late.
It is a fundamental question and Canadians will listen to the debate on second reading when it gets into the committee stage. I want to have no doubt at all that I think that some of our churches and the NDP have blocked this Bill for far too long. By the time we get it through, once again Canada will be 10 to 15 years behind. That has been the problem with this country. We are always too far behind. We have to get ahead of the game so that we can continue to have the high standard which we have enjoyed. When the Liberal Party was the once mighty Liberal Party and it was prepared to create wealth and then at the same time be fair on the redistribution of that wealth, it was a great Party and many of us voted for the Liberal Party and were proud to be a part of it. It has let itself go down that socialist path. It might as well join with the NDP gang because it has no original creative thoughts. It is only the Progressive Conservative Party that has them now, and with the creation of wealth we believe in that Conservative principle. It has to be done by individuals and private enterprise.
Of course, we have a progressive aspect to redistribute, to tax away from the people who do well to provide for the people who are truly needy. That is what developed this country into a great country. The Liberal Party played a role in that for some time but they have not done so for the last 15 years. In spite of the fact that they brought in the Bill originally, they are now standing up and opposing it. They must have a hard time swallowing that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I will look forward to this Bill passing.
June 27, 1989


Mr. Soetens:: On a point of order.


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


René John Soetens: Mr. Speaker, as you are aware, the news media in Canada has tremendous ability not only to report the news but to make the news. It was just announced on CTV not five minutes ago that earlier this evening this House had adjourned for the summer. I find it rather interesting. I hope it was a portent of things to come this evening.
My point really is to make sure the House Leaders here are aware that we have already adjourned for the evening and that they get the message. The speeches which you have heard from the Progressive Conservative Party are of course live. I cannot comment on the others.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member for Prince Albert-Churchill River. I know he is alive.


Raymond John Funk: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to lead off the late show tonight for the benefit of those of us who are still here participating in this important debate.
It is an interesting debate for a New Democrat or any Member from Saskatchewan to be participating in because it very much parallels what is a very hot debate in that province. That is the debate between two competing visions which are becoming more and more clearly into focus.


Mr. Schneider:: One is foresight and the other one is hindsight.


Raymond John Funk: The Hon. Member for Regina Wascana (Mr. Schneider) said one is foresight and the other is hindsight. Those are my sentiments exactly.
I do not think the Members opposite do know any more and that is why I think they will no longer be the government of Saskatchewan, for example, after the next provincial election. I will put any money on that, although I am not a gambling man. What this debate is all about is the privatization of seed versus a vision of the modern family farm which can survive a corporate onslaught which the Progressive Conservatives are unleashing on the farm community.
As I stand up to speak here tonight, I am not only standing up as the Member for Prince Albert-Churchill River, approximately 20 per cent of that population are
Plant Breeders' Rights
farm families. There are quite a few of them because they are relatively small farms, probably averaging four quarters of land in our constituency. About half of the farmers are combined income farmers and work off the farm. It does maintain a large rural population, with
3,000	people in the area of Buckland alone.
I speak also as a Member of the Spruce Home wheat pool committee, something I have been on since 1975 when I moved there. My father was the chairman of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool committee in Laird, Saskatchewan for 46 years, which I think is the record tenure for any president in that job within the wheat pool. He fought very hard to keep the railway, when Ray Hnaty-shyn, the former Member for Saskatoon West, who was defeated in Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing, was their Member. That was one of the reasons. He promised that if the Progressive Conservatives were elected there would be heavy steel on the rail line to Laird. That steel is still not there. The elevator company no longer has the confidence on that point and is letting it run down. My dad feels that his 46 years as chairman of the wheat pool has gone down the drain because of the type of philosophy that is embedded in this Bill.
It is not because I believe that profit is a dirty word or that Members on this side of the House believe that profit is a dirty word. It is a methodology that from time to time Conservatives do manage to sell. They sold it successfully in 1982 in Saskatchewan. They sold it again in the last federal election to a large portion of the population, certainly not though in Saskatchewan, British Columbia and the Maritimes. Nevertheless, they do sometimes try and convince people that people on this side of the House, be they New Democrats or Liberals, somehow or other with New Democrats profit is a dirty word.
There are all kinds of business people who are members of the New Democratic Party, including the MT .A for Prince Albert-Duck Lake, whose campaign I managed and who had strong support from the Prince Albert business community. When we speak of Prince Albert, that is the seat that I represent. I do not have to remind the Members whose seat that was up until 1979, until his death: the Right Hon. John G. Diefenbaker. The first election I remember hearing anything about is when I went to the polls with my dad at the Ebenfeld school in 1957.1 had the feeling in that election that my dad voted for John Diefenbaker. We were in that constituency. Years later, it turned out that he had. That was some-

June 27, 1989
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thing he did because he believed in John George Diefenbaker, as a lot of people in that part of the country did.
The reason they believed in John Diefenbaker in 1957 is because of what happened in this House when an arrogant Liberal government at that time invoked closure for one of the few times in Canadian history in the pipeline debate. John George Diefenbaker led the charge, not only in this House but in the country. There were a lot of people from all kinds of different philosophies who followed him.
That is why I am saying to these Hon. Members opposite that their use of closure is starting to remind me a bit of an acquaintance of mine whose marital philosophies are other than mine. I was asking the acquaintance, in a discussion of our mutual lives, why it was that he did not feel guilty in the course of the romances he pursued. He said that the first and second time he felt a little guilty, and by the third time it was pretty well passing. He no longer felt guilty about the kind of relationships he was carrying on. I guess I could understand that. I knew the person fairly well.
That is the way the Members opposite have become about closure. They have used it once, they got away with it in free trade, so all the way through this session it is closure, closure, closure. It is not a crisis like the pipeline debate was. Nobody is arguing that. I think the fall of this Government in the polls-we are not high either, but the Government has fallen very dramatically-is because of the perception that is spreading through the country that there is an element of arrogance and shoving things down people's throats about this Government that they just simply do not like. I
I could understand why closure was being brought in if there were some kind of crisis in the country. If we had just got through this seeding season and the farmers had run out of seed, and there was not good seed for the people to sow, then there would be a crisis in the country that would perhaps justify taking a radical measure like this on an issue which is not particularly earth-shaking as far as the general health of the country is concerned, but it is an important symbolic issue. There is no crisis. We do not need new seed next year or the year after. We are doing very well.
Is there a crisis in production? There is no crisis in production. We had a problem with drought last year and we are still working out the details of that. Canadian farmers can produce. The Canadian research establishment has done very well for us. We run one of the most modem and efficient farm economies in the world. That was with public seed production. That was with institutions like the Canadian Wheat Board. That was with a country elevator-based railway system. I do not think those ideas are particularly old fashioned. I think those ideas just do not fit in with the philosophy of Members opposite.
Another thing that would have called for closure is if there had been such a crisis that it required this kind of radical action. If the farmers themselves were clamouring for this legislation, it might have been justified. However, I have not seen any farmers marching on Parliament Hill lobbying for plant breeders' rights. Not one farmer from my constituency has written me a letter saying that he wants plant breeders' rights, and there are some former Conservatives in that constituency as well as plant breeders.
The Government says that it has consulted with farm groups. One of the authors of the very good report on Indian post-secondary education which came out tonight had a chance to see for himself what the people thought of the Government's consultation process. That is just one example, but he must also have talked to farmers who were members of the Alberta Wheat Pool, the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, the Manitoba Wheat Pool, Unifarm or the National Farmers' Union. Farmers were not pleased when the Government took oats out of the Wheat Board. They did not think that they had been consulted.
We heard about pensioners being consulted on taxing away 100 per cent of the pension benefits, something which discriminates against them because all income should be treated alike. Why should pensions be treated any different from dividends, for example? The Government said it had consulted with pensioners.


Ron Fisher: Couldn't name one, though.


Raymond John Funk: My hon. friend points out that when asked to name one, that was the end of that argument.
June 27, 1989

Earlier in this debate, the Hon. Member for Swift Current-Maple Creek-Assiniboia (Mr. Wilson) said that there were several reasons for this particular legislation. He said that one was to enhance our exports and another was to practice better husbandry. However, he offered no compelling argument other than that Conservative Members think that is true.
We are producing lots of grain for export and we could produce a lot more. We could invest more in plant breeding, and I think we should. It does not matter whether it is private or public investment. The point is that those resources should stay in the public domain so that seed is available to everyone as it has always been. Farmers can afford high quality seed. It is a national and international resource and should be treated as a public resource.
Then the Hon. Member said that some of the provisions in the Bill, including the 18 years of the patent's lifespan and the exchange of information, were because of an international convention that we needed to become a part of. The international convention is made up of those countries which, as the Hon. Member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton) so eloquently outlined, took their cues from large multinational corporations and did their bidding. Sure enough, a farming system evolved which followed that kind of philosophy.
The Hon. Member mentioned 18 countries. What about the other 160 countries in this world? Only 12 per cent of the countries of this world belong to that convention. If we join that convention, we will have to play by the rules of those 12. If we become the lucky 13th, we will not be able to do anything with the other 159 countries where much valuable work is going on. If Hon. Members think we will be better off with the 12 than with the 159, they should check out which countries those are and what kind of agriculture they support.
The Hon. Member also said that this Bill was not related to free trade. He said that no matter what happens, if there is a tornado or some other natural catastrophe, Members of the Opposition will jump up and down and say it is about the Free Trade Agreement.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: This isn't a natural catastrophe, this is a man-made one.
Plant Breeders' Rights


Raymond John Funk: As the Hon. Member has pointed out, this is a man-made disaster, not a natural one. It is linked to the Free Trade Agreement, if not precisely to the language of the free trade legislation, though there is some evidence that that might well be true. This Bill represents a philosophy that is very much a part of free trade.
I fully accept the Hon. Member's criticism of people wrapping everything up in free trade, but that is because free trade is symbolic of the Government's whole philosophy, which is that large foreign corporations are more important than family farms, that the jobs of people in Ohio are more important than the jobs of people who work at the Inglis plant in Toronto. Those are the kinds of judgment calls Members opposite are prepared to make. Government Members will have to excuse us if, whenever we see that philosophy in action, we start talking about free trade. I think that is something Members opposite will have to get used to because Canadians everywhere see it in those same terms.
We have been told that we have to adopt this line of thinking to become competitive in the modem world. We have been told that the agricultural industry can only survive in the modem world if we adopt that kind of thinking. Government Members go so far as to say that Members who might oppose this Bill might be reactionary and might not want change or progress. That is relatively hard to take coming from a political tradition that has brought many of the institutions that have contributed immeasurably to the agricultural wealth of Canada, ideas like the Canadian Wheat Board which a Conservative Government brought in. The Hon. Member said that it was an old-fashioned idea which symbolized the NDP, and I think in some ways it does. We do not think that the Wheat Board is old fashioned, we think it is doing very well. If Canadian farmers are to beat American farmers, they will do it through the Canadian Wheat Board, not through Cargill, because Cargill has a conflict of interest. We are better off with our own Wheat Board, and I think most farmers believe that as well.
The difference between us is whether we see the farm community as being composed of owner-operators and large enough numbers of them to support small communities, or whether the rural community is seen as a series of large agri-business corporations. We think that the modem approach to the Saskatchewan economy has to be that the small farmers have access to the technology,

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Plant Breeders' Rights
the capital and the export opportunities as well as the large fanners. It is becoming very clear that with the philosophy of this Government, along with the philosophy of its colleagues in the Saskatchewan legislature, that kind of small farming community will no longer exist and the Government makes no apologies for that.
The reason I am opposing this Bill is because I want to see a competitive modern farm sector in Canada. With the Progressive Conservative approach, we will not get that.


Mr. Walter Van  De Walle@St. Albert: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House at this late hour to speak to Bill C-15, Plant Breeders' Rights. This legislation is long overdue. Plant technology has changed as much in the past 25 years as have medical advances and computer technology.
Canadian farmers are demanding hardy, high-yielding seeds and plants that work in concert with modem farm management practices. To compete in the world market, Canadian farmers require seeds that are stable and predictable, that have a specified growing period and that are disease and pest resistant.
These seeds are the result of extensive research and years of experimentation. Currently, the bulk of this expensive, painstaking research is done by Agriculture Canada and universities. The private sector has been unwilling to put time and resources into research whose results are not protected by law. Canada lacks a legal mechanism to protect the inventors of new and better varieties of plants and seeds. This need has not gone unrecognized. Plant breeders' rights have been advocated by a number of agricultural groups in Canada since 1923, when it was recommended by the Canadian Horticultural Council that legislation protecting plant breeders' rights be created. More recently, plant breeders' rights legislation was introduced in the House of Commons in 1980 and 1988.
The Bill now before the House dealing with plant breeders' rights has the same intent as the previous Bills. The purpose of the legislation is to grant the breeder of new varieties of plants control over the multiplication and the sale of productive material. The breeder will be entitled to a royalty if others sell the variety he has
produced. The rights in this case work like a patent or copyright.
The implementation of plant breeders' rights in Canada will have a positive impact. The beneficial effects will include increased investment in plant breeding by both public and private sectors; improved varieties available for Canadian producers from both Canada and from other countries; and a return of royalties on Canadian varieties sold at home and abroad.
Plant breeders' rights legislation applies to new, distinct varieties. Varieties already on the market are not eligible for protection. Once a new variety comes on the market, a breeder cannot prevent others from using it in breeding programs.
The demands of the modem world, complete with pollution, international subsidy wars, and highly technical agricultural practices, make the protection of plant breeders' rights absolutely necessary to encourage the development of high-yielding, disease-resistant crops. This legislation is designed to encourage research and plant breeding in Canada.
One of the most important benefits of plant breeders' rights legislation is that it offers financial incentives to the private sector to become involved in plant breeding. Presently, the majority of research and plant breeding is done by universities and Agriculture Canada. Unfortunately, those institutions cannot keep pace with the world-wide gains in plant technology.
To date, the private sector has steered clear of plant breeding research because their results would not be protected. This legislation will encourage the private sector to become involved in research. The royalties from the sale of seed or plants would ensure research funding on both a public and private level. In this way, Canada can be competitive on the world agricultural market.
Ten years ago while visiting Britain, I had occasion to visit canola test plots. The British refer to them as trials. The area covered 100 acres, and was owned and operated by the research division of a seed retail company. Of course, in England, plant breeders' rights legislation exists and the private sector receives royalties on plants.
Competition between the organizations involved in the development of new varieties of plants will ensure that seed prices are not substantially increased. Any cost
June 27, 1989

increase in new varieties would be offset by the benefits of improved yields and increased disease and pest resistance.
There are also safeguards in the legislation to prevent excessive pricing or restrictions of seed supplies. Farmers will always have the option of using their own seed, using unprotected seed, or using the protected new varieties. I believe that many farmers will be willing to pay a little more at the outset to reap the advantages of new varieties.
In the late 1970s when I was with the Alberta Agriculture Research Council, the Alberta Government, together with a number of other provinces and Agriculture Canada, spent large sums of money on plant breeding and research of rapeseed. As a result, the canola plant was developed. This development was beneficial to producers and consumers. For farmers, it was a cash crop and allowed them to diversify. Canola seed-crushing plants were built to produce canola oil for cooking and meal for animal feed. Canadian consumers had a Canadian-made oil second to none in the world for quality and at very competitive prices. Canola became the Cinderella crop of western Canada. We were able to capture 65 per cent of the oil and fats market in Canada. That is an outstanding achievement. If there had been plant breeding rights at the time of the canola development, the private sector would have played a large role in the research and development, thus saving taxpayers millions of dollars.
Canada is one of the agriculturally developed countries that does not have legislation protecting plant breeders' rights. Canada now is in a position to learn from the experiences of other countries and implement the very best and most effective legislation. Most countries have noted very positive effects. For example, the United States documented, 10 years after the implementation of plant breeders' rights, that the legislation provided farmers and consumers with a large number of plant varieties yielding larger and better quality crops. In addition, the United States found that the plant breeders' rights inspired the private sector plant breeding that resulted in the development of more and better varieties of plants.
Certainly, the United States is not alone in recognizing the benefits of plant breeders' rights. Australia implemented legislation in 1987. The International Convention
Plant Breeders' Rights
for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants established an international union to protect plant breeders' rights. The international union has some 18 of the leading agriculturally developed countries in the world as members. Plant breeders' rights legislation has found tremendous support in Canada's agriculture sector. Nationally, the supporters of plant breeders' rights include the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, Canadian Horticultural Council, SeCan Association, the Canada Seed Growers Association, and a number of other associated groups.
In closing, let me emphasize the importance of plant breeders' rights to all Canadians, producers and consumers. I strongly believe that this legislation is imperative to the future well-being of Canadian farmers.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, tonight we have had an opportunity to see very clearly what is wrong with Canadian politics. Let me start first with the disingenuousness of the Liberals who have had the nerve to rise and criticize this piece of legislation. Granted, some of them were new Members, and perhaps the old Members have not told them what the Liberal position used to be on plant breeders' rights. I have been around here for a while. I remember that the Liberals were intending to bring in this legislation prior to their defeat in 1979, and had it on their legislative agenda from 1980 to 1984. The fact that they can get up and make the kind of speeches that they have been making tonight goes to show one of the major problems of Canadian politics, that is, the insincerity, the duplicity, the hypocrisy of the Liberal Party when it comes to this and many other issues.


An Hon. Member:: Rip Van Winkle.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: The Liberal Members who are upset about this happen to be sitting on the other side of the House at this moment, which seems to me to be a great symbol of just exactly what I am talking about.
I listened with interest, as I always do, to the Hon. Member for Lethbridge (Mr. Thacker), whose former riding was Lethbridge-Foothills. That used to be the name of his riding. I have not quite mastered all the names of the new ridings.
I think he puts the government case very well. I do not agree with the government case for this particular

June 27, 1989
Plant Breeders' Rights
legislation. However, as I listened to the Hon. Member from Lethbridge he started out by giving us an interpretation of Canadian history which is fundamentally flawed. He said that the way we built this country was only through individual enterprise, through the exercise of private property and entrepreneurs taking risks-the whole Conservative mythology about how Canada came into being.
The fact of the matter is that that is not how the country came into being at all. If one wants to be an advocate of that particular view of private property, and how economic activity is generated, and how particular countries have been built, then that is fine. However, do not distort Canadian history in order to make the case. The fact of the matter is that the country developed as a result of a very creative mix of both public money and political vision and private property and private investment, the CPR being an example thereof, as well as Canadian institutions, Crown corporations and other things we have come to see as part and parcel of the fabric of the country, like the Canadian Wheat Board for example. These do not conform to the Tory mythology about how Canada was built.
They are making a serious error when they get up and try to lead us to believe that that is how the country came into being. They may want to take the country in a particular direction-that is fine. It is their right to argue for that direction. It is the right of the Government to bring in legislation which takes us in that direction. However, please do not pretend that this is perfectly in keeping with Canadian history because Canadian history is something else all together.
Our argument on this side is that the public sector, whether it be in the form of Crown corporations or in the form of research done by universities and government Departments, have played a vital role in making us the kind of country that we are today. Many of the victories that we have won in the agricultural sector, whether it is the more recent one concerning canola or whether it is other former victories with respect to the development of various kinds of wheat, are things that happened because there was a- public commitment to this kind of research and because the results of that research were made widely available. All this happened without the desire for profit that the Hon. Member from Lethbridge
says is so absolutely indispensable to anything good happening.
The fact of the matter is that societies can do good, productive and creative things without being motivated purely by money. I know that goes against the Conservative view of the world. The fact is that many good things have happened in this country without that kind of motivation. What we are saying is that we would like to preserve the mix of public and private, of things still being done for the good of the country or for the good of agriculture, or as the case may be.
The Member from Lethbridge says that we do not want to enter the modem world, that the NDP wants to keep the country back from modernity. If the kind of modernity that the Conservatives want us to enter into is a world in which everything is motivated only by the desire for profit, in which everything is regulated by the market-place, then, yes, that is the kind of world that we do not want to enter into and that we do not want our country to enter into. Unfortunately, that is the way of the world. The Member from Lethbridge is right about that. The question is whether or not in Canada we are going to acquiesce to these global trends, whether we are going to have what I would call an accomodationist stance toward these global trends, or whether we are going to, in concert with other countries, resist these global trends.
It may be difficult to do this. It is going to be particularly difficult for us to do this after the Free Trade Agreement because the Free Trade Agreement for many of us is the symbol of Canada giving up on that tension between public and private, giving up on a mixed economy, giving up on what has made Canada a particularly successful country.
I think members of the Government should remember that the kind of country that we have is not the kind of country that has been created only by individual enterprise. It is the kind of country that has been created by this creative mix of the public and private sector. What they have done through their actions in the Free Trade Agreement and through this action, and through many other acts that they have taken and some that they still plan to take, has broken that tension. From here on in it is the market-place alone. If that is the kind of brave new world that the Government wants to lead us into,
June 27, 1989

then we make no apologies for resisting that brave new world.
What is that new world all about? It is about control. It is about who is going to make the decisions that determine the very nature, in this case of plant life, on the planet. I cannot for the life of me understand why Conservatives who are very concerned about government control, who are very concerned about unaccountable power, want to turn over to a handful of global corporations the power to determine the whole botanical life of the planet. On what possible grounds would people who are concerned about excessive control by anyone want to do that?
Yet that is what the Government is asking us to do in this particular instance. It wants to worsen a situation that is already with us. That is the fact of these large global corporations, which as far as I am concerned are analogous to the biblical powers and principalities. These are the institutions which in a very short time will control everything, if there is not a will on the part of Governments to defend the public interest, whether that is the environmental public interest, or, in this case, the genetic public interest in terms of preserving various kinds of species or plant species in the Third World or elsewhere. We have this very tragic trend in absolutely the wrong direction.
It is all part and parcel of the globalization of the economy. With that globalization has come increasing concentration of power. These are the people who want to talk about competition all the time. However, their policies lead to more and more concentration of unaccountable power, global corporations which are accountable to no one, which have assets in many cases bigger than any nation state in the world, corporations which can play one country off against the other, one province in a country off against the other, one state off against another. This is called free enterprise. This is called freedom. This is not freedom. This is the newest and most diabolical form of tyranny that one can imagine, that this kind of power should be in private hands and should be beyond the reach of Governments and that the only occasion on which Governments become involved is to facilitate this kind of control, which is exactly what this Government is doing tonight by bringing in this legislation.
Plant Breeders' Rights
I think it is unfortunate that the Government will get away with this. It has been a long battle. One of the first speeches I made in the House of Commons in the fall of 1979 was on this particular issue, when the Conservative Government of the day tried to bring it in. We have seen since then how the Government has succeeded in doing this with respect to drug patent laws. Now it is doing it with respect to seeds for plant breeders' rights. I heard the Hon. Member from St. Albert, I believe, say that public investment will continue. We heard that during the debate about the drug patent laws.


Mrs. Sparrow:: And it is. Admit it.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Not public investment. One of the first things that happened after the drug patent law was passed is that Connaught Laboratories, which used to be a publicly owned corporation and something of which Canada was proud because of its good research, was sold to an American company. That really helped a lot. That was part and parcel of the vision of Canada the Conservatives say they will preserve.


Herbert O. Sparrow: You don't like success.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: The Member from Calgary says that I do not like success. I do not call having all the new kinds of plant life in the world owned by a handful of corporations success. She and I have a different view of what success amounts to. I don't think success is something that can be measured in terms of the quarterly or annual profit margins of a variety of different multinational companies.
I do not believe it is success to carry vertical integration to its extreme so that there would be what I call bio-integration, the same multinational corporation owning everything, beginning with the seed put in the ground. It will be bred to use that company's herbicides, to respond only to its fertilizers-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Ron Fisher: It's happening.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: All the way from the furrow in which the seed is placed to the kitchen table owned by the same multinational corporation. If the Member from Calgary calls that success, then I reject that success. I call it tyranny. It is turning over our lives to a handful of unseen people in a boardroom who make decisions about the whole country while we sit here and have to listen to people like her call it success. It is disgusting. That is not success, it is failure of the worst possible kind.

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Plant Breeders' Rights
It is failure to imagine a world in which people can do things co-operatively, through the public sector, and do things as part and parcel of a vision of what the country should be rather than how institutions can make money in the country or the world by developing a monopoly on new kinds of seeds, drugs or whatever the case may be.
We managed to be very successful in many respects with the Government involvement. The Government was involved, along with universities in the development of canola. Is the Member saying that was a failure?
The Member for Calgary Southwest (Mrs. Sparrow) is so psychologically damaged by the National Energy Program-


Herbert O. Sparrow: You are right.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: -that she cannot imagine anything good happening in the public sector. In the name of that paranoid reaction to the National Energy Program, the whole damn country is to be destroyed in order to satisfy Tories from Alberta who developed an aversion to the public sector in the early 1980s. For that, the whole country has to go down the drain. It is disgusting.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the Parties. I think you will find unanimous consent from me to put the following motion immediately, and for it to be voted on without debate. I move:
That, pursuant to Section 56 of the Canadian Security Intelligence Services Act and Section 7 of the Security Offences Act,
That, a special committee of the House of Commons be appointed to be the committee to undertake a comprehensive review of the provisions and operation of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act with a committee empowered to meet after July 16, 1989, and with the committee to report no later than July 16, 1990; and
That, the committee have all the powers of a Standing Committee and;
That, the membership of the said special committee to be as follows;
Mr. Thacker, (chairman), and Messrs, Brewin, Homer, Lee, Littlechild, Nunziata, Tremblay (Lotbiniere), Tetreault.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Does the Hon. Government House Leader have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski that Bill C-15, an Act respecting plant breeder's rights, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I wanted to rise on a point of order while the Government House Leader is still here. He has introduced a closure motion tonight and has sought to limit debate on the Bill before us. I know that there are a great number of Members who would still like to address the House on this matter. Would the Government House Leader be prepared to seek unanimous consent of the House to extend the sitting beyond one o'clock so that Members who wish to speak could have an opportunity to do so?


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, when I saw my learned friend speaking on plant breeders' rights, I knew it was time to call closure.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I simply want to put on the record clearly that there are 43 Members of the New Democratic Party in the House of Commons, and all 43 Members wish to speak at this stage.
June 27, 1989


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member for Regina-Lumsden (Mr. Benjamin) has the floor.


Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina-Lumsden):: Mr. Speaker, I was particularly anxious when I had the floor that the Hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Halliday), the Hon. Member for Fraser Valley East (Mr. Belsher) and the Hon. Member for Lethbridge-Foothills (Mr. Thatcher) were here because I wanted to ask them a couple of questions about this Bill.
However, I am glad to see there are a couple of Hon. Members here who proclaim that they are Christians, who believe in a philosophy that they are their brother's keeper, who believe in the parable of the good Samaritan. They believe in the teachings of Christ.
I have not been known in my 21 years here to make speeches regarding religion. However, I want to submit to you tonight, after listening to all these Christians, bible thumpers, some of them born again, who support this legislation that it seems to me they have more than given hypocrisy a good name.
I find it difficult to question and really do not want to question the sincerity of the beliefs of my hon. friends and colleagues in the House, but with this legislation they do no more than increase man's exploitation of man. I do not give a tinker's damn how many other countries have gone this route of royalties on food.
I don't give a tinker's damn how many are socialist, capitalist, communist, or whatever. By the way, there are only 17 out of 160 nations in the world which would go along with this. There are a lot of Conservatives, a lot of so-called Liberals in the Canadian context, and even a few who claim to be NDP. I do not care what those other countries are doing. This is another case in which this country could set an example for the rest of the world, particularly our fellow men and women in the underdeveloped and poorer nations of this world who will pay dearly, not to mention how much our own food producers will pay.
We in the NDP recognize that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with making a reasonable profit.
Plant Breeders' Rights


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Where were you in 1937? That is what the CCF said. You couldn't have been a day over 60 then.
There is a difference, Mr. Speaker, between a reasonable profit and sheer, crass exploitation of people.
The reason I mentioned the Hon. Members for Oxford, Fraser Valley East, and Lethbridge Foothills is that I have received letters from them over the last number of years inviting me to prayer breakfasts. Don't any of you Tories ever invite me again to a prayer breakfast. Don't any of you do your praying in the morning at a breakfast and then pass legislation that flies in the face of the things that you pray for. The nerve. How dare you? It is bad enough to be a hypocrite but to flaunt it in the law of the land is a low not even reached by the Liberals, and they were the ones who started all this.
My new hon. friend from Thunder Bay-Nipigon was not here when the Liberals tried to put this through, and oh did they work at it. You should have heard those Christians on the other side. Some of the faces I see now, which look just as ugly as mine, were here then; some were not.
The Hon. Member for Lethbridge-Foothills had the unmitigated gall to mention Marquis wheat tonight. Who perfected Marquis wheat which saved wheat producers not only in Canada but in many other countries of the world for decades? It was Dr. Saunders.
Either listen or leave. I am trying to talk about the contribution of our country and the development of food production for the last 125 years.
Dr. Saunders developed Marquis wheat. Where did he develop it? It wasn't at the Kraft food company, it wasn't at Libby's, and it wasn't at any other corporation. It was at the Experimental Farms in Ottawa and Saskatoon, public operations. Dr. Saunders never asked for and never collected a royalty, neither did the Government of Canada or the Government of Saskatchewan.
The latest developments in canola came out of the Government experimental station in Saskatoon and the University of Saskatoon. That plant development is now

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available to everyone and no one is worried about royalties.
Surely if you claim to be a Christian, Mr. Speaker, you will believe that this is a public domain, that it belongs to all the people. God Almighty, why would you want to exploit the people in need, whether they are our own farmers, the farmers of other countries or, most important, the people in the nations of the world who starve? Why in God's name would you want to make it more costly for them to eat?
I would have expected that my hon. friend from Winnipeg-1Transcona, a clergyman, might have made remarks I have made. I do not belong to any churches, but I think I am a Christian. I try hard to be a Christian and it is not easy. It is hard to watch others who claim to be Christians bring forward this kind of legislation which would go along with other countries that have made the same mistake. Surely that is less than this Parliament of Canada is worth.
I want to remind the House that all the major developments in the development of better food and better food production in this country and most other countries has never been done by private corporations. Invariably, even indirectly in the great U.S. of A., it has been done with public funding.
I would like to make a couple of alternative suggestions, Mr. Speaker. First, if the Government wants to pass a Bill, would it at least be Christian enough to amend it so that the Government of Canada collects all the royalties in this country and then passes on to the inventors only the cost of their invention including a decent living?
Another alternative would be to say to all the world that we will take the moneys from royalties and put them in a world-wide pool which would make available the latest developments in nutritious and healthful food.
For the last 20 years, the developments in rapeseed and canola occurred the University of Saskatchewan. What about our universities and our experimental farms? They get the royalties. What for? It would be for further experimentation.
Why should some damn corporation get it? We do not pass those costs on to farmers and to hungry people
anywhere in the world. You just do not do that. If you claim to be a Christian you would not bring forth this Bill. I never meant anything more seriously in my life than what I am saying to now. I do not know how you could do such an unconscionable thing. Why?
I will not use the NDP moral statement about multinational corporations. Why would you want to minimize the opportunity of people to grow a lot of good food? Why would you want to limit it to only a few? Somebody from the Government should rise and tell me why they would want to do that. Whether it is an individual farmer in the Himalayan Mountains, somebody in Saskatchewan or New Brunswick or wherever, why minimize their ability to produce food unless they pay a certain number of dollars to buy the seed to produce that food? Would someone please explain why? Why in God's name would you want to do that?
It is not a question of what the hell do you think you are doing. It is a question of you better think about what the hell it is you are doing.
We had this argument with the previous Government. There were members from the Conservative Party who got up and said much of what I am saying. Why not say that this Bill shall stand at second reading and that the subject matter be referred to a Standing Committee on Agriculture or Science and Technology? I do not care; it could be looked into some more. I think that is the least we can do. I have avoided getting into all the great depths of the technology involved in plant breeding.
My final word is that I listened to a scientist the other night indicate that legislation includes genetic experimentation including human life. I thought he went a little bit far. He told us about various and sundry genes which as an ordinary prairie boy I did not understand completely. He told us how we could take certain genes and use them in terms of adjusting human existence. Once one gets into something like plant breeders' rights, I don't give a damn about a patent on a widget or a refrigerator. However, when you get into something like this, for goodness sake, think about it some more. You can't do this.
I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, for being somewhat emotional about this. It is not often I do that. I get angry, but tonight on this Bill, I am heartsick.
June 27, 1989

I close by saying to the three gentlemen from whom I get frequent letters and any other Member of this House who invites me to a prayer breakfast, claiming to be a Christian, claiming to support the teachings of Christ "Don't ever send me another invitation".


Mr. Rod Laporte (Moose Jaw-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, in this House we always have activists, lobbyists, and other interested Parties who are constantly asking politicians to pass legislation. Often this legislation has to do with changes in technology such as this Bill before us today.
However, this is not a Bill that is tinkering with an established procedure. This is not a Bill that is ironing out a new wrinkle in an existing process. We are, on this Bill, breaking completely new ground. We are embarking on a new course.
Biotechnology is fundamentally different from any other aspect, any other Bill that this House has introduced before. This is a new technology. This is a technology that is codifying the development of new variety of species of plants.
Biotechnology, generally, deals not only with plants but certainly the development and improvements of animal species. In fact they present to us an opportunity for a better society. There are some very good benefits with respect to biotechnology. A better aspect of biotechnology is that of profits. This is an area of research and development that promises to provide those who are making the development massive profits. In fact, it has been said that it is going to be like a new unit of power.
We used to have, at one time, the gold standard. Now we will have the gene standard. Why do we want to move in such a direction? The answer is patently obvious. We want to move in that direction because we want to solve real problems that exist in society in this country and elsewhere in the world today. We want to prepare and develop a better world. We want to develop an easier life. Those are very laudable goals. Those are things that we all strive for. We must be careful in solving the problem that we do not create new and different problems, ones that are actually worse than the problems we are attempting to solve. My caucus and I have a concern with this particular Bill. The Government is endorsing a process and is setting out on a path that it
Plant Breeders' Rights
does not comprehend. It does not realize what kind of road it is sending this country down.
Biotechnology offers us a means to solve many agricultural problems. It offers to solve production problems for farmers to provide better varieties of grain that will grow in shorter periods of time and avoid frost. It will provide better yields, allow producers to utilize new and other varieties that otherwise would not have been able to be used. It perhaps will provide the consumer with safer, cheaper and possibly healthier products. At the same time this technology threatens not to aid producers but make producers a slave to this new technology.
We are dealing here with plant life. This is the thin edge of the wedge of biotechnology. We welcome biotechnology if those who control and steer the direction of this instrument do so with the benefit of mankind in mind. This Bill dealing with plants only asks and presents some very fundamental questions. Who is controlling this new technology, the massed propagation of plants, plant tissue culture, the monocolonal antibodies and cell fusion?
Is it going to be the Ph.Ds that are working in universities, those who we expect are going to control that? That is not going to be the case. It is going to be a handful of large companies, so-called agri-business which are going to control, develop and monopolize this area, not only plant breeders' rights but later animal breeders' rights. We are just on the threshold of this massive technology which Canadians should not only look forward to but look forward to with some caution.
This has been the subject of much discussion and much debate. There have been numerous conferences held on biotechnology. Certainly one of the most well known was the 1987 Dag Hammarskjold seminar on the socio-economic impact of new biotechnologies on basic health in agriculture.
Let me state one of its conclusions. The greatest threat in the new biosciences is that life will become the monopoly property of a few giant companies. In the key countries the products and processes of biotechnology either are or are becoming patentable beyond the wildest dreams of the industrial barons of the past. The whole gene revolution is on the verge of becoming private

June 27, 1989
Plant Breeders ' Rights
property. Of all technologies this life derived technology must remain in the hands of the people.
This is a conclusion of a conference of scientists from around the world, scientists including people from Canada. In fact, the Government would have received a report from this conference. This Government has chosen to ignore these experts and individuals who devote their lives to science. This Bill codifies what the Hammarskjold seminar feared most.
We should be looking at plant breeders' rights and biotechnology, but we should be very careful about how that development proceeds. The Government has ignored that conference, those conclusions of world experts as it has ignored other experts in the world. If the goal of science is to serve humanity, then let science serve humanity.
Many countries are dealing with this problem. Members opposite spoke of this much earlier. They spoke of numerous countries, including the United States which has a tremendous influence and effect on Canada. The United States not only allows plant breeders' rights but also plant patents, plant cell culture, and engineered organisms.
The Americans have taken a step ahead of us. The United States considers a lack of patent protection to be an unfair trading practice. That was brought up at the GATT negotiations. Canada has been under pressure from the United States about the subject. The United States has demanded that Canada adopt similar laws to the United States for pharmaceuticals and plant varieties. You can see in the recent past that this Government caved in to U.S. demands on pharmaceuticals.
We had a nation that for 20 years had some of the cheapest drugs in the world. This benefited Canadians, but Canada passed a law providing protection for drug corporations.


René John Soetens: And it created all kinds of jobs.


Rodney Edward Laporte: The Government promised that this type of legislation would create research and development and hundreds of jobs.


René John Soetens: Thousands.


Rodney Edward Laporte: These jobs simply have not materialized.


René John Soetens: Come up to Ontario and I will point them out to you.


Rodney Edward Laporte: The Government is now caving in to the pressure of the United States Government on plant breeders' rights. Mark my words, this is the beginning. Certainly there will be pressure from the United States to have treaties not just for plant breeders' rights but for animal breeders' rights. That would be the next stage. Perhaps legislation will be introduced next year or in the next session.
We want to improve the quality of life and have a better community, but this Bill does not provide the protection needed to guarantee the decent quality of life Canadians deserve and have come to expect.
Canadians attended the Hammarskjold seminar. Reports were presented to the Government which indicated that plant breeders' rights promised to increase production and reduce costs, but the conclusions of experts, not politicians, of people who work in that field and devote their life to it, said that that was not likely to be the case. They concluded that it will aggravate genetic erosion and likely to increase the dependence of farmers. It will further concentrate the power of transnational agri-business. In other words, there will be a concentration of power into fewer and fewer hands at the ultimate expense of producers.
There is more. Certainly plants go into producing a large number of drugs that are utilized in the pharmaceutical business today.
That is why it is not uncommon to have a company which is involved not only in pharmaceutical drugs or chemicals but also in seed production. This Bill simply allows them to further concentrate that monopoly which they are developing.
In health, Mr. Speaker, the drug companies will say that they will provide more effective diagnostic tools and new ways to prevent disease. The Hammarskjold Conference concluded differently. These experts and these people who devoted their lives to this type of work-and not politicians-have concluded that the pharmaceutical industry more likely will focus upon the most profitable opportunities and divert attention from basic health requirements. In other words, the bottom line. These are experts who have reported to government and who have lobbied governments. There is one tragic flaw and one tragic problem that these experts do not have. They do not have a lot of money. They do not have the power that the dollar bill brings when we are talking to people like Cargill and Shell Oil and other companies, like the Eli Lilly Company. Those are the companies to which this

Government listens. Those are the groups on which this Government focuses its attention. That is who it listens and responds to, as opposed to experts and people in the field who are devoting their lives to this problem. That is what is wrong with this Bill.
Members opposite tonight with respect to plant breeders' rights, were saying that this will be a benefit to farmers and producers. It is already happening in other countries where plant breeders' rights has been established. Seed corporations who have patented their particular seed and who have the protection-and in this case it is going to be 18 years-are lobbying governments to say that farmers should not have the right to retain seed.
It is expected that in certain countries there will be the introduction of laws to demand that if farmers retain seed they should pay a royalty to the companies. Is that benefiting farmers? Is that a government which is doing what it can for the small producer? Is that a government which is devoted to maintaining agriculture and a rural structure? I do not think so. That is a government that is passing legislation that is simply going to concentrate the wealth of this nation into fewer and fewer hands. That is the difficulty that I have with this Bill.
The idea is fine, but it needs massive amendments. This is a government which is setting a dangerous and potentially destructive course for this country. The potential profits in this area are mind-boggling. There are millions and millions and millions of dollars to be made in this area. The potential benefits are there as well.
However, when a small group of corporations have a monopoly, they dictate what sort of production will be happening in the rural areas of this country. Contrary to Members' saying, "don't worry, don't worry", if this Bill is allowed to pass unamended, unchanged, it is going to be destructive to the family farms in this country. It is going to be destructive to rural Canada.
Members opposite talked before about when the Drug Patent Act was passed there would be jobs created in research and development, but they have not material-
Plant Breeders' Rights
ized in this country. They are not going to materialize under plant breeders' rights either.
These companies are in the business of making a profit. We cannot blame a company for being in the business of making a profit. Its shareholders appoint directors to work each year to make the company a profit. If those directors do not make that company a profit, those directors should be fired. That is how the system works and it is fair. There is nothing wrong with making a profit.
This Government should not be passing legislation which is simply giving the agri-business corporations of this world a licence to print money which is going to put a lot of dollars in their pockets and going to show a lot of increased revenue for those corporations. It is going to simply spell one more expense. It is going to mean one more expense for family farmers and one more in which they are being controlled. This is a government which talks about free enterprise. This is not free enterprise. When this materializes down the road, these corporations will have a say in what people plant, when they plant it and how they should plant it. That is the problem with this Bill.
These corporations are not trying to develop a plant which is resistant to various insects and other problems which exist in fields and in crops. Rather than developing a pest resistant variety, they are focusing on gene transfer for pesticide resistance because that is where the money is. If they can develop a crop variety and show that it produces well and convince producers to buy it, they will do that.
What will happen is that as varieties disappear, as they inevitably will, then producers will be forced to follow the tune that these agri-business companies maintain. That is the conclusion of the conference. That is the conclusion of experts who are concerned with this area.
This is a Bill which is only at second reading, thank goodness. I certainly hope that in committee we can effect some changes to the Bill and come back to this House with some recommendations so that it provides some protection for the producers of this land that does not give everything to agri-business and does not cave in to agri-business.
I and my colleagues will be working very hard to see that this Bill is either defeated, or if not defeated, that it is presented to this House in a fashion which reflects and represents and is responsive to the needs of average

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Plant Breeders' Rights
Canadians and not agri-business. It is my hope that that will be the ultimate result of this Bill. The objective is the same, to provide a better lifestyle, a better world for all of us. This Bill is not a Bill for Canadians, it is a Bill for agri-business.


Mr. Murray Cardiff (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister, President of the Privy Council and Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise to speak to Bill C-15 at this late time and at the last event and speech that we will be giving in the House of Commons as we wrap up for the summer session.
We will have the opportunity of going home and seeing the wonderful plants that are growing which have been the fruits and work of many of our plant breeders.
We have heard many arguments against Bill C-15 over the course of second reading debate. Some have suggested that plant breeders' rights will destroy world gene resources or adversely affect less developed countries, or lead to the patenting of human life. Bill C-15 does not do these things, and during the course of debate, my hon. colleagues in the Opposition have at times forgotten what plant breeders' rights are all about.
Bill C-15 is about joining with 18 of our most significant trading partners in signing the international convention for the protection of plant varieties. Bill C-15 is about ensuring a place in the world for Canadian varieties so that Canadian efforts can be rewarded abroad. Bill C-15 is about allowing farmers and horticul-turalists to import exciting new foreign varieties which are unobtainable until we have our own plant breeders' rights legislation.
Bill C-15 is about offering private breeders incentive to undertake this important work despite its risks and its expense. Bill C-15 is about ensuring that Canadian farmers have access to the best possible varieties, whether they be foreign, private or public. In short, Bill C-15 is about benefiting Canadian agriculture which in turn benefits all of us. When agriculture is prosperous, Canada is prosperous and everyone does well.
Let me begin with the suggestion that this is patent legislation. In fact, it is quite obvious that this is not patent legislation, nor will it lead to any. If it were, we
would be debating an amendment to the Patent Act. Instead, we are discussing plant breeders' rights legislation.
Because the Government recognizes that this is a sensitive and complicated issue, we have chosen to deal with it separately. In such a manner, we believe we can best protect the interests of breeders, farmers and the country as a whole.
Equally, this Bill in no way authorizes anyone to patent human life forms. It merely allows plant breeders an opportunity to be rewarded for their hard work, and 18 years has been designated as the period of protection for a variety under Bill C-15.
There are a number of reasons for the choice of 18 years. Generally, out of one million initial crosses, plant breeders find only four potential varieties. These will take 10 to 15 years to develop at a cost of $3 million to $5 million. Out of this work will arise varieties which often last only a few years before they are superseded by other new plants.
It is essential that the really outstanding varieties help to pay the costs of plant breeding programs. There are varieties which have lasted well beyond the 18-year period. For example, Thatcher spring wheat was registered in 1935, Selkirk wheat in 1953, a red clover called Alataswede in 1923 and Climax, a timothy variety in 1947. Those of us in the agricultural industry know the value of Climax, one of the best timothys that has ever been developed in this great country. I think that says something for the early plant breeding programs and for the dedication of plant breeders many years ago who did not have the technology and tools to work with we have today in developing varieties.
After the 18 years, these successful varieties would, of course, become public, but if breeders are not given time to recoup their investment, seed prices would necessarily go up. Currently, in other countries with PBR, royalty rates are approximately 6 per cent to 8 per cent, but the length of protection is essential to maintaining this low level.
The Hon. Member from Regina said that he accepted the principle of royalties. A Member of the NDP said that, though he did not say how the royalties should be paid.
June 27, 1989

My colleague, the Hon. Member for Algoma (Mr. Foster), has suggested that the period be reduced to seven years. Not only would this tend to have an inflationary effect upon prices but it would do nothing to improve our external situation.
We have indicated our intention to join the 18-member international convention so that we might enjoy the benefits of reciprocity with these major trading partners. Lowering our period of protection in this way would no longer meet the requirements of the convention and we could not ratify the agreement. We would remain incapable of securing foreign imports or of protecting our varieties abroad.
The absence of variety protection can also have a detrimental effect on the industry by artificially restricting and extending attempts to control seed. Contractual arrangements are currently made between growers and some seed companies in an attempt to ensure some return on their product. Members of the House of Commons who are farmers know that to grow a variety of seed that they know by name, they have to sign a contract to obtain that seed and they have to agree to return it back to that supplier because there is a lack of patent protection for the variety. To me, that makes a mockery of the system and is not fair to farmers because it restricts good seeds to certain individuals and puts us in an uncompetitive position.
This creates a great deal of paperwork and complicates matters for the grower and the company alike. The agreements have no cut-off. This Bill C-15 offers. Nor does the current situation allow the Government to intervene in the national interest. As well, foreign countries do not recognize this contractual agreement as a parallel system and will not enter into reciprocal agreements.
We need plant breeders' rights. I am very happy to see this legislation read the second time tonight and go to a legislative committee for deliberations. This issue has been debated for many years. Finally, it will provide great assistance to the agricultural producers in Canada in competing on the world market.
The Government has been far-sighted enough to ensure that some means exist by which we can maintain the system in an equitable manner. Clauses 32 and 33 provide for a compulsory license which could be granted in the event of unnecessarily high royalty rates or unfair
Plant Breeders' Rights
distribution. This system is in place in many UPOV nations but its use has rarely been necessary.
The enforcement of this Act will not be applied to our grandmothers who wish to trade plant slips. The Hon. Member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton) referred to the clauses in the plant breeders' rights Bill relating to penalties for offences. He implied that the penalties applied to people giving away seeds of protected varieties, and this is not so. The offences in Bill C-15 relate to such issues as false representation and abuse of trust. They do not relate to the selling of protected varieties. If someone sells another person's protected variety, it is a civil and not a criminal offence.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I suggest that the Hon. Member who just misquoted me read Clause 6 of the Bill and Clause 51, the offence clause. He just misquoted the legislation his Government has brought in. I think that is quite improper and quite misleading to those viewing these proceedings.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: That is debate. The Hon. Parliamentary Secretary has the floor.


Murray Cardiff: Mr. Speaker, I simply want to say again that if someone sells another person's protected variety, it is a civil, not a criminal offence. It would be up to the owner of the rights to enforce his or her own rights, and that is quite clear in the legislation.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I know what the Hon. Member just said. What he said was false. It is improper for a Member of the House to impute false statements to another Member.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Parliamentary Secretary has the floor.


Murray Cardiff: Mr. Speaker, to make compulsory automatic licensing as effective as possible, we have chosen the route of maximum flexibility. By selecting an advisory committee and implementing specifics by species with regulations, we have allowed for a system which will take the nuances of this vast nation into account. With this method, the unique situation of maritime potatoes will be handled in a manner different from that of Red Spring wheat or that of a new breed of red roses, or of any roses.
It has been suggested that those provisions are not enough, that multinationals will take over and gain a strangle-hold on our farmers. At this time, seed development and marketing in Canada is largely in public or small private hands. Large multinationals do not at this time play a significant role in the industry. The ongoing global process of mergers and diversification in all

Plant Breeders' Rights
sectors may have an impact upon the industry, but this is not anticipated to be a direct result of plant breeders' rights legislation. There have also been suggestions that the chemical companies associated with those multinationals would try to breed varieties which are dependent upon specific pesticides and fertilizers.
Before I was elected to Parliament, I was the chairman of a marketing board in the Province of Ontario marketing white beans. In 1977 there were extreme weather difficulties in the same manner as we had a drought last year. In 1977, particularly in Ontario, there was a strain of enthracnals that was new and came into our white beans along with the wet weather. Our plant breeders responded very rapidly. We said that we were going to use chemicals to control the disease. However, within three years, our plant breeders worked together and chemicals were used for a very short time until a variety was bred with resistance to that strain of Delta enthracnals.
I know that we have dedicated public breeding programs in this country. I want to acknowledge the fine work that they do, and the effort that is being made to breed varieties with resistance to the many diseases that are there to rust and smut.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: How is this Bill going to help?


Murray Cardiff: This Bill will help do all those things, because it will allow the plant breeder to recoup and put more dollars back into the development of the breeding resources, and resistance is as important as new varieties. Many times, it means taking present varieties and assuring their continued viability by breeding in resistance to the various sectors.
I do not know if the Hon. Member lives on a farm or is familiar with the growing of beans, barley, com, or any of those products. I invite the Member to come to my farm and look at the crops that we grow. I would be very happy to have the Member come to western Ontario some time and look at some great crops in that area.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: I would be delighted to do so, and I will make a speech when I am there.


Murray Cardiff: I invite the Hon. Member to come when we are baling hay.


John V. Nunziata: Is that where you learned to shovel it?


An Hon. Member:: You fork it, you don't shovel it. We have to teach these guys everything.


Murray Cardiff: It has been suggested that those provisions are not enough, that multinationals will take over. I do not agree with that. The ongoing global process of mergers and diversification in all sectors may have an impact on the industry, but this is not anticipated to be a direct result of plant breeders' rights legislation. I want to reinforce that point, as much as I can.
The task of plant breeding is so complicated that it is highly unlikely a plant could be bred for a specific chemical. That is not what the interests of our plant breeding programs are, and have not been, and will not be.
In the event that this did occur, the variety would still require registration under the Seeds Act to verify its merits and suitability before it could be sold. There is a process of licensing before that could ever happen. There would also be competition in the market-place from other private breeders and public-sector programs that would be producing varieties without such limitations.
Ultimately, the decisions must rest with fanners. Those decisions should stay with the farmers, because they provide the bread-basket of this great nation of ours. Many of them came as immigrants, and perhaps for some people it may be a long time ago, but when one looks at world history, the fanners are pioneers. Many were our grandfathers or our great-grandfathers. I believe that the farmers have responded to the needs of this country, helped it grow, and will continue to make it grow if we give them the room to do so.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Murray Cardiff: Farmers will not buy a product which requires high input unless the benefits are sufficient to support the initial investment. Farmers are good shoppers and good buyers. They have always had choices and they will continue to have choices, because the farmers will demand that that choice be there. I have lived on a farm all of my life, worked with farmers, and I know how they feel.
June 27, 1989

At one time I represented all the white bean farmers in the Province of Ontario, and I do know how they feel about plant breeders' legislation.
White beans are like little white pearls. They are the greatest product one could ever get hold of. They are an exportable product. In 1972, 20 per cent of our white beans were exported. By the year 1980,80 per cent of our beans were exported at no sacrifice to human consumption. This happened because we were leaders and because we had varieties acceptable throughout the world. It is one thing to grow beans, but quite another to have varieties that are acceptable with good cooking qualities and storing qualities.
We must never forget that farmers are intelligent customers. Farmers are businessmen. Farmers have to carefully consider factors such as input yield, and ratios. They look at all those things when they look at what varieties they are going to choose from. They do have many varieties to choose from. Let us never underestimate farmers, because they do make intelligent decisions.
As a result, farm organizations are supporting this Bill in large numbers. Groups such as the Western Canadian Wheat Growers, the Canadian Grains Council, Canadian Nursery Trades Association, United Grain Growers, Canadian Seed Growers Association, Canadian Ornamental Plant Foundation, and one close to my heart, the Ontario Bean Producers Marketing Board, to name only a few are supporting this Bill.
When my hon. friend is helping with the hay, we will give him a good feed of beans.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Beans are good for the heart.


Murray Cardiff: All those people feel that this Bill will benefit agriculture and benefit Canada. The Hon. Member for Northumberland (Mrs. Stewart) has suggested that this is not enough, that we must benefit the Third World as well. Like all Hon. Members, I too wish that there were easy solutions for the social and economic problems facing the developing world. Even if all Members of the House devoted all their time and energies to the issue, we could not solve all the problems. Why should we expect Bill C-15 to solve all those problems? Plant breeders' rights are designed to address issues in our country and in our dealings with our major trading partners.
Plant Breeders' Rights


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: It's a kowtow to the U.S.


Murray Cardiff: While we are doing that, it strengthens the viability of our farms and our agriculture industry in this country. Who could argue against strengthening the opportunities for agriculture? In fact, the difference between our northern climate and the tropics prohibits effective seed trade with the Third World. Even if a distribution system were in place, and the equipment was there, places such as Uganda and Malaysia would still not become major markets.
However, our Government is concerned about their food resources, and to ensure that varieties are developed for their countries, we offer them our fiscal and technical support. CIDA contributed $18,250,000 in 1988 to 17 different research institutes specializing in developing agriculture. That is a lot of money. There are also a significant number of bilateral agreements which offer technical advice or specific services between our country and less developed ones. The International Development Research Council has also funded seed projects worth almost $3 million in 1988.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: In accordance with the provisions of Standing Order 57, it is my duty at this time-


Lyle Dean MacWilliam: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: There is no point of order. It is one o'clock.
In accordance with the provisions of Standing Order 57, at this time it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith all questions necessary to dispose of the second reading stage of the Bill now before the House.
Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: No.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


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

June 27, 1989
Plant Breeders' Rights


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Call in the Members:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I declare the motion carried.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
Mr. Brian White (Dauphin-Swan River):: Mr. Speaker, I would like it noted that I was in the Chamber at 1.30 a.m., but because I have been appointed Chairman of the legislative committee on Bill C-15 I abstained from the vote on second reading.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Before adjourning, I think it would only be right to give the Pages some last applause for a job well done.
June 27, 1989

Plant Breeders' Rights


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!	stands adjourned until Monday, September 25, 1989, at


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It being 1.33 a.m.,	^ a,m' pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).
pursuant to order made earlier this day, this House The House adjourned at 1.33 a.m.

June 27, 1989


APPENDIX
[Stage Direction]
Mr. Chaim Herzog President of the State of Israel to
Both Houses of Parliament in the
HOUSE OF COMMONS CHAMBER, OTTAWA on
Tuesday, June 27, 1989
June 27, 1989

[Stage Direction]
of
Mr. Chaim Herzog President of the State of Israel to
Both Houses of Parliament in the
HOUSE OF COMMONS CHAMBER, OTTAWA on
Tuesday, June 27, 1989
[Stage Direction]
The President was welcomed by the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney, Prime Minister of Canada and thanked by the Honourable Guy Charbonneau, Speaker of the Senate and the Honourable John A. Fraser, Speaker of the House of Commons.
Mr. Speaker:: The Right Honourable the Prime Minister.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. President, that was the kind of warm welcome that I receive every day in the House of Commons.

Members of the Senate, of the House of Commons, distinguished guests, dear friends.

We are gathered here today to mark the first address to the Parliament of Canada by the Head of State or the Head of the Government of Israel.
We mark as well the first state visit to Canada by a President of Israel.
On behalf of all Canadians, Mr. President, I tell you simply: welcome, you are among friends.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Your ties to our country predate the foundation of the State of Israel.
You were a brother-in-arms to thousands of our fellow citizens who, in history's darkest hour, risked- and, in all too many cases, sacrificed-their lives to defeat the Nazi terror.
The British unit in which you served, from the beaches of Normandy until V-E Day, was attached to the First Canadian Army.
The wreath you will be laying this afternoon at our National War Memorial is therefore an especially moving expression of our personal and national solidarity. Canadians remember that threat to our freedom. And we will never forget the diabolical attempt to exterminate the Jewish people.
The Holocaust is burnt indelibly into our souls, as it must live on in the minds of our youngest children-and then, theirs-so that it can never be forgotten.
You pursued your destiny, Mr. President, in an era that brought about the birth and consolidation of the State of Israel.

Canada played a part in that process by participating in the United Nations Commission that proposed the partition of Palestine, by voting for Israel's membership in the UN and by contributing to the Middle East peacekeeping forces in the hope of stabilizing the region and of bringing peace to your country.
Most of all, in the daring and difficult period of Israel's infancy, when your nation needed friends-true friends-Canada was there. Canada was there over 40 years ago and our friendship and support remain with you today.

The bonds between Israel and Canada are numerous and deep.

June 27, 1989
Like Canada, Israel is a land of immigrants which has become a home to a host of courageous spirits from around the world. Canada owes a great deal to the contribution of its Jewish community, whose members have distinguished themselves in an outstanding manner.
I can tell you, Mr. President, that there is hardly a dimension of our national life-from the arts, research, to medicine, the humanities, commerce, politics, to labour, and the law-that has not been improved and enriched because of the dynamic presence of a large and impressive Jewish community in Canada.
Jewish immigrants have laboured and sacrificed and have dreamt great dreams for their children-and on this continent so far away, their fondest hopes of freedom and tolerance, of fairness and opportunity have come true. May I tell you, Mr. President, on behalf of all Canadians, that Canada is an incomparably better nation because of their presence.
Canadians understand the aspirations that have shaped Israeli society from its origins. Canada and Israel share a fundamental commitment to liberty, through respect for individual rights and responsibilities. Common human values and democratic principles lie at the root of everything that unites us.
In all the world, there are few Parliaments as open, as democratic, and as fractious as the Knesset-although this House of Commons comes dangerously close on occasion. Too often for my liking, Mr. President. To listen to the raucous debates in the Israeli Parliament is to hear the pure and persuasive sounds of freedom.
And in all the world, there are few parallels to match the astonishing feat of Israel coming alive, of deserts being made to bloom, of a nation being bound together, in the shadow of hostility and in the agony of war.
The values on which Israel was founded, and which have been tempered in the fire of her national experience, have never been tested more than at this moment. Canadians are deeply concerned because of their friendship for Israel and because of their profound conviction that human rights must be respected.
Indeed, Mr. President, as you so eloquently stated, some three years ago, and I quote:
Israel must be the absolute denial of the theories of discrimination
and racism, the loss of human dignity and the negation of man's
honour.
The death of a child-Israeli or Palestinian-is an overwhelming human tragedy. Forbearance and restraint-even in the face of intense provocation-are the hallmarks of a strong and a confident nation. Canadians who understand and sympathize with Israel urge nonetheless moderation and reasonableness, in the belief that ultimately such a policy will bring about an equally responsible attitude on the other side.
The name of Israel resounds in human history with the promise of liberation. Mr. President, I can tell you on behalf of all Canadians that you can be assured of Canada's unswerving commitment to the security of Israel and to its status as a legitimate and independent state.

Canada is more anxious than ever to help create in your region a peace based on the security, well-being and legitimate rights of the people of Israel and her Arab neighbours.

Since the UN Security Council passed Resolution 242 in 1967, Canada has been working in the Middle East to promote a peace based on territorial accommodation, so that in exchange for occupied territories, Israel's legitimate rights will be recognized by its neighbours.

We have continually insisted that the Palestinians and the Arab countries recognize, unequivocally, Israel's right to exist. We have been encouraged by events in recent months which demonstrates this essential precondition is being met.
Our conviction is that recognition and respect for Israel's rights is the essential counterpart for the Palestinians realizing their own legitimate rights, including the right to participate fully in the determination of their own destiny and the future of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
We are pleased by the growing acceptance of this principle throughout your region. In this respect, we consider it significant that the Israeli Government has
June 27, 1989

proposed holding elections in which the Palestinian people would be able to make their views known clearly, elections that could be a step on the way to breaking the cycle of violence and leading to a just and durable peace.

The creation of the State of Israel is one of the epochal events of this century. For Canadians, Israel is not simply a place on the map. Israel is a tribute to the deep spiritual beliefs and the unfailing personal courage of a remarkable people.
Israel is a monument to the indomitable spirit of man.
Chers amis, colleagues, it is with great pride that I present to you the President of Israel whom I now invite to address the Parliament and the people of Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
His Excellency Chaim Herzog (President of Israel):
Mr. Prime Minister, Mr. Speaker of the Senate, Mr. Speaker of the House of Commons, Honourable Senators and Members of the House of Commons, Distinguished Members of the Diplomatic Corps, Ladies and Gentlemen.
I thank you, Mr. Prime Minister, for your very kind personal remarks about me. As I heard you, I recalled the comment of the late President Lyndon Johnson on a similar occasion. He said: "My father would have been pleased. My mother would have believed it."
You, Mr. Prime Minister, have been a tried and trusted friend of our people and of our country over the years. As a statesman of world stature and as the Leader of this great country, you are highly respected in our country as elsewhere, and I look forward to your comments and observations on the current situation with great interest.
It is my privilege to reiterate publicly our invitation to you to come to our area and to honour us with your presence in Israel.

You understand how moving it is for the President of Israel, a people with thousands of years of history and a young democracy reborn, after centuries of struggle and prayer, to have the privilege today to address your
illustrious assembly, which is witness to the most exciting aspect of the Free World.
I am very touched on this first presidential state visit in the annals of Israel-Canada relations by the honour these two Houses have granted my people, with all it means in terms of dreams, accomplishments and hopes.

As a fellow democracy, we are proud of the fact that despite five wars, despite the defence and economic burden which it has borne since its inception, Israel has never compromised on the issue of its basic values. Like you, we have never known one minute without democracy. Our democracy faces the most involved challenges- a constant state of readiness, long military and reserve service, and the complex problems arising out of the refusal of our neighbours to enter into negotiations for peace with us, and to understand that we do have the right to live in the area and in our country.
Too often are our problems viewed facilely out of the context of all that is happening around us in the Middle East. In this decade the longest war in this century has been waged in the Persian Gulf-a brutal bloody war motivated by fanatic religious fundamentalism on the one hand, and the ambitions of a megalomaniac dictatorship on the other hand. Tens of thousands of prisoners were shot on both sides out of hand. An unconventional weapon, poison gas, was introduced, and the world stood by in mute helplessness. The number of those killed and wounded was in the millions.
How blind were the so-called experts in analysing the developments in our area. The obsessive fixation with every stone-throwing incident in the West Bank led to a situation whereby the real ominous developments in the Middle East and the real threats to Western interests were overlooked by most observers. Thus again and again the Western World was taken by surprise when the real focus of danger erupted. How can we forget how the free world was taken by surprise by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, by the Khomeini revolution in Iran, by the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war?
It is against this background that we must view the sole bastion of democracy in our region-Israel. A glance at the map of the Middle East must surely emphasize the vital significance for the security of the free world of this

June 27, 1989
solid island of stability, loyalty and friendship to the West.
We see as our major challenge the achievement of peace between us and our Arab neighbours, including the Palestinians. In our Declaration of Independence we held out our hand to our Arab neighbours in a quest for peace. It was rejected, and instead the armies of seven Arab states combined with the Palestinian Arabs in an effort to destroy the embryonic Jewish State before its birth and to drive us into the sea. We fought back desperately without adequate arms, outnumbered, outgunned, and embargoed by most of the countries of the free world. Thanks to our sacrifice of 1 per cent of our population killed and the leadership of Ben Gurion, we managed to survive.
From the moment of its birth Israel stretched out its hand in an offer of peace, but it was rejected. The Palestinians continued along the road of tragedy.
For 19 years, from 1948 to 1967, the West Bank was occupied by Jordan and the Gaza Strip was occupied by Egypt. But the Palestinians were not granted independence, nor was a State established, because then as today the last thing the Arab countries wanted, their protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, was a Palestinian State.
Ten days after the conclusion of the Six-Day War in 1967 the Israeli Cabinet offered to return to Egypt the Sinai Desert and to Syria the Golan Heights in return for demilitarization and peace. The Government prepared for negotiations with King Hussein. The Arab reply to this approach was the Khartoum Summit Conference with its three noes-no to negotiations with Israel, no to recognition of Israel, and no to peace with Israel.
In 1977 the program for full autonomy for the Palestinians proposed by the then Prime Minister Menachem Begin was rejected out of hand. Had this proposal been accepted then, we might by now have been well on the road to a permanent settlement.
We are irrevocably committed to the inexorable process moving toward peace in the Middle East. I am convinced that we will achieve it. For I only have to look back to 12 years ago today when most of Israel's borders were hermetically sealed and there was no passage of people or trade across them. Who would have dreamt then that today the Israeli flag would fly over an Israeli Embassy in Egypt and an Egyptian flag over an Egyptian Embassy in Israel? Who would have dreamt that 10 years after the signing of the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty, Egypt would be accepted back into the Arab League while
remaining loyal to its commitments to Israel and would, indeed, rightly reassume its position as leader of the Arab world?
Who would have dreamt that this year some 120,000 Israeli tourists would be thronging Egyptian resorts and tourist sites, and that joint Israel-Egypt agricultural projects would be taking place in the Nile Delta and in the Negev in Israel?
Who would have dreamt that over a million people would be crossing annually over the bridges of the River Jordan in both directions, and that daily hundreds of trucks would be carrying produce and exports in both directions? And who would have dreamt that thousands of Israeli Muslims would be making their way to and fro in performance of the Holy Pilgrimage to Mecca?
We have reach a new crossroads. We are experiencing a period of unrest in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. We deeply regret the bloodshed on both sides as we strive to maintain law and order. We have had to overcome repeated onslaughts in the past, and I have no doubt that we will overcome the present wave of violence which in our eyes poses a threat to the basis of our society and to the peaceful coexistence between Jews and Arabs in the land of Israel. We dare not underestimate the feelings expressed in the unrest, nor should we sanguinely expect it simply to fade away. Irrational and self-destroying persistence has tragically marked previous Arab attacks on Israel. Hatred and violence have led only to bereavement and disaster without solving any problems. Understanding has come too late in every case.
There is no desire in Israel to rule over another people and to direct its life. Let us however not forget that this issue is the subject of a major political debate in Israel. Israel has to face fateful decisions, and I am only too aware of the agonizing reappraisals taking place today both in our free society, and among the Palestinians who live with us in Israel and in the territories.
It is easy to discuss our problems at a distance, to pass judgment, to make speeches, to write articles, and to offer solutions. It is, to say the least, less easy for those who together with their children will have to bear the consequences should they err. Remember, what for others is a matter of foreign policy, is for us a matter of existence. In the current outbreak of civil unrest in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, the choice facing us is unfortunately not between law and order on the one hand, and negotiations on the other hand. The choice is between maintaining law and order as a basis for bilateral negotiations, or allowing the situation to deteriorate

into a new edition of Beirut or Teheran. That is the cruel choice which faces us today.
There is criticism at times of Israel's handling of the maintenance of law and order, and nowhere more pointedly than in Israel, in the Knesset or in the media. However, I have yet to see other countries facing similar situations without the use of force. What more effective methods should we use? Those used by our neighbours including, for instance, the killing of 30,000 people in the Syrian town of Hama by President Assad, or the killing of 500 demonstrators in two days in Algeria last summer? Or should we adopt the methods using during the riots in the inner cities of Britain, or in Northern Ireland, or in the streets of Western Europe, or those that were used once in Watts or Detroit or Kent State?
What other armed forces in the world than ours would exercise more restraint in coping with a society that cynically and cruelly sends its children to carry out acts of violence endangering life on both societies? Remember, a mother burnt alive together with her three children in a civilian bus are no less tragically dead because the perpetrators who threw the molotov cocktail were youngsters. A society's strength is tested by its ability to face crises. I believe that given all the difficulties and with all our shortcomings our society has shown as much maturity and humanity as any other society in similar circumstances. As Golda Meir once said she cannot forgive the Arabs not so much because they kill our children but because they force our children to kill theirs.
Looking around us, how can we ignore the thunderous silence of the world as the city of Beirut has been, and is being, pounded mercilessly by Syrian artillery day in day out, night in night out, as the Christian refugees trying in small boats to reach ferries offshore to take them to safety in Cyprus, are shelled indiscriminately, as the Lebanese nation is slowly destroyed, as the Christian community of Lebanon largely ignored by the rest of the Christian world, is slowly being decimated and is in dire danger for its very existence? How can we ignore the apathy of the world in the face of this cruel destruction of a nation? Surely the lesson for us must be obvious.
Already 25,000 refugees from Beirut-Christians and Muslims-have crowded into the security zone adjacent to our northern border, instinctively coming to Israel for protection and security.
My friends, all of this is going on at the moment, and has aroused little reaction in the civilized world. In the cruel, distorted, prejudiced coverage by the media of events in the Middle East, the slaughter in Beirut does not warrant the coverage given to children throwing stones in some West Bank village.
We are a free society facing a dilemma. Is it not understandable that Israeli society is tom by doubts and hesitations, and that there is no small degree of scepticism coupled with a legitimate debate in our society on the PLO's real intentions?
In the past few months, the Government of Israel formulated a plan for the movement forward in the peace process in the Middle East. The plan consists of four parts:
1)	Reaffirming the Camp David Agreement;
2)	A call for the Arab countries to join in the peace process and recognize Israel;
3)	That an international effort be mounted to solve the festering problem of the Arab refugees in Gaza and Judea;
4)	Elections in the Judea and Samaria Districts of the West Bank and in Gaza, whereby the Palestinian Arabs residents of these areas will elect in secret ballot their own representatives. These representatives will be thereby empowered to enter into negotiations with Israel in order to establish self-rule for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Under this self-rule, which is envisaged for a five-year period, the Palestinian Arabs in the territories will rule themselves and will be responsible for everything but foreign affairs and defence.
After a period of three years, negotiations will open with the Palestinians who have been elected, in order to achieve a final settlement.
Unfortunately the situation on the Arab side is not at all clear. Their protestations to the contrary, a large proportion of the Palestinians living in the territories administered by us would accept the Government of Israel's proposal. But since the official PLO line so far has been to set out conditions which in effect negate the spirit and the essence of the Israeli proposals, no Palestinian in the Judea and Samaria district of the West Bank and Gaza will dare risk being lynched or a bullet in

his head in order to express his views and support the proposal. In the course of the current year some 50 per cent of all the Palestinian casualties have been inflicted by Palestinians. In the past few months, some 50 Palestinians suspected of views different to those of the PLO have been cruelly and summarily executed. When a Palestinian mayor suggested a truce for Christmas, he was publicly threatened by Arafat that he would end up with 10 bullets in his chest.
What is more, the recent Arab Summit Conference in Casablanca reaffirmed the negative position adopted by the PLO. The PLO policy from a practical point of view, from our point of view, must be irrelevant as long as they are not prepared officially to amend the Palestine Covenant which calls for the destruction of Israel.
We are by now immune to the double-talk which characterizes many of the statements issued by the PLO, each statement adapted to the audience to which it is delivered, immediately to be followed by another statement issued to another audience saying just the opposite.
Thus, Arafat publicly forswore the use of terror. However, acts of terror continue unabated. How can we tamely acquiesce in his declaration that the burning of a Jewish family on an outing in a car is a "military operation" and not an act of terror. The fact is that he does not in effect control his organization. Indeed, in addition to the break-away Abu Mussa group in Syria, components of the PLO such as Talaat Yakub, Habash's Popular Front, Khawatma, Gibril, refuse to go along with him. What validity can one give to the statements made by an individual who obviously does not control constituents of the organization which he purports to lead and represent?
I emphasize, again, that the people of Israel want nothing more than peace. I know of no way to achieve peace without negotiation with the other side. One day a great man arose in the Middle East and came forward, the late President Anwar Sadat, made his demands to the Knesset, entered into negotiations, and today buses
leave Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv daily for Cairo and vice versa.
Yes, we are moving inexorably toward peace and that is the major goal of our people, reflecting as it does the prayers of millions who cannot express themselves freely in our area, tom by fundamentalist religious fanaticism. That peace will be achieved because we want it and because the people of the Middle East want it and need it.
In the meantime, as we pursue our struggle in the ongoing search for peace, we continue to develop as a free vibrant society, which stretches out its hand seeking co-operation with all.
In a period of 41 years we have created an open, democratic society in Israel in which the dignity of man is enshrined as a supreme value. We have a free and independent judiciary, a democratically elected Parliament, a free press, and a system of universal education. We have created a highly developed system of agriculture, and an industry which is capable of producing some of the more sophisticated high technology and bio-technological engineering, supersonic planes, and some of the better medical scanning equipment existing today in the world. Israeli-manufactured items are in space ships, and in more advanced planes produced in the United States. We are one of the three more advanced countries in the world-the other two are the United States and Japan-in the development and use of solar energy. We are among the leaders in the world in the field of irrigation, desalination of sea water, and cloud seeding. We are one of eight countries of the world which has been represented in space by its own satellite.
We know our shortcomings, we know our failings, but as a free, vibrant, multi-ethnic society, we are conscious of a continuous effort to overcome them. No society is without its weaknesses, but every society must be judged by the freedom of its population to deal with these inadequacies, by the consciousness of its people of its duty to moral imperatives, and by its willingness to accept the vote of the majority in support of the Rule of Law and of the dignity of man which must be the supreme value in any modem society. Because, as Thomas Jefferson pointed out, "nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and inalienable right of man". By this
June 27, 1989

criterion we, a small country beset by problems from within and without, constantly maligned in the Community of Nations, are proud of our record in forging a free, open, democratic society.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the people of Israel, I salute Canada for the major role your country has played over the years for human freedom, for values that are dear to us and are the foundation of your society as they are of ours. We know Canada's remarkable contribution, both on this continent and in all countries of the world, and the growing importance of Canada's voice in international bodies. Relations between Canada and Israel, which are growing all the time, are of course based on common interests, but also above all on deep affinities.
For a country like ours, you are an example and a source of inspiration. You have opened the doors of freedom to immigrants from countless countries. You are an outstanding model of coexistence between individuals of different cultures and backgrounds who live here in a climate of mutual tolerance and respect for their original identity.

You have been endowed with the great gifts of nature and have demonstrated how to be worthy of the blessings of Providence by a national concern for a healthy environment which you preserve with fervour and devotion.
In the words of the Sour Dough:
There's a land where the mountains are nameless,
And the rivers all run God knows where -
He goes on:
Wild and wide are my borders, stern as death is my sway,
From my ruthless throne I have ruled alone for a million years and a day;
Hugging my mighty treasure, waiting for man to come;
Yes, you came and you have succeeded in meeting the challenge of nature and in harnessing it in the cause of the march of progress, science, technology and agriculture for the benefit of mankind.
Your society is distinguished by a special emphasis on aesthetic beauty, cultural advance, and cultural innovativeness in literature, on the stage, on the screen, and in the arts. We share with you immense pride in the
impressive Jewish contribution to your cultural and national life.
I thank you, Mr. Prime Minister, Mr. Speaker of the Senate, Mr. Speaker of the House of Commons, and the distinguished Members of both Houses, again for your most kind welcome. I trust and pray that my visit will serve to strengthen the relations between our two peoples sharing our common values in the ongoing struggle for peace and the advance of man.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Hon. Guy Charbonneau (Speaker of the Senate):: Mr. President, Mrs. Herzog, it is a pleasure to welcome you in our midst and to listen to a Head of State who has had a remarkable career as a soldier, lawyer, businessman, author and politician and who, incidentally, served during the Second World War with British troops under the First Canadian Army, at the Battle of Reichswald.

Your explanation of the situation in the occupied territories and of the policy of the Israeli Government is veiy timely. Canada has been actively involved in the search for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East since the era of Lester Pearson.
As recently as 1985, Canada responded favourably to an Israeli-Egyptian request that she participate in the peacekeeping force in the Sinai area returned to Egypt in 1982 under the Camp David Accord, thus ending a decade-long refusal to participate in peacekeeping operations not sponsored by the United Nations.
The Canadian encouragement of efforts toward peace in the Middle East has thus been constant down through the years, as has been the commitment to the right of Israel to exist within secure and recognized boundaries.
Your participation in this exchange of views between parliamentarians does us great honour, Mr. President. It is all the more significant in that, to our eyes, your personality matches that of your country. Neither you nor the State of Israel can be squeezed into any of the usual categories.
Both you and your country seem to be under the signs of paradox and contrast. Israel never ceases to accomplish natural miracles, a contradiction in terms that makes perfect sense when applied to Israel. This familiarity with paradox has led your countrymen to excel at

June 27, 1989
anticipating the unexpected and preparing intelligently for it.
In your distinguished career, Mr. President, there are also paradoxical elements. Who could have guessed that Catholic Ireland would give birth, in you, to a future President of the Promised Land? On the outbreak of the Second World War, although you were committed to ending the British mandate in Palestine, you did not hesitate to join the British Army. Although a labour stalwart, you were re-elected in 1988 as your country's Head of State by a Parliament in which the right predominated.
Israel has consistently chosen its Presidents from among politicians distinguished for their intellectual activity. After hearing your address today, here in a place where opposing ideas and positions are debated every day, we can see why your parliamentary colleagues once again entrusted you with this high office.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Guy Charbonneau: Well aware of the opposing currents that flow freely in your parliamentary democracy, the Knesset wanted to raise, over those currents, an ironclad guarantee that the society where such diversity of opinion can flourish will be preserved.

Mr. President, your presence here today testifies to the close relationship that exists between the governments, parliaments and peoples of our two countries. These ties should be seen, by you yourself and the people of Israel, as a guarantee of our understanding and our desire to see peace and harmony reign once more in this troubled area of the Middle East.

On behalf of the Senate of Canada, I thank you for sharing your thoughts with us, Mr. President.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: Mr. President, colleagues of the House of Commons and the Senate, and distinguished guests: on behalf of all Members of the House of Commons, I
wish to thank you for your presence here today, and for coming to visit our country.
I had the great privilege of visiting your country on three occasions, the last being in January 1987, at which time you and I, Mr. President, had a chance to speak privately about your country's problems and our concerns with respect to those problems.

I think that in this House of Commons it should be remarked that democracy is a constant and open debate on the great issues which confront us. This, I suppose, is accepted by Canadians, because we have created here in our country, at least, one of the most open and free democracies that exists anywhere in the world.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Allen Fraser: That does not mean that there will not be discord and division, but it does mean this: that on the most difficult issues that face us there will be strong and vivid debate. Mr. President, the House of Commons is not a tea party. It is an adversarial forum and, Sir, you will understand that there is no monolithic view in our country about issues whether they are domestic or beyond our shores.
But we in Canada are deeply committed to a concept of free discussion. You are here, Sir, because you represent a sister democracy which has steadfastly maintained the principle which owes its origins back in the mists of our British heritage, that it is better to debate openly our concerns than to repress them by secrecy, or censorship, or indifference.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Allen Fraser: Your country, sir, which from its inception has had to maintain its democratic traditions through some terrible and difficult events, is an example to the rest of the free world.
We are not unaware of the anguish you are presently experiencing. But we are conscious of the fact that your Parliament, your Knesset, debates these issues, that your press is free, that those who support or criticize are free to speak their minds, and that the press is free to report their views. Mr. President, that cannot be said for many parts of the world.
There are here in Canada many people who care very much for your country, and who also pray and hope that with skill, intelligence, decency and compassion, you will
June 27, 1989

be able to resolve the extraordinary challenges that face you.

Mr. President, it is our wish and our earnest hope that peace will come to Israel and its neighbours. I hope that following your visit to this country you and your fellow citizens will realize that Canadians nurture a loyal and constant friendship for Israel and also that they are very much concerned about the safety and well-being of your country.

We have long insisted that Israel's existence must be maintained and must be secured. We are not, because after all we are not living in a dream world, unaware of the situation of others who aspire to dignity and self-respect.
We have done things in Canada that were not believed to be possible. We have created a nation of peoples from everywhere in the world, including our native peoples. We have not been perfect, and the ideal we are following is far from being perfected, but we have come this far by
patience, and some competence, but, basically, Sir, as a consequence of the deep regard for the rights of individuals and their traditions.
This approach, however imperfect, has created with all our faults one of the best countries in the world. It is nonsense to say that Canadians are dull. I am tired of such shallow mutterings. If we are dull, I do not know what I have to do every day in Question Period. But, Mr. President, we have always tried to move to a moderate position. Moderation and a very deep respect for each other has created and I believe will maintain our country.
We say to you, Sir, that perhaps our almost instinctive sense of moderation within a framework of a viable democracy may give you and your colleagues some sense of hope as you face challenges that are more difficult than ours. Mr. President, we are your friends, and because we care for you and your children, our wish, and our expectation, is that you will resolve your difficulties with wisdom, generosity, and compassion.

Many, many thanks, Mr. President for your visit and your friendship! Shaloml

Thursday, June 29,1989