1989-05-17

Ms. Catherine Callbeck (Malpeque):: Mr. Speaker, on Sunday, May 14, close to 10,000 Islanders marched together to protest the Government's decision to close CFB Summerside. Never before in the recent history of our province have so many demonstrated so strongly for something so important to Prince Edward Island. I ask this Government to re-evaluate the decision to close CFB Summerside, and I demand that they think about the many people the closure will affect. The economic impact, as everyone is now aware, would be devastating, but the social impact would be tragic. There would be a loss of community, a loss of confidence to Summerside and its surrounding areas. Although we may not be able to put a dollar figure on these losses, Mr. Speaker, their impacts are very real, and this Government has provided no thought to the people who will suffer as a result of the base closure.


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


WOMEN'S ISSUES
Mr. Bill Casey (Cumberland-Colchester):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to refer the House to an article in The Globe and Mail which headlines "Job Equity Faults Caused by Women, 2 MPs say." I was one of those MPs. I want to say that I entered into the discussion in the interests of identifying barriers to employment equity for
women. I referred to actual experiences of mine as an employer, but in no way did I mean to imply what this headline says. My point simply was that in order to achieve employment equity for women, real employment equity, attitudes must change. Employers must offer jobs of advancement to women, and women must be prepared to accept those jobs.
Some women for whom I have the utmost respect have been offended by these reports. To anyone to whom these remarks were offensive, I sincerely apologize. Again, I went to the meeting in the interest of achieving employment equity, and I will continue to work toward employment equity for all minorities, but perhaps the next time I will choose my words a little more carefully.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


William D. (Bill) Casey: In the words of Charlotte Whitton, "For a woman-"


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



Mr. Chris Axworthy (Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday a major archeological discovery was made on Parliament Hill. Two dinosaurs disguised as Tory backbenchers were discovered on the Standing Committee for Employment and Immigration. These escapees from the Drumheller Dinosaur Museum made some remarkable comments about the capacity of women to compete in the work world. The Member from Red Deer (Mr. Fee) said, "Women would follow their husbands or have a baby" instead of accepting promotions. The Member from Cumberland-Colchester (Mr. Casey) said, "Women won't take additional responsibility because they think differently and don't want to get ahead".
These outrageous remarks made by two Conservative backbenchers indicate complete ignorance of the barriers facing women in the workforce. Even though 75 per cent of women work, they still make on average only two-thirds of what men make. Yet the brontosaurus

May 17, 1989
from Cumberland-Colchester says this is only because women think differently.
Do these comments reveal the true thinking of this Toiy Government? Surely the time has come to make employment equity mandatory and to have strong, effective enforcement measures.


NATIONAL ACTION COMMITTEE ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN
Mr. Geoff Scott (Hamilton-Wentworth):: Mr. Speaker, almost exactly two years ago I had the honour to table an all-Party report on government funding for women's groups. As chairperson of that report, I wrote, "Women live in a diversity of circumstances, and no one group or organization can speak for the mainstream women of Canada". Nevertheless, speaking as a government Member of Parliament, I want to commend the 200 or so women of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, many of whom travelled from great distances last weekend to put their case before the elected representatives. I want to emphasize though that a nationally televised fist-fight with the Government by members of NAC is not the best way to achieve the worthwhile objectives of Canadian women.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Geoffrey Douglas Scott: Some NAC representatives that I met said that the private consultations were far more effective without the surrounding hoopla. I know that Ministers of Finance, Justice, National Health and Welfare, the Secretary of State and, above all, the Minister responsible for the Status of Women can confirm that.


EMPLOYMENT EQUITY
Right Hon. John N. Turner (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I am prompted by what the Member from Hamilton-Wentworth (Mr. Scott) has just said, as well as what was said by his colleague, the Member from
Cumberland-Colchester (Mr. Casey). Yesterday, the two Conservative Members, the Member for Cumberland-Colchester and the Member for Red Deer (Mr. Fee) had a few curious things to say about working women. In fact, Mr. Casey's comments, despite his apology today, are just about the dumbest I have heard in a long, long time.
The one Conservative Member said, "I've never had a man turn down a promotion". The other said, "Women would follow their husbands or have a baby" rather than accept a promotion. Such insensitivity and 19th Century attitudes are an insult to millions of Canadian women who have been fighting the odds for years, odds that they continue to face as long as such Conservative dinosaurs are allowed to sit on the committee that is supposed to promote equality for women. These Ibiy Members say, and I am also going to quote the Member from Hamilton-Wentworth, that women "aren't ambitious". I say to them: Join the real world and catch up.


WORLD TELECOMMUNICATION DAY
Mr. Jim Edwards (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to bring to the attention of the House an important event being celebrated around the world. World Telecommunication Day is being marked by Canada and the 166 member states of the International Telecommunication Union, otherwise known as the ITU.

This year's theme is world co-operation for the development and harmonization of telecommunications. The international community thus recognizes the importance of this technology in a modem world. Since it was established 124 years ago, the ITU has contributed immeasurably to our quality of life.

Telecommunications is the driving force behind economic growth, the engine that moves the economy forward toward greater prosperity and a higher standard of living. As someone who proudly calls western Canada his home, I am aware of the vital social, economic and
May 17, 1989

political role which our communications links play in keeping Canadians from every region of the country constantly in touch with one another.


PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY
Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, let's face it, democracy in Canada is not faring very well during this Session of Parliament.
First, the Government spent $300 on behalf of every Canadian citizen through the use of Governor General Warrants without the knowledge or consent of Members of the House of Commons. This is a form of theft, and an affront to our Constitution and to hundreds of years of parliamentary tradition and fundamental democratic principles.
When the Government finally did the right thing and asked elected Members of Parliament for the supply of funds, again our democratic process found itself at risk. This time not by the Government, but by the unelected, unaccountable Members of the Senate who stopped the Supply Bill and held up cheques being processed for our war veterans and members of the RCMP. Of course, the Senators' cheques were never in jeopardy.
Does the Senate have the right to initiate money Bills? Clearly not. Should it have the right to hold up, amend, or in any way monkey around with money Bills? Again, absolutely not.
It's high time that this undemocratic, unelected group of Senatorial hacks, flacks, and bagmen resign, or better yet, that we simply abolish this outdated institution called the Senate.


EMPLOYMENT EQUITY
Mr. Doug Fee (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, I want to talk briefly on the topic of employment equity. If our nation is to achieve its full potential, we must offer equal opportunities to all.
At the same time, we must respect the rights of individuals. People must be given the choice to make their own decisions, whether it be for career, family, or a combination of both.
Through the Employment Equity Act the federal Government is giving more opportunities to those people who choose to work and who traditionally have been at a disadvantage.
All Canadians deserve the opportunity to choose what they want to do with their lives. Everyone, male or female, should have the opportunity to make their own choices regarding career and family.
As Parliamentarians, through legislation and example, we must ensure that all Canadians are given equal opportunities.


COMMUNICATIONS
Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Mr. Speaker, today is World Telecommunications Day. One hundred and sixty-five countries celebrate co-operation in developing a world-wide telecommunications system that includes, in part, local and long-distance telephone networks and international telephone links. At the same time, the Department of Communications celebrates 20 years of work on Canadian communications and cultural endeavours.
Europe is developing a more unified system for 1992, and Japan and the United States are moving ahead. The time has come to establish a modem Canadian national telecommunications policy; this is vital to all parts of this vast country. I call on the Minister of Communications (Mr. Masse) to join and support this effort. These issues affect every business, every household, and every individual who uses a phone or receives digital information.
Let us look ahead and address the challenges to maximize benefits from this information age. Let us hear what Canadians think about long-distance competition, about how their phones and data services should work, and what our regulations should be in this era of rapid technological change.

May 17, 1989
Oral Questions
The shape of our future for the 21st Century as a vibrant nation depends on an affordable, accessible, modem, flexible communication policy that benefits all Canadians in all regions.


CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS
Mr. Bill Domm (Peterborough):: Mr. Speaker, the frustration that Canadians have felt over the case of Charles Ng cannot even begin to compare with the pain and suffering the families of the alleged victims have had to endure, as they have been forced to live over and over the horrible nightmare of the deaths of their loved ones. Some of those American families are present in the House today.
As time marches on, and as a fugitive plays out seven possible court appearances, the ability of foreign authorities to properly dispense justice becomes increasingly difficult. While fugitives such as Charles Ng are allowed to remain in this country, and as witnesses die or move away, the ability to obtain convictions in court continues to slip away. Does Canada really want to become an accessory to a possible miscarriage of justice? Are we turning Canada into a haven for American killers attempting to escape justice in their own country?
I urge the Government of Canada to move quickly with changes to the Extradition Act, and should it see fit, support my private Member's Bill C-209.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. Conservatives are beginning to shut down the regions of our country.
In the last 24 hours we have learned that the Government is not content with savaging the economy of Atlantic Canada, it is now beginning to ravage the economy of western Canada. We have learned that the Port of Churchill, Manitoba, will be shut down for grain
shipments. We have learned that the federal Government is slashing the $420-million worth of forestry development agreements. This morning we learned that spending by the Western Economic Diversification Agency is being cut by $55 million per year.
How can the Prime Minister justify those actions, all of which will prove devastating to western Canada?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, regional development expenditure in western Canada in the five-year period from 1979 to 1984 averaged $160 million a year. In the past five-year period from 1984 to this year, that has increased to $196 million per year. Over the next five-year period it will increase to $363 million a year. That is an increase of 85 per cent. That is why there is such strong regional development in western Canada.


BROAD CUTS TO WESTERN ECONOMY
Right Hon. John N. Dirner@Leader of the Opposition: Mr. Speaker, western diversification cut. Regional development agreements cut. Forestry agreements cut. Ports closed. Armed Forces bases closed. VIA Rail cut. Freight rates increased. Crop insurance cut. Drought assistance late. Branch line rehabilitation cut. New value-added tax on agricultural inputs. Special grains programs cut. Cash advances for grain storage cut. Rural post offices closed. Initial crop prices down.
The Conservatives have adopted a scorched-earth policy for western Canada.
I want to ask the Prime Minister why, by these actions, is he forcing young people to leave the land in western Canada? Why is he forcing the abandonment of western Canadian communities?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, it will come as a shock to western Canadians who had to live with the Liberal Party and the National Energy Program which devastated the economy of western Canada to hear questions such as that.
I heard the litany of complaints from my right hon. friend. I think even he would agree that the best barometer whereby one can measure the result of economic policies is in the unemployment and employment numbers. From 1984 to 1989-and I know this may not interest my friend, but perhaps western Canadians are interested-in Manitoba in that four-and-a-half-year period there were 42,000 more jobs. There were

May 17, 1989

Oral Questions
39,000 more jobs in Saskatchewan, 97,000 more jobs in Alberta, and 147,000 more jobs in British Columbia.
That is the result of the policies of this Government working with the provinces in western Canada to bring about an unprecedented degree of prosperity.


REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENTS WITH BRITISH COLUMBIA
Right Hon. John N. Tkimer (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, the House and the people of Canada will note that once again the Prime Minister chooses not to respond to the question.
My own Province of British Columbia has $295-million worth of federal contributions to regional development agreements which expire in the next year.
I would like a little honesty from the Prime Minister. Exactly how much of that $295 million of those agreements that expire will be cut? Will it be $50 million, $100 million, $200 million, or will it be all of it? Will the Prime Minister give a clear response to the people of British Columbia?


Hon. Charles Mayer (Minister of Western Economic Diversification and Minister of State (Grains and Oilseeds)):: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Leader of the Opposition should know that I had a meeting on Monday with one of the Ministers from the Government of British Columbia to begin the discussion on cost-sharing agreements. The Right Hon. Member should know that those discussions are being held.
If the Right Hon. Member reads the Budget Papers he will see that regional funding for western Canada will increase by almost 100 per cent over the next five years. In the last five years the average was $196 million and over the next five years the number will be $1.8 billion, which means it will be $363 million on regional spending in western Canada. That is the context in which we are holding discussions with the provinces, to arrive at something that will work for both the provinces and, above all, in the interest of western Canadians.


WESTERN DIVERSIFICATION
Mr. David Walker (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister responsible for economic diversification in the West. The Government will now slash ERDA funds which will undermine the forestry industry, agriculture, tourism and urban development across the West. We have seen the Government recently try to close down two towns, Churchill and Portage la Prairie. At the same time it has reduced the money for the Western Diversification Fund by $55 million a year. Will the Minister tells us why his Department, in co-ordination with other Departments, could spend over $400 million in the eight months leading up to and including the election, a nine-fold increase from the previous eight months, only to cut the funds a few short months after the election?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, if the Hon. Member wants to read the Budget Papers and look at the numbers, he will see that there will be an increase in regional spending in the West. That is the reality.
The Hon. Member talks about slashing spending. It is interesting because when we announced about three weeks ago a major expansion in which we participated with the Province of Manitoba to create jobs in the aerospace industry, the Hon. Member is on record as saying that he is opposed to that. He should make up his mind. Either his Party is in favour of regional spending and creation of jobs in Manitoba or it is are against it. The Hon. Member is on record as saying he thinks this is a bad precedent, to put out a recoverable loan from an outfit like Boeing that will create almost 300 jobs in the very city he represents.


David Walker: I did oppose that-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


David Walker: -because, Mr. Speaker, at a time of our deficit that company made $1 billion profit. We do not have to give money to a $1 billion profit corporation. I opposed that.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!

May 17, 1989
Oral Questions SETTING OF EXPIRY DATES


David Walker: Mr. Speaker, with the establishment of the Department of Industry, Science and Technology, the Government has provided for ongoing regional development funding in northern Ontario and Quebec. Why has the Government decided to set expiry dates, whether they be five, six or seven years, for the Western Diversification Office and ACOA?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, I give the Hon. Member credit for being honest in the House and sticking to what he said in the paper. I wish he would do the same when he looks at the numbers as far as the Budget Papers are concerned. Regional spending in the West will increase substantially.
We have said since the Budget that western diversification is extended over a further five-year period. We have additional funding for western diversification and we are in the process of working out how we will spend the money. I might add that it is in co-operation with the provinces, not with a confrontational attitude. We believe we can do more for people in western Canada if we work with the provinces. That is what we intend to do.


REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT FUNDING
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. Yesterday he tried to leave the impression in the House that Canadians ought not to be concerned about regional development funding. The Minister responsible for western diversification added to this when he said: "For the West it is business as usual". The Minister of Communications said with reference to Quebec: "No change in Quebec".
Will the Prime Minister agree that there are cuts for each of the regions next year? For the Province of Quebec, for example, there is a cut of $109 million next year; for Atlantic Canada, $90 million; for western Canada, $66 million? Why do they not level with the people of these regions and say next year the situation will be worse instead of better? Why don't you quit misleading the people of Canada?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the amounts spent in Atlantic Canada over the last five years averaged $282 million. Over the next five years it will average $425 million. In Quebec it was $246 million. It will average $282 million. In the West it was $196 million, and will average $363 million. In all cases of expenditure on regional development we are attempting to do more to benefit the regions. We are attempting to do it in the manner set out by the Minister who has just responded, in co-operation with the provinces.
If my hon. friend examines the files, I think he will see that from the previous five-year cycle there was an increase of 50 per cent in the last five years. The next five years will foresee an increase of some 35 per cent. Surely even my hon. friend will acknowledge that that is a major contribution to regional development.


ACCURACY OF FORECASTS
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, the people of Canada know, as every politician knows, that one can do a forecast for the next 10 or 20 years and make up almost any figure and put anything there one wants.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Hawkes:: Is that what you did?


Mr. Friesen:: You do it all the time, Ed.


John Edward Broadbent: I want the Prime Minister to answer the question. What Canadians know definitely is what will happen in next year's Budget. Next year's Budget means a cut in western Canada, a cut in Quebec, a cut in Atlantic Canada, a cut for northern Ontario.
Will the Prime Minister admit now that there is $293 million coming out of regional development next year, just when it is needed in those regions?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend refers to the fact that forecasts are made. I would point out to him that when the Minister of Finance brought in his first economic statement in November, 1984, the Leader of the New Democratic Party forecast a loss of 200,000 jobs, yet 1.4 million new jobs have been created in Canada since then.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, in all of the cases and in all of the regions, unemployment has been very considerably brought down as a result of a number of initiatives,
May 17, 1989

including regional economic development programs.
We hope to continue to keep a low rate of unemployment by co-operating with the provinces and, over the next five-year funding cycle, putting more money into Atlantic Canada, more money into Quebec and western Canada, those areas that need it to create more jobs. I don't know why my hon. friend won't examine the Budget Papers that are there.


John Edward Broadbent: Canadians will know that the reality which they can see, which is next year's figures, is that there are cuts all across the country.


ATLANTIC CANADA-EFFECT OF CUT-BACKS IN COD QUOTA
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, my final question deals specifically with Atlantic Canada. I am sure the Prime Minister will agree that because of changes that are now being made in cod quotas alone, it is not too much to say that we are facing a potential economic catastrophe in the fishery for Atlantic Canada. Since these cut-backs in the cod quota will mean for Newfoundland an estimated loss of full-time and parttime jobs of some 6,500, some 2,500 in Nova Scotia, what is the Government telling the people in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland who are interested not in unemployment insurance or in hand-outs but in the preservation of the fishery and their jobs? What does the Government plan to do about this?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, if my hon. friend is referring to the very serious problem developing with fish stocks, he would certainly not seek to blame that problem on this Government or any other. Surely he understands that that problem is one that requires a great deal of sympathy, understanding and co-operation with the provincial governments and the Government of Canada.
I thank my hon. friend for a very important question. I want to give him the assurance that the Government of Canada is and will be co-operating very fully with the provinces and with affected individuals in Atlantic Canada, to make sure that to the extent humanly possible, any effects from this very unfortunate situation are dimin-
Oral Questions
ished to the utmost, so that we bring as much fairness and justice as we can to the people of Atlantic Canada.


PRESENCE IN THE GALLERY OF HIS EXCELLENCY WAN LI, CHAIRMAN OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE OF THE NATIONAL PEOPLE'S CONGRESS OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA.
Mr. Speaker:: I wish to draw to the attention of Members the presence in the gallery of His Excellency Wan Li, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


THE BUDGET
Mr. Jean-Claude Malepart (Laurier-Sainte-Marie):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Right Hon. Prime Minister.
Yesterday, when he brought down his Budget, the Quebec Finance Minister stated that as a result of cutbacks in the Tory Government's Budget, Quebec would suffer a loss of $1.3 billion over the next three years. As a result of these cutbacks, there will be 2,400 fewer spaces in daycare, a shortfall of $150 million for health care, hospital services and post-secondary education and a shortfall of $23 million for the Programme de renovation des logements.
Is the Prime Minister aware of the serious consequences of his latest Budget for all Quebecers?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I am very much aware of the Budget of the Minister of Finance of Quebec. I am also intrigued by the financial position that Quebec is in and the difference between the financial position of the Province of Quebec and that of the federal Government. As an example, that province spends 9.8 cents of every tax dollar on interests costs, and as I have said in the House on many occasions, this year we are spending 35 cents of every tax dollar on interests costs. The province's position is quite a bit different, but in the face of that, we are

May 17, 1989
Oral Questions
continuing to increase transfers to the Province of Quebec. This current year, transfers will be up $412 million and that is about 4.5 per cent. Next year it will be up $517 million, an increase of over 5 per cent. Clearly, in spite of the difficult and more serious financial position the federal Government is in, we are continuing to honour our responsibilities to the provinces.


REQUEST THAT MINISTER BACK-TRACK
Mr. Jean-CIaude Malepart (Laurier-Sainte-Marie):: Mr. Speaker, the answer is quite simple. The reason why Quebec is in better financial shape is because it has a competent Finance Minister, a Liberal one, while here in Ottawa we have a Minister who is a Tory and incompetent.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Jean-Claude Malépart: My question for the Finance Minister is this: Why does he want to let the provincial governments, the governments of provinces in the West and the Atlantic region, and the sick suffer the consequences of his incompetence?
Would the Prime Minister be prepared to do what he did in 1985 and ask his Minister of Finance to backtrack on transfer payments for health care as he did on the de-indexation of old age security pensions? Is the Prime Minister prepared to ask the Minister of Finance to restore full indexation of funding for post-secondary education and health care?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to say that we are passing on our very great confidence in the management of this economy which has benefited the Province of Quebec and allowed it to increase its revenues as it has over the last few years because of the successful economic policies.
Some Hon. Members. Hear, hear!


Michael Holcombe Wilson: I have indicated very clearly the significant increase in transfers, large amounts of finances from the Government of Canada to the provincial Government. As I have indicated, these will be continuing in future years. Over all, this Government will be spending $25 billion more on transfers to
Quebec and all the provinces in the next five years relative to the last five years. Clearly, in spite of the more difficult fiscal position we are in, we are meeting our responsibilities.


CANADA POST CORPORATION
Ms. Albina Guamieri (Mississauga East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister responsible for Canada Post. Yesterday, Members of the House attended a hearing investigating employment practices at Toronto area postal facilities. We heard from a large number of postal employees who recounted incidents that make the postal facility appear to be more like a 19th century workhouse than a modem industrial plant. My question-


Mr. Beatty:: What did Ouellet do about it?


Albina Guarnieri: Perrin, your turn will come, I promise. My question-


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: I have to determine whose turn it is. The Hon. Member will put her question.


Albina Guarnieri: In light of yesterday's revelations, will the Government now set up a Royal Commission to investigate these shocking activities at Canada Post?


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion and Minister of State for Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, this document sent out by CUPW called "A Campaign for Dignity" details actions that the union should take in terms of suggesting harassment, loading up the grievance procedure and how to complain about management. It also says here that they should lobby opposition Parties to ensure that opposition Parties are spokesmen for the union. The Hon. Member has shown that the union has been successful. She is Mortimer Snerd to Jean-CIaude Parrot's Edgar Bergen.


APPEARANCE OF EMPLOYEES BEFORE COMMITTEE
Albina Guarnieri: Mr. Speaker, perhaps the Minister did not hear my question. My question was about people, not the union. Perhaps dignity is not in the Minister's vocabulary.
May 17, 1989

The Minister is really saying, "Let the people suffer". Last night, Ida Irwin, the spokesman for Canada Post, said that the corporation has no idea when its internal investigation will be complete. The Minister is simply endorsing a policy of indefinite misery for these victims. Since the Minister is not prepared to act, will he at least assure the House that those workers who were courageous enough to come forward yesterday will not be punished by the corporation or its henchmen?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, on January 23, the Hon. Member for Mississauga South informed my office of accusations of job selling at Canada Post. Canada Post conducted an investigation, and I think it was two weeks ago now suspended the accused individual and turned its information over to the Peel police who I understand are completing their investigation which may well lead to charges. In any event, I hope the Hon. Member is not suggesting that we put aside this police investigation and interfere in the investigation that is now going on. Due process has been followed and guilty parties will be charged.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. I am sure the Minister of Finance realizes that most Members of Parliament have received complaints about the $2.7 million advertising campaign, the silver dollar debt campaign, of the federal Government, and he is also aware that most people find this very offensive. I would ask the Minister of Finance whether or not he remembers the Liberal Party's advertisements on the Constitution in 1980, advertisements that Walter Baker called the Goose Canada ads, and whether or not he agrees with his colleague, the present Minister of National Health and Welfare, who on May 3, 1982, moved the following motion:
That this House condemns the government for its increasing use of Canadian taxpayers' dollars for self-serving advertising and public opinion surveying, and in particular, for spending millions of tax
Oral Questions
dollars for unnecessary advertising at a time when it demands financial
sacrifices from ordinary Canadians.
Does the Minister agree with that?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I think it is very clear that most Canadians who see these ads find them very informative. They find that they are stating clearly-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Let me remind the Hon. Member of the message of these advertisements.
The message of the advertisements is that our debt is very high. We are now spending 35 cents of every tax dollar to service the Government debt. We must reduce that figure so that we can maintain good social programs, programs that Canadians have come to count on. That is the message, and clearly, that is the information that Canadians want to hear because they want to understand that message-


An Hon. Member:: Shame on you.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: -in light of the recent Budget.


OPPOSITION TO GOVERNMENT ADVERTISING
Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, perhaps we have finally found the real loonie in this House.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


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


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, I was not referring to you.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: My question is the following one. In 1982, the Conservative opposition drew the line between straightforward informational advertising of programs already passed by Parliament, like job creation and alcohol and drug abuse. On the other hand, advertising advocates a strong partisan policy point of view.
I would like to know from the Conservative Party and the Minister of Finance if partisan advertising was wrong in 1982, is it not wrong in 1989? If it is wrong today, why does the Conservative Party of Canada not reimburse the taxpayers $2.7 million.
Oral Questions


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!

May 17, 1989


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I do not know where this Hon. Member has been for the last four and one-half years. In November of 1984, in May of 1985, and in February of 1986, 1987, 1988, and now in 1989, the message has been the same. We must get control of our Government debt. We must get our deficit down. That is a matter of Government policy that has been voted on in this House time and time and time again. Each time that it has been voted on in this House, Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member and his Party have voted against it because they could care less whether the debt goes through the roof-


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


RADIO-CANADA BUDGETARY CUT-BACKS-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Mr. Charles DeBlois (Montmorency-Orleans):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Communications. As a former journalist with the French network of the CBC, I remain very attached to that institution which has done so much to promote and defend the French culture in Canada.
The Minister said recently that he had no right to interfere in the running of the CBC, which is completely free to cut expenses wherever it likes.
Are we to understand that the Minister has no way to ensure that the French network will suffer no more than the English network, which has a much bigger advertising market and much lower costs, especially for translation of cultural works?


Hon. Marcel Masse (Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, I can assure you that I am as sensitive to these issues as the Hon. Member, indeed as all Hon. Members of this House! But the law provides for an arm's length relationship between the CBC's corporate responsibilities and the Minister of Communications.
Several times, I have explained the Government's cultural policies and the CBC is discharging its responsibilities under the law.


CANADA POST CORPORATION
Mr. Jerry Pickard (Essex-Kent):: Mr. Speaker, the allegations about the employment practices at Canada Post are deplorable. One part-time worker at Toronto AMF alleged that a manager demanded a $4,000 pay-off and sexual favours in return for promoting a woman from a casual labour position to full-time status. Upon her refusal, she was fired.
How will the Minister deal with these allegations and many others that indicate unethical practices at Canada Post?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, that allegation and others were brought to my attention on January 23 by the Member for Mississauga Centre. I referred it to the Post Office which conducted an internal investigation. The employee accused has been suspended. The Peel police have been brought in and provided the information that the Post Office has acquired. I understand that they are continuing their investigation and expect to be laying charges but we will have to await the outcome of their investigation.


EMPLOYEE GRIEVANCES
Jerry Pickard: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is to the same Minister. On April 19, the Minister stated that Canada Post management has made significant strides toward improving the operations of the corporation.
Today, there are 52,000 outstanding grievances against Canada Post. Employees working under these conditions are continually fearing unfair treatment and have low job performance. The citizens of Canada are the real losers in that situation with a poor service.
How can the Minister claim strides are being made to improve Canada Post service? How will the Minister deal with these problems to ensure quality postal service to Canadians?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, an independent audit by Clarkson Gordon is showing that the service by the Post Office has
May 17, 1989

been improving. On the question of the grievance, this strategy by CUPW calls on the members to harass management and to file grievances. They have been successful. They have loaded up the grievance procedure system with 52,000. It seems hardly fair to now complain about all of these grievances they put on.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


THE ENVIRONMENT
Hon. Jean Lapierre (Shefford):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of the Environment. On December 14 last year, the Minister gave certain assurances here in the House regarding American garbage being shipped to the Eastern Townships. The Minister said, and I quote: "The federal Government is contemplating several legislative measures to stop the dumping of these American waste materials in Canada". Mr. Speaker, at the time, the Minister even gave us the assurance that the Eastern Townships would not become a garbage dump for Americans. However, now, only a few months later, shipments of American garbage are continuing, and in the last few days another dump was discovered in the South Stukely area. I therefore want to ask the Minister whether he did his duty after December 14. What did he do to stop us from becoming the garbage dump of the United States?


Hon. Lucien Bouchard (Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I may comment, first of all, that the Hon. Member is talking about dry waste, not toxic waste. Dry waste is a provincial responsibility. However, two weeks ago in Montreal we agreed with all Canada's Environment Ministers to establish a national waste management policy. We are meeting again in June and will be issuing a set of national regulations.


Jean-C. Lapierre: Mr. Speaker, I may remind the Minister that this garbage includes refrigerators that contain freon and similar chemicals which are toxic waste, and I
Oral Questions
would urge the Minister to send in his inspectors as soon as possible.


PROHIBITION OF WASTE TRANSPORT-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Jean-C. Lapierre: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is directed to the Minister of National Revenue. Last December, the Quebec Environment Minister sent him a telegram, urging him to close the border to American garbage so we would not become the garbage dump of the United States. Has the Minister taken any concrete action to prevent truckloads of U.S. garbage from entering the Eastern Townships?


Hon. Otto Jelinek (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, I can confirm to the Hon. Member and to this House that any transportation of waste coming across the border is done in accordance with the agreements between the provinces and the environmental departments and the United States, and nothing untoward, to the best of my knowledge and those of my colleagues, has been happening in Quebec or anywhere else in this country.


An Hon. Member:: You haven't done anything.


OLD AGE SECURITY
Mr. Jack Whittaker (Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State responsible for Seniors. The Edmonton Journal has reported her as saying that nine out of ten national seniors' groups she had met with supported the Government's claw-back of Old Age Security pensions. In fact, none of these 10 groups meeting with the Minister supported the claw-back.
My question to the Minister is why did she say this when these groups clearly do not support this measure, and in fact are vehemently opposed to the Old Age Security claw-back?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Hon. Monique Vezina (Minister of State (Employment and Immigration) and Minister of State (Seniors)):: Mr. Speaker, I instructed my political staff not to release the list of organizations that attended this meeting on April 28, because I did not want our Canadian seniors used for political purposes. The meeting on April 28 was one of

May 17, 1989
Oral Questions
several held during the past three months across Canada. It was an informal meeting where no vote was taken and where we had a discussion based on the concerns that Canadian seniors wanted to put before the Minister. The two main objectives are as follows: access to social programs and a healthy economy so that our children will be able to enjoy the quality of life they need for a promising future. These two objectives are in fact supported by the Wilson Budget!


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: Mr. Speaker, a press release to be released today by One Voice, Jean Woodsworth, president, says that:
The Minister of State for Seniors has revealed a patronizing attitude toward the very people she is supposed to represent. She will have to work harder to gain our confidence in her ability to convey our interest to the Government.


REQUEST FOR APOLOGY BY MINISTER
John R. (Jack) Whittaker: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Will the Minister do the honourable thing and apologize to these people? Will she name one, if she will not apologize, national seniors group that is in favour of the claw-back? Name one if she will not apologize.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Monique Vézina: Mr. Speaker, I do not believe my ears. Since when does a social democratic party care about the more fortunate in society? I learned of your leader's recent resignation. Does this position in favour of the better off in society indicate a change in philosophy? Remember what the criteria are.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Jean-Guy Guilbault (Drummond):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State for Agriculture and concerns the statement by the president of the Union
des producteurs agricoles, Jacques Proulx. He says that pork producers will lose $15,000 a year as a result of the federal Budget. Is the Minister able to respond to these allegations? And can he reassure pork producers about the effects of the Budget on the profitability of their production?


Hon. Pierre Blais (Solicitor General of Canada and Minister of State (Agriculture)):: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for his question. Indeed, Canada, and particularly Quebec, export pork worth about $200 million, which is very considerable. We were very disappointed with this American decision. Furthermore, my colleague in International Trade has asked for a meeting with the U.S. Government to discuss it. We believe that this American decision is contrary to the GATT rules. We will do everything to defend pork producers in Quebec and Canada from this decision, Mr. Speaker, because we now have a new mechanism. It is a very important question, which I believe deserves an answer. Given the circumstances, we will be able to benefit from the new recourse provided by the Canada-U.S. agreement, Mr. Speaker.


EMPLOYMENT
Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Yesterday two Conservative Members blamed women for being the victims of unfair treatment in the workforce. Their outrageous comments are an insult to all women.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Marlene Catterall: Will the Prime Minister repudiate these statements? Will he state, unequivocally, that such attitudes do not determine the policies of his Government?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I have not read the full context of the remarks. But a remark, such as the one related in part by the Hon. Member, would, of course, be unacceptable and would offend against the common standards of Members of the House with regard to full equality for women in Canada.
May 17, 1989


EQUALITY FOR WOMEN
Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, if the Prime Minister means what he says, why has he let the salary gap between men and women in the Public Service widen even more to nearly $10,000? Does he really believe a man working for the Public Service is worth $10,000 more than a woman? If not, what is he going to do about it and when?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, in this very important issue of equality, I know my hon. friend would be happy to know that of the 789,000 more women who are working today than in September, 1984-


Some Hon. Members:: How much.


Martin Brian Mulroney: -while, unfortunately, salary disparities have existed in the past and still exist today, we have increased by 100 per cent in our first term the number of women serving on agencies, boards and commissions. We have increased by 60 per cent the number of women serving in senior judicial positions. There are six women rather than two now serving in the Cabinet of Canada. We have added two women to the Supreme Court of Canada. We are working through employment equity and a number of other endeavours with provincial Governments and at the federal level to make sure that a tragic salary disparity which had gathered steam in Canada over the last 25 years is finally dealt with and wiped out by all Canadians.


EMPLOYMENT
Mr. George Proud (Hillsborough):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration. According to the Budget papers the Government will:
-continue to contribute to the financing of the unemployment insurance program in difficult economic times when it is inappropriate to raise premiums.
In light of the severe economic crisis in the Atlantic fishing communities and the scaling down and closure of Canadian Forces Bases in the Maritimes, is the Minister prepared to keep her promise because it is obvious that Atlantic Canada is, indeed, facing a severe crisis and it is inappropriate now to raise premiums?
Oral Questions


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, the fund will begin to be funded by the private sector, both management and labour, as a result of this Bill, but the costs will be borne by people across Canada. What it will do is give us the funding to help communities that are facing difficulties such as we do with our Community Futures grants. The designated areas within Atlantic Canada now-and they are one of the main focuses of this program-will have more funding available to them, and there will be more funding for older workers. We will be looking at funding for older workers in this program so they will have the ability to go back and get a secondary school equivalency. We are working very closely with the provincial Governments on this. I am working with the Minister of Fisheries on specific programs for the fisheries.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE-ELIGIBILITY PERIOD FOR SEASONAL WORKERS
George Albert Proud: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is for the same Minister. The Atlantic provinces have some of the highest numbers of seasonal workers in Canada. In good economic times, for example, in P.E.I. there are 4,000 more jobs, 95 per cent of which are seasonal and provide work for about 10 to 12 weeks each year.
Can the Minister assure this House that the eligibility requirements will be reduced to the 10 best weeks for these seasonal workers in Atlantic Canada so they will not be forced on to the welfare rolls?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, the program will not be forcing people on to the welfare rolls. Let me say that the number of entry weeks depends on the local unemployment rate, as the Hon. Member knows. If there is an unemployment difficulty, then the benefits kick in at an earlier stage.
Let me say as well for seasonal workers, one of the advantages of the new program is that we have taken out the penalty for repeaters during the year, and that is specifically to benefit seasonal workers.


CANADA POST CORPORATION
Mr. Len Taylor (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister responsible for Canada Post. There is a great deal of secrecy and double talk surrounding the Post Office.

May 17, 1989
Routine Proceedings
Canadians are more and more confused by the contradictions coming-


Mr. Speaker:: Having some regard for the time, would the Hon. Member put his question.


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: In light of the fact that there is talk back and forth about privatization and not privatization, that there are private communities and secret places within the Post Office-


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Could the Minister explain all the confusion and contradiction? How can he justify the secrecy that exists within Canada Post? What is the Post Office trying to hide?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, I presume the Hon. Member is speaking about that highly secret Paradigm Project which was mentioned on page 24 of the Canada Post Annual Report last year.


An Hon. Member:: Some secret.


Harvie Andre: Canada Post for the past fiscal year, for the first time in 30 years, is running a profit and service has improved, as confirmed by independent auditors. We should all be applauding the management of Canada Post.


REQUEST FOR PUBLIC INVESTIGATION
Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Mr. Speaker, in light of the information that we have heard today in this House from myself and other Members, why is the Minister responsible for Canada Post saying that due process is being followed and allegations have been referred to the Post Office for investigation? Why is it that we cannot have a public investigation to hear those concerns? Why does it have to be the Post Office that looks at its own activities?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, the accusation that I am aware of is of some employee charging for jobs, which is certainly contrary to Canada Post policy and perhaps contrary to the law. In any event, after an investigation, the employee was suspended and information turned over to the Peel Police.
The Hon. Member suggests we should have a public witch-hunt while this is going on. I think the police should be allowed to pursue and lay charges and if the individual is found guilty, I hope the full weight of the law is brought to bear.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


CANADA-FRANCE INTERPARLIAMENTARY ASSOCIATION PRESENTATION OF REPORT OF CANADIAN DELEGATION TO THE TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING
Jean-Guy Guilbault: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present to the House the report, in both official languages, of the official parliamentary delegation that represented Canada at the 21st annual meeting of the Canada-France Interparliamentary Association, which was held in Ottawa, Vancouver and Victoria from April 16 to 23, 1989.
As part of this 21st annual meeting of the Canada-France Interparliamentary Association, we received 12 French parliamentarians. Two topics were on the agenda: Canada-France interregional economic cooperation and Parliament and the constitutional review process. I am pleased to be able to report to you that these meetings were a great success.


CANADIAN NATO PARLIAMENTARY ASSOCIATION
Mr. Bob Hicks (Scarborough East):: Mr. Speaker, I forgot my glasses today, but I think what I have the honour of presenting today are the second and third reports, in both official languages, of the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association. Thank you.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS

[Stage Direction]
[English\

May 17, 1989

Harvie Andre: for leave to introduce Bill C-16, an Act to establish the Canadian Space Agency and to provide for other matters in relation to space.


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.

William Henry (Bill) Domm: Mr. Speaker, organizations spearheaded by the Victims of Violence Society and 23 Members of Parliament from across Canada are currently collecting signatures on a national petition which will be presented to this House over the next six weeks. It is expected to accumulate tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of signatures.
It is my pleasure to present the first such petition to the House today representing 2,300 signatures which call on the Government of Canada to revise its extradition laws in order that we may prevent Canada from becoming a haven for escaped convicts from the United States.


Mrs. Barbara Sparrow (Calgary Southwest):: Mr. Speaker, I am very honoured to be the second petitioner to rise today and present a petition supporting the Victims of Violence. It has been certified pursuant to Standing Order 36.
My petition represents the signatures of some 1,500 people from all across the Province of Alberta and indeed from Kelowna, B.C., Saskatoon, Winnipeg, and many areas throughout our country.
These petitioners believe that it appears that those accused of heinous crimes against humanity in other countries are entering Canada as a form of obtaining
Routine Proceedings
sanctuary. The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to revise the extradition laws which would allow the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lewis) to order the extradition of fugitives, either immediately or after they have been dealt with fully by the Canadian penal system. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Scott Thorkelson (Edmonton-Strathcona):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present petitions which have been certified by the Clerk pursuant to Standing Order 36. This petition, which contains 1,150 signatures, calls upon the Government of Canada to revise the extradition laws which would allow the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lewis) to order the extradition of fugitives either immediately or after they have been dealt with fully by the Canadian penal system. I join with the petitioners in urging the Government to toughen up our criminal justice system.


Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to rise in the House and present a petition on behalf of 89 signatories objecting to the Government's participation in the ARMX-89 show, calling upon the Government to cease its support of ARMX and to ensure that the countries violating human rights are not able to arrange arms purchases in Canada and to act against the admission of criminals and terrorists to Canada.


Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to present a petition pursuant to Standing Order 36. The petitioners are music students, teachers, and professional performing artists who are objecting to the federal sales tax proposed by the Minister of Finance on music lessons or other private lessons related to the performing arts. As the majority of professional or aspiring artists exist on a lower than average income and restricted budgets in an already overtaxed society, were this sales tax made law, their lessons would no longer be affordable.
The petitioners humbly pray and call upon this Parliament to leave all private music lessons and other classes related to the performing arts untaxed in the proposed new sales tax legislation.

Routine Proceedings


Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Mr. Speaker, I have in my hands petitions signed by 5,098 citizens of Canada, the United States and England. The petitioners are supportive of the need to maintain and retain rail passenger service in this country. Four hundred twenty-five of the signatures were gathered in Thunder Bay and northwestern Ontario. They were primarily signed by people who were using the trans-continental train, and were arriving or departing from the station in Thunder Bay. Those I will be tabling because they have been certified correct as to form and content by the Clerk of Petitions. The remaining petitions, received from a family in Medicine Hat, the Larsons, unfortunately cannot be presented, but I would like to make reference to them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure pursuant to Standing Order 36 to present a petition on behalf of a number of westerners who are concerned that the Government of Canada has failed to provide the resources necessary to fulfil the improvements to VIA Rail to enable it to compete successfully. They believe that the government simply is cutting back too much in terms of VIA Rail. They are asking Parliament now to modernize passenger rail service in those areas of the country where it can provide a more rapid, economical, safe, convenient, environmentally sound and energy efficient alternative to other means of transportation.


Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, in light of the announcement made yesterday by the Minister of Transportation that there would not be any grain going to Churchill this summer, I have the honour to present a petition signed by 375 Canadians from Manitoba, Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Gimli, Manitoba, Kelowna, B.C., Fredericton, New Brunswick, Bracebridge, Ontario, Windsor, Ontario, Edmonton, Alberta, St. John's, Newfoundland, Niagara Falls, Hamilton, Kitchener, Newmarket, Toronto, Labrador City, Regina, Winnipeg, Brandon, Stratford, Kingston, Victoria, London, and Lorette, Manitoba. In the petition, these Canadians from across the country indicate that they believe the federal Government has a responsibility to develop the
obvious potential of Canada's only inland seaport, and to ensure that 3 per cent of Canada's annual grain shipments go through the Port of Churchill, and that the Government aggressively pursue additional ways to utilize this important seaport to ship exports other than grain.


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


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Agreed?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Albert Glen Cooper: I ask that all the Notices of Motions for the Production of Papers be allowed to stand.


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



WAYS AND MEANS


Michael Holcombe Wilson: that a Ways and Means motion to amend the Customs Tariff, laid upon the Table on Thursday, April 27, 1989, be concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Hon. Doug Lewis (on behalf of the Minister of State (Finance)) moved: that Bill C-17, an Act to amend the Customs Tariff, be now read a first time and printed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt this motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.

May 17, 1989


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Hon. Jean Corbeil (Minister of Labour) moved: that Bill C-8, an Act to amend the Department of Labour Act, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank you and all Hon. Members for giving me this opportunity to introduce a short amendment to the Department of Labour Act.
This amendment is necessary to enable my Department to continue to assist older employees who have been affected by a permanent reduction in the work force and who, after making every attempt to find other employment and exhausting their entitlement to unemployment insurance benefits, still have no prospects of re-entering the labour market.
The ongoing adjustment of employees is a basic component of the economic adjustment process in Canada. For instance, since the turn of the century we have experienced a major shift of employment from the primary and manufacturing sectors to the service industries. The latter now employ 71 per cent of Canadian workers, compared with 32 per cent at the beginning of this century.
The industries themselves have experienced considerable changes as well. For every ten manufacturing companies that were operational in 1971, only six were still operational in 1980. Four closed down but, on the other hand five new companies were formed during the same period, for every group of ten.
Mr. Speaker, every year, four million workers, which is one-third of the labour force, change jobs in Canada.
Labour
Mr. Speaker, these changes are both healthy and necessary to maintain a strong and viable economy. They are also an indication of the flexibility, open attitude and adaptability of Canada's labour force.
However, one group of workers is facing some very specific adjustment problems. I am referring to those who are suddenly deprived of their jobs after reaching the age of 55. Their problems are aggravated by the competition they get from an educated and competent baby-boom generation that is flooding the labour market.
As a result, many of those Canadians to whom our country owes so much have been brutally uprooted from a job environment to which they have often dedicated their entire working lives. These people are now more or less on the street, because new technology has made their skills and capabilities obsolete.
The increasing number of people in this situation on the labour market makes it even harder to arrange for rehiring of individuals in similar jobs.

The challenge of facilitating labour market adjustment for laid-off older workers is most important as we are dealing with Canada's most loyal and experienced employees. I would like to focus briefly on some of the problems faced by these older workers.
The unemployment rate is the most visible indicator of the effects of adjustment. Traditionally, unemployment rates are lowest for the older age group. This remains true today, but the gap has narrowed since the employment peak of 1981 when workers aged 55 to 64 experienced an unemployment rate of only 4.4 per cent, or just above half of the national rate. The unemployment rate for older workers has increased to 6.2 per cent, or to just over three-quarters of the national rate.

A recent Statistics Canada study of laid-off workers highlighted some special problems of a growing number of unemployed older workers. It was observed that laid-off older workers are unemployed longer than younger workers. The study showed that 40 per cent of these laid-off older workers were jobless for over six

May 17, 1989
Labour
months, compared to 25 per cent for the 25-44 age group.
It was also found, Mr. Speaker, that older workers are more likely to get discouraged after looking for a job for a long time and to withdraw from the labour market. Forty-two per cent of these permanently laid-off workers do not find a job and simply give up.
The tendency of older workers to get discouraged and withdraw from the labour market contributes to lowering the participation rate for this age group. Only half of those aged 55 to 64 are in the labour force, compared to about 80 per cent for the 25-54 age group.
Permanently laid-off older workers who find another job accept a 12 per cent salary decrease, on average.
That is the largest drop for all age groups, Mr. Speaker.
Inadequate retraining and lack of mobility for older workers add to their difficulties. In fact, the Statistics Canada study showed that the retraining rate for laid-off older workers is one third of what it is for the others. Only 6 per cent of laid-off workers 55 and over register for any retraining course, compared to 18 per cent for those under 55.
-
The study also revealed that, proportionately, twice as many workers who were under 55 when they were laid off permanently during the 1981-82 recession found another job. Eighteen per cent of those under 55 went back to work, compared to six per cent of those 55 and older. We all understand, I am sure, how difficult it must be for these workers to suddenly break the ties forged over a lifetime with companions who have shared their joys, happiness, sorrows and dedication.
As Hon. Members from all parties know, for many years Labour Canada has actively assisted some of these laid-off older workers. In fact, at the present time, nearly 8,000 of these workers are receiving assistance under the Labour Adjustment Benefits Act, commonly known as the LAB Program.
I immediately wish to reassure the House, Mr. Speaker, that the brief amendment we are considering today will in no way harm these beneficiaries. They will
continue to receive the full amount of their present LAB benefits until they reach age 65.

The LAB Program, however, has a number of serious flaws. First, the only industries designated nationally for assistance were the very narrow group of textile, clothing, footwear and tanning industries. Second, the LAB Program contains very poor work incentives because, even before taking income tax into account, 60 per cent of every dollar earned by beneficiaries is lost through reduced benefits. Third, it discourages private-sector involvement by fully deducting from LAB payments all benefits offered by employers. Fourth, it offers no opportunities for the provinces to participate in helping older workers.
For these reasons, in 1985 and 1986 we undertook full consultation with the provinces, business, and unions on the need for improved assistance for laid off older workers. They encouraged us to find a better way to help those workers.
This led the federal Government in its 1986 Budget to indicate its intention to work with the provinces to develop a new program for older-worker adjustment, and to commit $125 million to the program.
Two and a half years of very constructive discussions with the provinces, and more than 35 federal-provincial Ministerial meetings, led to the joint development of the new program for older-worker adjustment, the POWA Program, as it is commonly known.
Details of an implementation plan for POWA were announced on October 6, 1988. Eight provinces, namely, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta have already agreed to participate in POWA. This is an outstanding degree of initial provincial participation for a new cost-shared federal-provincial program, and a significant accomplishment.
For example, the hospital insurance plan was launched in 1958 with five participating provinces. It took until 1961 for all provinces and territories to participate. Although the Medicare system was adopted in 1966, only two provinces were participating in the program by 1968. It took until 1972, six full years later, for all provinces and territories to join.

With regard to Ontario and British Columbia, which have not yet agreed to participate in POWA, our continuing discussions regarding their participation in the new program are encouraging.

The basic principles of POWA, which are incorporated in the proposed legislation before the House today, are as follows: First, POWA applies to all sectors and all regions; second, it is based on full partnership with the provinces; third, it gives the employer a chance to participate; and fourth, it provides better incentives for going back to work.
Hon. Members will note that these principles are fairer than those of LAB, its predecessor. The proposed change in the legislation, Mr. Speaker, also includes appropriate transitional measures for older workers in sectors formerly targeted by LAB.
In the case of industries that were targeted by LAB in August 1986, when most of the designations expired, the proposed amendment guarantees that termination of employment that took place between the date of expiry of these designations and January 1, 1988, the date on which POWA came into effect, may be considered for the purposes of the new program. In all cases of termination of employment considered under POWA and which occurred between August 1986 and October 6, 1988, when POWA was announced, the proposed amendment will make it possible to consider as well workers below the age of 55 whose age plus number of years of service equals 80 or more, because their situation would normally have been considered under LAB. These transitional measures are necessary to provide for a reasonable continuity between LAB and POWA in the case of workers in industries formerly designated under LAB.
Since the POWA implementation plan was announced on October 6, 1988, we and our provincial partners have received requests to consider hundreds of terminations of employment.

Speedy passage of this amendment would enable us to more promptly assist some of the laid off older workers who have already exhausted their unemployment insurance benefits. Those workers have pressing needs. Organizations such as the Canadian Labour Market and Productivity Centre, the Advisory Council on Adjustment, the Economic Council of Canada, and the Canada
Labour
Employment and Immigration Advisory Council have all publicly urged implementation of POWA as soon as possible.

Members on both sides of the House have already urged the Government to proceed quickly with the implementation of POWA.
Consequently, Mr. Speaker, I would ask you and all Hon. Members to support this brief amendment to the Department of Labour Act, which will enable older workers whose employment was terminated as a result of a permanent reduction in jobs to obtain quickly the help they so desperately need.


George Albert Proud: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in the debate on second reading of Bill C-8, an Act to amend the Department of Labour Act. It is a relief for me, and indeed for all the people of Canada who may benefit from this legislation, to finally see a Bill in the House. We have been awaiting introduction of this Bill for nearly three years. We have been awaiting the results of a promise that the Government made to initiate a program of income-support and retraining for older workers.
Some older workers were and in fact still are having difficulty finding employment after losing their jobs. Those difficulties have been well documented. The report on Human Rights and Ageing in Canada tabled in the House of Commons on August 16,1986 noted a rapid increase in the number of Canadians aged 45 to 65. Aging workers have a harder time finding employment, and lengthy periods of unemployment exist for older workers.
The committee recommended, among other things, that the Government should designate older workers as target groups for job strategies; that the Government should explore the impact of corporation rationalization, plant closures, and corporate take-overs on older workers. That was in August, 1986. Since then various interest groups have spoken out on the perils of older workers in Canada. More recently the Government's de Grandpre report recommended that all provinces and territories participate in the Program for Older Worker Adjustment. That is exactly what this Bill represents, but the report also concluded that the Program for Older Worker Adjustment, or POWA as it is known, provides assistance only to those older workers involved in major

May 17, 1989
Labour
lay-offs. There is no similar support for older workers who are not part of such lay-offs.
It is the responsibility of the Government, in conjunction with the Minister of Labour and his Department, to pursue other avenues of assistance to older workers. This is especially important for older individual workers who do not fall under the mandate of POWA and for older workers who are employed by small companies.
On November 22, 1984, the Minister of Employment and Immigration requested that the Canada Employment and Immigration Advisory Council undertake a study of the problems faced by older workers in Canada, older workers who are unemployed as a result of economic and technological changes that took place in Canada at that time.
Included in the mandate was the examination of the adequacy of current measures to assist older workers and, if necessary, to submit possible recommendations to the problem.
The council noted that the Canadian labour force and the general population was aging. The proportion of persons in the age 45 to 64 group was also growing at a tremendous rate.
The council estimated that there were 4.9 million people in the age groups, 2.4 million of these people were male and 2.5 million were female. They further estimate that there would be 6.7 million in the age group, consisting of 3.3 million male and 3.4 million female workers, by the year 2001. That date that seemed so far away five years ago is now just around the comer.
It is important to note that older workers have a significant characteristic. They remain unemployed longer than workers in other age groups. Even more startling is that over the past 10 to 15 years there has been a decline in labour force participation by older workers, particularly men in the 55 to 64 age bracket.
In a special study conducted by Statistics Canada in January, 1968, to gather information on labour market adjustment experiences, the survey highlighted marked differences between older workers and their counterparts between the ages of 25 and 54.
The study noted that older workers who lost their job experienced much greater labour market adjustment difficulties than younger workers. As of January, 1986, only 39 per cent of older workers who lost their jobs between the 1981 to 1984 period were employed, in comparison with 65 per cent of the 25 to 54 year old group which had obtained employment. In addition, about 41 per cent of the older workers had left the labour force while only 14 per cent of the younger workers had done so. Even the older workers who did find employment took an average of 37 weeks to do so. This represented a period of 10 weeks longer than younger workers.
These are startling statistics. But there is more. Older workers who managed to find a new job suffered a larger loss in remuneration than younger job losers. In essence, remunerations were 12 per cent lower for older workers compared to 2 per cent for younger workers.
When one compares labour force participation in the provinces, it is interesting that in Ontario, the prairie provinces and British Columbia, participation by 55 to 65 year old Canadians was high as of 1986. More than half were in the labour force. In Quebec and the Atlantic provinces, the corresponding figure was around 40 per cent.
When older workers are displaced from traditional industries, there is no guarantee that they will easily find suitable employment. This is because of the fact that most new jobs today are in the service sector and these jobs are not comparable in terms of wages. As previously mentioned, displaced older workers who manage to find employment do so at substantially reduced wages.
Education is also a factor for older workers. It can be detrimental. On the average, older workers possess fewer years of formal education. Given this reality, they are at a disadvantage when competing against younger workers in the labour market. Characteristics such as loyalty, conscientiousness and lower rates of turnover are more often than not ignored.
Another misconception is that older workers are resistant to change. According to the research conducted by the Labour Council of Metropolitan Toronto, it was noted that:
Older workers are extremely interested in learning about the new technology and how it applies to their jobs, and that the success of
. I
May 17, 1989

failure of training or retraining for older workers is closely related to the methods of training undertaken.
I would like now to deal with some other aspects of this legislation. When considering this legislation, one must keep in mind the fact that the present federal Government did not develop the concept of programs to assist the older worker. Therefore, Canadians should not be overly pleased to see legislation tabled almost three years after it was promised by the Government, legislation in the form of a relief package that has many weaknesses. It has so many weaknesses that if they are not watched closely, they may prove to be more detrimental than beneficial.
Canada's older workers are being squeezed out of their jobs, and thus their place in society. This program offers no more in the way of financial assistance to the these Canadians than what existed in the Labour Adjustment Benefit Program which spent $125.6 million from 1983-84 to 1985-86. It is important to note that this program was founded by the Liberal Government in the 1970s.
It must also be remembered that in its February, 1986 Budget the Government cancelled the LAB program and it is only now that we have a new program to assist these older workers.
Currently, at the federal level there are no labour market adjustment programs specifically targeted to older workers. This proposed program for older worker adjustment being discussed today is an income maintenance program.
Income maintenance to older laid-off employees is not a new idea. The Liberal Government initiated the Adjustments Assistance Benefits Program in 1972. Labour Canada developed this program to ease the burden for older employees who were laid off as a result of less restrictive import quotas being introduced into the textile and clothing industries. The program was also in response to the introduction of modernization programs initiated to improve the ability of these industries to compete with competitive imports.
The Adjustment Assistance Benefits Program was further expanded in 1978 as a result of restructuring in the footwear and tanning industries. This came about as a consequence of the then Government's footwear and tanning industry sector strategy.
Labour
These programs provided benefits to qualified individuals aged 54 and older who had been employed as production workers in the industry for at least 10 of the 15 years preceding lay-off.
Later in the decade all adjustment measures available to industry and labour were reviewed and special adjustment initiatives were created to respond to the more competitive activity in the industries within Canada. The Labour Adjustments Benefits Program was thus established. In 1982, by virtue of the Labour Adjustment Benefit Act, these Adjustment Assistance Benefits Programs were consolidated. As mentioned earlier, the Government cancelled these programs in February, 1986, and the older workers in Canada have had no assistance programs since then.
I am pleased to see that these workers who fell into the cracks between August 12, 1986 and today will be taken care of with this legislation. It was almost a three year wait, but this typifies the present Government. It has a history of promises that have either never been kept or, if they do come through, there is usually an exorbitant waiting period attached to the promise.
I am quite aware that government Members will argue that Bill C-8, the Program for Older Worker Adjustment, is a program not limited to designated industries as is the Labour Adjustment Benefits Program. They will argue that POWA will cover lay-offs from all private sector industries and commercial Crown corporations. They will say that POWA will assist individuals subject to unemployment as part of a major permanent lay-off and that these lay-offs will be assessed individually taking into account a full range of relevant considerations.
These considerations are to include significant economic disruption in the region, major loss of employment in the industry, lay-offs very large relative to the size of the community, a large proportion of older workers affected, permanent losses of jobs, absence of alternative economic opportunities, no prospects for re-employment of laid-off older workers and no realistic possibility that retraining or mobility will lead to job opportunities.
This does not take into account the older workers who fall through the cracks of POWA. They could include individuals who are not retrainable for a variety of reasons. They could also include any older workers who are not part of major permanent lay-offs. What is a

Labour
major lay-off? Do we go by numbers of employees in a region or do we judge the severity according to an individual's circumstances?
Under the former Labour Adjustment Benefits Program, keeping in mind it covered designated industries, the criteria for eligibility was the following:
The number of employees in the establishment must have been reduced as a result of lay-offs, in any 12-month period including the employee's effective date of lay-off by at least 10 per cent or 50 employees, whichever is less.
Once again, what will constitute, in the minds of federal and provincial Governments, a major permanent lay-off? Take, for example a shoe repairman who has been working at the same firm for 35 years. Suddenly the firm goes bankrupt, closes down and he is unemployed. This is a major lay-off for this individual. Will it be a major lay-off under POWA?
The Canadian Labour Congress, in its presentation to the Liberal task force on trade's public forum on adjustment hearing held February 7, 1989, noted that unemployment should be accepted only as a last resort. To this end, the CLC made several recommendations, including the cancellation of the program for older workers and its replacement with a credible program for older workers, Government commitment to full employment, one year advance notice of plant closures required of employers employing more than 15 workers and six months advance notice of plant closures required of firms with fewer than 15 employees.
In addition, the Canadian Labour Market Productivity Centre made a variety of recommendations at the above-mentioned hearings. These included the creation of a nation-wide program for older worker adjustments. As well, the CSN argued that the program for older workers was ineffective and in need of a complete overhaul. They did, however, call for more federal-provincial collaboration in the implementation of adjustment programs in order to remove some of the jurisdictional disputes that arise from their implementation.
To sum up the hearings with respect to older workers, there was a consensus that existing Government programs, particularly the Canadian Jobs Strategy and the Program for Older Workers Adjustment, are inadequate
to meet the difficulties facing Canadians who must deal with the prospect of unemployment.
There is another issue that I believe needs to be addressed given the free trade legislation recently passed and the recent mergers and acquisitions which have occurred. What in this legislation prevents any business or corporation from intentionally down-sizing to eliminate not only older workers but their pensions and benefits as well? What is stopping a company from laying off employees between the ages of 50 and 54 and hiring younger and better educated individuals at lower salaries after a short period of time?
Government Members will answer these questions by saying that this legislation is for major lay-offs from a permanent reduction. That is, the company or business will never return to its former level of employment. I believe that business could exploit this program. This is certainly a possibility, given the sweeping economic changes that our country is facing in light of the free trade legislation. Even prior to free trade, it is a known fact that companies would hire management consultants to re-evaluate their companies employees, bringing about slashes to the average workers just prior to their benefits or pensions kicking in.
With respect to the federal-provincial partnership in this new program, I am quite concerned about the claim that eight out ten provinces have supposedly agreed to participate in the program. The two that are presently not in the fold are Ontario and British Columbia. My home province of Prince Edward Island is listed as one of the eight participating in the program, but I would question what degree this participation entails. I have been informed that P.E.I. has only agreed to participate on a project-by-project basis.
I firmly believe that these supposed levels of participation have to be examined in more detail. Presently, we have no idea what each province has agreed to. We only know that it is a 70 per cent federal and 30 per cent provincial financial split.
This federal-provincial participation begs another question. Why is the federal Government foisting the responsibility of older worker assistance programs on to the provincial Governments? It seems to me that most of the major causes of recent unemployment in Canada are the result of federal initiatives. Why then are the provinces obligated to pay? Maybe this is why some
May 17, 1989

provinces have not agreed to participate and why others are only partially in agreement. These are questions that need to be addressed and we should have answers to them.
This also sets a dangerous precedent. Once the federal-provincial agreements with respect to labour adjustment programs are established, it will be very difficult in the future for provinces to refuse any financial responsibility with respect to similar programs.
Just what provinces will most benefit from such a program given the parameters required for eligibility? Once again, the parameters are major permanent layoffs in private sector industries and commercial Crown corporations, and they must cause real hardship for substantial numbers of older workers.
Given that the principal target groups will be large-scale lay-offs that have a pronounced effect on local communities, it is safe to assume that the majority of the federal allocation of $125 million will go to high density areas, leaving little for the poorer regions that may need it more. What will be the 70 per cent contribution of federal moneys to an area such as Port Hood, Nova Scotia?
The help that this Government says the program will give is only marginal at best for it does little in the way of retraining those nearly retired workers who may still have the aptitude and interest to continue working in areas of their choice.
In conclusion, my colleagues and I in the Liberal Party support the concept of a Bill for older workers, but only if it provides more assistance than the defunct LAB program. There are many areas of concern in this legislation, and unless these are rectified, the Government will once again prove to Canadians that it is unsympathetic to the problems faced by older Canadians who are seeking employment. There must be more done to assist workers, and older workers in particular, who have been displaced by economic adjustments. The Government must be proactive and the Liberal Party will be monitoring its progress in this area.


Mr. Ron Fisher (Saskatoon-Dundurn):: Mr. Speaker, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to, on behalf of my Party, speak this afternoon and be the lead speaker on
Labour
Bill C-8, an Act to Amend the Department of Labour Act.
I rise in support of Bill C-8 and I do that with no sense of enjoyment, as one would with a bold new initiative by this or any other Government. A bold new initiative this certainly is not. This change to the Labour Code is an admission by this Government that the unemployment caused by its mismanagement is to become part of the fabric of Canadian life.
Bill C-8 is to assist older workers between the ages of 55 to 64 who are laid off when their employers, those fine outstanding responsible corporate citizens and recipients of billions and billions of dollars from the taxpayers, flee the country or rationalize their operations so they can become more lean or mean in the free trade environment.
Free trade is the economic sulphur dioxide for Canadian workers. When it rains on our employment parade, our citizens suffer economic death. We have to introduce a Bill to protect older workers. I would suggest that the best way to protect older workers would be to make sure they have jobs. Whatever happened to that catch phrase of not so long ago: Jobs, jobs, jobs.
We have heard about the millions of jobs this Government claims to have created. We will talk about them another day. Suffice it to say that the Government has little to brag about when it talks about all these jobs it has created. The way it increases or decreases by 100,000 over a weekend is a constant source of amazement to me. An analysis of the record will show that where the jobs are and the quality of them is a sorry reflection of the Government's view of what is occurring within our society.
We have another indicator as well of the state of the health of the Canadian economy. Not so long ago in response to a question in a different context, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) said that if we want lower interest rates, we must have a healthy economy. I would suggest that if what he says is true, and he believes it to be true, then he is indicating as a result of the increase in the interest rates that the economy, over which he is the supervisor, is obviously not in very good shape. A healthy economy is certainly something that we would all be only too pleased to have. I would suggest that the changes to the unemployment insurance benefits for Canadians introduced recently are also a reflection in the Government's view that unemployment is

May 17, 1989
Labour
something that is going to be with us for quite some time. It is a reflection of the sorry state of our economy and an admission by the Government that that is so.
It has become obvious that this Government is willing to accept a 6 per cent and more unemployment rate as being full employment in Canada. It used to be considered to be 4 per cent. Even 4 per cent was a concession by the Liberals prior to the Conservatives that zero was not an acceptable rate and that 4 per cent was acceptable.
It is similar to the E-12 which we just went through in relation to the post-secondary education for native students. E-12 in itself was not acceptable policy as far as post-secondary education was concerned and the Government was trying to bring in even more stringent conditions.
For older workers the agonies of unemployment are magnified beyond those of the younger workers. Cut down in their prime earning years, they face longer periods of lay-off, on average 33 weeks as compared to 23 weeks for younger workers. They are able to be less mobile. Nine per cent of them are able to move around the country in search of jobs or to accept employment elsewhere, compared to 18 per cent of those below the age of 54. Retraining for the older worker is something that is proving to be much more difficult. Among the younger age groups, it is evident that somewhere around 18 per cent are able to avail themselves of meaningful retraining. The retraining percentage for older workers is are a mere 6 per cent.
Several years after being laid off, 42 per cent of workers in the 55 to 64 year age group are still not in the workforce. Twenty per cent of them are recognizably unemployed and part of the statistics which we call unemployed. Seven per cent of them work part-time. Among the 42 per cent we find those who have, as they say in modem parlance, fallen through the cracks of the safety net.
I am particularly galled by the phrase "safety net", as if life were a circus, as if workers were on a trapeze just swinging away merrily knowing that there was some safe haven if they should let go of the trapeze and fall. For a majority of these older workers, there is not even any safety net.
Among the 55 to 64 year age group, those who do find work suffer a loss in earnings on an average of 12 per cent. As a portion of the population, the 55 to 64 year old age group is up from 7 per cent in 1976 to 20 per cent today, with the prognosis that by the turn of the century they will be 25 per cent of the population. Their participation in the workforce has gone from 10 per cent a few years ago down to 9 per cent at the present time which is in spite of the slow growth and admittedly-and I admit it very grudgingly because it is so miniscule-a trend opposite to that of the economic growth within the country.
These older workers are my friends. A year ago next Monday, on May 22, 1988, 75 per cent of the people at the plant where I worked were laid off. One hundred and seventy people out of a total workforce of somewhere around 230 were told that they would no longer have jobs at the potash mine where I worked. Many of them were older workers. There was George, not his real name, and one of the smartest men I have ever met. He was laid off for the second time. Hopefully he and others from that plant will be able to avail themselves of this POWA program if they should be considered to be eligible by the powers that be who make those decisions. He was laid off for the second time, fortunately having worked at least 15 years at the plant. He was cut off in the prime of his earning capacity with only three or four years to retirement. This is one of the tragedies of this whole sick economy to which I can attest so well.
There was Peter, again not his name, who was suffering from an industrial accident that he had experienced 10 years ago. He was hassled by the company and the Unemployment Insurance Commission in Saskatchewan. He was laid off with certainly no possibility of being able to attain retraining or employment elsewhere.
These are the older workers. This is the face of unemployment in this land of ours. This is the unacceptable part of what is wrong with our economy. It is something which has to be addressed in a far more meaningful way than the program which is being put in place now, as helpful as it will be for some people.
I met William just yesterday. He had worked for a plant which actually was part of the Chrysler Corporation. He is unemployed today because the plant where he produced components for automobiles has been moved not to one place but to two. Because of free
May 17, 1989

trade, obviously the assembly from his plant has been moved to Mexico and to the United States. Victims of the Free Trade Agreement, undeniably so.


An Hon. Member:: It is just a start.


Ron Fisher: As well, I could not really understand why he would say it, but he said that he thought maybe he should take English as a second language. I have no idea why he would say that. His native tongue was obviously neither English nor French. I understood him quite well. It is even' possible he may have been able to make himself understood in French, to which I cannot attest. He felt a guilt because he did not have perfect English or was not perfect in one of our two official languages. This is an insidious part of what the Government is doing to people. Why anyone in that situation should feel any guilt whatever for some kind of an imperfection in the ability to speak the English language is beyond me all together. We see it reflected in changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act. It is starting to seep out there and people are starting to feel-


Barbara Jean McDougall: Don't give me that stuff.


Ron Fisher: -guilty because they do not have this total adequacy.


Mr. Allmand:: Treat the Opposition like the women's groups.


An Hon. Member:: The Minister is leaving.


Ron Fisher: That is not all, Mr. Speaker. I met Miriam yesterday and guess what she felt guilty about? She is unemployed, but guess what she felt guilty about? I am glad the Minister is staying. She felt guilty about the debt. The Government's message to Canadians is getting out there: "Feel guilty about the debt". The Government is saying: "Feel guilty about the debt. This country is in debt and we have to do something to reduce the debt." The Government has gone so far as to convince people who are unemployed that they are responsible for the debt.
I would like to tell the Government and the people of Canada that my Party and I do not consider those who are unemployed to be responsible for the national debt. Members of the Government opposite, particularly members of Cabinet, are the ones who created this debt. In the four short years since the Government was elected to Parliament it has doubled the total national debt from the country's inception. It is an abomination that the Government keeps repeating things. It is the old adage that if one repeats a thing often enough people
Labour
will start believing it. It is time Canadians started telling themselves and repeating that they are not responsible for the national debt.
It is this Government that will not tax the corporations. Corporations are paying almost 5 per cent less tax in 1989 than they were in 1984, while the average Canadian taxpayer is paying almost 10 per cent more. I would suggest that a reversal of those percentages would go a long way toward reversing the trend of the economic malady which affects this nation.
What is the Government's response to the plight of these people, this special age group who are unemployed because of its policies? First, in order to be able to avail oneself of the largess within this Bill C-8, one has to be part of a major lay-off. Who defines a major lay-off? It will be determined by two members from the Department of Labour and two from a provincial Department of Labour. One has to have worked 15 years out of the last 20 years in order to qualify under Bill C-8 and to have worked 750 hours in 15 of those years.
I suspect there may be some men and women, particularly in the construction industry, who because of that 750-hour restriction may not be able to qualify even though they had worked in 15 of those 20 years. One has to have no alternative job opportunity, not able to take advantage of any opportunity to move, and one's unemployment insurance has to have been exhausted in order to qualify.
Not everything about this Bill is negative. I do not want anyone to think, with even the percentage of people who will benefit, that the New Democratic Party in any way would wish they were not able to avail themselves of the Bill's provisions. The problem is, of course, that 100 per cent of people will be unable to do so. We will get to the percentage shortly.


Mr. Belsher:: You want it both ways.


Ron Fisher: What about the financing? We are told that there will be $125 million available initially for this program. By way of comparison, the Labour Adjustments Benefit Program which this program succeeded had $50 million available to it. On first blush that looks like a pretty good deal. The only problem is that the $125 million will be available over three years. What we have is a situation where whenever we get a statement from the Government, especially in terms of money and sometimes in terms of time, one has to divide by either three or five, because they work in three-year or

May 17, 1989
Labour
five-year programs, to find out what the immediate benefits will be.
A very interesting thing happens when one does that with $125 million. When it is compared with the $50 million available under the LAB Program in 1985, one now has only $42 million available for aid to older workers in 1989. This is from a Government which daily tells us that it is putting more and more into programs to help Canadians. It is a comparison of $50 million in 1984 down to $42 million in 1989.
The maximum levels available under this program are $1,102. I commend the Government for the provision that these workers are able to earn up to $302 a month without being penalized. It is precisely the kind of philosophy that ought to prevail in many of the programs which are extant within this country, and particularly within some of the provinces. I would suggest, since I come from the Province of Saskatchewan, that is so within the Province of Saskatchewan because there a woman on welfare with three or four children has deducted, dollar for dollar, any amount of money she earns. I commend the Government for making it possible for these people to earn money over and above the allowances they will be receiving.
There is some more bad news. The Government's response includes some assistance for its corporate friends. Wonder of wonders. Unlike the Labour Adjustment Benefits Program which POWA replaces, POWA is to be administered by finance and trust companies.
I may be a bit off base, but I do not think so. My suspicion is that trust companies and insurance companies make a profit on services which they render. I would suggest that for the Government to hand over a portion of the money intended to aid our older workers to corporations which are going to make a profit on that money is unconscionable and I would hope it would be changed. We have able people within the Department of Labour and within the Government with as much expertise as we will find in the private sector anywhere. They
are eminently able to administer this program as surely as the Labour Adjustment and Benefits Program was ably administered by the Department of Labour previously.
We have to talk about the number of people who will benefit by this plan because as it says one has to be part of a major lay-off before one is eligible. If it is broken down far enough and after the determinations are made, my suspicion is that it may turn out that all of the $42 million in a particular year might not be used.
At the very best, if one takes $42 million and divides it by $1,102 which is the maximum allowable-a maximum, I would point out, that is below the poverty level even for a single person-one ends up with somewhere between 38,000 and 40,000 people at maximum being able to avail themselves of benefits under this aid to older workers.
There are 415,000 Canadian citizens between the age of 55 and 65 who are unemployed. Some 300,000 of them have given up and are not even part of the statistics any more. Some 100,000 of them are not considered to be unemployed. Many of them are working part time. Many others have taken early retirement, which in itself is one of the most degrading things that can happen to the people who are so badly affected by lay-offs in our society today at this age.
I know a certain percentage of them have company pension plans, but if one is 55 years of age and takes early retirement, one is losing one-half of 1 per cent a month under most pension plans. If one looks at it over 10 years, it amounts to a 60 per cent reduction in the amount of pension one is able to collect. If one is not fortunate enough to get into the POWA program, one's financial ability is totally devastated, some 60 per cent of what one expected to attain and what one ought to have been able to attain at age 65. If one is in that age group, one is in the age group who was the most productive during the 1970s. They paid the taxes during the 1970s. They made society affluent, which we who were active within the Canadian society of the 1970s knew so well, yearn again and were promised as a result of technological change.
May 17, 1989

It is actually 40 per cent, by the time 60 per cent is taken off, of the pension one expected to receive. That is hardly an adequate recompense for a life of good, hard, honest work put into this country.
It is obvious that POWA is not adequate to meet the challenge of providing older workers with the financial resources they require to prepare themselves for retirement, a justly deserved retirement, as I have just said.
My Party and I call on the Government to fund the program for older workers to the extent required that all those affected by this Government's mismanagement be assisted. For the future and from today on we demand that the Government put in place policies which we have long championed in this House and which produce jobs. I would suggest that jobs are a far better solution, a far better way to correct the problem which these older workers are suffering and wiiich of course would obviate the need for a POWA program at all.
These policies are already ingrained very deeply in the societies of many of our more progressive competitors. I know what will be said by Members opposite and by the business community. They will say that we have to get lean and mean in order to be able to compete, in order to be profitable, and in order to be efficient. A good many of our major competitors are already doing what my Party and I are saying ought to be done.
When the Government talks about the need to become competitive and efficient in relation to our competitors, it is not really talking about the progressive competitors. It is talking about those places where we have low wages. It is talking about the places where, for all intents and purposes, we have societies where the workers are often captive of their own Government, unable to unionize and put into free trade zones such as they have in Mexico where wages are low. I would point out that in that context they are really slaves; certainly in this day and age that is all they are. I would also point out that when we become competitors with slaves, as I would suggest the Government thinks we ought to do, that is precisely what we become.
The New Democratic Party and myself suggest that we ought to put into place policies such as pension reform
Labour
enabling workers from this day forward to carry pensions with them after shorter vesting periods, regardless of who is their employer. Then when they reach perhaps 55, 60 or whatever, and happen to suffer unemployment they will not have to suffer the enormous penalties that people are suffering these days.
We have suggested for a long time that there needs to be a notice of lay-off. Notices of lay-off and notices of closure give people the opportunity to adjust before the occurrence. Statistics show that when people receive notice of lay-off, they are better able to acclimatize themselves to the eventualities of no longer being able to work.
We have been suggesting for a long time that compensation to the communities be put in place, paid for by the employers, not as the Government has suggested under its Community Futures Programs, paid for out of the pockets of the people who are becoming unemployed. We have been saying that lay-offs and closures have to be justified. A grant levy system has to be put in place to ensure that all employers contribute to the cost of retraining. Let me reiterate that the cost of training and retraining ought to be borne by the employer, not as the suggested changes to the unemployment insurance scheme would us move into, that is, the training being financed by the people who are suffering the worst in our society, those who are laid off.
Ironically the changes this Government has made in relation to pension and income severance pay have cost Canadian wage and salary earners much more than will be spent in one year under this POWA Program. I am referring to changes where people are penalized when they receive severance pay when they are laid off or when they take their pension at retirement and are no longer entitled to unemployment insurance.
I would conclude by referring to a notation which I saw in one of the Government's own publications as it relates to older workers. It says: "As a group older workers face the most serious problems coping with displacement. At the very least adjustment among older workers is extremely difficult, and more often than not, virtually impossible". As I said in the beginning, my Party and I support these amendments to the Act, but there are so

May 17, 1989
Labour
many shortcomings to it that we would beg the Government to make improvements in it.


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, finally we are getting legislation to help older workers who lose their jobs, but unfortunately this legislation is far from adequate. I will explain that in greater detail in a few minutes.
I said "finally we are getting legislation to help older workers" because it was more than three years ago that the Government announced this program. The Minister of Finance, in making his budget address in February 1986, announced that he was abolishing the Labour Adjustment Benefits Program. He was to replace it with a wonderful new program called "Program for Older Worker Adjustment".
Months went by in 1986, and we did not see this wonderful new program. Opposition members started to rise and ask questions on where the program was. We received no adequate answers. There was delay upon delay. Then 1986 passed, 1987 passed and 1988 passed, but once the election was under way, on October 6,1988 finally the Government announced the program again with a few more details. However there was still no legislation of course; we were in the middle of the election campaign.
If the Government did not have this older worker adjustment program ready on that occasion, it should have kept the old Labour Adjustment Benefits Program in place until the new program was ready. No, it did not do that. It abolished the old program immediately with the Budget of February 1986. It has been some three and a half years and we still do not have the legislation, but at least we have started to debate it. We have gone all this time since February, 1986 with no program whatsoever.
Any reasonable Government would have kept the old program in place, a program which did help older workers when they were laid off permanently. It was not as complete as it should have been. It was not as perfect as it should have been, but at least it was a program that helped older workers who were laid off from work on a permanent basis. The Government abolished that program and promised a new one. As a matter of fact, it gave the impression in the Budget that the new program was going to come on in a matter of weeks, and here we are in 1989 finally debating this new program.
This situation has been allowed to carry on where, the situation where for more than three years we have gone without any program for older worker assistance, despite several reports to the Government pointing out how serious the situation was.
I refer first to a report prepared by the Canadian Employment and Immigration Advisory Council. This council was set up by the Minister of Employment and Immigration. Its report entitled "Older Workers, an Imminent Crisis in the Labour Market" was published in August 1985. In part it read:
There are now more than 300,000 workers between the ages of 45 and 64 officially and unofficially unemployed in Canada. The unemployment rate for this age group increased significantly after 1981, and then took a major jump early in 1985 at a time when unemployment among other age groups decreased or remained stable. Furthermore older workers stay unemployed longer than their younger counterparts.
This report of the advisory council to the Minister of Employment and Immigration contained 10 recommendations on what should be done for older workers in this country, but the Government did not act on any of them.
We also had a report published by Statistics Canada in November 1987 entitled "Older Workers in the Canadian Labour Market". As a result of a special statistics study, this report pointed out: "Results from the 1986 Census show a rapidly aging Canadian population. This trend has its roots in rising life expectancy, low birth rates and the maturing of the post-war baby boom generation. In 1976 Canadians 55 years or more comprised about 17 per cent of the total population. By 1986, 10 years later, the proportion had risen to about 20 per cent, and by the turn of the century this age group could account for nearly one in four Canadians". That would be 25 per cent.
The report went on to point out that, in 1986, four years after the recession, unemployment among older workers was worse than it had been during the depths of the recession in 1982. The unemployment rate for those older workers had risen from 6.9 per cent in 1982 to 7.3 per cent in 1986.
A moment ago I referred to the report published by the Advisory Council. It published a follow-up report on June 22, 1988, one year ago. In publishing this follow-up report on older workers it stated: "It is evident that the unemployment situation of older workers has not improved since 1985 when the Advisory Council report on
May 17, 1989

older workers was published and, in fact, it has deteriorated". From the report in 1985 to last year in June there has been a deterioration of the situation for older workers.
There have been other reports to which the Government should have been paying attention, but it was not. There is a very complete report on older workers by Gladys Dunn. She prepared a report for the Department of Employment and Immigration. She was an individual appointed by the Department to study this problem. Her report was published in 1985.
Among other things, she pointed out that it is a myth that older workers, meaning workers 45 and older, and in some cases it is defined as 55 and older, are unable or are very slow to learn or to be trained. She demonstrated that that was a myth. She also demonstrated that it is a myth that there is declining mental and physical capacity with age. She proved and showed that there are many things that older workers in that age category can do, and can do better than younger people.
The third myth is that older workers are less productive. Again, that is a myth. Older workers are not less productive. The fourth myth she demonstrated was that older workers have more on-the-job accidents. They do not have more on-the-job accidents. The fifth myth was that older workers are absent more often. Again, that was shown in her report not to be true.
In the last Parliament in 1987-88 the Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration, of which I was a member and which has representatives of all Parties in the House, conducted a review of the Canadian Jobs Strategy. It referred to the problem of older workers. In Recommendation 2.7.8 it stated that older workers be identified as a target group under the Canadian Jobs Strategy. Despite the fact that that was a unanimous recommendation of the Standing Committee, it was not implemented.
Another Standing Committee of the House, the Standing Committee on Human Rights, again a committee representing all Parties of the House, put out a unanimous report on human rights and aging in Canada. Among its recommendations was that Employment and
Labour
Immigration Canada designate older workers, especially those older worker groups prone to long-term unemployment, as a target group for the purposes of the Canadian Jobs Strategy. That was not done either.
There have been many reports and studies that indicated that action was necessary and was essential, but nothing was done for more than three years except another announcement in the middle of the last election campaign.
I have here a report by the Economic Council of Canada entitled: "Managing Adjustment". It also stated that special programs must be implemented for older workers.
I have stories from all over the country which have been reported in the press. In The Hamilton Spectator in August, 1988 there as a story entitled: "Unemployed older workers. Bad enough to lose a job held for years, but governments have done little to help". In the Winnipeg Free Press in August, 1988 there was an article entitled: "Older workers suffer most as industry carries out reorganization". In The Toronto Star on August 30, 1988 there was an editorial entitled: "Treat older workers with more respect", and the article comments on the problems to which I have referred.
That is the situation that prevailed during the last few years while the Government did nothing. We have a rapidly developing economy with many structural changes, with great developments, and technological change which require updating and restructuring. Sometimes this is very difficult for older workers. When plants are closed due to mergers, restructuring, or rationalization and large segments of the workforce are laid off, it has been found that those situations impact more on older workers than on younger workers. For some older workers it is difficult to adjust and retrain.
Some of the reports define older workers and the problems relating to older workers to be that group between 45 and 65. Other reports define older workers as being over 50, and other reports define them as being over 55. Let's be frank, people in that age group, whether it is from 45 or 50 are people who still have heavy responsibilities. Many of them have children in

May 17, 1989
Labour
university with very high expenses. Many of them are still paying off mortgages. They cannot afford to be without income. Most of them would rather go on working. They feel that they have to go on working, and they want to go on working, but they cannot find work. There are others who are burned out and need enough help to see them through until they are 65 and collect pensions and Old Age Security.
The situation which impacts on older workers is a serious one. Nothing was done, despite many reports, for more than three years. However, worse still, while this situation was in existence and nothing was being done, the Government was taking action that was making it even worse for those workers. There have been cuts in unemployment insurance. We spent half of the last Parliament condemning the Government for cutting unemployment insurance for people who retired early. There were people in the Armed Forces, in the RCMP, and in many segments of Canadian life who were laid off early, most often against their will, who had paid into the Unemployment Insurance Program and finally the Government changed the rules in the middle of the game and cut those people off.
That action on behalf of the Government was responsible for the defeat of several government Members in the last election. The former Minister of Employment and Immigration, the former Member from Kingston, was the one who introduced the program for cutting unemployment insurance for older workers and people who had forced early retirement. She comes from a city where there are many retired military personnel, personnel from the Correctional Service, and many people who have retired early for many reasons.
Yet, despite those reports which stated that there was a crisis and that something should be done, the Government was going in the other direction and cutting unemployment insurance. From 1984 to 1988 the Government cut training and retraining programs by 32 per cent. The Government cut those programs from $2.2 billion in 1984 to $1.5 billion this year. It increased taxes. In this recent Budget the Government is clawing back Old Age Security, reducing Old Age Security, reducing unemployment insurance coverage, and cutting back on regional development and other things that would help workers who are seeking employment. The Government is finally taking action but the program is inadequate.
The Bill provides that special assistance for older workers should go to workers 55 and over, up to the age 65. I would like to hear evidence before the legislative committee whether the age should be 50 years or even 45 to qualify for this special assistance in view of the reports I have received. One has to consider whether the problems of older workers start earlier than 55, as some of the reports indicate.
Clause 5(1) states that subject to the approval of the Governor in Council the Minister may enter into agreements to provide periodic assistance to older workers who are permanently laid off.
The assistance provided under this legislation is not compulsory or automatic for older workers who lose their work permanently. It is subject to the discretion of the Minister, who may enter into agreements.
I and many others have suggested that when certain conditions prevail in the market-place of a certain community and workers are permanently unemployed, it should trigger an assistance program that is not left to the discretion of the Minister. Unemployment insurance is not subject to the discretion of the Minister. If one is laid off due to conditions beyond one's control, unemployment insurance is paid automatically.
According to this Bill, the Minister may enter into agreements to provide for this assistance. The legislation refers to the purpose of making provision for periodic income assistance payments to older workers permanently laid off. It does nor define "periodic income assistance payments". We are led to believe that this assistance could be up to $1,100 a month, but there is no authoritative statement on that. It is left to the discretion of the Minister and the Government so that we do not really know what range of assistance will be available for these workers.
The Bill goes on to state that this assistance will only go to those workers who lose their work as a result of a permanent reduction in the work-force. Again, who interprets what is a permanent reduction in the workforce? Sometimes it is very difficult to determine whether a lay-off or a reduction will be permanent. It could go on for months or even years and someone might consider that it is not permanent. That must be clarified. There must be a definition that will oblige the Government to
May 17, 1989

enter into assistance programs if certain conditions prevail.
This Bill is a move in the right direction. It is too little, too late, but we will support it at this stage so that it will be sent to committee where it can be studied by either the Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration or by a legislative committee. We want to hear testimony on the Bill. We want to hear from experts who know something about the subject.
We believe that the Government should have had a more comprehensive approach to the problems of older workers, as suggested in the many reports to which I have referred.
Workers over the age of 50 have a lot to offer. They have a lot of skills and a lot of experience. They have stability. Many of them want to continue to work but when they are laid off from a job they have had for 20 or 30 years, they need counselling, retraining and they need placement assistance. Very often they want to phase down their work from full time into part-time work. This Bill does nothing about that.
While the Bill addresses somewhat the needs of those who have to retire or want to retire because they are burned out, we believe it is not enough.
In conclusion, this is another example of the Government's approach to these matters, and another example of its broken promises. It took more than three years, February, 1986, to May, 1989, to bring in this legislation. It is another example of its laissez-faire approach to a problem that requires serious attention and a comprehensive solution. We intend to study this legislation very closely when it gets to committee.


Mr. Speller:: Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my colleague for an excellent evaluation of the Bill.
Let me bring to his attention a situation in my riding, in relation to the lay-off at Lundy Steel in the town of Dunnville.
I have received letters from older workers, and I want to read part of a letter from a worker who is 58 years old. He worked there for 31 years. He said: "I have supported the community, paid taxes, paid into UIC, paid union dues all these years and now it seems there is no aid for me. The company has never been easy to negotiate with for a contract, and consequently the monthly pension we have in this area is $480".
Labour
He goes on to say that he understands that some provinces have POWAs and he keeps hearing about CSTEC programs, but these are for younger people.
He asked what programs are available for older workers in Ontario, specifically in the Dunnville area. I have met with people from Lundy Steel. Quite frankly, I have been unable to find any programs that are presently available to them. In fact, when I read this Bill I cannot see anything that states the people in Dunnville, Ontario, will be covered by this legislation.
Specifically, it states that the Minister may enter into agreements with provincial Governments. It would seem to me that if the Minister was serious about providing a program for older workers he would bring in a program that is mandatory across the board.
Why does the Member think the Government would go through this charade? Why does he believe it would provide a program that will do nothing to help the people of Lundy Steel in Dunnville, because the Government has not yet negotiated a program with the Ontario Government?


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague is absolutely correct that there is no assurance that the community he referred to will be helped by the Bill. According to the Bill, the Minister may enter into agreements with provincial Governments, employer organizations or employee organizations or financial institutions in different parts of the country, but it is very discretionary. There is no assurance that the people with the most serious problems will be cared for, and we do not even know to what level. The Bill leaves a lot up in the air.
The budget announced so far for the program is $125 million for approximately five years. That means approximately $25 million a year is to be spread to ten provinces and two Territories.
Furthermore, while eight provinces have said they intend to participate in the program, only three have signed agreements. I believe the Hon. Member's province so far has not gone into this program at all.
These are the matters about which we are very concerned. This looks like a good program on paper, but when one reads the Bill one does not see very much. We support the Bill at this stage, so that it can go to committee where we can hear experts on the Bill and perhaps people from communities like Dunnville, who can tell us about a real life experience with older worker

May 17, 1989
Labour
unemployment. We can hear from those people and get some suggestions about how we can improve the Bill.
It is my hope that the committee which deals with the Bill will amend it to make it better, and send it back to the House so we can support it with greater enthusiasm.


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in today's debate on Bill C-8, an Act to amend the Department of Labour Act. It basically provides older workers adjustment assistance.
I rise in this debate as a Member who represents a number of citizens who should have been the recipients of such programs and on behalf of others who may have to rely on them in the future, assuming my Province of Ontario and the federal Government reach an agreement. I am thinking of the people of Atikokan, a small former mining community of about 6,000. In 1979, Atikokan's whole industry was shut down and 1,100 men were thrown out of work with no other opportunities within that community for them to use their skills. Many of those people, particularly those in the 45 to 65 year old age group were for a number of reasons unable to replace their employment.
These men were open-pit miners. The bodies of many of them, particularly of the older men, had been abused by the kind of work they did and the equipment they operated. While they were able to continue their employment with the companies for which they worked, either Steep Rock or Caland, their skills were not marketable. No one wanted to knowingly acquire the workers' compensation nightmares of the previous employers. Neither would they choose a man of 50 if a man of 25 is available.
Second, these men lived in a community in which they had lived for 25 or more years. They had brought up families and owned homes in this community. It would have been a great expense for them to relocate should they have found employment elsewhere. They got no help from the federal Government of the day.
A co-ordinating committee was set up and civil servants came to talk to these people. Studies were done, but the bottom line was that they got no help.
Even today, there are still men younger than 65 who have no gainful employment. The community in which they live held no other opportunities for them. They could not move to underground mines within the northwest because that required different skills. There were attempts made to give them retraining opportunities, but by and large, all society did was raise their level of expectations only to pull the rug out from underneath them.
These people live in a community that has a current unemployment rate of 25 per cent. An employment study was done of half the community two years ago. Ironically, it is only in the smaller communities that one can do a really good sampling to get a sense of unemployment levels. This study showed that one out of every two residents of Atikokan who was available or willing to work held employment during that year. A large percentage of the unemployed were in the older worker category.
These people could be helped by this legislation if they were to be laid off today. However, they will not be helped because it happened too long ago. We have to learn from that experience.
All of us who come from resource-based communities know that a mine begins to die the day the first shovel is put in the ground. The resources are finite, unlike the forestry sector which at least in theory is renewable, although the federal Government and many provincial Governments have not done what they should have done to protect those resources.
In the forestry based communities, we will also see massive lay-offs because the industry has been cutting trees farther and farther away from the pulp and paper mills or sawmills. There will come a point when lay-offs will have to be made, and we are seeing that point in northwestern Ontario these days. It is partly because of what I was talking about, the greater distance between the mill and the harvesting area. Therefore the cost of production goes up. As well, it is as a result of the policies of the Government which has given in to the United States on the softwood lumber dispute. We are the victims of that, the communities that are losing employment. The people of these communities will have to rely on the $1,100 a month maximum allowable under this program to replace decent union wages of $15 to $20 per hour, wages that could provide a man and a woman
May 17, 1989

Labour
with the income to sustain a family in a northern community. Unfortunately, we will need a lot of access to this program.
I read in some of the documents I have that at the most, 5,000 people will be served by this program. Without much difficulty, I could find 5,000 men and women in northwestern Ontario who would need this program. Their employment will be taken away from them because of economic conditions, because of the high dollar and because of their inability to compete with the Americans or on the world market. They will lose their jobs because of government policy, because of a shortage of wood fibre or because the mineral body has run out. This may not happen tomorrow. It might not happen for 10, 15 or 20 years, but the great Hemlo mine will disappear and with it the boom of Marathon and surrounding communities. Those people will also be in need of a program. By the time that ore body runs out, those workers will be eligible for the Older Worker Adjustment Program.
I can find those 5,000 workers today just in northwestern Ontario. I can go to my own community of Thunder Bay and look at those who work in the grain industry in which in excess of 1,200 men and women were laid off. Add to that the people who work the boats on the Great Lakes and the people who work in the ports downstream from Thunder Bay. Many of them are in that particular age group. Will they be helped by this program? I am not so sure. It does not deal with cyclical lay-offs. It does not deal with the reality of a number of grain-handlers in Thunder Bay who have not worked enough weeks in the last two or three years to allow them to continue to receive unemployment insurance benefits. The bureaucrats will say that they cannot be eligible for this program because they are not permanently laid off. The reality is that there will be fewer and fewer permanent employees working in those elevators from here on in.
Yes, there is a seniority provision that pretty well guarantees that those who have worked there long enough will retain their jobs, although we are seeing people with 15 and 20 years seniority being laid off now. Yes, they will get called back, but there are others in the community who will not be called back, and that is also something with which we have to deal.
The Government of Canada has known the needs of older workers for a number of years. I am sure that in opposition the Conservatives demanded programs of the Liberals to provide protection for older workers. I know we did, because we recognized that on one hand we had an ageing population. On the other hand we recognized the unfortunate realities of how employers view older men and women as being less of a positive investment than a younger worker. We recognized that employers did not look at the quality that they would be getting. Quite frankly, many of these older workers have a lot to contribute, have a lot of knowledge and have a lot of experience.
In societies of days gone past we would look to those older workers for leadership-not just those below 65 but those well above 65-in terms of where we should be going from here, our teachers. Today we tend to put them on the slag heap and leave them to rot.
In addition to dealing with the specific lay-off problems, what we as a society should be doing is making it possible for all our people to afford to live in today's society. As part of that we should make sure that more and more people can afford to retire earlier than they do today. Yes, we have a modest step forward with the changes to the Canada Pension Plan providing for the early out option. Some people are taking advantage of it. I know that between 1984 and 1988 a number of people in the riding of Thunder Bay-Atikokan, and in fact northwestern Ontario, took advantage of it. That did help. That was a form of older worker adjustment.
People of Atikokan took advantage of it. Those who had been laid off and could find no other work were able to get some level of income. I think that we as a society have to work for the day when people can afford to leave the workforce at 55 or at 60 so that in turn those employment opportunities are available for our younger people. We must ensure that they have the income level that is appropriate for their needs and allows them to continue on as full participants in society in a volunteer capacity or whatever capacity they choose.
I do not want to go on much longer. I know that my other colleagues want to participate today. I believe it is important that we do provide these services. It is also important that we provide even more than what we are providing in this legislation. I would encourage if not demand the Province of Ontario and the Government of

May 17, 1989
Labour
Canada to complete their negotiations very quickly so that the older workers of Ontario can share in these benefits, meagre as they are.
I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your attention. I look forward with interest to the remarks of my colleagues and completion of all studies of this Bill.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: On questions or comments, the Hon. Member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace.


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the Hon. Member's remarks, but I would like to ask him a question. As he knows, this Bill is being introduced at a time when the unemployment rate is on the rise again. In the last month's statistics, the unemployment rate went from 7.5 per cent to 7.8 per cent, with over one million Canadians unemployed. The rate in all four Atlantic provinces is over 10 per cent. Despite the fact that the Ontario rate is low, in northern Ontario and in eastern Ontario it is quite high. In British Columbia, it is very high. This is also at a time when unemployment insurance is being cut back and when regional development is being cut back.
We see in this Bill terminology such as "the Minister may" enter into agreements with respect to helping older workers. It is a discretionary sort of provision. It does not define what is a permanent reduction in the workforce. It says that periodic assistance payments will be given, but it does not say what they will be.
In view of what looks like a worsening situation-and by the way the Conference Board of Canada said that the Budget was sort of a recession producing Budget; that it was going to make things worse and that the rate of unemployment was going to increase-does the Hon. Member think that this kind of discretionary legislation where the Minister may or may not and where things are not defined will really give assurance to the workers in Canada who are facing rising unemployment rates, restructuring, mergers and so on that this is going to be of any great help to them? When they read this Bill, will they get any great assurance out of it?


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Member for his questions. With this Government we have seen the reality of discretion. It tends to err not on the side of
caution but seems to go to great lengths to take away from workers. I would prefer to see this legislation being very specific and saying "shall".
The Member talks about the unemployment rates. The part of Ontario that I come from is not doing as well as the Golden Horseshoe. I think that could be said for most of northern Ontario. There are large lay-offs and more to come. We will feel the brunt of the recession much more quickly than other parts of Ontario.
Certainly this Government could have been doing a lot more in terms of beefing up unemployment insurance, instead of cutting it back to match the American system. It could have been changing the unemployment insurance structure, for example. In northwestern Ontario we are all lumped together; every place from White River to the Manitoba border has one unemployment rate. Therefore, under the variable entrance requirements everybody in that area needs the same number of weeks to qualify or requalify.
What has been happening is that we will have a Dryden and a Thunder Bay doing all right and an Atikokan not doing very well with a 25 per cent unemployment rate. Yet, it is penalized because it is grouped in with northwestern Ontario. I believe it is time that the Government recognized its responsibility to ensure that we talk about local unemployment rates instead of regional unemployment rates. Even if we have to stay with the variable entrance requirements, as opposed as to the philosophy that a job is a job is a job and if you do not have one, you do not have one, you do not have one and therefore should have the same kind of access to the system, at the very least it should be moving in a direction to make the system more fair in terms of the delivery of services.


Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, the plight of older workers is a very unique one. Although they are the group that experiences perhaps the lowest unemployment levels, it has a much harder time adjusting to joblessness than any other.
For instance, older workers had a much harder time than any other group of workers in recovering from jobs loss during the recession of the early 1980s. In fact, they
May 17, 1989

still have not completely adjusted to the economic downturn that all Canadians experienced at that time.
In a November 1987 study Statistics Canada reports that the unemployment rate among Canadians over 55 continues to rise. They give up and stop looking for work all together, for instance among 55 to 64 year old persons. The labour participation rate has been going down very marginally, whereas with the over-all population it has been going up significantly.
The average length of unemployment also tells a sad story about older workers. Their length of unemployment is 66 per cent higher than workers unemployed between the ages of 15 and 54. We must remember that that 15 to 54 age group includes unemployed youth who, as we all know, are double the national rate.
It took the Government two and one-half years to set up the program for older worker adjustment. This is an alternative program to the Labour Adjustment Benefit Program set up by the Liberal Government in the early 1980s. The Government saw fit to let the Labour Adjustment Benefit Program for older workers lapse, to leave older workers unemployed in this economy, without a program to provide any assistance, for two and one-half years.
Certainly the Liberal Party supports the concept of the Bill, particularly because of the void that now exists with the lapsing of this program. The area of concern to Liberals is the fact that the program is not broad enough to meet the needs of older worker adjustment, particularly in light of the Free Trade Agreement. Its scope is too limited. Only a small number of older workers will benefit. It is the only program specifically designed for older workers when a range and a variety of programs are needed. Older workers with fewer years of working experience are not included.
Workers would have to exhaust severance pay and unemployment insurance benefits without finding a job before being eligible. We should remember that this is in a period of their lives when many workers are still carrying a mortgage, supporting a family, or perhaps trying to send one or two children to university. It is not simply the older worker who is negatively affected; it is the entire family and the future of that family.
Labour
We are critical of the rather arbitrary assessment criteria for receipt of benefits on a case by case basis, for instance, opportunities for alternative economic prospects, prospects of re-employment, training and mobility. Just how will they be applied and who will they leave out? The maximum benefits are inadequate for many workers at a stage in life and family life at which they find themselves.
The programs are not yet ironclad with the provinces. There is still some concern about the program. Ontario is concerned about the exhaustion of benefits. It wants a more comprehensive approach. It thinks it may do the job in a strong economy now, but with the Budget we have all heard the predictions of recession on the way. What then will happen to older workers?
We have an additional concern since the Budget. Although eight of the provinces have signed an agreement, we have a situation now where those provinces will not be receiving cost sharing programs of revenue transfers from the federal Government which they had expected in this year's Budget. One has to wonder about their ability now to meet commitments they have made under this program. An additional concern is the ability of businesses to use it as a convenient downsizing cushion to supersede their responsibility for their employees.
Various participants at the Liberal task force public forum on free trade worker adjustment representing business, labour and social agencies all said that more and better adjustment for older workers is essential, especially in light of massive lay-offs resulting from the Free Trade Agreement and particularly affecting vulnerable older workers. There is no question that the situation for older workers will only worsen as the 21st century approaches.
The Department of Employment and Immigration predicts that the Canadian labour force is ageing rapidly. The number of members aged 45 to 64 is expected to increase by almost 2 million to 6.7 million before the year 2001. The report by the Advisory Council on Adjustment, known as the de Grandpre report, states that older workers once unemployed take longer to obtain another job. It is interesting to note that the de Grandpre report itself recognizes the limitations of this program before the House today, saying that it is the only form of assistance available specifically for older workers. There is no similar support program for those older workers

Labour
who do not fall under the category of major permanent lay-offs and who have not necessarily been working for 15 of the previous 20 years.
The de Grandpre report recommended that the Government examine the special needs of older workers and determine which measures they require to help them re-enter the workforce. Although it is not enough, a study of this kind would be one step toward long-term planning for long-term older worker adjustment solutions.
The council's report was a very innocuous assessment of the problems Canadians will be facing over the years to come, as a result of the trade agreement.
However, the section on older workers in the report is only two pages of a 171-page document. No concrete recommendations are made other than the suggested study mentioned earlier with this minimal recommendation. I urge the Government to look at this as an inadequate first step toward what will need to be done for older workers in the years to come. The process must be stepped up. Adjustment assistance is needed now.
The contribution plan with the provinces must be clearly laid out and the now vague guidelines clarified. This will make it easier for the provinces to take part and share the responsibility for older worker adjustment. The onus is on the federal Government to make this happen. The onus is also on the Government to follow its own guidelines on dealing with specific groups in Canada. Benefits under this program end at age 65.
The second report of the Standing Committee on Human Rights and the Status of Ageing concurred with the witnesses who appeared before it. The committee condemned mandatory retirement as an obvious instance of age discrimination, wasteful of potentially productive labour and, more pointedly, wasteful of capacities for judgment developed during long experience in the workforce. As well, it was condemned as psychologically destructive and in some cases financially destructive of those still capable of wanting and needing to continue working.
Given the committee's recommendations that the federal and provincial Governments undertake the complete abolition of mandatory retirement with the sole exception of a limited class of occupations directly
involving public safety, the fact that benefits through this program are available up to the age of 65 is not in keeping with fair and humane policies for older workers as stated in the committee's recommendations.
This morning's edition of The Star reported that Metro Toronto's only retraining centre for older workers and immigrants is losing the federal Government's annual funding of $600,000. It is appalling to note that this centre has been used by the federal Government's adjustment service to help workers who lose their jobs as a result of plant closing.
Is this a sign of things to come? It is surely a sign of the Government's commitment to older worker and immigrant adjustment programs. With an inadequate program before the House, surely this is not the time to stifle community initiatives to deal with the problems of older workers. The success rate of the centre was something about which the staff members should be proud. It helped 511 workers since it opened in 1987 and statistics show as few as 14 per cent of them are still looking for work. The Government admits that there is no similar program targeting older workers and immigrants in the Toronto area.
I ask members of the Government how they can live with themselves when worth-while programs like these are being slashed in such a heartless and thoughtless manner. The callousness of this move is only an inkling of colder and harder times to come.
I want to spend a few minutes talking about the federal Government's responsibility as a major employer in this country in terms of older workers. The Government over the last few years has cajoled, bribed and virtually forced retirements of workers at least ten years before they were ready to retire, to their economic disadvantage in many cases and to the loss to the Government and to the public of Canada of many years of worth-while and wise experience gained through serving the Canadian public.
The Worker Adjustment Program put forward by the Government for its own employees is not a model that we should be encouraging the private sector to adopt. We have a unique opportunity as an employer, and again as the largest employer in Canada, to develop models within the workplace for the adjustment of workers on a continual basis.
May 17, 1989

We have the Bill before us. It is a relief after two and a half years finally to have something that deals with older workers and with the severe problems they face when they are laid off or forced out of work at a late stage in life.
I wish I could say that the kind, nice and great sounding words in the Budget talking about human resource development in this country were really recognized in the Bill before the House. I do not think they are. I think it proves again that we are dealing with empty rhetoric. When it comes to real people in real need of our help to keep their skills fresh and to be able to participate in the workforce, it just is not there or it is there inadequately.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Steve Butland (Sault Ste. Marie):: Mr. Speaker, it was perhaps divine coincidence that I went to my office about 15 minutes ago and found on my desk a news release about Phil Latulippe, a 70 year old gentleman who is going to run across Canada. One can appreciate the abilities of older people. He is 70 years of age. I wonder what the 55 to 64 year old group can do.
For a moment I would like to talk about the antithesis of older workers. I think we often look at the two extremes of society: the plight of our young and the plight of our old. I look at my community of Sault St. Marie. We have lost 2,000 young people aged 18 to 21 in the past four years. I think that plight is quite similar for the old people, except they cannot escape to another community to seek out work as readily as the young, although both situations are probably as deplorable.
On this side of the House, we have noted that only the Minister himself has decided to speak on this particular issue. We are wondering if the Government is not terribly proud of its own legislation. It makes one wonder whether we will see it on television in the form of ads to introduce it and convince us that it is good for all Canadians.
With the young, they are either too young or inexperienced. With the old, they are too old or too set in their ways, untrainable, and perhaps too experienced.
Labour
We talk about the Free Trade Agreement. We have words like "rationalization". Just yesterday, we had a new word, "reprofiling". There is also "deregularization". These words are damaging. It is resulting in closures of long established plants, laying off people who were doing specialized labour for years and years.
These people become unwanted. In fact, I suppose they almost become outcasts, in their own minds, untouchable by the new hustling, bustling industry as introduced by this Government through the Free Trade Agreement. It is exacerbated by the Free Trade Agreement, which even the Government recognized. It suggested that displacement through free trade would be a fact of life. This legislation will perhaps help to alleviate the situation, but it is much too little to address the problem truly.
We have an ageing society, but as we age, I think we are doing it more gracefully, more energetically, more exuberantly in our zest for life. Older people are not prepared to be put out to pasture but want to be an integral part of our workforce. They do not want to be treated as an afterthought. They want to continue to be a true force in society and part of the workforce.
This particular legislation makes reference to major lay-offs only. It leads one to think about what happens to the group of two, the group of five, or the group of ten lay-offs in plants. These people will suffer the very same consequence as individuals or groups of individuals of 500 strong. They will suffer the very same consequence, but apparently their concerns will not be addressed with this legislation.
It mentions the word "proportion" as a test for qualifying for this particular legislation. What would the proportion be? Two out of one hundred to qualify? Fifty per cent? I am sure it is going to be at the upper levels of percentages before these people will qualify.
Is it universal? Is it sacred trust? It certainly will not be universal. It will be as universal as Old Age Security and family allowance, but at least those are being dismantled on a piece by piece approach. This program, which should be universal, is not. At least it makes no pretence to be.
One really has to wonder about the consultation process. If one puts a figure of $125 million up for grabs, the amount is set and then one negotiates the program

Labour
around the amount. May I suggest that this is a backward approach. One should put the program in place to approach the problem and then set a figure to it.
I suppose the number of applications for this particular program will have to be divided by three, regardless of the need for the program.
A real surprise to me when I asked which Minister across the floor would be introducing this legislation was that it proved to be a man renowned as the ex-president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. The Minister was loud in his cry and lobbied very hard for the 1,200-plus municipalities of this country to have the Government introduce the "big fix", as it is called, which would produce 60,000 jobs in five years for young, middle aged and old people, and would bring the infrastructure of this country back into place.
I am sure he must have been saddened today when he introduced this legislation and compared it to what he previously talked about and espoused.
In 1984 the allotment was $50 million. In 1989 it is $42 million. This is obviously the antithesism of what should be in place. There is less money now and the population is ageing very quickly. In fact, the amount should be much greater.
We on this side of the House in the New Democratic Party agree with the principle of this bill. We encourage its speedy passage. We are very concerned that if we do not pass it quickly the Government might take it back, which would be very consistent with its actions as of late.
It is rather unfortunate that the senior population of this country basically has to beg for every crumb, every hand-out, and has to lobby very diligently. Indeed, it has become a very strong and effective lobby group with government. Let us get on with it. It is not exemplary or acceptable, but it is a great improvement over what we have.


Mr. David D. Stupich (Nanaimo-Cowichan):: Mr. Speaker, in the northern part of my constituency some 40 years ago a major industry was closing down. One coal mine after another ceased operating, and there was great concern in that area about the economic future of the Nanaimo-Ladysmith-Chemainus part of the riding.
By good luck more than by planning, I would think, it happened that we had another resource, the forest resource, and a major pulp mill was opened up just as the last of the coal mines was closing. There was no program such as this available to the workers at that time, but fortunately the new industry took on older and younger workers alike. It had an almost insatiable appetite for workers. There was no problem getting a job when that pulp mill was open. Over the course of time, it built up into a plant that employed over 2,000 people. That is one of the pulp mills in the riding which I now represent. There is another pulp and paper mill, innumerable sawmills and many logging operations, all connected with the forest industry and all providing employment, which has been good.
However, in the course of the last 10 years, while the amount of product has been increasing-the log production has increased, the lumber production has increased, pulp and paper has increased-yet there has been an increase in lay-offs in the forest industry at all levels.
For example, I mentioned the Harmac Pulp Mill at Nanaimo, which together with the salt plant, employed over 2,100 people at one time. It is now getting along with approximately half that number of people and producing more product. But it was a gradual thing that happened over the last 10 plus years.
For example, a sawmill at Uboe that at one time employed approximately 1,000 people currently employs less than 20 per cent of that number. Yet the production of lumber has increased. This is a pattern that has developed all over the riding where there has not been a major lay-off, at least not major in terms of what is happening in Canada as a whole. When a sawmill in a community closes down totally, it is major for that community. Even if it only a partial lay-off, it is certainly major for the families involved in that particular lay-off.
That is where this legislation, as much as we welcome it, does not deal with the kind of problem that we have had in the past 10 years, particularly in Nanaimo-Cowichan. It would have dealt with the situation 40 years ago when the coal mines closed down in total, but it does not deal with a gradual loss of employment. It is not a major thing in terms of what has happened in Canada. It is
May 17, 1989

major, as I say, in some communities. It is certainly major in some families.
There was one forest company that was in the habit in the last 10 years of phoning me every two years or so and inviting me to have lunch with some of the directors of the company. After this happened two or three times, I knew that that it was bad news. They wanted to invite me to lunch so they could tell me how many men were going to be laid off in this particular community. I would hear it from them first, and would then be ready for the repercussions from the community and from the workers. I never once received a luncheon engagement invitation when they were providing more employment. It was always to inform me of people being laid off. It was a regular pattern, and over the last 10 years in particular.
My concern with this legislation is that it does not help people when a plant is closing down totally. Perhaps it will help when it is closing down in part, when it is a relatively large plant that is important to the people, important to the community. That is where this legislation falls down. What we need, as others have pointed out before me, is a broader and more universal approach to the needs of older workers. Some of these companies have a very good community spirit. They are tiying to do what they can under this situation. They try to provide alternative employment or get the workers to move to other areas. But it is much easier for a younger worker to move to a new community knowing that he has a certain number of years to work in that occupation than it is for an older person. Older people are invited to take early retirement, and sometimes attractive packages can be made available to them which they accept. But it is the workers caught between, the ones not quite old enough for early retirement, yet too old to be as flexible in their movement as are the younger ones, that need assistance.
It is not enough to talk of retraining for them. What are they going to be retrained for in those communities? We cannot really have everybody leaving Vancouver Island looking for work and coming to the Toronto area in Ontario. There has been a lot of that. A lot of trades people, a lot of workers of all kinds have left Vancouver Island over the last 10 years to come to Ontario where things are booming. But that is not an alternative for older workers. Retraining for jobs that do not exist is not terribly appealing either. There has to be a more comprehensive approach, a way of finding alternative job
Labour
opportunities that do not now exist in those communities but could exist with proper planning. Therefore we do need the broader more universal approach.
We need the earnings benefit based formula that was available under the Labour Adjustment Benefits Program. It paid two-thirds of the individual's earnings, which is not enough. Certainly when they were getting full earnings, they were not getting any more than they were spending. But to cut them back and to say it is less than two-thirds is just not good enough. We need legislative guarantees of provincial and employer participation. I told you of an example where an employer was prepared to participate, but it depended upon the goodwill of that employer. That is something that you can count on perhaps when times are good, when the employer is doing very well. But if the employer is not doing very well, they are not so anxious to voluntarily participate in this kind of program.
We need the establishment of a job protection board to evaluate lay-offs, share adequate notice and ensure that the terms of POWA are negotiated before the lay-off takes effect.
In general there is warning and time to prepare, but we need protection to make sure that this happens. We cannot always depend upon the good grace of the employer.
We need a levy grant system to ensure that the employers contribute to training. There are employers who do that and some that do not. But we want legislative protection for these older workers who have contributed the best part of their working lives and are not yet old enough for early retirement, if that is available, and yet too old to uproot and move to new communities and new job opportunities.
We support the legislation but we argue that it does not go far enough to look after today's problems for the older workers, certainly not in my riding.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: On a point of order, the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the three Parties. I understand that the Official Opposition, the Liberal Party, probably has one more speaker that they would wish to have on this legislation, and I understand that the NDP would have either two or

May 17, 1989
Labour
three more speakers to speak to this particular piece of legislation.
We have had discussions among the House Leaders and among the Parties, and I think you will find there is unanimous consent for this motion, Mr. Speaker.
That this House continue to sit beyond 6 o'clock p.m., for the
purpose of concluding consideration of the second reading motion of
Bill C-8, and that the sitting be then suspended to the call of the
Chair to await certain messages from the Senate and for the purpose
of giving Royal Assent to Bill C-14.


Mr. Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, I can confirm that the motion just moved is the result of consultations among the Parties. I would be happy to agree that leave be given to hear the motion and that it be accepted. With respect to the number of speakers, as far as I am aware, we have one more speaker. The individual in question is taking part in the committee hearing and may not be able to be back in time. If that is the case, he will obviously speak at a subsequent stage of the debate.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member from Thunder Bay-Atikokan on the same point of order.


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, I just want to confirm that, yes, there have been consultations and the approach is acceptable. I am not sure of the number of additional speakers that we have, but we certainly appreciate the co-operation of the government side in terms of allowing the debate to continue. We look forward to its conclusion.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Does the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary have the unanimous consent to move his motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Deputy 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. Deputy Speaker:: On a point of order, the Hon. Member for Sault St. Marie (Mr. Butland).


Steve Butland: Mr. Speaker, I understand that some of my comments and criticisms earlier in my speech were inappropriate, and it was agreed upon by government Members to allow us to
speak, and they agreed not to speak. So I apologize for those comments.


Mr. James:: That takes care of the problem.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Resuming debate. The Hon. Member for Essex-Windsor (Mr. Langdon).


Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Mr. Speaker, as I think back to my last term as a Member of Parliament, one of the most difficult situations I faced as an MP was having groups of workers come before me from one of the long-time plants in our city, Champion Spark Plugs. During the deepest part of the recession in the early 1980s, those workers had access to the Labour Adjustment Benefits Program. That program was ultimately taken away from them in 1983. The consequence was that when the next major lay-off hit Champion Spark Plug, many older workers who were in precisely the same situation as people who had faced lay-offs two years previously, or in some cases one and a half years previously, found that they were not eligible for benefits at the same time as their colleagues had already started to receive such benefits under LAB.
That told me two things, Mr. Speaker. First, it was very important to replace the Labour Adjustment Benefits Program with a program which covered all workers, potentially at least, who would suffer significant lay-offs. It also told me that it was crucial to have flexibility built into this program, whatever came to replace LAB.
Therefore, I was very pleased in the last Parliament when, in 1986, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) announced in his Budget that a program for older worker adjustment was going to be established. It was something which was overdue. It was something that we certainly felt would cover the problems of workers such as those at Champion Spark Plug, and workers in other parts of the auto industry in my constituency and in adjoining constituencies in the Windsor area.
It has been with a growing sense of anger and impatience that I have waited to see this legislation actually come before the House of Commons. Again and again myself, and our employment critic at that time, kept asking questions of the Government as to when was it actually going to bring in the legislation to put into effect a promise which it had made, a solid commitment that it had made.
May 17, 1989

Again and again the answer came back to us that the Government was in the final process of coming to an agreement with the provinces. It was in the final process of doing so in 1986. It was still in the final process of doing so at the beginning of 1987. As we came close to the end of 1987, it was still in the process of coming to agreement on this plan.
Finally, we came to 1988 and our questions started to become somewhat more strident and somewhat more emotional. By that stage the LAB Program itself had run out, and it was not possible for any worker across the country, regardless of the sector of the economy within which that worker had been employed, for him or her to get access to adjustment benefits. Despite the fact that LAB had run out, we still heard precisely the same answer.
I am pleased to tell the Hon. Member that we are at the final stages of negotiation. Finally, we have the Bill in front of us, and still the Government is in the final stages of negotiation with two of the provinces. This demonstrates to me that there has not been a sense of urgency and deep human concern about this problem.
There are many of us who represent communities in which this issue is not some sort of abstraction, but a very cruel reality. Individuals came to our offices and met with us in large meetings and, in a number of cases, those individuals also met with representatives from the Ministry of Labour. They pushed very hard for something to take place. Yet again and again they had to be told that we had done everything that we could to get this legislation put before the House, and it still had not appeared.
In fact, it took the emergence of a pre-election situation for the Government to come to an agreement with the Province of Quebec, and on the basis of that agreement announced that this program was finally going to go into effect. In fact, it is not going into effect across the country because agreement has not yet been reached with the Provinces of Ontario or British Columbia. I suspect that those two provinces, together with the Province of Quebec, experience the bulk of these layoffs.
I do not want to go on castigating the Government for neglect, because it has finally brought a Bill before us. However, the point is that this Bill which it is before us today, when negotiations are still incomplete, could have been brought before us two years ago when negotiations
Labour
were still incomplete. At that stage, it would have done two things.
First, it would have applied pressure on the provinces to get agreements established with the federal Government. Second, it would have told workers throughout the country that something was going to take place very quickly. There is simply no question that, when one talks to older workers in my constituency and, I am sure, in constituencies throughout the country, that we are talking about a very serious structural problem which needs a response of urgent concern from the Government. It is simply much more difficult for older workers to make the transition to new employment. It is much more difficult for an older worker to persuade a company to let him or her into that pension plan when it is built on the basis of someone building up 30 years of seniority. It is much more difficult to persuade a company that, if training or special skills are required, once those skills are learned the five or six years remaining before retirement will be as valuable to that company as the time it takes for a 20 or 25 year old who comes into the company to build up those specialized skills and work for another 30 to 35 years.
There are two other points about this Bill that concern me greatly, as I think back to what the Government kept telling us in the last Parliament. First, the Government said it was absolutely crucial to have a system to help all older workers and not only those in specific industries, as was the case with Labour Adjustment Benefits Program. That was the Government's reason for shifting to this new approach. Yet this Bill sets up some quite arbitrary criteria. At this stage we do not even know what will be the regulations setting out these criteria, but they will require that the older worker who is helped be subject to a major lay-off, be in an area where there is a great deal of unemployment, and in a community where it is hard to shift to another job. That does not meet the commitment the Government made to see that all older workers would have access to this program.
It does not make any difference to an older worker who is facing transitional problems whether he was one of 150 workers coming from Champion Spark Plug or one of three workers coming from a small plant in Essex in my riding. He or she will still face precisely the same difficulty and precisely the same problems. I cannot, for the life of me, see the logic of the differentiation being set up in this Bill whereby the Government will help some older workers and will not help others. When this Bill goes to committee I very much hope that when we

May 17, 1989
Labour
hear the testimony of older workers who have experienced what it is like to face this situation, it will persuade the Government to make amendments and change its approach.
Finally, let me deal with one part of the Bill which disturbs me a great deal. Pursuant to this legislation, the Government is setting up an economic program which is being delivered not by the Government, not by the public authorities who are responsible for it, but by private enterprise. As our critic for privatization, I must say that this is the ultimate cop-out on the part of the public authority. This program has some serious faults yet the Government is abdicating entirely its responsibility in administering it. If someone complains to the deposit institution which will administer this program that they have not received their cheque for the month, the deposit institution will not feel responsible. It will be able to say that it is the Government's fault. If the person in turn goes to his or her Member of Parliament to complain that he or she does not have the cheque, the Department of Labour will be able to say that it is the fault of the deposit institution.
A program that is the responsibility of the Government will not be run by the Government, by public servants or by people whose commitment is to serve the workers, but by people whose fundamental commitment is to make money, quite rightly, as a profit-making institution. I think this is an extremely dangerous precedent. This approach is extremely dangerous for older workers.
I hope the Government will listen to the people who will testify in front of the legislative committee on this Bill and take very seriously the complaints that I have already received with respect to the decision to put the administration of a public program into the hands of private, profit-making institutions.
On behalf of hundreds and probably thousands of older workers in my community and communities across the country, while it is good that this legislation will be passed in principle, let us get it right in detail. Let us make sure that in the legislative committee the points I talked about today, and other points that have been
raised by my colleague will be taken into consideration before the Bill comes back to us for final passage.


Mr. Lyle Kristiansen (Kootenay West-Revelstoke):: Mr. Speaker, I think it is very appropriate that I should have the opportunity to address a few comments to the House on Bill C-8, an Act to amend the Department of Labour Act.
One of the reasons it is appropriate is that I worked for some 15 years in a plant that was designated under the ILAP, which later became the MILAP, the Modified Industry and Labour Adjustment Program, as it was applied to the workers of my constituency. That occurred following the 1984 general election.
I was the Member of Parliament for Kootenay West from 1980 to 1984, and one of the last things I was able to do as a Member before I had my four years off for good behaviour was to get the Central Kootenay Regional District designated under the ILAP program at approximately the same time as was the constituency of Nanaimo-Albemi. Those were the first two constituencies in British Columbia, and I believe in western Canada, to be designated under that program.
I was still an employee of Kootenay Forest Products sawmill in Nelson during my first term as a Member of Parliament, and up until about three weeks after the September 1984 election. About two weeks after that election, I reported back to work and two weeks later, the mill was permanently closed. We became the first industrial operation in British Columbia to be so designated and in which senior employees were able to benefit from the terms of the labour adjustment program.
Because of the actions of the Government that was elected in September of 1984, we were also the last industrial operation in British Columbia, and I believe in western Canada, to benefit from that program. I suppose that is a new version of the saying, the first shall be last and the last shall be first. In our case, that was exactly the situation.
I was some ten years too young to directly benefit from the program. It felt good to know that some of my activities and those of the former Hon. Member for Nanaimo-Albemi, Ted Miller, who along with me fought for several years to see that western resource industries would be able to benefit from the terms of the
May 17,1989	COMMONS DEBATES	1881
ILAP program were finally successful. I was able to see some of my long-standing fellow employees benefit from that program. While I was happy to see my fellow employees being recipients of that program, I was more than a little surprised to learn that they would be the last people in western Canada so to benefit.
When I read this Bill, an Act to amend the Department of Labour Act, I realize that it has been three years since the Government made a commitment to introduce this legislation. I have come to realize what the term "Progressive Conservative" really means, especially considering that under the former labour adjustment program, the cost was some $50 million a year, and under this program, it is to be $42 million a year, five years later. That is inverse progress. I suppose that is progress in a conservative way or even worse than a conservative way. Perhaps there is some logic to the way the Government operates after all.
The answers that I gather my colleagues received between 1984 and 1988 were that the program was under consideration, under active consideration or would be coming soon. I could not help but think of a phrase that is used in a British television program entitled Yes, Minister. Some Hon. Members who have had the good fortune to watch that program from time to time will remember certain definitions. "Under consideration" means they have lost the file. "Under active consideration" means they have lost it but they are looking for it. They lost it and they looked for it and it took them three years to put this together.
We welcome the fact that retroactively, we will receive some benefits, for a limited number of people, even though they are not as good. At least it is some progress over the vacuum there was during that three or four year period. But what did it take the Government three years to produce? I would like to read the Bill into the record so that those who read Hansard will know exactly what it took three year' work to accomplish. The Act to amend the Department of Labour Act reads:
Her Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate and House of Commons of Canada, enacts as follows:
1. The Department of Labour Act is amended by adding thereto the following section:
Labour
"5 (1) Subject to the approval of the Governor in Council, the Minister may enter into agreements with provincial governments, employers, employer organizations, employees, employee organizations, financial institutions or such other persons or entities as the Minister considers appropriate, for the purpose of making provision for periodic income assistance payments to
(a)	former employees at an establishment whose employment has been terminated at any time since December 31, 1987, by reason of a permanent reduction in the work force engaged in an identifiable economic activity at the establishment and who, at the time of the termination, were fifty-five years of age or more but less than sixty-five years of age; or
(b)	former employees at an establishment in an industry that was a designated industry on August 12, 1986 whose employment has been terminated, at any time since the industry ceased to be a designated industry, by reason of a permanent reduction in the work force engaged in an identifiable economic activity at the establishment and who, at the time of termination, were fifty-five years of age or more but less than sixty-five years of age or, in the case of a reduction taking effect before October 6, 1988, were persons less than sixty-five years of age the sum of whose age and length of service in designated industries was not less than eighty years.
(2) In paragraph (l)(b), "designated industry" means an industry designated pursuant to section 3 of the Labour Adjustments Benefits Act".
That is all. That is what took three years of consideration, active consideration and study. Even so, there is only agreement in principle, not in any detailed way, of eight of the ten provinces, and the two richest provinces, Ontario and British Columbia, still have not even agreed in principle to this little Bill.
No wonder the Government has problems measuring productivity. I would not want to call this an elephant. It is more like a mouse, but it had the gestation period of an elephant or something very close to it. It really makes me wonder what the Department of Labour has been doing in the last three to four years. Is this the kind of priority that working people across Canada can expect from a Progressive Conservative Government? Is this the definition of urgency that we can expect from the Government? Is this what older working Canadians can expect from the Government? It does boggle the mind.
Admittedly, the previous labour adjustment program only applied to certain industries; textiles, footwear, tanning and clothing. Not only in the ridings of British Columbia but in other ridings in central and eastern Canada were we able to get specific area designations as well so that senior workers could benefit from the

Labour
provisions of that program. It is not quite correct to say that only people in those industries were previously able to benefit.
Another problem with this Bill is that there is no provision for the individual older worker displaced in non-major lay-offs. There is to be a committee composed of two representatives of provincial Departments of Labour and two from the federal Department of Labour who will decide what is a major lay-off. There is no yardstick, no definition to guide them in their decision. For those of us who have had to deal over some period of time with various levels of government bureaucracy, it is a matter of some concern to see a very loose definition just left hanging for a few officials to make the actual determination.
The other problem with this program is that if we take the estimated average benefit for employees who will come under its terms at approximately $10,000, the amount of funding will provide benefits to only some 5,000 workers. Given the number of dislocations, and even the Government that sold the so-called Free Trade Agreement, and admitted that there would be major dislocations in industries right across Canada, 5,000 is a drop in the bucket. The Government is placing that kind of a limit on a program which is to benefit those senior Canadians in the workforce who really have no other option but to find some other means of income other than working for wages or salaries. Many of them will come out of blue collar industries, and I am sure that many Members are aware their numbers have been declining very rapidly over the last few years.
In the Province of British Columbia alone, in the period from 1982 to approximately 1986, the membership in my own union, the IWA, dropped from some 50,000 to some 25,000 or 30,000. That kind of decline in blue collar industry is still occurring.
In that industry or in the mining and smelting industry, the nature of the work, the occupational hazards and working environment is such that, by the time the workers are 45 or 50 if they get displaced, the chances of finding another occupation are very few, especially with other companies undergoing similar kinds of reductions and rationalizations. When companies hire they want to
hire the most productive and healthy workers. If the workers have had injuries, and almost anyone who has worked in the forest industry or the mining or smelting industry for 20 or 25 years has accumulated quite a few of them, they are not in the best shape to be able to start off in a new industry or new company.
I can recall one example of a fellow that was just a few months into eligibility for the program in my hometown of Nelson. He was of Italian origin. He had only a Grade in education in Italy before coming to this country. He had put over 20 years into that particular company and into the forest industry. Even at that time in order to qualify, he had to go back to school and they wanted to teach him English. Certainly for the kind of work he had been doing he had a fairly good command of the language but only in terms of oral skills. He did not read or write English. He was going to have a great deal of difficulty. At that point in his life, having not been in a school since the third grade, to go in and start learning English just seemed like a total waste to him and the environment was entirely foreign to him. He came to me almost in tears, not only over that but for some other problems he was having because of the major cut in income. He explained that he felt like a bloody fool. This is a person who normally would be full of pride and full of vigour and certainly able to do the type of job that he had been doing but there were no more of those kinds of jobs around.
I heard at least one Member on the other side, I suppose it was the Minister, suggest that, "Well, the employment situation is much brighter now. We won't have the same kind of problems as we had during the early 1980s."
I would like to say that the unemployment picture in my own constituency of Kootenay West-Revelstoke in the period of the last four or five months has gone up in its two employment regions from either 10 per cent or 12 per cent, to 16 per cent, 17 per cent or 19 per cent. The resource recession or depression that occurred back in the early 1980s, as far as we are concerned in my part of British Columbia, is happening all over again.
We are likely to see even more of this kind of dislocation. We thought at one time we had seen the last of this at least for our working lifetime. It certainly is not a very cheering scenario for any of us.

May 17, 1989

I am glad that however long it has taken it, and however little is here, the Government has finally given birth to this amendment. It will see that those senior workers in various parts of the country and in various industries, at least up to 5,000 of them in a year will get some help. I hope it is the beginning of a stronger and larger commitment, and that we as a Parliament, representing all Parties, will begin to give a higher priority to those who have produced the wealth of this country, particularly in the more higher risk industries when dislocation or unemployment befalls them.
Back in the 1930s, Mr. Speaker, there was a song written about older workers who had been cast aside. I would just like to read it into the record:
They put horses to pasture, they feed them on hay, liven machines get retired some day.
The bosses get pensions when their days are through,
Fat pensions for them, brother, nothing for you Who will take care of you,
How'll you get by
When you're too old to work and too young to die?
That was written some 50 years ago. Unfortunately, it describes a situation that is still all too familiar to many workers, particularly in heavy industry and in those regions of Canada that are still suffering from serious and aggravated proportions of unemployment.
It is well past time that we get our priorities straight and ensure that we provide decent retirement incomes at an appropriate age. Even Italy, in high risk industries has caught up and surpassed us immeasurably in the last few years, because people in heavy and high risk industries are able automatically to go on pensions at age 55. They do not have to wait for a closure or a lay-off. Their society has recognized that heavy industry takes its toll. We ought to begin realizing that too.
It is with some measure of satisfaction that I at least see a few more colleagues in this House of Commons who have spent a good part of their lifetime in heavy industry. When I was here previously I believe that there were two of us. Now I think we have been multiplied at least threefold or fourfold but it is still less than a dozen.
Perhaps we may over the next few months be able to implant some sense of urgency, some sense of priority to those people who spend so much of their working lives behind gates or behind barbed wire, who are not seen by
Labour
the public and whose problems are not recognized by the public because of that.
If you are a retail clerk, or a bank teller, or a teacher, people tend to see you where you work. They can identify a little bit with your problems. For industrial workers, that is not the way it is. It is industrial workers who are being increasingly laid off and cast aside as we go through the various dislocations that our economy is undergoing.
I am glad that the Government has laboured, even if it has only produced a mouse. It is a welcome mouse and we will support it.


Mr. Robert D. Nault (Kenora-Rainy River):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today at this late date to address the legislation before this House, that is, Bill C-8, an Act to amend the Department of Labour Act, as it relates to the program for older worker adjustment.
We on this side of the House have been waiting for this Bill for a long time. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) announced this program in February of 1986. It has taken this Government over three years to get this piece of legislation before the House. In the early 1970s, the Liberal Government recognized the need for policies which would protect older workers facing lay-offs in designated industries. In 1982, all policies affecting older workers were amalgamated and the Labour Adjustment Benefits Act was passed.
When the Conservative Government announced its intention to create a new program for older worker adjustment in February 1986, it put an end to the old LAB Program. Older workers in this country have been waiting for over three years for this new program and many have suffered undue hardships as a result of delays in getting this legislation before the House.
The Government is increasingly dependent upon the provinces. We have seen program after program shifted to the provinces. The program for older worker adjustments is no different. In fact, this program is contingent on the province's participation. This is of great concern to me, given that agreements have not yet been signed with the Provinces of Ontario and British Columbia.
There are several questions which need to be answered. At what stage are the negotiations with these two provinces? Is there a reluctance on the part of Ontario and British Columbia to participate and, if so,

May 17, 1989
Labour
why? What will happen to the older workers of Ontario and British Columbia if these provinces refuse to participate? Will the older workers be left out in the cold? Will this mean there will be no assistance for older workers in Ontario and British Columbia?
Workers of all ages suffered job losses in the recession of the early 1980s, but older workers have not benefited from the recovery. A study in November 1987 by Statistics Canada shows that even though young workers had returned to the workplace in 1986, the unemployment rate among Canadians over 55 years of age continued to rise. Older workers have a harder time in getting back into the labour force, and they collect unemployment insurance benefits longer than any other group.
In 1988 the average duration of unemployment for those aged 45 and over was 26 weeks compared to 12 weeks for young people. I am relieved that the Government saw fit to include a retroactive clause in this legislation which will assist older workers who fell between the cracks after the Government cancelled the LAB Program. While the legislation is long overdue this retroactive clause is most welcome.
Let us briefly look at the budget or this new program. A former Liberal Government introduced the Labour Adjustment Benefit Program in the early 1980s with a budget of $125.6 million over three years. This new program will be given a budget of $125 million over five years, cost shared with the provinces. This Government is not taking into account the annual rate of inflation or the rise in the cost of living. It has not considered the large number of older workers who will qualify under this program.
The principle behind this legislation is good. However, the program itself needs some fine tuning. I hope once it gets to committee stage Members will recommend certain changes to the program which will make it fair and equitable for all older workers.
As it stands now major permanent lay-offs will be assessed on a case by case basis. While there are some loosely worded criteria in the program outline provided by the Department such as disruption in a region, the size of a lay-off and the number of older workers affected, there are no specifics on what constitutes a major lay-off. No specifics on what kind of disruption in a region must occur and no specifics on how many older
workers must be affected before qualifying for benefits under this program.
These questions must be addressed at the committee stage. There have been significant lay-offs in the softwood lumber industry in northern Ontario as a result of the imposition of the 15 per cent export tax on softwood lumber products. At the moment the softwood lumber industry in northern Ontario cannot benefit from regional development programs offered by FEDNOR. I sincerely hope that older workers who have been laid off in the softwood lumber industry will benefit from assistance under the program for older worker adjustment. I hope these workers will not be given the same treatment their employers have been given.
This legislation clearly states that the federal contribution will be contingent on a provincial financial contribution. This worries me and members of my Party a great deal, given that agreements with Ontario and British Columbia have yet to be signed. The program for older worker adjustment refers to lay-offs and the employer participating in the program. Again, what is not clear in this program is whether or not an employer laying off workers due to a plant closure will qualify under the terms of this program.
The Department's briefing on the program's financing states, and I quote: "Maximum feasible financial participation will be sought from the employer". I fail to see how employers can be asked for a maximum feasible financial contribution when this Government has already forced employers and employees to carry the burden of unemployment insurance premiums. The Government continues to shift the burden of financial responsibility to the provinces and to the employers. We do not know if older workers affected by mergers and takeovers will qualify under the terms of this program. We do not know if older workers laid off due to severe cut-backs in the VIA Rail subsidy will qualify for benefits under this program, nor do we know if older workers who have lost their jobs due to the Free Trade Agreement will receive benefits.
These are questions which must be addressed when the legislation moves to the committee stage. There are many ambiguities in this piece of legislation. Will older workers who are receiving benefits under this program and who find work after they are in the program have to requalify to at least 750 hours of work annually, should they be laid off after two or three years? Or, will they be
May 17, 1989

The Royal Assent
reinstated for benefits once their unemployment insurance runs out? These are questions which really must be answered.
Finally, Hon. Members on this side of the House support the basic concepts of the program for older worker adjustment. However, we will ensure that this new program provides more assistance to older workers than the old LAB Program. There are many unanswered questions in this Bill, and we in the Liberal Party will want these questions answered. This Government must realize the hardships faced by older workers, and it must protect them from these hardships.
the Government of Canada for the financial year ending the 31st March, 1990.
For the information of Hon. Members, these messages will be printed in today's Votes and Proceedings and copies will be available on the Thble, in both official languages.



THE ROYAL ASSENT

['I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate does not insist upon the amendment with which the House of Commons did not concur, concerning Bill C-14, an Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Government of Canada for the financial year ending the 31st March, 1990.\nI have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House of the recommendations of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance concerning Bill C-14, an Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for']
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is the House ready for the question?


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


Mr.   Deputy. Speaker@: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received as follows:
Rideau Hall Ottawa


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
['Agreed.']
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Pursuant to Order adopted earlier today, the sitting is suspended to the call of the Chair.
At 18.27 the sitting of the House was suspended.
May 17,1989 Sir,
I have the honour to inform you that the Honourable Antonio Lamer, Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court of Canada, in his capacity as Deputy Governor General, will proceed to the Senate Chamber today, the 17th day of May, 1989, at 6.50 p.m., for the purpose of giving Royal Assent to a Bill.
Yours sincerely,
Leopold H. Amyot Secretary to the Governor General.



[Stage Direction]
The House resumed at 7.18 p.m.

Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate does not insist upon the amendment with which the House of Commons did not concur, concerning Bill C-14, an Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Government of Canada for the financial year ending the 31st March, 1990.
I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House of the recommendations of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance concerning Bill C-14, an Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for



[Stage Direction]
A message was delivered by the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod as follows:
Mr. Speaker, the Honourable Deputy to the Governor General desires the immediate attendance of this honourable House in the Chamber of the honourable the Senate.
Accordingly, the Speaker with the House went up to the Senate Chamber.
[Stage Direction]
And being returned:
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that when the House went up to the Senate Chamber, the Deputy Governor General was pleased to give, in Her Majesty's name, the Royal Assent to the following Bill:
Bill C-14, Appropriation Act No. 1, 1989-90-Chapter 1.

May 17, 1989
The Royal Assent
It being 7.32 p.m, this House stands adjourned until The House adjourned at 7.32 p.m. tomorrow at 11 a.m., pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 24.

Thursday, May 18,1989