1989-12-19

Hon. Doug Lewis (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table, in both official languages, a number of Order in Council appointments which were made by the government. Pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 110(1), these are deemed referred to the appropriate standing committees, a list of which is attached.


PETITIONS
Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Government House Leader):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government responses to several petitions.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



THE ECONOMY


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, today I am pleased to announce important changes to the goods and services tax that will be incorporated in the final legislation to be placed before Parliament.
The key change is that the 9 per cent tax rate, originally proposed in the technical paper, will be reduced to 7 per cent. The changes meet a number of objectives. They ensure that the economic benefits from the GST will be achieved quickly and smoothly. They maintain our commitment to protect lower and modest income Canadians. They address concerns that the GST is too complex and they achieve a reduction in the rate, in part by spending reductions that improve the efficiency of government.
Since the release of the technical paper the House of Commons finance committee has been most helpful in providing Canadians across the country with a forum for discussion and suggestions. At this time I would like to thank the members of the committee and its chairman, the hon. member for Mississauga South, for the very important work that they have done.
My colleagues in the government and I have listened carefully to the views of Canadians.

We have heard broad support for the need to replace the existent harmful manufacturers' sales tax and recognition that the GST, once implemented, will help to produce a more efficient, expanding Canadian economy. Canada is the only industrial country that still has a manufacturers' tax; 48 other countries have adopted sales taxes similar to the GST.

While there was broad agreement on the need for a change, a major concern about the GST was that the rate was too high and the initial impact on prices posed too great a risk of an ongoing inflationary response.
I have said all along that the rate could only be lowered with difficult trade-offs and that the careful balance of the GST package would have to be maintained. This we have done. The lower rate has been made possible by new spending restraint measures and tax changes.

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By reducing the rate we are making it easier for the economy to adjust more smoothly to the introduction of the GST. I will come back to the rate reduction and other changes in a few moments.
The need to replace the existing manufacturers' sales tax with the GST is critical to the government's plan to build a stronger economy in an increasingly competitive world. We set out that plan in November of 1984. We have followed it since then and will continue to do so.
From the beginning our goal has been sustained economic growth, not for its own sake but as the best way of meeting the aspirations of this and future generations of Canadians in all regions of the country. The Canada we are building for the 1990s and the next century must be able to meet a modern society's demands for a higher standard of living and for better protection of the environment, advanced health care, adequate social security and enlightened education. Only if we have a strong and competitive economy will we be able to create the jobs, provide the services and offer the opportunities and freedoms that we have and want our children to have.
We are achieving the basic objectives of our plan by acting in two ways. First, by sustained action to eliminate the deficit and reverse the growth of the public debt.

And second, by putting in place coherent, fundamental changes to the economy in order to free private initiative and to get the government out of doing things it does not do well. Initiatives such as the Canada-U.S Free Trade Agreement, privatization of Crown corporations, deregulation of the energy and transportation sectors, pension reform and reform of the income tax system and the new labour market development strategy are creating the basis for durable growth and productive jobs in the years ahead.

The GST is vital to both parts of this plan. It will provide the more stable and predictable source of revenues needed for sound fiscal planning and, through the growth it stimulates, will help reduce the deficit. It will remove the tax from our exports. It will put Canadian products on an equal footing with foreign competition, both at home and in world markets. In this way it
will increase the competitiveness and efficiency of the economy. It will help create jobs.
I realize that implementing our economic plan has required adjustments, sometimes difficult adjustments, for many Canadians. Living through a period of far-reaching changes in the way the economy works is not always easy. Our efforts since 1984 to reduce the deficit have been necessaiy to make up for previous undisciplined spending, and that imposes an additional burden.
Because Canadians have been asked to do more in resolving this national problem they have every right to expect their government to manage with the greatest possible restraint. Indeed, the government bears a high responsibility to search out and eliminate wasteful spending, improve its efficiency and ensure the best value for the taxpayers' dollar. We have acted consistently to meet that responsibility.
For example, last Friday my colleague, the President of the Treasury Board, announced further restraint measures and initiatives to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of government. This is clear evidence of our ongoing commitment to good management and expenditure restraint.
While we all have been asked to make sacrifices, I am convinced the payoff is more than worth it. Our policies to encourage the private sector and reduce the deficit have already helped to produce one of the longest periods of growth in the post-war period. Over the past five years Canadians have benefited from economic growth second only to Japan among the leading industrial countries of the world. And this prosperity can and will continue as our economic initiatives take hold and pay larger dividends.
But today we are at an important juncture in our management of the economy. The overall slowing in economic activity that I forecast in the April budget is beginning to appear. This development is necessary to contain inflationary pressures and is normal for an economy that has been operating at close to capacity in recent years. Early in the new year I will bring down a budget which will provide a full economic and fiscal report.
There are a number of developments in the economy that we will be watching very closely and assessing carefully. In response to slower growth, there is some evidence that inflationary pressures may be abating, but product and labour markets remain tight. The future course of cost increases, and age settlements in particu-

lar, will be important in determining how quickly we make further progress against inflation.
Although interest rates have remained high through 1989, the current year's deficit is still on track at $30.5 billion. But inflationary pressures, and the high interest rates necessary to reduce them, are putting pressure on the deficit outlook for next year. This will require further expenditure reductions. Canadians understand how important it is that we get the deficit down. It is wrong to mortgage our children's future to subsidize our own standard of living.
Consistent with our medium-term plan, we have been pursuing two key fiscal objectives, to reduce government spending and to keep the deficit on a downward course and ultimately eliminate it.
Since coming to office we have reduced the deficit by almost $8 billion, from $38.3 billion to $30.5 billion this year. In 1984-85 our spending on all government programs and services was $16 billion more than revenues. This year, as a result of tight management of spending and increased revenues, government spending is $9 billion less than revenues.
The fiscal plan that I tabled in April shows that the deficit will be cut in half within four years. With that progress, 1993-94 will be the last year the government will have to borrow additional funds in financial markets. Thereafter, we will be able to begin buying back treasury bills and bonds.
We are committed to ongoing deficit reduction. To do so will require two things: continuing action to control expenditures and to eliminate waste and inefficiency;, and a stable and reliable tax system that is more supportive of economic growth.
Our record on spending is good. Since we took office in 1984-85 spending on all government programs through 1989-90 has grown by only 3.6 per cent per year, less than the rate of inflation. And relative to the size of the economy, expenditures on programs and services have declined from 19.5 per cent in 1984-85 to 16.1 per cent this year. If we had not restrained spending to this
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extent program expenditures would be $22 billion higher than they are.

The goods and services tax will put the government's deficit reduction strategy on a stronger foundation. It will replace a tax which has become an increasingly unreliable source of revenues and an impediment to sound fiscal planning.
The GST will lead to a stronger economy. It will put domestic products on a level playing field both at home and abroad. It will encourage investment. It will make our industries more competitive. It will lead to $9 billion more in economic output, equivalent to $350 a year for each and every Canadian. These gains will be shared by all regions of Canada.

The refundable GST credit, a payment which will be made by cheque four times a year, will improve the fairness of the tax system.
It is now three and a half years since we initiated an extensive and thorough process leading toward reform of the federal sales tax system, and two and a half years since we introduced the concept of the goods and services tax in a White Paper.
The GST proposal that we brought forward in the technical paper in August was a carefully balanced, fiscally responsible package of measures. In the discussion of this proposal many argued that the tax base should be broadened. Many also argued that they should be exempt. While there were different points of view of the tax base, a consensus did emerge that the rate should be lowered.
In response to this debate, and to the valuable report of the House finance committee, I am proposing a number of important changes that will ensure the GST provides the same economic benefits but with considerably less inflationary risk in the transition.
The key change is a reduction in the rate from 9 per cent to 7 per cent. We have done this in a way that will cut the one-time impact of the cost of living almost in half. Reducing this impact from 2.25 per cent to just under 1.25 per cent will greatly reduce the risk of an

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ongoing inflationary response. This will help provide a better climate for low inflation, lower interest rates, lower deficits and stronger economic growth in the years ahead. In this way, sound economic, fiscal, taxation and monetary policies will work more effectively together for the benefit of all Canadians.
But at 7 per cent the GST will raise almost $6 billion less each year than it would at 9 per cent. I told Canadians that there would be no free ride to a lower rate. I said we would not reduce the rate at the expense of the deficit, and we will not. I also said we would not sacrifice the fundamental balance in equity among the various measures within the package, and specifically that we would honour the commitment to protect those with lower and modest incomes.

We have taken to heart the message that Canadians have given us about the importance of relying on spending restraint to reduce the deficit. And we have heard, loud and clear, the message that the operations of government itself should be the first priority for belttightening. The expenditure restraint actions announced last week by the President of the Treasury Board demonstrate our continuing commitment to greater efficiency in the management of government operations and services.

These measures, when fully implemented, will contribute $700 million annually to help support a lower rate.
I emphasized a moment ago that the overall balance of the GST package had been maintained. In an important respect, these expenditure measures improve the balance by ensuring that the government itself shares directly in the effort.
A number of changes have been made to the income tax elements of the package to reflect the lower GST rate. The lower rate will allow us to reduce the GST credit while maintaining our commitment to protect lower and modest-income Canadians. As before, families with incomes up to $30,000 will pay less tax under the GST than under the existing system. Some 8.7 million Canadian families and individuals will receive cheques. Three-quarters of families headed by seniors or single parents will have more after-tax income.
With the GST rate reduction and a lower sales tax burden on middle-income Canadians, the reduction of the 26 per cent tax rate is no longer required. Even without this reduction middle-income taxpayers will pay less than under the proposal in the technical paper.
Lowering the GST rate with no offsetting measures would have provided the greatest absolute benefit to high-income taxpayers. In order to help get the GST rate down and maintain the balance of the package, the existing high-income surtax will be extended to basic federal tax in excess of $12,500 and increased by 2 percentage points. These changes mean that high-income taxpayers will face about the same total tax burden under the 7 per cent rate as under the proposals of the technical paper.
Business will also contribute to a lower rate. The large corporations tax will be increased and the annual fee which would have been paid to small businesses for administering the GST will be eliminated. However, to help small business make the transition to the new regime, a one-time credit of up to $1,000 will be provided.
In light of the tough choices that had to be made in reducing the GST, it would not have been appropriate to sustain the loss of $700 million in federal tax revenues from sales and excise taxes on alcohol, tobacco and motive fuels that would otherwise have occurred. Adjustments will be made in the structure of these taxes to maintain revenues at current levels. As a result, prices of these products to consumers should not increase.
As proposed in the technical paper, the GST will apply only to new homes. The GST housing rebate, adjusted to reflect the lower rate, will continue to ensure that the government's commitment to housing affordability is met.
These measures, taken together, maintain the balance of the GST package. The tax base for the GST remains essentially the same as in the technical paper. Some modest changes to the base as well as other technical improvements in the operation of the tax are described in the technical notes in the paper that I am tabling today.
Before closing I want to touch briefly on two other closely related issues that have been the focus of much discussion. The small business community has expressed concerns that dealing with the GST would impose heavy compliance burdens. We provided streamlined accounting methods to help small business. We provided tax incentives to invest in cash register equipment to help
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deal with the GST, including the announcement yesterday that the existing federal sales tax on such equipment is being removed.
The government will work with the small business community to explore further means of streamlining the operation of the tax.

We will also be working with the provinces on aspects of administration of our sales tax systems. In this regard, I am encouraged by the spirit of co-operation that emerged from my meeting this month with provincial finance ministers. In this work we will be mindful of the fact that Canadians have left no doubt that they want needless duplication in government eliminated, whether it be at the federal, provincial or municipal level.
In this and all other areas, the federal government will be continuing the effort to improve its efficiency and its stewardship of taxpayer dollars.
This commitment will be carried forward as a vital part of our broader plan of fiscal and economic action-action against the deficit and towards a dynamic, growing and job-creating economy.
None of this will be easy. It will require more tough choices of the kind that I have described today. But we must make those choices, as a government and as a nation, if we are to ensure the kind of future that we want for ourselves and for our children. That is why we intend to implement the GST as scheduled on January 1, 1991.
The bill incorporating the changes announced today will be introduced at the first opportunity in the new year.
Implementing the GST is the right thing to do. We have had two and a half years of discussion on the government's White Paper. We have had four months of debate on the technical proposal. We have listened carefully to this debate.
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Today, we are responding with a balanced package that meets the major concerns that have been expressed. Now it's time to move ahead, so let's get on with the job.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


Right Hon. John N. Turner (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, under this government, for the first time in 50 years we have people lined up at food banks at Christmas time. Does the Minister of Finance expect that these people will be grateful to him for his new tax?
Senior citizens pensions are under attack by this government. Does the Minister of Finance expect that the senior citizens of this country are going to be grateful for his new tax?
The Minister of Finance has imposed a new administrative fee on student loans. Does he expect students to be grateful for his new tax?
We are suffering one of the coldest Decembers in Canadian history and this government, for the first time in our history, is putting a tax on home heating fuel. Does the Minister of Finance expect families that can barely afford to pay their heating bills to be grateful to him for this tax?
We have more than a million small business people working hard all year and as a result of the government's economic policies they are having the worst Christmas sales in history. Does he expect small business in Canada to be grateful for this new tax?
We have people in Atlantic Canada reeling from the collapse of their fishery and they are going to be crushed by this proposal today. Does this minister expect people in the Atlantic and, indeed, in northern Canada to be grateful for this new tax?
The man who just spoke today looks like the Minister of Finance, sounds like the Minister of Finance, acts like the Minister of Finance, but can this be the same man who was Minister of Finance during the election campaign? Because that Minister of Finance swore up and down the country during the election that he would not bring in a goods and services tax unless he had provincial co-operation. That Minister of Finance swore up and down across the country during the election that any goods and services tax he brought in would be revenue neutral. That Minister of Finance swore up and down the country that any goods and services tax he brought in would not be inflationary. That Minister of Finance

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swore up and down the country that the goods and services tax he brought in would not be invisible.
That same Minister of Finance promised Canadians that when he brought in a goods and services tax, he would remove the 3 per cent temporary surtax on their incomes. Not only was it not removed, there is another two points on it today. He promised middle-income Canadians that when he brought in a goods and services tax he would lower their basic income tax rate. That Minister of Finance promised business people that when he brought in a goods and services tax, it would be simple to understand, simple to administer. That Minister of Finance said that we were the only country in the world with a manufacturers' sales tax. He has now made us as Canadians the only country in the world with two separate sets of retail sales taxes, one at the federal and one at the provincial level.
None of the promises that minister made about this tax have been kept so that this performance, once again this morning is a disgrace. The minister is a disgrace, and the government he represents is a disgrace.
There are things that I would like to say to the Prime Minister. He was here for his minister, but he does not deign to listen to the Leader of the Opposition. Nor does he deign to listen to the leader of the New Democratic Party, because of his presidential style. We are talking about taxes and the Prime Minister is not here to listen to the response of the opposition.
This is the minister who presided over one budget leak. This is the minister who tried to cover up a second budget leak. This is the minister who called the manufacturers' sales tax a silent killer of jobs and yet raised that sales tax four times from 9 per cent to 10 per cent, to 11 per cent, to 12 per cent, to 13.5 per cent.
This is the Minister of Finance who told the people of Canada in 1984 that he would not raise taxes one single cent. Since he has become minister, he has raised taxes 31 separate times and this is number 32 this morning.
This Minister of Finance said during the election that while we were making election promises on this side of the House, his were not promises, they were commitments, and that he had the money in the bank to pay for every one of those commitments. Then he went ahead and broke those spending commitments; promise after promise broken right, centre, left, up and down.
This Minister of Finance has allowed the spread in Canadian and American interest rates to reach the highest spread in Canadian history.
This Minister of Finance now has the gall to stand up in this House of Commons and tell Canadians, "Trust me." I would not trust this Minister of Finance to tell me the time of day because this minister has been deceitful. This minister has been fraudulent in his treatment of the Canadian people, and now we know that he is not only deceitful, he is weak.
The minister had cloudy language drafted by his bureaucrats, suggesting that the economy was in the beginning of a slow-down. We are now on the verge of a recession. The minister virtually admitted that this morning. Yet this man is still proceeding with a goods and services tax on everything that moves, on virtually everything that is sold in this country. I do not know what kind of a world he is living in. What he should be saying and what he is really saying, when you really get down to it is: "Well, Canadians, if we are going to have a recession, let's have a real recession and I am going to introduce it to you right now this morning."
After months of hearing Canadians tell him that his new sales tax was a disaster, witnesses from across the country listening to the committee under the chairmanship of the member for Mississauga South telling him and Parliament that the tax would be inflationary, regressive, invisible, sneaky, unfair; that it would hurt the poor, particularly the more remote regions of Canada. This minister has now become the Rhett Butler of Canadian politics. His answer to all his so-called consultation is, "Quite frankly, I don't give a damn."
If the minister thinks that his 7 per cent solution will convince Canadians to accept his new tax he has another think coming. What we have just listened to is the latest act in the continuing charade. Nine per cent was supposed to be the absolute minimum, so said the minister. Now he has lowered the rate by 2 per cent. He should
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have lowered this tax by 9 per cent, scrapped it, and began all over again.

Mr. Speaker, this is the same minister who increased the manufacturers' tax four times: from 9 to 10 per cent, from 10 to 11 per cent, from 11 to 12 per cent and finally to 13.5 per cent. Do you want Canadians to believe this minister who promised this morning to reduce the goods and services tax from 9 to 7 per cent? Eventually, it is quite clear that he will pursue the same policy and increase this tax later, to 9 per cent, 10 per cent, 11 per cent, 12 per cent and finally 13 per cent. It will be much easier to do because this tax will not be visible. Canadian consumers will not be able to figure out how much tax they are paying. Do you expect people to believe the minister and to trust him? Never, never, Mr. Speaker, because he has not acted in a way that deserves our trust!
Mr. Speaker, despite the juggling this morning, this tax is still invisible, the provinces are still not co-operating in it, it is still an administrative nightmare, it is still complicated, it is still regressive, it is still unfair, and the minister tried this morning to fool Canadians by pretending to give them a Christmas present.

Mr. Speaker, this is no Christmas present. It is not a present at all. Every Canadian is going to wake up on Christmas morning with a lump of coal in his stocking and on that lump is going to be 7 per cent.
After all these promises, this minister still has not told us whether food in grocery stores will be taxed or whether it will be exempt. In the speech, the minister tried to pretend that he was taking additional money from wealthy Canadians and large corporations. What is he really doing today? Let us look at the numbers, his numbers.
He takes $200 million from large corporations and multinationals, but he takes $600 million from Canadian small business. He takes $200 million from wealthy Canadians, but he takes $700 million from middle income Canadians, and he takes $1.2 billion from Canadians living in poverty. That is what he has done this morning.
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He takes $1.1 billion from old age pensioners and families receiving family allowances. He takes $400 million from Canadians struggling to buy a house. He calls that fair. He calls that sound economic policy. I say it is a sham and Canadians are not going to be fooled.
The fraudulent aspect of this little exercise this morning is that he hopes the headlines will say that he reduced the tax from 9 per cent to 7 per cent. What happened is that all the revenue he sacrificed in that move he has restored by matched tax increases. In other words, on this morning's exercise, he is revenue neutral. There has been no reduction in tax. I want to say that to Canadians. It has been transferred to the middle class, to the poor regions, to the pensioners, and to the families with family allowances. It has been an absolutely fraudulent exercise.
The exercise this morning on the part of the minister is yet his latest confession that he has lost control of the economy, that his deficit is out of control despite all his rhetoric. This is the minister who has doubled the total public debt of this country, that is, the cumulative public debt since Confederation. He has doubled it in five years from $170 billion to $350 billion, despite the highest tax increases in the last four or five years in Canadian history-31 times. In constant dollars, the average Canadian family is now undergoing a burden of 30 per cent more tax from all sources than that family paid when this minister assumed office.
He is now at the stage, of course, where he faces a tax revolt. He did not have the courage to come out straight and tell Canadians he is going to tax them where they can see it, where they have to pay it on their income tax form. What he has done now is hope, by an invisible, sneaky tax which the storekeeper will not be able to calculate and put on his sales counter, that Canadians will not know what the score is. I am telling you, Mr. Speaker, that he will get away with this sneaky, hidden, clandestine tax.
If he had paid any attention to the universal testimony, to the almost unanimous testimony of Canadians across the country, he would have done the sensible thing this morning. He would have scrapped this tax; he would have started all over; and had the Prime Minister been sitting here this morning, I would have said scrap the minister as well.

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Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


Ms. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, what the Minister of Finance has shown Canadians, if they did not know it before, is that Tory times are tough times and Tory times are taxing times.
Last year at this time we were debating the free trade deal and that was Canada's Christmas present. We have seen what has happened since we got that present, with the lay-offs on the east coast and on the west coast. This Christmas, the minister proposes to give us a real gift, he proposes to take a tax of 9 per cent on all the goods and services, the only country to have a tax on those kinds of services, that kind of consumption tax, and reduce it to 7 per cent.
Canadians will not be fooled. Canadians will not be fooled that this is a gift. The minister comes out and says: "It is tough times, but I have got to hit you with this 9 per cent tax''. It is kind of like a two by four. Then he comes back, a week before Christmas and says: "It is okay, it is just going to be a 7 per cent tax". That is just a baseball bat. Canadians know that getting hit over the head with a baseball bat instead of a two by four sure is not going to be any better.
Canadians have to remember that the principle of this tax remains the same. It undermines the basic fairness of a tax system that is progressive and that takes from those people according to their incomes. This tax hits everyone on every purchase and every service. It is not a discretionary tax. You do not have a choice of buying food. You do not have a choice of buying your children clothes. You do not have a choice about many of the services. Whether you are a person on old age income, whether you are a family trying to simply get by, you do not have a choice about whether you buy those things. Therefore, the principle remains the same. The principle is, take the most from those who have the least because those are also the same people in our society who have the least resources to complain. These are the people who are struggling from day to day just to make a living, the middle income worker and the lower income worker.
What this government should be proposing is a system of fair taxation. I do not think that Canadians generally are opposed to paying taxes. They see that we have a
medicare system that benefits everyone that is fair and just. Canadians accept that we have to pay taxes for that. What Canadians do object to is the unfair tax system.
While the minister will say in his proposal today that he is attempting to increase the corporation tax, catch a few of those large corporations, some 70,000 profitmaking corporations that are not paying any tax. I am sure the minister is going to say: "Look at my proposal, we are going to catch some of those". Under the minister's proposal today they are going to reach 3,700 of those 70,000 corporations. That is not fair tax reform.
What this government should be doing is scrapping this tax and constructing a fair tax system and an equitable tax system.
Today the minister is trying to say to the Canadian people: "I am putting a little tinsel on the tree for you". But people who got the tinsel were those who might make, say, $100,000 on the stock market. They do not have to worry. They are not going to be taxed at source. People involved in borrowing money for mergers and take-overs do not have worry, they got the tinsel. They do not have to worry about this tax.
The people who have to worry are the people in Newfoundland whose communities are being shut down, the prairie farmers who are going broke every day, the Inglis plant worker, and the workers in all of those plants that are shutting down. There is almost a plant closing a week in Toronto.
Clearly, there are going to be more children in food bank line-ups and Canada will be a poorer and less equitable society with this tax.
The minister spoke about the inflation rate. We should all be very happy that the inflation rate is going to be half of what it would have been with a GST at 9 per cent. Let us look for a moment at the government's record on projections, because we want to see just how much we can trust what the government has told us will happen.
Canadians will remember that free trade was going to be very good for all of us, and we have had a year of that. We were going to get all those lower prices. Remember those lower prices that we were all going to get which were going to be of great benefit to consumers?
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I remember during the election the Tory candidate in my riding saying that it will mean $300 a year, a free television for every Canadian. Canadians are not getting their free television out of free trade. Canadians are just getting their pink slips from this government.
This government proposes to assist small business. What has this government done for small business? First of all the high interest rates are killing small business, farmers, and fishers. Now they are going to be faced with the larger administrative task of having to collect this tax. Is the government going to help them out? Well, one time they say, but the small business administration fee? Gone! So much for help for small business.
The minister said this morning that because of the 7 per cent tax, the inflation increase may be cut from 2.25 per cent. First of all, that is based on the assumption that everyone agrees that in fact the inflationary effect would have been 2.25 per cent. Many economists projected it as much higher. That still leaves us with an increase in the inflation rate of 1.2 per cent, which I believe the minister said this morning would eventually lead to a healthy economy and reduced interest rates.
Surely Canadians are not going to buy this. We have been told that we have to keep the interest rate high because of inflation. Inflation is going up but the minister is saying the interest rate is going to go down. Well, the minister had better speak to Mr. Crow and tell him about his theory on the economy and the inflation rate. It certainly does not gibe with what is happening with Canadians.
This government told us that the manufacturers' sales tax was an unfair and silent killer of jobs. In the finance committee when I asked how many jobs this silent killer had destroyed, and how many jobs they projected would be lost with each increase of this unfair tax, it seems it was such a silent killer that we did not know how many jobs it might have cost.
I believe all parties agreed that the manufacturers' sales tax had certainly a very unfair element. What did the government do with this unfair tax, this silent killer of jobs? They took it from 9 per cent to 10 per cent, to 11 per cent, to 12 per cent, to 13.5 per cent. Canadians had
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better think about what is going to happen to this tax that the minister is presenting as fair and equitable if an unfair, unjust tax gets raised 5 per cent. What is going to happen to what the government sees as a fair tax is that in two years that tax is going to be 12 per cent.
My hon. colleague across the way said: "What about the alternatives?" Well, I would recommend to the hon. member that he read the New Democratic's minority report on alternatives to the goods and services tax. I would like to commend my colleagues for the work that they have done on this. We do provide real alternatives. Unlike our friends the Liberals who just say they do not like it, we have proposed some real alternatives. Not only have we proposed alternatives, we have costed out those alternatives and I will just mention a few.
Reform the personal income tax system to restore the objective of progressive taxation; broaden the base of corporate income tax; impose a green tax, an excise tax, to discourage production and use of environmentally hazardous goods; introduce a tax on transfers of wealth. Unlike the government that increases an unfair tax, we also recommend as one of our alternatives to roll back the manufacturers' sales tax to 9 per cent, at least until there has been real tax reform.
Canadians should also remember what has happened under this government's "tax reform". Middle and lower income people are paying some 60 per cent more tax than they paid in 1984. But fortunately for some groups in our society, wealthy families got the tinsel again. They pay 6.4 per cent less. Those are not my figures. They come from the National Council on Welfare. Since 1984, it has cost poor families 60 per cent more but wealthy families have paid 6.4 per cent less.

The proposed cuts to the tax credit for low-income families will only aggravate their already precarious situation.
The Canadian Council on Welfare study shows that the situation of poor families is worsening. In all provinces and territories, people working at the minimum wage live below the poverty line. Children of poor families are lining up at soup kitchens in every city in the land.

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Just as with the trade agreement, people will not see the so-called benefits of this regressive tax. The trade agreement has been in effect for a year and people are still waiting for bargains in supermarkets and department stores. They will wait a lot longer for the savings from this tax!

What has happened in this last year? It is important to remind Canadians what has happened in the last year to make Canada a better and fairer place. We have had cuts to VIA Rail, cutbacks on regional development, disaster in the Atlantic with the fisheries, no forestry agreements signed to preserve our environment under the forestry. We have had, under the bilateral panel, decisions against fish processing in our own country.
If you go through the list what we see here is not the greening of Canada, but the beginning of the end of Canada. Prairie farms are in debt and we cannot process our fishing. This government has stated that it is concerned about the environment. What do they do? It cuts energy conservation offices across this country and the energy conservation budget.
This government says it is concerned with equity and fairness. What do we do? Workers want regional equity on their pay. It is fair that they get paid the same on the east coast and on the west coast. It is fair that hospital workers, some 80 per cent of them women, get paid the same as other workers in the hospital. We believe in pay equity. How does this government deal with that aspect of fairness? It sends them back to work, and does not settle on those issues.
That is what this year has brought under this government. Now we are promised that for 1991 we will be given yet another tax, a tax on all of the ordinary goods and services that we buy. That tax will affect the regions disproportionately to other parts of Canada. In the north, for example, there are higher transportation costs, higher heating costs, generally utilities costs are higher, and clothing costs are higher. In other rural regions of this country, they will equally be as effected.
The New Democratic Party is unequivocally opposed to this regressive, harmful, destructive tax that is going to hurt middle income Canadians, lower income Canadians, small business, farmers in this country, everyone from one end of this country to the other.
We call on the minister to implement real tax reform. We call on the minister not to spend some $9 million to try to convince Canadians that this tax is a good thing. Forget it! I have been in every province and territory across this country talking to people about this tax and they will not be convinced, even by a slick advertising campaign, that this is good for them.
This tax is not a Christmas present. This Minister of Finance is sure no Santa Claus. Canadians will not be fooled by a few changes, what appear to be a few measures to make us feel better. Canadians are hurting from this government's economic mismanagement. This is another example. Canadians know it. Canadians are going to be sure to tell Tories that, and so will the New Democratic Party.



CANADIAN GROUP OF THE INTERPARLIAMENTARY UNION


Mrs. Pierrette Venne (Saint-Hubert):: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the report of the Canadian Group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
The report covers the inter-parliamentary symposium on women's participation in the decision-making process in political and parliamentary life.
I simply would like to comment, Mr. Speaker, that the question whether politics is still a man's world was generally answered in the affirmative: Yes, men have a monopoly on power. The response to that was: Politics is everybody's concern.
In my lifetime, I hope to see as many women as men here in this House, Madam Speaker.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]
December 19, 1989



COMMITTEES


Mr. Jean-Pierre Blackburn (Jonquiere):: Madam Speaker, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the second report of the Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration.

The report recommends 14 ways in which both efficiency and fairness can be improved within the existing refugee claimants' backlog clearance program established by the minister. Action must be taken immediately, however, to speed up the process. At the existing rate of progress, the committee estimates it will take over six years to finish all the hearings.

We have made several recommendations for fair and effective improvements in the existing program, in order to speed up clearance of the refugee claimants' backlog.
Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee also asks the government to respond within 120 days. However, considering the urgent aspect of these problems, the committee would ask that the government's response be given as soon as possible.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]


PETITIONS
Mr. Stan Keyes (Hamilton West):: Madam Speaker, I have the duty and indeed the privilege pursuant to Standing Order 36 to present to this House 13 petitions, certified correct by the Clerk of Petitions. They contain the signatures of 1,276 Canadians who reside in the communities of Hamilton, Ancaster, Burlington, Stony Creek, Grimsby, Binbrook, Dunnville, Beamsville, Freelton, Brantford, Paris, Caledonia, Cambridge, Carlisle, Cayuga, Camden, Lynden, Puslinch, Oakville, Toronto, Willowdale, North York, Mount Hope, Kitchener, Guelph, Greensville, Milton, Waterford, Winona, Sud-
Routine Proceedings
bury, Belleville, Trenton, Waterdown, and others. The petitions call upon this government to totally reject this cruel, hidden, inflationary 7 per cent solution, called the goods and services tax.


Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I wish to present three petitions which reject the recommendations of the Task Force on Tax Benefits for Northern and Isolated Areas.
Your petitioners, who are residents of the isolated community of Lebel-sur-Quevillon in Abitibi, are concerned about the recommendations in this as yet unfinished report.
Madam Speaker, the task force's final report does not contain a single reference to the James Bay and Northern Quebec Cree-Naskapi Agreement or to the final report published in October 1989 on regional disparities among isolated communities, carried out by the Government of Quebec.


Mr. Len Taylor (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: Madam Speaker, I have two petitions to present today. The first one is signed by a large number of people from the Mont Nebo, Victoire, Canwood area of my riding. The petitioners are opposed to the goods and services tax of this government.
The petitioners call on the government to reform the tax system so that there is an effective minimum tax on wealthy individuals and corporations, to reject the current proposal for the goods and services tax, to ensure that if and when there is a broad public consensus on the sales tax measure to replace the manufacturers' sales tax, that this reform is not an opportunity for the government to impose a massive tax grab and cause the government to cease with the proposal which will shift the tax burden on to ordinary Canadians through a regressive consumption tax instead of through real tax reform.

December 19, 1989
Routine Proceedings
I support the petition and I thank the people in Mont Nebo who collected the names.
I have a second petition which also opposes the goods and services tax at 9 or 7 per cent. It calls for the rejection of the tax and is signed by a number of people from the Ottawa area, here in the Nation's Capital.


Mr. David Kilgour (Edmonton Southeast):: Madam Speaker, under Standing Order 36 I have the honour to present three petitions on three completely different subjects. All have been certified by the Clerk.
The first petition, signed by approximately 1,500 residents of southeast Edmonton, calls for the reform of Canada's extradition laws. It refers specifically to Charles Ng and other well known persons who have sought refuge in Canada to avoid prosecution and/or punishment in the United States. Those signing the petition want our laws changed so that such people could be returned from Canada at any time "after their apprehension in Canada".


David Kilgour: I have a petition signed by approximately 160 Canadian leaders from across Canada. Many of them have origin in Vietnam, and recite some of the many human rights abuses in Vietnam, including religious oppression, forced labour, lack of freedom of speech in the press and call on the Government of Canada to put real pressure on the Vietnamese government all the areas specified in the petition.


David Kilgour: Madam Speaker, I have a petition signed by approximately 45 Edmontonians relating to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police dress uniform. Those signing do not want the uniform to be changed, and I quote, "by any concessions to religious or ethnic minorities".


Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Madam Speaker, I rise under Standing Order 36 to deposit in the House these ongoing petitions that have been coming in in the interests of the National Arts Centre of Canada. They come from people across this land who are concerned that the centre fulfil its unique mandate as a
showcase and an exhibition place for Canadian talent and for Canadian artists in the field of theatre, dance and opera. They hope that the problems around the National Arts Centre will be settled and that they get to work and promote the wonderful talent that we have here in Canada.
For your interest, Madam Speaker, these hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of petitions are added to those I have already tabled.


Sheila Finestone: I also have the honour to present in the name of the Golden Age Association members who had a coalition meeting of seniors who have serious concerns about the clawback which this government has put into the bill on new taxes that is before this House.
These petitioners state, among other things, that whereas this proposed tax to tax back old age security and family allowance benefits in part or in their entirety depends on a recipient's income, this tax would undermine the the principle of universality of Canadian social programs, and would not be indexed and therefore has no inflation protection. This tax discriminates against recipients of OAS and family allowance benefits by making them bear an unfair burden of tax, irrespective of geographic location or other factors.
They are veiy concerned that the threshold is not $50,000 of real income, for it may include thousands of dollars of imaginary income as the government requires the inclusion of 25 per cent of grossed up dividends on Canadian investment income to be included.
Madam Speaker, I speak on behalf of hundreds and hundreds of senior citizens who have the right to be heard in this House and whom I represent in the wonderful riding of Mount Royal.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I do realize what the hon. member is saying. The hon. member also knows that presenting a petition is not the time to enter into debate.


Sheila Finestone: Madam Speaker, I did not think reading what they had written and what One Voice has indicated as a serious concern was debate and if so, I regret that. I will just table these hundreds of petitions in their interest.
December 19, 1989


Sheila Finestone: Madam Speaker, I also have on hand serious concerns expressed by hundreds of petitioners who are very concerned about the goods and services tax. Madam Speaker, as you and I both know, the minister spoke to that tax this morning.
I will not add to what the petitioners have said except to speak in their name about their serious concern about higher inflation, higher interest rates, higher unemployment and the fact that they consider this, the thirty-second tax increase an unconscionable tax grab. Thank you very much on behalf of the petitioners of Mount Royal.


Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-St. Clair):: Madam Speaker, I will make this short. I have in my hand the signatures of 5,600 people from Windsor who are already being hurt by this government's economic policies as they watch jobs and businesses cross the tunnel and cross the bridge to Detroit. They agree with my leader that this GST is the final blow that will mean more jobs lost and more business lost to small business people in Windsor. They want that tax stopped.


Mr. Alex Kindy (Calgary Northeast):: Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition that has been signed and certified. It contains 1,109 names of people in my riding, for a total of 9,117 from the riding of Calgary Northeast.
These petitioners are opposed to the goods and services tax. They believe that this tax is regressive. It is on the back of the consumer and it is inflationary. They pray and call upon the government to withdraw it. I support those petitioners.


Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Madam Speaker, as part of the same campaign to make the government aware of public opinion in this country and prevent a 700 per cent increase in a sales tax Canadians refuse to accept, I would like to table a dozen petitions from my riding, from Canadian men and women who are absolutely shocked by a government that lacks the integrity to govern this country as it should be governed and wants to impose a tax on Canadians that will be a hidden tax, a tax that will be regressive, that will increase inflation and unemployment to unacceptable levels.
Routine Proceedings
These people earnestly call on Parliament to abolish this tax outright and make the government stop pretending to Canadians that reducing the tax from 9 per cent to 7 per cent is a nice Christmas present. This is false!


Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Madam Speaker, I have the honour and privilege to table petitions in the House today bearing the names of 292 residents primarily of northwestern Ontario, residents of Beardmore, Pickle Lake, Kakabeka Falls, the Thunder Bay area, as well as Milton, Richmond Hill, Midland, Hamilton and Scarborough, Dorion, Ontario, R and R Engine Rebuilding, Upsala, Ontario, Ram Realty, Dale's Service Centre, Galaxy Lanes, and the Upsala General Store.
These petitioners totally reject any regressive consumption tax whether it is 9, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 or 1 per cent. They want zip.


Mr. Guy H. Arseneault (Restigouche-Chaleur):: Madam Speaker, I have a number of petitions that conform to Standing Order 36. The people in my riding are against the new tax the Conservative government wishes to introduce today.

A number of these petitioners come from my riding and are opposed to the goods and services tax that the government is planning on introducing. These people come from various parts of my riding, such as Dalhousie, Val-d'Amour, St. Castin, Kedgwick, Campbellton,and Charlo, which makes up practically the whole riding, as well as a number of places that I have not mentioned. I call upon the government to listen to these petitioners and withdraw this goods and services tax.


Mr. Ron Fisher (Saskatoon-Dundurn):: Madam Speaker, it is my privilege to rise this morning pursuant to Standing Order 36 to present a petition on behalf of people who are opposed to the-well, politely-the GST.


Some hon. members:: Go ahead and say it.


An hon. member:: Canadians want to hear it.


Ron Fisher: No, that is fine. We will leave it at that for this time.

December 19, 1989
Routine Proceedings
They point out the government's lack of regard for bringing in a sales tax which is judged according to people's ability to pay. They point out that it has not addressed the unfair way the government has applied the present taxation system we have which at least is progressive, whereas the general sales tax is a very regressive tax.
They point out that if we are going to have a sales tax, let us have one that does address people's ability to pay. It does not make any difference to them whether it is 7 per cent, 9 per cent, 5 per cent or 11 per cent, they do not want to have anything to do with the GST.


Mr. Lyle Kristiansen (Kootenay West-Revelstoke):: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, the attached petition is certified correct as to form and content.
This petition is signed by 70 residents who state that the Minister of Finance's proposed goods and services tax is an unfair form of taxation because of its lack of regard for the taxpayers' ability to pay. They say that the government has not addressed the unfair taxation system currently in place which permits wealthy Canadians and corporations to pay little or no federal tax while forcing lower and middle income taxpayers to pay more of the national tax burden.
They are calling for the abolition of this tax proposal and that the government not proceed with the goods and services tax.


Mr. Ron MacDonald (Dartmouth):: Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to stand in the House today and present petitions with the names of over 3,000 individuals from my riding of Dartmouth and the communities of the city of Dartmouth and the communities of Cherry Brook, Preston and Eastern Passage, as well as surrounding communities who petition this House and this government to drop its regressive goods and services tax proposal which we have heard about today in the House.
The petitioners find it unpalatable that a government would, without consultation, have the thirty-second attack on their wallets. Even with the news here today about 7 per cent instead of 9 per cent, they equally are loud in crying out that this is an unfair tax and they humbly ask the government and this Parliament to drop these measures.


Mr. Jack Whittaker (Okanagan-Similkameen -Merritt):: Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure today to rise pursuant to Standing Order 36. I think it is appropriate today that this petition be put before the House. It is from 624 residents of the riding of Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt.
It shows that the people in the larger communities such as Penticton as well as those in smaller communities such as Keremeos, Coste and Okanagan Falls and the medium sized communities in my riding of Osoyoos and Oliver are against and strictly opposed to a goods and services tax in any form.
They state in the petition that the government has not addressed the unfair taxation system currently in place which permits wealthy individuals and corporations to pay little or no federal tax while forcing lower and middle income taxpayers to bear more of the national tax burden.
They ask and call upon the government to cease with this proposal which will shift the tax burden onto ordinary Canadians through a regressive consumption tax instead of through real tax reform.


Mr. Jim Peterson (Willowdale):: Madam Speaker, I rise today to present petitions from 129 constituents of my riding of Willowdale.
All of these petitioners are deploring the government's goods and services tax. The government has stated that this tax is good medicine for Canadians. Not one of my constituents has come forward and said, "Peterson, support this tax because it is good for us". Just the contrary.
I am very pleased to present this petition to the House of Commons, along with the thousands of others already presented.


Mr. Jim Karpoff (Surrey North):: Madam Speaker, I have the privilege to present pursuant to Section 36 a number of petitions. One petition has over 60 pages of signatures plus another 40 pages of signatures that became unattached from the petition and therefore are not properly filed. These are from people in my riding of Surrey North who say that the proposed goods and service tax is an unfair tax and should be withdrawn. They request that the Minister of Finance stop propos-
December 19, 1989

ing a shift in the tax burden to ordinary Canadians and come in with real tax reform.
I have a petition from residents of Surrey North requesting that the government abandon its plans to scrap VIA Rail and to provide additional financing for the upgrading of VIA Rail equipment sufficient to cariy on a proper rail transportation service.
Madam Speaker, I have another final petition from the residents in my riding concerning their views on abortion.


Hon. Bob Kaplan (York Centre):: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition on behalf of residents of the city of Toronto who, like so many hundreds of thousands of other Canadians, are objecting to the proposed goods and services tax. It is clear that their objection is not based only on the high level of the tax which was mitigated by the minister's announcement today, but by the fact that it is a hidden tax, by the fact that it bears unfairly on ordinary, low and middle-income Canadians, by the fact that it can make the economic conditions that Canada is facing now even worse. I am very pleased to put this petition forward on behalf of my constituents and others from the city.


Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Madam Speaker, I am proud to present a petition on behalf of what now is over 4,000 people from the Kamloops constituency. This petition comes from residents of Blue River, Avola, Vavenby, Birch Island, Middle Fork, Clearwater, Barrier, Heffley Creek, Pinantan Lake, Darfield, McClure, Chase, Monte Creek, Monte Lake, Pritchard, Westwold, Savona, Logan Lake, Vinsulla and Kamloops.
I present them all today as an indication of the outrage that people of the Kamloops constituency feel regarding the government's intention to proceed now with this goods and services tax. They were hoping that the government would not proceed and would tell the people at Christmas that it decided to listen to them and back off. They are asking the Parliament of Canada to do whatever we can as members of the opposition to bring the government to its senses, to back off on this tax which is brutal, cruel, regressive. They encourage the government to go back to the drawing board and introduce tax reform that is real tax reform where everyone actually pays their fair share.
Routine Proceedings


Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Madam Speaker, what I have to present this morning is approximately 2,000 signatures from Essex-Windsor from the following communities: Windsor, Essex, Ruthven, La Salle, Woodslee, Maidstone, Belle River, Cottam, Stoney Point, Amherstburg, Tecumseh and a great many rural parts of the constituency.
This petition as with those of my colleagues suggests that this announcement this morning by the Minister of Finance is a snivelling attempt to retreat which is simply unacceptable. These petitions suggest that this goods and services tax, because of its unfairness, because of the way in which it will hurt our economy, has to be rejected and eliminated.


Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36 I am pleased to present a petition signed by a number of residents of Ottawa who are extremely displeased with the government's proposal to introduce a GST or a goods and services tax which should really be called the grief and suffering tax.
These Canadian citizens are objecting to this tax at 9 per cent, 7 per cent or any other per cent because it is higher that the present tax which is 0 per cent.


Mr. Ross Harvey (Edmonton East):: Madam Speaker, as we had confirmed for us this morning-in the words of the famous breakfast cereal ad-"Mikey likes it". But the people of Canada do not.
I have here another 3,247 signatures of Canadians, each of whom petition the government to reject the proposal for a goods and services tax, to reform the taxation system so that there is an effective minimum tax on wealthy individuals and corporations, to ensure that if and when there is broad public consensus on a sales tax measure to replace the manufacturers' sales tax that this reform not be an opportunity for the government to impose a massive tax grab, and to cause the government to cease with the proposal which will shift the tax burden on to ordinary Canadians through a regressive consumption tax instead of real tax reform.
These Canadians, most of whom live in Edmonton, live as well in the Alberta communities of Spruce Grove, Tofield, Red Deer, Delburne, Innisfail, Lacombe, Sylvan Lake, Sherwood Park, Hinton-lots of them from Hinton-Grande Cache, Stony Plain, Vermilion, Rycroft, Sundry, Whitecourt, Calgary, Jasper, Drayton Valley, Warburg, Buck Lake, Okotoks, St. Albert, Barrhead,

December 19, 1989
Routine Proceedings
Rocky Rapids, Evansburg, Lodgepole, Leduc, Redcliff, Wainwright, Winterbum, Morinville, Devon, Didsbury-


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: A point of order, the hon. member for Essex-Windsor.


Steven W. Langdon: Madam Speaker, I hesitate to bring it to the attention of the Speaker, but I think that it is not only proper but required within the rules for somebody to indicate the places from which signatures have come.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I think the hon. member, who has been here for quite awhile, knows that when presenting a petition the hon. member should make a short summary of what the petition is about. I do not think we should go into a geography course with each and every petition.
On a point of order, the hon. member for Edmonton East.


Ross Harvey: Madam Speaker, it would have been possible for me to present each of these collections individually noting a short list in each instance and achieving the same end but, in fact, what I am attempting to do here is save the time of the House.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The hon. member for Kitchener.


Mr. John Reimer (Kitchener):: Madam Speaker, I also have the honour of presenting a petition containing some 7,000 signatures from right across Canada. This, if added to a similar petition that I put earlier containing the signatures of some 195,000 Canadians from across Canada, brings to a total of 202,000 people who are calling upon Parliament to enact legislation that would truly and effectively protect the life of the unborn child from conception.


Ms. Catherine Callbeck (Malpeque):: Madam Speaker, I am pleased today to rise under Standing Order 36 and present a petition signed by many concerned Canadians who object to the proposed goods and services tax.
They say that it will cause serious and unfair hardship to lower and middle income Canadians, that it will cause higher inflation, higher interest rates and higher unemployment.
They pray and call upon this Parliament to reject this goods and services tax.


Mr. Lyle Dean MacWilliam (Okanagan-Shuswap):: Madam Speaker, this certainly seems to be the day for petitions against the goods and services tax and I would certainly also like to submit my 160-odd petitions with almost 12,000 names. The problem is that I have already
done so.
My second instalment is not yet ready. It seems that the Clerk of Petitions must be somewhat bogged down in the process.


Lyle Dean MacWilliam: Madam Speaker, I would like to present to the House today, on a slightly different topic, petitions signed by 240 residents from the communities of Enderby, Sicamous, Malakwa, Salmon Arm, Sorrento, Grindrod and Canoe in the constituency of Okanagan-Shuswap. These petitions have been signed with regard to the government's program or proposed cuts to the VIA Rail services. I might also add that these communities surround an area on the trackage of our national railway system. These petitions have been signed and are in regard to the government's proposed cuts to VIA Rail services.
I might also add that these communities surround an area of trackage on our national railway system at Craigellachie, which is the spot where the last spike was driven. They are particularly concerned about the loss of VIA Rail services in our communities as a result of the proposed cuts and are asking the government to reconsider the proposed cuts to VIA Rail.


Mr. Brian L. Gardiner (Prince George-Bulkley Valley):: Madam Speaker, I have two petitions I would like to table in the House today pursuant to Standing Order 36.
The first one is signed by residents, primarily of Prince George, B.C. and of Dawson Creek, B. C., who express
December 19, 1989

their concern and their support. They call upon Parliament to renew immediately the Forest Resource Development Agreement between the Government of Canada and the province of British Columbia.
I know they would join with me in urging the government to put as much effort into our forests as it does into taxing Canadians.


Brian L. Gardiner: Madam Speaker, my second petition relates to the goods and services tax. It is signed by residents of the central interior of British Columbia.
They call upon Parliament to reject the current proposal for a goods and services tax and what the minister spoke about this morning and to reform the taxation system so that there is an effective minimum tax on wealthy individuals and corporations and we can be sure to turn off the clock on these Tory tax times.


Mr. Bob Speller (Haldimand-Norfolk):: Madam Speaker, I rise under Standing Order 36 to present a petition to this House signed by well over 3,000 of my constituents. They signed it at the Caledonia Fair and at the Norfolk County Fair.
They call on this government to reject outright the goods and services tax. These petitioners do not care if it is a 9 per cent tax or a 7 per cent tax. They want this House to reject this tax openly.


Mr. Rod Laporte (Moose Jaw-Lake Centre):: Madam Speaker, I rise today like other members on both sides of the House to present once again a petition with respect to the GST.
Canadians are certainly outraged at the tax this government is forcing through. They call on the government to address the unfair tax system currently in place which permits wealthy individuals and corporations to pay little or no federal sales tax while it forces lower and middle income taxpayers to bear more than the national tax burden.
Routine Proceedings CANADIAN WHEAT BOARD


Rodney Edward Laporte: Madam Speaker, I have a second petition with respect to the removal of oats from the Canadian Wheat Board.
Farmers in Saskatchewan are concerned about the future of orderly marketing in the country. They call upon the government to replace oats under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Wheat Board and to give oats and barley the same protection that wheat presently enjoys under the Canadian Wheat Board Act.


Mr. Steve Butland (Sault Ste. Marie):: Madam Speaker, I rise pursuant to Standing Order 36 to present a petition from some friends in northern Ontario, in particular Thunder Bay, who join with many thousands of people from my riding in Sault Ste. Marie to say to the government: "Scrap the GST."
A recent informal poll in northern Ontario shows that 100 per cent of the people in northern Ontario are against this tax. The government is not listening on GST or anything.
We ask the government to scrap the tax immediately.


Ms. Joy Langan (Mission-Coquitlam):: Madam Speaker, I have here petitions from small business people, from workers in my riding, and from people who feel very strongly the outrage many people have spoken of today at the 9 per cent goods and services tax. I am sure it is something which they will feel when they find out that it has now been reduced to 7 per cent. It is still not serving the interests of our communities.
The petitions have been certified under Standing Order 36. I would table them for consideration.


Mr. Gilles Rocheleau (Hull-Aylmer):: Madam Speaker, in accordance with Standing Order 36,1 wish to table two petitions signed by 740 residents of the riding of Hull-Aylmer who object to any kind of goods and services tax. This morning I thought the government had understood but I was wrong. So I still want to table these petitions, if you have no objection, Madam Speaker.


Mr. Della  Noce@: We understand! We are listening!

December 19, 1989
Government Orders



POINT OF ORDER


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, I rise briefly on a point of order concerning petitions. I had submitted a series of petitions to the Clerk of Petitions which have been rejected because, and I quote, "The prayer is making requests of the federal government, not of Parliament. The Royal Commission is a creature of the government, not of Parliament".
In reviewing the wording of the petition it starts with the normal prayer, "Wherefore the undersigned your petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to declare a moratorium in its announced service cuts to VIA Rail-", and it goes on from there.
I would request that you, Madam Speaker, undertake to review this particular petition and its wording in concert with the Clerk of Petitions to see whether in fact the intent of the rules are met by the wording of the petition, although there may be the odd word that is inappropriately used. I would ask for reconsideration on this matter .


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I can assure the hon. member that we will have a second look at the petition and come back to the hon. member as soon as possible.


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


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Don Boudria: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Last week I brought to the attention of the parliamentary secretary that a question on the Order Paper under my name was already over 45 days old. At that time the parliamentary
secretary had undertaken to verify it and to ensure that I would be receiving a prompt rely.
Perhaps he could now give his indication as to when this question will be replied to.


Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, I did check into the hon. member's question. We are working on it and we will do our very best to get it answered before the House rises for Christmas.
I must tell him, though, that because of the amount of information requested it is taking a fair amount of time to assemble it all. We will certainly do our best to get it here as quickly as we can.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Friday, December 15, consideration of Bill C-28, an Act to amend the Income lax Act, the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements and Federal Post-Secondary Education and Health Contributions Act, The Old Age Security Act, the Public Utilities Income Tax Transfer Act, the War Veterans Allowance Act and a related act, as reported (without amendment) from a legislative committee; and Motions Nos. 4, 6 and 7.
Ronald MacDonald: Madam Speaker, yesterday when we were discussing the time allocation motion on Bill C-28 I tried to educate my friends opposite about the negative effects this bill would have on Canadians.
Yesterday I referred to what would happen with two senior citizens, one who spent all his life and the other who saved all his life. One had a fairly healthy retirement income because he scrounged and planned well. The other one had one heck of a time. I showed yesterday, and I hope the members opposite had time to reflect on what I said, how regressive and how poorly founded in fact this particular piece of legislation is.


Don Boudria: And they didn't understand.


Ronald MacDonald: Perhaps a few of them did. I hope a few of them got some phone calls yesterday
December 19, 1989

after my speech to say, "Hey, you had better review your position on that particular piece of legislation."
Since the government had its way yesterday, which it usually does when it has a majority, it pushed through some legislation under time allocation so that the Canadian public would not hear the true debate they want to take place in this House about this regressive act. I am back on my feet today to speak specifically on the report stage and on some amendments that have been put. I believe they are Motion Nos. 4, 6 and 7.
Motion No. 4 was put by one of my colleagues. That would be my colleague from Ottawa South who sits next to me and who has many times risen to his feet in this debate to stand up for the senior citizens of Canada who will be assaulted by this particular piece of legislation.
Yesterday, I started to tell my story about what would happen with two individuals who chose two different routes in life but started off with the same incomes. Today I want to expand upon that a little, because I am afraid that yesterday only those senior citizens who are going to be affected now are going to be concerned about this bill.
I mentioned that on May 9,1 believe it was, the Leader of the Opposition got up. He had reviewed the government's leaked budget papers. He had seen something referred to as CPI minus 3. CPI minus 3 seems like an innocuous few letters and a number that does not quite mean very much. CPI minus 3 means an awful lot and should mean an awful lot to those working Canadians who are currently planning their retirement.
What CPI minus 3 means is that there will not be full indexing of the measures in Bill C-28. That is what it means. It means that it will be indexed to the inflation rate minus 3 per cent.
On May 9, the Leader of the Opposition asked the Minister of Finance: "What exactly does this mean? What does this mean to Canadians who are planning their retirement income now?"
I spoke about those senior citizens who will have clawed back and scratched back and gouged back some of their pension income that they expected to receive. Now I will talk about some of those other Canadians who are 35, 45, or 55 years of age and have to be concerned about
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this particular piece of legislation. They should be concerned because of the CPI minus 3.
I am going to go back and quote a question from the Leader of the Opposition to the Minister of Finance on May 9, as reported at page 1492 of Hansard. Referring to the Minister of Finance he asked:
I want to use his formula which he cutely calls CPI minus 3. Using his formula, will the minister confirm that 55-year old Canadians whose incomes are currently $ 25,000 a year as a result of inflation will have their old age pensions taxed back at age 80?
That is a pretty serious flaw in this legislation. Nobody would ever expect that their government would be so cruel and callous to intentionally do that to them.
The answer from the Minister of Finance was all huff and puffery. He knew that the Leader of the Opposition had found out what he was trying to do. This provision, CPI minus 3, means that by the time people currently making $25,000 a year or is looking at a pension income of $25,000 a year at age 55 turns 80, they will have all of their old age security taxed back. The government plays a cute game. They use $50,000 like it is the end of the world, that if somebody makes $50,000 a year, they are wealthy, they are rich.
Yesterday, I and other members from this side blew apart that particular falsehood. If there is anybody out there still saying that $50,000 seems like a lot and is 55, then he should think about an income of $25,000. Anybody who looks at an actuarial table could tell us that Canadians are living longer. The average life span for males is something like 77 and for females it is 79, and it increases every year. We can reasonably expect, if one is 55 today, it is not far-fetched to talk about living well past the age of 80.
As a matter of fact, I read a recent article in a news magazine. It was an American article which talked about the growth of centenarians, those in our society who are over 100 years of age. This is the fastest growing age group in North America. By the year 2025, it was estimated in the article, there will be 1.6 million North Americans over the age of 100.
When people sit back and say "well, this bill is not going to affect me; I am 55 and 80 is a long way off", they should just think about trying to plan their retirement knowing that at age 80, when they are not capable of working or are in their retirement years by choice, the pension income they had come to expect has been taxed back because of the actions of this government in this Bill C-28 in December 1989. The negative effects of this

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bill will ripple through the next 40 or 50 years, if the bill is not changed, is passed and any other Conservative government tries to keep the bill as law.
There was another thing the Leader of the Opposition asked that day. He put forth a second hypothetical scenario. Just so we know that we are not only dealing with 55-year-olds, 65-year-olds and 75-year olds, he asked the minister whether he would confirm that 45-year old Canadians whose incomes were $18,000 would as a result of the same formula have their old age pension taxed back at age 80. That is the fact. Taking into account the average rate of inflation over the last number of years, by the time somebody who makes $18,000 and is 45 years of age reaches 80 years of age, $18,000 will be the threshold.
I cannot think of another bill I have seen in this place that has had such a far-reaching impact on the future. The government does what it always does: It tries to hide the effects. It never comes forward and says: "Listen, we are going to end universality. We are going to try to get out of the old age pension system. We are going to tax everything back".
The government tries to put it in legalese language, to hide it with 57 or 58 other changes in the Income Tax Act and other related acts, and to hope that people on this side of the House will not do their homework and find out what is its true agenda. The people on this side of the House have done their homework. We know what is the government's true agenda. That is why we are vigorously opposing this particular piece of legislation.
Motions were put forward by my colleague from Ottawa South. The effect of Motion No. 4 would be to strike out in clause 48, lines 1 to 40, at page 46. In effect what this motion would do is destroy the clawback, the main intent of this bill and of this government's devious acts against those trying to plan their retirement income, not just those of today but those who will be retired in the future.
I am a realist. Unless my comments and the comments of the seniors and other concerned Canadians around the country have had an effect, I know the government will push forward with this piece of legislation to pull back what Canadians have a right to expect from their
government. That is why I rise today to support Motion No. 4 on behalf of my colleagues, on behalf of seniors, on behalf of working people in my riding, and on behalf of all other Canadians.


Mr. Charles DeBlois (Montmorency-Orleans):: Madam Speaker, I would like to contribute to this debate on the report of the parliamentary committee which is involved in clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-28, to remind my colleagues and especially the people watching, that this clawback measure is basically a progressive one. I am astonished that our friends opposite are trying to protect the rich. Essentially, this measure is aimed at the people who are best able to bear it and at making them help us put the country's finances back on track, while leaving the principle of universality intact.
The Canadian Council on Social Development said last year that the advantage of the clawback was that it was possible to achieve a saving while enhancing the progressive aspect of social programs and leaving the controversial principle of universality untouched. Most proponents of universality feel that benefits should be distributed progressively. The higher your income, the less you should receive and vice versa. The clawback does not jeopardize universality. Seniors and parents will continue to get their old age pension cheques and family allowances whatever their income, but the clawback reduces the net value for high-income beneficiaries.
I think that is very important. In practice, for those listening to us, it means people whose gross income is over $70,000.
I recently had the opportunity to visit seniors in my riding. I talked to them and was not afraid-we are accused of not being open. I am not afraid to talk about this clawback. When I questioned people, no one I spoke to was affected by this measure.
So I say, Let us stop this witch hunt, let us stop frightening seniors again. We are asking the most fortunate in our society to help us reach our goal of restoring our public finances, which we are striving for courageously.
December 19, 1989

I wanted to make this clarification, Madam Speaker, to help those following this debate see both sides and realize that we are not attacking universality of social programs, but asking the rich, from high-income individuals, to do more for the good of the public treasury.


Ms. Mary Clancy (Halifax):: Madam Speaker, I, too, rise to support the amendment brought forward by my colleague from Ottawa South.
Like so many other Canadians I am outraged that this government has unilaterally decided to send our tradition of universality of social programs down the slippery slope. I am speaking specifically of the clawback of which this Conservative government is so proud.
The arguments put forward for the clawback are superficially convincing. On the surface they appear to be rational, economically sound and even workable. However, much like the Communist system, the demise of which we have all been watching with great interest over the past month, in practice this theory, too, is unworkable because it is overlooks the element of the individual.
We are seeing today the demise of a system which appears on the surface to be grounded in principles of social equity and social justice. However, this system overlooks the human factor. Human beings are not complacent. They are ambitious and they have initiative. Totalitarianism overlooks these factors and subsequently is now beginning to collapse world-wide.
Thus we should learn from the examples around us and endeavour to make our own system more human, more open and more compassionate. Here in Canada the government uses similar non-human reasoning to justify the implementation of the clawback. They say the rich do not need it, why waste the money? Upper income pensioners and upper income parents should not receive social benefits, it is argued.
This is a strong persuasive argument on which the government bases its new policy. Let us analyse this argument to see how erroneous it actually is. The government claims that the clawback will only hit affluent families, but the truth of the matter is very different.
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The truth of the matter is that a family with two children and one income in excess of $50,000 will pay back all its family allowances as a result of this policy. Such a family can hardly be called affluent by the rational person, but by this government it would be.
To complicate this scenario, what if this particular family lives in Toronto or Vancouver where the cost of living is astronomical? This family would still have to repay all of its family allowance.
Clearly, the threshold set by the government is too low. Even if we were to accept the argument, what would be a fair threshold, $60,000, $70,000, $100,000? The answer is simply none. There is no fair threshold because each family's specific circumstance is different. This government has shown that it is incapable of understanding the unique circumstances of any Canadian family.
Certainly, there will be those families which do not need the added benefits but the number of such families is marginal at best. In trying to create one standard which binds all families in a certain income category this government is running the danger of catching hundreds, if not thousands of others, in the same net who are deserving and in need of the benefits.
We find ourselves in a dilemma. Should we eliminate universality, save a few dollars and deprive many families of their deserved and needed benefits? Or should we be realistic and allow some families who do not particularly need the benefits to collect those benefits and ensure that all those families who need the benefits will receive them? Should we just tax back those benefits in the normal way rather than clawing them back in a way which is contrary to all the traditions of Canada and Canadian social programs? The answer for any reasonable and compassionate person is that we do not support the clawback.
I do not understand why this government is obsessed with destruction and devastation. It seems that at every turn the government wants to dismantle viable national institutions, our history, our infrastructure, the kinds of [DOT] things that have made us unique on the world stage as Canadians, the kinds of things that every member in this House in his or her secret soul is proud of, even our Minister of Finance, all in the name of deficit reduction. My colleague from Winnipeg St. James in a previous debate talked about canonizing the deficit reduction.

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Well, it is canonized all right. It is canonized at the expense of individual Canadians.
The government is slashing social spending, dismantling VIA Rail, butchering UIC and now clawing back the benefits which families and seniors so desperately need.
What of old age pensions? Once again, members of the Conservative Party is going after our senior citizens. They tried it once before when they tried to deindex old age pensions and they were stopped in their tracks. The seniors of Canada would not have it then and they will not have it now. It is not bad enough that many seniors are unable to enjoy a decent standard of living as if that, in itself, was not one of the greatest black marks on the escutcheon of our country, this government is proposing to claw back old age pensions and run the danger of further impoverishing Canadian seniors.
Let us take the case of an elderly woman who lives off the interest from the proceeds of the sale of her family home. The interest may be enough to live comfortably. Yet because she is capital rich her old age pension will be clawed back, above and beyond the income tax she is paying on her interest income. We run the same danger with old age pensions as we run with family allowance benefits. That is, how can this government propose to create a scheme whereby only the few who truly do not need the benefits are exempt, again, without catching in the same net many others who need the benefits. It simply cannot be done.
Worse yet, worst of all is the abandonment of the traditional principles of universality which are based on the respect of the dignity of every individual Canadian. This abandonment will lead to a greater disparity between rich and poor. It will define lines of the needy and the not needy. It will ghettoize those families and seniors who receive the benefits particularly in the case of seniors, to the point where they will suffer even more because their pride will not allow them to seek such social programs as the guaranteed income supplement to help them get through. Why? Because if everyone does not get it, then as far as they are concerned it is a stigma to take it.
If we can do that to people who have spent their whole lives building this country, then we are not the heirs to the tradition of Canada that I hoped we were.
This brings me once again to the human factor of which I spoke earlier. Canadians are proud people, and rightly so. Canadians are also generous and tolerant. It is for this reason that we have believed in universal programs such as medicare.
We do not deny medical care benefits to someone who earns above a certain income. We do not deny these benefits because we believe that medical benefits should be available to everyone and there should not be a price placed upon an individual's health. The same principle applies uncategorically to family allowance and old age pension. There can be no price placed on the struggles of a family nor can there be any price placed on the dignity of our senior citizens, most of whom, if not all of whom, have contributed to this program.
In closing, universality is not, contrary to the opinion of this government, a dirty word. It is a proud word, it is a good word and, over and above all that, it is a Canadian word. Universality involves concepts of tolerance, fairness, equity and dignity. I have trouble understanding why this government finds such qualities so repugnant. I have trouble understanding why this government wants to tear down our values, our system and the things that we hold dear.
The time has come for this government to reassess its values. Canadians are tired of seeing the pillars of social equity being ripped down by a government obsessed with big business and international jet-setting.
I plead with the government to abandon its relentless attacks on seniors and families. If this government so enjoys crippling people, might I suggest it start directing its energy at foreign corporations and foreign fishing fleets and leave Canadian institutions, Canadian traditions and Canadian values alone.


Steve Butland: Madam Speaker, perhaps I should lead off with the consultation paper of the present government from January of 1985 on child and elderly benefits, but I will save that for tomorrow. I am sure that hon. members will be very interested in that.
December 19, 1989

I should also make mention of the 125 government amendments to Bill C-28. Might I also quickly add that all these amendments have been ruled out of order. I suggest that all of these amendments will be tabled.
One has to ask why have the amendments been set aside. Someone has to suggest that the bill must be significantly flawed and, obviously, that the amendments are also flawed. If you put one piece of flawed legislation with 125 flawed amendments, obviously what you are going to come up with is a flawed bill.
In questioning the Minister of Finance about the amendments, he suggests, "No problem. These amendments are primarily technical in nature. These are going to be handled through the technical bill that we are putting into the House some time in the new year. But there are a couple of elements that are more pressing than that and they will be introduced through new legislation at an earlier date". I suggest that there is something dreadfully wrong with this piece of legislation.
I guess our track record is better. We have introduced nine amendments, six of which were at least accepted as being debatable, and for that we are grateful and very pleased. As to the 125 government amendments, are they consequential or inconsequential, we are not sure. That remains to be seen. We are certainly taking a serious look at them.
On behalf of the New Democratic Party, we support the amendment of my hon. friend from Ottawa South which suggests that the entire clawback provision be removed. We, too, introduced that kind of amendment and therefore, we have no difficulty in supporting it.
Nevertheless, reality sets in and we know that this majority government will ram this legislation through as it has done through first reading, second reading, committee stage and now at report stage and probably tomorrow-well, we know for sure tomorrow it will be all over. So this is the way the Tories have conducted themselves and we have to accept reality even though we do not like it. We understand what they are up to.
For your heart of hearts, we are providing you some honourable, noteworthy options which will win you favour with families and senior citizens across this country. This is favour that this government so sorely needs, especially taking into consideration the legislation
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put forth this morning in the GST. The government needs to win some favour with Canadians, and particularly with seniors and families.
Amendment No. 6 would mitigate against the clawback provision. It would raise the threshold to $75,000 so fewer people would be affected now and even more important, fewer people would be affected in the future.
Amendment No. 7 is indexed to the Consumer Price Index. It is indexed to inflation. It is a splendid idea and not indexing seniors' pensions is what caused the government so many problems back in 1985. Surely it does not want to revisit that scene once again.
There is the sham of deficit reduction, the $300,000 or $500,000, whichever figure you want to believe. If you index it, you will still realize a certain amount of this figure. Yet you will indicate to all Canadians, not just seniors and young families, that you truly mean what you say, that for the most part universality will almost be preserved, is almost a sacred trust and at the very least please accept that.
In the budget papers of April 27, 1989, regarding the repayment of social transfers, the Minister of Finance said: "The level of threshold will be reviewed periodically and adjusted as appropriate." It begs the question: Is this going to be the same monitoring process that was in place for the free trade agreement? If so, we do not need that kind of monitoring process. Do away with it because there is none.
I understand the government now has hired an outside consultant to monitor the effects of the free trade agreement. We do not want to wait one year for the monitoring to start. Let us start monitoring immediately so we will save the government money, time, effort and the need to make further unpopular arbitrary decisions. Accept at least one of these amendments. It is the honourable option for the government to make its point yet realize some money while maintaining some semblance of credibility on this whole issue.
I see there are seven government members here. I would ask each of you to get out there and talk to 20-some of your fellow members and tell them of the good news, the good amendments that the New Democrats have brought forward. Tell them to support one of the amendments.

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Government members told us in committee that we have to wrap this up before Christmas because it is a Christmas present. Here is a real opportunity to make seniors and families happy across this country. I urge the government to seize this opportunity.
We New Democrats have faith. We believe that one of our amendments will be accepted by the government, because it is the only honourable thing to do and we would be surprised and disappointed if the government did not support one of these amendments.
We all accept that it is very difficult for us to get the government to define what universality is. It keeps saying that if we give with one hand and take with the other, it is still universality. We reject that out of hand and we suggest that if it is affecting 4 per cent in 1991, it may affect 8 per cent in 2001 and 25 per cent in later years and so on.
When does universality cease to be universality? We say that universality is at an end today or tomorrow. It is at an end. It is a watershed of social policy that this country has become accustomed to and deserves. It is a right for all Canadians to enjoy.
If the government would save just a little bit of face at this Christmas time of the year and accept one of the amendments, you can buy the better of two worlds. Although not acceptable totally, at least it would buy you some credibility in your stated belief that universality and social programs are a sacred trust. We do not trust you and Canadians do not trust you. Here is a very small opportunity to save some face.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: Madam Speaker, I rise to speak on the amendment to the clawback to the two great social programs that Canada has introduced. These two social programs, the family allowance and the old age security, are the envy of many nations of this world.
I would like to begin my remarks today by looking at the fiscal context in which these changes are being introduced. After all, the government has told Canadians that its primary problem is the deficit. Let us look at that.
The deficit in the five years this government has been in power has more than doubled. In spite of its Draconian cutting of programs and including cuts to these programs, the deficit this year is going to be even $1.6 billion higher than last year. This is on top of the most monumental tax increases that we have already seen which has amounted to 32 separate tax increases in five
years. Now what have they meant to ordinary Canadians?
Five years ago, income taxes paid in Canada were about $29 billion. This year, they are $80 billion, up 72 per cent in five years. What does this mean to an ordinary family? Well, in 1984, a family with two wage earners and two children with a combined family income of about $45,000 paid a fair share, and some could argue too much, income tax. But in the five years since 1984, that family's tax burden has increased by fully $2,800. When you add on to it the tax that was introduced in this House this morning, the goods and services tax, the increase to a $45,000 per year two-child family will be about $3,300.
Now, let us look at families at the poverty line. In five years, the taxes paid by families at the poverty level in Canada have increased fully 60 per cent. At the same time, the taxes paid by the rich in Canada have gone up only 8 per cent. If the problem were simply getting revenue, where should the government have gone for that revenue, to low and middle income families or to poverty level families in Canada? They went to the people who could afford it.
This is why we see today that fully 25 per cent of all Canadian children are living below the poverty level. This is a national disgrace for a country that has such wealth, even though our relative standard of living is declining vis-a-vis all our major trading partners.
Let us also look at some of the other reasons that we must reject the concept embodied in this Tory bill. The threshold at which the Tories claw back pensions and family allowances is $50,000, but that is not indexed. If inflation remains at the same rate as today, in about 10 years' time, fully one million Canadian families will have their pensions and old age security clawed back from them.
This government is saying: "You are the ones who are going to suffer". Inflation is not the fault of these taxpayers. It is the fault of these government policies. So why should the Tories impose the burden on Canadians who do not have it within their means to control the inflation rate?
This is a discriminatory tax on one-income against two-income families. Under these provisions, if you have two wage earners in a family who are earning $49,000 each, there is no clawback. There is no clawback on an income of almost $100,000. However, if you are a single-income family earning $50,000, the clawback

starts and it is fully complete when your income hits the $70,000 to $75,000 level. Is that fairness?
This is not a government which is prepared to even recognize that because of its Draconian tax policies and its high interest rate policies Canadian families now have to have more than one wage earner in order to just survive.
The government told us in the 1987 budget that when the new sales tax is introduced, the personal and corporate income surtaxes will be removed. We have just been told today, oh, no, the 3 per cent surtax on all incomes will stay in place. Not only that, it has increased to 5 per cent. This is another broken promise by a government that is not prepared to honour its election commitments.
We know now that it was prepared to do anything it could, prior to the election, to get elected, including holding off the introduction of its dreaded goods and services tax. The government did not have the guts to introduce it before the election. It waited until afterwards. Now the government is clawing back pensions and family allowances. Did the government tell us it was going to do that before the election? Absolutely not.
Why do you think Canadians become cynical? They become cynical when they are lied to, when they are cajoled and when they are treated in such an unfair and an inequitable way.
Let me conclude my remarks by saying that this bill has to be defeated because it is, in effect, a discriminatory tax on seniors. The government is saying to you: "If you are a senior citizen, then we will treat you differently from all other taxpayers. We are going to tax back a portion of your income. We are going to tax all of it back, and the reason we are doing that is simply because you are a senior citizen".
What does this say to Canadians who are saving for their future? These senior citizens can say: "I could have spent all my money and enjoyed my life. I need not have put aside money in order to provide for my security in old age. I could have spent it. I could have lived the good life, rather than being frugal and providing for my retirement. But, because I was frugal, my savings are going to mean that I am subject to this complete clawback. I am being jeopardized and discriminated
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against, because I acted in a responsible way. I paid my taxes as I went along. I contributed to this pension".
These people never in their lives would have believed that they were going to be taxed back simply because they were senior citizens and simply because they no longer had the ability to go out and take an active part in the workforce.
Tories will tell you that they have increased the limit that you can contribute to pensions and to retirement savings plans. Bravo, but that only applies if you are an active member of the workforce, if you have the income and can go out and do it. Seniors cannot go back into the workforce to recoup the money that is being taxed back from them. This is why it is such an inequitable type of tax.
The Tories had alternatives in coping with the so-called deficit. They have chosen to do it on the backs of the impoverished, the low-income and the middle-income families. Canadians do not accept this, they never will. The government will find out at the next election how Canadians feel about these policies.


Mr. Dennis Mills (Broadview-Greenwood):: Madam Speaker, I am happy to have the opportunity to speak on Bill C-28 which is clawing back seniors' pensions. In my riding, there are over 20,000 senior citizens, and when I was campaigning in the last election, many seniors still had a memory of the attempt by the government to deindex their pensions in the Minister of Finance's first budget of 1984.
There was a fear, and I must tell you that that fear was not prompted. They still had a lingering memory about that attempt to deindex pensions. One of the things that we forget about senior citizens is that it is not that they do not want to pay their fair share, it is not that they do not want to continue to contribute to the fabric of this nation, but they are at a time in their lives when they feel that they have made a great contribution and they feel that they should be given a sense of security. When the government comes along and starts clawing back when there was absolutely no mention of this intent before the last election, they become very suspicious. They become

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nervous. Some actually become almost terrorized, their feeling is so intense.
One of the things we overlook in this House is that very few people actually understand our tax system today. I know when I talk to the senior citizens in my riding, they say that they do not understand it any more. We have a tax system in this country that is so complicated, laid out in a document that has close to 15,000 or 16,000 pages, that even the best tax lawyers in the country will admit they cannot figure it out any more. If the best tax lawyers in the country are having a difficult time with it, how does this give a sense of security or a sense of trust to seniors?
Then we come along with a new system and we put out a memo saying that the $50,000 threshold at which individuals begin paying back their FA and their OAS benefits is only partially indexed to increases in inflation above 3 per cent, and this deindexing of the $50,000 threshold means that within 10 years, close to one million families will start losing their family allowances and old age pensions.
We know what this is all about because we spend time going over it and figuring it out. But, quite frankly, even after that I still have a difficult time understanding it. I think it is about time that we in this Chamber start to realize that our system is so complicated that it is acting as a disincentive, it is acting almost like a morale buster. When the morale of our community breaks down, it has a ripple effect. That is the problem we have with this government. It is breaking down the morale, it is breaking down the will of the country.
Seniors are a very effective communications force in this nation. We remember in 1984, when the seniors heard that their pensions were being indexed, from out of nowhere they were able to change the legislation of this government.
If the morale of senior citizens is not good, it affects the sons and daughters and those sons and daughters are entrepreneurs. They are teachers who, in turn, communicate to others. The whole spirit of this country can be affected.
I for one know of that communications ability of seniors and the effect they can have in a community because in my community, quite frankly, they got me elected. Their good word and positive attitude can affect
a lot of things. When the government targets seniors by clawing back pensions I think it is really being penny wise and pound foolish. The government is taking on the spirit of this country because senior citizens are the cornerstone of the spirit of this country.
We have heard many times in the last couple of weeks and months from the Minister of Finance saying: "Well, you are quick to criticize but what ideas do you have over there?" There are many of us who are working on ideas to try to come up with a more fair, more simple, more efficient and workable tax system and there is a group of us in my riding of Broadview-Greenwood. We have been working on this project called the single tax for many months. I stress that it is not our party policy at this time but it is an idea that we are discussing which will, hopefully, advance the debate in a constructive and a creative way.
I have talked to hundreds of seniors in my riding and they like this system because it is more simple, it is more fair. It is efficient. It will give the Government of Canada revenue neutrality. We do not need a goods and services tax with this system. We can phase out the manufacturers' sales tax over three and a half years. I can tell you that we used Statistics Canada models to run our numbers through on this. It will work.
I sent this package to the Minister of Finance. Of course, he has incredible resources. He has a Department of Finance with over 3,000 public servants who could take a look at this system, and I am prepared to accept his constructive criticism about the flaws in the position that I am putting forward. He should at least take a look at it and he should try to come back with what he thinks is wrong with it.
I have tested this in the market-place. We are getting good response. Many of my colleagues are finding the same thing. My point is that we have to start turning people on again in this country so that they are more enthusiastic about what they are doing. I am afraid that if we do not get excited about this country again in the next few months, we are going to slide into a recession. No one in this country wants that and we are not over here trying to criticize just for the sake of criticism, but it is our duty to criticize when a community like the senior citizens of Canada are being confronted by the Minister of Finance and his officials by a clawback system. These are people who have worked all their lives in anticipation

of their pensions. I mean, it is so small minded. I cannot understand it.
I am not saying that we should not pay attention to deficit or debt. We must. But there are better ways. It is incumbent upon all of us to take a look at the fact that we have been held captive by this 15,000 or 16,000 pages of "bureaucratese" for the last 20 years, and I think it is time that the people of Canada get a better deal. I can think of no better constituency than the senior citizens of Canada to begin the process of going back to basic comprehensive tax reform.


Brian L. Gardiner: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to participate in this debate on Bill C-28, legislation that has been very ably led on our side of the House by my colleague, the member for Sault Ste. Marie. Frankly, he has done a better job than the government.
As you know, at least a couple of his amendments were accepted by Your Honour, whereas 125 or 128 amendments proposed to this legislation at this particular stage were actually ruled out of order. I think a good deal of credit goes to my colleague for Sault Ste. Marie for the very competent work he has done and shame on the government for its incompetence in handling this legislation.
What is Bill C-28? Bill C-28 is an omnibus bill dealing with a number of matters. Today we are dealing with legislation on the clawback, as it has been referred to, but this legislation also does a number of other things. It has amendments to the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act respecting education and health. We have made comments on that. It deals with the Old Age Security Act, public utilities income tax transfer and the Income Tax Act as well as a host of others.
Our discussion at this stage of the bill, the report stage, where amendments are being presented by members in the House, is an important stage of debate. It is made more so because the closure party, the Conservative party, through a number of time allocation and closure measures that we spoke about yesterday gives rise to the headlines in the paper. Our very capable House leader, the member for Kamloops, talked about jackboot tactics. That is the way seniors are being treated in this country under Bill C-28.
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I think it is a credit to the member for Sault Ste. Marie and our House leader that they have drawn the attention of Canadians to this legislation. It has been a bill run through the House by this government amidst grief and suffering taxes and a host of other items in the hope that it can get by with what is being called-and something that I can support-a wholesale and fundamental shift in the way that we will be dealing in the future with the questions of universality and social services.
I want to comment briefly on the question of universality. It is easy for the Prime Minister to get out and talk about how the opposition wants to help out the bank managers and wealthy Canadians, and to ask why we do not support his proposal on clawing back pensions from seniors.
Why? Why the defence of universality? The defence of universality goes around the reason why in this country we have built the kind of society that we have-hopefully, a sharing society and one where the benefits of all are not challenged by a few. What I mean by that is the reverse of universality is that the few, then, are not eligible. What does that mean? It goes back to the old days-before my time in this House, certainly-of means tests and other methods.
If we are trying to help all Canadians in society through broad tax measures and transfers of income, what we are talking about is having people line up for social assistance, for a means test or for any other kind of benefit. We are all going to be members of the United Way from now on because seniors are going to have to go to the United Way to get any kind of help, despite the time that they have spent building this country and getting us to the point where we have the resources and we have rights in this House, even though they are trampled on occasionally and, indeed, all too often now by the government. I would like to quote from a brief that was submitted to the legislative committee on Bill C-28 regarding the question of universality and the clawback as it has been referred to. I think it is an excellent summary of the debate that members on this side have been presenting to the government. It is my hope that in doing this some of the government members, in particular those members who I am sure have seniors in their riding, will pay attention and will vote on our side for some of the amendments that we are dealing with now.

December 19, 1989
Government Orders
Let me quote from the organization called One Voice, the Canadian seniors network. It was to the legislative committee on Bill C-28. The group was unable to appear because the government, of course, restricted the number of witnesses that could attend in order to try and get the bill through. I quote:
At a threshold of $50,000 the clawback has been put forward as a tax on the wealthy.
This has been accepted by most people because it has always been a pillar of Canadian taxation, that wealthy people should pay proportionately more in our progressive system. Fair enough. However, the threshold of $50,000 is only partially indexed. Over the years, that threshold will diminish until most average-income Canadians will be losing their benefits. Estimates show that partial indexation will reduce the threshold to $30,000 in less than 20years. It is also possible to foresee, once we have accepted the principle of the clawback, that a future federal budget, perhaps in March or April of next year, might arbitrarily lower the threshold to $40,000 or $30,000. At $30,000 the clawback is not a tax on the wealthy but a tax on all those in the middle and upper income categories. In fact, the government could have introduced the clawback at $30,000 at any level. But it chose not to. Why?
I think this is the answer to the debate about universality. The brief continues:
Because the clawback would then be seen not as a tax on the wealthy,-
This argument was presented by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance and a legion. There is not a legion of Tories here today, that is for sure. They do not want to hear the truth. The brief goes on:
-but for what it really is -recovery of benefits from part of the population.
This is an attack on the universality of Canada's social programs.
I would challenge the Conservative members of this House to put that description in their householder in the new year. I challenge them to run that description of this legislation. If the Conservative members ask their constituents and seniors in their riding to use the mailbacks to comment on Bill C-28 and the amendments that we have presented, you know very well what those constituents and those seniors will be doing to those Conservatives when the next election comes around. When is the jackboot going to hit the mark from the Conservatives, the jackboot that the Tories are laying on the seniors of this country.
This is to go into effect for tax year 1990. When Canadians are filing their tax returns in 1991-is that not a familiar sounding year-they will find other things happening. GST, grief and suffering tax, gouge and screw
tax, whatever you call it, seniors are going to be hit with this legislation which is an attack on the universality of social programs in Canada and an attack on average Canadians who are prepared to pay their fair share. I call on the government members to join with the opposition, support these amendments and defeat this regressive bill.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Madam Speaker, I regret very much the measure that is before the House now. Of course, I am rising with all members of the opposition to urge the government to think again about a change in our tax laws which hit so much at the fundamentals of what we understand Canada to be about. I am glad that the debate is taking place at a time when we are starting to see other news, news that I want to talk about in a moment. I hope this news is giving government members something to think about, whether the direction in which the Conservatives are leading Canada is really a direction in which they want to support the government. There are a number of government supporters in the House and I am glad to see them here. I hope that they will be considering these things as Christmas approaches, as news comes out more and more about the developing inequalities in Canadian society and about the power that we have in this House of Commons, as individual members representing the ridings and the regions of Canada, to stand up and do something about it.
When I was first elected, and in the two or three elections that followed, one of the most common questions that constituents would ask during election campaigns is no longer being asked. But in 1968, 1972, 1974 and 1978 one of the most common questions that you always got as you went around campaigning was, "What is the difference really between the Liberal and the Conservative parties anyway? What is the difference between what the two parties stand for in terms of leadership of the country?" That is not a question that Canadians ask at election time any more. They now have seen whatever it was that the Conservatives said in 1984 in order to get elected, whatever kind of make-believe Liberals-as one of our Senators put it in describing them-they appeared to be and seen the government demonstrate since coming to office a very different way of looking at Canada and of looking at how this country should be led.
December 19, 1989

The Conservatives believe in the trickle-down theory of economic benefit. They believe, and the Minister of Finance once said as much, "We need more rich people in Canada". The theory was that if we, as a society, could use the powers of government, use the taxation system to make the rich richer, to assist them in achieving their economic goals in society, that that would trickle down and it would eventually be good for the rest of Canadian society.
Liberals do not look at the country that way. We are happy to see people who are rich getting richer. We are happy to see ordinary Canadians achieving success and becoming better off because it means that they are making a contribution to the economy. But we, on this side of the House, recognize that just watching rich people get richer does nothing in itself to assure that ordinary Canadians, that poorer Canadians are going to become better off as a result.
When we look at some other countries in the world where there are very rich people, the theory that making the rich get richer is going to assure a trickle-down benefit to ordinary people in the society, we have a demonstration that that is not true. More and more we see in our country as we look around that although the rich may be getting richer, and more and more fortunes are being acquired and accumulated in Canada by economic effort that is beneficial to the economy and even creates jobs to a certain point, it is not a substitute for programs that look at the ordinary Canadian; that look at the poor; that look at regions of this country- which are becoming more and more desperate in spite of over-all national statistics to which the government points with pride-and that show that there is a missing ingredient, something missing in this government's planning that is moving us in a direction in which I think Canadians do not want to be led and in which I do not think Canadians will want to follow this government.
We have one illustration before us in the example of the clawback. I want to take some time to develop why we find the clawback so objectionable. But I cannot let this time of year pass without talking about the plight of children in Canadian society. We learned last week that there are more food banks in the city of Toronto now than there are McDonald's hamburger restaurants across our fair city. This is an appalling piece of informa-
Govemment Orders
tion for Canadians to absorb, for Torontonians to absorb: the idea that as we have seen our society becoming more prosperous as more businesses are becoming successful, even as there are more people in the city of Toronto working every month than there were in the last month, that because of the approach of this government which is being accompanied month by month by month with a greater and greater situation of poverty in the city of Toronto and in the country of Canada.
We have a social contract in this country that is being violated by this government. It is a social contract that better off Canadians understand very well. The contract is that we contribute, we work, we pay our taxes, we enjoy whatever benefits we earn in the Canadian society. We do so in the full belief, which is no longer true, but which has been true and which should be true that we as a society are caring for each other. When I take out my kids to celebrate a birthday and take all of our friends along to enjoy ourselves, the system which we have supported in the past is looking after the less fortunate in the society. It is hard for us to be responsible for the welfare of people in other countries far away from ours where we see so much suffering. It is not hard for us to be responsible for the welfare of our fellow Canadians. Far from setting an example in Canada of a caring society, we are being led by this government, with prosperity all around us, further and further away from that essential element of being Canadian which has made it such a wonderful country to live in, where we could enjoy our successes and our prosperity in those parts of society where we have earned it and where we have it, knowing that no one will be suffering, no Canadian children will be going to bed hungry at night when my own children are at birthday parties.
This is a very serious violation of the fundamental element of Canadianism. I urge members of the government party to consider this when they are voting on this cruel clawback measure to which I now want to turn my attention in the remaining few minutes that I have.
When I first started paying income tax, there was a little line on the form that said, "3 per cent old age security tax". I and millions of Canadians paid it. We understood by paying it that we when we became senior citizens-and I am a long way from it yet, but it is significant-we would receive an old age pension. The

most fraudulent feature of the presentation the government has made is its insistence that that commitment is being honoured even under the amendment that is being proposed today. Government members stand there with straight faces and tell Canadians, who contributed for years and years to their own old age security pension, that they have nothing to complain about and that they are still going to get it.
I hope there is no one in the country who believes this because Canadians will not be getting that pension. As we who are still far from retirement get closer and closer to it, the proportion of the old age pension to which we have contributed and which was part of that fundamental, social contract of Canada, is being clawed back by a tax system which is probably unconstitutional and which, although it does not violate a specific contract that we had when we paid that 3 per cent, does violate the spirit of universality, which is one of the essential components of being Canadian.
For those whose income is between $25,000 and $50,000, a greater and greater proportion of the money received every year as the old age pension will be clawed back at double tax rates so that when you reach $50,000, the whole of that old age pension that the government says you are still getting is going to be completely reimbursable to the Government of Canada.
A $50,000 a year retiree is certainly not a pauper, neither is a $25,000 a year retiree, but that is not the point. The point is that this payment was part of the commitment made to working Canadians while they were contributing to the tax. I used to work in the field of pension taxation and pension law. I know that there are hundreds of pension plans across this country which are specifically reduced by the amount of the old age pension that the retiree is going to receive.
Under most of these plans, unless they are revised, and I do not think they will be, this insidious clawback provision will not alter the amount payable to the retiree so that, for purposes of the private plan to which you contributed, your pension will be reduced as if you were getting an old age pension, but when you make out your tax return every year and when you send it in you will find that you are getting less than you agreed to receive
when you contracted your particular retirement plan as one of the negotiated conditions of your employment.
It is a fraud to tell Canadians that they are getting the old age pension and to have their plans set up on that basis when they are clawed back eventually to the level of zero.
I see that the 10 minutes I have has expired, but I want to add one other idea. With inflation, which is almost guaranteed even at very low levels year after year after year, that $25,000 cut-in and that $50,000 threshold get closer and closer and closer to the poverty level of an individual. What this means is that while this year you can look at a $25,000 a year retiree or a $50,000 a year retiree as being better off, that will not be the case when people my age are ready to retire and when all the other people who have sent us here to Parliament on their behalf will retire.
I urge government members to think about what we are doing in the opposition to resist this insidious, un-Canadian amendment to the Income Thx Act.


Don Boudria: Madam Speaker, on a point of order, I know we are scheduled to adjourn at 1.53 this afternoon. Given that that only leaves approximately a minute or two perhaps we could, by unanimous consent, see the clock at 1.53 p.m. so that the next speaker could deliver her full remarks in one shot as opposed to having her speech interrupted after a minute or two.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I think this would be a very helpful suggestion. I do now leave the chair until two o'clock this day.
At 1.53 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

Mrs. Gabrielle Bertrand (Brome - Missisquoi):: Mr. Speaker, the Free Trade Agreement with the United States enables Canadian industry to compete with the Americans. The gradual elimination of customs tariffs on Canadian goods exported to the United States has

made it possible for one business in my riding to break into the U.S. market and thus become established on the international market.
Elenri Fontaine Limitee in Magog, a well-known family business, has just signed a major contract worth $1.5 million with California to manufacture 200 wall-mounted valves made of stainless steel, to be used in waste water treatment.
Its competitors, Mr. Speaker, were major U.S. companies well known in the field. This is indeed a feather in the cap of Fontaine Limitee which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.
For these two reasons I offer my sincere congratulations to the firm's president and its employees.


EXPOSITION CENTRE
Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, as part of the cruel and unusual punishment inflicted upon the residents of the national capital area the government has announced the closure of the production facility of the Canadian Government Exposition Centre. This decision will result in the layoff of some 50 workers just a few days before Christmas.
Perhaps even more serious, if anything could be more serious and more devastating than learning that you are losing your job just a few days before Christmas, this decision made by the government does not make any sense using the government's own criteria.
At a time when we are incurring a trade deficit in this country, the Canadian Government Exposition Centre is very much needed. This kind of facility prepares exhibits and displays for the Government of Canada when travelling throughout this country and the whole world. Indeed, if we did not have a Canadian Government Exposition Centre this would probably be the most opportune time to create one in order to increase trade opportunities for our country.
Shame on the government.


PROPOSED GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance this morning said that the government is responding to small business concerns over the GST. How wrong he is. Small business had been offered a $600-a-year fee to collect the GST. That has been taken away. Small business had been promised that it would be consulted to find further ways of streamlining the tax. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business has called the streamlining "easily the most complex part of the GST proposals".
Small business exemptions on new cash register equipment will total only 20 per cent of the cost. In my own riding of Surrey North I am receiving letters from small businesses protesting the added expense of the GST.
In addition, they point out that the required paperwork will also reveal to everyone both the costs and profits of any small business. No wonder small business has completely rejected the GST. No wonder John Bulloch of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business calls the GST "a triumph of greed and politics over reason and sound tax planning".


SALVATION ARMY
Mr. Stan Wilbee (Delta):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to volunteer agencies which serve the less fortunate in our country at this time of year. There are church groups, service clubs, scouts, girl guides and many other organizations that attempt to bring the spirit of Christmas to those in need.
I pay special tribute to the Salvation Army which will be providing shelter, clothing, food hampers and Christmas dinners for over 80,000 people across Canada alone. As a physician I note the tremendous efforts of the Salvation Army and its officers to fight chemical dependency involving not only hard drugs but also alcohol and tobacco which are causing severe health and social problems today. Emotional, material and spiritual support provided to the poor is doing much to combat problems of child poverty.

December 19, 1989
I appeal to all Canadians to share our abundance with the army and to reach out to someone in need at this time of year when poverty is darker, hunger is deeper and loneliness is greater. Let us do our part to assist in bringing the true spirit of love, joy, peace and goodwill to our fellow men at this special Christmas season.


FORESTRY
Mr. Bob Corbett (Fundy-Royal):: Mr. Speaker, last Friday the Government of Canada and the province of New Brunswick signed a five year $91 million co-operation agreement on forestry development. The federal government will be contributing $50 million, the provincial government $41 million.
This agreement has been eagerly anticipated by New Brunswick's forestry sector and will make a significant contribution to the economy of the province as well as ensuring that the resource is wisely managed and protected for future generations.
I commend the federal and provincial governments for concluding an agreement that is so vital to the well-being of New Brunswick.


CORRECTIONAL SERVICES OF CANADA
Mr. John Harvard (Winnipeg St. Janies):: Mr. Speaker, Canada risks losing the services of the John Howard Society. The John Howard Society is concerned about new security conditions imposed on it by the Correctional Services of Canada. Correctional Services has imposed additional security conditions on voluntary organizations which provide prison visitation programs, operate halfway houses and conduct community assessment, parole supervision and other corrections programs.
The autonomy of private agencies is threatened and the privacy of individual employees is endangered. The new rules remove the right of independent agencies to determine whether employees are trustworthy and reliable in maintaining the confidentiality of information. The John Howard Society says that these new provisions are unnecessary in light of the organization's past success in ensuring security and confidentiality.
As a result of the changes, the society will become nothing more than an underpaid arm of government, void of local accountability and autonomy. After more than 30 years of providing parole supervision, Canada risks losing the services of the John Howard Society. I ask that the government rethink this policy in light of the contribution made by this organization to all of the country.


CBC NEWSWORLD
Mr. Denis Pronovost (St. Maurice):: Mr. Speaker, at last TV viewers in some parts of the province of Quebec will receive the signal of CBC Newsworld. This is great news for national unity. In these difficult times for our country, I urge every member of Parliament to support my proposal to open CBC Newsworld to all regions of Quebec. In my view it is unacceptable that my constituents be blacked out by TV cable companies from a national service.
Yesterday, a French-speaking TV critic, Daniel Rioux, from le Journal de Montreal stated that CBC Newsworld will help Quebecers to better understand the reality of other Canadians.
I also want to remind this House that the CRTC rejects such a national service in French. It is about time that members of Parliament express themselves on this very important topic.


PROPOSED GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. George Proud (Hillsborough):: Mr. Speaker, today's announcement of a 7 per cent goods and services tax by the Minister of Finance will have a devastating effect on the more than 100,000 Canadians employed directly and indirectly in the horsebreeding and racing industry. These jobs will be decimated when the goods and services tax is implemented.
According to the chairman of the Ontario Racing Commission, higher costs and lower profits resulting from the GST would drive what remained of Canada's lucrative horse racing business to the United States.
In my riding of Hillsborough, the Charlottetown Driving Park paid approximately $813,000 in provincial taxes last year. If the GST is levied on the horse breeding and racing industry, whether at 7 per cent or 9 per cent, the
December 19, 1989

industry will not be able to absorb this additional cost. The loss of jobs and eventually the demise of the industry will be the result.
The government has not listened to the industry officials. Today the minister tried yet another smokescreen, the elimination of the existing .8 per cent federal agricultural levy on pari mutuel betting. Removing this levy while still implementing the GST will in no way lessen the damage suffered by the industry.
I strongly urge this government to withdraw the GST and go back to the drawing board.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE ACT
Mr. Ken James (Sarnia - Lambton):: Mr. Speaker, on November 6, some 43 days ago, the duly elected members of this House passed the unemployment insurance bill, Bill C-21, a bill which would strengthen the ability of the UI program to act as an effective economic safety net, allow for more skills training and help Canadian workers better adjust to change.
Since that time, however, a group of non-elected Liberal senators have once again got caught up in another attempt to thwart the efforts of this government, look for loopholes in the rules and intentionally delay the legislation and demonstrate their political muscle.
Yet, where do the interests of the unemployed in Canada's poorer regions fit in? A distant second, it would seem. For these individuals the extra four week requirement could prove to be devastating, especially in light of the combination of other problems which they face.
I call upon all Liberal members opposite to urge their Senate colleagues to get on with it, to pass this much needed legislation and start putting the needs of Canadians in our poorer regions before this unnecessary self-interest and political showmanship.


POVERTY
Joy Langan: Mr. Speaker, I would have liked to have put a cheerful face on my statement in keeping with this joyful season. But, as members of Parliament head home to feast, I ask them to consider images of starving children in the Third
World and developing countries lining up to receive life-saving food that Canada has sent. And we feel satisfied with our generosity.
Consider that close to one million Canadian children live in poverty. In this season of giving Canadians give to the hundreds of food banks across Canada to help these kids have a decent meal during the holidays. And we feel satisfied with our generosity.
I ask hon. members in this House to consider the other 364 days a year that these one million Canadian kids go to school and play while hungry. We cannot be satisfied with our generosity while one child is hungry and living in poverty. Consider this Christmas, as we give thanks for our good fortune, ways in which we can work together in this House toward eradicating poverty in 1990.


BILL C-21-UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE ACT
Guy St-Julien: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister of Canada asked in the House that the Senate pass Bill C-21 on unemployment insurance reform as quickly as possible, and he condemned the obstructionist tactics of the Liberal senators who have a majority in the other place.
This bill will make it possible to allocate $800 million to manpower training programs. It increases the number of weeks of employment required to be eligible for benefits and also reduces the number of benefit weeks. The CNTU approves provisions that increase maternity benefits and benefits for workers aged 65 and over.
Mr. Speaker, once again, the uncalled for obstruction by certain Liberal senators in the other place is totally unacceptable.


ROMANIA
Mrs. Christine Stewart (Northumberland):: Mr. Speaker, daily we hear of dramatic changes in central and east European countries which bring new freedom, hope for justice and peace to the region. However, Romania remains intransigent in its Fascist repression of its people under the leadership of the dictator, President Ceauses-cu. We are all alarmed at the present news of the violence in Timisoara, Romania, reminiscent, in fact, of

December 19, 1989
the Tiananmen Square massacre in China earlier this year.
In Canada we have watched the increased persecution of the two million Hungarian minority in Romania and its protestant leader, the Reverend Laszlo Tokes. We wrote letters. We have watched Romanian masses being subjected to cold, hunger and misery, only to reward a dictator's blind, inhumane obsessions to pay off foreign debt.
Despite this, we have continued to trade with Romania. In recognition of Romania as a country where there is no freedom of expression, religion, association, and assembly, where the government massacres its own people, where we know there is no human rights commitment, Canada must act. Canada must press Gorbachev to intervene with compassion in the situation in Romania. We must reassess our trade with Romania. We must guarantee that Romania abides by the non-proliferation provisions of our Candu reactor trade contract. We must commit to bold action, not just the use of words.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE ACT
Mr. Peter L. McCreath (South Shore):: Mr. Speaker, last October, after six months of thorough debate and coast-to-coast public hearings, this House passed Bill C-21 which will inaugurate significant improvements to Canada's UI system.
Atlantic Canadians need the additional access to employment and training opportunities which Bill C-21 will bring into effect. Atlantic Canadians approve of tightening up the system so there are less abuses of it. Atlantic Canadians need the benefit of variable entrance requirements.
I am really appalled at the utter contempt which the Liberal party, through its use of the other place, shows for democracy in this country. I say to the Leader of the Opposition, end the hypocrisy that purports to show an interest in unemployed Canadians while in fact doing them in. Let democracy prevail. End the MacEachen blackmail.


NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg Transcona):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring to the attention of the House the issue of the MX Rail Garrison Program.
On November 29 the American air force announced its finalized plans for modernization of its nuclear missile force in North Dakota. Four trains, each armed with two MX missiles, will be stationed in Grand Forks. Each MX missile has 10 accurate, independently targeted and extremely powerful warheads.
The trains allow for mobility of the MX in times of crisis, making them less targetable than standard ICBMs and creating uncertainty for the so-called enemy. They have a destabilizing effect and represent a serious escalation in the arms race.
The stationing of MX-equipped rail cars so close to the Canadian border, not only in North Dakota but at several other American bases, should be protested by the Canadian government. It represents an unwelcome addition to the already considerable nuclear arsenal. There are presently 1,500 warheads in North Dakota alone, only miles from Canadian territory.
I urge the government to speak out against this inappropriate escalation of the arms race and, failing removal of the MX rail cars, to seek a guarantee that these trains will never move in the direction of Canada.


CAPE BRETON DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
Mr. Dave Dingwall (Cape Breton -East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my disappointment with the behaviour and activities of the minister responsible for the Cape Breton Development Corporation. Union representatives and management personnel are in the midst of negotiating a collective agreement.
The minister has intervened by placing on the table the possible closure of the Lingan colliery which employs 1,200 persons. He has threatened that if a collective agreement is not signed for a duration of four years this

particular mine will close, affecting that community not only in the short term but, indeed, in the long term.
I would have hoped that the minister responsible would have wanted to facilitate the collective bargaining process. In that regard I ask him to call upon the Minister of Labour to appoint Bill Kelly, former Deputy Minister of Labour, as the mediator in this particular settlement in order to have this matter resolved before we break for Christmas. I urge the minister to do this forthwith.


QUESTION PERIOD
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance confirmed to us today that the goods and services tax he is preparing for us is in flagrant contradiction with all the election promises made by the Conservatives during the last election campaign. We know today that all the Conservatives' election promises were completely false.
The Minister said during the election campaign that the tax would be revenue-neutral, that it would be brought in with the co-operation of the provinces, that it would be visible and the amount would appear on sales slips, that it would be easy to administer, that it would not be inflationary, that income tax rates for individuals would go down regardless of the rate set for the GST. Finally, Mr. Speaker, he said that the surtax on middle incomes would be abolished.
If the Minister really wants to reduce the deficit, if the Minister of Finance really wants to control the deficit, why does he not apply the GST to all the lies the Conservatives told in the last election campaign? Then our deficit would disappear overnight.


Some hon. members:: Flear, hear.


Mr. Mulroney:: There's no question there. Put a question. What a farce.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I did not hear a question from the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition.
Oral Questions


Martin Brian Mulroney: Just insults.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: I did hear a lot of needless abuse. If we are going to have a debate on something like the GST, let's have a debate. We do not need this needless abuse.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


Mary Catherine Clancy: That's our line.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: I heard the Leader of the Opposition talk about visibility. He wants a visible tax. But the only alternative that I hear from the Liberal Party is to go back to the manufacturers' sales tax which is an absolutely invisible tax. No one in the country knows what it is, what it is on or how much it is.


Some hon. members:: Shame, shame.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: So much for the Liberal alternatives to this tax.
The second thing he talks about is revenue neutrality. What is his option there? Revenue neutrality I think in his terms would mean scrapping the goods and services tax-


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: -credit for low-income Canadians. I hear that the Liberal party wants to scrap the goods and services tax-


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


Michael Holcombe Wilson: -credit for low-income Canadians. This is a very interesting revelation. We have been waiting for four months now to get the alternatives of the Liberal Party. Now they want to hit the low income Canadians. Well this government is not going to do that. This government is going to bring in the goods and services tax with a generous goods and services tax credit.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance says he does not have to take this abuse. I say to him that the Canadian taxpayer does not want to take this abuse either.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister was counselling his minister not to reply.

December 19, 1989
Oral Questions
I am not surprised. The Prime Minister finds democracy in Parliament a big nuisance and he did not listen-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I am sure the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition would want to put his question.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, small businesses in this country have opposed this sales tax right from the outset. For daring to stand up to the Minister of Finance the small business community received another kick in the teeth this morning. In order to teach the small business community a lesson, the minister gave them a $600 million kick in the teeth by taking away the fee that they were supposed to receive for administering his tax.
The minister told hardworking, decent, independent Canadian business people that they would receive an administrative fee for administering the nightmare that this tax is going to bring. Today he broke that promise.
What explanation is he going to give to the million small business people in this country for having once again broken his word, or does he think that the changes he announced this morning will relieve small business of that administrative nightmare?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, first of all let me make it quite clear that if the Leader of the Opposition had spent some time trying to understand this tax he would know that it is not an administrative nightmare. There have been a number of proposals that have been specifically brought in to the GST proposal, including two forms of streamlined accounting. If others are brought to our attention that are workable, we will allow those to be used as well.
We have also provided the small business community a relief from sales tax on the purchase of new equipment that they might need for compliance with the sales tax, that is point of sale equipment as well as inventory control equipment. That will drop the cost of that by about 20 per cent, which is not insignificant.
The final point I have to make is that the small business community, particularly led by the Chamber of Commerce, has been one of the loudest proponents of a lower sales tax rate. That is what we have brought in as a
result of my proposal this morning. The drop from 9 per cent to 7 per cent is a major step forward in meeting the concerns of the small business community.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, a few months ago the Minister of Finance recognized the administrative difficulty that small business would have by allowing them a fee to administer the tax. Every small business representative who appeared before the committee chaired by the member for Mississauga South told the committee, and through the committee told Parliament, that the tax would be an administrative nightmare: two sets of taxes, one federal, one provincial, two sets of books. Absolutely impossible for the average small business person to administer.
This morning the minister admitted for the first time that there was a slowdown in the economy. He said that the economy was slowing down. Yet at this dangerous time the minister insists on proceeding with this inflationary tax. At a dangerous time for the economy he is imposing a new goods and services tax upon Canadians.
How can the minister justify proceeding with this tax at this time at the of the Canadian economy? Does he not believe that his responsibility to the people of Canada is to prevent a recession and not to create a recession?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: First, Mr. Speaker, let me correct something, as I usually have to do in response to the hon. member's questions. People do not have to keep two sets of books. They can calculate the goods and services tax off the same sets of books off of which they are calculating their income tax today. So there are no new sets of books.
I see that the hon. Leader of the Opposition is now nodding his head in agreement.


John Napier Turner: I am not. I am not.


Mr. Duhamel:: You're having hallucinations.


Mr. Douglas Young (Gloucester):: Mr. Speaker, today we saw the finance minister swallow himself whole. Canadians are not going to swallow this GST at 7 per cent any more than they were going to swallow it at 9 per cent.
My question is for the Minister of Finance. Why in the world would Canadians believe this Minister of Finance
December 19, 1989

that this tax is going to stay at 7 per cent any longer than it stayed at 9 per cent where he swore it was going stay?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, this is really an astounding statement. We are seeing more and more of the policy of the Liberal opposition coming out.
First they want to take away the goods and services tax credit from low income people. Now the hon. member is criticizing me for bringing the rate down from 9 per cent to 7 per cent. Can we have more of this Liberal fiscal policy proposal? I would love to hear it.


Some hon. members:: More, more.


M. Douglas Young: Mr. Speaker, for months we have heard the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance tell us that the GST rate would be 9 per cent, that there would be no change or alteration. Now my question is very simple, Mr. Speaker: Why should Canadians take the Prime Minister's word? I ask the Prime Minister that. The Minister of Finance refused today to guarantee that the rate would stay at 7 per cent as long as his government was in power. The question is simple: Is the Prime Minister prepared to promise that the GST rate will stay at 7 per cent as long as he is in power in Canada?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, we are being criticised now for listening to Canadians. Would the hon. member tell me what the purpose of consultations are?
I have said right from the start that if we are going to see a lower rate than 9 per cent there would have to be some trade-offs, difficult trade-offs. I have asked Canadians for their views on what those trade-offs should be. I have actually gone to meetings and probed people, pushed them, saying: "Tell me where you think the trade-offs should come". It is based on that consultation that we have come up with this particular proposal.
Now the hon. member is saying: "Will you give me a guarantee?" I cannot give the hon. member a guarantee because there might be a day that a Liberal party might be in government and then there would be absolutely no control on that rate because, with their free-spending
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habits that we have seen year after year after year in the past, tax rates are bound to go up.
The best assurance that Canadians can have that this rate will stay down is a government that controls spending. We have controlled spending. We have kept spending at a rate of 3.6 per cent on average for the last five years and we are committed to doing that in the future.
In response to the babbling of the Leader of the Opposition, when he was in his last year as Minister of Finance, government spending rose 29 per cent.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. This morning the Minister of Finance continued his strategy of tax trickery. We are supposed to believe that 7 per cent is better than 9 per cent, although we were assured not long ago that 9 per cent could not be changed no matter what.
After a catalogue of phrases and excuses about the GST, the end result is the same. Nothing has changed; not from two weeks ago, not from two years ago. This government is still going to tax food. This government is still going to tax children's clothing. It is still going to tax the services of all Canadians. Middle and lower income Canadians who get hit the hardest by this are still going to be hurt the most.
Nothing has changed despite the good phrases. Canadians will not be fooled. The principle remains the same. This is a regressive tax, a tax that takes the most from those who have the least.
The Prime Minister and Minister of Finance have said that they are going to listen to Canadians. Canadians want the tax dropped, not the rate. When is this Prime Minister really going to listen to Canadians, throw out the tax, throw out this Minister of Finance and get a new minister who is willing to bring in real tax reforms?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, there were a lot of things the hon. member has said which were quite wrong. I just want to identify one which I think is very important that she not mislead Canadians on, and that is the fact that this tax is a regressive tax. This is not a regressive tax.
When we came into office, low income Canadians were paying two or three percentage points more of their income in sales tax. Then we brought in the refundable sales tax credit to offset the impact of sales tax. We have increased that three times, ending with the goods and services tax credit proposal. The combination of the

December 19, 1989
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goods and services tax plus the credit, which is an integral part of that tax, means that low income Canadians will now be spending two or three percentage points less of their income than people in upper income brackets. Therefore, from a regressive tax we have made this into a progressive tax, and that should not be forgotten by the leader of the NDP.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, that certainly restores our faith and belief in Santa Claus.
Canadians are not going to be fooled. The National Council on Welfare recently stated that since 1984 poorer people are paying 60 per cent more taxes since this government came into power, but Santa Claus did visit the rich because they are paying 6.7 per cent less tax than when this government came into power.
This tax continues to punish those people who are raising their families, buying clothing, but it does let stock market wheeler-dealers get away with their profits tax-free.
Will the Prime Minister admit that this tax is grossly unfair to Canada's poor and that they are paying 1.5 times more tax today than they were when this government was first elected? Cutting the tax credit and not indexing it certainly is simply going to mean that the poor are going to be poorer.
Will the Prime Minister admit that they are really worse off today than they were in 1984?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw the member's attention to pages 33, 34 and 35 of the book that I put out this morning with my statement. In most income brackets it demonstrates that Canadians will be better off after the GST combined with the goods and services tax credit relative to the 9 per cent rate. That clearly states that the hon. member is wrong in the statements that she makes about the regressive nature of a sales tax.
The other point that I want to draw the hon. member's attention to is when she talks about the shifting burden of taxation. We in this government have removed more loopholes which have been of benefit to upper income Canadians than any government has done in years and years and years. We have removed all those loopholes
that were brought in by the Liberal party over their time in government.
The result is that the combination of the removal of the loopholes plus the changes in the income tax system that we brought about in 1987-88 has resulted in a shift so that people in upper income tax brackets are paying more income tax as a per cent of the whole than they were before income tax reform.


THE ECONOMY
Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, I will change the subject, since it is hard to get an answer from the minister.
Small businesses are being crushed under the burden of high interest rates. Retail sales are down. All economic indicators point towards a recession. This government is attacking small businesses, the most vulnerable sector of our economy, a sector that is now suffering under the negative impact of the free trade agreement.
Considering the precarious state of our economy today, how does the government expect small businesses to survive when the GST is introduced?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, this is the first time that I can recall in my ten years in the House that the NDP has said anything positive about the small business community.
Members of the NDP have continually gone after the small business community. They have continually rejected the proposals that we have brought in to help the small business community. They have continually rejected things such as the $500,000 capital gains proposal that we brought in to support the small business community. Now we have a change of tune for some short-term political reasons.
What I want to say to the hon. member is that there is no disagreement among all the people who have reviewed the goods and services tax proposal that the long-term benefits for the economy are positive for the small business community, the medium sized business community, and the large business community.
The question that had been raised was what was going to happen in the transition from the existing sales tax to

December 19, 1989

the new tax. By dropping the rate from 9 per cent to 7 per cent, we have addressed those concerns about transition and addressed them in a very forthright way.


ATLANTIC FISHERY
Mr. Brian Tobin (Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Last night during our emergency debate on the fishery, the member for St. John's West promised that he would resign if no help was forthcoming for the Atlantic fishery.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


Brian Vincent Tobin: It is a great idea. With the devastating news this morning that European community fisheries ministers have set a 60,000 metric tonne cod quota for themselves off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, a quota four times higher than that recommended by Canada, I would expect that the member for St. John's West should start packing his desk right now.
Will the Prime Minister now finally admit that his policy' of appeasement in the face of confrontation over our fishery has failed utterly? Will he agree to extend unilaterally our fisheries jurisdiction to the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and to use whatever means are necessary to enforce that jurisdiction and to put an end to the piracy of the fishery off Canada's east coast?


Hon. John C. Crosbie (Minister for International Trade):: Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. members:: Resign, resign!


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. members:: Goodbye, John.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. minister.


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, news of my resignation is indeed premature.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


John Carnell Crosbie: The government has introduced programs described yesterday in connection with the fishery and will be introducing others.
With reference to the hon. member's main question, which is a very serious one, we can only say with respect
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to the European community's decision of yesterday that we are extremely disappointed. The decision they made was a considerable improvement over their decisions in previous years.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


John Carnell Crosbie: I remind the House that they assigned themselves quotas of 132,290 tonnes of fish in 1989, whereas they are at least reducing that to 56,250 tonnes this year.


Brian Vincent Tobin: It is 60,000 tonnes.


John Carnell Crosbie: Nevertheless, that is in excess of the 15,377 tonnes they were assigned by NAFO, by three times. It is regrettable, but we never indicated in the House that we would have complete success this year. We intend to continue with our campaign because we believe that with time and with pressure the European community, led by Commissioner Marin who is trying to make an improvement here, will come to see that it must observe the NAFO quotas and do it in short order.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, just so the House understands the absolute anger and frustration that anybody who knows an>hhing about the east coast fishery is feeling upon hearing that answer, the European community has set a quota for itself of 60,000 metric tons when it was assigned by Canada and by NAFO only 15,000 metric tons.
It has done so in the face of Canada reducing its own quota over the last two years by 100,000 tonnes, and it has done so at a time when the European community has reduced quotas along its own coastal waters for conservation efforts but has come to Canada to pillage our resource.
My question is for the Prime Minister. I want to tell the Prime Minister that the reason we are consistently abused is this government and that this Prime Minister is regarded as an international wimp in the world community.


Some hon. members:: Sit down, sit down!


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. minister.


Brian Vincent Tobin: I have not finished the question.


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, needless to say, the intemperateness of the question indicates that the hon. gentle-

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man is not seriously concerned about the problem. He is only concerned about trying to score political points.


Brian Vincent Tobin: I am dammed concerned. I am fed up.


Mr. Speaker:: It is not very often the Speaker would make a comment on an exchange, but the debate last night showed very clearly that members on both sides of this House are very deeply concerned about it. I do not think we are advancing Question Period by getting into that debate. The hon. member.


Mr. George S. Baker (Gander-Grand Falls):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.
The EEC announced today that it is going to take tens of thousands of tonnes of northern cod when NAFO allocated them a zero quota.
Amid all of the misery of plants closing in eastern Canada, along comes this incredible example of the mixed up priorities of this government in dealing with the EEC.
I want to ask a question of the minister of fisheries. Will cabinet now cancel a remission order registered three weeks ago giving France back $500,000 for its fishing vessel licence fees in 1987? Is this how the government is going to get rid of foreigners overfishing-kill them with kindness?


Hon. Thomas Siddon (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who called my office knows the answer to that question.
The answer is that this government eliminated the French Metropolitan fleet from fishing in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1987 and this government saved 17,000 metric tonnes of codfish for our own fishermen. Therefore, we sent a reduced invoice to France because we could not charge them fishing licence fees for fish it never caught because they were caught by Canadians.


George Baker: Mr. Speaker, you know that in 1987 France overfished its quota on the east coast of Canada by five times. This government is behaving like a bunch of masochists, paying France a half a million dollars to kick us in the derriere.


Mr. Speaker:: I would ask the Hon. Member to put his question, please.


George Baker: Mr. Speaker, when France has now announced that it is going to take northern cod outside the 200-mile zone, why is this country giving to France inside our 200-mile zone a quota of northern cod for 1990 to keep the fish plants going in St. Malo, France? Why candy for the EEC and a lump of coal for Canada? Pourquoi, le Pere Noel, envers La France, et "Miser" Grinch au Canada?


Martin Brian Mulroney: That's a ten.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!
Hon. John C. Crosbie (Minister for International
Trade): Mr. Speaker, I certainly cannot match the hon. member in bilingual talent.
I want to tell the House, however, that in connection with this problem and the way in which the European community is approaching it, Ambassador Beesley on our behalf called in today the charge d'affaires of the European community to express the objections of the government to these decisions by the European community.
The Prime Minister is in the process of sending a telegram to President Mitterrand of France who is the chairman of the European community at the present time. The Prime Minister will be continuing his active involvement in this issue by taking the matter up with President Delors at the top of the agenda when President Delors of the European community visits Canada this year.
The government deplores this action taken by the European community which although some improvement over last year with respect to the northern cod is adding salt to our wounds and adding insult to injury with respect to the need for conservation of the northern cod.


Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.
Last night when he, the Minister for International Trade and the Secretary of State for External Affairs got up and talked about their success in negotiating and discussing with the European Common Market, they knew that that same community had already decided to have a quota four times what Canada was asking. Why did they deliberately mislead the people of Atlantic Canada?
December 19, 1989


Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, I beg to differ but we did not know what the EC commission and council adopted and announced today.
I must say I find it unacceptable, in fact offensive, that the elected members of the European council would endorse quotas of northern cod just outside our 200-mile limit in the amount of 32,000 metric tonnes when we are having difficulty finding enough fish to go around for our Canadian fish plant workers and fishermen.
This contradicts all principles of international stewardship toward the resources of our oceans, and Canada will register its offence at this action in the strongest possible way.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Mr. Speaker, the minister claims that he was unaware of the European decision. I spoke before him and I spoke before the Minister for International Trade and I mentioned that in the House. If he is not aware of what is happening in Europe, how can he pretend to represent the people of Atlantic Canada?


Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, we were aware of a report by the EC scientific council to the council of the European community which suggested a significant lowering of European quotas, in fact compliance with six quotas in the NAFO managed stocks.
In fact the council overruled those recommendations and increased the unilateral quotas totally contrary to long-standing agreements reached at the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization that quotas, for example, of northern cod should be zero; not one codfish, not one pound of fish more than zero.
I repeat that we find the 32,000 metric tonne quota far in excess of anything that is practically justifiable. It is offensive.


EMPLOYMENT
Mr. Joseph Volpe (Eglinton-Lawrence):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration.
One year after the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement accelerated tariff reductions on furniture produc-
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tion items from the United States, an 86-cent dollar, and high interest rates are causing large furniture manufacturers to wind down operations and to move south. Several large manufacturing firms have already set up plants in the southern United States.
This Friday, Goldcrest Furniture in my riding of Eglington-Lawrence is closing its doors and putting 120 skilled labourers, production employees, out of work and sealing the fate of a further 120 others.
Where does the minister suggest that these and other workers seek employment as the Canadian furniture industry is slowly but surely killed by her government's policies?


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out to the House that my riding is right next to the hon. member's. The people on this side of the House are always concerned when there are lay-offs, as there are from time to time in any economy, and particularly in a booming economy where there are new jobs coming along eveiy day.
I would point out to him that in his riding as well as in mine there is full employment.


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: Mr. Speaker, since we are talking about geography, my riding is the one that has middle class and working class as well as an industrial base. It is not Forest Hill like hers.
It is the government's policy that is killing jobs. There are 26,000 employers from the furniture industry that are already operating at a dollar level that is eight cents above its competitive level. Government policies are responsible for a 29 per cent increase in U.S. furniture exports to Canada over this year, resulting in a 54.5 per cent decrease in trade surplus in U.S. furniture items.
How can this minister stand idly by when her government's policies are destroying employment opportunities in Canada and transferring them down south?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, clearly the hon. member does not know his own riding any better than he knows mine. Let me point out to him that in the city from which we come, as in other parts of Canada, there are individuals who are experiencing temporary economic difficulties.

December 19, 1989
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My department and this government are there to help them. I would point out to him that the people in his riding, in my riding, and in our city are one heck of a lot better off today than they were in 1983.


SHIPYARDS
Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Industry, Science and Technology. Quebec shipyard workers heard yesterday that in addition to the Conservative government's new tax on goods and services, they are going to lose their jobs, because according to our information and what was said yesterday in the Quebec National Assembly, in 1992 there will be no more shipyards in Quebec.
Will the Minister respond to an appeal by Quebecers to guarantee the future of our shipyards, and will he from now on award a substantial number of contracts to Quebec?


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion and Minister of State for Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, the federal government is well aware of the situation at MIL. Indeed, I have met with Minister Tremblay, the Minister of Industry and Commerce, as well as Robert Tessier, the president of MIL.
MIL has work in its yards until 1992. There is an overcapacity of shipbuilding in Canada against the kinds of order that we see coming down. We have a policy in place that the Government of Canada will co-operate with any industrial led efforts at consolidation. We have closed yards in Ontario and Quebec under that policy.
We are ready to co-operate with the Government of Quebec which is the owner of this yard in terms of meeting the challenges that lie ahead.


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, will the minister give Quebecers the assurance today that after 1992, there will still be shipyards in Quebec so that these workers can at least cherish that hope during the Christmas holidays?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, certainly I can assure the hon. member, as I assured Minister Tremblay and assured Mr. Tessier, that the Government of Canada is ready to co-operate with the owners of MIL, the Government of Quebec and the management of the yard to manage this situation.
There is nothing that I can do immediately or within a short-term agenda to change the situation. There is an overcapacity of shipbuilding capability in this country, but we were certainly committed to working with the Government of Quebec to ensure the workers and of MIL have their interests attended to.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Godfrey Stanley (Stan) Wilbee: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of the Environment, my question is for his parliamentary secretary.
It has come to my attention that there had been another oil spill on the west coast south of Vancouver near Cherry Point. This oil is moving up toward Boundary Bay which is in my riding. It is home to 100,000 migratory birds at this time of year, as well as extensive shell fishing and herring fishing in that area.
How is this being monitored? What is it that the Canadian government is doing to protect the wildlife in Canadian waters if it does indeed enter into the Canadian waters?


Mr. Lee Clark (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday afternoon two or perhaps at some times three oil slicks of essentially a relatively small size were detected near Cherry Point and Birch Point.
As a result both Canadian Coast Guard and American Coast Guard officials went into operation to monitor the source of the slicks and to follow their passage.
The joint Canadian-American action plan was put in place as a result of a request from Environment Canada. Canadian Wildlife Services helicopters monitored the slick's shift in the afternoon and this morning.
I was advised as of an hour and a half ago and as a result of recent overflights that the oil slicks are no
December 19, 1989

longer detectable. Nevertheless Canadian and American officials are monitoring and patrolling the beaches as a precautionary measure.


ROMANIA
William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Right Hon. Secretary of State for External Affairs.
I am sure all members of the House share a concern about events in Romania yesterday. I wonder if the right hon. Secretary of State for External Affairs is prepared to tell the House what message was communicated to the Romanian Ambassador yesterday and what message might be subsequently communicated to the Government of Romania today, given the additional information that we have, and just what the government intends to do over the long run with respect to the deteriorating situation of Romania.


Right Hon. Joe Clark (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, all members of the House are very deeply concerned about the reports coming out of Romania, both those specifically with regard to Reverend Laszlo Tokes and also with the evident repression of the citizens of Romania by their authorities. I have issued today a statement condemning that action by the authorities in Romania.
One of the difficulties of course is that it is hard for us to get details out of that closed country which has become even more closed, including to the extent that when Canadian diplomats were sent to register our approval the foreign ministry officials in Romania refused to receive them.
That is an unacceptable breach of diplomatic practice as the repression of the people of Romania by their government is unacceptable. I think it raises questions as to how we can maintain constructive relations with a country that acts in such utter disregard of diplomatic practice and of the rights of its own people.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that when the minister said "register our approval" he meant "disapproval".
I wonder: what is the situation in the Canadian Embassy and what is the situation of Canadians in Romania? Are we adequately staffed there? What does
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the government intend to do over the next few days to make sure that we get the kind of information that we need and that the government is able to take the steps it ought to take in this case?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for correcting the record.
I believe we are adequately staffed in Romania, although we keep that under constant review. I have asked for a report on the situation and safety of Canadians there.
I do not yet have that. We are seeking information about the extent and nature of the repression in that country, not only from authorities and our own officers in Romania, but also from those in neighbouring countries and other organizations which might be able to break through the curtain of repression that seems to have become even stronger in that country. Naturally, as events develop, I will keep the House advised, if it is in session, or otherwise will communicate with the foreign policy spokesmen of the other parties in the House.


GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURES
Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, in order to introduce its goods and services tax, last week the government announced a series of cuts affecting the Public Service, the national museums, libraries, research and development and the tourism industry in the national capital region. To add insult to injury, the Prime Minister called Canada's capital, "Fat City". The Prime Minister should come with me to see Ottawa's food banks, Ottawa's homeless and Ottawa's poor.
Will the Prime Minister stand up in this House and apologize?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I will not stand up and apologize, but I will stand up and correct the record that my hon. friend has just given to the House.
On December 9, 1989, I was asked the following question by a journalist: "Would you agree with the thesis that it is much easier to sell Canadians if they see Fat City, Ottawa, sort of belt-tightening a little bit?" The statement came from a journalist and not from me.

December 19, 1989
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In my answer I acknowledged his use of the word. But I also acknowledged in the course of that dialogue that I thought that all parts of the country could and should do more.
I did not utter a pejorative word about Ottawa or about the National Capital Region. I think that it is clearly a very prosperous and very innovative part of our nation. This government has had to take some initiatives, here and across the country, that have impacted negatively on certain aspects of institutions in the region, and I regret it deeply.
I wish that we had more money to do more things, but I think the people in the National Capital Region, who are principally responsible for the efficient functioning of the federal government I think they realize, perhaps more than most, the extent to which it is important to bring about sanity in the finances of Canada. They have made a contribution to that, as we all have, which I readily acknowledge, and I can assure my hon. friend that the statement made by the journalist is not one that I or any member of my government shares.


ACID RAIN
Robert Alfred Corbett: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of the Environment, my question is for the parliamentary secretary. Recently, there have been discouraging signs from Washington that the Bush administration is wavering on its commitment made earlier this year to reducing acid rain. Can the parliamentary secretary indicate what steps the department's officials are taking to impress upon the American government that the environmental problems associated with acid rain are only too real?


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Mr. Speaker, first, I would indicate on behalf of the Government of Canada that we firmly believe that there is ample evidence of the trans-boundary effect of acid rain, which is the case before the U.S. Court of Appeal. Of course, the government of Ontario is one of the petitioners in that case.
Nevertheless, the position which the United States government is taking in this particular court case certainly demonstrates a peed for acid rain legislation being passed by the U.S. Congress. Furthermore, it reaffirms a
need for a bilateral accord between Canada and the United States. With regard to the latter, Canadian officials have already met twice with their American counterparts in preparation for setting the basis for the talks, which will hopefully lead to the development of a bilateral accord. There is a third meeting planned for the month of January.
In closing, I would note that Ambassador Burney, in a recent issue of The Globe and Mail, stated, referring to the year 1990, "I am hopeful this is the year we will conclude an acid rain accord with the United States". We share that hope, Mr. Speaker.


PRIVILEGE
Mr. Speaker:: On Friday, November 3, the hon. member from York Centre sought to obtain the unanimous consent of the House in order to raise a question of privilege at the outset of the sitting without having submitted written notice.

The substance of the question had to do with what the hon. member for York Centre characterized as the deliberate interference by an official of the Federal Business Development Bank with the delivery of documents which the Bank had agreed to provide. He indicated that he wanted these documents in order to turn them over to the RCMP. In anticipation of their receipt, he had arranged a meeting with RCMP people in his office on the Thursday afternoon. As it happened, the documents were not turned over to the hon. member for this meeting.

The hon. member from Glengarry-Prescott-Russell supported the question of privilege and explained that the material requested from the bank was in the public domaine, as these documents had already been given to The Montreal Gazette. He went on to state that the failure of the bank to deliver the documents in the time previously arranged prevented the hon. member from York Centre from turning them over to the RCMP. Both members asserted that the decision to withhold the documents by an Ottawa official of the bank interfered
December 19, 1989

with the rights and obligations of that member to fulfil his responsibilities as a member of Parliament.

At the same time, however, the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell explained that the Federal Business Development Bank subsequently agreed to release the documents.
It would therefore appear that the question of privilege relates to a delay in the delivery of documents to the hon. member for York Centre which prevented him from keeping his appointment with the RCMP as originally planned. While the member may have been inconvenienced, it is difficult for the Chair to be convinced that this constitutes a question of privilege.

While there was a delay, it does not seem to be clear that the hon. member was hindered in the performance of his duties. Inconvenienced perhaps, but not interfered with.
I might also add that even though it was claimed that the documents were in the public domaine, it appears to me that, in fact, these documents remained the property of the bank. If by virtue of an internal decision or mix-up, and I do not want to suggest motives, the documents were not delivered when the member from York Centre had expected them, it seems to me that it is a matter to be resolved between the member and the bank.
As it happens, the bank has agreed to release the documents and that agreement was evidently made before this question of privilege was raised here. The matter, therefore, would appear to be resolved.
I thank the hon. member for bringing the matter to the attention of the House.




[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of report stage of Bill C-28, an Act to amend the Income Thx Act, the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements and Federal
Government Orders
Post-Secondary Education and Health Contributions Act, the Old Age Security Act, the Public Utilities Income Tax Transfer Act, the War Veterans Allowance Act and a related Act, as reported (without amendment) from a Legislative Committee; and on Motions Nos. 4, 6 and 7.
The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Resuming debate. The hon. member for Mount Royal.


Sheila Finestone: Madam Speaker, I rise to speak to Motion No. 4 and Motion No. 7, on Bill C-28, but do sincerely regret that we are under a time allocation threat in this House. It is one that is used constantly and I think shows disrespect for the democratic process that would reflect our ability to speak to this issue in the name of all of our constituents.
This debate really symbolizes the Conservative party's true agenda. The issues we are discussing include the clawbacks of seniors pensions and family allowance. They are fundamentally an erosion of the universality principle that has always guided the social programs in this country.
The Conservative agenda appears aimed at cutting and reducing that caring aspect of government while saying that it is "in the national interest".
Well, I do not think that we agree. This is where we part company because we believe in a far more balanced approach and a much more fiscally responsible approach, always respecting a more compassionate tradition upon which our country was founded.
Throughout Canada's history, with all the change that has been wrought over its 120 years, there has always remained this one deeply held fundamental principle. That conviction has been a cornerstone of our national life and has not changed for many decades. It is our tradition of universal access to social programs, whether they be our medicare programs, our unemployment insurance programs, family allowance, Old Age Security and where needed, guaranteed income supplements, veterans allowances, et cetera. It was Canada's way of being fair and tolerant as a society.
Yet in 1984 that tradition had begun to unravel. It is this unravelling that I would like to talk about today. Since coming into office the Conservatives have time after time, year after year, continued a slow and very deceptive but always real plan to dismantle the safety net

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of social programs that most of us believe were part of the fabric of this country.
It used to be everyone's right as a Canadian to have equal access to social programs. That is no longer true. That contract has been broken. Universality is such a simple idea, really. It is so easy to understand. It is the expression of a belief that over a lifetime every Canadian contributes to the building and flourishing of this society in their own way, and to the best of their ability, and that no one should be shut out from the benefits of the country that they have helped to build. That is universality.
In most instances its benefits are taxable in the hands of the receiver based on income levels. That is a fair and universal approach. The member thinks that is what they have done but it is not so.
We must remember that universality survived governments of both political parties, survived recessions and, indeed, grew out of the depression. Yet this spirit and tradition of a government looking out for the health and welfare of every Canadian, no matter where they live, no matter what their means, has come to a sudden end with this government since 1984.
Universality has become little more than words on a paper, words offered to Canadians on the one hand, then quickly erased with the other. How familiar we are with the Prime Minister standing before a crowd and declaring to all the country that our social programs were a sacred trust. Yes, there were days when this government's smooth rhetoric tricked Canadians into believing it shared this caring approach to social programs.
But it seems to have been a mask behind which has lain the real truth. Time after time this government has used fast talk and colourful packaging to hide from Canadians the true facts of the slow and determined dismantling of universal access to social programs and, in particular, the old age security for which these people have already paid. They started paying in 1952 and to this day they have been paying. But this government does not care to acknowledge this.
If it was a private sector pension plan, this government would not have allowed this kind of action for one second, but because it is the public sector it feels it can
just go about doing this without consulting the public and to the detriment of everyone in this country.
In five long years of opposition we have been devoting endless energy trying to stop this government's slow piece by piece erosion of social benefits.
It was early in their mandate that the unravelling really took place. I go back to December 21, 1984, just weeks after the Conservatives took office, when the finance minister first proposed the de-indexing of old age pensions. We know what happened. We know what Madam Solange Denis said and we knew that Pinocchio's nose was getting longer and longer.
Liberals began to battle with this government because they could not seem to understand why we were so committed to universality. It is because Canadians believed in fairness and in equality.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Belsher:: Be nice.


Sheila Finestone: I am sorry. If the shoe fits, you have to wear it even if it is uncomfortable. Canadians believe in fairness and equality. Canadians believe that all individuals, no matter what their social status, deserve equitable treatment. I want members opposite to listen because when you segregate services only to the very needy then those services meant only for the poor become very poor services. If you do not have a vested interest then you do not take care. That is the great concern we have.
I would like to talk about the clawback from our pensioners of Old Age Security benefits from certain income groups and family allowance benefits from families, both where their incomes are over $50,000 a year. On top of choosing this arbitrary figure as a cut-off, the government will not allow this figure to grow with inflation. It is allowing for only partial inflation protection of 3 per cent.
Once again we see the two faces of this government with the introduction of the clawback at a time when the spectre of the elections have hardly faded so dimly that we cannot recall the Prime Minister with his arm lovingly placed around his mother and saying, "Dear Mom" in Summerside, P.E.I., "as long as I am Prime Minister of Canada social benefits, especially those for the elderly, will be improved not diminished by our government". You wondered why I said Pinocchio before. It is another
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reminder of when we had the attempt to deindex old age security, that sacred trust to which I just referred.
The reality is that the 1989 budget did cut the Old Age Security benefits through this clawback and cut family allowances and cut health care funding. Today, the practical implications are that anyone receiving $50,000 a year in net retirement income will have their pension benefits clawed back into the government's treasury. It is the same for family allowances.
There is an additional piece of trickery for 70 per cent of seniors whose net income is based not only on pensions and interest but dividends as well. For if you collect dividends the amount of these dividends are grossed up by 25 per cent.
Len Shiffrin said it far better perhaps than I am going to when he pointed out in The Ottawa Citizen of May 4,-I think we have to focus part of the fight in this area-that the moneys received from your Canadian investment income is grossed up by 25 per cent in calculating net income. Then this is offset by the dividend tax credit in the final tax calculation. The clawback, however, is based on the inflated net income figure. Therefore, the threshold is not based on real income, it could include thousands of dollars imaginary income grossed up by 25 per cent on Canadian investment income.
What about tomorrow? Within 10 years nearly one million more Canadian families will lose all or part of their family allowances and old age pensions because of this government's action. The threshold will change. It will only rise in future years if the annual inflation exceeds 3 per cent. That means eight years from now the taxed back threshold will have fallen to equivalent of $40,000 today.
It is true that $50,000 income threshold for the beginning of its clawback affects relatively few seniors and sounds like an awful lot of money but it is about 13 per cent of old age security recipients who file income tax forms with only 3.5 per cent of those paying back all of the pension.
At first glance it seems reasonable. Indeed, it might seem like easy street to many people-according to Hugh Winsor- approximately a half a million seniors
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who live below the poverty line. I would say to them, do not think that it is such an easy street.
It is true the $76,000 where the clawback tops out is beyond the expectations of most Canadians, but the sneakiness and the potential unfairness enters in the way that the Prime Minister and Minister of Finance have chosen to treat that over time. It is very sneaky, it is inflationary. We can see that most people who are young and in their early forties today will be losing their pension, their Old Age Security, and so the whole principle of universality is being thrown out the back door. We use bureaucrats to send out the cheques. We say: "We will give it to you," and then we use bureaucrats to see that we collect it back. It makes absolutely no sense. If the government wanted to cut universality it should have said so.


Mr. Rene Soetens (Ontario):: Madam Speaker, I rise today to join in this debate on the issue of Old Age Security tax back and family allowance. I am surprised that we would be debating this particular issue considering that the members to the left in this House have generally been concerned about the fact that higher income Canadians are not paying their share.
We are trying to come up with a proposal to make it possible for Canadians to pay their share in a very appropriate fashion. Yes, it will be universal. It will be universal in that every Old Age Security recipient who receives the cheque who is of high income will pay it back in one form or another. So, it is very universal and very appropriate.
What are we talking about? During the free trade debate many months ago the opposition and others instilled fear in Canadians about how they were going to lose all their benefits because of free trade. The most vulnerable people in our society were attacked by those in opposition. Now we see another very similar attack. I have received calls from constituents in my riding, from people who are receiving old age security who would not be affected by this particular measure for quite some period of time.
I thought I would follow through on some of the misrepresentations that some of my constituents have received on this issue by people opposed to this Old Age Security tax back. Basically, if you take the average Canadian who only receives Old Age Security and Canada Pension-I would point out that there are many seniors in my riding who only receive those two particular items-it means that they have an income of $11,000 a year. That is a very low income and certainly not one

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that many can get by on. I should know because I have family who basically functions on that kind of an income. They addressed the concern with me about the tax back of Old Age Security because they had been led to believe, wrongfully, that they were going to be immediately affected. So, I worked out for them, based on a 3 per cent inflation factor which seems to be the concern that some of the opposition members have, how they would be affected.
After ten years they would be making only $14,790. That means they are still a long way short of $50,000. In fact, my mother who is 71 would have to live another 52 years in order to be caught by this tax based on a 3 per cent inflation factor. I truly hope she lives that long. I truly hope that at age 123 she is there to see that she has finally arrived at that $50,000 threshold.
The Minister of Finance has clearly said that we would review these programs on a regular basis and adjust them appropriately. The problem that is going to bother her is when she gets to be 123 and discovers that she has hit that $50,000 threshold that the threshold has been moved upwards. It is interesting that none of the opposition members bother to mention that in their particular representation.
I thought, if my mother has to live another 52 years to be 123 maybe I ought to look at somebody who has a pension, someone who has more than just the Old Age Security. So I took the average salary in my riding. I am fortunate to have a riding that has a good average income and very buoyant economic times. I say a lot of that is a very direct result of good government policy. But the average income in my riding is about $39,000. So I took the attitude of many of the left wing opposition members down the way here that they should have a pension. The average pension that a $39,000 wage earner in my riding could expect from the average employer in my riding would be about $17,000 a year.
Here they are at age 65. They retire, having earned $39,000 a year, with a $17,000 pension. On top of that, of course, they make $11,000 in Canada Pension and Old Age Security. There they have it.
How long does it take for them to hit the $50,000 threshold? I thought you would like to know that that 65-year old would only have to live to be 102 in order to hit the threshold. Of course at age 102 when they discover they finally make $50,000, lo and behold, the finance minister as he had promised, has reviewed the program, has amended the thresholds upward. And they still do not get caught by this terrible tax back that this group down the way are talking about. It is terrible.
Let us make the assumption that that poorer individual who retired on a $17,000 pension had an indexed pension because, of course, not many do. I thought maybe we would make the assumption that they have been successful in getting themselves an indexed pension. It would still take 19 years before they got to that $50,000 threshold. Again, they would discover that the good old Minister of Finance of the day, still being a Conservative, would have naturally made the adjustments in the threshold level and they would not have been affected at all. The fear that the opposition members are putting in senior citizens is very unacceptable.
Let us make the assumption that that poor individual finally makes $50,000. The member who spoke previously talked about this poor senior who has grossed up dividend income. I presume that person probably lives in Rockcliffe or Forest Hill in Toronto. I mean $40,000 in dividend income. The stocks that I have-and I am not a very good investor-only yield me about 2 per cent dividend income. So that $40,000 dividend income that she is speaking of means I have to have $800,000 sitting someplace in investments. Poor little old Canadian me. I really need a lot of help.
Let us give her the benefit of the doubt. Let's presume that I do it a little better. I am just one of these poor investors. I know all about preferred dividends. A really good sharp investor. The average Canadian senior knows all about preferred dividends. I am going to be able to invest my money at 8 or 9 per cent. I still have over $400,000 in equity sitting somewhere. Poor Canadian! This is who the NDP and the Liberals say ought to be taxed.
I am one of these poor Canadians with all this equity sitting around in a bank some place and I make $51,000. This terrible tragedy that they foisted on me because I
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was $1,000 over that threshold. Do you know how much tax that cost me, Madam Speaker? It cost $150 because I have over $400,000 in stocks or $800,000 in stocks. I cannot believe that my friends to the left are really telling me that low-income Canadians need this help.
You ought to carry that on a little further because I have talked about the poor Canadian who makes $51,000. Let us talk about the poor Canadian who makes $61,000. He makes $11,000 more than the threshold. There are a lot of seniors out there who are really poor and who have an awful time spending $61,000 a year. Yet here is someone making $61,000. In the third year of the program, not the first year and not the second year but in the third year he has to pay $1,650 out of the $4,000 that the government is sending him.
I know that the opposition does not like that idea but I have some great difficulty in believing that my friends here on the left are concerned about Canadians making $60,000 or $70,000. In fact a Canadian who has to pay back the entire old age security would have to make $77,000 a year. I appreciate the concern that the members to the left have on high-income Canadians. I have great difficulty in believing that they are at all serious in the belief that seniors who make $77,000 a year should get government assistance of any kind, let alone the Old Age Security.
Let us not talk about the senior because there is the portion of people who make $50,000 or more who have families. They get family allowance cheques all the time. There is another group that really needs help. I am impressed as all get out by the opposition members here. The people to the left are really quite concerned that they help low income Canadians with families.
These low income Canadians with families, just how much money do they make? It is really a very tremendous amount of money. Family allowance is about $32 a month per child.
I see that you are indicating that I have only one minute left, Madam Speaker. I could go on about how these people are trying to help these poor low-earning members of Parliament such as myself who has three children, and I should be eligible for family allowance. I appreciate that they think that I ought to get family allowance. But, you know, I do not mind at all if you tax it back from me. I am serious. I can say that I have had similar representations from every senior who qualifies for old age security in the high income bracket. I have
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not had one objection to the tax back of old age security, if they make more than $50,000 and if they live in my riding. Not one senior in my riding has complained about that. You people ought to get with it.


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand today and debate the amendments, Motions Nos. 4, 6 and 7 on Bill C-28, which is an act to amend the Income Tax Act.
I woke up this morning and I was humming this little song, a little Christmas ditty, "Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat". It occurred to me whose goose it was that was getting fat. Obviously, it was the goose of the members across the aisle because Tory times are taxing times and the goose on this side is not getting fat, it is getting more slender as we get more and more of this Tory legislation.
We have the UI bill. We have free trade. We have the GST. This morning, what happened? We had the Minister of Finance dropping the GST from 9 per cent to 7 per cent. Wow! What a Christmas present!
But we do not want to lose sight of what is in fact happening. We do not want to lose sight of the dastardly deeds of this government. Bill C-28, for instance, is one of these slippery, sneaky methods that this government uses to hit those least able to fight back-families and seniors. Shame, shame on the members of the government.
We have just seen an example in the last speech before the House and in some of the answers during Question Period by the Minister of Finance of the arrogance and contempt with which members of this government treat the people of Canada. They say they are listening, but they are not hearing. They have not heard a word that the people of Canada have said about the goods and services tax. They have not heard a word that the people have said about the unemployment insurance amendments. They have not heard a word that the people of Canada, particularly families and seniors, have said about these amendments to the Income Ihx Act.
It is undoubted as we look at this, in spite of what the members across the way have said, that this is a direct attack on universality. It is not simply a little method of getting some money back through taxation of the rich. Universality, after all, is the means by which we can pay out to people without having them submit to a means test. We in this party want to continue to ensure that all Canadians, regardless of income, have available to them

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all programs such as old age security, Canada pension, unemployment insurance and medicare.
I think it is very interesting to look at the comments of the chairman of the finance committee. It is interesting because it is not the first time that this member has spoken up and laid before us through one of his foot-in-mouth comments what the true agenda of this government is. He has told us in a letter to a person from Alberta that this is simply the start of the dismantling of the universality of our social programs. We know that that is correct.
We can look at some of the others, but do not take my word for it. Let me just refer to a few others. A person from my riding in Penticton says that one of the things that a person counts on when planning for retirement is that no one will move the pension goal post, so to speak, at the time when that person has reached retirement age and is no longer able to revise his or her provisions for retirement. Universality of the OAP is one of those goal posts.
We can look to other organized groups such as the National Pensioners and Senior Citizens Federation. They tell us that the Minister of Finance claims that the clawback proposal is not a breach of universality of the OAS program. He bases the claim on the continuance of monthly pension cheques to all qualified recipients, using a very narrow school boy logic type of approach. A few people might buy this claim, seniors do not. The fact of making payments under one act and then recovering them under a different act of Parliament does not change the basic truth. We see it as a transparent move to abandon universality by a circuitous route. There is no doubt about it. That in fact is what is happening.
The Federal Superannuates National Association states as follows, "In the case of pension plan arrangements particular to past and present employees of the Public Service of Canada, the Canadian Armed Forces and Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the present arrangements in regard to integration of Canadian Pension Plan and Public Service plans were only agreed to by employees' representatives in light of an assurance by government that Old Age Security would be paid universally, without restriction. If there had been any indication that OAS would, under particular financial circumstances, be abated or denied, the integration of CPP benefits would, for certain, have been vastly different from the present arrangements. There is no doubt in our mind that government is under a moral obligation to maintain the status quo".
I had a telex, Madam Speaker, from the South Okanagan branch of the Federal Superannuates National Association in Penticton, British Columbia. They state, "Federal superannuates and their dependants object strongly to the budget proposal to introduce special tax on Old Age Security benefits. To target this particular source of income for extra taxation can only be seen as a flagrant repudiation of the doctrine of universality of these benefits". This is another group that has shown us that this is an attack on universality.
As the chairman of the finance committee well knows, the government is going to dismantle what all of us have fought for.
Let me go on, Madam Speaker. The Coalition of Quebec Seniors states, "As seniors we remember well the odious means test for health and social services and fear for its inevitable return if the clawback is enacted in law. We believe that the true reason for the clawback is to abandon the principle of universality and not to reduce the budget deficit".
In talking about the cut-backs, the Vanier Institute of the Family state, "Time and again the objectives of universal family allowances are mistakenly equated with the income security objectives of social assistance payments. It is wrong to suggest that family allowances are nothing more than welfare for the middle-class and the wealthy. Family allowances and family-related tax provisions are not welfare measures. They are, rather, mechanisms to ensure an equitable system of benefits and taxation that acknowledges that the capacity of parents to pay tax is less than the capacity of others at the same income level who do not have children to support. C-28, if and when enacted, does without doubt effectively terminate Canada's universal program of family allowances. If and when it is enacted, Canada will join the United States, which is the only other industrially ad-
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vanced society that does not distribute some variety of family allowance to parents".
I would be remiss in any speech on old age security if I did not refer to One Voice and their thoughts on universality. Let me just quote one small section from their brief to the legislative committee on Bill C-28, a committee that allowed so few of the people of Canada to speak because of the Conservative majority. That is very, very shameful. The quote is this, "In fact, the government could have introduced the clawback at $30,000 but it chose not to do so. Why? Because the clawbacks would then be seen not as a tax of the wealthy but for what it really is, recovery of benefits from part of the population. This is an attack on the universality of Canada's social programs".
Every one of these groups recognizes this for what it is. It is for that reason that I stand today and support the motion of the loyal opposition, a motion that we have also put forward, which motion would delete the clawback provisions within this bill.
This bill is an attack on universality. It is an attack on families. It is an attack on seniors. We on this side of the House will not prescribe to the little song, "A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down," because we are choking on the bits of gruel that we are thrown on this side of the House. We will not stand for it any longer.


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: Madam Speaker, until just a few moments ago I was under the impression, quite frankly, that the government was going to proceed as it has on so many other occasions in this session in jackboot fashion, simply to put forward and perpetuate its vision of what the countiy would be without giving any explanation, without giving us so much as a modicum of understanding of its agenda, its direction, its purposes and what benefits there would be to Canadians one and all, to what benefits there might exist to each and every one of us, for each and every one of us to be member citizens of this great state. I dare say "great state" still because at least we have a loyal opposition that tries to penetrate at the depths of whatever legislation is being promulgated despite the wishes of all Canadians in order that we might at least see the directions in which we are being led whether we approve or no.
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I say that was only until a few moments ago, until finally we heard a member of the government side. I am not sure whether he was motivated by a desire to ensure that the truth do speak and speak out loudly and forcibly when he did say, and being singular and unique amongst all the members of his caucus, that the reason we are presenting this legislation is, to be brutally frank, to ensure that those who do not require assistance no longer have it, that we no longer operate on the premise that if there are benefits that accrue to individuals who become citizens, native bom or naturalized in this country, that we are no longer entitled to those benefits if we do not pass at the very first instance a means test that is defined arbitrarily, whimsically, appropriately as the government says and periodically as its whim would apply as the occasion demands and as the necessities of economics dictate.
Would that the government had had the courage to say so at the very beginning so that all Canadians would have known that the agenda of this government, that the vision of this government for Canada would be predicated on a series of principles and directions that excluded Canadians from benefiting from their input in the development and promulgation of programs beneficial to this state.
So what have we? We had utter silence over the course of the last couple of days on this debate by members on the government side until this one member decided that the truth could no longer be withheld and that he had to join in the chorus of the member for Mississauga South who did say, and I think I quote him correctly, that universality is much too expensive a principle upon which Canadians can build a society of free and secure individuals. It is much too expensive, says he. He is in agreement, of course, with the Minister of Finance who says that we must clawback whatever benefits have accrued to citizens who have contributed by dent of their efforts, by their contributions in either a pension plan or, in this other case, through family involvement in nurturing a family environment that has been the steadfast base upon which our society has been built.
So what are Canadians to think? What are they to say when before this House the Minister of Finance, in response to penetrating questions that ask for a rationale, some sort of indication as to what reason there might be for us to tax discriminately, pejoratively and with great prejudice, Canadians on the basis of age or family affiliation? What is his response? In a very

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cavalier and arrogant fashion he says, "Why does the loyal opposition bother itself with the affairs of a mere 4 per cent of the Canadian population, a mere 4 per cent?"
I suppose that that kind of negative criticism by the Minister of Finance stands us in good stead. We are proud to be able to say that we have received accolades from the Minister of Finance for supporting all Canadians, be they small in number, be their numbers so minute in quantity that they need someone who truly represents democracy at its very essence. But that 4 per cent represents Canadians who have been the most productive, those who have gone through their life making sacrifices upon which this country has been built and upon which I dare say this government today still draws great benefit.
Yet the Minister of Finance and the chairman of the finance committee from Mississauga South, who is here today to listen to this debate will say, and without even a shamed-face smile, that the country can no longer afford to give benefit to those people who have deserved it by their responsibilities, by their contributions, by their efforts, by their enterprise and by the taxes that they have contributed to the revenues of this state.
One no longer knows whether to ciy or to laugh. The arrogance, the gall of such a statement from the government side belies that in fact we are headed purposely towards an elitist society wherein those who are well-off are treated in a fashion that is favourable, to say the least, because they are seen to be, in the opinion of the Minister of Finance, those who are most likely to contribute greater investment and entrepreneurial resources to this country. The rest of us who do not fit into that category can look forward to facing bills and legislation such as Bill C-28 in which whatever benefits are accrued to us will be clawed back.
Why go through this charade? Why not be honest? Why not say you are no longer entitled to any benefits merely because you have contributed, merely because you pay taxes, merely because your entrepreneurial skills and your sacrifices generate great wealth upon which this society shall be based?
We can no longer tolerate a government that tells us one thing and does another, and thinks that it can get away with such pacts. We can no longer tolerate misleading directions-I hesitated for a moment because the word "lie" was going to utter forth from my lips and I did not want to commit an unparliamentary statement and attribute it to members opposite. But, quite frankly, the Canadian public is looking at this debate and saying, "Why have we been mislead? Why can we not have direct, straightforward debate? If we cannot afford something, say so at the very beginning. Tell us how we must pay for it. If this benefit is good, then it must be good for all of us."
Those who are less well off are no less reluctant to give equal benefits, similar benefits to those who are well off. Those who are well off enjoy that benefit because they are members of this society, not simply because they have the good fortune to have more resources, financial or otherwise, than perhaps others in Canadian society. If we establish a base of principle, that principle, that base applies to each and every one of us. There should be no discrimination, and definitely there should be no discrimination on the basis of age. Here we have the government trying to hide the fact that today those who are 65 will receive no benefits once they are at $60,000. We have seen today in Question Period the Minister of Finance refuse to give any kind of assurances or guarantees-not that they would be worth much, he has proven this much, or not that they would be worth anything at all-that that particular threshold would be reduced.
In fact, we know that this is nothing more than a Trojan horse to upset, overturn, and destroy the society we have worked so long to construct and build.


Mrs. Diane Marleau (Sudbury):: Madam Speaker, today I rise to speak on Motion No. 4 which seeks to delete the clawback provision of Bill C-28. Let me begin by explaining the difference between tax back and clawback. Tax back means that you remove a certain percentage of income from taxpayers. Clawback means you remove the whole thing.
Universality means that programs are applied to everyone equally. Clawback in this case means that for a certain segment of the population you are going to remove that program. You start off by clawing back family allowances to families where one income earner

earns more than $50,000. What that says to me is that you are discriminating against families. Families, I have always believed, are the backbone of our country. We should be encouraging families, but we are not.
We are saying that if you are a one income family, that is, if one of the parents chooses to remain at home with the family but that one parent who works happens to make $51,000, at the end of three years that family will lose all family allowance benefits. This government should be encouraging families, not taking away something that they may need.
A family which earns $51,000 if they have two, three, or four children is not rich. They may not be that poor, but they certainly would need the encouragement of this government.
On the other hand, if you have a family where both parents work and the highest income is below $50,000, the one parent might make $48,000 and the other might make $40,000, they do not lose their family allowance benefits. They get it taxed back at the same rate as anyone else, but they do not lose the whole amount. Not only do they not lose their family allowance benefit, but they can claim child care expenses. But you cannot if you have a parent who stays at home. Does that encourage family life? Of course not. You are saying to the couple in this case who might make $85,000 or $88,000, "That's all right. You can keep part of your family allowance." But to the other family where there is an income of $51,000 you are saying, "No, you can't." That is unfair and that is discrimination. We all know how difficult it is to raise a family. I am totally opposed to this kind of legislation. Rather than attacking the families of our nation, we should be encouraging them in any way that we can.
One of the other provisions of Bill C-28 is that we claw back the old age pension for those who have an income higher than $50,000. At first sight it does not look too bad. But why are we discriminating against that one segment of the population? One of the members opposite was saying before that as members of Parliament we make more than $50,000 a year. That is fine. We make more than $50,000 a year, but if we go on the stock market and we make some money playing the stock
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market the government does not come in and tax it away at 100 per cent. All we are saying is, treat everyone equally. Do not discriminate on the basis of age. That is what is wrong with this measure.
I am going to read part of a letter that I received from a constituent. It is a letter dated December 4. It states:
Dear Madam,
In answer to a question of the Leader of the Opposition on November 29, 1989, (Hansard p.6372) the Minister of State (Seniors) said:
"We intend to improve our social programs and we are asking 4
per cent of Canada's seniors to help us reduce the deficit-"
This is his response:
I thought that I hadn't heard right so I waited for Hansard. Now my eyes are confirming what my ears have heard. The Tories are asking the seniors to reduce the deficit! How Machiavellian and utterly despicable to now ask seniors who survived the Great Depression, who worked for $1.00 a day, who endured very patriotically two World Wars, to ask them to pay for the wasteful extravagance of this incompetent government! The seniors of this country have paid dearly in terms of money, blood and sweat for the right to a pension during the autumn of their lives, "fixing O.A.S. is fair game but the proposed clawback is immoral. Let the Government clawback the revenues of strip joints but leave the Seniors alone.
Would it take the demonstrations that we have recently seen in the countries of eastern Europe to bring this government back to its senses?
Yours truly,
Andre Emery
I say to you, this is the feeling of many seniors across this country. They have not only earned the right to an old age pension, but most of them have also paid. If you can recall back a few years, there was a stipulation in the income tax return where they actually paid towards that old age security. They are not asking for special treatment, they are asking to have equal treatment.
What are we doing to the average family income in our country? We are imposing a GST. There will be no relief for these people. We are increasing the surtax and we are now clawing back family allowance benefits and old age pensions.
One of the members opposite said a little while ago, "Well, I do not need the family allowance". I would say to that member, by all means, do not accept it. The government will not keep sending it back to you if you do not want it.

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Mr. Allmand:: You do not have to apply for it.


Diane Marleau: That is right, you do not have to apply for it. Give it to some charity, they might appreciate it. But just because you do not want the family allowance does not mean that there are many families out there who do not really rely on that. That particular program is a very small amount of money that this government gives towards families, towards the children of our country.


Ross Belsher: It costs a lot of money.


Diane Marleau: It may cost some money, but it is certainly worth while. By all means tax it back, but tax it back fairly, at whatever rate you tax everybody else.
If the members across the way were to make a windfall profit somewhere, by all means, tax it. But how would they feel if suddenly they had it all taken away?
How about if you get some kind of a pension because of a disability? How would you feel if suddenly the government came in and said: "Well, you make more than this amount of money, so because this is a special pension, we will take it all away from you. But it is okay to go and make money on the stock market. Sure, we will only take 30 per cent of that away. That is okay. But 100 per cent for that pension". That is what is wrong.
I ask the government to not only reconsider this very seriously but to add some incentives, something, some ray of light, so families can have a proper level of living and can have some hope in this country.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: The hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Employment; the hon. member for Ottawa West-Pay Equity; the hon. member for Edmonton East-Indian Affairs.



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[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of Bill C-28, an act to amend the Income Ihx Act, the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements and Federal Post-Secondary Education and Health Contributions Act, the Old Age Security Act, the Public Utilities Income Tax Transfer Act, the War Veterans Allowance Act and a related Act, as reported (without amendment) from a legislative committee, and Motions Nos. 4, 6 and 7.
Ron Fisher: Madam Speaker, my first inclination, as is befitting what one would call an expression of mourning, would be to stand here for my 10 minutes in absolute silence. I would do that not out of respect for the other members of the House, but as a sincere gesture toward those people who are having their family allowances and their pensions clawed back.
I am not too sure where the best place is to start my remarks, but since we are talking about the clawback, maybe that would be the place to do it. I cannot imagine a more fitting term for this government to originate for what it is doing. There is an element of the scavenger. There is an element of the vicious claw. What a descriptive term. Claw back. Let us take away from those people the little money that we are giving them. What a descriptive term for a despicable government.
I experienced seven months of what this government did to the people with unemployment insurance and this clawback is is absolutely in character for the government. I do not know whether it is the result of lack of imagination or the result of too much imagination.
When dealing with cheaters on unemployment insurance, they are absolutely efficient in tracking down some poor person on unemployment insurance, some single mother with a couple of kids trying to put a little bit of food on her table or maybe shoelaces on the kids' shoes. They can track her down when she earns a penny more
December 19, 1989

than she is allowed under the unemployment insurance regulations.
How do they do it? They do it with computers. They simply cross-match the reports of the employers with the computers that they have in the unemployment insurance commission office. They can find those people.
I think that what they are doing here is the result of lack of imagination. If nothing else, it certainly is sloth. It is inconceivable to me that in this technological age we live in, this government cannot tax people based on how much money they make in relation to how much they ought to be taxed under the Income Tax Act. It is terrible to even suggest that there are some people who are getting money from the government which they ought not to get, to suggest that it is impossible for the government to tax back, not claw back the amount of money in excess of what we as taxpayers ordinarily pay.
There are not very many taxpayers in this country who do not realize that you have to pay taxes. Something that we absolutely object to is this erosion, it is worse than erosion, of the universality which has become such a part of the fabric of Canadian society. It is far more than an erosion. It is a devastation. The words escape me right now but it is an absolutely horrendous thing that this slothful, mean-spirited government would bring in.
It suggests that indeed, as with everything else they seem to put their hands to, government members are incompetent, so incompetent that as we take part in this debate, we find ourselves under closure again. Wonder of wonders.
This is about the tenth or twelfth time since I came to Parliament, I was going to say a year ago, and it is true, that we have been under closure. We were under closure on free trade but that was only one or two instances. Since April when we came back and started Parliament in earnest, this is the tenth or twelfth time I have risen to speak under closure.
What an unimaginative group we have over there. What a mean-spirited, unimaginative group who seem not to be able to do anything constructive, who seem not to be able to come up with imaginative programs for the creation of jobs, for the creation of well-paying quality jobs so people can have some kind of a satisfaction with what they do within society rather than flipping ham-
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burgers and going to work for welfare as they seem to have done so well and have bragged about in connection with some programs they have in my native province of Saskatchewan. Work for welfare, can you imagine anything so obscene? I suspect that "obscene" was the word I was trying to find earlier.
One of the best examples of the incompetence of this government is the bill itself. It was so flawed by their own admission that government members had to bring in 125 amendments to their own legislation, only to withdraw them.
I suppose if you look at flawed legislation and if you look at having to withdraw amendments you make to it, you would have to conclude that what you have there is a couple of negatives. I am sure the chairperson of the finance committee can tell me-the great mathematician that he is-that two negatives make a positive.
I fail to understand how something as broad as the bill originally was without the withdrawn 125 amendments can possibly, except perhaps in the eyes of the government opposite, add up to a positive. I suspect that it may possibly be that when you are talking mathematics, two negatives do make a positive. When you are talking in terms of social programs and social legislation, when you are talking in terms of pensions for our seniors, when you are talking in terms of family allowances, I suggest that these two wrongs certainly do not make a right. It is rather obvious that the exact opposite is true.
How can anyone say that these people, defenseless like most wage earners are, ought to have a certain amount of their rightful earnings taken away? One of the previous speakers pointed out and, it is entirely true, that Canadians have had their taxes deducted in the past for the right to receive old age assistance when they reach the age of retirement. This government is saying no.
I suppose they have lost their computers. I suspect they are not going to be taking into account how much those people contributed, how much they ought to receive as a result of those contributions. They have thrown the computers out and they are going to be clawing back from that old age security. That is, by any definition, theft.

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How can this government possibly exonerate itself from taking back money from people who have paid into a program in order that they will receive some kind of benefits when they retire? I do not suppose the government thought of that. I will not just have made government members aware of that. It has been referred to before. Perhaps there will be one or two more amendments they would like to withdraw from the legislation, and I would suspect that the only one they have left to withdraw is the legislation itself. I would suggest that that is precisely the motion which this government ought to withdraw and it ought to withdraw it now.
This is one of the most horrendous things that has happened to the Canadian public, and to do it on the backs of people who have contributed as much as they have to this society and our children who will be contributing is unconscionable.


Ron J. Duhamel: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be here in the House today to address this question that is particularly important to Canadian seniors and Canadian families. I want us to remember that we are not talking just about the clawback. We need to look at it in the economic and social context within which we are currently living.

You know very well that there is much less money for education, now. Transfers of funds have been cut not only for education, but also for health. Education is taxed, no matter what the government says, as are some health services. Therefore, when we speak of the famous "clawback" and of its impact on families, we must not consider it as a single occurence. It is there, and it is all the worse because there are other tax measures which impact in a negative way on families.
For instance, there is the goods and services tax. Now, hockey, ball games and other sports will be taxed. Parents pay much more tax than they did five years ago. There have been, I believe, 31 tax increases, and there will be 32, with the goods and services tax. And yet, we know that there is not enough room in day care centres for children, nowadays.

There is simply insufficient daycare space for children whose parents need to go out and work in order to earn a decent living and to provide them with the basic necessities of life. There is, as well, no tax fairness for those parents who choose to stay at home or are able to do so. That is an unfortunate reality.
The basic question that we have to ask ourselves is not only the one that I have raised already, that is, the clawback in itself being a repressive, regressive measure. I will not go through the numbers but it is also quite clear as to what will happen to well over one million Canadian families within the next decade. They will be caught within that net.
We have to ask that other question. If you look at the massive tax increases, the reduction of transfer payments and all of that within the total context of Canadian society, what message is this government sending to Canadian families? What message is it sending out about children, about our children's future?
It seems to me that we need to invest in families and in children. Clearly this clawback, in addition to many of the other regressive measures taken by government, is not going to contribute to that in any way, shape or form.

Let us now talk about seniors and the impact of the famous clawback on them.

I think that most of us would recognize that seniors have built this country and we owe them because of what they contributed to the nation. Seniors have invested in this country and they, rightfully so, expect a return on that investment. They have invested not only their talents and their labour, but they have also invested dollars because hon. members are not without knowing that there was, at one time in the not too distant past, a particular provision whereby people who were paying taxes at the time were paying for their senior years so that they could collect a reasonable return upon retirement. They expect a return on that dollar investment.
It is rather interesting, as some of my colleagues have mentioned, that if they had taken those dollars and invested them in a private company and 20, 30 or 40 years
December 19, 1989

later that private company were to say: "Look, we are sorry, your investment is too high in terms of what we can afford", you and I both know what would happen. They would be pursuing that company in a court of law and they in fact would be remunerated appropriately.
The other thing that I think we need to point out is that the clawback and the deindexation are really the same. Government members lost the first round when they tried to deindex and so they are trying again and it looks very much as if they are going to be successful. Let us not kid ourselves. Let us not permit us to be sidetracked. Deindexation and clawback in the final analysis are basically the same issue. They remove what is rightfully that of others from them.
The partial deindexation, as has been mentioned on a number of occasions, is something that a lot of people have difficulty in understanding. Clearly, if it is in fact looked at in terms of $50,000 a year revenue, these seem like large numbers. Today the concept might be somewhat appealing because most people do not earn $50,000 a year, but let us project to the next decade. Let us remember that those people who may be wondering if this is a good idea because they have not had the time to study it as much as they might have will be the victims of this particular initiative of government within the next decade or so. In 10 years, in 15 years, they will be the clawed backs of this country.
The seniors in this country are frightened. I speak to seniors every single week. They do not know whether or not they will be able to continue to pay their bills, whether or not they will be able to continue to have the basic necessities of life, and they feel as if they have been cheated. I sympathize and empathize with them. I think it is a shame that this government should have created that sense of fear, that sense of fright, that sense of real deep concern among those who can very often less easily defend themselves.
Let us look at the kind of country that has been created which has in fact engendered this kind of fear. We have a government whose policies have pitted one region against another. We have seen that with the CF-18 contract about which Manitoba felt grieved and, therefore, felt badly toward Quebec, and I could cite a whole lot of other examples.
The government has pitted one group against another. Other people feel if seniors are earning $50,000 a year, they should in fact not be complaining if there is a
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clawback. That is what I mean by pitting one group against another rather than taking the time to explain the reality of what is going to happen.
This is a government that is pitting one individual against another. We now have people who are concerned about what their neighbours are doing, whether or not their neighbours will survive, who become jealous of certain tax conditions that some enjoy while they do not.
This is in fact a government that has created a nation in which we are starting increasingly to doubt each other, to be less caring, to be reaching out less than we have in the past.
Quite apart from this context, if you wish, this fear that I have been describing, we know that the government has doubled the debt, in spite of the fact that revenues have increased by well over 50 per cent over the last five years. I have mentioned the 30-plus tax increases. I have mentioned the reduction of the established programs funding that will impact upon health and education.
We also have hidden taxes. The government tries to make us believe, for example, that education is exempt and that health is exempt. Well, let us look at some of those.

Let us take books, for example. Books will be taxed. Take some services. For example, if you take non-credit courses, they will be taxed. And the tax will apply in many other situations.

This is a country in which there are 3.5 to 5 million poor. Among those are one million children. There are over 150 soup kitchens. The government has just chopped one half of VIA Rail and there are going to be 2,700-plus unemployed. The unemployment figures are really very misleading, because many Canadians do not know that there are Canadians who live on reservations who are not a part of those figures, and that the youth unemployment rate in Newfoundland is close to 25 per cent.
This is a government that has decimated the Atlantic fisheries and has frightened farmers throughout the whole nation. Let us remember, as I complete my remarks, that this is not just a clawback. This is, in fact, a clawback that is regressive and that is frightening, one which is concerning people. We need to look at it within

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the context of all of the other measures that have been taken and that has added to that fear.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Mr. Speaker, I rise in my place in the House of Commons this afternoon on behalf of thousands of senior citizens in the great riding of Hamilton West.
For the record, the Conservative agenda could not be more clear. With a cruel, shocking, uncaring attitude, the government has intentionally embarked on a destructive course to dismantle the entire system of old age security in this country. It is an entitlement which Canadians long struggled for, a sacred trust-there are those words again, Mr. Speaker, a sacred trust-honoured by governments over the years.
You will notice that I used the word "entitlement". That is because the old age security is not some kind of a welfare handout, or a government payout, or, as the finance minister once called it, a benefit. It is an entitlement that seniors have paid into since 1952.
Yes, this government is clawing back. There is the image, clawing back, like some big bear, some big, ugly, hungry, wants-to-feed-his-stomach bear with a giant claw. Out it reaches to rip back, and, in essence, confiscating money that belongs to seniors.
Just a little earlier here in this Chamber this afternoon we had a member from Ontario rise in his place and say: "Hey, I haven't heard any complaints. I haven't had any calls on this proposed legislation". I invite that member to hold a town hall meeting in his riding, invite the senior citizens to come and have tea with him in the afternoon so that he can hear and be in tune to what the seniors in his riding are saying. If he does not, I will shortly be having a town hall meeting in my riding of Hamilton West. If he would like to come to my riding and hear directly from seniors, I invite him to that meeting.
Time allocation and closure, for what, the tenth or eleventh time since we began sitting in April. It is the government's way of saying let us get this unpopular measure through Parliament in a hurry because the less Canadians know the better. This government has chosen to ram Bill C-28 down our throats without full and honest discussion but, most important, without a popular mandate.
I remind those members opposite and to my right of the words uttered by their leader, the Prime Minister, on November 8 in Nova Scotia:
As long as I am Prime Minister, social programs, especially those
for the elderly, will be improved, not diminished.
Will this clawback receive full debate? No. Will Canadians across this great land be given the opportunity to consider, be given the right to have some say, some input into this clawback legislation? No. Does this government show any commitment to the social needs of this great country? No. The government has failed to understand. We can go even further and say that this government has chosen, if you can believe it, to tear down the social programs, the social obligations which have made Canada the envy of the world.
It is that principle of universality, that concept of social justice, the very idea that says no matter where you live, no matter what youf religious belief, no matter what your income, whether you are rich or poor, no matter what your age, you as a Canadian are entitled to that common threshold of social programs to be found in Canada. There must be one fair Canada for all. This is not the view of the Conservative government, however. Universality is not a philosophy acceptable to a true blue Tory.
There is another image: blue, cold, harsh, unforgiving. To the old age pensioner who has worked hard to scrimp and save and sock away a little in investments for the so-called golden years, the government says: "Just gimme that back and you've got nothing to say about it". That is what they are saying. Closure, right?


Mr. Kempling:: Bullshit.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: The hon. member for Burlington is using foul language to explain my point of view.


William James Kempling: You're sick.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Have you been hearing this, Mr. Speaker? I think other members in the House have been hearing some of the remarks being made and I think it would be only honourable if that member apologized and withdrew those remarks.
In the end, this government then turns its back on the pensioner and says: "That will teach them for being thrifty, for being responsible, for investing in this coun-
December 19, 1989

try. Those old fools." That is what this government is saying.
This is not the Canada that I grew up in. Bill C-28 is a heartless, callous, cunning piece of legislation, sloppy in its creation, devious in its presentation, unacceptable to the parliamentary system, intolerable in its standards. Senior citizens beware. For all of you who are under 65 who have been counting on receiving old age security payments as part of your retirement income, the rules are about to change.
The government's own consultation paper on child and elderly benefits released in January 1985 had this to say about the idea of a surtax, another word for clawback, on old age pensions:
A special surtax on old age security payments to return more of the benefit paid to upper income pensioners would seriously disrupt our retirement income system, both for current pensioners and those now planning for retirement, and would unduly penalize those most affected by reason of retirement income resulting from private savings in earlier years.
That is what the government paper had to say. What has changed? Is this a new dawn? The clawback takes money that rightfully belongs to Canada's seniors.
In summary, the Minister of Finance must withdraw the bill and for good measure throw in an apology to seniors.


William James Kempling: Bullshit. You're sick.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: You have been here too many years. You forget what kind of place this is.


William James Kempling: You're sick.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. During the course of my remarks on this important bill, a bill under closure on which we will be voting in exactly half an hour, I wanted to state my concerns. During the course of my remarks there were remarks made-


Some hon. members:: Oh, come on.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Order, please. If the hon. member has a point of order I wish he would come to it at this point.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: I was about to make it, Madam Speaker. The hon. member on the other side of the House made very callous and in fact rude, vulgar remarks heard by
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other colleagues on my side of the House. I would think it appropriate that he apologize.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The Chair has not heard the remarks to which the hon. member for Hamilton West is referring. I am sure that if any hon. member feels that he or she should apologize, he or she will do the honourable thing.
In the meantime we will resume debate with the hon. member for Moose Jaw-Lake Centre.


Rodney Edward Laporte: Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak on this bill, a bill that is going to put an end to universality in this country. This government has attempted to change the issue. It has been telling Canadians and telling us in the House today and for some period of time that it is simply taxing wealthy Canadians and that there is nothing wrong with that. Government members say that they are simply taking back what wealthy Canadians do not really need.
That is not the issue and that is not why we have been opposing this bill. In fact, as far as taxing wealthy Canadians or reducing the deficit is concerned, this bill brings in only something like $300 million to $500 million, which is relatively insignificant with respect to lowering the deficit.
We in the New Democratic Party believe in fair taxation and would certainly support real measures of reform that would bring about some real fair taxation.
The issue is universality. This issue is important because it attacks the very credibility of the government. In 1984 the Prime Minister talked about sacred trusts and approximately a year later he tried to deindex the old age pension. That was an assault on one of the most sacred trusts in this country. It was only because seniors rose up in huge numbers and opposed the measure that the government backed off. Now it is doing the same thing, except it is coming in from the back door.
The government promised before the last election that it would introduce an extensive child care program for this nation. The government made $25 billion worth of commitments that it said would be put in place after the election, but they have not been put in place. There is no child care program and most of the other $25 billion of commitments promised by this government have not been met.

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Why should Canadians believe the government when it says: "Don't worry, we will take care of you"? What is going to happen down the road? In a few months or next year the government could reduce the figure for a clawback on the old age pension from $50,000 to perhaps $40,000. Or, if it is $40,000, why not $35,000?
The important fact is that we must maintain the universality of the program to guarantee that the programs will be there when Canadians need them.
The government wants to reduce the deficit. It says that it is important to have these changes made because it is spending too much money and it is having problems with the deficit. There are some very simple solutions. Three to five hundred million dollars is not a lot of money. One simple solution would be to put a fair tax on the $27 billion dollars corporations make in this country which are not taxed at all. Even in the United States under Ronald Reagan they introduced a minimum 10 per cent corporation tax.
If we introduced a 10 per cent tax in this country it would bring in $2.7 billion. That would be enough not only to pay for this this program, the $300 to $500 million, but it would certainly help pay for a proper child care program.
If this government would impose fair taxes on all Canadians, certainly on those who are making over $100,000, it would go a long way to reducing the deficit and to providing some encouragement and some incentive for Canadians to want to try and to want to work. Unfortunately, the way it stands now, middle income Canadians and small business people who are trying to get ahead are paying an unfair share of taxes.
Through the bill before the House today the government wants to change the idea of universality. It is an insidious attack on the whole concept of universality that has been so long accepted by this Parliament and certainly by this country.
The government has imposed time allocation on this bill. It has been imposing time allocation and closure ever since the thirty-fourth Parliament convened. This government has imposed more time allocation and closure in one year than virtually all governments in the history of this country. This government says that it is considerate of the people, that it listens to the people,
that it wants to consult with Canadians, but its actions are totally different from its words.
It muzzles Canadians. It muzzles members of Parliament who wanted to speak on behalf of their constituents. That is simply not fair, it is not just, and it is not right. This is not a government that listens. This is not a government that is caring. This is not a government that is compassionate.
The CCF and the NDP were the parties in this country that were responsible for much of the social legislation, the social system that existed in this country before the Tories took power. Our party fought for 50 years in this House and throughout this country for this type of program.
This government, the Progressive Conservative party, has dismantled much of it in five years. It is a tragedy. This government has undone many of the achievements the NDP has contributed to this country.
We have very recently elected a new leader of our party. I know that our leader and the rest of our party certainly have our work cut out for us just to put back in place or just to regain the achievements that we fought so hard and so long to gain for the people of Canada.


Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Madam Speaker, I have one concern about this debate, and that is that the concentration on the clawback is detracting from other provisions in the bill that equally deserve our attention, changes which are damaging to small Canadian businesses.
We have no choice. This clawback is so outrageous, so offensive to fundamental values we have taken for granted for half a century that members have no alternative but to speak out strongly and loudly and for as long as they can on it. I regret that other important and damaging measures in this bill are not receiving the attention they deserve, but I think there is no option for members of the House except to address it, to attach to it the offensive term of clawback, and to continue attacking it.
I want to talk about the effect on the family allowance. The family allowance goes back over half a century. It was brought in by government in support of families, in recognition of the additional costs to families of raising children with a reasonable level of security. When it first came in it represented, for many families, 50 per cent of
December 19, 1989

the family income. Since then it has shrunk and shrunk and shrunk and become less significant while many families with children become more dependent on the welfare system.
The partial deindexing of family allowances in the last session of Parliament was just the latest step in that process. The government claims that it is just taking the family allowance back from families that can afford it. We already do that through the tax system. We already do it by insisting that families declare this as income and that they pay tax on it. Of course if you are in a higher income bracket you automatically pay a higher rate of income tax on that income.
No income other than the allowance for children and the seniors' pension is charged tax at 100 per cent by the government. One can be a millionaire, make a windfall profit overnight, and still pay one's normal rate of tax. Nobody, no matter how rich, pays 100 per cent of tax except seniors on their old age security and families on their children's allowance.
It is hypocrisy to talk about supporting families. It is hypocrisy to talk about the importance of children when we know that over one million children in this country live in poverty. It is hypocrisy to talk about budgets for shelters for battered women. As I said to one of my colleagues over here when he had the temerity to speak on that, "Let's set up shelters for the men and leave the women in their homes with their children".
It is hypocrisy to talk about that and at the same time not to recognize that battering and assault do not happen only in poor families. It happens in well-off families. For many women the family allowance is the only income that they can call their own, that they can use as they choose, and that they can ensure is available to meet the needs of their children no matter what the family income.
I have a limited time left. I have to comment on the hypocrisy from the opposite benches about helping the poor. I do not see any help for the poor in this legislation. I just see taking away from people.
I have to comment on the poverty of elderly women. Some 72 per cent of the elderly poor in this country are women, and this extra bit of income while the spouse is still alive is often the difference between poverty for
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women when that spouse dies and the pension dies with him and a reasonable, if not comfortable, level of living.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Unfortunately I must interrupt the hon. member. It being 4.45 p.m., pursuant to Order made Monday, December 18, 1989, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the report stage of the bill now before the House.
Therefore the question is on Motion No. 4. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


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


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


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


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), the recorded division on the motion stands deferred.
Motions Nos. 6 and 7 will have to await the outcome of Motion No. 4.
The next question is on Motion No. 10.


Steve Butland: Madam Speaker, I ask that Motion No. 10 be withdrawn.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Is that agreed?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
Motion No. 10 withdrawn.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred divisions on Bill C-28.
The first vote is on Motion No. 1.


[Stage Direction]
Call in the members.
The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I declare the motion lost.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Madam Speaker, I think that you would find agreement to apply the vote on Motion No. 1 to the deferred division on Motions Nos. 2 and 3, and when you call the vote on the other motions, I will have more to say. But for now, the two deferred divisions are on Motions Nos. 2 and 3. These are the votes that concern us, Madam Speaker.


George Albert Proud: With the same vote.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: With the same vote, of course! The next vote is on Motion No. 2.


Steve Butland: December 19, 1989

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Motion No. 2
That Bill C-28 be amended in Clause 18 by striking out lines 5 to 10 at page 24.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I declare the motion lost. The next vote is on Motion No. 3.
++NAYS


Steve Butland: Members
Motion No. 3
Andre
Beatty
Bernier
Bird
Blackburn (Jonquiere) Blenkarn
Bouchard (Roberval)
Bourgault
Brightwell
Cadieux
Cardiff
Chadwick
Chartrand
Atkinson
Belsher
Bertrand
Bjornson
Blais
Bosley
Bouchard (Lac-Saint-Jean)
Boyer
Browes
Campbell (Vancouver Centre) Casey
Champagne (Champlain) Clark (Yellowhead)
That Bill C-28 be amended in Clause 47 by striking out line 1 at page 45 and substituting the following therefor:
"(a) 0.05 percent of tax payable under Part 1 by".


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I declare the motion lost.

++NAYS
Members
The Eton. Member for Ottawa South on a point of order.
Andre	Atkinson
Beatty	Belsher
Bernier	Bertrand
Bird	Bjomson
Blackburn (Jonquiere)	Blais
Blenkarn	Bosley
Bouchard (Roberval)	Bouchard (Lac-Saint-Jean)
Bourgault	Boyer
Brightwell	Browes
Cadieux	Campbell (Vancouver Centre)
Cardiff	Casey
Chadwick	Champagne (Champlain)
Chartrand	Clark (Yellowhead)
Clark (Brandon-Souris)	Cole
Collins	Cook
Cooper	Corbeil
Corbett	Cote
Couture	Crosbie (St. John's West)
Darling	DeBlois
de Cotret	Della Noce
Desjardins	Do mm


Mr. Manley:: Madam Speaker, for reasons given in debate, I would like to be shown as not voting on Motion No. 2.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The hon. member has been heard and notice has been taken. The Hon. Member for Beaver River.


Miss Grey:: Madam Speaker, in the interests of saving time, I would like to have it on the record that for Motion No. 2, I am voting nay.
December 19, 1989

Government Orders
++NAYS
Members
I would like to make it quite clear to members opposite that in this particular instance I will be voting with that side.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The next question is on Motion No. 4.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Madam Speaker, in the interests of saving time, I would like to recommend that you seek unanimous consent to apply the vote just taken on Motion No. 1, with the exceptions on Motion No. 2 we just heard, to Motion No. 4 which I understand will also apply to Motions Nos. 6 and 7.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I declare the motion lost.
This negative vote necessitates a vote on Motion No. 6 and a vote on Motion No. 6 would apply to Motion No. 7.
On a point of order the hon. member for Kamloops.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Madam Speaker, I would think that you might find unanimous consent to apply the votes we have been applying also to Motions Nos. 6 and 7.
Also we will have the floor apply these votes to Nos. 6 and 7 which would then be negated, and the reverse to the report stage.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The House has heard the suggestion made by the hon. member for Kamloops. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The next question is on Motion No. 6 which vote will also apply to Motion No. 7.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I declare the motion lost. I therefore declare Motion No. 7 lost.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: that the Bill be concurred in.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I declare the motion carried.
When shall the bill be read the third time? At the next sitting of the House?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.

December 19, 1989
Government Orders CROP INSURANCE ACT


MEASURE TO AMEND
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Monday, December 18, consideration of the motion of Mr. Lewis that Bill C-48, an act to amend the Crop Insurance Act be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: It being five o'clock p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 45(5) the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred division on the motion of the Minister of Agriculture for the second reading of Bill C-48, an Act to amend the Crop Insurance Act. Shall I dispense with the ringing of the bells?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I declare the motion carried.
Bill read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.


WAYS AND MEANS
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Madam Speaker, pursuant to the tabling of several Ways and Means motions earlier today by the Minister of Finance that relate to the goods and services tax, I would ask that an Order of the Day be designated for each.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, I believe you will find there is unanimous consent to proceed with Bill C-31 at this point, and that we will deal with all stages, that the government will introduce four amendments to that bill and that it will pass on division.
Any time taken from the normal private members' hour to deal with Bill C-31 will be added to the regular time to make sure that private members' hour does have the full hour and that time would then be followed by the usual "late show".
I would also like to ask if the House would give their consent to allow us to release our Pages at this time, because I understand they have a much deserved Christmas party tonight and none of us would want them to be late for that.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The House has heard the suggestion made by the hon. parliamentary secretary. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Shall we all wish our Pages a nice night?


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!
Government Orders




Charles Joseph Clark: that Bill C-31, an act to amend the Governor General's Act be read the second time, and by unanimous consent, referred to a Committee of the Whole.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and, by unanimous consent, the House went into committee thereon, Mrs. Champagne in the chair.
On Clause 1-
Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Chairman, I move:
That Clause 1 of Bill C-31 be amended by striking out lines 9 and
10 on page 1 and substituting the following:
"Governor General for the 12 month period beginning on January 1, 1989 a salary of $83,800."


Steve Eugene Paproski: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment?


Don Boudria: Madam Chairman, perhaps if we could get the attention of the House it would be a little easier to continue with the bill.
This amendment changes the amount of the bill and the Chair will have to enlighten me. Because we are increasing the amount as opposed to merely changing the retroactivity clause, does this amendment require a royal recommendation and, if so, does the Chair have that?


Steve Eugene Paproski: I think that, by rereading both the bill and the amendment proposed by the parliamentary secretary, the member will realize that no, it does not need the royal recommendation as we are talking about less money than was originally in the bill.


Don Boudria: Madam Chairman, I agree but perhaps for a slightly different reason.

Government Orders
I think in fact the retroactivity provision was to start on January 1, 1988 with a second clause to further add to that for 1989. What the new clause does, as I understand it, is put the amount including the multiplier effect together in order to give effect to the 1989 rate immediately, if my understanding is correct.


Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Chairman, the purpose of the amendment to Clause 1 is to replace 1988 by 1989 and to replace $80,000 by $83,800 which is $80,000 for the annual salary in the original bill for 1988 plus the $3,800 for the 1989 indexation adjustment.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
TheAssistant Deputy Chairman: Shall Clause 1, as amended, carry?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Nelson Andrew Riis: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
On Clause 2-
Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, I have an amendment for Clause 2.
I move:
That Clause 2 of Bill C-31 be amended by striking out line 15 on
page 1 and substituting the following:
"beginning on January 1, 1990 and for each"
There is no explanation necessary. It follows again that it is the 1990 effect.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Shall the amendment carry?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: On division.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Shall Clause 2 as amended carry?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Nelson Andrew Riis: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
On Clause 3-
Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, I move:
That Clause 3 of Bill C-31 be amended
(a)	by striking out line 31 on page 2 and substituting the following: "1, 1989 and ending on the day preceding the"
(b)	by striking out line 36 on page 2 and substituting the following:
"beginning on January 1, 1989 and ending"
The purpose of this is, of course, to replace 1988 by 1989 for retroactive adjustment.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Nelson Andrew Riis: On division.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Shall Clause 3 as amended carry?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Nelson Andrew Riis: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
On Clause 4-
Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, I move:
That Clause 4 of Bill 31 be amended by striking out lines 4 to 7 on page 3 and substituting the following:
"4. This Act shall be deemed to have come into force on January 1, 1989."


Steve Eugene Paproski: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Nelson Andrew Riis: On division.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Shall Clause 4 as amended carry?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Nelson Andrew Riis: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Steve Eugene Paproski: Shall the Title carry?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Title agreed to.
Bill reported.
Hon. Benoit Bouchard (for the President of the Privy Council) moved: that the bill, as amended, be concurred in.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: When shall the bill be read a third time? By leave, now?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Benoît Bouchard: that the bill be now read the third time and passed.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the third time and passed.
The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: It being 5.45 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.


PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS - MOTIONS   MINING MINERAL MARKETING AGENCY
Mr. Cid Samson (Timmins -Chapleau) moved:: That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider the advisability of developing, in consultation with provincial and local governments, with industiy and with labour unions, a co-operative mineral-marketing agency to further promote Canadian refined minerals in the world marketplace.
He said: Madam Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak to my colleagues on a motion that asks the government to consider the advisability of developing, in consultation with provincial and local governments, with industry and with labour unions, a co-operative mineralmarketing agency to further promote Canadian refined minerals in the world marketplace.
Private Members' Business
Before I speak on the specific concept presented in this motion I would like to remind the House of the importance of the mineral industry in Canada. Canada's minerals and metals industry accounts for about 3 per cent of our gross domestic product and almost 20 per cent of total merchandise exports. The industry provides a livelihood, directly or indirectly, for hundreds of thousands of Canadians from Newfoundland to British Columbia. Some 120 communities in Canada depend largely on mining or mineral processing for their livelihood.
In 1988 the mineral industry continued to be one of the two most important primary industries supporting the Ontario economy. Approximately $50 million was spent on exploration in the Yukon and far northern British Columbia in 1988.
In British Columbia there were increases in the value of mineral production in 1988 because of new gold mines and increased prices for zinc, copper and coal. In Manitoba the exploration expenditure levels were maintained at 1987 levels at an estimated $50 million.
I would like to take a moment and remind the minister responsible for mines that the mineral development agreements that allowed for the completion of many worth-while projects are coming to an end in most of the provinces.
It is hoped that this government will look at little further than the immediate future and consider the possibility of renewing these agreements. These federal-provincial mineral development agreements are subagreements to the more general economic and regional development agreements.
In British Columbia alone the projects under the MDA represented a substantial part of all the scientific and geotechnical information made available to the mining industry and other interested users. They have had significant positive impact on the focus of exploration programs, the discovery of new mineral prospects and the development of cost effective and environmentally sound access routes to remote mine sites. As well, the program helped identify new markets for this province's underdeveloped industrial mineral sector.
My motion speaks of creating a co-operative mode of operation to help the sale of Canadian refined minerals. Let us look at what happens in other fields when the sale

December 19, 1989
Private Members' Business
of natural resources is organized under a co-operative model.
One model of co-operative that has proven quite beneficial in the marketing and sale of resources lies in the agricultural sector. I think of Agropur, the co-operative that regroups milk producers in Quebec as a good organizational example.
Far from me, however, to propose the exact same model for the mineral sector. Mining is a high capital venture and workers, as well as governments, have many priorities to deal with before starting to invest in a new field.
However, it would be feasible to study the possibility of a co-operative system that would help promote further refining of our minerals by finding markets and pooling the production.

Co-operatives work very well in Quebec, in our forests, another of our natural resources. They go back to the forties, and were consolidated and rejuvenated in the sixties. They are beginning to accumulate resources, to diversify and to become involved in downstream lumber activities.

Other examples of co-operatives which have been successful are the plywood co-ops in the northwest and on the Pacific coast in the States.
As well, we might want to consider the possibility of helping workers to buy existing installations for the transformation of minerals. In Virginia, the Weirton Steel Corporation was bought by its workers at a cost of $386 million in January of 1984. That was accomplished after the parent company, National Steel, wanted to close down the shop. There are other examples as well.
I know of many single industry towns that face an uncertain future due to the possibility of mine closures. The workers and their families feel powerless facing a multinational corporation that deals in hard currencies with a specific goal in mind. By helping these workers to participate in a lengthening of the cycle of production, by letting them have a say and to take part in the same
effort, we can only benefit from it in the future. By regrouping co-operatives such as these under an umbrella, we could achieve a more sustainable economic development for our natural resources.
We must increase the integration between sectors and promote greater research and development activities while increasing Canadian control if we are to build these forward and backward linkages from the resource base.
The Department of Industry, Science and Technology has not done enough to promote synergy and create links between the primary sector and the manufacturing sector. More efforts must be made in that department.
Under the Ontario Mining Act, the Ontario government has the power to require companies to increase further processing of ores in Canada but it has allowed a number of specific exemptions. Falconbridge still exports nickel-copper matte to its refinery in Norway while Inco ships nickel oxide sinter and nickel sulphide to its plant in Clydach, Wales, for processing.
Take the case of copper mining in British Columbia. This is a highly unstable industry in which multinational companies produce concentrates solely for export. No copper is currently smelted in B.C., though the development of a smelter and of manufacturing facilities for the production of copper wire could be established.
It is not hard to conceive that the earth does not possess an inexhaustible source of goods for humans to use and sometimes abuse, and that we all must work towards a sustainable form of economic development that would take into account the future generations. We do not want to leave behind only stumps where trees once grew, or gaping holes with all of the richness they once contained spent and gone. We must make intelligent use of these resources that are present in a finite amount.
By promoting value-added products we extend the cycle, and this is the kind of rationalization that would provide a much needed stability.
We deal in a global economy. Some of our weaknesses when faced with strong competition have been shown through failures in the free trade agreement to protect our markets.
December 19, 1989

Not only do we have to build a stronger industry in order to counteract the problems we face because of the free trade agreement, we also have to look beyond.
If we want to compete on a world-wide scale we must become more organized and pull together. A co-operative mineral-marketing agency would, I believe, help us find new markets for refined minerals and encourage the development of more refining plants, thus helping us achieve a more rational and cost-effective use of our mineral resources.


Mr. John A. MacDougall (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the chance to speak on M-73 this evening on this important matter. I would like first to spend some time reviewing the facts so that we can view this issue in perspective.
This is not to deny that there are important challenges ahead in expanding existing markets or developing new markets for Canada's minerals and metals, but simply to provide a reminder that Canadian minerals and metals producers have been operating in an export-oriented environment for some time.
The minerals and metals industry in Canada accounts for about 3 per cent of gross domestic product but almost 20 per cent of total merchandise exports. This indicates in a nutshell the special position of the industry. For while Canada is a world-class producer of many minerals, 15 per cent of the world's zinc, 21 per cent of the world's nickel, 23 per cent of the world's potash, 31 per cent of the world's uranium and 18 per cent of the world's titanium concentrates, to name just a few, our relatively small population generates a limited market for these commodities with which we are so richly endowed.
It is natural, then, that we should look beyond our borders to find customers for the output of our mines and our refineries and smelters. As a result, Canada exports a high proportion of its production of some minerals and metals-96 per cent of nickel production, 93 per cent of copper production, 87 per cent of zinc production and 90 per cent of potash production. These examples are from the high end of the scale, it is true, but a high degree of export orientation is present throughout the entire mining sector.
Private Members' Business
The fact that Canada exports significant amounts of its minerals should not be taken to imply that Canada does not take advantage of the rich resource endowment to generate economic activity and employment in the further processing of our mineral resources. As I have just suggested in referring to refineries and smelters, and as my colleague, Mr. Johnson, pointed out in the House last October during debate on another motion of the hon. member from Timmins-Chapleau, Canada has a strong processing sector and in the case of certain commodities, most notably gold, nickel, zinc, copper and aluminum, it is world class.
One hundred per cent of nickel ore produced in Canada is upgraded into nickel matte domestically. Furthermore, some two-thirds of this is refined in Canada. About 94 per cent of our gold production in 1987 and 75 per cent of silver concentrates were processed here in this country. More than 56 per cent of copper and of zinc concentrates received upgrading in Canada. We have an aluminum industry which relies entirely on imported bauxite and alumina for its feedstocks.
Here is a good example of further processing in Canada which has developed even without the stimulus of domestically available raw materials. So, it should not be thought that Canada exports the bulk of its minerals in the form of ores and concentrates.
The representatives of Canada's minerals and metals industry and this government recognize that if the sector is to continue to make a major contribution to Canada's economy and to economic development of our regions, we must be prepared to compete head to head in world markets with the world's most efficient minerals and metals producers. This is the motivating force behind the government's commitment to trade liberalization under the multilateral trade negotiations, MTN, to the Cana-da-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and to tax reform.
The decade of the 1990s will be an acceleration of the dismantling of trade barriers of all types and Canada's minerals and metals industry has both the experience and the know-how to take advantage of the opportunities which will arise as a result.
Throughout the first half of the 1980s, Canada's minerals and metals industry was under intense pressure due to a combination of factors-high world capacity levels and inventory levels, a major slowdown in eco-

December 19, 1989
Private Members' Business
nomic activity, and so on-which resulted in low commodity prices worldwide. This set of circumstances produced a large number of casualties throughout the world but Canada's mining sector weathered the storm very well. Recognizing that no long-term relief would be obtained through lobbying for protectionist measures, the industry set about improving its efficiency as the only sensible way to respond.
It embraced new technologies and made organizational changes which led to very significant productivity gains. Improvements of up to 50 per cent in five years were not unknown. The impressive performance helped the industry through the crisis period of the early to mid-1980s but also gave it the strength to face the future with confidence. As a result, the industry has a solid basis from which to consolidate its position in the markets it currently serves and to penetrate new markets.
I have given a brief review of some of the recent history and of how Canada's minerals and metals industry is structured in relation to the international economy. In order to increase its contribution to this economy, two factors are important. First, artificial barriers which create impediments to trade must be removed. Considerable progress has been made in this direction already, but more remains to be done.
Second, as in any market, it is difficult to win any customers from the competition. Difficult, I say, but not impossible. At a minimum, one needs a competitive product at a competitive price. The policies of this government foster both of these objectives. An efficient industry combined with a fair and simple tax regime allows Canada's minerals and metals producers to deliver their product on the world market at a competitive price.
A competitive product is also important, and I will now say a few words on this subject.
We all know that price is not the only factor involved in the success of a product. The product must also satisfy the user's wants and needs. Most people recognize this in the case of consumer goods, for example, running shoes, audio cassettes, or fast food, but it is also true in the case of products of Canada's minerals and metals industry. The industry produces products with varying characteristics of size, strength, durability, corrosion
resistance, weight and so on. Often, one desirable characteristic must be traded off against the other.
The mineral and metal products which are transformed by a variety of manufacturing processes into a wide range of final goods must of course meet or surpass the requirements of manufacturers and, ultimately, of the final users. This is another area of competition where Canada's minerals and metals industry has worked hard. It has tailored its products to the needs of its customers, developing new and stronger alloys, more corrosion-resistant metals and so on. These products ultimately find their way into tennis racquets, automobile parts and a large number of other products. The benefits of these research efforts are thus spread more widely. This is an increasingly important area of competition and one where much remains to be done. I have no doubt, though, that Canada's producers will meet this challenge.
I have tried to establish the main features of Canada's minerals and metals industry. I believe that it is an industry which is very outward looking and indeed it must be so. It is also fully aware that for success it requires export markets.
My colleagues will expand further on these points as they relate to the motion before us.


Mr. Scott Thorkelson (Edmonton -Strathcona):: Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to have an opportunity to speak on Private Members' Business Motion No. 73 concerning the advisability of setting up a mineral marketing agency.
Canada ranks as a leading producer and exporter of minerals and metals in the world. It has achieved this distinguished honour in overall value terms which reflect both the high tonnages and wide diversity of mineral and metal products derived from our mines. Indeed, there are only a small number of minerals and metals that are not commercially produced in Canada.
A prominent characteristic of the mining and metallurgical industry is the global latitude and integration of this sector. Production from mining through to the final processing and marketing are a global phenomenon.
Large Canadian mining companies are truly multinational corporations. They have mining and metallurgical facilities in many parts of the world and marketing is undertaken from a corporate perspective rather than strictly home country interests. In other words, a Canadian firm might mine a mineral commodity in Canada,
December 19, 1989

process it along with raw materials from other origins in another country, and market the entire output without regard to origin.
Equally significant is the fact that foreign firms have ownership interests in Canadian mining and metallurgical facilities. Earlier in our history these foreign enterprises were typically American or British. However, for several years Canada has attracted French, German and Italian companies, and more recently, Australian, Brazilian, Korean and Japanese firms. Like their Canadian partners and competitors, these companies also spread their loyalties across national boundaries. They are usually fiercely competitive and independent when it comes to corporate details relating to marketing.
Throughout its history, the Canadian industry has evolved and flourished on the strengths of exports. Certainly over the past few decades our industry has established a strong footing in the international marketplace. The larger companies in particular have created complex and sophisticated marketing organizations that are capable of identifying and taking advantage of market opportunities anywhere in the world. Some regularly trade and hedge commodities as an integral part of their business, and a few even maintain seats on the prestigious London Metal Exchange.
In countries where markets operate differently from those familiar to us in North America, such as the Soviet bloc, our companies often seek the advice and assistance of our federal and provincial governments. Such assistance may be in the form of information, arranging contracts with high-level officials, organizing mining missions and, in rare cases, even participating in the negotiating process.
Other government facilities such as the support of the Export Development Corporation in providing insurance, assistance with market studies under the auspices of federal-provincial mineral development agreements and demonstration projects such as the fertilizer mixing plant funded by the Canadian International Development Agency and donated to China have played an important role in fostering Canadian exports.
Private Members' Business
In view of the many minerals and metals produced by Canada, it should not come as a surprise that there are a multitude of very different marketing activities in place. Each corresponds to a particular case which may stem from the business ideology of individual players, the specific commodity under consideration, domestic and international practices that have a proven track record, the way in which each firm is organized, and market conditions at a particular point in time. Let me elaborate.
One of the most structured and successful co-operative marketing undertakings by a Canadian mine is Canpotex Limited. The company was incorporated in 1970. It is owned by all of the Saskatchewan potash producers, except one small company.
Under its charter, Canpotex was organized to buy, sell and deal in potash and associated and allied derivative products for export to all destinations other than Canada and the United States. The company is also engaged in the transportation of potash. It owns or leases 1,700 covered hopper cars, warehouses and docks. It ships products by chartered ships through its subsidiary Canpotex Shipping Services.
More recently Canpotex has initiated agronomic and development programs in overseas countries. In China, for example, it is engaged in organizing farmers' demonstration plots, holding harvest field days and broadcasting television and radio education programs highlighting the results of these activities.
Canpotex is by far the largest world supplier of potash to major markets in Asia, Latin America and Oceania. It is currently developing a substantial market in Europe. Canpotex is responsible for between 40 per cent and 45 per cent of Canadian potash exports that were valued at $1,365 billion in 1988.
Although many companies prefer to market their products independently, some join organizations which may have as an objective the global development of demand. Usually these organizations are international institutions or study groups. Membership may be limited to companies, as is the case for sulphur, nickel, cobalt, tungsten, gold and others, or it may comprise governments with industry advisers, such as the International Lead and Zinc Study Group. In nearly all cases, however, the companies contribute specified statistics and

Private Members' Business
technical data, but rarely get involved in joint marketing activities. Indeed, they carefully maintain their independence and individualities when it comes to marketing strategies and sales activities. One of the more compelling reasons for their caution is the risk of running afoul of anti-trust and competition regulations. This concern is particularly true for any company that operates in the United States.
Industry structure is a prominent factor in the case of iron ore. In North America, the steel companies own or control all of the iron ore mines. Hence the first priority of these mines is to fill the raw material requirements of their owners. Only then are they in a position to market elsewhere. The quantity available to other markets can fluctuate widely over a period of one year, and from year to year, leaving little scope for co-operative marketing initiative. Certainly, it would not be a viable basis on which to build an ongoing marketing program.
Even when considering a single commodity there can be opposing regional views in Canada on marketing strategies. Western copper producers, for example, market concentrates while those in the east largely sell refined copper. The opportunities and problems in marketing copper by these two groups can be very different. An initiative taken by one group, such as the importation of concentrates to satisfy smelter requirements in the east, can be detrimental to the interests of other groups, especially in western Canada.
As my last example, you will recall the Canadian Steel Trade and Employment Congress. This organization was initiated through a conference in 1985 with company and union leadership and with support from universities and federal and provincial government departments. The congress takes an active role in lobbying governments which, depending on the circumstances, might be domestic or foreign. It recently published a document entitled: Steel Trade between the U.S.A. and Canada. Membership is now confined to company and union representatives. Two task forces have been formed, one on trade and the other on employment and adjustment. These are very good moves.
I hope that these examples have made clear that the marketing of minerals and metals by Canadian firms is a highly complex subject and takes many forms. As a
general rule, Canadian companies regard marketing strictly as a private sector activity. Furthermore, there are so many variables, whether viewed in the context of the industry, a specific firm or by commodity, that one cannot accept easily the notion of a single marketing approach. Indeed, the facts seem to suggest quite the opposite.
If we perceive an opportunity or a problem in the marketing of Canadian minerals and metals, we would be prudent in analyzing all the circumstances of the specific issue and only subsequently consider options that might improve it. We would then be in a much stronger and better position to judge the merits of any alternative courses of action, if any.
I would like to thank the member once again for bringing this important issue to the attention of the House.


Guy St-Julien: Mr. Speaker, this evening I would like to talk about the sale and international marketing of refined minerals. The Canadian mineral industry has become mainly a major producer, supplying foreign markets. In the case of certain minerals like asbestos and potash, over 90 per cent of Canadian production is exported. The percentage is over 75 per cent in the case of many other products.
In 1988, Canadian exports of minerals and metals were worth $34.8 billion. Canada is also a major importer of minerals and metals. The total value of imports in 1988 was $18.8 billion. Although some of the minerals imported are not produced commercially in this country, most are purchased as feed stock for Canadian refineries and then re-exported. Aluminum is a good example of imported minerals that are subsequently exported.
Madam Speaker, the motion before the House today concerns two issues: A co-operative mineral-marketing agency and promoting the marketing of refined minerals. I shall, if I may, concentrate on the latter.
Some minerals and metals are sold in various forms. Their form, in other words, the amount of processing that takes place before export, varies depending on the product. To a certain extent, the processing depends on the market or international marketing patterns.
December 19, 1989

A product like coal does not have to undergo any processing other than washing or enriching or both, which is usually done on the spot at most coal mining operations in the world. Potash, whether it comes from Saskatchewan or New Brunswick or any other source, is enriched and refined on the spot before being shipped for export. The situation varies where iron ore is concerned. In Australia and Brazil, the ore is so rich that it does not have to be processed into concentrate before it is sold or used in steel production. In Canada, the iron ore is low quality and must therefore be concentrated on the spot before shipping to Canadian and foreign markets.
The situation varies a great deal in the case of non-ferrous metals, and their commercial form depends on various factors: first, the product and the structure of the industry worldwide; second, the location of the mine in Canada; third, the type of ore and its metallurgical properties; fourth, the ore's by-products or co-products, including certain elements such as sulphur; and last but not least, the market.
Let us first look at the product and the structure of the industry worldwide. In the case of gold, whether it is obtained by placer mining or traditional extraction methods, the metal is recovered on the spot. The ultimate refining process takes place at the refinery of the Royal Canadian Mint.
Cooper is a different story. In Eastern Canada, the ore is concentrated, smelted and refined at Canadian facilities. In British Columbia, the ore is concentrated locally and then exported, mainly to Japan, where refineries have been built to process ore from various countries. In other words, if Canada wants to sell copper to Japan, it has to compete with other world suppliers. International competition imposes two pre-conditions: competitive prices and the South Korea are very efficient and are competitive internationally.
The second factor relates to the mines location. Some Canadian mines are in the far North of in areas far removed from Canadian smelters and refineries. When we have mines in these locations, it makes economic sense to concentrate the ore and ship it to a smelter that
Private Members' Business
is readily accessible, instead of building one at the mine or nearby.
Madam Speaker, the third and fourth factors, namely the types of ore and its metallurgical properties, are self-explanatory. The fifth factor, namely the market, is very important in any discussion about marketing and processing minerals and metals. Everyone knows that Canada's minerals and metal production is largely exported to the United States. Canada's other major markets are Japan and the Common Market countries. What may not be as widely know is that the United States purchases a much larger share of fully processed products. Although there are a number of other factors, the fact remains that tariffs and tariff structures have had a major impact on the direction and structure of world trade in minerals and metals.
Madam speaker, generally speaking, the tariffs on imports imposed by our trading partners were structured in such a way as to establish and protect Canadian processing, semi-manufacturing and manufacturing industries.
Madam Speaker, a major initiative taken by the present governement was to negotiate and implement the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. The agreement's main objective was to create a free trade environment in which Canadian producers, whether they are involved in minerals or other industries, can compete on an equal footing with American producers, on a market reaching two million people. The agreement has eliminated trading policies whose objectives were biased. Government policies had had the effect of interfering with the free exchange of goods by our two countries.
Another measure taken by this government concerns the Uruguay round of multilateral trade negotiations currently taking place in Geneva. In September, Canada tabled proposals aimed at reducing and eliminating as far as possible the tariff and non-tariff barriers that interfere with world trade.
Madam Speaker, throught these negotiations we are trying to establish better ways to access markets in the European Community, Japan and a host of other countries. Dismantling some of the main trading barriers will

December 19, 1989
Private Members' Business
provide all the flexibility Canadian minerals and metals producers need to offer a wider range of products for exports and discourage them from building processing facilities in Canada to supply foreigh markets.
In concluding, Madam Speaker, I would like to apply my comments on government policy and mineral exports to the first item raised in the motion, namely a co-operative mineral-marketing agency. It would be difficult for this kind of agency to alter trading policies that exist in Canada and elsewhere. Consequently, the agency would be hard pressed to change the form in which minerals and metals are exported from Canada, without a system of subsidies to compensate for the harmful impact of the trading policies of other countries. Canada would also have trouble adopting a subsidy plan. First of all, it would be a very expensive undertaking, and second, Mr. Speaker, such a plan would be a contradiction of the direction in which multilateral trade negotiations in Geneva are going at the present time.


Diane Marleau: Mrs. Speaker, I am afraid that I was too nice and too good today. I allowed my colleague to speak ahead of me and somehow lost my turn. But last is not least. It is nice to have the Conservatives owing me one for a change.
I want to say that when I read this motion I was not quite clear what exactly the member had in mind when he said that he wanted the government to consider the advisability of developing, in consultation with provincial and local governments, with industry and with labour unions, a co-operative mineral marketing agency to further promote-and I want to emphasize this part of it-"Canadian refined minerals in the world marketplace".
I was wondering whether the member was implying by this that our mineral exporting agencies that are privately owned in our mining sector do not promote its minerals properly. Is it that it is not selling its minerals? I do not understand this motion at all. I can tell you that I do understand the importance of the mining sector.
I was born in a mining town, a gold mining town, Kirkland Lake to be exact, in northern Ontario. As a child, I saw what happens when you run out of gold. The mine closes. You cannot do much about it when it is not there anymore.
When I married I moved to Sudbury, which is the nickel capital of the world. I have lived through all kinds of problems in that area. I can tell you that in the early 1980s we had a huge recession. We had a huge problem in Sudbury. There were mountainous stockpiles of minerals and the price of nickel on the world markets was extremely low. The demand was not there. You could not sell it internationally. I do not care how much you promoted it. The demand just was not there. I do not see how this kind of agency would have helped us in any way whatsoever in those years when there just was not any demand for the minerals. You can promote something all you want. If you do not have anybody who wants to buy it, what is the use?
I really would like to have at some point, if I could, further explanations as to what exactly is meant by "further promote Canadian refined minerals". I understand very much the heartache of the single industry town when its products no longer sell, when the mine is forced to close, when there are no other jobs to go to, when it becomes very devastating.
I think it is very important that the government play a very strong role in encouraging secondary manufacturing in those areas with the mineral products involved, not just secondary manufacturing but the whole service sector that is involved in the particular mineral that is being extracted. Also, as much as possible the exploration and development of new sites must be encouraged.
The hon. member to my left mentioned Falconbridge as a mine that exports the raw matte to Norway to have it refined. That is correct. They export it to Norway to have it refined. That is a long story. It stems back to the early years when Inco had the patent on processing and Falconbridge was not able to get access to it. They found out that Norway was the only country where they were allowed to get a patent. They bought an old refinery and started processing their ores there.
I would like Falconbridge to further process its ores in Canada but, on the other hand, I am a lot happier that they are developing new mines, new technologies, new environmental controls. There are a lot of jobs in that, far more so than in having just the refinery there. We know, of course, that Inco does its refining in Copper Cliff, in my riding, and that is fantastic. They are now expending large amounts of money to control pollution. Again, we certainly encourage that. This motion would not have helped Inco reach the point where it is now.
December 19, 1989

Demand has to be there and the prices have to be worth while.
It is all well and good to go down and get the mineral but if it costs you double what you can sell it for, after a while it does not work any more. You definitely do not want to keep bringing up minerals you cannot sell. That is of no use to anybody, so I do not agree with this motion. I do not see what use it would be to anyone to have a nationalized type of market-place. First of all, I do not believe in nationalizing industries because I do not think governments run things better than private enterprise. When the government gets its hands on something, we can usually be sure that if there was a profit to be made it is gone.
I am not at all in favour of this motion. Perhaps the member who has proposed the motion would at some point like to sit down with me and explain why he proposed it. I know that right now there are no stockpiles in Sudbury. I do not know about his area of Timmins. However I think they are doing very well. In my area they are doing just fine. They are hoping that the demand continues the way it has been and that the prices remain at a viable level.
On the other hand, they would certainly like to see the interest levels come down and they would like to see the value of the Canadian dollar come down. I met with the president of International Nickel a couple of weeks ago. He was telling me that for every one cent the Canadian dollar increases, it costs them $9 million in profits over a period of one year. I think they would really benefit from a loosening of the monetary policy. That would further enhance their product and cause even better returns on their investments.
I would suggest to the government that it seriously consider that and seriously consider listening to the finance committee's suggestion that the government do just that. It is a very strong point with me. I believe that that is far more important now than any marketing agency in a world-wide sense because metals are by and large sold across the world.
There is some hope as the developing countries are demanding some metals, and there is hope that it will continue into the nineties. For those areas with mines that have just closed down, I certainly would like to see
Private Members' Business
some drastic measures in encouraging other developments in mining. That would certainly be the answer to their problems.


Mr. Yvon Cote (Richmond-Wolfe):: Madam Speaker, as the member for Richmond-Wolfe, I welcome this opportunity to rise in the House and speak to this motion which favours the development of a co-operative agency. The motion is of particular interest to me since I come from a mining area, asbestos, to be precise, and I have no doubts about the altruistic intentions behind the tabling of this motion. I think the hon. member is to be commended for initiating this debate, but I would like to explain my point of view which does not quite coincide with the hon. member's philosophy. I will present my arguments, Madam Speaker.
When Prime Minister Mulroney's government came to power in 1984, it made it clear that it was prepared to let market forces prevail. In fact, the most impressive measures taken to that end were the government's decision to cancel the National Energy Program and to privatize a number of Crown corporation. We all know what happened. Today, however, despite the success of these initiatives, we have before us a motion that, if I am not mistaken, would allow governments at all levels to exercise even greater influence on market forces.
If I understand the motion correctly, the underlying philosophy is that the government is in a better position than industry to market its products, that the government has failed to consult sufficiently with all parties concerned when it develops or implements policies and strategies aimed at promoting Canadian mineral exports, and finally, that the government does not do enough to encourage those exports.
I suggest we take a closer look at these assumptions, with which I must say I disagree. More than ten years ago, Madam Speaker, the government of all major western economies, after realizing that it was necessary to do so, adopted a non-interventionist approach to markets, letting market forces develop freely so that private industry could become more competitive. That is how business function in a western society. This approach enhances the efficiency and competitive edge of the economy while accelerating the accumulation of wealth. It has been so successful in most western countries that today, we are seeing and unprecedented development in modem socialist systems. In a number of socialist countries, the economic system, entirely based on governement intervention, has literally crumbled. This revolution is not due to people adopting some new philosophy. It is the result of competitive and economic

Private Members' Business
pressures. These economies, directed by governments or government agencies, have been found to be inefficient and incapable of stimulating economic growth, so that the people they were supposed to help have finally demanded a change.
This change is evident in economic liberalization, with the government not intervening in markets.
Experience has shown that competitive initiative is the only true way to ensure sustained creation of wealth for all. Nevertheless, today, in spite of that development, we are faced with a debate on the following question: Is the government better suited than private industry to promote the sale of its own products? Note that this is not just any industry. This is not an emerging industry or a dying one which might appeal for government aid. No. We are talking about a well-established industry, Canada's mining industry, which is among the strongest in the world. We are being asked to give assistance to an industry unmatched anywhere in the world. That is paradoxical, Madam Speaker. It is even the world's largest mining industry, the most active on export markets, the technological leader. Is it credible to call for government help in such a situation, such a position of strength? Business people do not stop telling us that everything depends on globalization. I must say that our mining and metals industry went global a long time ago. It formed international partnerships and opened offices in many countries so that it could have outlets throughout the world and long-assured access to all these markets and sources.
How can the government do better than private entreprise which has established its own markets, distribution networks and contacts? I am not suggesting that the initiatives taken by the industry are always right, far from it. I am simply wondering how, at the moment, the governement could do better than our industry.
How could a Crown corporation do better? The government has sold some Crown corporations because it recognizes that the private sector is better equipped to take advantage of export opportunities. For example, a Crown corporation can find itself in a situation where it must make major investments for expansion purposes, to increase its profits and even to survive under the
circumstances. Where would the funds come from if the government gave priority to its fight against the deficit? We would have to get funds to support this industry. A private company, on the other hand, could go to the money market and find quickly the needed capital to meet its objectives. Why call on a co-operative agency with the government interfering? Again, private industry can do just as well or even better under the circumstances.
This motion also seems based on the assumption that there is a homogeneous Canadian industry with the same objectives in the world marketplace. Nothing could be further from the truth, Madam Speaker. Canadian mineral producers are competing against each other as well as against foreign firms. All companies do not have the same objectives or strategies. The rivalry between them is indeed one of the best ways to make an industry competitive on the international marketplace.
In keeping with their development strategy, some companies have made huge investments the world over, and indeed they have reached the hallmark of excellence in certain fields. Quite frankly, Madam Speaker, I fail to see how Canadian industry would support such an initiative. As a matter of fact, industry would look upon this or any similar measure as a serious threat, and I am sure it would come out fighting mad. What I am trying to say, Madam Speaker, is that government mechanisms are ill-fitted to play the kind of role advocated in today's motion. Fully aware of that, the Conservative government wants to steer clear of the market and concentrate on governing the country. Of course one can wonder whether government does have a role in openly promoting mineral exports. The government has a role for sure, but its authority does not give it carte blanche to direct all activities.
Although the government does not have a role to play on the market itself, I agree it should create and maintain an economic or trade environment where supply and demand can operate freely to balance market pressures. We all know that no market is totally free, that such a concept is beyond reality in any case. Among other things, this brings to mind tariff barriers, customs duties, restrictions on monetary movements, regulations
December 19, 1989

governing health and environmental issues. All these conditions are as many factors which condition markets and check interventions. This is where a government can intervene. In some cases the public interest prevails as, for instance, when it comes to protecting the environment. But in other cases the government tries to sway the pendulum our way. Then it is up to the government to urge other countries to create a more equitable economic environment, and that is the role which best suits the government. This is why it was so intent on signing the Free Trade Agreement with the United States: the objective was to do away with tariff barriers, harmonize standards and regulations, and of course ease the flow of goods and people.
I spoke of government measures which affect industry as a whole but, Madam Speaker, there are others which relate exclusively to the mining industry, and that happens to be the issue this evening. Asbestos for example- I know the subject for I come from an asbestos town-is said to be hazardous. When it became obvious that some countries had asbestos regulations based on faulty perceptions of the extent of danger involved, what did the Government of Canada do? It has paid attention to the industry's requests for assistance, conveyed its view on many occasions to other countries and international organizations, and supported financially the creation of an asbestos institute. The government, therefore, actively supports the creation of an international task force on mineral products including nickel and copper, as it is already supporting the existing lead-zinc group.
As you can see, Madam Speaker, the government makes every effort to enhance metal exports. By doing so, it assumes its own responsibility. It does not act as a substitute for the industry itself. Not only does the government do a lot for the industry, but he does so together with the interested parties. Although the government is involved in a variety of programs from year to year in the area of promotion, marketing and marketing support, we must recognize that the world mineral market is cyclical. For the past two years, for instance, the world market for most minerals and metals has been quite promising. Fully aware of the problems which the industry, miners and mining towns were facing, the
Private Members' Business
government took action. From 1984 to 1986, the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, in co-operation with the Canadian Mining Association, organized a series of regional lecture dealing with the need to face competition. In other words, Madam Speaker, I suggest the motion was moved in good faith. It is consistent with the vision of a political party such as the NDP, but I suggest also that it is ill-advised, in view of the framework of our economy, our political systems and our international trade markets.


Mr. A1 Horning (Okanagan Centre):: Madam Speaker, I very much appreciate the opportunity given to me today to respond to a motion brought forward by the member for Timmins-Chapleau in regard to a co-operative mineral marketing agency to promote Canadian refined minerals in the world market-place.
To reiterate the comments made by my colleagues, Canada is a world leader in the mineral industry. It is also the largest importer of minerals and metals, of which a significant portion is purchased as feedstock for Canadian refineries and then re-exported.
In view of the fact that Canada has a relatively small population and generates a limited market for its commodities, it is only natural that Canada should export a high proportion of its production of some minerals and metals. I should mention that the bulk of Canada's minerals and metals exports go to the United States and Japan. It should not be thought, however, that Canada exports the bulk of its minerals in the form of ores and concentrates because nickel ore, gold, silver, copper and zinc concentrates receive further processing in Canada.
Import tariffs have been structured to establish and protect-


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I apologize but I must interrupt the hon. member.

The hour provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired. Pursuant to Standing Order 96(1), this item is dropped from the Order Paper.

December 19, 1989
Adjournment Debate


MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE
The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: It is my duty to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed Bill S-12, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, to which the concurrence of this House is desired.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38(1) is deemed to have been moved.

William Warren Allmand: Madam Speaker, on December 4, I asked the Minister of Employment and Immigration what she would do to prevent the transfer of 200 General Electric jobs from Montreal to Fairfield, Connecticut.
I pointed out that Canadian General Electric had announced the closing of its Montreal plant which had been manufacturing various types of light bulbs in Montreal for 30 years and that the company had now decided to close that plant as part of its rationalization program. As you know, Madam Speaker, General Electric is an American company with its head office in the United States but with plants all over the world including Canada.
During the election campaign of 1988 we tried to alert Canadians to this consequence of the free trade agreement. We said that with the free trade agreement American companies in difficult times would rationalize their operations by closing Canadian plants and transferring the production to their plants in the United States.
As a matter of fact, the Economic Council studied the free trade agreement in 1988 and published its report on it, a report called Venturing Forth. It said that it clearly indicates that without improvements in Canadian manufacturing productivity, increased U.S. competition could result in a net decline of output and employment in 17 of the 36 industries studied, virtually all of them in manufacturing. Some firms will have to merge, others will have to close. The electrical products industry would account for 40 per cent of all the job losses in manufacturing. The output of electrical products is projected to fall by 15 per cent and employment by 8 per cent.
The Economic Council of Canada said that as a result of free trade, the electrical products industry would be hit the hardest, and here we have General Electric closing in Montreal within half a year after the agreement goes into force.
Each time that we ask the government to do something about job losses in industries like General Electric and the others that have closed down in Montreal, the government simply ignores the question and boasts about its great record in job creation. Well, when we look at that record, it is not as good out there in the real world as the government pretends in this House, and those people who are suffering from unemployment and layoffs know that.
Look at some of the reports that have been published. I have here from 1988 a Statistics Canada report saying that 63 per cent of the jobs created in the first half of 1988 were low paying clerical and sales positions and that the majority of them were in Ontario and Quebec. The same thing is true with respect to the quality of jobs. A great majority of those jobs are either temporary, parttime, or at minimum wage or without unionization, with the result that many people who have those jobs cannot really support a family and start a home.
When the government talks about its great employment record, it always compares it to the worst year of the recession. It always points to what happened under the Liberals in 1981 and 1982. Those were the worst years of the recession and it was common not only to the Liberal government in Canada but to governments throughout the western world.
I would like to point out to the House that when you look at the Liberal record over a period of time, you will find that our record was way ahead of that of the Conservatives. For example, in the period of Liberal government from 1965 to 1980, the average rate of unemployment was 5.6 per cent over 15 years. Here we have a government that came in in 1984 following the recession when the upturn was in place, and the best it
December 19, 1989

has been able to achieve is 7.3 per cent which was in September.
Since September the rate has gone up again to 7.4 per cent in October and up to 7.6 per cent in November. The Minister of Finance himself has predicted an increase in the unemployment rate to 8.5 per cent in 1990 and other think-tanks such as the Conference Board of Canada have predicted a 9 per cent unemployment rate.
We want the government to take these job losses and these plant closings seriously, and so do the workers who are losing their jobs. It does not do these workers any good to remind them of the fact that in a general way jobs have been created in different parts of Canada. What do the workers at General Electric want to know? What do the workers in other plants want to know? I have the list of the plant closings in Montreal: Gillette, 590 jobs; Weston Foods, 360 jobs; Simpsons, 1,000 jobs; VIA Rail, et cetera, et cetera; the list goes on.
Those individuals want to know what is the government going to do to help them get similar types of jobs. They do not want to hear over and over from the Prime Minister and the Minister of Employment and Immigration what a wonderful job they have done in bringing the rate of unemployment down to 7.3 per cent, now up to 7.6 per cent.
I hope tonight that the parliamentary secretary, responding on behalf of the minister, will tell us what programs, what policies the government has to help those people who have lost their jobs to free trade, who have lost their jobs to rationalization, to structural changes. Those are real people and they want real answers to their questions.


William James Kempling: Madam Speaker, on behalf of the Minister of Employment and Immigration I want to respond in greater detail to the question of December 4 put by the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace.
Let me say at the outset that the General Electric plant that he is talking about produced bulbs for projectors. The plant was quite old. Technology has changed. People are using VCRs today, and they made the decision they did to move the balance of that reduced production to the United States.
Adjournment Debate
The metropolitan area of Montreal with its diversified activities and infrastructure is a major force not only in the Quebec economy but for Canada as a whole. There has been a significant improvement in the over-all employment situation over the past five years, especially compared to the experience during the 1980-1984 period.
In the four years up to August 1984 employment in Montreal declined and the unemployment rate rose. In marked contrast there were 148,000 more people employed in Montreal in November 1989 than had been in November 1984 shortly after this government took office.
Despite vigorous growth in the labour force there were some 46,000 fewer unemployed and the unemployment rate at 8 per cent is 3.7 percentage points lower than five years ago. In the last year alone employment is up by 16,000, unemployment is down by 13,000 and the unemployment rate has dropped almost one full percentage point to 8 per cent.
The Montreal labour market is dynamic with many firms opening and expanding, more than offsetting the cases of lay-offs or closures that the hon. member cites. While there were lay-offs announced in November, there were also positive developments. These included the announcement of construction of a $250 million waste treatment plant in east Montreal, the discussion of construction of a $225 million office complex, and the expansion of a refinery in east Montreal at a cost of $200 .million. This follows upon earlier announcements such as the $2.3 billion contract obtained by Bombardier with the Aerospatial of France.
Since 1985 joint action by various levels of government on the economic situation in Montreal includes two major initiatives on the part of the federal government: in 1985, the creation of the ministerial committee on the development of the Montreal region to advise the government on how to consolidate Montreal's role as a centre for development; in 1986, the creation of the committee for economic recovery and revitalization of employment in east end Montreal.
There have also been concrete initiatives by the federal government, especially Employment and Immigration Canada, to help Montreal. For example, in 1988-1989 Employment and Immigration Canada invested $87 million in the city of Montreal through programs under the Canadian Jobs Strategy. A total of

Adjournment Debate
29,500 people participated in the activities of the Canadian Jobs Strategy in Montreal.
Since the beginning of this year, Employment and Immigration Canada has completed its 26 agreements under the Industrial Adjustment Service at a cost of $130,542. A further 46 new agreements have been signed this year with a commitment of $438,085 in funding by Employment and Immigration Canada.
The Industrial Adjustment Service agreements also involve spending by the province and the private sector so that the total expenditures in the Montreal area under the completion of new agreements is expected to exceed $1.8 million.
In 1988-1989, in the hon. member's riding of Notre-Dame-de-Grace, nearly $2.4 million was committed and a estimated 550 new clients were served under the Canadian Jobs Strategy and development of UI programs. This assistance with training and other human resources development was in addition to the substantial amount of income support available through the unemployment insurance program.


PAY EQUITY
Marlene Catterall: Madam Speaker, in October of this year I posed a question in the House to the President of the Treasury Board, asking what the minister was doing to correct the deplorable situation of hospital services workers who were badly underpaid for the work they were doing, compared to comparable groups that were largely male dominated groups.
The pay and equity problem of these federal hospital services workers got some much needed attention when the government brought in Bill C-49 to force its lowest paid striking workers back to work and into binding conciliation.
I am here to give the matter more attention, and I do not plan to stop. This female dominated group had been waiting for nine years to settle its pay equity dispute, a dispute that led them in near desperation to the Human Rights Commission tribunal, which ruled overwhelmingly in their favour in 1987. The tribunal stated that these workers are undervalued and underpaid compared to a male-dominated group in the Public Service doing exactly the same work.
Although retroactive equalization payments of $28 million were paid out in 1988, these were only interim payments. Two years later the group is waiting for an additional adjustment of $10 million for retroactive pay from 1987 to the present and, above all, for a salary that recognizes the value of work rather than a token equalization payment. These workers are paid on average $3,000 per year less than they should be and at a salary of $16,000, $17,000 or $18,000, $3,000 is a significant amount.
Delay after delay by the government has discouraged these workers. The government was even back before the Human Rights Tribunal just in November of this year trying to argue that the tribunal had no further jurisdiction in this case. The tribunal took only ten minutes to dismiss this argument. However, with the female population of the group slowly diminishing, the government seems to be waiting until the group is no longer female-dominated so it can complain that there is no discrimination. Is this what this government considers a fair way deal with pay discrimination among its employees?
Women in the Public Service have been hearing a lot of empty promises from this government over the last five years. The wage gap between male and female Public Service employees grew in 1988 to nearly $10,000, $440 more than it had been the previous year. A female Public Service employee makes only 74 cents for every dollar a man earns, down by .8 per cent in two years.
When I raised this issue in the House the Prime Minister pointed to the appointments of women to boards and commissions, a valuable step forward but still a handful of tokens while women in general in Canadian society grow poorer and poorer. Families headed by women are four times more likely to be poor than families headed by men. Seventy-two per cent of the elderly poor are women. Four out of every 10 families headed by women are poor compared to only one out of 10 headed by a male. The end result of that is that over one million children live below the poverty line in Canada, that is one out of every six children.
The government, as the largest employer in Canada, should be in the vanguard of reversing the growing feminization of poverty. It claims women are doing better but the facts do not bear this out. Eighty per cent of women in the Public Service are still in the pink collar ghettos of administrative support workers. Professional
December 19, 1989

women in the Public Service are exactly where they were in the early 1970s. The government will say it is involved in the joint union/management study for pay equity. I would like to refer to what the Human Rights Commission had to say about the joint union/management study and pay equity in the Public Service.
It said that administrative delay and bureaucratic infighting remain more the hallmark of the program than any genuine move toward pay equity. It further said that complaints are being held in abeyance, one on behalf of approximately 50,000 employees in the clerical and regulatory group-that is that pink collar ghetto again-and another on behalf of approximately 1,500 members of the nursing group. That is nearly one-quarter of federal Public Service employees who have been before the Human Rights Commission on pay equity complaints.
The commission's report goes on to say that it cannot be ignored, that four years have come and gone and there is still a considerable way to go before there is an adequate program for dealing with sex-based inequities, let alone eliminating them. Progress has in fact been excruciatingly slow. If the federal Public Service cannot handle pay equity, what are its chances elsewhere?
Still referring to the report, the slowness of the process not only creates a bad impression, it casts a shadow on the sincerity of the commitment to the whole concept. We can see nothing to be gained by dragging out the process. Either the government means business on equal pay or it does not.
Government must realize that complaints to the Human Rights Commission are not the best way to deal with mass pay discrimination such as exists in the Public Service. The government must take the initiative where pay and equity exists. It must act as a model employer and initiate action, not wait to react. To date, it has not set much of an example for other employers. It must realize that women are an invaluable and essential part of the labour force who deserve to be paid fair and decent wages. If this government does not mean business
Adjournment Debate
on pay equity, it is clearly not ready to move out of the dark ages and into the reality of today's labour market.


William James Kempling: Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Ottawa West recently asked this government whether or not it meant business on equal pay. I want to assure my hon. colleague that not only do we mean business, but that significant progress has been made.
The "hospital services" group has been the focus of much attention with respect to this government's commitment to equal pay. Retroactive pay adjustments totalling $28 million for the period September, 1980 to July, 1987 have already been implemented. All positions at level 1 and those of seamstresses and community health representatives were re-evaluated using the classification standard for the male comparator group, "general services". Further retroactive wage increases were implemented in July, 1989 for those positions which were found to warrant a higher level.
In addition, the "hospital services" classification standard was revised to mirror the "general services" classification standard. New rates of pay for the revised classifications have been set for the period July to December, 1987 and another set of equal wage adjustments for the period July, 1987 and ongoing is currently being issued to employees.
All this represents significant work to remedy the disparity between these two groups and significant expenditure. The current equal wage adjustments are estimated to be approximately $12 million.
It is true that not all employees in the "hospital services" group received additional equal pay adjustments. When employees do not earn less wages than their male counterparts, they do not get additional adjustments. The collective agreement process for the "hospital services" group is not yet finalized. Once it is, all employees will receive some increases to their rates of pay as they presently are.
In addition, the Human Rights Tribunal, which sat November 8 to the 17, 1989 to review the implementation of the consent order, will reconvene January 22, 1990. The tribunal is examining whether the employers' actions have removed all systemic discrimination from

Adjournment Debate
which the group might have suffered by being mainly female. I believe that the priority which this government has asked that the case be given has been respected.
In closing, I want to reiterate the government's commitment to equal pay for work of equal value and to assure you that it will be achieved. While at times the achievement of service-wide pay equity between male dominated and female dominated groups may appear slow, we are ensuring that our approach is sound, that all parties are given a chance to participate and that our collective bargaining structure is respected. In an organization as large and as diversified as the federal Public Service, this can be complex but it is possible.


INDIAN AFFAIRS
Ross Harvey: Madam Speaker, on December 1, all Petro-Canada wells on traditional Lubicon lands in northwest Alberta were stilled. They have remained dormant since. Petro-Canada and its partner, Norcen Energy Resources, voluntarily undertook to comply with the request of the Lubicon people that they halt their activities on Lubicon land as of December 1. The Lubicon people made this request which in the face of non-compliance would have become an order on December 1, as a means of bringing pressure to bear on the federal government. It is one more tactic adopted by the band in their decades old attempt to force the federal government to negotiate a fair settlement to their outstanding claims. Two days before the shut-down took effect, that is on November 29,1 asked the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development the following question:
-will the government direct its officials to make clear, and announce, the government's willingness now to resume negotiations with the Lubicon on all aspects of their claim, including a compensation package?
The minister, in his response, neatly side-stepped the question of negotiation of compensation, saying instead:
- ever since we made this offer last January, we have been prepared to go back to the table to discuss the fair and comprehensive offer that was made to the Lubicons.
What he did not say was that the offer made last January specifically ruled out any negotiation of compensation for the Lubicon people. That offer included a series of disparate suggestions for various forms of
assistance for which the band might apply, for guarantees of some funding into which the federal government might enter, for promises that some current federal initiatives might be reviewed in the hope that they could be made more generous in the band's interests, and for the establishment of certain trust moneys in an endowment fund for the band.
It clearly and categorically ruled out any negotiated compensation for the years of forgone federal treaty payments lost by the band because it was missed by the federal government's Treaty Eight negotiators, and for the billions of dollars in mineral wealth sucked out of the ground beneath the Lubicon's feet while they have spent the last 50 years trying patiently and reasonably to reach some fair conclusion to their claims.
Let us make no mistake, we are talking about a great deal of money here. Total forgone treaty benefits have been calculated, in a fashion approved of by the federal government's own investigator, Mr. E. David Fulton, at up to $170 million. In an affidavit filed on behalf of the Alberta government on June 30, 1983, it was estimated that: "The negative monetary impact to Alberta", and I interpolate here, of an injunction against oil and gas exploration in the 4,000 square miles of traditional Lubicon lands, "could amount to roughly $450 to $500 million annually". Another calculation has set the value of oil and gas production from traditional Lubicon lands over the last 10 years at about $5 billion.
It is useful, it is reasonable, to keep such figures in mind while we consider that the entire compensation package sought by the Lubicon people is simply that which they have been denied in consequence of sloppy work by the government's original Treaty Eight negotiators; $170 million, about a third of one year's production according to the 1983 Alberta Government affidavit. But the government has made a very generous offer of $45 million, some will protest. They will say, obviously in rejecting this generous offer and demanding an unconscionable $170 million, that the Lubicon people are just being greedy and vexatious. Are they?
Perhaps we can judge the matter better by comparing the Lubicon's position to the settlements actually achieved in consequence of recent negotiations. Let us consider just two, both of which are outstanding treaty land entitlement settlements, additions to existing treaty

settlements for existing bands with existing community infrastructure.
In the case of the Sturgeon Lake Band, the "new adherents" to the band covered by this settlement reached earlier this year, accounted for an average of almost $180,000 each in compensation and about 477 acres per person of land with sub-surface rights. Applied to the 500 plus Lubicon people, those numbers would result in a compensation package worth almost $90 million and a land entitlement of 373 square miles. In fact, the Lubicon people are asking for less than a quarter of that amount of land, about 80 square miles, and a little less than twice that much money, about $170 million. Hardly greedy, hardly vexatious, hardly out of line at all.
Or take the example, also from this year, of the Whitefish Lake Band. The 117 acres of land accorded each of its "new adherents", along with the more than $400,000 per person compensation package, would work out to 91.4 square miles for the 500-plus Lubicons and a compensation package of more than $200 million. In both instances more than the Lubicon are asking for.
A similar prorating of the comprehensive settlement negotiated with the Inuit of the central and western Arctic earlier this year would give the Lubicon a meagre $17 million in compensation but a whopping 409 square miles of reserve land. And a similar prorating of the comprehensive settlement achieved last year with the Yukon Indians would grant the Lubicon Band $18.7 million in compensation and a gigantic 1,250 square miles of land.
So, it is clear that the proposals of the Lubicon people are reasonable and eminently suitable for the negotiation of a fair settlement. But the House need not take my word alone for this.
Alberta Premier, Don Getty, not a man known for the reckless indulgence of the wants and wishes of the less powerful and wealthy in our society, has himself labelled the government's offer, "deficient in the area of providing economic stability for the future". Even he acknowledges that, "if you don't also build into your planning the ability to have businesses, farms, that type of thing-that will allow you to get economic development out into the future, you are going to merely have a pocket of dependency."
Adjournment Debate
That, in fact, hits the very nub of the great problem with the government's current offer of last January. It is sufficient to create an economy of perpetual dependence, an economy of welfare payments, modest employment, mostly on job training programs designed to qualify people for UI payments, an economy of privation and despair, but it is not sufficient to allow the Lubicon people to create an economy of self-sufficiency, an economy in which their own productive efforts will prove sufficient to allow them to fend for themselves and retain and enhance their own unique society.
Is it any wonder then that the Lubicon people are willing to fight for a decent settlement? Is it any wonder that they are prepared to close off fossil fuel production on their lands? Is it any wonder that they are willing to blockade roads? Is it any wonder that they are willing to enlist the aid of sympathizers around the globe?
The federal government is fighting for a few million dollars. The Lubicon people are fighting for their very lives and the lives of their people for all time to come. All that is required for them to secure their future is a bit of generosity and good will, a bit of fairness and a sense of justice on this government's part. So far, to the shame of all Canadians, it seems, that has been too much to ask.
And so again I ask the parliamentary secretary, will the government direct its officials to make clear and announce the government's willingness now to resume negotiations with the Lubicon on all aspects of their claim including a compensation package, or will its heart remain as hard as that of the Bible's Pharaoh, a truly beknighted gentleman whom, increasingly, the government comes to resemble.


William James Kempling: Madam Speaker, that is quite an act to follow.
The member from Edmonton East has said that the Lubicon Lake band has, by threat, forced the shutting down of oil production, I use his words, "on then-traditional lands." The fact is that 18 wells have been shut in. They are not in the 95 square miles the band has selected as its reserve. As to traditional lands, they are also the traditional lands of other native communities. In fact, I am informed most of the wells are near the trap lines registered to members of the Woodland Cree band. There will be perhaps 100 families living on the Lubicon reserve. They are the twenty-ninth largest band in the province and they will have the sixth largest reserve.

December 19, 1989
Adjournment Debate
Not only will they have $35 million to build a community-that alone would employ a considerable number of their people-but they will also have $10 million dollars as seed capital to create band businesses. They will have 79 square miles of oil and gas rights. Moreover, they will have ongoing access to all federal and provincial programs.
We will respect their right to sue for the remainder of the $170 million they are demanding in compensation. This is hardly the take-it-or-leave-it offer the member suggests. It would give them a modem community and a real economic opportunity. This would leave them the right to prove their claim for more, as others must prove their claims.
Instead, it would appear that the chief and his advisors have declared themselves above the law in the mistaken
belief that by doing so someone will offer them $170 million. Behind that unfortunate leadership there is a real social and economic need which must be addressed, if the band will allow it.
For that reason our negotiators are working with the province to make refinements in the areas where the province feels it can provide support. Our offer to the Lubicon is fair and comprehensive. We are still ready, as we have been for 11 months, to meet with the band should the leaders sincerely wish to negotiate.


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


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 7.20 p.m.