1989-11-02

Hon. Barbara McDougall (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to lay before the House, in both official languages, the 1988-89 annual report of the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women.


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's response to several petitions.
[Editor's note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



ORDER IN COUNCIL


Hon. Jean J. Charest (Minister of State (Youth) and Minister of State (Fitness and Amateur Sport)):: 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).



MEMBER OF THE SENATE

['Agreed.']
Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, I have circulated a motion to all sides of the House, a motion which in essence would be calling Senator Cogger to attend the bar of the House.
I simply want to say that since this session began in April there have been approximately 70 motions that have passed during routine proceedings without proper notice being given, based on unanimous consent and without debate.
I think we would agree that consent is given on dozens of occasions in any month to suspend rules of the House in order to let bills receive report and third reading on the same day, to dispense with the bells for votes and to apply votes. I think it is fair to say that hundreds of times the opposition parties have been asked for unanimous consent. We have always given it because we recognize that consent is appropriate in providing good government and for the effective and efficient business of the House. We realize that this place only works as a result of co-operation on all sides.
I think it is appropriate that I ask today-and this is the first time in 10 years that I have asked for unanimous consent-to present a motion and to pass it without debate. I do not want to take up important time of the House. I do not want to disrupt any aspect of routine proceedings. We are anxious to get on with the debate of the day.
I am asking my colleagues in both the official opposition and as the government to provide unanimous support to allow this motion to be put without debate.


Jean J. Charest: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. House leader for the New Democratic Party for having given me a copy of the motion that he is now putting before the House.

November 2, 1989
Routine Proceedings
I was interested in his comments about unanimous consent in this House. He is quite correct in saying that we are always happy when the House can work on a basis of mutual co-operation and discussion. I want to stop a second and say that I was interested in his remark that we always have given unanimous consent. I think perhaps the member was caught up in his own enthusiasm because there has been so much good co-operation. I do not think we always give unanimous consent, neither within his party, the official opposition, nor within the government. We like as much as possible to co-operate, but that is a bit of an ideal world.
To get to the motion itself, I think for such motions there has been a procedure that is more or less laid out. I am referring to Chapter 15, "Standing, Special and Joint Committees" of Beauchesne's, Fifth Edition, that seems to indicate that the normal procedure for attaining the goal that the member proposes today be first and foremost that a request be made to the person who the member would like to call, and that procedure should be followed.
I think in this circumstance the government cannot see anything exceptional happening which would not require that we go through that normal procedure before coming to this exceptional measure of asking the House for unanimous consent.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the advice from my colleague. I listened yesterday to suggestions from the Solicitor General and also the minister responsible for the Federal Business Development Bank that questions regarding Senator Cogger ought to be raised in the other place. This makes it difficult for us in the New Democratic Party. I suppose it makes it impossible to raise it in the other place because we do not have members in the other place-not that we want members in the other place. The reality is we are not there.
I wonder, Mr. Speaker, with your indulgence, if I could ask for clarification from my hon. colleague. From what I can gather he supports in principle this idea, but had a further suggestion on a more appropriate way to proceed in order to have Senator Cogger appear before the House. I must admit I did not follow him carefully.


Mr. Speaker:: The minister has raised the suggestion that there may be another way to do this, if in fact it was the disposition of the House to do it. I think I should advise members that certainly the past practice has
always been that in a circumstance like this a request is sent by the House to the Senate prior to moving on a motion which is the same as the one that has been proposed by the hon. member for Kamloops. I am just bringing that to members' attention because I think the Chair might have to intervene on this.


Jean J. Charest: If I understood you correctly, Mr. Speaker, I think you and I, with all respect, are more or less indicating the same thing. The procedure that would be normally followed by the hon. member if he wishes to have somebody in that person's capacity as a senator to come before the House would require that the request be sent to that person.
What I am saying today is that on procedural grounds I think the motion put forward by the member is a bit premature, that he should first go through what has been established in the past as being the procedure that should be followed in such circumstances and then come before the House again if he feels he has not been successful in that procedure.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps I should clarify the situation. The notice of motion which the hon. member for Kamloops put on the Order Paper is asking the House for an order that a certain Senator attend at the bar of this House. The request the hon. member for Kamloops has now put to the House concerns another motion which has been distributed to hon. members, which reads:
That a message be sent to the Senate requesting than an Order of the Senate be issued for Senator Michel Cogger to attend at the bar of the House for the purpose of providing information concerning the receipt of public moneys by any firms with which he has been associated.
As I understand it procedurally we are now in the position where the Hon. Member for Kamloops is asking if the House would consent to this order without debate at this time. Am I correct?


Nelson Andrew Riis: Yes, that is correct, Mr. Speaker. I say with all due respect to my colleagues that this is a common practice in the House. For many months and years we have been providing, on most occasions, unanimous consent to permit the government to initiate motions of one kind or another without the proper notice. I recognize, as you have pointed out, Sir, that I have not given adequate notice and have changed what is on the Order Paper. For that reason I am seeking unanimous consent, without debate. As I have indicated, I have no intention

of stopping the procedure of the day in terms of dealing with the orders of the day.
I seek unanimous consent to move this motion without debate and hopefully have it passed.


Mr. Speaker:: I thank the Hon. Member for Kamloops for making the situation completely clear.
The position that the House is in now is that on the proposition put forward by the Hon. Member for Kamloops the question is: Is there consent? I will hear the minister on that narrow point.


Jean J. Charest: Mr. Speaker, to respond to my hon. colleague on the question of what usually constitutes an issue of consent, I think the House knows there is consent to matters that refer to procedures within the House and things that come under the jurisdiction of the House. We may find as we look at the motion before us now that it refers not to something that relates directly to the day-to-day operations of the House for which there is, as my hon. colleague points out correctly, many instances when there is co-operation and consent. For that reason, as I have mentioned before, because there may be other procedures that normally would be followed I do not think you will find the government would be willing to go along with my hon. colleague's proposal.


Mr. Speaker:: The situation now is that the Hon. Member for Kamloops has put forward a motion and is asking the consent of the House to send a message to the Senate with respect to bringing a senator before the bar of this House. That would, if it was to pass today, require consent. The government has indicated that it is not prepared to give consent. I point out to the Hon. Member from Kamloops that that of course does not in any way impede the hon. member from bringing the matter in another way on another day.



Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, I have the duty to table several petitions relating to the Conservative government's proposal to impose upon Canadians a goods and services tax starting January 1, 1991.
Routine Proceedings
These petitioners, and there are several hundred, maintain that this new imposition of additional taxes after having been subjected to 31 new taxes and tax increases since this government took office in 1984 would be really unjust and unfair to many Canadians and would put a severe hardship on low and middle-income Canadians. Also, it would impose on small business an onerous burden in administrative costs. To the objective that they would like to reach with this government to withdraw this proposal, the petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to reject the proposed goods and services tax.


Mr. Len Hopkins (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke):: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition here signed by a large number of people from the Pembroke, Petawawa, Deep River, and the Cobden area. They are very concerned about the 9 per cent goods and services tax that this government is planning to lay on the people of Canada.
They point out that there have already been 31 new tax increases since this government took power in 1984. They also recognize that the Conservative Government has increased the manufacturers' sales tax from 9 per cent to 13.5 per cent in recent years.
They feel that this 9 per cent goods and services tax which will be levied on all goods will be very detrimental to average and low-income Canadians out there. They request that the government withdraw this plan, go back to the drawing-board and come up with a tax that is fair to all Canadians.
The petitioners are absolutely opposed to any 9 per cent goods and services tax because of its unfairness and also because of the inability to apply it fairly.


Hon. Ralph Ferguson (Lambton-Middlesex):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 36 to table a petition that has been certified correct by the Clerk of Petitions. I present this petition on behalf of the residents of Thunder Bay, Ontario, who call upon the Government of Canada not to cancel in whole or in part passenger rail services in Canada.


Mr. Gilbert Parent (Welland-St. Catharines- Thrilled):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present two petitions today. It is particularly apropos that the Minister of Employment and Immigration be here because I

November 2, 1989
Routine Proceedings
wish to table a petition on behalf of the thousands of workers in my riding who are worried about the proposed changes to the unemployment insurance program. You, Mr. Speaker, are aware that today we are to have third reading on that bill.
The petitioners urge the Canadian Government to rescind its decision to withdraw its contribution of $2.9 billion to the UIC fund. In so doing the petitioners also wish to remind the government of a prior promise made to Canadians that social programs would not be cut.


Gilbert Parent: Mr. Speaker, the second petition has to do with the Welland Canal lands. I have the honour to table a petition presented to me by Mayor Roland Hardy of Welland on behalf of thousands of my constituents who are concerned about the future use of the Welland Canal lands.
The petitioners urge the Canadian Government through the Ministry of Public Works to retain the Welland Canal lands as a major heritage and tourism resource for the benefit of the people of the immediate area, and also for all Canadians who would be interested in enjoying this enclave of natural beauty.
It should be noted that Mr. Terry Hughes of Welland, Ontario, co-ordinated many different groups to gather these signatures. I reiterate my own personal belief that not one square inch of the canal lands should be sold.


Mr. A1 Homing (Okanagan Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition with 33 names asking this Parliament to enact legislation which would effectively protect the life of the pre-bom child without distinction as to the stage of development. These 33 names represent people from my constituency.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition pursuant to Standing Order 36 which has been certified correct by the Clerk of Petitions. This petition is from a number of western Canadians who are very concerned about the government's intention to impose taxes on a whole range of
goods and services that are presently not taxed by the federal government in terms of the sales tax. They point out that any tax that would tax children's clothing, story books, skating, music lessons and so on has to be inappropriate.
They are calling upon Parliament simply to encourage the government to stop proceeding with the goods and services tax.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, on another matter, unrelated, but again very important, petitioners from western Canada are concerned about the government's intention to cut VIA Rail service. They go on at some length in a very elaborate and thoughtful petition pointing out that passenger rail service is the most environmentally sound alternative to move people.
They are asking the government to indicate that if it is concerned about environmental deterioration that it reconsider cutting back on VIA Rail service and actually invest in a modem passenger rail system something which virtually every other western industrialized nation is doing.


Mr. Fernand Robichaud (Beausejour):: Mr. Speaker, it is my duty to present a petition to the House signed by people in my riding, residents of Saint-Thomas, Cocagne and Cormierville. Your petitioners humbly declare that the sovereignty of Canada has been violated and its resources pillaged by countries engaging in overfishing off our coasts. By doing so, these countries have caused a crisis in the Atlantic fisheries, threatening the livelihood of dozens of communities. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, your petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to extend its jurisdiction to include the entire continental shelf, so that Canada can protect the fish resources so vital to communities in Atlantic Canada.


Mr. Joe Comuzzi (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour and privilege today to present a petition properly certified by the Clerk of Petitions.
November 2, 1989

The petitioners are residents of the city of Thunder Bay, the area I represent, who strongly oppose and urge this government to reconsider its position with respect to the action they intend to take on VIA Rail services in northern Ontario.
I might say that should the government decide to go ahead with the proposed cuts to VIA Rail-for the first time in over 100 years-people along the north shore of Lake Superior, including Thunder Bay, Nipigon, Red Rock, Ignace, Diyden and Kenora will no longer have passenger rail service available to them.


Mr. Rex Crawford (Kent):: Mr. Speaker, once again I have the honour to rise in the House pursuant to Standing Order 36 to present a petition on behalf of the residents of Thunder Bay. The petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to urge the Government of Canada to come to its senses and not to cancel in whole or in part the VIA Rail service in Canada.


Mr. Neil Young (Beaches-Woodbine):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a number of petitions signed by residents of my own constituency about the proposed goods and services tax. The petitioners claim that the government, and rightly so, 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.
The petitioners call upon Parliament to reject the current proposal for a goods and services tax and reform the taxation system so that there is an effective minimum tax on wealthy individuals and corporations.


Mr. Lawrence MacAulay (Cardigan):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition on behalf of a number of people from Thunder Bay. The petitioners call on the government to maintain and upgrade VIA Rail rather than cutting it.


Mr. Joseph Volpe (Eglinton-Lawrence):: Mr. Speaker, it is my honour and privilege to present two petitions today. The first petition is on the proposed goods and services tax and has been signed by many residents of southern Ontario, all of them who speak with rage and
Routine Proceedings
with anger at the proposed imposition of this goods and services tax.
Many of the people who have signed this petition have joined with other members of the Bowling Proprietors' Association, one of whose members presented 1,100 signatures in my office just the other day.
They wish to point out for all Canadians the wide impact of the negative aspects of the GST, that is, those who engage in an exercise that is both recreational and healthy will not be able to profit from some of the rebates that the government is proposing. There will be some 600 jobs in that industry lost in Ontario alone if this proposal goes through.


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: Mr. Speaker, the second petition is signed by residents of Thunder Bay who are objecting strenuously to the fact that one of the basic infrastructures of this country is being derailed through the cuts to VIA Rail and who now find themselves isolated from all other Canadians.
The petitioners humbly pray and beg this House to engage the minister to reconsider his proposed cuts to VIA Rail.


Mr. Gilles Rocheleau (Hull-Aylmer):: Mr. Speaker, in accordance with Standing Order 36,1 would like to table in the House a petition signed by people from Thunder Bay who strenuously object to the dismantling of VIA Rail. Considering that the region of Thunder Bay has enjoyed VIA Rail services for over a century, the dismantling of VIA Rail will not only be disastrous for the region's economy but also for all users of this transportation mode.


Mr. Lyle Kristiansen (Kootenay West-Revelstoke):: Mr. Speaker, I rise pursuant to Standing Order 36 to present a petition on the subject of VIA Rail which has been certified correct by the Clerk of Petitions. The petition calls upon Parliament to maintain VIA Rail in Canada's present national rail network, to upgrade VIA Rail with new equipment, and to give VIA Rail a sufficient budget to maintain its national mandate for passenger service.
It is one of a long series of petitions, signed by some 55 constituents from the riding of Kootenay West-Revels-

November 2, 1989
Routine Proceedings
toke, including signators from the cities of Rossland, Trail, Nelson and Castlegar, the villages of Fruitvale and Slocan, and the communities of Winlaw and Waneta.


Mr. Lyle Dean MacWilliam (Okanagan-Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise pursuant to Standing Order 36 to present to the House a petition opposing the government's proposed goods and services tax measures.
These petitions are literally flooding in to all members of the opposition. This particular petition from individuals in Maple Ridge and surrounding areas, and Pitt Meadows in the lower mainland. It asks that the government reject the current proposal for a goods and services tax. It also asks that the government reform the tax system so that there is an effective minimum tax on wealthy individuals and corporations, and to ensure that if and when there is a broad public consensus on the sales tax measure to replace the manufacturers' sales tax, this reform measure not be an opportunity for the government to impose a massive tax grab which is just what this proposed goods and services tax is.
It is also my pleasure to provide a similar petition also signed by a number of constituents in the Maple Ridge area again protesting the Draconian measures taken by the proposed goods and services tax.


Mr. Ron Fisher (Saskatoon-Dundurn):: Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to stand on behalf of several Canadians and present this petition duly submitted under Standing Order 36. These petitioners humbly showeth that the goods and services tax is an unfair tax in that it does not regulate itself on the basis of a taxpayer's ability to pay. They also state that the taxation on reading materials, haircuts, diapers and so on is a regressive, unfair tax, and they humbly pray and call upon Parliament to reject the current proposal for a goods and services tax.


Ms. Joy Langan (Mission-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, in accordance with Standing Order 36,1 rise to present a petition on behalf of men and women in my constituency of Mission-Coquitlam. This petition is in response to the statistics that one out of every ten Canadian women is beaten by the man she lives with, one in four is sexually assaulted or abused, and every 17 minutes a Canadian woman is raped.
The petitioners humbly call on this House to provide alternatives to protect women and children from violence by increasing funding for transition houses and advocacy centres, and ensure that women receive greater protection under new laws.


Mr. Cid Samson (Timmins-Chapleau):: Mr. Speaker, it is my duty and also my pleasure, pursuant to Standing Order 36, to present a petition from a number of residents of British Columbia who are strongly opposed to the goods and services tax because of its lack of regard to the taxpayers' ability to pay. They are asking the government to ensure that if and when there is a broad public consensus on a sales tax measure to replace the manufacturers' sales tax, this reform not be an opportunity for the government to impose a massive tax grab.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 144 and 156.


Mr. Foster: Does the government propose to establish a federal workers' compensation program and, if so (a) what is the current status of the proposal (b) will the program apply to all workers under federal jurisdiction, including uranium mine and process plant workers who are now subject to Atomic Energy Control Board health and safety regulations (c) on what date does the government plan to implement the program?


Hon. Jean Corbeil (Minister of Labour):: While one of the options under review is the formation of a federal workers' compensation board, I have instructed my departmental officials to pursue possible improvements to the current process which could achieve similar results and ensure greater harmony between the federal and provincial systems.
a)	Proposals are being detailed prior to consultations with clients, provinces and other affected parties.
November 2, 1989

b)	The program proposals will apply to the current Government Employees' Compensation Act clients (Federal Public Service and some Crown Agencies). It will not be expanded to the Atomic Energy Control Board jurisdiction.
c)	The date of implementation, if there are significant changes, has yet to be determined.


Mr. Milliken: When does Via Rail intend to publish its new schedule consequent upon the cuts announced by the Minister of Transport?


Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of Transport):: The
management of VIA Rail Canada Inc. advises as follows:
VIA's new schedule, effective January 15, 1990, will be available in the last week of December 1989.


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


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, if questions Nos. 84 and 106 could be made Orders for Return, the returns would be tabled immediately.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House that Questions Nos. 84 and 106 be deemed to have been made Orders for Return?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Skelly (North Island-Powell River): 1.	Since the creation of the Western Diversification Fund, what was the total amount of funds dispersed?
2.	What were the names of the companies who benefited and, in each case, by year, the amount involved and the purpose?
Return tabled.


Ms. Mitchell: Government Orders
1.	For all years for which records are available, under Employment Equity legislation (a) what is the number (b) what is the percentage of jobs held by visible minority persons in the private sector (i) by sex representation (ii) by age representation (iii) by occupational category (iv) by provincial breakdown (v) by year in total (c) what are the government employment targets for visible minorities?
2.	For all years for which figures are kept (a) what is the number (b) what is the percentage of jobs held by visible minority persons in government departments (i) by sex representation (ii) by age representation (iii) By occupational category (iv) by department (v) by year in total (c) what are the employment targets for visible minorities by department?
3.	Do any Crown Corporations have visible minority members on their boards of directors and, if so (a) which ones (b) in what percentage?
Return tabled.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Shall the remaining questions be allowed to stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Barbara Jean McDougall: that Bill C-21, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act and the Employment and Immigration Department and Commission Act, be read the third time and passed.
She said: I am very pleased to begin this final stage of debate on Bill C-21, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act. It was last April when I first rose in the House to announce the government's labour force development strategy and our intention to amend the UI act as an integral part of that strategy.
Since then hon. members have spent some considerable time in this House and in committee debating the new directions, the priorities, and the merits of the labour force development strategy.

A legislative committee to consider Bill C-21 was struck and held its first organization meeting in June this year. At the time, opposition Members proposed a travel schedule that was approved without changes by government Members. At the suggestion of the Hon. Member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace (Mr. Allmand), the committee did not travel right away but spent two preparatory months getting acquainted with the contents of the Bill

Government Orders
and the provisions of the unemployment insurance system, attending talks on the technical aspects and analyzing statistics. During the past two months, the legislative committee spent four very busy weeks collecting evidence and listening to the views of Canadians across the country.

This bill was subjected to the scrutiny of a large number of people. It was applauded and it was criticized from a wide range of perspectives. The range and diversity of viewpoints reassure me that we have developed a bill that contains just about the right degree of reform.
Prior to introducing the bill in the House, the government had spent a lot of time and energy designing the labour force development strategy and drafting Bill C-21. To assist us in our work, we had the recommendations on labour market adjustment measures and income supporter arrangements from the Macdonald commission, the Forget inquiry, the Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration, and the de Grandpre advisory council.
A great deal of study and reflection has gone into these issues in recent years months. It is now time to get on with the passing of Bill C-21 and implementing the results.

The fact that we wanted to pass this legislation and implement its provisions and all the components of the labour force development strategy as soon as possible does not mean that we ignored the critics of this Bill. In this respect, I must say I appreciate the diligence and sense of commitment of the legislative committee, and I would like to thank all its members for accomplishing a difficult task. Thanks to their efforts and those of many Canadians who took the trouble to appear before the committee, we have made a number of major changes in the Bill.

One of the criticisms, raised a number of times, dealt with the proposal to increase penalties for those who left
their jobs voluntarily for no just cause and simply chose not to work. Witnesses who appeared before the legislative committee expressed concerns about the definition of "just cause" and the process for deciding whether a cause is legitimate and is just. Women's groups, in particular, spoke of the problems women face in identifying sexual harassment as a reason for quitting their jobs.
It has been and will continue to be our policy, as a government, to regard sexual harassment as reason for leaving a job. But in response to the concerns expressed, we amended the bill to include a definition of "just cause" for greater certainty. This definition specifies that, among others, sexual harassment is indeed a just cause for leaving a job. It has been worded carefully so as not to result in any loss of flexibility, or in any narrowing of interpretation. At the same time, it provides legislative expression to the protection that women and other UI recipients deserve.
We also listened to hon. members and to the many Canadians who raised objections to the duration of benefits for adoptive parents. I certainly understood their concerns, and we attempted to deal with those with considerable sympathy. I am very pleased, as a result, that the House approved the amendment that we drafted. It will meet the needs of the majority of adoptive parents in a way that conforms with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
I also want to draw the attention of the House to two other amendments, first proposed by the hon. member for Ottawa West, and accepted unanimously by the legislative committee. One of the member's amendments will ensure that disabled persons have access to training by providing them with the special facilitative devices they need in order to participate in classroom courses or other activities.
The hon. member's second amendment concerned UI recipients who are offered developmental opportunities, specifically the capitalization of their benefits to establish themselves in self-employment or to move to another location. The amendment will guarantee that these individuals are informed of how this choice may affect their future eligibility for benefits.
November 2, 1989



The Committee thinks that these proposals are extremely valid, and I agree with it. We on this side of the House are pleased that all the amendments which I just spoke of were made to the Bill. They go a long way to meeting some of the concerns raised about Bill C-21. But, Mr. Speaker, they do not deal with everything.
Opposition Members and many groups who met members of the legislative committee felt that it was not right to finance other training programs and increased special benefits from the unemployment insurance account. Their criticisms were sincere, but the Government does not agree.
As for parental benefits and those for workers aged 65 and over, these significant improvements are really part of a modem unemployment insurance plan.

With regard to training, we are building on a foundation that is already established. The UI program taxes employed Canadians and employers, so that assistance can be provided to workers who lose their jobs, both with income support and with the opportunity to train for new employment, and to build a more stable future.
As I have said in the past, our workers face many new challenges today. They require new and changing skills, as they go about their job, just on a day-to-day basis. As a result, many unemployed Canadians need more than income assistance. They need training and other types of help in order to find lasting, secure, and satisfying jobs. The government believes, therefore, that UI funds provide an entirely appropriate and practical way of meeting those training needs.
Moreover, this source of funding is entirely consistent with our goal of encouraging the private sector to play a more dominant role in training. In order to pay for these new priorities, the UI program of course must be made more efficient. Having said that, let me state emphatically that the UI program will continue to play a critical role in Canada's social support system. It provides, and it will in future provide income replacement to those who need it. In addition, we will maintain the ability of the UI program to respond to differences in regional labour
Government Orders
markets. The new variable entrance requirement will, if anything, make the program more regionally sensitive.

The legislative committee and others who followed the deliberations know that companies, unions and others were unanimous on the need for increased training nationwide.
Mr. Speaker, the Government believes that the business community, labour, non-governmental organizations and community interest groups who provide training should have their say in the design of a new training program as part of the labour force development strategy.
That is why I began a major consultation with the private sector, in particular, with representatives of workers, business, training institutions and others. Their recommendations will help us flesh out the specific measures of the program.
In implementing a labour force development strategy, the Government will fully maintain its commitment to employment equity objectives, that is, ensure that women, native people, members of minority groups and the disabled will be able to benefit from the new opportunities provided in all our programs.

By way of conclusion, the government had to make some very difficult decisions in drafting Bill C-21. The situation that we confront is neither black nor white. It is a question of finding the right mix among measures that result in improvements and those which minimize any potential adverse impacts. We have been very conscious of those difficult realities and we believe that we have achieved the right balance with sensitivity to local and national needs.
I am very anxious to see Bill C-21 passed as it will enable us to launch a major new effort to increase the training of Canada's labour force, and ensure that it has the requisite skills in demand by employers and by those workers themselves. The task before us is primarily one for employers, workers and educators.
Bill C-21 will provide the government with the necessary resources to encourage those groups, our partners, to get on with the job.


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: Mr. Speaker, I rise, obviously, in opposition to this particular bill,

Government Orders
especially after I heard the intervention of the hon. minister. I am not sure that we are talking about the same bill.
I guess I would have to start by contesting some of the affirmations that have been made with such assurance; first of all, that the committee that was studying Bill C-21 had ample time to consider all of the deliberations. It will be instructive for all members of the House to appreciate that the legislative committee was empowered to study this bill only after with the opposition that the committee actually do travel, and in so doing perhaps get a sense of how the government and the country should actually be receiving this Bill C-21. The committee was not empowered to travel until the end of August. After much debate, the committee went to 14 cities in a bare 21 days. It was able to hear 202 briefs, 157 of C-21. If the minister actually did read them, as she said she did, and I have no reason to believe that she did not, she will have been struck by the absolute visceral as well as steady reaction to many of the amendments that she says were absolutely necessary for the UI bill to reflect the new needs of Canada.
The fact that there were others who did not react as vehemently is a reflection, as the parliamentary secretary to the minister has said on several occasions, of the fact that there were interest groups that wanted to promote a particular view and vision of what should happen to the UI legislation.
It is fair to say that perhaps repetition does drive home a point. Of those who actually found something worth while in this proposed bill, most objected strenuously to the government's withdrawal from the UI program; that unemployment insurance was no longer going to have the participation of the government.
That is important for all hon. members because unemployment insurance was deemed to be unconstitutional and that the government did not have the right to introduce such a program until 1940 or 1941. There had to be a constitutional amendment introduced empowering the government to participate in such a program. That constitutional amendment gave the government the right to be a third party in a tripartite program whose scope, whose intent, and whose direction was insurance, income support, and income maintenance at a time when
a contributor might find himself or herself without work. In other words, this program was supposed to be designed to ensure that there would be a modicum of continuance and constancy in the revenue required by Canadians from all provinces, from all sectors of our economy, and from all classes of our society to live with the decency and dignity that a fair remuneration would give to all Canadians which we value as one of the paragons of western civilization.
When we were faced with many of the organizations who came before us as a legislative committee, we took to heart some of the studies that they produced, some of the statistics that they generated, and some of the other surveys that they examined and researched by way not only of contrast or of support in some cases, but in all cases there was the view that the Unemployment Insurance Commission changes represented by Bill C-21 were in fact in the best interest of all Canadians. However, 157 of the 202 organizations who appeared before the committee said, "Absolutely not. ITiis in no way represents Canadian interests, in no way at all".
The parliamentary secretary says, "You're wrong". In most cases the hon. member was there when all of these presentations were made and heard exactly what they said. We had representations from church groups, poverty groups, labour organizations, business organizations, organizations representing the disabled, women's groups, ethnic groups, farmers' groups, fishermen's groups, all of them, to a man or a woman said that this government is headed down the wrong road; the direction that it is pursuing is absolutely inimical to the interest of all Canadians. The parliamentary secretary knows that. I cannot understand why he would persist in suggesting that because there were labour groups that actually dared to question the statistics presented by the government, that in some fashion they were speaking an untruth, were perpetrating an image or an illusion that the truth lies somewhere outside the government's statements on this issue.
Members of our committee would have dearly loved to have heard from the general public, many of whom had written to the committee and asked for the right to appear. In all cases where they were able to do so, we heard a tale of woe. It is not surprising. This country is a vast territorial entity. There are great diverse and divergent social and economic conditions and realities that
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prevail in such vast territorial domain. What does our government do? It treats them all the same.
I ask hon. members how parliamentarians could possibly consider a monolithic hegemony for this country's conditions. It takes eight hours by plane to go from one end of the country to the other. Yet we adopt a program that suggests that this government is going to pursue amendments to one of the most fundamental programs for this country, not simply on a social basis, but on an economic basis. Perhaps it will serve the deliberations of this House some purpose to consider the economic perceptions that prevail everywhere except in the minister's own department.
We were not able to meet all Canadians on an individual basis groups which were, in the opinion of some members of the committee, and I dare not mention their names lest I incur the wrath of the parliamentary secretary, who does not want to be referred to directly or indirectly in that regard, and lest, in fact, that we learn that people in Canada will suffer. In Vancouver the committee found that farm workers, many of whom are newly arrived Canadians whose dependence on very low wages puts them at the mercy of economic realities beyond their ability to dominate, but who are willing enough to take whatever employment is available in the market-place. Many of them, because of their own financial condition, must engage in sacrifice, thrift, saving, and in self-restraint. In those circumstances they work happily on the farms, facing in many cases the kinds of dangers that people who work in an agricultural environment today face as a result of the proliferation of chemicals that are designed to produce a much more attractive product.
Because of the limited growing period, and in terms of the market value of the industry in which they are engaged, these people must earn a salary from which they can derive sustenance for their family and pay for the necessities they require while living on the west coast.
Bill C-21 is going to literally devastate their opportunities to maintain a modicum of income that will see them through those times when the demands of the market-place and the climatic realities will restrict their opportunity to fall back on a system into which they paid. This is something the parliamentary secretary and many members of the government side cannot seem to fathom
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or appreciate, that these people contributed to a system from which they hoped to derive benefit at a time when they found themselves unemployed.
All those people who came before the committee were members of a community whose dependence on the market realities was further heightened by the fact that their linguistic skills in English were less than adequate to give them an opportunity and an entry point to the larger market-place. For those people we are going to impose a system that restrains even further their opportunities to engage in the kind of activities that will give them the occasion to profit from their own labour.
There is no great dignity in this particular bill offered to Canadians. The minister said a few moments ago what this bill will do. I have to restrain myself, Mr. Speaker, after having listened to those presentations and having seen some of the very moving presentations by individuals who are going to suffer as a result of them.
I had to restrain myself when the minister said that the amendments presented under Bill C-21 would give Canadians an opportunity to engage in work that will be lasting, secure and satisfying; three qualities that will magically surface the moment this particular bill is presented and accepted before the House. I do not know how that will happen; in fact neither did any of the 202 people who presented briefs and testimony before the parliamentary committee or, I dare say, all the others who were unable to appear before the committee but took the trouble to write about their views. I do not know how that is going to happen and I dare say neither does the minister, but there is a certain blind faith that this kind of activity is going to be well worth while for everybody.
Before I begin my presentation on my party's view of this bill, it is instructive as well, as I found it instructive, to hear what the minister had to say in glowing terms, I might add, about the government's sincere intent to listen to criticism and to make this bill a paragon of great legislation.
My colleague on the committee smiles as well because quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, I had to ask one of the messengers to go over and give him some water because he was about to croak when he heard some of these things. The minister says: "We accepted amendments", referring to just cause, "because we were receptive

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accepted as well amendments regarding adoptive parent's rights". I think she said the government moved the motion on adoptive parent's rights, and that she was delighted to be able to say that there was unanimous consent in the House in providing through an amendment assistance devices for the disabled. I think the "blues" will bear me out when I say she found these to be "extremely valuable". And she pins her symbolic hat on Bill C-21, on these three items. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry.
These were the absolute minimum that the committee could gamer from the minister and her department. We had to use a crowbar to pry free some sort of receptivity of attitude; that we could not possibly present this kind of legislation before the people of Canada and leave out those three items.
Upon reflection all members will realize that these three items were imposed upon the government. They were not generated by the government's desire to create a bill that was going to work for the benefit of all Canadians. No, they were imposed by court decisions, by charter demands.
The minister and her department have the unmitigated nerve to take full credit for something like this. Well, the government might take some credit and on a political plane I would say fine, but let us recognize from whence these kinds of suggestions come. They are prerequisite of our judicial system, our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the hard work of committee members on both sides of the House.
Finally, the minister agreed that since we were twisting the department's arm she would do this. She said something else that was most instructive, that is, that unemployment insurance changes would now "tax employed Canadians and Canadian employers" in order to serve the interest of those who are unemployed.
How do we serve the interests of the unemployed when in one fell swoop the government eliminates for them a right to which they had become accustomed, a right around which they were building their daily and annual lives, a right around which they were planning the
economic future of themselves individually and of their families collectively.
How can we say this is working for the good of all Canadians when, with the new requirements under Bill C-21, we will effectively deprive people of an opportunity to qualify for the unemployment insurance which they paid and to which they had become accustomed, if they wanted, to live under certain conditions and in certain regions of the country. I do not know how we can do that. I do not know whether it is going to be instructive for us to go detail by detail, individual by individual, family suffering by family suffering, in order to get the point across.
The government on one hand says to us: "Here is a macro view of the world, and you have to learn to understand how we as Canadians will work in this new view". So we do that. We take a look at the government's statistics. We take a look at its surveys. We take a look at how it arrives at its conclusions. We may present a contrary view of the mechanisms and the procedures that will be required in order to implement this new vision.
The word "vision" implies some sort of depth of perception. It requires some sort of philosophical thought. I think it requires a certain amount of planning, based on more or less verifiable facts and conditions, which are going to prevail not only today in the short term but down the road three, four, five, ten years. Dare I say that perhaps it involves planning with an image of a Canada that will go beyond the end of this century.
That might be one thing. However the moment we present a contrary view, the department pooh-poohs all this stuff as garbage. It says it is nonsense. It is not coming from its side of our analyses. Departmental officials say: "It is not coming from our researchers therefore it has no validity so we go on the individual assessment". What is the micro impact of this macro view of the way the world is unfolding in Canada?
It might have been instructive for the minister to have joined us, for example, in Saskatchewan where we had presentations by people who are normally extremely skilled at what they do. They are members of the trades organizations-bricklayers, carpenters, electricians and plumbers who have been paid for their own skills development on an ongoing basis from the moment they entered their particular career. They are people who did
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not wait for the minister to say that this country needs skilled labour, who did not wait for the government to say: "We have to get more money out there so that we can educate our people, make them more mobile in terms of labour necessities".
These are people who were, of their volition, of their own energy, out of their own costs, willing to go forward and educate themselves, train themselves, hone their skills, and move to the markets where those skills were in great demand. They appeared before the committee and pointed to periods during the year or in the economic cycles where 80 per cent of members whose skills and training require better than five years of post-secondary education were unemployed. I know that my NDP colleague from Saskatoon, who was a member of the committee, will verify these statistics.
These are people who have an understanding of what it means to prepare oneself and one's families for all difficulties and changing realities of the market-place.
What did they do? What else did they say? It would have been instructive for the minister to have heard, in some cases when they have 80 per cent unemployment and even when they do not, that when the new market invites their skills they move. They go from one part of Canada to another. Many of them move to southern Ontario. There is one Canada, and then there is southern Ontario. While I come from southern Ontario I make no apologies for the wealth and prosperity that is there, even if some of my colleagues from Winnipeg would say: "No, this is unfair". It is unfair but at least the people are trying to make a go of things.
When my friends, my fellow Canadians come from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan or from other provinces out west they bring their skills to southern Ontario because the market-place there requires skills that are already there and already proven at no cost to Ontario and its educational system, at no cost to the social programs in Ontario, and at no cost to the industries in Ontario.
We get a beautiful finished product, but what happens to those people? Well, they move in flocks. I believe the hon. member can bear me out, but there was a 2,000 net
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emigration out of Saskatchewan in order to meet the demands presented some place else in order to address the inconsistencies of the economic environment of the day in Saskatchewan. The minister says: "Well, we need a population that is better trained. We need a population that is willing to move".
She does not seek to develop an economic strategy that will address the interests of those from northern Canada, northern Alberta, northern Manitoba who appeared before the committee and highlighted with some great chagrin and regret that there was upward of 90 per cent unemployment in some of the northern communities and that when employment opportunities were created they were filled by southerners.
They pointed to a desire to develop skills and training, a new economic environment in northern Canada, but even now they would not be able to look to the unemployment insurance system for that little income maintenance to which they at one time, prior to the presentation of this bill, could look with some sense of planning, sense of direction, and some sense of organizing their lives for themselves and their families.
It might have been instructive if the minister had been with the committee when we went to Montreal and saw the presentations before the committee from organizations on the west side of Montreal that pointed to the unemployed and gave us a particular picture, which I am sure would move her to think in different terms about this particular bill. Some 37 per cent of those people who were unemployed in west Montreal had education levels that were less than Grade 8.
I remind the minister that a Grade 9 and Grade 10 education today qualifies most Canadians as functionally illiterate. That means that they are unable to qualify for higher skilled jobs, for programs that will give them an opportunity to enhance training.
Aside from being that 37 per cent having below Grade 8 level education, what else would qualify them as a typically unemployed? Some 60 per cent of them are unable to have any savings. The moment they are unemployed they have nothing to Hrlook forward to, nothing to fall back on, except the benefits to which they have contributed.

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I stress that because the government does not seem to understand that these people who are going on the unemployment list are actually coming from employment.
Yet the minister says that that is not the whole picture. She says that they have to make sure that people find it tougher to leave a job. That is okay. Nobody wants to leave a job unless they are going to go to a better job. If they leave frivolously, without justification, yes I think everybody accepts that there should be some penalties.
Well, take a look at some of the penalties that are imposed. The penalties initially were from one to six weeks; now they are going from seven to twelve weeks. If you want to punish somebody you give them the maximum penalty. The average penalty is now 2.2 weeks. If you want to raise it, do so. Do not automatically go ahead and impose a six-week penalty because somebody leaves a job. You do not automatically impose a penalty on everybody just because a few people abuse the system.
I know the government has a particular disposition, a neo-conservative view of the world. I do not share it, quite frankly. I know many members on both sides of the House do not share it either. It is too easy to engage in partisan political rhetoric, and I am not going to do that. I am not going to do that at all.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: I do not want to wake up all the Rip Van Winkles on the other side of the House. If I did that, though, some of them might start paying attention. If we are to be talking about people who are to profit in any way from an unemployment insurance system, then it should only be those people who contribute to it. Even those people who suggested that the government is headed in the right direction maintain that the government has no right, as a result of this bill, to make any regulations regarding unemployment insurance because it is no longer a partner. It no longer pays into the system.
The parliamentary secretary and some of the members of the committee from his side were saying: "Oh, well you know the government is a major employer. We contribute a lot to unemployment insurance because we are an employer". There are 13 million employed Canadians, and the government according to the minister's own figures before the committee employs something
like 225,000. I do not know if 225,000 out of 13 million employees qualifies the government as a contributor to a program. It certainly does not have any status that is different from anybody else.
Certainly, if it is not to contribute to a program it should not make any rules, least of all, those rules which will deprive contributors of an opportunity to maintain an insurance scheme. Maybe that is the government's agenda all along. Withdraw from the program, remove $2.9 billion last year from the program, allow the program to function on the basis of premiums now raised by 14 per cent, paid by employees and employers, and then let them thrash it out.
Those of us who know anything about negotiations and labour contracts know quite well that what is to happen at the next round of negotiations, or when the employee goes before the employer for a job where there is no organized labour, there will be factored in the additional employer costs in premiums. The person who is going to bear the full brunt of-the minister perhaps in a Freudian slip let it out-this increased tax is to be the employee and the employee alone.
The business groups that appeared before the committee-and the parliamentary secretary will bear this out-upon questioning responded that yes unemployment insurance premiums incurred by employers is considered a business cost and therefore subject to the usual deductions from income tax and other kinds of taxes from the government. There are no such loopholes for the employees who find that their wage demands and wage requisites are going to be reduced because employers find that they will be even less competitive.
I do not know where the government is going when it says that it will consult with everybody in the private sector, including institutions that are engaged in training, organized labour, and including of course industry.
There are a few members of the committee here and they will bear me out. I know that they will not say that this is an exaggeration; nor will they say that this is an understatement of the truth. Witnesses who appeared before the committee came from large corporations, chambers of commerce, industrial groups, organized labour groups, and women groups. Upon questioning, not one of them said "yes, we have been consulted; yes,

we have been invited to sit down in consultation with the department".
Who is this government talking to? Where is it getting its facts? Where is it getting the rationale? Where is it getting the foundations for the kinds of initiatives that it wants to present? Well, it cannot be from Statistics Canada because if we read StatsCan figures they cause any Canadian who was willing for one brief moment to be critical to shudder. The minister's glowing allegations of greatness that will befall this country as a result of Bill C-21 certainly are not borne out by the statistics.
I just want to draw your attention, for example, to an item by a renowned economist. I know that there are varying economic views but according to this economist, reported in The Toronto Star, October 2, 1989, the only way that we can eliminate unemployment is to develop growth and growth, not wages, is the key to cutting unemployment.
Why does he say that? I suppose these people must have gone to the same economic think tanks, certainly not attended by any of the government members or by the departmental members it would appear. There is another report which comes from the department itself. I cannot believe that it is giving out information that actually contradicts what you want to say. We have seen one little shell game after another. Now some truth comes out.
There was a headline in the The Globe and Mail of October 30, 1989, "Cheap Labour, A Costly Social Strait-jacket". Let us keep that in mind because it appears that the government wants to create a cheap labour pool.
The article states: "The myth about cheap labour is that it is necessary for the economy to function. The fact is cheap labour is not cheap. The Canadian labour force survey done by StatsCanada in 1986 shows clearly that the higher the degree of various forms of social assistance, the higher the rate of unemployment and the higher the level of government expenditure".
According to that same survey, workers earning less than $6 an hour were unemployed for an average of three weeks a year. I quote further: "Although they constitute half of the unemployed labour force, the
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under $10 an hour worker accounted for 85 per cent of the money spent on unemployment".
This particular bill attacks precisely those who earn in that 85 per cent category, that is under $10 an hour. They are not the ones who are carrying the country so to speak. They are not the ones who are hoarding vast sums of money. They are not the ones who are plundering the Treasury. The real cost for labour under $6 an hour, according to this article, is actually between $7.50 and $8.50 an hour when the taxpayer's contribution is counted in.
What is instructive as well for the parliamentary secretary and the minister is that from 1981 to 1986 more jobs were created in the category of about $5.50 an hour and below this wage category than all other categories combined.
The Prime Minister and all his other ministers stand before this House and say 57,000 jobs were created in B.C. last month. They forget about all the net losses in the other provinces. They say 189,000 jobs were created this year as of the end of September, in the first three-quarters. It sounds fabulous.
There were 348,000 created last year before the free trade agreement was signed, an agreement that was supposed to bring untold wealth. If increased employment is an indication of untold wealth, I ask the parliamentary secretary opposite to take out his calculator and take a look at what happens to that 189,000 when I add one more quarter to it. If I am very, very generous and add another 70,000, there are still well over 100,000 fewer jobs created for this first post FTAyear than in the pre FTA year.
Where did all those jobs go? The Prime Minister says: "Well they are all full-time jobs". That is great. Where are they? They are in the low end of the earning capacity. People are being compelled to take jobs that will give them a bare minimum for sustenance.
I want to go on a little further. The problem that we have in Canada according to this economist is that Canada has had by far the fastest growing labour force in the industrialized world because of the growth and because of the continued availability of cheap labour. I say that cheap labour is going to be increased drastically and dramatically as a result of this bill, this pernicious bill that does nothing to develop the population, does nothing to develop the labour potential of Canadians, and does nothing to extract from the talents and the energies of the dynamics of our population. It does

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instead put more people at the mercy of those whose abilities to engage in a competitive economic environment. It does not take into consideration the new technological realities of the world.
It says here that Canadian investment per new worker has been the lowest among Organization for Economic Co-operation in Developing countries over the past two decades. Is it little wonder that we speak often in this House about the lack of competitiveness of our industries when our government refuses to do what is the absolute obvious to anybody who thinks or anybody who does not even think but sees the obvious? No, not to this government. Low investment means low productivity increases in the long term, and Canada is at the very back of the line. .
I was so offended as a Canadian-and it sounds a little schmaltzy but I know that my friend opposite from Winnipeg shares this view-that we as Canadians could be at the back of the line in anything, especially when it comes to economic matters.
I know that there are members on the government side who trumpet the great entrepreneurial energies of Canadians. Yet we are able to read something like this, criticism from one of our own. The supply of cheap labour breeds dependency on it to the point where modernization becomes an impossible hurdle.
Those of us who have at least a small understanding of history will refer to the decline of all kinds of civilizations where the pool of cheap labour-dare I say slave labour-contributed to the total collapse of the civilization. We do not want that for our own country, nor should we. In fact one of the problems that we have is that not only do we have cheap labour; we have mismatches of jobs.
I do not know whether the minister or her department looked at some of the things that average people on the streets see on a day to day basis. Instead, they point to the unemployment rate in the country, 7.3 per cent and therefore dropping. I will come to that in a moment.
Not only am I applauding the members opposite, I think it is also a point that bears reflection because there is inherent criticism in it. Members opposite say: "That is it, nationally, but what about that nasty place, southern
Ontario, or that place that is the centre of nastiness, Toronto, where the unemployment rate is only 3.4 per cent? That means the country is doing well. So what about those nasty people who actually rely on the unemployment insurance fund?" Remember that is a fund into which people paid into. It is not one that somebody else is paying into on their behalf. All my insurance broker friends on both sides of the House will say: "If you pay premiums then you engage as a participant in the fund and, therefore, you have a right of access to that fund in time of need".
The unemployment rate in Toronto is 3.4 per cent. That is great. Three point four per cent unemployment in Toronto represents some 70,000 men and women who are out of work. In fact, with all due deference to my colleagues from New Brunswick, that is twice as many people as are unemployed in all of New Brunswick. Yet Bill C-21 is going to penalize everybody in the Toronto area who is so unfortunate as to not find a job. There are lots of jobs available in Toronto. We can look in the newspaper any day. Do you know what they are like, Mr. Speaker? Almost every restaurant, retail outlet and convenience store, it seems, have help wanted signs in the window. In my riding of Eglinton-Lawrence every store has a "help wanted" sign. What they do not say is what you will be paid for your labour.
But God help you, Mr. Speaker, if you happen to be one of the individuals that the hon. parliamentary secretary is so fond of reading about from a list. God help you if you happen to be an unemployed mechanical engineer. You are not going to find a job. This is a country that requires specialization, it requires great training. If one reads the minister's own words, she says that in the next 10 years 50 per cent of all jobs-I think the figure is 55 per cent-are going to require five years or better of post-secondary schooling or training. Here we have a mechanical engineer who has at least that and cannot find a job because the market is not prepared. In Toronto this man cannot find a job; not because he is not looking, not because he is not trained, not because he does not have skills and not because he wants to go on unemployment insurance-heaven's no-it is because he happens to be a mechanical engineer in a soft market, because manufacturers are not tooling up, because entrepreneurs are not taking advantage of the new technologies that are required to make their industries
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competitive, because many companies in the Toronto area, as well as across Canada, as those of us who read the daily papers know, are moving south.
Why are they doing that? Heaven forbid. It could not be because the government made it possible for them or encouraged that kind of activity by signing some sort of a document that suggests that it is going to be less competitive to be here in a restricted market, in a market that stretches over better than 5,000 kilometres. No, it could not possibly be that. We would engage in sarcasm if we said that. But the fact of the matter is that the cheap labour pool is making it very possible for entrepreneurs to exploit that kind of a market and avoid making the technological changes and innovations that they have to bring forward.
As an example, in Toronto in the last several weeks we saw a situation wherein the government has one policy in isolation of a whole series of others. Those of us who are familiar with the construction boom in Toronto over the course of the last few years will realize that one of the most severe problems in the Toronto market and the greater Toronto-southern Ontario market is the lack of skilled labour. The number of people who have been coming from Saskatchewan with skills in construction, carpentry, plumbing, electricity and bricklaying has not been enough to satisfy the great demands. As a result there have been unscrupulous entrepreneurs and brokers in the greater Toronto area and the southern Ontario area who have gone overseas to look for that kind of help. But now that the market is drying up, ciao, baby, we are sending you home. And there are 5,000 of them.
I want to say this in a language that some of those people understand. And maybe, because some of the government members are listening, we will have a copy for them in English as well.

These 5,000 workers who are being deported are (citizens) individuals whose productive abilities, dynamism and skilled training have proven to be advantageous to this country.
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Many of them are victims of unscrupulous exploiters, the majority of them Canadians, with the tacit compliance of our government whose inaction allowed such illegal activity.
These workers came here as the "finished product" with no cost to our educational system, to our training programs or to our industry. Now this government acts with complete insensitivity to their worth, even in the face of recommendations by the Homebuilders Association which consider them an asset to this country.

Five thousand Portuguese workers have been exploited because they bring some very desperately needed skills to a segment of Ontario and then they are whisked away because they are no longer necessary in the estimation of the department. I do not know whether our minister, our departments, our government, are working in tandem or whether they are playing "I don't know what he's doing, I don't know what she's doing and I don't care".
How can we develop a labour strategy, a labour market for this country to meet the needs of this country outside of the parameters of a general immigration policy, a general industrial policy outside the parameters of a solid, long-term, well-thought-out research and development strategy?
Let me go to that for a second because in terms of research and development we certainly do not, as a country, have much to boast about. In fact, I have commissioned a little bit of research myself. We have taken a look at research and development among several of the nations of greater industrial import throughout the world; Canada, the U.S., the United Kingdom, West Germany, Australia and Japan. Do you know where Canada sits in terms of research and development? Dead last.
In terms of percentage change in government inputs- now this is the government contribution, this is government initiative in research and development into developing not only a labour market but an industrial sector, an economic environment, an entrepreneurial sector that is going to take complete and total advantage not only of the market possibilities but also the global dynamics and the needs for technological innovation- what does our government do by way of showing leadership? I do not know if leadership is a dirty word on the other side of the House. It would certainly would appear

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that it is because, as an example, in 1986 there was a net reduction of 2 per cent, in 1987 there was a further reduction of 3 per cent in research and development, in 1988 there was a further reduction of 5 per cent in research and development and in 1989 there is an estimated 3 per cent reduction in research and development. How does a nation develop a market-place and labour to fit into that market-place if it does not have any commitment or any financial input into research and development or if that research and development goes on a decreasing plane year by year?
I do not know how we can sit here and listen to the exhortations of the minister that Bill C-21 is going to be the solution to all of the economic woes of Canada. It is not going to be anything like that, Mr. Speaker. In fact it is going to give the government an opportunity to cut $2.9 billion from the deficit, which is all it is interested in, and it is going to do it on the backs of those people who have been honestly, sincerely and devotedly contributing to an unemployment insurance scheme that they thought was going to protect them against the vagaries of the market-place.
I take a look at what other countries such as West Germany are doing. West Germany most people think is a lighthouse in terms of technological innovation. I know that my hon. colleague, the parliamentary secretary, who is fond of looking at all kinds of examples, will relish this one. In that same period in 1986 the West German Government input into research and development went up by 3 per cent. It went up by a further 5 per cent in 1987, a further 6 per cent in 1988 and a further 5 percent projected for 1989.
We are going to be a competitive country when others are deliberately establishing an economic strategy, an industrial policy and a labour policy. We are going to sit back and snip, snip, cut, cut because the deficit is the only problem the world has. It is a problem, and I sincerely would wish to have an opportunity to cut it away, as much as the government if not more. But if we are going to curb growth how do we expect to generate revenues to pay off the deficit let alone the public debt?
Let us look at a smaller country, Italy. Italy is the cradle of civilization for some of us. Most of us think that, well it is in the Group of 7, but it is a poor cousin. What did Italy do? In 1986 it increased research and development funds by 4 per cent while we were already dropping that funding by 2 per cent. We are in last place so we have nowhere else to go but up. But if we cut, we get up faster, right? What did Italy do in 1987? It only raised it another 4 per cent. What did it do in 1988? The snipping disease must have caught Italy too because it dropped to an increase of 3 per cent. It learned by its mistakes, it appears, because in 1989, the government says in order to encourage greater productivity and competitiveness among our industries and in order to engage in productive labour development, creation of job and employment opportunities, do we have to put in more money because there is a greater return. You invest and you can expect some sort of return on your capital. Italy went up by 6 per cent over and above what it spent in 1988. That is at a time when we were dropping by 3 per cent. Remember, we were in last place. So what now?
I do not know how Canadians can brook this kind of misdirection-I do not want to say inaction, but misdirection on the part of this country when it comes to developing an economic environment productive for all Canadians. I just cannot understand that.
What happens? You can look at some of the statistics. We are trying to develop an intelligentia, people who are able to meet the immediate changes; PhDs, MAs in engineering, in research, in mathematics and computers. In 1988 we show a net drop of people who are involved in engineering, just a modicum of a rise in medicine, a dramatic drop in mathematics, and a dramatic drop in computers. These are the areas where, if we are going to show some leadership, we have to start developing personnel who are willing and able to enter those fields. But we are not doing that. It might be bad enough that the government does not engage in any serious education of its population, that the government does not engage in any stimulation and development of technological innovation, but when there is a decline in our export markets as a result of our uncompetitiveness, then we have to point the finger to where it properly belongs-at government misdirection.
November 2, 1989

Let us take a look at Canadian market shares of major export markets. We seem to be hanging our hat completely on the U.S. market. In 1988 it accounted for 73.1 per cent of all our exports. We probably could not compete with the Japanese because they are responsible for about 6.3 per cent of our exports. The U.K. is responsible for 2.6 per cent; China, 1.9 per cent; West Germany, 1.3 per cent, virtually all of them in resource-based industries, not in manufacturing or consumer goods.
The merchandise trade balance, which will be a reflection of our competitiveness, which will be a reflection of the government's ability to indicate and establish an economic environment that is good for all Canadians both on an industrial and an unemployment side, has been dropping steadily with respect to the United States, so much so that in 1988, as a comparison with 1985, we have dropped a grand total of 5 per cent.
Compared with Japan we have been collapsing steadily. Compared with the U.K. we have made absolutely no progress. There is a negative drop of 1.1 per cent. China is the only major economic environment with which we have any kind of positive growth, 1.6 per cent growth. Compared with West Germany we have dropped our share of the market by -2 per cent. Those kinds of facts tell us quite frankly that we are not going anywhere and we are going there fast. Let us talk in terms of developing language, which most of these countries recognize is important to preparing not only their labour market but also their managerial class, because this is becoming increasingly a global market-place both for labour and industry.
Canada in terms of gross expenditures on all official government programs-and keep in mind that much of this is in the official languages sector-contributes a paltry $7 million. The United States contributes $170 million.
Keep in mind that their market-place is only 10 times the size of ours. Their contribution should have been somewhere around $70 million, but no, it is $170 million. The Americans, despite the downturn in their economy, their loss of position all over the world in terms of progressiveness, are at least capable of understanding. In
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terms of language perhaps they increased the competitiveness of their peoples.
West Germany contributed $39.2 million. Australia, a smaller country than our own, yet it appears more competitive, spent $12.4 million on languages. Japan, a great monolithic, hegemonic nation which does not have all of the opportunities that our own country provides us with, a multicultural fabric, spent $96.2 million. Where does Canada sit? In last place.
I am absolutely ashamed that our government would not recognize that Canadians have to be provided with the opportunity and the leadership to be able to take their role and their proper position in this world.
Let us take a look at education, for example, in terms of percentage change in government inputs. I know what the members opposite are going to say right now: "Oh well, education, that's not our business, that's provincial stuff and in fact we can't do anything about it". With the same breath the government turns around and says that with this bill it is going to take some moneys from premiums. It is going to tax people and, on a national basis, establish training programs.
Okay, we are going to establish training programs. We like that. With whom? " Oh well, that is not our business. We have to defer it to the appropriate provincial authorities. They have to take a look at what is available and what is not available and we just buy into the programs".
I cannot believe that this passes for serious government policy. I cannot believe that at a time when most other nations in the world are taking an initiative on a national basis to educate the public, to educate the entrepreneurial class, their managerial class, Canada sits down and says: "Well, you know, I have to wash my hands of this, that is really not my job. That is not in my jurisdiction. We don't have any money". I cannot believe that that passes for political and juridical leadership.
In terms of government inputs in education Canada, since 1986, decreased by 4 per cent. In 1987 there was a further decrease of 3 per cent. In 1988 a further decrease of 3 per cent. For 1989 we establish consistency without all doubt; there is a further decrease of 3 per cent, absolutely incredible.

November 2, 1989
Government Orders
This is the same government that says it is going to engage in a new training program and establish a training ethic because Canadians spend half as much as their American counterpart. Is it the industries that spend half as much or is the government? Let us take a look. What does the government do in the United States? This is the symbol and role model for our great leaders opposite.
The United States dropped 3 per cent in 1986 and had a further drop of 2 per cent in 1987. But the Americans changed their ways in 1988 and actually increased it by 1 per cent and then collapsed into the same Canadian disease of further decrease in education, in long-term investment in this country and in its people by 3 per cent.
Let us take a look at what our less progressive cousins world-wide are doing. It is important to keep in mind the unwashed masses overseas. They do not know anything, right? They cannot understand the value of education because we have a monopoly on it. That is why we can afford to cut.
In 1986 Italy increased government inputs by 6 per cent. It made a further increase of 5 per cent in 1987 because that was not enough, and then in 1988 it increased inputs by a further 6 per cent. In 1989, discovering the merits of increases in education for long-term development, Italy increased it by a further 8 per cent. Little wonder that poor little Italy is moving up the ranking in the Group of Seven. It is now pushing for number 4; it used to be below Canada.
It seems that the Australians are at least as astute because in 1986 government inputs in education went up by 7 per cent. They increased it to 10 per cent. Those guys know what they are doing; 10 per cent in 1987, 4 per cent in 1988, and a further 6 per cent in 1989.
Where are we in Canada? Refresh your memory. There is a steady, continuous decrease year by year of on average three and one-quarter per cent. We are not headed down the road of salvation. We are not headed down the road of deficit reduction. We are not going to be able to generate the kind of growth that is required to decrease the public debt, to cut back on programs that have been the lifeblood of sustenance, of social programs made necessary by government and mismanagement. We
are not going to be able to do that if we keep having a myopic view of where the government and this country ought to be heading.
I do not want to offend some of the members here about retraining programs, but we are going to talk about that at great length in a few minutes. The combined private sector-public sector input over the course of the last five years in retraining programs in Canada has been an increase of 2 per cent in 1986, 3 per cent in 1987, 5 per cent in 1988, and 2 per cent in 1989.
In 1986 Australia saw an increase of 7 per cent; in 1987, 12 per cent; a further increase of 9 per cent, in 1988; and in 1989 there was a further increase of 12 per cent.
I know that the members opposite are very interested. I could go ahead and read some of the figures for Thiwan, Japan, Italy, West Germany, even for Great Britain, which by the way, I am told, can no longer can be called Great Britain because of the economic mismanagement of its current leader, a leader who felt that she had to come here and tell all Canadians in an admonishing tone that they had nothing to fear from the free trade agreement, that we would be able to maintain our identity, and that we would be foolish to overlook this opportunity to engage in a great big market-place. She told us all at election time: "You have to vote Conservative if you want to secure". Secure what, complete mismanagement?
That is the same Prime Minister who is now balking at everything that is going on in Europe. "No, no, no, we can't lose our own identity. Oh, we cannot lose control over our own economic destiny", even though all intelligent peoples in Europe are saying: "We have nothing to be afraid of, business is business and good business makes better business for everybody. We are going to engage in productive programs".
What does Canada do? It does not even follow the example of a country like Britain whose government is repeatedly and continuously viewed as being at least socially regressive if not economically backward. They have slipped from third in ranking in the Group of Seven down to fourth, to fifth, to sixth and, if it were not for us, for Pete's sake, they would be down at the bottom.
November 2, 1989

This sort of thing may not be of great interest to members opposite who have already made their mind up that Bill C-21 is the best thing since sliced bread. They are going to be able to go back to their business buddies and say: "Do you know what we did for you? We went snip, snip, and cut away $2.9 billion from our deficit. We are no longer going to help the unemployed. We do not have to worry about them. They are not going to be able to come to us and live off the fat of the land. They are going to have to take your jobs at your rate of pay."
What is that rate of pay, pardon me again? Was it higher? No, that is not what I heard. It goes down below $5.50 an hour. In fact most of the jobs being created are at this rate of pay, which rate of pay reduces the amount of revenue available for this government. It reduces the abilities of entrepreneurs and industries to retool and engage in investments and technologies that will make them more competitive, more productive, and much more aggressive in the world economy.
We are going to do that because we have a myopic view of the world, because we have short-term visions, we have no vision on the economy, no vision on industrial strategy, none whatsoever on labour development, on sectorial development, on regional development. We are going to say to all our fellow Canadians who live in some of those areas where the long reach of absent industrial strategy is still making many people dependent on social programs that they would otherwise reject and reject willingly: "We no longer want you to be able to profit from a program into which you make a contribution. We want you to move, to go where the jobs are."
Where are they? They are not in Newfoundland, they are not in the other maritime provinces, and they are certainly not in Quebec. In the last quarter of last year and the first three quarters of this year Quebec experienced a net job loss: 11,000 fewer people employed in Quebec over the last three quarters than in previous times. Where are these jobs being created? The government is going to make available under this bill $15 million for relocation, $15 million so we can depopulate Atlantic Canada, so that we can depopulate northern Quebec.
Those who were with the committee in Jonquiere in northern Quebec would have heard that many of those residents were saying that they were going to be forced if
this bill goes through to leave the place where they have established a stable, secure, social, cultural, economic environment.
They are going to move to Toronto. Let's all go to Toronto. Great place. The average price of a new single family detached home in my city of North York in metropolitan Toronto is a shameful $832,000. The average price of a resale home last month in Toronto was $272,000. You would require a 25 per cent down payment just to qualify for this, and then you would have to qualify for the mortgage payments. How can somebody who has been on unemployment in maritime Canada possibly qualify for that? Where are we going to put them?
I know, Mr. Speaker, that we are pressing one o'clock and you will want to hear the rest of my dissertation. Perhaps I can finish after the House resumes.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: On a point of order, the hon. member for Burlington.


Mr. Kempling:: Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions, I understand, among the parties and there is an agreement that after the normal first rotation of speakers the second rotation will have ten minutes to speak and five minutes of questioning.
We have agreed to forgo occasional speakers to allow the opposition to present more speakers to the House.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: We are in agreement, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It being one o'clock, I do now leave the chair until two o'clock this day.
The House took recess at 1 p.m.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

Mr. Greg Thompson (Carleton-Charlotte):: Mr. Speaker, there is some good news coming out of New Brunswick that I would like to bring to the attention of the House. APEC, the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council, released its quarterly report on Monday and the news is good. Investment in New Brunswick rose by

November 2, 1989
20 per cent last year and will undoubtedly exceed 20 per cent this year.
Let's look at some facts. Unemployment has fallen by
8,000	since we took office. In percentage terms, unemployment was at 16 per cent when we took office and is now at 12 per cent, a reduction of 4 per cent. Exports are up, farm cash receipts are up. Private sector construction is up, manufacturing shipments are up. Much to the chagrin of our Opposition, things are looking good in New Brunswick and under this government will continue to be good.


HAITIAN POLITICAL REFUGEES
Hon. Andre Ouellet (Papineau-Saint-Michel):: Mr. Speaker, two days ago, I received a delegation from the Viau ethnic groups centre headed by Rev. Charles Martin in my riding office. They protested the lifting of the moratorium on Haitian political refugees.
We do not really understand how the Conservative Government can claim that the situation in Haiti has returned to normal and how it can now expel anyone it thinks is no longer welcome in Canada, without endangering these people who are fighting for democracy and freedom.
Right after the coup d'etat which brought him to power, General April promised to restore democracy with no turning back. Today, many Haitians instead fear that he will rule as an iron-handed dictator and they certainly expect the Canadian Government to understand the situation better.


Mr. Speaker:: The Chair has noticed the very beautiful bouquets that are on the desks of some hon. members and while I would be the last one to remove beauty from this Chamber, I must remind hon. members that it probably breaches the guidelines which we have set for ourselves on using other items to make demonstrations, and I would ask hon. members to co-operate.


REGIONAL INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Gabriel Desjardins (Temiscamingue):: Mr. Speaker, for the sixth year in a row, I wish to thank the Temiscamingue Economic Development Corporation for organizing its "Meteoritem" gala.
I would like to point out the remarkable work and leadership of the companies that received very special mention: in the agri-food sector, G.M.S. fish products of Laniel, distributor of the famous whitefish caviar; in the tourism sector, the Truck Rodeo of Notre-Dame du Nord; in the manufacturing sector, Marik Concrete of Ville-Marie and Temiscamingue; in trade and services, the Vivacolor Photo Studio of Ville-Marie; businesses of the year, all categories: Temisko of Notre-Dame du Nord and Cardinal Forestry Equipment of Angliers. Finally, the entrepreneurs of the year in my region: Guylain Paquin, owner of Chalain Farm in Saint-Bruno de Guigues, and Joachim Robitaille, president and CEO of Dolo-Mine in Saint-Bruno de Guigues.
Congratulations to all these companies whose determination and dynamism contribute to the economic development of our beautiful Temiscamingue region.


VIA RAIL
Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina-Lumsden):: Mr. Speaker, it was the Minister of Finance and his department who did the studies on VIA Rail in preparation for the last budget.
Where was the Minister of Transport and his department? It was the Minister of Transport and two other people in the department who knew nothing about the environment who did the environmental study. Where was the Minister and the Department of the Environment? Doesn't anybody in the government do their own job?
A great Canadian, Doctor Suzuki, said the VIA Rail decision is being justified by an environmental assessment, but such analyses have almost no scientific value. It is clear the study was done in a hurry to satisfy the minister's political agenda. The VIA Rail decision must

be considered in terms of the message it is delivering. We are in a period when scientists are urging a cut-back in emissions in a massive way so society will be weaned off the use of cars. Truer words were never spoken.


LABOUR FORCE DEVELOPMENT STUDY
Mr. Ken James (Sarnia-Lambton):: Mr. Speaker, all members of the House will know that the job-creation record of our government stands second to none. Yet as we move forward, Canada's future economic growth and development will increasingly depend on a highly skilled and flexible labour force. In a fast-changing, restructuring workplace, we as a society must be willing to make a sufficient investment in our human resources to adequately meet and accommodate the demands of the economic and technological change.
Our government, in its leadership capacity, must demonstrate both a willingness and a will to address the potential divergence between the flexibility and skills of our workers and the skills that our economy will demand.
The initiation of the Labour Force Development Strategy, I believe, strongly demonstrates that leadership and signals our commitment in this respect. Coupled with complimentary measures to maintain an economic safety net, this is both a necessary and smart investment that I believe will help successfully propel our great country into the 21st century.


AIR CANADA
Mr. Jerry Pickard (Essex-Kent):: Mr. Speaker, the privatization of Air Canada will adversely affect the lives of many dedicated Air Canada employees. At Windsor airport alone 32 families will suffer the ill effects of privatization. They have been notified that their employment will be severed with Air Canada or be transferred to another city.
At the same time Air Ontario, which is an integral part of Air Canada and Air Service in the Windsor area, will be hiring new people to fill these jobs, the same jobs. This is a blatant example of an unfair and uncaring attitude of this government as it continues its rampage of privatizing Canadian institutions. Thirty-two families in
the Windsor area must now decide to uproot and move or lose their jobs, although Air Ontario will hire people to do the same work. The displaced and experienced Air Canada employees were not given the option of employment with Air Ontario in their home community.
This is a tragedy not only for the employees, but for the customers of Windsor and the nine other airports subjected to this inhumane treatment.


CANADIAN STUDENT LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE
Hon. Bob Layton (Lachine-Lac-Saint-Louis):: Canadian students are preparing for the future. The need for leadership is being stressed and recognized. Discussions on issues of national interest, understanding, bilingual programming and participation of francophones, commitment and direct action to protect our environment and concern for the disadvantaged were the features of a four day Canadian student leadership conference last weekend at John Rennie High School in my riding of Lachine-Lac-Saint-Louis.
With tremendous help from community leaders, volunteers and counsellors, this fifth congress attracted several hundred delegates from across the country, many of them from ridings that are represented here, to share ideas, make friends and develop their leadership skills.
From personal observation, I can as sure the members of this House that the future of Canada will be in good hands.


ATLANTIC CANADA
Mr. Francis G. LeBlanc (Cape Breton Highlands - Canso):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call the attention of this House to yet another example of discrimination of this government toward Atlantic Canada. I am referring to the Northern and Isolated Areas Task Force Report which was made public last Friday.
Taxpayers in hundreds of small communities across Canada, including my riding of Cape Breton Highlands-Canso, are threatened with the loss of existing tax benefits if the government accepts the recommendations of this report.

Atlantic Canada has been punished too much already. We cannot tolerate another blow to our rural ridings. I give the example of Canso, Nova Scotia, which is at this time faced with possible closure of its fish processing plant. The task force recommends that Canso be dropped from the list to qualify for this tax deduction.
Rural ridings are not the ones which should pay the price of a mismanagement of this government. They should be on the top of the list for benefits, not removed and forgotten.


HOUSING
Mr. Jim Karpoff (Surrey North):: Mr. Speaker, I want to draw the attention of this House to the government's record on co-operative housing. In 1986 the government made a commitment to fund 5,000 co-operative housing units a year. Yet in 1986 they funded only 2,900; in 1987, 3,800; and in 1988, 3,100. Now, in this year, they are funding only 1,700, one-third of the promise of 1986.
Today the minister made an announcement that gave no indication that this government was abandoning its attack on co-operative housing. Instead, the many struggling co-op housing resource industries which are desperately trying to keep afloat following federal government cut-backs have been given larger project advances for start-up funds. These advances will have to be repaid in full. This will not build one additional co-op housing unit. People in need of homes want a substantial housing policy. Instead, they get smoke and mirrors. When will the government live up to its commitments on co-operative housing?


COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS
Mr. Jean-Guy Guilbault (Drummond):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to mention that last Monday was dedicated to of community organization involvement and promotion in Quebec.
About 67 organizations in my riding told me about their shortage of funds and the lack of recognition for their role as social intervenors.
I therefore ask the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mrs. McDougall) to consider the demands of community groups and help them obtain genuine recognition by introducing a satisfactory funding policy.
In this connection, enhance and hiring criteria for various federal employment programs should be drafted in terms of the needs of community-based organisations.
No country, Mr. Speaker, not even Canada, can do without the thousands of volunteer workers who are an invaluable resource for improving the quality of life of the neediest among us.


PROPOSED GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, the Canadian government is telling Canadians they do not understand the goods and services tax. Canadians are accused of being misinformed and naive in this respect.

I stand today to say that Canadians do understand. They understand that they have been deceived about this tax. Canadians are disappointed and they are diametrically opposed to what this government is doing.
The government said that the tax will be revenue neutral, visible and combined with provincial sales tax systems. The government shook the hands of Canadians before the election and has shaken their confidence today.
In my riding of Ottawa Centre alone over 2,500 people joined a coalition against the goods and services tax and said "no" to the 9 per cent, "no" to the 7 per cent, and are saying "no" to the goods and services tax.
When is this government going to start listening to Canadians and drop this tax?


ATLANTIC PROVINCES ECONOMIC COUNCIL
Mr. Bob Corbett (Fundy-Royal):: Mr. Speaker, the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council released its quarterly report on Monday. It contains some welcome news about the state of the New Brunswick economy. APEC says that New Brunswick will have the strongest economy in Atlantic Canada in 1989 and into 1990 and will

match or exceed other provinces in terms of economic growth.
Investment in New Brunswick rose by 20 per cent last year and is now nearly twice the national average. Our optimistic outlook, the impact of ACOA, the frigate program, the free trade agreement and generous IRDAs have all contributed to this increased investment. These positive economic indicators have provided it with a solid base to encourage more economic growth. Much remains to be done and we need to build on the momentum created in the province over the last five years, but clearly New Brunswick is open for business once again.


CENTRAL AMERICA
Ms. Lynn Hunter (Saanich-Gulf Islands):: Mr. Speaker, events in Central America this week have cast a shadow over the peace process in the region. In El Salvador, the office of the National Union of Workers was bombed by the U.S. supported military, killing 12 and injuring 40. In Nicaragua, the continued disregard for the 19 month cease-fire by the U.S. backed Contras has left hundreds of Nicaraguan civilians dead and place the upcoming elections in jeopardy.
The government has announced its desire to join the Organization of American States and to play an influential role in the area. Unfortunately, empty rhetoric will not lead to peace in El Salvador and Nicaragua. When asked if Canada would act as an intermediary in the Nicaraguan conflict, the Prime Minister declared that as the "new kid on the block" he planned no action to assist the region. Are we peacemakers or are we idle bystanders?
Canada must involve itself in the peace process in an active and constructive way. While the Prime Minister is finding new clubs to join, people are dying in Central America. The time has come for the government to admit that the United States is a direct contributor to instability in the region.


NORTHERN TROLLERS ASSOCIATION
Mr. Stan Wilbee (Delta):: Mr. Speaker, for many years the boundary between Alaska and British Columbia in Dixon Entrance has been in dispute, the latest evidence of these difficulties being the arrest of the Canadian
Oral Questions
trailer inside our waters earlier this year by the U.S. coast guard.
In order to help prevent such incidents, the Northern Trailers Association has requested that Canada establish a navigational aid on Nunez Rock, one mile inside Canadian waters. This would clearly mark the rock to aid Canadian fishermen and mariners in an area noted for strong tides and inclement weather.
If the light beacon were to be equipped with automated devices, it would also provide badly needed weather reports for Canadian and American vessels alike. Most important, it would clearly establish Canadian sovereignty in this area to prevent a recurrence of last spring's incidents and thus ensure the freedom and safety of our Canadian fishermen.


RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Ronald J. Duhamel (St. Boniface):: Mr. Speaker, the centres of excellence announcement made by the government show shamefully how little commitment it has to research and development. We are still miles behind the leading nations of the world. We are losing our competitive edge. Government has abandoned the social sciences and the humanities in this whole process. Not one single project has been funded. The social sciences and the humanities contribute to our quality of life, to productivity, to our competitiveness. There is no vision, no in-depth knowledge of what research and development can do for the nation.

Where is your vision? Where is the financial support for social sciences and the humanities? I ask you to reconsider your decision.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Bob Kaplan (York Centre):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the ministers that we questioned in connection with the Cogger affairs all insisted that ministers of the Crown have no responsibility for the honesty, the probity or the proper functioning of their departments. They

Oral Questions
insisted that the matters we were raising were matters for the Senate.
I want to ask the Minister of Energy about the very superficial inspection which he claims to have done of records of his department. He says there is no paper record showing any involvement of Senator Cogger. I want to ask on top of that whether he has done any checking to see if the senator made any oral representations in the department. Did he check with his predecessor, the present Minister of Communications, to see if representations were made to that minister in connection with it, or did Senator Cogger's close friend, the Prime Minister, or any members of the Prime Minister's Office make representations in connection with these projects?


Hon. Jake Epp (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member by that last reference does not add anything to the legitimacy of the first part of the question. I say that to him as colleagues who have been in this House for a long period of time.
I think it has to be said and should be said to the hon. member. I have gone back to the department again. I have asked whether there was any representation of any form by Senator Cogger in terms of the department in reference to the project in question. I have been advised that the department has no record of any verbal, oral or written representation from the Senator.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, I will have to see the record, but I wonder whether the minister answered that there were no representations from the senator or on behalf of the senator by others from the Prime Minister's Office.
Let me point out that the statement made by Senator Michel Cogger yesterday is a very narrow statement in which he says:
I have in no way intervened with anyone in the Department of
Energy, Mines and Resources.
This Hydromega grant project is a very complicated project. Environment Canada and the Department of Transport were also required to approve of this project. I want to ask the main minister responsible for it if he has checked to ascertain whether those departments which provided their approval in an amazingly short period of
time when this project was under active consideration received representations and whether he has investigated the situation in relation to them.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, with reference to any representation made from anyone in the Prime Minister's Office, that has also been checked. The answer to that is an unequivocal no, as I gave with respect to any advice we received in relation to Senator Cogger.
In terms of my predecessor, he has also been asked and the same answer applies there.
With respect to this project being "very quickly approved", it is a complicated project and it was not very quickly approved. If the member goes through the guidelines of application, he will see that on July 10, 1985, the concept proposal was submitted by Hydromega. You then go from July 10, 1985 to February 1988. Yesterday the innuendo was left that money "somehow was found to fund the project". The answer is very clearly there. The project was approved at that time with moneys that were approved by Parliament for this program, effective April 1, 1988.
Additionally, if the member looks at the project he will find that there was another innuendo by the member from Glengarry-Prescott-Russell that this was a large project and all the others were much smaller. Let me read some of the projects: Carleton University-


An Hon. Member:: Table it.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: I would love to table it-Emcon Enterprises $470; Hamilton Street Railways $635; Cristy Adams $343; Newfoundland Light and Power $436. Let us stay with the facts and not the innuendoes that you are so quick to throw across the House.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: I would like to ask the Prime Minister a question about this matter, because there are several departments involved. Senator Cogger's statements have been contradicted by others. I would like to ask him whether, as he has done in the past, the Prime Minister brought the case to the attention of the RCMP.
November 2, 1989


Hon. Pierre Blais (Solicitor General of Canada and Minister of State (Agriculture)):: Mr. Speaker, as I said yesterday, this is a matter that concerns the other place. However, I have been informed that a request has been made to have the matter referred to a committee of the other place.
Furthermore, in the light of allegations made in the House and elsewhere, I can confirm to the House that this morning I was informed by the RCMP that it was now considering whether there was a case for conducting a formal investigation.


Ms. Mary Clancy (Halifax):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Solicitor General and the Minister of Justice stated that the allegations against Senator Cogger should only be investigated by the other place.
My question is for the Prime Minister. Is it seriously the position of this government today that any and all matters relating to alleged improprieties by senators only be investigated by the senate?


An Hon. Member:: He won't answer.


Pierre Blais: Mr. Speaker, it is too bad the hon. member did not listen to the answer to the previous question. I made it very clear that in the light of allegations made here in the House and elsewhere, the RCMP informed me it was now looking at all the facts to see whether there was a case for conducting a formal investigation. Again, my answer was quite clear, and it is still the same answer, Mr. Speaker.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, it is fortunate that we have the RCMP in this country so that they can press the cabinet into doing its job. I am still concerned about the way the cabinet looks at this. Thank heavens an investigation may be under way, wherever it started.
We are dealing here with allegations involving possible infractions of two Criminal Code sections. Given what the minister said yesterday, there is a lot of curiosity on this side of the House. Can the minister define for us which Criminal Code sections normally come under police authority and which ones he thinks belong only to the Senate?
Oral Questions


An Hon. Member:: That is out of order.


Pierre Blais: Mr. Speaker, it is not a minister's role to give legal opinions in this House. The RCMP is a police force that acts independently and conducts its own investigations. It is an honourable police force, and I think it should be allowed to conduct its investigation. It is not up to a minister to give the RCMP directives or legal opinions, Mr. Speaker.


Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Energy. It pertains to Section 16 of the Parliament of Canada Act. I will just read part of it so the minister will know directly what I am asking about:
No member of the Senate shall receive or agree to receive any compensation directly or indirectly for services rendered or to be rendered to any person either by the member or another person
(b) for the purpose of influencing or attempting to influence any member of either House, that is to say, including a member of Parliament.
There is a report in the press today that Senator Cogger in fact arranged a meeting that included a couple of Conservative MPs, specifically the Member of Parliament for Chateauguay, for the purpose of influencing, so the story alleges, a decision ultimately to obtain funds from the Government of Canada.
The Minister has taken care to say that the senator in question did not contact the department at any time. He will agree that if he contacted a Member of Parliament with the purpose of trying to obtain influence and obtain a fee for that, he would be in violation of the statute I just quoted, the Parliament of Canada Act.
In exercising his responsibilities, has the minister ascertained whether that story in the press today is true or false?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I have. Two points should be made. First, I understand that Senator Cogger has denied the allegations. I thought there was a tradition in this House that we do not question the word of members, and I think we should respect that.
Second, I asked the member whose name appears in the press today what the meeting and reference was about. I asked my departmental officials as well. There was no meeting relating to the department. There was no departmental official at any of the meetings referred to in the press. The meeting that took place, as it was

November 2, 1989
Oral Questions
referred to in the press, was between the principals involved and Hydromega.


John Edward Broadbent: Again the minister chose his words with care. The issue in the part of the act that I quoted is not whether the department officials were influenced. It is whether a member of Parliament was attempting to be influenced. If the senator does that, it is in clear violation of the act.
I would like to ask the minister to come clean with the House on that. Did he ask the members in question whether the subject under discussion at that meeting arranged by Senator Cogger concerned the money. That is the issue.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, I am choosing my words carefully because I want to be very accurate. I take it that the hon. member expects that of me and I expect that of him.
I asked the member in question and the description of the meeting that I referred to is accurate. It is exactly as he gave it to me.
The last point that I would make is this. So that there is no confusion or that people in the House say that I have not given the full details, members of Parliament, the questioner or anyone in this House, may make representations to a department as to when approval will be given to a project. I think we do that regularly as members of Parliament, asking for information about projects in our ridings as to the status or whether or not they will be approved.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I have certainly drawn my conclusion from what the minister said because once again he did not deal with the issue. The issue is whether-and that is what would be the violation of the act-the senator obtained a fee for having a conversation with a Member of Parliament to tiy to influence that Member of Parliament in obtaining funds or a grant for the company in question. That was the issue at stake, and for the third time the minister failed to deal with that.

My last question is directed to the Prime Minsiter of Canada. Today, the Gloge and Mail reported a member of
the Conservative Caucus as suggesting he was a participant in a conversation about a contract with the federal government, and that this conversation had been arranged by a senator. Is this process acceptable to the Prime Minister of Canada, yes or no?
[English)


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Again, Mr. Speaker, the senator has denied that allegation. I referred to that denial earlier.
In my conversation with the Member of Parliament I received every denial that he was not involved in any of the allegations that are made, and Mr. Cogger has very categorically denied the allegations.


Mr. Ron MacDonald (Dartmouth):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. It concerns the subject of double standards in the handling of this latest chapter of ongoing Tory cronyism, the Michel Cogger affair.
On January 20, 1987, in response to allegations of wrongdoing against then senator designate Jean Bazin, the Prime Minister said, and I quote from page 2449 of Hansard:
- the same facts were brought to my attention and I immediately asked for a police investigation. And no one will receive special treatment in this respect: neither you nor I nor Mr. Bazin- The only way to see justice done is to ask the RCMP to conduct a complete and independent investigation.
My question is this. How long has the Prime Minister and this government been aware of possible wrongdoing in this particular case? Will he now tell the House that he will order a full RCMP investigation into these allegations?


Pierre Blais: Mr. Speaker, I believe this question was already raised a few minutes ago. In the circumstances, in the light of the allegations that have been made, I can only repeat that the RCMP informed us this morning that it was checking all the facts to see whether there was a case for investigating the matter further. I think this is entirely normal in the circumstances, and it is not up to the Solicitor General or any other minister to interfere with the RCMP's work. We must let the RCMP do its job.


Ronald MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is for the Prime Minister.
Yesterday, the Solicitor General told us repeatedly that this was a matter for investigation and consideration by the other place. Since the Government Leader of the other place is a member of this cabinet, what instructions has Senator Murray been given on how to proceed with this matter in the other place? Where did these instructions originate-with the Solicitor General, with the Minister of Justice, or with Senator Cogger's close personal friend, the Prime Minister?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I do not know why the display of emotion.


Mr. Fontana:: We are happy to see you.


Martin Brian Mulroney: My hon. friend says he is happy to see me. I am happy to see you.
With regard to the question, my understanding is that the senator has denied the allegations that have been brought forward.
Second, he has asked for the Senate to constitute an appropriate investigation of his activities. I am informed by the Leader of the Government in the Senate that that will be acceded to.


Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also for the Prime Minister. It concerns the operations of the Federal Business Development Bank.
In addition to issues raised earlier in the House today by my colleagues, there is now a report that Senator Michel Cogger, whose firm acts as counsel to the Federal Business Development Bank, lobbied the Federal Business Development Bank for a grant to the University of Sherbrooke, which has as a member of its board of directors none other than Senator Michel Cogger. The purpose of this grant was to purchase courses from Pleuricanaux Ltee., a firm half-owned by none other than Senator Cogger.
Given this series of incestuous relationships, will the Prime Minister now do the right thing and call for a full judicial commission of inquiry now?
Oral Questions


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion and Minister of State for Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, in July, 1987, the Federal Business Development Bank entered into an agreement with the University of Sherbrooke to develop a home study course which included audio-visual support. This was a new project as the bank was not then involved in the home study format.
The loan of $100,000 was made to the University of Sherbrooke from the Federal Business Development Bank. Part of the payment back from the University of Sherbrooke to the bank was by way of royalties. The Federal Business Development Bank received $120,000 in royalties, so that more than paid it off.
Pleuricanaux had previously successfully marketed a home study business management course for Tele-University and Pleuricanaux did this on behalf of the University of Sherbrooke. It was a successful effort all the way around.


Don Boudria: Well, it sure was successful if your name was Michel Cogger. I want to ask a supplementary of the minister.

Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is directed to the Prime Minister and concerns another issue, Hydromega.
Yesterday, the Hon. Member for Chateauguay admitted outside the House, to the media, that he himself had been lobbied by Senator Cogger. Considering the fact that shortly afterwards, the senator allegedly received $2,500 from the same company, my question to the Deputy Prime Minister is this: Isn't it time we ensured that section 16 of the Parliament of Canada Act is observed? Section 16 prohibits a member of the Senate from lobbying a member of the House of Commons for a fee.


Pierre Blais: Mr. Speaker, the law applies to everyone, and that is why this morning, the RCMP informed us it was looking at all the allegations made here in the House and elsewhere, to find out whether there was a case for pursuing the matter further.
It is not up to a minister of this Government to interpret the law or legal precedents in this case. It is up to the RCMP as an honourable police force to look at all the facts and make its decisions accordingly, Mr. Speaker.

November 2, 1989
Oral Questions


Mr. John Brewin (Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Solicitor General. One of the central issues before the House now is how the Solicitor General has carried out his responsibilities in this matter.
The Solicitor General has indicated, in his words, that he was informed by the RCMP 24 hours after this matter has been raised in the House. My question to the Solicitor General is: Did he take initiative and raise this with the RCMP? Or did he wait until the RCMP had launched its investigation before he informed this House of its actions?


Pierre Blais: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member's question concerns the RCMP. What is important in this country, Mr. Speaker, is to let this honourable police force do its job, without political interference.
Mr. Speaker, the RCMP has in fact informed me that it was reviewing all the facts in this connection. And I think that the freedom we enjoy in this country also means having a police force that operates without government interference.


John F. Brewin: Mr. Speaker, it is very clear from the answer that the minister did not, in fact, ask the RCMP to do its duty in this respect.
Given the onerous other duties that the minister has been given by the Prime Minister in this case, perhaps it is not surprising he is not aware of his duty under Section 5 of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act. That act makes it very clear that the Commissioner of the RCMP is under the direction of the minister, and the minister is responsible to this House for its actions. Given that the minister with a great deal of fanfare last week declared this Crime Prevention Week, is this his idea of crime prevention?


Pierre Blais: Mr. Speaker, I was very clear in my previous answers. I informed the House that the RCMP had exercised its right to engage in an investigation and to look at the facts as it sees fit, whether or not at the request of the Solicitor General.
In the circumstances, I felt it was of the essence to announce, at the earliest opportunity, which was this afternoon, that the RCMP informed me this morning it had already started looking at all the facts, all the allegations made here in the House and elsewhere, to find out whether there was a case for pursuing the matter further. I think this is entirely normal in the circumstances, Mr. Speaker, and that this complies with the spirit and intent of the legislation.


Mr. Brian Tobin (Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Energy who is being very careful in his choice of words today.
The Parliament of Canada Act prohibits a senator or MP from taking money for lobbying another senator or MP. The Minister of Energy today said: "Yes, but Senator Cogger did not lobby anybody in my department. I have checked. That has been confirmed".
Given that the Member for Chateauguay has told several reporters outside the House that that member and the then Member for LaSalle together attended a meeting with Hydromega officials, organized and at the request of Senator Cogger, and given that we know that Senator Cogger was paid $2,500 for lobbying those members to attend those meetings-that is the allegation-my question for the Minister of Energy is the following: Will he check the records, or has he checked the records, and can he tell us whether the member for Chateauguay met officials of his department? If the member for Chateauguay and the then Member for LaSalle met officials of his department, were they lobbying on behalf of Hydromega? In other words, were they fulfilling the request of Senator Cogger who has violated the Parliament of Canada Act?


Mr. Speaker:: I have tried not to interrupt because, as I have said before-and I want not only members to hear this, I want the public to hear it-in this place there is not only a right to inquire on matters such as this, there is a duty. It is very important that allegations and accusations are not made unless there is a very serious basis for them. The Question Period in preambles is not the place to do it. I would ask the hon. member to be very careful. I think that the hon. minister is prepared to answer. But, clearly, that preamble goes a little too far.
November 2, 1989

Jake Epp (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):
Mr. Speaker, on the first point in respect to Senator Cogger, I repeat that he has denied the allegations. It has been said in this House today that he has asked for an appropriate committee of the other place to investigate the allegations that have been made.
I refer the hon. member to an earlier argument along very similar lines which was made in this House on May 12, 1983. The then Prime Minister, Mr. Trudeau, said this, and I quote: "I do know that the Senate and House of Commons Act"-which it was then called-"speaks for itself. The qualifications of a senator are clearly defined".
As to the latter part of the question, will the government be taking any initiatives, I believe it is for the Senate to determine any question relating to the status of its own members.
On the last point, yes, I have checked in the department, and I answered the Hon. Leader of the New Democratic Party as to whether there was any representation made by any member of the House of Commons, said to the House at the time, and I repeat it, the member called the department and asked when the funding would be approved. I say to the hon. member that he has done that in various projects for his own riding. I have done it. If there is any member in this House who has not done it, he or she is not fulfilling the responsibility and duty which that member was were elected to do.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, I certainly acknowledge the Speaker's advice and caution. The issue is not whether the member for Chateauguay, or the then member for LaSalle, or the Minister of Energy, or the member for Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte called a department in support of a community project. That is not the issue. I have no objection to the member for Chateauguay making 10 calls on behalf of a project for his constituents. What I have an objection to is if that call is made as a consequence of a request by another member of Parliament-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Brian Vincent Tobin: -a Senator or MP-if that occurred and if that individual was paid for putting that influence on a member.
Oral Questions
So that it is perfectly clear, I want to ask the Minister of Energy whether or not he is prepared to inform the House now, if he has the information. And if he does not, at the first opportunity, precisely when-because it is public information as the minister just said-the member for Chateauguay and the then member for LaSalle made representations to the Department of Energy? Was it one day, one hour, two days or two hours after they attended that meeting with Hydromega officials, which in the words of the member for Chateauguay, was arranged by Senator Cogger?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member confirms what I said, namely, that the member had every right and every responsibility to check on the status of projects in his riding, particularly this one relating to Hydromega.
With respect to the allegation that the hon. member just hurled across the floor again, namely, that the hon. member if and when he called the department, therefore by extension he naturally is acting relative to the allegations is something that is not sustainable and I suggest to the hon. member that the hon. member called as a member of Parliament. He should not make the allegation that he called only because of the statements related to the press.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. John Nunziata (York South-Weston):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General. It is on the same subject. There is a basic principle of law in Canada. It is that justice must not only be done but it must appear to be done.
In this particular case the perception is that Senator Cogger is being protected, that there is a double standard, one standard for the average Canadian and another standard for a friend of the Prime Minister.
I would like to ask the Solicitor General to carry out his responsibility and to direct the RCMP in an unequivocal fashion to conduct a full and complete investigation into all the allegations and, furthermore, to table that complete report in the House of Commons.


Pierre Blais: Mr. Speaker, if my hon. friend believes in the basic principles of justice, under such principles we are not here before a court of law, and

November 2, 1989
Oral Questions
people should not be convicted before there is a full investigation.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Pierre Blais: Those are basic principles of Canadian justice and British justice.
Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, the RCMP informed me that, in the light of the allegations inside and outside this House that were brought to its attention, it was reviewing the matter to see whether further investigation was warranted. I believe this is quite normal and proper for the RCMP, and it would be improper for me to interfere in the process by telling it what it should or should not do. I believe that in the interest of the basic principle of justice, I should let the RCMP do its job.


John V. Nunziata: Mr. Speaker, what the Solicitor General is saying is that the RCMP is investigating in order to determine whether a full investigation is necessary. Of course a full investigation is necessary. If it were Joe Blow from Kokomo you would have a full investigation into these allegations.
The RCMP is looking into criminal activity. The Senate will be looking into the personal conduct of Senator Cogger. My question for the Prime Minister is this: Who will be looking into and investigating the conduct of his ministers and members of Parliament?
Would he not consider it appropriate in the circumstances to conduct a full investigation of conduct on the part of members of Parliament falling short of criminal activity?


Pierre Blais: Mr. Speaker, I think it is important again to stress that every Canadian citizen has a duty to respect the RCMP's integrity. If the hon. member has any factual information, not mere allegations, he has a responsibility as has every other Member of Parliament to go to the RCMP, state his information, and let the RCMP proceed with its investigation. That is the proper way under the basic principles of justice in Canada, Mr. Speaker.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I would like to return to the Minister of Energy. His responses have been very carefully crafted. I want to seek some clarification from him.
In the minister's discussions with the hon. member for Chateauguay, did he identify whether the member of Parliament was doing, as others do, that is, lobby to encourage a particular financial support for a firm which is considering locating or expanding in his own constituency? The question is, did he determine from the member that Senator Cogger had lobbied that member to encourage the member to lobby on behalf of the firm from which he had indirectly received fees?


Mr. Speaker:: The question may be a very interesting one, but it is getting dangerously into the ground, and I think it may well be in the ground, where if this line of questioning is pursued and was answered the hon. member in question would probably have a right to at least raise a question of privilege in this House. It puts me in some considerable difficulty.
Perhaps I could help the hon. member for Kamloops. The implication of the question seems to me that the minister is to make some comment about what the member did or did not do and that, it seems to me, is getting dangerously into the question of the privilege of a private member.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Energy indicated that he had had conversations with the hon. member. I am simply asking if, in those conversations, he asked the hon. member whether he had been encouraged by Senator Cogger to do this lobbying?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member said earlier that I was choosing my words carefully. I am. I am choosing my words carefully not because I am trying to hide anything, but because I have always thought that in this House we were veiy conscious of the rights of individuals and that we did not try to throw out allegations which the person did not have a chance or a right to defend himself or herself against. That is the way I thought this place functioned.
Second, I spoke to the hon. member, as I have said in the House today and I have asked my department as well. In everything that I have been advised about there has been no indication of any type that any moneys were
November 2, 1989

exchanged, that the project was not approved in a legitimate and approved manner, or that the hon. member received any benefit. That is the only issue to which I can refer member about the references that were in the public press today.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question.
It seems to me that the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources is agreeing that it would appear now that Senator Cogger did lobby the hon. member for Chateau-guay to lobby on behalf of the firm-


Some Hon. Members:: Order!


Mr. Speaker:: Given what I have said, and concerning myself particularly with respect to that question regarding the privilege of a member of this place, I am going to rule that question out at this time.


MEECH LAKE ACCORD
Mr. Lee Richardson (Calgary Southeast):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. In light of last night's three statements by party leaders on the Meech Lake Accord, does the Prime Minister expect further developments before next week's First Ministers' Conference in Ottawa?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the Opposition expresses surprise when a question that goes to the heart of the well-being of the nation is raised.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: It is 2.57 p.m., and this is the most important question that has been raised here today. I commend the member for raising it.
I want to commend the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the NDP for what I thought, if I may say so, were excellent speeches last evening defending the Meech Lake Accord, which is so important.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: If I may say so, mine was pretty good too.
Oral Questions


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: I have had conversations and meetings with premiers. We hope to have a productive conference next week when the first ministers arrive. It is a conference on the economy. But there will be, as often is the case, constitutional matters discussed. We hope to work our way through some of the obstacles that presently exist.
My hon. friend asked if there was anything new. One thing that is new is a statement that appeared in this morning's Le Devoir by Mr. Chretien, which states:

Still in favour of granting Quebec a right of veto on constitutional amendments, as proposed by the former Trudeau Government, he sees no reason why this should be extended to every province.
He said, and I quote:
I am not convinced that Prince Edward Island should be granted a right of veto.
There,

That is a very important statement by Mr. Chretien, Mr. Speaker. He proposes, it would appear, to erect a two-tier kind of country where Quebec gets a veto, but Newfoundland does not; where Ontario gets a veto, but Manitoba does not. This is unacceptable. This is what the Meech Lake Accord was designed to correct.


ARTS AND CULTURE
Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Mr. Speaker, like most nations' capital cities around the world which take pride and showcase their national cultural treasures, so too do we here in Ottawa through our museums of Civilization, Natural Science, Science and Technology, as well as the National Gallery and the National Arts Centre.
The Minister of Communications is accountable for, through this House, and in the name of Canadians, the well-being of these national treasures. Will the minister state here and now that he will respect the national mandate and ensure the survival of the National Arts Centre for all Canadians as a national showcase for dance.

November 2, 1989
Speaker's ruling


Hon. Marcel Masse (Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, the mandate of the National Arts Centre is well known. The budget was discussed in a parliamentary committee. I am quite aware that there is a labour conflict there, as there has been in many other places, and that labour conflict must be settled between the orchestra and the directors of the National Arts Centre.


Mrs. Beryl Gaffney (Nepean):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the same minister. We have a National Arts Centre that is starved financially and the response from the minister implies that its problems are not solely financial.
Rumours are rife that the minister is prepared to allow the National Arts Centre to become a regional rather than a national centre. The orchestra is at risk. Newspapers across this country have stated that the orchestra's demise would be a capital offence.
Will the minister move swiftly to bring the NAC from its knees to its feet and assure Canadians that this government is committed to the National Arts Centre as its national cultural institution?


Marcel Masse: Mr. Speaker, I do not think that the House of Commons is the place to comment on the rumours going around Ottawa.


POINT OF ORDER
Mr. Speaker:: Before I call orders of the day, I have an important point of order to respond to raised by the hon. member for New Westminster-Burnaby on October 20 and again on October 26.
The member questioned the inclusion on the Notice Paper of two items which she argued appeared to be substantially the same as two other private members' bills now on the Order Paper, namely Bill C-261, standing in the name of the hon. member for York South-Weston, and Bill C-266, standing in the name of the hon. member for Lamb ton-Middlesex. These two
bills were introduced and read a first time on September 27, 1989 and October 10, 1989 respectively.

The first of these is a bill introduced by the member for Scarborough-West (Mr. Wappel) on October 20. It is an Act to Amend the Criminal Code (Human Being). The second was introduced last Thursday, October 26, by the member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria); it is an Act to Amend the Criminal Code (Destruction of Foetus).

Standing Order 86(5) states:
The Speaker shall be responsible for determining whether two or more items are so similar as to be substantially the same, in which case he or she shall so inform the Member or Members whose items were received last and the same shall be returned to the Member or Members without having appeared on the Notice Paper.
The hon. member is invoking this standing order to ask the Chair to use its discretionary power to keep these items from appearing on the Notice Paper.
When I say "to keep these items from appearing on the Notice Paper", I should point out that the hon. member has put the application forward on a perfectly logical and proper procedural motion and that is, of course, the only basis upon which I can respond. I want members and the public to know that the hon. member for New Westminster-Burnaby is raising a procedural point and she certainly has every right to raise it and to have it argued.
I have carefully considered the argument presented by the hon. member and have reviewed the items in question with equal care. I should say that in the view of the Chair, two or more items are substantially the same if, first, they have the same purpose and, second, they obtain their purpose by the same means.
Accordingly, there could be several bills addressing the same subject, but if they took a different approach to the issue the Chair would judge them to be sufficiently different so as not to be substantially the same.
In my view, that is exactly the case we have here.
It is clear that the two bills which have already been given first reading, and the other two bills introduced and now awaiting first reading treat the same subject matter. Hon. members will know, and the public should know, that the subject matter is the question of the unborn child and what the law ought to be with respect to that. On these grounds, they meet the first criteria for being substantially the same. However, on examination
November 2, 1989

of their contents, the Chair has concluded that there are sufficient differences as to how they sought to accomplish their purpose so that they could not be judged to be substantially the same.
This approach accords with the practice both before and after the introduction of this standing order in 1986. The intent of the new rule was to give members an opportunity to put before the House items of concern to them, but to prevent a multiplicity of identical bills being submitted in the draw for Private Members' Business. However, Standing Order 86(3) provides that any member prevented from submitting a bill because of a decision of the Chair can add his or her name as seconder to a bill already on notice on the Order Paper.
In the present case, the Chair has carefully examined the bills in question and finds that there are sufficient differences in their content to allow them to proceed. I would, therefore, allow the hon. member for Scarborough West and the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell to move first reading of their respective bills.
I thank the hon. member for New Westminster-Burnaby for giving me the opportunity to clarify the position of the Chair with regard to Standing Order 86. Again, I stress that the point raised by the hon. member was a procedural one and one to which she was completely entitled to argue. I also want to say to the hon. member that because of the nature of the bills, the Chair most carefully examined the references to various sections of the Criminal Code, and I do want to say to her that those various references did help to persuade the Chair that the bill should go forward. I assure the hon. member that very considerable attention was given to the legitimate point of procedure which she has raised.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, this being Thursday, I would like to ask the government
Government Orders
House leader to give us a statement of the business that the government intends to call for the coming week.


Hon. Doug Lewis (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we are going to call first reading of Bill C-40, the broadcasting bill, followed up with Bill C-16, space agency bill, on Monday we will call the second day of the third reading debate on Bill C-21, on Tuesday there is a very good chance we will commence debate on the abortion bill.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mrs. McDougall that Bill C-21, an Act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act and the Employment and Immigration Department and Commission Act, be read the third time and passed.
Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: Mr. Speaker, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak on this very important bill.
As many members of this House might have noticed, today we had a demonstration from members of an organization of Canadians who are highly trained, who have had training, and could have well-paying jobs. They are protesting the thrust of this bill, not only for themselves as beneficiaries, as people who will lose a lot because of this bill, but also for all the other Canadians who do not have the opportunity or cannot come to Ottawa to protest strongly against this Government's bill.
With them, I join the protests of other groups like Action Chomage, like the one in Montreal which at the same time as we are debating is holding a press ocnfer-ence in Montreal to protest the actions of the Department and the Government. What we see here, Mr. Speaker, is confusion between the policies of the Department, that is, the bureaucracy and officials, and the

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Government Orders
actions and statements of the Minister. The two are not working together in a way that all Canadians find valid and can accept. We have to know who is in charge, who is calling the shots for all these departmental projects, the officials or the Minister?
In a press clipping dates September 3, we see the Deputy Minister of Employment state the philosophy underlying this bill, and I will quote him in English since I do not have the French translation:

"The assumption which is rather fundamental for this bill that nobody's behaviour would be changed if you changed UI, whereas we assumed that if you make it necessary for someone to work 14 weeks instead of 12, people will make the extra effort and will work the extra two weeks in many cases where they have the opportunity".
I do not know where they are going to find these jobs. If the deputy minister says that by simply mandating that everyone must look for another job that they will find it, the only reaction we can ask on this side of the House is, who is running the show? Is it the department, or is it the minister who condones this kind of rationale, or does the minister herself believe this? I do not know how she can believe it, because when we take a look at the government's own statistics we can see the average duration of unemployment. The average duration of unemployment, after six years of unprecedented growth in this country, and we are going to accept the government rhetoric in this regard, nationally is 18.7 weeks; prior to these periods of unprecedented growth prior to the recession, the average period of unemployment was only 17.2 weeks so we are not making much progress.
The employment and growth rates in this country after six years of so-called unprecedented growth nationally are only 7.8 per cent. I caution all members that when we are talking about 7.8 per cent, we are speaking about a ratio that is considerably lower than the pre-recession period. At the lowest in that period it was 7.5 per cent. Nothing in this government's strategy indicates that we are actually making any progress in that regard.
I have to ask myself again, what is it that drives this department and this minister? If we look at whether we are creating a new labour force for some purpose and reason, how do we go about it? Do we go about it by decimating the people and workers of various regions and sectors of our country, those who are less advantaged than others, especially when, in terms of labour market programs, Canada ranks well below the other
OECD nations? In fact, in employment promotion, were it not for countries like Japan and the United States, Canada would be at the very bottom in terms of investment in employment promotion. It ranks somewhere near the middle in terms of income maintenance, but that is going to change after this particular proposal.
For example, the growth of labour in Canada between 1977 and 1981 always exceeded 2.9 per cent. In the last four years, after unprecedented growth, we are one percentage point below the level that we had prior to the recession.
I do not know if we are going to think seriously that because we are going to implement Bill C-21, which is going to ravage an income-maintenance system, that we are going to satisfy the needs of the deputy minister of this department. The deputy minister says, I guess on behalf of the minister, "if we force people to look for a job for an additional two to six weeks they will find it because they can always move to Toronto. Look at all the shops that say 'help wanted'", at less than $5.50 an hour. "Let them take that." After all, minimum wage is going to be more than the average amount that one derives from unemployment insurance benefits if one qualifies. They are going to get help to move. There is a $15 million fund. Everybody is going to move from from the maritimes, northern Ontario, the prairies, northern B.C., and the Northwest Territories, to where all those jobs exist Burlington and southern Ontario.
The growth of employment in addition to the growth of labour is still well below the rates that were verified in Canada prior to the recession. This government's record is not all that good after six years of unprecedented growth. For example, from 1984 to 1987 there was an average of 2.6 per cent in growth of employment, whereas the average in the 1977 to 1981 period was well in excess of 3.5 per cent. Those are not my statistics. These are statistics that the government accepts. They are StatsCanada figures. I got them at the same place that the government gets its statistics.
When we take a look at where we are going, we can no longer think in terms of success in the works as the government says it program is, in terms of whether we will actually get people to work, because we have not been able to do that in sufficient numbers and with sufficient quality. I stress the word quality because what we need to do if we are going to enhance the productivity and the growth of this nation is to develop a program where people can earn more, progress, and provide long-term advantage for their entire families, where they can look beyond the needs of today and the
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exigencies of the moment. In fact, they can engage in some long-term planning.
How can the government propose this bill in the absence of a comprehensive industrial economic strategy and immigration policy? Over the course of the last couple of decades, we have developed a cheap labour pool that has been a disincentive for technological innovation, and yet in this country where immigration continues to serve the interests of this cheap labour pool, what have we done? We have cast aside the potential for growth represented by a sound and progressive immigration policy. We have put a tariff of $150,000 for those who have a few dollars to spare and will invest in Canada. We will give them landed immigrant status regardless of their location of origin, their race, their creed, whatever, as along as they come up with $150,000. We do not take advantage of the talents, the energies, the dynamics and the risk-taking characteristics that many of these new Canadians could bring to us.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for Kootenay West-Revelstoke.


Lyle Stuart Kristiansen: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I regret to interrupt my hon. friend, but I believe that the House lacks a quorum.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: We now have a quorum. The member for Eglinton-Lawrence.


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: Mr. Speaker, in that moment of reprieve as we were taking a count of the members, I know there were many more than other colleagues could see because they were more and more attentive.


William James Kempling: Your speech was so boring that they couldn't stand it.


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: What was happening, Mr. Speaker, more than anything else, is that some of them are catching up on the rest that they have been losing at night as they have been thinking about what is going to happen to their jobs. Tory times, as one of my colleagues said, are hard times indeed. They stay awake at night thinking about what they are going to do the day after this bill is presented.
So, Mr. Parliamentary Secretary, let's start thinking about making proposals that are comprehensive in nature so that this government can at least show some initiatives and leadership, the kind of leadership that has been lacking so far.


William James Kempling: Say something with substance.


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: You wouldn't understand it if I gave it to you all in one lump sum, Mr. Parliamentary Secretary. We have been giving you more substance than you can handle and you say pooh-pooh, we do not believe this. We have given you statistics from all kinds of organizations and research groups. I have read some into the record. I see the parliamentary secretary giving a shrug of the shoulders and saying: "Well, they are not our statistics. I do not believe them."
I am going to read some of the statistics from his own impact studies and perhaps maybe he will be able to understand that there is a different interpretation to some of those figures and those interpretations give a better picture of Canada than the one that he and his minister would like us to have believe.

Mr. Speaker, many people from other countries bring energy, talent, dynamism and entrepreneurial spirit to Canada. We have someone who is both Minister of Employment and Minister of Immigration making decisions in a vacuum.

The government should be looking for ways to capitalize on the creative talent of all Canadians. Many who come from overseas have energy, talent, education and commercial expertise that goes untapped. A solid labour development strategy should seek to exploit this source of talent through a progressive immigration policy.

If the government is not going to pay attention to the comprehensive nature of its decision, can we be at all surprised that when it proposes these restrictions on qualifications, when it proposes enormous reductions in benefits that we will suffer throughout Canada?

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I want to draw to the attention of the parliamentary secretary because he asks for something substantive. I am going to give him some of the statistics that they gave us from an impact study that they passed out surreptitiously without much notice three months after we asked for it in this House, impact studies of this Bill C-21. Even though they tried to hide some figures they did admit finally two months after they had said that only
300,000	people would be affected negatively throughout the country according to their impact studies based on StatsCan figures, we are looking at better than 770,000 Canadian who will be impacted negatively as a result of this proposed legislation.
I am not talking about figures that I derived from StatsCanada. I am not talking about figures that the minister says come from the CLC and other labour organizations and therefore they must, department's own statistics. The department's own statistics show that, in terms of the percentages of claimants who will suffer reductions to unemployment insurance in the province of Newfoundland 41 per cent will suffer reductions. These are the government's figures.
In P.E.I., 46 per cent of all claimants will suffer reductions. In Nova Scotia, 31.5 per cent of all claimants will suffer reductions. In New Brunswick, 40 per cent of all claimants will suffer reductions. In Manitoba, 49 per cent of all claimants will suffer reductions. Surely, this is a vindictive rather than a constructive approach to labour development. I say vindictive because those same figures reflect just a little bit more heavily on the general population. When we take a look at the percentage that claimants will suffer as a result of a new benefit schedule and new entrance requirements we see 36 per cent in Newfoundland, 39.3 per cent in P.E.I., 33 per cent in New Brunswick, 33.1 per cent in Manitoba. Those people as claimants are a percentage of the total population. We are not talking about people in a vacuum. That will give an indication to all hon. members just how significant the unemployment insurance program is as an income maintenance program and as a program to address the regional disparities of this country.
In Newfoundland those who claim benefits from unemployment insurance, a program into which they have made their proper payments, represent 19.67 per cent of the entire population. That is one in five man,
woman and child is going to have a negative impact as a result of the application Bill C-21.
When one considers that the average is better than $1,200 per claimant, I ask members to think in terms of the impact, in a macro sense, as I said earlier, not in a micro sense. What happens when one out of every five residents of Newfoundland suffers an average of better than $1,200 in annual income reduction? What does that do to the disposable income of the residents of such a province? What does that do to their purchasing power? What does it do to their ability to purchase more in the market-place and to stimulate more growth? I think the answer is obvious.
It would be okay if it was only an isolated case in Newfoundland. But in Prince Edward Island, 17.43 per cent of every man, woman and child will suffer reductions. In Nova Scotia, just a little bit better, 11.25 per cent; in New Brunswick, 14.82 per cent; in Quebec, 10.5 per cent of the population will feel the pinch of this particular bill.
What is really sad about this is that the government in the committee hearings and in this House, in the press, and in the media, has refused to engage members on this side of the House in debate. It has been saying out loud that we have to clean up the act of all those claimants. I said earlier in this debate, that if the government wants to punish those who abuse, punish them. If it wants to be severe with them, be severe. But do not ruin the system, tear apart the structure and punish every single man, woman and child in this country because of a few abusers. We do not know whether those abusers are individuals or corporations.
In terms of justification, let me given an indication since I read some figures about eastern Canada and the maritimes being the repositories of this Tory government's vengeance. Let us see the reaction in terms of statistics. Remember they come from the government's impact studies. Only 5.3 per cent of all claimants of the unemployment insurance system from Newfoundland actually did so because they quit their job without just cause. That tells me that residents of Newfoundland will accept a job if there is one available. They do not go some place else willy-nilly. In P.E.I. it is only 6.7 per cent of all claimants.
We are talking about an over-all global picture of better than $1 million per annum. We can check the exact figures in a moment for the sake of the parliamentary secretary. But in P.E.I. as a percentage it is only 6.7 per cent. By contrast, in wealthy Ontario, the great
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golden horseshoe of southern Ontario around the great metropolis of Toronto, from which I come, 13.2 per cent actually quite their job without just cause. That tells us there is not much of a correlation between the government's decision to justify its cutbacks on the basis of a just cause theory.
In Saskatchewan, only 11.5 per cent quit their jobs without just cause. In wealthy B.C. it was 12.4 per cent. So, the poorer provinces find that their citizens work assiduously at whatever job is available.
Does Bill C-21 give them an opportunity to develop new jobs? The minister says that we are to develop new skills so that these people will be able to work and work productively. I say great. Where are these new skills to be applied? What is the economic strategy, the industrial policy, in which all these new skills will function and produce the kinds of benefits that the minister says will be there?
The minister cannot answer that question because she has not yet consulted with all those groups that appeared before the committee in order to give the committee an indication of what should be done. Even if we do give them some skills development, where will we apply them?
I say "even if" because quite frankly most of us in the committee began to look askance and with some scepticism that the minister and the department were intent on a new training system.
The minister is listening very carefully. In job development in 1988 the government actually reduced its input of moneys spent by 8 per cent. If we are to look for sincerity and direction in this particular bill, we have to take a look at its track record. In job entry programs there is a negative input of 1.7 per cent. The government said that we must train our people for the skills that are to come on line. I agreed with the government.
What did the government do? It cut back funds by 3.6 per cent.
What about skills investment? We need a futuristic attitude. We must look down the road. We must see where we can apply our talents and energies, our future. My leader said the other night, in paraphrasing Robert
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Kennedy: "Give me your best for tomorrow; give me your best intellectual capacities and your best energies upon which we will build a new nation".
In skills investment the minister and her department last year diminished the amount by 7.05 per cent. The minister has been justifying many of these actions by saying the government will put in lots of money so that the communities at the local level can tell us what they need. Members of Parliament being from those local areas and being in constant touch with their electorate cannot tell it.
In Community Futures the government reduced its input by 2.5 per cent. In innovations there was a 20 per cent reduction. One must look with scepticism at all these projections that the minister says are on line because when we take a look at the final outcome there is a question of the constitutionality of this particular bill.
One presenter from the greater Toronto area pointed out that what was happening was that the government was asking for an increase of funds available for training of up to 15 per cent of the total UI budget to be applied to training. That is clearly beyond the parliamentary mandate of this government because the UI system is an income maintenance system, not a training system. Yet the government is going to take 15 per cent.
According to the 1989 Estimates-I am going to use the most conservative estimate of 15 per cent of well over $10 billion excluding government contributions- that comes to approximately $1.5 billion available for training. Coincidentally, in Canadian Jobs Strategy the over-all amount of moneys available is $1.46 billion.
If we take a look at the track record of the government over the course of the last four years where there has been a reduction of $770 million toward training, we can expect that the government will take moneys from premiums.
The minister said when she made her Freudian slip earlier on in the day: "We are going to tax the employed and employers in order to provide training for those who qualify". Quite frankly, we will see government input in the CJS program diminish by the same amount of money that is to be transferred from premium payments, payments that no longer reflect any government input. In

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fact there will be an additional tax, especially upon those who have the low-skilled jobs.
When one takes a look at those kinds of actions, it is little wonder that the minister has pushed this bill through the House with closure at virtually every single stage. After only four hours of debate on second reading we were slapped with a closure motion. Our committee was constrained by time to present a report by October 10 and in fact in its clause by clause consideration was only able to get through 19 clauses. We had to vote on all the remaining clauses in a half hour.
The bill has not been given the appropriate consideration, perhaps rightly so, because if people could study this item by item to have an indication of just how serious and how negative this is for Canadians, there would be a revolution outside the very halls of this Chamber.
I am dismayed that we have now been set to time allocation and will not be able to address the evils of this bill much beyond Monday evening.
What I would like to do is give other opportunities to my colleagues to address some of the nefarious components of this particular bill, components that can draw attention to clause 19, for example, which is a permissive clause.
It gives the department the opportunities, the rights and the powers to draw up programs and to determine who shall qualify for the training programs, who is likely to profit in the estimation of the employment counsellor from those employment programs, and who in fact can implement that profit to personal satisfaction down the road. That would be fine.
I would almost accept that, except the clause also has a subparagraph that denies claimants the right to appeal the decisions of those employment counsellors. These employment counsellors do not have the greatest of preparation to make life decisions for those who find themselves without work and would seek to take advantage of an opportunity to improve their status as workers, as skilled tradesmen, and as productive Canadians.
Because of that, Mr. Speaker, I want to present a motion of my own. I move:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the
word "That" and the following substituted therefor:
Bill C-21, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act and the Employment and Immigration Department and Commission Act, be not now read a third time but that it be read a third time this day six months hence.


Ron Fisher: Mr. Speaker, it is with no degree of joy that I rise today on the second last day of debate on Bill C-21, other than to be able to speak against it. There is no joy in the bill itself. This is one of the most devastating pieces of legislation which will ever pass through this House.
The official title of it is "an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act and the Employment and Immigration Department and Commission Act". I would suggest that a far better name for it would be a bill to re-enact slavery in Canada. Within the next 20 minutes I hope to be able to demonstrate why I think that is the case.
First, I would like to look at the record of this government. This government introduced this legislation in the most glowing of terms. If we were to believe what it says, and I am about to show that it certainly cannot be believed, this bill would be so beneficial to Canada that we would not have to worry in the 21st century about Canada's competitive situation in the world.
The government has introduced this measure as the coming mode of the 21st century. All I can say is: if this is what is in store for Canada in general and for Canadian workers specifically in the 21st century, I shudder to think of the dawning of the 21st century in Canada. The 20th century was supposed to belong to Canada. I suspect that that did not quite materialize. If the implication is that the 21st century is going to belong to Canada, I assure you that it will be no more successful because this government cannot be believed. In everything it has undertaken since it was elected it has demonstrated incompetence. It has demonstrated that it is not a government which can be believed.
Deregulation was introduced in the same glowing terms as Bill C-21. If we just talk about the airline industry alone we find not that there is more competition in the airline industry in Canada, not that there is better service to the communities of this great nation of ours, not that the transportation by air is cheaper. We find just the opposite. Communities are being less well served
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than they were. The cost of air travel has increased and the competition is almost non-existent.
That great airline, Air Canada, one of the great symbols of this nation, is another example of what this government is up to. It seems to be destroying the icons, the symbols of this nation. It has certainly done that with Air Canada. It has demonstrated that it cannot be trusted.
Free trade was introduced in the same manner. We were told that this was going to open markets for us and increase jobs. Canadian workers, of which I was one, were threatened in the last election that unless we voted in favour Canada would go down the tubes because we would not be able to be competitive.
The government said that it would take care of any Canadian workers who were displaced because of free trade. Once the bill passed this House, a day that will live in infamy in this country, in my memory certainly, what did we have? A special committee, set up to come forth with ideas to protect the Canadian workers, stated that it would not be that easy to keep track of who is displaced because of free trade, but that there were wonderful schemes in place anyway to take care of those people so it would not really be necessary. They emphasized that you cannot keep track of it.
Within the last couple of weeks there was a report stating that it was possible to keep track of the jobs displaced and what free trade was doing. We have reports from Canadian Tire that it was to boost its spending from $94 million to $160 million. The government claims from its own report, according to a newspaper item, that Domtar was increasing its facilities and going to create 130 jobs and that George Weston was spending $47 million with the implication that it was going to create untold numbers of jobs. The list goes on and on. Boeing of Canada was to spend $274 million according to this report of the government as a result of a study which said it could not be done. The claim was that free trade was good and this was the proof, in spite of the fact that it said it was not possible calculate. It has all these jobs listed to show that free trade was indeed good.
I suspect that in the whole report there was only bad news and worse news. The veiy companies which the Conservatives claimed to be the flagship of their proof
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that free trade was going to be beneficial for Canada, the same companies here such as Domtar may have created 130 jobs but they were also going to eliminate 77. George Weston was to spend $47 million but it is to let 360 people go. Campbell Soup is spending a tremendous amount of money but closing down its plant in Portage La Prairie, losing 168 jobs. It goes on and on.
The bottom line is that the government claims 4,000 jobs created with 2,000 spin-off jobs. If you count the number of jobs which were lost by those very same companies we have seen held up as the best example of the corporate elite doing the best they can for this country, they are going to be letting 6,400 people go. You can add the spin-off jobs that are going to be lost because of that. You cannot trust this government on anything it comes up with. Its very own examples show it to be the incompetent government bunch that the opposition said it was during the last election and previously as well.
During the election campaign we were told that the social programs were sacred trusts that would not be touched. The Conservatives said unemployment insurance was something that would be untouched. We had the Prime Minister's assurance on it. Today we see Bill C-21 gutting the unemployment insurance scheme, after having said that it would not happen. This government cannot be trusted. If we go back to the original sacred trust, the example of the senior citizens' pensions, if it was not for a tremendous amount of effort by the seniors in this country deindexing would have devastated them and their ability to survive even as poorly as many of them do now. It would have been even that much worse.
In spite of promises this government simply cannot be trusted. Now we have a threat to the Canadian seniors pensions again through the clawback provision. All this government does is cut, cut, cut. It has no more imagination than to cut programs. Why does it start with the social programs in this country? It goes back to free trade again.
Speaking of free trade, just yesterday we had some workers here on the Hill. Outboard Marine Corporation are the makers of Johnson and Evinrude outboard motors. They told their 300 employees-that is all that is left now-that because of free trade they could no longer afford to operate in Canada and that their plant

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was being moved out on January 5, five days after Bill C-21 comes into effect, and because of which workers in that plant would lose on average from 10 to 24 weeks of unemployment insurance. This bill is going to have a devastating effect on those people. Whether you are talking about free trade, whether you are talking about social programs, the evidence is that this government cannot be trusted.
Why is the government doing this? There are several reasons. The two reasons most frequently referred to are cutting the deficit and cutting the national debt. When this legislation was introduced, the government went overboard to point out that it was supposed to be revenue neutral. How can the government introduce a piece of legislation claiming it to be revenue neutral and, during the course of the debate on it, insist that one of the reasons these things have to be brought into effect is that the deficit is out of control? We have to do something to cut back on the national deficit.
The previous speaker made reference to the Prime Minister and his gloating over the number of jobs which have been created. It may or may not be true, I do not know, because one can do almost anything with statistics. Perhaps there have been 1.5 million jobs created, perhaps there have been 1.8 million created, but let us take a look at those jobs. Let us take a look at Canada in spite of the fact that these 1.5 million jobs have been created.
I would not want to be the Prime Minister standing up there and bragging about creating any jobs, when food banks have been proliferating. The tonnes of food that the food banks have given out in this country to absolutely destitute and needy people since this government came to power is phenomenal and certainly needs some kind of an explanation other than that we have created 1.5 million jobs.
I would ask the Prime Minister to explain why, if he has created all those wonderful jobs which he is quick to point out are full-time jobs, so many children in this country are going to school hungry. Why are the school boards and the cities in this country having to take up the slack which the federal government has created in so far as transfer payments are concerned in order to be able to feed the hungry children in this land?
There is no way that we can proceed with Bill C-21 and be confident that what this government claims is actually going to happen. In fact, the entire opposite is true. It will be as devastating for this country as deregulation, as free trade, as privatization, as the cuts to VIA, and as the GST is to be.
This government cannot be trusted. All I can say to the members opposite, and I would say it to Canadians as well: Beware when Bill C-21 comes into effect on January 1. This nation is in for the shock of its life with results that were not even dreamt of three months ago.
I do not know whether the results of Bill C-21 were preconceived by this government or whether it is simply a result of its philosophy. It certainly resembles very much the philosophy of Margaret Thatcher. It seems to me to reflect very much the philosophy of Ronald Reagan. He gives us the best analysis of the depravity of this government in its inability to come to grips with governing. This philosophy that is so well exemplified by Ronald Reagan is the same one that tried to get ketchup made legal as a vegetable for school lunches in the United States. I think that pretty well sums up the depravity of this government and the total lack of any meaning that it can possibly inject into our Canadian society as a result of this failed philosophy.
Let us get back to all these jobs, jobs, jobs that the Prime Minister talks about. Let us take a look at some of the jobs that are available in this country. I have here a list of jobs from, of all places, one of the unemployment insurance offices in the city of Ottawa. I will not go through them all, but I will try to hit the full spectrum. There is a job for a cook for $6 an hour, a counter clerk for $5.25 an hour, another cook for $6 an hour, a hairdresser for $5 an hour, a dish washer for $5 an hour, a car wash attendant for $6 an hour and a meat cutter for $8 an hour up to $13, one of the better ones.
I was on the legislative committee on Bill C-21, which travelled across the country. Here are some jobs that are available in Prince Edward Island from the unemployment insurance office there: waiter or waitress, $4.50 an hour; dish washer $5; meat cutter $8, not bad. But it does not matter where you are, Mr. Speaker, for a family of two with only one person working, that is the poverty line anywhere in this country.
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The previous speaker pointed out that there was far less unemployment among those who were above $10 an hour than there was below it. It is a wonderful report that I would recommend to the government any time it feels it needs some enlightenment. I suppose Bill C-21 suggests that it feels it does not need it, but I certainly recommend that it look at the social cost. This is a government that can only understand the bottom line, whether the loonies are jingling in the cash register. The intangible effect of what it does is of no consideration.
Other jobs include: survey technicians, $7.50 an hour; a short order, cook $4.75 an hour. There is a tremendous amount of sexism as well. I will give the government credit for making reference to some jobs which can be left voluntarily without the penalties so prevalent within the legislation that was first introduced.
Here we have a secretary, not only a secretary but a bilingual secretary, for dare I say the princely sum of $7 an hour. Now most of us think that secretaries are some of the best paid people. We all know that they are the best qualified, but obviously they are not among the best paid people in Canada. Best qualified, yes; best paid, no. It is not a coincidence. It is the way our society operates. A woman at best making 60 per cent of what men make, and a bilingual person as well. Can you imagine the gall of the unemployment insurance centre putting an ad on its bulletin board advertising a job for a bilingual secretary at $7 at hour. That is poverty level anywhere in this country for a single person.
Let us not kid ourselves, as the Prime Minister tries to do, that all these jobs he is creating are something wild and wonderful. As a matter of fact, most of the jobs which have been created since this government came in have been the low paying, low quality jobs, and most of the people who have become employed since this government came to power and since the end of the recession have been women, earning 60 per cent less than men. As one of the previous speakers pointed out, the actual employment level is hardly up to pre-recession levels.
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There will be other speakers who will get into some of the specifics of the devastation this act is going to cause the people of Canada. I only hope that the devastation is less than I predict it will be.
Mr. Speaker, I realize I am getting very short of time. I would beg this government, I implore this government, even at this late date, to reconsider the implementation of this bill. A motion has been made to have it hoisted for six months. I beg the minister not to even put it to a vote. Do the honourable thing and withdraw it.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: 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 Prince George- Bulkley Valley (Mr. Gardiner)-VIA Rail; the Hon. Member for Cape Breton-East Richmond (Mr. Dingwall)-VIA Rail; the Hon. Member for York Center (Mr. Kaplan)-Supply and Services.



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[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mrs. MacDougall that Bill C-21, an Act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act and the Employment and Immigration Department and Commission Act, be read the third time and passed.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I would like to remind members at this time of the agreement that was made this morning between the three parties. Speeches from now on will be ten minutes followed by a five minute question and comment period.
The Hon. Minister of State for Employment and Immigration on debate.

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The hon. member for Okanagan-Similkameen- Merritt on a point of order.


Mr. Whittaker:: Mr. Speaker, I look to the Chair for a direction. I understood that there were no questions and comments on the first two speeches, but there were comments on the last speech. Is that correct? I look for direction on that.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The member is absolutely correct. There will be questions and comments. That is my mistake.
On questions and comments, the hon. member for Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt.


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: Mr. Speaker, I considered it from the point of view of employers and employees to see how it will affect the people of Canada. I looked in small municipalities across Canada to see who the major employers were in those areas. In many municipalities in my riding, as is true across Canada, it appeared that the major employers were hospitals, municipalities and school districts.
I wondered, if these are major employers, how that is that going to affect the people in the various areas of Canada with respect to the Unemployment Insurance Act. Most people from the other side of this House say that the employers and employees are now going to be paying their share and the government will be getting into the job training aspect. When the major employers are those people whom I have spoken of, how is that going to affect the average Canadian within each of the areas of Canada?
Can the member give us an idea of the implications for the average property owner and the average renter in Canada as a result of these unemployment changes? Is in fact the effect of this bill to pass on a tax structure or part of the tax structure and the cost of this to the property owners within Canada?


Ron Fisher: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for the question.
It was not only the opposition members on the committee who recognized how devastating these changes were going to be, it was not only the advocacy groups for the disadvantaged people of this country who are going to be so adversely affected, and it was not only the members who came to us from the unions. I can understand why the members opposite hate unions.
Those outboard marine people are making $14 an hour in Canada and when that work is taken to the United States, the workers will only be getting $6 an hour. I can understand why they dislike unions.
The cities as well recognized how devastating this would be for them and they recognized it in two different aspects. First of all, they did realize that they as employers would be subject to the increase in the premiums which they would have to pay. The increase is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 17 per cent. Considering that many of the municipalities have a considerable number of employees, certainly from that point of view alone there will be an increase in cost to the municipalities and the cities.
Second, Bill C-21 by the government's own figures is going to exclude entirely, across this nation, 30,000 people. That is a rather "Conservative" figure. Other studies have shown that there are going to be thousands and thousands of Canadians who will literally no longer be eligible to receive unemployment insurance. I think these studies could have been shown to be more reliable if the government had allowed the committee on C-21 to hear the people who made them in order for them to establish the validity of their assessments based on Stats Canada figures rather than some 11 year old suppositions which resulted in, as has already been referred to, thought control and behaviour modification.
If they do not receive that assistance what are they going to do? Certainly the cities are going to have to look at these people and make a decision. Are they going to subsidize these people through the welfare rolls because the government has abrogated its responsibility on unemployment insurance, or are they going to let them starve? The obvious answer is that course they are not going to let them starve.
Several cities submitted briefs. The city of Toronto in its brief estimated that in the first year it will cost the city $10 million. What will occur subsequent to that is anyone's guess, but it certainly is not going to get any better. The city of Sudbury recognized that the same kind of problem will occur for them. Although being a smaller area the numbers would be less, the effect is no less. If someone is hungry it does not matter whether they are in Sudbury or Toronto. The city of Vancouver presented a brief. They considered it so serious that the person who presented the brief in Vancouver was the mayor of the city.
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Included in the briefs by the municipalities were also references to the provinces. The committee heard no witnesses from provincial politics, but we were able to get references to provinces from the cities. I hope that answers the member's question.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: There is very little time left. The member for Mission-Coquitlam on a question or comment.


Joy Langan: Mr. Speaker, many of us are wearing red carnations today. Could you explain where those carnations came from and the symbolism of them?


Ron Fisher: The construction industry will be among the most devastated industries in the country. We do not often view people who are so highly trained. The government is talking about training. I do not know what it is they are going to train the construction industry for; perhaps meat-cutting or waitressing or bilingual secretaries. I do not know.
These are already highly trained people. All they want is jobs. That is precisely what this is about. The construction industry is going to be highly devastated because of these changes. These men and women were today giving bouquets of flowers as a demonstration of goodwill to the minister and asking her, in the kindest of terms, if she would reconsider what she is doing.


An Hon. Member:: She would not even see them.


Ron Fisher: Yes, it is true. The minister would not see them.


Some Hon. Members:: Shame!


Hon. Monique Vezina (Minister of State (Employment and Immigration) and Minister of State (Seniors)):: Mr. Speaker, I must say I am very pleased to take part in this debate, especially after hearing what was said by previous speakers, for the opposition, and I will take this opportunity to set the record straight.
This bill is of vital importance to our labour force and to Canada as a whole. This measure once again reflects our government's determination to help workers adjust to technological change and, above all, to deal with a market that will be increasingly competitive during the next ten years.
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Mr. Speaker, we could have left things as they were and said "no" to a thorough overhaul of our unemployment insurance system. We could have made a few minor changes and let the vagaries of the economy do the rest. Finally, we could have suggested band-aid solutions instead of providing a permanent remedy to the pervasive ills of underemployment and workers' lack of training.
Our government has realized that in this area as in so many others, one must have the courage to do what the situation demands.
We decided to change a system that no longer meets the current needs of the labour force and adapt it to tomorrow's needs, especially with respect to occupational training for Canadian workers.

Our government is very conscious that the time has come to substantially adjust the unemployment insurance program. The time has come to provide the training our workforce needs to meet the challenges of our technological era. As a government it is our duty and we will not fail. Faced with a labour market that has become more complex, we realize that there are fewer places for workers with minimal instruction and no professional training. Market pressures are forcing business to turn ever more to robotics telecommunication and high tech. Even traditional sectors must now use machinery that is much more complex.

Over one million people are having trouble finding jobs, and companies are having a hard time finding qualified workers.
Because of the lack of training programs, not all workers are able to take advantage of this new technology-
As far as the training and productivity of our labour force is concerned, our country lags behind other industrialized nations. Considering the Free Trade Agreement, Europe 1992 and increasingly competitive international markets, we must act quickly and decisively if we want to maintain our competitive position.
Mr. Speaker, our economic future is at stake, and it will depend on what we do today.

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We currently spend $12 billion on unemployment insurance benefits and only $400 million on training our workers. Clearly, we must achieve a better balance between income support measures and measures designed to maintain or create jobs, and that is what we are trying to do with Bill C-21.
Mr. Speaker, the best legacy a country can give its young workers is the kind of professional training that will help them build a future for themselves instead of joining the ranks of welfare recipients and the chronically unemployed.
The labour force must be able to meet the challenge of technological change. We think it is also essential, however, that the private sector should do its share and invest more in occupational training. As part of the labour force development strategy, between now and 1994, the private sector will be asked to spend $1 billion annually on training its work force.
Mr. Speaker, the action taken by our government reflects once again our commitment to establishing an effective partnership to ensure the prosperity of this country.
The purpose of Bill C-21 is to make our labour force more productive and more competitive, but there is more. The proposed legislation also aims to provide for greater equity among certain categories of workers, and especially among the various regions in this country. I am thinking more specifically of women and older workers. I am also referring to certain measures in connection with our obligation to consider regional disparity when calculating benefits.
Women account for more than half the population in this country, and it stands to reason we should bring the Unemployment Insurance Act more into line with the provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms with respect to employment equity.
As the minister responsible for employment equity, I have always maintained that our competitive position as a nation depends largely on that vast potential that Canadian women represent on the labour market. It is time that as a society, we woke up to this reality and made it possible for women to pursue their career objectives while sharing family responsibilites.
In the past, Canadian women have shown they were able to reconcile the two, as long as we, as a society and as a government, were willing to provide them with the means to do so. Our governement recognizes the
impressive contribution made by women on the labour market, and as part of its reform, it has introduced some very important social measures. I am surprised that throughout this debate, Mr. Speaker, so little has been said about the major social measures that were introduced to enable women to enter the labour market: maternity leave and parental leave up to a total of thirty weeks. All these measures reflect our government's recognition of the role played by women, couples and families.

Mr. Speaker, it is also our duty to help older workers. These workers are a pool of experience and talent which is vital to our economy. It is imperative that older workers be encouraged to contribute. The Canadian workforce will be all the more qualified and productive. One hundred million dollars more will be invested in employment programs for older workers. As minister responsible for seniors, I say thanks for this reform.
Presently, workers aged 65 and over are not allowed to pay UI premiums and are not, therefore, entitled to receive benefits when they lose their employment. Our bill will correct this situation. It will allow for workers aged 65 and over to pay into the program and, naturally, benefit from its protection.

But we are also interested in the situation of our youth. We will spend $100 million to develop young people's skills. These funds will be used to launch a new program to meet the needs of various growing industries and occupations and will provide training for another
50,000	young people.
Mr. Speaker, one of the basic principles of this reform is to ensure that Canadians who can work are able to do so and that everyone understands that it is better to have a job than to live on unemployment insurance or welfare. We must, I repeat, break the vicious circle: short-term jobs, unemployment insurance, welfare. The workers of this country want something else, and we as a government are working on it. We know that Canadians really want to work. We are betting that these workers will use the training opportunities that we make available to them.
It is just as important to be fair with the regions. As you know, Canada is not immune to regional disparities. There are wide gaps, especially in hiring. We must admit the obvious fact that it is harder to find a job in St John's,

Newfoundland, where the unemployment rate is about 14 per cent, than in Toronto, where it is around 4 per cent. Unemployment data remind us of this reality every month. Instead of giving up when faced with this challenging situation, we should adapt the unemployment insurance scheme accessibility requirements to the true needs and specific conditions which exist in the various regions of our country.
Mr. Speaker, we were compelled to return the unemployment insurance scheme to its original role. As I said, the purpose of this scheme is to provide income support to working men and women who, for reasons beyond their control, find themselves without job and without income. That is our definition of the so-called "safety net". In this context, it is vital that this scheme provide incentives and that its benefit structure encourage workers to keep their jobs and return to the labour force.
In order to provide Canada with a dynamic and competitive skilled labour force, we had to make a number of difficult choices. Mr. Speaker, the improvement of job opportunities since 1984 indicates that we were right in our analysis and forecast. In short, such is our manpower development strategy, as reflected in Bill C-21.
Mr. Speaker, we must support this bill and thus promote the short, medium and long-term development of a more skilled and more productive labour force.


Joy Langan: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make reference to the minister's comments on retraining. The problem we face is not so much one of lack of skills for the jobs available, but the lack of high skill, high wage jobs. We have one of the most skilled workforces in the world right here in Canada. What we need to do is to put it to work. We can see that while training is a necessary component to any full employment policy, it is not enough. It is absolutely vital for us to recognize that this bill redirects $800 million from the benefit fund to the training fund. We need to look at what training is being done, who is being trained, and who is doing the training.
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The programs to date have simply prepared people for temporary unemployment, and have trained them, not for future needs but to fill short term low paying jobs. I would appreciate if the minister could comment on that.


Monique Vézina: Mr. Speaker, I was in the House and I listened to the long and repetitive remarks made by my learned colleague from Eglinton-Lawrence. I was reading while listening to him. In short, business people who took part in a poll deplored the shortage of skilled workers which they felt was a major impediment to the growth of small and medium-sized businesses. We are all well aware of the vital role which small and mediumsized businesses play in this country. We all know just how important it is for our labour force to adapt to new requirements, both for today and the future. A poll carried out in Canada resulted in a definite identification. Owners of small and medium-sized businesses stated: " Because there is a definite shortage of skilled workers, we are determined to work, together with the Government, toward upgrading our labour force." So are we. I agree with my hon. friend that we should work together with the private sector, together with employers and employees to identify real needs. That is what we mean by "partnership" and "consultation". We are striving to identify the needs so that we can put together adequate training programs. Having spent several years in the field of education, I am convinced that if we want to bring the unemployment rate down, we must start by training our human resources.


Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, it is important today, especially after the last statement, to explode some myths about the intentions of Bill C-21.

Bill C-21 is not designed to provide Canadian men and women with the new and improved training programs that they need to adjust to the new economic situation.

Bill C-21 is not designed to improve the employment opportunities of those Canadians who are now toiling at the fringes of society, underpaid, undertrained and destined for increasing uncertainty and poverty in their lives. Bill C-21 is not about developing the talents and expectations of Canadians that if they work hard, try to

November 2, 1989
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use their potential to the fullest and nonetheless become unemployed through no fault of their own, a compassionate society has in place a scheme to which they contribute that will provide for the necessities when they are without any earnings.

Bill C-21 is not designed to identify and exclude from the system the few dishonest people and cheaters who are abusing it. Rather, it will deprive the most destitute workers of benefits that allow them to meet their needs when they are out of a job.

Bill C-21 is about money. A government that has slashed spending on training by $700 million a year since 1984 now wants to make up for its own failures. It now wants to gouge money for training programs from the pockets of workers and their employers. Cruelly and cold-bloodedly it is telling the unemployed that they will have no income or reduced income when they lose their jobs because a greedy government needs their money.
Bill C-21 is about privatization. The government is opting out of any public financing responsibility for unemployment and regional disparities that result from fiscal, economic and trade policies for which it is responsible.

Bill C-21 will have the effect of creating a class of workers forever dependent on the whims of the market and forced to accept second-rate, dangerous and underpaid jobs.

Bill C-21 is about shutting down rural Canada and turning out the lights on Atlantic Canada, remote regions and small communities across the country.
Let me put some flesh and bones on these points by turning to some of the amendments that would have made this not a good piece of legislation but slightly less damaging. These are amendments which the government, by closure and obstruction, has prevented even being discussed.

Bill C-21 will crush the hopes of hundreds of thousands of Canadians who wish to participate fully in the growth and prosperity of this great country.

The government says it wants to train those who most need training. Those who most need training are those at the bottom of the employment ladder who have the hardest time getting and keeping a job, who have short term sporadic employment. These are the very people who will be shut out in greatest numbers by this bill from qualifying for unemployment insurance, and if they do not qualify for unemployment insurance they do not qualify for the training that their dollars have paid for.
If this government's intention is truly to train those who need it most, why would it refuse to consider an amendment that would allow workers to qualify for training after a minimum 10 weeks of employment? Shutting them out of benefits is one thing, but shutting them out of training is deplorable. Those who need training most are those already at a disadvantage in the changing workforce. They are women earning only 66 cents for every dollar a man earns. Persons with disabilities are at a similar disadvantage both in income and training opportunities, and the employment disadvantage of persons of visible minorities or aboriginal peoples is already well documented.
Why then will the minister and the opposition not even allow this House to debate an amendment that would guarantee these groups equitable access to training programs, programs I remind the House that these people pay for through their contributions to the unemployment insurance fund?
I suggest this amendment is unacceptable to the government because it is not interested in the unemployed of this country. It is not interested in equity. It is not interested in allowing people to reach their full potential regardless of age, gender, colour or ethnic origin. It is only interested in taking money from the unemployed and turning it over to the private sector to train those who can most quickly and easily be trained.
November 2, 1989

Those are not the values this country was built on, but they are the values that are quickly overtaking our society under the leadership of this Tory government.
I said this bill is not about training, it is about money. It is a continuation of this government's determination to solve the problems it has created by bearing down with a steamroller, squeezing every last possible penny it can from Canadians, not caring who gets crushed in its path.
This bill extracts $4.2 billion from Canadians who are already living in dire straits. It does it in two ways. First, it pulls out the government's $2.9 billion, money that the government properly contributes to compensate for regional disparities and to support fishermen. Aside from this legitimate government contribution, Canadians need to know that the unemployment fund is self-supporting. In fact, in recent years it has produced a surplus.
Now the workers who contributed to the unemployment fund when they were employed are being asked to pay for the economic policies of the government that have in the last five years increased the poverty of the regions of Canada outside major metropolitan areas. The remaining $1.29 billion of the government's $4.2 billion money grab will come directly from the insurance benefits of the unemployed. The minister has said repeatedly that the unemployed are not paying for training, but that is exactly where the money is coming from. Unemployed workers will do without food and clothes for their children so the minister can top up the training budgets that have been slashed by her government.
Again, those who can least afford it will be the victims. The poorest regions will lose the most. Workers in Newfoundland will lose an average of $2,400 while Manitoba workers with a lot less unemployment will lose less than half of that.
No doubt the minister expects that provinces and municipalities across the country will pick up the welfare bill-this at a time when the government is not meeting its commitments to cost-share social programs.
The best demonstration that this bill is about money, not people, is in the provision that allows the government to hound people for up to six years to collect overpayments of UI benefits even when it was no fault of their own.	.
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This bill deliberately misleads Canadians about how it is going to spend their money. It says piously in clause 20 that it will spend no more than 15 per cent on training programs. But then later on in the bill it says that in addition to this 15 per cent the government can contract not only for the administration but for the establishment or operation of training programs. These are not subject to the 15 per cent limit.
This is an unending tap for privatizing the employment services of the Department of Employment and Immigration. It explains why the minister in her estimates to the House has not provided for one additional person to administer all these wonderful new programs. The minister wants to privatize services to the most vulnerable at the most precarious time of their lives-when they are out of work. It is not the role of the private sector to be concerned about developing the potential and the talent of Canadians. It is their proper role to produce goods and services and make a profit. It is the job of the nation to invest in its people.
I have said this bill will create a sub-class of Canadians, destined to move from one low paid unskilled job to another, from one community to another, serving the ever changing needs of the market-place, never setting down roots, never knowing stability in their lives.
The government has looked at the statistics. It knows there are fewer young people coming into the marketplace and that a crisis is looming in the supply of new workers. It knows that 70 per cent of the jobs that will be in our economy are those that are low-paid, unskilled, unstable and part-time. Its answer is to assemble in Bill C-21 an arsenal of whips and bludgeons to beat into submission the unemployed who, to survive, will have to stick with such jobs with no hope for anything better, ever.
This bill damages people and the nation. The Tory agenda is determined to grasp every last dollar from Canadians-$6 billion through the GST, billions more through clawing back old age security, billions more in the government's failure to meet its commitments to fund education, social services and day care, and now another $4 billion from the unemployed.
The government is selling off or starving to death the institutions of nationhood. VIA Rail is gone, Air Canada is gone. The National Arts Centre is strangling. The National Research Council has been stripped of millions. This government is systematically dismantling the frame-

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work of a fair, compassionate and proud nation. Bill C-21 is part of it.


Mr. Jean-Pierre Blackburn (Jonquiere):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to take part in the debate on Bill C-21, having been on the legislative committee that travelled across the country to hear witnesses who had something to contribute on the legislation. The hon. member opposite also was part of our group.
Mr. Speaker, during those three weeks we travelled across Canada and the other week where we heard witnesses here in Ottawa, we heard varying comments depending on group representatives who appeared before us.
On labour's side, many opposed the Bill. They welcomed the Government proposals that suited them, and wished they would be included in the legislation, with the money coming from somewhere else, and hoped that anything that did not suit them would be left out.
These proposals, or the trust of the legislation revolve around two things: First, re-allocating $600 million of funds to new benefits, including for instance maternity, parental and sickness benefits, and second, taking $800 million, also from the unemployment insurance fund, and re-allocate them to training. But what unions wanted initially was not training, they did not even want us to get involved with that, but gradually they realized this made sense indeed. But then they told us: Yes, we agree on training, but the $800 million you will take them from the Consolidated Revenue Fund. You realize, Mr. Speaker, that for the Government matters are not so simple. Taxpayers are fed up with constantly increasing taxes.
It is this Government's responsibility and our common responsibility to try and do more with what we have. The Federal Government now runs nearly 1,000 different programs across Canada. If each time we want to do something new we have to take additional money from the taxpayers' pockets, we and up with a monster that breeds deficits that can no longer be controlled.
This is the new direction and the challenge we face as Canadians and as a Government in this country trying to use available funds, re-allocating them so that they are more effective. This is what the Government is doing with the $800 million allocated to training. We take those moneys from the unemployment insurance fund, roughly $1,4 billion, and re-allocate them to more productive purposes. This is exactly what happens with those $600 million for new social benefits and $800 million for training.
Why are we putting $800 million into training? Mr. Speaker, why do we as a Government decide to use $800 million for training workers? Why do we not leave that to educational institutions?
For two main reasons, Mr. Speaker. By education, we mean full-time studies at high school, college or university level, which comes under provincial jurisdiction. But when someone drops out of school to get a job and becomes unemployed a few years later, we then talk about workers' training. There is a casual relationship between the two. You could pay people to stay home and do nothing when they would rather work. Or you could use those funds to help train them so that they can go back to work in the near future. It would be a lot more satisfying for the people involved.
This is an astonishing member, Mr, Speaker but 30 per cent of our young people are dropping out of high school. Obviously, if you leave school before completing grade 11 or 12 and get a job without training, what will happen to you eventually? You will lose your job and become unemployed. Recently, 50 per cent of the people polled by the Canadian Federation of Independant Business said it was difficult to find skilled workers. So you can see the link between the high school drop-out rate and the skilled labour shortge. We as a govemement must do something. We cannot allow this situation to continue. So what are we going to do with the $800 million? Training programs will be implemented so that those young people can take courses for up to 106 weeks. They will be paid to attend school, and that is something they need. I think it is an excellent initiative. This is a major change of attitude on the part of the government and, under present circumstances, no one would dare argue against this basic principle.
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Since I am talking about this training, I ought to indicate that our government has gone to the trouble of setting up five different groups responsible for determining what kind of training would be best. Consultations are taking place with management, labour and people directly involved to outline the nature of courses to be made available. The results of this ongoing study will soon be made public in five national symposia where people will consider how to allocate the $800 million and what kind of training is required to meet current needs. Again I would suggest that this new approach on the part the government bodes extremely well because it takes reality into account.
If I may say so, look at the region where I come from, Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean and the riding of Jonquiere which I represent. Major companies are not hiring these days. What do they do? They use new technologies. People have to be properly trained to be able to apply new technologies in major industries. Ever more companies update their plant and equipment and people are thrown out of work because they do not have adequate training. It is up to us to take remedial action.
Mr. Speaker, the other major issue relates to the $600 million earmarked for new services or new benefits. We know that 42 per cent of women are now working, which means that 42 per cent of the labour force is made up of women, and this percentage can be expected to increase in coming years. As government we take into consideration the importance of the situation of a couple when the woman bears a child. That is what we did with the $600 million, we have almost doubled the benefits so that instead of only 15 weeks the mother will be entitled to 15 weeks of maternity leave plus 10 weeks of parental leave or 15 weeks of sick leave, at her discretion. In any case the maximum number of weeks will be 30, whichever type of leave she applies for. That is a definite improvement which takes into account the needs of our society.
I might add that I was among those who spoke openly in favour of extending parental leave because 10 weeks are not enough, especially when adopting a child and bringing him or her home.
We did experience some difficulty in the interpretation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but we managed to find a way out: A family who adopts a child over six
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months old will be entitled to five additional weeks. But that is not what I would have liked. What I would have hoped for is 15 weeks automatically. But we were not in a position to do this under the current laws, the way the Charter is interpreted. We found a compromise which will now amount to 90 per cent of cases I think that this again is co-operate to effort in action by listening to people from across the land, we found a way to address the situation.
I would also like if I may, Mr. Speaker, to make the following point-What struck me in the arguments made by many is the parallel they were trying to draw between free trade and this unemployment insurance reform. It is important to realize that the situation is completely different in the United States and Canada. In the United States, the unemployment insurance fund amounts to some $22 billion Canadian, as compared to 12 billion in Canada. Let's put that in the proper perspective. They are ten times more numerous than we are. So, proportionately, they should have $120 billion rather than $22 billion. You realize that, proportionately, this does not make sense. And in the United States, there is a different unemployment insurance system in each and every state, whereas we have one employment insurance system for the country as a whole.
I could go on and on and on in this famous debate, and already you are signalling that I have one minute left only. We worked very hard across Canada. In this legislation we have taken regional unemployment rates inito account. In Toronto for instance, where jobs are more easily found, people have to work a little longer, they will need a larger number of weeks in order to qualify for unemployment insurance benefits. In some other area where the unemployment rate is high, the people there will not have to work as long. This is what we call the variable entry requirements which will now be illegible weeks.
I agree that an extra effort will have to be made everywhere. But look at past experience, Mr. Speaker. In 1978, and I am taking the example of the Maritime provinces, when the requirement was raised from 10 to 14 weeks, 87 per cent of the people found exactly the number of extra weeks they needed. This means that people automatically alter their behaviour when faced with the new requirement, and I believe our reform is

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good and positive, so more so that we are getting into worker training, and this is important!


Mr. Pronovost:: Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a few remarks to my colleague who, as everyone agrees, did a splendid job chairing the parliamentary committee on this important issue of Bill C-21, and more particularly on that aspect of unemployment rates which to me are crucial. Many people told us in the past that we should not take into account the fact that some areas are less privileged because there are unemployed even in regions such as Montreal or Toronto. However, my colleague made one thing very clear and I appreciated his saying in particular that, indeed, there is unemployment in Canada's big cities as in other regions, but the number of jobs available in large cities is relatively far greater than that available in small towns or villages. I would like my colleague to use as an example his riding that is part of a very dynamic region of Quebec and where there is unemployment as everywhere else in order to explain why somebody from an outlying Quebec region may experience more difficulty in the short term in finding a job than another Canadian with the same training and the same degrees would have in an area such as Montreal and Quebec.


Jean-Pierre Blackburn: I thank my hon. colleague for his comment. He is absolutely right when he says that the regional unemployment rate must be taken into account. In Newfoundland, where jobs seem more difficult to find, people will not be affected, or very little, by these changes because the unemployment rate exceeds 15 per cent in several communities. However, in Toronto, the rate varies between 3.5 and 3.7 per cent, which means that people will now have to work 20 weeks instead of 14 to be eligible for benefits. In my region of Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, the unemployment rate is about 12 per cent according to the latest statistics, so people will have to work 13 weeks to qualify for unemployment insurance benefits. Hon. Members will know that a redrawing of the economic map of the regions is forthcoming. Everybody is expecting that. The way the various economic regions are classified now causes a problem because, often, it penalizes some areas. But there will be a redrawing soon. Some regions could benefit more than others, but at least the regional unemployment rate will be taken into account.
I would like to add a few words, perhaps, if my colleague allows me, on unemployment insurance and the funds we have.
Mr. Speaker, you know, we too would have liked to have $800 million more, but do you know what our debt is? It now stands at $324 billion. When a debt costs $100 million in interest a day, nearly $100 million a day, it must be looked into. To get an idea of what $100 million a day represents, Mr. Speaker, it is as if I took a list of
5.000	names, I drew the names of 5,000 Canadians by lot, and our Government sent them each a nice cheque for $20,000.
That is what $100 million a day in interest represents. And I could start over again every day, with a new list of
5.000	names. Imagine the situation we are in as a country! We must deal with it, administer, and manage the country and that is what we did with the unemployment insurance reform. We took $1.4 billion from the fund and reallocated it, taking account of the new requirements and Canadian reality.


Lyle Dean MacWilliam: program, as we well know, was for some time being fingered by our U.S. counterparts as a potentially unfair trade practice, when looked at in those terms. By removing itself from the funding level, I believe this government is hoping to remove the threat of countervail under the reality of the free trade agreement.
Let there be no mistake. These changes are a harmonization of Canada's unemployment insurance program in a post free trade reality, a complete capitulation of what is a very important social service program in order to harmonize it with a less structured program in the United States. Let us call a spade a spade.


Jean-Pierre Blackburn: Mr. Speaker, I will answer my colleague by giving him some figures.
Depending on the various state formulas used in the United States, benefits are about 50 per cent of earnings. The basic minimum weekly benefit is between $5 and $62, while maximum weekly benefits range from $95 to $330.
I am told that in half the United States, it is $70 or more, which is the average, while here in Canada, Mr. Speaker, benefits are 60 per cent of insurable earnings and the weekly maximum is $318.
I think these figures show my colleague quite clearly that there is no parallel between the two. If he wants to take the United States as an example, he will realize that they are quite a bit worse off than in Canada. Furthermore, our system provides social benefits that they do not have in the United States.

Mr. Francis G. LeBIanc (Cape Breton Highlands- Canso) Mr. Speaker, I want to say in addressing this question of the legislation, Bill C-21, that there is an air of fatigue and resignation in this House as we consider third reading of this bill. I suggest that the resignation mirrors, to some extent, the resignation of the people of Canada as they confront the harsh realities of this government.
In Atlantic Canada where I come from there is a feeling that we have been the victims of a saturation bombing by the government on programs that we had a right to expect would continue. For example, recently VIA Rail has been dismantled in Atlantic Canada and in other parts of Canada. We have witnessed a complete
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retreat on regional development programs. We are now seeing a crisis in the Atlantic fishery with the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans denying that it exists in flagrant violation of the fact that very shortly there may be major lay-offs in the fishery.
The government now introduces this bill, this regressive piece of legislation, and does not listen to Canadians. It did not listen to Canadians when we travelled across the country in September with this committee. It was clear that despite the fact that 157 of the 202 briefs condemned the legislation, asked that it be withdrawn, the government reacted by saying: "We are going forward. There is no reason for us to listen to this testimony. We have heard it before, and we are not listening to it".
There was a sense that the government does not care what Canadians think about Bill C-21, about the increases in the taxes to which we have been subjected, culminating in this dramatic goods and services tax. There is a feeling among Canadians that the government does not listen. Not only did it not listen to the committee, or to this House or to Canadians, we have recently found that it does do not listen to the courts either.

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon the unemployment action group held a press conference to set the record straight on something the Department of Employment and Immigration had denied regarding the implementation of a Federal Court of Appeal decision on vacation pay and severance pay.
Two weeks ago, on October 11, my hon. colleague, the Member for Eglinton-Lawrence, asked the Minister of Employment and Immigration Minister of State if her Department would implement the Federal Court of Appeal ruling concerning vacation pay and severance pay. She said: "Yes, we will implement it. We disagreed at first but now that we know how to interpret the ruling, we will implement it." That decision affects $100 million in benefits. We found out today that the Department has not implemented the ruling and is now introducing regulations to circumvent it. That is how this government works. She denies everything and refuses to listen to Canadians, the courts and the other members of the Committee. How can we

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help feeling frustrated or resigned when dealing with this kind of government!

In the minister's perfunctory conclusion to her remarks this morning she mentioned a few aspects of the legislation, such as how this was going to respond to the Charter of Rights provisions which, as you know, Mr. Speaker, were required, and that was going to create training. I wish I had more time to explain the way in which these training funds are being reacted to in the rural parts of this country. It is a joke. Parts of the country where the private sector is limited at best cannot respond to the provisions of training that are in this bill. What is going to happen is that we are going to be denied benefits, on top of the fact that our entrance requirements are going to increase. The unemployed are going to be shut out of benefits, out of training in the very regions where they need them.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The member will be allowed to complete his speech on Monday if he wishes.

I have received from the Hon. Member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace (Mr. Allmand) written notice advising me that he will be unable to introduce his motion during private members' hour on Friday, November 3, 1989. Since we could not, pursuant to Standing Order 94, arrange for an exchange of positions in the order of precedence, I am ordering the Clerk to drop this item to the bottom of the order of precedence.
Private members' hour will then be cancelled and, pursuant to Standing Order 94, the House will continue with the business at hand prior to that hour.

It being five o'clock, the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.



PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS


Mr. Ray Funk (Prince Albert-Churchill River) moved:: That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider the advisability of encouraging and building community-based investment and job initiatives through community and worker cooperatives, community development corporations, regional councils, small businesses and farms and municipal governments.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciate the opportunity that is given to us as private members to bring a motion before our peers and to get their judgment on whether what we are proposing has merit and if it is something that we should all develop a consensus around and make our voices heard.
I would like to begin by outlining some of the remarks I made when this particular motion was being considered by the committee which decides whether or not it will be a votable motion and have five hours of debate. We had very good discussions at that committee and I appreciated the discussion. I can also appreciate that another member's motion won the day, but nevertheless I would like to inform members that the members of that committee were very interested in the proposal I was making.
The five reasons why I thought this should be votable and should have a five hour debate are the following. First, I find that often economic debate in this House is very sterile, is often very polarized, it pits a vision usually imputed from one side to the other, with big government on the one side versus unfettered free enterprise on the other. There are an awful lot of nuances and an awful lot of things we all actually might agree on that are lost in that kind of a polarized debate.
Second, what I am describing in this motion is national in scope. There are co-operative and community development organizations actively involved in virtually every community in this country. Every member of this House,
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at some point or other during their career, comes into contact with them probably on a regular basis. Thus, this is a motion that personally affects every one of us as members of this House.
Third, in the spirit of the times, the government has said, and we have to accept it because it has a majority, that this is a time of deficit reduction, when moneys are not available for different projects, economic development projects and community projects, as worthy as they may be.
In light of that we need to take a more positive approach and encourage those community-based ventures that rely on the capital, the effort, the wisdom and the resources of the community to pick up the slack for the unavailability of funds from government sources in many cases.
Fourth, I would have liked to have given the minister of state for co-ops an opportunity to participate in this debate. A lot of people do not know even that there is a Co-op Secretariat that functions within the Government of Canada, that it does have a responsible minister, the same minister who is in charge of grains and oilseeds and western diversification. It would have been useful for that minister to have had an opportunity to stand in the House and explain to members of Parliament what in fact the Co-op Secretariat does, what its projections are and how we, as members, could support the efforts of that secretariat.
Last week there was a federal-provincial meeting of ministers who have responsibility for the co-operative sector, both federally and provincially. I understand that it was a very fruitful meeting because worker co-operatives got identified as a priority. I might add, not perhaps in a partisan way but just to note it, that given the statement this morning of the hon. member for Surrey on housing, I respectfully hope that worker co-operatives will not fare the same way as a priority of this government as co-operative housing has which also at one time was a priority of the government.
The fifth point that I raised with the committee is worth noting. There is no focus for community development efforts within the government, or even within this Parliament, or any place where self-reliant, self-help, local kind of initiatives are discussed, analyzed, and the results of that analysis brought to bear on a wide range of government policies. That is a perspective that has been
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lacking in many cases since the late seventies. The last body that I know of that had any formal existence along these lines was the Canadian Council on Rural Development which was disbanded in 1979.
My own interest in this area comes very much from my personal background, before I became a member of this House 11 months ago. It comes very much from my parents and I would like to acknowledge that in this House. My father was the chairman of the Laird Saskatchewan Wheat Pool committee for 42 years, from 1946 to 1988. He was a board member of the Laird co-op, the Rosthem co-op, and was a founding member of the Sask Valley Credit Union in Rosthem, so that was always very much a part of our life. I am a co-op shopper and not ashamed to admit it. I buy co-op every chance I get.
My mother comes from a family active in founding and perpetuating an organization called Mennonite Central Committee which has developed a sound reputation in community development, both within this country and in many other countries around the world. With that kind of influence as I was growing up, I could be very little other than the co-operative and community development critic for the New Democratic Party.
After spending 10 years in adult education, in 1985 I established a company called Spruce River Research, a private company that did independent research and training in economic development, most of it in northern Saskatchewan. Through that, I had experience in working with northern communities in my constituency as they, first of all, analyzed their own situation as to where they might go in the future and how they related to funding organizations like the Canadian Jobs Strategy, NEDP, especially ERDA and the regional development agreements. Two, I might note, were very helpful, the forestry agreement in Saskatchewan and the Northern Economic Development Subsidiary Agreement, NED-SA. Both of these agreements lapsed at the end of the last fiscal year on March 30 and have not been renewed, nor is there any replacement. I regret that very much.
I would like to say in a broader framework this is a fundamental issue. In many ways, this country has been plagued for a long time with trends that we are perhaps even widening the gap between the "have" and the "have nots" in this country. Concentration of wealth is indicated in books like The Vertical Mosaic. The Cana-

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dian establishment is a characteristic of this country that probably none of us are terribly proud of.
I might point out in that regard, just by way of contrast, that the 12 million co-op members in this country control $68 billion worth of assets, while the 10 richest people in this country control $31 billion worth of assets. So those 10 people control half of the assets that the 12 million co-op members do through their co-operative organizations.
It is starting to be recognized, and I and many of my colleagues have done what we can to point out that the "have" and "have not" syndrome in this country is starting to become much more regionalized than perhaps it used to be.
The lead story in the Canadian section of Maclean's of October 23 states:
Fragile Roots. Canadians in the Country Feel Abandoned by a Government More Attuned to Urban Voters.
In that article, it states:
Indeed, some critics among the one-third of Canadians who live in communities with fewer than 10,000 people say that government policies designed to cut the federal deficit threaten to destroy the country' hinterland communities. They cite a host of recent initiatives: cutbacks in VIA Rail; closing of rural post offices; tightened unemployment insurance rules; shuttered military bases; and reduced regional development grants. And more blows may be in store they say, pointing to the threat of reduced regional CBC services and cutbacks in federal crop insurance and freight subsidies.
I might add that since then there have been three added to the list: Canada Post increased the freight rates for fly-in food to fly-in communities by 30 per cent; the northern tax benefits look as if they might be taken away, at least a task force has recommended that they should be; and the implications of the changes in the Railway Act as they impact phone service across the country will make it much more difficult for people in isolated areas to have the kind of phone service that you need to participate in any meaningful way in a modern economy and in a modem society.
This is not a hopeless situation and that is why I am proposing this motion and not in any sense of partisanship. Even if members opposite do not accept the full analysis that I presented and indeed, that Maclean's reported, I think it is still possible for members looking
around their communities and constituencies to realize that there are some opportunities to make progress that are not being realized.
This is particularly true with respect to co-operatives and community development, the small business sector, and the municipal sector that I identified in the motion. The reason it is not hopeless, and the reason I think this is something we need to look closely at, is because Canada is considered to be a world leader in the areas of co-operative and community development.
People come from all over the world to places like Antigonish or Memorial University or the University of Saskatchewan. Visiting parliamentarians are often very interested in our regional development programs. We are a world leader recognized around the world as having something to say in this area. That is a tribute to the people who have worked very hard in those communities over the years in the co-op sector, the Desjardins credit union movement, the Antigonish movement in the maritimes, the prairie pools, the Federated Co-operative Organization, and the credit unions. All those organizations that are now 12 million strong are organized in the Canadian Co-operative Association.
Many were established in the thirties as a result of economic problems then, but there have also been new frontiers in the co-op area. In the area of housing there are 1,400 co-op housing developments in this country at the present time, in spite of the struggle they have had for recognition. They are functioning veiy well and are providing an alternative for people who need low-cost housing. Worker co-ops are something we need to get into very I want to refer hon. members to the region of Montragon in Spain which has developed a very modem efficient and competitive economy based on interlocking co-operatives. That is something that all of us should be more aware of.
In our own country we are seeing, for whatever reasons, and in the spirit of non-partisanship, I do not want to dwell on the reasons, but there are profitable businesses in this country that are being closed not because of non-profitability or because the people are not doing a good job, but because of decisions being made elsewhere. We need a vehicle to maintain those jobs and industries in those communities. Worker co-operatives are a positive alternative and the government
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itself has recognized that is an initiative it wants to pursue.
In the area of health, we have a very active co-operative health centres in Prince Albert which was one of the first. I might acknowledge my wife is on the board. There has been a recent study released, after the Saskatchewan government sat on for about seven years, that said that the cost of maintaining the health of the residents of a region could be reduced by as much as 25 to 30 per cent if the co-operative health model were adopted in other communities. We have also seen people struggling hard to provide day care for their children, even though it is often financially difficult and there has not been much support. People have used the co-operative vehicle as a way to mobilize their resources to provide that very valuable service.
As well, in northern Canada there are Arctic co-operatives. When we actually went through our list in my own constituency I was somewhat surprised to learn that there are 25 fishermen's co-operatives, a legacy of the organizational efforts of people in the 1950s. There are also consumer co-operatives. There is a very active co-operative movement right through northern Canada.
I would like to also recognize the community development movement in this country, through places like Memorial University, the Council on Rural Development, a Topshee Conference which I had the opportunity to attend at St. Francis Xavier University earlier this year which gathers together people in the maritimes interested in community development. There is a group with the "Garfieldesque" name of ARG, the agricultural and rural restructuring group which recently had a conference in Saskatoon which I attended. Academics, community activists, and the president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture were there. There is a real coming together in this country of community development thinking, especially as it applies to the rural area which I am very happy to see, and I think it would behove all members to support.
I would also recognize some of the very positive initiatives that all members can support in the Indian community through the organization of economic development corporations. One which was recognized at that conference and in fact received the award as the fastest growing small business in Saskatchewan last year is an
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organization called Kitsaki Development Corporation, the development arm of the La Ronge Indian Band. This organization had sales last year of over $10 million, and is a very credible actor in the economy of northern Saskatchewan. They are owners of a hotel, they have a joint venture with Trimac in the trucking business, northern resource trucking. They are very carefully picking their spots, their strategic investments, and are doing an excellent job. The most recent product that they have just brought to market in a very exemplary way is the use of wild rice and pasta. I am informed that it is difficult even to get it in Prince Albert because the American market is gobbling it up faster than they can produce it. So in the interests of making the government look good on free trade, here is an opportunity to support a way to do that.
In closing, I would like to say that the motion I am proposing here I would like hon. members, especially members of the government, to look closely at. This is not a partisan motion. It is not calling on the government to spend money. It is not even calling on the government to make steps one, two, and three. I have ideas of my own about that and other members do. I am trying to communicate through this motion and the reason I am asking members to support it, is that we need an awareness of the problem, but also of the solution. It is not a big government solution. It is a community solution. I would ask that government members and all members pay attention to it and support this resolution.
In closing, I would like to read the motion I am asking members to accept:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider the advisability of encouraging and building community-based investment and job initiatives through community and worker co-operatives, community development corporations, regional councils, small businesses and farms and municipal governments.


William James Kempling: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address this motion which recommends that the government encourage community-based investment and employment through local co-operation among governments, small business, and employee groups. This is the kind of approach which many communities urgently need. Let me add, this is precisely the approach the government has taken and will continue to take in the future.

Private Members' Business
Anyone who is familiar with the programs of Employment and Immigration Canada knows that these programs are designed precisely to stimulate local involvement and initiative. The Canadian Jobs Strategy introduced four years ago represents a fundamental break with the Liberals piecemeal Ottawa-controlled approach to meeting local needs.
The 1989-90 budget of the Canadian Jobs Strategy is $1.77 billion. It covers a range of activities to enhance the skills and employment of several hundred thousand Canadians a year.
The new Labour Force Development Strategy, the government's response to evolving skill demands and increased global competitive pressures, builds on the same base as the Canadian Jobs Strategy.
Passage of the current legislation before Parliament would make an additional $800 million available for training, as well as such active measures as mobility and entrepreneurship.
We have placed the management of our programs very much in the hands of the people in the community. By turning the decision-making and budgetary reins over to those most affected at the point of contact the Canadian Jobs Strategy has ensured that its programs operate with the maximum impact and cost-effectiveness.
The government has adopted a realistic, workable approach based on programs with the flexibility to vary as local needs vary. Whether it is the closing of a vital plant, the sudden need for employee skill upgrading, or the relentless market change for products no longer in demand, the Canadian Jobs Strategy provides a framework for people in the community to apply their insight, initiative and imagination to deal with the challenges at hand.
Local planning by local people working together is the approach, and the important co-ordinating element of this approach has been the participation of local advisory councils. These councils include representatives from business, labour, government, educational institutions, and special interest groups. Local advisory councils familiar with their local labour markets provide advice so that local priorities can be synchronized with a range of
proven government programs available to help small communities.
A program that lends itself to local decision making is the Industrial Adjustment Service which has a renowned record for bringing employers and employees together to solve such problems as obsolete skills, the need for new technology, human resources planning, and possible lay-offs. The IAS signs about 500 new agreements a year. In the last year alone, more than 300,000 Canadians benefited from the Industrial Adjustment Service.
When an IAS agreement is signed, a local IAS committee comprised of equal representation from labour and management, immediately commits itself to solving identified human resources problems. IAS pays up to half the costs of the committee and provides technical advice, information about government programs, longterm planning and, if necessary, explores employment alternatives for threatened workers.
This approach has been so successful that the IAS has been copied by several other countries. The Labour Force Development Strategy announced by the minister in April, proposes to double the budget of this program to $30 million.
I would also like to provide members with a brief description of some of the components under the Canadian Jobs Strategy which are at the disposal of local business and industry.
The Community Futures Program is another initiative that is operating effectively in every region. This $134 million program is currently helping about 200 smaller rural communities across Canada. Community Futures assist people to develop their own answers to the unemployment and economic hardships which often occur in small remote communities and single industry towns. This program is flexible and responsive to input from those who live in and understand the area.
Community Futures incorporates four options. One of them, business development centres, offers locally managed technical and advisory services to small business and developmental loans up to $75,000.
Within a more individual frame of reference, the self-employment incentives program provides $180 a week for a year to help unemployed persons to start their own business.
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Another option, the community initiatives fund, matches support from other sources for local projects by local people designed to generate new and permanent jobs.
Finally, there is relocation and travel assistance which provides up to $5,000 to help unemployed people to find work in another community.
In other countries self-employed and entrepreneurship programs have produced significant results, helping many individuals and communities achieve self-sufficiency and prosperity. In Canada these programs have been especially successful among the social assistance recipients, turning welfare cases into business people who not only support themselves but also create jobs for other Canadians. This kind of success is why the Labour Force Development Strategy will be supporting more Canadians who choose to take the plunge and work for themselves.
I must add that under Bill C-21, the government is also enhancing relocation assistance for unemployed Canadians who want to move to areas with more job opportunities. We are extending the concept of capitalizing unemployment benefits for this purpose providing up to $15,000, a figure that more accurately reflects the cost of moving a household today to help unemployed people go where they want to work.
Through the Labour Force Development Strategy, these vital self-employment and mobility programs will be significantly reinforced.
There is another program that also serves to support the local enterprise. The Innovations Program is a Labour Market Research and Development arm of the Canadian Jobs Strategy. Under Innovations, test models have been particularly effective in creating economically viable employment avenues for disabled persons, aboriginal people, visible minorities, social assistance recipients, and young people encountering difficulties making the transition from school to work.
A good example is the Youth Employment Skills Program. This program was tested in Halifax and St. Catharines, Ontario, in Winnipeg, and in Vancouver before incorporation into the broader Canadian Jobs Strategy Program framework. A $4.3 million Innovations contract funded the test phases and produced English and French versions of the Youth Employment Canada curriculum.
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These examples illustrate the approach that the government has committed itself to fostering local co-operation to produce local solutions to local problems. It is a coincidence that since 1984 employment has risen in every region of Canada, in fact, in seven provinces by more than 10 per cent.
I am sure many members of this House are aware of what has been accomplished and why their constituents, during the last five years, seem to be quite pleased with what we are doing.
As the motion states, investment and initiative should come from labour groups, economic development corporations, councils, small business, farmers and local government offices in communities across Canada.
In this regard, the industrial adjustment service, Community Futures, and other federal government initiatives, under the Labour Force Development Strategy, are establishing a co-operative, pro-active framework to deal with the inevitable industrial and sectoral adjustments at the local level. Their success in revitalizing companies and communities is directly related to the involvement of the very people in the whole exercise who matter the most: The local employers, workers, representatives, and community leaders.
That involvement by Canadians is a primary reason for the economic progress which has defined this government's economic stewardship.


Beryl Gaffney: Mr. Speaker, my comments are going to be very brief, but I felt that I should rise this evening and speak to the motion that is before us.
My first reaction was that it was very philosophical and idealistic, but on the other hand, I started thinking back exactly the things that are being mentioned in the motion this evening. Co-operatives are not something new in Canada. Co-operatives have been around for as long as I can possibly remember, whether it is in the housing market or whether it is in the food industry or in the farming industry, and there have been many of them. The co-operative industry is something that Canada has based itself on for these good many years and has grown the stronger because of it.
The reason I felt that I should speak this evening was because the hon. member mentioned the regional and municipal governments and how they should be involved. My background is 10 years in that area. I know

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Private Members' Business
that municipal governments have been involved. However, municipal governments are restricted according to the municipal act. They are not allowed to put an infusion of their own moneys in to create jobs in their own municipalities. The money has to come from either the provincial government or the federal government.
Historically both levels of government have provided municipalities with moneys and job creation programs. This is nothing new. It is something that municipalities have taken advantage of for a good number of years.
The major problem that municipalities have been faced with over the years in this area is the fact that the governments provided this infusion of money, put up the money for a capital project and then withdraw its support. The municipality is left holding the bag. Who carries the operating costs? All of a sudden the municipalities have a project that is under way and they are having to draw from a tax base that is only coming from the property tax.
One program I would like to mention that is absolutely deplorable, that is presently in place by this government, is called "project haven". It comes under the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. The corporation puts up the money for a co-operative venture or a municipal venture to build a home for battered women in Canada, but it only provides the capital cost. Then the organization is left with the possibility of trying to raise money and trying to gather funds together. On average, a project of that nature needs approximately $300,000 a year. It is very difficult in today's age to try and fund raise $300,000 a year by a hand full of volunteers. Yet the need for this project is great in Canada today. I strongly suggest that the government start moving to provide operating funds for that.
The private sector and the entrepreneurial spirit have always been very much in the forefront in Canada. Again, they have in many instances relied on government for this infusion of money. This was started by a Liberal government, not by a Conservative government. We were the ones that made the road marks in this area. Again this is not something new.
I commend the member for bringing this forward. I just think that we have to carry it a little bit further. We have to document this a little further. We have to see where these funds are going to come from and be more specific. Let us not chop it off at the knees and leave somebody holding the bag.
We talk about the economy, job creation and the environment. The infrastructure program should be in place across this country today, and it is not. Jobs would be created and protection of the environment would happen, yet this government refuses to put any money into that program. This was something that since the 1930s was supported by a Liberal government. It was a tripartite agreement.
Our Trans-Canada Highway was built by the federal government. Once it was built it was handed over to the province. It is falling apart. It needs three levels of government to maintain it. There are cities and towns that have no sewage treatment plants. Our rivers, lakes and oceans are being polluted.
I ask the government to take action. Let us create jobs in this countiy. Let's protect our environment. I applaud this motion, but let us make it a little tighter.


Jean-Guy Guilbault: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to speak to the motion of the Hon. Member for Prince Albert-Churchill River and to my government's policy of assisting farm operations. Since the Hon. Member's motion is rather long and varied, I would like to discuss my government's concerns and what it has been doing for the agricultural industry.
As an example of the government's understanding of the essential role played by the agricultural sector in our economy, I may mention that on October 4 this year, our Prime Minister, the Minister of Agriculture, the Minister of State (Agriculture) and the Minister for International Trade (Messrs. Mulroney, Mazankowski, Blais and Crosbie) met Mr. Jacques Proulx, president of the Union des producteurs agricoles, the UPA executive and a number of senior officials of his organization.
Mr. Speaker, as you know, our government, with the United States, has been vindicated in the yogurt and ice cream case at GATT. Our government has just delegated a commission, chaired by the president of the Canadian
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Federation of Milk Producers, Mr. Claude Rivard, and as you know, the GATT negotiations on this matter start on Monday. We are trying to strengthen GATT article 11 which will allow our milk producers in Quebec to expand and maintain their position.
As you know, the agricultural sector does a lot more than feed the country. It employs one-seventh of Canada's labour force, requires considerable investments and is responsible for exports totalling billions of dollars.
Farm producers and the agri-food industry contribute very substantially to the prosperity of this country, and that is why the government is monitoring developments in this sector very closely.
In fact, we believe the government has done more than its share to enable the entire agricultural sector to maintain its strength, despite all the problems it is facing. Our support has been unflagging, and some excellent examples are the Special Canadian Grains Program and the Canadian Crop Drought Assistance Program.
During the last four years, over $16 billion has been invested by the government in agriculture. If we were not convinced of the importance of this sector, we would not have done twice as much for the industry as the previous government during the last four years of its mandate.
Our programs are based on a number of different perspectives. Above all, however, they are comprehensive and support the development of all intervenors in the industry.
Mr. Speaker, I have some more examples to show how we support Canadian farm producers.
First, the national farm products marketing development project which subsidizes research and marketing, new product development, marketing studies and development of marketing strategies.
Our purpose is to help Canadian products win a greater market share, both domestically and internationally.
This plan covers up to 50 per cent of the costs for non-profit commercial organizations and affects all production sectors.
The purpose of the production development assistance project is to stimulate the economic development of the
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agricultural sector by granting financial assistance for specific projects for developing and upgrading human resource.
Under this project, $9.5 million will be allocated this year. Part of this amount will go to fairs and exhibitions, among others.
For farmers in financial difficulty, the Government set up the Farm Debt Review Board Program. Through mediation, these boards help reach agreements between all parties so that the farmer can continue operating or liquidate his assets in an orderly way.
In three years, 7691 applications were considered by the Farm Debt Review Boards. Agreement was reached in 5143 cases, a success rate of 67 per cent. Note that the boards do not impose rules but rather use a mediation process to reach agreement amicably.
Finally, despite the dynamism of the industry and the efforts of the Government, some farmers must give up farming. For them, we created the Canadian Rural Transition Program. Thanks to this program, farmers who are forced to quit farming can more easily go into other fields.
Concretely, this program provides, for example, a transition subsidy, financial aid to pay living expenses for a certain period, help in seeking employment and assistance for all training-related expenses. It also provides employment as well as, legal and financial information.
So far 2,869 farmers have benefited from the program to the tune of an average $6,600 per person.
Mr. Speaker, the government is not content to sit on its laurels. Now is the time to secure a stable and strong future for the agricultural sector. That is why we have launched an in-depth study of the national agricultural policy.
This study will enable the Canadian agri-food industry to remain active and successful in the future by taking advantage of a fast-changing and increasingly global market and of the opportunities arising from the Cana-da-U.S. Trade Agreement, by facing up to the new environment resulting from the Multilateral Trade Negotiations and by seizing the opportunities offered by Europe after 1992 and the growth of the Asian and Pacific markets.

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That study will allow us and all interested parties to share a common vision and to reaffirm our determination even our commitment to meeting consumer demand, especially for healthy and nutritious products.
Yes, Mr. Speaker, our government is committed to maintaining a strong and healthy agri-food industry in Canada. To that end, we will establish a national strategic framework for developing policies based on Canadians' own characteristics and success stories while keeping a confident vision of the future.
[English\


Mr. Jack Shields (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister for International Trade):: Mr. Speaker, I am indeed pleased today to have this opportunity to talk about workers' co-ops and the work that this government has been doing with the co-operative sector.
Co-operatives are an important sector of the Canadian economy. There are approximately 12 million Canadians who are members of co-operatives whose combined assets are more than $70 billion and who conduct $14 billion in business every year.
There are co-ops in every part of Canada and in virtually every line of business. They are indeed major players in the grain trade, the dairy and poultry industries, and banking. They are also active in fisheries, housing, child care, health care and many other fields. Some of Canada's largest businesses are run by co-operatives. The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, for example, Canada's biggest co-op, ranks sixty-sixth on The Financial Post, 500 listed for 1988. There were also 17 other co-ops including the Alberta Wheat Pool, United Grain Growers, Manitoba Pool Elevators, and several dairy pools among the 500 companies listed.
Co-operatives perform even better on The Financial Post ranking of financial institutions. It might surprise the House to learn that there were 19 credit unions in caissespopulates among the top 100, with the Desjardins Confederation in sixth place over all.
In 1988 a co-op opened Canada's first heavy oil upgrader in Regina. This major undertaking opened on time and within budget. All this proves that co-operatives are viable enterprises that are able to compete with private sector corporations. They compete not only in agriculture and banking but also in fields such as forestry, fisheries, retailing, petroleum, fertilizers, building material, and machinery sales. They are also active in services such as child care, health care, housing, communications, and even funerals.
Speaking of child care co-ops, they were the subject of a recent study by the federal government's co-operative secretariat. This study found that child care co-ops offer significant benefits for parents and their children. They encourage parental involvement in the education system, provide cost effective quality child care, and offer development and opportunities for both parents and the child. According to this study there were 469 child care co-ops in Canada in 1986, with 19,603 members and 944 staff. We can expect to see more co-operative day care centres in pre-schools in the future.
This government has taken an active interest in the co-operative sector. In 1984 the Prime Minister appointed the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board as minister responsible for liaison with the co-operative sector. In 1987 the government established the co-operatives secretariat to act as a focal point for the government's relations with the co-op sector. Then we set up the minister's advisory committee made up of senior representatives of the sector. This committee advises the minister on the potential impact of government policies and programs on co-ops. To complete the infrastructure this government created the interdepartmental committee. This body co-ordinates government activities in relation to the co-op sector.
The government set up the infrastructure but it did not stop there. The minister has co-hosted three federal-provincial territorial conferences of ministers responsible for co-operatives. That is action. The first was held in Regina in 1985, the second in Ottawa in 1986, and the third in Halifax in 1988. Recently the minister held the fourth conference in Montreal.
What makes the Ottawa member's motion especially timely is that the ministers discussed workers' co-ops at their latest conference. Last year in Halifax the ministers directed their officials to work together with officials of the co-op sector to develop a strategy for the development of workers' co-ops. The federal minister responsible for co-ops said on that occasion that workers' co-ops "would create jobs and give people a chance to become involved in making business decisions". He also said it
November 2, 1989

was important for governments at all levels to develop policies to meet the needs of workers co-operatives.
Workers co-operatives are businesses owned and directed by the people who operate them. In 1988 there were about 450 worker co-ops in Canada, more than double the number operating four years earlier. These businesses provide employment for about 15,000 Canadian men and women and had sales of well over $100 million.
Allow me to provide you with some examples of successful workers co-ops. In Montreal, Harpell Press has been run as a co-op since 1947. It is one of the largest workers co-ops and prints in the Canadian edition of the Reader's Digest. Another Montreal co-op organizes northern adventure trips and mountain climbing courses. In the maritimes there is a very active co-op making Acadian hooked rugs. In British Columbia a new co-op specializes in desk top publishing.
Printing, baking, forestry and construction are just a few of the industries where worker co-ops have traditionally been active. In recent years some workers' co-ops have successfully established in the high technology field of computer software. In 1988 workers' co-ops moved into some new areas including two home health care co-ops in Nova Scotia, the Co-operative of Organic Food Growers in Prince Edward Island, and a health food co-op that sells meat from animals nourished with feed free from sprays and pesticides.
There is really no area that is not suitable for workers co-ops. Theatre, taxis, ambulance services, ventilation equipment manufacturing and building maintenance are some of the other enterprises run by workers co-ops. Many Canadians and their communities are highly dependent on a single industry. For them, finding a solution to plant closures is a top priority. Workers' co-ops can often provide that solution. That is why the federal, provincial and territorial governments are interested in encouraging their development. A recent study in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia indicates that workers co-ops actually have a better chance of survival than conventional businesses. According to this report, 58 per cent of the workers' co-ops are still in business after six years. This compares well to the 70 per cent to 80 per cent failure rates typically reported for Canadian business in their first five years.
Private Members' Business
I would now like to discuss the strategy process that was set in motion at last year's Conference of Ministers that was held June 14 in Halifax. Immediately following the conference, a committee headed by the federal government's co-operative secretariat, including representatives of all 10 provinces or provincial governments and the Northwest Territories, was established and began holding meetings to draft the strategy. The co-operative sector was invited to make its views known and to offer suggestions. The committee delivered its proposed national strategy for the development of workers' co-operatives on January 3, 1989. The report made three levels of recommendations.
Level one calls on governments to "provide equality of treatment" by amending legislation, regulations and policies to eliminate factors that limit the development of workers' co-ops.
Level two recommends that governments "provide equality of opportunity" by making legislative provision for the transfer of incorporation from a company to a co-op.
Level three proposes that governments "provide positive encouragement to the creation of workers' co-ops".
The minister recognizes that governments can provide an environment that enables co-ops and private enterprise to compete as equals. At the conference on October 20 he and his provincial counterparts studied the recommendations and discussed the follow-up to the national strategy to ensure that this type of environment exists. Some provinces have already done what the report recommends, while others are moving in that direction.
As a result of the minister's consultations the national strategy is now closer to implementation in all provinces. The federal government's co-operative secretariat will now undertake bilateral negotiations with the provinces to further advance the process.
This is not just a provincial matter, and I think all members in this House recognize that. The federal government is also responding to the report's recommendations: $5 million from unemployment insurance is being spent on research into the development of workers' co-ops. In addition, proposed changes to the unemployment insurance program are designed specifically to assist the capitalization of workers' co-ops. The

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Private Members' Business
co-operative secretariat is studying the implications for the federal government of implementing the recommendations.
In conclusion, let me say that the hon. member has raised an important issue. I want to congratulate him on doing so. The record shows, though, that this government has done a lot to assist the development of the co-operative sector and the worker co-ops in particular.
I see you signalling that my time is up. I just want once again to congratulate the hon. member for Prince Albert-Churchill River for bringing forth his motion to the House for discussion and deliberation. If he listened carefully to what I had to say today, I think he would understand that this government is leading the way and taking its responsibilities for workers' co-operatives very seriously, indeed as the history of this government and the initiatives that we have taken since taking office in 1984 have shown.


Jean-Pierre Blackburn: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to deal tonight with the motion moved by the Hon. Member for Prince Albert-Churchill River (Mr. Funk) which reads:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider the advisability of encouraging and building community-based investment and job initiatives through community and worker co-operatives, community development corporations, regional councils, small businesses and farms and municipal governments.
In short, Mr. Speaker, our hon. friend would like the Government to do more and provide co-operatives and other organizations with more money. Therefore, I suggest it might be interesting to look at co-operatives, because this is one of the key sectors in our economy today. For instance, financial co-operatives credit unions co-operatives and the so-called caisses populates have approximately 9 million members in Canada with assets of over $56 billion. Insurance co-operatives, with assets of about $5.4 billion cover 9.5 subscribers and the co-operative trust companies administer nearly $17 billion in assets. This indicates just how strong the co-operative movement is in Canada. In the financial sector there are no less than 3,859 co-operatives with a total membership of nearly 3.1 million and combined assets of
nearly $7 billion. This accounts for $14 billion in economic activity in this country.
Mr. Speaker, newly-formed groups of workers and financial services as well as the ever growing number of sectors where the co-operative principles are being applied constitute a growth factor in the Canadian economy. Ever since the members of the British Rockdale movement first stated the principles of co-operation nearly a century ago, the suggestion that ordinary people should work together to meet their own needs has gained currency the world over, so much so that nowadays we have co-operatives actively engaged in practically all sectors of our society. People turn to the co-operative movement to obtain day care services, health services, food or accommodation. The movement has even gained a toehold in the labour market. Let us take forestry co-operatives as an example. There is one in the riding of Jonquiere which I proudly represent in this House. I am referring to Laterriere's forestry co-operative, a group of people who got together to develop their economy and improve their working methods to draw maximum benefits from our huge forest resources.
The notions of participatory democracy, education and sharing benefits gained as a result of joint efforts are already firmly established in that field. As a matter of fact, my colleague the Minister of State for Housing had an opportunity to meet with people involved in the Mouvement des cooperatives d'habitation permanentes, and I think our colleague was highly impressed by their dedication, energy and efficient approach in promoting their convictions.
I have in mind some people who work in that field, and of course I need not go any further than my own region, my own riding. A good example would be Mr. Allan Gaudreault who works for Brich and who helped a group of people launch their own co-operative project. This is the case of one man who deserves to be singled out for the quality of the work he does for our fellow citizens.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the responsibility of our colleague, has done a lot to promote this kind of accommodation for Canadians. Over the years the federal government has always made it a point to consult regularly with the co-operative housing

sector, and their discussions have led to a number of innovations in housing.
Under the Canadian co-operative housing program established in 1986, we supported the development of a new mortgage financing called indexed-linked mortgage, a totally new program.
Mr. Speaker, I see that my time is running out and I know you are preparing to interrupt me soon, so I will get away from my text to refer to examples of co-operative projects and a speech I made last week, when I had an opportunity to attend the opening of the Marguerite Belley co-operative project in my constituency. A wide range of people where there, both the well-to-do and the poor. I told them of the quality of housing they were enjoying, because in our cities we can see the difference between projects supported by our Government and those from the private sector, in terms of the quality of existing buildings. I believe this is important because what can be more pleasant in life than living in quality housing, feeling good, being able to live decently. This is a benefit we are providing our people with the co-operative housing program. There are other initiatives we are taking in housing.
And look at what is also coming on stream in respect of senior citizen housing. Things are moving fast in that area.
I see you want to interrupt me, Mr. Speaker, but I believe our co-operative housing program is excellent and we must indeed go on directing funds to better housing in this country.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The period provided for the consideration of private member business has now expired.
Pursuant to Standing Order 96(1), this item is dropped from the Order Paper.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.
Adjournment Debate VIA RAIL
['A motion to adjourn the House is The House adjourned at 6.25 p.m.', 'Friday, November 3, 1989']
Mr. Brian L. Gardiner (Prince George-Bulkley Valley):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate tonight on a question that I put to the Minister of Transport on October 6. It was an important question I think because it followed on the deliberate slashing and destroying of the VIA Rail passenger network system in Canada by some 50 per cent.
What I want to do tonight is to discuss briefly some of the points around the VIA Rail remote services that we have in this country and what they mean in particular to the VIA Rail service in northern British Columbia through my riding.
Briefly, the government has done the wrong thing. I think our transport critic, the member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan, has done an excellent job in proving how wrong the Conservative government is to destroy VIA Rail as it is doing. As well, we have to look back in time a bit to recall how the Liberals did the same. It is unfortunate that in an inadequate way the Liberal Party when it was in government created VIA Rail. It made cuts to VIA. Now we see the absolute betrayal by the Conservative government of its election promises in 1984 and 1988.
It is important to review what the minister has said about remote services, most specifically the VIA Rail run from Prince Rupert to Jasper which goes through the riding of my good friend, the member for Skeena, as well as through my riding of Prince George-Bulkley Valley and the riding of my colleague, the member for Prince George-Peace River.
The question we put was to the transport minister. It was in light of the fact that he announced that in keeping this run going the three times a week that it does now, Transport Canada would be reviewing the transportation needs of the truly isolated communities along these remote routes to determine whether more cost-effective means of access could be introduced.
For the information of the House, we have not seen the VIA Rail timetable yet. Some of the communities served by this run are Harvey, Dunster, McBride, Goat River, Dome Creek, Penny, Longworth, Dago, Bums Lake, Houston and Telkwa. Many of those communities depend on VIA Rail. Some of those communities depend solely on VIA Rail as their only means of transportation.

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Adjournment Debate
The important message that we want the government and the minister to understand is just how important VIA Rail is to those of us in northern B.C. That is why we asked and why I have written to chambers of commerce and city councils throughout my riding to invite the minister and Transport Canada to discuss what this route is going to do. In the review of passenger rail transportation in Canada put out by VIA Rail, the government has to step in. There is virtually no mention in this report of that terrific route from Prince Rupert to Jasper and the tourist potential that it has.
It is critical that the Minister of Transport instruct his officials to travel to our part of the province to review this remote run and the others, and to meet with concerned community groups to ensure that they get a chance to explain the potential that there is for VIA Rail in our area, both from a remote service concept and from the incredible tourist potential that we have.
It is unfortunate that in the debate here and in our hometown on this matter that some of the members from the government party opposite talked about how they did not know what the cuts were going to do. It was as if they were not even aware of the concern that people had about VIA Rail. That is shocking because the community group in Prince George, the Save VIA Rail Committee, was headed by residents of Prince George, some of whom worked at VIA Rail and with whom I took a run some months ago to get a first-hand look at the service, which was sold out on many occasions. Yet this Conservative government does not understand how important a role VIA Rail can play in eastern and central Canada but also in remote Canada.
I ask that when the Parliamentary Secretary or whoever on the government side is going to respond they will have the courage to commit to this House that those officials will have an opportunity to travel and hear from the people who rely on VIA Rail passenger service in the remote parts of our country. It is essential. I hope the government will listen for once on this matter.


Mr. John A. MacDougall (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to respond to the question raised by the hon. member for Prince George-
Bulkley Valley about the future of transportation connections in truly isolated communities which are now served by VIA on its remote routes.
As part of the government's announcement of a national, affordable, sustainable network for VIA, the Minister of Transport indicated that he would be reviewing the transportation needs of the truly isolated communities along the remote routes to determine whether more cost-effective means of access could be introduced.
The truly isolated communities are found on VIA's eight remote lines and on the Winnipege-Capreol section of the restructured western transcontinental service. They are identified as points where VIA makes scheduled stops which do not have any regularly scheduled air service and do not have all-weather highways access to the national transportation system.
The review will examine the most cost-effective means to meet the transportation needs of truly isolated communities. It will determine if rail service is the most cost effective transportation alternative when compared, for example, to all-weather runways or roads to serve these truly isolated communities.
If rail continues to be the most cost-effective solution, that will be the basis for future action. If some other approach is indicated the Minister of Transport will engage in appropriate discussions to determine if alternative agreements can be in fact be implemented on a satisfactory basis.



Mr. Dave Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, on October 5, 1989, I posed a question to the Minister of Transport. At that time I asked the minister with regard to the termination of the Halifax-Sydney route why those Canadians were being treated as second-class Canadians.
I raised with the minister the fact that the termination of this particular route would negatively affect the tourism industry in industrial Cape Breton and indeed throughout all of Cape Breton. It would deny Canadians living in that region of Canada the opportunity of access to good quality health care in the provincial capital of Halifax.
November 2, 1989

I also outlined for the minister that the termination of this particular route would prevent students from having affordable, reasonable transportation costs to pursue their education.
It was interesting to note way back in 1981, in particular in July of 1981 when a previous administration had made some cuts, some of the comments which were made by the then Secretary of State for External Affairs and, of course, the present Deputy Prime Minister. These comments were contained in the Report of the Conservative Task Force on Rail Passenger Service, 1981. I think it is worth pointing out to members who are present as well as the viewing audience the hypocrisy that we see being practised each and every day by the government.
The first statement is one by the present Secretary of State for External Affairs. He said on July 28, 1981, with regard to cut-backs of VIA Rail: "An act of the deepest cynicism and arrogance-(that) can only aggravate regional disparity".
The Deputy Prime Minister said on July 18, 1981, as quoted in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald: "The cuts are another example of double dealing and double standards. I find the decision and the whole process most objectionable".
Contained in the report were a number of items which I believe to be germane to the points which I am attempting to impress upon the government, namely, that "special groups of Canadians, such as the disabled, the elderly and economically disadvantaged, to whom other passenger modes are physically or financially impossible, will be severely affected by the cut-backs".
That was contained in the Conservative document of 1981, and it is very much applicable in 1989 with regard to the Halifax-Sydney route. They go on in their document of 1981 to state: "The cuts discriminate unfairly against Canadians living in sparsely populated or remote areas, such as northerners or Indian peoples, who have no other modes of transportation available to or from their communities".
I suggest to the parliamentary secretary, who is ably trying to defend a very impossible situation for the Government of Canada, that in that part of Canada the
Adjournment Debate
opportunities in terms of modes of transportation, if you are unemployed, sick, elderly or indeed disadvantaged in some way, are non-existent. The passenger rail train has served Canadians in that part of Canada immeasurably well over many, many years.
Further, contained in their document of 1981, the Conservative opposition as it was then stated the following four things which I believe are worthy of consideration. "The cuts are unjustifiably discriminatory toward certain areas of Canada and thus will create further discord, disharmony and regional tension".
I say to the parliamentary secretary, you have accomplished that. Your goal obviously was to create disharmony, regional disparities and havoc. You have accomplished that by terminating the Halifax-Sydney route of VIA Rail.
"Government policies to improve regional economic opportunities are often offset by contradictory policies of reducing transportation services to those same regions".
Modes of transportation are essential in terms of any economic strategy but, more important, they are absolutely essential when you are dealing with an economy which at the present time, by all standards-provincially, nationally and internationally-is well below average. To make it viable, to make it more attractive and make it more appealing, the way to go is not to cut one of the modes of transportation.
"Over two-thirds of the job losses caused by the cuts will occur in regions beyond central Canada, mainly in areas already disadvantaged or with existing unemployment problems".
In parts of my riding unemployment ranges from 22.9 per cent upward to 35 to 40 per cent. Certainly these cut-backs will operate in a very disruptive way.
The report goes on to state: "A widespread view exists that any savings produced by the cut-backs across the country will be spent to upgrade services in the narrow transportation corridor between Quebec City and Windsor".
What are they going to do with the savings vis-a-vis VIA Rail? Are they going to put them into other modes of transportation in the poorer regions of this country? The answer has been very clear from the outset that this government is not interested in any meaningful way in assisting those poorer regions of the country. What

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Adjournment Debate
better example do Canadians have than the example of the termination of the Halifax-Sydney run of VIA Rail?
As I said at the outset, and I conclude, it will operate to the disadvantage of elderly Canadians. It will prevent students from having affordable access to their educational needs in universities on mainland Nova Scotia. It will affect those Canadians in eastern Nova Scotia who wish to seek out and obtain appropriate health care by travelling to the provincial capital.
All of those things contribute to the belief, and I believe the evidence is very strong, that those Canadians in eastern Nova Scotia are being treated as second-class citizens by the Government of Canada and it should terminate that kind of ill treatment of those Canadians.


John Alexander Frances MacDougall: Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to comment on the remarks made by my hon. friend from Cape Breton-East Richmond.
The government's decision on VIAs five-year corporate plan maintains a network of rail passenger service that will be national, affordable and sustainable. The network will continue to link Canadians from Vancouver to Halifax and will maintain good connections between eastern and central Canada, as both The Ocean and The Atlantic will continue to operate. No Canadian is being cut off from access to the national transportation system as a result of this decision including Cape Bretons.
The hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond has raised the potential tourism impact of the discontinuance of VIA's Halfax-Sydney route. In response I would like to say that as someone bom on the great island I am familiar with the many notable tourism attractions in Cape Breton. The Cabot Trail is world renowned. Ingonish Beach, the Miners' Museum in Glace Bay, Fort Louisburg at Louisburg, the Alexander Graham Bell Museum at Baddeck, and the Acadian Community of Cheticamp play a major role in the tourism industry of Cape Breton.
However, I must point out that these important tourism attractions are not accessible by passenger rail. People travel by automobile or by bus to visit these places.
We must also be aware that VIA's Halifax-Sydney service not only had a ridership drop of more than 40 per cent in 1984 but, as mentioned to the hon. member by the minister, also cost taxpayers about $86 for every passenger it carried in 1988.
In light of these facts it is difficult to argue that VIA's Halifax-Sydney passenger service plays a vital part in the Cape Breton tourism industry. Those who wish to visit Cape Breton and the many attractions there will continue to do as they always have done.


SUPPLY AND SERVICES
Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, my question follows upon the questions we have been raising in the last few days about government scandals.
Over the last few days we have been focusing on the conduct of one particular individual, a member of the Senate, and we are now assured not only that the Senate is considering holding a hearing into his activities in relation to two government departments but that the RCMP is also examining material about that individual.
But there is a much larger question which has not been answered by the government and which I want to see it address. I hope the member sitting opposite will be prepared to do so.
We are not talking about individuals' particular behaviour in relation to this government. We are talking about an over-all pattern which is emerging of the way in which this government does business.
The way in which this government does business stinks, whether we are talking about conduct which is illegal, and I can give examples of individuals like a former Conservative member of Parliament who was convicted of taking bribes; whether there is a criminal trial and the individual is acquitted, and I can refer in that case to former Conservative cabinet minister Andre Bissonnette; or whether we are not even talking about illegalities, and in this category I would put a case like that of Sinclair Stevens.
In so many instances in approaching this government for the use of public funds what has emerged is a pattern in which friends of the Prime Minister, people who are
November 2, 1989

important members of the Conservative party, people who are close to other cabinet ministers, are getting rich and getting rich out of the public trust. Contracts are being awarded with no sense for the taxpayer that any respect is being paid at all to get the best deal or even to justify the contract.
What we are urging and what we are asking is that the government clean up its act. It is not a good enough answer for the government to say that it is cleaning up its act by turning over information about a particular individual or a particular situation to the police.
If I can pursue the example of the Gravel case, during the time in which the matter was under investigation by the police, the government refused to answer any questions about it. It refused to answer not just about Mr. Gravel's involvement but about the implications of having a member of its caucus on the take getting bribes, and the way in which that would alter the operations of the government against the interests of the taxpayer.
When the individual was charged and we asked questions about it, the government refused to answer questions about it because the individual was charged. When he was before the court it refused to answer questions about it because it was before the court. When the individual was convicted and no public interest was served at all in refusing to answer questions about the details and background, again it refused to answer questions saying that the book was closed.
Let me pursue the Gravel example again. If someone is prepared to give a bribe to have his contract accepted by a government department, it is important for us to know, apart from the responsibility of the individual, whether that contract a necessary contract. Was it something the government really needed to be done? Was there someone else who would have done it for less or done it better? These are all very relevant questions. Whether Mr. Gravel in the particular case ended up being convicted or not, we are entitled to ask those questions and have answers to them.
Now I come to the case before us, of Senator Cogger. Whatever his individual responsibility is found to be, whether charges are ever laid or ever successfully brought, what is uncovered is another piece of this
Adjournment Debate
pattern of a government that helps its friends en route to awarding government contracts, en route to making government decisions. It is not good enough to tell us that Senator Cogger is possibly being reviewed in the other place. It is not good enough to tell us that the RCMP may be looking into the matter.
Whether they are or not, we insist that the government answer for the probity, honesty and fairness of the way in which government programs are being admitted. Everyone in this country is becoming more intensely aware, day by day, that having a friend of the Prime Minister help you for payment, having a friend of another cabinet minister, having a prominent Tory help you, is a certain way of being able to succeed in getting a grant, a loan, in getting a contract to put up a building at an airport, or in getting a lease from the government for space in a private building.
There are many examples of it, and in each case the government has insisted that it will only focus on the individual and the individual's responsibility. Whether the individual is responsible or not, whether we are talking about a rotten apple, we are talking about a rotten government.
This Parliament is the place where we are entitled to raise these questions. We are entitled to hear from the ministers of their attempts and their sincere efforts to clean up their act and try to restore for Canadians a government that the Canadian people can be proud of.


John Alexander Frances MacDougall: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to say that this question has been raised before and has been answered.
I would like to refer the member to the response by the former Minister of Transport, the hon. member for St. John's West, on February 22, 1988. I quote:
The procedure was one of the most open and above-board ever used by any government in Canada. A committee of permanent civil servants headed by Mr. Warrick, the former manager of the Toronto airport, was in charge of the call of the proposals for the whole procedure. They made a recommendation. Four groups put in proposals and they recommended what they said was the best proposals, after their weeks of analysis. Everyone was given the same chance to make a proposal and to bid.
They came to me then and I approved their recommendation. I did not go against their recommendation. I did not try to overrule their recommendation.

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Adjournment Debate
I believe that this should adequately respond to any deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House concerns of my hon. friend.	stands adjourned until tomorrow morning at ten o'clock.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: A motion to adjourn the House is The House adjourned at 6.25 p.m.

Friday, November 3, 1989