1989-12-07

Mr. Lewis:: Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the three House leaders with respect to the terrible tragedy that took place in Montreal yesterday.
There was a feeling among the House leaders that the House should comment on this particular tragedy. We have agreed that at 2.15 p.m., after the usual Statements by Members and immediately prior to Question Period commencing, a representative from each of the three Parties would be recognized in the House for a brief statement of condolence to the victims and their families, those who were injured, and those who witnessed the tragedy.
I do not think we need a House order to do that, but I did want to advise the House that this agreement had been reached among the parties.


Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, we agree with this procedure. At 2.15, we will have an opportunity to express our sympathy for the relatives, friends and witnesses of this terrible incident, for the victims of a madman.


Mr. Riis:: Mr. Speaker, we were all shocked at the news yesterday of the terrible tragedy in Montreal. Our hearts went out to the victims and all of those who were part one way or another of the terrible incident.
We would certainly like to join with the House in making appropriate comments at 2.15 today.



POINT OF ORDER


Mr. Speaker:: I am going to ask the indulgence of the House. Before Routine Proceedings I have two rulings to make. The first is on a point of order raised by the hon. parliamentary secretary. I will be dealing immediately thereafter with the question of privilege or perhaps more properly a question of contempt raised by the hon. member for Victoria.
On Monday, October 30, 1989, the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader raised as a point of order several questions regarding the conduct of business on a supply day.
The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands and several others offered comments on these questions. I want to thank members for their contributions to this debate on an interesting procedural matter. I have considered the matter carefully and am now prepared to respond.

The first question asked by the parliamentary secretary was whether it was necessary for the government to designate a supply day before the opposition can give notice of a motion they want debated. The parliamentary Secretary maintained that it was a necessary precondition. The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands suggested that in this specific case it was not necessary and that, in any case, it had been done in anticipation of Friday being a votable supply day.

According to our rules and practice, the purpose of notice is to give warning to the House of an item of business that might be raised for debate. The notice does not necessarily mean that the item will actually be debated or that it will be debated any time soon.

December 7, 1989
Speaker's Ruling
The Order Paper contains numerous items for which notice has been given but which have not yet been debated. The parliamentary secretary suggested that proceedings on supply days are different.
While I agree that certain aspects of supply have a character distinct from other proceedings, it seems to me that unless the rules on supply are explicit, the usual practices should be followed. This is the case with notice.
It is competent for any opposition member to file a motion that might be debated on a supply day. Normally what happens is that members file supply day motions at the latest possible moment after a day has been designated by the government, but this does not preclude the right to give notice of the supply motion well in advance of a supply day. Indeed this has happened.
In 1982 a supply day motion originally filed on February 11 remained on the Notice Paper for almost six weeks and through three supply days before being taken up on the final allotted day in the supply period ending late in March. While it may be unusual to have the supply day motion filed well in advance of a designated day, it is not prohibited by either our rules or our practice.
As his second point, the parliamentary secretary asked a question relating to the intent of Standing Order 81(12)(c), which gives the Speaker the power to select opposition motions on allotted days when notice has been given of more than one. He felt that the idea behind this Standing Order was to cover those situations where motions had been put on notice by both of the opposition parties, but that it was not the intention that one party could put down more than one notice or the same notice but in the name of another hon. member.
The recognition of two opposition parties is not explicitly contemplated in the Standing Orders. Speakers in the past have indicated that they have selected motions with a view to the proportional balance of the opposition parties in the House, but this does not necessarily address the entire issue of selection.
Other considerations might need to be taken into account, particularly in instances where there are several notices, some of which could be submitted by members of the same party. The date of the notice, the sponsor of the motion, the subject matter raised and whether the
motion is votable or not can be weighed by the Speaker when making a final decision.
I would agree with the parliamentary secretary that the political parties are factored into any decision, but I would have to add that it is not the only criterion used nor is it necessarily the most important one and, as I have stated earlier, there is nothing in the Standing Orders which in any way limits the number of notices which may be given.

The third question of the parliamentary secretary has to do with the withdrawal of a notice of motion. The parliamentary secretary asks if it is in order "for any or all notices for such motions to be withdrawn without the consent of the House." The simple answer to this question is yes. As long as a motion has not been proposed to the House, as long as the House is not properly seized of the motion, then it is still only a notice and it remains possible for the sponsor to secure its withdrawal unilaterally. The sponsor of the notice of motion could even refuse to move it when the order is called and it would be dropped. Once it is in the possession of the House, however, the motion becomes the property of the House and it is the House which must then consent to the motion being withdrawn from further consideration or possible decision.
The authorities are clear on this. Beauchesne, Bouri-not and May all confirm that members retain the right to withdraw notices of motions before they have been proposed to the House. See, for example, Beauchesne's Fifth Edition, Citation 398 on page 144 and Bourinot Fourth Edition, page 296 where one reads:
A notice of motion may be withdrawn at any time by the member
upon merely notifying the Clerk of the House of his desire so to do.
British practices are comparable to our own with respect to withdrawal of notice, and I would refer members to pages 353 and 377 of May's Twentieth Edition: "Notice withdrawals are usually done by a letter to the Clerk signed by the member concerned."
In the fourth issue raised by the parliamentary secretary I am asked to deal with the power of selection as set out in Standing Order 81(12)(c). In the 20 years that this
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rule has been part of our Standing Orders the Chair has only occasionally been obliged to select motions for debate on a supply day.
The task is perhaps not as daunting as the parliamentary secretary suggests. It is not so much impossible as unenviable. As I pointed out earlier, there are certain criteria which the Speaker uses in evaluating the supply day motion when more than one has been filed.
Speakers in the past have tried to announce to the House as soon as they are able what motion will be selected for the supply day, but this may not always be satisfactory given that notices can be filed up to the very last minute, that is, up to six o'clock in the evening prior to a supply day or five o'clock on a Friday thus leaving little time for members to prepare for a debate.
While the Speaker can be sympathetic to the pressures exerted on members who routinely have to come into the House with speeches on short notice, there is little that the Chair can do except to enforce the rules as they are written and as they have been applied for two decades since the rules of supply have been changed.

I hope that this explanation of the rules relating to opposition day motions and notice has been helpful to the parliamentary secretary and to the House and I thank the member for giving me the opportunity to clarify the matter.


PRIVILEGE
[Stage Direction]
Last Monday, on December 4, the hon. member for Victoria rose on a question of privilege to bring to the attention of the Chair and the House a matter which he asserted constituted a contempt of Parliament.
The matter related to the announced appointment of several members of the Security Intelligence Review Committee including the chairman of that committee. According to the hon. member the appointments were made in violation of the statutory requirement for consultation between the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the leaders of all other recognized parties in the House.
Privilege
Because the consultation was in the form of a letter written two days before the announcement was made, the hon. member for Victoria claims that the consultative process was not adequately followed and that the actions amount to a contempt of Parliament.
[Stage Direction]
The hon. Minister of Justice (Mr. Lewis) claimed that there was no question of privilege. He argued that the consultative process was followed in that the Prime Minister solicited the advice of the Leader of the Opposition and also the Leader of the New Democratic Party. The Minister also indicated that the hon. member for Victoria ought not to be raising this issue since the statute refers only to consultation between the head of government and the opposition party leaders of the House. The Minister went further to suggest if the member for Victoria truly felt that appointments were invalid in law, that "he would have to argue that in another court or in another forum."
Other hon. members also contributed to the discussion of the question. Let me express my appreciation to all hon. members for their presentations on this issue.
[Stage Direction]
In ruling let me begin by saying that a question of privilege must involve some restriction upon rights and immunities historically claimed by the House and enjoyed by all members collectively and individually in the performance of their duties. In my view the matter of the process to be followed by law in the appointment of certain officials does not infringe on any of those rights and cannot therefore constitute a question of privilege.
Does the complaint involve a contempt of Parliament? A contempt must in some measure at least suggest a disregard for the rightful authority and dignity of Parliament. The provisions of the law in this case make no explicit reference to Parliament.
Section 34(1) of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act describes a process which is to be followed antecedent to the appointment of certain officials. The process involves, as I have already mentioned, certain specific individuals-the Prime Minister and the leaders of the recognized opposition parties of the House. Parliament is not directly implicated in this process and therefore I would be reluctant to agree that a question as to the adequate compliance with the provisions of the appointment process in the act could amount to a
[Stage Direction]
December 7, 1989
Routine Proceedings
contempt of Parliament. While it may be a question for the courts to decide upon as to whether or not the law has been respected in this instance, it does not constitute a contempt of the House.
In summary, therefore, the issue raised is neither a question of privilege nor a contempt. It is rather a question of law, and consequently I cannot offer my opinion as to the merits of the case either as argued by the hon. member for Victoria or as rebutted by the Minister of Justice. The Chair is not in a position to decide upon questions of law. That is a matter best left to the courts.
I think I should add, in the interests of the hon. member for Victoria and others who are concerned about this and also in fairness to the government, that this ruling deals only with the question of privilege or contempt. It does not of course preclude questions being asked in this chamber with respect to the other factors surrounding the incidents which have been brought to the attention of the Chair.


Hon. Gerry Weiner (Secretary of State of Canada and Minister of State (Multiculturalism and Citizenship)):: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to table today, in both official languages, the first annual report to Parliament on the matters relating to official languages for which I am responsible.

The report I am tabling pursuant to Section 44 of the Official Languages Act relates to fiscal year 1988-89.


ORDER IN COUNCIL
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table, in both official languages, a number of order in council appointments which were made by the government.
Pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 110(1), these are deemed referred to the appropriate standing committees, a list of which is attached.


PETITIONS
Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Mr. Speaker, I have the duty and honour to present a number of petitions today.
The first is signed by 25 residents of Thunder Bay and area who are concerned about the government's legislation dealing with unemployment insurance. It calls upon Parliament to reject these cuts in the unemployment insurance system, to propose more meaningful reforms and to concentrate on labour force development strategy combined with a full employment policy and effective regional development policy.


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by 80 residents of the community of Atikokan who are upset that the committee appointed by the Government of Canada to review the northern tax allowance has not only refused to include them in the geographic area but has removed many other communities.
They call upon Parliament to declare the township of Atikokan and the surrounding area to be eligible for the northern residence deduction.


Iain Francis Angus: I have two petitions, bearing a total of 259 names of residents from the communities of Hurkett, Dorion, Kaministiquia and Thunder Bay, primarily collected at the Family Diner in Victoriaville.
December 7, 1989

All these petitioners call upon Parliament to maintain the existing VIA network, to upgrade VIA equipment, and to guarantee VIA sufficient support to carry out its mandate to provide passenger service.


Iain Francis Angus: Finally, Madam Speaker, I have a petition bearing the names of 115 residents of Atikokan and 25 residents of Balmer-town, in northwestern Ontario, members of Local 950 of the United Steelworkers of America, all of whom object to the government's proposal for the goods and services tax.
They call upon Parliament to cease with this proposal which they believe will shift the tax burden on to ordinary Canadians through a regressive consumption tax instead of through real tax reform.


Mr. Fred J. Mifflin (Bonavista-Trinity-Conception):: Madam Speaker, I rise, pursuant to Standing Order 36, to present a petition duly signed by the clerk.
There are 40 signatures on this petition of people from Shearstown, Bay Roberts, Harbour Grace and Bryants Cove. They are concerned that the unemployment insurance system, which is very vital to their well-being and is providing income protection to them, will be changed significantly, to the point where it is going to affect them drastically. They are concerned about the promises that were made and are not being kept. They are terribly concerned about the $2.5 billion that is going to be taken away from them in the long run.
They are joined by my constituents from Old Shop, Blaketown, Upper Island Cove and other areas. They are calling on Parliament to reject Bill C-21 that is causing us so much grief in my constituency and to get on with some meaningful changes, particularly in the job development area.


Mr. Lyle Kristiansen (Kootenay West-Revelstoke):: Madam Speaker, I rise, pursuant to Standing Order 36, with the latest in what seems to be a never ending series of petitions on the subject of VIA Rail. These petitioners are particularly upset by the imminent closure of the Canadian line which is one of the best used and has one
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of the best cost recoveries of any section of the VIA network.
There are some 311 signatures on four separate petitions calling on Parliament to maintain VIA Rail's present national network, to upgrade VIA Rail with new equipment, and to give VIA Rail a sufficient budget to maintain its national mandate for passenger service.
The use of the line is evidenced by the large number of communities along the railway and by the many tourists who use that line and overuse it in the summertime from Golden, Sicamous, Kamloops, Revelstoke, Nakusp, Mica, Trail, Nelson, Ganges, Comox, Kelowna, Vancouver, Salmon Arm, Burnaby, Castlegar, Victoria, North Vancouver, Sparwood, Chetwynd, Whistler, Coquitlam, Vernon, Surrey, Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta, Winnipeg, Manitoba, and even two signatories from Sweden.
Mr. Gardiner All aboard!


Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi):: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I am tabling a petition signed by some men and women of Lebel-sur-Quevil-lon. They reject the recommendations of the task force on tax benefits for northern and isolated areas because this task force did not consider that in 1989, the government of Quebec recognizes northern Quebec as beginning at the 49th parallel in Abitibi and that places like Lebel-sur-Quevillon, Joutel, Matagami and Chapais were not consulted on their isolation in northern Quebec before this report was tabled in the House of Commons on October 27.


Mr. David Kilgour (Edmonton Southeast):: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36,1 have the duty and honour to present a petition approved as to form and signed by approximately 3,342 constituents.
Briefly put, the signatories believe as do I that the proposed goods and services tax would be "inflationary, regressive and would reduce the standard of living of Canadians generally".
They therefore call upon all members of Parliament to reject any such legislation put before this House.

Routine Proceedings


Mr. Brian L. Gardiner (Prince George -Bulkley Valley):: Madam Speaker, I have two petitions to present to the House today, pursuant to Standing Order 36.
The first is signed by residents primarily of 100 Mile House, British Columbia, and also Lac La Hache.
The petitioners express concern about this tax crazy government and its plan to introduce a goods and services tax. They call upon Parliament to reform the taxation system so that there is an effective minimum tax on wealthy individuals and corporations and to pursue a number of other measures that will ensure we have a fairer tax system.


Brian L. Gardiner: Madam Speaker, the second petition, also certified correct under Standing Order 36, is with regard to VIA Rail and is signed by residents in the province of Ontario who express their concern about this government's cuts to VIA Rail.
They call upon Parliament to maintain VIA Rail, to upgrade it with new equipment, and to give VIA a sufficient budget to maintain its national mandate.
I know they share my concern that probably the next step under this government will be to introduce legislation to create VIA Rail in HO scale, and that is not what we want in this country.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to present a petition on behalf of a number of western Canadians, pursuant to Standing Order 36 and certified correct by the clerk of petitions.
If I could summarize, the petitioners simply cannot believe that the government would actually impose a tax on diapers and coffins and everything in between. Virtually anything that moves is going to be taxed at 9 per cent.
The petitioners list a whole range of things which I will not take time to read, but there must be at least a dozen different reasons why they oppose the tax. They simply ask the government to reject the proposed goods and services tax, to reform our tax system with a minimum corporate tax, and to ensure that there is no taxation on essential goods such as haircuts, certain food products and the like.
The petition goes on for pages and pages.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Madam Speaker, I also have a petition on another matter relating to the ongoing saga of thousands of Canadians speaking out every day against the government's decision to reduce passenger rail service in Canada.
The petitioners point out that we are virtually the only country in the world that is doing this. Because of the fact that passenger rail service is environmentally friendly in terms of a way to travel, most other countries are expanding, investing and modernizing their passenger rail, whereas this government in its traditional fashion is curtailing and eliminating this service in large parts of the country.
The petitioners are asking the government to come to its senses and do what every other western industrialized nation is doing, that is, expand and modernize passenger
rail service.


Mr. Eugene Bellemare (Carleton -Gloucester):: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to present today a petition signed by over 2,000 citizens who oppose the government's proposed tax, the goods and services tax.
The community is very disturbed, shocked and annoyed to see that for the fist time in history, there will be a federal tax on services. Instead of only some products, on which the manufacturers' tax has been increased, now all or nearly all products will be taxed. We have not yet seen the details of the proposal. Now services! In the community, merchants are seriously concerned, as are consumers. Moreover, the interest rater are real cause for concern.


Ms. Catherine Callbeck (Malpeque):: Madam Speaker, it is my honour today to present three petitions signed by many concerned Canadians who object to the proposed goods and services tax. They believe that this new tax will cause higher inflation, higher interest rates, and higher unemployment.
Therefore they call upon the government to reject this proposed goods and services tax.
December 7, 1989


Ms. Beth Phinney (Hamilton Mountain):: Madam Speaker, today I have the privilege and duty to present petitions signed by a few hundred more residents of Hamilton Mountain who are against the proposed 9 per cent goods and service tax. The petitioners believe that it will place an unnecessary burden on the low and middle income Canadians.
The petitioners humbly pray and call upon this House to reject the 9 per cent goods and service tax proposal.


Mr. Lyle Vanclief (Prince Edward-Hastings):: Madam Speaker, I have petitions this morning on three different topics. The first is a petition from some 35 people in my riding of Prince Edward-Hastings calling upon the government to pass a resolution of the House of Commons urging the Governor General In Council to give full force and effect to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by the exercising of its constitutional power of disallowance with respect to Bill 178 of the province of Quebec.


Lyle Vanclief: I have a group of petitions again this morning, Madam Speaker, calling upon the government to reconsider its ludicrous cuts and alterations to VIA Rail passenger service in Canada.


Lyle Vanclief: I also have some 35 petitions with the names of 2,000 people who are calling upon the government to reconsider and go back to the drawing board on the goods and services tax.


Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Madam Speaker, I want to present a petition on behalf of a couple of hundred Canadians who again call upon Parliament to reject the proposed goods and services tax. They note in their petition the increase by over 50 per cent in the manufacturers' sale tax which this is supposed to replace and question that and other tax increases that Canadians have suffered in the last number of years. They are concerned about the imposition of the goods and services
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tax and the unfair hardship it will cause to low and middle-income Canadians.


Mr. Ron Fisher (Saskatoon-Dundurn):: Madam Speaker, it is my privilege to stand this morning and present a petition, duly authorized by Standing Order 36, on behalf of 36 Canadians from such centres as Toronto, Etobicoke, and Waterloo, who are condemning the government for the $400 million cuts it is making to VIA Rail. They point out that this is going to result in a serious devaluation of passenger service in Canada and will result in layoffs of Canadian workers in the railway industry. They call upon the government to upgrade VIA Rail to the standard that the mandate given to VIA calls for rather than to take these drastic measures and cut services to people who desperately need them.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Government House Leader):: Madam Speaker, I ask that all question be allowed to stand.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Hon. Robert de Cotret (President of the TVeasury Board) moved: that Bill C-49, an Act to provide for the resumption of certain government services, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
He said: Madam Speaker, I rise in the House today to introduce the second reading of Bill C-49, an Act to provide for the resumption of certain government services.
Madam Speaker, hon. members are aware that ships' crews have now been on strike for three weeks and that hospital services employees went on strike last week.

December 7, 1989
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Clearly, if we do not terminate the strike action taken by these two groups, the health and safety of Canadians will be threatened.
That is why the government has acted without delay to order these employees back to work.

Let me say as I stated yesterday in this House, even with the legislation introduced, I would be willing to negotiate. I will repeat that commitment. I am available and I will be willing to negotiate any time so that we can reach a mutually agreeable negotiated settlement.
Members of the House are aware of the inherent dangers and the increased risk to the safety and security of Canadians caused by these two strikes. Where the services provided by the employees are in the interest of safety and security of the public, it is particularly important that the parties negotiate seriously and responsibly to reach a settlement. Now this may require considerable skill. It certainly requires a willingness to compromise and, perhaps, most of all, perserverence. We owe nothing less to the Canadians we serve. It is the public who suffers the consequences of the denial of government services and many of those services are essential to health, safety and security. The government is not prepared to wait any longer.
Canadians must be able to count on the Coast Guard to rescue them. Canadians must be able to navigate safely in Canadian waters. Canadian veterans must be able to count on being given proper care.
I want to deal for a moment with some clear examples that show why we must act now. Let me point out to all hon. members the importance of safe navigation in the St. Lawrence Seaway. Traffic passing through the system include ships carrying grain, coal, iron ore and many other essential products. Many Canadian jobs are dependent on the reliable and safe operations of the Seaway. People who work in our refineries, in the aluminum industry, the Port of Montreal, all depend on the safe and secure passage of ships in the St. Lawrence.
The western Canadian grain farmers rely heavily on our normally dependable shipping system.
The early closure of the Seaway caused by this labour dispute affects Canadian jobs throughout Canada. We are very concerned also about the health and safety issues in the case of health service workers.

There are currently 726 veterans requiring care at Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue Hospital, one-third of whom are bedridden. Rideau Hospital has 131 veterans. In Saskatoon, 31 veterans are now in hospital, while another 29 have had to be sent home or transferred to other hospitals.

We cannot jeopardize the health of veterans, many of whom are disabled or chronic care patients. These people have served their country with honour and pride, in difficult times, and we must ensure their care is not put in jeopardy by this work stoppage.
With little prospect of a settlement through the normal collective bargaining process, it is becoming increasingly difficult for management to make sure that all essential services are being carried out. The government must therefore become the defender of the public interest. The bill before this House provides for an immediate return to work by all ships' crews and hospital services employees and for binding conciliations on the issues.

We can be proud of our record in the federal Public Service, when 95 per cent of the agreements have been settled without employees having to resort to strike action.

I wish to take a moment to outline the specific provisions of the legislation. As I indicated, the bill provides for an immediate return by ships' crews and hospital services employees. It also requires that the Public Service Alliance of Canada call a halt to the two strikes and inform striking employees that they are to resume their duties. If the law is ignored, employees who continue to strike will face fines of between $500 and $1000 a day. Union representatives who fail to comply could be fined between $10,000 and $50,000 a day and the union itself could be fined between $50,000 and $100,000 a day.
December 7, 1989

The government is not proposing to legislate a settlement. It is providing, with this legislation, a process for a fair and equitable resolution of these disputes.
Immediately following the passage of the legislation, the chairman of the Public Service Staff Relations Board will establish a binding conciliation board for each of the two groups. Each party will then nominate someone to represent their interests in the binding conciliation process. The two boards will have 90 days to resolve outstanding issues. Should a conciliation board fail to resolve the issues it will render a decision that will be binding on both parties.
The government could have imposed its own settlement but as you can see we are approaching the problem with a much more open mind. We will solve the critical issue in a manner that is as fair and equitable as possible.

Ships' crews and hospital services are the last two groups represented by the Public Service Alliance of Canada in the current round of negotiations for a collective agreement. Last March, a temporary agreement was reached with the alliance for 27 groups covering 160,000 employees. Three groups rejected the agreement, which provided for a contract spread over 42 months and an annual wage increase of 4.1 per cent, a settlement I feel is reasonable and fair.

Madam Speaker, every effort has been made to reach a settlement with both of the groups that are still outstanding. For ship's crews workers in terms of pay equity, for example, we offered to establish, immediately upon signing, the agreement of pay equity between the east coast and the west coast.
In terms of meeting hospital services workers' demands vis-a-vis pay equity we have already acted. Even though this is not an issue in this dispute, some members have referred erroneously to it as an issue. I want to set the record straight. Retroactive pay adjustments totalling $28 million have already been paid out. We are in the process of paying another $10 million. We are living up to our obligations, no less.
All these responsible efforts at reaching settlements through the normal process have failed. However, at no
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point can the government let a clash of wills take precedence over the safety and security of the public. We must intervene and we are doing so in the fairest way possible by submitting both sides to the decision of an independent third party.
In conclusion, I want to reiterate the government's resolve to ensure the health, safety and security of Canadians, and equally the government's resolve to ensure that its employees are dealt with in a fair and equitable manner. We believe that this bill provides for both. I call upon all members of this House to co-operate in ensuring speedy passage of this legislation. It is legislation that is in the national interest. It is legislation that will allow the government to meet those two resolves; ensuring the safety, security and health of Canadians, and providing for a fair and equitable manner of resolving a conflict that now appears to be in a stalemate. I ask colleagues on the other side of the House to sit, discuss, debate this bill but I also ask them to give it speedy resolution. Thank you very much.


Marlene Catterall: Madam Speaker, the fact that this bill is before us at all today is the result of the failure of the government to deal fairly with its employees, to act expeditiously and properly when it should have acted. It is the end of a sorry path of negligence, administrative bungling and mistakes on the part of the government. It is part of a pattern that we have been attacking in this House on debate on a number of issues.
We see here a failure of the government to act when it should have acted to protect the safety, health and security of Canadians through proper legal channels at the proper time.
We see a failure to bargain in good faith, the use at every step of every possible means of delaying the process of collective bargaining. We see a total lack of respect for the people who work for Canada, and particularly we see a determination that those at the lowest end of the salary scale, working for the people of Canada, are the ones who will bear the brunt of the government's arrogance and mismanagement.
We have seen this in a number of other pieces of legislation that we have spoken on in this House, whether it is the unemployment insurance bill or the clawback of Old Age Security, or the clawback of family allowances or tax reform. It is those who are most

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vulnerable who are hit by the policies of this government.
This legislation is attempting to put an end to two strikes that are going on. The ships' crew workers have been on strike since November 11. The hospital service workers have been on strike since November 30. Both groups have been without a contract for two years. Both groups are among the lowest paid groups in the Government of Canada.
One of the most fundamental freedoms in a free society is the right to work and the right to withhold work, to bargain for decent wages and decent working conditions and to organize with other workers to do that.
Canada is a signatory to a number of international conventions that legitimize those rights, that validate those rights, that intend to protect those rights as fundamental human rights regardless of where one lives in the world. It is a right that should only be abrogated for the most serious of reasons in the national interest.
I listened carefully to the minister's reply to my question yesterday when I asked what the justification was for this extreme measure. I listened carefully again today to the documentation on the serious nature of the situation that requires withdrawing the fundamental human right to strike, withdrawing services as a means of bargaining for more favourable and adequate compensation, more favourable working conditions and appropriate recompense for the work one does.
What I heard yesterday causes me a great deal of concern. The minister talked about the failure of negotiation, with only a passing mention of public safety and security.
I heard the minister say that the real reason for the legislation is to break an impasse that does not seem to be able to be resolved through negotiations. Throughout most of his answer, he spoke about the failure of negotiations and said very little about public safety and public security.
Again this morning I heard very little documentation of what is the severe risk to the national interest that demands the withdrawal of a fundamental right of workers in a free and democratic society.
The minister referred to a letter from the president of the Professional Institute of Public Servants of Canada in which he talked about the consequences of the disruption, the costs, the effects on research activities of the Government of Canada and on the maritime economy of our country, implying that the letter was written in support of back-to-work legislation. In fact, the president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service said: "I would urge you to encourage your officials to work toward an early resolution of the conflict and to ensure that they have appropriate mandates to successfully conclude these negotiations in the best interest of the party and the country as a whole". That letter is certainly not an endorsement of back-to-work legislation.
On the other hand, we had the Minister of Transport assuring the House only two days ago that it is not a question of safety, that the safety of the public is protected. We have the President of Treasury Board ensuring the House last week that all contingency plans have been put in place to protect the safety and security of the public.
If those two ministers were accurate in the assurances they were giving the House, I can only ask them what has changed since then. Where is the sudden risk to the safety and security of the country that both ministers assured us was well in hand and well under control?
I think it is important for the House to know about these people whom the government is legislating back to work, what they do and the value of that work to Canadian society. These people are among the lowest paid workers in the federal Public Service. Their beginning wages and even their average wages are below the poverty level in every province in this country. Some of them do the most dangerous and dirtiest work that needs to be done and yet work that is essential to Canadians who use our waterways, essential to people who use national defence medical facilities, essential to our veterans to get the care and the caring that they need in their old age.
Let me just give some examples. The ships' crew workers keep our harbours and our shipping lanes safe and operating. We know that in a country like ours these are in fact the vehicles of all our economic activity. These people put out to sea to rescue and safeguard the lives of others at great risk to their own lives. They

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dredge our harbours, they run our ferries, they leave their families sometimes for months at a time. They can spend three or four months at a time on a ship in the Arctic.
What is the effect of their not working? We saw it just 10 days ago when 1,700 lobster fishermen put out to sea in high waves and high winds in support of an $85 million industry for Canada. Those fishermen put out to sea without the normal search and rescue operations that safeguard their lives and safeguard their contributions to the economy of this country.
The cost of not having these people working is $2 million a day to ships that are trapped in the seaway system and in the Great Lakes system. We are seeing grain not being able to move out of the prairies and into the shipping system. Contracts are perhaps being abrogated. Grain is not meeting that important window of opportunity for shipping. We are seeing our inability to respond to environmental spills. We are seeing overfishing in Canada's fishing grounds because these ships' crews are not out there patrolling and protecting an important resource of Atlantic and Pacific Canada.
We see ships moving through the Great Lakes system and through the seaway system without adequate guide services, without adequate navigational aids and we see those ships carrying chemicals, crude and refined oil and we should realize that without the navigational aids provided by these ships' crews workers that passage is not as safe and not as secure as it should be.
One may wonder why the ships' crews workers are so adamant about getting a decent settlement this time. The last collective bargaining for their previous contract produced the conciliation board's report that recommended a settlement.
This government chose to ignore that settlement because it had these people designated as essential workers and it knew they could not go on strike. The government ignored that conciliation board report and
imposed its own settlement.
I want to talk about the hospital services workers. These are the orderlies, the nursing assistants, cooks, cleaners, seamstresses, the people who provide all of the essential services in both National Defence hospitals and veterans homes. They provide the community health services to our veterans. They care for our veterans who are elderly or disabled, those whom time and injury have robbed of ability to care for themselves, or in many cases
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even to relate to the world on a day to day basis. They feed them, bathe them, clean their soiled linen.
The effects are less visible, but no less real than the scenes we have seen of the shipping lanes in the last few days. We have people in these institutions getting inadequate meals, lacking personal care, with not enough attention to their needs for cleanliness and just plain personal attention.
I repeat, both these groups are among the lowest paid workers. Both are seeing their ability to provide for their families whittled away as this contract drags on over two years. Inflation has eaten into their purchasing power. The government knows that the longer it delays the more taxes it gets to collect on these wages.
Lest you think I am exaggerating, let me say that these workers start at $16,000 to $18,000 a year. The average person is earning in the very low $20,000s. Government ministers sit in their fancy offices collecting a fat pay cheque and drafting laws to force these people back to work at those wages.
I said earlier that the reason we find ourselves in this position today is because of government bungling, government arrogance, government mismanagement over the last two years. If the government is concerned about the safety, security and health of Canadians, it has a perfectly legal tool to use to protect the safety and security of the public in case of a work stoppage. That tool is called "designating essential workers". Once the contract ends and the bargaining agent has said it is ready to get down to negotiating a new contract, all the government has to do is table a list of people that it thinks are essential workers. Those people are then prevented from going on strike.
Treasury Board failed to do that. It failed to do it because of what is called "administrative ineptitude" by the Public Service Staff Relations Board's negligence. It failed to do it because it arrogantly thought that it did not have to live under the laws passed by this Parliament.
The deadline for designating people came and went. Nine departments with essential services workers failed to get their lists in. Treasury Board failed to make sure that it was getting done. It thought it could just go after the fact, saying it made a mistake and needs these workers designated. It certainly wants to designate a lot of workers. Over 100 per cent of the ships' crews workers were to be designated and over 100 per cent of the

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hospital services workers were to be designated. They failed to do that.


Mr. Friesen:: Flow do you designate over 100 per cent?


Marlene Catterall: Ask Treasury Board how they can designate over 100 per cent. I am sure they will be happy to explain it to you.
They failed to do that and then they had the temerity to go to the Public Service Staff Relations Board and say, "Yes, we have not lived within the law but please let us do it anyway".
What they tried to prove, and this eventually went to the Federal Court, is that when the government passes a law that says Treasury Board shall, it does not really mean shall, it means might if you feel like it. I think the meaning of the word "shall" in legislation is pretty dam clear. That is Parliament saying, "This must be done".
The arrogance was such that through the Public Service Staff Relations Board, through the court process, they offered no justification as to why they had not been able to meet the deadline because there was no justification. Good management knows four years ahead of time or three years ahead of time when a contract ends. If it is responsible at all and it believes it has essential workers, it has that list ready to be tabled at any time and it keeps it updated.
It really is no wonder that the Public Service Staff Relations Board eventually said, and the court eventually agreed, that it is the government's own inefficiency, negligence and lack of foresight that has caused this problem and do not expect us to get you out of it.
Well, that was the first goof. But instead of just admitting it and getting on with the business of being a reasonable employer and getting into negotiations, the government went to the Public Service Staff Relations Board, then to the Federal Court, then it went back to the Public Service Staff Relations Board and was told yes, it had to obey the laws of Parliament, and it went back to the court to appeal that.
But it did not end there because in September when that decision finally came down from the Federal Court, a spokesman from Treasury Board, back then in September, when it had not even gone to conciliation, said, "We might have to bring in back-to-work legislation". Well, here we are in December and it is back-to-work legislation on the table.
That is a great attitude to take into conciliation and it is not much wonder the conciliation board, a couple of weeks later, had to say, "The parties are so far apart we cannot even make any recommendations". One of the parties was already before the conciliation saying, "Well we will bring in back-to-work legislation".
It did not stop there though. When the hospital services went on strike, the government immediately went to court to get injunctions to prevent them from exercising their legal rights to have picket lines. From east coast to west coast, in Saskatoon, in Whitehorse, in Halifax, in Victoria, in Montreal and in Ottawa, the government got injunctions to stop people from having picket lines.
Does the government really believe that people who go into our hospitals and go into our veterans' homes to clean, to cook, to care for and to sew are so dangerous that they cannot be allowed to hold a picket line outside, that these people earning $18,000 or $19,000 a year have to be prevented from even walking in front of their places of employment with pickets?
I guess the question we have to ask is if this is the government's only alternative. We see that it has already missed several alternatives. It had to act like a good employer and to get reasonable settlements with these employees.
To answer that question we have to ask, why are these groups on strike? What are their outrageous demands that this government is not prepared to meet? What outrageous things are they force them back to work?
First, we have ships' crews workers who really feel that when they risk their lives, it really should not matter if it is in eastern Canada or in western Canada. We have the ridiculous situation of a line that runs up through
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Canada virtually along the Manitoba border and up to Cambridge Bay. If you dock on the east side of the wharf at Cambridge Bay, you get paid $1,800 less if you are coast guard worker than if you dock on the west side of the same wharf at Cambridge Bay because then you are a west side coast guard worker. They want that pay inequity corrected.
The minister has said, "That is on the table. The day they sign the contract, we are prepared to correct it". Well, it has taken them a long time to get to that point.
What the minister did not mention is that there are all kinds of strings attached to that. He said that if you accept the rest of this package that you do not like, then you can have parity in salaries. So let us have a look at the rest of the package.
In July of 1987, just before this contract ended, there was already a wage disparity of up to 28 per cent between able seamen working for the Government of Canada and able seamen working in the private sector. That disparity has grown over the two years since the contract expired to well over 45 per cent. Remember, we are talking about wages here of $16,000, $18,000, and $20,000 a year.
The government says it does not want to give one group different treatment than it has given everybody else and they are going to have to be satisfied with the same percentage increase that the rest of federal public workers got. In fact, there is such solidarity within this group that the west coast workers have said: "We're prepared to accept less of a percentage increase to our salaries so that the workers in the eastern region can get the same salary as we get."
Frankly, I feel that when you are talking about the lowest paid workers in the public service of Canada, that is a good reason to sit back and ask ourselves, "For them, at the lowest levels, is what we have given the rest of the public service, including top level professionals, really adequate to reflect the value of the work they do?"
There is a solution though. If the minister insists on treating everybody the same, whether the situation is the same or not, there is a solution and the ships' crews workers have proposed it. It is called sea allowance. It is an accepted practice within the government. National Defence employees get a sea allowance every time they put out to sea. They get an extra amount per month just because they are out at sea.
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The minister will say, as he has tried to say, that the difference is that DND employees do not make overtime. That is true, they do not, but they are also better paid.
If the government wanted to, it could settle this strike in a matter of hours. I have no doubt about that at all. The costs of meeting all the demands that are on the table are approximately $6 million. That $6 million just happens to be the value of the navigational aids that are at risk just in the Great Lakes and the seaway shipping lanes alone, if they are not brought in and replaced by winter navigational aids.
We know that the cost to shipping is $2 million a day and that again is in the Great Lakes alone. Valuable research is being held up. Disruption of commerce is the result. We are starting to see the value of the work these people do and we are still content to say they should be paid poverty level wages.
I want to deal with the hospital service workers. The reason they are on strike is that they have been waiting nearly a decade for pay equity, and it has been clear to the government that until that situation is solved, these workers are not going to be satisfied with accepting poverty level wages.
I have to give the House a bit of history on this. In 1981, this group of workers went to the Human Rights Commission arguing under the Human Rights Act which had been passed several years before that health service workers were paid less for doing exactly the same work as government general service workers and that the reason for this was that the hospital service workers were largely female and therefore there was a clear wage inequity that should be corrected.
The outcome of that in 1987 was that there was an interim consent order for $28 million to pay back these people for the inequity they had suffered. To demonstrate the scope of it, for one individual alone, that payment was $40,000 over the seven years during which they had been deprived because of inequitable pay scales.
This was just an interim settlement. Then two things were supposed to happen after that. One, their job classifications were supposed to be made comparable to

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those of the general service workers, and then the government was supposed to go back and adjust that $28 million payment to what it really should have been. That is the $10 million the minister is talking about.
Now, he did mention that the government is in the process of having that $10 million paid out to people. This is December, and it was August when the minister wrote to tell me that that was happening. I gather from comments today that it is still in the process, it has not happened.
The other thing that was supposed to happen is that the classifications were supposed to be changed so that from 1987 on, those workers would be treated the same and paid the same as the other workers doing the same kind of work. The government has a neat little trick here. It does not like to change classifications and it does not like to change pay scales. So what it does is say: "We will give you instead an equalization payment". That is such an abrogation of the whole concept of pay equity and equal pay for work of equal value.
The government says: "We are not prepared to give you the wage you are earning, nor do we recognize that in your classification and pay scale. We are prepared to give you a little token payment to bring you up to what your proper pay rate should be. You will go on getting this token payment, but you will never get the classification and the wage salary scale that you are entitled to".
If it seems that the hospital services workers are being a little tough on this, I ask the House to bear in mind that since they first started this action, since this inequity in pay first started getting their attention, many of them have seen their children grow from pre-schoolers to adolescents, deprived of an adequate income into their household that would have provided many of the things that the children and grandchildren of those of us in this House take for granted. It means quite simply that their children have done without because this pay equity issue has not been settled.
Again, it is not a minor matter. Their salaries were from 10 to 40 per cent behind those of people doing exactly the same work. A worker getting up on a ladder to clean the ceilings or the walls in the Rideau vets' home out on Smyth Road could be getting as much as 40 per cent less than a worker performing exactly the same
work down at 240 Sparks Street. Now, that is not fair in anybody's books.
At the salaries these people are earning, the average adjustment should be $3,000 a year. At our salaries, and certainly at the salary of ministers, that might be an extra little bit of disposable income, an extra little holiday. But for these people, it is money that is needed for the essentials of life.
I cannot help but feel that there is deliberate manipulation here. The minister said in his answer to a question on this issue a few days ago that it is not really a female dominated group. That is true. The balance is shifting. It is evening out. I cannot help wondering if there is some attempt here to wait them out, and whether there is some deliberate manipulation to move that group toward a group that is 50-50 male-female and therefore no longer considered a pay equity issue.
The fact is the Human Rights Commission determined it is a pay equity issue. It has reaffirmed that decision and yet this government was back before the Human Rights Tribunal just on November 8, arguing that the Human Rights Tribunal had no jurisdiction in this matter. That is nonsense.
I want to close by saying that these workers in all cases have acted responsibly throughout this strike. The ships' crews workers have, in all cases, provided emergency rescue services any time the need existed. They have not once failed to meet the normal response time, to put down their pickets, to go out to sea to save lives or to prevent a disaster when that was needed. They missed once by three minutes. Sorry, they were once 33 minutes instead of 30 minutes because of high waves that were so bad that they eventually had to put back.
The hospital services workers offered to continue to provide emergency services in the veterans' homes and in the national defence hospitals but the government was not able to reach an agreement with them, I suspect because there was no inventive. They thought they could provide these services with the military and with volunteers. It just is not working, Madam Speaker.
I would like to quickly summarize the strike-breaking techniques that have been used and the attempts to try to get around the law that have delayed negotiations. Also, there were attempts to designate 100 per cent of each of these groups so they could not go on strike and could not use the ability to withdraw their services. The
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government has sought injunctions to prevent the picketing and now we have back-to-work legislation.
If these people are essential to the safety and security of the nation, as the minister contends with this legislation, then that should have been protected two years ago. It is not these workers who are responsible for the current situation. It is the Government of Canada and specifically the Treasury Board.
I think we are in a situation where it is more a question of winning and losing, and Treasury Board likes to win. That is fair if you have a fair situation, but it does not cost Treasury Board anything to sit back and wait. It does cost these people. It costs them wages, and at that level, you cannot afford to go without your full pay for very long.
That has been the pattern. First it was the clerical workers, again, the lowest paid, who were out on strike for months. The welfare program workers just settled. Then the ships' crews workers went out. It is always the lowest paid groups which seem to be the ones with which this government wants to take the hardest line.
At a time when most employers, particularly in the private sector and a lot in the public sector, are going more toward the idea of a co-operative management-labour relationship, of mutually resolving difficulties, going toward the idea of partnership as opposed to opponents, it seems this government wants to go the other way. It wants to force people to accept something that is not right and just.
It is particularly ironic when we see walls coming down all over the world in defence of freedom and democracy, in a growing move toward freedom and democracy and against state control, that we sit here in this Parliament today forcing people back to work.
It certainly is a strange turn of events, Madam Speaker, for a Prime Minister who came to Ottawa promising pink slips and running shoes to public servants to now be saying we cannot do without you, we need you back, we need you back so badly that we are prepared to pass a law to force you back to work.


Ron Fisher: Madam Speaker, you would think it would be a compliment to be called essential. You would think it would be gratifying to
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be needed. How gratifying it really is for most of us to feel that for someone with whom we have a degree of relationship, we are considered to be essential to the relationships.
Let us look at the two groups of employees of the government which are the subject of today's legislation. In the light of what I have just said about the feeling one would usually get when one is considered to be essential, you would think that they too would feel some kind of a glow of gratification from being so considered.
It seems, however, that in relation to the ships' crews and hospital services workers being designated essential by the government is the kiss of death. I, of course, have been speaking somewhat facetiously because I know very well how these people felt when the government designated these people or tried to designate them over the years.
In fact, ever since 1967 when the Public Service people were first given the ability to go on strike, there have always been many employees who have been designated essential. Of course, what that really meant was that their right to strike was taken away. When you were designated essential there really was no warm feeling of gratification because it was something to be avoided at all costs if at all possible because to be so designated meant that likely, over the long run any way, you would end up being much worse off than anyone who was not so designated. That is what has happened with the ships' crews and the hospital workers over the years.
In this round of negotiations, the government, for whatever reason and in whatever fashion, did not designate these two groups of people whom heretofore had always been designated as essential so to be. They found themselves, because of that situation, to be in a legal strike situation. As the course of time went on, they did exactly that and went on strike.
As I said: "essential to the government" means that you can negotiate with groups of people who are your employees but you do not really have to bargain seriously because you know that if you are not able to come to the kind of agreement with them which you think you would like to come to with them, they can force upon you whatever they want. They can use the force of the courts.

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They can use the force of law and they can do that all in the name, as the minister has just very recently done, of protecting the public.
Being called essential by this government really means that you have been given the kiss of death. It means that you have never been able to strike. It means that you have had to take whatever minimum wage-benefit package the government thought it could get away with without recourse to being able to bargain freely as most other Canadians are able to do and in a way which is set out by the International Labour Organization to which the Canadian government is a signatory, and thereby make the kind of living for yourself and your family which you should justifiably be able to make.
Speaking of the International Labour Organization, I think it would be rather interesting to read, in its entirety, a citation that has come down from the International Labour Organization, because it speaks so directly to the situation we find ourselves in. A committee of the International Labour Organization had this to say in relation to postal workers, and the issues are the same. I quote:
95.	The Committee feels however compelled to state that the cause is basically this: the postal workers were legally on strike and the Government, through special legislation, ordered them back to work after seven days of work stoppage.
96.	The Government points out, rightly so, that the Committee has recognised in the past that there are circumstances where restrictions and even prohibitions of strikes are justifiable. However, the Committee hastens to say that these are exceptions to the general rule and that the right to strike is one of the legitimate and essential means through which workers and their organisations may defend their economic and social interests. [Digest of Decisions and Principles of the Freedom of Association Committee of the Governing Body of the ILO, third edition, paras. 362 and 363, and cases cited.]
97.	It follows that these restrictions and even prohibitions of the right to strike can only be justified in a limited number of situations: civil servants and workers in essential services in the strict sense of the term, i.e. those services whose interruptions would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population-provided however these workers have access to adequate procedures, such as conciliation and arbitration, where the parties concerned can participate in all stages and in which the awards are binding on both parties and are fully and promptly implemented.
The "fully and promptly implemented" has some particular significance which I will get into shortly.
As a result of the government being heavy-handed and using the full force of its legislative power, we have two groups of people, the ships' crews and the hospital workers, who have become, quite literally, within the Public Service, the two lowest paid groups of employees of the Canadian government.
If we look at the history of these two disputes, there are two trains of activity which go on and, other than the fact that they have almost by accident become able to strike the specific situations because they do entirely different work, are not identical.
As far as the ships' crews are concerned, in the last round of negotiations for the ships' crews after having gone through the process of negotiation and after having gone through the process of conciliation and all the other things which are laid out by law and required of the parties, the conciliation board made a recommendation which, of course, was not binding. This recommendation awarded the ships' crews more benefits and higher rates of pay, in general, than the government wanted to pay and higher in percentage and so on than what had been arrived at in other general settlements of the Public Service. This was done for very good reasons. I have to repeat that they did that because they found themselves in the situation of being vulnerable, not many of them, with very little bargaining power, in addition to the fact that they are not even allowed to go on strike.
The conciliation board's decision was that these people should get a higher award than the rest of the settlements in the public service. The reason was quite simple; they were so far behind. In 1987, in the matter of the ships' crews, those working on the west coast were 28 per cent behind the general comparable wage in the public sector, and those on the east coast were 16 per cent behind. That was in 1987.
The government stated that it would not pay any attention to what the conciliation board had to say and refused to implement the suggestions of the board. Of course, as I have said, it did not have to because it was not binding. When the government did that to its employees, the employees admittedly and knowingly went on an illegal strike. They had no other recourse. As far as they were concerned, in this daily struggle which we as wage earners have, they had to draw to the
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attention of the government and the Canadian public that their situation was desperate because their wages were so far behind everyone else's.
They went on strike illegally. Summarily, within 24 hours the government had an injunction brought down against those people and they were forced back to work by the order of the courts. Even the judge who granted the government the injunctions said that the government's action was Draconian but he had no other choice than to order those people back to work, and they obeyed.
In this round of negotiations the government failed to designate these people as being essential. They have to do that within 20 days of receiving notice from the union of a desire to bargain, if the government does not do it, anyone who is not designated as essential by that time is simply not an essential service person and free to carry on the whole process of collective bargaining, including striking, as any other free Canadian is entitled to do.
I suspect that in most instances an employer finding itself in a situation such as this would have accepted reality for what it was, realized that it had made a mistake and continued to bargain, one would hope in good faith, to come to an agreeable settlement to both sides. That is not what this employer did. That is not what this government did. The government, having made a mistake, went to the courts to try to get its booboo overturned.
I do not know the levels of the courts; that is more for the lawyers in the House. In any event, the first level of the courts it went to, the government lost. As if that was not enough, still in an effort to try to designate these people as essential servants-and I think there is something important to point out here. Many of the civil servants are designated as essential. There are some areas of the public service where it is 60, 50 or 40 per cent. The minister's official told us yesterday that it may even go down to zero of those who are designated as being essential.
In the whole history of the hospital services group and numbers like 60 per cent, or 40, or maybe, zero. It has always been 100 per cent. Believe it or not, Madam Speaker, there have been instances where it has gone as high as 110 per cent. It really does escape me how one could do that, but I presume they may even include some
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of their supervisory staff, I do not know. Or maybe they spread themselves into some other department in order to make sure that these people are going to cause no embarrassment whatsoever.
The government lost at the first level of the court system. Not satisfied with taking its lumps, it still went to the second level in order to try to get this 100 per cent. Make no mistake about it, we are talking 100 per cent designation in the case of these two groups; 100 per cent designation in the case of these two defenceless groups for all intents and purposes.
If you do not believe they are defenceless, look at what is happening to them in this House today as a result of their perfectly legal action. We are ordering back to work a mere 3,900 people, of all the hundreds of thousands of civil servants. These are the poorest paid people in the civil service. There is no joy in the House of Commons today to be doing such a thing. I think it would be most appropriate to borrow the words of the judge in the case of the previous round of negotiations when he called the government's action Draconian.
In the case of the ships' crews there are not all that many outstanding issues. There are some misconceptions which ought to be clarified here as well, from the government side, in response to a question from this side, said that these employees were asking for 14 per cent, or something like that, a year over the next three years. Of course that is not the case. What they are asking for is something around 5 per cent, 4.8 per cent and 4.6 per cent over 42 months. As far as that is concerned, most of it has been settled anyway.
The one outstanding issue is that of sea duty. It is a very common thing in the maritime industry, something which the private sector certainly has. I am led to believe it is the one remaining outstanding issue which would bring a settlement about in the case of the ships' crews group within the public service, for a total cost of somewhere around $5.5 million. In the total government budget for wages, it is not a large amount of money.
The total amount of goods and services and value to everything from the buoys, which these people so efficiently distribute as a guidance for shipping throughout our waterways in the St. Lawrence, I understand that they are now quite probably being either destroyed, sunk or becoming loose and floating around causing danger to shipping themselves. Compared to the value of that in

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one day, the settlement of $5.5 million per year is certainly not a great deal of money.
It is my understanding that the issue of the sea duty will settle the strike. It is incomprehensible to me that we should be here in the House forcing a group of very valuable employees.
In some ways the circumstances surrounding the strike of the hospital services group is not all that much different in that the government has failed miserably. We must bear in mind that when we are talking about the court action it refers to this group as well. It refers to an innumerable number of people within the civil service whom they had not designated. It just turns out that these are the groups who, in modern parlance one could say found their one window where they were able to exercise their democratic rights.
Never in the past and certainly not in the future will these people ever be able to take this kind of action again. This is their one opportunity in their lifetime, unless the government changes its mind, smartens up and treats these people with the justice, dignity, and honour which they deserve. I am not saying, and I am sure the union is not saying, that there are not some who are essential. But to just heavy-handedly describe 100 per cent of these people as being essential defies all credibility.
The government also wished the hospital services group to be designated as essential and, as I have already pointed out, failed to do so. The hospital services group are the people who clean the government hospitals, handle the food in the veterans homes and the hospitals, are the certified nursing assistants and the registered nursing assistants. In short, they are the less well paid people within our society and, surprise of surprise, they are mostly women. Perhaps not so unsurprisingly, many of them are single mothers with families, as well as many older women who depend on their jobs for a livelihood. These people on average make somewhere in the neighbourhood of $20,000 a year. In most regions of the country $20,000 a year for a family of four, unless resident in a place populated by less than 30,000, is below the poverty level.
These are the kind of people we are dealing with and this is the condition they find themselves in as a result of the government's intransigence and unwillingness to treat them in a fair manner, and bargain with them in a justifiable way. These are not women in the workforce who earn a second income for the family. These are primary earners in the family and they depend entirely on this kind of work for their livelihoods.
Here we have the heavy hand of the government trying to designate these people as essential so they would not be able to strike. We now have them designated as having to return to work because they are so sorely needed by the hospitals and the veterans homes where they work. In the two general elections in 1984 and 1988, women were promised by this government that they were going to be front and centre as far as affirmative action was concerned. They were promised equal pay for work of equal value, that yes, it was part of the government's policy. The government was going to do the very best it could to make sure that any private sector company dealing with the government would be encouraged and hopefully, before too long, forced to comply with the equality principles of equal pay for work of equal value and all the things that go along with the niceties of human rights.
Not so. To repeat myself again, we find ourselves in this House trying to force these people back to work. It strikes me rather strange that the government would be able to consider this type of action, which can only be described as Draconian, as having any similarity to human rights and to equal pay for work of equal value. That is one of the major issues which we come across because just as surely as the government used its heavy hand to try to get these people to be considered essential service, we have a history of doing everything we can to prevent, in spite of an order by the Canadian Human Rights Commission in 1981, of not these people what they ought to be paid.
I will read what the Canadian Human Rights Commission actually said in their decision.
The parties are agreed that the Health Services group, which is predominantly female, has received less wages than the general workers, a group predominantly male, for performance of work of equal value.
The Canadian Human Rights Commission in 1981, for all intents and purposes, said to the government: "Clean up your act. Pay these women in the HS group, for the

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most part women but some men among them as well, on an equal basis with the GS group". For almost seven years, from 1980, the government of this land did everything it could to avoid complying with that decision.
In July 1987, the government finally did what it should have done years previously, what it should have been forced to do previously, and paid the retroactive pay to these people. Since July 26, 1987, there have been no equalization adjustments until, wonder of wonders, November 1989. All of a sudden in November 1989, equalization payments started coming to these people again to make up for the payments they had not received since 1987.
Part of the decision of the Canadian Civil Rights Commission was that this kind of action had to be in consultation with the union, but without any consultation with the union on the conversion rates. Also, I think, not so strangely, the government has never put those equalization payments into wages, if the general services group was making $1 an hour and the health services group was making only 50 cents, the government in order to equalize it would give them the 50 cents but not as part of wages. Those equalization payments-and I do not wish to be trivial about the amount-were 13 per cent and let us forget about the $1 and the 50 cents part. The equalization payments are not a part of wages. The government refuses to put them into wages. Since 1980, even though these people have received retroactive pay, they are not a part of wages. Believe it or not, these people will not be receiving their pensions when they retire on the basis of what is justifiably a higher rate of pay, which it ought to be. The equalization payments do not form part of their earnings for the calculation of pensions. I cannot think of anything that is much more despicable than that.
Maybe we should not give them any pension at all. Would that be more despicable? Can one think of anything worse in relation to these people? I suppose the action we are taking right now is probably more despicable. One ought to be rather careful with one's choice of words, I suppose. It is certainly more despicable to be forcing these people back to work than not including the equalization payments in their wages. But to make such a comment as that is to trivialize a very serious matter.
Government Orders
The hospital services groups have other issues. They work 12 hour shifts, and because of an inability to come to some kind of agreement on the organization of shifts, these people often have to go back to work after only 8 hours of rest.
I am sorry I was not here for the President of the Treasury Board's entire introductory speech on the legislation. I suspect the government said that in order to be able to make sure the Canadian public was adequately protected as far as safety of navigation is concerned, or as far as health services in the veterans homes is concerned, it was essential to bring in this legislation.
The fact of the matter is, both the hospital services group and the ship's crews offered to provide the essential services.
If the government was so intent on designating 100 per cent of these employees as being essential, anything less than 100 per cent would probably not be acceptable. I think it ought to be pointed out that in the case of the ship's crews, the government has accepted the union's offer of supplying essential services. I do not have a list of all the essential services, all the emergencies the ship's crews have responded to since they went on strike. There have been innumerable cases where they have done that.
We will get to the hospital services group in a minute. Regarding the services that the ships' crews provided and the excellent behaviour they demonstrated, as well as the unions, I would like to point out that I was a striker a couple of times myself. In every instance we offered to provide essential services to the company and, as with the hospital services group, our employer turned it down. But that is not because we did not offer them.
As far as ship's crews are concerned there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for us to be here today arguing that these people ought to be forced back to work. I am more than pleased to be standing here arguing that they should not be. The group has behaved in an absolutely responsible manner. If one makes a comparison between the way the government has responded and the way these people have responded, there is no question that the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the ship's crews group have shown themselves to be absolutely trustworthy in so far as the Canadian public is concerned. They deserve a tremendous amount of credit for that.

December 7, 1989
Government Orders
We could have had a similar situation with the hospital services groups as well. There is a veteran's home in Saskatoon and many of the families of the residents in that home have contacted my office and indicated to me that they were particularly distressed that their family members would be moved. The fact that the government moved them indicates that it had very little intention of bargaining in a very serious manner.
I cannot tell you how disturbed these people are that their family members were moved out of that home. I do not understand the situation in that I do not have anyone who is living in a home such as that. I am told that when one has been a resident of a veterans' home for a considerable period of time, one develops a routine and a relationship with the people around one. This includes the people who are on strike at the present time.
The union's offer of essential services should have been accepted. Who, Madam Speaker, knows better than the people involved, what those absolutely essential services are? I am very confident that just as surely as the ships' crews behave responsibly in relation to their dispute with their employer, the hospital services people would have done as well. I think it is despicable that the government did not take the Public Service Alliance of Canada up on its offer and use the people which the union was willing to supply them with in order to get through what, of course, is a rough time for all concerned. It is despicable that we should find ourselves in this position
The legislation itself does have the usual Draconian elements. Initially being forced back to work, then the salve of trying to show that things are going to go smoothly, followed by conciliation, there is no imposed settlement in the agreement. Nonetheless, the hammer is still there. Can you imagine one of those single parent women out there fined "as little as'' $500 a day. Do you know how much $500 a day is in relation to what they earn in a year? I suppose it may be 5 per cent. I think a 5 per cent per day fine is rather high for almost any activity that one could find oneself in.
Madam Speaker, I see my time is up. I can only reiterate that this legislation is unnecessary in both cases. This thing could have been settled amicably.


Hon. Gerald S. Merrithew (Minister of Veterans Affairs):: Madam Speaker, noting the hour and knowing that all hon. members would want the fullest possible opportunity for debate on Bill C-49, pursuant to Standing Order 26(1) I would move:
That the House continue to sit between one o'clock and two
o'clock p.m. this day for the purpose of considering Bill C-49.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The hon. member for Carleton-Gloucester (Mr. Bellemare), on a point of order.


Eugène Bellemare: Madam Speaker, I am no expert on parliamentaiy procedure, but my NDP colleague cut short his speech because members on the other side of the House were shouting that he had gone over the time allowed. Just look at them, the two ministers from Montreal who seem to think it is great fun to shout down the hon. member, who wanted to speak until one o'clock. They cut him off. Madam Speaker, when a bill is introduced, does a party's first spokesperson have limited speaking time?


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Order, order! To answer the question put by the hon. member for Carleton-Gloucester, the hon. member was allowed 40 minutes and I can assure the hon. member that when I signaled to the hon. member for Saskatoon-Dundum that his 40 minutes had expired, there was still one minute left before one o'clock.
We are now on the motion.

Will those members who object to the motion please rise in their places.
And more than 15 members having risen.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Pursuant to Standing Order 26(2), the motion is deemed to have been withdrawn.

It being one o'clock, I do now leave the Chair until two o'clock this afternoon.
At 1.03 p.m. the House took recess.
December 7, 1989



COMMONS DEBATES AFTER RECESS

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed at 2 p.m.

Mr. Francois Gerin (Megantic-Compton-Stans-tead):: Mr. Speaker, a week ago in New Hampshire, in the United States, a Canadian, Richard Bilodeau, was involved in a road accident which unfortunately left three people dead, including two New Hampshire policemen.
Since then, the U.S. Department of Justice has claimed, in writing besides, that the extradition treaty between Canada and the United States does not concern an individual who is accused of criminal negligence or manslaughter as a result of an automobile accident.
It is obvious, Mr. Speaker, presumably because of pressure on the New Hampshire police, and perhaps also on the judicial system, that a Canadian is treated very differently from an American, and certainly very differently from the way we here in Canada treat Americans who are involved in automobile accidents.
I ask the Minister of Justice of Canada and the Secretary of State for External Affairs to see to it that Richard Bilodeau, a Canadian citizen now held in an American prison, is treated fairly and with all the respect for his rights.


REGIONAL INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION
Mr. Len Hopkins (Renfrew-Nipissing -Pembroke):: Mr. Speaker, I have received a letter from the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion which represents yet another blow to eastern Ontario. His department is closing its economic development district office in Ottawa. This will create a great inconvenience and a lack of regional service.
Regardless of the reason given by the minister, we realize that this office is being closed because the department's financial resources have been slashed. The
resulting change in mandate is ridiculous and insensitive to communities in this part of the province of Ontario.
In the last year alone two major plants have closed in Renfrew. Plans to eliminate thriving VIA Rail passenger service from Ottawa through Amprior, Renfrew, Pembroke, Petawawa, Chalk River and further up the valley have been introduced. The forest industry has been attacked, and the list goes on.
This part of the province of Ontario in the east should not suffer because this government bases its decisions under the guise of dollars and cents instead of plain common sense.


IMMIGRATION
Mr. Larry Schneider (Regina-Wascana):: Mr. Speaker, over past months we have witnessed some remarkable developments throughout the East Bloc. One of the most stunning was the arrival of the freedom trains in West Germany loaded with jubilant East German refugees.
From the capital of Saskatchewan which was built by immigrants, many of them from Germany and eastern Europe, we in Regina realize that the only lasting solution to the problems in eastern Europe are to be found in real political reforms.
In the meantime we would like to do what we can to help those who have chosen a start to a new life in a free world. That is why I would like to take this opportunity to welcome those East Germans to Regina and Canada.


EAST TIMOR
Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg Transcona):: Mr. Speaker, December 7 marks the anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbour, a day which President Roosevelt predicted would be a day of infamy. He was right. It is a day of infamy, not only because of Pearl Harbour but also because of the Indonesian invasion of East Timor on December 7, 1975.
Sadly the Canadian government refuses to recognize just what the Indonesian occupation of East Timor has meant. It has meant the deaths of almost one-third of the East Timorese population; it means continued growth and systematic abusive human rights; and it

means a society kept in isolation by the Indonesian government.
The Canadian government's record on East Timor is disgraceful. It has voted against United Nations resolutions calling for the right to self-determination for the people of East Timor. It has lobbied to have the issue removed from the UN Human Rights Commission agenda.
It is hardly coincidental that Canada is the third largest foreign investor in Indonesia and that the Canadian government seeks to expand its economic relations with that country.
We cannot change what has happened on December 7 in history, but we can make December 7, 1989 the day the Canadian government adopts the correct, humane policy on East Timor, the day it puts human rights ahead of greed.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Jean-Guy Guilbault (Drummond):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out that this weekend, December 10 to 12, a national agriculture conference will be held in Ottawa.
The theme of the conference is "Growing Together: a vision for the Canadian agri-food industry". Leaders of farm organizations, the federal and provincial governments and all the major interest groups will be able to exchange ideas on the big issues affecting the Canadian agri-food sector.
This conference is an important step in the development of a new national policy.
We must meet the challenges and take the opportunities for growth that will come our way in the 1990s and beyond.
"Growing Together: a vision for the Canadian agrifood industry" augurs well for productive discussions that will determine the future of Canadian farming. I invite all farmers in my riding to take part in this important conference.


MISSIONARY IN NEW FRANCE
Mr. Marcel R. Tremblay (Quebec-Est):: Mr. Speaker, on December 1, I had the privilege of attending the launching of Missionnaires en Nouvelle-France, a new comic strip. The date coincides with the 350th anniversary of the arrival of Father Chaumonot in Canada, with
the first Augustine and Ursuline nuns. The launching took place at the Ancienne-Lorette church in my riding, on the site of the Notre-Dame-de-Lorette Chapel built in 1674 by Father Chaumonot.
Pierre-Joseph-Marie Chaumonot, companion of the Canadian Martyrs, was ordained a priest and came to New France in 1639. For fifty years he worked among the Amerindians, mainly among the Hurons around the Great Lakes, on Pile d'Orleans and finally at Ancienne-Lorette. Missionnaires en Nouvelle-France, published by Anne Sigier, pays tribute to this historic figure, with an excellent text by Gilles Drolet of Ancienne-Lorette and Drawings of Paul Rioux, an excellent illustrator and cartoonist. I am reminded of our motto in Quebec: "Je me souviens".


EAST TIMOR
Mrs. Christine Stewart (Northumberland):: Mr. Speaker, to corroborate the remarks of our colleague from Winnipeg-Transcona I would like to tell the House that today marks the anniversary of the illegal invasion of East Timor by Indonesian troops.
East Timor at that time had just become an independent colony of Portugal. An island inhabited by an indigenous population of 700,000 with a rich cultural tradition, it is also rich for its natural resources.
The resultant annexation of East Timor by Indonesia only came after the slaughter of 200,000 of its indigenous population and the imposition of policies which continue to destroy East Timor's cultural traditions.
The Canadian government is out of step with other western countries and the United Nations in not participating in actions against Indonesia. The reason appears to be the very high level of economic investment and trade that Canada has been developing with Indonesia. We would address East Timor human rights abuses at the peril of losing important trade and economic benefits.
December 7, 1989

Canada must develop coherent policies which link international human rights to aid trade and refugee determinations. The parliamentary subcommittee on international human rights must be given every support necessary to achieve this important objective in order that legitimate concerns for international human rights abuses may be addressed.


NATIONAL ENERGY BOARD
Mr. Lee Richardson (Calgary Southeast):: Mr. Speaker, in a decision on November 20 the National Energy Board denied four applications for export of Canadian gas into United States markets. No reasons have yet been given by the board for this decision.
Western gas producers are rightly concerned that the National Energy Board appears to be adopting an inappropriate level of involvement in a contracting process between willing buyers and willing sellers.
This decision is sending unfavourable signals to United States buyers of Canadian gas, casting a shadow of uncertainty over many contracts and negotiations currently in progress in the industry and generally creating the impression on instability in the Canadian gas supply.
There is an obvious need for clarification. National Energy Board decisions appear to be contrary to both the spirit and the letter of the free trade agreement in that they prejudice pricing arrangements and imply there is a minimum price for U.S. buyers which does not exist for Canadian buyers.
As a result the National Energy Board should be encouraged to release the reasons for its decisions as quickly as possible.


STATUS OF WOMEN
Ms. Dawn Black (New Westminster-Burnaby):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Glenda Simms on her appointment to the presidency of the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women. This is an historically significant occasion and I am very proud to mark it here today.
Dr. Simms is a well-known activist and a moving speaker. She is the former president of the Congress of Black Women and involved with the National Organization of Immigrant and Visible Minority Women.
She has shown herself to be committed to working hard to break the oppression of women of all economic classes, races and sexual orientation. Her extensive involvement in a variety of issues of concern to women such as housing, employment equity, and native education, is impressive. It gives her a background of knowledge that will serve her well in dealing with the many areas of research undertaken by the council.
Her appointment will bring a valuable perspective, skills, experience, vision and vitality to the advisory council. The New Democratic Party wishes her well, as I am sure do all members of this House today.


EMPLOYMENT
Mr. Ron MacDonald (Dartmouth):: Mr. Speaker, as I have indicated in the past, I am proud to represent the communities of north and east Preston and Cherrybrook, one of the largest native black communities in Canada. They have contributed greatly to the development of this area, the province of Nova Scotia and their country.
However, even after 200 years, their quest for equality is still a dream.
On September 21 I released a major survey entitled Education and Income in the Preston and Cherrybrook Area. The study's conclusions were startling. For instance, the income for young black males was fully 42 per cent less than that of their white counterparts.
I sent a copy of this report to the Minister of Employment and Immigration and requested that she initiate discussions on implementing real solutions to these long-standing and unacceptable problems. Despite my repeated requests to senior officials and to the minister herself, no action has yet been taken.
I therefore call upon the minister once again to urgently review this document and initiate the dialogue necessary so that 1989 will be the year we initiated an end to inequality and discrimination in Canada's black communities.

December 7, 1989


TRAGIC SITUATIONS
Mr. Jean-Pierre Hogue (Outremont):: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you for this opportunity to offer, on behalf of all residents of the riding of Outremont which I have the honour to represent in this House our sincere condolences to the families and friends who have suffered a tragic loss and are going through a time of great sorrow. What happened was unheard of in this country, and I am sure the memory will remain with members of the campus community for many years.
Mr. Speaker, as a member of this academic community, I would like to add that I and my colleagues in the House wish to offer our support after this unthinkable occurrence.
Mr. Speaker, perhaps you will allow me to observe a moment of silence, during the seconds I am allowed, to honour the memory of these young people, Canadian hopes that died in such terrible circumstances.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member will recall that later on this afternoon, the House will observe a minute of silence to meditate on this tragedy of which he spoke with such emotion. I am, of course, prepared to mark this occasion by observing a moment of silence to honour the memory of the victims.


HUMAN RIGHTS
Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, representatives of the Taiwanese Canadian community in Canada have joined their voices in front of Parliament today to express their deep concern about the situation of Mr. Yi-Shih Leo, a Canadian of Taiwanese origin who is currently imprisoned in Taiwan.
Mr. Leo has been one of the leaders of the movement for democracy and justice in Taiwan and was harassed during an earlier visit to Taiwan in August of this year.
I would call upon the Secretary of State and appeal to the Secretary of State for External Affairs to voice Canada's concern about the treatment of Mr. Yi-Shih Leo. I would as well urge him to call upon the Taiwanese government to end its harassment of Canadian citizens who are seeking visas to visit Taiwan. Too often these visas are delayed or denied for no reason whatsoever.
We all call for full protection of human rights in Taiwan where there have been too many abuses of human rights. We join with the appeal of Mrs. Leo and the Taiwanese Canadian community in urging the Government of Canada to speak out most strongly for the release of this defender of human rights in Taiwan.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE ECONOMIC REGIONS IN NEW BRUNSWICK
Mr. Fernand Robichaud (Beausejour):: Mr. Speaker, this Tory Government once more missed the boat in its in depth revision of UI economic regions in New Brunswick. I had asked the Minister in charge to separate Moncton's urban area, with an 8.2 per cent unemployment rate, from the rural area where the rate is 19.4 per cent.
The new redistribution separates the Kent rural area from Moncton's urban area. But the Westmorland rural area, where unemployment is very high, is still part of Moncton. This perpetuates the existing injustice. Let the Government treat Moncton separately, as it does the majority of other urban centres like Trois-Rivieres, Sherbrooke, Hull, Saskatoon and Regina.

I urge the government to correct this injustice to the people of rural Westmorland. These people also live in a high unemployment area, an area comparable to Kent County. It is grossly unfair to the people of rural Westmorland to be treated differently than the people of Kent County.
I call on the government to rectify this situation without further delay.
December 7, 1989


VIOLENCE IN MONTREAL
Mr. Guy Ricard (Laval):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today in this House to deplore yesterday's tragic incident in Montreal's Ecole polytechnique.
I rise today, Mr. Speaker, not because two of my children were in the building when the shooting took place, and I had to wait late through the night before I could know whether they were all right, but to condemn that violence, that sadistic slaughter of innocent students.
Mr. Speaker, I spent a terrible night waiting. But what must have been the anguish for the victims' parents!
When are we going as a government to do something to control violence? When are we going to force broadcasters to ban TV violence? When are we going to remove from store counters the toys that incite violence, especially at this time of year?
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I would like to extend my deepest sympathies to the aggrieved families and to offer my best wishes of prompt recovery to those students injured in that savage attack.
He He *


TRAGEDY IN MONTREAL
Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, today, Canada is in mourning. All Canadians were horrified upon hearing the news of the senseless shooting that took the lives of 14 young women in Montreal yesterday.
Our hearts go out to the parents and friends of the victims of this terrible tragedy, and on behalf of the Canadian people and all members of this House, I wish to extend our sincere condolences.
We also sympathize with the suffering and shock of the young men and women who were wounded during this terrible incident, especially those who are now patients in hospitals in Montreal's metropolitan area.
On behalf of all members of this House, I have transmitted our condolences to^ Mr. Louis Courville, acting director general of the Ecole Polytechnique of Montreal.
Tributes
I have also asked that flags on the Parliament Buildings and on all federal buildings in Quebec be flown at half-staff.
Today we all share the same feelings of sadness and indignation, offer one of the most cruel criminal acts in our history. These killings are particularly barbaric because the gunman selected women as his victims.

Why this brutal slaughter? Why this vengeful act against innocent young women? Why such violence in a society that considers itself civilized and compassionate?
This senseless criminal act is a grim reminder of the vulnerability of our society, its imperfections and of the precariousness of life itself. It is indeed a national tragedy.
I speak for all Canadians, I believe, in expressing our deepest sympathy for the families, relatives and friends of these young people who lives have been so brutally ended just as they showed such splendid promise.

Mr. Speaker, united in sorrow and sympathy, Canadians mourn the death of 14 fellow Canadians, the flower of a generation, cruelly crushed in the springtime of their lives.


Mr. Marcel Prud'homme (Saint-Denis):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday 14 of our most promising young Quebecers lost their lives at the hands of a half-crazed individual. More than a dozen others were wounded, most of them seriously. This is the worst catastrophe we have known since the last war.
This tragedy is horrifying, not only because there were so many victims but also because they were young people, working very hard to acquire the skills that will shape tomorrow's society.
In addition to dedicating several years of their lives to their academic training, these young women were unique in having opted for a non-traditional profession. That in itself reflects their courage and their determination to participate fully in the development and emancipation of Quebec society.
Our thoughts, our prayers and our sincere condolences go out to the families of these students whose lives were so abruptly cut short. Try as we may, we can never fully fathom the suffering of parents who be-

December 7, 1989
Oral Questions
stowed so much love and care on their children, only to have them leave this world through an accident of fate.
Mr. Speaker, I also wish to express our feelings of profound sympathy with Inspector Laurent Leclair who, as the first person to arrive on the scene, found his own daughter among the victims. A terrible shock and a heart-wrenching example of the harsh realities with which the police is sometimes confronted.
This tragedy also demonstrated the dedication and effectiveness of our ambulance services, our police force and our medical teams whose professionalism was exemplary, in the circumstances.
On behalf of the right hon. Leader of the Official Opposition and the members of the Liberal caucus, I extend my deepest and heartfelt sympathy to the families of the victims of this horrible and senseless crime.
We also want those who witnessed this shocking event to know that our thoughts are with them as they attempt to deal with the pain and anguish of losing so many friends.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Leader of the Official Opposition and all my Liberal colleagues, I want to again extend our deepest, most sincere sympathy to the families and friends of the victims and assure them of our prayers.


Ms. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, like most Canadians, it was with great horror that we learned of yesterday's tragedy at Ecole Polytechnique, University of Montreal.

Unlike other regions of the world where large cities are often the scene of this kind of horrifying drama, neither Canada nor Quebec has ever had such a killing.
Fourteen young women in the prime of life were savagely killed by a mad gunman; at least 13 others were injured, several of them seriously.

Those lost lives were our future; young minds who were attending school to acquire an education to work in their community, to share their abilities with their friends and families; young minds who wanted to contribute to Canada, and I guess young hearts that wanted to love. We will never know what gifts of joy or of laughter were extinguished by this act of horror.
Our hearts and our deepest feelings are with the families and with the friends of these young victims even though we know that this can be of little comfort to them.
We in this House grieve today as does every other Canadian. We will never be the same again.

On behalf of my colleagues in the NDP and all Canadians, I offer the families and friends of these young victims our sincerest condolences.


Mr. Speaker:: I ask all hon. members to observe a minute of silence.
[Editor's Note: The House observed a minute of silence.]



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. Jim Peterson (Willowdale):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Finance, I would like to address my question to the right hon. Prime Minister.
Yesterday the Canadian dollar reached a nine-year high, 86.13 cents American. This is up from 71 cents just a few years ago in 1985. We are seeing the results in terms of jobs in our economy due to these very high exchange rates.
In the second quarter of this year, our trade surplus fell to $.5 billion from the previous quarter of $5.5 billion. We know that for every 1 cent increase in the value of the Canadian dollar, we lose $1.3 billion in export sales.
Just this morning Mr. James Taylor, the president of the Canadian Exporters Association, called on this
December 7, 1989

government to change its policies and to get the Canadian dollar down to the neighbourhood of 80 cents.
This high exchange rate hurts Canadians in every part of our nation. When is the government going to reverse this disastrous course that it is on?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I do not understand my hon. friend when he says "reverse this disastrous course" that we are on.
There have been nearly 200,000 new jobs created so far this year. Some 85 per cent of them are full time, and some 59 per cent of them have gone to women. The economy continues to grow, although at a less impressive level than has been the case over the last three or four years.
The Governor of the Bank of Canada has stated very clearly why the interest rate policy is required to squeeze the inflation out of the economy. We cannot have a return to the situation that existed in the early 1980s when inflation skyrocketed and the economy went into a tailspin.
The day before yesterday the OECD pronounced judgment in respect of the policies of the Government of Canada. It believes that compared with all other important international economies, the Government of Canada and the Governor of the Bank of Canada are doing the right thing in following these kinds of economic policies.
I, too, look forward to lower interest rates. I believe that if we follow this kind of sensible policy, difficult though it may be on an interim basis, and get inflation under control, then lower interest rates will follow. With that will come greater growth and greater job creation, but in a non-inflationary context. That is what we are seeking to do.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister referred to the inflation rate. He forgot to say that the inflation rate in Canada is now almost the same as in the Unites States. However, the interest rate in Canada is some four percentage points higher than in the U.S.. It is 7.5 per cent higher than in Japanese and in Germany. Can he explain how Canadians can compete intemation-
Oral Questions
ally wich such high interest rates, one of the highest in the world?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my Hon. friend is referring to the interest rate in the United States. He could have referred the ones in Great-Britain, which are higher than ours, and the inflation rate there which is hovering 8.3 per cent. So much for another competitor. The situation is about the same in other major countries around the world.
Each country indeed has its own serious problem, and we also have serious problems in our Canadian economy. Our aim is to ensure that inflationary trends in the economy do not overcome economic growth and that six or eight months down the road we do not find ourselves with an inflation rate such as we had unfortunately when my friend was in government. And I know that he deeply regretted during his temporary exile from politics that his Government did not act with more speed and energy to control inflation, inflationary trends in this country, which we are now doing.
I therefore believe that basically my hon. friend is a knowledgeable businessman. He will know that this government and the Bank of Canada are implementing consistent policies which will lead to economic growth in a non-inflationary context.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: Mr. Speaker, what the right hon. Prime Minister does not mention is that if Canadians have to pay much higher interest rates in order to build the type of plant and manufacturing structure and economy that we need, that in itself is highly inflationary. He also did not mention that for every increase of 1 per cent in our interest rate, our deficit increases over $1.3 billion in the first year and $3 billion in the years thereafter.
A couple of days ago the Minister of Finance admitted that the economy was slowing down. He finally admitted it. He did not have to be a rocket scientist to do this, all he had to do was listen to the workers-


Mr. Speaker:: I would ask the hon. member to put his
question.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: My question is this, Mr. Speaker. Will he share with us and with the workers of Canadian Airlines, Gerber, Ford, General Electric, Indal, Inglis, and all the other workers who are losing their jobs what they intend to do about this disastrous course they are on?

Oral Questions


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend speaks of jobs that are lost. In a dynamic economy such as ours, there is an enormous turnover in any given year in terms of plants closing and plants opening. That is the way it is in an internationally competitive world.
My friend says that the Minister of Finance finally admitted that the economy was slowing down. The Minister of Finance predicted that the economy would slow down when he brought in his budget. Part of the plan was to drive the inflation out of our system. We are trying to create a climate of non-inflationary economic growth. My friend asks how it can be done. A principal way that it can be done is to keep program and other government spending under reasonable control.
In the decade that preceded the swearing in of this government, program spending increased by some 12.0 per cent a year. Since this government has been in office it has been held to 3.5 per cent a year on average.
My hon. friend might give some advice to the Premier of Ontario whose spending has been rising at 10 per cent a year. That is not good for Ontario and it is not good for Canada.


TREASURY BOARD
Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the President of the Treasury Board. The Minister would have us believe that this bill, which would force ships' crews and hospital services employees back to work, is necessary to protect the public. However, the Minister and the Minister of Transport have admitted that the shipping dispute does not affect public safety. Will the Minister acknowledge that the problem is not caused by the fact that these employees are on strike but by the government's failure to designate these employees as essential and thus get results in these negotiations? What explanation does he have for this kind of incompetence?


Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, I want the Hon. Member for Ottawa West to listen carefully to what I have to say. Mr. Speaker, at this veiy moment, operations on the river are perfectly safe, but we do have 126 ships operating on the river and in
the Seaway, and no one has any control over the weather or over ice conditions on the river.
Mr. Speaker, we have three weeks left before the St. Lawrence Seaway is closed. Millions of tons of Western wheat are now on the river and in the Seaway, and there is a risk that this wheat will be stuck on the river for the duration. If the hon. member doesn't agree we may have an emergency on hour hands, Mr. Speaker, I think that is totally irresponsible.


Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, winter and freeze-up come every year. The minister's officials knew last year that they should have been declaring these workers essential.
The minister knows now that all it would take to settle this issue is a decent fair wage offer that would cost far less than the strike is costing every day.
Will the minister admit that his back-to-work legislation is just a sham to cover up the government's abysmal failure to respect the collective bargaining process and to reach a just and fair settlement which could be reached in hours?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, once again I call upon my colleague to understand that the St. Lawrence River and the St. Lawrence Seaway today face a safe circulation of ships on the Seaway. The hon. member states that one year ago we should have done something. I am asking members to do something today: support the legislation which is here.
Thousands of Canadian jobs depend upon the traffic of the St. Lawrence Seaway. I ask the Liberal and NDP Parties to be serious and to keep those jobs for Canadians.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, I have a very serious question for the Minister of Labour. Could the Minister of Labour tell this House how he could possibly justify bringing back-to-work legislation against the ships crews and the hospital services workers of the federal Public Service when both of the groups are more than willing to continue negotiation?
Both of the groups are more than willing to provide emergency service.
December 7, 1989

As the minister knows, only two days ago the striking ships crews workers provided emergency service and rescued a U.S. Coast Guard vessel. I think these workers have shown their good faith.
The hospital workers have also shown their good faith by offering to provide emergency services. That offer has been turned down by the Treasury Board. I include those hospital workers in my own riding in the Yukon. Obviously, the solution to these disputes is good faith bargaining. Why doesn't the government do this?


Robert René de Cotret: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows I have mentioned time and time again in the House that at the time negotiations broke off, one group was asking for a wage increase of 17.4 per cent and the other group was asking for an increase of 14.3 per cent.


An Hon. Member:: Over three years.


Robert René de Cotret: Given that 95 per cent of all public servants have settled for rates of increase in the range of 4.1 to 4.2 per cent, we felt this was a rather exorbitant demand to be placed on government at this time.
I would just like to underline for my hon. colleague what the bill does. The bill does two things. It attempts to ensure that the safety, security and health of Canadians is assured by back to work legislation. It also tends to assure that we deal with this situation with fairness and equity by going to a binding conciliation process, which is essentially a third-party process, which will bind both parties to the eventual conclusion of the current dispute. So, we are being fair and equitable, and we are preserving the safety, security and health of Canadians.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, what I understand from what the minister is saying is that fairness is just too darned expensive for this government and it does not have much of a commitment to it.
The Prime Minister has often bragged about his commitment to pay equity for Canadians. Yet in 1987, a Human Rights Tribunal told the federal government that it had to resolve the major pay equity problem which exists in its hospitals and in the hospital services. These problems still have not been resolved. The government refuses to negotiate with the union and now says that the Human Rights Tribunal had no jurisdiction.
Oral Questions
If the Prime Minister truly supports the concept of pay equity, will he immediately direct the President of the Treasury Board to return to the bargaining table and renegotiate a true pay equity agreement?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert René de Cotret: Mr. Speaker, following the decisions that were brought down over the years, we have already paid the hospital services group $28 million in retroactive pay to meet the pay equity standards to which this government is firmly committed. We are in the process of paying an extra $10 million to meet the second stage of the process. The third stage of the process is before the Canadian Human Rights Commission, and we believe all the provisions that have been handed down will fully be met. The Prime Minister's commitment to pay equity will be honoured in full with the measures that Treasury Board has already taken.
When we look at pay equity from the other point of view, pay parity if you like, in the ships crews dispute, I have mentioned to this House time and time again that I have put on the table a firm offer to have pay parity between the east coast and the west coast workers on date of signing of the collective agreement. That is already on the record.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, in the New Democratic Party we only look at pay equity one way, and that is justice. It is justice based on the role of people, on regional justice from the east to the west for women and men.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Madam Speaker, the International Labour Organization has already condemned this government's unjustified use of back-to-work legislation.
Does the government really want another black mark from the international community? How can the government justify statements to the effect that the public interest demands we put an end to this strike, when Treasury Board has turned down the union's offer to provide essential services?


Robert René de Cotret: Mr. Speaker, the government has conducted lengthy negotiations in order to reach a settlement with both groups. Again, I may point out that we are talking about two groups out of 29. The other 27 managed to negotiate with the government an agreement they felt was viable, and did so fairly and squarely. The demands of these two groups, however, go far

December 7, 1989
Oral Questions
beyond the levels we set for the government. We are prepared to negotiate. We have negotiated for the past months. We are prepared to negotiate at any time. I have said so in the House, and I say it again today: If the unions want to sit down at the bargaining table this afternoon, this evening, tonight or tomorrow, the government will be there to negotiate an agreement and to do so consistently and fairly, instead of having to consider binding conciliation.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Right Hon. Prime Minister and it pertains to his recent visit to the Soviet Union and to the NATO meeting.
On November 27, the Prime Minister stated this about Mr. Gorbachev in the House, and I quote from Hansard, page 6235:
But I was struck by his determination to succeed and by his
confidence that success is possible-
I also believe, strongly, that it is in everyone's interests, including
our own, that he succeed.
On November 5, in Brussels, he said, when referring to Mr. Gorbachev,"His economy is in such God-awful shape it would take the treasuries of everyone around the table to fix it and then some". Who is the Prime Minister fooling? The 240 business people that he took to the Soviet Union, encouraging them to invest in the Soviet Union economy, or the NATO leaders? Does he not realize that by undermining the leadership of President Gorbachev, he has just set back the termination of the Cold War for another 10 years?


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Right Hon. Joe Clark (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, it may be a surprise to the hon. member that the Soviet economy is in very difficult circumstances. That was not a surprise to the Canadian business people who were there looking for an opportunity to participate in the rejuvenation of that economy.
It is not a surprise to Mr. Gorbachev. During the conversations between the Prime Minister and Mr. Gorbachev in the Soviet Union, Mr. Gorbachev himself was brutally frank about the state of his economy and the extent of the challenge that he faces. Rather than trying to conceal the difficulty of that problem, we believe it is important to analyze directly, to be frank with the Soviets, to be frank with the world and to try to put together a series of actions that could help the Soviet Union achieve the kind of fundamental changes that the Soviets require.
Mr. Gorbachev knows that we think that they cannot achieve those changes without moving toward a price system, without becoming more competent in dealing with the market principles on which the world economy is based.
What the Prime Minister said in Brussels is what the Prime Minister said in Moscow. It is an accurate description of the state of the Soviet economy and an accurate beginning for the reform that is essential to that economy, and consequently to the progress of world peace.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Jesse Philip Flis: Mr. Speaker, that is not what the Canadians are hearing. They are hearing the Prime Minister-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Jesse Philip Flis: -say one thing at one meeting and the direct opposite at the other meeting.
Also on November 27, the Prime Minister told us in this House that with respect to grain trade, he responded on behalf of the Canadian agricultural producers "with great enthusiasm". With all due respect, Mr. Prime Minister, the Russian people cannot eat enthusiasm. They would rather have bread and butter on their tables.
When is the Prime Minister going to take the initiative and offer Mr. Gorbachev some tangible assistance to ensure that he can meet the population's expectations?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I confess to having a certain advantage over the hon. member in terms of what the Prime Minister said in Moscow and what he said in Brussels because I was at both meetings. The hon. member was not. The Prime Minister said in Brussels what he said in Moscow. He said what the Soviets themselves understand and, indeed, are asking the rest of the world to understand, that they have a



Oral Questions
mammoth economic problem that needs to be solved. There is an opportunity for those of us in the rest of the world, who are interested in the strength of the Soviet economy, to participate in restructuring that economy. We are prepared to meet that challenge.
The hon. member asks about specific proposals that Canada might put forward. The Prime Minister has already put forward several. One includes the encouragement of the chairman of the economic summit each year to consult regularly as a matter of course with the President of the Soviet Union. Another is the indication by Canada that we would be prepared to move toward observer status for the Soviet Union in the GATT so that the Soviets can become more fully integrated into the world market economy in which they ultimately have to compete. We have talked about relaxation of Comecon rules. We have talked about a range of other specific proposals.
The Prime Minister was also prepared to take part in a mission, which I think the hon. member was belittling, the mission by some 240 Canadian business persons, who are prepared to go over and apply their expertise and capital to help in practical ways to allow the Soviet Union to begin the kind of recovery that is essential.


HOUSING
Hon. Andre Ouellet (Papineau-Saint-Michel):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State for Housing.
On November 23, I asked the Minister of State for Finance whether his government was prepared to agree to have the rental part of the federal home renovation program apply at the very least to any Canadian municipality with a program that complements the federal one.
Two weeks later, I note that the government has still not acted and I ask the Minister whether his government is prepared to recognize the tremendous harm which this government decision is causing many Canadian municipalities, and whether he intends to accept my proposal.


Hon. Alan Redway (Minister of State (Housing)):: Mr. Speaker, about the same time the hon. member asked that question in the House I was attending a meeting of housing ministers of the provinces and myself dealing with the question of allocation of federal funds to the provinces in coming years.
At the same time I had the opportunity to meet the Quebec Minister of Housing, Mr. Picotte, and discuss with him the question which the hon. member has raised. It was agreed at that meeting that we would deal with it in the context of Quebec on the basis of tripartite discussions between the federal government representatives, provincial government representatives and municipal government representatives. A tripartite committee has been established in Quebec made up of federal-provincial representatives from the city of Montreal, the city of Verdun and the city of Quebec.
As I understand it they had their first meeting to deal with the subject last Friday and they will be meeting again soon.


André Ouellet: Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for the remarks he just made to the House, which show the need to solve this problem, in particular for municipalities with a program that complements the federal one and which are more affected-I am thinking especially of Montreal. I wonder whether the minister knows that this arbitrary decision of the Conservative government is depriving Montreal of 95 per cent of the federal funds for home renovation.
Montreal now has 60,000 homes which need major renovations. Will the Minister do something to correct this unspeakable injustice to Montreal-yes or no? A committee is all very well, but a decision can only be made by the Minister and I ask him to act quickly.


Alan Redway: Yesterday, Mr. Speaker, I met with representatives of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to discuss the same issue. We will be having

December 7, 1989
Oral Questions
ongoing discussions and there will be the discussions taking place on a tripartite level in Quebec. Hopefully we will be able to come up with some answers that will be helpful for the city of Montreal, for cities right across this country and for all Canadians.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Len Taylor (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister or someone in cabinet who can speak for agriculture. They must know that Canada's farm debt is now more than $22 billion and that the Farm Credit Corporation and the banks are foreclosing on a record number of Canadian farms.
Will the Prime Minister or a representative of the government commit this government to bringing in specific legislation which would halt foreclosure action until such time as there is completed a full investigation of the farm financial crisis in Canada to ensure that we know specifically what impact the debt crisis is having not only on farm families, but on the entire farm-based western economy?


Mr. Murray Cardiff (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister, President of the Privy Council and Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform the hon. member that the government is very aware of the farm debt crisis. We have worked with farmers on an individual basis through the debt review boards and various other activities and will continue to assist agriculture wherever possible in any way because we do recognize the difficult times they are facing. We look forward to working with them.


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Mr.Speaker, the member will know that two days ago Canadian food processors told farmers they had to lower their prices so that the processors could compete better under the free trade deal. Today, Quebec farmers said that they no longer trust the federal government to protect them and they called on the Quebec government to take control of the jurisdiction of agriculture.
Does every province in this wonderful country of ours have to take control of agriculture because this government cannot be trusted to protect the interests of the Canadian farm community?


Murray Cardiff: Mr. Speaker, this government has responded better to agricultural needs than any previous government in history. We have to recognize in the 1980s that because of the difficulties of the 1970s, agriculture has had a difficult time not only in this country but in may parts of the world.
This government has provided additional assistance to the producers, in the area of at least $4 billion a year, since we formed the government. I want to add that that is more than in the previous administration, when it was about $2 billion. We have responded and will continue to respond and work with agriculture and producers until we have a strong viable industiy.


CUSTOMS AND EXCISE
Mr. Greg Thompson (Carleton-Charlotte):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Revenue. Customs and Excise officials have for years been conducting immigration and pre-clearance at U.S. airports on behalf of the Department of Employment and Immigration. This service was terminated on October 31, 1989.
In light of the fact that we have a 1974 treaty between Canada and the U.S. allowing this, that Section 115 of the Immigration Act allows the Governor in Council to make regulations, and in light of the fact that we have a free trade agreement that is trying to promote relations and the transfer of goods and services between the two nations, can the minister give us an indication as to how he can deal with this problem and hopefully resolve it for us?


Hon. Otto Jelinek (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member raises a very interesting question and I can assure him that I intend to consult with my appropriate cabinet colleagues, particularly the Minister of Employment and Immigration and the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
However, in the meantime I understand that customs service is not hampered because of the closure. Aircraft are now receiving free and prompt customs clearance at their destinations or at other airports along their flights. However, because of the hon. member's sincere interest in this matter, I will talk to my cabinet colleagues on this and get to him with an appropriate answer in the not too distant future.
December 7, 1989


SOCIAL PROGRAMS
Mr. John Manley (Ottawa South):: Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday of this week, the Minister of Finance told the House of Commons that the One Voice Seniors Network supported the government's clawback of old age pensions. Yesterday, One Voice said that the minister was twisting its words by saying, and I quote:
Seniors were appalled yesterday to see their words twisted to support
the government's controversial clawback legislation.
I would like to ask the acting prime minister, if you have one over there, will the government apologize to the seniors of Canada for the irresponsible way in which the Minister of Finance has distorted the words of Canadian seniors to try to justify this discriminatory tax?


Hon. John McDermid (Minister of State (Privatization and Regulatory Affairs)):: Mr. Speaker, I am glad the hon. member raised this because I want to point out to him very carefully what has been said by Jean Woods-worth who is the president of One Voice, the Canadian Seniors Network. One of the quotes that was mentioned yesterday is that, "social benefits are given to every Canadian citizen as a right. They can be taxed back from the rich because the rich should pay more taxes than the poor," and it goes on to say, "but to extend the social safety net to some and not to others makes it a charity, not a right".
In the pre-budget consultations which the Minister of Finance had with various interested groups, Mrs. Woods-worth was there, and I want to quote exactly what she said as part of the presentation that was made to the Minister of Finance. She said:
-we agree with the Economic Council that people with over $50,000 of income should have their OAS taxed back.
Now, going on to quote what the National Council on
Welfare said:
- the advantage of the clawback is that it saves money, not by tampering with the contentious principle of universality, but rather by increasing the progressivity of social programs-the clawback does no damage to universality-


John Paul Manley: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted that the acting prime minister raised that meeting because here is what the One Voice Seniors Network says about that
Oral Questions
meeting: "At that meeting he-" the minister-"specifically promised us he would not touch universal social programs". That, they say, was a real betrayal. "Now, he is taking our own words out of the context of our brief to make it look as though we agree with the clawback. Mr. Wilson has aggravated the anger and mistrust seniors are already feeling".
Is this government so desperate to find somebody who supports its tax measures that it has to go around twisting the words of senior citizens in Canada?


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I believe it is the hon. member who is twisting the words of the Minister of Finance. It is very plain exactly what Mrs. Woodsworth, who was representing that group, said. She said it, and I will read it to you again. I will do so slowly:
-we agree with the Economic Council that people with over $50,000 of income should have their OAS taxed back.
Yes, the minister said he would not tamper with universality. The National Council of Welfare says that in increasing the progressivity of social programs, the clawback does no damage to universality.


FISHERIES
Mr. Brian Tobin (Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Employment and Immigration. It has now been five weeks since the minister announced the special response program to assist fishermen and fish plant workers who suffered a disastrous season this year. Yet to date, during those five weeks, fewer than 50 per cent of the fishermen and fish plant workers throughout Atlantic Canada who have applied for assistance have been given any.
In my riding alone, some 459 of 912 families who have applied have been refused assistance under the minister's program.
Will the minister, in the few remaining days before Christmas, acknowledge that the program announced to date has been inadequate? Will the minister design new criteria to allow those fishermen and their families not to have to cancel Christmas this year?
It is not simply a matter of whether or not there will be gifts under the tree, it is a question of whether or not there will be turkey on the table.

Oral Questions


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, while I appreciate the seriousness with which the member asks this question, I do, however, disagree with his premise because this program is especially designed for people with an attachment to the fishery. I have reviewed this very carefully in response to questions that have been asked before and people have already qualified under the extended criteria.
I want to point out one aspect that he may be missing and that is that in any community, where most people engaged in the fishery are unable to meet the criteria, a person who can demonstrate, within that community, a continuing legitimate attachment will be considered for eligibility. I should say that this approach we are taking has been accepted by people in the industry, both labour and management, and we are making accommodations for a range of needs within the industry.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, despite the words of the minister, despite the attempt to assure members of this House and through this House Canadians that this program is working, in my constituency alone, on the great northern peninsula, over 50 per cent of the fishing families affected have had essentially no income since May 15. The member for St. John's West, the minister from Newfoundland, knows that and the parliamentary secretary, who is from Newfoundland, knows that, and the minister knows it.
My question is directed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs, who chairs a cabinet committee on what has been acknowledged by the government as a crisis in the fishery. Given that fishing families can expect no help from the Minister of Employment and Immigration, can expect nothing but a cancelled Christmas this year, a bitter pill for their Christmas dinner, will the minister intervene, on behalf of these families who are being told that they have nowhere to go whatsoever but to welfare and nothing to do but move to Toronto and take a minimum wage job? Will the minister help them now?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, we have said all the way along that it is our view as a government that we want to
help people who are affected by this very special problem.
Let me just quote, if I may, the Minister of Fisheries of Newfoundland who seems to disagree with the hon. member. The fisheries minister of Newfoundland, Walter Carter, said that the $5 million federal emergency response program for the fishery will be adequate to look after the fishermen who need assistance.


IMMIGRATION
Mr. Dan Heap (Trinity-Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration. The minister is quoted in The Globe and Mail today as saying that she is satisfied with the new refugee system the way it is. I want to ask her, considering that out of 15,611 claimants, 5,603 have not started their claims, 2,985 are waiting for a full hearing and 2,301 are listed as adjourned, postponed or pending, can the minister tell this House why she has allowed a total new backlog of 10,889 to develop, two-thirds of the whole, and how she intends to overcome it?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, I would certainly dispute the numbers that the hon. member is putting forward today. I think what is very important to know is that as of October 31, there have been 15,000 new claims.
The program was a little slower getting started than I had hoped in the beginning, as people were being trained. I think that the members of the refugee determination system have been very conscientious in how they have viewed these cases. However, we have seen some improvement in the last few months. We are watching it very closely to ensure that the system does work and that that catch-up on the new cases continues.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, since the figures are from the minister's own board of IRB, she had better look at them again because Canadians are asking why she is allowing a new build-up. They want to know whether she is putting forward a list of so-called safe countries to which refugees will be sent back without a full hearing and whether the United States is on the list of safe countries for refugees from El Salvador.
December 7, 1989


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, I have said all the way along that the concept of the safe third country is in the legislation. It has not been proclaimed.
It was my hope certainly and continues to be my expectation that the system will work and that we will not move to a third safe country concept. I can certainly assure the hon. member and the country that if that is what is necessary, that is in the legislation for me to use at some future time should we need it.


BROADCASTING
Guy Ricard: Mr. Speaker, a few days ago, a TV channel in Montreal showed a film where a commando entered a school and started firing at the students.
__ Last night, we had a similar scenario at the Montreal Ecole Polytechnique, with disastrous results.
My question is directed to the Minister of Communications. I would like to know whether in the near future, the Minister intends to table a bill dealing with violence on television, both in films and TV in programs, and will he do so as soon as possible?


An Hon. Member:: Right on, Guy!


Hon. Jean Corbeil (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, in responding to the question by the hon. member for Laval, I would like to join the Prime Minister and the two opposition leaders who, earlier today, expressed their sympathy and extended their condolences to parents and friends of the victims of this senseless act.
The hon. member for Laval is no doubt aware that broadcasters are responsible for their programs, subject to CRTC supervision. We can only hope that in the light of what has happened, the broadcasters and the CRTC will take some kind of action.
The hon. member for Laval is also aware that the CRTC's autonomy in these matters precludes the Minis-
Oral Questions
ter of Communications and the government from intervening with respect to program content.
However, I intend to inform the Minister of Communications of the hon. member's concerns which, I imagine, are shared by all members of this House.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Gander-Grand Falls, a single question and it must be short.


FISHERIES
Mr. George S. Baker (Gander-Grand Falls):: Mr. Speaker, we are faced with the worst fish plant closures in the history of Canada and some companies have gone to East Bloc countries asking for a supply of fish to operate their fish plants.
Canadian fishermen are not allowed to fish within the 200-mile zone of the Soviet Union or Bulgaria or Cuba or Japan or Norway, but they have been guaranteed quotas this year inside Canada's 200-mile zone.
I want to ask the Government of Canada, will it now cancel all foreign fishing within Canada's 200-mile zone as the United States has done, as every other country in the world has done, so we don't have to go to the Soviet Union and say: "Please, Soviet Union, will you give us some fish to operate our fish plants?"


Hon. John C. Crosbie (Minister for International Trade):: Finally, Mr. Speaker, we have had a question. The position is, as the hon. gentleman well knows, that certain stocks in our 200-mile limit are straddling stocks like the hon. gentleman opposite. They try to straddle every issue that comes forward.
The hon. gentlemen will also know that under the Law of the Sea, both Canada and all other countries that have a continental shelf have no choice but to offer foreign countries access to Canadian stocks which are clearly surplus to our needs. For example, we had a TAC for silver hake this year, 135,000 tonnes. Canadian fishermen actually caught 100 tonnes despite special programs and grants and we had to offer the surplus to Russia and other countries. That happened with silver hake. It would also happen to the hon. gentleman's silver tongue.

Government Orders BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


WEEKLY STATEMENT
Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, I will ask the usual question, and pursuant to your instruction, I will make it very short.
I want to ask the government House leader to give us the statement of business he intends to call for the coming week.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we will resume debate on Bill C-49. Monday, December 11, we will deal with the report stage of Bill C-4 and Bill C-23.
In view of the seriousness of the situation on the St. Lawrence Seaway, the risk to the movement of grain, the risk to safety and the serious question of service to veterans, I wish, at this time, to give notice that at the next sitting of the House, immediately before the Order of the Day is called for resuming debate on the motion for second reading of Bill C-49 and on any amendments proposed thereto, I will move that the debate shall not be further adjourned.


POINT OF ORDER
Mr. Bill Attewell (Markham-Whitchurch-Stouff-ville):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to rise on a point of order. I would like to quote from a recent issue of the Eastern Graphic of Montague, P.E.I. It reads:
Cardigan Liberal MP Lawrence MacAulay is selling handcrafted Christmas wreaths to other MPs-


Mr. Speaker:: Just a moment. Excuse me. That matter is presently in front of the Speaker. I think it is appropriate that that is where it stays until I return to the House on it.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, I rise to ask a question of the government House leader concerning legislation and to ask him, at this traditional opportunity on Thursday when the government intends to move forward with long overdue legislation respecting more effective gun control in Canada.
It was in 1986 that the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police pointed out that there was a world-wide surplus of automatic and semi-automatic weapons primarily designed for purposes of warfare now finding their way into the Canadian market-place.
It was in 1986 that the member for Don Valley East questioned the then minister who said that the legislation was coming soon. In 1987 we were told it was coming soon.
The minister said, in June of this year, he would be bringing forward this legislation on gun control in the near future. He has the unanimous agreement of the provincial attorneys general. How many more tragic deaths must there be, Mr. Speaker, before this minister moves forward on this-


Mr. Speaker:: Orders of the Day.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. de Cotret that Bill C-49, an act to provide for the resumption of certain government services, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: On a point of order, the hon. Minister of Veterans Affairs.


Gerald Stairs Merrithew: Madam Speaker, at one o'clock I had the floor and it is my understanding, according to the rules, that I would continue to make my remarks at this time.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Madam Speaker, we have a procedural difficulty here. It is true the minister had the floor at one minute to one o'clock. He proceeded then to put a motion to the House which was disposed of. The normal practice for anyone having the floor is to finish his speech by moving a motion. This member has finished his comments, he can move that motion and sit down.
The difficulty I have at this time, since the minister moved the motion at the beginning of his so-called speech, which we did not hear, is that I took it then that the minister had made his remarks, that he was ending
December 7, 1989

them with a motion and that we would dispose of that motion. If it is to be otherwise, I would like to be informed.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Madam Speaker, the House will know that the government has been making every effort to move this bill forward in order to deal with this serious situation. The minister was recognized immediately before Question Period. As the Minister of Veterans Affairs, he wished to bring to the attention of the House the difficulties that we have with the safety and service to veterans.
I appreciate that my hon. friend technically may be correct, as he often is. In this case there was an effort by the minister to see if the House would agree, under the circumstances, to sit through lunch.
There are often cases in this place where there can be agreement because of the tone and the seriousness of the subject that is being debated. One might ask-and I would ask at this time-if there might not be a disposition in the House to recognize the minister in view of the very important part that he will play in this debate and so that members opposite will know what is the position of the Minister of Veterans Affairs. Members opposite may wish to respond and at the end of his remarks, question him in that 10-minute question period.
I would ask if there might not be unanimous consent for the minister to deliver his remarks.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Madam Speaker, I rose on the point of order because I thought it was a good point of order to be taken up.
I do agree with the minister that the Minister of Veterans Affairs has a contribution to make to this debate. We would like to hear him. We are not obstructing his right to speak in the House. I just do not want it to be a precedent. I would like to see the House strictly adhere to rules so that we do have order in this place.
In this case we have no objection to the minister speaking at this time.


Ms. Mitchell:: Madam Speaker, this party would agree to the hon. minister speaking at this time.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: It is with pleasure that the Chair does recognize the hon. Minister of Veterans Affairs.
Government Orders


Gerald Stairs Merrithew: Madam Speaker, I wish to extend to both opposition parties my appreciation. I feel very strongly about what we are doing here today.
I do think I can make a contribution because it is my employees who are affected in this and, of course, what kind of impact this legislation will have on the people we serve, the veterans of Canada.
I thank very much the opposition parties for their co-operation in this regard.
I know full well that no one likes to go on strike. Such action is taken only as a last resort. I also know that no government likes to end a legal strike with back to work legislation. It, too, is a last resort and one that can only be employed when national interests, above those of the right of the employees concerned to withdraw their services, must prevail.
That, indeed, is the situation that has been reached in the Department of Veterans Affairs. The health and safety of our veteran clients is now threatened.
Before going further I should like to set the stage by saying a word or two about the department of which I have the honour to be minister because I believe this will give a contextual framework for what I have to say later.
I know from the letters I receive and from the discussions I have with members of all parties in the House that no department of the government has more dedicated employees than has Veterans Affairs Canada.
It is a department pointed to with pride by the Public Service of Canada for the quality of service it gives to those who serve Canada so valiantly in wartime. The department is a family and normally a very happy family dedicated to this purpose and the values of the department are clear to all.
Second only to the veterans we serve we place the highest importance on seeing our employees treated fairly. I think members of this House will understand, given what I have just said, my great regret that our members of the Hospital Services Group felt compelled to go on strike. I also regret that we, as a government, now feel compelled, with the co-operation of this House, to order them to go back to work. This will require putting in place a process that would, within a reasonable period of time, see an independent third party, first to assist and then to resolve if necessary, the

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differences that exist between the employees and the Treasury Board.

Within Veterans Affairs, Madam Speaker, we have one hospital and two veterans' homes. The hospital is at Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue in the west end of the island of Montreal. The homes are the Rideau Veterans Home, here in Ottawa, and Saskatoon Veterans Home.
I shall be concentrating what I have to say, Madam Speaker, on the situation at Ste. Anne's and Senneville. I shall be doing this because it is there that the situation is most grave and this in large part results from the fact that the patients there need much more intense care than in our two homes.

There are more than 726 patients in Ste. Anne's, veterans all, people who served their country well and deserve nothing but the best during the latter days of their lives. Of these 726 patients, about 250 are permanently bed-ridden. Another 400 are able to get by only with the help of a wheelchair and some of them are not capable of operating a wheelchair themselves. We have patients with Alzeihmer's disease and many with milder forms of dementia.
To visit Ste. Anne's is to see humanity enduring the travails of old age. Alert minds in wasted bodies and bodies that function while the mind has all but disappeared.
In Ste. Anne's hospital, more than half our staff belong to the hospital services HS group. There are procedures in the event of a strike, as the House will be aware, that allow designations of positions. And since it has been mentioned previously in debate, I do want to add my words to this particular issue. This requires people in such positions to continue to perform then-duties if a strike is called in order to provide essential levels of service. In this case, of course, the essential service is to safeguard the health and security of our patients and to maintain their welfare. In Ste. Anne's and our veterans homes, we judged that approximately 90 per cent of our employees in the hospital services group were needed in the event of a strike if we were to run the hospital on normal lines of three shifts a day, seven days a week.
The department did receive an offer to provide essential services at Ste. Anne's from the Public Service Alliance of Canada. Of the 614 employees eligible to strike, the union was prepared to allow 45 to work, 8 per cent of the workers, not the 90 per cent which we judged to be necessary. Even by switching to a two-12 hour shifts a day system, such an offer fell far short of the most minimal requirements.
In addition, in making the offer, the union imposed two conditions which we found too difficult to swallow. One, was that we not contract out any services normally provided by the department. Second, that we not reassign non-striking staff to do the duties of staff who were on strike.
In responding to the offer from the union, the department indicated that while it was most gratifying that the union had been prepared to make an offer at all, the offer of 45 employees or 8 per cent of the staff fell well short of what was needed. Attached to it were conditions, of course, that were absolutely unacceptable to the department and to the hospital management. So the department literally had no option but to reject the offer.
I believe we should now inform the House how the Ste. Anne's has been operated during the strike. I think it is important, first of all, to recognize that the strain on our employees at the hospital did not begin when the strike started, but had begun some considerable time in advance. If you will, Madam Speaker, a war of nerves was in progress before the strike was called. I do not wish to belabour the point or go into any great detail because of my conviction that those who sought to disrupt the hospital's operation were and are a very small minority.
The House may wonder how a hospital with over 800 patients could possibly cope even for a day without the help of orderlies, those who prepare the food and those who keep the institution clean. I would like to tell you a bit about this.
Our doctors, our nurses and our other professional and support staff have been working 12-hour shifts. The nurses, in addition to their own work, have been doing the work normally undertaken by the higher levels of orderlies. The work of other members of the hospital services group has been covered in two different ways: first, by the normal group of volunteers who assist this hospital on a regular basis like many others across Canada. The number of volunteers has been augmented in the community. With the special efforts of members of the Royal Canadian Legion, the Korea Veterans Associ-

ation and other local veterans groups, these people have been feeding patients, helping to shave them, generally caring for their personal needs and keeping up their morale. I wish to thank them publicly for their help to our veterans.

Our doctors, our nurses and our other professional staff have been working 12-hour shifts. The nurses, in addition to their own work, have been doing the work normally undertaken by the higher levels of orderlies. The work of other members of the Hospital Services group has been covered in two ways. First of all, by the normal group of volunteers who assist this hospital, like many others across Canada. The number of volunteers has been augmented in the community and with the special efforts of members of the Royal Canadian Legion, the Korea Veterans Association of Canada and others. These people have been feeding patients, helping to shave them and generally caring for their personal needs and keeping up their morale.

In addition, we at Veterans Affairs have moved considerable numbers of people from both our Charlottetown and our Ottawa head offices and from offices across Canada. Some of these managerial employees have worked as managers. Many more, along with colleagues from Ste. Anne's have found themselves doing unaccustomed work in preparing and serving food and keeping the hospital clean. All have been working very long hours. As one might expect, all are now getting very tired.
I should like to pay particular tribute-and I am sure the House would wish to join me in so doing-to those people who volunteer to do work that they are really unaccustomed to doing. I should like to pay special tribute to our staff at our institutions, to those who have come to join them from other parts of Veterans Affairs Canada, and to those wonderful people, the volunteers who have helped out in so many ways.
My heart is filled with pride at their dedication in serving our veteran patients. Indications that despite our best efforts the health and safety of our patients was coming into jeopardy were first detected a couple of days
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ago. Our concern became even greater on Tuesday as the drawn faces of our nurses, many of whom have family responsibilities to face after a 12-hour shift, were indicating fatigue and the potential breakdown of the system.
On Tuesday my deputy minister went to Ste. Anne's to form at first hand an impression of how much we could continue without endangering the lives of our patients. In the deputy minister's report to me after returning from Ste. Anne's where he had spoken with virtually all the staff on both ships, he informed me that in his judgment the situation at Ste. Anne's, despite the superb efforts of all those involved, was approaching crisis proportions.
He told me, based on the advice he had received, and the evidence of his own eyes, that were we not to act now the health, the safety and the security of our patients would be in danger.
I believe that I have shown why we cannot allow the situation at Ste. Anne de Bellevue to continue any longer. The members of the hospital services group in Veterans Affairs are still very valued members of our department. We need them back at work and will welcome them as members of the team.

As I said earlier, in my department, second only to the veterans we serve, we place the highest importance on our own people being treated fairly. I am quite sure that the arrangements proposed in this legislation, will allow an independent third party to help settle the dispute. Our staff can count on receiving fair treatment.

I would ask, Madam Speaker, that the House respond rapidly to pass this legislation so we may properly care for our veteran patients who did so much for us and who are now not able to look after themselves.
It is for this reason that I fully support the government's back to work legislation which is absolutely justified under the circumstances.


Marlene Catterall: Madam Speaker, I am veiy pleased to see the minister finally addressing this issue. I wonder if he is aware that for two years we have been getting to

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this point. Ele has delivered a very fine tribute to the people who work for National Defence, in the veterans homes and in the hospitals. In fact he has delivered a very fine explanation of why this contract should have been settled months and months ago and of why the issue of pay equity should have been settled years ago.
I ask the minister: Does he think $16,000 a year is enough pay for the valuable work he just described, for the love, care and attention these people give to our veterans? Does he believe that they should have to wait an additional two years, after already waiting seven years for pay equity? Does he believe that this is a fair and just situation? Above all, where has he been for the last six months? What kind of message has he been sending to the President of the Treasury Board about the importance of this work and the need to settle this strike?


Gerald Stairs Merrithew: Madam Speaker, in response to the member for Ottawa West, I appreciate her concerns and her kind remarks about the concern I share for the veterans of Canada.
I might mention, though, that the President of the Treasury Board, in his remarks this morning and in answer to questions throughout this past week or so, has indicated time and time again that there have been months and months to negotiate. The two parties were a considerable distance apart. He has indicated publicly in Question Period here in the House and said again this morning: "I am available and I will be willing to negotiate any time that we can reach a mutually agreeable settlement". He has made that offer over and over again.
I am perfectly aware that there have been discussions going on with PSAC, the employees, members of the bargaining table, and the minister himself. While it is his responsibility to do the actual negotiations, I think he has been more than willing to sit down with them. I would put out the offer once again on behalf of the President of the Treasury Board that the place to resolve differences of opinion in bargaining is at the table. The only way to do this is to go back to the table.


Marlene Catterall: But not in the House, not here.


Gerald Stairs Merrithew: We are willing and the minister mentioned that this morning: "I am available, and I will be willing to negotiate any time".
The minister did mention the issue of pay equity this morning and again in Question Period this afternoon. The Government of Canada is not running from that particular issue.
He mentioned this morning that an amount of $28 million had already been paid to deal with that particular issue. He said that there were other adjustments, and I quote exactly: "retroactive pay adjustments totalling $28 million have already been paid out". He continues: "We are in the process of paying another $10 million".
Second, today in Question Period he mentioned that they were now awaiting a ruling from the Human Rights Commission with regard to the third stage. It is not that the government has not dealt with that issue. The government has dealt with it and in fact has spent $28 million in redressing that grievance.


Mr. Brewin:: Madam Speaker, the government has said that it favours pay equity. It is perfectly simple for the government to include that principle in the bill, to direct the conciliation boards, and, in the final analysis, to reach a decision which incorporates the principle of pay equity in the bill.
If the government intends its words to be accepted at face value by the people it is forcing back to work, why does it not do the just and proper thing and include this in the bill? It leaves the workers who are being forced back to work under this legislation bitter. They have been through a three-week strike. The minister makes nice sounds about how much he welcomes them back to work.
Could the minister say that he and the government will agree at the outset of the conciliation process that pay equity will be conceded? If so, why will the government not put it into the bill?
The minister portrays in eloquent terms the problems at Ste. Anne's and the aged and sick veterans about whose care we are all concerned. If the care of those veterans is in fact required now by those on strike, then it is a simple matter for the government to narrow this legislation to those workers. If there are other individual situations where it is absolutely essential for employees to go back to work, it is possible for the government to narrow the legislation.
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Instead, the government presents a broad sweep putting all these workers back to work. They have not been declared essential by the government. They are entitled under the law of this country, under international convention, to free collective bargaining. Why will the government not give to these workers the rights that it asks the governments of eastern Europe to give to its workers?


Gerald Stairs Merrithew: In response to the question of the hon. member for Victoria, I might mention he was again asking about the principle of pay equity. I do not know how much clearer I can be as to the government's position.
The President of the Treasury Board has indicated publicly and in responses to questions in this House that he is prepared to deal with it. We have been dealing with it. We have not tried to escape from our responsibilities with regard to dealing with pay equity. He has done that. He is willing to do so again. We chose, personally, not to try to put any aspects of the points in dispute in the bill.
The bill does three things. It orders the workers to return to work immediately. It sets up, rather than tries to legislate, a settlement of the outstanding issues. I think the bill is very fair in that it sets up the process by which we can bring in binding conciliation in which to deal with the outstanding issues. They will go back to the table and try to deal with those outstanding issues, assuming that is a very fair way of trying to deal with the issues. It was not that we forced or legislated the solution to the problem. We just legislated the process by which those solutions might be achieved.
The second issue the hon. member mentioned was as to why we did not legislate back the essential workers. In my remarks I indicated that when we met with the bargaining unit concerned-and of course Treasury Board deals with bargaining units which in this case are the HSs from my department, the Department of National Defence and National Health and Welfare bargaining as a unit-we said that in order to run Ste. Anne's Hospital and our two nursing homes for veterans in an adequate fashion and without putting at risk the lives, health, safety and security of our veterans, obviously we had to have a very large percentage of the employees. We indicated very clearly that this figure would be in the vicinity of 90 per cent. They offered 8 per cent.
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Obviously 8 per cent would not do. There is a difference of opinion there as to what they perceive as being essential and what the Government of Canada and my employees perceive to be essential around Ste. Anne de Bellevue Hospital. Obviously 8 per cent or 45 employees cannot run a hospital with 726 veterans, most of whom are bedridden or in wheelchairs. Obviously one could not do that.
There was not going to be a meeting of the minds on that particular issue. It was deemed impossible, especially because of the two conditions attached to that term "essential employees" and their offer of putting some of the employees back to work on an essential basis. There was no meeting of the minds. It was not doable so we dealt with the bargaining unit as Treasury Board normally does.


Ronald MacDonald: Madam Speaker, I join in the debate today with a great deal of trepidation because I never quite thought that I would have to participate in a debate in the House of Commons, a place for which I have a great deal of respect, on a piece of legislation that is a vivid example of the complete disdain and contempt of the men and women who work in the Public Service of Canada as this government has currently been showing.
This particular piece of legislation is nothing short of sledge hammer legislation forced upon members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada for the ship crews on the east and west coasts of Canada and along the St. Lawrence Seaway, as well as hospital workers right across this country.
This particular legislation really smells of the rot and deceit of this government in dealing with thousands and thousands of Canadians who are members of the Public Service. I firmly believe-and I know that a lot of people in the Public Service and a lot of unionists believe the same as I do-that it has been a very long time since staff relations or union management relations between the Public Service of Canada and the government of this country have ever been this bad.
This government has set about since 1984 systematically to dismantle the Public Service. It has set about to try to undercut the union movement, the trade union movement. The government set about to do it so that it could do things like privatize Canada Post.

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Break the backs of the unions and then sell pieces of it off to your friends in private enterprise. Forget about the great jobs that the public servants have done since this country came into existence in 1867.
Over the last few weeks I watched the minister opposite responding to questions about ship crews on the east coast. I am going to try to keep my remarks to that because I know my colleagues on this side will be addressing the problems and the concerns of the hospital workers as they relate to this particular legislation.
I could not quite believe that the government was going to try their heavy-handed tactics on members of the ship crews. Since I have been elected I have seen, witnessed and heard from many people in the Public Service who are fed up with the treatment they have received from this government. I only have to think back to the hundreds of letters I received-and most members of this House have received them-from employees of a place like Canada Post, a Crown corporation.
We saw what happened in that Crown corporation. The government said: "Whoa, we had better get rid of this place. We are going to sell it off, but before we do that we have to get the union turned on itself". It set out on a pattern of forcing every single small issue, to get all of the postal stations and post offices across this country into the grievance procedure.
We get up in this House time after time after time and ask the minister responsible to respond to the real concerns that we hear about harassment at the post office, harassment of pregnant women at the post office, harassment of minority groups in that Crown corporation. We asked the minister over and over again to please tell us what kind of management instruction that Crown corporation was getting to be treating those men and women at Canada Post in such a callous and cruel manner.
Every time one asked a question of that particular minister he would get up, always have a little roll of his belly and a drop of his jaw, and he would laugh as he responded. I was hoping, and it is a terrible hope, that Canada Post was an isolated example. I thought perhaps it was just the insensitivity of top management at a Crown corporation. Maybe I am really stretching it to see this as almost a conspiracy from the top down.
Then we had the ship crews, 2,200 of them across Canada. I said earlier that they do a great job for this country. They ply the waters on the east coast, on the west coast and up the St. Lawrence Seaway. To listen to some of the rhetoric that has been falling out of the lips of some of the members opposite, they would have you believe that these are terrible individuals who are trying to destroy the economy of both coasts and of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I just want to put it on the record so people know who these faceless men and women are when this type of nonsense comes from the government. These people have faces, they do a job, and they do a good job for the Public Service and for all Canadians.
I have here a newsletter which was to explain to people who were concerned about the lack of progress in the negotiations who the workers are. It says:
We are the employees. We work on Canadian Coast Guard vessels on the east and west coasts and the Great Lakes, from large ice-breakers to buoy tenders, to Hovercraft and lifeboats, engaged in search and rescue operations. We work on armed fisheries vessels that ensure that proper monitoring of our fisheries resource is maintained both in policing the laws and in the research on improving and expanding the oceanographic resources that we all depend on. We work on Canadian Forces Auxiliary vessels in providing support for our naval vessels in the protection of our national sovereignty. We provide a service to our country in an honest and forthright manner.
That is who they are. Down in my neck of the woods on the east coast there are probably 1,500 of them. These are people you never hear of nor think of. But these are the individuals who for $18,000, $19,000 or $20,000 a year put themselves out on the high seas on the east coast. These are the very individuals who go out for $20,000 in five-storey swells when a vessel has put out a distress call. They do that for $20,000. It is not a pleasure cruise they are on. It is a tough job. It is a hard job and it is a job that they do and they feel proud of doing, and all they wanted was a decent wage for doing it. That is all that they asked for. They did not ask for anything special. They did not make any unreasonable demands. They were at the negotiating table for two years, two solid years.
It is nice that the President of the Treasury Board finally found out what these people do and that they are essential to the Public Service of Canada because for two years he and his negotiators did not negotiate in good
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faith with that union. For two years, they negotiated in bad faith.
I submit that they did that because they felt that when the time came and there was no agreement they would then designate those employees as essential and make sure they had to accept the contract from this government which does not want to negotiate in good faith with the trade unions and the Public Service. But they screwed up. When it came time to designate them as essential services, government members missed the deadline.
"My God, what do you do after missing the deadline? We have been negotiating for two years as if it were a joke, a lark, a useless exercise, but we missed the designation deadline. My goodness, we are going to have to really see what these people want, and what we are going to do with them. We do not have them under our control any more. This is a pretty bad situation", the government said.
They then wanted to start to negotiate but on the main issues. One of the main issues that these men and women and the ship crews wanted to have addressed was pay equity. My goodness, it is almost 1990. It is not 1890. Pay equity should be a fact of life and a piece of history. It should not be something that has to be debated on the floor of the House of Commons.
I have said it in this place before-and I hope I do not have to say it too many more times before it becomes obsolete and an issue that does not have to be addressed-for goodness sake, because I live on the east coast and I do a job that is the same as a job being done perhaps in the riding of the minister of fisheries, is that any reason at all to tell me that my labour is not worth the same as the labour for that particular job on the west coast or any other part of Canada?
This government talks all the time about pay equity. "We are in favour of equal pay for work of equal value". That is hollow rhetoric. Last year, during the federal election campaign, over 3,000 dockyard workers and others on the east coast were begging for wage parity. They said: "Tell me, in this day and age, how you can possibly discriminate against me because I live on the east coast? I am doing the same job as those good employees on the west coast, but you pay me less". It is a fundamental issue. It is fundamental to fairness in this country.
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We legislate the laws and we set the tone of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. For five years this government has said: "Pay equity is something we have to put in place. We are against wage discrimination". We are against discrimination, but it is okay by their definition of discrimination to discriminate against people who work on the east coast of this country and to pit them against their fellow workers and their brothers from the west coast. That is what this government does. Its actions speak a lot louder than its rhetoric when it comes to pay equity.
The union said: "Fine. We get, on average, $21,000 a year to risk our lives out on the icy Atlantic. Sometimes we have to stay away from our families for three months at a time for $21,000 a year. But if you are on the west coast, that is okay. You get $1,800 more for the same job, for the same hardship". It does not make any sense. The union said: "We are going to stand firm this time. Once and for all we are getting rid of that 27 years of wage inequity, that discriminatory practice, because, damn it, we are just as good as any other worker in this country doing the same job".
Time after time in this House and in committee, we asked the minister opposite about pay equity, and we asked him about regional rates of pay, and what you get are weasel words. This strike should have been settled. The contract should have been settled three months after those negotiations began, but the government says: "These people are being unreasonable". Well, I think that rhetoric from the government opposite is absolutely scandalous and it is unacceptable.


An Hon. Member:: Hear, hear!


Ronald MacDonald: Let us look at these people, who risk their lives on the east coast and on the west coast to protect the Canadian fish stocks. They protect the stocks we have not given away to the foreign countries, and we have given most of them away. I am now even getting a rise out of the minister opposite. I guess he knows I am correct. They are out there doing fisheries patrols.
Is that a holiday? There are armed vessels on both coasts of this country trying to protect that valuable national resource. What do they want in return? They want fairness and recognition of their efforts by this government. They want to negotiate. God, we know that. They have tried for two years, but the government screwed up and did not get them designated. Then it had

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to find other means to have its way with these individuals. So what is done? The government comes in.
Many times in this House since the strike began three weeks ago, questions have been raised about safety, because we were concerned. There were 1,700 fishing boats. Lobster season was opening on the east coast. We said in this House: "We are concerned about the strike. We are concerned that there is a safety issue". We were repeatedly told in this House that there was no safety issue regarding this strike. Two days ago the Minister of Transport stood in his place and said: "They should all go to the same briefing meeting in the morning, then they would not get themselves into so much trouble". As reported in Hansard at page 6505 in response to a question from my hon. colleague for Ottawa West, the Minister of Transport stated:
There is nothing true in the allegations that there is a problem of
safety on the St. Lawrence River.
The next day we hear of strike-breaking legislation coming into this place. What does the government use as a reason for this legislation? Safety. There is supposed to be a big problem.
I submit to you, Madam Speaker, that if the government did not see a problem with 1,700 fishing boats on the east coast, the only reason I can see that it finds a problem now is that a few of its friends along the St. Lawrence Seaway, big businesses, are tweaking their Toiy friends and saying: "Get rid of this strike now. We don't care what you have to do". The government has itself backed into a corner. It does not want to settle with these workers. What it is going to do is legislate them back to work; use a sledge-hammer approach to collective bargaining. The government should be ashamed of itself.
Let's look at what these workers want. For two years they have been without a contract. They said right off the bat that they wanted this $1,800 wage gap eliminated. That is in keeping with the policy of this government, a policy that it refuses to put into effect. Instead of getting $19,000 for that terribly difficult, dangerous job, they were going to get $1,800 more for that terribly difficult,
dangerous job. That doesn't change the working conditions.
The other thing that these workers wanted was to see some shift differentials put in. My goodness, they go off for three months at a time. Treasury Board had great difficulty with the semantics of all this. They said that the workers were not really on a shift. They work from six to six or six to six, but that is not really a shift, that is a watch and as a watch they did not have anything to deal with that and they could not be given a watch differential because it is not in the guide book. The workers said: "Fine, we will get you out of that pickle".
On Department of National Defence vessels, the civilian employees get sea duty. They do not get paid very well either, $170 to $270 a month while they are at sea. That is not very much to ask, that is reasonable. They said: "We want sea duty. We do not want $500 a month, we want $177 a month". The government said it could not give them that. The workers said: "When we are away from our spouses and our families, we think it is reasonable to ask in the agreement to be allowed to call home, ship-to-shore, at the expense of the employer, the Government of Canada and make a five-minute call". The government said it could not possibly do that. Perhaps these workers will get homesick, perhaps they will find out what a terrible job it is and what a terrible employer they really have and they will want to go back to shore.
These are the types of things that these workers are looking for and this government says that they are unreasonable. The minister opposite stands up, and he would have you believe that these people are the scourge of the earth, that they are trying to milk the federal treasury for every single penny they can get. He loves to get up and, with his own mathematics, combine certain parts of a benefit package and certain parts of a wage package and come up with: "They want 17 per cent". I have talked to the unions and I believe what they are telling me because they are honest hard-working individuals. Their position has been misrepresented constantly by this government as this debate has gone on.
What do we do at this point? The government was very close to a settlement. It bungled it on the designations. Its bad faith bargaining was in full public view for all to
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see. We have another example of the lousy treatment that this federal government gives to members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada who do a job for each and every Canadian, and do a darn good job of it.
These workers wanted wage parity. The minister gets up in the House and, with a gleeful look on his face, in response to a question that I asked answered: "We have wage parity". We asked the minister to put it up front as a stand-alone issue. If you are going to say yes to wage parity, do not link it to any other outstanding issues in the contract.
What the government did basically was put wage parity up the other evening which, by the way, was supposed to be in a confidential meeting that the minister had with the union. He broke his confidence in the House the next day and then wonders why they have trouble listening and believing things that come out of this government. Then he smiles gleefully and says: "Well, we put it on the table. Wage parity is not an issue any more". It is an issue unless the government puts it up front and states that no matter what the resolution is on any of the other issues, it is going to give parity because it is right and it is the proper thing to do.
Now what they do is tie it up. They say: "We will give you wage parity", and tie it up in the straitjacket of other outstanding issues and push you in the direction of a long walk off a short pier. That is their idea of proper and fair collective bargaining. Well, it is not my idea and it is not the idea of most Canadians.
In conclusion, since my time is drawing to an end, but I could speak all day on this issue-


Mr. Crosby:: Only if it makes sense.


Ronald MacDonald: My hon. friend opposite says to make sense. I heard a great deal of good sense yesterday in the Halifax-Dartmouth area when the members of the labour union went over to see you in your office and spoke to you long distance. You should read the press reviews on that one.
I obviously have their hackles up on the other side.
In conclusion, I would pose the following questions. Why is this government now concerned at this late date with public safety when we know that the unions and the workers have provided proper safety measures? We have not had any emergency that has not been responded to
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within 33 minutes by that responsible union and workers. I ask the question, is $21,000 an unfair salary-


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I really must interrupt the hon. member. I have been trying for quite a while to get his attention.
Questions and comments. The hon. member for Montmorency-Orleans.


Mr. DeBlois:: Madam Speaker, I would have two comments and a question.
Opposition members seem to be giving the public the impression that they are the only ones who talk to the unions. We understand them, we like them, but we are the bad guys-we are anti-union.
I think it is important to remind the public listening to us and my colleagues in the House that we have dialogued. I received people from the Coast Guard at my riding office in Quebec City. I talked with them for an hour. I appreciate the work they do and in that regard, I accept the description of their difficult job given by my colleague from Dartmouth, who almost tore his clothes. Yes, the people working on the boats have a difficult job. They staged a responsible strike and I am very glad, in a way, that the strike helped us better understand how hard their work is.
The second remark, Madam Speaker, is that we must get it right. I was a journalist in Quebec City for 20 years. I covered emergency legislation and usually, when the government in Quebec passed back-to-work laws, it imposed working conditions. I remember very well the former Social Affairs Minister, Mr. Forget, saying that if workers had to be legislated back, they should be given less than the last management offer on the table; otherwise the workers would always be tempted to go to Parliament thinking that they had nothing to lose and everything to gain since they could never get less than the last management offer. I find the bill before us very humane; it leaves it up to a third party to determine working conditions.
The question I would like to ask the hon. member for Dartmouth, who was indignant because we were slow in paying workers on the east and west coasts the same, is this: Why did the Liberal Government tolerate eastern workers earning less than western workers for so long?

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This is your legacy! How can you explain your tolerating for so long what we are now getting ready to correct?


Ronald MacDonald: Madam Speaker, I am glad that the member entered into this very, very important debate. It is easy for members on the other side to reply to every problem or every question that is posed by saying that it was there when the Liberals were in power. The Conservatives are in power now, but if the Liberals were in power we would have been true to our word with the labour union movement on wage parity. If you do not believe me, look at the results from the last federal election, look at the places where those wage inequities were in place, and look at the stripe of the members that they elected. They were not on your side of the House very many times. Not very many times.
However, the member raises another very important issue. He talked about the fact that this is another strike and there is never quite enough to give and unions are always posturing. I pose a question generally. Is $21,000 a reasonable remuneration for the occupations that I have just described? How would individuals opposite feel if they worked in a plant and the people on the east side of the plant got paid one rate of pay and the people on the west side of the plant got paid a different rate of pay? It would do a lot for your morale, wouldn't it? It would do a lot to build your morale. Do you think that the federal government should destroy the collective bargaining process by introducing legislation like this when the two sides were lately, at least from what we hear from the front benches opposite, very close?
The outstanding issues are very small. They don't cost a lot of money. We hear that on the seaway the costs could be as much as $2 million a day while the strike goes on. In order to give them the $177 a month for sea duty, which I think is pretty reasonable, it would cost less than $6 million. The wage parity issue would cost less than $3 million to settle.
In conclusion, I decry this bill and I will do everything to stop it. My colleagues and I believe that it is time that this government gave our public servants the respect, recognition and remuneration they deserve and that this government should go back to the age-old principle of negotiating, not legislating collecting labour agreements with the Public Service of Canada.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: Madam Speaker, could the hon. member for Dartmouth give to this House even one good reason that he has heard as to why the government supports higher wages on one coast than on the other? Is there one good reason they have come up with?


Ronald MacDonald: There is no good reason that wage discrimination should be allowed to be maintained. When the hon. minister opposite, the President of the Treasury Board, was at committee, I asked him about his position on wage parity. When I asked him about wage equity, he said to me that he agreed with the principle. He thought it was something that was very important but that we had to be careful. I said: "Why?" He said: "Because the settlements in the public sector will affect the private sector." I said: "First of all, even if that were true, it's still not reason enough to discriminate against a worker based on where they live."
I rose earlier in this House today on a standing order and talked about a problem in my area of discrimination against the largest native black community in Canada in the Preston area. That is in my area. Unfortunately in the private sector young black men make 42 per cent less on average than their non-black counterparts. Is that reason enough then for the government to say that anybody who is black or in a minority group in that area should get paid less because that is what the private sector gives them? That is utter nonsense. If that situation applies in dealing with minority groups in the private sector, it should equally apply in the Public Service of this country.
If you want to look specifically at the strikers, at the seamen and women on the east coast of Canada, they are getting paid about 32 per cent less than their private sector counterparts.
In conclusion, there is no good reason and it will be political folly for this government to introduce this piece of legislation.


Howard Edward Crosby: Madam Speaker, first let me make a very clear answer to the question asked by my colleague which the member for Dartmouth refused to answer. The President of the Treasury Board, in this House of Commons and elsewhere, has given to the ships' crews in east coast Canada wage parity with the ships' crews on the west coast. All they have to do is sign a collective agreement and they have parity, something that the

Liberal government deprived them of for more than 20 years. That is the answer to that question.
Beyond that, to ensure some sanity in this debate, I wanted to give the member this instruction on the matter of when the government should enter into labour disputes to the extent of requiring back-to-work legislation. The test is this: "Unfortunately, however, there are times and situations when the spirit of compromise and the demonstration of good faith so necessary on the part of all concerned are found wanting. In such circumstances the federal government, as custodian of the economy and the protector of the public interest, must assume its responsibility." Those are the words of the Hon. Member for Papineau, the old riding of Saint-Mi-chel, in this House on October 17, 1978. That is the test he provided. That is the test made by the Liberal Party. Will the member answer whether we are not following that test, his test?


Ronald MacDonald: I hope the Hon. Member for Halifax West still has the support of his researcher because he does not any longer have the support of his constituents.
The members opposite would like to pat themselves on the back. Let us just look at this, and again I am going to quote from one of their documents: "We have ships' crews with families that are living close to the poverty line. In fact, members with a spouse and two children make approximately $100 to $150 a month more than a similar family on social assistance." The hon. member opposite stands up, smiles, and pats himself on the back for legislating back-to-work and legislating probably a contract that will perpetuate that obscenity.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: The hon. member for Kootenay West-Revelstoke-VIA Rail; the hon. member for Nepean-Arts and Culture; the hon. member for Prince Albert-Churchill River-The Environment.
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[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. de Cotret that Bill C-49, an act to provide for the resumption of certain government services, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: On a point of order, the Hon. Member for Ottawa West.


Marlene Catterall: Madam Speaker, the normal order of speaking this afternoon was disrupted by consent of the House. In fact, the Minister of Veterans Affairs spoke and we reversed our speaking order so that the minister could speak in lieu of my colleague from Dartmouth. My colleague from Dartmouth then took the minister's place. I think that requires that the normal speaking order now return to the Official Opposition except by consent of the House.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: It is the
Chair's understanding that there was consent earlier for the minister to speak, not as a reversal of the normal order. The understanding was that the fact that the minister had put a motion in front of the House at one minute to one would not be considered as the fact that he had already spoken. Henceforth, he was to take the normal turn. This was the understanding at the time. There was unanimous consent, both from the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier for the Liberal Party and the Hon. Member for Vancouver East for the New Democratic Party.
Therefore, at this time I would recognize the Minister of Transport.


Benoît Bouchard: Madam Speaker, I appreciate your sense of fairness. I must say I regret having to rise in the House today on an urgent matter we have been asked to address.

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Mr. Speaker, today is the 27th day of a strike by the bargaining unit for federal ships' crews, mainly crews of the ships of the Canadian Coast Guard. It is clear that this strike has a serious impact on many aspects of marine transport and threatens Canada's economy.
I would like to say a few words about the importance of this back-to-work legislation for maintaining marine transportation in Canada at a time when I believe we cannot afford to let it come to a stop.
Madam Speaker, the sectors most severely affected by the strike by federal ships' crews are the St. Lawrence Seaway, navigation on the St. Lawrence River downstream from Montreal, navigation to and from ports in Atlantic Canada including, of course, northeastern New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, and especially and above all, ship movements in all Canadian waters.
Madam Speaker, hon. members were advised of the fact that on December 1, because of concerns for navigation safety, I decided to stop navigation on the St. Lawrence River between Quebec City and Les Escou-mins. On December 4, we assessed the situation further, and decided to allow ship movements and daytime navigation, provided there were two pilots on board.
Normally, coast guard ships maintain navigational aids on all shipping routes, doing so before and as ice conditions develop. Summer buoys must be replaced by special winter buoys, which are submerged by drifting ice. This year, because of the strike, 400 buoys are now out of service. The losses and damages involved represent millions of dollars. The fact is that resulting tonnage restrictions on the St. Lawrence River will probably have to be maintained until late spring, until all the heavy buoy anchors can be located and removed from shipping channels.

The St. Lawrence Seaway system is the world's foremost inland waterway and the foundation of the Canadian Inland Marine Transportation system. The provision of essential services, such as aids to navigation in ice-breaking, are key to the safety and effectiveness of the ocean link to and from the heartland of North America.
Faced with problems of delays in transportation, foreign confidence in Canada diminishes over time and
buyers of our exports, particularly in the case of grain, will seek alternate, more reliable transportation systems or, worse yet, other suppliers entirely.
During 1988 the St. Lawrence Seaway carried over 20 million tonnes of bulk cargo such as iron ore and coal to and from ports in the Great Lakes system. Over 15 million tonnes of grain also were moved through the Seaway, and a further 4.5 million tonnes of general cargo were moved by this great waterway. The economic significance of such figures are enormous.
The seaway's yearly cargo throughput is in the order of 40 million tonnes. Sixty per cent of the seaway's traffic is shipped to or from overseas ports, chiefly in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
I would like to say a few words about the effect that the recent record cold weather is having on the operation of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Operating conditions on the seaway are deteriorating as continued record cold weather is causing rapid build-up of ice through the system.

The canal on the South Shore, from Montreal to Lake Saint-Louis, which includes the Saint-Lambert and Cote-Sainte-Catherine locks, is completely covered with ice, which is getting steadily thicker as the cold weather continues. The canal is open to one-way traffic only, because of the thickness of the ice. Without icebreakers, navigation has become more difficult, and it may be necessary to close the section between Montreal and Lake Ontario earlier than usual.

As of midnight December 6, there were 51 ocean-going vessels in the Great Lakes system west of the St. Lambert Lock. Of these, 33 are still above the Welland Canal. There are an additional eight Canadian inland vessels per day requiring service. The average operating cost of these vessels varies from $5,000 to $25,000 per day and more, dependent upon the type of vessel.
Many of the vessels face long delays. These delays will be longer if ice-breaker support is not available. Some ocean vessels may even be trapped in the system for the winter if ice-breaker assistance is not provided.
Should a number of the 51 ocean-going vessels that are currently in the system be trapped, then the losses incurred will be huge. Early closure will also have a
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major impact on the viability of the Canadian inland fleet as they will be unable to meet all their commitments.
With the outlook for below normal temperatures to continue for the remainder of December, the announced clearance date of December 19 may not be achievable, and the dependability and reliability of the seaway as a transportation route will be jeopardized.
It is therefore critical that coast guard services be restored as soon as possible so that the seaway may be closed in an orderly fashion and all vessels can complete their transits.
In addition to the seaway, the St. Lawrence River ports have substantial impact on the local, regional and national economy. Traffic at Ports Canada facilities located on the St. Lawrence River generate over 16,500 jobs and $750 million in total income.

The 1988 daily average container traffic in the Port of Montreal was 15,000 tons, Madam Speaker, each ton worth $25 in revenue. The impact of the strike is estimated to be 50 per cent more per ton for containers transported by land. This figure is based on the estimated cost of shipping them by rail. All told, this could translate into daily losses amounting to $1.2 million.
On top of that the Montreal, Trois-Rivieres and Quebec City grain elevators are losing orders. Grain sales have been slow this fall and now that the shipping season on the Great Lakes and in the St. Lawrence Seaway can come to an abrupt end practically overnight because of the extreme weather conditions, chances of catching up are very slim indeed.
Madam Speaker, the Canadian Wheat Board estimates that in excess of one million tons of export grains must be shipped from the St. Lawrence ports between now and January 1990. So far Trois-Rivieres has lost three grain and one forest products shipments which had to be rerouted through another port. Ice jams on Lake Saint-Pierre are causing bottlenecks in the ports of Trois-Rivieres and Quebec City. As a rule icebreakers could easily restore traffic to normal.
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Madam Speaker, if shipping does not resume the City of Sept-Iles stands to lose 500,000 metric tons of cargo, mostly iron ore, shipped through the Great Lakes during the current shipping season.
Quite possibly Chicoutimi will have to do without the
50.000	metric tons of petroleum products that were to be shipped there. Madam Speaker, other vulnerable sectors include petroleum products, aluminum, titanium, lumber, grain and iron ore.
With respect to the petroleun industry, for example, the Levis Ultramar refinery produces over 40 per cent of Quebec's total output. To maintain its operations the refinery must get a shipment of unprocessed petroleum every five days, and each shipment is estimated to be worth something like $11 million. Most of its products are usually loaded aboard ships bound for maritime terminals in Quebec and the Atlantic provinces.
Now, Madam Speaker, let us look at the problem of ships currently delayed and time lost. Today there are in excess of 70 ships experiencing delays in the St. Lawrence River below Montreal. In addition, there are 51 ocean-going vessels still to exit the St. Lawrence Seaway before its announced clearance date of December 19. This gives a total in excess of 120 ships affected or potentially affected if this strike is not immediately resolved.
At an estimated daily cost per ship of $5,000 to $25,000 per day or more, the losses in ship time alone are presently about $1 million per day and this figure could escalate to millions per day if all the ships are not able to exit the seaway.
Earlier we were talking about Atlantic Canada. Atlantic Canada is feeling the brunt of the strike. For example, the port of Dalhousie in New Brunswick moved over
856.000	tonnes of commodities in 1988, all of it in support of Canada's international trade.
In the Miramichi region which includes ports of Newcastle, Chatham and Millbank, these facilities handled over 240,000 tonnes of commodities in 1988. Exports to international markets accounted for over 64 per cent of this traffic with an estimated value of these exports exceeding $121 million.

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Major users of these ports include the New Brunswick Power Corporation, Stone Consolidated, Repap Enterprises, Acadia Forest Products, Northwood Pulp and Timber and the major oil companies, all of which depend upon support from Coast Guard icebreakers. Should ice conditions prohibit vessel arrivals for Repap Enterprise at Newcastle, the mill will find itself in a very difficult situation, as it depends on the regular supply of clay slurry to keep the mill in production. Any long-term disruption in the arrival of Repap vessels will likely result in mill shutdowns affecting approximately 700 to 800 mill employees.
I think that the impact of not having icebreakers for public port operation in northeastern New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island area could be devastating, particularly in the economic sense, vis-a-vis the lost wages for farmers and shippers involved in the potato industry and future losses in export due to the unreliable supply.

Madam Speaker, I think I have shown the dramatic impact of the present situation on the operation of the St. Lawrence Seaway, which is essential to the movement of grain from the Prairies. I mentioned the serious repercussions on the St. Lawrence, which is a sort of transportation pipeline to our industrial heartland. I also drew attention to the negative impact for Canadians in other regions of the country. Financial losses are increasing daily. This is really a national problem which must be solved with great urgency.
Madam Speaker, I would like to present the following motion to the House:

That the House continue to sit beyond the ordinary hour of daily
adjournment for the purpose of continuing second reading
consideration of Bill C-49.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Would all members opposed to the motion please rise.
And more than 15 members having risen'.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Since fifteen or more members have risen, the motion is deemed to have been withdrawn, pursuant to Standing Order 26(2).
Motion withdrawn.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Madam Speaker, I just want to put one question to the Minister of Transport.
The government and the minister want Canadians to believe that Canadians generally and, in particular, certain sectors would be at a disadvantage because of the delay in the passage of this legislation. The blunt reality is that the government has had this issue for 22 months.
It should be noted in this House that when this kind of legislation has come before the House, as the member for Ottawa West has pointed out repeatedly over the last number of days, while it is true that opposition parties have voted against it, very seldom has there been a decision by the Opposition not to facilitate in every way possible the passage of the legislation; that is, the requirement for votes at every stage to the point where the government has been forced to use closure.
Fundamentally, the difference this time is that in our hearts and when we consult our conscience the Opposition knows that there has not been an honest attempt at collective bargaining on the government side. It simply has not been there for nearly two years. That is not the job of the Minister of Transport, it is the job of the President of the Treasury Board.
It is ironic, seeing that this government is led by the Prime Minister who made his reputation as a dynamic labour lawyer, that the legislation provides for two conciliation boards but, in both cases, the chairmen were picked by the government with no consultation with the unions involved.
There is a fundamental issue here. It is possible that some people will be inconvenienced and will be hurt, but it has to be said and it has to be clear that that is not the fault of health services workers who want equal pay for work of equal value. That is not the fault of people who work on ships at sea for 28 days at a time serving their nation, the second largest marine nation in the world. It is not the fault of those employees. It is the fault of a government that never intended to negotiate honestly,
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never intended to resolve this issue equitably and which now wants to pretend that these workers have to bear the burden of the inconvenience that may be out there for Canadians so it can use a hammer to solve this dispute. That has to be said clearly.
The other issue I want to make clear is one I want the minister to answer. The minister has talked about ships in the St. Lawrence Seaway and ships in the Great Lakes. We all understand that. We are all aware of the reality of the Canadian climate. But I want him to make clear that the reality is that the vast majority, if not all-and I have just had this confirmed-of Canadian vessels involved in hauling Canadian goods, whether it be wheat, grain or whatever, are ice-hardened vessels. They are quite capable, all of them, in the time remaining in the season given the likely timing of the government's bill, of moving out of that system.
What the minister is really doing today is making a plea-and it is understandable from his portfolio's point of view-that the foreign vessels not ice-hardened, that are not built for Canadian conditions and Canadian winters, get a chance to get out. Is that not what is really happening when we are being told by the Minister of Transport or the government that Canadian farmers or Canadian producers may be hurt? That is a fallacy because Canadian boats and Canadian traffic because of ice-hardened capabilities can move out of that St. Lawrence Seaway system.
If the government wants the strike resolved it can do it in a matter of hours. Bargain honestly and bargain fairly. Would the minister not agree?


Benoît Bouchard: Madam Speaker, I think the member for Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte would try to find any kind of excuse not to support the bill. It is up to him, but I would like to repeat what I said.
He said it is fallacious. I believe it is also fallacious to try to explain that three week's from the closure of the St. Lawrence Seaway we have 121 ships in the system with no possibility of determining exactly what the icing conditions will be. We have no possibility of knowing what the weather conditions will be within the next two or three weeks.
I face, as the Minister of Transport, the fact that a few of those ships could be stalled in the system all winter
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and what that represents in terms of consequences. I think everybody in this House has to keep in mind that we have two or three weeks. As the Minister of Transport I just have to ask the House to give me the possibility of using the ice-breakers in a way that we can, for example, free the ice-jam that we have under the bridge of Trois Riviere at the present time.
I have heard in this House so many times people talking about the environment. I said we have 121 ships in the system. When those ships are cruising or sitting in the water, there is the danger that that could create an environmental disaster. And now we have an icey St. Lawrence River. We have problems of icing in Summer-side, Prince Edward Island, in the St. John River in New Brunswick, and it could be worse and worse tomorrow and the day after. And I am asking if that is a fallacious argument? I just ask the House to consider the fact which is in front of me. We have the reality. We do not have the time. We do not have weeks and weeks and weeks. We have days. The day after we had a disaster those same members would say that the minister did not take his responsibility, that he did not try to free the St. Lawrence River.
I do what I have to do. I tell Canadians that it is very serious when the Opposition does not understand. The President of Treasury Board explained this morning how 95 per cent of those people have already accepted working conditions but the demand is for 17.4 per cent when we have given 4 per cent to the others. Between that reality and the economic reality of Canada, with the ice conditions in the St. Lawrence Seaway and the weather conditions we could face, my choice is very quick. I need the legislation to keep jobs for Canadians in that sector and to keep the economy of this country healthy.


John F. Brewin: Madam Speaker, I have a couple of points I would like to put to the minister. First, the government has repeated time and time again the overly simplistic suggestion that the union here is asking for 17 per cent when in fact it is asking for 17 per cent over 42 months. The two sides are not too far apart on money. There is a possibility of getting a settlement. The government did not have to wait until the dead of winter, it had two years to negotiate this. It could have got something settled.
The workers here have been out on strike for three and a half weeks. By the time this legislation is through, if the government persists in using closure to get it

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through, it will still be the end of next week before it is through. They have been out on strike for four and a half weeks. The government will be sending back to work employees who have been out on strike for an extended period of time. It is going to be doing so without giving them a single point of win for their effort. It is going to therefore end up with some very bitter, unhappy employees.
The government has said over and over again in this House that it is ready to concede pay equity, that it is ready to concede regional equity. I urge the government to consider including in this back-to-work bill, if it persists with this legislation, an agreement and understanding that the conciliation boards are to proceed from that principle, that the government acknowledges that the settlement must include pay equity and must include regional equity in this country.
Third, underlying this bill there is a very serious issue of principle and public policy. This country, through various governments, is committed to free collective bargaining. We stand in this House and in other places and applaud the Poles when they go out on the streets and win free collective bargaining. Free collective bargaining is an important principle and it is important public policy. There is no excuse possible, by the government simply raising a few individual cases, to force all of these workers to give up this fundamental democratic right. I urge the government to reconsider this iniquitous bill.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: A short answer from the Minister.


Benoît Bouchard: Madam Speaker, yes, very briefly.

I do not have any time to answer the question. The member said that we will face very bitter, unhappy people. But I am looking after 26 million very unhappy Canadians. I agree with the principles that the member put forward.
But there is another principle in terms of the free collective bargaining. When we jeopardize the economy and thousands of Canadian jobs, the government has to take responsibility. That is what we do. My friend is from Victoria and we are different in terms of the way we manage things. They do not face the same ultimatums
we have here. We know that the ice is getting thicker and thicker and we have to face that reality. We do not have two or three weeks. We have days. That is why I ask my friend to support the bill, to give us the possibility of bringing people to the table and find an agreement. That is what we want.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Resuming debate. The hon. member from Halifax.


Ms. Mary Clancy (Halifax):: Madam Speaker, I am desolate that the hon. minister is leaving. I wish he might wait to hear one comment. Is he aware that, indeed, two Russian ships have cleared the Seaway today, because of their ice-hardened abilities, just like the Canadian ships that he claims are tied up and making the populous unhappy and uncomfortable?
Indeed, the Canadian ships have the ice-hardened capacity as well and will manage to get out of the Seaway in these conditions this week or next week. So the time that he considers so crucial to the economy of this country is, perhaps, not as crucial as the hon. minister has led us to believe. The Russians did it. I would imagine that Canadian ships and Canadian seamen can do the same thing.
But that is typical of this government. Across this country people are confused, dumbfounded and bewildered. They are puzzled at the treatment they get. They got promises from the government during the election campaign of 1988 that are broken one by one by one, ten by ten by ten, fifty by fifty by fifty-promises to keep VIA Rail, promises not to tamper with UI and promises of national day care. And what do we get? Instead of VIA Rail, instead of a national dream, we receive a national nightmare. Instead of a just and equitable UI program, we receive a mangled and bloodied program that helps few. Instead of a national day care system, the government was kind enough to offer us a new 9 per cent goods and services tax. And what are Canadians supposed to believe from these people?
Today's events with ships' crews and hospital service workers are just another case in point of how this government has perfected the art of speaking out of both sides of its mouth.
Here we have a situation whereby the government has and is demonstrating absolutely no regard for civil liberties and individual rights. And surprising as it is, this noble government has turned its back on the great

crucible of human rights. This is the government which has spoken out so often against the human rights abuses in other nations and which condemned the Government of China for its actions last June. This is the government which less than a year ago applauded its leader when he said our Constitution is not worth the paper it is written on because the notwithstanding clause does not fully protect individual rights.
This government, so clearly committed to human rights, was found to have discriminated against hospital service staff. The Human Rights Tribunal ruled that this human rights conscious government had to re-evaluate all hospital service worker positions and revise their classification. Isn't it surprising that this government would profess to be committed to one thing and then act in a completely different manner? But this is the sad truth. Even after the Human Rights Commission told the government that it was wrong, that it was violating fundamental individual rights, the government went on to frustrate and impede other efforts of ships crews and hospital service workers to attain pay equity.
In 1988, the Treasury Board missed the deadline for submitting to the Public Service Staff Relations Board lists of personnel to be designated essential during the round of bargaining after contracts ended on December 31, 1987. Nine departments failed to meet the deadline for submitting lists of their own essential personnel.


John Carnell Crosbie: How many?


Mary Catherine Clancy: Nine. Nine, John. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.
Twice since, however, the Federal Court has held that this mistake could not be overlooked, that the government had acted erroneously. Your government. The Minister from St. John's government.
What does this say about Canada's government? I guess it doesn't say a whole lot. In fact, I often wonder how much difficulty the hon. members on the other side of the House have looking at themselves in the mirror every morning, some more than others probably.
The issue before us is the striking ships crews and the striking hospital service workers. Let us wipe the slate
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clean. Let's forget the broken promises, the ineptitude, the lack of commitment and the eternal word twisting. What we have before us is an opportunity for the government to put its money where its mouth is.
Here we have a government which claims so sanctimoniously to be committed to human rights. Let us see if it is prepared to back up its words with action. The hon. Minister of Transport who scuttled out of here a few minutes ago said that he does not want to hold up the ships.


Some Hon. Members:: Order!


Mary Catherine Clancy: Is there anything wrong with "scuttle"? It is a word in Nova Scotia that means move quickly. You probably don't know that in your part of the country.
Anyway, the hon. minister who left here a few minutes ago talked about the fact that we should not hold up the ships. We already mentioned to the hon. minister about the Russian ships that cleared the Seaway today and the fact that Canadian ships have the ability to clear the Seaway for the rest of this week and next week as well.
We are with the minister. We want the ships to move. What is the answer? The answer is to settle the strike, give the workers what they deserve. I guess that is too simplistic for the government. In fact, I am issuing a challenge to this government. As difficult as it will be and as much as it will place pressure on this government, I am challenging this government to be consistent. I am challenging this government to honour its word and to respect democratic individual rights.
I am very aware that I am asking this government to do something that it finds very difficult. Five years of habit is intensely hard to break but let's see if we can inject some integrity back into political words. It would be of benefit to all of us.
The government claims to be committed to democratic principle and individual rights. Then let it withdraw its motion for back to work legislation. The right to strike is a fundamental, democratic right. It is a form of peaceful dissent which must not be tampered with through government force or government coercion. In fact, the right to strike is such a fundamental right that many other rights are directly hinged to it.

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Why is this government going through this charade with the PSAC employees? Again, the hon. Minister of Transport mentioned that the strike had been going on for 27 days. These ships crews workers on the east coast have gone through 27 years of wage disparity-27 years! Where is the fairness? Where is the justice in that? I see that none of the members on the other side of the House can even look up. In other words, they are certainly ashamed, and they should be.
In other words, no one here on this side of the House disagrees with the concept of pay equity. The government knows that legally, ethically and morally it has no leg to stand on. The bottom line is that pay inequity is a concept only accepted by dinosaurs, dodo birds and Tories. In other words, no one here in this country with the exception of this government accepts notions of pay inequity as an acceptable standard.
In the Atlantic provinces such employment opportunities, as provided by the Bedford Institute of Oceanography and search and rescue among others, constitute an integral part of the economic and societal life of my city and my province. For 27 years persons within such professions have had to suffer pay inequities with their counterparts in the rest of the country.
Further, to attempt to redress the 27 years of inequality, they have sought the commencement of sea pay, a concept which may be foreign to some central Canadians. It is obviously foreign to the government. But to those who make their living on the high seas, to those who go down to the sea in ships, it is a concept which is absolutely just.
What is most ironic is that this government seems to be holding up negotiations on the issue of sea pay because it will cost some $2 million annually. We heard the minister speaking previously about the amount of money that it is costing us to hold up the ships in the Great Lakes. We already know, by the way, that most of the ships could get moving.
This is the same government that is paralyzing negotiations with ships crews at a cost to taxpayers of $2 million a day. This government is either short on sense, God forbid, or long on money, which it certainly would not claim to be, because it would be clear that ending this injustice would pay for itself in three short days.
In Atlantic Canada we have learned what we have to put up with to keep a special way of life. Canadians across the country always look at the easterners as people who will make do with little. Maybe we can put up with a lot and make do with a little, but one value which has remained overwhelmingly consistent is that an honest day's work deserves an honest day's pay. It does not cost any less for easterners to feed their families, house their families, or clothe their families. But the government does not see it this way. For some unexplained reason this government seems to think that it is just to underpay Atlantic Canadians.
This is just another example of the recurrent contradictions inherent in this government, for certain cabinet ministers are not forced to accept wage differentials according to geography, and neither are MPs. Why, then, Madam Speaker, should ships' crews accept wage differentials?
Different standards are unacceptable in a country that alleges to believe in justice and equality. Forcing workers back to work and forcing workers to accept standards which are entirely inconsistent with the values of this country will create moral problems and an innate distrust of government for years to come.
I believe that we must also pay tribute to those in search and rescue who have never failed throughout this strike to respond to emergencies. In every case, the response time has remained under the statutory limits of 30 minutes. It is not a bad record for strikers.
Here I must note that in Kingston, Ontario, today, this government locked out those workers who were keeping themselves on alert for just such an emergency situation. It is great to know that people care. The right to strike must be respected. The right of the workers must be respected. The fact that workers in the east, particularly in the Atlantic provinces, deserve the same treatment as others, should not even be a subject for question.
The need to address 27 years of inequity should not be ignored by a democratic government. In Canada as we move into the 1990s, the concepts of equality should be written in stone. They should not be open to this kind of question. Sadly, however, very little in the way of truth and justice appears to be written in stone for this government.
In closing, let us make no mistake that Haligonians and Atlantic Canadians, ships crews in the east, hospital workers in the east are not pleading. We are not
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beseeching and we are not begging. We are demanding justice and we are demanding it today.
Madam Speaker, I move:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the
word "that" and substituting the following therefor:
Bill C-49, an Act to provide for the resumption of certain government services be not now read a second time but that it be read a second time this day six months' hence.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: It is five o'clock. I have put the motion to the House.
At this time, I must advise the House that I have received a written notice from the hon. member for Essex-Windsor that he is unable to move his motion during the hour of Private Members' Business on Friday, December 8, 1989.

Since it was not possible to switch positions on the order of precedence, in accordance with Standing Order 94,1 order the clerks to move this item to the bottom of the precidence list.

The hour for Private Members' Business will thus be cancelled and pursuant to Standing Order 94, the House will continue with the business before it prior to that hour.
It being five o'clock p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.


PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS - MOTIONS   THE ENVIRONMENT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT
[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Tuesday, October 3, consideration of the motion of Mr. Wenman:
Thai, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider introducing legislation to fully protect the Canadian environment through the institution of mandatory environmental impact assessment procedures which would allow for assessments, prior to the construction of installations, public or private, of projects which may prove to be potentially damaging to the environment.
Private Members' Business
Mr. Lee Clark (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of the Environment):: Madam Speaker, first of all I would like to take this opportunity to address a few words to the mover of the motion, the hon. member for Fraser Valley West. I would like to bring to the attention of the members of the House that this member had the foresight to introduce a private member's bill almost a decade ago which was entitled Bill C-458. The objective of that bill was to legislate a federal environmental assessment process. His proposed environmental impact assessment act was the first initiative to make environmental assessment mandatory for all federal proposals.
Many of the concepts contained in his bill were very advanced. For example, his definition of the term "undertaking" would have expanded the scope of environmental assessment to include policies as well as projects. This broader scope for environmental assessment has only gained a wider audience in the last couple of years.
As we all know, the hon. member's motion has come at a very opportune time. He has given us a chance to consider the whole issue of environmental assessment on the very eve of the government's introduction of its own bill to reform the federal environmental assessment process. The act, and its regulations, will contain many of the features the hon. member foresaw as being necessary back in January 1979.
All members of this House and the public at large recognize that environmental issues can no longer be ignored. Twenty years ago, few of us would have predicted that the environment would become the critical issue of the latter part of the 1980s and the 1990s, as indeed it is now and will be, I think, into the next century.
Acceptance of sound environmental management is an issue which cuts across ideological lines, national boundaries and generation gaps. All anyone need do is watch the evening news. One is likely, on any given night, to see a story involving some element of environmental degradation.
On occasion, we hear reference to the attack on the earth's protective ozone layer, or perhaps there is a story on the dangers of global warming, or there is the continuing saga, which we hope will soon be addressed, of the impact of acid rain on Canada and other parts of North America. There is the question of chemicals and to what extent they are governing our day-to-day lives. There is the fact that a thousand new-made substances are appearing annually. There is the question of the six million hectares of land that become desert in each and

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every year. There is the issue of the world's exploding population and the question of how it will support itself in the future.
For the first time in our history, human activities are undermining the stability of the ecosystem on a global scale. The impact is worldwide. No one anywhere can or will be able to escape.
The impact is economic. It threatens our very way of life; it threatens our ability to sustain ourselves. The impacts are intergenerational. We are very, very conscious of the fact that the futures of our children and our grandchildren are very, very much at stake.
Does this mean, however, that there can be no growth due to the dangers which exist? The answer is, I believe, and I think this is a view shared by many members of this House, is that that is not the case.
In 1987, after four years of deliberation, the Brund-tland commission reported and provided us with a guideline which has been adopted more and more throughout the world. That guideline's term, of course, is sustainable development. In using that term, the commission meant, "meeting the needs of present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs".
In other words, the Brundtland commission was talking about the fact that we could no longer afford to live off the earth's capital. We could not longer afford to destroy and deplete our resources. We must anticipate, and by anticipating prevent environmental degradation. We must ensure that environmental considerations are a part of the decision-making in the first instance rather than an afterthought as has unfortunately been the case for so many decades.
This government is committed to the concept of sustainable development. We recognize environmental assessment is a critical tool in achieving that sustainable development. We are committed to providing the Canadian people with a comprehensive environmental assessment process which will be applied to all federal activities and which will ensure that environmental considerations are at the very heart of federal government decision-making.
The environmental assessment act which will soon be before this House and its regulations will give the federal environmental assessment process a statutory base which, in my opinion, it desperately needs. It will mean that environmental assessment will be mandatory for all activities within the decision-making authority of federal institutions. It will more clearly define the roles and responsibilities of all federal departments and agencies. It will begin to develop a systematic meshing of federal environmental assessment procedures with environmental procedures of other federal agencies and jurisdictions. It will also ensure, and I think this is of utmost importance, that Canadian activities abroad are environmentally sound.
In closing, I would like to thank the hon. member for Fraser Valley West for proposing this motion which has given all members of this House a chance to consider and to speak on the very important issue of the establishment of an environmental assessment process that is predictable, fair, open and accountable.
I wish, however, to propose a simple but in my opinion a necessary amendment to this important motion that will Valley West when he spoke to this House when introducing the motion. At that time he emphasized the fact that the federal government can only bind itself in the areas of federal jurisdiction.
I am proposing that his observation as expressed then be incorporated explicitly into the motion. Consequently, I move, seconded by the member for Selkirk:
That the motion be amended by adding immediately after the
word "projects" the following:
"falling within federal jurisdiction".
I look forward to supporting both the amendment and the motion as amended.


Mr. David Bjornson (Selkirk):: Madam Speaker, it is with great interest and concern that I rise today in the House to speak to Motion No. 458, calling for environmental impact assessments for all major development within federal jurisdiction. I strongly support this motion which has been introduced by my colleague from Fraser Valley West.
As a member of Parliament from Manitoba, this motion is of great interest to me because of recent environmental issues within my province. It is of great importance because it calls for the environmental assessment of all projects, both public and private. At the
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present time, environmental assessment regulations consist of environmental assessments and review process guidelines which only federal projects are required to follow.
The need for speedy action was reinforced on April 10, 1989, when the Federal Court halted all activity on the Rafferty-Alameda dam project because the process had not been followed. As a result of this decision, there is now a question in the minds of many about the correct administrative procedure for the environmental assessment of a federal proposal. In order to understand the need for the reform of the federal assessment and review process, it is important to look briefly at its history.
In June 1987, cabinet directed the environment minister to release a green paper to stimulate discussion on possible improvements, to undertake public consultations and to make recommendations for reform. From November 1987 to March 1988, public consultations on improving the EARP were held in each province and territory.
On October 20, 1988, the environment minister announced that the federal environmental assessment and review process would be legislated and strengthened.
Every federal undertaking and every undertaking on federal lands will be subjected to a thorough environmental impact study. This was announced following year-long nation-wide consultations with environmental and other public interest groups, industry, academics, provincial and territorial governments.
Although they are excellent and much needed measures, they do not go far enough. A case in point which affected Manitoba was Saskatchewan's Rafferty-Alameda dam project.
Prior to April 1989, the uncertain EARP guidelines contributed to a situation with the Rafferty-Alameda dam project. From 1984 to 1988, planning for the project proceeded according to provincial, not federal, guidelines. The Federal Court suspended work because it concluded that all federal environmental matters had not been adequately addressed by the provincial assessment process.
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There is a need for a federal environmental assessment act. It should clearly state who is responsible for what and how the federal and provincial governments can work together.
After the Federal Court's decision, public meetings were held to review the results of a project evaluation prepared early in the year by Environment Canada. An independent consultant, Vem Millard, chaired the meetings. As a result of Mr. Millard's report, the environment minister announced that the project may proceed but, only-and I say but only-if strict environmental conditions were obeyed.
In reconsidering the application of the Saskatchewan Water Corporation to construct the dams, the federal government adopted the position that Manitoba's water uses should be determined and therefore there should be mitigation for adverse environmental impacts. The minister said that while the dams will help reduce an annual average of $640,000 in flood damage in Manitoba, the Manitoba government has expressed concerns that groundwater pumping maybe required to augment water supplies in the project reservoirs. Minimum water flows received by Manitoba will continue to be governed by existing international agreements administered by the International Joint Commission.
On the water quality issue, the minister said that Manitoba, together with North Dakota, will have a direct say in the establishment of a proposed multi-jurisdictional water quality monitoring committee. In January 1988, an agreement was reached by Canadian, American, provincial and state government officials that requires parties to negotiate water quality objectives for the Souris River water as it exits Saskatchewan, flows into North Dakota and later re-enters Canada in Manitoba. These quality objectives, to be established within 19 months, well before the reservoirs are filled, will establish numerical values for certain parameters in order to protect present and foreseeable water uses in the Souris River water basin.
The objectives can be reached through such measures as adjustment of release rates, mixing water from Alameda and Rafferty reservoirs, and using the high-level rather than low-level outlets. The compliance will be strictly monitored. Also, Manitoba will have the oppor-

December 7, 1989
Private Members' Business
tunity to participate fully in the establishment of water quality objectives and monitoring programs.
As a representative from Manitoba, I applaud the private member's motion which calls for the reform of the federal environmental assessment review process. It is imperative, as the motion states, that a compulsory environmental impact assessment legislation be instituted to fully protect the Canadian environment through the institution of a mandatory environmental impact assessment procedures which would allow for assessments prior to the construction of installations, public or private of projects which may prove to be potentially damaging to the environment.
At the present time, the citizens of Winnipeg are facing an environmental issue which has a potential effect on their drinking water. A proposed gold mine and other recreational developments at Shoal Lake in Ontario, a primary source of drinking water for the city of Winnipeg, have created fear that these activities may have an adverse effect on the city's drinking water.
Under the present environmental assessment and review process, the processed gold mine, being primarily an issue between two provinces, may not have to undergo a mandatory federal government environmental assessment review process.
However, there have been negotiations between Manitoba, Ontario and Ottawa to ensure that this situation be dealt with properly. This resulted in a statement by the federal Minister of the Environment in June that a full environmental assessment of the proposed Shoal Lake gold mine will be conducted before any licence is issued. I think it is important to note that these negotiations were voluntary on the part of the provinces.
I urge the government to establish more clearly defined ways to mesh the procedure of the EARP guidelines with the procedures of other agencies and jurisdictions so that all participants in the reform process will know the rules in advance. Then the federal departments and provincial governments, industry and environmental groups will know both their rights and their responsibilities. The goal of this motion is to clarify the current uncertainty among all levels of government so that in future, duplications can be minimized. Both time and taxpayers money will be saved.
In conclusion, the key element in any environmental assessment process is the opportunity for governmental and public participation early in the planning of a major development. We will improve the management of Manitoba's environment and Canada's environment by bringing forward legislation which requires an environmental assessment of all federal policies and projects. Finally, we will enhance the government's strength and credibility when all sectors of society know that they may actively participate in the assessment of proposals that may adversely affect their environment.


Mr. Rey Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, I am indeed pleased to speak in support of this motion introduced by the hon. member for Fraser Valley West and seconded by the hon. member for Davenport, providing that the government should consider introducing legislation to fully protect the Canadian environment through the institution of mandatory environment impact assessment procedures which would allow for assessments prior to the installations, public or private, of projects which may prove to be potentially damaging to the environment.
Before addressing the motion specifically, I would like to speak on a broader level about the need to protect the environment. The state of the environment, especially the rate at which it changes, is of fundamental importance to a nation's long-term well-being. Canadians have benefited greatly from Canada's vast natural resources. Forests, fisheries, agriculture, fur-bearing animals and minerals have been the backbone of Canada's economic development.
But the desire for continuous improvements in the economic standard of living has not, until recently, been accompanied by a sufficient awareness of some serious adverse environmental effects of economic development. As prominent environmentalist, David Suzuki, points out, economic growth has become an end in itself, "a mindless goal that is sought by every country in the world and the very measure of progress". We must reverse this insane idea that growth is of vital necessity if we really want to preserve something for future generations, to meet their needs, the essence of sustainable development.
December 7, 1989

It is this irrational and self-destructive use of economic growth as the overriding criterion of national well-being that is the number one obstacle which prevents us from being able to successfully address our environmental problems today. But there are other obstacles.
One is a societal mindset that remains trapped in sectoral and disciplinary boundaries. For example, myopic economists still leave environmental concerns to ecologists, and energy producers develop new energy sources for others to clean up.
Another obstacle which prevents us from being able to develop a coherent and effective strategic plan to protect our environment is the institutional rigidity of our political system. Decisions are made too often for shortterm political gain rather than for long-term environmental benefit.
Finally, we are trying to clean up and protect the environment with ad hoc, linear methods that are ineffective given the cumulative, synergistic nature of the problem. We deal with the effects rather than causes, with symptomatic treatment rather than definitive cures or prevention.
Because environmental impact assessment procedures are a preventive tool, they are an essential element in an effective environmental strategy. This is why I support this motion.
Canada is a democratic federation operating in a mixed economy. Hence, management and control of resources, their uses and their by-products, is dispersed between the different levels of government and the private sector. One of the federal government's responsibilities in this area is to establish national standards for adoption and enforcement by the provincial governments.
Environmental impact assessment has existed at the federal level since the 1970s. The environment assessment and review process has been revised since, but it is still not adequate.
Instead of specific legislation, we have an administrative policy which the government, any government, can change at will. There are no safeguards or opportunities for real public scrutiny. Its legal status remains uncertain and less clear than if it were in the form of a statute
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passed by this Parliament. Decisions can be ignored and there exists no recourse mechanism to prevent this. Jurisdictional disorder and dispute between the federal and provincial levels of government continue to persist.
In light of these problems with the environmental assessment and review process and given the importance of the environment, the government must introduce legislation to fully protect our environment and this includes instituting mandatory environmental impact assessment procedures. Compulsory environmental impact assessments will insure that all levels of government will be informed of all factors which affect a project or a product and will clarify the current jurisdictional dispute among different levels of government and will minimize duplication and save time and effort.
Future legislation on environmental impact assessments must cast a wide net and capture all undertakings that have any federal aspect or element. Exemptions for projects that have a very minor federal component or where provisions exist to avoid duplication of assessment can then be built into this statute.
Also, studies should be conducted which examine the effect on the biophysical environment, not only of projects or products, but also of policies and programs. Also, assessments must review cultural, social and economic impacts of the projects and policies as well.
I would like to give one example of recent events which occurred as a result of nebulous nature of the current environmental review process. The federal government issued a licence for the Rafferty-Alameda Dam project in Saskatchewan without following its own procedure for assessing the plan which includes two major dams and reservoirs on the Souris River. To speed construction, federal authorities relied on the assessments of the Saskatchewan government.
The Canadian Wildlife Federation challenged the federal government's decision to issue a licence without a proper assessment of the potential impact on wildlife and water in the Souris River. The Federal Court of Canada quashed the licence and ordered a federal environment impact review.
The government then took another shortcut and held quick public hearings instead of a full scale review. The preliminary evaluation indicated potential worsening of

Private Members' Business
water quality and quantity as the river enters Manitoba, with negative impact on certain plants and birds in this province. The report noted that there was a lack of information about these issues and called for an assessment of the impact on water quality and monitoring plans for birds and wildlife.
The Manitoba provincial government wanted a full environmental impact review, but the moderator of the hearings on the preliminary reports said that previous studies were enough and a full federal environmental assessment was not necessary. The federal environment minister agreed, and a new licence was issued, accompanied by 22 conditions, such that Saskatchewan must replace habitat and monitor water quality.
The federal government's failure to have a full assessment before issuing the licence shows that this government is ready and willing to abandon its commitment to the environment whenever it is politically or economically expedient for it to do so. This is scandalous. This is why we need legislation making environmental assessments compulsory. The confusion over the Rafferty-Alameda dam project was a case of a bad process leading to bad policy in programs.
Clearly, there is a need for more consistent and straightforward federal government legislation in this area. The Minister of the Environment has noted that he shares the view that there is a need for a statutory requirement to conduct an environmental assessment of all proposals falling within the area of federal responsibility.
Land, water and air are matters not confined within provincial or even federal boundaries. They are international. We have an obligation to preserve our lands, our wilderness, our water and the air we breathe. Canadians must develop a new mindset, a new attitude. It is no longer a question of who is right, the demands of short-term profits and political gains, or the future of our planet. It is now time to act.
I hope the government will put its words into deeds and support this motion. Allow me, Mr. Speaker, on behalf of constituents of Winnipeg North, and on behalf of all Canadians, to conclude with a quotation from the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development:
Most of today's decision makers will be dead before the planet suffers the full consequences of acid rain, global wanning, ozone depletion, widespread desertification and species loss. Most of today's young voters will be alive.


Mr. Stan Darling (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: Mr. Speaker, as a Canadian with a strong interest in environmental matters, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to rise today to express my views on Motion No. 485 as amended, which was presented to this House by my esteemed colleague from Fraser Valley West.
This motion calls for legislation to fully protect the Canadian environment through the institution of mandatory environmental impact assessment procedures. Before commenting further on the substance of this motion, I think it is appropriate that I commend my colleague for Fraser Valley West for his long-time commitment to the matter at hand.
His interest began, I believe, back in 1979 when he presented a private members' bill in this House. He is to be congratulated for his patience and diligence on this issue. In a time of instant environmentalists, it is always a pleasure to see an individual who has demonstrated an interest in the environment long before it became the fashionable thing to do.
Returning to the matter before us, the purpose of Motion No. 485, as amended, is to establish a statutory process to assess the environmental impact of development before the development occurs rather than after the damage begins.
For many years, economic and engineering studies have accompanied any major new proposal, and with the increasing importance of environmental issues, an environmental review is now becoming part of the process. Unfortunately, the existing process of the federal environmental assessment and review process, or EARP, as it is known in its short form, is flawed. Current EARP guidelines are uncertain because they are basically an administrative policy and as such can be changed by future governments through an order in council.
As well, the ad hoc nature of the current regime makes its legal status somewhat uncertain. This uncertainty led to the recent problems with the Rafferty dam project which has been referred to earlier in debate. A statutory process as called for in the motion before us would eliminate the problems of the current system. The environment minister is fully aware of this fact and has made public his intention to introduce legislation to
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reform the federal EARP. I look forward to this legislation and sincerely hope that it will adequately address the problem I have described.
While on the topic of the proposed legislation, I would like to make a few comments on a story that appeared in the December 1, 1989 edition of The Ottawa Citizen. This article, which was based on leaked documents, made the claim that the environment minister, and I quote:
-appeared to be narrowing the scope of new environmental assessment legislation so that fewer projects will come under review. While this may or may not be true, it is important to understand that the cabinet has not yet begun consideration of the bill and therefore it is quite premature and inappropriate to comment on the substance of the legislation. When the legislation is tabled in this House there will be ample time given to all members to debate its content.
In the meantime members with an interest in this legislation have the opportunity to make their own views known through debate on the motion before us.
As my colleague from Fraser Valley West stated in opening the debate on this motion, "the government will examine the content of this debate and choose from the ideas of members of this House. The final draft of this legislation has not been prepared and therefore this is the perfect opportunity to bring forward positive suggestions".
A goal of the motion before us is to clarify the current disorder that exists in EARP. It would minimize duplication and would save a great deal of time and effort.
I have had the honour of serving this House for 17 years, and I can assure Your Honour that it is always a pleasure to see proposals that would eliminate bureaucratic red tape and efficiency. For this reason alone the motion before us is a very positive one.
At this point I would like to explain why I personally support the need for a statutory process of environmental assessment. As you all know, I have dedicated a great deal of my time and energy to the fight against acid rain. Most recently I had the honour of serving as the chairman of the special committee on acid rain in the last Parliament.
Private Members' Business
One of the great difficulties of this fight was that we were engaged in after the fact prevention. If a system of before the fact prevention had been in place in the past, we could have possibly avoided a great deal of the acid rain problem. For this reason I support the implementation of a statutory environmental assessment process. Such a process offers the kind of preventive measure we vitally need in this country to avoid future environmental problems.
Now I would like to turn to a matter which has created much discussion and concern in Canada and yes, indeed, around the world, this being the issue of sustainable development. Ever since the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development which is most often referred to as the Brundtland commission, there has been an enormous amount of rhetoric on this issue. However the problem is that the rhetoric has far outdistanced any substantive action on this very important matter.
I must admit that this government is not guiltless in this regard. I am certain that while a great many Canadians have heard discussion about sustainable development, a large proportion are unsure of what it really is; perhaps even some in this House. For this reason I think it is important to read into the record a quote from the Brundtland commission report:
Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of
the present without compromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs.
The report stated that there was:
- the possibility for a new era of economic growth, one that must be based on policies that sustain and expand the environmental resource base.
I sincerely hope that this is true. However this hope for the future is based on the condition that we now take decisive political action that would enable us to begin managing our resources in a manner which ensures both sustainable human progress and, more important, human survival.
This condition illustrates the importance of debate on the motion before us. Motion 485 provides members on all sides of this House with the opportunity to play a role in bringing about the decisive political action referred to by the Brundtland commission.
By standing up in this House and voting in favour of this motion, we will be sending a clear message to the people of Canada, and indeed the world, that we are

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committed to taking the actions necessary to make sustainable development a reality. While some may say that it is merely a symbolic vote in light of the fact that the environment minister has already stated his intention to present legislation before this House, we as politicians are fully aware of the importance of such symbolic measures.
When legislation as requested in this motion is presented to this House, certainly I will gladly stand in my place and discuss its substance. In the meantime, I look forward to the opportunity to lend my support to Motion No. 485 as amended. I ask that all members join me in seeing that this motion is passed.


Brian L. Gardiner: Madam Speaker, I too am pleased to rise in support of this motion and in particular the amendment that was made by the hon. member. I have some comments I would like to make given the introduction of this motion. Some of the members have talked about rhetoric. Of course we have heard a great deal of that from the government in terms of the environment and environmental assessment in particular.
In question today is a motion that if passed will certainly give direction to the government to legislate an environmental assessment review process. It would be made mandatory and would allow the review of projects under federal jurisdiction; in a sense going through those projects to see that they are environmentally sound, socially sound and economically sound.
While I support the motion there are some areas in it that I think could be strengthened. We will certainly see, if and when the minister introduces the legislation, if it is included. I am referring in particular to questions about the independence of an environmental assessment review process, about the kind of criteria that an EARP, a review process would have to consider, especially when we have to take into question ecosystems that go beyond one particular river or one particular stream.
The case of the massive expansion of pulp mills in northern Alberta is a perfect example of impact going beyond one particular area and having tremendous negative impact across northern Alberta and indeed into the territories.
As well, I am concerned about the need to ensure and in fact to guarantee that there is funding to intervener groups, native groups, environmental groups, trade unionists and chambers of commerce, so that they have an opportunity to participate and prepare the necessary studies. When all groups have such an opportunity, we know and we can be assured that we will get a better project and that industry or government departments initiating projects will know clearly what are those guidelines and how to proceed.
All too often government departments and industry think that inviting the neighbours over for some coffee and doughnuts is an adequate environmental assessment review. I reject that. I think the reason we have adequate assessment procedures is so that all questions can be considered fairly and adequately and so that the right input can be provided to the various government departments which will be dealing with the particular project.
Frankly I was particularly concerned by the comments from the member for Parry Sound-Muskoka. I appreciate his support for the motion, but we should take into account the time that this government has had, this bom again government now concerned about the environment, to consider environmental assessment. We now hear that a final draft of the environmental assessment legislation has yet to be prepared. Cabinet has not even considered it.
The evidence is clear in our forestry committee. When we asked the minister of forests what will the impact be of this environment minister's new legislation on assessment and perhaps on pulp mills in Alberta, he remained silent.
Now we know the reason. It is that this government has not even yet considered draft legislation to present to the House for environment assessment. Members opposite talk about rhetoric. That is all we have been getting. We have not been getting the kind of action we require in the House to deal with the environmental assessment we need.
A perfect example of the need for a legislated environmental assessment process now-and I challenge the government and the minister to introduce that legislation before the Christmas break so that we can look at
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it-is in fact the farce perpetrated on Canada by the Minister of the Environment on the Rafferty Dam project.
There were news reports the other day on this most important project indicating that when the minister was making the decision on allowing the project finally to go ahead there was no letter, no records, no Governor in Council decision.
What did they do? Did they have coffee up in the Parliamentary Restaurant and make a decision to let the dam go ahead?
We have been getting the same kinds of decisions on the environment from this Minister, and it is not good enough. There is a clear an example in northern Alberta where we have that joke of a government in Edmonton, that joke of an environment minister, that joke of a forest minister. The forest minister in Alberta who is raping and pillaging the forests of Alberta writes and says that Alberta has the highest forestry standards in the country. I think he should be our Saturday Night Live because that is where those kind of comments should be for the joke line we get out of it.
What do we get from the federal government? What do we get? We get deals, back room deals with the environment minister in Alberta, to try and make sure that they could weave through some kind of environmental assessment review process. There is the participation of the federal minister and no participation whatsoever from the forestry department in Alberta.
Do you think the Minister of the Environment even thought about that when he sat down with the minister of the environment from Alberta? Probably not. Are the officials of the minister of forest in this House appearing at those hearings? No.
Yet, what roles does this House and this government have in Alberta? Madam Speaker, you will know that we have debated many times in this House Forest Resource Development Agreements. As you would also know there is a Canada-Alberta Forest Resource Development Agreement, funds from which have been used to try to develop ongoing industry in Alberta now. There is a particular role there for more direct involvement from this federal government. We have not seen it. We should certainly try to see it in the future.
Private Members' Business
lire amendment proposed which we will be supporting suggests that it would be in only federally regulated areas. We will support that. The government has made the effort to to tax the heck out of us on the GST. It has made the effort to try to get provinces involved in that tax grab. Certainly this government can make the same or better effort when it comes to environmental assessment legislation. It has to call on the provincial environment ministers across this country to work together to come up with a joint environmental assessment review process so that we do not have the joke that is going on in Alberta right now. I would like to conclude with one particular proposal. It has been enunciated once before by the member for Saanich-Gulf Islands. In fact, this legislation is not even in draft form yet and is not yet at the Cabinet level. Maybe the minister is listening right now. He might consider one particular idea, that of an environmental gazette.
We have, as you know, Madam Speaker, the Canada Gazette, an official publication of the Government of Canada. We have the Business Opportunities bulletin where businesses can see the kind of government tenders and what have you that they can bid on. We have the Regulatory Agenda issued annually so that people in various areas have an indication of where the Government of Canada is going to make some regulatory changes.
We have in this House the Order Paper that gives us notice of what kind of business we are going to be dealing with. I suggest to you, Madam Speaker, that we need as part of this environmental assessment review process an environmental gazette that will review those projects that an EARP process will have to review, whether it is putting a bridge over a creek and the problems that could be caused by silt and run-off, there was a problem like that in my riding, or whether it is going to be a project such as the massive pulp mill projects that we now have in northern Alberta. This gazette would give us clear and advance notice of these projects, outlining outlying which departments are involved and what kind of information and documents are available so that we all at least have an opportunity to see what kind of work is being done.
I hope that legislative drafters take this idea into consideration as the legislation does makes its way toward cabinet.

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Adjournment Debate
In conclusion, it is clear to all members of this House how important the question of the environment has become. Any good corporate citizen will ensure that their projects are submitted to the most extensive review necessary and possible. It is in that way that those captains of industry or the guy who owns the little trucking firm knows and understands the rules. That is what a legislative assessment review process will do.
I urge the government, in light of the possibility that this motion will pass, to move faster than it is moving now. It scares me that this bill is sitting in the department somewhere. Let us get on with it and introduce the legislation now so we can have some adequate environmental assessment review process in Canada.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Is the House ready for the question?


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The question is on the amendment. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
Motion, as amended, agreed to.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I see that most hon. members who are scheduled to participate in the adjournment debate are present.
Would it be agreeable to the House that the chair would call it six o'clock?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Lyle Stuart Kristiansen: Madam Speaker, on October 6 of this year I posed a
question to the Minister of Transport with particular reference to the impending closures since the government's VIA Rail announcements.
It announced the impending closure of The Canadian line of VIA Rail, particularly between Kamloops, British Columbia, and Calgary, Alberta.
If you look at the government's own statistics on the usage of that railway, at least those that we in the opposition have access to, it clearly shows that The Canadian line, although it is not broken down in which portions of the line, at least that information has not been made readily available to us, in virtually all statistical breakdowns has a higher rate of cost recovery of passenger usage and with all other yardsticks is a higher performer and a better economic performer with a higher degree of use than virtually any other segment of the VIA Rail system, system excluding those lines within the Golden Horseshoe and the Montreal-Ottawa-To-ronto corridor.
In spite of this the government saw fit to classify for special designation the VIA Rail line from Jasper through to Prince George to Prince Rupert, even though on all of the various categories of passenger and economic performance it is a worse performer than The Canadian line that runs through southern Alberta and southern British Columbia.
We do not want to deny the citizens of the north three-day-a-week service or basic essential service in terms of passenger rail. If the government's argument is economic as it suggests that it is, we think it ought to have paid a little more attention to the actual economic yardsticks which government and VIA Rail statistics show to be the case. The southern line, The Canadian line, is less of a drain on the budget and on the economy than the northern line which has been kept in operation on a three-day-a-week basis while there is to be no service other than the Rocky Mountaineer during the two or three key tourist summer months.
Often people in government think, whether it is this government or another government, that simply because an area is in the north the communities there must be remote. In this case, especially on The Canadian line between the cities of Kamloops and Calgary, there are no airports between those two points. Avalanches and
December 7, 1989

road closures cut automobile and bus traffic more often along that corridor than in any other area of Canada.
In terms of remoteness, you have to travel 200 kilometres or more to get to an airport from the city of Revelstoke, for instance, and from the village of Golden. With regard to accessibility to bus transportation, those communities in the north are even more remote. Therefore we asked the Minister of Transport to send representatives to two meetings that were held, one in Golden in November and another earlier on December 4 in Revelstoke.
Because of transportation problems, the government representatives were not able to get to the first meeting. Hopefully the government learned something about remoteness in that exercise. It tried and failed and it is not even the middle of winter yet.
I understand that the representatives did get there on December 4, earlier this week. I trust that the information that was marshalled by a number of communities and businesses with a vital interest not only in the economic spin-off of passenger rail service to that area, which is becoming increasingly dependent upon tourism, will cause the government to recognize in those mountain passes the kind of difficulty there is without alternative methods of transportation.
Since the time that the government made its decision, of course, the transport committee of the House made its recommendation and asked for a moratorium on the decisions of the government. I would submit that the communities of Golden, Revelstoke, Field and others in that Kamloops-Calgary corridor are perfect examples of why we need such a moratorium, at least in specific cases, and hopefully on a broader scale.
I am sure there are other areas of the country where the decision also needs review. Once we remove the passenger rail system from the trackage which is heavily utilized by CP, or in some cases CN freight services, it is going to be very difficult to again get access to those lines once they have worked out other schedules.
I know the parliamentary secretary will appreciate this because he travelled with me when the MacDonald tunnel opened last summer. At a time when we have a 15 kilometre tunnel which speeds up and allows for increased passage of freight with much greater efficiency at a much lower cost, and frees a second line for
Adjournment Debate
passenger or non-freight use, the government has decided to eliminate the passenger rail system through one of the most attractive areas of Canada in terms of tourism, not only in summer when the Rocky Mountaineer will provide minimal service, but during winter.
The government has its own statistics. I know from personal experience, and I suspect the parliamentary secretary and the minister have heard as well, that that rail line is over-utilized in much of the summer and close-to-summer months.
My colleague from Kootenay East and I spent some time travelling the rails there this past autumn far outside the regular tourist season. We had to sleep in the dome car, where you are not supposed to be overnight, because the train was full. People apply months in advance to get on those trains and are told that is full and they cannot get space. It is a heavily utilized line. It has one of the best cost recoveries of any section of the entire system, excluding the Golden Horseshoe.
With the arguments it has been given by businesses and communities in that area, I ask the government to at least proclaim a moratorium on that and other similar areas and allow a review to take place before the door is shut forever.


Mr. Ross Belsher (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport):: Madam Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the hon. member opposite, the member for Kootenay West-Revelstoke, who has asked us about VIA service as it relates to truly isolated communities. I know the communities of which he speaks and have travelled through them on many occasions when I have been traversing on the Trans-Canada Highway.
The government's decision about a national affordable, sustainable system of VIA services strikes a balance between the transportation needs of Canada and the government's fiscal realities. The hon. member opposite makes out as if with every decision that is made there is great finality and that it is the end of the world. That is not the case in this situation.
Nonetheless, he does raise a very valuable point about the fact that he would like to see these communities considered under the same aspects as to the remote areas of the country.

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Adjournment Debate
VIA will continue to provide service to truly isolated communities that have no alternative means of transportation. The minister also indicated that he will be reviewing the transportation needs of these truly isolated communities along the remote routes to determine whether more cost-effective means of access could be introduced.
Most of the communities in question are located along the eight remote routes which VIA continues to operate. The remainder will be serviced through the Winnipeg-Capreol portion of the restructured western transcontinental service. The truly isolated communities in each case are identified as those points where VIA now makes scheduled stops which do not have any regular commercial air services and do not have all-weather highway access to the national transportation system.
The hon. member for Kootenay West-Revelstoke has put forward the concept that the communities of Revelstoke, Golden and Field should also be taken into consideration as isolated communities because they have no air service and because their highway connections are periodically interrupted during severe winter conditions. All three of these communities are located on the Trans-Canada Highway, as I have mentioned earlier. I can assure the hon. member that Canada has many communities which would welcome a road access as good as that enjoyed by the three communities that he has just mentioned, even with the inconvenience of severe winter conditions.


ARTS AND CULTURE
Mrs. Beryl Gaffney (Nepean):: Madam Speaker, my rising the Minister of Culture and Communications on the management practices of the National Arts Centre.
The minister's response to me, as reported in Hansard at page 5474, stated that the NAC was an "Ottawa issue", was and is completely unacceptable to me. The NAC is a national institution created by Parliament and maintained by Parliament.
A few months back, I requested the minister to hold a public enquiry into the management practices of the NAC. The reason I did this was precipitated by a series of events or skirmishes, call them what you wish. There were labour problems, firings, some still before the
Labour Board; a malaise unprecedented before in the institution's 20-year history; a shifting of funds from NAC programming into the untested field of high definition television; the music director's non-renewal of contract, and an orchestra that was out on strike. The NAC has not had an increase in its budget for seven years. This concerned me greatly. I question this government's commitment to culture or the arts in Canada. As another example I can cite the $140 million cut to the CBC.
Federal funding of the NAC has not kept pace with inflation. The chairman of that board is quoted in the local press as saying; "The NAC is in a perilous position financially". Yet, when I reviewed the minutes of the Standing Committee on Communications and Culture during the budget review, the chairman did not appear to defend the centre and relay this critical information on to the communications and culture committee. At the same committee hearing, the Director General was unable to produce budget figures when asked to do so by the committee.
If there is insufficient funding of the NAC, and I do believe that there is, the board chairman and the Director General should be making Parliament aware of this insufficiency.
To quote Maureen Forrester: "To fail to do so is a breach of the board's moral responsibility".
The NAC of late has suffered a drastic erosion of trust on all sides. The orchestra strike has ended, but let us not hide our heads in the sand and assume that all problems have been resolved.
The Minister of Communications has responded by letter to my request for a public inquiry. His response was that the management of the NAC is within the purview of the board and so Parliament should not intervene. However, does the minister not realize that the responsibility of the board falls under the purview of this Parliament and this government should be making definite enquiries?
As parliamentarians, we have a responsibility to Canadians to ensure that this national institution is given the care, the scrutiny and in-depth analysis that Canadians have been asking for. If this organization is financially starved, then we as legislators have a responsibility to address this issue. The Minister of Communications said:
December 7, 1989

"Money is no substitute for good public policy". So, where is the good public policy if there is no money?
I ask that the minister and the government pledge both financial and policy support for the National Arts Centre and do this for all Canadians. This is not an Ottawa institution, it is a national institution.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to respond to some of the concerns raised by the hon. member from Nepean with respect to the National Arts centre.
I know the hon. member joins with me in celebrating the end of the strike by the Arts Centre Orchestra. The collective agreement which has been ratified by both the orchestra players and the management ensures that the orchestra will continue to be a mainstay of cultural programming at the Centre.
This three-year agreement will bring the salaries of the orchestra in line with those paid to members of the Toronto and the Montreal symphonies. The size of the orchestra has also been confirmed and new lines of communication have been established between the orchestra and management.
I think this marks the beginning of a very artistically productive period for the orchestra and augurs well for the more harmonious relationship between the orchestra and management. I would like at this time to congratulate the Minister of Labour and his officials who played a very key role in resolving the dispute to the satisfaction of both parties.
As you know, the Government of Canada has been very supportive of the National Arts Centre since it first opened its doors in 1969. In this the twentieth anniversary of the Arts Centre, the Board of Trustees and its staff published a booklet entitled The Third Decade and Beyond which examines the policy direction and the programming options which the Centre could consider in the next decade. It is most encouraging to see this kind of planning taking place and I congratulate those connected with the Centre on their enthusiasm and foresight.
This booklet, The Third Decade and Beyond will ensure that the Centre will continue to enhance its reputation as one of Canada's premier cultural institutions and will,
Adjournment Debate
above all, contribute to the state of arts across Canada as a catalyst for co-production and as a showcase and collaborator for performance from Canadian companies which are the pride of many Canadian cities which all Canadians should be able to enjoy.
Of course, quality of this calibre is not inexpensive and the Government of Canada has recognized this. Last year, the federal government contributed $18 million to the total budget of $34 million allocated for the operation of the National Arts Centre.
The National Arts Centre is one of Canada's most distinguished cultural institutions. I am confident that adequate funding from federal, provincial and municipal levels of government combined with the all important, aggressive private sector fund-raising program will ensure that the National Arts Centre will continue to enjoy the resources necessary to bring the highest level of performing arts excellence to the people of Canada.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Mr. Ray Funk (Prince Albert-Churchill River):: Madam Speaker, the issue that I am raising today is one which I first raised in Question Period on November 9, and has to do with the spill of radioactive mine waste at the Collins Bay uranium mine run by Cameco at Wollaston Lake, Saskatchewan.
This, I believe, had the potential, and still does, to be one of the major environmental stories of the year but thus far has not had the kind of publicity because it unfortunately happened when the Berlin Wall was coming down and while the premiers' conference was on. I walked out of Question Period that day to find one camera and two reporters in the lobby of the House which is most unusual. I think that is one of the reasons why Canadians, in general, don't know as much about this issue as they will and as they should.
I might add that in Saskatchewan it has been a major issue. There all the media have covered it. Government officials and others are taking it very seriously. That is not to say it is not being taken seriously here.
I would like to run through some of the chronology of what has happened since November 9 on this story. On November 11, I flew there, toured the mine site, the site of the spill with the chief, town officials, and the local MLA. We had, I think, a very informative trip. Certainly we were shown everything we wanted to see. But what we saw was appalling. As a farmer, I am no

December 7, 1989
Adjournment Debate
technical expert, but I would not let a farm dug-out or septic tank system run the way they let that run.
The alarm system was referred to by AECB as being out of action for 15 hours during the spill. In fact, it had been disconnected since 1985.1 found out since then that AECB officials have inspected that site at least 25 or 30 times and never noted the fact that this very critical alarm system was not working. They have also approved the same design using the same system for new pits right in Collins Bay and this system was approved. The same regulators are looking at the Cigar Lake mine very close by.
On November 14 the Indian people of northern Saskatchewan accompanied by myself and the MLA, with senior officials of the Department of Indian Affairs, Health and Welfare Canada, Environment Canada, Atomic Energy Control Board and the Saskatchewan Minister of the Environment and his officials had a meeting. It was a very productive meeting. But again there was new information that we received. Namely, two things: One, if they had been mining in the Rabbit Lake pit at the time that the spill occurred the toxic levels would have been five times as high as they were now. We would have had a very serious environmental catastrophe if the spill had occurred while they were mining. Fortunately, there was no mining going on at the time.
We also found that what was discharged was 440,000 gallons of untreated mine waste. In fact, it contained a level of radium 226 at 5 to 8 becquerels. That is very technical language but the discharge limit is one bec-querel. So what was discharged into that bay, 440,000 gallons worth, is in fact serious even in and of itself because there are spawning areas for both whitefish and jackfish in the area.
On November 15 the Prince Albert District Chiefs and the Wollaston Lake Band held a press conference in Prince Albert calling for a formal public, independent, comprehensive, inquiry into the spill. On November 15 there was a press conference held here in Ottawa where representatives of the Canadian Labour Congress, Indigenous Survival International, Mennonite Central Committee, Greenpeace and Cultural Survival Canada joined
in supporting the call for an inquiry. Having examined the evidence, they joined the call for an inquiry.
On November 24 Chief Ed Benoanie formally presented his call for a public inquiry to the Minister of Energy. He also had a conversation with the Minister of the Environment and outlined his case to them why it is critical not only from the standpoint of what happened specifically with the spill and the environmental consequences and so on, but the whole interaction and the inter-relationship between the Indian people of the north and this industry and other industries that operate in their lands.
This afternoon I attended my first Atomic Energy Control Board meeting. Attending there as well were representatives from the community of Port Hope because a Cameco application for increasing their discharge limits was on the table. I heard there that an incident occurred in 1983 at Port Hope where there was a fire in the facility and that many people evacuated the town. It was a disaster nearly averted again. It came to light at that time that there was no emergency procedure in place at Port Hope for evacuating the town and there was no equipment in the town to deal with the potential crisis. What appalled me and makes me quite sceptical about these regulators is that it does not exist today either. There is no emergency plan in Port Hope. They are still working on one six years later. There is very little reason for confidence in the regulators.
I would like to again stress that there needs to be a comprehensive inquiry. In an article in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix on November 24 it stated that staff levels were too low to prevent spills from the Atomic Energy Control Board.
We cannot have the regulators investigating themselves. I know that their investigations about Cameco's operations are under way and charges might be laid. But somebody has to look at these regulators. This is a regulatory meltdown and it has to be looked at in an independent way. It has to be comprehensive and include everything that they regulate, as well as the interaction between the native people of the north and this industry. It also has to be public because in this era of glasnost at a time when there is tremendous concern about our environment and the long-term consequences of what we do, the public will not be satisfied if this is not
December 7, 1989

a fully public inquiry where everybody knows what is going on.
My specific question today in that regard is the following. When we met with the minister he said he would make a judgment on whether there should be an inquiry or not once he had the results of his internal investigation. I was wondering if the parliamentary secretary would be in a position today to tell us when that internal inquiry might be done so we could hear from the minister if in fact we will get our public inquiry.


Mr. John A. MacDougall (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Madam Speaker, on November 7,1989 at 12.45 p.m. a mine water spill was discovered near the Collins Bay mine located at Rabbit Lake, Saskatchewan.
This open pit mine, which is owned and operated by Cameco, has been shut down for approximately three months due, in part, to the depressed nature of the uranium market. This temporary mine closure led to the lay-off of 96 mine workers earlier this year. In order to prevent the pit from flooding, water which naturally seeps into the pit is routinely pumped along a pipeline from the mine site to the mill, which is several kilometres away. A valve housing the pipeline cracked and allowed 2,000 cubic metres of mine water to spill out into an overflow catchment, then into Collins Creek, and finally into Wollaston Lake.
Because the mine had been shut down, the spill water was essentially rain water which had seeped into the pit. Extensive sampling of water in Collins Creek has shown that the radium, nickel and arsenic levels are extremely low and meet Saskatchewan surface water quality objectives. At the outflow of Collins Bay into Wollaston Lake, the level of these contaminants is below detection levels. Hence, the present data clearly indicates that the spill did not endanger the drinking water or the fisheries that exist in Wollaston Lake.
The minister has indicated that he wants answers as to why the spill occurred, and wants the whole question fully aired and fully investigated. He has also indicated that he will be following the AECB investigation with considerable interest and wishes to be kept fully informed of new developments as they occur.
Adjournment Debate
The Atomic Energy Control Board, which is the independent federal regulatory agency responsible for health, safety and environmental issues related to the nuclear industry, is continuing its investigation into this incident. The spill was discovered from an aircraft chartered by AECB during a routine inspection of the site and also observed independently by Chief Benoanie of the Hatchet Lake Band. The AECB inspector investigated the spill immediately upon landing and remained on the site to complete a full investigation. The results of the ongoing investigation have been submitted to the board.
While the preliminary stages of the investigation are under way, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources wrote on November 22 to Chief Benoanie of the Hatchet Lake Band at Wollaston Lake and assured him that the spill had created little environmental damage and that he would be kept fully informed of any new developments.
On November 24, the minister met with Chief Benoanie and the hon. member from Prince Albert-Churchill to discuss the issue. He assured both of them that the AECB will keep all interested parties informed about developments as they occur.
As you are aware, Madam Speaker, yesterday, December 6, the Atomic Energy Control Board recommended to the Attorney General of Canada that they consider laying charges against Cameco regarding alleged violations of the Atomic Energy Control Act. This new phase of the investigation will involve the prosecuting counsel for the Attorney General of Canada's office. The office has the responsibility to make the final decision on the specific charge to be laid against the company. The first meeting to view the legal implications of the case will be held later this month.
Today the Saskatchewan government announced that it is taking a separate but similar action. It has referred the investigation to the Saskatchewan Justice to determine if sufficient evidence exists to lay charges under the Saskatchewan Environmental Management and Protection Act.
We expect that the investigation and the question of legal charges will be cleared up some time early in the new year. It is at that time that we will have the necessary information to make decisions about appropriate follow-up actions to this incident.

December 7, 1989
Adjournment Debate


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The motion that the House do now adjourn is deemed to have been
adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow, pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.19 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Friday, December 8, 1989