1989-05-15

Hon. Doug Lewis (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the Government's responses to two petitions numbered as follows: 342-0014 and 342-0015.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES READJUSTMENT ACT


[Stage Direction]
Mr. Bill Attewell (Markham) moves for leave to introduce a Bill intituled, an Act to change the name of the electoral district of Markham.
Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House that the Hon. Member shall have leave to introduce the Bill?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Attewell:: Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I introduce my Bill to change the name of this riding from Markham to Markham-Whitchurch-Stouffville. The new riding boundaries take up every inch of these two towns of Markham and Whitchurch-Stouffville. I think this will more properly recognize the residents of the northern part of the riding and, as well, remove some confusion.
There is a provincial riding of Markham which comprises only Markham. This change proposed by Bill C-240, will be a good step forward and I look forward to early passage of the Bill, hopefully, next month.


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

Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to present a petition pursuant to Standing Order 36. The petitioners point out that the Government of Canada has failed to provide the resources necessary to fulfil its promises of improved passenger rail service in the country. They believe that the Government, as a result of its failure to act, is now considering cutting back VIA Rail services. The petitioners are calling upon Parliament to maintain, improve and modernize VIA Rail service in those areas of the country where it can provide a more rapid, economical, safe, convenient, environmentally sound and energy efficient alternative to other means of transportation.


Mr. Rex Crawford (Kent):: Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition signed by the residents of the riding of Kent who were unfairly and with no justification left out of the drought relief program.
Under the new federal program, the drought areas are defined on a township basis and not by areas that were hit the hardest. The 1988 drought hit the areas of Howard Township, Orford Township, Camden Township and Kent County. All those areas suffered losses and were ignored. There are cases where neighbours are separated only by a road and who suffered equal damage. One person was able to receive drought relief and not the other.
I urge the Government to reconsider its position regarding drought assistance.

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QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Government House Leader):: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 7 and 49.


Mr. St-Julien: Has the government made any grants to the Canadian Pacific Railway Company for the Temiscamingue and Ville-Marie subdivisions, in the province of Quebec, and, if so, in each case (a) in what amounts in what years (b) what was the actual rail traffic for the year?


Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of Transport):: The
federal government has paid Canadian Pacific branch line subsidies (not grants) under Section 256 of the Railway Act, with respect to the Temiscaming and Ville-Marie subdivisions, as follows:
Year	Subsidy ($) *	Traffic (carloads)'1977	0	6361978	145,238	6471979	380,442	6341980	515,725	6121981	430,679	4991982	924,730	1521983	945,090	51984	684,887	41985	554,850	01986	171,121	0
Total subsidies paid $4,752,762
* Combined figures for Temiscamingue and Ville-Marie subdivisions
The portions of this line, for which subsidies were paid, were ordered abandoned effective 19 February 1986.


Mr. Rodriguez: Has the government completed its review of the economic regions under the Unemployment Insurance Act and, if so (a) what are the results of the review (b) what impact will the proposed changes outlined in Success in the Works have on the regions?


Hon. Barbara Jean McDougall (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: The review of Unemployment
Insurance Economic Regions which was announced in August of last year is still on-going. Since the review has not been completed it is not possible to consider what impact the proposed changes outlined in "Success in the Works'' will have on any configuration of regions which could result from this review.


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


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, would you be so kind as to call starred question No. 44?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
On April 11, 1989 did the Minister of Employment and Immigration table a document entitled Success in the Works and, if so, what was the (a) per-unit (b) total-production cost (c) total number of units produced?
Albert Glen Cooper: Yes, Mr. Speaker, and the response is (a) 2.06 (b) $30,900 and (c) 15,000.

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Speaker:: Shall all the remaining questions stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House proceeded to the consideration of an amendment made by the Senate to Bill C-14, an Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Government of Canada for the financial year ending March 31, 1990.
May 15, 1989
Hon. Robert de Cotret (President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, the Government's interim supply Bill for 1989-90, Bill C-14, was approved by this House on May 4, 1989. The Bill has been reported from the other place with an amendment which states that the four special warrants signed by the Governor General earlier this year shall be deemed to have been legal. This House must now decide whether to agree or disagree with this amendment.
On the surface, the proposed amendment appears innocent, but it is not so. This amendment suggests that the actions taken by the Government through the use of special Governor General's warrants earlier this year were indeed illegal. This inference is wrong.
The request for special warrants and their approval on my recommendation by the Governor General was fully consistent with the laws approved by Parliament. When the Bill was reviewed in the other place, its legal counsel stated that the Government's actions were fully consistent with the laws approved by Parliament.

Mr. Speaker, I do not want there to be any doubt on this matter. The record shows clearly that the Government's actions were proper and legal.
To accept the amendment would imply that Ministers of this Government have acted illegally. To accept the amendment would be to suggest that the actions taken under an Act of Parliament were illegal. To accept the amendment is to imply that the Governor General acted contrary to the law. The amendment referred to this House is not an innocent minor change.
Over the past few days, as this matter has been debated in the other place, fact and opinion have tended to be mixed together, creating confusion and uncertainty. I want to ensure that the facts about the use of special warrants are clearly on the record.

I would first like to review the circumstance surrounding the Government's use of special warrants. As most Hon. Members know, the second session of the Thirty Third Parliament had met almost continuously for 24 months before being dissolved for the General Election of November 21. After the election, the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) convened Parliament a mere three weeks later in order to complete the business of the
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previous Parliament on which the people of Canada had spoken out so clearly and convincingly.
It has been a long time since Parliament has been convened so quickly after an election. Certainly, no Prime Minister in the last 40 years has convened Parliament within three weeks of a General Election. The opening session of the new Parliament, as the Speech from the Throne on December 12 made clear, was to deal with the free trade legislation. Once the free trade legislation was approved, the House agreed to adjourn on December 30.

The Government on December 16 did table Supplementary Estimates "B" for the 1988-89 fiscal year, clearly informing this House of its need for further supply for that fiscal year.
As supply had not been dealt with when the House adjourned, the Government requested the Governor General to approve special warrants. Section 30 of the Financial Administration Act provides that special warrants may be approved when the House is adjourned.
Let me turn directly to the question of legality which is raised by the proposed amendment. Parliament has provided a process for the continuing and orderly operation of government when it is not sitting. That is the fundamental essence of Section 30 of the Financial Administration Act: to provide interim funding so that the business of government can continue uninterrupted until Parliament is able to deal with the important matter of supply.
Section 30 of the Financial Administration Act cites three criteria which must be satisfied before special Governor General's warrants can be drawn: first, Parliament is not in session; second, there are no available appropriations from which to satisfy these requirements; and third, there are payments which are urgently required for the public good.

The first condition which must be satisfied is that Parliament is not in session. There is no dispute that Parliament was not in session. However, I would like to clarify an important point about how the Financial Administration Act defines not in session. Section 30, paragraph (5) states without any qualifications or conditions that Parliament is deemed to be not in session when it is under adjournment. This section was tabled in 1951 explicitly to enable the Government to obtain special Governor General's warrants that are required when Parliament is under adjournment. The Parliament

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of the day clearly intended that special Governor General's warrants would be issued under this provision.
It is reasonable to assume that when Parliament amends an Act such as as the Financial Administration Act, it expects and accepts that it will be used. As the Speaker stated in the House on May 2 of this year, there is no inference that the words "not in session" were to be restricted to dissolution periods.
The second condition that no other appropriations are available is a factual determination. I assure Hon. Members that there were no other appropriations available to meet these obligations.
The third condition requires that there is a payment urgently required for the public good. The interpretation of this section has received much attention in recent weeks. I would like to assure Hon. Members that the interpretation of this section used by the Government was consistent with all previous requests since 1896 for the issuance of special warrants by the Governor General.
In reviewing the use of special warrants, the other place has attached a novel interpretation to the concept of urgency. It has associated that concept with the state of Parliament's condition, suggesting that a distinction is required according to whether Parliament is dissolved, prorogued or adjourned. The condition of urgency provided for in Section 30 is related to the payment that must be made, not to the varying states in which this House may be at any particular time.
The counsel to the other place did advise that it was improper to imply in an amendment that the actions taken under a provision of the law which had been complied with would be illegal. In other words, there is no basis for making legal what is already legal. The flaw
in the proposed amendment cannot be stated any clearer.

I would now like to address the matter of how Parliament has been kept informed. In every instance that warrants were issued, there was an almost immediate reference in the Canada Gazette. For example, the January 19 warrant was gazetted on January 28, well in advance of the 30-day requirement established by the Financial Administration Act. Furthermore, on April 12, one week before the required date, I tabled in thise House a statement for the 1988-89 fiscal year which provided to Parliament more disclosure than had ever been provided before about how the warrants were used.
Mr. Speaker, the matter before us requires resolution today. The special warrant signed by Her Excellency the Governor General on April 1 was intended to cover the Government's requirements for the first 45 days of this fiscal year. It was expected that this could allow time for Parliament to consider and approve the interim supply bill.
The House has certainly lived up to its responsibilities and, as agreed by all Parties on April 4, the House approved interim supply on May 4, one week after the Main Estimates were presented.
Failure to receive Royal Assent for Bill C-14 today will require that the Government cease to make payments from appropriations to be voted for any goods to be received, services to be rendered or benefits to be provided after midnight tonight.
This will mean that a number of government suppliers may not receive on time the payments which they have earned. What will be the consequences for businesses which rely on receiving these payments?
Mr. Speaker, Canadian veterans may experience delay in receiving their pension and allowance payments. Canada's debt to our veterans is surely sufficiently great that we should not create the anguish that a delay in payment may cause many of them.
Members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are scheduled to receive their bi-weekly pay cheques by the end of this week. We expect them to maintain our national security and law enforcement at all times. Their remuneration should not be delayed for a "very small point", to quote an Honourable Member of the other place.
May 15, 1989



This is an important matter that requires our immediate action, Mr. Speaker. The Government is interested in ensuring that those who have earned their payments receive them from the federal Government in the timely manner which they have anticipated. I have established, Mr. Speaker, that there is no question of impropriety or illegality. I accept the opinion advanced by the legal counsel of the other place:
The law according to its own term has been complied with.
Accordingly, the Government is not prepared to accept the proposed amendment. I recommend that this House send the following motion back to the other place.
I move, seconded by the Member for Etobicoke Centre (Mr. Wilson), the following motion:
That a message be sent to the Senate to acquaint Their Honours that this House disagrees with the amendment made by the Senate to Bill C-14, An Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Government of Canada for the financial year ending 31st March, 1990, because this House believes that the special warrants signed by the Governor General on January 19, February 16, March 23 and April 1, 1989 are already legal.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Resuming debate. The Hon. Member for Kingston and The Islands (Mr. Milliken).


Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate on the Minister's motion concerning the amendment proposed by the other place to Bill C-14. I believe that the amendment proposed is good and necessary and should be passed by this House for the reasons I shall give now.

The motion, in my view, is essential to the rights of Parliament, that is, the amendment that has been proposed by the Senate and that this motion seeks to destroy. In my submission, what we are discussing here today is fundamental to the rights of this House and to Parliament in general. It is a subject on which I have spoken several times in this House during the course of this session on questions of privilege and on points of order. Mr. Speaker, with your indulgence, I would like to
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review some of the events that have led up to the discussion we are having today.
The principle on which we are operating in this Chamber is that of the supremacy of Parliament. While it may seem tedious to go back to certain authorities on this subject, in my submission, the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. de Cotret) needs some assistance in his attempts to determine the intent and meaning of the amendment that has been proposed by the Senate in this case. The Minister of Justice (Mr. Lewis) says, "No". But I would like to refer to higher authorities, and I have some here. I am sure he will recognize some of them. I would like to turn first to the late A. V. Dicey's book called An Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution. I am referring to Tenth Edition, 1959, page 69. Mr. Speaker, the learned author says:
Parliament can legally legislate on any topic whatever which, in the judgment of Parliament, is a fit subject for legislation. There is not power which, under the English constitution, can come into rivalry with the legislative sovereignty of Parliament.
No one of the limitations alleged to be imposed by law on the absolute authority of Parliament has any real existence, or receives any countenance, either from the statute-book or from the practice of the courts.
This doctrine of the legislative supremacy of Parliament is the very keystone of the law of the Constitution.
I repeat, "the very keystone of the law of the Constitution". It is my submission, Mr. Speaker, that what the Government is doing here today is tampering with that keystone.
The concept of the supremacy of Parliament is not one that just happened overnight. It was developed in the United Kingdom and transported to this country over hundreds of years.
Dicey, in his learned treatise, in a footnote on page 69, deals with part of the historical reason why Parliament got control of expenditure and revenue. I would like to read part of the footnote from page 69:
The historical reason why Parliament has never succeeded in passing immutable laws, or in other words, has always retained its character of a supreme legislature, lies deep in the history of the English people and in the peculiar development of the English constitution. England has, at any rate since the Norman Conquest, been always governed by an absolute legislator.
This lawgiver was originally the Crown, and the peculiarity of the process by which the English constitution has been developed lies in the fact that the legislative authority of the Crown has never been curtailed, but has been transferred from the Crown acting alone (or rather in council) to the Crown acting first together with, and then in subordination to, the Houses of Parliament. Hence Parliament, or

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in technical terms the Queen in Parliament, has become-it would
perhaps be better to say has always remained-a supreme
legislature.
This notion of Parliament having supremacy was determined on the basis of expenditure and revenue. It was determined in the course of a series of struggles between Parliament and the King. I need not go into all the historical details, but I can remind Hon. Members-perhaps the Minister of Justice will be interested to hear this. I will save that deeper aspect for another day.
The transfer of these powers took place in the course of a lengthy struggle which culminated in a civil war in the United Kingdom which started in 1642. Hon. Members will recall that the struggle in that civil war was between Parliament, which claimed to have control over the expenditure and the revenue-gathering functions of the state, as against the King. King Charles I ultimately lost his head as a result of that struggle in 1649. At that time Parliament essentially gained control of the pursestrings, a control which it has tightened up over the years since that time. I do not pretend that things have not changed since 1649, heaven knows they have, but the changes, I submit, are important only in the sense that the principle has been left untouched and, if anything, has been strengthened.
Why did Parliament go for the purse-strings? Because the legislators in Parliament in those days, as today, know that the person who pays the piper calls the tune. The person with control of the money effectively controls the Government. The situation in England was a little different. It had a king who happened to have a lot of manorial interests. He owned a lot of estates and lands and had various means by which he could raise money without resorting to parliamentary approval. He got that money in and he paid the money out without the authority of Parliament.
As time went on and as the role of Government grew in society, the revenues that the king derived from these sources became smaller and smaller as a percentage of the total requirements of the Government, so further recourse was had to Parliament to raise money by way of taxation. As soon as that authority was requested,
Parliament began attaching conditions to the granting of money to the Crown.
That procedure was transported to Canada when this country was established. Our forbears struggled for and obtained the notion and principle of responsible Government in the legislatures of the various provinces of Canada before Confederation. That principle of responsible Government requires that the Government be responsible and report to the legislature, and that its spending plans and priorities be introduced in and be adopted by the legislature prior to the expenditure of public funds.
I would like to turn to authorities on this point that describe the financial relationship between the Crown and Parliament. I would refer to Beauchesne's Sixth Edition, 1989, page 183, citation 595. Basically, it is a direct quotation from Erskine May's book which I will be referring to presently. The citation has been amended in Beauchesne's to reflect the Canadian experience. It states:
The Crown, being the executive power, has the responsibility for the raising and spending of money. Acting through responsible Ministers, the Crown makes known to the Commons the financial necessities of Government. The Commons grants such aids and supplies as are necessary to meet the demands of the Crown and provides through taxes and other sources of revenue the ways and means to meet the supplies that have been granted. The Crown, therefore, demands money, the Commons grants it and the Senate assents to the grant. The Commons does not vote any money except for the necessities of the country as defined by the Crown.
Clearly the responsibility for determining the necessities of the country lies with the Government. That is undisputed and that is why we have the Royal Recommendation as a requirement on all the money bills that come to this House.
The statement of the law that is laid down in Beauchesne's reflects not only the Statutes of Canada, but also the constitutional practice which is very much a part of our laws.
I turn now to Erskine May, twentieth edition, and a paragraph very similar to the one I quoted, but instead of referring to the Senate it refers to the House of Lords. At page 750 Erskine May describes in more detail the nature of this relationship between the Crown and Parliament. The learned author writes:

The financial relations between the Crown and Parliament defined in the preceding paragraph took shape during the period while the King still governed through ministers responsible to himself, and the House of Commons only exercised a negative control through its power to withhold supplies. These constitutional relations have been maintained in essential continuity, despite the establishment of Cabinet government dependent upon the support of the House of Commons. In the Cabinet, powers derived from two different sources are combined without being confounded. As Ministers of the Crown, its members initiate policy and conduct administration. As leaders of the majority of the House of Commons, they secure authorization of their policy through their influence over their supporters.
Over questions of financial policy it may be that the influence of ministers normally avails to reduce the House's power of control to a right to criticize, exercised chiefly by the Opposition. But the twofold powers concentrated in the Cabinet-the one group exercised in virtue of statute or the prerogative, the other based on convention-
And I stress the words "based on convention".
-are alike contingent on the continued support of the House of
Commons and liable to be forfeited through the loss of that support.
At page 751 he states:
The financial control of the House of Commons is exercised at two different levels. As an agent in the formation of policy, it authorizes the several objects of expenditure and the sums to be spent on each; it also authorizes the levying of taxes. On the level of administration, it satisfies itself that its expenditure decisions are duly carried out-in other words, that the sums it has granted, and no more, are spent for the purposes for which they were granted, and for no other purposes. For both sets of functions the House of Commons has, partly through its own procedure, and partly through legislation and administrative practice, secured appropriate machinery.
The procedure and machinery for the control of financial policy-the presentation of estimates, the budget, the voting of estimates, the business of Ways and Means-form the subjects of the chapters that follow.
The learned author is clearly describing the way in which the House performs its basic, fundamental and very important constitutional functions in relation to the control of expenditure and taxation.
Another paragraph which may be of interest is on page 761. Again, the learned author is discussing relations between Parliament and the Crown. That paragraph states:
Financial practice began to take shape during the long period when the King enjoyed a non-parliamentary revenue which was expected to provide for the ordinary needs of government, and when no legal
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sanction fettered his discretion in disposing of the supplementary revenue granted by Parliament. During all this period the Commons, as a body traditionally in favour of royal economy, naturally abstained from taking the initiative in offering money to the Crown. The practice of demand preceding grant had accordingly solidified into an invariable rule before Parliament began to take steps to appropriate its grants to the purposes for which they were demanded. Hence, in the matter of Supply, no Standing Order of the House of Commons was necessary to maintain the principle of the financial initiative of the Crown.
When, with the commencement of parliamentary control over the Exchequer, the granting of Supply was differentiated into two functions-the votings of sums of money and the provision of revenue by taxation-it was accepted without question by the House of Commons that the rule applied to both of the now clearly distinguished functions of Supply and of Whys and Means, and to any business which belonged to either of those classes.
The precedents concerning the control of finance in the House of Commons go back hundreds of years. We would do well to regard those precedents as binding in Canada under our constitutional practice. While they may not be codified in any particular place, nevertheless, in my submission, they are clearly part of our law.
I would now turn to more recent times. Mr. Speaker made a ruling, reported in Hansard of May 2, 1989, at page 1176 which contains a description of the Canadian practice in relation to the granting of supply.
I want to read two paragraphs of that ruling because I think they accurately state the current law in Canada:
The House of Commons has an important role to play in this complicated process.
He is talking about the process of Supply:
It is in the Commons where the Government's projected expenditures-known as the "Estimates"-are first tabled and the legislation to implement the estimates-known as the "Appropriation" Bill-is introduced. Section 53 of the Constitution Act, 1867 stipulates that all financial legislation, and this includes Government expenditures, must originate in the House of Commons. This requirement is reaffirmed in the Commons's own rules of procedure, more specifically Standing Order 80(1), a point which was clearly referred to by Hon. Members the other day.
As a result of the fact that Main Estimates for the upcoming fiscal year are usually adopted at the end of June, the Government could be without funds from the beginning of the fiscal year in April to the end of June.
The rules accordingly provide for the Government to request an advance against the Main Estimates which is known as Interim Supply. From time to time during a session, the Government may

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also require additional funds which are introduced by way of Supplementary Estimates.
In this case, as we will see in a moment, we had Main Estimates introduced but only after the Government had dished out to itself some $6 billion of the money that was contained in those Estimates by special warrants.
In his ruling, Mr. Speaker referred to Section 53 of the Constitution Act. I will read it again. Section 53 provides:
Bills for appropriating any Part of the Public Revenue, or for imposing any Thx or Impost, shall originate in the House of Commons.
There is no dispute that the Chair agrees with that. I am sure the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. de Cotret) agrees with that. It is part of the law of Canada.
The Financial Administration Act is the Act upon which the Government is relying for the procedure that it has followed in respect of these special warrants. I want to take a moment again to refer Hon. Members to Sections of that Act because the Minister referred to them in his speech this morning. I think it would be more clear if the Act were read in detail. Section 26 of the Financial Administration Act provides as follows:
Subject to the Constitution Acts, 1867 to 1982, no payments shall be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund without the authority of Parliament.
The Financial Administration Act itself contains that provision for no spending without parliamentary authority. Yet the Government is spending by special warrants. Where is the authority?
The Minister relies on Section 30 of the Financial Administration Act. To be fair, I will read the relevant provisions of Section 30. Section 30(1) states:
Where a payment is urgently required for the public good when Parliament is not in session and there is no other appropriation pursuant to which the payment may be made, the Governor in Council, on the report of the President of the Treasury Board that there is no appropriation for the payment and the report of the appropriate Minister that the payment is urgently required for the public good, may, by order, direct the preparation of a special warrant to be signed by the Governor General authorizing the payment to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
I will skip to Section 30(5) because I do not believe the other provisions are relevant.


Mr. Kempling:: Read it all.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Hon. Members would like to hear the whole thing. I will send them a copy.
Section 30(5) provides:
For the purposes of this section, Parliament shall be deemed to be not in session when it is under adjournment sine die-
These words the Minister left out from his quote of the Section:
-or to a day more than two weeks after the day the Governor in Council made the order directing the preparation of the special warrant.
I will return to those words because in my submission Section 30(5) is essential to an understanding of the reason for the amendment that the Senate has proposed to this Bill.
Resort has been had to the Financial Administration Act or its predecessors over the years. The earliest precedent that we have been able to determine is 1896.1 think that is common ground on both sides.
The Minister has given evidence before a committee of the other place on this matter. I am sure he is as aware of the precedents as I am, if not more aware.
The fact is that in all the cases where these warrants have been used, save one, they were used during the time between the dissolution of Parliament and the commencement of a new Parliament, not a new session or a different session, but a new Parliament.
As I understand the precedents, the only case where it did not happen was in 1896, when urgent repairs were needed for a leaky roof.
What we are faced with here today is something quite unprecedented. As I have said on numerous occasions during the course of discussion on this Bill and in my question of privilege on April 6, this is a case where the Government is using Governor General's special warrants to meet ordinary pay day requirements, and using them between the times that Parliament has met and is available to deal with the business of Supply.
I think the facts of this case are most important. I want to turn to Clause 3 of Bill C-14, which refers to the date upon which these special warrants were issued. There were several warrants that were offensive in the sense that we are discussing this morning. A warrant was issued on January 19, on February 16 and March 23, 1989. Those were in the last financial year. Then an
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additional warrant for about $6 billion was issued on April 1.
The Government itself is seeking confirmation of the original three warrants in this Bill under Clause 3. In effect, it is acknowledging that if there was any impropriety with respect to the issue of those warrants, it is being cleared up by this Bill.
The Bill does not deal with the special warrant issued on April 1. I suppose if there were varying degrees of impropriety, I would rank this as the most gross distortion of the practice that has arisen in respect of this matter.
This procedure is totally unprecedented. I raised the matter in the House on April 6, five days after the issue of the warrant. I gave notice to Mr. Speaker of my intention to raise the matter if not two days before, the day before early in the morning.
The matter was also raised by me on three occasions in one way or another on May 4, the day the Bill was passed in the House. I only refer to the discussion that took place on that day to say that on no occasion has the Government cited any precedents to support the actions that it has taken in respect of this matter. Every time I have raised this matter I have been told that whatever the Government has done was in accordance with past practices, yet not one example of that past practice has been cited in the House in support of the position the Government is taking in this matter. There was not one cited today and there has not been one cited in any other place that I am aware of. I can understand why. It is totally unprecedented. It is new, and I suggest that it is wrong. It goes contrary to the general thrust of our constitutional practice.
In this case the Bill was passed in accordance with a special order on May 4 and went to the other place for consideration, for some sober second thought. I can only say that I think that sober second thought is extremely important in consideration of this matter.
The suggestion that the Senate amendment to this Bill somehow suggests illegality is unfair. I believe that what the other place has sought to do is clear up any ambiguity that may have arisen because of the use of these warrants. In order to justify the use of these warrants, the President of the Treasury Board must be relying on Section 30(1) and 30(5) of the Financial Administration Act.
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This matter has been discussed in the House before and Mr. Speaker made a ruling. I want to refer again to page 1179 of Hansard of May 2. Mr. Speaker said:
As to the argument that the law has been breached, Hon. Members have other avenues available to them to demonstrate and establish those facts.
Mr. Speaker left open the question whether there had been a breach of the Financial Administration Act and of the Constitution Act in dealing with these warrants. I suggest that one of the other avenues Mr. Speaker may have had in mind is the other place. Clearly, there was a group of men and women who were receptive to the idea that there had been some hanky-panky. There are other avenues, and another avenue has been pursued. I suggest it is an avenue that has yielded some good results.
We have the Minister today telling us that the other avenue, as he intends it, is in court. Why should we as Members of Parliament have to go to court to defend the rights of this place? This is the highest court in the land. Surely we should not have to run down to the Supreme Court to obtain a ruling to see whether or not the Government has acted illegally. Surely, we should be able to determine that here.
I ask the Government to look at this amendment again. I ask the Government to look at it in a different light. Do not look at it as a criticism of what it has done. Look at it as a constructive attempt to correct what may or may not be an error.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Say that with a straight face.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Hon. Members may laugh. They are laughing at the rights of Parliament being trampled upon in this case.
We say that this amendment is reasonable. We say that there is a risk that what the Government has done in this case is illegal. We ought not to be putting in uncertainty by passing an Act in this House, or even in the other place, that does not deal with the ambiguity that has been created by the actions of Government.
I would like to look at the reasons why we believe the Minister may have-and I stress the words "may have"-acted improperly in granting these warrants. The fundamental principle of our Constitution, as I have indicated, is that it is this House, and Parliament in particular that retains control of expenditures. What has happened here is the Government tabled Supplementary Estimates on December 16. Those Estimates effectively provided for the provision of additional moneys to the Government for purposes that had not been approved by Parliament. It then gave itself those moneys by way of special warrants between the sessions of Parliament. In

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other words, without having the House of Commons or a single committee spend a single day looking at any of the Supplementary Estimates the Government decided that those Estimates were as good as law and it had Her Excellency sign a special warrant. The Government took that money out of the Public Treasury and spent it on these matters which were unauthorized in so far as Parliament was concerned.
That runs clean contrary to the principle of parliamentary control of expenditures. If we are going to control them, then we have to review them first. That is why Estimates are normally tabled in March. This year we did not get them until May-or was it late April? If not that date, then it was the very last day of the sitting in April.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: It was by House order.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: The Minister of Justice (Mr. Lewis) says that it was by way of House order. That was the latest date that they could have been tabled. If there had been in place a good administration then those Estimates would have been forthcoming long before that day. They would have been tabled on the first day we were back, April 3. Instead, we waited, waited and waited to the end of the month to get the Estimates. We now have to consider these things while the money is being spent when normally consideration of those Estimates would be embarked upon prior to the expenditure of the money. There would have been a request for interim supply earlier and dealt with before the financial year began. We did not have that.
If Parliament is to retain control of the spending plans of the Government then, in my submission, we cannot have the money requested by Supplementary Estimates, have the House adjourn and have no dealings with those Estimates but simply dole out the money by the Government helping itself with special warrants.


Mr. Harvard:: They want it both ways.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: The Hon. Member is absolutely right. The Government wants it both ways.
The second reason why I think there is doubt as to what the Government is doing is that the Financial Administration Act has never been used in this way before. This is a totally unprecedented method of using the Financial Administration Act, that is, to have the warrants signed and to dole the money out. It has never been done before.
Surely, if constitutional convention is to mean anything the practice established under constitutional principles must mean something. The practice in the country has been that these warrants are usable at certain times. Every other jurisdiction in the Commonwealth has got rid of these warrants. In every other jurisdiction the Government must turn to the Legislature to obtain approval for the money it will spend. However, in Canada we have stayed with this, if I may call it so, antiquated system for the convenience of the Government.
Convenience is one thing when Parliament is not around because it has been dissolved, or before it is recalled after an election. Once it has been recalled then, surely, the Government must consider the convenience of Parliament in deciding whether or not it should spend money and allow Parliament to make that decision.
What we have here is an abdication of the Government's responsibility to call this House back in good time and say: "We need your help. We need these expenditure plans approved. Thke your time, criticize them and make up your mind whether or not you want to allow it to happen. Give us the money". Instead, the Government had special warrants signed and said: "Now, approve all this afterwards". We are being asked to approve it in this Bill.
The third reason why I think the practice is irregular is that the Government itself has a special vote in the Estimates for contingencies. It has access to money voted by Parliament which it can use to tide itself over difficult moments when it runs short in one area and needs to apply additional funds. The vote is always granted by Parliament. There have been arguments about it but it always gets its way on this one. Treasury Board Vote 5 is named: "Government Contingencies".
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In this year's Estimates $360 million were set aside for this little contingency item.
I would like to read what it says to describe this vote. This is the statement of authority that Parliament gives to the Government to use this $360 million. I would point out to Hon. Members just how vague it is. I am reading from the Main Estimates 1990-90:
-Subject to the approval of the Treasury Board, to supplement other votes for paylist and other requirements and to provide for miscellaneous minor and unforeseen expenses not otherwise provided for including awards under the Public Servants Inventions Act and authority to re-use any sums allotted for non-paylist requirements and repaid to this appropriation from other appropriations.
In other words, the money in this vote could have been used for the items contained in Supplementary Estimates B and then repaid when the Supplementary Estimates were approved. In fact, we know what happened. The Government spent the whole of the $360 million and then when it needed additional money it just had a warrant signed instead of coming to Parliament and asking for Supplementary Estimates B.
That is not a proper way to run the administration of the Government of Canada. The Government had a constitutional responsibility to come to Parliament and to ask for the money instead of proceeding with Governor General warrants.
Those are the three reasons why I believe there is doubt cast on the validity of the warrants. As long as the doubt exists, surely the amendment that has been proposed by the Senate which does not condemn the Government in any way clarifies that ambiguity and brings these warrants into their true light and indicates that they are not illegal, and that the next time this happens there may be another opinion. It leaves open the issue. It does not allow this to be a constitutional precedent which, in my submission, the passage of the Bill without the amendment will do. By rejecting this amendment it is saying: "Yes, we were right in bypassing Parliament in this way. Yes, it is fine for a Government to trample on the rights of Parliament and to ignore the essential right of Parliament to control the expenditure of money in this country".
That is not what the people of Canada want. It is not what we were elected here to do. That includes the Members of the Government on the other side.
There is another principle in our Constitution, that is, the principle that the sovereign is the fountainhead of all
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justice. Indeed, in former times the Queen's or King's subjects could appeal to the monarch for relief from the problems that they were confronted with as a result of an unfair decision or harsh treatment by someone in authority over them. For that reason Members know that the King and the monarch in olden times established courts which could override manorial courts and lesser courts throughout the United Kingdom. We have transported that notion of the Crown's right to establish courts to this country. Now it is fettered, of course, by Parliament and the control that Parliament exerts over the Crown prerogative in that respect. It is similar to the process I described earlier.
One of the things that happens in this transfer is that the Crown exercises its prerogatives of mercy and of judicial control through a particular person, and that is the embodiment of all justice in this House, the Minister of Justice and the Attorney General of Canada (Mr. Lewis). Now, Mr. Speaker, one would have thought that someone in his position, the fountainhead of all justice on behalf of Her Majesty in Canada, would have acted in a judicial manner. Yet I have here an article that appeared in the Globe and Mail last Friday, and to say that I was shocked when I read this would be putting it mildly.
I would like to read what the Minister of Justice said, sir. These are not all his words but it will become obvious when it is. The learned writer, Mr. Windsor, of this column said:
The Government will not accept the Senate censure of some financial shortcuts it took when Parliament was recessed this winter, Conservative House Leader Doug Lewis told reporters yesterday.
I believe that is a reference to the Minister of Justice, Mr. Speaker.
He indicated that the Government will try to swing public opinion against the Upper House by mobilizing sympathy for war veterans whose pension cheques could be delayed next week because of the Senate move.
I will skip down another paragraph.
Veterans' regular pension cheques are due to be processed Tbesday and if the impasse is not sorted out by then, "We will give any veterans who call the phone number of Senator Allan MacEachen, the Liberal Leader in the Senate" Mr. Lewis added. The Government could get its spending Bill passed with simple resolution by the Commons concurring with the Senate's amendment. However, that would imply an acceptance of the Liberal criticism.

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So Mr. Lewis told reporters the Government will be refusing the amendment and sending the Bill back to the Senate.


An Hon. Member:: Shame.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, does that sound like a Minister of Justice threatening the Senate, threatening these veterans with their pension cheques? Why would the Minister of Justice not say, "Well, the amendment that the Senate has proposed is fair and just, and so of course we will agree to it because we have the veterans' interests at heart."
Instead of that, he is trying to use the veterans as a whipping boy-


An Hon. Member:: Hear, hear.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: -to threaten the Senate, to threaten the other place. I say that it ill behooves the Minister of Justice to carry on in this way. He laughs, Mr. Speaker. All Hon. Members opposite seem to laugh when I talk about constitutional propriety. But they have an equal obligation with us on this side to uphold the Constitution of Canada, and I say that it is being breached in this case.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Now, the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. de Cotret) made similar statements. Let me read from the same column:
The Liberal move was also criticized by Treasury Board President, Robert de Cotret. "They are arguing on a very minor procedural matter which should be debated in another forum", he said. "They are putting at risk a number of Government suppliers, Government employees and recipients of Government payments. That would be a very sad event should they not get them".
Mr. Speaker, here we have the same Minister this morning who made a statement and I would like to read from his statement, because he said in the newspaper column that this should be argued in another forum. I do not know why it would not be argued in the highest court in Canada, right here in Parliament, but he does not want to argue it here. He does not want to hear about it in this House. He does not want to hear about it in the other place. He wants to go by Governor General warrants. The only person he has to convince to sign those is Her Excellency and then he does not have to go outside the bounds of the Cabinet room. It can all be done secretly and hush-hush. He said in his statement
this morning, and I will quote him: "To accept the amendment is to imply that the Governor General acted contrary to law". So he said it was not illegal. He went on at some length to say it was not illegal. Why would he go and argue in another place if the Minister has this view? He is not inviting argument anywhere. He is saying he is right and that is all there is to it.
Why not accept the doubt and pass the amendment and get on with the matter instead of maintaining one position and stonewalling, and trying to make the Senate into a big bad wolf? Because that is exactly what the Government is doing. I suggest that the big bad wolf in this case is the President of the Treasury Board. I have some evidence that will back that up that I will give you in a moment, Mr. Speaker.
I would like to turn to the excellent work that has been done in the Senate and in the other place on this matter. This Bill was sent there and was referred by the Senate in its wisdom to its National Finance Committee which deliberated for some time and reviewed the provisions of this Act and the irresponsible way in which the Government had dealt with the control of the expenditures of this country. I would like to turn to the witness that the Senate Committee on National Finance called on Wednesday, May 10. They called someone who is an acknowledged constitutional expert in Canada. This person is not an expert who is acknowledged just as a Liberal expert by any means. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) refers to him at times as a constitutional expert. The Leader of the New Democratic Party has frequently referred to Senator Eugene Forsey as a constitutional expert. He was dragged out of retirement to speak on the subject of the outrage that had been committed by the Government in relation to its duty in dealing with financial matters in this House.
I would like to read some of his testimony before the Senate National Finance Committee.


An Hon. Member:: Don't get too selective.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: I would not want to be selective. The Minister of Justice knows that I would not want to be unfair in my quotations. Dr. Forsey in his testimony at page 14 of the National Finance Committee proceedings said:
When Parliament has been recalled and is there to vote supply, and when Supplementary Estimates have actually been presented, never
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before has there been this recourse to the Governor General's	see it, it does not commit Parliament to confirming what has been done
special warrants and I think it is wholly improper-	for all time.
Those are the words of Dr. Forsey.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: There is a lot more, Mr. Speaker. On page 17 of the same proceedings, he said:
-The Senate has a duty to preserve the rights of the people.
Indeed it does. The Minister of Justice can make his speech later. I think the Minister of Justice can wait.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Keep going.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: He continued:
The House of Commons failed in its duty,-
Because the majority here, of course, stifled all opposition.
-just as it did shortly after the 1984 election on a subject of a borrowing bill. The Senate refused to pass the borrowing bill until the Estimates had been tabled. In that case, the House of Commons also fell down on its duty and the Senate had to preserve the rights of the people under the Constitution.
This is another example of the misuse of its majority in this House. Then he goes on at page 18:
Exactly the same is happening now, in my judgment-that is, the House of Commons has fallen down on its duty and the Senate has to preserve the rights of the people under the Constitution.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Oh, there is more, Mr. Speaker. There is more. Senator Frith on page 23 of the report asked the question of Dr. Forsey. He wanted to know what we-the Minister of Justice should control himself. Senator Frith said: "What can we do with this impropriety?"
What do you suggest we do? Is there any way open for us, other than refusing to pass the bill?
Dr. Forsey's answer was:
No, I do not think there is. I suppose that will make some people's hair stand on end, but I think that is the only way to stop it.
The next question, then, will be: What will follow that? Then I think the Government would have to draw up a new bill making whatever provision it considers necessary for the public service and including a retroactive clause dealing with this improper exercise of the use of Governor General's warrants. The wording would be "shall be deemed to have been" a legal action. That makes it retroactively legal but, as I
That is what Senator Forsey recommended. I suggest that what the Senate did was rather than defeat the Bill and cause a hubbub, it made a very small amendment incorporating the very amendment that this acknowledged constitutional expert suggested and put it in the Bill and sent it back to this House, and now the Government is saying: "Oh, no, we can't have that. It might imply criticism of our wrongful acts." If these acts were right the Government would have no worries about this anyway and it would let this amendment through, because on any reading there is no criticism of the Government in the wording of the amendment and that is perfectly clear.
Now I would like to turn to page 35 of the same evidence. Again we have some excellent words from Dr. Forsey on this matter. He said:
I do not think the question of whether it is a majority Government or a minority government is vital. I would agree that a minority government has more of an obligation to meet Parliament promptly than a majority government. I still think that Parliament ought to be summoned within a reasonable length of time, though I would agree that there is less pressure upon a majority government. The fact remains that this government did summon Parliament. As I understand it, it tabled some supplementary estimates when Parliament was sitting. It did not proceed with those estimates at all. It proceeded to do the things that have been described.
First, the government adjourned Parliament, and then it prorogued Parliament without making use of Parliament while it was there to be used. The government could have perfectly well dealt with this matter, and should have dealt with it according to proper usage.
He goes on:
The thing that is dangerous about this practice is, as Senator Stewart pointed out-and, if I remember correctly, was again pointed out by Senator Stollery-that if you accept this kind of action, then there is nothing to prevent a government from holding a one-day sitting, like Mr. Mackenzie King did in 1940, and then postponing the session. One day per year would be enough.
You say, "Oh, but no government would ever be unreasonable, no government would ever do anything wicked, no government would ever do anything improperly." I wish I had your faith. I remember what various people said and what I certainly said myself with great fervour when Mr. Mackenzie King dissolved Parliament after a one-day session in 1940. It was the most outrageous breach of proper constitutional practice. Heaven knows, I hold no brief for Mr. Mackenzie King. On the other hand, I have said on occasion that such and such a thing that would be dangerous to my mind is

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perfectly constitutional. I am not concerned with who does it or what party is involved. I do not belong to any party now.
Those are the words of Dr. Forsey.
I have one more quote on page 37 of the same report, Mr. Speaker. Talking about the Government's actions in this matter, he said:
I think the practice is unreasonable, even though it was a relatively short delay, because of the precise circumstances which existed. That is the point. The danger is, as Senator Beaudoin has said, that you cannot fix an exact period, you cannot say two months, three months, four months or nine months. How many grains make a heap? At some point it becomes obviously improper. If you have the precedent of it being done for three months, then you can argue that you can do it for four months. If you can do it for four months you can say, "Well, it's been done for three months and now four months, so you can do it for five months."
Of course, all the way through you have the wonderful argument that it is absolutely legal and that can't be questioned except by a distinguished lawyer like, perhaps, Senator Frith or by an amateur, outsider, non-lawyer like myself. So you will have to have the argument made that it is perfectly legal, therefore everything is forgotten, forgiven, past.
That was the testimony the learned Senator gave before the Senate Committee on National Finance and I suggest that that evidence is cogent, it is reasonable, it is expert testimony and it deals with the issues at hand. The suggestion is very clearly made that this Government has failed to live up to its constitutional responsibilities. It has failed to deal with the business of supply in a reasonable way and it ought to have come to this House and had these estimates voted and approved at that time instead of using these special warrants in the way that it has.
I have another quote from the National Finance Committee. I must say this is a trifle embarrassing, I am sure, for the Government because it is the President of the Treasury Board giving his evidence as to what ought to be done in this case. He was being questioned by Senator Stewart on page 1:25 of the Proceedings of the Senate Committee on May 3, 1989. Senator Stewart asked the following question:
The mere fact that Parliament says you can find that there is an emergency does not mean in every circumstance that it is proper and legitimate to so do. I am not arguing at this point that what you have done is illegal.
I am saying that it is illegitimate under our Constitution. You have not been able to produce a single precedent to support your practice, but you have used Governor General's warrants in a case where a
Parliament has been called into session and the Parliament is adjourned-it is prorogued.
You have not produced a single example which supports your interpretation of this provision. I am spelling out to you what I think is a clear result that may follow from this. Of course, not under your Government but we may have a Mr. Trudeau again, or someone like that. Think what they will do, following your example. If your example is valid -
The Hon. Member laughs. He should listen to this, it is very important.
If your example is valid, do you dispute my assertion that it would then be possible for a government to finance itself the year out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund by Governor General's special warrants? Is there any reason on the supply side that it could not proceed in this way? You have your counsel with you. You know the Constitution and the law. What is the answer?
The President of the Treasury Board (Mr. de Cotret) replied: "First of all if there were a government that had to sit as you say one day and immediately prorogue, then the law would entitle that Government probably to do it". That was the answer the Minister had. In other words, he is taking the view that Parliament could sit one day a year, be prorogued, and the Government could go on all year using special warrants, and help itself to the public funds of Canada. That is what the President of the Treasury Board thinks Section 30 of the Financial Administration Act means. Well, on a straight reading maybe, just maybe he is right. But maybe he is not. Let us assume for a moment he is right. What happens to our constitutional practice? What happens to the rights of Parliament? What happens to our control of government expenditures? It is out the window. We have no more control.
All the Members on the opposite side sitting behind the treasury benches will have no more say in what goes on in government matters because all the moneys will be expended by Governor General's special warrants if the Government chooses to do that. That is not the intention of the Constitution of Canada. That is not the intention of the Constitution Act, 1982. That is not the intention of the Financial Administration Act. So, the interpretation the Government is placing on this Act, in my submission, is doubtful at best. At worst, it is wrong and it should not be countenanced.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: That is the kind of answer the Government is giving, though. Mr. Speaker, let me continue with what the President of the Treasury Board said. Senator Stewart asked: "Do you think that would be legitimate and constitutional? That is an amazing interpretation, Mr. Minister". Mr. de Cotret answered: "I presume it would be legal". Senator Stewart asked: "But would it be legitimate? You are saying it would be legal."
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Mr. de Cotret answers: "We are into a never-never land here". I will say we are. We should never be in this land. We should be dealing with this on a straight-up basis. The Government should be forthcoming and forthright in dealing with this financial matter. The Government should not be relying on the other place to come up with amendments to its Bills in order to sort out the financial mess it has created for itself by its manner of dealing in this case.
Let us look at what is going on here. I would like to turn again to Section 30 of the Financial Administration Act. Section 30-1 have lost it. I should not have set it down.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I want to take this opportunity to thank my friend and give him an opportunity to find his notes.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lewis) is so helpful today. I wish he would agree to the amendment.
Section 30,1 could have done it off the top of my head, but I did not want to confuse the Minister by using words that were not exactly accurate. Section 30 starts off: "Where a payment is urgently required for the public good-". Now, that is the test. There must be urgency in the requirement for the payment. Yet what is the record of the Government in respect to this matter? Well, out of these special warrants it turns out from the operations of the committee in the other place, the Government managed to pay for the inspection of the shrubs at 24 Sussex Drive. This was $27,000 on a stupid expenditure. Now, the word "stupid" is not mine. That is the Prime Minister's word for describing that expenditure. The consideration of $27,000 for inspection of the shrubs to see what would best grow in the gardens of 24 Sussex Drive, which ones needed to be clipped, which ones needed to be trimmed, which ones needed to be pulled out by the roots, what new shrubs were needed to make the grounds look proper. A study worth $27,000-these
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are not new shrubs, this was a study. This was a payment considered urgently required for the public good.
That was considered to be a payment urgently required for the public good, pursuant to section 30 of the Financial Administration Act. The money for that purpose was taken by special Governor General's warrants, and it cost $27,000 for a study of the shrubbery. I read in the newspaper this morning that Mr. Southam said that was not a bad deal because he had paid $10,000 for a similar study on his garden and his garden was much smaller than the garden at 24 Sussex Drive. He thought it was a bit of a bargain. The Prime Minister did not think it was a bargain. He thought it was stupid. Yet he and his Government have advised Her Excellency the Governor General to sign a special warrant stating that those funds were urgently required for the public good. It is a scandal.
There is much more. There is the case of the heralds at Rideau Hall, urgently required for the public good. We had to have heralds at once in order to give coats of arms to certain companies. Those hundreds of thousands of dollars were urgently required for the public good. That is what the Government meant when it had Her Excellency sign these warrants. It certified that the money was urgently required for the public good pursuant to section 30 of the Financial Administration Act, hauling out money to grant coats of arms to its wealthy friends.


An Hon. Member:: How much was that, $600,000?


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Oh, several hundred thousand dollars, to which the Government helped itself through special warrant. It is shocking.
That is not all. There has been the redecoration of Ministers' suites. We read just the other day how the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bouchard) was spending $35,000 soundproofing his office. I can understand that. There are a lot of protestors outside his office, particularly now that we have this problem with laced gasoline. All this money is being appropriated by special Governor General's warrants.
That is not all. In Maclean's magazine, there is a story about the latest problems the Government has faced. Let me read the article:
It was a night to remember as Ambassador Derek Burney and his wife, Joan, entertained 560 guests at the official opening of the Canadian Embassy in Washington last week.

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This must have been paid for out of special warrants as well.
And while Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and his wife, Mila, met such guests as Secretary of State James Baker and Senator Edward Kennedy on the sixth-floor balcony, embassy staff worked hard to make the event run smoothly. There was only one hitch: waiters had to substitute a French vintage for a missing shipment of Canadian wine. Still, embassy officials appeared to have chosen La Fleur brand wine with budgetary considerations in mind. For one thing, the French wines label-which waiters were careful to cover with linen napkins-proclaimed it to be "a premium wine at jug wine prices." A drink with a pleasing taste of fiscal restraint.
If Parliament had been in session, perhaps they could have gotten a better wine because we could have voted them the money, but this was spent under Governor General's special warrants. Perhaps that is why the Canadian shipment did not arrive. Perhaps the Government ran out of money and could not pay the Canadian shipper.
Having spent all this money on wine for the embassy opening, on heralds at Government House, on the study of the shrubbery at 24 Sussex Drive, we are told today that the Government will not have enough money after tonight to pay the veterans' pensions. The Government wasted the money. It used the money it took through Governor General's special warrants for all these crazy purposes it had in mind, authorized to itself under Supplementary Estimates B that were never approved in the House. Now the Government is saying that it does not have enough money left from what it took to pay the veterans their proper pensions. That is a disgraceful way to run the Government of Canada.
Canadians deserve better and this Government should live up to its responsibilities and see that the money is made available. It should have dealt with this matter back in March. Now it is rushing in here and telling us that the other place is holding this up by having passed an innocuous amendment that does not damage the Government's credibility or the substance of the Bill that has been passed.
There is no delay here on the part of the other place. The delay is at the behest of the Government. The Government House Leader himself told the newspapers on Friday that he was not having any of this amendment. All he has to do is say he agrees with it and we would have this amendment through the House today and it would receive Royal Assent tonight. Instead, the Government has brought in this motion to delay the matter further, to suggest that the other place has acted
improperly when in fact it has acted with great circumspection. It has dealt very favourably and positively with the legislation the Government has introduced. It has not suggested a change that damages the Government or alters the appropriation in any way, but one that corrects an apparent anomaly in the activities of the Government and its dealings with Parliament and the rights it may or may not have under section 30 of the Financial Administration Act.
It is very clear that section 30 of the Financial Administration Act requires that three tests be met before funds are transferred or appropriated by way of special warrant, and those three items are that there be an urgent requirement, that Parliament not be in session and that there be no other appropriation by which the payment could be made. The President of the Treasury Board has indicated his view that there was no other appropriation available, and I am inclined to believe him on that point because I think the Government had spent every cent it had and then some.
It is obvious it has to borrow money, and we will be dealing with that when we deal with the borrowing Bill, but it went ahead and borrowed money without the authority of Parliament but under the Financial Administration Act. It obviously had to borrow the money because it had over-spent what had been allocated to it. It introduced these Supplementary Estimates without having us consider them.
It is clear that there was no available way in which payments could be made. I will accept that. Parliament admittedly was not in session though it easily could have been. It is the Government's decision when to adjourn the House and when to call it back, and it was the Government's advice to Her Excellency to prorogue Parliament on February 28 that led to Parliament not sitting in March. It was the Government's advice to Her Excellency to summon Parliament on April 3, which meant that Parliament was not here to deal with this matter in a normal, expeditious manner in March.


Mr. Blenkam:: Her Excellency did it.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Her Excellency did it on the advice of the Ministers of the Crown who sit in this House. The Hon. Member knows that Her Excellency cannot act on her own. She acts on advice from Members opposite. They gave her this advice, and I suggest that it was dreadful advice. They had an obligation to give her good advice. That is why we elect governments. This Gov-

emment gave very bad advice to Her Excellency on this point.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: What are you doing, complaining it was bad advice?


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: I am complaining it was very bad advice and it may well be illegal.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: It is not illegal.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: It is certainly unconstitutional, and that is the point.


William James Kempling: You're a windbag.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: You should have listened to what I said. If you had, you would be agreeing with me. If you had any interest in defending the rights of this place and of your constituents, you would be on your feet saying the same things I am saying, instead of sitting there.
It is a shocking indictment of the Members on the other side that not one has risen to defend Parliament. They all agree with the President of the Treasury Board who has steamrollered this place and run over our rights. He says we have no right to question his judgment, that he acted in accordance with Section 30. If we do not have the right to question that judgment here, as I have said three times already, where do we have the right to question it? I do not have an obligation to go to the Supreme Court of Canada to decide whether the President of the Treasury Board has acted properly. That issue should be decided here, and Those Hon. Members at the back on the opposite side should be on their feet defending Parliament. They used to do it when they sat on this side of the House and when Liberal administrations sat there doing things like this, but they never did anything this bad. Now we are not hearing a peep.
This is an opportunity for Hon. Members to rise and say what they used to say in the past. I have forebome from quoting extensively from speeches made by old velcro lips, the former Hon. Member for Yukon, who used to speak about the rights of Parliament in the most heart-rending way. No one on the other side of the
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House is following up on that kind of discourse. Where have those people gone?
What about Mr. Diefenbaker, who used to stand up for the rights of Parliament? He was a great Parliamentarian and acknowledged on all sides to be so. He fought for and defended the rights of this House. Why is no one rising, as he used to rise, to defend the rights of Parliament to deal with the most fundamental thing that we have to deal with under our Constitution, financial matters? Instead of that, there is dead silence. I say it is a shocking indictment of the Conservative Party and its change in priorities now that it has the responsibility of Government. It should learn to shoulder its responsibilities in accordance with the Constitution.
Their actions, in my submission, Mr. Speaker, under Section 30 of the Financial Administration Act, their dealings throughout the time we have been dealing with Bill C-14, with their method of tabling Estimates late, their failure to request supply in the Speech from the Throne, all of these indicate either a profound ignorance of the workings of the Constitution of Canada, which is shocking for a government, or a blatant disregard for their obligations pursuant to that Constitution to come to this place and present those spending proposals in a timely and sensible way so they can be dealt with in the normal way that Parliament deals with spending controls. It is our function and our responsibility that is being usurped by the Government using these special warrants. Instead of coming here and seeking authority, it goes to Her Excellency and says: "Sign on the dotted line and we will spend the money and thanks very much. We will get any authority we might need later."
In theory, and Senator Stewart and Dr. Forsey pointed it out in their evidence before the Senate committee, the Government could run with one day sitting per year for the next four years and ignore this House. Given the lack of initiative that this Government chose on any legislative matter, it could easily do just that. After all, think how they must have felt come February with those cold winds of February blowing. Boy, I can hear the Minister of Justice closeted with the President of the Treasury Board and the Deputy Prime Minister, saying: "We don't

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want any criticisms in the House of Commons today. We don't want to read about our faux pas in the paper. We don't want to know about leaky budgets. We don't want to know about more possible resignations. We don't want to hear about any scandals.
So let's not have Parliament sit. Let us just govern by special warrant, and we will get all the money we need in special warrants and ignore Parliament because we don't want to have to put up with any embarrassing questions in Question Period. We don't want to have our spending plans reviewed by any committee. We don't want to have our spending plans discussed on the floor of the House where it might get some press attention." That is what is going on here. It is a cover-up operation and this Government has an obligation to come clean. I urge the Government to look at the words of the amendment. See how innocuous the amendment is. There is no criticism in the wording of the amendment of the Government's actions. I can safely say that had I been drafting the amendment it might have been a little stronger.
However, I am prepared to vote for the amendment even on the weakness that it contains; that is, it does not describe accurately in my view the improprieties that occurred. It legalizes whatever has happened, whether it was legal or illegal. I do not believe that in adopting the amendment the Senate has made any statement, that the matter is one way or the other. It has said there is doubt about the matter. To clarify the doubt, it has suggested this amendment to the legislation. I invite the Government to have another look at it, clarify the doubt, withdraw the motion that the President of the Treasury Board moved this morning and substitute another motion approving of the amendment, and let us get this Bill through and get the supply problem looked after. I do not want to see the President of the Treasury Board shedding more crocodile tears over the plight of the people that are not going to get paid. He knows how this can be done and it can be done very expeditiously with a little co-operation from the other side. I invite that co-operation.
We heard the Minister of Justice speaking some time ago about how important co-operation was. I recall the morning after the Budget leaked, he was in here talking about British parliamentary tradition and practice and how important co-operation was. I invite him to show that spirit of co-operation today, Mr. Speaker, and agree to the amendment. He has the power. He is the
Government House Leader. He can convince his colleagues that this amendment is satisfactory. He can get the President of the Treasury Board to withdraw this motion and substitute another that will adopt the amendment proposed in the other place. I invite him to do that, Sir, forthwith.


Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, it is very rare that I would agree with something the Senate has done, but I must admit that this morning that we do agree despite the fact the Senate is not an elected place. What the Senate has done this morning in sending back this Bill to the House is slap the face of the Government. It has said to the Government: "You have done something that is wrong, something that is totally unconventional, something that is not very appropriate."
We have had the use of Governor General warrants four times in the last few months. Governor General warrants are usually used in very abnormal circumstances such as during a federal election campaign or perhaps when there is some other great emergency that prevents the Government from calling back Parliament to vote supply, to vote money for the ongoing expenses of this place. However, there are two things that really concern me about this Bill this morning presented by the government Minister. First, I think it is an affront to the supremacy of Parliament. This is the supreme institution of the land. The rights of Parliament, I believe, are being trampled upon. Second, I believe that the Government was afraid to meet Parliament back in January and February because of the economic activities and mergers that were going on in the country. This place could have been called back. This place should have been called back. In fact, March 6 was the agreed date to come back, but the Government was afraid to meet Parliament. It was afraid to meet this House. As a result, we now have the use of the Governor General warrant where billions of dollars was extended by it instead of being approved by Parliament.On January 19, the Governor General's warrant was used for the first time to spend some $80 million. On February 16, another $500 million was approved by a special warrant of the Governor General.
After the House was supposed to come back on March 6, and do not forget that Parliament was prorogued on February 28, instead of sticking to the original schedule and coming back on March 6 which had been agreed to, which we all expected, the Government was afraid to meet the opposition Parties in the House of Commons,
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and on March 23 issued another Governor General warrant for $891 million.
On April 1, a Governor General warrant was issued for some $6 billion. That was on April Fool's day, two days before the House came back. My argument is that this is an abuse of Parliament. It is highly irregular, highly abnormal to use Governor General warrants in this way. My friends opposite of course are aware of that. The chairman of the Finance Committee is aware of that. He is aware of the conventional practice of Parliament. He is aware of the traditions of this place.
He is aware that the Governor General warrant is very seldom used except when an election is on or except when there is a legitimate excuse for Parliament not to be in session at that particular time. What happened here was very unconventional. What happened here is something that you very rarely see, very abnormal. I am concerned about the supremacy of Parliament. The most important thing about a Parliamentary system of democracy is that a Government has to come to the House and seek the approval of supply, to seek money to pay for the ongoing expense of government programs and government Departments. That is what responsible Government is all about. That is what the supremacy of Parliament is all about. I can imagine the speech that would have been made on this side of the House about 10,12 or 15 years ago by the former Prime Minister, John Diefenbaker.
He would have been making a speech about how the Government of the day was trampling on the rights of Parliament, how the executive had taken unto itself a tremendous amount of power to make decisions without consulting the people's representatives here in the House of Commons. I can remember Mr. Diefenbaker making speech after speech about Mr. Trudeau as Prime Minister ignoring the rights of Parliament and trampling upon the rights of this place and not consulting Parliament. I know the present Minister of Justice (Mr. Lewis) can remember those speeches very well. If Mr. Diefenbaker were here, he would see this as one of the most momentous occasions this year as this Government tramples upon the rights of this place.
Not only Mr. Diefenbaker; two former House Leaders of the Conservative Party, Walter Baker and Jed Baldwin, made speeches about the rights of Parliament being trampled upon, about the precedents of Parliament
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being changed, about conventions being changed by a Cabinet and by a Government across the way which in those days was of course a Liberal Government. The other point, Mr. Speaker, that really concerns me is the establishment of a very dangerous precedent by the Government. If we allow this to go on, if we allow this to proceed, then there is no saying that the Government next year will not do the same thing.
When the Government finds a certain amount of unpopularity over certain issues when Parliament is not in session, it will not recall Parliament. To carry on the expenditures of the Government, it will issue a Governor General warrant. If we let it go through this time, it will happen again, and again, and again. As a parliamentarian, that concerns me. It concerns me that we are abdicating much of our authority and power to the Prime Minister's Office and to Members of the Executive Council who sit across the way. This place will lose the purpose and the raison d'etre as to why Members were elected in the first place.
What we have seen in the last four months is without precedent. No Members on the government side can say that this was done in 1925, 1935, or in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, or 1970s. It is without precedent. That is why we have put forward this motion today. The motion sent here by the Senate states that the payments made by special warrants signed by the Governor General on January 19, February 16, March 23, and April 1, 1989 shall be deemed to have been legal. Of course, the Government disagrees with what the Senate has stated and the sending back of its motion.
One of the arguments I am making is what we are seeing here is the trampling of the rights of Parliament by a very arrogant Government. If Diefenbaker were present in the House, we would hear one of those splendid speeches about the rights of Parliament and the British tradition, and the Conservatives would be standing up and applauding him every minute of the way.
There is a second reason that this happened. It is not only an affront to the supremacy of Parliament, but the Conservative Party of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulro-ney) was afraid to meet Parliament in January, February, and March. The Government was afraid. It had rammed through the free trade Bill on New Year's eve, and it was afraid to do the correct thing and come back here in

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January to get approval of government spending, government funds.
We all remember what happened in January. There were a lot of political issues in this country and the Government was on the wrong side. First, people were upset about the free trade deal and all the fallout from that deal.
Second, there was merger mania. Molson's Brewery merged with Carling O'Keefe. People were concerned about that. PWA, owned by Canadian Airlines, took over Wardair. People were also concerned about that and the concentration of power into fewer and fewer hands. I know the new Minister, the Member for Vancouver Centre (Ms. Campbell) must also be concerned about this.
There was the takeover of Imperial Oil by Texaco Canada. There was also the proposal from Stone Container of Chicago to take over Consolidated Bathurst. Bell Canada Enterprises took over Montreal Trustco. It was merger mania. We sent a letter to the Government House Leader and to the Speaker of the House suggesting that Parliament be recalled to deal with those matters, to have an investigation, and to debate those important issues in the House and with the people of Canada. The Government was afraid to meet the people on those issues, because it was on the side of merger mania and it knew that the people were not.
Not only did the Government not move the start of Parliament up to January or February, but it postponed the date of the commencement of Parliament from March 6 until April 3. The Government did that because it was afraid to meet the people of Canada here on the floor of the House of Commons.
It was not only merger mania, but there was the whole issue of American Express and turning it into a Schedule B bank. The bankers were concerned, and Canadians are concerned about the future of our country. Once again, the Government was on the wrong side of the issue. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) was on the wrong side of the issue. I am sure even the chairman of the finance committee was afraid to face parliament on that particular issue. For that reason, the Government was afraid to call Parliament back. It was afraid to do the correct thing and recall the House of Commons to seek supply. It had to breach the rules of the House and the conventions, and the conventions of the Constitution of Canada and
seek a Governor General warrant to spend $7.5 billion of the people's money without a vote from the House of Commons.
Why else was the Government afraid to meet the House of Commons in February or even on March 6? It was afraid to meet the House of Commons because interest rates were rising and people across the country, including the small business community, farmers, workers, homeowners, and consumers were asking the Government why it did not stop this huge increase in interest rates. Parliament was crying to come back to deal with this important issue of high interest rates. Parliament was also crying to come back to talk to the Government about the deficit.
All of a sudden the Government discovered that the deficit was a big problem. It was not a problem during the election campaign, but it was a problem in the new year of 1989. The Government needed an extra month to run around slashing and cutting the budgets of various Departments which affected ordinary people, such as child care, farm programs, and unemployment insurance. The Government did not want Parliament here interfering by asking legitimate questions on behalf of ordinary Canadians. That is why we did not come back. That is why on April Fools' Day the Government had a Governor General warrant signed for $6 billion. When the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. de Cotret) testified before the Senate he stated that that was a rather large amount, it was abnormal, and that it had not happened before. When he was asked for a precedent, he could not provide any type of precedent, because it had not happened before.
For expedient political purposes and for narrow partisan purposes Parliament was not recalled. The Government, acting as a republican government like that of the United States of America, with the Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council's Office, decided to seek more than $7 billion of money with a Governor General warrant.
If we allow the Government to get away with this, who is to say that when we recess in the summertime, or if there is an unpopular issue next fall that Parliament will not return in September, but perhaps will not return until late in October or November. Once again the Government will use the method under Governor General warrant to pay the pensioners, the veterans, and to
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continue improving the garden at 24 Sussex, or making a closet larger for the Gucci shoes of the Prime Minister.
For narrow, partisan political purposes the Government was afraid to meet the people of Canada here on the floor of the House of Commons. For those reasons, I want to move an amendment to the motion that is before the House. The amendment is seconded by my House Leader, the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis). It states:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after 'April 1, 1989" and substituting with "may respect the letter of the law, but are unconventional and set a dangerous precedent".
We are moving that amendment because the Government may argue that the letter of the law has not been broken. I notice that Eugene Forsey in the Senate has stated that, in his opinion, it is not constitutional. It is certainly not conventional. It is setting a very dangerous precedent.
I say to Members opposite that they will be here forever. If this type of dangerous precedent is set in terms of parliamentary democracy, even if the present Government does not use it again in this session of Parliament, what will prevent a future Government in 10 or 20 years from saying back in 1989 a Conservative Government used a Governor General warrant four times when it could not recall Parliament. It does set a very dangerous precedent. All the testimony to the Finance Committee in the Senate told us that it was indeed very unconventional.
I wish to make one final appeal to Members opposite to think back to the history and tradition of their party. Year after year the Conservative Party used to argue on the floor of the House of Commons about the supremacy of Parliament, about how more power and authority was taken away from Parliament into the Prime Minister's Office. It was taken away from Parliament and given to the Cabinet. It was taken away from Parliament and given to the bureaucracy, Departments, and Deputy Ministers and all the bureaucrats. We heard speech after speech about the supremacy of this place and how important it was that we make decisions about supply. There is no more important issue than voting on the use of the people's money. The money does not belong to
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the Conservative Party of Canada or the Prime Minister. It belongs to the taxpayers.
The Government did not come to Parliament to seek approval for that supply. It did not come to Parliament to seek approval for the appropriation of more money for the Prime Minister's garden, for his closet, for pension cheques or anything else. That sets a dangerous precedent.
I appeal to the best traditions of the Conservative Party to consider our amendment and support it. If it is not supported I believe the Government runs the risk of establishing a precedent that could be very dangerous in the years ahead.
I know that the chairman of the Finance Committee agrees with me. He is an honest and forthright person. He knows the history of this place and the history of his Party. He knows that what happened was irregular and unconventional.
The Minister of Justice knows that as well. He knows what kind of speech he would have made if Pierre Trudeau had done this. He would be moving this kind of amendment and expressing concerns about the blatant disregard of Parliament.
The Minister of Justice knows that his Government was afraid to call Parliament back last February and March. Our House Leader sent him a letter on two or three occasions, requesting that the Government to recall Parliament to discuss the American Express issue, to deal with the question of mergers. He received similar letters from the Liberal Party.
He knows that Canadians wanted Parliament to come back. He knew that the fiscal year would end on March 31 and any money the Government needed should be approved by Parliament. He knew the Government would have to ask the Governor General to sign a warrant for $800 million and another for $6 billion on April 1.
While Parliament could have been called back, the Conservatives were afraid to do so. They were afraid to meet the people of Canada. It was preparing a Budget that would cut and slash day care programs, unemployment insurance programs and programs for ordinary

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people. It was in the process of jacking up interest rates and jacking up the unemployment rate in this country. That is why Parliament was not called back.
In conclusion, I appeal to my friends in the Conservative Party to get up and speak their mind. Let them remember the traditions of their Party. Let them remember the speeches they made on this side of the House when they talked about the supremacy of Parliament, about political expediency. Then they will vote with us in support of this amendment before the House today.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Chair finds the amendment to be in order. Questions or comments.
My question is based on this interview of Mr. Chadder-ton. The question was: "Is that what you think of this whole kerfuffle? That people are being disregarded in this power struggle?" Mr. Chadderton said:
Yes, its very clear to me, and I have been around Ottawa a long time, that the Government was wrong. They tried to put these money Bills through. When the Senate got back into action, the Senate said: "Look, we have the authority" and they sent the Bills back. It is a question of whose right or wrong and of course the Senate, whether we agree with it or not, is doing what it can do. So the Government does not really want to knuckle under to the Senate. And then we see a big play by Doug Lewis, the Government House Leader, who says: "Well of course we are going to try to line up public support by telling them that the pensioners are going to go without their cheques". You know, if this was a major issue I would not think this way but it is not a major issue, it is a little territorial dispute between the Commons and the Senate.
The interviewer then asked:
Well, if that is the case, shouldn't the Senate forget about the amendment and say alright, it is importantthat the veterans gettheir cheques and other people, employees of the Government, civil servants and let us just accept this as it is?
Mr. Chadderton answered:
I would say that until someone decides to abolish the Senate you have to look at constitutionally who is right and who is wrong. And the Senate is doing what it has the power to do. Second, from my
reading it is a fairly simple matter for the Government to go back, rework the money Bill and send it back to the Senate.
So on one hand perhaps we should say: "Yes we will go along with applying pressure to the Senate". I don't think veterans are going to think that way because they know as I know, that the Senate has the power to do what it is doing.
These people have fought for Parliamentary democracy once. I suggest that the interview indicates that they are quite prepared to do it again. The Government should respect the rules of parliamentary democracy.


Ms. Campbell (Vancouver Centre):: You should be ashamed of yourself.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: I am not the least bit ashamed of myself. I am proud to be defending this institution. The Minister should be ashamed of herself for being part of a Government that is trampling on the rights of this House.


William James Kempling: You're a windbag.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: She is the one who should be ashamed. She should be embarrassed to be part of this administration. Does the Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom) not agree with the comments made by that gentleman during the radio interview this morning?


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, I certainly agree. The Government's action is an abuse of the rights of Parliament. It is an abuse of the supremacy of Parliament. If we allow the Government to proceed it will set a dangerous precedent.
We are not talking about a few dollars, we are discussing a Governor General warrant for $6 billion on April 1. This legislation concerns another Governor General warrant for $891 million for March.
Parliament was supposed to return on March 6. It did not come back because the Government was afraid to meet the people of Canada. Instead, it had two Governor General warrants signed for some $7 billion. That has not been done before. We were not at war. The Government could have recalled the House and we could have examined the Supply Bill. Parliament could have passed judgment as to whether it wanted to appropriate this $7 billion for the Government to fulfil its obligations during that period. But it chose not to come back.
If we allow this arrogant Minister of Justice (Mr. Lewis) and the Conservative Party to do this now, it will

happen again. Parliament will be giving greater power to the executive, to the Cabinet and the Prime Minister's Office. This is not a republican system of Government. We are not in the United States.

This is not France with a republican system of government. In Canada, it is different. We have a parliamentary system here.

The most important principle in a parliamentaiy system of government is for the Government to come to Parliament and ask for spending approval.
I know some veteran Members on the other side, like my friend, the Hon. Member for Burlington (Mr. Kem-pling), know that that is true. He is dying to get up and make a speech about how the Government and the Prime Minister are trampling on the rights and traditions of this place. That is precisely what is happening. They are doing it for narrow partisan purposes. They want to prevent us from asking questions about interest rates, mergers, child care or unemployment insurance, or the fact that drought payments have not gone to western Canadian farmers. That is why Parliament was not recalled.
In the meantime the Government was planning a vicious Budget in an assault on ordinary Canadians. It did not want us to ask questions about it. It wants to control the political agenda and news agenda just like the President in the United States and the President in France.
It is time that the Government back-benchers display some courage and independence. It is time they spoke their minds and read the speeches they made, that Diefenbaker made, that Walter Baker and Jed Baldwin made year after year about the supremacy of this place.
Now that the Conservatives are in Government they are opportunists. It is no wonder that people are cynical. It is no wonder that at the next election they will finish third.


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


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.


Bill Attewell: Mr. Speaker, I was pleased to read that Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Shamir's plan for peace was approved by his Cabinet with a 20 to 6 margin.
The plan calls for "free, democratic and secret" elections of leaders in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to negotiate Palestinian self-rule in the territories. The first phase of this plan would have the Palestinians ruling autonomously under the aegis of Israeli military forces for at least three years before talks take place to resolve permanently the status of the occupied lands.
This plan was presented to President Bush in the U.S. six weeks ago. There have already been negative comments from several sources. However, Bethlehem Mayor Elias Freij told Israel's Arabic TV that the plan is a "worthy idea if it is fairly conducted under international supervision with the consent of the PLO and the participation of the residents of East Jerusalem".
I know Canada would be more than willing to assist with any international supervisory process. Let us hope that this latest plan will be a significant step forward to a real and enduring peace.



THE BUDGET


Ms. Ethel Blondin (Western Arctic):: Mr. Speaker, as a northern Canadian, as a native person and as a female, I represent people who have been affected by the Government's Budget beyond anything which could possibly resemble fairness, justice and equality. The poorest of Canada's poor are unquestionably women. The Government obviously finds that satisfactory.

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The Budget continues its punishment, particularly of native people, women and of children, not only in Canada. Now the Government has hit hard the most impoverished people in the world.
Some 50 per cent of all women-led families live well below the poverty line, as do more than four out of every ten single women, most of whom are widows over the age of 65. One in every five Canadian children is being raised in poverty. One in every eight Canadian women is a battered woman.
The Government could not see fit to be sufficiently courageous and caring about these Canadians without spreading its greed even further to the women of the developing world.
I am saddened and ashamed that the Government through its Budget has reinforced the fact that in spite of great wealth and privilege for some, there is a growing under-class of Canadians in which by far the greatest number of disadvantaged are women and their children.



HOUSING


Mr. Jim Karpoff (Surrey North):: Mr. Speaker, recently, the Minister of State for Housing (Mr. Redway) admitted publicly that the Government has not been doing a good job on housing. He invited Canadians to give him a blast.
I would like to draw to his attention two groups of Canadians who are unable to do this because they are fully preoccupied making ends meet. Some 60 per cent of single parent families headed by women and 50 per cent of single elderly women have an income below the poverty line.
The Government's callous budget policies of high interest rates, the gutting of social housing programs and now the imposition of a goods and service tax on housing means a larger number of women are being driven into poverty because of the high cost of housing.
I call upon the Government to reverse its policies so that all women in Canada are able to afford adequate housing. In particular, I call for the full funding of the
co-operative housing program and the reinstatement of the RAAP.
Surely, the Government must consider the needs of these women for shelter, not just the needs of those wealthy people living on Sussex Drive.



REGIONAL INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION


Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion and Minister of State for Science and Technology (Mr. Andre) has announced that the tourism aspect of the business development program in Quebec's resource regions, Gaspe-Magdalen Islands, Lower St. Lawrence, North Shore, Saguenay-Lake St. John, Charlevoix, Northwestern and Northern Quebec, will take effect immediately.
Mr. Speaker, with this program in effect, the resource regions have an action strategy that will enable the tourism industry in each of these regions to participate fully in economic development.



CANADIAN ARMED FORCES


John Harvard: Mr. Speaker, on the weekend I joined the people of Portage la Prairie in protest over the proposed closure of CFB Portage. While hundreds of local people attended the rally, notable by their absence were the local Member of Parliament, the senior Minister for Manitoba, and the Minister of National Defence (Mr. McKnight). It is clear that the Minister of National Defence does not have the courage to come to my home province and face the people there who have been singled out for over one-third of the personnel cuts now proposed for the military.
The effect of the closure on CFB Portage, combined with the cut-backs to Kapyong Barracks in Winnipeg, will have a devastating impact on Manitoba. The closure of CFB Portage alone will result in the loss of some 580 military personnel, 180 civilians, and will pull $20 million directly out of the local economy.
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At the same time, Defence Department spending will increase in Alberta, home of the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski), and in Saskatchewan, home of the Minister of National Defence.
Manitoba is expected to shoulder the burden of deficit reduction. The people of Manitoba ask only for fairness. Why can this Government not be bothered to listen?



JUNIOR HOCKEY LEAGUE


Mr. Geoff Wilson (Swift Current-Maple Creek-As-siniboia):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to report on one of the most remarkable stories in the annals of hockey.
Two winters ago I rose in this House to report on a tragic bus accident which claimed the lives of four members of the Swift Current Broncos Junior Hockey Team. Today, on a much happier note, I pay tribute to the Swift Currrent Broncos, a team imbued with indomitable prairie spirit, a team which picked itself up out of the wreckage of that accident and which, on Saturday, attained the pinnacle of Canadian major junior hockey league supremacy by winning the Memorial Cup.
I want to congratulate Coach Graham James, Bronco President John Rittinger, the players and the entire community of Swift Current and southwestern Saskatchewan, a community which has so solidly supported the team through thick and thin.
I know that all Members of the House will want to join with me in congratulating the Swift Current Broncos.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



NATIONAL ACTION COMMITTEE ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN


Ms. Lynn Hunter (Saanich-Gulf Islands):: Mr. Speaker, Rosamaria Ruiz, a journalist and community health worker from Bolivia, addressed several hundred women at the annual general meeting of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women. Her presentation was a sobering assessment of the present state of the global economy, and was a call for solidarity among
women who are the hardest hit by economic recessions, poverty and war.
It is sad that at a time when Canada could be taking a leading role in the movement for international peace and justice, the Conservative Government is taking the opposite direction by reducing Canada's aid to countries in need. Countries in the Third World are faced with crippling foreign debt. It is from their experience that we must learn about dealing with our own.
Canada must not withdraw from the problems of international development but, rather, should be seeking, in co-operation with poorer countries, new and creative ways to achieve prosperity and justice for all.



FITNESS AND AMATEUR SPORT


Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough-Rouge River):: Mr. Speaker, on September 26, 1988, the Minister of State for Fitness and Amateur Sport (Mr. Charest) purported to ban, for life, a constituent of mine, Mr. Ben Johnson, from participating on Canadian national teams. He did this without providing any form of hearing to Mr. Johnson. To accomplish this, the vehicle he used was the media.
Given that the Fitness and Amateur Sport Act provides funding mechanisms only, where does the Minister get his authority to ban anyone from competing? The enabling statute makes no provision for banning anyone from sports competition.
If the Minister had read Section 2 of the Fitness and Amateur Sport Act, he would have realized that the Minister responsible for that Act is the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Beatty) and not himself.
This Minister of State for Fitness and Amateur Sport, full of self-importance, announced to the world that he was going to ban my constituent from competing in Canada when no Minister is empowered to do such a thing and when, incredibly, he legally is not even the Minister responsible for his own statute.
This is another example of the arrogance of the Conservative Government and an example of its lack of respect for the liberties of the individual.

May 15, 1989



NATIONAL DEBT


Mr. Scott Thorkelson (Edmonton-Strathcona):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring to the attention of the House the patriotic actions of a constituent of mine.
This Saturday I held a town hall meeting in the Windsor Park Community League Building to discuss the Budget, the annual deficit and the national debt. At that meeting Mrs. Rita Bustin, a kindergarten school teacher and single parent, presented me with a cheque for $100 made payable to the Government of Canada. Mrs. Bustin gave me this money to put toward the national debt, not the interest but the principal. I applaud Mrs. Bustin and other Canadians like her who are so concerned about the debt and want to do something about it.
Thus, to the Hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson), the best Finance Minister this country has ever had, I stand in this House to offer the $100 cheque Mrs. Bustin gave to me this weekend.



HUMAN RESSOURCES


Ms. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, a humane society does not want to go back to a time when women were criminals for exercising their right to reproductive choice. Reproductive choice is a basic human right.
We must keep this right, we must ensure that abortion is in no case again considered a criminal act by restoring funding for family planning, by conducting more research to develop safe, effective contraceptives and finally, by ensuring that all women in Canada have equal access to reproductive health services.



EMPLOYMENT


Mrs. Gabrielle Bertrand (Brome-Missisquoi):: Mr. Speaker, people sometimes wonder about the purpose of
our job strategy programs. Under the previous government, they only generated temporary jobs without prospects for the future. Today, these programs are meant to give workers an opportunity to get into or get back into the labour market.
In a press release issued last week, an organization in my riding called "La traversee intemationale du lac Memphremagog'' said, and I quote: "The training and job experience La traversee intemationale gave these workers and students helped them acquire new skills, make contacts within the job environment and adjust to that environment."
Mr. Speaker, a follow-up of the twelve employees revealed some very positive results: one permanent job with La traversee intemationale; one permanent job in the private sector; three full-time jobs in the private and community sectors; two part-time jobs in the private and community sectors; one start-up of a private business and four returns to full-time studies.
Mr. Speaker, that is good news for the people in the Magog area and my riding.



HOCKEY CHAMPIONSHIPS


Mr. Joe Comuzzi (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Mr. Speaker, two Canadian sporting events took place last weekend that affected the City of Thunder Bay. I am pleased to report to this House that on Saturday, the Thunder Bay Flyers hockey team beat Prince Edward Island to win the Centennial Cup Junior "A" Hockey Championship. This is the first time that this cup has come to Thunder Bay.
Also, this past week the Thunder Bay Twins hockey team won their fifth Allan Cup Senior Hockey Championship. This sets a Canadian record for the number of Allan cups won by the Thunder Bay Twins. The efforts of the Flyers' coach, Dave Siciliano, and the Twins' coach, Bill MacDonald, and the outstanding performance of all the hockey players should be commended.
May 15, 1989

Thunder Bay and northern Ontario are convincingly emerging as the hub of amateur hockey in Canada, proving once again that rural and small town Canada does produce winners.



FORESTRY


Mr. Brian White (Dauphin-Swan River):: Mr. Speaker, there are now more than 100 forest fires burning in Manitoba. One of the worst is in my riding in western Manitoba. It started Thursday and as of one hour ago now encompasses 120,000 acres.
The communities of Cowan, Briggs Spur, and Renwer have been evacuated. The main highway, No. 10, has been closed. A state of emergency is in effect for the Minitonas and Mountain area. All access to the Duck and Porcupine Mountains has been closed.
The dedicated people working for the Manitoba Department of Natural Resources are doing a superhuman job in handling the logistics of battling such a destructive fire. Also involved are 120 firefighters, 21 cats, 12 skidders, 7 helicopters, and 4 water bombers.
The current situation is described as stable but extremely volatile due to near 30 degree Centigrade heat and variable winds. What is needed now more than anything else is rain.
* # *



ENVIRONMENT


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, Canadians who care about the global environment are wondering why the Budget overlooked $5 billion in federal subsidies to fossil fuel mega projects.
The Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Epp) says the energy mega projects represent the country's best strategy to remain self sufficient. The Minister is wrong on two counts. The International Energy Agency informs us we are using inefficiently 30 per cent of our energy. Therefore, if we learn to use energy efficiently we would rediscover an extra 30 per cent of energy we presently waste.
Second, we have a responsibility in reducing the trend in global warming. The mega projects would consider-
Oral Questions
ably increase carbon dioxide pollution in Canada at a time when the world is looking for ways of cutting such pollution.
Why does the Minister of Energy ignore the environment while the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) proclaims his commitment to sustainable development?



WOMEN'S ISSUES


Mr. Neil Young (Beaches-Woodbine):: Mr. Speaker, over the weekend hundreds of women came from across Canada to meet in Ottawa to discuss issues not only of importance to women but to Canadians generally. Amongst the issues that they discussed were concerns about child care, about native rights, about pensions, about issues affecting the disabled, in fact, issues concerning all Canadians.
Yet, Mr. Speaker, this morning when these hundreds of women stayed over to talk to politicians who have it in their power to do something to address those concerns, the Government decided not to show up.


Some Hon. Members:: Shame, shame.


Neil Young: I do not think that is at all acceptable, either to the women of Canada or to Canadians generally.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: Oral Questions. The Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Right Hon. John N. Turner (Leader of the Opposition):: My question is for the Minister of Finance and it concerns the closures and reductions at Armed Forces bases as a result of his Budget. He should know by now that western Prince Edward Island has been devastated by the closing of Summerside, and that 40 per cent of the

May 15, 1989
Oral Questions
military cuts contemplated by the Budget fall on the people of Manitoba.
I would like to refer him to a situation in New Brunswick. I would like to quote a press release of April 21, 1988, which states:
The Minister of National Defence, the Honourable Perrin Beatty, announced today plans to keep Canadian Forces Base, (CFB) Chatham, N.B., as a viable, operating base.
'I am pleased to reassure the community of Chatham that our commitments will not only be kept, but enhanced,' said Mr. Beatty. This activity will ensure that the Chatham airfield remains fully operational well into the 1990's.
That is the end of the quote, Mr. Speaker. In an attempt to win seats in the last federal election in New Brunswick, the Minister of National Defence of the day went out of his way to assure the people of Chatham and the people of New Brunswick, by way of a special announcement, that the CFB base at Chatham, New Brunswick, would be increased in size and remain fully operational.
How does the Government now justify violating the promise to the people of New Brunswick? How does the Government now justify slashing the operations of the CFB base at Chatham?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Hon. Mary Collins (Associate Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the Leader of the Opposition is well aware of the financial situation that we face in this country-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mary Collins: -and the need primarily to deal with the deficit. We in the Department of National Defence must also participate in those reductions-


An Hon. Member:: We have heard that record before.


Mary Collins: -and, as he knows, the $2.74 billion reduction over the next five years. In making decisions about how we will make those reductions, we obviously had to look at the infrastructure support for the military and decisions have been made upon the advice of our militaiy advisers.
With respect to Chatham, there will be some reductions of personnel at Chatham. The Chatham base, of course, continues to exist but Chatham along with another 13 bases and stations across the country will
have to be reduced in order to meet those objectives of the $2.74 billion, to reduce the deficit which is so important for our Government and for the children of the future.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, if all that were so, why did the Minister of National Defence of the day go out of his way to make that special undertaking to the people of Chatham?


An Hon. Member:: Right on!


WHITE PAPER ON DEFENCE-SCRAPPING OF 1987 POLICY
John Napier Turner: I would like to say to the Minister, if the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister are not intervening, it is both offensive to the people of Canada and dangerous that this Government has adopted a defence policy in scrapping its 1987 White Paper on Defence, not based on military priorities or based on our commitments to our allies, but on purely partisan politics.
That fact is, the closures or reductions announced by the Minister of Finance at Canadian Forces bases in Summerside, Gander, Sydney, Moncton, Chatham, Ottawa, North Bay, London and Winnipeg all have one thing in common; they are in ridings held by Liberal Members of Parliament. Nine of the fourteen base reductions in this country are in ridings held by the Liberal Party. Are we supposed to believe that this is a coincidence, Mr. Speaker? Are Canada's military needs now being based on partisan considerations with no military rationale at all?


Mr. Clark (Yellowhead):: How paranoid.


John Napier Turner: Does the Minister of Finance believe that Canada's defence budget is a disguised Conservative slush fund?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. McDermid:: What a crock. I can't believe it.


Mary Collins: Mr. Speaker, I am absolutely amazed and disappointed that the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition would make such allegations, allegations which he knows are false. In fact, if he would talk to some of his colleagues who had served in the Defence portfolio over previous years they could tell him of the requirements of
May 15, 1989

the Armed Forces and that some of these changes have been required for a number of years.
Those decisions are made on the basis of military effectiveness and military operations. Ask my colleague, the Member from Portage-Interlake, how he feels about it. He, as others across the country, are obviously concerned and we understand their concerns. We are working with those members, with those communities to help them in the re-adjustment process and we have a workforce re-adjustment process to help the civilian population.
But, Mr. Speaker, once again, we say those decisions are made on the basis of the advice from the military on how we can meet our defence objectives-


Mr. Allmand:: Baloney. Cut it out.


Mary Collins: -most effectively with the greatest degree of cost efficiency, and I would think that the Opposition Party would be applauding us for our ability to undertake this activity.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr.   Tbmer@Vancouver Quadra: Mr. Speaker, the fact is that there is no military justification for this at all. The 1987 White Paper on Defence has been absolutely gutted by what the Minister of Finance and the Minister of National Defence have done.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr.   Tiiraer@Vancouver Quadra: One thing Canadians expect, whether they vote Conservative or Liberal or NDP, is fair treatment from their Government no matter where they live.


JUSTIFICATION OF MILITARY BASE CLOSURES
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I have one more question for the Minister. How can she justify closing a base without considering the consequences for the communities concerned? How can she justify it for military reasons or because of foreign policy, if the main reason was a political one? How can she justify this to Canadians?


Mary Collins: Mr. Speaker, again I am surprised at the comments of the Leader of the Opposition. When the
Oral Questions
Liberals were in Government they ravaged the Department of National Defence.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mary Collins: They reduced our numbers in NATO by half. Since this Government has been in power over the last four years, we have increased substantially the funding for the Department of National Defence and for our military personnel. In fact, in the coming year, expenditures will actually increase, though we will continue that increase at a slower level, in order to assist in the long-term objectives of ensuring that we have financial viability in this country. That is the only way we can ensure the security of this country as well.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


STATUS OF WOMEN
Ms. Mary Clancy (Halifax):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister Responsible for the Status of Women. Given the Minister's cancelling this morning's Cabinet appointment with the NAC lobby, the Secretary of State's funding to REAL Women, an anti-equality group, and the budget cuts in child care combined with tax hikes that will attack deliberately Canadian working mothers, does this mean, as it so sadly appears, that the Minister has completely repudiated any Government commitment to gender equality and left Canadian women in the lurch?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, I would first like to clarify for the record that we did not refuse to meet with the National Action Committee. We suggested that the meeting take a different format, something that we found very successful with some other people.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Barbara Jean McDougall: We did not boycott the meeting. Quite the reverse. I would like to make two or three other points, however.
First, we take women's issues very seriously and we have the record to prove it.
Second, in taking those issues seriously we have found private group consultations with Ministers to have been very helpful in the development of policy. I might point out that the Prime Minister met with the executive of NAC twice. He is the only Prime Minister who has done so. The Leader of the Opposition, when he was Prime

May 15, 1989
Oral Questions
Minister, did not. Nor did the former Prime Minister. Out of all of those meetings with NAC and with other groups we have been able to develop some policies that have been beneficial to Canadian women.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, it is understandable why Members on the other side of the House were reluctant to meet with NAC.


RESIGNATION OF PRESIDENT OF PC WOMEN'S FEDERATION
Mary Catherine Clancy: My supplementary question to the same Minister, Mr. Speaker. Judith Hendin, the elected president of the PC Women's Federation, resigned four months ago citing a lack of respect for women's groups within elected PC circles.
Since this Government obviously is callously indifferent to the concerns of women in this country, will the Minister take a stand against the Government and fight to restore child care programs, remove the terrible taxes attacking Canadian women and other Budget measures that are detrimental to women and will she take this stand today?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, I have not seen the transcript of what Ms. Hendin actually said, but I do know the government record in terms of the most recent two appointments to the Supreme Court, six women appointed to Cabinet, 30 per cent of appointments of women in all the government agencies as compared with what the former Government did. In terms of policy development, we have announced in the Speech from the Throne a royal commission on NRIk and we have put parental benefits into the new unemployment insurance-


Mr. Simmons:: What about child care?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Well, the Member talks about child care after years of inaction. The Liberals said hold off the child care legislation.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Barbara Jean McDougall: We have increased the child tax credit. There is $2.3 billion worth of child tax credit in this Budget. We have a $100 million special initiatives fund for child care spaces for women most in need, immigrant women and native women. We have agreed
that before this mandate is over we will meet all of the objectives of our child care policy.


NATIONAL ACTION COMMITTEE ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister who just spoke about years of inaction in child care. Her Government has added years of inaction to years of inaction in child care. That is all.


Charles Joseph Clark: You are positively poetic.


John Edward Broadbent: The National Action Committee on the Status of Women for almost two decades has been very influential outside the House of Commons in building support for pay equity, affirmative action programs, aboriginal rights, child care, pensions and perhaps most significant of all, in 1982 it was responsible for mobilizing Canadians to get built in to our Charter of Rights the finest provision of any Charter of Rights in the world to protect the equality of women. I point out to the Minister that that is what NAC has done for all Canadians.
In this context, given NAC's persistent work in building equality of conditions for men and women in this country, how could the Government have the nerve, to put it directly, to cut its budget by 50 per cent?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, first, just dealing with some of the preamble, this Government put through the Pension Benefits Standards Act which introduced credit splitting and survivors' benefits in a way that had never before been in pension plans. In terms of the other issues, such as employment equity, we have put in place an employment equity plan which is working.


William Warren Allmand: Window dressing.


Barbara Jean McDougall: I think the history of the National Action Committee certainly shows it has made a contribution to women in Canada. There is no question about that. When NAC first began this lobby day, it was the only group and that was the only way it could have access to the Government. That is not true any more. In this Government, Mr. Speaker, Ministers are accessible. The National Council of Women was here last month and had nine hours of meetings with Ministers and Ministers' staff so we could discuss in depth some of the issues that they care about. The Catholic Women's League met with individual Ministers at great length. I have met with the
May 15, 1989

Canadian Federation of University Women and with the Girl Guides. There is now a range of womens' groups that have talked to the Government as individual groups, and out of that comes real influence on policy'.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, the Minister knows that the format NAC uses is indeed a critical format applied to parties in opposition as well as the Government, and that is why it wants to retain that format and that is why the Government should be there.


HEALTH AND WELFARE
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister responsible for pensions, my question is addressed to the Minister of Finance. The most recent NAC effort, among others, has put emphasis on the Government's intention to turn universal social programs like pensions and family allowances into means-tested programs. It has correctly pointed out that by increasing the numbers of those who will be affected by this means-tested approach annually, average and poor income Canadians will be affected one day as well.
The Minister responsible for pensions said on the weekend, and I am sure I quote her accurately, that nine out of ten pension groups she has spoken with have supported this measure. This contradicts all of our experience.
I met with the National Pensions Group on Friday and have consulted with some nine or ten other groups, all of which take the opposite position. Will the Minister of Finance please tell the House what pension groups support the Government on its incredibly regressive position on both pensions and family allowances?


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I think the Hon. Member's rhetoric got out in front of him again. This is not a regressive measure. We are applying through the tax system, not through a
Oral Questions
means test, a heavier level of taxation on a particular government program. This is the same way we deal with the child tax credit, which is phased out as incomes rise. For those who earn over $50,000, these government programs are phased out using the tax system, not a means test, which we find to be an objectionable approach. We find that the use of the tax system is quite an acceptable approach. It has been used for years in some of these other social programs.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, George Orwell would understand this well. If at a certain point the whole pension is gone, that is a means test, whatever the Minister wants to call it. That is what the Government has done.


REQUEST FOR PRODUCTION OF LIST
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, the Minister failed to answer the questions. On the weekend, the Minister responsible for senior citizens in Canada said that 9 senior citizens groups out of 10 agreed with the Government's decision to cut pensions. Our experience has been the exact opposite, and the Government has a responsibility to name these groups. This morning, I asked for a list but the Minister did not respond. Will the Minister of Finance, who has said practically the same thing in the past, give Parliament this list?


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I will give the Hon. Member the answer again. The Hon. Member should know that there is a specific reason for these measures and that is the fact that there is a substantial Government debt. Senior citizens understand the implications of this. Years ago, 12 cents of every tax dollar was spent on interest on the public debt. Ten years ago, the figure was 25 cents and this year it will be 35 cents. Senior citizens understand that if we do not stop that progression, we will not be able to maintain our social programs. We are committed to maintaining those social programs and that is precisely why we are taking-

Oral Questions


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF SPEAKER OF HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY OF BARBADOS
Mr. Speaker:: I wish to draw to Hon. Members' attention the presence in the gallery of the Hon. Lawson Weekes, Speaker of the House of Assembly of Barbados.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF U.S. CONGRESSMAN
Mr. Speaker:: I wish to draw to Hon. Members' attention the presence in the gallery of Mr. Gary Ackerman, Congressman from the United States of America.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF B.C. MINISTER OF REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Speaker:: I wish to draw to Hon. Members' attention the presence in the gallery of the Hon. Elwood Veitch, Minister for Regional Development for the Province of British Columbia.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF SECRETARY GENERAL OF COMMONWEALTH PARLIAMENTARY ASSOCIATION
Mr. Speaker:: I wish to draw to Hon. Members' attention the presence in the gallery of Dr. the Hon. David Tonkin, Secretary General of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Mr. George Proud (Hillsborough):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence. Yesterday, over 10,000 islanders participated in a march to protest the closure of CFB Summerside. This should indicate to the Government and to all of Canada just how seriously Prince Edward Islanders take this issue. Will the Government reverse its decision to close this base?


Mary Collins: Of course, I recognize the concern of the people of Summerside, but I must tell the Hon. Member that we will not reverse the decision to close the base at Summerside. We will, however, work with the community. Already the Mayor of Summerside has met with the
Minister and with my staff. We will be working together with a provincial task force to work out plans that will hopefully develop alternative economic activity in the Summerside area.


ALTERNATE PROPOSALS-GOVERNMENT POSITION
George Albert Proud: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the same Minister. The Minister talks about alternatives. The people of Summerside and the people of Prince Edward Island do not consider alternatives to this base at this time. How can forcing 38 per cent of the labour force of Summer-side to depend on UIC and welfare contribute to a reduction in the deficit, particularly in light of the other viable alternative that was presented by my colleague from York Centre, the sale of CFB Downsview? Will this be considered?


Mary Collins: Mr. Speaker, as we said in the House last week, the functions that have been carried out at CFB Summerside will no longer be required and it is not an appropriate base for transfer of activities presently being carried out at Downsview. We will, however, through our workforce adjustment program, be assisting those civilian employees presently working at Summerside to find alternative employment and we will be providing for them an extremely generous package. I am sure the Hon. Member will want to participate in a task force to work with the community to look at alternative economic development activities. It is not as if the military is the only option for Prince Edward Island. I am sure there are many people who are interested in the tremendous opportunities that could arise. They could consult with one of my colleagues who has lived through a base closure in her own riding and has found that indeed, better activities resulted. They were able to find alternative economic opportunities.


FISHERIES
[Stage Direction]
1989 QUOTAS-TASK FORCE REPORT
Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, or, in his absence, whoever answers for him at the moment. There was such an uproar in Atlantic Canada last February over the fish quotas for 1989 that the Government and the Minister in particular were forced to appoint a special review panel to assess the size of the stocks, which panel's report ought to be in the
May 15, 1989

hands of the Minister today. Would the Minister confirm that Dr. Harris and his committee agree with the methods used by the scientists in assessing the stocks and would he now indicate what the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and the Government plan to do about the fish stock problem now that they cannot blame the scientists any longer, can no longer use them as scapegoats?


Hon. John C. Crosbie (Minister for International IVade):: Mr. Speaker, the interim report from Dr. Harris and his task force is expected today. It may have arrived this morning. The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans may have received it. The Acting Minister of Fisheries and Oceans has not seen it. If it is received today, it will receive very careful study and in due course, the Government will announce how it intends to proceed in view of the advice given by Dr. Harris and the members of his task force who will be continuing their work. Their work will continue for the remainder of this year, and this will only be an interim report. But, Mr. Speaker, we are not looking for scapegoats. We want to help the fishermen and the people of eastern Canada. Let the Liberal Party keep looking for scapegoats. We are not interested.


OVERFISHING BY FOREIGN VESSELS
Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the same Minister. As he knows, the fishing industry in Atlantic Canada is still reeling from National Sea's announcement of severe cut-backs last week, cut-backs that will affect literally thousands of fishermen and plant workers throughout Atlantic Canada, particularly in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Will the Minister from St. John's West be good enough to inform the House what steps, if any, are being taken now to stop the complete and utter annihilation of the fish stocks in the north Atlantic? Will he indicate whether the Prime Minister has finally recognized the serious nature of the overfishing problem by foreign vessels? Has the Prime Minister and the Government finally agreed to intervene in the process and to place it on their national agenda while there are still some fishing jobs left to protect?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
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John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has had this on his agenda and on the Government's agenda for a considerable time. If the hon. gentleman wanted to read the Speech from the Throne, he would see the matter dealt with in the Speech from the Throne. I might point out to the hon. gentleman that while he was a Liberal Member and the Liberal Government was in office from 1983 onward, they gave away 47,500 tonnes of fish to the European community and 7,700 tonnes to France while the hon. loudmouth was a member of that Government.


EMPLOYMENT
Ms. Dawn Black (New Westminster-Burnaby):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration who is also the Minister responsible for the Status of Women. In British Columbia, the Government's new fish landing regulations have threatened some 6,000 processing jobs. On the Atlantic Coast, corporate decisions to close facilities and lay off workers is now threatening the livelihood of several hundred workers. Considering that approximately 70 per cent of these workers are women, many of them visible minority women, who are currently receiving fair wages, how does the Minister expect these women to feed themselves and to feed their families now that her Government, through its actions, have destroyed these jobs?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, I do not accept the suggestion that this Government has destroyed those jobs. Clearly there is a problem in the fishing industry. My colleague, the Minister of International Trade, is well aware of this. We are well aware of it on both coasts. My Department has been working with the local communities through the Industrial Adjustment Service, and other programs that we have at our disposal, because we recognize very much the seriousness of this to the workers involved, and we will continue to do so.


EMPLOYMENT INSURANCE-QUALIFYING PERIOD
Dawn Black: Mr. Speaker, this Government has destroyed the processing industry in British Columbia.

May 15, 1989
Oral Questions


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Dawn Black: Now we see the corporate sector doing the same thing to the East Coast. The Minister knows that for many women who work in the fishing industry, even finding 10 weeks of work is difficult, let alone 16 weeks to qualify for UI. Will the Minister reconsider her UI proposals and stop penalizing these women who have no alternatives?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, first, the current UI program remains in effect. Second, the new program is going to benefit women in a way that unemployment insurance has not before because many of these women are in a position of needing training. Some of them need language training, and this Government has introduced language training veiy aggressively for women in the labour force. We have put an extra $25 million into language training in the fall. We have bridging programs and training programs that never existed before; they will give women a more stable future, one in which they will not have to rely on a cyclical job at the low end of the scale.


FOREST FIRES
Brian White: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Associate Minister of Defence. As the Minister is aware, forest fires in Manitoba have been causing great damage to our natural resources and to personal property. Over the weekend, a state of emergency was put into effect for the Minatona and mountain area in my constituency. Would the Minister please explain to Manitobans the possible role of the Government of Canada when such emergencies occur?


Mary Collins: Mr. Speaker, I think first that all Members of the House would share in the shock and sorrow of the devastating forest fires that are sweeping through Manitoba. As the Member may know, the provincial Government has a primary responsibility for fighting forest fires, but through Emergency Preparedness Canada, we are prepared to respond with whatever resources may be required. The only requests we have received to date have been for assistance with a helicopter which was provided by DND for evacuation, and additionally
through CMHC, the provision of 60 houses which could be used for evacuees. I know as well that my colleague responsible for Indian Affairs and Northern Development is working with the Indian reserves which have been affected by the fires. I might add that if there are additional resources or assistance that the federal Government can provide, I am sure that the Government of Manitoba and my colleague will be in touch with us.


CANADA-U.S. FREE TRADE AGREEMENT EFFECTS ON SOUND RECORDING INDUSTRY
Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister. During and before the course of the election campaign, the Prime Minister and many of his Ministers gave countless hundreds of assurances that nothing in the Free Trade Agreement would in any way affect the cultural industries of Canada. We now have a report, prepared by the Government's own officials in the Department of Industry and Commerce, which clearly states that the Free Trade Agreement will undermine the sound recording industry in Canada, and thereby substantially undermine the careers, futures and opportunities of countless musicians and performing artists in this country.
My question to the Prime Minister is simple. Sir, why did you break your promise? Are you going to take this report seriously and do something to help the sound recording industry? Are you going to do something for the artists in this country?
Mr. Speaker The Hon. Member knows that he should address the Minister when he is making a question through the Chair. I would ask for his co-operation.


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman is quoting from a newspaper CP report that I saw in the Montreal Gazette today. Without newspapers, there, of course, would be no questions in this House.
As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, the information contained in the news story was taken from a Department of Industry profile that was made public more than five months ago, and the hon. gentleman has only come across it now. Might I read the comment to him of Brian Robertson, President of the Canadian Recording Indus-
May 15, 1989

try Association? He said, "The report isn't worth the paper it's printed on".


DEPARTMENTAL REPORTS RESPECTING AGREEMENT
Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I am aware that the Hon. Minister had a little trouble getting around to reading when the Free Trade Agreement was being negotiated. It is a great tragedy that he has not even bothered to read the reports prepared by officials in his own Government's Department. I have here, Mr. Speaker, 14 reports covering major sectors of the Canadian economy all of which say that the Free Trade Agreement has had a seriously negative effect on these industries. Jobs will be lost as well as opportunities and economic growth.
When is the Minister going to start reading his reports? When is he going to start doing something about them? When is this Government going to take its responsibilities seriously and start responding to the fact that the Free Trade Agreement is undermining Canadian industries and culture?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, this is the same hon. gentleman who several months ago said we have to forget all this frippery and froppery about the Free Trade Agreement and get on with life. Now he is up here fripping and fropping it again. Might I point out to the hon. gentleman that Chrysler Chairman, Lee Iacocca, has said: "American industry cannot compete as effectively unless something is done about the great imbalance between health care costs in the U.S. and the national health care systems in virtually every other country. We spend almost 50 per cent more per capita in health care than Canada." The poor devils are crying out for harmonization now with our policies.


HOUSING
Mr. Joe Fontana (London East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Housing who seems to have invited Canadians to give him and his government a blast. So I intend to do just that for the moment.
Oral Questions


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Joseph Frank (Joe) Fontana: Two weeks ago the Minister assured the House that the Government was committed to affordable housing, and that the great Canadian dream of owning a house was not dead.
T\vo days later the Budget came down and it told us a different story. In fact, it states exactly the opposite. Now there are more taxes on construction materials, a new tax on housing, cancelled program, cuts in funding, cuts in caring, and continued high interest rates.
Where is the help for ordinary Canadians in the Budget? Where in the Budget are the homeless to look for help? Where is the help for those who dream of owning that home? Where in the Budget are those who are looking for affordable homes to look for help? Mr. Minister, where is that help?


Hon. Alan Redway (Minister of State (Housing)):: Mr. Speaker, if the Hon. Member had been in the House last week, or the week before, and if he had read the Budget material in the Estimates, he would have seen that in fact the housing budget this year is increasing by $100 million. That fact alone will help Canadians.
There are also other matters that we are looking into at the moment. Before very long, I am sure that the Hon. Member will be applauding the Government for its actions in making housing a priority in the country.


USE OF LANDS AT DOWNSVIEW-GOVERNMENT COMMITMENT
Mr.   Joe. Fontana@London East: Mr. Speaker, after that answer, no wonder Canadians should blast the Minister and the Government.
Last week the Minister said to people in Toronto: "I wish we were leading the charge, but I don't believe we are doing that at the moment". I would like to suggest that he is bringing up the rear, and so is his Government.
Before the Minister was brought into the Cabinet, he called for all the lands in Downsview to be used for affordable housing. Today 25 per cent of those lands are being used for affordable housing. That is only one-quarter. Obviously the Minister has buckled under pressure and has sold out his convictions.

May 15, 1989
Oral Questions
Will the Minister renegotiate and again look at the plans for Downsview to use all the lands for affordable housing in order that the people in Toronto can have a house to buy?
Hon, Alan Redway (Minister of State (Housing)): Mr. Speaker, again, as the Hon. Member is aware, back in September, the Government released 135 acres of the Downsview air base site for housing in the Tbronto area. At that time it was indicated that at least 25 per cent, in accordance with the provincial guideline, would be affordable housing, that is, would be social housing, geared-to-income housing.
In respect of the rest of that particular property, certainly it is my intention, and the intention of the Government, to ensure that that housing would be made available, if at all possible, for first-time home buyers, and to make it housing that is affordable for Canadians.
Of course, we would need the co-operation of the municipality which controls the zoning on that property, and we hope that we will have it in order to make sure that there is housing available for Canadians, and that it is affordable.


CHILD CARE
Ms. Joy Langan (Mission-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Hon. Minister of Health and Welfare.
Province after province has reported that the Government's unfulfilled commitments to child care in the Budget will mean that thousands upon thousands of desperately needed new child care positions will not be created. Yet, the Minister is reported to have said that dumping this Bill is no big deal.
Will the Minister please tell Canadian families what he meant by his statement, and explain his intentions regarding introduction of a child care Bill that more truly reflects the needs of Canadians families and their children?


Hon. Perrin Beatty (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, I can certainly correct the preamble of the question. First, I did not say that dumping this Bill was no big deal. What I did say is that
Members opposite opposed the Bill from the outset. Now we find when the Government has decided that it cannot proceed they cry crocodile tears and pretend they were in favour of it.
After all the filibustering, and after all the efforts made by Members of the Opposition to oppose the Bill, it is astonishing that they now see a charm to the Bill that did not exist before.
What I have said is that we expect a 20 per cent increase in federal transfers to the provinces under the Canada Assistance Plan for child care this year. It is totally open-ended. The federal Government will pay 50 per cent of all costs incurred by the provinces which are eligible. CAP is directed particularly at those people who are in need. Members opposite should be concerned about people who are in need.


MINISTER'S POSITION RESPECTING CHILD CARE
Joy Langan: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the same Minister. Members on this side of the House have never for one moment said that we were in favour of the child care Bill that did not pass. We have continually been asking the Government if and when it will introduce a child care Bill that will clearly reflect the needs of working women, children, and working families.
As a result of his answer, will the Minister explain to the House why he was not able to bring himself to attend the National Action Committee on the Status of Women lobby this morning to explain his position on child care?


Henry Perrin Beatty: Mr. Speaker, Members of the House will be grateful for the Hon. Member's assurance that she has not suddenly flip-flopped on the issue of the Bill that she mentioned earlier. For so long Members of the Opposition filibustered the legislation, said they were completely opposed to it, that it was worse than nothing, and now they pretend they are concerned about its fate.
My colleague, the Minister responsible for the Status of Women, spelled out very clearly to the House the willingness of Members on this side to meet with NAC, and that we would welcome that. What we proposed is that we have a chance to sit down with them to discuss their concerns in an atmosphere that made it possible to do that.



We remain committed to child care. We remain committed to increasing funding for child care this year. We remain committed to realizing the rest of our commitments within the life of this Government.



DANGEROUS PRODUCTS


[Stage Direction]
Ms Sheila Copps (Hamilton East): Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of the Environment. We know that last Friday, the Minister published a plan of action that would close certain border posts where PCBs might be shipped by truck. I would now like to ask him what he intends to do about the international transportation of PCBs by air, water and rail.
Hon. Lucien Bouchard (Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, this morning my colleague, the Minister of National Revenue, announced that we have reduced the number of road border crossings that will be opened to fuel imports from the United States to 31.1 may add that so far, we have received 91 lab test results and in all 91 cases no PCBs were detected.
My colleague at National Revenue and myself have also instructed our officials to prepare another plan that will be submitted to us in a matter of hours, this time to regulate entry by train and by ship.



TRANSPORT OF TAINTED FUELS-CRIMINAL CHARGES

Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: Mr. Speaker, from what the Minister has said to date, I understand that there appears to be no action planned for rail. The Minister states that he is going to announce one this afternoon.
I would like to ask the Minister whether his Government is aware of the fact that Sergeant Gregory Eagle of the Law Enforcement Division of the State of Michigan has released information of felony and misdemeanour warrants outstanding on two Canadian companies, and specifically corporate officials for Canflo Services.
Oral Questions
According to a letter that we received, and information that he passed along to the Environmental Protection Agency, and presumably through them to Canada, that the activity of this Canadian company was involved in international transport of tainted fuels between Canada and the United States. When the trucking business got too hot, they were shipping the fuel by rail.
Is the Minister aware of the fact that these criminal charges are outstanding against two Canadian companies? If he is not, why is he not aware? If he is aware, does he have a specific plan to prevent the shipment of international PCBs by rail?


Lucien Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, we are taking measures to put into place an action plan for stepped up inspections of shipment by ship and by rail. The Department of Transport is training 30 additional inspectors in view of the implementation of this plan.


Mr. Speaker:: I want to advise the House that there will be a single question by the Hon. Member for Willowdale and a single question by the Hon. Member for Skeena.



INDUSTRY


Mr. Jim Peterson (Willowdale):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Industry, Science and Technology.
Last Friday the Minister announced proudly that he welcomed the takeover of Lumonics by Sumitomo of Japan. Lumonics is a Canadian company and is the world's third largest laser manufacturer. This industry has annual world-wide sales of about $1 billion.
My question is very specific. Would the Japanese Government have allowed a similar Japanese corporation to have been taken over by a foreign company?


Henry Perrin Beatty: That is totally out of order, of course. Why don't you call the Japanese Minister and ask him?


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion and Minister of State for Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, as my seat-mate points out, that question is out of order, but let me say to the Hon. Member that pursuant to the provisions of the In-

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Oral Questions
vestment Canada Act this takeover was examined and was in fact found to be in Canada's best interests.
Under the agreement there will be a considerable increase in research and development. Lumonics will have the world mandate for laser products under Sumitomo's world activities, and this will give Lumonics preferred access to the Japanese market, the fastest growing market for lasers. It will result in more jobs, more research and development and, in general, a net benefit to Canada.



DANGEROUS PRODUCTS


Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of the Environment. As he knows, the FBI informed his office a year ago about the tainted fuel matter.
Could he explain to the House how and why his officials never brought it to his attention? Will he also tell Canadian consumers how they are protected by the testing that is going on at the 31 border stations when it has taken almost a month to get the April results reported back to the public, knowing that the trucks are now pulling up, being tested and pulling away without anyone knowing whether or not there is poison fuel on board?


Lucien Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, I would like to correct the preamble to the question in which the Hon. Member claims that my Department had received information from the FBI about illegal shipments of tainted fuel. As I said the other day, I asked my officials to make a thorough study of all their files to check what kind of information we were given, and it seems that so far, according to the reports I have received, no such information was passed on to my Department.



POINT OF ORDER


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, this is the first opportunity I have had to rise on a point of order since seeing the transcript of Thursday's Question Period. I was away from the Chamber on Friday.
In responding to a question from me during Question Period, the Hon. Member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie) said, among other things, the following, as reported at page 1600 of Hansard:
National Sea did brief the hon. gentleman several days ago and he ran to VOCM and leaked the private and confidential information.
That is not true. I want to take this opportunity to correct the record on that issue. I deal with National Sea and other fish companies on a regular basis, and I would not want to send out the false signal that I do not hold in confidence those matters that are given to me in confidence. I do hold them in confidence and the Minister's statement was incorrect.
I do not want to make a big fuss of this issue. The Hon. Member for St. John's West is not a bad fellow. He has his foot in his mouth once in a while.
Mr. Speaker I have allowed the Hon. Member to rise on a point of order. Usually when a Member is given the opportunity to do so and the purpose is to correct the record, it is to correct something that the Hon. Member himself or herself has said.
The Hon. Member has made his point and I think that from now on it would be getting into debate. I think there would be some objection from the other side if I were to allow it to continue. Keeping in mind what I said, I will hear the Hon. Member.


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, I was about to conclude by inviting the gentleman from St. John's West to withdraw the remark. He knows it to be incorrect. I would hope he would withdraw the remark.


Mr. Speaker:: Well, I am not at all sure this is getting into a point of order, but the Hon. Minister is rising. I will hear him.
May 15, 1989


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to offend you by rising, Mr. Speaker. The hon. gentleman says that it is incorrect. Naturally I accept his word.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mrs. Finestone:: Oh, John. At least say you're sorry.


John Carnell Crosbie: Should I say I am sorry, Mr. Speaker?
Mr. 'nimer (Vancouver Quadra): You are getting better every day. There is a chance yet.


Mr. Speaker:: I hope all that exchange ends up on the record.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of an amendment made by the Senate to Bill C-14, an Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Government of Canada for the financial year ending March 31, 1990; of the motion of Mr. de Cotret (p. 1695); and of the amendment of Mr. Nystrom (p. 1713).
Mr. Speaker:: When the House rose at one o'clock there were three minutes remaining in the question and comment period following the speech by the Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville. I am now prepared to recognize Hon. Members who wish to continue the question and comment period.
Resuming debate with the Hon. Member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell.


Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, I an pleased to have an opportunity once again to speak on this issue which I brought to the attention of the House sometime ago. You will recall that my colleague, the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands (Mr. Milliken), and I rose in the House on Thursday, April 6, 1989 to make the House aware of the grievance we had concerning the use of a Governor General special warrant by the Government.
When we are discussing Governor General special warrants we should not confuse them with Governor General warrants of the kind that have been used on a relatively regular basis by the Government in order to
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administer the affairs of the nation. Today we are talking about the use of an instrument granted to the Government by virtue of the Financial Administration Act under a section that has been used improperly. We made that case in the House on April 6, and then the Bill in question was passed shortly afterward.
The Estimates were tabled in the House on April 28. The House adopted, albeit reluctantly, the interim supply requested by the Government, and the Bill went to the other place. Many of the points that my colleague from Kingston and the Islands raised in terms of our grievance with the Government's use of these so-called special warrants were indeed taken up again in the Senate Banking Committee.
I was there last week, where I heard witnesses like Dr. Eugene Forsey and others inform the committee of the other place how inappropriate and unprecedented were the use of these special warrants. Clearly the Government has put itself in a veiy difficult situation. In my opinion not only have the rules of the House been abused, certainly the spirit if not the text of our Constitution has been abused as well. The Financial Administration Act has been bent out of shape in a serious way by the Conservative Government. The Senate recognized this in its deliberations.
Ultimately we have to grant supply to the Government in order for it to operate. At the same time I cannot as a Member of Parliament accept what the Government has done. It has breached those privileges which I feel I have in the broad sense, recognizing that Mr. Speaker has indicated that in terms of the orders of this House there has not been a prima facie case.
I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that if we get into the broad sense of the definition of privilege, and in particular if we take into consideration the fact that our privilege and how we operate in this House are granted by virtue of a section of our Constitution, which section states that we operate in a manner similar to that of the Mother of Parliaments, I feel that we have definitely been offended.
Even if no privilege of a Member has been breached in the narrow sense of our definition of privilege, or in the broader sense, Mr. Speaker made it very clear a few days ago in his deliberation on our questions of privilege that in fact he was not ruling on whether or not the Bill was

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legal. I wish to refer to the ruling given by the Chair, as reported at page 1178 of Hansard of May 2, 1989:
The question of whether or not the terms of the Financial Administration Act have been respected in this instance is not a matter that was raised in the arguments put forward on April 6, nor indeed is it a matter upon which the Chair would be in a position to rule.
The Chair has stated that it is not in a position to rule on the legality of the way that the Financial Administration Act is applied in this particular case.
The Chair stated further:
The Chair has no authority to venture beyond the realm of parliamentary practice and procedure into questions of law.
I believe if we go a little further in the decision of Mr. Speaker of that day we will see that he also tells us that, indeed, he has no authority to determine whether or not our Constitution has been respected in this case. What do we have now? We have a situation in which I as an opposition Member and everyone else recognize that the Government needs funds in order to operate. However, at the same time we cannot accept what has been done. We cannot recognize that as being a valid precedent for the future. I will get into why we cannot do that in a few moments.
However, before I do that, I want to express the solution that was offered to us by the Senate. The Senate has sent to us a message in which it has recommended the following change: "The payments made by special warrant signed by the Governor General on January 19, February 16, March 23, and April 1, shall be deemed to have been legal". If I had my way I would add another sentence to that which would state: "They shall be deemed to have been legal but shall not constitute any precedent that could be applicable again". I would do that in order to ensure that the Government does not feel it has the right in the future to do what it has done before.
My colleagues to my left have proposed an amendment to the motion offered by the Government. First, the Government has responded to the amendment from the Senate by stating that it feels that the Bill is already legal. To this some of our colleagues have proposed an amendment which would add the words: "that the Bill may respect the letter of the law but are unconventional and set a dangerous precedent". Of course, that is quite true. The amendment is quite definitely supportable. I
would like to support it. I know that other of my colleagues would do so as well. However, it even goes further than what was stated in the amendment from the New Democratic Party.
A few moments ago I was describing to you, Mr. Speaker, why this is a dangerous precedent and why we cannot recognize what has happened here as being acceptable.

First all, Mr. Speaker, the Governor General's special warrants are usually granted by Her Excellency when the Government so requests, at times when it is impossible for Parliament to decide whether or not to approve the Government's appropriations.
Mr. Speaker, of course the only time when it is not possible for Parliament to approve appropriations is during an election campaign. Before the turn of the Century, there may have been times when a session lasted only two months of the year, and six or seven months later, when the Government needed funds to repair the roof of the Parliament Buildings, it was not going to recall the House just for that. In that case, the Government could ask the Governor General for these appropriations, which would be approved by the House retroactively. That is why the House added to the Financial Administration Act a section that deals with exceptional situations.
Briefly, Mr. Speaker, Parliament must not be in session and there must be a specific or special situation. In fact, the warrants are called Governor General's special warrants. And of course, there must be no other way to obtain the funds. As far as that goes, this Government had more or less made sure there was no other way. The Government intentionally adjourned the House without giving Parliament a chance to approve appropriations.
Why did the Government do this? I hope they will be able to answer this question later on, because so far, Mr. Speaker, their answers have not been very convincing.
So first, the Government may have been unable to do otherwise, but the situation was of its own making.
Second, the Government says there was a so-called urgent need and that the House was not in session. May I remind you once again that the reason you were not in


;

:

session was the result of a deliberate act on the part of the Government opposite?

When we talk about the test of whether or not the section of the Financial Administration Act can be used, it is important to note a few things. First, Parliament was recalled last year on December 12. It is quite evident to me that if the Government required supply to cover the duration of the election campaign and a normal postelectoral period which it took to recall Parliament and, perhaps, a few days into the new session, the House should recognize that there is nothing precedent setting here and that in fact we must give the Government those funds.
However, that is not the point. Parliament was recalled. Parliament sat. Parliament listened to the Throne Speech. Then Parliament voted on the Throne Speech. Parliament voted on a Bill, the free trade Bill. Once that Bill had been passed the Government did not seek supply. The Government adjourned Parliament. The Government caused the adjournment of Parliament. Once that was done we were in recess for some weeks.
When the Government had used up all its money under Vote 5 of the Treasury Board, which it can seek when the House is not sitting, it then decided to seek a Governor General special warrant. This is something rather unprecedented because Parliament had sat.
However, if that were not bad enough, once it sought those first one or two Governor General warrants pending the recall of Parliament in the same session-we were not prorogued, we were only in recess-lo and behold what did we have? We had the Government not recalling Parliament the way it said it would, but instead it prorogued Parliament in the month of April, deliberately causing itself, if you wish, Mr. Speaker, to go broke, causing itself to be in a situation in which it would be out of funds, not temporarily, but to the end of the fiscal year and for a portion of the next year.
To remedy the mess that it had created for itself the Government introduced Bill C-14 in this House, which apart from everything else will be the only appropriation Bill passed by this Parliament in a year and a half.
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The Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Timer) said very eloquently in the past when we were discussing the the budget leak how important it was for the House of Commons to have the authority to decide what grievance it wanted to air with Parliament and what issue it wanted to bring to Parliament before it granted supply to the Government. This is not just an archaic tradition. Surely this House, a House of Members elected by the people of Canada, has the right to decide what issues to bring forward to the attention of the Government. To decide if we wanted to grant or to deny supply to this Government is not just a tradition.
Democracy is not just something that should be fondly remembered. It should be applied. It is the Government's role to ensure that the privileges of Members and the democracy in which we live is respected. It must ensure that as Members of Parliament we get to decide what funds are spent by the Government.
They should not create a situation where they ask the Governor General for special warrants, where they recall Parliament and fail to ask for supply, where they cause a recess, where they cause a prorogation of Parliament, where they recall it later and say: "Guess what, House of Commons, we forgot to ask you for some money a year ago. We have been broke ever since. We have asked the Governor General to give us money meanwhile, and now we want you to ratify all this, and do not complain."
That is what the Government has told this House. That is not right. The least we can do to rectify the damage done to this country and to this Parliament by the Government is to adopt the motion brought to our attention by the other place. If we do not do that, we should support the amendment offered to the House today and at the very least not recognize what the Government has done as being right. Perhaps we have no choice now but to give money to the Government across the way to administer the affairs of the nation, but we must insert it in the Bill or in a motion that what the Government has done has done to this country is wrong. The lack of respect that it has for the House of Commons, only a few years after being elected to government, is even worse. It is not right. We should not put up with it.
I say to the government Members across the way that it is their privileges as well as mine and, more important,

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it is those privileges that have been vested in us by our constituents, the people who have sent us here.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my friend for Glengariy-Prescott-Russell. One reason the Government went the route of Governor General warrants was that it was afraid to face Parliament in February and March. Back in January, February and March merger mania going on in this country with Consolidated Bathurst, PWA, Labatt's Brewery and Carling O'Keefe. There were all kinds of mergers. The Government was on the wrong side of those issues, and the people of Canada were very concerned. They wanted us to ask questions in the House about those kinds of issues. Also, interest rates were going up, and the Government was talking about the deficit.
I wonder if the Member from the Liberal Party would agree with me that one reason why Parliament was not called back was that the Government was afraid to face Parliament, afraid to face the people of Canada. Parliament was supposed to come back on March 6. It delayed the recall of Parliament until April 3. Then on April Fool's Day we got a Governor General warrant asking for $6 billion. I think one reason we had a delay in the recall of Parliament was that it was afraid to come back and face the representatives of the people of Canada. This is why we had this very unconventional, very unconstitutional approach of seeking a Governor General warrant. This is riding roughshod over the traditions of Parliament. If John Diefenbaker were in the House today, he would be lecturing the Conservatives of the day.
Does my friend in the Liberal Party agree that the reason was not only a disrespect of Parliament, not only breaking the conventions and the rules of this place as we have practised them for many years, but that the Government was afraid to recall Parliament because the issues of the day were unpopular ones from the point of view of the Conservative Party?


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, it is quite obvious that the Government had reason to do it. There was something going through the back of its head, obviously.
When Parliament adjourned on December 30, that first part of not seeking supply at that time, there is no doubt that that is negligence. Someone probably goofed for that period of time. Of course we should be concerned about that goof-up. The Government went so far as to fail to ask for supply in the Throne Speech; it was that bad. Even worse, for that first period until December 30 it did not ask for any money. That was bad enough, but then it adjourned without having done so. That is worse. It was looking at the schedule in February, and the chairman of the Conservative caucus came out of caucus one day and announced brilliantly that the Government needed more recess time to prepare a Throne Speech. Of course, it had been elected since November 21 of the year before, but it needed more time to write, of all things, a Throne Speech. Perhaps the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) wrote it on the back of an envelope on the way back from his constituency. Looking at what was in the Throne Speech, that is probably the process he utilized to prepare it.
Notwithstanding, in the month of February we had a Government overtaken by a very difficult situation. The Free Trade Deal had just recently passed. We saw mergers and closures of plants in Canada. We saw takeovers of Canadian industry. It was basically a very unpopular situation for the Government.
The Government looked at it and said: "Well, if we recall Parliament, we are really going to be in for it. The Opposition is going to be all over us. The Canadian media is going to be all over us. Why don't we just cool it for a while? Maybe the problem will go away."
That has been said by Tory Members before-"if you do not like the problem, just wait it out and it will disappear". They tried. However, they had a further problem, that is, if Parliament returned on March 6, not only would they have the regular eveiy day barrage of questions rightfully asking the Government to account, but they would have an even worse situation in their view where there would be only a short period of time left until the supply period ended. I think there was something like 12 sitting days of the House of Commons left in that supply period between March 6 and March 28.
Out of those 12 days the rules of this House say that we must have 9 days of supply. Those supply days constitute opposition debate in the House of Commons, or what we affectionately refer to as opposition days. Could we imagine how everything would have crashed on the head of the Government across the way? Notwithstanding, the Government had to get money. It had
May 15, 1989

to recall Parliament because it did not have any funds to operate.
Members across the way said to themselves: "Look, when we forgot during the Christmas period to ask the House of Commons for supply, we used the Governor General special warrant. That worked then. Why don't we use some more of them and forget about Parliament meeting altogether?" That is what they did. They waited until the new fiscal year of the Government in order to avoid the supply period and to avoid the debates that would have been coming their way in the House of Commons. That is really what happened.


John Harvard: Mr. Speaker, I must say that I am a little surprised by the action or the lack of action on the part of the Government because, as my hon. friend from Kingston and the Islands said this morning, this amendment is really not to condemn the Government. We are not pasting the Government to the wall over this. We are simply saying that this procedure may be wrong, that there is some doubt about it and we can remove that doubt by what we are doing in the House this afternoon.
The Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nys-trom) talks about the late John Diefenbaker. I am sure that the late John Diefenbaker, if he were alive today, would be literally spinning hearing Members opposite. If there ever was a Canadian who believed in the supremacy of Parliament it certainly was the late Right Hon. John Diefenbaker.
I have a question for the Hon. Member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria). Does he think we are condemning the Government or just simply asking the Government to remove this doubt that hangs over the procedure that it took? We are saying the Government may have made a mistake, that this is perhaps a wrong procedure. If the Government were not just so intransigent and stubborn it could agree and clear up the confusion.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, all that I want from the Government across the way right now-and I have already aired the grievance in terms of supply, in terms of how wrong the Government was and so on-is to recognize that what the Government has utilized should
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not constitute a precedent for the future. That is all I want from the Government across the way.
There are two ways of achieving it. One is through the amendment proposed to us by the other place. That is certainly the best way. But even if the Government does not do that, at least it should recognize in a motion or an amendment to the motion that what it has used should not constitute a precedent. I will not even say that what the Government has done is illegal, even though I think it is. I do not even want the motion from the Government to say that what it has done may have been unconstitutional. We will debate that later.
The Government needs that Bill and I recognize that. All I am asking from the Government pure and simply is for the Government to state that what it has done shall not constitute a precedent. If the Government is willing to do that, we could let this Bill go through and the Government could have the supply that it needs in order to administer the affairs of the nation. That is all the action that I am looking for, that recognition of non-precedence if you wish.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, actually it is kind of a sad day to be participating in this kind of a debate.


Mr. Oberle:: Why then speak?


Nelson Andrew Riis: My hon. friend says, "Why then speak?" I think that is the point. The Government would prefer not to have this procedure exposed. The Government would rather not have the people of Canada understand what it has done. I do not know if the Government has done this in a sneaky, sinister, mean-spirited, cruel way or if it is just incompetence or combinations thereof, Mr. Speaker. I do think that people watching and listening in to the proceedings of the House today will be aware of one thing, that something has occurred recently that has never occurred in our history before. Something has occurred in the last few weeks that has never occurred in any real parliamentary democracy anywhere in the world where the Government has decided that it knows best, that the Parliament of Canada does not know best, that the Parliament of Canada is a nuisance, that having an Opposition to deal with is a nuisance and so it was going to try to sneak something through. The Government was trying to do something very dishonourable, perhaps

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illegal, certainly unconstitutional and unethical and unacceptable.
What has the Government actually done? The Government has decided to spend a lot of money. As a matter of fact, it comes to $295 for every single Canadian. The Government decided that it would spend $295 for every man, woman and child in this country, in secret, without ever telling Parliament what it is doing. I suspect that is why Canadians have a growing cynicism towards the Government. I think that the sense of disillusionment, disappointment, and the aggravation level is increasing so that it is now almost moving off the top of the barometer.
Here is a government that decided to break parliamentary tradition. This is a government that decided to abandon parliamentary procedure, to toss the traditions and experiences of parliamentary democracy out of the window for its own sneaky political purposes. This, of course, as you well know, being a concerned parliamentarian yourself, is nothing new. This Government has developed a reputation for abusing Parliament, of taking advantage of various interpretations of various rules or, simply by strength of numbers, changing the rules to its own satisfaction. This Government has a certain political agenda and when it runs up against a House of Commons which might prohibit it from doing something, the Government says, "Let us not worry about tradition, practice, rules and regulations, but use our majority to unilaterally change the rules to suit our own agenda".
Not long ago the Government decided that the Standing Orders which govern the House of Commons would not enable it to do something very abusive, so it said it would not worry but simply change the rules. We know that over the last hundred and some years when the rules of the House of Commons have been changed it was done in consultation with all of the players. In other words, as parliamentarians, this is our House. It is not simply a tool of the Government. We would sit and sometimes take many weeks and months to agree to change the rules to suit doing the business of the country. But that was not done this time. It would take too long, so the Government said it would change the rules any way it liked and if the Opposition did not like it, tough luck.
We remember the Free Trade Agreement. This is when we came back after the election and the Government did something unprecedented in Canadian history. It used, if you like, the muzzle of closure at every single stage of the Free Trade Agreement. This has never been done before in Canadian history because most Governments welcome debate. They realize that part of the parliamentary system is to have debate at various crucial stages of a BUI. But not this Government. It said no. This Government decided to use closure at every single opportunity so that it could muzzle Parliament, neuter Parliament, and not allow Parliament to carry out its duties and responsibilities expected by the people. Actually, I have a long list of instances where the Government abused Parliament, but I think I have made my point.
This is part of a trend, a new way of doing business. It is a parliamentary bully technique that if you do not like what is going on you just bully your way through and ignore the traditions of the House.
There are a number of things Members have indicated they have found very offensive about this situation. When Parliament was recalled to deal with the Free Trade Agreement in December, did the Government ask for the passage of a Supply Bill to allow it to receive parliamentary permission to carry out its various activities? No, it did not do that. The Government just simply prorogued Parliament and people left for Christmas. Then, in January the Government decided it needed some money. The parliamentary, traditional and proper thing to do, which has always been done over the years, would be to recall Parliament to pass a Supply Bill. That is the way it is done so that the people of Canada through their elected representatives have a voice in the affairs of the country. That was not done. A Governor General Special Warrant was introduced by the Government for $80 million in secret, behind closed doors, so that Canadians would not be aware of what it was doing. Then on February 16 another Special Warrant was issued for $500 million. Rather than do the right thing, that is, introduce legislation in this House, the Government is using this back door, under the table, kind of sneaky, dishonest approach.
Now why were they doing that? I remember those of us on the opposition benches were asking the Speaker to reconvene the House. There were major issues facing the country. The fall-out from the free trade deal was already beginning to be felt, as hundreds of jobs were starting to disappear as a result of firms enacting the free trade provisions. We saw a whole rash of very unproductive mergers, takeovers and acquisitions take place. We called for a special debate to understand what was going on, whether our existing legislation would serve the country during this time of mega-merger activity. But, no, Mr. Speaker, again there was no interest in recalling
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Parliament. Remember that interest rates were starting to increase significantly.
Then there was the whole matter of American Express instantly becoming a bank because the Minister of Finance thought this was a way to pay off the American Express people who supported the free trade deal with the United States.
I could go on. There were all sorts of very important, critical issues facing the countiy, and we asked for Parliament to be reconvened to debate these matters and to provide an opportunity for the Government to bring in its supply motion because we recognized there was a need to expend funds. That was not done. Rather than do the honourable thing, the Government on March 23 again issued another special warrant for $891 million.
Before I get to the big special warrant of $6 billion, something very sinister happened. I want to appeal to my good associate and friend, the government House Leader. The House Leaders met on a number of occasions to agree in principle to a schedule for the debate on the passage of supply. A date was agreed upon. A special order was agreed upon so that the Government would know that its special passage of supply would occur at a certain time. After that fact, the Government still went ahead with the special warrants: $891 million, and then finally on April 1, $6 billion-$6 billion of expenditures without ever hearing a single voice from Canada's Parliament.
Where does this end? We say to the Government that we recognize now that this is how it is going to do business. There is no need to recall Parliament for most of the year. In terms of its supply legislation, it could just handle the whole matter through Governor General warrants.
This is a very serious situation. The whole matter of the last two special warrants occurred after the House was actually scheduled to resume. We agreed that March
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6 would be the appropriate time, but even after that date, the special Governor General warrants occurred.
There is no way to describe it other than trampling on the rights of Parliament. That is very clear to all of us. One of the aspects of our parliamentary system that we feel very strongly about is that Parliament must remain supreme. For hundreds of years that tradition has grown. We are not a republic. We are not run on laws; we are run on tradition. We are run on practice. Over the years certain ways of conducting the business of the people of Canada have evolved. We follow those traditions. So we know from year to year, from decade to decade what to expect in terms of the process and procedure. The principle of Parliament being supreme has been with us for hundreds of years. The raising of revenues, the expenditures associated with those revenues must exist with Parliament and not with the Cabinet, not with the executive and not through the use of special Governor General warrants.
In conclusion, I believe that the Government has abused the Financial Administration Act that, in a sense, gave them the authority to proceed this way. There are times, we agree, when there is a necessity to use a Governor General warrant. Let us be very clear about that. We are not suggesting that there never has existed a time for this type of initiative. Usually it is associated with an election campaign, where it is impossible to recall the House of Commons to deal with this kind of a financial issue.
Beyond that, Mr. Speaker, when we were willing, able and interested in sitting in Parliament in January, February and March, why did the Government then not do the traditional and honour bound thing is what we are raising today.
I have some concerns, as do my colleagues, that the Senate is not the institution to influence legislation in a serious way. However, in this case, they sent it back for some reconsideration. At the time I remember making a case with other Hon. Members that this process that the Government used was unacceptable and inappropriate, that Parliament had been duped and that there had been an end run occurring around the parliamentary system.
As Hon. Members in this House, we had made an agreement. We had passed a special order. You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that we appealed to the Chair to see

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if circumstances had changed from when we had first agreed to that special order. We had questioned whether this was an appropriate step to take under the circumstances of these Governor General warrants being issued. The Speaker, with all due respect, found that it was appropriate and we proceeded. Now we have an opportunity to send a very clear signal to this Government that what it has done is not acceptable. What it has done has set a very dangerous precedent. What it has done is unconventional and ought to be unacceptable to any serious-minded parliamentarian.
We will be here for a few moments longer, and I hope that members from the government benches will stand and explain how, now that we have broken the tradition of hundreds of years of parliamentary democracy, why they would support this motion. We have given them a way out that I think is acceptable by proposing an amendment to the Government's motion which I think makes it acceptable to all Members. While what has occurred may respect the letter of the law, that is not what we are debating here. Legally I suspect that one could make a case that the Government has not broken the law, but they have broken every tradition that this House stands for. For that reason, we say in our amendment that the action of the Government may respect the letter of the law, but the action is unconventional, and it sets a very dangerous precedent. Any serious-minded parliamentarian would have to agree with that, and we look forward perhaps to a unanimous vote on the amendment later in the day.


Frank Oberle: Mr. Speaker, I only rise to give the Hon. Member for Kamloops an opportunity to correct some of the assertions that he has made. He has told the country that the Government of Canada has engaged in some arbitrary, sinister, criminal act-


Don Boudria: Not criminal, he did not use the word criminal.


Frank Oberle: I apologize. He did not use the word criminal, but he used the words "sinister and devious act to deprive the people of Canada of billions of dollars of public resources that did not receive the scrutiny of the people's representatives". The people of this country need to know that all that the Government has done is pay its bills and live up to the obligations that this House has created for the people of Canada, at the encouragement of some of the people in the Opposition. I do not recall a single Bill in the last two years where we brought forward some measure where the Opposition has not said, you are not spending enough. They want another $4 billion for day care.


Don Boudria: It is not your money.


Frank Oberle: They cannot have it both ways. We pay our bills, as painful as it is, with the $320 billion debt. But they come back and say, you spent too much. You pay the bills as if they are our bills. There is not a single penny that has been spent with the Governor General warrants that has had anything to do with discretionary spending.
When the unemployment insurance cheques or pension cheques bounce, the people of Canada will judge how sinister this move was. This is utterly ridiculous.
I ask the Hon. Member to be fair and honest. What we have done is legal and provided for in the statutes. The warrants allow us the resources to do what this Parliament and the country has been obligating us to do. That is all we were trying to do. I ask The Hon. Member to see his way clear to being as fair as he tended to be at the end of his remarks when he said that everything that was done was within the law. He also said that this was not a precedent. It has been done many times before. That is why there is provision for the Governor General warrant. Why can the Hon. Member not be honest, and at least not use words such as "sinister" and "devious". Nothing in this measure is devious. Not a single penny has been spent on any discretionary programs. All of it is required to be spent under the Order that was previously passed, debated, and voted on in the House. All we are doing is paying the bills with which the Opposition helped us to encumber the Canadian people.


Nelson Andrew Riis: I appreciate the intervention of my hon. friend. He states that I have used the terms: "sinister, unconventional, sneaky, under the table, end run, and devious". The only reason I used those words is that I could not think of other related terms.
For example, what were some of those funds used for? Most Canadians have been offended of late by that old coin rolling out on television screens to remind us that the Government is blaming Canadians for being irresponsible for many years. We know who is making the
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decisions on how the money is to be spent, and that is the Government.
For example, the Minister of the Environment thought that he should spend some money redecorating his office. My hon. friend tells me that it was $40,000. The Prime Minister thought that some evaluation needed to be done to the landscaping at 24 Sussex Drive, and some major renovations. Of course, there was also $2.7 million worth of advertising. Presumably these are the items that the Minister says were important.
I also wish to remind the Minister that in most countries, governments have to vote supply before the House is adjourned. They do it in the correct order.
I also wish to remind the Minister that, after the new fiscal year began, before we had the Estimates in our hands to find out how the Government was going to spend the taxpayers' money, the Government decided to use a special warrant of $6 billion. In other words, it had decided that before the House of Commons even looked at an Estimate it had decided how it was going to be spent. This is very serious when one considers what the Government is using it for.
Eugene Forsey is unquestionably recognized as an expert in the field of parliamentary procedure and constitutional law. He indicated very clearly that this was unconventional, unusual, and unacceptable. He also stated that he could probably make a very strong case that it was unconstitutional and that the Constitution of the country had been ignored in this process. Let us forget that, and say that perhaps there is some legal case that can be made that what the Government has actually done is to use the Financial Administration Act in a way it was never intended.
I wish to remind my hon. friend, the Minister, that when warrants have been used in the past it has been because Parliament was not sitting or was unable to sit. For example, one understands that during or immediately after an election, the Government is not in a position to have a financial plan before it. However, this was months after an election. This was after Parliament had already sat in December. Parliament could have sat in January, February, or March.
However, rather than convene Parliament to deliberate on the appropriate ways to collect taxes and expend revenues, which is after all why we are here, the Government decided that it knew best. It was not going to use the parliamentary process, or the time honoured
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tradition developed over hundreds of years, and that it had a better way.
That is why I called it sinister, indecent, unconventional, unacceptable, and inappropriate. I could continue with a long list of other terms to describe how parliamentarians who have thought about this process feel about it, and how most Canadians, once they become aware of what the Government has done, would also describe this action of the Government on this particular issue.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Halifax West on a question or comment.


Mr. Crosby:: I wish to make a comment on the words delivered to the House of Commons by the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Sushwap (Mr. Riis). He indicated in a strong and stressful way that we were dealing with the matter in a manner unprecedented in Canadian parliamentary history.


Don Boudria: It is.


Howard Edward Crosby: It would fall upon all of us to examine it in that light. In a calm and deliberate way, hopefully I can restore some balance to this discussion. What the Hon. Member for Kamloops and other Members in the Opposition do not seem to understand is that it was not the House of Commons' action that was unprecedented. It was the process leading up to that situation that was unprecedented.
As Members will recall, there was an election on November 21,1988. We met as soon as possible after that election to deal with the major subject matter of the election which was the Free Trade Agreement. We gathered in the House and dealt with free trade expeditiously, winding up on Christmas Eve. I did not hear any Member of the House rise and state: "I do not want to go home for Christmas. I do not want to spend some time in my constituency". We dealt with the business at hand and all Members departed. I have here a copy of the House of Commons Debates from that time. No member of the Opposition stood up on Christmas Eve and suggested that we continue the House to deal with financial matters or Estimates. Nothing was said.
On December 16 in that very session the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. de Cotret) tabled Supplementary Estimates B and things carried on in the normal way. When the House was not sitting, during what would be a normal recess period, a Governor General warrant was obtained in accordance with the law passed by the Parliament of Canada and the Financial Administration Act. It was reported in The Canada Gazette. The warrant was granted on January 16,1989, reported in The Canada Gazette 12 days later. Did anyone hear the Hon. Member

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for Kamloops stand up and say: "What is this warrant reported in The Canada Gazette? I want to examine this". Did Members of the Liberal Party complain at that point? Did they demand any more information? It was public knowledge. No, they were quite satisfied that the law had been followed. If they were not, they certainly did not complain about it.


Don Boudria: I raised it in the House on April 6.


Howard Edward Crosby: The Government of Canada, through the President of the Treasury Board, followed the letter of the law.


Don Boudria: No, he didn't.


Howard Edward Crosby: That has been established and ruled on by the Speaker of the House. He said that the Government and the President of the Treasury Board have followed the letter of the law. What they did was legal. It is only somebody in the other place who wanted to raise a related point. Perhaps there should be a different law. Perhaps the law should be changed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell on a point of order.


Don Boudria: No one in the House should insinuate that the Speaker made a ruling on an issue on which the Speaker did not make a ruling. You will obviously know, Mr. Speaker, that the Chair did not rule on the legality of the case. The Chair even argued that it was unable to make such a determination.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I ask the Hon. Member for Halifax West to conclude his comments as the period for questions and comments is almost over.


Howard Edward Crosby: I hope you will take into account, Mr. Speaker, that that interruption cut into my train of thought. I will have to re-explain this whole situation so Members opposite will understand clearly, because they do not get the point.
The law has been followed. There is no other law. There could be some other law. On another day or at another time there may evolve and develop a constitutional question. However, that is for the Supreme Court of Canada to determine. Every Member of the Liberal Party must remember 1981 when they said there was no constitutional convention and the Supreme Court of
Canada said there was. How did that determination get made? Because the case was taken to the Supreme Court of Canada. If Members opposite do not like the law, I suggest that they take the case to the Supreme Court of Canada.
I hope the Hon. Member from Kamloops realizes what havoc he may wreak across Canada if he and his colleagues persist in this legal game that they are playing. What will happen to pension cheques, veterans cheques, and the payments required from the Government of Canada and the interest that builds up?
If the Hon. Member objects at this time and place in the House of Commons to the process that has been followed, where was he in January when those warrants were published in The Canada Gazette and made public knowledge to all Canadians?
Why did he not raise the objection then? Why did he not demand that Parliament be recalled to deal with the matter then? Where was he then? He talks a lot now but it may be too late.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I want to say in response to my hon. friend, the Hon. Member for Halifax West (Mr. Crosby), that most of us would have enjoyed the opportunity to raise the matter in Parliament when we read it in The Gazette in January, but the point is that we were not sitting.
The concern was registered publicly at that time. We did petition the Speaker to recall Parliament for a variety of reasons laid out in our letters-


Howard Edward Crosby: This one?


Nelson Andrew Riis: Yes. In conclusion, I want to say to my hon. friend from Halifax West that we are not arguing the legality of this particular matter. We are suggesting that what has occurred is unconventional and sets a dangerous precedent.
My hon. friend began his comments by saying that this was not a break in precedent, but he failed to mention any other precedent of a similar nature.


Don Boudria: There isn't one.


Nelson Andrew Riis: There isn't any. I am aware of that.
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I think it will serve us all well to vote unanimously for this amendment. It recognizes that while respect of the letter of the law may exist, and we are not arguing the legality of this particular initiative, it is not conventional and sets a dangerous precedent. I think that any seriously concerned parliamentarian evaluating what has happened would agree it sets a rather dangerous precedent for this or any Government in the future.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, my remarks will be brief. I had not intended to join in the debate today. I suppose I went with the word of the House Leader for the Official Opposition who said that this matter would go through quickly and with the word of the New Democratic Party Whip who said the same. We asked our speakers to stand down with the intention that this matter would move to the Senate quickly where it would be able to consider-


Nelson Andrew Riis: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: I do not remember interrupting you, sir, but go ahead.


Nelson Andrew Riis: I am not interrupting my hon. friend. I am anxiously awaiting his remarks. I know they will be thoughtful, as usual.
He knows that the Senate is not sitting and that it will not sit until tomorrow at 2 p.m. Whether we vote now or an hour from now or tomorrow morning is irrelevant, because the Senate will not be able to respond until two o'clock tomorrow.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: I was coming to that, Mr. Speaker. I will deal with it in a minute.
We had hoped that this matter could be dealt with quickly so that it could go back to the Senate and those people who rely on discretionary cheques from the Government of Canada would be able to get their cheques tomorrow. As a result of the actions of the Opposition and the other place, which I will get to in a minute, that is not possible.
I rise to refute all the allegations of illegality and to put on the record for the people of Canada just how long my friends opposite have been thrashing around with a non-issue. First, there was a point of order considered by the Chair on April 6. We spent over an hour debating it, which we do not object to at all.
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On Tuesday, May 2, the Speaker ruled that there was no case for illegality to be made in this place and that if my hon. friends wanted to take this up they should take it up somewhere else.
On Thursday, May 4, in the middle of a vote while Members from all Parties were trying to meet then-planes, because these votes proceed very quickly under normal circumstances, there was another point of order. It was also ruled out of order by the Chair.
We take the position that the use of special warrants during adjournments is allowed by law. Lest anybody suggest that there is a convention that this is not done, let me point out to the House that in 1951, when the Financial Administration Act was passed, there was an amendment specifically to allow for the use of special warrants during adjournments.
I think the comments of the Deputy Minister of Finance at that time are illustrative of why it is now legal and why the change was made in the Financial Administration Act. The Deputy Minister of Finance stated:
This provision is made necessary by the practice which has developed in recent years of long adjournments.
The next day during clause-by-clause consideration there was little discussion on this clause. There was no concern raised on this clause in the House of Commons. It is apparent from this discussion that Parliament was well aware of the new provision, and it meant that special warrants would be used at times other than immediately prior to or after an election.
Officials from the Department of Justice have considered this matter. They have found that the warrants in this case have been used properly. Much was made by the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands (Mr. Milliken) of the comments by Dr. Forsey during his testimony at the Senate's Finance Committee. I cautioned him fairly when he was speaking. I raised this piece of paper, hoping he would get to the remarks written here and properly illustrate all of the remarks of Dr. Forsey. Unfortunately he did not do so.
I want to read into the record exactly what Dr. Forsey said:
Assuming this is perfectly legal, and I suspect it is, the legality of it would not be questioned. It is absolutely essential to draw the distinction between legality and constitutional propriety. I said it was legal under the statute, subject to the caution that Senator Frith

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made and that I said, in my amateur, lay way, that I agreed with, I think it was legal.
He went on:
That is the point that Senator Frith made, and I said that I was inclined to agree that there was some legal doubt about it. However, it seems to me that the essential question is not the strictly legal question at all.
Unfortunately, my hon. friend did not allude to those points.


Don Boudria: Read the next sentence. I was there.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: If my friend wishes a right of reply, he may speak when the original motion is debated.
The Law Clerk of the Senate, in referring to this amendment that was sent to us by the Senate, said:
As Counsel to the Senate, I have a problem with the amendment. I find it improper to imply in an amendment that actions authorized by Parliament under a provision of law would be illegal. So I have a problem with the wording. The committee has gone over the three tests in section 30 of the Financial Administration Act that were discussed yesterday. No one has any problem with the first test -
Mr. du Plessis went on to say that: "The law, according to its own terms, has been complied with".
Lest anyone suggest that the Government was judging itself when the Ministry of Justice officials looked at this, we took the precaution of going to an outside expert. We have a written opinion by a recognized constitutional expert, professor Peter Hogg of Osgoode Hall Law School, to the effect that special warrants as issued were legal.
This has all been very interesting. In closing, let me just ask what are the legal force and effect of the delaying tactics of the Opposition? What are the legal force and effect of the delaying tactics of the Senate?
The Senate had a tough day. It sat from 2 p.m. to 2.15 p.m. These are the people who the Official Opposition are rushing to support. These are the people who the NDP, which refuses to have anything to do with the Senate, rush to support. They had a tough 15-minute workday.
The rest of us and the people out there who rely on these payments that will not be made tomorrow because of their actions work a little longer than 15 minutes a day. The effect is that the non-elected, appointed Liberal Senate has delayed this Bill by putting through this amendment. They were joined in this action by the Opposition.
Had they sat a little longer today and had this not been filibustered by my friends opposite, the Senate might have had the Bill today.
As well, those discretionary payments that will stop at midnight tonight could be made.
I suggest that this has all been a farce created by the other place, joined in gleefully by my friends opposite, without any thought about the practical effect on the people whom they were elected to serve. I cannot say that about the Senate since Senators are not appointed to serve anybody except the Liberal Party. I am surprised that the NDP has been rushing to join the Liberal Party in this venture. However, they are now joined in a common cause-support of the Liberal Senate.
I suggest that Members opposite call back to their ridings tonight to explain this to the folks who should be getting those discretionary cheques. If they push it any longer through Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, they should explain this to the veterans and members of the RCMP. It was voted on by Parliament to supply that funding. Every legal expert we can find says it is legal. My friends opposite say that it was illegal. They want to filibuster this even longer. I suggest that there will be a difficult task back home.
It is a lot of fun here for them. We have debated it. My colleagues will get together on Wednesday in the Liberal caucus room. Unfortunately, my hon. friend from Kamloops will be excluded because he won't be in the Liberal caucus room. Lord knows he should be after today. They will sit there and the MacEachens and the Friths of this world will say: "Boy, did we pull one over on the people this week. They will not get paid". Just come right out, folks, and tell them why they will not get paid. It is because appointed Senators down the way who had a 15-minute workday were responsible for them not getting paid. They were joined by the Liberal Opposition in the House of Commons and the NDP.
I submit everything we have done is legal. Surely, that is what it is all about. I suggest we get on with the business of the nation.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I want to ask a couple of question of my hon. friend across the way who has just finished saying what a good job he thinks the Govern-

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ment is doing by forgetting about the rules of Parliament. I want to bring the following to his attention.
First, the Tbries have forgotten to mention that when the Hon. Member accuses the Opposition of filibuster that earlier today we told the Government that our side would be having two speakers. As a matter of fact, I think my colleague to my left will recognize that moments ago both he and I called for the question to be put. Yet the Minister decided that he was going to filibuster and make a speech, to use his own words.
In fact, the two speakers that we were going to put up on our side of the House, namely the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands and myself, have both made their speeches earlier today pursuant to the agreement that was made.
The additional speech that was made, not at all in conformity with what had been discussed earlier today, was the speech made by the Minister of Justice, of all people. I bring that to the attention of Hon. Members.
It has been said by the Government that the Opposition should have raised this issue earlier. I see the Hon. Member for Halifax West pointing out "Right on" or something to that effect.
Immediately upon the recall of Parliament I notified the Chair of my grievance on this issue. I was recognized on April 6, along with my colleague from Kingston and the Islands. We raised this issue in the House of Commons at the first available opportunity. The Government did not seek to rectify or assist in the situation. As a matter of fact, I have a few pages of a variety of insults of the Minister of Justice as reported in Hansard of April 6 when he felt the issue was unimportant.
What happened? He seems to think that it is very important this afternoon. As a matter of fact, he seems to tell us that the whole world is going to fall apart this afternoon. A while ago the Minister of Justice pretended, along with his colleague, that this was perfectly legal and that everyone agreed that it was legal. That is not quite the case.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: It is like you pretending to be a Member of Parliament.
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Don Boudria: My friend says that I am pretending to be a Member of Parliament. I want to tell him that I have a majority which proves I was duly elected.


Mr. Cadieux:: My neighbour.


Don Boudria: My friend says that I am his neighbour. He knows of my majority.
I want to ask the Minister of Justice about the instruments that were used for the borrowing of these funds. Does he recall a few years ago when the Senate refused to appropriate funds because of the fact that the Estimates had not been tabled in the House and at that particular time the Government had to use short-term borrowing instruments at high interest rates? It condemned the fact that someone else, namely, the Senate, had caused this use of short-term instruments.
Will the Minister confirm today in the House that in fact he used the very same instruments during this period, this self-inflicted period of being broke that the Government has brought upon itself? I confirmed with the officials of Treasury Board those facts. Will the Government confirm this double-talk, that the instruments used two years ago-and they were seen as being inappropriate by the Government at that time because they had to be used involuntarily-were used voluntarily this time and caused the same type of expenditure of funds?


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I welcome to the House the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands because his colleague is desperately in need of his help to explain special warrants which give the power to spend, not the power to borrow.


Don Boudria: That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about the instruments that you used.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Perhaps my friend, the recent expert on this kind of thing, could enlighten us on that matter. It would be helpful.
I want to point out to him that I entered the debate only to set the record straight. I did it without an awful lot of fanfare. We used the authorities that we had for doing what we were doing and to refute the allegations which have been made during the rhetoric of my colleagues opposite.
My friend was kind enough to raise another occasion when the great anointed and appointed other House held up the business of the elected representatives of Parliament causing further expense to the Canadian taxpayer, the same taxpayers who will not be paid tomorrow because the Liberal Senate had a 15-minute

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workday. I want to point out that I have answered the question. The special warrants were used in complete accordance with the authorities and the law and in complete accordance with the Financial Administration Act. I think that has made the point. I would like to get on with the question.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my hon. friend. Ele was concerned that the Liberal dominated Senate was going to cause some problems. I noticed the haste at which our Prime Minister is quickly trying to change that balance in the Senate. Given a few more days, weeks, and months, it will be a Tory dominated Senate. I guess then everything will be okay. These are the realities of Senate appointments. One thing is clear: there are no New Democrats in there, and there never will be.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Even the Senate has certain qualifications.


Nelson Andrew Riis: I would like to move on to another area, but first I think I should clarify what I just said, or perhaps I will leave it after all.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: You better leave it.


Nelson Andrew Riis: The Minister of Justice asks why these people will not get paid. He identified certain groups of taxpayers who will be expecting cheques. He raises in a rhetorical way why they will not get paid. He had some notion it is because we are holding up the House and that it would cause some problem.
If there are any problems in terms of paycheques getting out to the right people at the right time, it is because the Government has bungled the business of Canada. The Government should have done the right thing. It should have done the traditionally honour bound thing and followed the precedents that have been established over many, many years.


Robert René de Cotret: We followed the law.


Nelson Andrew Riis: The President of the Treasury Board says that he followed the law. The point is that if Members of the Government had done what has always been done, we would not be here today. This debate would not have occurred today if that were done. The House of Commons would have voted on the appropriate terms of supply, and the business would have been done as it has
been done in parliamentary democracies for hundreds of years.
However, members of the Government decided to take a short-cut. They decided to do an end run around Parliament, to do something under the table, to sneak something through.
All we are saying is that if the Government had the courage, the decency and the honour to do things appropriately and the way Canadians want them to be done, this would not have occurred. The Minister of Justice should be honest and say: "Yes, we have made a mistake. We have made an error in judgment. We did something rather dastardly when it comes to parliamentary process. We should not have done it". He will have an opportunity shortly to vote on a very reasoned amendment which would allow the Government to say that the letter of the law may in fact have been kept but that what it has done as a Government is unconventional and sets a very dangerous precedent.
I know that the Minister of Justice and the President of the Treasury Board, being the kind of people that they are, will agree that what has been done is unconventional and that what the Government has done is in fact setting a very dangerous precedent. I look forward to their support when we vote on the amendment.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I want to confess that I did make an error. There is a representative of the NDP in the other place. Senator Ed Lawson represents all the values of the NDP to the Canadian people in that place. I know that they revere his representation. I want to get that on the record because I would like to admit that mistake.
We followed the Financial Administration Act to the letter of the law. We followed the House order to the letter of the law. When it comes to payments to the RCMP, to the veterans and to our suppliers, all of which cannot go forward as of midnight tonight, we will tell those people that we followed the letter of the law. We will tell them that the delay has been completely on the part of the Liberal Senate, the Liberals in the House of Commons and the NDP.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The period for questions and comments has expired.

Is the House ready for the question?


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The question is therefore on the amendment of the Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: All those in favour will please say yea.


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five Members having risen:


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Call in the Members.
And the division bells having rung:


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Pursuant to Standing Order 45(5)(a), I have been requested by the Chief Government Whip to defer the vote until a later time.
Accordingly, pursuant to Standing Order 45, the division on the question before the House stands deferred until 5.30 p.m. today, at which time the bells to call in the Members will be sounded for not more than 15 minutes.


BORROWING AUTHORITY ACT, 1989-90 MEASURE TO ENACT
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Tuesday, May 2, consideration of the motion of Mr. Wilson (Etobicoke Centre) that Bill C-ll, an Act to provide borrowing authority, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
Mr. Lee Richardson (Calgary Southeast):: Mr. Speaker, I will return to the borrowing Bill, another integral part of the Budget process. This Budget is a milestone for the future of Canada. It marks the point where Canada as a nation recognized that there is a threat to our way of life. It also marks the point where we started to effectively deal with it. It marks the point where we took action as a
Borrowing Authority
Government and as a people to maintain our standard of living and our social programs, not just for ourselves but for our children as well.
The Progressive Conservative Government has been working since 1984 to get the threat of debt under control. This took tough action, competent management of the economy, and strong control of government spending. We succeeded in cutting the deficit by $9.5 billion and by slowing the rate of growth of the debt from 24 per cent a year to less than 10 per cent last year. Despite this progress the public debt is still growing faster than our ability to carry it. That is why the Budget proposes some strong medicine to face up to the debt challenge.
The reality is that we still have a long way to go. Today we are debating the approval of a Bill to permit the Government to borrow $25.55 billion. This will permit the Government to meet its financial requirements and to conduct foreign exchange operations.
Perhaps some background would be helpful. In general, the Government requires parliamentary authority to borrow new money. A notable exception is temporary loans under Section 47 of the Financial Administration Act with a maturity of less than six months when there are insufficient funds to meet disbursements. With the exception of these special Section 47 loans new parliamentary authority is not required to roll over existing debt.
The deficit is projected to be $30.5 billion in the 1989-90 fiscal year, compared to $38.3 billion in the 1984-85 fiscal year. However, this is not equal to the borrowing requirements of the Government for three reasons.
First, the Government has access to $10.4 billion in non-budgetary sources of funding such as contributions to the Public Service superannuation accounts. The projected financial requirements after taking non-budgetary items into account are $20.5 billion.
Second, foreign exchange operations will affect the Government's borrowing requirements. For example, when the Canadian Government acts to moderate a rise in the Canadian dollar, Canadian dollars must be borrowed while the acquired U.S. dollars are added to our foreign exchange reserves.

May 15, 1989
Burrowing Authority
A $3 billion borrowing authority reserve will be sought to provide for flexibility in managing foreign exchange transactions including exchange fund earnings.
Third, the amount that must be borrowed is increased by the exchange fund earnings.
The exchange fund earnings are related to the investment income from Canada's foreign exchange holdings, particularly in the form of U.S. dollar denominated assets. Since these earnings are in foreign currency, they increased the reported level of foreign exchange holdings but do not reduce financial requirements even though they are reported as budget revenues. Exchange fund earnings are projected to be $1.3 billion.
On March 31 of the previous fiscal year, the Government used its emergency borrowing powers under Section 47 of the Financial Administration Act to borrow $750 million. This Bill will refinance this temporary debt and authorize a further $24.8 billion for a total of $25.55 billion, consisting of, as I have noted, the 1989-90 financial requirements of $20.5 billion, exchange fund earnings of $1.3 billion, a reserve of $3 billion and the replenishment of Section 47 loans for another $750 million for a total of $25.55 billion.
The Government's financial requirements are a comprehensive measure of the demands on credit markets. These requirements have fallen sharply from $29.8 billion in 1984-85 to a projected $20.5 billion in 1989-90. Relative to the size of the economy, financial requirements have fallen from 6.7 per cent of gross domestic product to a projected 3.2 per cent this year. By 1993-94 the Government's financial requirements will have fallen to $3 billion or 0.3 per cent of gross domestic product.
To accomplish this we have made and will continue to make some tough choices. That is what we were elected to do. We have striven to ensure that the total budget package has an appropriate balance that reflects regional circumstances and a greater burden on those who are able to cany it.
On the expenditure side of the ledger, the work of the Expenditure Review Committee of Cabinet has resulted in major reductions of Government spending which add up to about $2.5 billion per year. This builds on the efforts we have made in the past four years to reduce program spending as a portion of the economy from 19.5
per cent when we took office to 16 per cent this year and about 15 per cent by 1993-94.
Since 1984, this Government has worked to build a strong foundation on which Canadians could achieve their economic potential. Over the past four years, the Government has introduced a number of structural policies and reforms that raise the prospects for growth and higher living standards for Canadians. We modernized the regulatory environment for business. We reformed the corporate and personal income tax systems to make them more equitable and to increase the incentives to save and invest. We negotiated the Cana-da-U.S. Trade Agreement, which by securing access to the large U.S. market will permit Canadian firms to operate on a larger, more efficient scale and seek expanded markets for their products.
We encouraged research and development and approved job training programs. We replaced the Foreign Investment Review Agency with Investment Canada to encourage the foreign investment that provides net benefits to Canada.
Together with responsible fiscal actions, our economic measures created a climate in which Canadians could face the economic challenges of a tough competitive world.
We will also continue our privatization efforts, including the sale of the remaining Air Canada shares, the sale of two former divisions of Atomic Energy of Canada and a stepped up evaluation of other possible privatization candidates.
Our earlier efforts to make the Post Office self-sufficient have succeeded. Not only did it make a profit last year, the Post Office will start paying dividends to the Government.
These efforts to make sure tax dollars are spent wisely would not be complete unless transfers to individuals were also examined. For example, as the Hon. Member for Edmonton Northwest (Mr. Dorin) has pointed out, senior citizen's pensions represent the largest single expenditure of Government, in the neighbourhood of $15 billion a year. Those pensions are indexed so that every year the amount we spend on them will increase by the amount of inflation, which is currently running about 4 per cent. So we have an approximate 4 per cent increase simply as a result of that. Second, the population is growing older. There are more and more people turning 65 and entitled to these pensions. The result of inflation and more people turning 65 will require the Government to find an additional $1.5 billion this year
May 15, 1989

just to maintain the existing program-not to improve it, enhance it or increase it. Our seniors will not be denied their due. Our seniors will not be penalized because they did not have the opportunities of this generation.
Canada's social safety net is important to all of us and it must be preserved and made secure for now and the future. That means that the priority purposes of programs like old age security and family allowance must be to assist lower and middle-income Canadians, not to unnecessarily subsidize those with higher incomes. That is why the Budget proposes to use the tax system to recover these payments from high income taxpayers. Those with individual net incomes greater than $50,000 will repay these benefits or part of them. Everyone eligible will continue to receive a cheque. This repayment measure will ensure that those who need assistance will retain their benefits, and those with high incomes will repay more as their income rises.
The Budget also contains tax increases. Higher revenues will contribute to narrowing the imbalance between government income and outgo so that this generation pays for today's programs and contributes to debt control. This will return total revenues as a share of the economy to levels that prevailed in the early 1970s before deficits started to balloon out of control when the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Turner) was Finance Minister.
Let us remember that when the Leader of the Opposition was Finance Minister the deficit increased by $4 billion. Relative to the size of the economy the deficit doubled from 1.6 per cent of Gross Domestic Product to 3.3 per cent. In contrast, the present Minister of Finance has cut the deficit by $10 billion and relative to the GDP the deficit has been almost cut in half from 8.6 per cent to 4.9 per cent. When the Leader of the Opposition was Finance Minister total spending rose by 107 per cent in four years. That is four times faster than the spending increases of the present Government. If the Minister of Finance had increased his spending at the same rate as the then Minister of Finance, taxes this year would have had to double just to keep the deficit from rising.
Borrowing Authority
Some would argue that the Government has taken harsh measures to tackle the deficit. But this Government has also helped ease the tax load on many Canadians. The refundable federal sales tax credit for adults and children will be doubled to protect those with low incomes. The income threshold will also be increased to $18,000. This means a single person with an income of $18,000 will receive $140 credit next year, and a family of four will receive $420. This measure provides substantial assistance to those most in need.
A further part of our debt control strategy relates to the unemployment insurance system. The changes announced recently to improve the UI program, increased training and improved the equity and incentive provisions, were designed to redirect resources within the program.
At the same time changes will be made to ensure that the financing of the program is consistent with our efforts to control the debt. Beginning in 1990 the UIC system will be fully financed by employer and employee premiums. The Government will continue to finance the UIC account should it go into deficit and difficult times.
A major part of this strategy is the reform of the federal sales tax. A new tax called the goods and services tax will replace the current system on January 1, 1991. It will have a broad base and will have a rate of 9 per cent.
Sales tax reform has been in the works for a long time. The present tax is hidden, unfair and damaging to our economy. While the joint federal-provincial reform of the Senate is not possible at this time, the importance of the reform made it necessary for the federal Government to move ahead. The new goods and services tax will provide a more stable revenue base for government programs and debt control.
It will improve the over-all fairness of the tax system. It will be more visible to the consumer than the current federal sales tax and it will allow the economy to function more efficiently. The goods and services tax will be levied on a vast majority of goods and services consumed in Canada. However, basic groceries, prescription drugs and medical devices will not be taxed. Residential rents, child care, legal aid and most health, educational and dental services will also be tax exempt. The paper burden on small business will be minimized.

May 15, 1989
Burrowing Authority
The 9 per cent rate will provide sufficient revenues to replace the existing federal sales tax, allow income tax reductions for middle-income households and provide a new refundable sales tax credit. This credit will be paid four times a year in advance of the start of the new tax and will be designed to ensure that families earning less than $30,000 will be better off as a result of sales tax reform.
The combination of spending costs and tax increases today in the reform of the sales tax system in 1991 will make sure that the threat of the debt is dealt with decisively. The challenge is to make sure that we keep to this task each year, every year until the job is done.
This Budget puts us on the right course, with an improved ability as a nation to carry the debt, with a strengthened capacity to maintain vital social and cultural programs and other important public services. With prudent fiscal management and reduced spending, I hope by the fourth year of this mandate that we will not need to borrow to pay our bills. I wish we did not have to borrow, but that is the legacy of our debt. That is why this Budget is about building for the future, not borrowing from it. That is why the Budget deals firmly with the major obstacle to a better future, the problem of our growing debt. This Budget is designed to overcome that obstacle. The measures in it are tough. They have to be to match the challenges we are facing.


John Harvard: Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to my hon. friend from Calgary, and I found his remarks interesting. There is an apparent contradiction which I would like to point out. He talks about himself and his Party defending Canada's social programs, and states that they are as concerned about our social programs as we are on this side of the House. I wonder how he can say that, given the fact that they have introduced this Draconian measure in the Budget called the claw-back, which in effect puts an end to universality in this country.
If I said to my hon. friends across the way that if we were introducing a Canada-wide pension plan or Canada-wide family allowance, and providing those programs only to those people earning $10,000 or $15,000 a year, they would say, "Oh, no, that is a form of welfare, and
we would not stand for that". But that is exactly what this Government is proposing to do. They are starting at the other end, and coming down.
It has already been pointed out a number of times in this House that if this Government can start at $70,000 in clawing back pensions, clawing back the family allowance, it can do it at $60,000, $50,000, $40,000 or $20,000. That is the direction it is taking. Not only that, if it can do it with pensions, it can do it with medicare.
When it comes to Conservative thinking, if the Government wants to reduce the deficit by cutting back on pensions, would it not include cutting back on medicare benefits? It seems to me that that is what it can do.
The point I really want to make is this. One of the unique features of universality is bringing rich and poor together in the same constituency. By dividing those people through a claw-back measure, the rich people in this country begin to resent the payments to the people who are at the lower end of the pay scales. Pretty soon there will be no support from that constituency of Canadians for pensions and family allowances.
People who are fairly well off in this country do not lend the same support to welfare as they might do to pensions because they do not see anything in it for themselves. It is a welfare measure that has become stigmatized.
Does my hon. friend from Calgary understand that people who are better off in this country will begin to resent pensions and family allowances that they themselves will never share in? They will pay into it but they will not share in something that should belong to them as a right of citizenship.


Lee Richardson: I thank the Hon. Member for his question. First, I should clarify that the direction we are taking in this Government is to reduce the mountain of debt that was created, beginning in 1974 when the Members' Leader was the Minister of Finance. That mountain of debt is the greatest obstacle that we have to overcome in the country today.
With regard to your question relating to the taxation of benefits of wealthy Canadians, I cannot recall a single matter that was raised more often in the course of my knocking on 25,000 doors in my constituency than the
May 15, 1989

waste of government funds going to people who simply do not deserve or need them.
We are taking a number of difficult measures in this Budget to reduce the national debt. This is one of them.
I do not think that anyone who is in an income category over $50,000 is going to begrudge being taxed at the rate of 15 per cent on the baby bonus, should they receive it, or any old age benefits.


Mr. Marchi:: Mr. Speaker, the Conservative Member from Calgary who just spoke failed to answer a couple of important questions. He dwells on the national debt, on the annual deficit.
Can he explain to Canadian taxpayers why the Government in the last four years has more than doubled that national debt? In borrowing for interest payments, will he answer why, during the best of economic times in the last five to seven year cycle, that deficit, if it was so important, was not brought down rather than doubled.
Second, when he tries to parade a political Robin Hood image of sorts, that is to say, take from the rich in terms of family allowances and pensions, he fails to tell zCanadians that they are simply playing with pocket change. The real message in these Budgets is in the tax distribution. We have quoted day in and day out on this side, whether it is in Question Period or in debate, the unfairness of the tax regime. We have described a family, which is real on the streets of this country, that earns $26,000 whose taxes have gone up 60 per cent since 1984 through five Tbry federal Budgets. On the other hand, the increase of those families earning upwards of $150,000 was only 8 per cent. That is the real message, the real dilemma that many Canadian families are facing.
Perhaps the Hon. Member can also address the fairness of that particular tax regime. No one minds paying his way for this country. Where the tax revolt comes in, where the tax inequities lie is when one class of Canadians says, "Hey, we are getting hit much more than the next door neighbour". Then the situation is that the poor in this country cannot afford to pay and the rich will not pay. Therefore this large working middle-class sector in our society says enough is enough. They fall to one side of the category or the other. Perhaps the Hon. Member, in the minutes that he has available, can address himself to the question of why the Tories doubled that debt; and
Borrowing Authority
second, talk about where the fairness is in this tax regime.


Lee Richardson: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure the Hon. Member was in the House for all of my speech. He could have had the answer to his question by listening to what I said.
I began by noting that in the period when the Hon. Member's Leader was Finance Minister. In that four years, the debt increased 107 per cent. It was the snowball that the Liberals starting rolling down the hill which grew into this huge mountain of debt by building in ongoing programs that will take some time to control. This is the first government and the first Finance Minister that has had the courage to stand up and say enough is enough. We cannot continue as the Liberals did for 18 years to spend beyond our means. We have to get a handle on the national debt, not only for this generation, but for future generations. We have to stop what the Liberals started, control the national debt and provide the social programs that all of us in the House want.

Mr. Gauthier Mr. Speaker, I would like to raise an important point concerning the role played by the average backbencher, Members like me, in this House.
I refer to the decision made earlier by the Government to defer the vote on the amendment made by the Senate to BUI C-14.
Mr. Speaker, I object to the Government using its orders, although it has a right to do so, to defer a vote to a time normally reserved for Private Members: Business. We have one hour a day, sometimes three days a week, set aside for Members, from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.
There are no rules that provide that the Government cannot do that, but I think there is a moral obligation to understand that private Members do have an hour occasionally during the week in which to bring forth initiatives of their own. By deferring the vote to 5.30 this afternoon, the Government is doing something during private Members' hour that it should be doing during Government time. I believe serious consideration should be given to this matter.

May 15, 1989
Burrowing Authority
Standing Orders 45(4) and 45(5) give the Whips of the Government and the official Opposition the right to request that a vote be deferred to later in the day or to 6 o'clock the next day. I would not want to see the Whips being accused of abusing this right by deferring all votes to 5 o'clock on a day we know that a private Member's Bill or motion will be before the House, thereby preventing that debate from occurring. In the spirit of decency and in the spirit of the McGrath reforms, Hon. Members should have that hour during the week.
I do not think the Government can have it both ways. The Government has its time and is entitled to that time, but within that time it should do what governments do well and that is govern. I do not think the Government wants to take away from Members on both sides of the House their right to present initiatives, Bills and motions which they understand will be of benefit to the country and their own constituents.
I ask that the House consider this point and possibly refer it to a committee for further consideration. Possibly the rules could be adapted or modified to prevent an abuse by the Government or by the Opposition of Standing Order 45(5) which gives the Whips this power. I know I might sound a bit funny because I am a Whip myself, but I do not like the abuse of private Members' hour. I have made my point clear and I will sit down.


Mr. Hawkes:: Mr. Speaker, by and large, I agree with my hon. friend opposite. All of us in this Chamber should be protective of private Members' hour and of the private Members' process. Today, the Chamber was faced with a decision by a non-elected body to deal with financial matters in a way that is certainly not common although it is legally possible. We felt this morning that we could dispose of that matter and return it to the other Chamber in time for the veterans and pensioners who are expecting cheques from the Government to receive them. We felt that with the co-operation of the three parties, we could do that rather quickly. We felt we could send it back to the other place and have the situation resolved in time to issue those cheques. As the day progressed, it became clear that it was not possible. Those people will have to suffer some inconvenience in most cases but some real hardship in others.
The source of the interference with private Members' hour today was discussed earlier today with the Whip of the third party in the House, the Hon. Member who happens to be the sponsor of the private Members' Bill. Less than one hour ago, the Official Opposition and the Government, in an effort to protect private Members' hour, proceeded to deal with the issue of the Senate motion on a voice vote in the Chamber. Certain Hon. Members having risen in their places caused the bells to ring and Hon. Members to be called. No Member of the Official Opposition did that and no Member of the Government did that. It was Members of the third Party, the Party's whose Whip sponsors the private Member's hour that is before the House today. If there is any suffering on the part of the sponsor of the motion, may I suggest that on this unique day in this unique set of circumstances, it was the Whip of the third Party who caused his own personal misfortune.
Earlier this day, we had conversations that would have allowed a full one hour for private Member's business. It would have been very simple to let the motion carry on the voice vote at 4.15 this afternoon, but the decision was made to call in the Members. We were then still faced with the issue of governing the country.
We passed a motion last week providing that we meet later this day to conclude our vote on the Budget. Our proceedings will already go longer than they would on a normal day. The third Party is asking us to go longer still, something which will cause an enormous proportion of the Members of the House to cancel very important engagements relating to the governing of the nation.
The Government, as represented by myself as Whip, has taken the decision to have the vote on the Senate amendment earlier to be followed by the vote on the Budget in the interests of all Members of the House. It would not be in the best interests of society to give in to the tyranny of a minority at any point, and our books are quite clear on that subject.


Mr. Murphy:: Mr. Speaker, I take some pleasure in being involved in this. I believe the words of the government Whip are astounding. The vote on the Budget was deferred until 6 o'clock on Monday from Thursday of last week. The government Whip has a responsibility to have his Members here at that time. He had all the warning he needed. Earlier today, he suggested that we defer private Members' business so that
May 15, 1989

government Members would not have to stay here until 6 o'clock. That was really astounding and I thought it was shameful. Of course I did not agree to it.
The government Whip is seeking his revenge in this small way by making sure that when my motion comes up, we are told that we can only debate it for one half hour. The Government is upset because it has to keep some of its Members here past 6 o'clock.
Government Members do not want to stay here to vote for the Budget. I understand that. If you have read the Budget, Mr. Speaker, you will understand the implication of its closing down the bases in Summerside and Portage la Prairie and you will understand why government Members do not want to stay here until 6 o'clock to vote. There are a number of Members who do not want to be here tonight, and that is the Government's problem.
Government Members knew last Thursday that they had the responsibility to be here at 6 o'clock tonight to vote on the Budget. I do not have any sympathy whatsoever for the government Whip, but I do have some sympathy for the people of Atlantic Canada who were told that at 5 o'clock tonight, a motion relating to regional economic development would be dealt with by the House. They were told that the motion standing in my name would have one full hour of debate. The shenanigans of the Government House Leader indicate how little support the Government has in Atlantic Canada and why the Government has such little support.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I will be very brief. First, the government Whip failed to mention the fact that the vote in question should have taken place at 4.30 this afternoon, after a 15 minute bell which should have started at 4.15. In other words, we will be voting on this Bill at 5.30, not because of any action of the New Democratic Party, but because of a delaying tactic, under the rules, that was utilized by the Government at 4.15 this afternoon.
There is only one reasonable thing to do under the circumstances because the precedent that has been set today is one that I could use tomorrow to ask that a vote be deferred to a time a government Member's private motion is being dealt with. We could do that across the way with each other and practically eliminate Private
Regional Development
Members' Hour under the dangerous precedent initiated today by the Government Whip.
I wish you would seek unanimous consent of the House, Mr. Speaker, that immediately upon taking the vote today the last half hour of Private Members' Hour be taken up at that time in order not to remove any time from the Hon. Member whose Private Member's Motion we are debating today. I ask that you seek unanimous consent. Hopefully, if the Government is serious that it is not trying to punish the New Democratic Member in question, it would agree to provide that extra half hour. Then we would not create the dangerous precedent I fear we may be creating.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I must remind the House that we must commence Private Members' Hour at five o'clock. Is there unanimous consent to continue with Private Members' Hour after the possible three divisions that we will have tonight?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: There is unanimous consent.
I thank the three Whips of the respective parties, including the Deputy Whip, for the remarks they have made. The Chair will look into the matter and report back to the House.
It being 5 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   REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT LONG-TERM PLANNING FOR ATLANTIC REGION
Rodney Edward Murphy: That, in the opinion of this House, the Government should consider the advisability of providing long-term regional planning for the Atlantic region through an established permanent ministry responsible for regional development.
He said: Mr. Speaker, this is an unusual situation in that we are dealing with a motion rather than a Bill. That is deliberate because we do not have the power, as opposition Members, to set up government Depart-

May 15, 1989
Regional Development
ments. The motion that we are dealing with is very important. If one looks at the history of regional economic development in this country, one sees why the issue itself is important.
First, in our Constitution regional development is specifically listed as a requirement of the House of Commons and the Parliament of Canada.
Second, over years of Liberal and Conservative government there has been a move away from a Department which was specifically responsible for regional economic expansion to the present Department of Regional Industrial Expansion, and now the Conservative Government is moving further in that direction by setting up a new Department with no specific mandate in its title for regional development.
Not only have we changed the title of the Department concerned but the whole focus of that Department. When the Liberal Government disbanded the Department of Regional Economic Expansion it made a mistake. That mistake is still hurting the regions today. The federal Government at the present time has the Department of Regional Industrial Expansion in place. We already see that the focus on regional development has been curtailed. There is not a Minister sitting in Cabinet with a specific responsibility for regional development. There is not even a Minister of State with a specific responsibility for regional development. Yet over the years Cabinet has grown in size from 25 to 28, to 30 and now to 40. Instead of having one Minister responsible there is a hodgepodge of Ministers responsible for various aspects of regional economic development.
That approach does not work. It is especially harmful to the underdeveloped regions of the countiy. It is extremely hard on Atlantic Canada. The Government speaker who will be delegated today to rise after the three votes will point out that the Government has set up ACOA and that the Atlantic Canadian Opportunities Agency has a similar mandate and according to the Government perhaps an expanded mandate.
I would argue that it does not have the same powers as a full-fledged Department. It does not have the staff of a full-fledged Department. It does not have the opportunity, the capacity, or the willingness to deal with other Departments in the way that the former Department of
Regional Economic Expansion could do. That is a serious problem.
An agency basically situated in Atlantic Canada will not have the power, the focus, the money, or the wherewithal to meet with other agencies or other Departments. It does not have a Deputy Minister sitting in Ottawa who meets with other Deputy Ministers. It does not have Assistant Deputy Ministers who meet with Assistant Deputy Ministers. It does not have the same role within the whole budgetary process as other Departments.
The same thing could be said for the western diversification fund. In itself it can be a useful tool, but it cannot replace a Department which is specifically responsible for economic expansion and economic development in our nation.
If Members from the various regions think about that, they will realize that it is true. Those of us who have worked in Ottawa for a number of years know how important it is to have someone who is here making decisions, and how important it is to have someone here who has a voice.
I have already indicated that the voice is no longer there within Cabinet. I have already indicated that we do not have a voice at the Deputy Minister level, at Assistant Deputy Minister level, or other levels which are parallel to the aligned Departments. As a result we really have a situation where, as my colleague from Prince Albert-Churchill River indicated a few moments ago, we do not know if we are dealing with a political slush fund or a sense of government direction.
Certainly people who receive money for their projects, industries, corporations, and communities are very happy when they receive that money. Those who do not receive money are obviously not nearly as happy.
The problem that we and Members from Atlantic Canada have is that they cannot look at a clear mandate of what the Government is attempting to achieve. We do not know what the mandate of ACOA will be one year from now. We do not know what will happen to the money that is not spent through ACOA. We know that some of the projects that are funded seem to come out of nowhere, and the money has gone to nowhere and no jobs have been created. We could go through a whole list of embarrassing situations.
May 15, 1989

A government Member may rise and indicate that there are some rosy pictures from one or two of the grants. I would hope that when he rises he will also deal with the other grants and programs that did not prove to be fruitful. In terms of balance, he should do that.
However, my primary concern in presenting this motion is to indicate how we as a Parliament have failed in allowing the Government to go in this direction. The prior Liberal Government and the present Conservative Government made a tragic mistake in terms of understanding what our regions need.
In a previous speech I indicated that there was a House of Commons committee that was specifically responsible for regional economic expansion. That committee was able to travel. I took great pleasure in travelling with that committee when I was a member. We went into northern New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and other parts of Canada. As a Member from western Canada, on those trips I learned a lot about why programs were necessary and I also learned a lot about the communities we were in. I learned about some of the problems the Department of Regional Economic Expansion were having and what changes were needed to specific legislation, programs, and regulations. That is where we are failing at this point. There is no such standing committee of the House.
Therefore many Members of Parliament are not in a position to know what should be done in terms of changing government programs. Since there is no Minister directly responsible for regional development who can report to any committee of the House of Commons, the House of Commons cannot look at the whole scope of regional development programs in the budgetary process.
While specific agencies have particular responsibilities for regional development and can report that to the House, it is not like looking at the whole picture from coast to coast. That is what we need.
Newly elected Members were not here when we had the Department of Regional Economic Expansion. I can say there is a significant difference from what is happening in the Standing Committees now and what happened eight or nine years ago when that Department existed.
Regional Development
The ability of Parliament to influence government programs has diminished as a result. While Members can examine the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agencies and deal with its mandate, the mandate is no where near that of the previous Department of Regional Economic Expansion.
Furthermore, the committee does not have the mandate to direct the efforts of the Government toward such things as reducing economic disparities or affecting over-all government regional economic policy. I can use those same arguments with regard to the western diversification fund.
That is the purpose of this motion. I hope Members opposite will not simply rise to speak about the grand successes of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agencies or the wonderful achievements of the western diversification fund but will talk about what Parliament wants for regional development. I hope they will say what we should be doing in the House of Commons to represent the needs of those in the regions of Canada who are in most need of government assistance.
I remind Members opposite that this is a Private Member's Motion and does not require solidarity with the Government. It is an opportunity for them to speak about their region and their responsibility as a Member of Parliament. I hope Members opposite take that approach when they rise to speak.
The Government's policies mean that there are a number of issues which can no longer be raised in specific Standing Committees. This has concerned me particularly since I became our caucus spokesperson for Atlantic Canada issues. The mandate of the former Standing Committee on Regional Economic Expansion allowed us to cover the whole gambit of economic development in a certain region. While a Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans dealt with matters specifically concerning the fishery, the Department of Regional Economic Expansion could deal with the question of the Atlantic fishery within the scope of Department of Regional Economic Expansion estimates. It was possible to deal with regional issues concerning forestry, post-secondary education, transportation or native people in Atlantic Canada under the mandate of the Standing Committee on Regional Economic Expansion.

May 15, 1989
Regional Development
These concerns came within the Department of Regional Economic Expansion.
When we visited northern New Brunswick, Comer Brook and St. John's East, we were given a royal reception because the people there wanted that direct input with Members of Parliament. They knew the importance of talking to Members of Parliament. They knew the importance of having a Department that would look at transportation, fisheries, and economic development as a whole rather than in isolation. We knew that the witnesses who would appear before the committee, whether in Campbellton or Comer Brook, would be involved in all aspects of the economy including the social programs of the regions.
This over-all perspective made a lot more sense not only to the MPs who were on the committee or to those who were listening to the presentations, but it made much more sense in helping the Government formulate its goals for that region. It made a lot of sense to have a Department of Regional Economic Expansion which could deal with numerous issues, including the fishery, post-secondary education, whether community colleges provided adequate courses for the people in that region, or whether there was the community infrastructure to attract industries.
That has gone out the window. It is a sad commentary on what has happened. We know that this was the agenda of senior bureaucrats in Ottawa in the early 1980s. They said so during hearings with the Department of Regional Economic Expansion and in a separate committee hearing dealing with industry and trade. They did not like having to encourage corporations to set up in particular areas such as Campbellton, Summerside, Halifax or Cape Breton because it should not be their responsibility to direct private enterprise. They would rather have the programs in place and leave it to the companies to decide where they wanted to set up.
That was a hard concept for parliamentarians to accept in those committees. We believed that if we were providing government money for regional development we should have some say in how we encourage those corporations and facilities to set up in a particular area.
The senior bureaucracy in Ottawa wanted the amalgamation that took place when the Liberals got rid of the Department of Regional Economic Expansion. I suspect that it is some of those same bureaucrats who are responsible for successfully persuading the Conservative Government to integrate further and diminish the role of regional economic expansion within the new Department that is being established under legislation before the House.
Our Constitution requires that Parliament take regional development seriously. I do not believe we can do so if there is no longer a Standing Committee that studies that area. Even more important, we cannot do so without a specific government Department with that mandate.
It is interesting to note that just before the Liberal Government of the day demolished the Department of Regional Economic Expansion, a consultant's report which it had requested indicated the Government should proceed in the opposite direction. I have a copy of the report. It states that the mandate of the Department of Regional Economic Expansion has been good but that it really needs to be expanded. It has to expand its role of communication and co-ordination with the other Departments.
The report went on to give examples of why it was important. That was a worth-while study. I have not been a great fan of consultants, as many people in the House well know. I have not been a great fan of various studies that Governments have done. I have not been a great fan of the hiring process in terms of how those people get their jobs either. However, that study made a lot of sense. It actually amplified what we had heard in the Standing Committee on Regional Economic Expansion when we went into Atlantic Canada, Quebec and western Canada.
What we heard from the people at that time was that they wanted an expanded role for the Department of Regional Economic Expansion. Rather than having to deal with two Departments they wanted one Department which would do a lot of the leg work, which had the authority and the emphasis within government to ensure that regional development occurred. As well, they wanted it to have the political muscle in Cabinet to make sure that individuals in other Departments did not stymie a good project.
That was what the people in Atlantic Canada and in the other parts of Canada called for. The Government rejected that. That is why I am asking through this motion that we indicate as the House of Commons that we want to see that process re-established. We want to be in a position to have a focus within Cabinet and within the House of Commons to ensure that the people in the regions are listened to, that the Government is in a position to act, and that the House of Commons and its Members will be in a position to monitor the activities of

the Government when it comes to regional development.


Mr. Peter L. McCreath (South Shore):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to compliment and indeed as an Atlantic Canadian, thank the Hon. Member opposite for bringing this motion before the House and for providing us with an opportunity to talk about regional development needs in Atlantic Canada.
However, I would like to tell him that the Government has already formed a long-term regional planning capability for Atlantic Canada through the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency established on June 7, 1987. I might say that it is a lot more than a grant dispensing agency.
I would also like to tell the Hon. Member that this agency has a Minister sitting at the cabinet table. It has a senior Minister sitting at the cabinet table. It has a former DREE Minister sitting on its behalf at the cabinet table. He is a Minister of whom we think very highly. We are quite satisfied that our interests are extremely well looked after in that the Minister responsible for the administration of ACOA is the Minister looking after regional development in Atlantic Canada.
Furthermore, we are very pleased that we have not only this new agency which functions as a Department but that it is centred in Atlantic Canada where Atlantic Canadians can play the lead role in determining what it does and how it functions.
The agency as legislated by Parliament is a permanent Ministry which has the principal responsibility in the federal Government for planning, implementing and co-ordinating programs and activities in support of regional development in the Atlantic region, including the administration and delivery of a $1.05 billion budget in incremental funds. I would like to have all of that money in the South Shore, too.
Regional Development
I would like to point out that in announcing this agency on June 6, 1987, the Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) stated, and I quote directly from his remarks on that occasion:
The agency will have a strong mandate for the co-ordination and planning of all federal activities contributing to the economic growth of the region, particularly procurement, training and skills development, job creation, technology infrastructure development and local investment promotion. It also will be directly responsible for federal small and medium sized business and industrial development policy and programs in the region, working in close co-operation with provincial Governments and with the private sector. Special efforts will be made to ensure Atlantic suppliers benefit fairly from federal procurement requirements.
The role of ACOA was embodied in Bill C-103 which was proclaimed last year. The object of the agency as stated in Section 12 of the legislation is: "to support and promote opportunity for economic development in Atlantic Canada, with particular emphasis on small and medium sized enterprises through policy, program and project development and implementation, and through advocacy of the interests of Atlantic Canada in national economic policy, program and project development and implementation".
The agency has been provided with significant powers in Section 13 of the Act, including that to formulate plans to support economic development in Atlantic Canada in concert with other federal Departments, in addition to other program powers.
ACOA is the result of a new decentralized approach to regional development.
The agency is served by a private sector advisory board which provides input to the impact of proposed policy and programs. It keeps ACOA management advised on current private sector concerns.
The ACOA headquarters is located in Moncton, New Brunswick. There are regional offices in each of the provincial capitals, as well as an office in Ottawa.
The key point is that this agency is based in Atlantic Canada where it can benefit from the needs, the aspirations, and indeed the wisdom of Atlantic Canadians.
With limited resources of approximately 320 person-years ACOA makes use of expertise available within the private sector and other levels of government in the delivery of its operations.

May 15, 1989
Regional Development
The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency is a strategic partnership with the people of Atlantic Canada in the renewal of the Atlantic entrepreneurial spirit. In pursuit of this mission ACOA has adopted several strategic long-term objectives. The first is a self-sustaining entrepreneurial culture. The second is more successful small and medium sized businesses. The third is more lasting employment opportunities. The fourth is increased earned incomes. The fifth is national policies and programs which reflect the strengths, aspirations, and opportunities of Atlantic Canada. The sixth is an expanding competitive economy.
The elements of the ACOA mandate and the powers embodied in the legislation will provide the agency with the necessary tools to implement its mission and work toward the following four stated objectives.
First, the ACOA action program is providing the resources to undertake strategic risk sharing with Atlantic entrepreneurs. By engaging in this type of relationship with its clients the agency is gaining valuable insight into the future directions of economic development within Atlantic Canada.
Second, the co-operation element of the mandate sees ACOA implementing a new concerted approach to shared federal-provincial regional development funding in Atlantic Canada.
Third, ACOA is mandated to co-ordinate federal policies and programs aimed at stimulating Atlantic Canada economic opportunities. This is resulting in more efficient use of federal regional development resources.
Fourth, ACOA is devoting a portion of its energies to the advocacy of Atlantic interests across the entire spectrum of national policies and programs, from federal procurement to regulations and legislation. The goal of this element is to alter some long-standing stereotypes regarding the region's ability to compete with national standards. That is why it is so important it is an Atlantic based agency.
By far the most impressive of ACOA's accomplishments to date has been the unprecedented reaction to
the agency's action program. Since it was introduced in February of 1988 applications to the program have run at approximately ten times the rate of previous regional development programs. This accelerated activity has translated into over 5,000 approved projects. The direct private sector investment generated by these initiatives will amount to over $2 billion. I know that at the present time there are 200 applications in the ACOA office from the South Shore alone. We have had over 100 applications approved. Quite frankly, jobs are being created on a daily basis. With the downturn in the fishing industry we need that right now.
For example, in my own riding, Harry Freeman and Son in Greenfield has created 19 jobs; Nova Woodcraft in Bridgewater has created 8 jobs; ABCO Plastics in Mahone Bay has created 12 jobs; and Neptune Leather Company in Clark's Harbour has created 25 jobs. That is a result of a program that is based in the region and understands its potential. The economic spin-offs from this investment are expected to inject at least $2.5 to $3 billion into the Atlantic economy.
The effects of this economic stimulation are already being measured in lowered unemployment rates and the creation of some 14,000 jobs in Atlantic Canada. From December, 1987, to December, 1988, Atlantic Canada registered an 11.4 per cent increase in new business establishments, compared to 10 per cent for all of Canada. In each of the Atlantic provinces, increases of between 8.9 per cent and 15.4 per cent were registered for capital expenditures during 1988, over the previous year.
In conclusion, clearly this Government has taken some very tangible steps to ensure the permanency of regional development initiatives in Atlantic Canada. To date, those initiatives are working. As we head into the crisis in the fishing industry, I know that we can look to this Government for substantial support to see that the self-reliance of Atlantic Canadians which has been the key to our success in the past will be the key to our success in the future.
May 15, 1989

Appropriation Act




[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the amendment made by the Senate to Bill C-14, an Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Government of Canada for the financial year ending the 31st March, 1990, and of the motion of Mr. de Cotret (p. 1695) and the amendment of Mr. Nystrom (p. 1713).
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It being 5.30 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 45, the House will now proceed to the deferred recorded division on the amendment of Mr. Nystrom to the motion of the President of the Treasury Board concerning the amendment made by the Senate to BUI C-14.
Call in the Members.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I declare the amendment lost.
Is the House ready for the question on the motion in the name of the President of the Treasury Board?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: In my opinion the yeas have it.
And more than five Members having risen:


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Shall I dispense with the ringing of the bells?


Mr. Gauthier:: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Ottawa- Vanier, on a point of order.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I think you would find there is unanimous consent for applying the results of the previous division to this one.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: In the reverse.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Does the House agree to apply the division just taken, in the reverse, to the main motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I declare the motion carried.


THE BUDGET
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed, from Thursday, May 11, consideration of the motion of Mr. Wilson (Etobicoke Centre) that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the Government.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Pursuant to order made on Friday, May 5,1989, the House will now proceed with the
Appropriation Act
deferred recorded division on the motion of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) concerning the Budget.

The question is on the motion standing in the name of the Minister of Finance. Shall I dispense with the ringing of the bells?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Pursuant to the agreement reached earlier this day, the House will now revert to Private Member's Business.
++NAYS
Members



PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS - MOTIONS

[Stage Direction]
Allmand
Arseneault
Axworthy (Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing)
Barrett
Bellemare
Berger
Black
Boudria
Callbeck
Catterall
Comuzzi
de Jong
Ferguson
Fisher
Fontana
Funk
Gardiner
Gray (Windsor West)
Harb
Harvey (Edmonton East)
Hopkins
Jordan
Keyes
Kristiansen
Langdon (Essex-Windsor)
LeBlanc (Cape Breton Highlands-Canso)
MacAulay
Mac William
Manley
Marleau
McLaughlin
Milliken
Mitchell
Nault
Nystrom
Pagtakhan
Peterson
Pickard
Prud'homme
Riis
Rocheleau
Rompkey
Simmons
Skelly (Comox-Albemi)
Stewart
Taylor
TUmer (Vancouver Quadra)
Walker
Whittaker
Young (Gloucester)
Anawak
Assad
Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre)
Belair
Benjamin
Bevilacqua
Blondin
Brew in
Campbell (South West Nova) Clancy
Crawford
Duhamel
Finestone
Flis
Fulton
Gaffney
Gauthier
Guarnieri
Harvard
Heap
Hunter
Karpoff
Kilger (Stormont-Dundas) Langan (Mission-Coquitlam) Laporte Lee
MacDonald (Dartmouth)
Maheu
Marchi
McCurdy
Mifflin
Mills
Murphy
Nunziata
Ouellet
Parker
Phinney
Proud
Rideout
Robichaud
Rodriguez
Samson
Skelly (North Island-Powell River)
Speller
Stupich
Tobin
Vanclief
Wappel
Wood
Young (Beaches-Woodbine)-100
["The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired. Pursuant to Standing Order 96(1), the order is dropped from the Order Paper.\nIt being 6.47 p.m. this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at eleven o'clock pursuant to Standing Order 24(1)."]
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I declare the motion carried.



[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Murphy:
That, in the opinion of this House, the Government should consider the advisability of providing long-term regional planning for the Atlantic region through an established permanent ministry responsible for regional development.
Mr. Fred J. Mifflin (Bonavista-TVinity-Conception):: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to have this opportunity to speak on the motion put forward by my hon. friend. I am delighted that he is sponsoring something of this nature for the Atlantic region.
The advisability of providing long-term regional planning for the Atlantic region is certainly a subject that is near and dear to my heart. The mainstay of my riding of Bonavista-Trinity-Conception is very much the fishing industry. However, I am also constrained to report to the House that the last time I checked the figures, the average income was approximately $22,500. According to the latest figures, that puts it very close to the poverty level for this country.
One of the main issues that I considered to be a point of great importance during the election campaign, and certainly one of my campaign platforms, was the way to get things moving in Bonavista-Trinity-Conception. There is hardly any industry there. It is my wish as the Member of Parliament for the 91,000 people whom I represent not only to raise the profile of the fishing industry but also to try to get something moving in the area of diversification in other industries.
I am particularly interested in the area of tourism in Mr. Holtmann: Mr. Speaker, I would like the record to Newfoundland. All Hon. Members who have been to show that the Hon. Member for Portage-Interlake Newfoundland would agree that there is a tremendous abstained.	potential for tourism. Unfortunately, we have not been
May 15, 1989

able to realize the full potential of this tourist industry for a number of reasons.
Of course, one reason is that although we have been around since 1497 and long before that, it is only in the last two decades that the potential of the tourism industry in Newfoundland has been recognized. Last year I believe we took in just over $300 million in the tourism industry. A large part of that came from the riding of Bonavista-Trinity-Conception.
We need regional development funding in Newfoundland in order to survive. I certainly need it in the riding of Bonavista-Trinity-Conception in order to conceptualize and work on some of the ideas that I have put forward to my constituents.
As I stand in the House today, I am in receipt of some 13 submissions to ACOA. They range from tourism to secondary fishery processing. They include mining and the building of hotels and motels. These applications represent the whole gambit of what can be done in my riding to develop ideas that can fuel the engine of economic growth.
I am very much in support of these and am indeed working with ACOA to make sure they get off the ground and proceed at a reasonable pace so that we may see some action in the foreseeable future.
I wish to speak for a moment about ACOA. There is no question that ACOA has been very successful. I would bring to the attention of the House that in the first year of its creation in Newfoundland ACOA received somewhere in the vicinity of 1,300 applications. That will give Hon. Members some indication of how popular this agency is.
In addition to ACOA there are other subagreements. In my presentation on the Budget I spoke about some of these areas. I refer now to Economic Regional Development Agreements, commonly known as ERDAs. These are lumped in my mind with regional development because they are in fact regional development agreements. If they were added up we would see that their total number amounts to $6 billion. That is a great deal of money.
I believe that six ERDAs have been approved in Newfoundland. I believe that there is some work going on with respect to them. However, vis-a-vis my earlier comments, I am particularly interested in the agreement
Regional Development
for tourism which ran out on March 31 of this year. I know that there are one or two major projects under way and some of a lesser extent that depend very much on these agreements. In particular, the tourism agreement amounts to something in the vicinity of $21 million. That is a lot of money for some of the projects that we are trying to get under way in Newfoundland.
The projects range from a hospitality home development up to and including the building of hotels and motels, as well as tourist attractions, roadside tables, fireplaces and that sort of thing.
There is one other area to which I alluded in the House not too long ago which I will deal with now. It was when the Hon. Minister of Public Works (Mr. Dick) was speaking on another issue. I made note of the fact that in my briefings with ACOA I was very impressed with the dedication of all the people from the very top down to the account executives. I was somewhat distressed to find-and I am really putting words into the mouths of the senior executives-that they would like to do more but were constrained from doing so because they did not have adequate staff.
Looking at it from the output end one would expect that more could be done. However, purely from the input end alone the going formula for an account of the ACOA types would be between 10 and 15 for an account executive. This would allow an account executive to look at the incoming submission, to counsel the individuals or the company that has sought advice, and to discuss the whole procedure with the company. The account executive could send these people out to other agencies to seek assistance. I think that 15 accounts per account executive would permit that. However, in the case of ACOA I am told that the number of accounts for each executive is somewhere in the vicinity of 40 to 50. That does not permit the proper counselling and the institutionalized machinery to allow the success to happen as quickly as it should.
It would be my hope and desire that the favourable consideration of this type of motion put forward by my colleague would go a great deal of the way toward helping Newfoundlanders and indeed the people from Bonavista-Trinity-Conception in these types of submissions to have a better feel for the regional development programs, ACOA, and the ERDAs, as well as a better understanding of what is there so that they can make application and better treatment when they make their application. In the long term there could be a

May 15, 1989
Regional Development
greater measure of success and a greater chance of success.


Mr. Ross Reid (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure for me this afternoon to be able to participate in this debate. I am particularly gratified that my friend opposite from Churchill has moved this motion. It shows a recognition of all parliamentarians of the particular need for regional development, particularly in the Atlantic. I am pleased as well to be able to follow my friend from Bonavista-Trinity-Conception, a riding that neighbours mine. He is a gentleman who understands some of the problems that we face.
All Members of this House would share, I think, a common concern that regional development is important, that the creation of jobs and the enhancement of our economy is something to be strived for by all of us. I guess what the question inevitably comes down to is the most appropriate method for doing that, the best process to follow.
What disturbs me most about this motion is that the move that my hon. friend from Manitoba would like to take is regressive. It goes back to where we were before. It goes back to the times that did not work. The reason we have ACOA and its response stems from years of it does not work, they do not know what our problems are, they do not understand us in Ottawa.
The response of the Government was to say, as my hon. friend from the South Shore has said: "What we will do is we will set up an agency in the region staffed by people in the region who will make decisions on something that they know. There will be a quick and effective response". It is not just a money pot. The last thing we need in Atlantic Canada is just a money pot. I am not saying that the last thing we need is a money pot.
It is critical that ACOA continue to play a role that was set up some time ago with the creation of the Federal Economic Development Co-ordinator, the FEDC. That system involved the chief public servant in the region, the senior economic adviser to the Government. Those who wanted to deal with the Government had to deal
with the FEDC. It was the FEDC who was in a sense the seed of the vice-presidents of ACOA.
Tbday, that role continues to be played out. Today, we continue to have the primary source of advice not only to government in Ottawa but to other government Departments, to provincial Governments, to those who are doing business in the regions, coming from the senior person in the regional offices of ACOA. The decisions are not being made in Ottawa. The decisions are being made in the region. If they are not being made by the vice-presidents, they are being made by the board. That is the way it should be. That is why ACOA is successful.
My friend from Churchill said something on which I have to comment. I do not want to take up my whole time in responding to him. He talked about the needs of Members of Parliament. I respect the needs of Members of Parliament, being one a few short months myself with many needs. The key here is the needs of the people of Atlantic Canada. It is the needs of the people who want to create jobs, the people who want to create opportunities. The people I grew up with and went to school with in Atlantic Canada, particularly in Newfoundland, only ever wanted one thing. That was the opportunity to create for themselves and for their families and their communities those things that would develop their communities in the future-economic growth and employment.
ACOA today is very active. It has been hugely successful, based on its mandate to do two things. It is an agency that supports job creation and job development and encourages others to do the same by modernizing, expanding and protecting our jobs. It is also an agency that plays a leading role in the development of the economy.
To the end of the year ACOA in Newfoundland and Labrador has had economic activity under the Action Program. It has grown ten times over the three previous initiatives. IRDP and AEP, the Atlantic Enterprise Program, saw 100 projects in 1987. Since ACOA was set up 7,000 inquiries have been held into its programs, 2,316 applications were received and 1,061 approvals have been granted. Over 40 per cent of these were new businesses and 38.4 per cent were for expansions.
May 15, 1989

In Newfoundland and Labrador ACOA's activities are expected to generate 3,200 new jobs and help maintain more than 7,000 others. That is a total of over 10,000 jobs created and maintained in an area of very high unemployment.
In terms of dollars, in 1987 we saw $21.7 million in federal money under IRDP and AEP and the ERDAs. Last year, $134.3 million reached Newfoundland and Labrador through ACOA.
In the manufacturing sector-time is a problem here, there is so much to say-in the service sector, I would like to refer to my hon. friend for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception (Mr. Mifflin) who quite rightly points out that the tourism industry is one of great opportunity for all of us. It is something that is natural to our province. It is something that we can do well. It is something that can grow exponentially. It is one of the largest employers in this country and it has the potential to be one of the largest employers in Newfoundland and Labrador.
We have provided $18 million in the tourism industry alone. It is quite clearly one of the areas that will continue to attract great interest, and that ACOA continues to want to fund and move ahead.
Sixty per cent, or $112 million, of the total sectoral investment in 1988 in the manufacturing sector came from ACOA. Some $40 million of this went into modernizing the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery. Modernizing the fishery is critical because not only do we modernize and keep up to date, but we increase our capability of adding value to our raw product in the region, creating wealth and jobs, and maintaining the profits in the region as opposed to exporting them to other parts of this country, or to other countries. That is absolutely critical.
That is the future of the region. That is where ACOA comes into the process. That is why ACOA, as a body, is dealing day-to-day with all the federal Departments, with all of the provincial governments individually, and their departments, and with industry groups, with those that want to go out and create jobs and can play such a substantial role. That is where it all comes together in that focus that is so important to us over the next few years.


An Hon. Member:: Allan J. MacEachen all over again.
Regional Development


Ian Angus Ross Reid: Mr. Speaker, I know my hon. friend did not want to hear about some of the good things that OCOA has funded. I know there will be some projects over time that will not be successful, that will not live up to the hopes that so many have had, but I think the difference with ACOA from so many other organizations is the commitment of funds that the Government has made shows that at least we are trying. At least things are going ahead. The success rate with ACOA is remarkable. Some of the programs that we have seen that are so important, such as the Atlantic Entrepreneurial Institute, the TeleMedicine of Educational Technology Resource Agency, known as TETRA, which will go around the world in getting telemedicine and information to people that need it. These will have had sprung from many similar communications and high tech programs that will provide benefit around the world, in our province, in our country, and clearly in the Third World as well.
One thing that is particularly important, and I think shows how co-operation and how working together, particularly with the provincial government to ensure that as many people as possible who have ideas, and who have a will to go out and create jobs can do so, is the pilot project that has been developed by the Newfoundland and Labrador Development Corporation. The Enterprise Network will be a resource to many people who want to be able to create opportunities, to create jobs, to see futures for their communities but do not have the resources available to them, and in the past have not had those resources available to them. However, with a Government, a Department, as my friend from the South Shore said, with a Minister at the Cabinet table-
An Hon. Member What department?


Ian Angus Ross Reid: -with the full capability of a Department of this Government able to understand the needs and the ability to move ahead.
An Hon. Member Which department?


Ian Angus Ross Reid: To be able to work on the ground-


An Hon. Member:: Which department?


Ian Angus Ross Reid: To be able to say to-


An Hon. Member:: There is no department.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: -provincial colleagues, to be able to say to other departments: "These are the ideas, we work on them", in Moncton, in Fredericton-

May 15, 1989
Regional Development


An Hon. Member:: Name the department.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: -In St. John's, in Halifax. The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, which in the last five years-I would love to go on but I know that others would like to speak on this. It is an important motion and I thank you for your tolerance.


An Hon. Member:: Hear, hear.


George Albert Proud: Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to all of the previous speakers on this very timely subject. This is a subject veiy close to the hearts of all Atlantic Canadians because, as we all know, regional development programs are the lifeline of Atlantic Canada. It is an important economic tool for the cash-starved provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, P.E.I., and Newfoundland. Recent developments by this Government clearly show that it is either unaware of the problems of Atlantic Canadians, or it just does not care. There is no commitment.
From its inception in 1969, by the then Liberal Government, regional development has become a focal point of the federal Government. DREE was established specifically to address regional economic development. Since that time, it has deteriorated and today it no longer exists, nor does its predecessor DRIE.
Bill C-3, we note, will abolish the Department of Regional Industrial Expansion and put the emphasis on economic development only in Ontario and Quebec. I feel that they do not need the help any more than do the Atlantic provinces.
From 1984 to 1988 the Government has cut back $2 billion in regional development. The recent Budget cut back an additional $2 billion. The Government has refused to renegotiate the expired ERDAs. It has cut back on transfer payments.
This shows the Government's insensitiveness towards the needs of Atlantic Canadians. My home province has millions of dollars in ERDAs waiting to be renegotiated. Presently, there are eight ERDAs totalling over $78 million that have expired or will be expiring this fiscal year. Prince Edward Island needs these agreements, as they touch on all facets of the Island economy, including transportation, agriculture, fisheries and tourism. Prince Edward Islanders are fully aware of the deficit problem that Canada is facing. We are more than willing to do our
share, Mr. Speaker, but our share is growing. What the Government has to realize is that it is tampering with the economic base of Atlantic Canada, an economic base that is solely dependent upon indigenous industries of which these ERDAs have been put into place to assist. Vital to Atlantic Canada's economy is transportation and fisheries. In fisheries, small craft harbour projects are being cut back. There has been added tax on fuel. There have been changes to the UIC program which is vital to this part of the country.
Transportation is the cornerstone of economic prosperity and this has been severely hammered. VIA Rail cutbacks, threats to kill the Atlantic freight subsidies, the direct flights of Air Canada and others to the major centres of Atlantic Canada are being cut. What about the base closures? The Government has severely cut back bases in Atlantic Canada. Whether some agree or not, the bases in Atlantic Canada and other parts of Canada were put there as regional development programs. This Government has not provided any viable economic alternatives.
My colleagues and I support this motion but I would also add that not only do we need a permanent ministry responsible for regional development but this ministry should be a super ministry with the power to veto or alter any intentions by this Government to hurt the long-term economic development and the economic prosperity of Atlantic Canada.


Mr. Bill Casey (Cumberland-Colchester):: Mr. Speaker, it is certainly my pleasure to speak on this motion today. I would just like to read it to clarify it. The motion is basically to provide "long-term regional planning for the Atlantic region through an established permanent ministry responsible for regional development".
As much as I appreciate the Hon. Member for Churchill's interest in Atlantic Canada, I believe it would be a big step backwards and a big mistake. In fact, ACOA in place now takes it one step further from regional to almost every area, through the Enterprise Cape Breton Program, the Pictou Economic Development Program, Cumberland Development Program, et cetera. Area by area ACOA gets it right down to the grassroots so the people involved in economic development at the very lowest level have a say in economic development and the proceeds from ACOA.
May 15, 1989

This Government has taken bold action, I think, in formulating a regional development policy which is based on a decentralized approach and nowhere is this approach working better than in Nova Scotia.
ACOA is working for and with Nova Scotians from Sydney to Yarmouth to create a deliberate path of entrepreneurial renewal.
ACOA is supporting the activities of entrepreneurs, both new or seasoned, by sharing financial risk, by supporting the activities of their business organizations, by acting as an advocate in Ottawa and by working with the provincial Government to take progressive new steps toward economic development.
In the space of only one year, from February, 1988 to February, 1989, ACOA has received 3,328 applications for assistance in Nova Scotia alone under the action program, through its Halifax office and its Enterprise Cape Breton office in Sydney. Nearly half of these have been approved. This has generated $623 million in growth in Nova Scotia.
Sectors of the economy assisted include manufacturing, the service industry, tourism and accommodation and resource industries.
ACOA risk-sharing has been distributed throughout the Province taking into account particular needs in certain areas. For example, in Cape Breton, ACOA delivers its programs through Enterprise Cape Breton. With headquarters in Sydney and an office in Port Hawkesbury, again, focused right on the grassroots, the people at the level in these areas make the decisions and help provide the information.
The Pictou Economic Development Fund was established in 1988 and has provided nearly $4 million in assistance to entrepreneurs in that region.
The recently established Cumberland development authority in my own riding is undertaking a number of activities in support of economic development in the county and is working hand in hand with municipalities and development commissions. A national program could not do this.
ACOA provides programs and assistance that are both regionally and provincially responsive but, most important, they are in tune with the Atlantic economy and Atlantic Canadian entrepreneurs.
Regional Development
ACOA recognizes that Nova Scotia has strengths upon which to build. It has the largest population of the four Atlantic provinces, a diverse economy and a number of favourable economic indicators.
Building on local strengths and opportunities is fundamental to success. Since the day of its announcement, ACOA has put the entrepreneur, the non-commercial research establishment and the business organization front and centre in its strategy to create economic strength and vitality. It has been working veiy well.
In 1988, ACOA contributed directly to the creation of 5,752 new jobs and the maintenance of 1,540 jobs. That broke all records by far, compared to national programs that were in place before. Let me mention a couple of examples. One is Seagull Pewterer and Silversmiths Ltd. in my own riding which currently employs a staff of 136, up from two employees. It expects to create 50 more jobs to end up with 186 by the end of the year as a result of an expansion from assistance and interest buy-down from ACOA.
Seagull Pewterer is located in a small town in a rural area and many of the 186 jobs that will be created have gone to young people. These young people would not have any opportunities for employment other than Seagull Pewterer in this location. They play an important role in the community and they are a good corporate citizen.
Another example is Sarsfield Foods Ltd. in Kentville, Nova Scotia. It is a maker of high quality, home-style frozen pies. The company which began on a kitchen table to add value to the owner's apple orchard, today makes 30,000 pies a day. Following an ACOA assisted expansion, the growing company will have a workforce of 75 employees. The company will also have a spin-off in the local fruit industries since Sarsfield will have greater requirements for locally grown fruit. Instead of shipping unprocessed products of apples and fruit, we now ship finished products and keep the jobs in Nova Scotia.
ACOA's work in Cape Breton is carried on through Enterprise Cape Breton. A new spirit of entrepreneurship is taking shape in that part of the Province and the climate for investment is improving. A recent example of this was the opening of the Cape Breton Wallcoverings. ACOA has assisted this company with an interest buydown and loan insurance.
A division of the St. Clair Paint and Wallpaper Corporation, Cape Breton Wallcoverings is projecting 1989 sales of $20 million. Sixty-five employees are now working at the plant and that figure will grow as additional equipment is installed.

May 15, 1989
Regional Development
In summary, I disagree with the motion before us to centralize our regional development programs. It is very important to keep it locally. We can contact the people we apply to now. We can talk to people. With national programs, the applications disappear in Ottawa or wherever the national office is. There is no contact, no way to find out where they are or the status of the applications.
The objectives for ACOA have been set, the commitment has been made and in Nova Scotia the process is under way and working. In my view, it is working better than a Ministry located outside the region as this motion proposes.


Mr. Gray (Bonaventure-iles-de-la-Madeleine):: Mr. Speaker, I simply want to add a few comments regarding the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. As the Member for Bonaventure-Iles-de-la-Madeleine, I have a good view of Members opposite who are from northern New Brunswick. Mr. Speaker, I can say that thanks to a number of changes that have taken place, there has been an improvement in job creation since the ACOA as it is referred to, was established. These developments are extremely important for New Brunswick as a whole, and also for the northern part of New Brunswick.

If we take into account the effect that ACOA has had in the Province of New Brunswick, we find that in the past it has received in excess of 20,000 phone calls, and
4,000	requests from small and medium-sized businesses. The federal Government has spent $232 million through the ACOA program and out of the $232 million we find this has generated in excess of $800,000 from private enterprise. More than 2,000 projects have been accepted.
We look toward the future, and this is what we are doing with our decentralized programs for regional development. We need it, we want the control in the regions, and that is what we will continue to do with ACOA.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired. Pursuant to Standing Order 96(1), the order is dropped from the Order Paper.
It being 6.47 p.m. this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at eleven o'clock pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.47 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Tuesday, May 16, 1989