1989-05-30

Hon. Doug Lewis (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, an order in council appointment which was made by the Government, and pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 110(1) it is deemed referred to the appropriate standing committee.


ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES READJUSTMENT ACT
Mr. Len Hopkins (Renfrew) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-245, an Act to change the name of the electoral district of Renfrew.


Mr. Speaker:: Shall the Hon. Member have leave to introduce the Bill?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Leonard Donald Hopkins: Mr. Speaker, I thank the House for its co-operation in this matter. Previous to the last redistribution the constituency I represented was called Renfrew- Nipissing-Pembroke. Pembroke is the largest community between Ottawa and North Bay, and a large section of the district of Nipissing is also in my constituency. Those two areas have been left out of the name by the redistribution commission.
I travelled 205 miles one way from my home in Petawawa to Sudbury to make part of the representation to the commission there, and I also appeared before the commission in Nepean. The commission saw fit not to accept the simple continuation of the previous riding name.
The secretary of the commission had a discussion with me. I felt that it was a simple decision, that it was not very difficult. However, in the commission's returns it simply called the riding Renfrew, which does not identify major parts of the constituency.
I would only recommend that in future, in order to prevent all the hassle of introducing Private Members' Bills, the Electoral Boundaries Commission be more sensitive to the recommendations of Members and other people from constituencies on the procedure of naming the ridings in order that they relate to the district.


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

Mr. Vic Althouse (Mackenzie) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-246, an Act respecting the orderly marketing of potatoes.


Mr. Speaker:: Shall the Hon. Member have leave to introduce the said Bill?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, this Bill is being offered out of frustration with the process. In 1973 the Horticultural Council of Canada passed a resolution to set up a marketing agency for potatoes. In 1974 a Potato Action Committee with producer and government officials recommended an agency without supply management. There were nine drafts of a plan. I would point out that a plan follows from a legislative proposal. That died from lack of pressing.

May 30. 1989
Petitions
In 1984 poor prices prompted western potato producers to ask for the recycling of the plan. In 1985 another market disaster had the rest of Canada's potato producers on side.
A task force was structured in 1986. In the fall of 1987 public hearings were held which recommended that an agency be put in place. Some processors took action against it through the courts. A plebiscite was held in July, 1988 with 75 per cent of the producers saying "yes". It is still tied up in the courts. It has to be started again. This Bill would give the opportunity for it to be restructured and recycled.


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

Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition signed by over 100 people from the communities of The Pas, Cranberry, Portage, Churchill, Moose Lake, Flin Flon, and Snow Lake, all in northern Manitoba.
The people of this region ask that the federal Government develop the obvious potential of Canada's only inland seaport at Churchill. The undersigned petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to direct the Minister responsible for the Wheat Board to ensure that at the very least 3 per cent of Canada's annual grain shipments be shipped through the Port of Churchill and that the Government aggressively pursue additional ways to utilize this important seaport to ship exports other than grain.


Mr. Jack Whittaker (Okanagan -Similkameen -Merritt):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure today to present a petition on behalf of the people of my riding in Penticton, Summerland, and Naramata who are concerned about the cut-backs at VIA Rail.
They are calling upon the Government to live up to its original pledge to support VIA Rail, to abandon plans for further cuts to VIA's budget, and to provide the necessary resources to allow VIA to operate as a
modern, effective transportation company rather than a museum.


Mrs. Pauline Browes (Parliamentary Secretary to Secretary of State of Canada and Minister of State (Multiculturalism and Citizenship)):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise, pursuant to Standing Order 37, to present to the House today a petition to save the Rouge Valley. The Rouge Valley in Scarborough, in Metro Toronto, is a unique and precious natural area. Protecting the endangered wildlife and wilderness area is in the national interest.
This valley is being threatened by the possibility of metro council designating the area as a garbage dump. Second, it is being threatened by the Ontario Government which states that it may build a freeway through this valley similar to the Don Valley Parkway. Each of these proposals is absolutely inconsistent with keeping this valley in its natural state.
Just last week a spill occurred in the Rouge River. It is of particular concern to the people of Scarborough because of nesting that is taking place in the marsh areas of the Rouge. It is important that we be constantly vigilant.
The petitioners are joined by the Mayor of Scarborough, the federal Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bouchard), the Save the Rouge Valley System, and the Coalition of Scarborough Community Associations representing thousands of people. They call on Parliament to work with the Government of Ontario to establish the Rouge River Valley as a Canadian heritage land or a provincial park.


Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present a petition pursuant to Standing Order 36 on behalf of a number of constituents from Kamloops, British Columbia, who are concerned that the Government of Canada appears to have failed to provide the resources necessary to fulfil its promise to improve passenger rail service.
Now that the Government has decided to cut back VIA Rail either totally or in part, the petitioners are calling upon Parliament to improve and modernize VIA Rail instead of cutting it, to service those areas of the country where it can provide a more rapid, economical, safe, convenient, environmentally sound, and energy efficient alterative to other means of transportation. I
May 30, 1989

might add, particularly in the corridor from Vancouver to Edmonton and to Calgary.


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. 55 and 56.


Mr. Angus: For the most recent year available, what amounts of money were Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Railways allowed to claim as constant costs under the Western Grain Transportation Act?


Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of Transport):: Under subsection 34 (1) of the WTGA, the level of contribution to constant costs is defined as 20 per cent of volume-related variable costs.
In calculating the 1988/89 rate scale, volume-related variable costs were $740.4 million and therefore, the amount used for constant costs was $148.1 million. However, since these figures are used only to calculate the rate scale, the amount allowable for constant costs is a function of the actual traffic that moved. In crop year 1987/88, the latest year for which actual traffic data is available the contribution to constant costs amounted to $163.3 million.
However, it should be noted that no specific amount is ever paid for constant costs. Rather, the constant costs are included as part of the rate scale which applies to both railways.


Mr. Angus: Has the National Transportation Agency made known to the government its views concerning constant-cost calculations under the Western Grain Transportation Act and, if so, what are they?


Benoît Bouchard: The
Canadian Transport Commission (CTC), the predecessor of the National Transportation Agency, made its views concerning constant cost calculations under the WGTA known to the Government in its "Report to the Minister" dated March 1986. At that time, the CTC recom-
Order Paper Questions
mended 17.5 per cent of the volume-related costs of the railways as the appropriate contribution to constant costs.
Currently, the Agency, as part of its statutory duties under the WGTA, is conducting a costing review. In carrying out the review, the Agency is directed to assess the level of contribution to constant costs (presently set by legislation at 20 per cent). This assessment is in progress and the results will be reported to the Minister on or before March 31, 1990.


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


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Gauthier:: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Parliamentary Secretary requested that you transfer written Questions Nos. 45, 52, 53, 62, 64, 83, and 88 to Notices of Motions for the Production of Papers, pursuant to Standing Order 39(6). At that time you will recall that you said that you would like to hear some arguments on this point. I would like to know at what time you intend to hear these arguments, because I would like to make some comments.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Next opposition day.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: I hear the Minister saying "next opposition day". I hope the Speaker is a little more generous than that.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, the initiatives that the Government took yesterday solicited a complete review and a lot of thought.
My understanding was that yesterday you indicated an interest in perhaps hearing some comments on a private basis with yourself, before comments were made in the House. If that is the case, I would certainly be prepared to arrange a meeting with you to provide some observations from our corner of the House.


Mr. Speaker:: I thank both Hon. Members for their interventions. I was not particularly thinking of private submissions. I was thinking that Hon. Members could liaise with my office and that we could get a time when it

May 30, 1989
Plant Breeders' Rights
would be convenient for everyone to hear the matter on the floor of the House.
I would ask for perhaps another day's indulgence by Hon. Members. As I indicated yesterday, this particular procedure has not been invoked for many years and I do not want to take Members by surprise. That in no way prejudges one way or the other how we will deal with it, but it is an interesting point.
It is a point of importance to the Chamber, and I think that probably some time later today arrangements can be made between my office and Hon. Members as to an appropriate time to hear some argument on it. That will also give Hon. Members a chance to look up some of the background.


Mr. John Harvard (Winnipeg-St. James):: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to propose a motion to adjourn the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter requiring urgent consideration, namely, the threat to fundamental rights and freedoms of Canadians, in particular the freedom of the press, constituted by the laying of criminal charges against a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery for actions taken in the legitimate pursuit of his profession.


Mr. Speaker:: The first thing I want to comment upon is that the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-St. James has followed to the letter the appropriate method of presenting an application for an emergency debate. I would hope that the example he has given in conciseness and specifics would be noticed by other Hon. Members.
I should also record that the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-St. James has given appropriate notice of this matter. The Chair is extremely cognizant of the importance of the matter and it is, of course, one of the great traditions of our democratic system relating to the freedom of the press and its ability to function, to inform the public.
However, having looked at this matter, realizing the importance of the matter not just to the Hon. Member but to all Hon. Members in this place, and I think to people in free countries, it does not seem to the Speaker
to come within those guidelines which would justify the Speaker ruling for an emergency debate.
I point out to the Hon. Member and other Hon. Members that there are other means by which this matter can be pursued. It is of course a matter of great importance and not allowing the emergency debate in no way diminishes the importance of the question with respect to our democratic process. I thank the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-St. James again for the concise and effective way he put his point.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister, President of the Privy Council and Minister of Agriculture) moved: that Bill C-15, an Act respecting plant breeders' rights, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have this opportunity to present for the consideration of the House a motion respecting the second reading of Bill C-15, an Act to establish plant breeders' rights in Canada.
This legislation is long overdue and enjoys a broad base of support. I believe it is essential if we are to maintain our competitive edge in plant production. Therefore, particularly since it has been the subject of debate in the House and throughout the country, it seems to me that it is timely that the Bill be brought forward for ratification.
The merits of this legislation are well understood by those individuals who have been proponents of it, those who are involved in the production of seeds. The organizations to which I refer have been a part of the process. This has not been a unilateral step that has been taken by the federal Government. There have been a number of ongoing discussions and consultations with them. They, too, consider that this legislation is imperative.
May 30, 1989

Plant breeders' rights will enable plant breeders to collect reasonable royalties for their varieties. This will encourage greater investment in plant breeding, both in the private and public sector. The legislation will enable Canadian plant breeders to collect royalties from other countries where plant breeders' rights are already in existence. The legislation will open doors for Canada's producers to the best possible plant varieties, whether those varieties originate in Canada or abroad. This is essentially why Canada needs plant breeders' rights legislation.
By strengthening and broadening the base for plant breeders, as this legislation will do, we are in essence strengthening the entire farm industry. Most developed countries recognized the importance of plant breeders' rights many years ago. The United Kingdom did so in 1964. The United States followed in 1970. In fact, many countries granted rights to plant breeders even before the Second World War.
An international convention for the protection of new varieties of plants established an international union in 1961. Eighteen countries now belong to this organization, Australia being the most recent country to join. This legislation conforms to the convention. Our intention is to join this organization, too, once the legislation is passed.
In Canada, as far back as 1973, the Canadian Horticultural Council was recommending that laws to respect the rights of plant breeders be enacted by the Parliament of Canada. In the years since then agricultural and horticultural organizations have recommended continuously the introduction of plant breeders' rights in Canada.
In 1980 plant breeders' rights legislation was introduced to the House. It was introduced by a Liberal Government. However, it was never debated and it died on the Order Paper.
The legislation was again introduced in January, 1988 but it too died on the Order Paper when the election was called last fall.
I think it is fair to say that Canada's farm industry has waited a long time and has been very patient in the delays that have occurred for various reasons. I believe the legislation, as I said earlier, is overdue. I want to see it debated and passed.
Plant Breeders' Rights
Plant breeders' legislation will not have to stand on its own. In a previous session of Parliament we introduced legislation to strengthen the Seeds Act. As a matter of fact in December, 1985 amendments to the Seeds Act received Royal Assent. This Bill will complement plant breeders' rights. The two are integrally interwoven.
The amendments to the Seeds Act guard against any possible introduction of inferior agricultural varieties. They also ensure that seed offered for sale is properly presented in the market-place and that the pedigreed seed system is not subverted.
The Seeds Act amendments laid the groundwork for plant breeders' rights legislation. The homework has been done. As a result I am confident that this legislation will receive wide acceptance as a part of the total package which we hope will improve the ability of Canadian agriculture to take advantage of the latest varieties and, in the course, enhance their competitiveness.
The organizations which support plant breeders' rights include, among others, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, the Agriculture Institute of Canada, the Canadian Horticultural Council, SeCan Association, the Canadian Seed Growers' Association, the Canadian Seed Trade Association, and the Western Canadian Wheat Growers' Association.
In terms of the contents of the Bill I would like to cover them briefly. Of course, I am sure that in committee we will be able to get into more of the details.
Varieties already on the market will not be affected by this legislation. All species of plants are eligible. The breeder of a new, distinct, uniform, stable variety will be granted the exclusive right to produce and sell reproductive material of the variety for a period up to 18 years.
Breeders have the right to set conditions and collect royalties from those who multiply the variety for sale. Anyone can use a protected variety for further plant breeding work. Breeders can pursue enforcement of their rights through the civil courts.
Breeders' rights will be restricted in the public interest. For example, the breeder cannot ask for an unreasonably high royalty or restrict the supply of a variety in order to boost prices. A protective direction may be granted while applications are pending, protecting the applicant's right to prosecute against infringements dur-

May 30. 1989
Plant Breeders' Rights
ing that period. Thus during the process of applying there are protection safeguards in place.
Regulations will be introduced on a species by species basis and priority will be given to those species of major importance to Canadian producers. Coverage of all major crops will take several years to complete. An advisory committee representing all interested parties will be established to advise on the administration of the legislation.
Generally, these are the main provisions of Bill C-15.1 am confident that the Bill deals fairly and directly with the major issues involved in plant breeders' rights.
I would also like to deal with some of the concerns that have been expressed. I understand and appreciate the concerns. I want to deal with them hopefully in a manner that puts these issues into proper perspective. However, I also hope that the committee will deal with them fully as well, since that is clearly the place to have these issues clarified.
One of the main concerns is that government plant breeding programs will decrease as a result of plant breeders' rights. This is simply not our intention and it will not be the case. We believe it is essential to maintain a strong government plant breeding effort. The purpose of the legislation is to ensure more and not less plant breeding research, particularly by stimulating the private sector efforts. We believe that the royalties will help in pursuing that initiative. This increase in private sector plant breeding will complement the federal Government's activities and will in no way diminish our ongoing commitment to breeding, research, and variety development.
Crop research is the mainstay of this Government's agricultural research effort. In fact, more than half of Agriculture Canada's research dollars is spent on crop research, and 23 per cent of that amount goes directly toward plant breeding. Federal spending on plant breeding research during the past 10 years approached $200 million. This year alone more than $23 million will be spent on plant breeding. So it is not surprising that Agriculture Canada will be the main beneficiary, initially, of plant breeders' rights legislation for most crops. For example, 84 per cent of the cereal and oilseeds acreage grown on the Prairies in 1988 were Agriculture Canada varieties. Agriculture Canada has been in the business. It is in the business, and it will continue to be in
that business. In a few years, this could involve up to $4 million in royalties for future research and plant development.
I am pleased to inform the House that Treasury Board has approved a plan whereby a substantial portion, 60 per cent of the federal royalty funds, will be funnelled back into public plant breeding programs. That should remove any doubt about this Government's strong commitment to public plant breeding in Canada. I think that for the first time we have a clear example where we can replenish the dollars that are spent on plant research in an orderly and positive fashion.
A second concern that has been raised is that the market will be flooded with inferior varieties. This will not happen. As I said earlier, the strengthened Seeds Act ensures that all new agricultural varieties are properly tested. They must perform as well or better than current registered varieties.
As for fears about genetic uniformity, this legislation if anything ensures against that danger. By encouraging greater investment in plant breeding programs, the legislation helps to increase the opportunities for genetic diversity. Varieties will only receive rights if they are different from existing ones.
Another concern that has been mentioned is the possibility of domination of the seed industry by multinational companies. This fear, more so than any others, has been greatly exaggerated.
Let us look at the facts. The vast majority of plant breeders in Canada are at Agriculture Canada and at our universities. We should also recognize the many small, often independently owned businesses that are involved in the seed industry. Most pedigreed seed is sold by Canadian farmers who are seed growers, or by Canadian farmer-owned co-operatives. Multinational corporations play a relatively minor role. I do not expect that this balance within the industry will change radically as a result of plant breeders' rights legislation.
There are also concerns that have been mentioned that royalty charges will be unreasonable and that seed costs will increase dramatically as a result of this legislation. It is fair to say that the average price of seed may increase as researchers recover part of their investment. I think that is only fair. We believe that any increases will
May 30, 1989

be slight. Certainly the benefits and the advantages as a result of this will certainly be multiplied many times over when we consider the long-term effects of this in terms of maintaining our competitive viability and in terms of our leading edge in plant research and plant development. We should remember that competition within the marketplace will serve as an instrument of keeping prices down as well. The legislation also has safeguards to prevent excessive royalty charges and unreasonable restrictions on the supply of a variety.
Existing varieties, as I said earlier, are not regulated by the legislation so that their prices will not be affected. Cereal crop farmers will have the option of using grain from their own bins should they find it more economical than buying new seed.
Finally, much has been said about the protection and exchange of germplasm. First, I would point out that in countries where plant breeders' rights already exist, plant breeders have continued germplasm exchanges.
Second, when a new variety is released, the breeder cannot prevent others from using it in their breeding programs. As always, federal plant breeders will continue to make the results of their research generally and fairly available through all the usual channels.
Third, there are world-wide exchanges of germplasm from each country's national collections, and Canadian scientists participate in these exchanges.
Finally, Agriculture Canada has made a significant commitment to the collection and preservation of germplasm of various crop species. The department maintains Plant Gene Resources of Canada and it has, over the last two years, provided new resources for this program.
Also, the Experimental Farm Stations Act will be amended to ensure that plant, animal and microbial germplasm is conserved.
In addition, I am pleased to announce that the Smith-field Experimental Farm in Ontario has been designated as the primary clonal germplasm repository for horticultural crops.
Plant Breeders' Rights
As well, the International Board for Plant Genetic Resources co-ordinates world collections of germplasm and Canada has been an active participant in this program.
In summary, germplasm must be preserved and all the proper mechanisms are in place to ensure that it will be. These are some of the concerns. We have considered them very carefully and we have dealt with them fairly. I hope that the members of the committee will deal with them in an open and objective way as well.
Let us look at the some of the benefits. In the absence of such legislation, plant breeders have no protection for the varieties that they develop. With this legislation, private plant breeders can collect returns on their investments and for their efforts. In this respect, plant breeders' rights is simply a matter of fairness.
In the absence of such legislation, private sector plant breeding in general has not flourished. The work is time-consuming, requires patience, expensive, high risk and it really does not offer the private breeders much return. With this legislation, royalties will provide an incentive for more private sector involvement. As a result, we can expect more improved varieties to be available to Canadian producers.
In the absence of such legislation, some foreign plant breeders do not allow their varieties to be sold in Canada due to our lack of legal protection. With this legislation, our producers will have access to varieties that are currently withheld from Canada, including cereals, potatoes, peas, fruits and ornamentals.
In the absence of such legislation, most countries with plant breeders' rights will not grant rights on varieties developed by Canadian plant breeders. With this legislation, these rights will be extended so that our plant breeders can collect royalties when their varieties are sold abroad.
In this connection, Mr. Speaker, we know the efforts that have been placed on developing a greater degree of self-sufficiency in the cereal grain production in the Atlantic region. Many of the varieties that they could produce there are varieties that have been developed in Europe. Without this legislation, we do not have access to those varieties. We see this as but one example of how it can help a region of Canada that is trying to improve its agricultural production and its agricultural viability. With

May 30, 1989
Plant Breeders' Rights
the advent of this legislation, they will then be able to have access to the kinds of varieties that they can test, and hopefully the tests will prove successful to help them develop a greater degree of self-sufficiency for the production of cereal grains within the Atlantic region.
For these reasons and many others which I have not covered. Bill C-15, in our view, will stimulate a stronger, more vital plant breeding effort in Canada both in the public and private sector. We believe this to be in the best interest of Canadian agriculture.
Therefore, I urge this House to support this long overdue, progressive and fair piece of legislation. I hope it is thoroughly considered in the committee. I know that there have been some preliminary discussions about whether in fact this bill should go back to the Agriculture Committee. If that is the decision of the House, I would certainly have no objection but I leave that to the further discussion of the Members of all three Parties. Suffice to say, we think the time has come to move this legislation ahead and I bring it forth with a great deal of pleasure for the consideration of the House.


Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have an opportunity this morning to make some comments on Bill C-15, the Plant Breeders' Rights legislation, which the Minister of Agriculture has just introduced. The Minister pointed out that this legislation has been before the House in various forms for quite a few years now. This is the third such Bill, though I believe this is the first time the legislation has actually been debated in the House.
The Minister has pointed out all the advantages of the Bill that he could, and there can be no doubt that the legislation is designed to provide plant breeders with a royalty regime not only for the seeds that they develop and sell in Canada but for the seeds that they develop and sell in other countries that are members of the International Union for the Protection of Plant Varieties. Canada has been a signatory to that convention since 1978, and many of the industrialized western nations are members of that union.
The other advantage pointed out by the Minister is that this Bill would allow seeds developed in other
countries that are members of UPOV to be able to be sold in Canada and to receive royalty benefits as well. There is that advantage to plant breeders, an advantage they have not had up until now.
We are concerned that the production lasts for eight years, not 18 years, under this legislation. The legislation also provides that the enforcement of rights would be done through civil court actions undertaken by the individual plant breeders who have the rights.
It is my understanding that there are now some 18 countries that are members of this union. It is becoming a larger and more significant group all the time.
As the Minister pointed out, a variety accepted for plant breeders' rights and royalties would not necessarily be acceptable for registration under the Canada Seeds Act. That is very important because only seeds which are new, significant and have a significant advantage to the country would be accepted. It is my understanding that under this legislation researchers would have to develop a new, distinctive, uniform, stable variety of seed in order to be eligible for the royalty regime and that such royalty would carry to the use of the seed for seeding or reproductive purposes but would not apply where the seed was being used for feed or for research. It is important to make that distinction.
There are a number of concerns that we have with this legislation. It provides for compulsory licensing up to 18 years, which seems to be a very long period of time. It would be possible to grant a corporation that developed a new seed a guaranteed exclusivity for up to 18 years. I find it interesting that the Government would provide such an amount of time for seed production, an important input cost to farmers, while under the drug legislation, which was passed by the last Parliament, we granted an exclusivity of only 7 to 10 years. It seems to me that an 18-year period is a very long period.
I would point out that granting patent rights or, in this case, plant breeders' rights, does not guarantee that a great deal of research will be done in Canada. For instance, in the farm chemical industry, a very important input cost to agriculture, even though there has been full patent protection throughout the years, there has only been one new farm chemical developed in Canada.
May 30, 1989

Granting plant breeders' rights will not necessarily bring a tremendous bonanza of new research to the country. Granting exclusivity for 18 years without granting provision for compulsory licensing, so that others could produce the seed, would be a real mistake. It will not ensure that research will take place. If research would necessarily take place, we would have had a regular bonanza of new farm chemicals developed in Canada, but we do not.
At the same time, all kinds of chemicals are coming in from other countries, chemicals on which we pay the full patent protection.
One farm chemical which came off patent after 18 years of exclusivity had previously been selling for something like $25 a pint and its price has gone down to something like $6 to $10 a pint. There is an incentive for research to be done, but it will not necessarily happen.
A report brought out by the Government of Canada in 1984 shows a continual purchasing of small Canadian seed companies by large multinational seed companies or chemical companies and, in many cases, drug companies. There has been a corporate concentration, and I would like to talk about that a bit later on in my remarks.
My second concern is not directly about the Bill itself but relates to the Government's overall policy on public research. The general direction of the Government has been to cut back on public research, and we are opposed to that. The actual research that has been done in Canada is disproportionately Government research, but at the same time, Canada is a relatively small country in terms of population and economic power compared to the size of Canada's agricultural industry. I am speaking particularly of the western agricultural industry and our tremendous proportion of exports.
I, for one, would not want to entrust to the private sector the research which is necessary. I think about research into wheat rust and the like. There are whole laboratories dedicated to developing resistant varieties of seeds that may not be used for 10 or 15 years. Dedicated federal Government research establishments are working toward the future, picking up germplasm from all over the world to be incorporated into seeds in order to protect our vital western agricultural industry.
Plant Breeders' Rights
I am not opposed to more government research or to private research. I think it is desirable. This Bill has some benefits in that regard, but I think it is vital that we protect the public research which is done in the country. There should be more guarantees of that than was contained in the casual comments of the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Mazankowski) this morning. His exact words were not particularly encouraging. In the recent Budget, $500 million worth of government programs for agriculture were cut out over two years. I did not hear last November that the Government was planning to cut out everything from crop insurance, to transportation subsidies, to support for the dairy industry and so on.
When this Bill gets to committee, we will certainly want to have a much more determined commitment by the Government that the government research programs will be maintained. I do not believe that a private research company, especially a multinational which is totally dedicated to the bottom line in their across-the-world activities, is going to dedicate and commit the time, research, talent and money-let us not forget that-to ensure that we have the special disease resistant seeds we need that have to be prepared over a 10-year or 15-year horizon. Their responsibility is to their shareholders and to the bottom line. It is not to ensuring the vitality, the vigour and the preservation of Canadian agriculture. We certainly are very concerned with that side of the question in the plant breeders' rights legislation which we have before us today in the House of Commons.
Likewise, we have seen the Government cut back up to $60 million in the last several years in government research programs. The Minister has said that for any seeds that Agriculture Canada develops and has a royalty on, 60 per cent would be plowed back to government research. To me, that is an admission that the Government is not very committed to this whole scene. It seems to me that 100 per cent of the royalties collected should be plowed back and that they should be incremental to whatever the government laboratories are receiving from the Government of Canada for its research. He did not clarify whether that 60 per cent would be plowed back and the full level of research maintained, and that the 60 per cent of royalties received would be incremen-

May 30, 1989
Plant Breeders' Rights
tal to the funding provided by the Government of Canada for agriculture and crop research.
The Government's commitment to privatization is so all-pervasive that there is no saying that the Government will not privatize their own laboratories. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) is a great admirer of Mrs. Thatcher in Great Britain. Britain has privatized government laboratories. One can read in the press today that the Government is planning to privatize PetroCan. You and I, Mr. Speaker, were here in 1979 with the former Tory administration when they went through the throes of discussing and deciding whether or not they would privatize PetroCanada. We cannot help but experience a feeling of deja vu having seen that 10 years ago and seeing it again now. We should make sure this legislation does not lead to the Government privatizing those big government laboratories which have been so beneficial to Canadian agriculture.
The Minister spoke this morning about the plans for additional seed banks in Smithfield to ensure the preservation of germplasm. I am pleased to hear that. There is a need for not only a national seed bank for preservation of genetic material but regional seed banks as well. I hope that is the implication in his announcement today, that there would not only be a national seed bank for the preservation of germplasm but regional seed banks as well. It is important to do this on a regional basis. In this country, we do not really have one country in terms of agriculture. We have several countries. We have several very different agricultural economies from the regions of Atlantic Canada to Ontario or Quebec, to the Prairies and to B.C. We want to preserve the health of all of them and ensure that the seed banks and germplasm mechanisms are maintained for every region, not just on a national basis.
I spoke before about the Patent Act and the chemical industry, how it is certainly not guaranteed that we would have full, massive research going on in this country. The one concern which has been expressed by various groups, including the Canadian Federation of Agriculture and others, is the price of seeds and the problems of monopolies. It is an ongoing concern that not only that will we not get the research here in Canada but that the research will be done elsewhere, that some super varieties will come into the country and that there will
develop monopolistic situation. That is of great concern. The Deputy Prime Minister did not spell out in much detail today how the whole problem of monopolies would be avoided. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has produced a brief on the topic in which they have said that there must be provision to protect producers against excessive monopolistic pricing of privately developed varieties. Perhaps some kind of mechanism which could be put in place by the advisory committee to this Act would be useful in that regard. We do not have very strong anti-combines legislation in this country and that problem of monopoly control is very real.
In the report done by Agriculture Canada during the period 1975 to 1982 it lists some 15 seed companies that were bought out across the country. Some are not necessarily involved in seed production or research, but the names of the purchasers are very familiar. There are companies such as Ciba-Geigy Canada Ltd., Pfizer Chemicals, Northrup King & Co., Ciba-Geigy Seeds Ltd., Dekalb Agriculture Research, Inc., Canadian Industries Ltd., Cargill Grain Co. Ltd., and Continental Grain Co. They are all large multinational corporations buying out Canadian seed companies. The danger of monopolies and concentration of corporate control over this industry is very apparent.
This list is several years old and we have to upgrade it to see if the whole system is moving toward a very few companies, many of which probably will be doing their major research in the United States. If that is the case, how can we be assured that we will have any advantage, especially if the company is guaranteed an 18-year period in which there can be no compulsory licensing for Canadian producers.
The other danger expressed by some groups that are concerned with this legislation is not only that there is corporate concentration into a very few hands, but that the multinational corporations will develop seeds which are compatible to their fertilizers and chemicals. In that manner there is not only a corporate concentration, but individual companies that develop top flight seed that is compatible with their fertilizers and chemicals. This is not only corporate concentration, but concentration within one individual company.
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I am not sure how often this occurs, but there certainly is a great deal of concern by those who have looked at this legislation in other countries. It is clear that the committee would want to take cognizance of that, examine it, and see how great a danger it is and what provisions there are in the legislation to prevent that type of concentration from taking place.
Those are some of the concerns that we have with this legislation. It probably has some benefits. However, we want to be sure that those benefits will accrue to individual Canadian farmers. We want to be sure that public research is not jeopardized by this legislation. We want to ensure that government royalties that are developed by Canadian laboratories are ploughed back into research and are incremental to the type of funding which is already provided by the Government of Canada to our research facilities across the country.
If the price of seeds rises, we want to ensure that there will be additional benefit and not only place a burden and monopoly control on the production of seeds. We have already seen what happened with farm chemicals. We paid a big price in this country with no real research taking place under the Patent Act. That is different legislation, but the principle is very similar.
I have already mentioned the danger of seed, chemical, and fertilizer combinations taking place. Those are concerns that we have with the legislation. We are in favour of more private research in the country. We think that is desirable. At the present time the research carried out in the country is highly related to the provincial and federal Governments, but mainly the federal Government, and to university research.
There is a need for more private research. However, we do not want to see this legislation lead to a cut-back in federal government research. We do not think that research can be duplicated by the private sector. We do not want to see the federal government research deal with small or regional problems. We want to see it maintained. We do not want to see the private sector hiring away our top federal government research scientists.
Maintenance of federal government research will ensure that there is a critical mass of researchers together who will develop new and better varieties of seeds. There is a good example in Saskatoon where there
Plant Breeders' Rights
are many disciplines working in various fields of agricultural research who are generating very effective research results. As a result of this legislation, we do not want to see government research downgraded or privatized as a result of this move by the Government of Canada.
We are also concerned about the 18-year exclusivity rights to royalties and the possibility that companies would be given that full period of time, especially the multinational corporations that come into Canada with seeds from other countries, and would maintain that right during that period of time with no real benefits to us. That happened in the whole chemical industry.
We did not hear much from the Deputy Prime Minister this morning about corporate concentration or monopoly control of pricing and the production of seeds. We are concerned about that and will be looking at what provisions there are in this legislation when it is dealt with in committee. We do not want to see government laboratories and research facilities downgraded.
Those are our concerns with the legislation. We want to see them addressed in committee when the Bill goes to committee.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, I rise to debate a Bill at second reading, the purpose of which is to introduce the concept of plant breeders' rights. This is an idea for which legislation has been tabled in the House in various forms over the last nine years but has never been debated until now. The purpose of second reading is to debate the principle of a Bill. The question I wish to address today in keeping with that parliamentary tradition is the broad one of the principles being proposed by the Government in this legislation.
This Bill has a wide ranging effect on the population of Canada and the world. It has an effect on the development of the Third World because the Third World is largely the source of many of the plant genetic material we use in the developed world. There are north-south development issues to be raised, including not only the question of the flow of technological property but the funding between north and south. There is the broad question of who should control biotechnology and how it can be controlled, which this legislation begins to address.

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There is the question of cost at the farm level and research level. Is this an efficient way for producers to get new genetic material? Is this an efficient way for researchers to produce new genetic material?
Finally, I believe this legislation gives us an opportunity to discuss the effects of the patenting of life forms and its effect upon our future and the future of our civilization.
It has been said many times in the last several decades that this is the age of technology and information. We have seen the development of huge computer banks. We know from observation and information that the information within these computer data banks is being more tightly controlled by the owners of the information who are finding new and different ways to control access to that information and data. The purpose of controlling that information and data is to extract money and to control who gets access to the information. This Bill addresses that matter to a certain extent.
We are not simply dealing with information on a computer chip. We are dealing with genetic information in the form of genes and genomes and establishing a blueprint for how this kind of information will be stored and utilized by certain people to make money and maintain a monopoly over the issuance of the information.
Considering the broad implications of this legislation, I think it is rather ironic that it should come forward in Canada in 1989 when we see access to information for people in the East Bloc and China becoming more open.
Finally it is being recognized that those people have a right to information and the freedom of access to information which government should not monopolize. At the same time the Government of Canada and other countries in the West are clearly moving toward restricting the amount of information that is freely available. The information is not only being restricted for the purpose of collecting revenue. It wants to restrict the issuance of the information in order to control it with a full monopoly.
In explaining how that has developed, I cannot help but think there are some frightening parallels between this process and the process the European countries went through during the Dark Ages centuries ago. During the 5th century to the 8th century the churches
began a process of restricting the access to information they held in their libraries. They kept the information they had available to them in the form of books and manuscripts and through educational institutions to themselves during that period and gradually set out restrictive rules as to who would have access to those libraries and that information. The churches decided who was worthy of having that information stored in those ancient records.
Eventually they became so paranoid about allowing the free flow of information that some of those books simply deteriorated, some of the libraries burned, and some were ransacked. Much of the valuable knowledge that could have been used by the common people as well as those in power gradually disappeared. It brought about what our history books now refer to as the Dark Ages.
If we proceed in the direction that some of the owners of the technological firms and computer companies are taking us, I believe we will be setting ourselves up for a similar process. There will be two levels in our society. There will be those who can afford to have information available to them and meet the second test of eligibility for those holding the information. Gradually that information will be restricted in order to maintain power, as was the case with the church and some of the civil authorities which began restricting information to li-braries,to the information and educational services that were available many hundreds of years ago.
The Government is attempting to take a small step with this legislation toward setting precedents for the patenting of life forms. This legislation guarantees some rights only to plant life forms, but I point out that once started on that process other countries that are further along in granting of monopoly power to patent holders and granting rights to profit from information, which I believe should be made available to the public very quickly, it will make further inroads into what can and may be patented.
For instance, between 1790 and 1930, as with other countries, U.S. patent laws prohibited the monopolization of biological products and processes, inventions involving national security, and inventions involving food and medicines. They were not permitted to be patented under world patent law and under U.S. patent law.
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In 1930 the U.S. Congress passed a unique Plant Patent Act allowing the monopolization of asexually produced fruits, trees, and ornamentals. Potatoes and other asexually produced vegetables were excluded in 1930.
By 1970, having experimented with those varieties, the U.S. Plant Variety Protection Act was passed by Congress during the Christmas season in a dying Congress. This House often sees that type of action on Bills. They are not always discussed as thoroughly as they might be. For the first time in the United States cereals and vegetables became patentable as well. However, the major processing vegetables were excluded from the right to be patented in the 1970 legislation.
By 1980, in the United States, by a five to four decision, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed General Electric to obtain a patent on a micro-organism under the regular industrial utility patent law. The courts interpreted the patent law to include the patenting of a micro-organism for the first time.
At the same time, in another Christmas battle, the Congress amended the 1970 Plant Variety Protection Act to include six major vegetables.
In 1986 Molecular Genetics, a company in the United States, was granted the first utility product patent for a plant variety giving companies a choice of patenting through the 1970 Plant Variety Protection Act or through the regular industrial patents. For the first time we saw life forms being patented under the regular patent law in the United States.
A company called Sungene was granted a patent for the higher quality characteristics of the oil found in sunflowers and immediately warned other companies not to develop any high quality sunflower oils or they would be infringing upon their patent rights. Thus there was a freezing of the research into developing better sunflower oil by the issuance of a patent to Sungene Incorporated.
By 1987 we saw the U.S. Patent Office announcing that it would allow the industrial patenting of higher life forms including pets and livestock. It all started with the patenting of plants some years previously in that country.
Plant Breeders' Rights
Genome Inc. announced that it would try to copyright base pairs of the human genome in 1987 as well.
By 1988 the U.S. Patent Commissioner was forced to reveal a new policy that would allow those holding livestock patents to charge royalties on the offspring for the full life of the patent, which in the American case is 18 years. Any offspring coming from a genetically manipulated cow, pet or pig has to present patent fees to the developer of that particular genetic trait, perhaps as long ago as some 18 years previously. What is more important in my mind is that they seem also to have the right to stop other researchers developing and doing research in that same area, as was the case with Sungene to which I referred, which company developed sunflower oil, stopping all other companies from doing similar research into sunflower oil and making improvements.
I contend that this idea of patenting, providing plant breeders' rights-and I like the nuances of providing rights here-masks the direction that other countries have found themselves going in. Yes, they started with something called plant breeders' rights. They made arguments that this was similar to copyright law and that they were simply doing the same thing that they were doing for words and design. Yet, gradually over time, once started down this slippery slope there is no legal way to stop other life forms from being patented.
There is an interesting debate going on in the United States at the moment as to whether or not human cells and genes can be patented. At this moment the only defence against that happening appears in the amendment to the Constitution which does not permit the ownership of persons, the anti-slavery law in the United States. Without that clause in the Constitution I contend that Americans would be going that route in that country right at the moment.
Why is this important to Canada? It is important to Canada because we are now in a series of international negotiations for GATT, whereby many of the major players in the GATT talks are now beginning to add to the patent protection rights. They are arguing that those rights should be held right across the country, all the countries on earth, and that any country which fails to restrict the use of information that has been monopolized by a patent should make those patents transferable

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to other countries; in other words introduce what normally would be considered a restriction to trade.
If we do not all consistently introduce the same kinds of restrictions to trade, the United States and Japan will not continue with the negotiations. They have offered that as part of their initial negotiations. I think they may step back a bit. However, they have made great progress in this direction, to the capitalization and privatization of information which I contend should be available to everyone in the intellectual community on earth. It should be made available for the use of all of us at the technical level. I believe a continuation of this kind of restricting of information will bode badly for the future of civilization and the future of this planet.
I want to point out the various steps that have occurred in the institutionalization or the privatization of intellectual property over the last several hundred years. I think it as well makes the point that society has been fairly cognizant of the dangers upon which we are embarking here. I think that the House and Members here who represent the common people of the country should consider this as we are investigating this particular proposal by the Government.
When we look at the use of patent to provide monopoly control over innovations and ideas, the debate probably begins in England of 1623 and ends at about the time of the Vienna's World Fair 200 years later in 1873. In fact, the formal capitulation to monopoly control of intellectual property and new ideas occurred in the Paris Convention of 1883 with a number of countries signing an international patent system convention.
The battle over those 250 years was veiy long and complex. In the half century preceding the Vienna Fair the opponents to the idea of monopolizing ideas and monopolizing patenting came from Great Britain, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany, which countries all bitterly attacked the concept of monopoly and turned back or prevented patent laws and regulations. In the prevailing era of free trade patents in those days they were regarded as barriers to trade, similar to tariffs. In fact, if we wished to do an economic analysis of it we would see that they still are.
The anti-patent movement collapsed in 1873 when a counterproposal was issued that stated that countries would have the right to issue compulsory licences and include that in their patent law.
This country is aware of how compulsory licences work. We had that form of protection for consumers and for developers in our drug patent laws prior to the Conservative Government changing them in the last session of the House. With that, it was possible to have generic drugs where companies could simply pay the original patent holder a certain fee, and having paid that fee had the right to duplicate the patent and to duplicate the drug. The result was generally much lower prices to consumers, much greater availability and much wider distribution of the information that was locked away in the secrets of that particular compound.
We have tried to let both this Government and previous Governments know that that particular part of the plant breeders' rights legislation should have included the option, the right of having compulsory licences, so that a plant breeder or a user could simply apply for the information on the payment of a set fee. The data and the generic material would be provided to him or her as a right upon the payment of that basic fee.
What the Government has chosen to do is to fudge that. It has not gone the whole route. It has said that: "It is possible that this might happen, the registrar who looks after patenting may be able to do that but he is not required to do it by the legislation." We think that is a grave shortcoming. We contend that the registrar must issue these kinds of automatic patents so that there is, in effect, a compulsory licence. The user will be forced to pay a fee to the original developer but the original developer will not have the right, which they do maintain, of keeping information secret to themselves only.
Canada is considered by the United States, Japan and some other countries to be far behind in its voyage down the same path that they have pursued with regard to international patenting. We gave in to the United States on the generic drug issue. We have now issued patents for somewhat less than 18 years but they are firm patents to producers of drugs and developers of drugs in this
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country. So we have complied with international pressure.
In his opening remarks, the Minister today pointed out that there is a great deal of international pressure on Canada from a few countries who have this international agreement to grant patents to produce new plants or life varieties. Those countries are effectively attempting to blackmail us into developing the same kind of consistent law. Effectively, what American and some European lobbyists are doing is forcing their governments to speak on their behalf, to tell Canada and countries like Canada who do not yet have patent protection for plant forms and other life forms, that if they do not come up with comparable legislation and provide them with the same kind of monopoly protection, they will withhold all information and all material from users in our particular country.
That is the kind of blackmail technique that we refuse to acknowledge when it is applied by hijackers. We refused to acknowledge it in this House, in this session. One of the Ministers refused to acknowledge that form of lobby action on the part of some hunger strikers who said they would not be blackmailed and would not submit to pressure. Yet, we are submitting to international pressure from international business through various governments to bring in the same kind of legislation that I submit has not been thoroughly studied in other countries. The last time this country did a thorough study of where we are going with the issue of patenting and whether or not life forms and plant life should be patented and should be eligible, was in the late 1950s, almost 40 years ago. Thirty some years ago we had a royal commission look into the issue.
The Government realizes that there are still a great many unanswered issues around this whole question of generic development and biotechnology. In the Speech from the Throne, the Government alerted us to the fact that it was thinking of setting up a royal commission to look into some of the questions surrounding the ethical, legal and other problems that surround the question of fertility in humans. Yet the Government appeared not to have extended that consideration even further back to look at the whole question of who has the right to patent a life form. Does it belong to the researcher? Why does it belong to the researcher? Why does a researcher who takes two or three varieties of plants that are found in the Third World, somewhere in South America, and makes some combinations, suddenly become the owner
Plant Breeders' Rights
of the life that emerges from the cross-process or the genetic manipulation that might occur?
Can individuals own life, either as a plant form-is that ethically possible? Is that economically practical? Once we start doing it with plant life, as I have demonstrated with the United States situation, it very rapidly moves on to other forms of life. Our legal system that has developed in the Western World, and I suspect in all of the eastern countries as well, has no way of distinguishing. Once a right is given to a monopoly or a patent over one particular kind of life form, they have no way of distinguishing a difference between the simplest microorganism and a human gene. It is the role of Parliaments and Governments, through their legislators, to be aware of this and to be fully cognizant of what it is that we are doing. I am not sure at this point that this Government has made any effort to look into those particular issues.
The question could perhaps be handled by a royal commission type of study over several years which could look into the whole question of biotechnology. We could have people who are experts in ethics, law and science do an in-depth study and make recommendations to lawmakers as to what direction they think we should take. It is my opinion that this particular legislation, while it is premature, is sending us down a wrong course in this country. Not only in this country, but I think it is a wrong course for civilization on earth in general.
Canada should be joining with a host of other countries which have expressed some doubts about this course. I point out that while there is a group that belongs to several of the conventions referred to by the Minister, the Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants Convention held in 1961, a lot of the information that was available in 1961 is now completely passe. The items that they dealt with are only very minor beginnings of the kind of technology that is available today.
They have not found a proper way of handling all of the concerns that exist. For instance, there is no proper way of addressing the question of compensation if it is decided to have compensation for those who develop plant types and varieties. Should that compensation not also go to those who have maintained the genetic resources in the Third World? South America, Africa and the Middle East are the birthplaces of most of the plant varieties in the world. How are those countries

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Plant Breeders' Rights
recompensed under this kind of system? It hardly seems fair when material is taken from South America, manipulated in North America, and taken back to South America where they can have the use of it but they will have to pay a very steep price for getting their own genetic material back. They could very rightly say that they have been keeping and manipulating that genetic material for hundreds of years and ask why we did not pay them for it when we took it in the first place. That question has not been addressed.
For some reason, our business leaders and Government people think that genetic material should be free and available to everyone until they get hold of it, then they think a price should be charged for it.
The Minister said we should not worry because there will be gene banks around the world and that Canada is responsible for part of the overall gene bank. I think the gene bank idea is an excellent one. We in Canada are responsible for most of the varieties of barley. However, I note with some alarm that some of the oldest gene banks are now being privatized. How can we guarantee full access if some private corporation has bought a gene bank, presumably with the idea of making a profit? I see no other reason for a private corporation to buy, for example, the gene bank in Cambridge which has developed over many centuries.
All of the explorers, including Charles Darwin, brought botanists or scientists with them to bring back new plant varieties and life forms, and they were deposited in places like the gene bank in Cambridge. Mrs. Thatcher, in her wisdom, decided that it should be privatized and a private corporation bought it for something over $160 million Canadian. No one can convince me that any corporation would be so generous and altruistic that it would invest $160 million Canadian of shareholders' funds in an enterprise that will not have some return. We can only conclude that those genetic resources will have a cost attached to them sometime in the future.
The road we are embarking upon with this legislation is fraught with many dangers. There are many questions that have not been answered. The Government seems to be proceeding in this direction because other countries
are doing it, so it must be okay. I submit that some sectors of society restricted access to libraries prior to the Dark Ages, something that led to very negative consequences for our ancestors. There were several hundreds of years of the Dark Ages in which information was restricted and technical knowledge declined as a result. I would hate to see Canada embark on that kind of a process at a time when the rest of the world is recognizing almost unanimously that there has to been openness, glasnost, access to information, whether from Government officials or the scientific and technical community.
Our society cannot strive and grow when access to information is limited. The Government should take a very careful second look at proposing this kind of legislation, which I submit is completely counter to that move toward openness. The legislation proposes to provide monopoly control which would limit access to information and genetic materials, and I think that is the wrong direction for our society to take. It is opposite to the direction taken by most of the countries in the world with the exception of a few very highly developed countries which have been attempting to privatize and capitalize on the information that is locked away in the genetic material that no man created. Man may be able to manipulate that genetic material, but he did not create it and he should not receive recompense for something that he only had a minor assisting role in manipulating.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I would like to bring to the attention of Hon. Members the fact that the first three speakers were allowed 40 minutes with no questions or comments .under Standing Order 74. We are now entering the eight-hour period in which the speeches are 20 minutes long with 10 minutes of questions and comments.


Mr. Ross Stevenson (Durham):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to take part in the debate on Bill C-15 respecting plant breeders' rights. When we examine the situation surrounding the development of new varieties of seeds in Canada, we have to ask if our farmers and farm families are getting the best resources that are available to them to compete with other growers around the world. It seems to me that every Member of the House would want food producers to have access to the
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best varieties of cultivars in existence, but today, unfortunately, there is some question whether they do in fact have that access.
For those who are not really familiar with what the discussion on plant breeders' rights is all about, I want to draw a comparison with the Copyright Act. The Hon. Member who spoke previously mentioned it briefly in passing. There are a number of similarities, quite frankly, with copyright.
Copyright is the right to copy, and it means that only the owner of the original literary, musical or artistic work may copy that work or permit others to do so. It includes the exclusive right to publish, produce, reproduce and perform a work in public. The objective, of course, is to provide legal recognition for creative work, allowing the creative person to obtain a reward for his or her efforts. This encourages creativity and individuality to the general benefit of society. The concept of legal recognition of copyright has been accepted in Canada for at least 65 years.
The development of new varieties of seeds involves creativity in concept and in methods of selection. The varieties developed are original works and in many ways the recognition of plant breeders' rights by this legislation resembles copyright. The main reason for not including plant varieties under the Copyright Act is that unlike other creative works, plant varieties reproduce themselves and make their own copies.
To carry this analogy a little further, the provision of plant breeders' rights is intended to give plant breeders the same kind of legal protection for their works that is received by authors, musicians and artists. That gives the general public some familiarity with the concept. Certainly, it is a concept that is not at all foreign to Canadian people. The plant breeders' rights legislation is an idea and policy that certainly is not new or different. It has been discussed widely in Canada and in other nations for many, many years. Many agricultural countries have had some form of plant breeders' rights for many years. In fact, it is now in place in 18 countries around the world. I will mention some of those later in my presentation. In some of the Communist bloc centrally-controlled nations, there is a form of government control that approximates some of the actions of this type of legislation.
Plant Breeders' Rights
We believe very strongly that it is now time to recognize the progressive and individual acts of Canadian plant breeders and allow them to benefit somewhat for their originality and initiative. The rewards provided in this legislation certainly are not large. There are all sorts of mechanisms built into this legislation to make sure that plant breeders or companies do not take advantage of various aspects of this legislation.
Let us take a brief look at the legislation we are now discussing and see how in fact it developed. In 1923, the Canadian Horticultural Council recommended legislation for plant patents. However, nothing was done at that time. In 1961, the international convention for the protection of new varieties of plants was drawn up by several European nations. It came into effect in 1968. Arising from that was a new co-operative organization for countries, the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants. By 1970, the United States introduced its Plant Variety Protection Act for sexually reproduced plants, which means plants reproduced from seed.
In 1971, the University of Guelph sponsored a conference on plant breeders' rights here in Canada. It was attended by a great many interested organizations. I might mention that during the 1970s, I was a professor at the University of Guelph. I attended part of that conference and recognized then how important it was to introduce plant breeders' rights legislation in Canada. In 1972, the Canadian Agricultural Services Co-ordinating Committee agreed that plant breeders' rights should be a part of Canadian legislation and would be desirable in Canada. They asked Agriculture Canada to put forward draft legislation. It has been introduced on previous occasions in this House, as previous speakers have mentioned, but in each case it has died on the Order Paper.
Many countries have taken the step that we hope Canada is about to take. The Netherlands has had such legislation since 1941, West Germany since 1953, Denmark since 1962, the United Kingdom since 1964, and Australia since 1987. These countries are members of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants. This international body now counts 18 countries as members. These also include countries such as Japan, New Zealand and Hungary. All of these nations have highly developed food producing systems

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like ours. The international union promotes international co-operation in the whole area of plant breeders' rights and seeks to harmonize, where relevant, legislation of its member nations.
I want to briefly mention some of the concerns that have been brought forward by people opposing this sort of legislation in the past. One concern, and we have heard it here today, is that the multinational corporations will get an unfair advantage from this sort of legislation and that small companies may well disappear. I would like to draw attention to some statistics available from other nations. If that sort of trend were going to occur, one would think that it would certainly occur in the Netherlands, a country which has had plant breeders' rights since 1941. Elowever, going by 1988 figures, there are 983 seed trade members in that country. This is a small nation which has had plant breeders' rights since 1941 and there has not been a concentration of power. Quite frankly, it is exactly the opposite.
Individual plant breeders, for example, backyard rose breeders right here in Canada who claim to have varieties ready to release, will not release them because they know they will not gain from their many years of hard work and initiative in developing those new rose varieties. However, they now will have a chance to release them and at least get some modest benefit for their ability and initiative.
This is clearly the sort of thing that has happened in the Netherlands with 983 seed trade members of one type or another. I think that speaks for itself. There are other countries and I will go briefly through them. Denmark, not a big country, has 30 members; France, 469; the United States, 786; Italy, 887, I believe the figure is here. In the countries that have had this form of legislation for many years, the numbers are holding up, and there is certainly no concern whatsoever for corporate concentration in the seeds business.
The Government has committed itself to staying in the development of varieties here in Canada, staying in the public plant breeding. It is very important for people to realize that plant breeding is a multi-faceted undertaking. One area that is very important to plant breeding is developing new plant breeding techniques. This sort of basic research is very expensive and is likely to occur largely in the public sector. Most of the private sector companies involved in plant breeding cannot afford to be
in extensive basic research and new breeding techniques. That must continue to occur in the public sector. Also, the storage and maintenance of various seeds, germ-plasm and various other forms of plant material will again have to be maintained by government organizations or international foundations of one type or another. That is occurring now. I believe it is very clear to this Government and to the people around the world that that must continue and that commitment is in place.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Before I call it one o'clock, the Hon. Member will have seven minutes left plus the 10 minutes of questions and comments after three o'clock.
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.


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, in 1986 New Zealand established a parliamentary commissioner for the environment. The commissioner has the power to ensure that the values of ecosystems, all values which are placed by individuals and groups on the quality of the environment, the sustainability of natural and physical resources, and the needs of future generations are taken into account in managing natural and physical resources.
The commissioner also has the powers of our Auditor General to oversee and review the actions of the Government in the environment and reports to Parliament. Helen Hughes, New Zealand's first commissioner stated: "I believe that the public has a right to expect the government system to be capable of delivering fair, equitable and environmentally sensitive decisions. I am a guardian of that right".
May 30. 1989

Canadians would welcome the creation of a parliamentary commissioner for the environment, and we seek your guidance and support, Mr. Speaker, to achieve such end.



THE BUDGET


Mr. Greg Thompson (Carleton - Charlotte):: Mr. Speaker, Atlantic Canada is experiencing some very real difficulties which can only be dealt with at the national level through debate, intelligent discussion, and dialogue.
For more than one month the opposition Parties have launched into a vicious attack on the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson). This attack has nothing to do with principle and nothing to do with the facts. Members opposite simply want the Minister's head for purely political reasons.
Members of the Opposition were elected by their constituents to serve the people of Canada, to serve the House, and to work for the common good. By not doing this, they are wasting the time of the House and taxpayers' dollars. I urge Members opposite to quit playing partisan politics and get on with addressing the real questions facing the country.




Mr. Ian Waddell (Port Moody-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to comment on the criminal charges against journalist Doug Small on the budget leak. As a former crown attorney my comments will be circumspect.
The charges were laid by the Ontario Provincial crown counsel who has a reputation for being independent and fair. The case, however, is unique. While all Canadians are equal and not special under the criminal law, under the Canadian Charter of Rights there is a guarantee of freedom of the press. In other countries, criminal prosecutions of journalists have put those countries on the long slippery slope toward less freedom for all and eventually tyranny.
I call upon the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lewis) and the Solicitor General of Canada (Mr. Blais) to reveal whether their Ministries had discussions with the crown attorney and whether, as I think they were obliged to do, they raised the implications of freedom of the press in this prosecution.



NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION


Kenneth Ross Stevenson: Mr. Speaker, dramatic proposals from the United States, supported by members of NATO, provide more optimism for disarmament. The United States and its NATO partners have made a positive and pro-active response to the Soviets on reduction of the number of troops and conventional equipment in Europe. Furthermore, the compromise within NATO on a position for reduction of short-range nuclear weapons was a major accomplishment.
Our Prime Minister (Mr. Mulroney) and Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Clark) have played an important role in achieving this compromise. As arms reductions occur, the necessity for verification and other confidence building measures become increasingly important. Canada has played a significant role in the research and development of various forms of verification. Peace built on trust and confidence, not nuclear deterrents, is the wish of all Canadians.



LIBERAL PARTY


Mr. George Proud (Hillsborough):: Mr. Speaker, the federal Government received a clear message last night with the resounding victory of Premier Joe Ghiz and the Prince Edward Island Liberal Party. This victory comes directly on the heels of the election of four Liberal MPs last November.
For the past six months I have listened to comments from the Island media and defeated Conservative candidates who seem to think that Prince Edward Islanders made a mistake when they failed to elect a Conservative MP.
Islanders obviously do not feel that way, because last night they elected 30 Liberals to the 32-seat Legislature in a massive show of confidence in Premier Ghiz and his colleagues. Islanders have sent a clear message to

May 30. 1989
Ottawa confirming that they feel they are being unfairly treated by the present federal Government.
They have been unfairly treated with respect to the base closure in Summerside and unfairly treated with respect to regional development cut-backs. They will not sit back and let the federal Government shut down this part of Canada. P.E.I. is part of this country and Islanders demand to be treated fairly as Canadian citizens under the terms of the Constitution.



HISTORIC SITES


Mr. Jean-Guy Guilbault (Drummond):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to invite all my colleagues and all Canadians to come and visit the Quebec Village of Yesteryear, a historic site in Drummondville, which will be open from June 1 until Labour Day.

The objectives of this educational and cultural centre are to reproduce a village with the added attractions of animation, ways, customs, and dress of the people living in Quebec during the Eastern Townships era dating from 1840 to 1910 and to reflect the living traditions of our ancestors.

Last year, over 175,000 people visited this heritage village. Most Canadian and American television networks have made film sequences, television series and feature films there, including Entre Chien et Loup, Les Tisserands du Pouvoir, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Henry Ford and even Barnum and Bailey with Burt Lancaster. France and Belgium have also used this setting to shoot picturesque scenes, like "a village to remember." Its hospitality and charm are undeniable. You will be thrilled and delighted
by this unique place in Quebec which will take you back to the ways of life of the last century.



YOUNG OFFENDERS ACT


Pauline Browes: Mr. Speaker, Canadians are very concerned about the Young Offenders Act. They cannot understand how justice is served when a 16 year old receives a three-year sentence for killing three people.
They wonder what example is set for young people who know that they can commit serious offences without ever having an extensive criminal record. Canadians worry that the Young Offenders Act provides an incentive for adults to use young people for criminal activity.
I urge the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lewis) to continue to pursue changes to the Act with his provincial counterparts. Public safety and justice demand nothing less.



CANADA POST CORPORATION


Mr. Joe Comuzzi (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Mr. Speaker, the more than 5,000 rural post offices in Canada do more than provide mail service to our less populated and isolated areas. Those post offices, with their capable postmasters and staff, offer much to their communities. Rural post offices such as Nipigon, Red Rock, Armstrong, Dorion, Hurkett, and Murillo are meeting places for the residents. They assist people to complete government forms, monitor people who live alone, and provide other vital services to small communities.
More important, the rural post office along with VIA Rail may be the only federal presence in those areas.
I ask the Government to re-evaluate its position on this matter. Rather than opting for the closure of rural post offices, Canada Post should ensure that those post
May 30, 1989

offices provide more valuable services to Canadians who live in rural and small town Canada.



PENSIONS


Mr. Larry Schneider (Regina-Wascana):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to pay tribute to a group of Canadians who are currently attending the annual Canadian Pension Conference in Ottawa. It is noteworthy, because it is here that we see a perfect example of employees and elected officials gathered for the prime purpose of improving one of our major long-term, self help programs, that being this country's pensions.
Pensions not only provide for us beyond our normal working years, but they are a significant source of capital which is quickly making its investment strength known across Canada.
It is with a special pride that I acknowledge the presence in Ottawa from my home City of Regina of members of the pension funds of Regina Transit, City Police, General Hospital, Board of Education, Firefighters, employees and management of several civic unions, and in particular the Mayor of Regina and three councillors. It is my wish that this coming together will benefit all whom they represent.
* s|s *



CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION


Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, three weeks ago CBC decided against broadcasting live the five-hour world-wide program, Our Common Future.
On Saturday, June 3, the program will be made available in Canada only through City TV of Toronto on the Much Music channel. Millions of Canadians will not have the opportunity to listen to world leaders, scientists, and entertainers in the collective search for solutions to the greenhouse effect, holes in the ozone, drought, famine, flooding, and pollution.
Not only CBC, but every channel on every network should be carrying this message. The planet can only be saved by those who understand just how urgent the need for action is. If those of us who know fail to alert those who need to know, through entertaining educational productions such as this Saturday's Our Common Future, then we are part of the problem and the solution will be the continued extinction of species, perhaps our own.
On Sunday, June 4, the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bouchard) plans to kick off Environment Week in Canada. I suggest that the Minister call the networks and spend the celebration money on public education.



AGRICULTURE


Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, western Quebec will receive $4.5 million from the federal Government under the new joint agri-food testing and experimentation program. The Solicitor General of Canada and Minister of State for Agriculture (Mr. Blais) made the announcement last Friday afternoon in Abiti-bi-Temiscamingue on behalf of the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion and Minister of State for Science and Technology (Mr. Andre).
At the same time, the Minister, Mr. Blais, met the CRAAT and UPA together with dairy farmers.
Mr. Speaker, this is a Minister who is available, despite what some members of the provincial executive of the UPA (Quebec farmers' union) say, referring to him as a part-time minister. They can rest assured that he listens to their demands and I hope that tomorrow they will not accuse me of being a part-time Member of Parliament because I have a family, I am a Knight of Columbus, 4th degree, a member of the Val d'Or Kiwanis Club, a member of the Standing Committee on Transport, a vice-president of the Quebec Conservative Caucus, etc.



FISHERIES


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I wish to bring to the attention of the House a serious problem related to the long-term future of commercial and tourist fishing in the Great Lakes. The Government, by failing to increase funding to control the sea lamprey infestation in the Great Lakes, is endangering the viability of these multi-billion dollar industries.
Sea lamprey control in Lake Erie will be totally eliminated and control in Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, and Lake Ontario will be cut by 50 per cent. Research will be cut by 50 per cent, and the resulting impacts will be that the number of lamprey will double by the year 2000, trout and salmon will decline by 50 per cent, whitefish and chub stocks will decline, sport fishing

May 30. 1989
industry expenditures will decline by $1 billion to $2 billion annually, jobs will be lost, economic dislocation will occur in communities dependent upon these fisheries, and the tourism infrastructure will be threatened.
I call upon the Government to take immediate action and to restore full funding to control sea lamprey in the Great Lakes.



FREE TRADE AGREEMENT


Mrs. Edna Anderson (Simcoe Centre):: Mr. Speaker, during the free trade debate a great deal of pessimism was expressed by the opposition Parties about the possible detrimental effects on Canada's social programs.
It is with great pleasure today that I point to a recent item that shows the contrary. Canada's health care plan is attracting more attention in the United States. Recently the chairman of Chrsyler Corporation, Lee Iacoc-ca, said:
American industry cannot compete effectively with the rest of the world unless something is done about the great imbalance between health care costs in the United States and the national health care systems in virtually every other country.
The fact that our system costs less than the U.S. system has aroused a great deal of interest. Clearly Canada is enhancing the pace of social development world-wide.
4*



DISARMAMENT


Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg Transcona):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to draw the attention of the Elouse to the fact that this week is International Disarm the Seas Week. While there has been progress elsewhere in disarmament, Canada and its neighbours have not addressed the proliferation of military activity in our oceans. They have become dangerously overcrowded as the number and size of military exercises increases and as the build up of sea-launched missiles continues unchecked, something which should be of particular concern to Canada. There
is growing instability and the potential for disaster is enormous.
The Canadian Government has virtually ignored the Pacific in this regard. The French continue nuclear testing in the South Pacific, U.S. led naval exercises such as Pacex in the North Pacific expand, and visits by American warships to British Columbia harbours increase in number and duration.
Canada, as a Pacific nation, must begin addressing the dangers posed by militarization of the Pacific and promote regional co-operation in disarmament.
Indeed, we must act urgently to disarm all our oceans to preserve the integrity of the environment and maintain peace for future generations.



CONGRATULATIONS TO NHL MOST VALUABLE PLAYER AL MACINNIS

[Stage Direction]
Mr. Francis G. LeBlanc (Cape Breton Highlands -
Canso): Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to A1 Maclnnis, star defenceman for the Calgary Flames and winner of the Connie Smythe Trophy as most valuable player in the 1989 NHL playoffs.
Most Canadian hockey fans are now familiar with A1 Maclnnis's accomplishments on the ice. They know, for example, that he is the first defenceman ever to lead all players in scoring in one playoff season. In that respect he even surpasses the achievements of the great Bobby Orr.
In leading the Flames to their first Stanley Cup, A1 Maclnnis broke the record for most assists in the playoffs with 24 assists in 22 games.
What fewer Canadian hockey fans know is that A1 Maclnnis grew up on a farm in Port Hood, Cape Breton, and that he has five brothers and two sisters. His father, Mr. Alex Maclnnis, is originally from Judique, a few miles down the shore, and his grandfather, Mr. Duncan Maclnnis was section foreman on the legendary Judique Flyer.
Al's mother, Annie Mae Gillis, is a first cousin to the Hon. Allan J. MacEachen who, although not a hockey player, is well known to Members opposite as having a pretty good slapshot of his own.
May 30, 1989
[Stage Direction]
Everyone in Port Hood, and indeed in all of Cape Breton, is proud of their native son. On their behalf I wish to say congratulations to A1 Maclnnis.
Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
* *



THE HANDICAPPED


Mr. Scott Thorkelson (Edmonton -Strathcona):: Mr. Speaker, June 4 to June 10 is National Access Awareness Week in Canada, a week for us to focus on ways of improving access for disabled people to all sectors of our society.
Access means removing the physical barriers that stand in the way of full participation by disabled Canadians. It also means changing attitudes, because these are often the most difficult barriers that disabled people face in achieving the goal of integration in housing, education, employment, transportation, and recreation.
This week brings together many groups at the national, provincial, and local levels along with Multiculturalism and Citizenship Canada. I would like to congratulate all those involved in striving for access for all Canadians.



ELECTORAL VACANCY


Mr. Speaker:: It is my duty to inform the House that I have received a communication notifying me that a vacancy has occurred in the representation, namely, Richard Grise, Member for the electoral district of Chambly, by resignation. Accordingly, I have addressed my warrant to the Chief Electoral Officer for the issue of a new writ of election for the said electoral district.
I also have a letter, which reads as follows:
Dear Mr. Speaker,
Considering the situation that prevails in the riding of Chambly since the last federal election of November, 1988 and following my guilty plea to various charges at my trial of May 23, 1989. 1 wish through your assistance to offer my humble apologies, first to you. who presides over this noble House, to the Right Honourable Prime Minister, to the
Oral Questions
members of Cabinet, and to the Members of all political parties; and particularly to my ex-colleagues in the Progressive Conservative Party.
The misdeeds for which I have been convicted and, above all, judged severely, deserve rebuke and are unacceptable from a person elected to the Canadian Parliament. I also wish to offer my apologies to the people of the riding of Chambly who called on me to represent them in 1984 and gave me a second mandate in November of 1988.
My deepest regrets go to my family, to my relatives, to my friends, to the people in my political organization who assisted and supported me so well during my too-short policitial career and in my life in general.
My Speaker, allow me to offer to you, and to the whole staff of the House of Commons, my sincere thanks for your constant cooperation. It was an honour for me to serve the population of Chambly, as a member of the Government of Canada.
In spite of my errors of judgement, I have always given the best of myself to serve as a member and Chairman of various committees, as President of the Quebec Parliamentary Wing of the Progressive Conservative Party, and especially as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister, for whom I have the highest esteem and the greatest respect.
I wish hereby and through your mediation to offer my deepest apologies to the people of Canada and I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to accept my immediate resignation in order to allow this noble institution to be protected from a situation such as this one.
I thank you. Mr. Speaker, and extend to you, with deepest regrets, my humble acknowledgement.
Richard Grise,
Member of Parliament for Chambly



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Right Hon. John N. Turner (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. You will know, Mr. Speaker, that I am fully aware as Your Honour is that criminal charges are pending against five Canadians. However, there are two distinct issues here. They are eventual proceedings in a court of law and the current proceedings in Parliament.
Cabinet Ministers are accountable for the actions they have taken or have not taken. They are accountable to the highest court in the land, which is the House of Commons and the Parliament of Canada.

May 30. 1989
Oral Questions
It is the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance and, indeed, other members of the Cabinet who must answer questions here in this Chamber about their incompetence, negligence, stupidity, stonewalling, misrepresentation, political manipulation, and cover-up.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Charest:: We don't talk about Liberals that much.


Mr. Speaker:: I understand the concern of the right hon. gentleman, but he is getting awfully close to identifying certain people and applying names to them. I think he should be very careful about that.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I do not have to identify them. The people of Canada will be the judges through the representatives of the people here of the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, and the Deputy Prime Minister.
I put my question to the Deputy Prime Minister. According to the news release yesterday of the Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police there has been, and I quote the release, "completion of the investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police into the leaks of the Budget in Brief'.
Will the Deputy Prime Minister now honour the Prime Minister's commitment given to us here in the House of Commons on April 27 and provide Parliament with the complete findings of the RCMP as to who knew what and when?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Hon. Pierre Blais (Solicitor General of Canada and Minister of State (Agriculture)):: Mr. Speaker, I think there are two sides to the question put by the Right Hon. Member. We now have charges that have been laid before the court, and I imagine the Hon. Member will agree that if those who have been charged are to have a fair trial, it is essential not to comment on the case.
As for the other side of the Hon. Member's question, I may refer to what has been said repeatedly in the House during the last few weeks. The question whether anyone benefited from prior knowledge of the Budget is still being investigated. As soon as that information- I already said that the RCMP Commissioner has informed me that so far, no one had benefited from prior knowledge of the Budget. However, Mr. Speaker, the investigation is continuing.


REQUEST THAT CERTAIN PERSONS BE SUMMONED TO THE BAR OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I quoted a commitment made here in the House by the Prime Minister of Canada that all necessary information would be revealed as soon as the RCMP had completed its investigation. I am certainly not going to intervene in the trial, although the Prime Minister has already qualified certain people as criminals.
I realize that charges are about to be laid. However, there are also some very basic questions that arise in connection with our parliamentary democracy, and I am referring to the question of ministerial responsibility and the integrity of this Government.
The Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance cannot use criminal charges as an excuse for refusing to tell us what they knew, when they knew it, and why they decided to hide the truth from Parliament.
I therefore have the following question for the Deputy Prime Minister: He has already had 24 hours to reflect. Will the Clerk of the Privy Council, the Deputy Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff be called to the bar of the House of Commons to inform the House about what happened on the afternoon of April 27, when the truth was hidden from Parliament? Mr. Speaker, my question has no connection with the criminal charges that will be laid. What we are talking about is ministerial responsibility, here in Parliament.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, as to when the Minister of Finance was made aware about the Mutual Life incident, he has answered that question on numerous occasions. They are as follows: Wednesday, May 24, as reported at pages 2088, 2089, 2090 and 2094 of Hansard; Thursday, May 25, as reported at pages 2143 and 2144 of Hansard; and on Friday, May 26, as reported at pages 2200 and 2203 of Hansard. We spent the whole of Question Period yesterday outlining in full detail the sequence of events.
Just because the Leader of the Opposition does not like the answers does mean to say that Ministers are not accountable. We have been here answering and responding to the questions that have been asked. I am sorry that the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition does not like the answers. He should know very well that there are
May 30, 1989

limitations as to the extent to which these questions can be answered. I think the evidence has clearly served us well. There are charges that are now being laid.
He would be the first person, Mr. Speaker, to condemn us if there was any semblance of political interference in the investigation by the RCMP.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the Deputy Prime Minister has said that there are limitations as to what can be answered. We do not see any limitations to answering and giving us the truth. That is what we like to have here in the House of Commons.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


SITUATIONS OF MINISTER AND PRESS REPORTER-ALLEGED CONTRADICTION
John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the reporter who revealed the existence of the budget leak faces a criminal charge. The Minister of Finance who failed to maintain budget secrecy and who hid the existence of a second budget leak from Parliament continues to hold office. Indeed, he is attending an international conference in Europe.
We have a situation in which a reporter faces a criminal charge for exercising his freedom of expression under our Constitution, and the Minister of Finance is hailed as a hero by the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister. How does the Government justify this extraordinary contradiction? When is he going to come clean with the people of Canada?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I want to be absolutely clear as to where the Leader of the Opposition is really coming from when he poses his question.


Ms. Copps:: The truth.
Oral Questions


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Is the Leader of the Opposition blaming the Minister of Finance for actions that were taken by people who have been charged subsequently for theft, the theft and possession of this article?


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Tiy to answer the questions instead of asking them.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: If that is what the Leader of the Opposition is saying, I do not know how the Minister of Finance could be accountable for those actions. He should know better than that.


RCMP PRESS RELEASE
Hon. Bob Kaplan (York Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General. It is about a press release issued at seven o'clock last night on the letterhead of the Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
According to this press release five persons have been formally charged, and they are named. I checked myself and as of 1.55 p.m., according to the number given on this press release, the RCMP are still at the court house issuing these charges. There is no more information about them until they are formally charged.
I want to ask the Solicitor General why this press release was issued last night hours and hours before any charges have been formally laid.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Blais: Mr. Speaker, I am informed by the Commissioner of the RCMP that following their investigation and upon advice from the Attorney General's Department of the Province of Ontario, the RCMP decided to lay charges against five individuals, and the case is now before the courts. I have no further comment at this time. Like the Hon. Member, I was informed of this last night.


TIMING OF PRESS RELEASE
Robert Phillip Kaplan: I would like to ask the
same Minister, as a supplementary question, whether

May 30, 1989
Oral Questions
the issuing of this press release hours before the event, which perhaps has still not taken place, has anything to do with the fact that the Prime Minister is returning to the House tomorrow-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Robert Phillip Kaplan: -and the Government wants to prepare a good reason, in its opinion, for refusing to answer further questions?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Blais: Mr. Speaker, I believe I did my duty when I answered the Hon. Member's question earlier. It is not customary- the Hon. Member, himself a former solicitor general, knows perfectly well that the Solicitor General does not have to be consulted nor does he have to make any decisions himself about an investigation being conducted by a police force like the RCMP. The RCMP has conducted its investigation. It has consulted with members of the Attorney General's Department of the Province of Ontario. It has concluded that charges should be laid. It was the RCMP's decision to issue a press release last night. I myself-


An Hon. Member:: It was the RCMP's decision!


Pierre Blais: Exactly, it was the RCMP's decision. I had nothing to do with it. It is the kind of decison that is made by a police force, and I see that the Hon. Member is well aware of the situation. Mr. Speaker, I think that in the circumstances, the sensible thing to do is to refrain from public comments so that the individuals involved will be able to get a fair trial.


An Hon. Member:: Hear, hear!


PARLIAMENTARY ACCOUNTABILITY
Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton -Melville):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also for the Deputy Prime Minister. I have here a copy of the search warrant documents that were issued to the RCMP. There is confirmation on page 3 of one of these documents that indeed the first leak to Mutual Life Insurance of Canada, or someone who gave the documents to Mutual Life Insurance of Canada, occurred on Monday, April 24, fully three days before
the Budget was due. This is confirmation from the RCMP in the search warrant documents.
I would like to now switch to the question of parliamentary accountability. In light of the fact that the Deputy Prime Minister said yesterday that he did not find out about the Mutual leak until 3.30 p.m. or 4 o'clock on the afternoon of Thursday, April 27,1 wonder if he can now say in a categorical sense whether any Cabinet Minister was aware of the leak to Mutual Life of Canada before or during the Question Period of Thursday, April 27-


An Hon. Member:: Good question.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: -and if not, who are the members of the parliamentary staff of the Government who decided to withhold that information from the Ministers of
Canada?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, as I indicated, I answered that question yesterday in the House.


An Hon. Member:: No, you did not.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: The Minister-


An Hon. Member:: You never answered the question yet.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, I did answer the question as to when I was informed.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An Hon. Member:: When did the Finance Minister know?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Just a minute, I will get to that. The Minister of Finance answered the question as to when he was informed. I am advised that the Prime Minister's office was advised by the Clerk of the Privy Council about the same time as I was advised. I know of no other Minister of the Crown having had the knowledge to which the Hon. Member referred. Mr. Speaker-


An Hon. Member:: Come on.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Well, what he was asking, Mr. Speaker, was: Was anybody aware-


An Hon. Member:: During Question Period.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: -of the fact that there was the incident of the Mutual Life matter brought to the
May 30, 1989

attention of any Minister of the Crown prior to the Question Period? To the best of my knowledge, no. May I simply-


An Hon. Member:: That is incredible. It really is.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: That is simply consistent with what we have been saying all along-


John Napier Turner: That is incredible.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: May I simply point out, I-Mr. Speaker, I would like to be as forthcoming as I possibly can. I draw to the attention of the House and to the Hon. Member-Mr. Speaker, if I may be permitted, I want to remind the Hon. Member and other Hon. Members about the issue of sub-judice. It is not a matter of trying to hide behind the cloak of sub-judice. Section 505 of Beauchesne's Sixth Edition is very clear. It states:
Members are expected to refrain from discussing matters that are before the courts or tribunals which are courts of record. The purpose of this sub-judice convention is to protect the parties in a case awaiting or undergoing trial and persons who stand to be affected by the outcome of a judicial inquiry. It is a voluntary restraint imposed by the House upon itself in the interest of justice and fair play.


IDENTITY OF OFFICIALS SOUGHT
Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, the following question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. Which officials decided to withhold the information from the Ministers of the Cabinet?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, no officials withheld information from the Cabinet.


An Hon. Member:: Oh, come on.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: I would remind Hon. Members that when the question is put and the Minister rises to answer it, the Minister is entitled to courtesy in order to give the answer. The Hon. Minister.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, as I said before, the decision about the way in which the Budget was going to be handled as a result of the leak that was evident to everybody on Wednesday, April 26, that decision was taken as to how it was going to be handled. Any other leaks suggested, allegations, associated or potential leaks
Oral Questions
were matters for the RCMP to investigate. It became a law enforcement matter. Any information that was brought to the attention of any Ministers or officials of the Government were turned over the RCMP, as was the proper and only course of action.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


DECISION TO INFORM MEMBERS OF GOVERNMENT QUERIED
Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Master-man, who is the President of Mutual Life of Canada, said that he called the Minister of Finance's office shortly after 1.30 p.m. That has already been confirmed in the House by Ministers across the way. What I want to know, in the spirit of openness, is which official or which officials made a decision not to inform Members of the Government from 1.30 in the afternoon until around 3.30 p.m. after Question Period? Come clean with us and tell us, who made that decision and why was it made?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, contrary to what the Hon. Members are suggesting, there was no decision necessary. The action that was defined and taken as of Wednesday, there were no further decisions that needed to be taken. The Budget was presented on Wednesday night, April 26. Any allegations of leaks or associated leaks was a matter for the RCMP to investigate.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


FREEDOM OF THE PRESS BROUGHT INTO QUESTION
John Harvard: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. As a former journalist, I am profoundly discouraged by the events of the past 24 hours-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Harvard: The laying of a charge against a member of the Press Gallery-


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Winnipeg-St. James.


John Harvard: Mr. Speaker, the laying of a charge against a member of the Press Gallery for doing his job as he saw fit has serious implications on freedom of the press.

May 30, 1989
Oral Questions
My question for the Deputy Prime Minister is this: Does the Government recognize the serious implications of this case on freedom of the press and the people's right to know? Does the Government realize that by intimidating the press it is attacking the right of all Canadians to know?


An Hon. Member:: Order, order!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member has expressed some obvious opinions which he has.
Let me say that as far as the Government of Canada is concerned, the freedom of the press is a very fundamental and basic right of all Canadians. This Government and this Party has, is and always will support the freedom of the press which is clearly enshrined in the Canadian Bill of Rights and the Charter of Rights. We certainly stand by that and if the Hon. Member is suggesting in his question that the Government is not supportive of that fundamental principle and right, I want to assure him that that is simply not the case. I hope the Opposition doesn't get carried away with its rhetoric and innuendo and carry it just a little too far, as has been the case here over the last week or so.


John Harvard: Mr. Speaker, I just want to remind the House that Woodward and Bernstein were not charged in the Watergate affair. Neither were journalists who reported leaks of provincial Budgets in both Ontario and Quebec.


GOVERNMENT POLICY QUESTIONED
John Harvard: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Deputy Prime Minister. Is big brother going to lock up journalists for doing their job? Is that government policy?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I would have hoped that the Hon. Member would have listened to my answer and then it would not have been necessaiy for him to read his supplementary.


CHARGES LAID BY RC'MP-GOVERNMENT'S POSITION
Mr. Stan Keyes (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, just last November I was elected to this House, but for 16 years before that I was a television news reporter.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. Given that journalists frequently come into possession of alleged secret government documents; given that never ever have their rights to publish that information been questioned by the possible laying of criminal charges-


Mr. Beatty:: Tell that to the Toronto Star.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: -must the news media now seek an official government stamp of approval from this Government before it can report the news?


Henry Perrin Beatty: Is your Leader still suing the Toronto Sun?


John Napier Turner: Yes, for libel.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I tried to make the position of the Government very clear. This matter is a matter for the courts to decide. I want to remind the Hon. Member that the charges were laid in this case by the RCMP after consulting and receiving advice from the law officers of the Attorney General's Branch of the Government of Ontario. I would assume that this matter will be dealt with in the normal course of events and through the judicial process and I have no intention of interfering.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Mr. Speaker, he has no intention of interfering.


An Hon. Member:: Right on.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An Hon. Member:: That is the first reasonable thing they have said today.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: This is not a matter to be decided in the way of the response of the Deputy Prime Minister, that he is going to wait. This is a crucial matter, Mr. Speaker.
May 30, 1989


FREEDOM OF MEDIA COMMUNICATION-COURT TO DECIDE
Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Mr. Speaker, given that the constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press and given that fledgling democracies around the world are in the process of fighting for this important right, is the Government position now that news reporters are only going to be allowed to report the information that the Government wants Canadians to know?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the Charter is clear. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms; freedom of conscience and religion, freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication.
The Canadian Bill of Rights, which was pooh-poohed by Members opposite on many occasions, also recognizes the fundamental freedom of the press. The rights are very clearly defined. The law is clear and I am sure the courts will dispose of this in the manner that-


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: What is your policy?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: The Member asked me what my policy is. I have simply outlined the support of the Government in terms of basic fundamental rights of freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of the press. Mr. Speaker, the court will take those things into consideration.


REQUEST FOR GOVERNMENT TO COME CLEAN
Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I can tell the Deputy Prime Minister that the public is concerned that the Government not hide behind the RCMP. not hide behind the court process, but would come clean with the events.
I know the Minister is a serious man and I put the question to him seriously. The Minister just said a moment ago that the process is clear, that the Charter of Rights is clear. Is it really that clear; the line between a journalist doing his job and what is a criminal offence?
The other day, I tabled a Bill, which was a film Bill in this House, which I got as a leaked document. Does that now mean that in the future I could be charged with a criminal offence and the journalists who use leaked
Oral Questions
documents, any leaked document, can be charged with a criminal offence?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member is a lawyer, I believe. But surely that is a matter for the courts to decide. I am not going to make a decision on the floor of the House of Commons, or express an opinion.
The position of the Government is very clear. We support the fundamental rights in the Charter and we also support the upholding of the law. The courts will balance that measure and come down with a verdict.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I am not convinced it is so easy. The whole House is in possession now of my film Bill. Does that make the whole House guilty of possession? I think the Deputy Prime Minister has to deal with this. He can't hide behind the court process.


Mr. Speaker:: There may be some difficult lines here. But one of them clearly is that the Government of Canada is not responsible for the administration of justice which takes place at a provincial level.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member is a very capable counsel, we know that, and I would ask him to keep that in mind in putting his question.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I understand it.


FREEDOM OF SPEECH FOR JOURNALISTS
Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, the Government in dealing with this matter in a broader way, not the detailed prosecution, but in dealing with it in a broader way, did the Government give any thought to the implications of freedom of speech for journalists? Is the Government prepared to bring in a Bill, for example, a Bill to deal with whistle-blowers or a Bill to deal with people who give information to journalists or Members of Parliament which they believe and which in the end run will prove to be in the public interest? Has the Government dealt with that?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, just again to remind the Hon. Member in the House, these are charges laid under the Criminal Code by the RCMP upon consultation and advice from the Attorney General's Department of the Province of Ontario. Those are the facts. What the

May 30, 1989
Oral Questions
Member is really asking me to do is to express a legal opinion. Ele knows that I cannot do that on the floor of the Elouse of Commons, even if I did have the legal expertise, Mr. Speaker.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF MR. TIMOTHY YAEGER. MINISTER AT THE FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE
Mr. Speaker:: I would like to draw to the attention of the House the presence in the gallery of Mr. Timothy Yaeger, Minister at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with special responsibility for North and South America.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


REGIONAL INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION
Guy St-Julien: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion. On May 4, 1988, Roger Machines International Inc. applied for IRDP assistance to study a continuous mining machine. According to officials, the project is worth recommending, but there is no more money in this program.
My question is: Since no more funds are available in this program, can the Minister tell me today in this House whether he can transfer this application to the Canada-Quebec mining sub-agreement and whether funds will be released immediately under another program to carry out this research project in the Val d'Or mining region in the Abitibi?


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion and Minister of State for Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, I am not at liberty to discuss the particulars of this project until the applicant is informed of my Department's decision. However, the Canada-Quebec subagreement on economic development for the regions of Quebec provides a program framework relating to research and technological development. It is intended that there will be a joint Canada-Quebec innovation program within this framework, and although
the federal Government's position has been elaborated for some time, the Quebec Government has yet to make its position known. When that happens, I will certainly refer this project to that particular subagreement for adjudication.
*	* sk


THE BUDGET
Hon. Roy MacLaren (Etobicoke North):: Mr. Speaker, the RCMP announced yesterday that they have completed their investigation into the Budget leaks, but the Canadian people still have no assurance that there was no profit-taking as a result of the advance knowledge of the contents of the Budget. Will the Deputy Prime Minister now assure all Canadians that a full-scale investigation into possible profit-taking is under way, and will the Deputy Prime Minister detail precisely what action is now being taken?


Pierre Blais: Mr. Speaker, I want to repeat what I said many times. The Hon. Member raises a very important question, because from the outset, we said that this possibility that people could profit from the early release of budget details could in fact result in profiteering. I personally asked the RCMP Commissioner to conduct a complete review and investigation of this matter and to date, we received- Because a few days ago, the Commissioner especially told me-and I don't know whether the Hon. Member was in the House then-but he told me that so far, we had no information that anyone had profited.
I just informed the House that this investigation is continuing and we will be informed in due course should further information be brought to our attention.


RESULTS OF INVESTIGATION INTO PROFIT-TAKING REQUESTED
Roy MacLaren: Mr. Speaker, experts in the financial community have indicated the various ways in which profits might be taken as a result of advance knowledge, and the Governor of the Bank of Canada yesterday confirmed that profit-taking might well result from speculation against the Canadian dollar. Is the Minister stating that the RCMP has not in fact completed its investigations, despite what is stated in its own press
May 30, 1989

release, and that there are ongoing investigations into possible profit-taking?
Second, can he confirm that they fully involve provincial stock exchange commissions and other authorities capable of providing a comprehensive review of what happened? If so, will he tell the House when he will come forward with the results of such an investigation?


Pierre Blais: Mr. Speaker, I already told this House several times, and I repeat, that the next day, April 27, representatives of various stock exchanges throughout Canada said that to their knowledge, no one had profited from the early release of the budget document. Nevertheless, Mr. Speaker, and it seems important to me to restate it, I already told this House that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is continuing its Canada-wide investigation, including the five stock exchanges, and also representatives of the securities commissions were met with in each of those places to make sure that all areas could be covered by the investigation.


DISPOSITION OF REJECTED COPIES OF BUDGET IN PREPARATION
Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also directed to the Deputy Prime Minister and it concerns the Budget leak. The procedure used in previous years to dispose of rejected copies of the Budget consisted of either the shredding of rejected copies before leaving the printing bureau or, alternatively, the trucks carrying the document to a shredder elsewhere were to be accompanied or escorted by the RCMP. Did the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Supply and Services know of the fact that this procedure had not been followed this year when they stated in the House of Commons record on April 27 that all the precautions that have been taken in previous years were applied again this year? Did the Government know that the information provided to the House on
Oral Questions
that day was inaccurate, or is it just another happy coincidence?


Hon. Paul Dick (Minister of Supply and Services):: Mr. Speaker, I would inform the House that the Hon. Member who has just spoken once again has his facts wrong. The procedure used this year and for many years in the past has been that surplus materials which might otherwise be discarded are bound up, compacted and held within the printing plant in a secure location until after the Budget has been released publicly.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, we can tell how secure it was, we sure can.


THE SECOND BUDGET LEAK- REQUEST AS TO WHO TOOK DECISION TO WITHHOLD INFORMATION
Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary for the Deputy Prime Minister.
Earlier, in his answer to another question, the Deputy Prime Minister said that although several ministers or at least their offices had been informed of the second Budget leak on April 27 before Question Period, none of the ministers had been informed before or during Question Period.
Could the Deputy Prime Minister now name the person who made the decision to hide this information, not from one minister, if we are to believe the Deputy Prime Minister, but from the entire Cabinet? Who made that decision and why?

Hon. Don Ma/.ankowski (Deputy Prime Minister, President of the Privy Council and Minister of Agriculture): Mr. Speaker, I wish the Hon. Member would pay attention. I said earlier today during this Question Period that it was not necessary to take a decision. The decision was taken on Wednesday night as to how the Budget would be proceeded with. It was released at about 10 p.m. or 10.30 p.m. That is when the effective date of the Budget went into place and anything pertaining to an allegation of a leak, real or otherwise, perceived or potential, was a matter to be turned over to police authorities for a full investigation. That is what

May 30, 1989
Oral Questions
happened. We talk about uncertainty. What is causing uncertainty and question is the innuendo and the character destruction and the smear of the Minister of Finance which is driving down the dollar and driving interest rates up.


AIR INDIA DISASTER
Mr. Bill Domm (Peterborough):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House at this time today, since June marks the fourth anniversaiy of the Air India disaster in which over 300 lives were lost, some 270 of whom were Canadians. I was saddened today when I learned that the investigation that was looked into by CSIS was stopped when it was to be reviewed by the Security Intelligence Review Committee set up to review CSIS procedures. Is the Solicitor General aware that the Deputy Solicitor General, the Deputy Justice Minister, the Deputy Attorney General of Canada and the Commissioner for the RCMP requested that this investigation not take place at this time and that that the Review committee reluctantly withdrew its intent to investigate through the practices of CSIS?


Pierre Blais: Mr. Speaker, as the Hon. Member mentioned, a criminal investigation is still under way concerning this unfortunate accident that occurred a few years ago.
The SIRC, the CSIS review committee, has decided not to pursue its investigation for the time being, after consulting with the appropriate authorities of the Department of Justice, the Department of the Solicitor General, the Department of the Attorney General and the office of the Commissioner of the RCMP. There were consultations, and a decision was made by the Committee, on its own initiative, to refrain from pursuing its investigation for the time being so as not to interfere with the current criminal investigation, Mr. Speaker.


TRANSPORT
Mr. Lyle Dean MacWilliam (Okanagan -Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of
Transport. On March 20 of this year, Tourism Canada launched an $11 million television advertising campaign aimed at 26 primary markets in the United States. The ads promote Canada as the world next door and picture VIA Rail as a symbol of what Canada has to offer. At the same time, the Government has gutted VIA Rail's funding and has jeopardized its future. How can the Minister justify the hatchet job that the Government has done on VIA Rail when this same Government is spending taxpayers' dollars to promote it as a tourism product?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, with regard to the VIA Rail situation, I have many times referred to the new reference levels that we have given to the corporation. A decision has not yet been made by VIA Rail. Of course, the Government cannot afford to allocate more money than it already has. We have said, and we repeat today, that a decision will be made with regard to the new reference levels. Nobody has said yet that the triangle that the Hon. Member is referring to will be closed. I invite my friend to wait for the decision which will be made by VIA Rail.


INCREASE IN VIA RAIL RATES
Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: My supplementary question, Mr. Speaker, is to the same Minister. The Minister in his answer said that no decision has been made. Yet on June 15, VIA Rail rates will be going up by 10 per cent across the board. The last time this Government did that, 700,000 less passengers used the service, obviously part of the plan of the Government. Will this Minister accept his responsibility and direct VIA to suspend those rate increases until such time as their plan has been presented and given due consideration? Will he suspend those rates?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, I confirm that I have been advised by VIA Rail that the fares will be increased by June 15. They have done so before today, last year, the year before. They can decrease or increase. It is a Crown corporation and there is no question that I intervene.
May 30, 1989

Plant Breeders' Rights



GOVERNMENT ORDERS

['Forty-five minutes would really be quite extraordinary. In any event, I would think that Members on the opposition side would want to know what kind of questions were the other 8 per cent. The Chair is quite aware of that, too. I will do the best I can and report back to the House as soon as possible.']
Mr. Speaker:: Because of the matters that took place at the beginning of Question Period, Question Period will take one more question. The Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition.



John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I want to put this question to the Deputy Prime Minister. We have had admitted as a fact that at 1.30 or 1.40 p.m., in the afternoon of April 27, a call was received from the President of Mutual Life Insurance Company. That was a new fact and evidence of a very important leak to a very important financial institution. Now we have it today on the word of the Deputy Prime Minister that, to the best of his knowledge, no Minister knew until later in the afternoon of April 27, that is to say after Question Period.
My question is: which official took it upon himself or herself, on their authority, to keep the Ministers in the dark? Is this an admission from the Deputy Prime Minister that the bureaucracy in this country is deciding when Parliament is to be informed, what information Parliament is to have and if that is so, will he not agree to our motion to call before the House the three senior Deputy Ministers so we will have the facts before the House of Commons?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Leader of the Opposition purports to be a strong defender of Parliament and the rights and freedoms of individuals. He has not only engaged in the smear and the attempted destruction of the Minister of Finance; he now wants to extend it to public servants. His Member across the way suggested the integrity of the RCMP was being questioned -


Mr. Speaker:: Orders of the Day.


PLANT BREEDERS' RIGHTS ACT
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski that Bill C-15, an Act respecting plant breeders' rights, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: When the House adjourned at two o'clock, the Hon. Member had seven minutes for debate and ten minutes for question and comments. I would love to hear his debate. The Hon. Member for Durham.


Kenneth Ross Stevenson: Mr. Speaker, prior to the break, I was in the midst of discussing three of the many aspects of the major crop beet breeding programs in Canada. I have briefly discussed one aspect, which was the development of new plant breeding techniques. I had stated that it would largely be up to the public sector because most companies, particularly smaller companies, could not afford to carry out that costly basic research. The second area was the maintenance of seed and various forms of genetic material. Again that would have to be maintained by the public sector. The Government of Canada and many of the international foundations involved in crop breeding, are very much aware of that and are committed to playing those two roles.
The third item that I wish to mention in the whole area of crop breeding is the actual task of cranking out the varieties or cultivars. This is to a large degree a repetitive business involving a great many crosses, doing a great deal of testing. The greater the numbers that one can produce, the greater the chances that one has of producing a successful new variety. This is an area where the private sector excels. I am not suggesting that Government should not be in that area. Indeed they have been and will continue to be along with the universities. But clearly it is an area that the private sector has and should be more involved in. Canada to a significant degree has not reaped the benefit of private sector involvement in private crop breeding the way that we should have.

May 30, 1989
Plant Breeders' Rights
I would like to bring to the Members' attention the fact that we have a very significant grain producing industry all across Canada. Most of the varieties that have been produced for that massive sector in Canada have been produced by public institutions. If we had had plant breeders' rights, there is little question in my mind that the private sector would have been much more involved and the farm families of Canada would have benefited from their involvement. In fact, the only two areas that private sector research and development is heavily involved in in Canada is that of corn and hybrid canola. The fact that the plants are hybrids and do not breed true from the hybrid seed that is produced gives the companies involved some degree of protection and hence the private sector is involved. We need not look any further than that to realize that if there was some sort of modest stimulation for the private sector, they would be much more actively involved in plant breeding here in Canada. There is no doubt the benefits would be forthcoming.
The legislation that is before us today is very similar to that which is presently in force in the United Kingdom. It has been tested and proven there since 1964. Certainly everything that is in our Bill is compatible with the requirements of the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants.
In 1979 Canada signified its intention to join the International Convention. However, we cannot take the final step and join that group until our legislation is in place. We look forward to the day when our legislation is in place and we are members of that international group. Such a step will facilitate the movement of varieties from other countries into this area. There have been examples of outstanding varieties from other parts of the world that have not been released in Canada because the company or the breeder involved was not prepared to lose the variety to mass distribution in Canada.
In Atlantic Canada the climate is somewhat similar to parts of Europe. There is significant opportunity to pick up varieties from other parts of the world, particularly Europe, and test and grow them in Canada once the agreement is signed.
Plant breeders' rights legislation has wide support in Canada. It is popular with many organizations that represent various aspects of the agri-food industry, and it is important to Canada's economic health.
We have received expressions of support for basics of the Bill from such prominent groups as the Agricultural Institute of Canada, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, the Canadian Horticultural Council, the Canadian Seed Growers Association, and certainly the Canadian Seed Trade Association.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to this Bill. It is an excellent opportunity for individuals in Canada, whether they be in crop breeding or horticultural crops, or any of the rose or flower crops and plants in Canada to have an opportunity to receive some modest reward for their ingenuity in developing new lines for Canadian society.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: On a question or comment the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands.


Mr. Milliken:: Would the Hon. Member care to comment on the provision in the Bill which provides for protection for plant breeders for such an extended period of time? I do not claim to be an expert in this area, but I understand that the useful life of seeds is something like six or seven years. It appears that protection is being given for 18 years in the Bill. Does the Hon. Member have reservations about that, and would he care to voice them at this point?


Kenneth Ross Stevenson: There are a number of reasons for the length of time, not the least of which is the fact that it is in agreement with other legislation around the world, and in agreement with the suggestions of various international bodies. The length of time covers much more than seeds. Some tree fruits or vine fruits, and some of those cultivars, are not in any type of production for two or sometimes as long as six years after they are planted. Therefore, they require an extended period of time for the producer of that particular species of plants to come into production and give some value to the grower and to the developer of that particular cultivar.
There may be some flexibility. However, the main reason is the fact that the protection is based on international convention. Certainly, we have examples of varieties in Canada that have been used for much more
May 30, 1989

than six or eight years, particularly some of those in western Canada.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated. Before I recognize the Hon. Member for Prince Edward-Hastings, the Speaker wishes to hear arguments.


POINT OF ORDER
Mr. Speaker:: The House will remember that several days ago the Hon. Member for Peace River (Mr. Cooper) raised a matter on Questions on the Order Paper. I indicated at that time that at an appropriate time suitable to all three Parties I would hear some discussion on the point. Perhaps we could start with the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to bring to the attention of the House that yesterday, on May 29, the Parliamentary Secretary said at page 2228 of Hansard, and I quote:
Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if you could look at Questions Nos. 45, 52, 53, 62, 64, 83, and 88 in relationship to Standing Order 39(6).
Standing Order 39(6) reads as follows:
(6) If, in the opinion of the Speaker, a question on the Order Paper put to a Minister of the Crown is of such a nature as to require a lengthy reply, the Speaker may, upon the request of the government, direct the same to stand as a notice of motion, and 1o be transferred to its proper place as such upon the Order Paper, the Clerk of the House being authorized to amend the same as to matters of form.
Mr. Speaker, this particular Standing Order is practically obsolete, since as far as I know, it has not been used since 1910, at least from what I was able to find out in my research. Using it would have a disastrous effect on the rights of Members to ask questions in this House, and I am thinking more particularly of Members on the Government side, who have questions put on the Order Paper in order to get a detailed reponse to their concerns, to issues raised by their constituents and to various issues that may have an impact on the general administration of this country.
Point of Order-Mr. Gauthier
If, at the request of the Government, the Speaker of the House transfers such a question to motions, this would have the effect of putting the question at the mercy of the Government's whims, since it would only be called when the Government felt it was opportune to do so.
The problem is that the Government thinks that dealing with such questions is a lengthy and sometimes costly process, and not only involves a lot of time and money but also a lot of effort on the part of certain departments to find the appropriate answers.
I admit the Government is sometimes right when it says: Question numbered X is too complex and does not justify the expenditure of public monies. That in fact, is an answer in itself. I realize that. But when the Government tries, through the Chair, to transfer the question to motions, I think that is a covert attempt to gag the Members of this House, the excuse being that some questions will take too long to read in the House or are so complex and technical that an oral response would not do them justice.
Mr. Speaker, the Government already decides in what order the House will consider the business before it, in other words, it decides when the motions will be before the House and what is going to be debated, which bill, and which day will be an Opposition day. In fact, the Government sets the agenda of the House.
However, if we give the Government a chance to get rid of embarrassing questions by having them transferred to motions, obviously it will never get around to them. And as I said earlier, this is just a way to gag the Members of the Official Opposition, the NDP and Government Members as well.

When I researched this question about the Notices of Motions for the Production of Papers, as I said in French a minute ago, I found this Standing Order is an archaic, pre-1910 measure that was put into the Standing Orders to facilitate the answering of questions in the House. We know that since 1910 the common practice has been to make such questions Orders for Return. Rather than putting motions, we just accepted that the question would be made an Order for Return and that was it.

May 30, 1989
Point of Order-Mr. Riis
If the Government is permitted to transfer these questions to Motions for Papers, in my humble opinion it is effectively putting off the need for dealing with the legitimate requests for information contained in the questions. The Notices of Motions are dealt with at the pleasure of the Government, which is under far less pressure to delay with these matters as compared to Questions on the Order Paper. Evidently we have to address the time constraints under which the Government operates. We all know that if a Member wants to put a question and he or she decides that he or she wants an answer within 45 days, the Government must do everything in its power to try to answer those questions.
Previous experience in the House has shown that many times the Government does not respond within the 45 days. That is another problem you may want to address on another occasion. I believe there are solutions to that problem, a few of which I have mentioned. For example, if a question has not been answered after 45 days then it should be considered like an oral question that does not receive a satisfactory answer and transferred for adjournment debate. A system could be implemented whereby such questions which indeed lapse after 45 days could be put to the adjournment debate at six o'clock in the order in which they are received. That is a topic for further discussion with the committee if the Speaker judges it appropriate to transfer that.
Let me return to Standing Order 39(6). This is an archaic rule, after some 80 years of not being used. The Government is merely trying to find yet another way to deny Parliament legitimate information. It is indeed sometimes very difficult and sometimes tedious for the Government to gather the answers to these questions. I will not bore the House with all the questions that have been asked, but most of the ones I reviewed can indeed be answered. They may have detailed information attached to them, which the Parliamentary Secretary does not want to read into the record, but we have had a practice in the House of printing them as read. I see no difficulty in continuing with that procedure.
The request to you by the Parliamentary Secretary is unjustified today, in my view. In my opinion, the Speaker's role in the concept of reform is to protect the rights of the individual and protect the rights of the minority. As far as I am concerned, the Speaker should turn down this request to transfer written questions Nos. 45, 52, 53,
62, 64, 83 and 88 to Notices of Motions for the reasons I have stated.
All the questions involved are short and to the point. They request straightforward information. They should be responded to quickly by the Government. If they require lengthy answers, such answers should be made Orders for Return as I suggested before and has been done virtually without any difficulty for many years. This practice which has developed over the years is acceptable.
In my view and the view of my caucus, to proceed with the transfer of these questions to Motions would be a step backward.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest the other day when the Hon. Member for Peace River (Mr. Cooper) stood up and said:
Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if you could look at Questions Nos.
45, 52, 53, 62, 64, 83, and 88 in relationship to Standing order
39(6).
He went on to say:
I would ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.
Based on those comments, it seemed to be a reasonable thing to do, until we examined just what was involved in such a request.
I do not want to impute any motives to my hon. friend in terms of this request. I want to make some critical comments and then offer what may be a solution to this concern that the Hon. Member for Peace River brought to the attention of the House.
I am speaking on behalf of NDP caucus Members. We have had a chance to consider this issue and we have determined that our response ought to be not to support such a request. I want to explain why we have come to that conclusion.
The Government has asked you to transfer the seven questions on the Order Paper to Notices of Motions for the Production of Papers. The Government is effectively co-opting you in its attempt to weaken the ability of Members to ask and receive answers to questions put to the Government. It is a time-honoured tradition that Members, including Members of the government benches, have an opportunity to present legitimate questions to the Government for response. I suggest that on balance, this has been done effectively. There are times when we find answers to questions unacceptable, but as a process I think it works well.
May 30, 1989

The Government is exploiting an archaic Standing Order, Standing Order 39(6), which was adopted by the House as a remedy to a problem that does not exist today. This Order was adopted in 1906 because too much House time was being taken up with oral reading of answers to questions on the Order Paper. While Mr. Speaker has asked that the Annotated Standing Orders not become the text of House discussions on procedure, it is worth noting the detailed history given of the evolution of this and related Standing Orders.
Clearly it was at that time in the interests of safeguarding House time and not of protecting the Government from embarrassing questions, that the House adopted this motion. There was a cumbersome and time consuming process at that time and Members felt this was an appropriate way to streamline the operations of the House yet permit the answers to flow to Members of the House.
Today, Questions on the Order Paper take up very little House time. Anyone reading Hansard and trying to compare it with what they see on the parliamentary channel would be very confused. For example, yesterday's Hansard reports that the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mrs. McDougall), the Minister of the Environment (Mr. L. Bouchard), and the Minister of Transport (Mr. B. Bouchard) were in the House providing long and detailed answers to written questions. In fact, as those who watched the proceedings know, within the space of a few seconds several pages of "oral answers" were provided by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader. Questions on the Order Paper took hardly any time at all during the day.
It is also interesting to note that this Order has only been invoked once, that is in 1923 when the then Government of the day effectively refused to answer a question about trips taken abroad by Ministers and the cost to the taxpayers of those trips by asking the Speaker to convert the question into a Notice of Motion.
Why has the Government revived this archaic House rule after 65 years of disuse? I submit it is because it does not want to answer certain questions. By having questions transferred to Notices of Motions for the Production of Papers, it knows, as we all know, that the questions are destined for likely oblivion.
Point of Order-Mr. Riis
If the Government wanted to answer the questions it would do just that, either in a straightforward manner or by converting them to Orders for Return and tabling the return, as we saw yesterday in terms of very detailed answers.
The Speaker is well aware that the Government does not have to go to the lengths of using this fossilized Standing Order to avoid questions. In a third of the roughly 30 questions the Government has supposedly answered in this session, the Government essentially responded with: "We don't know" or "we do not care to find out" to a number of them.
For example, on April 3, my colleague, the Member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom), attempted to find out to what extent Canadian taxpayers subsidized corporate mergers by permitting tax deductions on interest arising from borrowing money. The Government's reply to this question was: "The requested data is not ascertainable from the financial statements and tax returns required to be filed with the Department and accordingly is not readily available to the Department". In other words, they said: "We cannot find the answer. We do not know what the answer will be". They then said that in order to obtain this information the Department would have to audit the books and records of each corporation claiming expenses against income. In other words, it is virtually impossible to find out without a major undertaking and a very large expenditure of funds.
On April 3 another colleague, the Hon. Member for Edmonton East (Mr. Harvey), asked through Question No. 12 how many Canadians received dividend tax credits for shares held in corporations which did not pay any income tax at all. This is a question of significant public importance, and I submit very much in the public interest.
The Government gave this $1,000 tax credit to wealthy Canadians in recognition of the possibility of double taxation. The answer was the same as for Question No.
11.	It did not know and it did not want to find out.
If you look at the answers given in the spring, Mr. Speaker, by the Government to Questions Nos. 8, 9, 11,
12,	13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and a number more you will see that the Government is quite comfortable in refusing to answer our questions.

May 30. 1989
Point of Order-Ms. Copps
What are the questions that the Government has asked the Speaker to transform to Notices of Motions and consign therefore to oblivion? I might add that the questions come from all political Parties and seek information on matters such as government assistance to oil companies, transportation of hazardous waste, government funding through Canadian Jobs Strategy, the origin of fruit purchased by the federal Government, tax concessions for companies, and tax exemptions for business contributions to free trade advertisements that we see in newspapers.
Why does the Government not want to tell us how much money it has put into oil exploration? Why does the Government not want to tell us how many applications it has received and approved for Canadian Jobs Strategy programs in Ontario? Why does the Government not want to tell us where it buys its fruit? Why does it not want to tell us how great the tax expenditures were for business promotion of the free trade deal?
I suggest that Your Honour should very quickly, very strongly and irrefutably refuse this particular request coming from the Government. The Chair has already recognized the importance of these questions.
On May 18 of this year, Mr. Speaker, you suggested that those who were in the service of the public in preparing answers to the questions should recognize that the 45-day request rule does not just hang there without purpose. Transforming the questions to Notices of Motion will create a literally infinite delay.
Mr. Speaker, you also went on to say:
For the most part, there is no real reason in the world why these
answers cannot be given. As I say, I cannot order them to be given
because I do not have the power.
What I would like to add is that Your Honour does have the power to refuse to grant the Government's unreasonable request to transform these very legitimate questions into Notices of Motions, thereby consigning them to oblivion. If the Speaker allows the transfer of these questions to Notices of Motions for the Production of Papers, then Your Honour will be establishing a very sad and dangerous precedent. Granting the Government's request will destroy many of the gains we have made under parliamentary reform. It will take us back to the old days when questions sat on the Order Paper, and was ineffective way for Members of Parliament to obtain legitimate information and important data.
I suggest that the questions that the Hon. Member for Peace River brought to your attention and asked for your consideration on are important questions. They are legitimate questions. They seek very important information. I trust that you, Mr. Speaker, will respect the views of Parliament when it adopted parliamentary reform which, of course, encouraged the Government actually to answer Order Paper questions.
I trust that Your Honour will rule against this request. I recognize that on occasion the Government might encounter a question that would require an extremely detailed response, or perhaps one that would be more appropriate for debate. On those few occasions rather than ask Your Honour to rule, in a sense co-opt the Chair in this decision-making, which I can see would open up an incredible Pandora's box of problems when it comes to responding to questions, the question could be placed before the House Leaders. House Leaders, being honourable men and women, would very quickly determine that this was in fact a question that could be transferred legitimately and be better put for debate in the House.
I suggest that there is a vehicle that can be used on the rare occasion when transferring these questions would be required. That is to say, consent of the House Leaders to proceed by having them moved with the appropriate order of the House. Until that takes place, I think we are opening a very dangerous precedent here if we allow this particular process to be accepted.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak very briefly on the matter in support of my colleagues' opposition to the Government's move to stifle the very appropriate vehicle of Order Paper questions.
Some of us who are in Opposition understand that there are very few ways that we can get information from Governments. I think it would be fair to say that Question Period is the vehicle to raise issues. If we want to get specific information, then Order Paper questions are one way of doing that.
For example, I have an Order Paper question which I tabled on April 20 which deals with the issue of the importation of hazardous wastes into Canada. I wanted specific information in relation to the number of tonnes of hazardous waste because I suspected, before any story appeared in the newspaper, that we were into a problem area. I think that this information is of a non-partisan, non-controversial nature, which would assist me in doing
May 30, 1989

my job as an opposition Member and in particular as environment critic.
Some of us remember in the days when the Conservatives were sitting on the opposition side of the House, a gentleman now deceased who was the Member for Leeds-Grenville, made himself a fair reputation across the country not necessarily by questions that he asked in the House of Commons but by the information he was able to garner by astute Order Paper questions. That individual was a gentleman by the name of Tom Cossitt. I know that we are not supposed to name names in the House of Commons, I daresay that if Mr. Cossitt is watching us today he is probably literally rolling over in dismay at what his own Government is about to attempt to perpetrate on the people of Canada.
We in the Opposition have agreed to a number of limitations on our freedom of speech in this place. One of those limitations involves a limitation on the amount of time that we can ring the bells. That was agreed to in the unanimous view that we would try to proceed with the business of Parliament and not tie Parliament up.
Some of us may have argued individually against that view because we felt we were giving up a long-standing right that was not being returned in kind. Nonetheless, we have also in this Parliament seen limitations on our capacity to ring the bells. We have seen limitations on our capacity to put petitions forward.
While those limitations may initially have been suggested to expedite the process and to limit the possibility of phoney petitions, I, and I daresay other Members, have probably seen situations in which legitimate petitions were tossed out because they did not have the proper wording about the shewing forth of Her Majesty's-whatever the wording is. They did not sheweth forth. Perhaps they had the wrong grammar.
I think the intention of these so-called reforms was to assist in the information gathering of Parliament in the same way as we get information by Order Paper questions. We are not putting questions on the Order Paper to tie up Parliament. Rather, we are legitimately using a vehicle to seek information. One by one we have seen the avenues available to Opposition Members for the securing of information being strangled. One of those avenues was by way of petition. Another avenue was by
Point of Order-Mr. Cooper
way of pressure which could be applied through things like bell ringing.
If the Government is so desperate to limit the free speech of Parliament that it is actually going to try to move to limit the capacity to answer questions, and to put questions on the Order Paper, then I think it is a sad day for Parliament. We hear constantly Conservative Members talk about how they want to move in a non-partisan fashion. What could be more non-partisan than finding out how many tonnes of imported hazardous waste Canada is bringing into the country? This is not of concern to an individual political Party. It is of concern to the whole country. For the Government to suggest that these questions be transferred to resolutions that will be buried, essentially. What it is doing is moving with another throttle on the throat of free speech in Parliament.
I suggest that this particular attempt by the Government should be stopped forthwith and that Your Honour should permit the former Member for Leeds-Grenville to breathe easy in the other place in the knowledge that in fact the one remaining tool we have at our disposal is not being further destroyed by this insatiable Tory Government which seems more intent on slamming down the freedoms of Parliament than in allowing us to explore legitimate avenues of information.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, this is an important question. I want to put on the record the attitude of the Government and some of the concerns that we have. First, I want to begin by saying that we do believe that the whole process of tabling questions on the Order Paper is a very important and fundamental part of this institution and an important part of the duties and rights of a Member of Parliament.
Second, I want to say that that right extends not only to opposition Members but it extends as well to Members on the Government side. We are in no way setting this up as a debate between the Government and the Opposition but rather a question of how we handle the questions that are tabled in the House and brought before us to be answered. We do not have any dispute with the process. We like it. We think it is important. We want to enhance it. We want to see it work. It is not our intention in any way to undermine it. But we do want to see that the system is one that works fairly and equitably for all the Members of this institution. We want to see that there is fair use of the resources, the resources

May 30, 1989
Point of Order-Mr. Cooper
being the Members themselves, the budgets and staffing that goes on within the various departments, and as well, the Cabinet people that are involved in these types of answers. We want to see that there is a fair utilization of those resources.
What has been happening over the years is that we have been falling into a habit that has some dangerous implications. What seems to be coming is that there no longer is a questioning of how lengthy a particular question is. There is no longer a concern about how impossible it may be to answer.
My hon. friend, the House Leader for the NDP referred to a couple of answers that were made. I have to tell him that I am not happy with those answers. I am not happy with an answer that says: "We cannot find out that information. We do not know what is going on there. We cannot find that out without doing this, this, this and this." In my opinion, that is not the type of answer for which a Member is looking.
Essentially what we are looking for is a way to examine the questions and say: "Can they be fairly answered or should they be better dealt with in another forum? Is there another place that we can look at them?" What my colleagues from the other side have argued is that this is an archaic Standing Order. It has not been used since 1910, and therefore, because it is that old, perhaps-


An Hon. Member:: 1923.


Albert Glen Cooper: 1923, which is correct. That since it has not been used for that long, it is redundant. It is a bit of a dinosaur.
I think there is another point that has to be made. Since 1923, we have had considerable numbers of reforms to the Standing Orders in this particular House of Commons. I know that because I have been part of that process. Standing Order 39(6), the one we are dealing with today, has survived all of those reforms. I believe it has survived those reforms because there was a reason for it. It was an important part of the rules. Had it not have been important, there would have been a need on the part of those of us involved in the reforms to either
change it or abolish it. It was left there for a purpose. I think that that purpose is very legitimate.
What we have seen in the last little while are questions that have become complicated. One of the questions that we looked at in the most recent time required a co-ordination of 60 different departments and agencies in order to collect the answer for the House of Commons. On top of that, we were asked as a Government to do that within 45 days. I suggest to this House that that is, for all intents and purposes, impossible.
We are not arguing against the principle of the questions. That principle is an important one and we support it. What we are arguing is that there has to be a fairness in the process.
I think we need to look at a couple of the elements of Standing Order 39(6). First, it states that we have the right as a Government to ask the Speaker to examine the question and determine whether or not it requires too lengthy an answer or whether it is complicated in such a fashion that it would be impossible for the Government to answer it with any kind of time restriction or reasonableness.
What happens if that is the case, Mr. Speaker? It is not, as I think my colleagues opposite have said, then transferred to something that is controlled by the Government. As I understand it, it is transferred to motions which then go into the Private Member's realm, and as a result of that, the rights of the Private Members are in fact protected because that motion then becomes debatable. It becomes votable and it becomes amendable. As a result of that, the Private Member's rights are in fact protected, rather than inhibited.
I think by putting these questions before the Speaker, we have brought back to the House a rule that has an important function and purpose.
I want to explain, Mr. Speaker, why the questions that we referred to you were chosen. They were chosen for a specific reason. First, they are non-partisan. We have questions from all Parties of the House.
May 30. 1989

Second, we have a combination of both starred and unstarred questions. It is not really a question of whether that particular question has to be answered here in the House of Commons within 45 days. What is really important is the principle, not simply the time restraints that are on us in terms of what should or should not be answered at that particular time.
There are a few things which have to be clarified. Number one, is the Government responsible to answer every question no matter how complicated it may be within the 45 days? My friend shakes his head yes. I would agree with that, but I would say that at the same time we should be looking for an answer or an opportunity to discuss this issue in a way that addresses the real needs and concerns of the Member who puts that question, no matter what side of the House that Member happens to be on.
Second, we need to know what the definition of the term lengthy is. We need to have some definition of that. What does it mean, lengthy? If we look at Standing Order 39(2), it makes reference to a coherent and concise question. We need to revisit that whole subject of coherent and concise, as it relates to the questions.
The bottom line that we want to make in asking that these questions be looked at is that this is an important process and an important question for the House. Second, by examining the questions that are put on the Order Paper, we then attach to that the validity and the importance of the process. If we just let the whole thing slide and let practices build up which lead us down a path which creates nothing but chaos and irrelevance to the process, then we as Members of this institution are hurt by that. That is why I think it is important that it be examined.
I have sat on the Opposition side. I have sat as a back-bencher. Today, I speak as a Parliamentary Secretary. I have experienced all that. I am not here to argue against the right of Members to put questions. I am here to say that this is a very important process. We do need to examine it. The use of Standing Order 39(6), as I suggested a couple of days ago in this House, is an important consideration that I believe the Speaker should look at. I think that we as a House should not in any way be frightened of that process.


Mr. Speaker:: I thank the Hon. Member. The Hon. Member for Calgary West.
Point of Order-Mr. Hawkes


Mr. Jim Hawkes (Calgary West):: Mr. Speaker, in coming here today I was interested in listening to the arguments put forward. It was not my intention to rise but I think that as an officer of the House both in my present capacity and as someone who has done the same job that the Member from Peace River is doing in this Parliament, I should share my experience with the House.
I rise because of the arguments advanced by the first two speakers for the official Opposition and the third Party in the House that led me to rise. I think what they are inviting you to do, Mr. Speaker, is to ignore the rule in some fashion that would encourage you to rewrite the rules of the House. That would be a very dangerous course to follow. It may very well be that Members of the Opposition would like the rules rewritten, but I do not think it is appropriate for you, Mr. Speaker, to be invited to rewrite the rules. When a rule exists I think it is the responsibility of the Chair to act within the rules of the House and to fulfil the obligations that fall upon his office.
The Hon. Member for Peace River (Mr. Cooper) has asked that this rule come into force when the Government requests it. Then you, Sir, have an obligation to consider the matter and you have a power to transfer a question on the Order Paper to notices of motions.
There has been a lot said about this being a denigration of the right of freedom of speech. It is important to recognize that a question on the Order Paper is not discussed in the House. It is a written question, a written reply, and is printed in our proceedings, but there is no speech involved in the process in the Chamber.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: It can be oral.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: If it is oral it is simply that the reply is oral. There is no debate.
The Government is asking the Chair to transfer certain items from the Order Paper into a form which is debatable so freedom of speech can take place. Members should read, I believe it is Rule 97. Once that is done the item shall be debated for 90 minutes. It is a debatable motion so more expansion, contraction and precision can come to the question. That is what the process of amendment is all about. An amendment could be made to the question itself. More important, the House must pronounce itself. The question must be put after 90

May 30, 1989
Point of Order-Mr. Hawkes
minutes of debate. So the House can decide whether the information must be produced.
What the rule entails is an opportunity for an item to be debated in the Chamber, to be amended in the Chamber, if that is appropriate in the individual case, and to be decided by Members. The alternative is to leave it on the Order Paper.
In many cases, for example, the kinds of questions which the Member brought forward yesterday, invite the Government unilaterally to say it will not answer those questions, it cannot and it should not, for whatever reason. Those replies are veiy short and very abrupt such as "The information is not available". I have looked at them for over a year. If the questions had been written in a slightly different form with a little more precision they would be an answerable. But the form in which some come forward to Government put a kind of straitjacket on us. Written questions require a written or oral response, as the Member opposite said, but it is to a precise question in which a question is asked that is the problem.
All Members know from their work in committees and work in this Chamber that the more knowledge you have about the subject matter, the more precise your questions can become. You begin perhaps with a general understanding and as information comes forward you can modify your questions, become more precise in getting to the nub of the matter. If these questions were transferred to the Order Paper and debated in this Chamber with all of the wisdom of 295 Members potentially available to that debate, to the amending process and to the decision-making process, it is possible that instead of getting the denial of information-which does happen-we could get the information in a form that would be better used by all Members.
I just could not sit by and hear the arguments about denial of freedom of speech and what brought us to this Chamber. In fact, this enhances accountability to our voters. This transfer to a debatable, amendable and decision-making situation, enhances the role and responsibility of all Members in this Chamber and their freedom of speech.
Most questions can be answered in the 45-day period. That was my experience for the better part of a year. Some questions are clearly not answerable. The information was never collected, therefore, it does not exist and
there cannot be an answer. It does not matter what you do with it. There is this grey line in between. The information is available perhaps but is not readily available. It is not stored in a computer where you can push a button which rolls it out and you have it. It is stored in a different form, in a different way. It is not true for the Government to say the information is not available, but to get it all out in the form in which it is stored would be an enormously time consuming task. The 45 days is totally unrealistic in many cases. It simply could not be done no matter how many resources we put on it.
I remind Members of the difficulty with the Project Ploughshares assertion to parliamentarians about their concerns. Two and a half million little pieces of cardboard came in and plugged up our entire mail distribution system. It is taking months to sort them so they get in the hands of the proper 295 Members. It is taking dollars, time, energy and it cannot be done in 45 days. We cannot distribute the mail in the House of Commons in 45 days no matter what we do. We have the assistance of three different outside firms and we are paying for that.
Some of the questions on the Order Paper are of that kind and I suggest to you that the questions brought to our attention yesterday are different but they have some of the same characteristics. The time it would take to provide the information is of considerable concern to the Government. People would have to be taken away from tasks they are now doing to provide the information. Do we, as parliamentarians, believe that is a priority? The matter, the Government may conclude, and the Government does conclude that it cannot be a priority in the total scheme of things.
So, the Government says to Members the matter is not a priority. Fancy language may be used and all kinds of excuses, but at the nub of it is the notion that the matter makes no logical sense to designate it a priority.
The Members of the House should have an opportunity to say to the Government that it is wrong. It is a priority. The method available is in this room. The Government turns the decision over to the Chamber, rather than sending the question back to the Member. I think the House has been moving through successive reforms in trying to provide opportunities for debate, amendment and decision-making for all Members of the Chamber. Not just for members of Cabinet, not just for
May 30, 1989

the members of the Government, but for all Members of this Chamber.
The Order Paper is a mechanism that was intended to request information without using the time of the Elouse and an opportunity for the Elouse to provide the information. It works that way. In the last Parliament we were able to handle 90 per cent to 93 per cent of the questions within the allotted 45-day period to the satisfaction of the Members. But the remaining 7 per cent or 8 per cent are impossible to answer in some cases and impossible to answer within the 45 days in other cases. It is enormously expensive in human terms to create the information base thus depriving the population of this country of a good service that they need perhaps more than the information. Surely the nub of the issue is whether Parliament should decide that the answer is required or whether the Government should decide. This Government chooses to request the opportunity, in those borderline cases, for Parliament to decide rather than for the Government to simply decide.


Mr. Speaker:: I might say to Hon. Members that I think I have the issue here. I will hear several more Hon. Members, but I would ask them to be brief and please do not be repetitious.


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: Mr. Speaker, I thought it would be of benefit for you to hear a view from one of the rookies in the House here in the far distant corner. When coming to this place, one looks at the method available for a newly elected person from the opposition benches to get information that cannot otherwise be obtained. Of course, we turn to the Standing Orders and one of the ways to get such information is under Standing Order 39(1), placing questions on the Order Paper. In fact, I did that in the case of question number 64 which is of interest to the area I represent. In addition, it is of interest to the area of Annapolis in Nova Scotia and to the Niagara Peninsula in Ontario. The question asks for a breakdown from the Government of the consumption of fruit products in veterans' hospitals, prisons under the authority of the federal Government and the armed forces bases, and at what locations these fruit products are purchased.
Point of Order-Mr. Althouse
In effect, the Government is asking you, Mr. Speaker, under Standing Order 39(6) to circumvent a back-bencher's procedure to obtain answers that I have no other way of obtaining through usual sources. If you in fact decide that my question is a proper question to fall under Standing Order 39(6), it will put my question into the draw for motions, and with almost 500 motions, the chances of that question getting drawn is not that great. By the time it is debated over a five-hour period, if it is selected as a votable motion, the chances of obtaining that answer for my constituents and for the people of the fruit industry are very negligible. I would submit that the question I have submitted is of some great importance to those people who are constantly looking for places to sell fruit and for employment opportunities in areas with high unemployment.
I wish to add my voice to those that you have heard in opposition to the Government's request.
Looking at Standing Order 36(1), I wonder if the question has to be a simple one, capable of being answered in brief. In reading through Standing Order 39(1) or the commentary under it, I find nothing that provides that the answer has to be a short answer or capable of being answered in brief. Does it have to be simple? How simple does it have to be? If it is a simple answer, we can often get the answer from the Parliamentary Library or from a member of our staff, but this is not always the case. In the case of my question, I cannot get the information from other sources. The source I have turned to is Parliament, and I would ask your consideration, Mr. Speaker, in accepting the arguments of those in opposition.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, some years ago, I, along with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader (Mr. Cooper), was a member of the McGrath committee, and it is from the McGrath committee that we got this particular procedure. As has been mentioned previously, there was a different type of written question in the past.
Older Members will recall Tom Cossitt of Leeds- Grenville who used that process very well. He put several hundred political questions on the Order Paper. He cluttered up the Order Paper with very political questions and the Committee decided that this was an opportunity for Members, particularly back-benchers, to vent their rage at the Government, but it was not a very

May 30, 1989
Point of Order-Mr. Althouse
useful way to get answers to questions. The McGrath committee therefore recommended that Members be limited to four questions on the Order Paper and that as a quid pro quo for having a limited amount of questions, the Government would be required to provide answers to those questions within 45 days. The questions were to be short, to the point, worded directly in a non-partisan way and with as little visible politics as possible so that it would elicit direct information. Occasionally, I am sure, as has been the practice, the Government would not be able to find answers in an efficient or effective way and there is nothing wrong with that. If members of the public see that some answers are not forthcoming from the Government, they will judge the Government on whether the reasons for not providing answers are legitimate or not.
As a person who was involved in the McGrath committee which attempted to make the role of the individual Member of Parliament stronger, I take great exception to government Members patronizing me and telling me that they know best how I should conduct my business, that they know better than I whether a question should be framed as a motion to be put into the urn to be drawn or as a question on the Order Paper. I submit that that should be my choice.
If the Government is unable to answer a question in 45 days and has to tell me that for these reasons, legitimate or otherwise, it cannot provide the answer, then it should be my choice to frame the question as a Private Member's motion and put it in the urn. Let me decide to take the chance on whether the motion will ever be drawn from the urn and see the light of day again.
I know from experience, having been here for over nine years and having submitted numerous motions and Bills to that urn, that my chances at least-I seem to be particularly unlucky-are not particularly great. After nine years, a motion of mine has been drawn once.
I do not find it helpful for the Government to say that it will not answer the questions but will throw them in the urn for us. Thank you very much, but that is not what the McGrath committee had in mind. That is not what back-benchers on either side of the House have in mind.
With all due respect, the McGrath process was supposed to free up the role of the Member. From this corner at least, our definition of freedom is the ability to make choices. I think we should be left to make the choices ourselves rather than to have one or two government Members make the choice that our motions should go into the urn and perhaps disappear forever. I think we should receive answers according to McGrath recommendations, even if the answers are inadequate, and then Members on both sides of the House can make their own decisions to throw them in the urn.


Mr. Speaker:: Before moving to the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands (Mr. Milliken), I will come back to the Hon. Member for Mackenzie (Mr. Althouse). Did the McGrath commission give any consideration to the Government responding to a question which it felt was too vague? Some mention has been made of that. I have been here for some time as well, and I know that sometimes, questions can be deliberately vague. In a case like that, the Government could reply to the Hon. Member and ask for particulars. Was that considered?


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, as I recall the discussions that went on, a similar question was raised and it was generally thought that if the Member chose to be vague, he took his chances on getting a vague response. We are partly masters of our own destiny in this House, Mr. Speaker. I hope firmly and fervently that we continue to be and not put it in the hands of the Deputy to the House Leader to make those kinds of decisions.


Mr. Speaker:: I have the Hon. Member's point. The Hon. Member for Kingston and The Islands. I think this could close off the discussion.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, most of the points that I wanted to make have been made. The concern that I have and what I found most interesting was hearing the Hon. Member for Peace River (Mr. Cooper) and the Hon. Member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes) because I am sure they heard the same arguments from the other side of the House, although not in exactly the same format because of course this particular Standing Order has not been used for a long time. But it is interesting to see the burden of responsibility of Government fall so heavily on their shoulders, to hear these arguments for reason and restraint in posing questions to the Government and the tremendous difficulty that that burden is
May 30. 1989

for members of the governing Party. I am delighted to see them shouldering that responsibility. I am sorry to see that they quail such under the strain, but having said that. Sir, I want to suggest a way out of this difficulty.
I believe there is a bit of a problem here, as Your Honour knows and Hon. Members know. If these questions are transferred, they will go on the Order Paper under Notices of Motions for the Production of Papers. Every week the Government will ask that they stand or else they will stand and ask that they be transferred for debate. Then they go into the urn, as the Hon. Members pointed out and the chances of a draw are very slight. The debate on those drawn from the urn is an hour and a half. Then a vote is called, as Hon. Members know, and we are aware that there is a short procedure.
Prior to the change in the Standing Orders, my recollection is, and Your Honour will correct me if I am wrong, that there was at least a day a week in Private Members' Hour when these motions were debated automatically. In other words, there was not the draw on these particular items. There was not on anything, but Notices of Motion for Production of Papers got a particularly generous allotment of time in Private Members' Hour and that is no longer the case.
Given that, the way to resolve this difficulty might be to refer the matter to the Standing Committee on Procedure, Privileges, Elections and Private Members' Business-I may have got the names mixed up. As a member of that committee, I would ask the chief Government whip to consider referring the proposal of the Parliamentary Secretary to treat these questions as Motion for Production of Papers to the committee for consideration. The questions are not going to be answered anyway in any reasonable time. We all know that. If the matter is referred there, then the question of the possible amendment of the rule could be reviewed at the same time to see if there is some way we can provide for an expeditious dealing with questions where the Government does not want to or is unable or unwilling to answer. They could come back to the House and say: "We are unable or unwilling to deal with this question as a question. We will not provide an answer. We think it is unreasonable because it is going to cost $25,000 to do it." Then the matter can be decided here in an expeditious
Point of Order-Mr. Althouse
way. Surely we can come up with some means of allowing the Government to do that by way of a recommendation.
While the Government is at it, although I do not want to press my luck, I notice that on the Notice Paper, there is a Notice of Motion standing in my name which proposes an amendment to the same Standing Order dealing with questions. The motion will be transferred into the pile for the urn but it could be carried unanimously today and that whole question of amendment to the same Standing Order which deals with the questions and the number of questions permitted on the Order Paper could be sent to the same committee for study and report to the House. Since it would absolve Your Honour of the responsibility of making a ruling on this issue today and get the matter off to a committee, which could come back and make certain recommendations, it might assist Your Honour in this matter.


Mr. Speaker:: First, I want to thank all Hon. Members on both sides for their interventions on this issue which frankly have been very helpful. I will consider what has been said and see if there is a way to resolve this. Just so Hon. Members are cognizant of what the difficulty is and it is important that the public understands this, there are some problems here.
I have been on both sides of this Chamber, as Hon. Members know. I think that all of us who have been here any length of time can accept the fact that some questions that are asked, either deliberately or otherwise, that are vague and difficult to answer. Other questions may be asked which are not vague but are serious and these may be very difficult to answer.
The Hon. Member for Mackenzie (Mr. Althouse) just put forward a question. It might be a very difficult task, with the best will in the world, to be able to track down quickly and efficiently all produce which is bought by government prisons, hospitals or other agencies. I see the Hon. Member for Mackenzie is nodding in agreement. There is clearly a problem there.
This rule, which would seem to indicate, looking at the Annotated Standing Orders of which we are all justly very proud, may well not have been used since 1923. Nonetheless it does put the Speaker in a very difficult position. When the Parliamentary Secretary rises and

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asks that a matter be referred through Order 39(6) to the Speaker for decision as to whether it goes to Motions, the Speaker then has to make a decision which the Parliamentary Secretary probably has spent some considerable pain and anguish in finally deciding, having been told probably by a number of people, look, we have done this and we have done that and are just getting nowhere, we cannot handle the matter.
The complaint that comes in from the Opposition is one which is certainly not unexpected. That is, that once it gets referred to Motions, the probability of it receiving debate on the floor of the Elouse is not great, although I am not saying that it could not happen. We have a procedural process set out. I am conscious of course of the fact, as the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary pointed out, that there have been a number of reforms, and this rule has survived. I am also conscious that the Hon. Member for Mackenzie indicated that the McGrath Commission, upon which he served, had a very clear idea of what they were trying to do and the changes that they did make. The Hon. Member for Kamloops (Mr. Riis) has made some suggestions about working up some kind of a system whereby perhaps Hon. Members could, when the Government feels that it is in difficulty, deal with the matter and take the matter off the shoulders of the Chair. I am also intrigued with what the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands (Mr. Milliken) has said.
The fundamental concern is expressed extremely well and thoroughly by both the Hon. Member for Ottawa- Vanier (Mr. Gauthier) and the Hon. Member for Kamloops and other Members. I will try to return as quickly as possible, knowing that the longer I take, the longer some Hon. Member may not get the answer to a question, whether that question was vague or otherwise, deliberately or merely by inadvertence. I will do the best I can.
I think that this discussion indicates that probably the House should really give the whole matter some further and considerable thought. I want to also say to the Hon. Member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes), who has had a great deal of experience in these matters, that I am indebted for some of the statistics that he put forward. If I remember correctly he said that during his experience of some considerable time, the Government was able to answer about 92 per cent of the questions within the 45 minutes.


Some Hon. Members:: Forty-five days.


Mr. Speaker:: Forty-five minutes would really be quite extraordinary. In any event, I would think that Members on the opposition side would want to know what kind of questions were the other 8 per cent. The Chair is quite aware of that, too. I will do the best I can and report back to the House as soon as possible.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: The Hon. Member for Fundy Royal (Mr. Corbett)-Revenue Canada-Use of Social Insurance Numbers; the Hon. Member for Erie (Mr. Fretz)-Canada Elections Act-Request for Study.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski that Bill C-15, an Act respecting plant breeders' rights, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
Mr. Lyle Vanclief (Prince Edward -Hastings):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House and speak briefly about Bill C-15, the plant breeders' rights Bill. I would like to say from the start that I am quite supportive of the opportunity in a Bill to enable more private research in the plant breeders' field. However, this Bill needs a little work. I look forward to it going to committee where collectively we can make some improvements to it. I would like to take a few moments to discuss some of the concerns that I believe would improve the Bill.
First, I do not believe that in the Bill we have enough assurance that we will continue to have research by Government in public institutions. There is a strong possibility that privatization can take place in that field. Many people in the agricultural community who have concerns about the actions of the Government at the
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present time on those types of issues come to the forefront again. The Minister made a statement this morning. The Hon. John Wise, a previous Minister of Agriculture, when discussing this Bill in public one year ago made a statement. There needs to be some assurance that the withdrawal of research funds will not continue as a practice of the Government as it has in the last few years.
Another concern I have has already been expressed today. Under this Bill there are 18 years in which the plant breeders' rights would stand. That is too long, in my experience, with the successful life of the majority of plants and seeds. There are some horticultural plants to which it may apply, but my feeling is that after a maximum of seven to ten years, and my preference would be seven years, the collection of fees and royalties should disappear.
Many chemicals have had long royalties and protection. The purpose of that is a valid one. It encourages the long hours and the millions of dollars that sometimes goes into the research and the creation of chemicals. However, once the royalties go off certain chemicals that the agricultural community has used, the cost of that chemical to the primary producer goes down to roughly one-quarter of what it was. When the royalty was applied, one wonders if there was not a little-for the lack of a better word-gouging, or a little over-collecting.
Another concern in the Bill is the reference to a "reasonable" royalty payment. For the protection of the purchasers of those products, and I will refer to them as products, that would be protected under a plant breeders' rights Bill, there should be a definition in the regulations of the word "reasonable". We have all seen what happens when something gets into the hands of one or two people.
Farmers are not against paying for something. Quite frankly, I believe that farmers are prepared to pay for a product as long as it proves itself in the bottom right-hand comer of the balance sheet in reference to that crop or product. Farmers will not be hoodwinked more than once. If they find out that they are paying for something on which they do not get a return, they simply will not go back to the counter and pick up that product again. I feel that 18 years is excessive for royalties.
Plant Breeders' Rights
The Canadian Federation of Agriculture is in favour of the Bill. I believe that we also recognize that the Canadian Federation of Agriculture has voiced some concerns. I look forward to having discussions with representatives when the Bill goes to committee.
One of the Federation's valid concerns is the suggestion that only 60 per cent of the royalties that would be collected by institutions and/or government bodies that are doing research and creating new varieties would go back to that particular organization, institution, or government Department. I do not know why only 60 per cent would go back there, when a private company that did the same thing would receive 100 per cent. If 100 per cent goes back to the private organization that does the research, 100 per cent should go back to the public organization as well.
Another concern I have is the reference in the Bill to the establishment of an advisory committee. I agree with that, but I do not agree with the explanation of the duties of the advisory committee and the total control that the commissioner has over the duties of that advisory committee. I do not feel that the duties and the purpose of that advisory committee as outlined in the Bill have sufficient teeth for the purposes that it should serve.
In conjunction with the consideration of this Bill, perhaps we should look at the policies of Investment Canada and strengthen them in conjunction with Bill C-15 to ensure that ownership and control of seed stocks are not unduly concentrated in the hands of too few people. That may be a difficult task, but it is a concern of primary producers and purchasers of the products that would be licensed and the fact that, to a certain extent there would probably be increased costs with the putting in place of the Bill.
There should be a discussion on giving the commissioner, together with the advisory council, the opportunity for compulsory licensing if the holder of the control of one product was abusing that privilege.
The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has clearly voiced a concern about the retaining of germ plasm and clonal banks. I was pleased this morning when the Minister made the statement that a lot of this will be done at Smithfield, which is not too far from my home. I also appreciate the fact that all that needs to be kept cannot be kept in the climatic situation in Smithfield, and in the Bill there needs to be some assurance that, because Canada has the type of climate it has, it be assured that we keep those. Once they are lost it is

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impossible to have any plant breeder go back and pick those up and make use of them in the creation of new and better production tools that can be used in the agricultural community.
Perhaps it is lack of knowledge on my part, but we should double check the Seeds Act. That is a concern of the Canadian Seed Growers Association which also supports the Bill. That association has two major concerns. It feels that there has to be more assurance that contributions by the Government to research, as is presently being done, are not withdrawn over a period of time. It could very easily be seen by a Government as a way of saving money and cutting costs. Then the purpose of the Bill would be somewhat defeated. By doing that, we would slowly hand over the control of the creation of those plants and seed stocks to multinational companies, which we do not necessarily want to do. I believe that we should work very hard to guard against that.
The Canadian Seed Growers want to ensure that the registration of those seeds and new crops is done at least as well as it is under the present method in Canada, which is an excellent method. They have to prove their worth. Many things in Canada today are simply marketed without being up to scratch, and people may veiy well be misled. Before any organization, public or private, attempts to regain their costs under the opportunities provided by this Bill, we must make sure that they prove their worth.
I look forward to further discussion on this Bill in the committee.


Mr. Ken G. Hughes (Macleod):: Mr. Speaker, judging by the debate we have heard so far today, the sex appeal of the question about the future of plant breeders' rights is undeniable. I do not want to understate the importance of Bill C-15.1 too look forward to the discussion of this topic in committee.
In principle we are talking about tapping into the private and personal initiative and the benefits therefrom to ensure that all of society gains from it. I believe this legislation concerning plant breeders' rights will deliver a considerable economic benefit to this country. Once passed, it will give plant breeders financial incentives to produce improved varieties.
One result will be more and better varieties to improve the economic state of our agri-food industry. Much of our agricultural industry in recent years has suffered in the face of poor growing conditions, low prices, and unstable markets. As a result, we must do all we can to improve the lot of the agri-food industry as a whole.
In Canada, there is strong support for plant breeders' rights among plant research scientists in universities and the federal Government, as well as in other research institutions. Support also comes from the operators of privately-owned Canadian companies which breed such crops as corn, soybeans, cereals and forages. Support comes from farmer-owned co-operatives who do breeding work, and various farm organizations. We are talking about institutions and people with a direct interest in agriculture as a business, as a way of life, and a place of employment.
Concerns have been expressed in some quarters, some of which we heard today. I am sure we will hear some of those discussions in committee as well. Some may like the essential ideas in the legislation but may want to ensure the retention of the public system by which new agricultural varieties are registered for sale. This ensures the merit of new varieties that come into the marketplace from whatever source.
In this connection, let me note the 1985 amendments to the Federal Seeds Act, strengthening the registration system. Others want assurance that publicly run plant breeding programs will continue.
At Agriculture Canada, the home of commercial plant breeding in the federal Government, breeding programs for all significant crops will continue. Every year new plant varieties flow from the research efforts at Agriculture Canada. This is an important part of the research environment into which we hope to inject plant breeders' rights. Others want royalties collected on Agriculture Canada varieties reinvested in the Department's plant breeding programs.
Although it is not part of the Bill we are debating today. Treasury Board has agreed that 60 per cent of all royalty revenue will be returned to the research budget at Agriculture Canada. It is worth while reminding ourselves that under plant breeders' rights there will be plenty of opportunity for variety developers to recover capital investment in research through the royalty collection system. Varieties can also be protected from duplication by competing firms. This will, I hope, encourage
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small seed trade companies currently without a breeding program to start such a program.
It will also allow small companies to compete with larger seed companies more effectively when they come up with attractive varieties. I believe this Bill will promote development of a greater diversity of plant varieties available to growers because of the royalty incentive for new varieties.
I remind the House that there are well known dangers in any agricultural system dependent on too few plant varieties. If all farmers grow the same variety of a single crop, that crop obviously is vulnerable to an environmental catastrophe because of common weaknesses such as disease, insects or climate.
It is important that farmers have genetically different choices in the crops they grow. This reduces the possibility of common devastation in the fields.
As we debate plant breeders' rights, I want to remind all Members that we have a strong and stable system for developing new plant varieties in Canada both within the Government and outside of Government. One part of this system is dedicated to protecting and conserving the genetic components of plant life in the form of seeds and in the form of growing plants. Responsibility for this very important activity lies primarily with our federal Agriculture Department. It operates a gene bank, the Plant Gene Resource Centre at the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa. That gene bank contains some 90,000 different seed types. These seed samples come not only from Canada but from other parts of the world.
The resource centre acts as the Canadian co-ordinator for collection, classification and conservation of plant genetic materials. This centre not only preserves material collected in other countries, but also older varieties no longer grown here in Canada. They are carefully preserved. In this way we do not lose genetic resources that may prove of great value in the future. They may help in the development of improved crop varieties to serve both the agri-food industry, our producers, and the country as a whole.
Parallel work is carried on at the Agriculture Canada Experimental Farm at Smithfield, Ontario. Here, genetic diversity is preserved in the form of raising a wild variety of apple and other trees as well as shrubs. Agriculture Canada is now in the process of strengthening its gene bank operation, partly through staff additions. The principal aim is to ensure that Canada will always have
Plant Breeders' Rights
access to the widest possible range of genetic components of plant life. Strengthening the gene bank operations will also allow us to more fully meet our responsibilities to the international community in the collection and preservation of plant gene resources.
I want to refer to a comment made earlier by the Hon. Member for Algoma (Mr. Foster) on the question of regional collection of genetic material in Canada. It has come to my attention that the research branch of Agriculture Canada has no less than 24 establishments across Canada involved in plant breeding activity. Some 129 professionals are involved directly in plant breeding or associated programs. The establishments and breeders maintain collections of genetic material which are used as tools in developing new lines or varieties. This extensive genetic resource base continually receives part of improved plant material which, when released, is incorporated in the appropriate central plant gene repository in Ottawa. If the material is of clonal nature, it is stored at Smithfield.
The Experimental Farm Stations Act will be amended shortly to ensure conservation in Canada of all germ plasm including plant, animal and microbial germ plasm.
I want to take a moment to respond to some of the points made earlier in debate by the Hon. Member for Mackenzie (Mr. Althouse). He referred to the Dark Ages and also mentioned that he has concerns about this way of handling intellectual property. I believe he suggested that this whole approach is wrong for all of the civilized world. I wonder which dark age the Hon. Member spends his time in. In which decade does he have breakfast? In which epoch does he do his thinking?
I simply make the point gently and with all respect to my experienced and honourable colleague that he should consider moving into, and drag his Party with him, this modem world. I refer to the world of modem, advanced research, the world of competition internationally, from which none of us can hide. It is the world in which progressive, forward-looking Canadians who wish to be masters of their own fate, of researchers who want to make a meaningful contribution to society in Canada, not to mention a meaningful contribution to the world. It is a world of researchers who might be encouraged and private investors who will finance the strengthening and deepening of research and development in this nation. It is the modern world of producers whose very economic

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Plant Breeders' Rights
viability depends upon having the most up-to-date technical and scientific means to compete in production.
I encourage Hon. Members opposite to shake their fossilized vision of this world and join us in seeking to build a modern Canada that has access to all the modern capacity and scientific means of competing in production.
This Bill will help bring Canada into the modern world of agriculture. It is a very sophisticated and complex world. It will help researchers and producers. It will help keep Canadians competitive and at the forefront of international agriculture. In the long run it will help all of Canada and all Canadians.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the Hon. Member for Macleod (Mr. Hughes) on his speech. He obviously speaks with some knowledge of his subject. I understand that he comes from a riding where agriculture is a significant industry. Perhaps in his reply to my comment he can tell us how much plant breeders' rights are in fact of importance in his riding. I understand it is largely ranching country. Perhaps plant breeders' rights are not so significant as they would be in a mixed farming area.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: What have you against ranching?


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: I think ranching is a great occupation. The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski) knows that I would not suggest that anybody engaged in agriculture of any kind is not in fact engaged in a very worthy occupation and pursuit. In fact, I have heard it said that there would be a hope that some Hon. Members on the other side in particular would return to that calling after the next election. There were high hopes that it would happen after the last election. However, time will tell.
In any event, the Hon. Member for Macleod could perhaps also comment on a question I asked one of his colleagues earlier. It concerned the question of the length of time the Government has chosen to give protection to plant breeders in this legislation. An exceedingly lengthy period of time has been proposed for the protection of these rights. One of my questions was why the Government did not consider a shorter period in
this legislation, possibly a seven-year period of protection instead of an 18-year period. As a Member who clearly has considerable influence with the Government, or at least who ought to after giving a speech like the one he gave, I would invite him to share with the House his views on this subject and tell us if he does not think that seven years is better than 18.


Kenneth Gardner Hughes: Mr. Speaker, it is with some real pleasure that I respond and help fill the empty cup of knowledge that my colleague holds.
Canada is interested in joining the international union of countries which have agreed to accept common terms for intellectual property in respect to plant breeders. Most agriculturally developed countries belong to the international union. There are now some 18 countries which belong to it. They include Australia, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland-this is alphabetical for the benefit of my hon. friend-Israel, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.K. and the U.S. Canada would like to join that group of countries to ensure that we respect the intellectual copyrights of those researchers who are involved in this field of endeavour.
My hon. friend might be interested to learn that one of the reasons why it is important to establish an 18-year time frame for a plant breeders' right is because it takes a long time to regain from the market-place the value that is invested in creating new kinds, new strains, and new varieties of plants. The intent of this proposal is to allow successful varieties to pay for the many failures that one encounters in the field of research.
My hon. colleague I know has always been keen on doing research. I know that he has probably encountered many failures in doing that research for the many successes which he has come across. He will recognize the important principle that not every plant that one would breed, not every success that one would achieve, is from the only try to be made. One has to have several tries before a success can actually be achieved. As a result of that Canada would like to join these 18
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countries that I have just listed in recognizing the rights of plant breeders.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: I was talking about 18 years, not 18 countries.


Mr. McDermid:: Mr. Speaker, I have just a brief comment to make following on the remarks of my colleague from Kingston and the Islands. I want to let him know that I have dealt with a couple of seed companies. Dominion Seed Elouse of Canada was in my riding. I have now turned that over to my friend from Halton-Peel. Oseco Seeds in my particular city has been lobbying for this particular Bill for a considerable time.
One of the things I wanted the Hon. Member to know is that a great number of the seeds that we use at Oseco Seeds in Brampton come from the West. As a matter of fact, the West is a great supplier of seeds and does help the economy right across the country.
This is a very important Bill not only for the rural parts of our community but for those plant breeders, those who create new forms of plants which not only help feed but help beautify the country. I want to add my support for the Bill and congratulate my colleague for some brilliant remarks.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, in closing his remarks the Hon. Member for Macleod (Mr. Hughes) said that he thought that we needed plant breeders' rights because it would speed up development of plants and the progress that plant breeding can take. Yet a moment ago I heard him defending the right of the plant breeder under this particular law to have a monopoly over that variety for 18 years.
We have had the experience in this country of not having plant breeders' rights. I cannot think of a wheat variety that has ever lasted 18 years. I cannot think of an oat variety that has lasted for 18 years.
Why is he proposing to be behind a piece of legislation which on the surface seems to be intent upon delaying the move from one variety to the next by imposing this 18-year monopoly power over the control of the variety?
We have had varieties go out of fashion and be supplanted by better varieties in less than four or five years under the current system.
Plant Breeders' Rights


Kenneth Gardner Hughes: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member raised a couple of points. One is the suggestion that I was calling for this kind of a change because it would speed up the development of plant varieties. I think he has perhaps twisted that. What I was saying was that it would develop, strengthen and create more research and development in the country, not necessarily speed it up. We all know that when it comes to any particular research program, it takes a long, long time. It takes a good variety to last 18 years. There are varieties, such as Thatcher which has been around since 1935. There are some varieties that have lasted for an extended period of time. This program does not stop people from developing and using other varieties. All it does is ensure that there are royalties collected for up to 18 years which allows the researchers to regain the investment that they have made in the initial program.
I believe that that is the essence of the debate today. The essence of this whole matter is that there are tremendous up front costs in research and development in this field. It takes a long time to develop any variety. It takes a lot of money, energy and commitment. It is only fair to ensure that those people have some prospect of recouping some of that investment in time.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Supplementary question. The Hon. Member for Mackenzie.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, if that was the intention, as the Hon. Member has said, of this legislation to permit other breeders to use the patented variety, why does the legislation not provide a complete automatic licensing provision, instead of being written as it is, to automatic licensing at the discretion of the registrar? I would feel much more inclined to believe the Hon. Member's description of the legislation if the legislation did not provide the registrar with the discretion to limit who can get the new variety in spite of being willing to pay the licensing fee.


Kenneth Gardner Hughes: Just a quick response to that, Mr. Speaker. The Commissioner clearly would deal with any sorts of questions like this. I am sure that my hon. colleague will want to raise these sorts of questions in committee and we will have the opportunity to discuss them at further length.

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Plant Breeders' Rights


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Elon. Member for Leeds-Grenville, question or a comment.


Mr. Jordan:: I do not think, Mr. Speaker, that anyone would deny the need for this kind of protection for those who would choose to invest their time and their talents. Relative to this would be the protection that an artist would need for his or her product and an author would need for his or her product.
I am wondering if the parallel does not stop there. We are dealing with something quite different when it is something which could become a basic life commodity. We are talking about quality, and perhaps quantity, of future developments in food products. I do not think that we can put them in the same category at all. There is some risk that profit orientation might become the point at which we would or would not allow someone to control further developments among strains of grains, foods and fruit which could up the level of quality of life.
I do not think that anyone would deny the need for some protection. If we do not have some protection, who is going to invest? Quite often what happens, if we look at the record, is those who would claim that this is their invention, their investment and their brain power, have had an awful lot of Government support in many instances to get there. When it suddenly is about to break open and become a new strain, they claim it as their own. I would want some assurance that those who would claim such a record of a new development, have not got well along the road with a lot of Government support. The source of Government money being of course only one source, that of the people and they would deserve to have that taken into account.
What is to prevent those who would have this under their private domain from releasing it to the multinational corporations? They could actually tie up future development, trying to home in on what is considered to be their territory when a lot of people have made a big investment. I think the risk is there. I am not suggesting that we could go without any legislation, but I believe that we should have some precautionary clauses built in to protect the economy, to protect the quality of food and the standard of living for all of us.


Kenneth Gardner Hughes: Mr. Speaker, it is important to keep in mind that most of the publicly-funded research and development in this field is done at Agriculture Canada. Agriculture Canada retains the copyright and retains the benefits of that investment for the period of the existence of that plant breeder's right. Clearly, nothing is perfect. We will have to look at all of these questions closely. The Hon. Member raised a couple of questions that are very, very hypothetical. I would not want to spend a lot of time talking about these sorts of hypothetical "what ifs". We would like to get it into committee and get on with discussing it.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member for Northumberland on a question or a comment.


Mrs. Stewart:: Mr. Speaker, I have a comment. It astounded me that my colleague across the floor would refer to the modern world and our place in that modern world, as if the 17 countries and Canada represented the only countries in the world. The comment that I have to make about Bill C-15 makes reference to the Third World. We can all support the need for plant breeders to have some rights. I consider plant life and germplasm to be a natural resource which belongs to all of the people in our global community. It is not the exclusive right of plant breeders in Canada and the 17 countries which belong to the union.
There is nothing in this Bill to protect the countries of the Third World. I do not mind protecting the rights of plant breeders here but I think it should be balanced with a protection of peoples of the other countries of the world who represent four-fifths of the world's population, and who have the greatest food needs and food problems.
I have been very concerned in my experiences in the Third World in dealing with multinational corporations and their taking over of seed production and marketing world wide. I have seen the very negative effects that have taken place when these seeds were introduced into Third World markets and development situations. I have watched poor farmers in these countries receive gifts of seeds from these multinational corporations, and then find that they were totally unable to produce a crop because they could not afford the complementary chemicals and fertilizers required to produce a crop.
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When I worked on a committee that selected projects for Africa, trying to address the disaster situation in Africa, we had to be very vigilant to ward off the introduction of western nations' seeds into that country because of the vulnerable situation which these seeds put these countries into.
I would ask the Member if he does not feel that there is the need to balance the rights of breeders here in Canada with Third World needs?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The Hon. Member for Macleod. He has 30 seconds.


Kenneth Gardner Hughes: Mr. Speaker, I would be delighted to wrap up in 30 seconds. The Hon. Member suggests that there is nothing in this Bill to protect the Third World. There is also nothing in this Bill that will harm them. There is no reason to expect that any single legislative initiative in this House is going to address all of the concerns that afflict other countries in the Third World and other nations.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated.
It being five o'clock the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Member's Business as listed on today's Order Paper.


PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS-BILLS   YOUNG OFFENDERS ACT MEASURE TO AMEND
Mr. Jim Karygiannis (Scarborough-Agincourt) moved: that Bill C-229, an Act to amend the Young Offenders Act (murder), be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
He said: Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure in knowing that the Government has decided this issue is important enough to receive consideration in this House. It is the express desire of Canadians from coast to coast to see changes made to the Young Offenders Act.
In the past several months we have seen the Young Offenders Act receive widespread media and public attention. The Act, in general, seems to be working fairly well when dealing with the very young. Credit must
Young Offenders Act
certainly be given to the Hon. Member for York Centre (Mr. Kaplan) for having overseen the implementation of the Young Offenders Act during his term as Minister of Justice. For example, youths charged with minor offences are being dealt with in a manner that is acceptable both to the youth and to society as a whole.
It is interesting to note that more youths are being sent to correctional facilities under the Young Offenders Act than under the Juvenile Delinquents Act, which it replaced. However, the problems arise when the judicial system is forced to deal with young offenders who commit serious and violent crimes.
One of the problems we have noticed lately is the practice of adults employing youths to commit crimes on their behalf. Since the penalties for young offenders are considerably more lenient than for adults, these adults use youths to do everything from delivering narcotics to shop-lifting and robbery. The advantages to adults are twofold.
First, they know that even if the young offender is caught by the police, his sentence will be short enough that it will only be a brief time before he is back out on the street and in the employ of the adult.
Second, by using a youth to commit crimes on his behalf, the adult avoids the risk of being caught. This is clearly a situation that our society cannot tolerate. Not only does it contribute to an over-all increase in the crime rate, but it also exposes youth to the dark world of crime which is certainly in no one's best interest.
The sentencing provision of the Young Offenders Act can definitely be singled out as one of the causes for the current situation. The lenient sentences available to the courts make a mockery of our judicial system. Young offenders certainly have little respect for the system that gives them little more than a slap on the wrist. In fact, the low sentences actually encourage youths to break the laws since such low sentences can hardly be considered a reprimand.
In an age where youth gangs are becoming increasingly visible and more and more prone to violent acts, society needs measures in order to deal with the escalating tendency for youths to commit criminal acts. As far as the most serious crimes are concerned, the Young Offenders Act is even less able to distribute fair and equal justice to young offenders who are charged with

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Young Offenders Act
such horrible crimes as murder. As the Act stands now, judges can only impose a three-year maximum sentence for youths convicted of murder. At this point you may ask yourself the following question: Why is it that an adult convicted of murder can look forward to 25 years in prison with no eligibility for parole, while a young offender convicted of the same crime can be walking the streets again after serving only three years? Obviously, there is a huge disparity between these two sentences, but unfortunately this is the way the system operates.
If the sentencing provisions of the Young Offenders Act are not bad enough, the Act adds insult to injury by allowing the youths themselves to decide whether or not they wish to receive psychiatric counselling.
Let us pause here for a moment and remind ourselves with whom we are dealing. We are dealing with children who obviously cannot be expected to make major decisions alone. Yet, the Young Offenders Act will have us believe that a 14 year old is mature enough to be able to decide whether or not psychiatric counselling is in his or her best interests. The reality of the situation is simple. It is often the young offender who needs counselling the most who refuses it. Therefore, every effort should be made to ensure the young offenders are encouraged to undergo such counselling when deemed appropriate by authorities.
One way which the Young Offenders Act attempts to deal with young offenders who are charged with a serious crime, such as murder, is a provision which allows a youth Court judge to have a murder case transferred to an adult court where the penalties for murder are much stiffen Unfortunately, this is a good idea that has turned out to be an administrative nightmare.
First, we are faced with the fact that judges have huge discretionary powers over which youths should be transferred to adult court and which should be tried in youth court. While it is clear that this is no easy task for a judge, it is made even harder by the fact that no criteria exists which judges can use in making their decision. Therefore, judges are allowed to use whatever criteria they wish. This has resulted in a situation where, in one instance, in the Ontario Provincial Court a judge denied an application for a transfer of a youth charged with murder to adult court on the basis that the youth was "an average student and a good athlete". What kind of criteria are these? Such decisions serve only to make a
mockery of the Young Offenders Act and ordinary citizens to lose faith in their judicial system.
Second, we have a situation in this country where each province has decided on its own whether or not it is appropriate to transfer young offenders to adult court.
Provinces such as Ontario and Quebec have demonstrated an unwillingness to use the transfer provision on the grounds that the adult prison system is too harsh for the young person and does not provide an opportunity for rehabilitation of the young offender so he or she will emerge from prison worse off than on going in.
On the other hand, provinces such as Manitoba and Alberta have no hesitation in using the transfer provision, citing the need to protect society as the most important factor to be considered in any transfer application.
What the law seems to be saying to our youth is that if they wish to commit murder they had better do it in Ontario or Quebec where they will get off with only a three-year sentence. Clearly, there is an urgency to make the system more uniform and more fair where the law is the same no matter in which part of the country one finds oneself.
After reviewing the deficiencies in the Young Offenders Act, I have taken it upon myself to introduce amendments to the Act which I believe will go a long way in protecting society and in dealing more fairly with today's young offenders. I will now go through these changes.
First, the three-year maximum sentence must be changed in order to reflect the seriousness of the crimes being committed by youths. Therefore, I feel that a maximum sentence of five years less a day more adequately reflects the desire of society to feel protected from violent young offenders.
Second, I am proposing that all youths, 14 years of age and older, charged with murder be automatically transferred to adult court. Not only will this serve to make the current system more fair, it will also reflect the distaste of society for this most despicable crime.
Automatic transfers will mean that youths will be dealt with in the same manner as adults. Therefore, the current provisions of the Young Offenders Act of not disclosing the identity of a young offender will no longer apply as it is in the interest of society, in fact, it is the
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right of society to know the identity of the young offender.
Automatic transfers will absolve judges of having to make the difficult decision of whether or not it is proper to transfer a young offender to adult court. It will also create a uniform system in which a youth charged with murder will face the same sentence in Vancouver as in St. John's. In order to protect the young offender properly, I have stipulated that any young offender convicted of murder in adult court will not have to face the adult prison system until the age of 18, at which time he legally becomes an adult. Until that time, the youth shall serve his time in a facility currently used for the custody of youths in order to ensure the safety of the young offenders.
While many people may urge that the incidence of youth charged with murder is so small that changes to the Young Offenders Act are unwarranted, I can only say this to them: Just ask the victims' families about how they feel about people serving only three years for the murders of their loved ones. I can assure Hon. Members that the response would be that they do not feel that justice has been served.
Furthermore, the changes to the Act that I am seeking are necessary in order to reinstate public confidence in our judicial system. Potential young offenders must realize that society does not look favourably on the commission of illegal activities. Youths must learn to respect the criminal justice system, but if the Young Offenders Act remains unchanged, they will continue to laugh at it.
For those who say that nothing can be done for the victims of young offenders, I have this to say: We can do something for these victims. We can show that we have learned that youths who commit murder are entitled to receive stiff sentences. How many more senseless killings must occur before the Government realizes that the Young Offenders Act must be changed? Too many have perished already. This is why I am pressing for an immediate vote on Bill C-229, an Act to amend the Young Offenders Act. The changes to the Act must be implemented now so that Canadians will be assured that we can continue to live in a caring and safe society.
Young Offenders Act
In closing, I want to thank you for listening to me, Mr. Speaker, and I would urge Hon. Members not to drown this Bill but to let it go to a legislative committee. Society deems that we need changes. We need them now, not a few years from now.


Mr. Bob Horner (Mississauga West):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak on Bill C-229 submitted by the Hon. Member for Scarborough-Agin-court (Mr. Kaiygiannis). There is no question that the issue underlying the Bill is one that we all must take seriously. I was therefore very pleased to hear of the commitment of the Government of Canada in the Speech from the Throne to thoroughly examine the Young Offenders Act and amend it as required.
While my words may be misinterpreted, I feel compelled to say that the issues posed by youth involved in the crime of murder are complex and defy simple solutions, so I fear that the attention that a few very sensionalized cases have attracted may make us feel compelled as legislators to silence the issue with quick amendments. In my opinion, Bill C-229 is a quick and ill thought out amendment.
Before we move to amend this legislation, I think it may be useful to stand back and reflect briefly on the process of reform leading up to the passage of the Young Offenders Act. I recall that the process of study and review of the previous Juvenile Delinquents Act commenced in the early 1960s and was actively continued throughout the 1970s with a Bill, several major reports and extensive consultation. What stands out in my mind particularly is the fact that Bill C-61, the Young Offenders Bill, was unanimously passed by the House of Commons in the spring of 1981.
While I do not wish to dwell on this, the point is that the overall approach of the Act was soundly endorsed, not only by Parliament, but by a broad cross-section of professional associations, interest groups and individuals involved in juvenile justice. While those provisions dealing with youth involved in murder may have since proven problematic for some provinces, any changes that we as Parliamentarians may contemplate should take into account the overall approach and philosophical underpinnings of the Act.
It is in this regard that one important aspect of the Hon. Member's Bill distresses me. The Bill addresses in two separate ways, as I understand it, the issue of appropriate sentences for youth charged with murder. The first would increase the sentence available to the youth court to five years less a day, whatever that might mean, but this disposition could only be ordered for 12 and 13 year olds. AH other youth if charged with murder

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Young Offenders Act
would automatically be transferred to adult court. The result, if convicted, would be that these youth would be subject to the same sentences as adults, life imprisonment without parole eligibility for 25 years in the case of first degree murder and 10 years in the case of second degree murder.
I do not wish in any way to diminish the gravity of the offence of murder and the irreparable loss that the families and friends of the victims must endure, but I cannot help but believe that this outcome for all youth, regardless of the circumstances of the offence and the offender, is unwarranted. I do not understand what purpose such a proposal would serve. Certainly, I recognize that such a sentence would provide for protection of the public for that short period that the youth would be in custody, five years less a day. It would also reflect, I suppose, society's repugnance for the crime of murder. I do not understand, however, why the Hon. Member considered it necessary to subject all youth to adult sentences without room for any distinctions to be made. I recognize that there may very well be hardened or hard-core youth whose past records of violence and the viciousness of their actions in the charge before the court necessitate long-term removal from the public if for no other reason than the protection of our communities necessitates it.
However, I must question whether the Hon. Member has satisfied himself that all youth involved with murder require a life sentence.
From time to time, one hears of murder charges being brought in family situations where, for example, a youth murders a parent in what seems to be a desperate attempt to put an end to what has been a long-term subjection of the accused or another family member to the violence and abuse of the victim. Surely such a case is distinguishable from the case of the chronic offender with a long history of violence.
While I am certainly not advocating taking the law into one's own hands, I am questioning the justice of sentencing such a youth who is a victim in his own right to life imprisonment with parole only possible after 25 years. I think this requires much more consultation, and I know that the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lewis) is looking
forward to meeting with Ministers of Justice from across Canada to look at proposals for studying this at length.
What will 25 years in a penitentiary with adults convicted of crimes serious enough to place them in a penitentiary as opposed to the provincial correctional system due to a 14 or 15 year old or, for that matter, a 16 or 17 year old? In my view, and I certainly do not profess to be an expert, one could justifiably conclude that our communities would be faced with a far greater threat to public safety upon the release of an adult in his or her forties having spent his or her adolescent years and a substantial portion of his or her adult years in a penitentiary than would be the case if the youth had been placed in a carefully structured adolescent program.
We must, I believe, determine what it is that we should be seeking as Parliamentarians in the reform of the present provisions. While certain provisions of the Young Offenders Act have been sharply criticized, it is my sense that the basic philosophical approach taken in the Act has been endorsed. If I am correct in this, then it would seem that the principles of protection of the public and rehabilitation of the youth wherever possible must guide whatever reform is necessary.
While the Hon. Member's Bill would secure protection of the public for that short period of the youth's incarceration, his approach appears to ignore the principle of rehabilitation. I say this with the knowledge that one of the proposals would enable the adult court to order a transferred youth who is serving the first part of his adult sentence in a juvenile facility to be assessed. With all due respect, this concern appears misplaced for it would seem that the issue of amenability to treatment is one that should be central to the consideration of whether a youth should remain in the youth system or be transferred to adult court.
Linked to this proposal is the one which would make treatment mandatory where an assessment so recommends. While this proposal may appear at first a blush to respond to the needs of a youth and reflect a rehabilitative goal, the long-term benefits of a treatment regime followed by 20 some-odd years of incarceration appear questionable. In short, it is my view that the Hon. Member's Bill requires further reflection. Without further information to substantiate what appears to be a
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radical departure from the principles of the Act, I would feel very uncomfortable taking the path that he suggests.


Mr. Marcel R. Tremblay (Quebec-Est):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment on the Bill presented by the Eton. Member for Scarborough-Agincourt (Mr. Karygiannis) concerning the possibility of amending the Young Offenders Act.
All the citizens of our country, and especially the people of Quebec-Est, are well aware of the importance of the Young Offenders Act and its impact on young people who have been in trouble with the law.
This legislation creates a special status for young people. It provides that although young people are responsible for what they do, they cannot be considered responsible to the same extent as adults. Because of their dependent status and their level of development and maturity, they have special needs and require advice and support, but also monitoring, discipline and supervision.
Society is afraid of delinquency. It is also afraid of violence. However, it has understood the need for rehabilitation. The treatment of young persons who are in trouble, in institutions provided for that purpose, should not only be tolerated, it should be actively sought, approved and supported.
It is not easy, however, to deal with the problem of rehabilitating young people. It is a task that should become the responsibility of everyone. I am convinced that with this proposal, the Hon. Member for Scarborough-Agincourt wants to improve the situation and promote measures that are more effective and more efficient in helping young offenders and at the same time protect the public.
For many years, Canadians have acknowledged the need for rules of criminal justice specifically for young people, as opposed to those that apply to adults. That is why we have a Young Offenders Act, and we take great satisfaction in the fact that at the international level, it is one of the most progressive pieces of legislation in the field.
Young Offenders Act
It is progressive, but it is not perfect. Recent unfortunate incidents have shown that the legislation must be improved. We agree, but not in haste and not indiscriminately!
The amendments proposed by the Hon. Member for Scarborough-Agincourt are not realistic and fail to take into account some very important factors.
First of all, the Hon. Member suggests that all young persons accused of murder after attaining the age of 14 be heard in ordinary adult court. This would mean that the age difference, the circumstances of the offence, and so forth, would no longer be considered. It would also mean rejecting principles that are nevertheless well established in the Act, such as holding young people responsible for their acts, not in the same way as adults, but as young people who are developing and maturing.
It would also mean rejecting the principle that young people not be punished in the same way as adults; the young person's degree of maturity could no longer be taken into consideration.
It would also, Mr. Speaker, mean eliminating the principle that young offenders need not only supervision, discipline and control but also support, assistance and advice, because of their dependency and their degree of development and maturity. The Young Offenders Act clearly states that these requirements, especially those related to delinquent behaviour, determine the nature of the advice and support that the young person must receive. With this Bill, all this help would be denied to the young person.
The Hon. Member's Bill also raises the problem of increasing the charges-the more serious the offence, the stricter the penalty provided by the Criminal Code- and decreasing them-to avoid the severe penalties prescribed in the Criminal Code. Neither of these procedures is desirable or acceptable. Furthermore, if the young person is found guilty of an offence less serious than murder, he will not be able to benefit from the juvenile court system and will be treated differently from the others. It must be supposed that this situation would probably be challenged under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

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Young Offenders Act
The Hon. Member for Scarborough-Agincourt also suggests that in case of murder, the maximum penalty for a young person of 12 or 13 be increased to 5 years less a day.
Because it is less than five years, if only by one day, Mr. Speaker, a jury trial is not required. It would be very hard to accept a child of 12 or 13 being put in a hearing room where he would have to face a judge, two lawyers and twelve jurors, not to mention the public. I am convinced that the Canadian people would not find the sentence appropriate to the crime committed, relatively speaking. Furthermore, it would mean increasing the penalties for all offences, adding to the present problem of too many young people in detention. Finally, limiting this proposal to young people of 12 and 13 would certainly raise objections under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
I do not believe, Mr. Speaker, that the Hon. Member's Bill reflects the complexity of the situation of young offenders, especially the application of penalties and the purposes of rehabilitation.
One might think that public safety is enhanced by longer prison sentences, but one must not lose sight of the real possibility that long prison sentences have harmful effects on young people, lead to greater criminality and worsen their moral, emotional, psychological, social and even financial situation. This result would be contrary to the purpose of the Young Offenders Act.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I would remind you that several provisions of the Young Offenders Act are now being thoroughly reviewed by the Department of Justice, with the cooperation of the provinces and territories. I think it is essential to know the results of this important review before proceeding with any amendment to the Young Offenders Act.


Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to participate in the debate this afternoon on this important subject of how we as society deal with young people who have committed criminal offences, in some cases very serious criminal offences and in some cases the most serious of all, the offence of murder.
I had the honour as a spokesperson for justice for my Party of participating in the debates on this legislation,
both in the House in the early 1980s and in all of the committee proceedings which resulted in a Bill which was adopted unanimously by Members on all sides of the House. My colleague, the Member for Scarborough-Agincourt (Mr. Karygiannis), has proposed Bill C-229 as he is entitled to do in his capacity as a private Member of this House. This is a very important part of the proceedings of this House and one which I certainly respect. But I think it should be clearly understood that this legislation proposed by the Liberal Member for Scarborough-Agincourt does not in fact have the support of his colleague, the former Liberal Solicitor General and the current spokesperson for justice for the liberal caucus, the hon. member for york centre (mr. kaplan) disagrees fundamentally with his colleague, the member for Scarborough-Agincourt on this legislation, as he is entitled to do. I think it is important to note the fact that the hon. member in proposing this bill is not speaking for his caucus but rather is speaking for himself. Indeed his colleague who does speak on matters of justice, disagrees with the approach which is being suggested here.
It is also important to put this in an historical context. The Hon. Member himself has admitted and recognized that his Bill was drafted following a shocking murder in his constituency in April, 1985. A family of three were brutally murdered; a mother, a father, and a young daughter of seven years. Following his conviction in February, 1986, the offender, a 15-year-old Scarborough youth, was sentenced to a maximum term of three years in prison and was recently released.
All of us can understand the horror that was felt, particularly by the family, and by all members of the community at the sentencing in that particular case. We have to be very careful not to use that one case as an argument for the types of sweeping changes that have been proposed by the Hon. Member for Scarborough-Agincourt (Mr. Karygiannis). Let us for a moment look at the facts of that case.
In that particular instance there was no application for transfer because the Crown did not apply for transfer. The Crown was certain that the youth court judge would accept a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, because that plea was supported both by the Crown and by counsel for the defence. Had that plea of not guilty by reason of insanity been accepted, the 15 year old would have been committed indefinitely for psychiatric treat-
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ment. That was not done. In fact, the Crown's decision not to apply for a transfer was fatal.
The youth court judge, a Cecil Ball, in fact stunned not only the Crown but all those who were watching, by ruling that the boy, who was a devil worshipper and had carved the satanic symbol 666 on his own chest with a knife, was sane when he shot those three people. Obviously, that was a decision which shocked all those who were watching and certainly it was in those unique circumstances that this sentence was arrived at. I share the concern about the sentence in that particular case.
However, we have to be cautious. I suggest that it is premature for us to be embarking upon the sweeping changes which have been advocated by the Member for Scarborough-Agincourt and which are disagreed with by his colleague, the Hon. Member for York Centre (Mr. Kaplan).
The Hon. Member referred to the question of youth gangs. The reality is that youth gangs are a concern in a number of jurisdictions in Canada. However, they can be dealt with, and be dealt with firmly and effectively under the existing provisions of the Young Offenders Act.
Contrary to the view of the public that this Act has resulted in lighter sentences, the reality is quite the opposite. In fact, studies have shown that under the Young Offenders Act, there are more and longer custodial sentences. For example, there is evidence in Ontario that 16 and 17 year olds who were formerly dealt with under the Criminal Code rather than under the Juvenile Deliquents Act are receiving harsher sentences under the Young Offenders Act. It has been suggested that young offenders are being punished more severely under the new Act than adults who are charged with a comparable crime. Those are the facts. We must be very cautious to deal with the facts and not with myths.
One of the very serious problems with the Hon. Member's proposal is that it would remove entirely judicial discretion in dealing with young people aged 14 years of age and over who are accused of murder. For example, the Hon. Member's Bill would treat equally a 17 year old enforcer who killed someone for failing to pay a drug debt, who clearly should be dealt with in adult
Young Offenders Act
courts, and a 14 year old abused child who kills her abusive father in a fit of anger, rage and despair. The Hon. Member's Bill would force the courts to deal with that 14 year old girl in a manner which would allow no discretion whatsoever which would require a life sentence with a 10-year minimum before even eligibility for parole. That is the effect of the Hon. Member's Bill. Certainly, that elimination of any judicial discretion is one to which we take very strong exception.
We should recognize that the Supreme Court of Canada will be ruling on the whole question of transfers under Section 16 of the Young Offenders Act. It is premature for us to move ahead in this Draconian way without having had an opportunity for the court to clarify the provisions of that Act.
Yes, there are concerns. There are serious disparities in the application of transfer provisions by region in Canada. A young person charged with murder is much more likely to be transferred to adult court in Manitoba than they are in Ontario or Quebec. One-third of all successful transfers in Canada have taken place in Manitoba alone, and many of the rest occur in my own Province of British Columbia and in Alberta. Transfers are rare in Quebec and Ontario. We must look at that.
However, we must also examine the availability of treatment resources. They must be made much more equal across Canada. If we are serious about the level of crime among young people in our society, we must stop the hypocrisy of provincial and federal Governments in denying resources to deal with the causes of crime among young people.
I note that my own Province of British Columbia is threatening to close the only residential drug and alcohol program for teenage addicts. That is shameful. We should be putting more resources into assisting young people who are addicts, whether they be drug addicts or alcohol addicts. Instead, we are cutting back on those programs and we will pay the price as a society.
I have an article from the Ottawa Citizen with a headline: "Troubled teens low on long waiting list". That article points out that children who are abused by their parents must wait in some cases for months because of

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Young Offenders Act
the chronic shortage of resources to deal with victims of abuse, whether it be sexual abuse or physical abuse.
There is no excuse in a civilized society for us failing to respond to the cries of our young people, young people who are abused, and then when they lash out in desperation and engage in criminal acts, according to the Hon. Member for Scarborough-Agincourt, we throw them into jail with adult offenders. We all know some of the consequences of that.
The approach suggested by the Hon. Member is fundamentally misguided. We should be putting more resources into prevention of crime among young people. We should be recognizing the concerns about regional disparities. If necessary, we should also recognize that the present choice which confronts judges between a sentence of a maximum of three years for murder, or a maximum of life with no parole for 25 years, may in fact be too harsh. Perhaps there should be provision, as has been suggested by Professor Bala of Queen's University, for some discretion in the hands of the judge.
You are signalling that my time on this issue is coming to an end, Mr. Speaker. I would appeal to the Hon. Member to reconsider this legislation, to consult with his colleagues, consult with those in the field, and to recognize that the legislation is premature.
We as a society have a responsibility to our young people not to condemn them to the adult penal system, but where there is hope for rehabilitation to seize that opportunity to work with the young people and to do what we can to ensure that they do become productive citizens in our society. Prevention is the key and recognizing that there must be a different approach. That is not the response of the Hon. Member for Scarborough- Agincourt. For that reason, I speak strongly against the proposed legislation.


Christine Susan Stewart: Mr. Speaker, I want to say that being present in the House today I was asked to second my colleague's Bill this afternoon. Affirming what was stated by my colleague, the Hon. Member for Burnaby-Kingsway (Mr. Robinson), I felt that it was my responsibility to do so in that I respect the right of all my colleagues in the House to have time to express their opinions on various subjects. However, that does not mean that I support the Bill of my colleague.
In my own riding and in my own acquaintance I have many friends and colleagues who are involved in trying to deal with the Young Offenders Act. Many of them have expressed great frustration with certain aspects of it. I do have the opinion that we must review the Young Offenders Act, which is going to be done, and look at several aspects of it that bear revision, not merely the transfer of young offenders. People have expressed to me great frustration with regard to the anonymity aspect of the Young Offenders Act, and the ability of young offenders to reject psychiatric treatment. Victim's families are very frustrated by some of the inadequacies of the Young Offenders Act and the court's legal systems in trying to help youth and protect victims and victims' families.
My colleague, in introducing his Bill, explained himself, in his own good words, why his suggestion was inappropriate. It is true that there are youth who are exploited by hardened criminals. This is a fact and we cannot have youth bearing the injury for that injustice.
We must address this Young Offenders Act. I cannot agree with my colleague's method of redressing it, but I would urge the House to reconsider the Act.


Mr. Girve Fretz (Erie):: Mr. Speaker, the Bill tabled by the Hon. Member for Scarborough-Agincourt (Mr. Karygiannis), to amend the Young Offenders Act with respect to its provisions for murder addresses a very difficult issue.
I say this because the answers cannot be found just in our criminal laws. Rather, this issue is one that seems to demand that we meet our obligation as federal Members of Parliament to ensure that the criminal law is sound. But this issue also makes important demands of our provincial and territorial colleagues who have the responsibility for ensuring sound administration of the Young Offenders Act.
I begin my comments with this thought because, in my view, the past several months bear testimony to the fact that there is considerable confusion, if the media coverage of this issue is any indication, as to which government is responsible for what. It would appear that we as legislators have come to receive all the pressure for resolving the problem of youth involved in violent crime.
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I do not want to in any way wish my remarks to be interpreted as an attempt to slough off what is our rightful responsibility. I do, however, believe that we might exacerbate this problem unless the approach we take to this issue is more global than sentencing change alone.
The public is fully entitled to have the best protection from crime, particularly violent crime, but it strikes me that some of the recent events speak as much if not more to administrative issues of programs, access to treatment, and security of the actual institution that young offenders are being housed in, as they do to the appropriateness of the law. These matters are provincial concerns.
They must be addressed as well. I was very surprised to learn of the differences of view amongst the provinces and territories as to the appropriateness of the current law for youth charged with murder. One must question what some jurisdictions are doing differently to give them the confidence that their communities are being adequately protected.
With respect to the Minister of Justice's handling of this issue, he has to be commended for the approach he has taken. It is my view that he has quite properly resisted the urge to propose quick amendments and has made it clear that he will await the results of a comprehensive study being undertaken by federal and provincial officials. I understand this study has the support of all provinces and that it is being conducted in the shortest timeframe possible.
It seems eminently reasonable to conclude that it would be premature for Members of Parliament to proceed with amendments to the Young Offenders Act in the absence of such a study. This is one of the reasons which makes me uncomfortable here today with the Private Member's Bill before us.
There are other points, however, which also cause me some difficulty. With respect to the sentencing approaches he proposes, I would first like to deal with the suggestion that the sentence be raised for 12 and 13 year olds. It does seem that this approach would offer more flexibility for extending the benefits of the treatment program to seriously disturbed youth, should that extra time be required.
My question to the Elon. Member is why such a program should not be considered for older adolescents? This would, of course, not be appropriate for certain
Young Offenders Act
youth whose past histories, age and circumstances of the current offence indicated that longer incarceration is required to ensure protection of the public. But it does seem viable for certain youth who may be older than 12 or 13 years of age.
The other proposal to have all youths 14 years of age or older automatically transferred to adult court seems unnecessarily rigid. I acknowledge that its strengths are that it reflects societal condemnation of the crime of murder and it also provides for protection of the public during the period of the youth's incarceration, but from my perspective, it may raise more problems than it will solve. While I do not wish to hold myself out as any expert on this issue, I thought of one of the reasons for having a distinct law for youth was that adolescents should generally not be held as responsible for their actions as adults. Therefore, from a common sense point of view, surely those of us who are parents place different expectations on our children based on their ages, and discipline them in ways that reflect this.
While I hope nothing I say here today will be misconstrued, for certainly the offence of murder is the gravest crime, I do not believe it should be necessary to subject all youth convicted of murder to sentences of life imprisonment. For the first offenders of first and second degree murder, the adult courts have no discretion and therefore must impose life imprisonment. Further, the Criminal Code establishes the minimum period of the sentence which must be served before the offender is eligible for parole. The result is that a 14 year old who is transferred and convicted of first degree murder would spend a minimum of 25 years in a federal penitentiary. Although I do not know a specific case, I suppose there may indeed be a case of a 14 or 15 year old for which there appears to be no other alternative than to impose such a sentence. This would indeed be a sad comment, but I acknowledge that our criminal laws must possess sufficient latitude to be able to respond to such a case where the paramount interest must be the protection of our communities.
I would be reluctant to accept, however, that this is the case for all youth who have been convicted of murder. In this regard I would ask the Hon. Member for Scarborough-Agincourt whether he is in possession of information that would suggest that protection of our communities demands the approach that he has taken. If so, I am at a loss to understand why certain provinces have expressed the view that the current law is adequate.

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Young Offenders Act
Hopefully the study which is being done on this matter will shed some light on this very important question.
The Hon. Member's Bill would require transferred youth who are subsequently convicted of murder to spend the first portion of their life sentence in juvenile facilities. Presumably this is to allow the young offender to be among peers and to be protected from the adult inmate subculture in which youthful offenders are vulnerable to homosexual abuse and so on. Once again, the approach recommended by the Hon. Member seems unnecessarily rigid. If the person is so dangerous that he requires a life sentence, then one must question whether it is appropriate to have such a youth housed with other youth who may be serving custodial terms of anywhere from three months to a couple of years.
While I suppose there may be candidates who would adjust well to the juvenile facility and be better protected from older and hardened inmates, the Hon. Member's proposal would have all youths transferred to adult court serve the first portion of their sentence in a youth facility. I also note that the proposal does not provide for the views of the correctional people to be taken into account for such matters as physical security.
In concluding, I would have to adopt the viewpoint of my distinguished colleague on this side of the House that this Bill would benefit from further review. In fairness, the complexity of the issue is clear. It also seems clear that as Members of Parliament we will need considerable information before us to do justice to this very important matter.


Jean-Guy Guilbault: Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity today to comment on Bill C-229, introduced by the Hon. Member for Scarborough-Agincourt (Mr. Karygiannis). The purpose of this Bill is to amend several provisions of the Young Offenders Act.
Perhaps I should make it clear that the present Government has already started an exhaustive review of this legislation, under the supervision of the Department of Justice and with the co-operation of the Provinces and the Territories. This review will provide some invaluable information on situations that are peculiar to the various
regions in this country and highlight problems that must be dealt with. Subsequently, it would be appropriate to consider amending the legislation to make it more effective and more realistic.
The law must protect the public, and in this case, protecting the public means rehabilitating young persons who are in trouble. Canadians have accepted this approach for a long time. It is why we have the Young Offenders Act. It is exceptional legislation because it is not general and does not apply to everyone. It is exceptional because it creates a different system for young persons. It is also exceptional because of its unique spirit and philosophy. And it is exceptional because it considers the special needs of our young people.
The Young Offenders Act considers certain elements that are important in striking a balance between the interests and security of society and the needs of the young person.
Once these elements have been put into perspective, we must remember that the interests of society include rehabilitation as well as society's security.
It is also in the interests of society to allow a young person to gain the necessary maturity to be able to deal with life and the real world. Protecting society may mean two things: the obligation to prevent the young person from committing criminal offences and the obligation to meet his need for help.
The Young Offenders Act provides a number of ways to respond to these two obligations, but they no longer meet with unanimous approval, and that is why the legislation is now under review, as I said earlier.
The Hon. Member has decided to present a bill suggesting a number of amendments which he believes would make the Young Offenders Act more effective.
With all due respect, I think that the Bill as introduced does not stand up to detailed analysis.
Mr. Speaker, I would now like to give you my comments. First of all, the Hon. Member has taken a look at the practical aspects of enforcing the Young Offenders Act. He suggested that a young person, transferred to adult court and found guilty of murder, serve part of his life sentence in a juvenile institution, up to the age of 18. This suggestion ignores the fact that it may be entirely
May 30, 1989

inappropriate, because of the high risk involved, to place a young person in that kind of institution.
By obliging the court to place a young person in an institution for juveniles, the legislation also ignores the importance of the correctional aspect: controls or lack of them, the "bad apple" factor, risk to other juveniles, and so forth.
More importantly, the proposed legislation tends to forget that the needs of a young person sentenced to life imprisonment will be totally different from the needs of a young person sentenced to maximum of three years: psychological support to help fight the despair, depression and anger caused by the prospect of life imprisonment, therapy to understand the causes and consequences of the situation, occupational support, and so forth.
The Hon. Member also submits that the court should order a young person, transferred to adult court but placed in a juvenile institution, to be assessed. With all due respect for the Hon. Member's views, this suggestion does not seem very realistic, since it completely ignores the needs of the young person.
It would be far better for the Youth Court, as is the case today, to request an assessment before deciding whether the young person accused of murder should be transferred to ordinary court.
The Hon. Member forgets that an assessment enables the court to identify the reasons and causes of deviant behaviour and the ability of the juvenile court system to treat and deal with these causes in the young offender. If a transfer has already been ordered, an assessment is useless.
The Hon. Member suggests making treatment of young offenders compulsory. I think this approach is contrary to our statutes and to the Criminal Code, as well as the provincial legislation on mental health, since it ignores the concept of consent. This kind of obligation would also draw protests under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The Hon. Member for Scarborough-Agincourt also suggested that the records of young people found guilty of murder but not transferred to ordinary court be preserved. I think this suggestion warrants further study.
Young Offenders Act


Mr. Rob Nicholson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I too have examined with interest and care the Private Member's Bill put forward by the Hon. Member for Scarborough-Agincourt (Mr. Karygiannis).
First, I share the concerns very ably expressed by the Hon. Member for Mississauga West (Mr. Horner), the Chairman of the Standing Committee on Justice. He outlined to the House, and I would like to point out as well, some of the pitfalls regarding some of the suggested changes to the Young Offenders Act.
What the Hon. Member is doing among other things is suggesting an unrealistic time frame for us to proceed with amendments to the Young Offenders Act, particularly proceeding at the present time.
Let me say something about my colleague, the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lewis) on this matter. I think he should be commended for, among other things, the very strong stand he has taken on the issue of the Young Offenders Act, notwithstanding the very real pressures he has had to respond to from his first days in this new portfolio including, I might add, the murder of a young woman in his constituency for which a young person has been charged.
While the Minister has publicly expressed his intention to examine thoroughly this issue in as short a time frame as possible he has also indicated the necessity of achieving a substantial degree of consensus among the provinces and territories. Assuming such consensus will be achieved, it is my understanding that the Minister will seek to move amendments in the fall. I think that is something that the Hon. Member who has proposed this Bill should consider seriously.
Along with other Members of the House and, indeed, our constituents, we are quite concerned about this matter. However, I am sure he is aware of the fact that in changes to the Criminal Code, or changes to an Act such as this, we are relying upon the provinces and the territories to administer this Act on our behalf. Something which has been encouraged and developed during the past four years of this present administration is that when we are expecting the provinces to administer an Act then it is only reasonable to consult with them.

May 30, 1989
Adjournment Debate
In that regard you would be aware, Mr. Speaker, of the fact that there is a study that has the approval of all the provinces that is ongoing at the present time. They are looking at trying to develop a consensus, first among themselves, as to what the problems are, and then how best we can attack those problems.
I am sure the Hon. Member would be interested to know that this will be something that will be discussed at the upcoming meeting the federal Minister of Justice is to have with his provincial counterparts. It is a reasonable approach.
While the Hon. Member may be impatient for change, and he has very legitimate concerns, I believe he should wait at least for the outcome of this meeting. As I say, the Minister has said publicly that we are taking a very close look at this matter and will proceed expeditiously with it.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Mr. Bob Corbett (Fundy-Royal):: Mr. Speaker, back in 1964, there was a system adopted by the Government of the day to identify pension and unemployment insurance claimants called the social insurance number system. From 1964 to 1967, social insurance numbers were used exclusively for those two purposes. In 1967, the Government decided that it would be expanded to be included as an identifier on income tax returns.
Since 1967, up until 1988, it was included for a whole host of reasons. It was used as an identifier for people who were making applications for fishing licences, for people who were applying for financial assistance, for people who were travelling abroad and a whole host of other things. It got to the point where it was out of control. Indeed, it was of such a concern that the
Government decided last June it was going to do something about it. I will refer to that in a moment.
In my opinion, this should be of deep concern to anybody who has any concern for their personal privacy. In June, 1988, it was determined by the federal Government that it would be utilized for the identification of certain financial information with reference to the purchase of securities, T-Bills, stocks and bonds, stocks traded in minerals and precious metals and things of that nature.
At that time, it was also determined that the Government was going to move to eliminate the use of social insurance numbers in a host of other areas. I would just like to quote from a press release that came out from the Treasury Board of Canada on June 8. The Treasury Board President of the day, Pat Carney said: "Many Canadians feel threatened by the use of social insurance numbers as a universal identifier. With the rapid development of computer technology there is a growing concern that the SIN may be misused for linking personal information in ways that may pose a threat to personal individual privacy."
This is exactly the point that I was attempting to make with the Minister. I do not believe that the Government moved far enough when it took the initiative to eliminate the utilization of social insurance numbers for a whole lot of different things, some of which I have just previously referred to.
The difficulty, as I see it, is that it is not necessary for the Government to utilize social insurance numbers when individuals are making applications primarily through private concerns by a paper. The reason I say that is because Revenue Canada has alternate methods. As a matter of fact, it has primary methods, that it can identify the billions of dollars that are earned from investment income in this country. It is just now utilized by the Government as a back-up to systems that it already has in place.
The distressing part about it is that now people are going to be fined by the Government. At least, that provision is in place, that people can be faced with a $100 fine if they do not provide that information.
The interesting aspect of this is that senior citizens who now feel that they should have a secure place in our society are primarily those individuals who are expressing concern about the utilization of their social insurance number by a criminal element or unscrupulous individual. There is the potential in this computer-related society and technologically advanced world in which we live for people to gain access to information that they might not otherwise have access to, particularly in the
May 30, 1989

private sector. Federal institutions are protected by Acts of Parliament. There are other institutions, such as banks that are regulated by federal authority as well. But private corporations are not nearly as restricted in their utilization and the way in which they handle social insurance numbers as are other authorities. It is linking social insurance numbers to private financial information with which I have great difficulty and with which many other people have also. A social insurance number can track all kinds of things, such as criminal records, school records and all types of financial information.
I just want to read an excerpt from a letter that I received from a lady who resides in my constituency. She is a senior citizen. Her name is Mrs. Lydia Scott. She lives in the Village of Gagetown. She writes in a communication to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson), and I will just quote it in part:
I don't approve of my number being known all across Canada and I want my Government to know it makes us old "folk" not very comfortable to have our SIN splashed all across Canada.
That epitomizes the concerns expressed by senior citizens. I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that a former and very respected Prime Minister of this country, the late Right Hon. John G. Diefenbaker when it comes to this sort of thing must be spinning in his grave.


Mr. Vincent Della Noce (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague raises the issue of the security of personal and confidential information provided by individuals to the government. I wish to reassure my hon. friend and say, as the Minister of National Revenue said in the House on April 18, that taxpayers should not be concerned or feel vulnerable because they provided their social insurance number on their income tax return. Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, I can assure you that Revenue Canada (Taxation) uses the social insurance number only as permittted by law and only when it is essential for the fair and consistent administration of the Income Tax Act.
Adjournment Debate
Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member correctly stated that last June, the Government started to implement its commitment to reduce the use of the social insurance number as a universal identifier. The Government announced its intention to restrict the use of the social insurance number by federal institutions to the administration of income tax, pensions, social programs and benefits and specific federal Acts. This decision was the result of a government-wide study of the use of social insurance numbers. Mr. Speaker, the Government, recognizing that the social insurance number was often used for purposes other than those for which it was intended, asked that it not be used in many federal activities: for example, citizenship applications, credit checks for federal programs and commercial permit systems.
Since 1967, individuals are legally required to enter their social insurance number on their income tax return, thus facilitating the processing of returns, requests for adjustments and enquiries. It is true, Mr. Speaker, as my hon. colleague pointed out, that tax reform has increased the number of cases where individuals are required to provide their SIN for income tax purposes. For example, financial institutions must record the SIN on the information statements they produce to report individuals' investment income. Penalties are provided for non-compliance.
The purpose of this legislation, Mr. Speaker, is to make the administration of the tax system efficient by improving the processing of returns and compliance with the requirements of the Income Tax Act, because under this Act, all forms of income must be reported. This fair and consistent enforcement of the provisions of the Act for all taxpayers encourages voluntary compliance, the basis of the self-assessment system.
Mr. Speaker, I want to assure Canadians that this need to obtain information so that we can provide taxpayers with services is accompanied by appropriate provisions with respect to confidentiality. Confidentiality is obtained through the enforcement, control and strict respect of the access-to-information procedures. Canadians need not have the slightest concern about the protection of the confidentiality of personal information.

May 30, 1989
Adjournment Debate


CANADA ELECTIONS ACT-REQUEST FOR STUDY
Claude Girvin (Girve) Fretz: Mr. Speaker, on May 3,1 posed a question to the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lewis) on reform to the Elections Act. I believe that amendments to the Canada Elections Act are required to ensure that all Canadians eligible to vote have the right to do so.
The Hon. Member for Don Valley West (Mr. Bosley) has already introduced Bill C-204, a measure that seeks to ensure that urban dwellers, like rural voters, have the right to vote on election day. The Hon. Member for Welland-St. Catharines-Thorold (Mr. Parent), in a recent Member's statement, also expressed his concerns that many of his constituents lost their right to vote because they were not enumerated. Many of us experienced the same problem in the last election.
Many of these problems were addressed and would have been resolved if the amendments to the 1987 Elections Act had passed through the House of Commons. Indeed, I recently asked this question, in May. The Minister responded by saying that the Government was examining this issue very closely to see whether in fact the Government could bring in emergency legislation to deal with that particular issue and that the Government was also looking very closely at the terms of reference for the commission as well as names of people who would serve on the commission.
One of the most cherished and fundamental democratic rights that Canadians have is the right to vote, the right to vote for the candidates and political Parties of their choice. This right was denied many eligible voters, frustrated, angry Canadians who found to their dismay that they were not enumerated when it came time to cast their ballots.
Nearly three out of four Canadians voted in the last federal election, but I am told that thousands of Canadians missed the opportunity to do so. Not only individual residences were not enumerated but entire apartment complexes and streets were bypassed. For example, an apartment building was missed in London, Ontario, and approximately 65 senior citizens at a nursing home in Regina were not permitted to vote because they found out too late that they were not enumerated.
An experienced volunteer who has worked in many of my election campaigns told me that he felt there was a 300 per cent to 500 per cent increase in complaints of eligible voters who found out too late that they were ineligible to vote because they were not enumerated. If the onus for exercising the right to vote rests with the individual, why was there so much dissatisfaction?
Consider the remarks of Mr. Jean-Marc Hamel, Canada's Chief Electoral Officer who said:
People were far more conscious of their rights this time. And indeed, individual Canadians are more inclined to fight for their rights, including going to court for them.
That sort of conviction impresses upon me just how important an individual's voting privileges are. Did this dissatisfaction occur through ignorance? Was it through negligence or through carelessness on the part of enumerators? In some cases, perhaps this was true. However, it has been mentioned that the present system of voter enumeration has not kept up with the dynamics of our society. Cracks or flaws were exposed that may have made the process of enumeration impossible for enumerators to do their jobs adequately. For example, in urban areas where there is a large ethnic population, communication may be poor because the enumerator and the voter do not speak the same language. Another contributing factor is the tremendous growth of new residential areas which may indeed be unknown to the enumerator. It may be simply that no one is home because both spouses are working. This is an increasing phenomenon. Unfortunately provincial and in some instances municipal elections were held so close together that many voters were under the mistaken impression that once they were enumerated for the municipal or the provincial election, it carried over to the federal election.
Although the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides the right to vote to every Canadian citizen, there is no mechanism in the Act to permit Canadians living outside of Canada to exercise that right. There are exceptions as we know for members of the Canadian Forces, public servants, their dependents, teachers and administrative and support staff to the Canadian Forces to vote under special voting rules. But there is no mechanism by which a former constituent of mine, a Canadian now living in England, is allowed to vote. Bill C-79 contains provisions to enable qualified Canadians residing outside of Canada to vote in federal elections. The Bill includes provisions for disenfranchised Canadians as in the case of the constituent I mentioned earlier.
Canadians paid $37 million for a service that fell far short of meeting the expectations of all Canadians.
May 30, 1989

Canadians have confidence and faith in our democratic system. It must not be undermined by an antiquated system of enumeration. Surely there must be alternatives such as permanent voters lists that would be updated as frequently as possible to ensure that there are no oversights, no surprises and indeed no shocks when Canadians who are eligible to vote can do so.


Mr. Murray Cardiff (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister, President of the Privy Council and Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, the Government has long recognized the need for reform of Canada's election laws. In June 1987, the Government introduced Bill C-79, "An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other Acts in relation thereto".
The Chief Electoral Officer indicated in his 1989 report that the amendments contained in Bill C-79 would, in large measure, have brought the Canada Elections Act in line with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In addition, those amendments would have introduced more flexibility into procedures to revise the preliminaiy lists of electors and would have expanded the rules for proxy voting. If those provisions had been adopted, a substantial number of otherwise disenfranchised electors would have been allowed to vote in the last election.
Unfortunately, these and other important amendments contained in Bill C-79 were not adopted prior to
Adjournment Debate
the last election. It is of course a serious matter when a single elector is unable to exercise their democratic franchise as a result of not having been enumerated. It should be noted, however, that according to Elections Canada, approximately 99.39 per cent of eligible voters were registered to vote in the last general election.
The Government remains committed to reforming our electoral laws and to making voting easier and more accessible to Canadians consistent with the provisions of the Charter. In order to facilitate the process of developing amendments which can be supported by Members on both sides of the House, the Government announced in the Speech from the Throne that a commission of inquiry would be established to make recommendations on changes to the electoral laws. The establishment of such a commission was recommended by the Chief Electoral Officer in his 1989 report. As indicated by the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Mazankowski) on May 3, 1989, the Government is currently examining terms of reference as well as the potential make up for the commission.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. The House therefore stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow, pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.19 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, May 31,1989