1989-11-20

Mr. Speaker:: I should advise the House that there are two applications for questions of privilege which I shall hear first. There is subsequent to that some other measures, and I will deal with them. However, first I will hear on a question of privilege the hon. member for Edmonton Northwest.


Mr. Murray W. Dorin (Edmonton Northwest):: Mr. Speaker, I will be brief because I do not think I have to give a lengthy explanation. My question of privilege arises from matters over the last 10 days flowing from discussions involving the finance committee of the House of Commons, and the consideration of its report which examines the government's technical paper on the goods and services tax.
The nineteenth edition of Erskine May at page 146, chapter X, Breaches of Privileges and Contempts, in part states:
- "That the evidence taken by any select committee of this House, and the documents presented to such committee, and which have not been reported to the House, ought not to be published by any member of such committee or by any other person".
It goes on to state:
Where the public are admitted this rule is usually not enforced. The publication or disclosure of proceedings of committees conducted within closed doors or draft reports of committees before they have been reported to the House will, however, constitute a breach of privilege or a contempt.
Following deliberations of the committee between November 6 and November 9, there appeared an article in The Financial Post which stated, and I will quote just two paragraphs. The first one states, "Meanwhile, New Democrat Lome Nystrom said his party will break off its
participation in the drafting of the committee report 'They'll (the Conservative members of the committee) recommend 7 per cent on a broader base, Nystrom said yesterday'". "Liberal committee member Doug Young also said it is likely the Liberals will decide before the weekend to file a minority report. Young said the majority of Conservatives on the committee will recommend the 7 per cent rate rather than the 9 per cent proposed by the government and a broader base for the tax. The committee has to report to the House of Commons November 28."
That article prompted a number of others, Mr. Speaker. I will not quote from all of them. In essence, many of them reported a variety of matters that presumably would have been discussed at that meeting.
I received, following this date, a call from another reporter who asked me to comment on the report. I suggested that I was not prepared to do that. He then gave me a list of things and asked me whether I had seen these other articles.
Over the course of the following several days, there were a variety of articles, as well as news conferences, held by both opposition parties, as well as television interviews with members of the two opposition parties.
The problem is that it creates a particularly difficult dilemma for a person such as myself who receives these questions, sees these statements and is asked to comment about them. Without putting myself in a breach of privilege I find it very difficult. First of all, I am not in a position to either confirm or deny. I am not in a position to defend certain suggestions that are made as to whether they are true or not. In fact, if they are true, I am not in a position to discuss them, advance them and elaborate on them because often they are presented, or may have been presented, with less than a full discussion.
In fact, to go further, there are one or two instances- and in one case there is a direct quote-where my name is included directly, which is a false statement. Again, I am not even in a position to elaborate, defend or deny

November 20, 1989
Privilege
the false statement without going beyond what I believe would be the bounds.
Furthermore, there is no suggestion that these matters, even though they have been alleged to have flowed from the committee and its deliberations, will in fact be the case because the committee has not completed its discussions, the discussions will be continued this afternoon, tomorrow and perhaps even longer.
I think that we should examine the Chair's ruling of May 5, 1987 involving the case raised by the hon. member for Selkirk-Interlake involving the member from Kenora-Rainy River on April 28, 1987. I believe that you, Sir, put the case quite well in your ruling. I will not, therefore, repeat everything that was said there.
However, I do think that this causes a great dilemma for persons like myself who have been involved in these discussions and who have subsequently received numerous inquiries and telephone calls from reporters and the general public. Really, I am in no position at this point to respond positively or negatively, or to explain, defend or deny certain charges.
Therefore, I believe that there has been a substantive breach of privilege. I bring this to your attention, Mr. Speaker, and I would ask that you examine it. If you find that there is a prima facie case, I would be prepared to move the appropriate motion.


Mr. Douglas Young (Gloucester):: Mr. Speaker, I do not wish to enter into debate on this matter, but I can certainly sympathize with the member's very awkward position. In his alleged problem he has referred to both opposition parties, when in fact it could have been mentioned that reports allegedly were coming from members of his own party with respect to some purported recommendations of the finance committee.
I would simply indicate to you, Sir, that the review that took place by the finance committee of evidence brought before it was in fact the subject of a great deal of discussion. I might point out that the chairman of the finance committee dealing with the goods and services proposal of the government has speculated a great deal on a number of issues, including the matters raised by the hon. member in his presentation. I would agree on one point. There is no report to which one could refer,
because no report was drafted at Mont Ste. Marie, nor were any recommendations made by the committee.
Although I acknowledge the perhaps awkward position the hon. member was put in as a result of these reports in the press, I would suggest that since no report has in fact been drafted nor evidently finalized, and since no recommendations have been made, any indications as to what may be emanating would be the result of some suggestions made by members of the committee from all parties. Until such time as a final report is made, there could not be any breach of privilege because there would be nothing of a substantial nature to leak.


Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to point out the same thing. To my knowledge there has been no report prepared, because it has not been finished yet. In fact, we are meeting later today to consider the said report. To my knowledge there has been no evidence leaked, no documents leaked and, therefore, no point of privilege.
The one reference made by the member opposite to myself was from an article in The Financial Post where I am quoted as saying that "They'll", meaning the Conservative majority, "recommend 7 per cent on a broader base". I have been saying that for about two months publicly. I know that my friend from the Liberal party has been saying a similar thing as well publicly for a couple of months. That is no reference in any detail to what a committee report may or may not say.
I also want to say that I do feel in an awkward position as well. At the outset I said that I could not understand why certain members were referring to what might be in the committee report because it put us all, like the member from Edmonton, in a very awkward position as to whether we should comment or not. The committee chairman himself is a person who publicly raised the possibility of a tax on resale housing. This came, as the member from Edmonton knows, from the chairman himself before we went to Mont Ste. Marie.
Then, on about November 11 or 12 three Conservative members of the committee who wished to remain anonymous had allegedly given a lot of details of the so-called report to certain journalists. I read about it when I was in Saskatchewan that weekend. I was called to comment on
November 20,1989

that. I said to journalists I could not comment on what was in the report.


Mr. Lewis:: What were you doing in Saskatchewan?


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: I was in Yorkton for Remembrance Day services that weekend.
I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that there is no point of privilege. There have been no documents leaked. I think you could talk to any journalist you want and you would find that they have received no documents from the finance committee, certainly not from members of my Party and probably not from most members of that particular committee.
There has also been speculation of heavy-handed phone calls going to members. One was received by the member from Cambridge, from the vice-chairman of the finance committee. I suggest there has been a lot of rumour, innuendo and insinuation. I think the member across the way just protests a bit too much. He is doing a little bit of public crying. I think there is no point of privilege whatsoever.


Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, the problem the hon. member is talking about seems to have been created by his own colleagues in the Conservative caucus. I am talking about the chairman of the finance committee himself and a number of other members of the finance committee from the Conservative party who appear to have been quoted at some length in various articles in the press as to what the Conservative majority on the committee might end up recommending.
If that is the case, then I find it hard to see how there could be a prima facie case of privilege if other members of Parliament, using their undoubted rights of free speech, comment at the request of the press on the speculative stories in the press, the source of which appears to have been the Conservative chairman of the finance committee and several other members of that committee.
I have not had an opportunity, because I had no knowledge that this question of privilege was going to come up, to read your ruling of May 5, 1987.1 would be prepared to offer further argument at some later point. I doubt very much if that ruling, and I say this without having had a chance to review it, dealt with the situation
Privilege
we are talking about today. I would be happy to offer, as I have said, some detailed argument on that point.
I think we have to make a distinction between the alleged premature disclosure of a report of a committee that has actually been discussed, voted upon and finalized, and comments by members of Parliament in response to questions put to them by journalists on stories that have appeared in the press, especially if these stories were inspired by members of the Conservative majority on the committee.
I say to the hon. member the issue is not really one for a prima facie case of privilege, rather it is something that fits under the old maxim "doctor, heal thyself". I suggest that maxim be applied to the Conservative members of the finance committee.
Having said that, I hope I can reserve the right to give further argument, if you so desire, based on what was the actual content of your ruling which I have not had a chance to review. Even not having done that, I respectfully submit that what has been said by the hon. member does not suggest a prima facie case of privilege.


Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, perhaps as just a useful piece of information, not being aware that the hon. member from Edmonton was going to raise this question of privilege, I believe that in his presentation he pointed out that on November 9 the hon. member from Yorkton-Melville was making some comments about speculation regarding the Conservative members on the committee.
I would like to draw to the member's attention a Canadian Press article of October 28, some days previous, wherein the chairman of the finance committee, Mr. Don Blenkam, is speculating that he would be recommending a tax on the sale of every house in Canada as a way of enabling the committee to lower its proposed 9 per cent goods and services tax. It is quite a lengthy article that goes on pointing out what the committee will be recommending and certainly what he will be recommending for the committee's consideration.
If my hon. friend is concerned about members of the committee commenting prematurely, he ought to raise with the chairman of the committee concerns regarding his comments. It is only fair to say that this is one of many. I think even the Prime Minister has acknowledged the fact that the chairman of the finance committee not only speculates prematurely but has views that the

November 20, 1989
Privilege
Conservative majority on the committee will inevitably support. Consequently, we ought to be concerned about some of the so-called leaks that he has been providing in terms of committee business.
It is a point of concern for the hon. member, and I do not want to understate its importance. On the other hand, we do not need to overstate the fact that these points might be frustrating for people having to speculate or justify why the Conservatives would want to even maintain the goods and services tax at 7 per cent or 9 per cent, something which requires the hon. member to explain why it would be appropriate to tax the sale of every single house being sold in the country. I can understand the frustration that the hon. member would have in responding to that. I think he would be well advised to speak to the chairman of the committee and admonish him for commenting prematurely.


Murray Dorin: Mr. Speaker, I would just like to add two further points that have arisen from the discussion that has gone on so far. In matters like this we must make a distinction between what occurs and what someone might say himself, that is, if he is prepared to advocate or suggest something, especially when those suggestions take place in advance of any discussions that may have commenced.
For example, I have made several speeches on this subject going back to well before the public hearings were held, as well as over the course of the public hearings. I have advanced certain objectives with regard to this matter and have made certain points and said that I felt that this proposal would be improved by certain measures.
The chairman of the finance committee has done the same thing, and probably many others have done that as well. There is a difference between what a person says he believes would be an improvement and a suggestion he thinks he will put forward for consideration, versus something that flows later from deliberations once they have occurred.
I wish to go back to the original article from which most of the others flowed, the one of November 10 which I quoted earlier. When asked if the Conservatives had decided to go with the 7 per cent rate and a broader
base, committee chairman Don Blenkam said, "I am not going to confirm or deny that."
He went on to say:
I wouldn't want to kid you but I guess we have made some decisions
about rate and base and how you do it and how you put it together. It's
going to be quite a report.
That was the extent of it. There were no direct suggestions of what might or might not be in the report. He said that it is going to be quite a report. There were no suggestions of what other members had said or might not have said.
There were no suggestions until November 14, after which there were many stories quoting members of the opposition and in fact certain unnamed members of the government, and three were mentioned. I may be one of them because the gentleman in question phoned me. However, I told him I was completely prepared to say anything I had to say on the record, that I felt it was inappropriate and that all matters were up for consideration. I said that all these items raised by the witnesses during the course of six weeks of public hearings were being discussed and considered, as they should appropriately be.
The point I draw here is that it is one thing to talk about something you want to advocate as an individual member and put forward to the committee, but it is another thing to talk about what other people have said or what the committee as a whole may have said.
As a final reference I would say that I was contacted by many reporters and many television stations, including Canada AM, to appear on its morning broadcast last week. I know that the chairman of the finance committee was also contacted and asked to appear. I know the member for Ontario was contacted. All declined. Two members of the opposition party chose not to decline.
I think we can draw a distinction between those two types of discussion of specific issues or issues that may have been raised in the general debate as opposed to discussions and comments that are supposedly suggesting what took place during committee.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Edmonton Northwest and other members have commented upon the hon. member's complaint that certain matters were discussed within committee under circumstances in which, apparently, members of the committee felt that they were speaking in confidence and that reports have turned up
November 20, 1989

in the news media with respect to at least some of the discussions that may have taken place within the committee.
It has been very properly pointed out that the committee has not completed its deliberations. I think that the proper position for the Speaker to take is that at least for now it is a matter with the committee, and the committee will have to deal with it as it sees fit. I am going to leave the matter at that for now.
I thank hon. members for their intervention.
I do want to say this, as I have said before, if a committee is working under understandings that discussions are confidential, it goes without saying that if those discussions are repeated outside the committee it creates difficulties within the committee and invites the kind of discussions we have had. I would ask all hon. members to be careful.
However, I do find-and this is my ruling-that the matter complained about is a matter that at least for now should be taken up in the committee.



CONTENT OF BROCHURES-PROPOSED GOODS AND SERVICES TAX

['I have the point of the Hon. Minister of Justice. In the view of the Chair it is a point of order, not a question of privilege. I think the proper thing to do would be for the hon. member to just stand down his point of order at the moment and we will see what else transpires today in the next hour or so. He may or may not want to raise the point of order again.']
Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, on September 25 in this House the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition raised a question of privilege concerning certain advertisements that the government placed dealing with the goods and services tax.
On page 3809 of Hansard the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition stated:
I submit to Your Honour that the advertisement not only misrepresents the substance of the text but the procedure to which it is subject under parliamentary rules. It prejudices the proceedings that are now before a committee of the House, the Standing Committee on Finance, as well as prejudicing future proceedings and decisions of the House itself.
Subsequently, on October 10, Your Honour gave a ruling on that question of privilege. In the course of the ruling, as recorded at page 4461 of Hansard, Your Honour said:
I expect the Department of Finance and other departments to study this ruling carefully and remind everyone within the Public Service that we are a parliamentary democracy, not a so-called executive democracy, nor a so-called administrative democracy.
Privilege
Your Honour, you can imagine my horror when I arrived back in my constituency a week ago Friday and had received in that office a letter from one of my constituents, one George Flower. He had recently been in a neighbourhood Loblaw's store and picked up a package of brochures on the goods and services tax that were being handed out to the public by way of display in that store. I thought perhaps the brochures which I will refer to in a moment had simply been withdrawn or something. In accordance with Your Honour's ruling I understand the advertisements have been.
I telephoned this same Loblaw's store in Kingston this morning-I assume it was the same one-at 10.25. I asked the gentleman who answered, who worked in the bakery of that Loblaw's store, whether in fact these goods and services brochures were still available. He said: "Just a moment and I will check". He went out, checked, then came back and reported to me that they were in fact available and could be picked up in the store.
Let me quote from the first one. It is called Goods and Services Tax: Questions and Answers. The first question that it asks is: "What is the Goods and Services Tax?". The answer given in the brochure is: "The goods and services tax, GST, is a 9 per cent consumption tax that will replace the existing federal sales tax on January 1, 1991".
I could go on. There are other questions, but let me read a couple more of the quotations to make my point: "The GST will apply to virtually all goods and services sold in Canada. However, Canadians will not be charged tax when they buy any of the following goods and services." There is a long list of the exemptions.
Then it says: "For consumers the GST will be similar to a retail sales tax. It will be charged at 9 per cent of the retail price of goods and services. The GST will replace the existing federal sales tax which is buried at the manufacturer's level."
It goes on to detail the tax credits that will be allowed. It says that income tax will be reduced from 26 to 25 per cent. Then it lists a list of benefits that I will not describe. I think that they are, perhaps, not accurate.

November 20, 1989
Point of Order
But there are other brochures. They are called Consumers and the GST, The GST Credit, Housing, Small Business, Farmers and Fishermen, Arts and Culture. In every one, the first question that is asked is what is the goods and services tax and in every one of the brochures it says that it will replace the existing federal sales tax on January 1, 1991.
The one on arts and culture, for example, goes on to say: "The current federal sales tax is badly flawed and harmful to Canada's economy. It is hurting our ability to grow and create jobs."
There is nowhere in any of these brochures any mention of the fact that this is a proposed tax, that this tax is embodied in some bill or proposition that has been put before Parliament and, in fact, as Your Honour knows, we still do not have a bill introduced in this House proposing this tax. These brochures fall in the same category as the advertisements that appeared in papers. If anything I suggest they are more offensive because they state very definitely that the tax will be in force starting on January 1, 1991. There is no suggestion that these changes are proposed and the words, as Your Honour recalls, "proposed changes" were included in the advertisements that you, Sir, found so offensive in your ruling on October 10.
I suggest that our privileges as parliamentarians are being breached. These brochures constitute a contempt of this House. These brochures should have been withdrawn when the advertisements were withdrawn. We thought they were going to be withdrawn, we were told the advertisements would be withdrawn, and yet these are published, it appears, by the Department of Finance. The term "Department of Finance" is attached on the brochures and I would have thought that the Minister of Finance, having learned a lesson in this House on several occasions in connection with his financial plans, might have taken steps to withdraw these brochures.
I believe there has been a breach of our privileges. I am prepared to move the necessary motion for reference to the Standing Committee on Elections, Privileges, Procedures and Private Members' Business of the matter if you, Sir, see fit to rule that a prima facie breach of privilege has occurred. I submit that these brochures are in flagrant contempt of the ruling that Your Honour delivered on October 10. While Your Honour expressed your regret that this matter might have to be raised
again, I have the same regret, but I discovered these things a week ago Friday and have raised it at the earliest opportunity in this House.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands has raised a matter of some importance. I am sure that he would do the courtesy of allowing the Chair to see copies of the publications and the brochures. I will look into the matter further and report back to the House.
The Hon Member for York Centre on a point of order.



Hon. Bob Kaplan (York Centre):: Mr. Speaker, last week I wrote to you and I am rising now on a point of order to deal with the ruling that you made in Question Period about questions that I proposed asking to which it was argued that the sub judice convention applied. I want to seek guidance from you about whether it would be appropriate, as I submit it might be, for me to raise the subject matter of my letter following the intervention of my leader on a request for an emergency debate.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, my friend has raised an interesting point. I have no quarrel at all with him raising it. I think the time to raise it is now if he wants to raise it and, in effect, challenge your ruling or call it into question in order that it be aired. If he wants to air it he airs it now.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the Hon. Minister of Justice would assist the Chair. As I understood it, the minister is taking the position on behalf of the government that this ought to be heard now, not later and not be conditional upon something that might or might not happen later in the proceedings. Does that sum up, in effect, the point the hon. minister was making?


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Yes, Sir. The House has opened. We have had points of privilege raised by individuals, I think quite rightly so, and if it is a privilege that should put aside the business of the House to be heard, then as Government House Leader, I am in perfect agreement with that being done but I think it should be done now. If privilege is breached, it is breached now. If my hon. friend wishes to raise it, I think he should raise it now not reserve an opportunity to be privileged twice in a day. Either one's
November 20, 1989

privilege is breached now or it is not breached at all today.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: The House Leader would be quite right perhaps if I were rising on a point of privilege. I am not. I am rising on a simple point of order and I want in that point of order, which can be raised at any time as I think the House leader will recognize, to indicate that the subject matter with which I wish to deal is covered as well by the request of my leader for an emergency debate. I think it might be more logical, and I am only submitting that, to hear the matter later, but I rose for your guidance and I am certainly prepared to accept it.


Mr. Speaker:: I have the point of the Hon. Minister of Justice. In the view of the Chair it is a point of order, not a question of privilege. I think the proper thing to do would be for the hon. member to just stand down his point of order at the moment and we will see what else transpires today in the next hour or so. He may or may not want to raise the point of order again.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8) I have the honour to table, in both official languages, government responses to 216 petitions.
[.Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings]



ORDER IN COUNCIL


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I am also pleased to table, in both official languages, a number of Order in Council appointments which were made by the government pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order
Routine Proceedings
110(1). These are deemed referred to the appropriate standing committees, a list of which is attached.


PETITIONS
Mr. Ross Harvey (Edmonton East):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour today to present a petition signed by 10,300 Canadians, most of whom live in Edmonton, but as well from 112 other Alberta communities. These petitioners all humbly pray and call upon Parliament to withdraw the budget proposal to claw back payments under the social programs; old age security and family allowance, a most timely petition given the business of the House today. These were collected in the main by the One Voice Committee of the Society for the Retired and Semi-retired in Edmonton. That is 10,000 Albertans, Mr. Speaker. I do hope the government pays attention.


Ms. Barbara Greene (Don Valley North):: Mr. Speaker, I am tabling another 1,295 signatures from across Canada; from the Yukon, Quebec, British Columbia, and metropolitan Toronto. All of these people are opposed to the existing provisions of the Immigration Act and want it revised to comply with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the enhancement of human rights and dignity of persons with disabilities.


Mr. Gus Mitges (Bruce-Grey):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present to the House today more petitions from concerned citizens in communities across northern Ontario. One thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven petitioners from North Bay, Thunder Bay, Sudbury, Elliot Lake, Sault Ste Marie, Kenora, Dryden, Sturgeon Falls, Espanola, New Liskeard, Coniston, Lively, Thom-loe and Crystal Falls, strongly urge Parliament to protect the rights of the unborn from conception with a law that will seek to save the life of both mother and child. I am in full support of their efforts.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present a petition on behalf of residents of Kamloops, Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond, Ladner,

November 20, 1989
Routine Proceedings
Coquitlam, and Langley, who point out that one-sixth of all Canadian children live in poverty and that the number of children living in poverty has increased by 13 per cent in the last seven years, and that the number of children living in poverty in some provinces now is as high as 26 per cent.
The petitioners are asking all of us in the House of Commons to support Motion M-254 calling upon the government to negotiate with the provinces to provide a comprehensive bill of rights for children.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, a number of western Canadians are very concerned with the government's decision to curtail VIA Rail service and to cut back its operation significantly and are asking Parliament to urge the government not to cut back but in fact to invest in an up-dated VIA Rail service for the country like every other western industrialized nation is doing.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, this petition is again mainly from western Canadians who are distressed at this government's commitment to proceed with the goods and services tax, after all of the opposition. These petitioners point out whole sets of reasons why they are opposed to it, and basically I guess they are asking the government to just come to its senses, back off and go back to the drawing board.


Mr. Lyle Vanclief (Prince Edward-Hastings):: Mr. Speaker, I table again today some 36 petitions humbly praying and calling upon Parliament to reject the proposed goods and services tax. It is my privilege to present these containing several thousand names of constituents in my riding.


Mr. Eugene Bellemare (Carleton -Gloucester):: Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege of presenting a petition today on behalf of the residents of Carleton-Gloucester. I have well over 1,000 signatures and the petitioners are requesting the government to withdraw its proposed bill on a goods and services tax.
Like them, I feel that the goods and services tax is going to be a negative factor in the development of the Canadian economy, is going to be a negative factor in creating employment, and is going to be a negative factor for people with medium and low-incomes.


M. Douglas Young: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present petitions signed by some of my constituents in Gloucester in northeastern New Brunswick who categorically oppose the goods and services tax.
I must tell you, Mr. Speaker, that I am very proud of the effort these people have made to inform the people of the region about the harmful effects of this goods and services tax and I hope that the Government of Canada will take account of their concerns.


Mr. Stan J. Hovdebo (Saskatoon-Humboldt):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure and duty on behalf of a number of petitioners from Winnipeg and area, to present a petition which calls upon the Parliament of Canada to maintain VIA Rail Canada's present national network, and asks that Parliament upgrade VIA Rail with new equipment and change the passenger act to give a firm legislative mandate for the continuing of VIA Rail across Canada.


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Mr. Speaker, I also have a number of petitions dealing with the goods and services tax. The petitioners are constituents of mine and constituents from the next riding of The Battlefords. They call upon Parliament to reject the current proposals for the goods and services tax and to ensure that the tax which it does bring in is fair to all Canadians.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: I have the pleasure to present a petition signed by 32 of my constituents from Kingston and The Islands. These petitioners object to the proposed goods and services tax and call upon Parliament to reject any measure that will impose that tax.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise the House that Question No. 126 will be answered today.
November 20,1989


Miss Grey: For the fiscal years 1989-90 and 1990-91, for each province and territory, has the government made projections of (a) its total revenues and total expenditures on a public accounts basis and, if so, what are they (b) the total revenue impacts and total expenditure impacts of the Budget presented April 27, 1989, and, if so, what are they?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Finance):: a) and b)
No.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: I ask that all remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Speaker:: The question enumerated by the minister has been answered. Shall the remaining questions be allowed to stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: I wish to advise the House that I have received two applications for an emergency debate, and I will hear them in the order they were received. I recognize the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition.


Mr. Speaker:: I think before the right hon. gentleman commences, and in order to help others on a similar motion today, I will hear carefully the application, of course. I do remind hon. members that an application for an emergency debate must be fairly brief and concise because under the rules there is no opportunity for reply or argument by any other member of the House. I know the right hon. gentleman will keep that in mind.


Right Hon. John N. Ihrner@Leader of the Opposition: I rise to request an emergency debate relating to the administration of justice. There will be two aspects to this very brief submission. The first is that it is a matter of urgent public importance. The second is that it goes beyond the concept of sub judice. Needing to address both these questions briefly, I crave your indulgence and the indulgence of the House.
My submission is that the issue would not prejudice the rights of the accused in the matter of charges relating
to the budget leaks of last April. My submission is that we have obligations as members of Parliament to raise the very serious issue of political interference in the administration of justice. We want to raise the question of individual rights, the abuse of individual rights, in the way these charges were brought. We want to raise, if you allow us, the issue of solicitor-client privilege which may or may not exist between the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Department of Justice, and the Crown prosecutor. We want to raise the issue of abuse of freedom of the press, of failure of ministers to answer truthfully on this issue in the House, the independence of our national police force, and the discretion of individual police officers to lay charges.
I submit that the sub judice convention, and it is only a convention, does not apply in this case because what we have to raise here in Parliament has little or nothing to do with the guilt or innocence of the accused before a court. The debate we seek is whether or not the government interfered with the impartial administration of justice in bringing these charges in the first place.
Those of us in Parliament cannot allow the government to use a trial to shield themselves. The convention-


Mr. Speaker:: I would like to indicate to hon. members, and especially to the public watching, that this is a very, very serious issue, and I have relaxed the rules somewhat to hear the right hon. gentleman. I sense though that the right hon. gentleman is getting into the very debate that he asks for, and I must ask him to be very careful because I will be faced with a point of order I am sure.


Mr. Turner (Vancouver Quadra):: Mr. Speaker, I am dealing with the submission of why you are not bound by any sub judice rule. The convention is meant to protect defendants in a trial. It is not meant to protect government ministers.
The Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice said the Minister of Finance was the victim of a crime. We are suggesting very strongly to Your Honour that the police were therefore told that there had to be a crime and that charges had to be laid. No matter what the-


Mr. Speaker:: I must ask the right hon. gentleman to help the Chair here. We are now getting into the very debate the right hon. gentleman is asking for, and I may very well hear exactly the same request shortly. There

November 20, 1989
was a second point the right hon. gentleman wanted to raise, and I would like to hear him on that.


John Napier Turner: The convention of sub judice is not meant to hamstring this House from debating the real issues now before you, Mr. Speaker. In 1977 a special committee, to which you referred in your earlier judgment in this House on sub judice, had the following to say as regards your role in the application of the sub judice convention. I want to quote from that committee:
In exercising this discretion, your Committee recommends that
when there is a doubt in the mind of the Chair, a presumption shall
exist in favour of allowing debate and against the application of the
convention.
Those were the words of the committee which you, Mr. Speaker, recited with some approval in your recent judgment.
The current trial may go on for a considerable length of time. The people of Canada cannot wait. Canadians have a right to know whether or not our system of justice has been tampered with and thereby undermined. The information on the public record so far in the trial indicates political interference. Canadians therefore have a right to know. Canadians want an assurance that the administration of justice is fair and impartial. I would think that the government would want this issue cleared up quickly as well.

So the issue we want to raise with you, Mr. Speaker, is the possibility that some people may have interfered politically in this affair, continually and over many years.
This matter is veiy important and requires our consideration as soon as possible here in the House.
So I respectfully suggest, within the limits you set for me, Mr. Speaker, that you suspend the business of the House to allow us to discuss this matter in depth.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Oshawa.


Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a similar motion which I brought to your attention on the same subject. I would like to say at the outset, notwithstanding the importance of the issue, that it did seem to me that the rules require us to stay within one or
two sentences. If we were going to raise a question of privilege it would enable us to deal with this very serious matter at greater length.
I want to come right to the point. As I said in my letter to you, my intention is to move for the adjournment of the House under Standing Order 52 for the purpose of discussing a matter of urgent and pressing concern, namely, in this case, the fact that during the criminal proceedings involving Messrs. Belisle, Appleby and Small, a serious allegation has been made, namely, that political considerations played a role in the laying of charges against individuals. It is of fundamental importance that this be clarified and clarified soon.
Your Honour, on November 7 you did rule on this subject at that time and said that the sub judice convention, and I cite your words, "should apply in this case", and then significantly you added the words, "for the time being".
My reason for raising it today is that since November 7 at which time I think it is reasonable to conclude that most if not all observers thought that the situation would be resolved within a matter of days then and that there would be a judgment by the judge on the issue enabling us to deal with it in the House. Since then, as Your Honour knows, the proceedings have been delayed and they will not get back to the court level of discussion until December 18. This I stress, Your Honour, has happened since you gave us your original ruling and I submit to you that the question as to whether or not there are political considerations taking place in the laying of criminal charges is too important a matter for us to allow another delay to take place, this time for another month. Therefore, I ask Your Honour to reach the conclusion that the public interest at this time should come down on the side of having a public hearing in this Chamber on that profoundly important question.


Mr. Speaker:: I have listened to the observations of the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition and the Hon. Member for Oshawa. In view of the issue I have probably been veiy lenient indeed in allowing both the hon. members to make their point. I want to assure them both that I have their point and I will consider their observations and report back to the House as soon as it is appropriate.
November 20,1989

Routine Proceedings



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I move:
That debate on the motion for second reading and reference to a legislative committee of Bill C-28, and on any amendments proposed thereto, shall not be further adjourned.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
Kempling	Kilgour (Edmonton Southeast)
Kindy	Koury
Landry	Larrivee
Layton	Leblanc (Longueuil)
Lewis	Lopez
MacDonald (Rosedale)	MacDougall (Timiskaming)
Malone	Marin
Martin (Lincoln)	Masse
Mazankowski	McDermid
McKnight	Mitges
Monteith	Oberle
O'Kurley	Paproski
Plamondon	Porter
Redway	Reid
Ricard	St-Julien
Shields	Sobeski
Soetens	Sparrow
Stevenson	Tetreault
Thacker	Thorkelson
Tremblay (Rosemont)	Tremblay (Quebec-Est)
Tremblay (Lotbinidre)	Valcourt
Van de Walle	Vankoughnet
Vien	Vincent
White	Wilbee
Wilson (Swift Current-Maple Creek-	-Assiniboia)
Wilson (Etobicoke Centre) Worthy-108	Winegard


Some Hon. Members:: No.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


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


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


POINT OF ORDER
Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. At the beginning of proceedings today I raised with the Speaker the question of how long his ruling on November 7 dealing with the sub judice would apply. He

November 20, 1989
Government Orders
indicated in the ruling itself that it would apply for the time being.
I rise now to indicate my own hope that at the beginning of Question Period today the Speaker might indicate his disposition as to whether, for the reasons raised on this side of the House at the beginning of proceedings today, that we might know before the beginning of Question Period his disposition as to the continuation of that ruling on sub judice.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The Chair has noted the hon. member's comments and they will be relayed to the Speaker. Orders of the day.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Wednesday, October 18, consideration of the motion of Mr. Wilson (Etobicoke Centre) that Bill C-28, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act, the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements and Federal Post-Secondary Education and Health Contributions Act, the Old Age Security Act, the Public Utilities Income Tax Transfer Act, the War Veterans Allowance Act and a related act, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Madam Speaker, in 1951 it took a constitutional amendment to clear the path for the federal government to introduce the national old age pension program. The only requirement to receive a pension was that one be elderly and Canadian.

The OAS program was the result of an all-party committee report-


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The Chair would appreciate a little more silence so that I can hear the hon. member. Thank you.


Marlene Catterall: Madam Speaker, the OAS program was the result of an all-party committee report supported unanimously across the country.

The most succinct and clear statement on what seniors could henceforth enjoy came from a member of the opposition, the Hon. Donald Fleming. Mr. Fleming said, "We are departing as far as we can from the idea of any handout, any payment as of grace, and are seeking to supplant that type of payment with a payment which will be received by the pensioner as of right". It is too bad Conservatives today do not understand, as this hon. Tory member did, what a pension is and what an entitlement is.
Parliamentarians then were very clear about what they intended to accomplish: basic income security for every elderly citizen based not on any needs test but on their having contributed to the building of Canada throughout their lifetime. And to make their meaning absolutely clear, that this was not welfare, not charity, not income dependent, they set it up as a contributory plan so that everybody would know that they were paying for a pension. Initially every taxpayer contributed 2 per cent extra tax to a plan that was to pay no more than it took in. That contribution doubled over the years to 4 per cent until in 1971 it was simply rolled in to the over-all tax rate and every taxpayer continued to contribute.
When that was done in 1971, the words of Mr. Stanley Knowles were prophetic and they are being realized today. Mr. Knowles expressed his concern about abandoning the special taxes that funded a separate old age security fund. He said, "This will put the government in the position of being able to play fast and loose with the whole question of old age security and even abolish its universality".
The finance minister of the day, Mr. Edgar Benson, gave Mr. Knowles what he thought was an iron-clad guarantee that this would not happen when he said that: " The right is given to the pensioner by Parliament. The only way of changing this would be for the government to amend the Old Age Security Act".
November 20, 1989

Government Orders

Well, Madam Speaker, when those words were spoken, the idea that anyone would return to a handout system for the seniors who have earned the right to a secure old age was unthinkable. With this government, it is clear that nothing is unthinkable.

The Prime Minister has excused this smashing of a sacred trust, his betrayal, his word to Canadians, by saying, "We want to do more for lower income seniors".
I will tell this House what is happening to low-income seniors. At doors throughout Ottawa West during the election campaign just a year ago, I spoke to low income seniors who have never paid income tax before and who are now being gouged by this government. They and other low income Canadians are now paying 60 per cent more in income tax than when this government took office.
This government is taking from middle income Canadians and it is also taking from the poor. It is ensuring with this bill that more and more seniors every year will lose their pensions. The seniors of Canada have paid for these pensions every year since 1951, nearly 40 years. They have planned their retirement, trusting their government to return to them what they paid for.
Because these seniors lived through the depression, because they were wise enough to invest, because they were frugal enough to establish pensions for themselves, because they chose to do without many of the comforts of life to enjoy a comfortable and secure retirement, they are now being punished by this government for living by all the good conservative, frugal principles that this government espouses but refuses to govern by.

How can the Members on the other side of the House stand up and in all good conscience justify this betrayal? The government claims it is necessary to extort money from seniors to solve the deficit problem. Well, who has created this problem? Let me do a sample overview of this government's record since 1984. It has enjoyed better economic conditions, lower inflation, lower interest rates and higher employment than had been seen in the five years previous to its taking office when the economy of the entire world was in turmoil.

Despite those favourable conditions, despite increased taxes, despite more working taxpayers among whom it could spread the costs of running the country, it has doubled the national debt and doubled the amount of money that goes to pay interest on the debt. No wonder it hasn't been able to reduce the annual deficit.
The government has increased taxes most severely on low and middle-income Canadians, while continuing to talk about fairness in tax. It has increased what it extracts from individual Canadians from $29 billion to $50 billion in less than five years. It has cut programs for environmental solutions, cut programs to reduce demands on non-renewable energy and to research alternative energy sources, cut services to Canadians by cutting 12,000 jobs across Canada in the Public Service, cut help to unemployed Canadians, cut help to the most disadvantaged regions of Canada, destroyed our national rail system, sold our national airline, and reneged on its commitment to the provinces to share the cost of social programs and education.

What I want to know from the members opposite, Madam Speaker, is just what this government has been doing? Just what has this government been spending taxpayers' money on?

The government pretends it is moving toward a fairer tax system. What is fair about taxing only seniors at 100 per cent, only children's allowances at 100 per cent? How does the government justify 100 per cent taxes for seniors and for children, when overnight windfall profits are not taxed at anywhere near that rate, when millionaires can make a profit on their investment and pay no more than 29 per cent, when the most profitable corporations in Canada have had their tax rate reduced from 36 per cent to 28 per cent?
Seniors invested too, but they invested with their government. Beginning in 1951, they paid extra taxes specifically to provide for their old age. They continue to contribute. They have a right to keep that for which they paid.

November 20, 1989
Government Orders

Finally, I ask that we remember that this 100 per cent clawback will, in the end, add to the poverty of elderly women. Most of the households from which the old age security will be extracted are comfortable based on the income of the husband, not the family. Many of those incomes are based on pensions that die with the pensioner.

On the death of a spouse, many thousands, and perhaps hundreds of thousands of widows will be left with no pension beyond the old age security. The extra comfort they could have been left with by savings accumulated from the old age security their spouses now receive is being removed from them. In fact, the government is knowingly ensuring that it is senior couples with only one income that will sacrifice most. It is doing this by basing the clawback on the individual's income, not the family income. As a result, two seniors with $49,000 income each and a family income of nearly $100,000 do not return any old age security to the government, while a couple with one income over $50,000 does. Senior households with two incomes can earn twice as much before losing any old age security. Yet this government continues to talk about fairness in taxation. The same principle applies to the family allowance. Higher income, double-earner households will not pay the same clawback as more modest, single income households. This government seems to forget that in many families where only one partner earns an income, the family allowance is the only income a woman can call her own.
This move on both seniors' pensions and family allowances has nothing to do with good social policy, it has only to do with grabbing money from Canadians wherever the government can get it. The government is hitting the elderly again by its changes in the rules for RRSP contributions. Now pensions will no longer be eligible to be transferred to RRSPs, another source of tax from those who can least afford it.

Madam Speaker, fully one-third of the adults in my riding of Ottawa West are over 65 years of age. Not all of them, in fact, a small minority will be affected by this measure, unlike when the government threatened to
deindex all their pensions. But I know many of them are watching this afternoon and I urge them to understand that this is only the first step in a much larger assault on all their pensions.

The government is trying, through this initial step, to accomplish, through the back door, what it was stopped from doing through the front door, when Canadians all across Canada, old and young, objected to the deindexing of seniors' pensions. I urge seniors to understand and I urge all Canadians to understand that they have a Prime Minister who stated his intentions with respect to indexed pensions very clearly before he was even the leader of his party. He said outright that indexed pensions should be phased out and then outlawed. The Prime Minister still believes that and I urge all seniors and all Canadians to let the Prime Minister and the government know that they do not agree with it. A deindexed pension is no pension at all.
This bill, more than any other, embodies the Tory right-wing agenda. It abandons all pretence at fairness and justice. It abandons the great Canadian dream of a compassionate society that cares for the elderly, cares for those less well off and nurtures that bastion of a strong and durable economy, the small business. It lays bare the moral bankruptcy of a government that just a year ago talked about sacred trusts and knew very well its intention to smash every one of them. Once again the government is too arrogant or too afraid to face the exposure of its hypocrisy through free and open debate in this House. Once again, for the twelfth time in this new session of Parliament, it has invoked closure to stop Canadians from hearing what is wrong with this bill it proposes to pass.
This bill is a betrayal of seniors, a betrayal of families, a betrayal of many of the values that this country holds dear, and yet once again the government will use its power of numbers in this House to pass it. I urge members opposite to rethink their position and I urge the public to let the government know what it thinks of this bill.


Mr. Chris Axworthy (Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing):: Madam Speaker, Bill C-28 covers many matters and in the short time available I can only concentrate on a couple of them. I would like to concentrate on the clawback of family allowances and old age pensions, matters of considerable concern to all Canadians and
November 20,1989

matters to which all Canadians have voiced concern and opposition.
I want to urge the government to show some appropriate concern for families and seniors in Canada. We should be supporting families, we should be supporting Canada's future. Families have a contribution to make to Canada's future and we should be supporting them in that role. We should also be supporting Canada's seniors who have made their contribution to Canadian society and need to be able to live with respect and dignity for the rest of their lives.
We should look not to end the universality of social programs, ensure that those who are better able to pay their taxes do in fact pay their fair share.
So we should be supporting families, we should be supporting seniors, and we should be supporting the regions of Canada. We should resist changes which make our social programs more like those in the United States.
The route that the government is following in Bill C-28 with regard to the clawback of family allowances is, of course, not the only route to follow. It is not the only way it could resolve some of the questions that it raised about the deficit and about the cost of social programs.
As has been so often pointed out by those in my party and by thousands of Canadians across the country, there is a great deal of opposition to the measures that the government is proposing, and yet the government is going ahead anyway. No consultation with groups who are to be affected prior to these measures being announced took place. Of course, this has been a touchstone of this government. Why would it want to consult, I suppose, with those who are affected if they are going to be opposed to the government's measures.
But it is critical to our approach to government in Canada that we do hear from both sides of the issue, that we do not just hear, as this government does, from the large corporations and the right wing think-tanks. Even this form of government consultation is breaking down with the Fraser Institute speaking out now against the goods and services tax. Even the government's allies, and supporters, are prepared to oppose the general thrust of this government's policy.
Government Orders
Let us begin with what the government committed itself to in terms of social programs. All of us will remember statements by the government about its commitment to social programs. Of course, after the election the government is prepared to go back on its word. We all remember what the Prime Minister said in Summer-side, Prince Edward Island in October of 1988. "As long as I am Prime Minister of Canada, social benefits, especially those for the elderly will be improved, not diminished by our government which is committed to social justice and fairness for Canadians".
In response to reminders of this and in response to criticisms of the approach, the Minister of Finance has argued that the clawback on social programs, on family allowances and old age security will have only a minimal effect on Canadians, that it will not affect Canadian individuals and families very much. Fie claims that only 4.3 per cent of seniors will be paying back all or part of their old age security, with 54,000 paying back all of it, and 74,000 paying back some of it.
On family allowances, the Minister of Finance claims only 14 per cent of families will be affected. But these numbers will go up rapidly year by year, primarily because the government has not indexed these numbers. More and more retirees will end up repaying their pensions and more and more families will end up repaying all or part of their family allowances.
For example, a 28 year old person earning about $28,000, roughly an average industrial wage, will be hit by the clawback by the time he or she retires. That means most Canadians are going to be hit by this as time goes on.
So we are faced with cuts to social programs, contrary to commitments made by this government. Some in the government and some on the government side are more honest and, of course, it comes as no surprise that I would raise the comments of the chairman of the Standing Committee on Finance who has been quite explicit about the attack on the universality which these programs generate.
I think we have seen in this debate a clear recognition that these steps that the government is taking move our programs more toward the Americanization of our social programs and toward the end of universality. What the chairman of the finance committee said is that we have

November 20, 1989
decided to eliminate universality-although the clawback may be unfair and sneaky it is there.


MOTION TO ADJOURN UNDER S. O. 52 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE-SPEAKER'S RULING
Mr. Speaker:: I hesitate to the interrupt the hon. member. If there is still time, I am sure the hon. member will rise later on in the day. I thank him for his courtesy in allowing me to interrupt.
Earlier today there were two applications, one by the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition and the other by the Leader of the New Democratic Party, the hon. member for Oshawa, asking for an emergency debate later on today with respect to a court case which is presently adjourned to December 18.
There have been suggestions by a witness in the case, and I have read the transcript very carefully, to the effect that political considerations may have played a part in whether charges were or were not laid. I point out that the examination of that particular witness is not complete and will continue again in December, presumably. That is the way the court left the matter.
The application before me is for an emergency debate. It is a very important one and I think all members on both sides of the House would want to accept that. At least for today I do not think that the application meets the requirements for an emergency debate and I so order.


Mr. Boudria:: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I could get a clarification from Your Honour. As you may have heard, my colleague for York Centre rose on a point of order some time ago and was trying to get an indication from the Speaker as to whether questions this afternoon would be permitted on the same topic for the same rule.
Am I to assume that refusal of the Speaker for the emergency debate also applies to the sub judice issue in relation to Question Period, or is that a separate ruling from Mr. Speaker that will come later?


Mr. Speaker:: I thank the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell. I, of course, was notified that the hon. member for York Centre did raise this question.
I want hon. members to know that there are two issues here. The one I have just ruled on is that at least today we are not proceeding to set aside the business of the House for an emergency debate. The considerations that go into whether or not an emergency debate should be allowed are well known to hon. members. It should be a matter that the debate can effect one way or the other, and it should be something that cannot be dealt with in any other way. I have now ruled that at least for today there is to be no emergency debate.
There was a second question. The second question concerns my ruling of some days ago about the convention, which is just that, that reference not be made in this Chamber to proceedings in a criminal case while that case is continuing. The ruling I made was that it would not be appropriate to withdraw the convention and that the sub judice rule ought to apply. I think I indicated to the hon. member for York Centre that he may indeed want to argue that matter further at some other time. That is always a privilege of any member. But at the moment the ruling does stand.
It being one o'clock p.m. I do now leave the chair until two o'clock p.m.
At 1.07 the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, yesterday Bill 8 of the Ontario Legislature came into effect. This law is a historic step in the evolution of our society.
From now on, Francophones in Ontario will be entitled to service in their mother tongue from Ontario government departments and agencies.
November 20, 1989

Although French has not yet been declared an official language in Ontario, this timely initiative of the Peterson Government is worthy of praise in this House.
I therefore have the honour, on behalf of my colleagues in the Liberal caucus, to congratulate Ontario's Minister of Francophone Affairs, the Hon. Charles Beer, his predecessor, the Hon. Bernard Grandmaitre, and the Premier, the Hon. David Peterson, for then-leadership on this issue.
The wisdom and broad-mindedness of this government will certainly be an example in years to come.


UN DECLARATION OF RIGHTS OF CHILDREN
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, today on the thirtieth anniversary of the Declaration of the Rights of Children, the United Nations General Assembly approved a comprehensive convention on the rights of the child.
Canadians can be proud that we are recognized as one of the strongest supporters of the convention and have played an important role in its drafting.
The document contains 54 articles establishing international standards for our children's social, economic, political, religious, cultural and civic rights.
As Canadians, we are concerned that millions of children at home and abroad live in conditions of extreme poverty.
More than 40,000 children around the world die each day from preventable childhood diseases. As many as 100 million children around the world are homeless.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, however, is only a first step. Countries ratifying the convention must put in place measures which will guarantee children their rights. In Canada, this could be done by establishing a national bill of rights for children, as my colleague from Mission-Coquitlam has suggested in her private members' motion. The Government of Canada should take immediate action to end the immoral situation of 151,000 Canadian children each month depending on food banks for their meals.


Mr. Maurice Tremblay (Lotbiniere):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out the wonderful victory of the Victoriaville Vulkins in the Quebec college football AA finals, better known as the "Gold Bowl", Mr. Speaker, for the second year in a row.
Not only is it important to mention the talent and discipline of these students, who from the beginning of their school year had to show a sense of responsibility worthy of young people who can reach the highest goals, but also their coaches, including Yvon Pare and Jacques Dumont, who were more than trainers and became guides and friends thus helping these student athletes bring out their full potential. Reaching the top is already an achievement, but staying there is an even greater one. Bravo, Victoriaville Vulkins!


COLCHESTER REGIONAL HOSPITAL
Mr. Bill Casey (Cumberland-Colchester):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize a significant achievement in my riding.
The campaign chairman of the Colchester Regional Hospital Foundation fund raising committee, Mr. Tom Stanfield and his 15 directors are to be congratulated on organizing a fund raising campaign for an expansion of the Colchester Regional Hospital. The generosity of the people of both Truro and Colchester counties and the value they put on their communities is clearly shown by their terrific gesture of goodwill in the most tangible medium, that of cash donations. These funds, amounting to almost $1.4 million, will be complemented by funding for the province of Nova Scotia and the municipality toward phase two expansion of the Colchester Hospital to improve the extensive care unit, eye care unit, additional surgical facilities, a rehabilitation centre, nuclear medicine, 50 additional beds and additional space.
Congratulations are in order for the committee and also the 250 businesses which donated as well as the 6,200 individuals. The result will be that more medical and health services will now be available for Truro and surrounding area.

November 20, 1989


EL SALVADOR
Mrs. Christine Stewart (Northumberland):: Mr. Speaker, on Friday, March 17 of this year, Father Ignacio Ellacuria, the Jesuit rector of the University of Central America, told me and other members of the Mission for Peace in El Salvador that "despite appearances we in El Salvador have never been closer to peace although we have a long way to go". Father Ellacuria was internationally respected for his courageous support of the use of dialogue and negotiations to resolve the El Salvadoran conflict. We deplore the brutal and senseless murder of this man, his five colleagues and two staff by the El Salvadoran military as witnessed last week.
As a new member of the OAS, Canada must exert independent and distinctive initiatives to achieve an immediate cease-fire and a negotiated settlement to the conflict in El Salvador. "Monitoring" of the situation is insufficient and unacceptable as a Canadian response. Canada must officially take up the baton from the slain priests of El Salvador and courageously use every diplomatic facility to demonstrate its commitment to peace and the people of El Salvador. Delivery of increased humanitarian assistance through Canadian NGOs and multilateral channels must be assured.
The human rights of all, but especially of civilians, must be protected. Canadian volunteers such as Karen Ridd of Peace Brigades International must be assured safety. The U.S. must be pressured to stop its unsuccessful eight year long aid program to the El Salvador military.


CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM
Mr.   Brian@: Mr. Speaker, one of the greatest challenges facing Canada today is constitutional reform. We all know that we need a strong constitutional vision of Canada and we also know that our attempt to meet this important need has been challenged. However, we cannot retreat from what we have achieved. Instead we must advance and resolve the difficult problems. We must not deny the differences among us but rather further define what is special about ourselves and our way of life.
Our challenge as nation builders is to restructure our attitudes so that we can see ourselves in terms of what we have contributed to this great nation and what we have received in return. Having accomplished this, we must work together to identify those things that as Canadians make us the same. Let us work together to find the common ground and build a strong Constitution. Let us work together for a better Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


CANADIAN FOOTBALL LEAGUE
Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, if you would permit me, I would like to raise a non-partisan topic in the House. I am sure that you are as thrilled as I am that the Saskatchewan Rough Riders thrashed the Edmonton Eskimos in the western final yesterday by a score of 32 to 31.1 am sure you are as thrilled as I am too that our sometimes boastful and cocky friends have been put in their place. Perhaps your deputy could have done some good for the Edmonton Eskimos but unfortunately he was not there. Maybe even the Premier should have called in a play or two to the bench.
Now it is on to the Grey Cup and the Hamilton Tiger Cats. I cannot help but notice that the member for Hamilton East has been mumbling, moaning and muttering something about her banker. I would suggest instead of wasting the money of her banker on a race of nobodies for some dubious prize of another Albertan city in about seven months, perhaps she should put that money up front and arrange a little wager with me on the outcome of the football game and contribute the earnings of that wager to some worth-while charity. That might be more worth while.


COPYRIGHT ACT
Barbara Greene: Mr. Speaker, I urge the hon. Minister of Communications to table phase two of the Copyright Act in the House of Commons without further delay. The laws that now stand provide no exemptions for Canada's educational research and library community. Indeed, they are forced to break the law every day just as members of Parliament,
November 20, 1989

the parliamentary library, caucus services and millions of Canadians across Canada do.
Canadians want access to copyrighted material and do not want creators to use the rights they have been granted in the copyright legislation to control criticism, research, education and discussion in classrooms and public forums.
Canadians also want to know who will have to pay the $30 million to $40 million that CANCOPY copy estimates will be raised. Is it libraries, provincial ministries of education, universities, Parliament, businesses and other organizations throughout the country? And who is to receive the revenues: Torstar, Key Publishers and other members of CANCOPY, International creators or American creators who are not entitled to similar compensation in their own country?


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, on November 13, 1989, 200 farmers from my riding held a demonstration in Amos, attended by the president of the Abitibi-Temiscamingue UPA, Mr. Denis Jutras, and Mr. Gilles Berube, president of the Amos UPA. The main concerns of our farmers are: A stronger GATT Article 11; quotas on yogurt and ice cream; protecting the option of maintaining import quotas on primary and processed products and ensuring that so-called "over-processed" products are included. Mr. Speaker, in Abitibi, people stand united, and I want to make it clear that I support the claims of the farmers of Abitibi-Temiscamingue.


MEECH LAKE ACCORD
Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Mr. Speaker, as the Prime Minister considers his next step with the premiers on the Constitution, he will remember that constitutional change must unify our country, not divide it. I saw these flaws, therefore I voted no to Meech Lake Accord.
S. ft 31
Canadians are restless about their future. Can First Ministers find unity when the Prime Minister appears to refuse openness and where the need for consensus seems to have disappeared?
It is not a question of Quebec's place in Canada, that is understood. But let us remember that Quebec had agreed in principle in 1965 and in 1971 and then said no. Women had equality concerns in 1981, the charter was re-opened and amended; no fragile web was destroyed. Now if other provinces have concerns, will the Prime Minister listen and seek consensus? Can the chance for resolution be missed by excess language, personal attack, or boxing in people? It is the Prime Minister's duty to reset the tone and agenda, not for horse trading, but for consensus building for Canada.
Across the country, Canadians are saddened because this is a time for federal-provincial confrontation, not national reconciliation. It is time to move toward harmony and dialogue that allows all Canadians equal rights and the opportunity to live together and grow together in mutual respect.


FISHERIES
Mr. Stan Wilbee (Delta):: Mr. Speaker, Canada is continuing its leadership role in international environmental protection by co-sponsoring a United Nations resolution on the ban of high seas drift-net fishing. This ban would take effect on June 30, 1992, and also proposes an immediate freeze on expansion of the North Pacific drift-net activity. This follows Canada's 1987 ban on drift-netting in our 200 mile zone, a step later followed by other nations.
Canada also proposed a working group on alternative technologies to drift-netting at the International North Pacific Fisheries Commission meeting, a proposal that was adopted. It is vital not only to focus attention on this issue, but also to take concrete action to solve a problem which threatens the world ecosystem and the livelihood of Canadian fishermen. Canada is both calling attention to this crisis and taking steps to solve it. I congratulate the Minister of Fisheries and the Secretary of State for External Affairs for their leadership on this matter.

November 20,1989
Oral Questions THE ENVIRONMENT


Mr. Joe Comuzzi (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Mr. Speaker, the Great Lakes is being threatened by the rampant spread of zebra mussels. This biological contaminant was brought into the Great Lakes system in the ballast waters of ships coming in from outside Canada. Paul Hebert, the head of the Great Lakes Institute at the University of Windsor, said that "from a density that was probably a single animal per square metre two years ago, we are now experiencing over 10,000 animals per square metre. These mollusks pose a great challenge to the Great Lakes. Scientists and engineers expect that it will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to correct this problem.
I am glad that the Minister of the Environment is with us today because it is obviously a problem that must be addressed jointly with our friends in the United States. I implore this government, through its Minister of the Environment, to get on this problem of sea mollusks to preserve the environment of the Great Lakes.


BEEF IMPORTS
Mr. Bob Porter (Medicine Hat):: Mr. Speaker, over the past few years the government of Nicaragua has been shipping increased amounts of beef into Canada. As a result of the U.S. embargo in 1985 on products from Nicaragua, exports of beef from that country into Canada have climbed from 3 million pounds in 1986 to 22 million pounds last year. Shipments so far this year have reached 32 million pounds and are expected to go as high as 40 million pounds by the end of the year. Nicaragua is now shipping 92 per cent of its total beef exports to Canada. It has chosen Canada as its only market for beef. The lower price but lower quality imports will cost the Canadian beef industry between $40 million and $50 million in lost income. It is apparent that Nicaraguan officials do not wish to co-operate in voluntary restraint of shipments of beef into Canada.
Other signatories to the GATT are not permitting access to this product and Canada is becoming the dumping ground for a lot of the world's excess beef. We have become a victim of our own meat import act. The Canadian industry wishes to be fair traders but imports of this magnitude are not only unfair but are harmful to a
viable Canadian industry, as well as placing our trading relationships with other countries in jeopardy. I think the time is long overdue to carefully consider the measures to be taken before more harm is down to one of the most viable sectors of Canadian agriculture.


EL SALVADOR
Ms. Lynn Hunter (Saanich-Gulf Islands):: Mr. Speaker, the barbaric murder of Rev. Ellacuria, the rector at the University of Central America, and five other Jesuits last Thursday is a horrible symbol of the Salvadoran government's approach to ending that country's decade-old civil war. I met Rev. Ellacuria last March when I was in El Salvador. He was a man of God, a man of peace, a man who was playing a key role as a mediator between the government and the FMLN. I, along with all who had hoped for an early political solution to the war, grieve his death.
We should be aware that these murders were not just murders. They were statements. The bodies were mutilated in such a way as to make clear the contempt the military, those who are really running things, have for attempts at thoughtful solutions to the war. The attack at the university is a severe blow to prospects for peace in El Salvador. The deaths of such prominent leaders of the community will make moderation and compromise difficult. There will be no peace in El Salvador while the United States is providing support for the government's atrocities, as well as over $1 million a day in military assistance.
I call on the Canadian government to condemn the actions of the death squads at the UN Security Council.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Right Hon. John N. Dimer@Leader of the Opposition: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Deputy Prime Minister. On April 27 in this House the Prime Minister said this about the possibility of profit-taking from the leak of the budget:
November 20, 1989

The Solicitor General has said that if any information comes to him,
he will report to the House immediately.
On May 19 the Solicitor General told the House, and I use his words:
The investigation couldn't find any evidence to the effect that some
people could have profited from the budget leak.
It was revealed last week, when the House was not sitting, that Canadian National Railways signed a memorandum of understanding for a $50 million deal to lease locomotives financed in part by Mutual Life of Canada, all this on April 26, and that CN subsequently backed out of the deal when it learned that advance knowledge of the federal budget might be involved.
Why, in the seven months since the Prime Minister gave his undertaking to the House of Commons that any new information would be brought to the attention of the House, was that information about the Canadian National leasing deal never made public by the Solicitor General or by any other member of the Government?


Hon. Pierre Blais (Solicitor General of Canada and Minister of State (Agriculture)):: Mr. Speaker, we must remember that it is extremely important that any information that comes to the attention of any person, including opposition members, must be handed over immediately to the RCMP and investigated by that police force. I believe that in the circumstances, the important thing is that the RCMP has all the facts so that it can conduct a proper investigation, and that is what is happening now, Mr. Speaker.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, that is no answer at all. Indeed, the RCMP had the information, at least on September 27, because according to a letter of that date from P. M. Cummins, the Director of National Security Investigations from the RCMP, reporting through his superiors to the Solicitor General: "Rumours relating to the intention of the government to increase taxes on leased equipment were emanating from Mutual's tax department in Waterloo, Ontario. This information was passed on to a consultant advising a Crown corporation which the following day, in anticipation of the tax increase, signed a letter of understanding
Oral Questions
on April 26 for a multi-million dollar lease, financed in part by Mutual Life of Canada, which would have allowed a 13 per cent to 17 per cent pre-budget saving". Those are the words from the letter.
In other words, CN signed a deal the day before the Prime Minister made his undertaking to the House of Commons that any information would be brought immediately to the attention of the House. Does the government still claim that no one could have profited from the budget leak, and who were the financial consultants who arranged that deal for Canadian National Railways?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister, President of the Privy Council and Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat perplexed by the line of questioning that the right hon. gentleman is following because he was alleging earlier today that there are allegations of political interference in the activities of the RCMP. Really what he is suggesting here is that we should be interfering with the process of the RCMP investigation.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Well, if hon. members opposite do not want to take it seriously, Mr. Speaker, I do and I think you do, Sir, and other members of this House want it. The hon. member talks about rumours; he talks about the potential of profit taking. If he has any evidence to suggest that there was profit taking, which would be contrary to and violating the spirit of the budget, he should come forth with that information, turn it over to the House of Commons, give it to me, give it to the RCMP. That is his responsibility. Why does he not start living up to it rather than being engaged in the kind of irresponsible rhetoric in which we have been engaged?


John Napier Turner: That is the most turgid smoke-screen this Deputy Prime Minister has ever tried to emit. The information was in the hands of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and, therefore, should have been in the hands of the Solicitor General and, therefore, should have been given to the House of Commons.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Napier Turner: Come on. That is right. There is no information that I had to bring to the attention of this government; it had possession of this kind of document.

November 20, 1989
Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, since the Solicitor General gave us a very ambiguous answer, Canadian National, which is a Crown corporation, made a deal connected with the budget leak. Later, CN apparently withdrew. When did CN withdraw from this deal? When did the Minister of Transport find out that CN had made a deal? When did the Solicitor General find out about this deal? When did the Minister of Finance find out about this deal which was an attempt to get around his Budget? Again, my question is: Why did the Solicitor General fail to inform the House of Commons for seven months, of the deal made by the CN?


Pierre Blais: Mr. Speaker, I find it hard to understand what the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition is driving at. When I report here in the House of Commons on information that I have been given by the Commissioner of the RCMP, the Government is accused of interfering with the RCMP's investigations. When the Goverment does not intervene and lets the police do its work and conduct its investigation, they say we are not doing our job. I think you should make up your mind and tell us exactly what you think we should be doing.
Mr. Speaker, I feel that what we have done is hand over all the facts to the RCMP which is an honourable police force. All the facts known to us are handed over to the RCMP. It has to conduct its investigation, and it is up to the RCMP to decide when to lay charges. That is how things are done in a democratic country like Canada, and I do not intend to change the way we do things.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, my question is also for the Deputy Prime Minister. I think I am in a position to challenge the statements just made by the Solicitor General about the degree to which this government believes that the RCMP should be allowed to do its own work.
Last week a hearing was held by the Quebec Order of Engineers in Montreal into one of the bribes that was paid to Michel Gravel, the former Tory MP. An engineer, Jean-Niel Plotte, who was asked for the bribe said that Bernard Roy, the Prime Minister's then principal secretary told him that the RCMP investigation would only be a little in-house investigation and that there were not supposed to be any charges laid. That is a direct quote. On what basis would the Prime Minister's office be able to give such an assurance about the RCMP whose
independence is supposed to be protected by the government and not compromised by it. Does this Prime Minister's office think that they run the RCMP?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member, I am sure, is aware that this matter was in fact turned over to the RCMP as soon as it was brought to the attention of the Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council Office. Charges have been laid. What more does the hon. member want? Does he want to go back and renege on the charges?
I find the line of questioning rather bizarre. First, the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition suggests that the RCMP should turn over all its information with regard to an investigation to the Solicitor General. I do not know much about law, but I know enough about the process of justice that that would be totally unfair. Maybe that is why the hon. Leader of the Opposition finds himself in so much difficulty, if that is the kind of approach he takes to running the affairs of his Party and leading a once proud national party.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: The laying of charges and the conviction that followed is an important side, but only one side of the responsibility. Here is evidence from the Prime Minister's Office that it believes that it is running the RCMP.

After the investigation, Michel Gravelle said that the $75,000 he received was not much, and that others were getting $300,000 or $400,000.


Don Boudria: Who?


Robert Phillip Kaplan: That's what he said.
Will the government act responsibly and investigate these claims? Has the government done anything about identifying these people and cleaning up its act?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is talking about a news story that arose out of an exchange with respect to an engineer's disciplinary body. I am not going to engage in commenting on speculation and comments of that nature. The RCMP were called in and conducted an investigation. If the hon. member has any questions to raise about the method and the thoroughness of the RCMP investigation, there are ways and means in which he can follow that through with an appropriate line of questioning before the committee. Other mechanisms are available with regard to provisions that have been provided for with respect to the
November 20, 1989

RCMP, including internal investigations and other appropriate mechanisms put in place by this government.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister for External Relations.
A young Canadian woman was arrested by the army this morning in a church in San Salvador, and with her, three American nuns.
What has the Government done to obtain the release of this young Canadian woman?


Hon. Monique Landry (Minister for External Relations):: Mr. Speaker, we are aware of the arrest to which the Leader of the Opposition referred.
Last week, we made representations when the Lutheran minister was arrested. Today, we have people down there who will meet the authorities to ensure that the young woman is released as soon as possible.
Mr. Speaker, I may add that a number of Canadians are over there at the present time. Last week, they were all asked by the honorary consul to stay inside, not take any risks and, if possible, return to Canada.
We are monitoring the situation very closely, and we are, of course, very concerned about what is happening in San Salvador.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, as the minister and as all other observers will have noted, the situation in San Salvador is getting worse, not better. The death squads continue to act with impugnity. The Government of Spain, as I understand it, has now withdrawn its ambassador. The Attorney General of San Salvador in effect signed death notices for a couple of bishops last night when he went on television. He warned them to get out of the country.
Oral Questions
Considering that the situation is getting worse, not better and that the death squads are, I repeat, acting with impugnity, will the Canadian Government now use its newly established membership in the OAS to directly urge the United States Government to cease military assistance to the government in El Salvador?


Monique Landry: Mr. Speaker, we are of course very concerned about what is happening at this time in El Salvador. As the Secretary of State for External Affairs pointed out last week, we are applying all possible pressure to stop this carnage so that peace talks may be resumed.
We were relieved to hear that the Secretary General of the OAS arrived in El Salvador yesterday. Canada's official representative had a meeting with the Secretary General, and we are of course looking at every possible means of getting the parties to at least accept a ceasefire, so that we can help the people who have been affected by the present fighting.
We will continue to apply pressure, and as the Hon. Member mentioned, we will use our new position within the OAS, to try and make the carnage stop and have peace talks resume as soon as possible.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, as the minister will know, Senator Kerry from Massachusetts in the United States has already said that American weapons are being used to kill innocent people. He, as an American, has called for the cessation of using such weapons for such horrific purposes. I repeat again and ask the minister: Since one of the criticisms made of our government in the past about membership in the OAS was that it would not use its independence but would always follow whatever was decided in Washington, and given the facts that most observers believe to be facts, that the government is sanctioning right-wing death-squad activity against innocent people, will the government now ask the American government to cease providing weapons to the government in El Salvador?


Monique Landry: Mr. Speaker, this government has its own policy and has always reacted very quickly to try to

November 20, 1989
Oral Questions
help the cause of peace in countries throughout the world. Here again, we will continue to apply pressure so that peace talks can be resumed and this carnage, which we all deplore as Canadians and as free citizens, will be stopped as soon as possible.


Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the two ministers responsible for immigration, I direct my question to the Deputy Prime Minister. It concerns the deteriorating situation in El Salvador.
The Deputy Prime Minister is fully aware that fighting has certainly reached new heights in that country and that the recent brutal killings of innocent people, including civilians and religious leaders, has gripped that country, put it into a state of panic, fear and uncertainty.
I therefore ask the Deputy Prime Minister: In light of these new circumstances in El Salvador, will the government put into force an immediate moratorium like it has for Lebanon and China on the deportation of refugee claimants back to El Salvador until and at least a state of normalcy returns to that country? Will the Deputy Prime Minister give the House that undertaking?


Mr. Bill Kempling (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, the government has in place a generous and effective refugee determination system and at the present time 99 per cent of all El Salvadorans seeking refugee status in Canada are accepted as refugees.
Before the other 1 per cent would be removed from the country, their cases would be reviewed by senior immigration officials at national headquarters. If they cannot come to a clear decision, the minister herself will look at the case.


Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, I regret that answer because the member seems to be saying: "Well, if there is only 1 per cent that are returned, so what, because we have already accepted another percentage".


Some Hon. Members:: Sit down.


Mr. Bouchard (Roberval):: That's not what he said.


Sergio Marchi: Perhaps I could direct my question to the Minister for External Relations who just responded to a question by the leader of the New Democratic Party pertaining to that part of the world.
Could the minister explain to us therefore why she believes and why she deems, according to this government, that El Salvador is safe for claimants to be returned?


Mr. Shields:: Who said that?


Sergio Marchi: I believe that they are not proper and judicious statements in terms of China and in Lebanon, and I believe that the same standards of a moratorium on deportations should be applied equally to El Salvador.
Could she give us reassurance on why she feels it is "safe" to do a case by case review rather than impose an immediate foolproof moratorium?


William James Kempling: Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether the hon. gentleman cannot hear properly, but 99 per cent is 99 per cent. They stay here; they stay here. As I said, 99 per cent is 99 per cent. They stay here.


Sergio Marchi: But one is too many.


William James Kempling: The other 1 per cent is reviewed, and under no circumstances will they be sent back to El Salvador-


Sergio Marchi: Eight have been returned already.


William James Kempling: -while existing conditions continue.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Agriculture.
Farmers across the country are rallying against the policies of this government. Tomorrow thousands and thousands of farmers from Quebec and Ontario will be rallying to protest here on the Hill.
Last week the president of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, Garf Stevenson, called on the government to live up to the promises of the Prime Minister in December 1987 that as long as the trade war between the EEC and the United States continued the Government of Canada would continue to provide support to those farmers, and he called on the Government of Canada to provide some $500 million worth of support during this winter to assist western farmers.
Is the Deputy Prime Minister willing to make a commitment today that the Prime Minister's commitment back in December 1987 will be honoured and that
November 20, 1989

this additional funding to hard-pressed farmers will be provided?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I am encouraged by the fact that many farmers are wanting to become involved in the policy review and policy development process which I believe are overdue in terms of establishing a truly national agri-food policy to meet all the specific needs and requirements of each of the regions and each of the sectors.
In that regard we will be holding a national policy seminar in Ottawa on December 11 and December 12. As the hon. member knows, I am sure, my colleagues and I have met with all agricultural groups to talk about the basic pillars and principles that go into the foundation of that review. That dialogue has been ongoing and will continue.
I hope we will be able to make some progress at the meeting of December 11 and December 12. At that particular time we will also be addressing the very important issues of safety nets, stabilization programs and crop insurance programs, which are very vital to stability and confidence within the agricultural system.
I would hope that the hon. member would be involved in that process as well, and I welcome his input.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the same minister.
In the same presentation to the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool annual meeting, the president of the Saskatchewan pool called on the government not to unilaterally cut government programs.
The budget of the Minister of Finance last spring cut $500 million worth of support to farmers at a time when the United States was not cutting any of its programs. In fact the Export Enhancement Program has been juiced up by another $90 million to directly affect sales of Canadian wheat to countries like Algeria.
Why is the Government of Canada unilaterally cutting these programs before any negotiations start on a subsidy code? Why is the government selling out Canadian farmers at a time when they need their help?
Oral Questions


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, in the days of the Liberal government the average support for the grains and oilseeds sector between 1981 and 1984 was something like $326 million on an annualized basis. Between the period 1985 and 1989 the annualized support for the grains and oilseeds sector rose to $2.4 billion. That certainly does not strike me as a government that is walking away from supporting the agriculture industry, particularly the grains and oilseeds sector. He should be applauding us instead of condemning us.


JUSTICE
Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General. It concerns the new and very serious allegations that were made by the former Member of Parliament, the former Conservative member of parliament for Gamelin, Mr. Gravel, who as the minister recalls pleaded guilty last Februaiy to criminal charges including the taking of bribes.
In sworn evidence before a disciplinary hearing of the Quebec Order of Engineers 10 days ago Mr. Gravel said: "I have been harassed a hell of a lot for only $40,000. A lot of other people are taking in $300,000 and $400,000".
Bearing in mind the earlier allegations by the former member for Rosemount or the current member for Duvemay who said he could put a dozen people into jail with what he knew, I ask the Solicitor General: Has the Solicitor General asked the RCMP, and in particular the National Security Investigations Directorate established to look into corruption, to examine with great care these very serious new allegations of corruption by a former Conservative colleague of his?


Pierre Blais: Mr. Speaker, there is always a danger in making such allegations from the floor of the House of Commons. I must tell the hon. member that if he has any information concerning whom ever he has a responsibility, as I and every other member in this House have to make that information available to

November 20, 1989
Oral Questions
the RCMP so that it may investigate adequately. But as long we have allegations only-


An Hon. Member:: They have already been made!


Pierre Blais: These are allegations. What you should do is go directly to the RCMP, and out of respect for-


An Hon. Member:: Answer the question!


Pierre Blais: May I have an opportunity to answer, Mr. Speaker?


An Hon. Member:: You are not answering!


Pierre Blais: Out of respect for basic freedoms in Canada, this is the proper way to act. The information must be made available to the RCMP so that it may investigate. If you have any information, go to the RCMP.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, it is not up to me to run the RCMP. This minister is responsible to Canadian citizens for that.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Svend Johannes Robinson: That is his job.


Mr. Andre:: Instead of throwing mud, throw some facts. [Translation]


Svend Johannes Robinson: This is the former Conservative member who is making those charges. Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. In view of the fact that Mr. Gravel pleaded guilty after a lengthy court battle, neither did the court nor the public have an opportunity to hear the evidence that would have been adduced had there been a trial. Mr. Speaker, we heard very serious allegations of telephone conversations between the Prime Minister's office and the engineer involved. I am now asking the Deputy Prime Minister: Does he now believe that the time has come finally to launch an urgent investigation into political interference in the administration of justice in Canada? When are they going to act?


Pierre Blais: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member once more asks for a public inquiry, he blames me for not stepping in and directing the RCMP to take this or that course of action. I am wondering what the Hon. Member wants, Mr. Speaker? One should indeed let the RCMP have the facts. One should make them available to the RCMP and ask it to review them. But it is not for the Solicitor
General nor any government member to tell the RCMP what it should do. This government's view is that the RCMP should be independent, it should be free to investigate as it seems fit, and we will respect its independence.


AGRICULTURE
Guy St-Julien: My question is directed to the Minister of State for Agriculture (Mr. Blais), Mr. Speaker. Faced with the changes now going on in the economy of Canada and the world, farmers from Abitibi-Temiscamingue and Quebec will come to Ottawa tomorrow afternoon to make the Canadian government aware of their concerns.
Mr. Speaker, my question is this: Can the Minister tell me today whether he could receive the principal leaders of the UPA (Quebec farmers' union) tomorrow before the demonstration to discuss some issues of concern to them, especially on the Quebec provincial scene?


Pierre Blais: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. Yes, we have already taken action. With the Prime Minister at the head, a group of us, including the Minister for International Trade, the Minister of Agriculture and myself, met the leaders of Quebec's farmers just a few weeks ago and we discussed the problems these farmers are going through. We will meet them whenever the need arises. I believe that we have always been available, unlike the previous Government, whose Prime Minister did not see fit to meet them once during his 16 years in power. In our case, the Prime Minister has met the leaders of Quebec's farmers at least eight or nine times, Mr. Speaker. This shows our Government's interest in farmers. We will continue to defend their interests, Mr. Speaker, have no fear!


MEMBERS OF THE SENATE
Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister responsible for the Federal Business Development Bank. It concerns
November 20,1989

the other thorn on the side of the government, the Cogger affair.
Ministers of this House have contradicted each other no less than three times, finally concluding that Senator Cogger had not worked for the Federal Business Development Bank since his appointment to the Senate and that the senator himself in the other place actually insinuated such as well.
Given that Mr. Mark Rosenstein, a senior partner in the law firm of Lapointe Rosenstein, has now confirmed through a reporter for The Globe and Mail on November 13 that Senator Cogger had worked for the Federal Business Development Bank before and during his tenure as a member of the Senate, how can the minister reconcile the statement of Mr. Mark Rosenstein with the ones made by himself and by his colleague, the Minister of State for Small Businesses?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, the RCMP is currently undertaking an investigation into this matter.


Mr. Robichaud:: How about some facts?


Harvie Andre: The other place is undertaking an investigation of this matter.
I have no ability nor any desire to look into the internal operations of the law firm of Lapointe Rosenstein. I am sure the hon. member would agree, if he thinks about it and if it is truth in getting to the bottom of this issue that he is after, that we would be well advised rather than abusing bits and pieces of evidence here and there as the occasion arises to let the RCMP investigation take its course, let the Senate investigation take its course, and in the end we will all know the true situation in a more factual, fair and open fashion.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, whether or not there is an RCMP investigation does not mean that this minister is no longer responsible for the administration of his own department. I want to ask him a supplementary question.

Is the Minister now prepared to tell us and repeat to us what he said on November 1 in the House of Commons:
I am convinced, on the information it (the Bank) has provided, that its behaviour is unassailable.
Oral Questions
Is the Minister still of the opinion that the behaviour of the Federal Business Development Bank is unassailable in the way it awards contracts or makes loans? Is he still ready to say that today?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, of course I am ready to stand by the information given to me by the FBDB.
The hon. member seems more interested in talking to his neighbour than hearing this. He scored his political points. I guess that takes care of it.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


PUBLIC SERVICE ALLIANCE OF CANADA
Mr. Ron MacDonald (Dartmouth):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the President of the Treasury Board and it concerns his department's policy of wage discrimination which has forced nearly 1,300 men and women employed as ship's crews on the east coast out on the picket line.
The government talks a good game of pay equity, but in the case of east coast ships' crews Treasury Board has steadfastly refused to conclude a contract that would pay these workers the same wage as their west coast counterparts for doing exactly the same job.
My question is this: Will the minister affirm his support for the principle of pay equity and, if so, is he now prepared to order his negotiators to close that wage gap not in the fourth year of a new contract but immediately upon signing of a new contract?


Hon. Robert de Cotret (President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, to answer my hon. colleague, I can tell him that officials of the Treasury Board have been instructed to resume negotiations as soon as we have an indication from the union that meaningful discussions can get under way.
That has been my policy all along. It is an open door policy where we are willing to sit at the table and iron out these difficulties as they come up. We would certainly welcome the union coming back to the table as soon as possible.


Ronald MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, paying a person less based on their gender or colour is unacceptable to Canadians. It should be unacceptable to this government because what the government has been doing is paying people according to where they live in

November 20, 1989
Oral Questions
this country. That is equally as abhorrent and just as discriminatory.
My supplementary question is for the same minister. In light of the fact that in the next few weeks thousands of fishermen will be out in the Atlantic at perhaps the worst time of the year as the new lobster fishing season opens, without the full protection of the Canadian Coast Guard and fisheries patrol vessels as a direct result of this fully avoidable strike, will the minister finally put his money where his mouth is and give wage parity to these east coast workers now? Or, is he content to wait for tragedy and loss of life before he comes to his senses, does the right thing and conclude a decent agreement with these workers?


Robert René de Cotret: Mr. Speaker, I can only assure my colleagues opposite and all Canadians that we are very conscious of safety and security. We have made all the contingency plans necessary to ensure the safety and security of Canadians during this labour dispute.
Once again, I strongly invite the unions to come back to the table and have meaningful discussions so that this issue can be resolved once and for all.


RIGHTS OF CHILDREN
Ms. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. Canada endorses the United Nations convention on the rights of the child which will be passed today, but we are in breach of this convention at home in Canada. Over 150,000 children each month line up at institutionalized food banks. This is a national disgrace. It is immoral.
What are the Deputy Prime Minister and his government doing to eradicate child hunger in Canada?


Mrs. Lise Bourgault (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Clearly, Mr. Speaker, all the members of the House of Commons are quite concerned about the problem of child poverty in Canada. In previous statements, the Minister of National Health and Welfare has described what the Government is doing, together with the provinces, to deal with the problem of child poverty in this country. The provinces have implemented programs to feed hungry children. Under the Canada Assistance Plan, we can help them too, but again we are quite concerned with this problem and I am sure that the Minister of National Health and Welfare could give a more complete answer some other time, Mr. Speaker.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, our national government has a responsibility and has signed an agreement at the United Nations to this effect. We are in negligence in this respect. Obviously government measures are not working when hundreds of thousands of hungry kids have to eat from food banks. What we need is more affordable housing, higher minimum wage levels and incomes above the poverty line.
As a senior minister of this government, will the Deputy Prime Minister undertake in the upcoming year to make hungry children a priority? Will he increase the family allowance and the child tax credit, as well as undertake other measures to eradicate child poverty?
We have done it for seniors. We have almost eradicated poverty. Why can we not make children a priority next year?


Lise Bourgault: Since 1984, Mr. Speaker, the government has implemented measures which, although not perfect, have nevertheless been useful. For instance, we have doubled the child tax credit from $367 to $565 per child in 1989. The Refundable Sales Tax Credit was adopted in 1986 to help low income families, and 850,000 Canadians were struck from the tax roll through the tax reform. In addition to the day care program which will be further discussed in the House, we have increased the Refundable Child Tax Credit. Of course, I agree that this is not perfect, but in view of the budget cuts we must deal with, our record in this respect is far better than that of the previous government, Mr. Speaker.
November 20,1989


TRANSPORTATION
Mr.   Brian@: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport.
In the past the provinces of Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan have expressed their intention not to adopt in provincial legislation the national standard for truck drivers' hours of service. As this situation could make the national safety standard virtually unenforceable, could the minister provide this House with an update to this potentially difficult situation?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, it is true that three western provinces have not yet adopted those regulations.
On October 20 there was a meeting in Vancouver between the provinces and the officers of Transport Canada. We made a proposal. We are expecting an answer from the provinces, and we expect to be able to make an announcement soon.


PROPOSED GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
M. Douglas Young: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance.
The Minister is well aware that a number of Tory Members seem ready to extend the goods and services tax to the sale of existing houses. I am quite concerned about their approach.
Because Canadians deserve to know, my question to the Minister of Finance is this: Does his government intend to extend its new goods and services sales tax to every house being sold in Canada? Under its proposed policy, is the government bent on taxing not only food, but also existing as well as new houses?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I have not seen the finance committee report. I am sure my hon. friend is aware of what is in it, but at this point I am not. Whatever comes out of that report is a decision on the part of the committee. Whether it is a majority report or a unanimous report, I am sure he will have something to say on it as well.
Oral Questions
At this point in time the government's view is the proposal that is on the table, the proposal that is set out in the technical paper. That does not include the taxation of existing houses. It has the taxation of new houses but with a generous rebate in order to offset the impact on new houses to meet the commitment we made as a government a year ago last September in stating that the GST would not adversely affect the affordability of housing.


M. Douglas Young: Mr. Speaker, I have another question for the Minister of Finance. Recently we were told by the Minister of Finance that behind closed doors provinces were agreeing with his proposed goods and services tax. We are hearing today that the province of Prince Edward Island, which offered to enter into negotiations, was told that it was not important enough to be considered in any negotiations relating to the goods and services tax.
In view of the fact that he no longer wishes to even discuss the matter of the goods and services tax with the provinces, does this mean that finally he has seen the light and is prepared to withdraw his proposal for a goods and services tax?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, the simple answer to that question is: No, I am not prepared to withdraw. I think the hon. member knew that before he stood up and asked the question.
The statement on the part of one of the finance ministers indicated that there was some veracity to what I had said before, but clearly there are some differences of opinion on the part of the provincial governments. The premiers are not in favour of proceeding at this time.
We have said that a preference would be for a national sales tax. We are not doing things in the GST proposal that would preclude that at some later date, but at some later date future governments will have to make that decision.


VIA RAIL
Mr. Robert D. Nault (Kenora-Rainy River):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. Between the months of January and August of this year more than 86,000 people travelled on the VTA train called The Canadian. Information I have received shows

November 20,1989
Tributes
an over-all load factor of 93.8 per cent with most of the routes carrying a load factor of 98 per cent.
How can the Minister of Transport justify eliminating The Canadian from VTA Rail's passenger network with these kind of statistics?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, I am not disputing the numbers given by my colleague opposite, but they should be checked because they are based on two, to four weeks or two to three months.
Mr. Speaker, decisions concerning VIA Rail have been taken and those numbers refer to previous years. It has been proven without a shadow of a doubt that the services use had fallen overall by 20 per cent over the last eight years. The decision has also been based on considerations of national interest and funds available for transportation as a whole. Again, we can check the numbers available.
Obviously, Transport Canada and I will make no decision based on numbers gathered over two or three weeks or two or three months. That is very obvious.
[English)


Robert Daniel Nault: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the same minister. Many Canadians attempting to travel on The Canadian were turned away because the trains were booked to capacity. In my endeavour to get on with the debate and as the minister has discussed, statistics can be looked at in different ways. I asked VIA if it could give me a statistic on how many people were turned away, and lo and behold, they do not keep that statistic. But based on what I have been told, a large number of people are being turned away.
Based on that, would the minister reconsider his decision to eliminate The Canadian now that there are up-to-date statistics? Will he look at the possibility of keeping statistics on those who are turned away at certain periods during the year when the train is full and running at capacity? Those turned away are a statistic and an important one in the debate on VIA Rail and its use in this country.


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, I would like to understand the rationale of my friend and I cannot.
When the trains are full, normally we make a profit. We have to pay $1.5 million a day for the deficit of VIA Rail. We have to put in more and more money and this train, as any other train in the country, does not go over 50 per cent occupancy rate and not over 30 per cent or 35 per cent of cost recovery.
I will explain again what I have said for a couple of months. We cannot afford to put a billion dollars into a system which is not used by Canadians. If we were to turn people away, we would make money and we do not make money.


TRIBUTE TO JEAN-CLAUDE MALEPART
Mr. Speaker:: Hon. Members already know that we have lost a colleague and a friend in the person of Jean-Claude Malepart. I will now ask some of his colleagues to pay tribute to his memory. The Right Hon. Leader of the Official Opposition.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, God has taken from us one of his most faithful children, a man who valued and practised faith, charity and honesty.
Only a disease as merciless as cancer was able to fell Jean-Claude Malepart, a man of gigantic courage, generosity, will and perseverance.

Jean-Claude had the biggest heart in Parliament. He was, in his way, the conscience of the House of Commons. He had a natural eloquence, a commanding presence, always a man of the people, friend of the lonely, champion of the weak and voice of the poor. He was the greatest advocate of his generation of our country's senior citizens.

However, nothing in his youth seemed to prepare him for the important role he played in our society. His mother died a few days after his birth, and his father died when he was 12. He had to drop out of school to work in the factory in order to help support his family.
At this point, his employers noticed that Jean-Claude had a very special talent for helping his fellow citizens organize and for motivating them to carry out their projects. They decided to let him go temporarily and
November 20, 1989

asked him to organize recreational projects in the neighbourhood.
Until the day he died, Jean-Claude was still a member of the union in his factory, released from his job to help the people in the neighbourhood.
Confronted with the tremendous needs of a community with very limited resources, the sports and recreation organizer quickly turned into a community worker.
After years of work and dedication to the needs of his fellow citizens in East Montreal, Jean-Claude finally embarked on a long and successful political career. First in the Quebec National Assembly, where he served for one term, and subsequently here on the federal scene since 1979.
Mr. Speaker, Jean-Claude Malepart worked in this House for more than ten years. Never on the front benches, he was always just an ordinary Member. However, his impact vastly exceeds and for a long time will continue to exceed the usual range of the average member. The fact is, Jean-Claude Malepart was not an average member. Throughout his adult life, he provided the weak, the needy, the elderly and the sick with a voice, motivation and pride. To him, politics was a vocation, a calling. As the altar boy who demanded wage parity for his fellow workers and as the thundering orator who was able to make a government retreat, Jean-Claude Malepart was always guided by the same acute and agressive sense of social justice.
His approach to justice and equity was not theoretical or philosophical. He was totally instinctive, dynamic and marvelously effective.
"When I see injustice", he said, "I don't know why, but I always feel I have to do something to correct it". For him, to see poverty and get angry about it was not enough. He had to take action and do everything humanly possible to find a remedy. His philosophy was very straightforward. It is not enough to condemn injustice. We must do something about it. Actions speak louder than words.
It was this militant, active and resolute approach that made him lead honourable battles such as the fight against deindexation of old age security pensions, his campaign "Tax food: Never!" and the last one, "Lets invest in our health!". These will remain forever, not
Tributes
only in the political history of our country but above all in the hearts and minds of millions of Canadians.

Jean-Claude Malepart's vision of our country was one of justice and equality. He was a proud son of Quebec. By choice, he wanted also to be thoroughly Canadian. His roots and his first loyalty was his home province, but in the 1980 referendum, he fought and fought hard to convince Quebecers that they should also choose Canada.
In his last speech to this House of Commons in April 1989, he begged English-speaking Canada to look at reality as it is and to recognize that Quebec is a distinct society. He was worried about the future of his two daughters. Jean-Claude said that Quebec wants to take its place in Canada adding, and I quote what he said to the House, "We want the assurance that in Quebec, my children will be able to continue to work in French.

A man who, in his youth, dreamed of wearing the uniform of the Canadiens, finally carried the torch of dedication, royalty and pride, not for a hockey club but for an entire people.
Just as Maurice Richard was the idol of his youth and of a generation of Canadians, Jean-Claude was an inspiration, to us and to all who want to serve their fellow citizens and help defend the less fortunate in our society. They now know that by following the example of Jean-Claude Malepart, they can make the difference. They can change things to make our society fairer and more equitable. Time and time again he showed us the value of being loyal, loyal to one's roots, language, neighbourhood, city and friends.
Personally, I had the honour of being a friend of Jean-Claude Malepart, and I had the privilege of enjoying his perfect loyalty. Of course, he often rocked the boat. He didn't always agree. And he said so loud and clear. But, when it came down to the crunch, he was always there, solid as an oak, ready to help, like a friend and brother.
If there was one spot in the world where Jean-Claude would have wished to be more often, it was with his wife Pierrette and his daughters Sylvie and Nathalie. "My family", he said, "is my inspiration and support. I have said so over and over again: Without the support, advice

November 20, 1989
Tributes
and understanding of my wife and daughters, I would never have been able to fight my battles and especially, I would have never been able to win them". We also wish to thank Pierrette, Sylvie and Nathalie for being so generous and letting us have Jean-Claude.
Many people will remember that for them, Jean-Claude Malepart made the difference. That is why thousands and thousands of Canadian men and women throughout the country now mourn, with his family and with us, the man who defended them so valiantly.


Robert René de Cotret: Mr. Speaker, to begin with, I would like to offer again our most sincere condolences, on behalf of the Government of Canada and all members of the Conservative caucus, as well as personally, to the family of our colleague, the Hon. Member for Laurier-Sainte-Ma-rie, Jean-Claude Malepart.
Mr. Speaker, we all know already that his absence will be keenly felt by his colleagues in the House of Commons. Indeed, the passing of this accomplished parliamentarian will be felt far beyond this Chamber.
Throughout the time he spent here, as well as in the Quebec National Assembly, for he represented his riding in both legislatures, the Hon. Member for Laurier- Sainte-Marie never forgot the main reason he was in politics, which was to defend the interests of those who knew him so well. A hard worker, he very soon earned everyone's respect.
On both sides of the House, we very quickly noticed an exceptional Member of Parliament, one who said out loud that he did not want to be a minister, so that he could remain concerned with those who chose him. He made a point of personally looking after all matters that came before him in his riding.
He cooperated with everyone. The constituents of Laurier-Sainte-Marie are not the only ones in mourning. With his strong commitments and enthusiastic personality, he won the hearts of many Canadians. He had a deep sense of the dignity of the most humble in society and an authority that let him keep everything in perspective.
I am told that he fought the good fight right till the end. No one here can doubt it because he fought for his people until the last minute and his work was just that-fighting.
Mr. Speaker, he fought for his constituents in his riding and he fought for his province. He fought here in this House; he fought for his country. For that, I believe that we must respect and pay tribute to Jean-Claude Malepart for all the work he did over the years.


John Edward Broadbent: On behalf of my fellow members from the New Democratic Party, I would like to pay tribute to Jean-Claude Malepart. The career of that warm, exceptional member was marked by significant struggles. His steadfastness on the issue of senior citizens' pensions earned him the reputation of being the champion of social rights, just as his strenuous work on the Comite de relance de TEst de Montreal helped address the economic situation of that underprivileged area. But in his constituency, surely the establishment of the Centre d'information communautaire et de depannage will remain his most significant achievement. Even after he was elected in this place, he went on fighting passionately for the have-nots in our society and more specifically in his own area.
He also fought relentlessly on behalf of Quebecers, as well as for the recognition of their place in Canada.

Jean-Claude Malepart was an exceptional Quebecer and an exceptional Canadian. He worked day in and day out, for the poor, principally who needed a spokesperson at all times in his area, in his province, but indeed, for the poor all over Canada. He was an effective voice in this Chamber.
At the same time it was in his last speech in the House that he drew the attention of English Canada to the importance, at this point in our history, of recognizing the distinctiveness of the province of Quebec. He was a passionate Quebecer and a passionate Canadian and he wanted, to the end, to be able to see himself in these two categories.
We as members from all Parties of the House of Commons send our deepest sympathy to his wife and to his two daughters. We take no pleasure but a great deal of sadness in recognizing the passing of a man who
November 20, 1989

contributed to this place and to what it should be all about-passion, intelligence, commitment to the wellbeing of the people he represented. No one at his time in this House has done it better.


Hon. Andre Ouellet (Papineau-Saint-Michel):: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Laurier-Sainte-Marie, Mr. Jean-Claude Malepart, is no more. He died with dignity and courage, as we always knew him. To his wife Pierrette, his daughters Nathalie and Sylvie, all members of his family, especially his sisters, and indeed his close friend Georges Boudreau, we extend our deepest sympathies.
The Leader of the Opposition, on behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada, paid him a very eloquent tribute. I would like simply, and in all humility, as a Member of Parliament from Quebec, to testify to the great place Jean-Claude Malepart always had on the Quebec political scene, although Jean-Claude viewed himself as an ordinary citizen. But in many respects he was an extraordinary citizen whose involvement in social matters was of tremendous service to thousands of his fellow citizens, and whose fiery speeches in the House of Commons influenced governments, both Liberal and Conservative, to better care for the needy in our society.
I knew him in the early 70's when I was mminister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and he applied to my department for a grant for his Centre d'information communautaire et de depannage. This was of course before he got into politics. I was immediately conquered by the man and his work. Needless to say he got his grant, and of course he deserved it because his claims never were of a personal nature. They were always for the defenseless and the needy
Respect for others and their dignity was important to him. All his life he found ways to help people in need without humiliating them, without embarrassing them. He therefore leaves, not only in Quebec but across Canada, admirers who will miss him and remain veiy grateful to him.
In Parliament, his departure certainly will leave a veiy great void. We very much will miss that friend, that colleague we all loved and admired, irrespective of
Tributes
political allegiance, because Jean-Claude was much more than a party member, he was above all a true defender of great and beautiful causes. On his hospital bed he had this to say about himself: "I never lived for Jean-Claude Malepart because I needed reasons to live."
Till the end he gave us examples of his relentlessness, courage, abnegation and dedication. We will miss him deeply for a very long time, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Louis Plamondon (Richelieu):: Mr. Speaker, as a private member of the party opposite, I would like to say a few words on the occasion of the death of Jean-Claude Malepart, a noble-hearted man who had the courage of his convictions.
I was very saddened by the death of my colleague, the Hon. Member for Laurier-Sainte-Marie, Jean-Claude Malepart, with whom I had the honour to travel for a week just two years ago.
His illness took us by surprise. A kind and brave man, Jean-Claude Malepart had the respect of french-speaking Members of Parliament in Ottawa for his ideas and his courage. He said out loud what many thought privately. And, despite our political differences, he was one of the members I felt closest to. It almost seems as if I have lost an ally in the House of Commons. He fought his battles and I fought mine.
I had supported him in his battle against deindexation of old age security pensions, he had endorsed my anti-scab bill and my battle to champion the cause of the french fact in Quebec. We also shared the same faith in Quebec society, its values and its people.
The GST and the Meech Lake Accord were his last great battles. He may have lost his fight against cancer but he won the respect of each and everyone.
In Jean-Claude Malepart, Quebecers have lost one of their most ardent champions. I wish to offer my sincere condolences to his wife and his two daughters.


Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard):: Mr. Speaker, today we mourn the death of a colleague, of a friend, of a fellow parlementarian who had and will always have a special place in our hearts.
Over the years the House has been the public forum of gifted speakers, discriminate intellectuals and elected members possessed of unmistakable leadership qualities.

November 20, 1989
Tributes
Yet I do not believe that this House has ever known, at least certainly not in my time, such a unique and exceptional member as Jean-Claude Malepart.
The day after Jean-Claude died an editorialist described our colleague as having been the voice of the voiceless, the messenger of the destitute, the spokesman for the ordinary man.
Mr. Speaker, our friend Jean-Claude was all that indeed, but he was also a militant and an activist, totally and fully given to helping the needy.
The list of cases handled and fights led by Jean-Claude is endless, as are his sucesses. We all remember the major issues which attracted national attention and which were the subject of often outstanding debates in this House.
First, Montreal East. Within a single month in the fall of 1985, no fewer than seven companies announced their intention to close their doors, thus depriving more than 5,000 workers of their jobs in a region which, in normal times, was already so unfavourably treated.
Jean-Claude took it upon himself to rally all interested parties. He set up the Comite de survie de Vest de Montreal with the workers of Vickers, Bombardier, Canadian Steel Wheels, Canadian Steel Foundries and Gulf Refinery, along with all politicians at every level, representing not only his riding, but the Greater Montreal region as well.
After weeks and months of tireless work Jean-Claude and his survival committee did succeed in slowing down and, finally, stopping the extensive economic decline which had been the hallmark of our region.
This tangible victory was won by solidarity, dedication and perseverance, three words that admirably describe the colleague we mourn today.
However, Jean-Claude fought for more than his riding and his region. He also defended the paper mills at Desbiens and Matane.
His vast campaign against cuts in unemployment insurance benefits for early retirees started in the area around the old capital, spread to cover the entire province of Quebec and finally took on national dimensions.
Across this country, he also fought his battle against deindexation and old age security pensions, a battle he won, and the one against deindexation of family allowance, which he unfortunately lost. He also waged a national campaign against a tax on bread and butter and a tax on medicine.
Finally, during the darkest days of his illness, he discovered how cuts on transfer payments to the provinces resulted in a decline in services for the ill, including those stricken with terrible diseases like cancer. Once again he went on the war path, demanding that the government take the budgets earmarked for two nuclear subs and spend those billions of dollars on medical research.
In most cases, he started his battles alone, sometimes giving the impression of being a voice crying in the wilderness.
I remember vividly his campaign for early retirees, whose unemployment insurance benefits had been cut by the government. It was just a few months after his historic and victorious battle against the deindexation of old age security pensions.
For months, the early retiree benefit cuts had been practically his only topic of conversation. Morning, noon and night, he tried to persuade colleagues, friends and reporters to join him in this struggle. Most refused to get involved since they felt it was a lost cause. Many explained that we were in the opposition and that he would not succeed in making the government retreat every time. However, he was not discouraged. He went on as though this fight were his first, or his last.
In time, he managed to get together a large number of these early retirees and instil in them the hope that they would be able to persuade the government to correct this injustice. Then he used his famous "hammer and nails" technique. Like the carpenter who hammers the head of his nail until it is properly sunk, Jean-Claude went into the fray, time and time again, with patience, energy and determination. He felt that what we had to do, both in and out of the House, was to keep on banging on the same nail over and over again.
He won one more time. Finally, the government re-imbursed 34 000 early retirees to whom it had unfairly denied benefits. This was great Jean-Claude Malepart in action.
November 20, 1989

Last year, he told me that he loved his work so very much that he could not understand how he could ever get sick. There is no doubt that if love of work, dedication and compassion had been the criteria for a long life, our friend Jean-Claude Malepart would have been eternal.
Yet, our friend has left us. He will remain for quite a long time a source of daily inspiration and motivation.
The first time I was elected to the House of Commons in 1984, Mr. Speaker, Jean-Claude taught me right away the ABC's of good parliamentary life.
He explained to me that if I wanted to promote an idea, I had to work, work, work. I had to do my own work and convey my ideas in clear, colourful and universal understandable sentences. After that, all I would need would be patience, a lot of it, and determination.
This may seem easy, but one needs a lot of willpower to promote a cause the way our colleage did. From now on, every time a cause may seem lost, we should seek and find inspiration in Jean-Claude Malepart's example.
Mr.Speaker: We will now rise and observe a minute of silence.

[.Editor's Note: Whereupon the House stood in silence.]


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the parties in order to allow members to attend the funeral of Jean Claude Malepart and I think you will find there is consent to put the following motion without debate to the House for approval.
I	move:
That the House sit the following hours, and conduct the following business, on Tuesday November 21, Wednesday November 22 and Thursday November 23:
On Tbesday November 21, meeting at 10 o'clock for Statements by Members, Oral Questions at 10.15 a.m., Routine Proceedings at
II	a.m., following which (but, in any case, no later than 11.30 a.m.), the sitting will be suspended until 6 p.m. when Government Orders
Business of the House
will be called for resumed debate on Bill C-43, with adjournment of the debate and of the House to be at 10 p.m.
On Wednesday November 22 and Thursday November 23, in addition to its normal sitting hours, that the House sit until 9.30 p.m., on resumed debate on Bill C-43; provided that the Adjournment Debate be held at 9.30 p.m.
During the tribute to Mr. Jean Claude Malepart it occurred to me that there might be a possibility that the debate would collapse prior to 9.30 p.m. on Thursday. It was the intention of the Prime Minister, who is in Russia, to enter into the debate on TUesday, November 28 in the morning right after Routine Proceedings.
Therefore, if at any time prior to 9.30 p.m. on Thursday there are no further speakers, we would simply adjourn the debate on Bill C-43 until Tuesday, November 28 at 11 a.m. This would not preclude any further speakers after the Prime Minister but there would be an effort to use the time of the House wisely and accommodate as many speakers as possible.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, the draft order that the Minister of Justice has just read out is in conformity with discussions that we had beginning on Friday. Also he has brought to my attention the interest of the Prime Minister in speaking in the debate on the abortion legislation and we would certainly agree with his suggestion in that regard.
However, just as he thought of an additional point in the last few minutes, another one has occurred to me as well. I hope he will give it his consideration as we have given consideration to his request about the Prime Minister, namely, that the Order be amended to make clear that committees of this House are not to sit during the period from 11.30 a.m. to 6 p.m. when the House sitting is to stand suspended so that those who wish to do so can attend the funeral of Jean Claude Malepart.
It has come to my attention that some of the committees intend to sit during the period when the sitting of the House is to be suspended pursuant to the Order. I really do not think that is consistent with the spirit behind the proposed Order.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I think the remarks of my hon. friend have been helpful and I would agree with the spirit of those remarks. It would be the suggestion of the government that no committees should sit during that time in order to fully respect the arrangements and

November 20, 1989
Privilege
ability of any member on any committee to attend those funeral arrangements.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I too certainly agree with the intent of the motion but I seek clarification on two points.
The government House Leader has indicated that it would be the suggestion of the government. Are we to conclude that it is more than a suggestion and that committees will not be sitting tomorrow afternoon to allow members to attend the funeral? Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, if the debate were to collapse prior to 9.30 p.m. on Thursday the understanding would be that the Prime Minister would have an opportunity to participate in the debate on November 28, and presumably other members as well. The government House Leader is not precluding other members from participating at that point as well?


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, with respect to the second question, yes, that would definitely be the case. With respect to the first question, I am not sure that the government House Leader has the ability to order committees not to sit but I think the committees would understand the spirit with which all members in this House are agreeing to this motion. I would think that that should take care of that particular question.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, if there is any doubt that the committee chairmen will respect the wishes expressed here, it would be very simple that the House order have words added to it that not only will sittings of this House stand suspended between 11.30 a.m. and 6 p.m., but the same shall apply to all committees. The committees are subsidiary bodies of this House and subject to its direction.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: The House has heard the proposal of the Minister of Justice and has heard the comments of the hon. member for Windsor West and the hon. member for Kamloops. The motion is:
That the House sit the following hours, and conduct the following business, on TUesday, November 21, Wednesday, November 22 and Thursday, November 23, 1989:
On TUesday, November 21, meeting at 10 o'clock a.m. for Statements by Members, Oral Questions at 10.15 o'clock a.m., and Routine Proceedings at 11.00 o'clock a.m.; following which (but, in any case, no later than 11.30 o'clock a.m.), the sitting shall be
suspended until 6.00 o'clock p.m., when Government Orders will be called for resumed debate on Bill C-43, an Act respecting abortion, with adjournment of the debate and of the House to be at 10.00 o'clock p.m.; and no committees shall sit between 11.30 o'clock a.m. and 6.00 o'clock p.m.; and
On Wednesday, November 22 and Thursday, November 23, in addition to its normal sitting hours, the House shall sit until 9.30 o'clock p.m., on resumed debate on Bill C-43 and the adjournment debate shall be held at 9.30 o'clock p.m.; provided that if no more Members rise to speak before 9.30 o'clock p.m., the debate shall be adjourned to another sitting day.
Is there agreement?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I was not in the House earlier when a question of privilege was raised with regard to brochures on the goods and services tax that were being distributed through the supermarkets. I felt it might be useful to you if I made a comment on that particular matter.
Since your ruling, Mr. Speaker, there have been no further information materials on the proposed goods and services tax made available for distribution through supermarkets. These brochures were printed originally in early August around the time of the release of the technical paper. They were intended to be complementary to the technical paper to provide more information to Canadians. As you can see, they are in a much more accessible form and therefore easier for Canadians to read.
As was planned at that time, the contract for the distribution of the brochures has ended and has not been renewed. At the expiry of the contract it was the responsibility of the contractor in his dealings with the supermarkets to collect the unused brochures and return them to the Department of Finance.
I am advised that the contractor responsible for the distribution has assured my officials that by end of October there were no brochures remaining in supermarkets. If any member of Parliament has any informa-
November 20, 1989

tion to the contrary I would appreciate it if they would let me know and we can gather them up accordingly.
The proposed GST is a key part of the government's plan to build a strong economy. We believe Canadians have a right to know and understand how the proposed tax will operate.
Let me assure you, Mr. Speaker, that in accordance with your ruling we will respect the principles that you have established in our information efforts and certainly any future information efforts that would involve the release of brochures by my department.
As a government we have a responsibility to explain why the GST is being introduced. The importance of public understanding is a key lesson from other countries where similar tax systems have been introduced and, indeed, the Finance Committee of the House has commented specifically on this. Where business people and consumers have been well informed implementation has gone smoothly.
So, Mr. Speaker, we will continue to pursue a broad campaign of public information about the GST but to do so consistent with the ruling that you set out about one month ago and certainly in the production of any new materials will be very mindful of the parameters that you set out in that ruling.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, first, I wonder if the Minister of Finance could inform the House as to exactly when the contract to which he referred ended. What was the date of completion of the contract?
Second, I would like to point out to the Minister of Finance that our concern is not about the government giving information about a proposal it wants to make to the House and the country regarding a new tax, but rather that it has been conveying information to the public in a way which conveys to the public the idea that this House has spoken, has made a decision on this tax that it will go into effect on January 1, 1991. This is not the case, and no matter how much the government believes in this proposal it has no right to convey to the public any information suggesting this House has acted, has taken a decision such that this tax will go into effect. I think this is the point, and I am sorry the Minister of Finance still has not got it.
Privilege


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I thought I had made it clear that I had got that point, that I had made it very clear that we would be mindful of the parameters that you have set out in your ruling.
In answer to the specific question, I do not have that date in mind but I think the key point is that information is not being sent out. The brochures, I have been advised, have all been withdrawn from the supermarkets which has been part of the contract, so the information will not be provided at this point.


Mr. Speaker:: This matter was raised earlier today by the Hon. Member for Kingston and The Islands and I appreciate very much the fact that the Minister of Finance has come into the House and given the statement that he has. The Hon. Member for Windsor West intervened and the Hon. Minister has responded. I think the Hon. Member for Kingston and The Islands would understand why I would now think that the matter has ended.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, it would be of interest, I respectfully submit to the House and to yourself, as to whether the distribution of these leaflets, pursuant to the contract, continued after you gave your ruling of some weeks ago.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps I spoke too hastily. I do not know whether the Minister can give us that information.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I have not got that information. What I do know is that the contract is completed. The materials have been withdrawn. I am not going to say to you today that there were not materials that were in the supermarkets following your ruling that did get out into the hands of the Canadian public. The point is that by the end of October we were advised that they had all been withdrawn and that there are no further brochures being distributed through the supermarkets.


Mr. Speaker:: Following the comment of the Hon. Member for Windsor West and the comment of the Minister of Finance, I will come back to the House with some comments about this matter after I have had a little more time to look at it.
Again, I thank the hon. minister for coming into the House and I thank the Hon. Member for Kingston and The Islands for raising this important matter.

November 20, 1989
Government Orders



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Wilson (Etobicoke Centre) that Bill C-28, an act to amend the Income Thx Act, the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements and Federal Post-Secondary Education and Health Contributions Act, the Old Age Security Act, the Public Utilities Income Tax Transfer Act, the War Veterans Allowance Act and a related act, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: When the House rose at 1 p.m. the hon. member for Saskatoon- Clark's Crossing had the floor. The hon. member.


Chris Axworthy: Madam Speaker, as I was saying, we have seen in the changes and the clawback to family allowances and old age security massive protests across the country from young and old, from all Canadians, to the end to universality of social programs. The government on the whole has insisted that there is not attack on universality in these programs and yet there are, as we know, members on the government side who have recognized, indeed, that universality is under attack and is being threatened by this legislation.
In addition, the government's own advisory body, the National Council on Welfare, made it quite clear that it sees these clawbacks as putting an end to universality. The Council says there is no question that the clawback puts an end to universality. A social program that delivers benefits to everyone and then collects them back from some recipients is not universal. That is clearly the case, and that from a government-appointed advisory board. Surely the government should take some notice of those it appoints to advise it on important matters of social policy as in this case.
In addition, apart from ignoring the advice of Canadians from all across the country, the government had, prior to the election, made commitments to Canadians, as we know, and in particular the Prime Minister made commitments as to the sacred trust with regard to social
programs. In addition, as late as 1985 the government in fact had committed itself not to introduce a clawback or a surtax on old age pensions on the grounds that it would seriously disrupt the retirement income system.
So in spite of commitments over a long period of time from all parts of the government, in spite of ignoring the advice of Canadians everywhere, the government has gone ahead to implement a program which is divisive and which attacks the social programs and the values that Canadians have held so dear.
If the government had wanted to know how Canadians felt, if the government had wanted to know what Canadians thought about its proposal with regard to clawbacks on old age security and on family allowances, it could have asked those groups across the country who work for senior citizens and for families.
For example, with regard to senior citizens, there are many to whom the government could have spoken with regard to obtaining advice. It could have, for example, spoken with people like Frances Pettit in my own city, the president of Senior Citizens Action Now in Saskatoon, a strong and effective advocate for senior citizens in Saskatoon and Saskatchewan. She has spoken out strongly and consistently against these measures and of course will continue to do so because they are wrong. The government could have spoken to people like her. They could have spoken to many, many representatives of senior citizens across the country and got their information. Surely then the government would have seen the light and not introduced a measure which begins to put an end to universality.
In spite of what the government has said, clearly the clawbacks in this bill are the beginning of the end of universality. The impact of these measures, these clawbacks, these attacks on senior citizens and families, will be major. Average families all across the country will lose some or all of their family benefits.
As I said, we should be supporting families, not attacking them. We should be supporting seniors, not attacking them. Yet clawbacks on old age pensions, as set out in this bill, will catch 120,000 pensioners by 1990 and within 20 years time will attack over 1 million pensioners. This is not a measure which just attacks a few, but one which goes on to attack a very large number of pensioners in this country. The same goes for the attacks on families. In 1990 roughly 14 per cent of families will have
November 20, 1989

their family allowances subject to clawback, but in 10 years this will rise to nearly 30 per cent.
This is not a small attack on universality but a major attack on universality, one which will affect so many Canadians. What is clear here is that average Canadians are losing the benefits of social programs, losing the benefit of programs that made us distinct from the United States. More and more of our social programs will become poorer, they will become more targeted, and they will be available only to those in need. The only effective way to ensure that our social programs and taxation are fair is to ensure the continued universality of social programs coupled with a progressive taxation system.
As we know, the Conservative government has chosen to do the opposite, has chosen to make our taxation system less fair and has chosen to make our social programs less and less adequate to meet the greater needs that Canadians are facing. Canadians do not believe this government when it says that these measures are fair. They do not believe this government when it says these measures do not attack universality. They do not trust this government when it speaks on social programs.
It poses a number of important questions with regard to the system of the government's priorities, a number of important questions about fairness in Canada. For example, why should an individual be entitled to receive $100,00 in capital gains tax free but another individual lose $4,000 he or she gets in old age security simply because it is paid as a universal social benefit?
Family allowances and old age security are already taxed in Canada. Why should a special tax be levied on children and the elderly? If the intention is to raise money from the rich, why not do it through a more progressive tax system instead of a super tax on children and on the elderly?
And to ask a more general question with regard to the whole process, when was it that Canadians voted for a means test being applied to the family allowance and old age security? When was it that the Government of Canada asked for Canadians' advice on that matter? It was not an issue in the 1988 election. It has never been
Government Orders
an issue which has been presented to Canadians and yet the government is going ahead anyway.
What the government is doing is constantly increasing the tax burden on ordinary families and reducing the tax burden on the richest of Canadians and larger corporations and at the same time programs that make us distinct from the United States, those programs to which the government committed itself prior to the last federal election.
The choices this government has taken would not be taken by any government which is committed to fairness and to supporting Canadian families, Canadian children and Canadian senior citizens.
It is not the only course the government could have taken. Many opportunities have been presented for the government to change its mind. Many alternative approaches have been suggested but, so far, to no avail.
It is worth remembering that senior citizens did turn the government back in its first term when it made its first attack on senior citizens' old age security. Those senior citizens are making their presence felt once again as we have indicated.
In closing, the government needs to reassess its priorities. There is no doubt about that. Anybody who spends any time going across this country will hear that from almost everyone. It needs to listen to what people are saying and it needs to respond to what people are saying. It needs to stop doing the opposite of what people are asking it to do and do what is good for Canada. Madam Speaker, it needs to put people first.


Mr. Bob Kilger (Stormont-Dundas):: Madam Speaker, I take pleasure in being able to speak in this House today on Bill C-28. As you know, the title of Bill C-28 is quite lengthy. I will simply refer to it as an act to amend the Income Tax Act and the Old Age Security Act.
Given my time restraints and not to diminish the importance of the other acts and their amendments included in Bill C-28,1 will confine my remarks to clause 48 of this bill.
As we know, this clause concerns a clawback proposal on old age security and family allowance benefits. I believe this is of great importance to a number of

November 20, 1989
Government Orders
Canadians and to the nature of Canada's universal social programs.
Bill C-28 will have a serious impact on two special groups in Canadian society; our senior citizens and families with children. These groups are important in any society. However, the amendments to the Income Tax Act contained in Bill C-28 will have a severe negative impact on two elements of our society which the government should be doing its utmost to protect and support.
With the implications of Bill C-28 one can truly see just how much this government really cares about the elderly and the Canadian family. Clause 48 uses the taxation system to institute the clawback of family allowances and old age security pensions. Clause 48 amounts to an attack by this government on two major components of Canada's social system; old age security pensions and family allowance benefits.
Bill C-28 is yet another example of this government's plan to eradicate piece by piece our universal social programs and, I suspect, to limit or eventually eliminate our social systems entirely.
The Canadian Council on Social Development has condemned the government's proposal to clawback old age security and family allowance benefits. The council did not criticize the government on this issue for any partisan reasons. It is, in fact, an independent, national, non-profit organization concerned about the future of Canada's social policies.
In the opinion of the council, "The clawback is the latest step in a serious erosion of the principle of universality and the clawback imposes a surtax on pensioners and families with children".
I believe this is a correct assessment of Bill C-28. This legislation will unfairly penalize old age security and family allowance recipients. The government would like us to believe that because the clawbacks only apply to recipients with an individual net income of $50,000 or more, they are not unfair. However, there is a serious flaw in this line of reasoning. Right now the clawbacks would indeed only affect a small portion of those who receive these benefits. However, the government is not so quick to point out that over time the clawback will apply to a much greater number of recipients as the $50,000 threshold is not fully indexed to the rate of
inflation. By not indexing the threshold for the first 3 per cent of inflation, within seven years the threshold will actually be $40,000 and will be at $35,000 four years later.
The National Council on Welfare, which is a citizen's advisory body to the Minister of National Health and Welfare with its members appointed by the cabinet to advise the minister on matters of social polity, has added its voice to the opposition against the clawback. This past September the council released a report entitled The 1989 Budget and Social Policy. The report called upon the government to abandon the clawback proposal. Obviously the council would not have made such a recommendation unwisely. However, the government has decided to ignore the excellent advice it has been offered.
According to the National Council on Welfare, and I quote from the report: "There is no question that the clawback puts an end to universality. A social program that delivers benefits to everyone and then collects them all back from some recipients is not universal".
Under the clawback every parent or senior citizen in this country will lose all or a portion of his or her family allowance and old age pension if he or she has an individual annual net income of $50,000 or more. Recipients will lose 15 cents in benefits for every dollar in net income above $50,000. The National Council on Welfare states quite clearly that this act by the government is, in its words: "The most significant change in social policy in a generation. Yet it was announced by the Minister of Finance in the budget speech without prior consultation."
Is truly amazing that this government is determined to end the universal characteristic of Canada's social programs. By using income levels, old age pensioners and family allowance recipients will be placed in a series of classes with some having their benefits taxed back. At the same time the government is ensuring that more and more recipients will fall into the clawback scheme over time. All this is being done without the slightest consideration of what this will mean for the people who receive these benefits and for our society as a whole.
The fact that the clawback was proposed by the government without consulting with experts in the social policy field should not come as too much of a surprise. The insensitivity of this government is quite appalling. It
November 20, 1989

is not content with cutting VIA Rail to pieces. It is not satisfied by withdrawing from unemployment and it is not very concerned about the negative impact the proposed goods and services tax will have on many middle and low-income Canadians. Instead, the Conservative agenda includes an outright attack on the universality of our social programs and the government is actually going after senior citizens and families.
The National Council on Welfare estimates that as the clawback proposal is not fully indexed to inflation, in less than 10 years more than one million Canadian families could be subject to a full or partial clawback of their family allowance benefits. The clawback proposal discriminates against one-income families and seniors. A single income family with two children with a net income of $58,000 will lose all its family allowance benefits while a two-income family with one spouse earning $45,000 and the other earning $30,000 would escape the clawback. This despite the fact that their combined income totals $75,000. This is by no means an example of fairness.
The clawback proposal is also unequal for senior citizens receiving the old age security pension. We should remember that seniors have already earned their pension as a result of the income tax they have paid over their working years. Now the government steps in and says, "Forget it, we are taxing back your pension regardless of what you have paid in taxes." There is something incredibly wrong with this kind of action from the government. Our seniors, regardless of their incomes today or in the future, are deserving of their old age security pensions. None of them should have to see a lifetime of work, savings, and taxes ignored by a single piece of legislation from this government. They deserve better treatment, far better treatment.
The idea being expressed by the government with Bill C-28 is one which is very clear. The clawback proposal means that seniors and families in Canada do not count any more. Of course the government will argue that it is prepared to assist those who receive these two benefits by adjusting the threshold figure in the future, that there will be some element of fairness to protect the majority of recipients from the clawback.
Government Orders
We are left wondering when will the government actually come through on this promise? How badly will the $50,000 threshold have to dip in real money terms before the government will raise it? How many recipients will have to be caught in the clawback net before the government announces an adjustment?
I certainly find no comfort in this empty promise. One need only remember the Prime Minister's own words on social programs being a "sacred trust". By looking at Bill C-28 we see how much that trust has been maintained by this government.
The Conservative government views the clawback of old age security and family allowance benefits as one means to address the federal deficit. Given that the government has played a considerable role in raising the deficit since being elected in 1984, I guess it would do just about anything to reduce it. However, there is a rather large problem in the logic of having seniors and families address the deficit through their social benefits. We all know that the reduction of the deficit is important to every Canadian, but is it fair or fiscally prudent to fight the deficit with our social programs? One voice, the Canadian Seniors Network, has stated, and I quote:
Why should a family pay more towards the deficit than a childless couple, and why should a pensioner pay more than a wage earner with the same income?
This group suggests it is incongruous for the government to introduce the clawback proposal which, in its opinion, will only recover a relatively insignificant amount when compared to the massive public debt. This organization has suggested that the same amount or even more revenue which the clawback would provide the government can in fact be generated by raising the top income tax bracket by a single percentage point. This would tax all high-income individuals and not single out old age pensioners and family allowance recipients with an individual net income of $50,000 or more. The government, however, seems convinced that the clawback proposal, without full indexation, is the better route to take. The clawback is obviously punitive, unfair and a discriminatory measure.
There is no moral or fiscal justification for the government to proceed with this blatant attack on benefit recipients and our universal social programs. Why then is the government willing to implement the clawback? Why is it eager to dismantle universality?

November 20, 1989
Government Orders
A strong case can be made that the clawback proposal is not an attempt at reducing the deficit, it is really the universal nature of Canada's social programs that is the real target of this government. We know that the free trade agreement with the United States plays a large role in the actions of the government. Some may well argue that the agreement has led the government to its attack on universality.
The Canadian Council on Social Development has stated, and I quote:
The Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement generates inevitable pressure from within Canada and from the United States for the social programs of the two countries to be harmonized so that neither partner has the competitive advantage. Since the United States does not have the extended universal programs we in Canada enjoy, it is more likely that our own plans and programs will be stunted or rolled back.
This is a very perceptive view from the Council on Social Development. I believe the clawback proposal fits nicely into this government's agenda. The plan calls for the reduction, if not the elimination, of universality and, indeed, most of Canada's social programs which are considered to be out of step with the small amount that is available in the United States social system. Surely, this really cannot be the case. It cannot be the real reason behind the clawback or the assault this government is launching on our social programs and the principle of universality. After all, the Conservative government has assured Canadians that our social programs-our entire social system-has not been nor ever will be up for negotiation with the United States because of the free trade agreement. We have this promise from the government.
I urge the government to rescind the clawback proposal contained in Bill C-28. By doing so it would remove any doubt about the government's sincerity in protecting the universality of Canada's social programs. It would tell us that our social programs are not under attack and will be preserved. By removing the clawback proposal the government would also be informing the United States that it will maintain the universality of our social programs and policies.
In conclusion, if the government is truly serious about maintaining universality and in providing a fair, equitable and non-discriminatory social system for our seniors, families, and all Canadians, whether they receive these benefits or any other ones now or in the future, it will
heed the advice it has been given by various national organizations and social experts and abandon the clawback proposal.
The government must realize that the clawback will effectively punish current recipients and the many others it will draw in over a relatively short period of time. To proceed with the clawback would be an injustice. It would indicate that this government is not really interested in true deficit reduction efforts but with the destruction of universality and the eventual disintegration of Canada's long-cherished social system.


Mr. David D. Stupich (Nanaimo-Cowichan):: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to take advantage of this opportunity to speak against Bill C-28, and in particular against clause 48 which has to do with the clawback of two particular types of income.
This bill is a special bill, special in that it applies only to two kinds of income. We are talking about the old age pension and about family allowance. These are the only two types of income to which this special tax will apply.
It is special in that it applies to individual income as opposed to family income. There are other examples of taxes, of course, where that principle applies as well, but not all. This tax falls in the category of applying to an individual's income as opposed to family income, which is going to increase the possibility of members of a family, certainly between the income earner and the spouse, and perhaps even beyond that, changing their income pattern among themselves so that they will pay a minimum of income tax to the government. It is going to encourage that kind of tax planning. So it is special in that respect as well.
It is special in that it is only partly indexed. Certainly, if members of the government intended it to be fully indexed they would have provided for that in the legislation. But they do not intend that. They intend to leave it flexible so that at any time at all the minister, if he chooses, for whatever reason-perhaps for a political one if an election is on the horizon, or perhaps for an economic one if it is after an election and he wants to have more money to do with whatever he wants-has the flexibility to change it so that it will be fully indexed over one period, or leave it as it is, which is partially indexed, or change the basis or the formula. It is totally flexible in that respect which makes it special in that way as well.
November 20,1989

It is special in another way. It is a major step toward the Americanization of our social programs. The Americans do not have anything like the kind of social network that we have here in Canada. For example, they have pensions, but they are contributory pensions. The people intending to benefit from these pension programs contribute regularly to them. They have plans set up in the manner of our contributory Canada Pension Plan, for example, or the Quebec Pension Plan, and as means tested programs such as our guaranteed income supplement.
These are some of their programs. But they have no universal pension program equivalent to our old age security system. No pension exists in the United States where residents have a right, simply by virtue of the fact that they have reached the age of 65 and have been residents long enough, to qualify. This is a step to bring us in line with the American plan of not having a universal program. It is a major step toward Americanization. Perhaps it is even more than that because, in some instances, some of our senior citizens did contribute to the old age security plan.
Madam Speaker, you are not old enough to remember, but some of us in this House are, when there was a special 2 per cent income tax that was levied for the express purpose of providing funds for the old age security system. So seniors are having that taken away from them with this clawback provision in this legislation. It is special in that way as well. It is the first time that the government has ever said, "Contribute to a plan and later on we will confiscate the funds". So it is special in that respect as well.
It is special in another way. It is a special tax in that it is a major step toward the end of universality. In spite of the Prime Minister's reassurances, and other members have spoken about this-but I think they are important enough to read into the record-he said on March 7, 1984, when he was not the Prime Minister, "Our position is simple and straightforward. We are in favour of universality of social programs and they shall not be touched."
Speaking on October 15, 1988, at Summerside, P.E.I., the Prime Minister told seniors-and you will recall, Madam Speaker, that we were in the middle of an election campaign then, which might make a difference-"Let me say a special word to the senior citizens. In the future Canada will be doing more, not less, for all
Government Orders
of you". He said, "all of you", he didn't say for some, at the expense of others.
He went on to say, "As long as I am Prime Minister of Canada, social benefits, especially those for the elderly, will be improved, not diminished, by our government, which is committed to social justice and fairness for Canadians". He made it very clear in the middle of an election campaign that he was totally committed to the idea of universality, that he would do more rather than less.
There are other ways in which the budget takes away from senior citizens, not specifically, but it certainly affects them. It means that they will have lower net incomes. In this instance the government is going after them again with this clawback provision of the old age pension. It is a major step towards the end of universality because it applies particularly to the kinds of income that the Prime Minister dealt with very specifically when he said that the government would not do exactly what it is doing right now.
The Prime Minister made the same promises with respect to other social programs. He said the same thing with respect to medicare. Dare I ask, Madam Speaker, will that be next? He said the same thing with respect to hospital insurance. Dare I ask, Madam Speaker, will that be next? Where will he stop?
We can quote others. We can quote the Conservative chairman of the finance committee when he admitted, quite candidly, what the government is doing in this legislation. He said, "We have decided to eliminate universality". That is precisely what the government is doing with this legislation in this particular section. He also said, "While the clawback may be unfair and sneaky, it is there." I agree with the person who said that. I do not think there is any question about it.
I think many members of the Conservative party, if you could get them separately and quietly and ask them to speak candidly, would also agree. They would also agree that during the election campaign they went around reassuring people that there would never be any danger of any Tory proposal that would in any way at all affect universality. Yet they are supporting this legislation now.
If that is the way they feel about it, if they really believe that Canada cannot afford universality, that it is not proper for us to make universal programs available, such as the old age pension, the family allowance, why do they not have the intestinal fortitude to come out and say so and simply bring in legislation doing away with these programs? Why not admit it? Why not be honest about

November 20, 1989
Government Orders
it? I do not think the question will be answered. There is not much point in my belabouring it.
It is a special provision in another way. To benefit the affluent, members of this party in office have made some special provisions. This clawback is not the only special thing they have done to the people as a whole who are getting old age pension and family allowance. They also have special treatment for other people in our community. I am speaking now of the affluent.
The progressive income tax rate, that is, the marginal rate for those in the highest income tax bracket, was reduced by the previous government in 1981. The highest marginal rate in 1981 was reduced from 43 per cent to 34 per cent. The Conservatives opposed it at the time no doubt.
In 1987, the Conservatives brought in legislation that reduced the rate from 34 per cent down to 29 per cent. The old age pension is being taken back from everybody, not just from the poor or middle-income people but also from the most affluent. We might say that they are being fair. They are taking it away from everybody. In fact, the clawback is phased in to help those in the lowest brackets for a while.
But the combination of the clawback and of the gifts to the most affluent by reducing the marginal rate on the highest incomes, leaves the top 1 per cent of taxpayers with an average of $3,770 more in their pockets at the end of the year. They do not mind the clawback because they are still almost $4,000 ahead. That is the kind of special treatment that is provided in the budget, not solely in this legislation. The net effect of other budget provisions and this clawback proposal is to leave the people at the very top of the heap better off than they were when the Conservatives were first elected. At the same time, the working poor and the middle-income people will be worse off.
It is not fair to load 80 per cent of the population with the cost of lowering the marginal rates for those with $100,000 or more net income. It just is not fair. It is typically Tory, but it is not fair.
Why should there be special and preferential treatment for the income of the affluent in the realm of capital gains, something which was mentioned by my colleague earlier? On capital gains up to $100,000 accumulative there is no tax at all. That is not for the poor. That is not for the working poor. That is not for the middle-income people.
Let me talk about the tax exemptions for residences. It is one thing to say that a $100,000 residence is tax free, but it also applies to a $1 million residence. So even that is not applied fairly, not progressively.
Why is there special treatment for investment income? Again, there is special treatment, not the special kind of treatment that helps the lowest income people, but special preferential treatment on those affluent who are receiving investment income. They get special rates of tax that are lower on the average than on income that workers earn by the sweat of their brow.
There are special rates for corporations. Why is there a large corporation tax also included in this budget which taxes some 3,200 corporations which were not previously paying corporation tax on their income, but which still lets some 60,000 large profitable corporations escape from paying any income tax at all? If they are catching 3,200 and letting 60,000 go when they could have brought in legislation that would have caught all 64,000 of them, then the answer must be that they are looking after their friends. There does not seem to be any other choice.
I can appreciate the government's need for money. There have been cutbacks in expenditures that we have complained about and are still complaining about and no doubt will continue to complain about. There is the tremendous deficit that, this year, went up by some $5 billion. While there are projections that it will come down in the future, the deficit for this year was supposed to have come down too, if we were to believe the estimates of the Minister of Finance. No one really believes that he knows what is going to happen two, three, four and five years down the road when he could not say what was going to happen tomorrow.
We know that the government needs money to reduce the deficit, to wipe it out and even to work on the accumulated debt. There are fair ways of getting that money. We have talked about such methods. I do not
November 20, 1989

intend to go into them in any great detail now other than to mention one which I have mentioned before and which others have mentioned.
In 1962 the government of the day was concerned about revenue, but it also had some silly ideas. It must have been a Liberal government at that time, but I do not know for certain. It was really a novel idea. It was that the new tax system should be fair. So that government appointed the Carter Commission in September of 1962. It took until December of 1966, four years and ten months later, to produce a nine volume report which described in detail a fair tax system for Canadians. It was not universally applauded. As a matter of fact almost everybody in the country found something to say against it, anyone that would talk about it. But it was, on balance, a fairer system. It was so fair that the government of the day filed it away and it now gathers dust in libraries and archives around the country.
If members of the government really want to be fair, and I doubt very much that they do, then I want to recommend something to them. Certainly their record to date has given no indication that they are the least bit interested in being fair to the population as a whole. They certainly want to be more than fair to their friends, the most affluent ones at the top, and more than fair to the large profitable corporations that are not paying any tax. They do not want to be so fair to the middle-income people, and they are unfair to the ones at the bottom. Everything they have done points in those directions. But if they want to be fair, if they want even to consider it, and perhaps there is one person over there who would, and that is the chairman of the finance committee, I would recommend that they dig up the Carter report, blow the dust off it and start reading the details. I said at the time, and I think I was one of a relatively small group who did so, that it was a good report. It is a report that could be the basis of a fair taxation system in Canada.
People do not like paying taxes. I am sure, Madam Speaker, you have maybe said yourself on platforms during election campaigns, and you have certainly heard it many times, that the only fair tax is the one that you pay and I do not. Nevertheless, I think there is a feeling
Government Orders
among Canadians that if taxation were convincingly fair, then they would support it.
The Carter Commission was fair, "a buck is a buck". It does not matter whether your income comes from the old age pension, from family allowance, from a lottery win or from dividends of a corporation, it is one more dollar that you have, one more dollar of spending power, and you should pay the same rate on this dollar as you do on every dollar that you get regardless of the source. It should be progressive beyond that, yes, but it should be taxed all in the same way.
I am not giving you the details of a nine volume report, Madam Speaker. You could certainly get those if you were interested, as could the government. But it was a good report. There were many criticisms of it, but on the whole it was a good report, one that could form the basis of a fair taxation system in Canada. It is one that I would strongly recommend to the government to take up, at least take it out of the libraiy and blow the dust off it. Start reading it. Bring it in instead of all these changes that you are making, each one of which makes the system more unfair.
I can recall, and I have repeated this on other occasions, when the finance critic for the New Democrats, Lome Nystrom, said in debate, "When in the history of Canada was a major tax change ever made which shifted the load of government from the very poor to the affluent?" When did it improve the lot of those at the bottom of the heap at the expense of those at the top? To this day no one has given any answer to that. Every major tax change has left the most affluent better off and the ones at the bottom worse off. The various changes that are being made by this government follow that pattern right down the line.
There is a better way. There is a better answer. I would recommend to the government it take a look at the Carter report.


Sheila Finestone: Madam Speaker, I stand today to speak to Bill C-28, a bill that makes 59 different amendments to the Income Tax Act. There are a whole series of areas that are impacted which, among others, includes the family allowance and old age security pensions. That particular clawback is what I wish to address today. I do not want anyone listening to think that that is the only thing being impacted by the amendments to this package that has been deposited by

November 20, 1989
Government Orders
the Minister of Finance and which is going to cause great distress and financial hardship to many people in our society.
Part 1.2 of Clause 48 in Bill C-28 implements the clawback of family allowance and old age security pensions. The amount of the repayment is equal to 15 per cent of the taxpayer's income over $50,000. That is what I wish to address.
In general, I think those of us who are concerned would recognize that with respect to family allowance this particular measure is going to take $1,686 billion out of family budgets in the next five years, or $500 million a year by 1991. It is true that certain family allowance benefits are taxable. Thirty per cent of family allowance benefits are already paid back to the government through the progressive income tax system.
Within ten years, close to one million Canadian families who currently receive family allowances or old age pensions will begin to lose these benefits due to the partial indexing that is inflation less 3 per cent of the $50,000 threshold. So it is with great concern that I participate in this debate because it is an attack on children and families, as well as an attack on those who helped to build this country, the seniors of this land.
I want to speak in particular, and make my remarks on behalf of the people of the Mount Royal riding, as well as those in the rest of Canada. I have had the opportunity to speak to hundreds and hundreds in my riding. There is very serious concern. They feel that they are going to suffer directly as a result of this very negative, regressive legislation.
I would suggest to you that in fulfilling our responsibility as legislators we have to keep a careful eye on the government and its agenda, particularly in opposition. But I think that conscientious members of this government and of the legislature here should be speaking and expressing the concerns that are brought to their attention by their constituents, irrespective of party policy when it comes to matters as serious as this.
It is, therefore, ironic that after a weekend when the news was filled with the reviews of the Conservative agenda one year after the last election, today we are in the middle of a debate that symbolizes that agenda, one of the most serious attacks on social change and social policy in the history of the last 25 years.
I refer to the clawback of seniors' pensions, an erosion of the universality principle that has always guided our social programs in this country. The Conservative agenda appears aimed at cutting and reducing the caring aspects of government saying it is in the national interest. Where we differ on this side of the House is by believing in a more balanced approach to financial responsibility, always respecting the compassionate traditions upon which our country was founded.
Most people would agree that a government exists to make changes possible and to make things happen. However, Liberals do not believe in change for change sake but rather making things better. That is why a balance must be struck between the economic and social impact of change. We believe in this balanced approach. We believe that while it is the economy that grows, it is society that cares.
Throughout Canada's history, with all the changes brought in its short 120 years, there has always remained a deeply held conviction, a cornerstone of our national life that would never change, our tradition of universal access to social programs, Canada's way of demonstrating tolerance and fairness as members of a society. Yet, in 1984, that tradition began to unravel, to erode. It is this unravelling that I would like to address now.
Since coming to office the Conservatives have time after time, year after year, continued a slow, often deceptive, but always real plan, a plan to dismantle the safety net of social programs that most of us believed was part of the fabric of this country. Once it was everyone's right as a Canadian to have access to social programs, but that is no longer true. The social contract established decades ago gave every Canadian equal access to the benefits of our social programs. That is the contract that has been broken. There is not fairness and equal access.
Universality is quite a simple idea. It is the expression of a belief that over a lifetime every single Canadian contributes to the building and flourishing of this society in their own way and that no one should be shut out from the benefits of the country that they have helped to build. That is universality. It is simple, true, and Canadian. We must remember that this principle has survived governments of two political stripes and has survived recessions. Indeed, it grew out of the Depression. Yet this spirit and tradition of a government looking out for
November 20, 1989

the health and welfare of every Canadian, no matter their means, came to a sudden end in 1984.
Under this government in Ottawa, universality has become little more than words on paper, words offered to Canadians on the one hand then quickly erased with the other. How familiar we are with the Prime Minister standing before a crowd and declaring to all the country that our social programs were a sacred trust. Yes there were days when this government's smooth rhetoric tricked Canadians into believing they shared this caring approach to social programs. But it seems to have been a mask behind which lay the real truth.
Time after time this government has used fast talk and colourful packaging to hide from Canadians the true facts, the slow dismantling of universal access to well established and important social programs. As a result, for five long years the opposition has devoted endless energy trying to stop the government's slow erosion piece by piece of these social benefits.
We are lucky that sometimes challenges to the government do succeed because Canadians are not fooled; they see past the rhetoric. They speak out, sometimes they do this successfully and they force this government to back-track. It was very early in the Conservative mandate that the unravelling of universality began. I go back to December 21, 1984, just weeks after the Conservatives took office, when the Leader of the Opposition rose in this House, trying to fend off the finance minister's deindexing of old age pensions.
Today we paid tribute to my colleague, Jean Claude Malepart, who unfortunately passed away this past weekend. He was one of the strongest critics of the government's insensitivity in the deindexing of old age pensions.
The leader of our party stood by the principle of universality and began a battle with this government that continues to this very day. He put it this way: "Why are we so committed to universality? It is because Canadians believe in equality. Canadians believe that all individuals, no matter their social status, deserve equitable treatment. If you segregate services only to the very need, then those services meant only for the poor become poor services". Preserving the social contract is what my party has always believed in, and that is what we
Government Orders
have fought this government over since 1984. Fortunately, on the deindexation of pensions, the people won.
The reality is that the 1989 budget did cut old age security benefits through what is now called the clawback clause. They have cut family allowances as well and they have cut health care funding allocations. They have also privatized unemployment insurance, which is another important aspect of our social contracts.
Today the practical implications of the clawback are that anyone receiving $50,000 a year in retirement income net will have their pension benefits taken back into the government treasury. The same applies to family allowances. There is an additional piece of trickery for 70 per cent of seniors whose net income is based not only on pensions and interest funds but also on dividends. If dividends are collected, the amount of those dividends are grossed up by 25 per cent.
Just a word of explanation here where I think we must focus some of the fight as well. The tax system treats dividends for Canadians in a very special way. They are grossed up by 25 per cent in calculating net income and then this is offset by the dividend tax credit in the final tax calculation. The clawback, however, is based on the inflated net income figure. I would say that that is grossly unfair, that grossed up figure, on top of everything else. I will come back to that a little later.
What about tomorrow? Within 10 years nearly 1 million more Canadian families will lose all or part of their family allowance and old age pensions because of this action. The threshold will change. It will only rise in future years by the amount that annual inflation exceeds 3 per cent. That means that eight years from now the tax-back threshold will have fallen to the equivalent of $40,000 today.
In a careful reading of a Globe and Mail article of Monday, May 15, Hugh Windsor outlines this. I wish to quote much of what he has to say because it is very important. I have checked this out and it would seem that these are very well-founded figures. He states that while it is true:
-that the $50,000 income threshold for the beginning of the clawback affects relatively few seniors-about 13 per cent of old age security recipients who file income tax forms, with only 3.5 per cent of those paying back all of the pensions. At first glance, the $50,000 seems a reasonable level to begin the cut; indeed, it must seem like Easy Street to the approximately half a million seniors who live below

November 20, 1989
Government Orders
the poverty line. The $76,000 where the clawback tops out is beyond the expectations of most Canadians, whatever their age group -
But sneakiness and potential unfairness enter into the way Mr. Wilson chose to treat the $50,000 over time. The threshold will not rise in step with inflation -
Which must be done when assessing such a major public policy change.
So, if we look down the road at maintaining current buying power while evaluating seniors' income in constant dollars, and if we project current inflation rates forward, by the year 2000 the clawback will start at $35,765. Fifteen years from now, the threshold will be down to $30,000; five years later when the first of the baby boomers start retiring, and that is in the year 2010, it will stand at $28,000 and will affect at least two million Canadians.
It is a crafty thin edge of the wedge, eroding universality and not taking into account the goods and services tax or the potential for lowering the threshold to $40,000 or $45,000 and raising the rate up of taxing at 15 per cent. Tampering with indexation was wrong in 1985. It is wrong in 1989. This is not taxation. It is ideologically driven confiscation.


Mr. Thacker:: What about the six and five program?


Sheila Finestone: That was not good either. Not that that should make it any different. It did not take effect at that point either, so do not try to deny the erosion of rights that you have put into place right now.
As some members try to look for arguments and blame it on the other guy, blame it on someone else, not me the Conservative, let me quote the Minister of State (Seniors) who stood in this House and cited senior citizens groups which were were supportive of budget clawback provisions and were reacting very favourably. It is amazing that the reaction of these senior groups' to her remarks was one of disbelief and indignation over what they saw as a blatant misinterpretation of their position. It goes right along with the blatant misinterpretation of our Prime Minister who swore that he would never touch his mother's pension. He would never touch anybody's pension and only enrich the well-being of the elderly in our society. It goes along with the Minister of Finance saying that he has not touched universality. That too is an exaggeration.
The problem is that a buck is a buck is a buck. There is a fairness argument to be made that $1 of income should be taxed the same way no matter where that income comes from. Second, most of the people receiving this old age security have paid many times over in the past. Those presently receiving old age security payments of approximately $4,000 a year have been paying since 1952. They paid at a rate higher than that of a pension plan even at the self-employed rate of contributions of employee and employer share. In the beginning in the 1950s the amount of the contribution was 2 per cent of taxable income subject to a maximum payment of $60, that is those who have an earned or unearned income of $3,000 in taxable income.
By 1965 they were paying 4 per cent with a top of $120 a year. That was the year before we even introduced the Canada Pension Plan. In 1967, it stayed at 4 per cent, but the maximum payment on $6,000 of taxable income went up to $240. In 1971 we remember that the then Finance Minister Edgar Benson removed the ceiling of total payments on taxable income, and I refer to page 11 of the summary of the 1971 tax reform legislation where he kept the 4 per cent but rolled it into the tax revisions that he made. He set no limits so that those at $50,000 of taxable income paid $2,000 into their old age security. It was not an attack on universality or a cut in the old age pension, it was a different way of paying for it. Since 1971 to 1987 this has been the case. We are all paying into it and we pay all our life for our old age security whether we are in need or not in need. That is the point.


Mrs. Dobbie:: And we believe in paying for our brothers, if we are rich enough to.


Sheila Finestone: Aren't you lucky we all fought for you before so that you could earn income. Lots of people did not earn income.
I would suggest that there are many serious problems that we are facing in this whole cut-back. It is an inhuman approach. It is an unfair approach. The changes that the Minister of Finance brought in with his tax reform obscured the reality of what he was doing in terms of changing the whole system of paying for the old age security.
November 20, 1989

One of the things that I think bothers us over here is the whole global view. First of all, there will be people who will lose all or part of their old age security, not based on real income but based on a financial decision taken with a false premise because there is a grossed up amount in there which is totally unfair. The minister took away the first $1,000 worth of taxable income from investments. That is another attack. Now the minister takes away old age security cheques and wants to claw them back. I think that there is gall on the part of the Minister of Finance, and the people should rise up and complain steadily about what is going on.
The danger is that once you start tinkering with and undermining the principle of universality, you put everything into question. Who decides who gets what benefits? Where do you draw the line? Who decides which Canadians deserve more help than others? It is time for all Canadians to write to their Members of Parliament, particularly those on the government side, deposit those petitions, make them stand up, and make them talk to the issue that is of great concern to many Canadians. This debate, more than any other debate, has ciystalized the difference of opinion over the future direction of Canada and people are not pleased.


Mr. Robert E. Skelly (Comox-Alberni):: Madam Speaker, I was holding back a little bit, hoping that some of my Conservative colleagues across the way who prefer to debate from their seats might stand up and provide some kind of defence for this program, but it seems that some Tory members feel that their only job in this House is to occupy a seat and when it comes time for a vote, to vote for whatever the government puts forward, rather than to express any kind of commitment, concern, or support for a particular program. Even if they are opposed to the program, they sit on their duffs, keep their mouths shut, and provide the 150 votes that are necessary for the government to ram it down the throats of the rest of Canadians. That is unfortunate.
When we are debating an issue like this, those who take some pleasure in sitting over there and shooting from their seats really have a right to do that, unless they show a little commitment to what the government is doing by standing up and providing some defence for a program. In this case the program is absolutely indefensible, especially given the promise that was quoted over
Government Orders
and over again by my colleagues, the promise made by the Prime Minister. "Our position is simple and straightforward. We are in favour of universality of social programs and they shall not be touched". Somebody has not been telling the truth to somebody and these Conservatives on the other side should be standing up and making the confession.
This program is a direct attack on universality. It is not the only attack that has come from this government, unfortunately. Universal programs in this country have traditionally been supported by two pillars of federal policy. The one pillar is the progressive income tax system that makes sure that those who are favoured by this country, those who are favoured in terms of wealth and those who are favoured in terms of income, pay at least their share and then some, and are recognized for the amount of contributions they make and rewarded for these contributions. The progressive income tax system is an important pillar of the universality concept that we have used in this country for a long, long time.
The other pillar of the universal social programs are the programs themselves, the family allowance system and the Old Age Security system. This government has now begun to attack those two pillars of universality from both sides. First, they attacked from the side of the tax system. By reducing the effective tax rate on those who are earning the highest incomes in this country, they have made that tax system much less progressive.
Certain types of incomes which are only earned by the wealthy in this country, incomes such as dividends and capital gains that are skewed predominantly toward the wealthy and the high-income earner end of the tax scale are less heavily taxed than other types of income, for example, hourly salaries and the types of income that are earned by the poor and the middle-class. The rich and the high-income people in this country are being favoured by changes brought about in the tax system that have reduced its progressivity.
At the same time, this government has gone heavily into other areas of taxation that are the most regressive. For example, the one we are debating these days is the goods and services tax, which bears more harshly on the poor and lower-income people than it does on the wealthy who can afford to pay a high price for the things

November 20, 1989
Government Orders
that they purchase and can afford to pay the tax, but unfortunately, poor people cannot. By extending the services and the goods that are taxed under consumer taxes, the poor pay heavily on everything they purchase, especially on the necessities that they use, whereas the wealthy tend to pay on luxuries which probably should be taxed at a higher rate. We have seen the Conservatives attack the fundamental pillars of social programs from both pillars, from the progressivity of the tax system and from the social programs themselves.
This is after the Prime Minister promised that the principle of universality would not be touched in this country, that it was a sacred trust. Like other sacred trusts, it has now gone by the board. It appears to me that the Prime Minister, even when he was saying this, knew that he had a policy to undermine those social programs, to undermine the progressivity of the tax system, and in fact to undermine the universality principle itself. He simply was not saying it to the public. He was saying the opposite, knowing it to be untrue and he was misleading the people of Canada at the point that he said that.
When I look at this bill what concerns me is not that the family allowances and old age pensions are going to be taxed back from the wealthy. In fact, I think that that is a good idea. That was the basis of universal social programs in the first place, in order to avoid those demeaning means-tested programs that we had in the past. For example, a whole system of means testing had to be gone through to get family allowances, or old age pensions. One of the ways of eliminating those means tests was to make the programs universal and then to tax them back through the progressive income tax program. By destroying the progressive income tax program, the Conservative government has now made that system virtually unworkable.
What the government is doing in this legislation is isolating old age pensions and family allowances as income which should be taxed specifically and separately from all other types of income. They are isolating that particular form of income to be taxed back on a different basis than other types of income. In the universal system, it is combined with all of the other types of income and taxed on the same basis.
I believe that at some point in the future, when those who are at the high end of the tax scale recognize that pension income and family allowance income is being taxed specifically and directly, they are going to be petitioning the government and saying that they do not want that kind of income at all. "Why not just provide those programs for the poor, because for us they are a nuisance because we have to deal with them on our tax forms". They will be speaking to the government and suggesting that we no longer pay old age pension and family allowance to those above a certain income level in this country. What will happen is that we will return to the means-tested program, that demeaning system where poor people are put through a whole series of questionnaires and analyses to find out if they are cheating on their declarations of income so that these programs will apply specifically to the poor.
That cannot be done. In a country like Canada these programs are extremely valuable even to high income families. I want to point out an example to you, Madam Speaker, of how the family allowance system is extremely important to women because the family allowance cheques are paid to women, even in relatively high-income families. I will use the example of a community that I used to serve when I was a provincial member of the legislature in British Columbia.
That community was a single-industry community, a forest industry town with a pull mill. In that community most of the men worked and most of the women stayed home and looked after their kids, or if the kids were in school, they simply stayed home, but not in all cases. Although the men made relatively high incomes in the pulp and paper industry and in the logging industry, did they bring that income home? In some cases, they would gamble it away on pay day or drink it up and the family would never see any of that income. In other cases, since the man decided that it was his income from his employment, he would parcel it out to his family and an inadequate amount of income was shared with the family. As a result, even though the male income earner was relatively well off, the rest of his family was relatively poorly off. In fact, it could be argued that they were below the poverty line.
I recall that some of the women in the community, the wives in the community came to me as a provincial member of the legislature seeking money to set up a day care centre so that their children could be looked after and so that they could go out and seek employment. I
November 20, 1989

told them that because they had such a high family income they did not qualify for the day care supplements that were provided by the provincial government or for the capital grants that the provincial government at that time provided.
They told me in no uncertain terms that while their family income was high, they as spouses, as women, were poor and that the only income on which they could rely was the family allowance cheque that they got once a month, a cheque that was addressed to the women themselves, but was inadequate really to provide a decent standard of living for the family apart from what the men were earning in the pulp and paper or in the forest industry.
My argument is that we should be raising family incomes in this country, raising family allowance income in this country, raising old age pensions and then increasing the tax on the wealthiest people so that the amount of increase can be paid for directly from income tax. There should be a balancing not only between rich and poor but also within families so that the women in that family have the same amount of income as the breadwinner. There should be a distribution of income in the family as well as between the rich and the poor people in our society.
What this legislation does is precisely the opposite. It focuses on a type of income. It makes that income liable to a different kind of tax than the way the rest of the income is taxed. It is going to create pressure in this country, especially from higher income earners, to do away with this universal system of pensions and family allowances altogether.
It is bad legislation. It violates the promise that the Prime Minister made when he said that he would not touch universal programs, that universal programs were a sacred trust. It is a subtle-and as the chairman of the finance committee said-a sneaky way of getting around that promise and actually destroying universal social programs by this system that we see in this legislation. It is dirty, it is underhanded, and if the members on the other side had an ounce of conviction, if the members on the other side supported and believed and campaigned on the basis of the promise that the Prime Minister made back in 1984, they would be on their feet in this House, in caucus, and in cabinet demanding that the Prime Miniter
Private Members' Business
live up to his promise and that he withdraw this legislation and respect his promise to maintain the universality of social programs rather than bringing in sneaky, underhanded legislation such as this which is designed to destroy the universality of those social programs, but in a very underhanded way.
We have seen countless studies and countless statistics showing that since the Tories took office in 1984 the rich have actually been excused from paying taxes in this country. They have paid less since the Tories came into office, and the poor have been frozen, ghettoized in poor income levels. The middle-income people and the people who pay income taxes based on salaries and hourly rates of earnings have seen a tremendous growth in the amount of tax they have to pay. The rich are getting away with murder as a result of Tory policy, the poor are frozen in a ghetto of poverty as a result of inadequate Tory policies, and the people who are at the lower end of the income scale and the middle income scale end up paying a heck of a lot more as a result of the Tory policy which supports the rich and ghettoizes the poor and leaves the rest of us paying far more than we should.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: It being five o'clock p.m. the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.



PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS - MOTIONS   THE ENVIRONMENT

[Stage Direction]
ACCESS TO INFORMATION Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena) moved:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider the advisability of amending the Access to Information Act to ensure that all Canadians have right of access to all environmental information gathered or held by the government.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak on an issue that I know is of pressing interest and concern to Canadians from coast to coast. This government, much like its Liberal predecessor, was proven to be among the most if not the most indifferent in the western world when it comes to
[Stage Direction]
November 20, 1989
Private Members' Business
allowing the public access to information regarding environmental matters.
I believe Motion M-104 is very straightforward. It simply requests the following of the House:
That, in the opinion of the House, the government should consider the advisability of amending the Access to Information Act to ensure that all Canadians have right of access to all environmental information gathered or held by the government.
Over the last 10 years or so I have had the opportunity, in fact the duty, to attempt to get all kinds of information from the Government of Canada and from time to time from the provincial and territorial governments.
I am saddened to say that the Government of Canada is the least likely to release information that is of public interest. Quite often there are excuses. The government says that it can't release certain information because it is commercially confidential or because a particular group of individuals in Toronto, Montreal, Yellowknife, or Queen Charlotte City might not understand what the information really means and would not be able to do anything useful with it.
As I have learned in the years that I have had a particular personal and political interest in environmental matters, the public out there is much more knowledgeable than most members who sit on the floor of the House of Commons. It is much more capable of and much more likely to read the information made available and, if necessary, to go to the experts, whether it is in forestry, in water quality, in atmospheric matters, or in terms of toxic or hazardous wastes. It is much more likely to dig into it and try to find practical and pragmatic solutions, something the government does not give the Canadian public much of an opportunity to do.
More and more we find not only here in Canada but around the world people who talk about thinking globally and acting locally. The fact of the matter is that one cannot act locally. A local farm family cannot in fact approach a lot of the difficult issues it might face in terms of soil erosion, flooding, or various problems with insects, disease or whatever unless it has information to work with.
One thing this chamber must do is respond democratically in terms of allowing the public to access the information that we as the Canadian public have collectively paid for.
Let me give examples of why it is so important that this information be made available. Let us take a look at what many scientists are now describing as the last green gold rush in relation to the massive proposed investments particularly by international firms that come to Canada to turn our forests into pulp to be sent off for various paper related purposes around the world.
In B.C., for example, one of the pet projects of the minister of forests, Mr. Parker, who has just recently been dumped, was trying to give away one-seventh of British Columbia to a firm from New Zealand known as Fletcher Challenge so that it could come in and pulp one-seventh of British Columbia. There were no attachments to a forest licence requiring recycling. There were no qualifications attached to it in replanting, no priority requirements in relation to wildlife or the replanting of certain areas within a certain time frame for certain of the natural ecosystems that were disrupted; nothing like that.
A third of the province of Alberta, with almost not a peep from the federal government, is in the process of being turned over to a consortia primarily from Japan that wants to cut down almost a third of the province of Alberta over the next 20 years and turn it into pulp to be shipped to various areas of the world.
One fifth of Manitoba has been turned into the hands of one company, simply to have it pulped away. Half the province of New Brunswick, a few years ago, was handed over to four large firms. That is just a smattering of examples from across Canada.
What is being done? I know Environment Canada has all kinds of information on the cumulative impact of these kinds of harvesting proposals in terms of the negative impact of these pulp projects on the Athabasca and the Peace rivers in Alberta and, as we already know, on the water systems of British Columbia.
We know that 40 per cent of marine pollution in Canada comes from pulp mills. Environment Canada has a library filled with information on the direct, cumulative and bio-cumulative impact, and in terms of bio-magnification, on water systems from furans, from dioxins, and from organo-chlorines.
We have heard long tales from the Minister of the Environment, all well meaning I am sure but not backed up by any kind of real political action. We hear the
November 20, 1989
[Stage Direction]
minister saying that he is concerned and that new regulations and so on will be brought in.
We know that there is a proposal to clear cut one-seventh of British Columbia for one pulp mill, one-third of Alberta for six pulp mills, one-fifth of Manitoba for one pulp mill, and one-half of the province of New Brunswick for four other pulp mills. No cumulative impact has been done in any of those provinces, either in terms of the impact on the atmosphere, the impact on the forest ecosystems, or the impact on the water systems.
What is going on? This is the latter part of the 20th century and we have a government that either does not give a damn or is acting as a front for certain corporate interests so that the public is not really told the impact of some of these projects.
This brings me to what I think is really the key point in terms of this debate. It is that the Government of Canada is intentionally withholding vital information that the public should be given.
Let us take a look at another area. I will come back to the forest sector in a moment. We know that today 50,000 tonnes of hazardous waste were produced in Canada. We know from debates that have taken place in the House that about 80 per cent of the toxic and hazardous waste produced on a daily basis in Canada is not properly disposed of.
For example, it is dumped. As we hear from the Ontario Minister of the Environment, "The industrial polluters along the St. Clair River suffer from industrial incontinence". In the last couple of months there have been 35 major potentially life endangering and certainly life threatening spills in the St. Clair.
Some papers shuffle hands. The people say they deplore this. The fact of the matter is that the federal and provincial regulations and their likelihood of enforcement are so weak and so slow that industry in Ontario and industry in most of Canada have decided that it is in their interest to pollute. It is the cheapest way of doing business. Rather than having proper disposal methods with closed circuit technologies so that waste does not escape into the air, on to the land or into the water, they have decided it is just a cost of doing business.
Let us look at my home province. A study done by Dr. Rankin who teaches law at the University of Victoria took a look at the environmental permits structure in the
Private Members' Business
province of British Columbia. He found, last year, that 63 per cent of the Class 1 permits were in significant non-compliance for more than a year.
Let me tell you what that means because it is quite a mouthful. It means that two-thirds of the permits given to municipalities or to industry which are dumping waste into rivers or into lakes or into the ocean were not in compliance. They were not living up to the absolute minimum terms of their permit. Some 76 per cent of the Class 3 permits were in significant non-compliance for more than a year. That is for land fills, dumping on to land, dumping into the atmosphere.
A considerable number of permits that Dr. Rankin examined had never been in compliance, never. It was only because Dr. Rankin knew how to access this information and to get it out that it ever became public. It was not released by the government. It is only where you have people who are persuasive, dedicated and persistent that they can dig a little information out and find out what is really going on.
Public trust in my view is breached and violated constantly in this country due to the political control of most governments right now by powerful private sector interests, whether it is in the nuclear sector, the mining sector, the forest sector, or in terms of hazardous and toxic wastes.
What of PCBs? What of the St. Basile le Grand fire and all the concern not only in the province of Quebec but right across the country about what happens to PCBs when they are burned and about the long-term problems that are known.
I was shocked during that period of time when there was debate in this House and a member on the government side got up and said that all this stuff about PCBs is all blown out of proportion. The fact of the matter is that if one takes the time to speak to professionals in the field of medicine, people who are interested in the impact of long-term low-level exposures of all forms of life to PCBs, one finds that there are in fact intractable, dangerous problems that come from associations with PCBs.
For Mr. Klein, the Minister of the Environment in Alberta, to say it is okay to drink PCBs and for members on the government side to suggest you could go and wash your hands in PCBs is in my view a repugnantly, intellectually and medically dishonest approach to a
[Stage Direction]
November 20, 1989
Private Members' Business
serious chronic problem that we have not only in Canada but around the world right now.
We have to start thinking globally and acting locally. That is the way to start seriously addressing problems that may well bring about the end of life with a whimper. It will not be with a big bang; it will be a whimper.
Many of these global problems are starting to have what is called bio-feedback. They are starting to respond to other symptoms of the degeneration of our ecological systems. A lot of Canadians who know it is starting to happen. It is a visceral feeling. They look at a government that seems to be more interested in things that while important do not deserve the degree of intellectual, emotional and political time spent on them in this chamber.
Why can we not have access to information? Why should I have to spend what I do on some of the files I have been working on more than two years to try and get a little teeny bit of environmental information out of the minister, the department and other departments? I am persistent. I have staff that can help me. There are very few Canadians who can possibly even consider that.
My colleague from Vancouver Island was speaking a moment ago about the nature, the structure of what is happening in Canada. I think there we can find part of the symptoms and perhaps part of the reason the access to information in this country is so difficult to get. It is because those who control it are so powerful.
Over 50 per cent of the wealth in Canada is now controlled by less than 10 per cent of the population. Some 70 per cent of the wealth is controlled by the top 20 per cent, and the bottom 20 per cent of income earners in Canada control no wealth at all. They owe. They are in debt. They are the ones who often, if not always, face the significant, negative environmental impacts of many of the things going on around us that can be controlled and in fact can be of great economic and direct environmental benefit.
Here is a study that this government of Canada refuses to release. Of course, as you would expect, I am going to release some of the contents of it right now. It was done for the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources. It
was done in relation to the greenhouse effect and the actual cost benefits of reducing the amount of C02 and greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere in Canada.
On page 1 it points out:
The World Resources Institute estimates the man-made contributions to the greenhouse effect to be as follows: carbon dioxide, 49 per cent; methane, 18 per cent; chlorofluorocarbons, 14 per cent; nitrous oxide, 6 per cent; and other gases, 13 per cent.
This group, working for the Government of Canada, paid by the Government of Canada, but never of course a report to be released to Canadians who might be interested, goes on to say about the costs of carbon dioxide emission reductions:
Most of the measures that reduce emissions of carbon dioxide also save energy. In many of these cases, the value of the energy saved over the life of the measure exceeds the initial investment required. As a result, the net cost of most of the measures is negative; that is they produce a net benefit. Most of the measures selected reduce carbon dioxide emissions, save energy and save money.
That sounds like a winner to me. Let me repeat so government members can hear of a document that their minister of energy is sitting on. Most of the measures selected reduce carbon dioxide emissions, save energy and save money. That sounds like a pretty good idea.
The total cost associated with the carbon dioxide emission reduction measures in each penetration scenario is as follows: market penetration, minus 42 billion; measures economically attractive to society, negative 150 billion; technical potential, negative 99 billion. I am not talking millions. I am talking billions that this government over here could save. It got the report but it does not want to do it. I will come to why it does not want this information out and why it also does not want to do it. I am quoting:
Implementing the measures economically attractive to society yields a net benefit of $150 billion on the basis of energy savings alone. The technical potential scenario achieves larger carbon dioxide emission reductions by including some measures that are not economically attractive to society. As a result the total net benefits, at $99 billion, are somewhat smaller than under MEAS. However, it is important to recognize that the technical potential scenario still yields a significant net benefit to society.
These economic benefits cannot be achieved without significant investment. The incremental capital investments required are estimated as follows: $23 billion for market penetration; $74 billion
November 20, 1989
[Stage Direction]
for measures that are economically attractive to society; and for
technical potential, $128 billion.
You might ask, Madam Speaker, what are the benefits of making this investment. Saving Canadians $150 billion probably is not a bad idea on its own. What about the other great benefit? We heard the Minister of the Environment, and we have heard the Prime Minister saying they are going to do all these great things about global warming. Even from the most recent conferences the government has not even been able to adopt the suggestion that Canada reduce the amount of C02 we are producing by 20 per cent by the year 2005. Yet it can do more than that and save Canadians $150 billion.
If I were a government member I might say: "Why is the minister of energy withholding this report from me as a government member if it is going to save Canadians $150 billion? We are slashing unemployment insurance. We are clawing back pension and family allowance. We are gouging middle and low-income taxpayers. We are kicking the crap out of this province and that province. What is going on?" Well, try and get a government member to talk seriously about hydrogen technology. They say: "Hydrogen, you cannot drive a car on hydrogen". Of course you can. If you have a beaker of water, you have got energy to drive a car. And government members say: "Good grief, this is not possible".
We have allowed a very select group, not just in Canada but around the world, to get a stranglehold on a lot of people. Whether it is for industrial or residential fuel consumption or for motor vehicles or for aircraft, there are alternate fuels, hydrogen being the prime one.
Why are we not moving on hydrogen? It does not create carbon dioxide. It is not going to add to the greenhouse effect. It is not polluting. The only thing that comes out of the tail pipe of your car is water and oxygen. I have people in my constituency who have already converted their vehicles and now they have all kinds of heat and pressure from the provincial government saying: "You are not taxes". There are intelligent approaches to be made.
The plea that I make to this chamber is that we start to use even a small fraction of the native intelligence that each of us was endowed with and the capacity to read. Why is a report that would save Canada $150 billion
Private Members' Business
being hidden in the safe in the minister of energy's office? Why will he not tell the Prime Minister? Why does he not come in here and say: "Look, I can save $150 billion. I can reduce the carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere." We can do something serious. There are entire countries that are going to disappear between the oceans within the lifetime of many of the people sitting in this chamber if we do not do something about the greenhouse effect.
In conclusion, I could go on, as you could imagine, Madam Speaker, at some length about the benefits and the reasons why, not only members of Parliament but Canadians generally have a right to access environmental information that is vital to them in their community, to them and their family, to us as a global species and to the other species on the planet. We have paid for it as Canadians. We deserve access to that information, and I would hope that all members would support such a proposal.
Mr. Lee Clark (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of the Environment):: Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by saying that the government and, I am sure, all members of Parliament understand the importance of providing the public with the type of information which it needs in order to become informed and to build upon the concern which is already there with respect to manners in which we can collectively work together to improve the health of our environment.
Even a passing interest in public affairs and environmental issues would cause any observer in these last few months to understand and to appreciate the fact that there is a growing awareness of the importance of the environment. In a very real sense there is a thirst for knowledge and how we as individuals can lead toward that healthy environment.
I use as an example a letter I received from a constituent that really struck home. This constituent living in one of the smaller communities within Brandon-Souris wrote to say that she was heating her house with fuel oil. She wondered if in so doing she was contributing in any significant way to the degradation of the environment. I was pleased to use that particular example to go to the department to ask for the type of information she obviously wished to have in order for her

November 20, 1989
Private Members' Business
to determine whether or not she was doing her part to assist in the development of a healthy environment.
This is but one example of the importance of providing information to Canadians wherever they may live in such a way that it is comprehensible to them and that it meets their everyday need for knowledge.
I think it is also important that the information be as comprehensible and readily available as possible, because I sense there is a tremendous danger as well that sometimes a little information or information improperly understood can contribute to misinformation and sometimes unnecessary fears.
The whole area of the threat to the environment is so scientific in nature that many Canadians are having difficulty grappling with the information before them. I would hope and believe that the government is beginning to provide its information in such a way that it is, cohesive in nature and leads to the kind of better understanding which will permit Canadians as individuals to lead a healthier and more environmentally pleasing lifestyle, as well as enable them as individuals to play a role in policy making. There is no question that virtually everyone who is a part of public life in Canada today would concede the fact that the public in many instances is leading and government is at best responding. As a member of government, I would readily concede that. I must say to my hon. friend who has just spoken that I very much respect his knowledge of the environment. I readily recognize that his commitment to the issues has made him a leader in this House and throughout the nation. I would say, however, in defence of this government that I do believe it has done more than he has given it credit for in terms of trying to provide the kind of information the public is seeking. I refer specifically to the hearings which are taking place in Alberta with respect to proposed pulp mills there because the hon. member made reference to it.
I think most people who have followed those hearings would concede that the information provided by those who have spoken on behalf of the federal government has been information in depth. It has been information that has made a valuable contribution, although one cannot judge that process until it is completed.
I would say in passing that I think many people were surprised by the breadth of evidence made available to that hearing by the spokesmen on behalf of the Government of Canada. I would not like members of this House or the listening public in any way to fail to appreciate the extent of the knowledge being provided in the hearings and as part of the environmental assessment review process.
We have been doing one thing which I think is worth noting, that is, the development of a state of the environment reporting system. This system, as you know, is given legal recognition in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act under section 2 which states: "The government of Canada shall provide information to the people of Canada on the state of the Canadian environment."
As part of that process there has been created a public advisory committee to determine the type of information needed as part of state of the environment reporting and to ensure that the information provided is accurate, up to date, and meets the needs of Canadians wherever they may be. This committee consists of individuals from environmental groups, consumer organizations, industry and the academic community, all of which have a direct interest in the state of the environment and all of which recognize the importance of the dissemination of accurate and up to date information.
The government has made a very deliberate and, I think most members would agree, positive step to involve the community at large in the issues which are ours. The environmental issue is not something which is in any way unique to this House. In fact, one would be less than honest if one were to try and pretend for a moment that the House has led in the development of environmental issues throughout Canada because I do not think it has. I think it is following. I think it is providing equal leadership on occasion, but it has not in the strictest sense of the word led.
This government is trying to involve the public in ensuring that our knowledge is as complete as it can be and the information which we are providing is as comprehensive as it can be. One of the ways we are doing that is by involving as many people from all sectors of the community as we can.
In 1986 the first national state of the environment report was published. Following the example of other governments and other countries, a 260-page publication was issued examining conditions, trends and our renew-
November 20, 1989

able resource systems. It looked at the effects of our human activity on our ecosystems and discussed the responses of institutions and organizations to environmental change. We are now working on that second national report which is scheduled to be published in 1991.
In addition, the state of environment fact sheet series is made available. It is designed to stimulate interest in environmental concerns among the media, non-govem-mental groups, high school students, libraries and the interested public.
If I may say so in passing, I think one of the most encouraging things I have noticed these last few months is a very evident interest among young people in environmental issues and also their willingness to do the type of research they must do in order to be well informed. I think the state of the environment fact sheet series contributes to that. Also young people in the province of Ontario, by way of their own leadership, have contributed to changing practices in requiring fast food restaurants to provide the product to them in a more environmentally satisfying manner than had been the case before.
Young people, as a result of the kind of information which they have been accumulating, some of which has been provided by this government, some by other governments, and some by their own research, are now playing a positive role in the sense that they are going into the industry, exercising their power as consumers and demanding that product be provided to them in a way which is environmentally sound. At first their efforts to ensure that hamburger packages did not contain CFCs were scoffed at and management paid little attention to them. More recently I have noticed, however, that they have succeeded and now the products they wish to buy are being packaged in such a way that it is much more satisfying to them and much more environmentally safe than would otherwise be the case.
In addition to the fact sheet series which I mentioned before, there is the state of the environment report series which will feature insights into a wide variety of environmental issues of national and regional significance. These reports will be aimed at universities, resource managers and interest groups as well as at individuals who want information in depth. Some of
Private Members' Business
these reports currently under way deal with endangered species, peoples and parks, air quality, ground water, prairie water resources and impacts of global change.
In addition there is also the state of the environment reporting newsletter which we have made available three times a year. We are trying to build up a data base within Statistics Canada that will provide Canadians with quick access to a wide range of environmental information. Preliminary efforts have been made to develop key indicators of the state of the environment comparable to traditional economic indicators such as the Consumer Price Index. The availability of all this data will ensure that the public will have a greater access to information in the future than it had two, three or four years ago.
I think that all of us will benefit from that because a well informed public is certainly the most important step in ensuring the legislation and practices in this country and in other countries throughout the world are what they might be.
For too long, economic development has occurred at the expense of the natural and cultural environment. That, of course, was recognized and dramatized by the report associated with former Prime Minister Brund-tland and those who worked with her. One of the results of that, of course, is a growing interest in the words "sustainable development". It may well be that many Canadians as yet could not define the term "sustainable development", and if they were to attempt to, they probably would not agree on what that definition should be.
I think what has developed is a realization that Canadians, by acting together in as well informed a manner as possible and by ensuring that their governments act on their behalf as well that we can indeed ensure that economic development in the future will occur in such a way that it will not be at the expense of future generations as has occurred in the past. Unfortunately, in the past, we made decisions based almost entirely on economic considerations alone and later we asked what the environmental consequences of those decisions would be.
I think as a result of the information which is now being made available by government and others to the public, we will ensure that in the future, consideration of

November 20, 1989
Private Members' Business
the economic implications of a decision will be a forethought rather than an afterthought.


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Madam Speaker, it seems to me that if the parliamentary secretary had read the commitments to open government made by his leader in the 1984 election and had been consistent with that pledge, he would also have had something positive to say in support of the motion of the member for Skeena and would have indicated his government's intention to let this motion pass. The Parliamentary Secretary refrained from saying that, however, ignoring the commitment of his own party to a more open government which was one of the basic pledges made in the summer of 1984.
Worse than that, the parliamentary secretary decided to develop a reply on the subject of transfer of general information and interpreted the motion of the member from Skeena as meaning that all he wants is to provide fact sheets, state of the environment reports and that kind of general information which we all know has been made available to the public but really contain very little hard data.
The member for Skeena talks with his motion about ensuring that all Canadians have right of access to all environmental information. He means the hard facts and the hard studies and the interesting stuff which does not see the light of day, if I understand his motion correctly. Of course there is merit in what he is proposing. The public ought to know about the hard econometric studies as to what are the options and policies when you make a decision affecting the economy, energy and other aspects that have an impact on the environment.
It would be a question, therefore, of making available to the public studies made on the cost of inaction on environmental matters or studies that I am sure are being made by the Department of the Environment on the evaluation of water quality in the Great Lakes about which we would like to know. What is the pattern and what do scientists in the employ of government say these days on this subject matter which is, however, not disclosed to the public on a matter that is basically one of public health.
The member would like, I am sure, to see studies made on energy options and the real cost of these energy options and he made a reference in his intervention to
that particular report which we would all dearly love to read. I am sure the public would like to know more.
Since I see the Minister of Labour in the House tonight, I will say that the public would like to know what studies are being conducted on the subject of ergonomics, on the subject of health at work, on the use of video screens and how that impacts on the health of workers. In other words, this is what is meant by greater access to information on the part of Canadians as to what are the workings of the various facets of government.
In that respect the parliamentary secretary has disappointed us. He has made a speech on the subject of public relations, of governments communicating to the public news, data or propaganda which are not necessarily the hard and difficult substance of studies that are probably being conducted by the government on a regular basis.
We come down to this basic issue of sharing of information which is a question of the sharing of power. When you have an imbalance in the knowledge of what is stored and accumulated by a unit called a department or by a larger corporation called a state and the public does not have access to that information, you have a considerable imbalance of power in that respect and therefore an inability to assess the gravity of a situation or an inability to decide which route to take when options are available.
I wish the parliamentary secretary had in his intervention given us some of his thoughts, for instance, on the Rafferty-Alameda Dam and how that was handled in terms of public information. Why were the basic facts not put out despite the pressures that developed? Why, for instance, was there not a public consultation process launched when it came to the so-called environmental study with relation to VIA Rail? All of a sudden, we saw a study that came out of the blue, without any public involvement, without any sharing of information beforehand with the public. It was a conclusion made by a department in isolation from the public affected. It was described as "an environmental study".
Why is there no sharing of information on the proposed and several times announced Winnipeg Centre on Sustainable Development? The parliamentary secretary filled the time out toward the end, because evidently he was running out of steam. Why is there not access to information as to what has been going on since June, 1988 when the Prime Minister at the United Nations General Assembly announced the opening of the Winnipeg Centre on Sustainable Development? We know
November 20, 1989

nothing about it. We do not know the substance of intergovernmental negotiations. We do not know anything about where the matter stands at the present time.
We know that the Minister of the Environment went to the United Nations in September and once again made an announcement. Actually, that announcement has been made several times and probably will be made many more times. Each time it will sound as if it is a great revelation, a great step forward by the so-called Progressive Conservative government. Here you have an example of how you could practise the open government promised in 1984. The report to which the member from Skeena referred is a very good example.
I will conclude, because my time is running out, by bringing out another example of not practicing what is being preached. Why did the government preclude the publication of Storm Warning in 1985? It was a brochure produced by Environment Canada dealing with the impact of transboundary movement of air pollutants as they affect the food chain which was suspended from publication for one year by the Minister of the Environment of the day. There was such an uproar on the part of the public that the government subsequently had to publish it. What kind of a record is that, Madam Speaker? These are probably the basic issues that the parliamentary secretary would have wanted to explain to us when it comes to access to public information.
Because of lack of time, I cannot go into the sham of the Rafferty-Alameda approval process, where the minister himself did not follow the requirements of his own regulations and he knew it. He denied it many times in the House, but he knew that he was not following the requirements.
Time does not permit me to go into the so-called environmental impact assessment on the VIA Rail decision which falls under the very same rules and regulations which this government proclaims that it is respecting. So, because of the time element, it is impossible now to go in depth into the subject, except to say that
Private Members' Business
if this government intended in 1984 to practise open government-


Mr. McDermid:: Time!


Mr. Caccia:: And I know the minister is crying "time" because it disturbs his hearing system and his political conscience. He does not like to be reminded of these elements, but for a government that promised on the hustings to be the defender of open government and to inform the public of what goes on really has very little to be proud of and very little to write home about. The minister of so-called public works over there has to learn a lot on the subject of making information available to the public as well. I hope that on another occasion, the parliamentary secretary will be more forthcoming on these outstanding issues.


Mr. Gabriel Desjardins (Temiscamingue):: Madam Speaker, I welcome this opportunity today to speak to a very important subject, namely, the public's right of access to all information on environmental matters. Madam Speaker, we cannot expect opposition members to consider the fact that things have been changing for a number of years and that this kind of information is becoming increasingly available. There were many references in the course of this debate to the situation in western Canada. I am more familiar with what is happening in eastern Canada and especially in Quebec, where the Government of Quebec is to be commended for environmental legislation that is among the strictest and most effective in this country. For instance, Madam Speaker, as a private citizen, I asked the Government of Quebec a few weeks ago to give me some vital information about mine tailings which are a major source of pollution in my region, and I did so following announcements made by the Minister of the Environment in Charlottetown, together with his colleagues, the provincial environment ministers, when it was decided to earmark $200 million for decontamination of abandoned sites in this country. I asked for a list of these sites, which happen to be mine tailings, and a week later, I was given all the information on these sites which are a health and environmental hazard for my region. This is one example to show that when we ask for information about subjects that concern us, that information is available.

November 20, 1989
Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, I would like to take a few minutes to show that the situation has improved in the past few years, and that as far as the environment is concerned, the federal government is making more and more information available to Canadians.
The government is so aware of these issues that it now has a vast range of programs, provinding the public with access to up-to-date information on climatic change, water quality, land, forests and other natural resources in this country. The most recent and most exhaustive program is the system of reports on the status of the environment included in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act we passed in 1987, and I quote: "The federal government shall provide information to the people of Canada on the state of the Canadian environment".
Reports on the state of the environment are an excellent way of identifying problems and setting priorities, because after all, actions speak louder than words when the delicate balance of our planet is threatened.
Following the example of countries like the United States, Australia, France, Sweden and Japan, Canada in 1986 published its first national report on the state of the environment, a document of some 270 pages that looked at our use of renewable resources and our policies in this area, the impact of human activity on our ecosystems and the way our institutions and organizations respond to environmental changes. The second edition, which is to appear in 1991, will include information provided by federal agencies, the provinces and territories, and industrial, academic and non-governmental groups. I am convinced that from such a diverse report will come a complete and accurate description of the state of the environment in Canada, in a form that is easily accessible to the public.
In order to add to knowledge on the state of the environment, the federal environment minister has begun to publish a series of information leaflets dealing with important environmental issues and trends and their impact on the natural world, economic opportunities, health and quality of life. These leaflets are intended to make the media, non-governmental organizations, high schools, libraries and the public more aware of environmental concerns.
This series of leaflets was launched last year with the publication of The Urbanization of Rural Canada, 1981-86, which dealt with the loss of agricultural and other resource-rich land as it was converted to urban use. This publication of the Canadian Wildlife Service reports on the urbanization of rural land in 70 regions of Canada. Coming leaflets will deal with the contamination of sea birds and the pollution of the marine environment in British Columbia, among other subjects.
The department also intends to better inform the public by publishing complementary reports on the state of the environment which will shed light on a host of national or regional environmental issues. These reports will be for universities, resource managers and interest groups, as well as anyone who wants detailed information on specific subjects. Reports are now being prepared, in particular, on endangered species, the public, parks, air quality, ground water, water resources in the Prairies and the impact of change on a global scale.
Madam Speaker, we also want to encourage exchanges of information between governments, individuals and non-governmental organizations interested in approaches, methods and publications in connection with reports on the state of the environment; to this end, we will publish a state of the environment bulletin three times a year. At Statistics Canada we are also setting up a data bank which will give everyone instant access to a wide range of environmental information. Preliminary efforts have been made to define key environmental indicators similar to economic indicators such as the consumer price index. This source of information will prove invaluable useful to Canadians who want to know how to improve the environment.
Now more than ever, Madam Speaker, Canadians are deeply concerned about environmental problems. They have also expressed their willingness to share responsibilities for their future on this planet. That is why, if we hope to preserve and improve global environment, Environment Canada must let people know about environmental changes and their consequences. For too long now economic development has been pursued at the expense of the natural and cultural environment. The World Commission on Environment and Development, chaired by Mrs. Gro Brundtland, called for a reversal of this tendency in favor of sustainable development. Every
November 20, 1989

Canadian will have a key role to play in the achievement of this objective.
By giving people the means of information they need to shape their destiny, we believe they will be in a better position to exert an influence on the health of the environment. Environmental reports give us a better perspective on ourselves and our habitat. They are the foundation of sound resource planning and management. We hope that the people will put this information to good use. The success of environmental reports depends on everyone taking part in the protection of our environment.
[English] '


Mr.   Brian@: Madam Speaker, the hon. member's concern for the well-being of our environment is shared by millions of Canadians. I am sure that he would agree that the protection of our natural resources is a serious responsibility and one that requires the legislative power to prosecute polluters as well as to protect the rights of individuals who have provided Environment Canada with confidential information for the good of the country.
Without legislation governing the disclosure of information to the public, our ability to protect every Canadian's right to a healthy environment would be seriously impeded. Under existing legislation, exemptions from disclosure relating to environmental issues, as well as other information within the federal government, are specified in the Access to Information Act.
If I may quote from Section 20(1) of the Act:
The head of a government institution shall refuse to disclose any record requested under this Act that contains:
(a) trade secrets of a third party; (b) financial, commercial, scientific or technical information that is confidential information supplied to a government institution by a third party and is treated consistently in a confidential manner by the third party; (c) information the disclosure of which could reasonably be expected to result in material financial loss or gain to, or could reasonably be expected to result in material financial loss or gain to, or could reasonably be expected to prejudice the competitive position of a third party; or (d) information the disclosure of which could reasonably be expected to interfere with contractual or other negotiations of a third party.
To summarize, these exemptions are generally designed to protect information that has been submitted to
Private Members' Business
the government on a confidential basis. Environment Canada receives much information through confidential consultations and negotiations with provinces as well as with other countries. The total release of this information would seriously damage the department's ability to carry on these relationships and would hamper our negotiating position.
It should also be noted that the department and the Conservation and Protection Service, in particular, gathers information in the course of investigations that may lead to prosecutions against polluters. If this information were to be released without agreement by the third party involved, as specified in the Access to Information Act, it could well compromise the success of any subsequent investigation.
As well, the consequences of releasing trade secrets and other confidential business information under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act should be selfevident. Sources could be reluctant to divulge important information for fear that public disclosure could prejudice their competitive position in the market or result in material financial loss.
There is already an extremely thorough public interest provision for disclosure in Section 20(6) of the Access to Information Act. It states:
The head of a government institution may disclose any record requested under this Act, or any part thereof, that contains information described in paragraph (1) (b), (c) or (d) if that disclosure would be in the public interest as it relates to public health, public safety or protection of the environment and, if the public interest in disclosure clearly outweighs in importance any financial loss or gain to, prejudice to the competitive position of or interference with contractual or other negotiations of a third party.
In addition, other legislation, particularly the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, CEPA, has provisions dealing with access to environmental information, including the possibility of public interest disclosure. CEPA limits the type of information that can be considered confidential and allows for a number of circumstances in which information may be disclosed.
Section 20(2) of CEPA specifies the wide range of types of information that may be disclosed. These include information on a substance's use, its safe handling, its disposal and elimination, safety measures to be taken in case of accidents involving a substance, certain physical and chemical data on a substance, a substance's effect on health, safety and the ecology and the methods and

November 20, 1989
Private Members' Business
results of product or environmental tests done on a substance by or for a government institution.
Section 20(4) of CEPA indicates various circumstances in which information may be disclosed, namely:
(a) with the written consent of the person who provided it or on whose behalf it was provided; (b) as may be necessary for the purposes of this Act; (c) under an agreement between the Government of Canada and the government of a province or of a foreign country, or between the Minister and any other Minister of the Crown in right of Canada where (i) the purpose of the agreement is the administration or enforcement of any law, and (ii) the government of the province or foreign country or the other Minister undertakes to keep the information confidential; (d) to a physician or prescribed medical professional who requests the information for the purpose of making a medical diagnosis of, or rendering medical treatment to, a person in an emergency; or (e) in accordance with the Access to Information Act.
Further, Section 20(6) of CEPA specifies circumstances under which the Minister may disclose information on 24-hour notice. I will quote from this section:
Notwithstanding subsection (3), the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act, the Minister may disclose information-where (a) the disclosure is in the interest of public health, public safety or the protection of the environment; and (b) the public interest in the disclosure clearly outweighs the importance of any material financial loss or prejudice to the competitive position of the person who provided the information or on whose behalf it was provided.
Clearly, the implications of removing all restrictions on the access to information regarding the environment would not serve the interests of Canadians in situations where it could seriously hamper the government's abilities to protect the right to a healthy environment.
I ask the hon. member to consider seriously the negative implications that such a change would have on the government's ability to collect information that is vital to the protection of the environment.


Blaine Allen Thacker: Madam Speaker,
I am privileged to rise on this motion to give the perspective of the committee that looked into this whole question of access to information. I think my friend opposite will find my comments germane.
In the last Parliament, a special committee of this House looked into the whole question of access to information and reviewed witnesses, ministers and officials from across the country and had a unanimous report.


Mr. Fulton:: It had a unanimous report, none of the recommendations of which were followed.


Blaine Allen Thacker: I am not sure whether my friend wants to hear my comments or not.
In general, we found that with cabinet confidentiality, the memos that go between cabinet minister, the memo that goes from a senior deputy minister to a cabinet minister, of course have to be confidential. But in general, we formed the view that the more information that the ministers could get out to the public, the better it would be indeed for the minister, because often these problems are not simple. Simple problems are solved and are not before the ministers or the cabinet. The more options that people can see the minister considering, given the complications of the issues they are dealing with, in actual fact would see that the decisions that are often taken are in fact the best decisions and the wisest given the circumstances.
So I agree with my friend when he says that more information should be revealed because I think it would perform a veiy valuable role for our fellow citizens. They would then see that most often the decisions that cabinets make are, in fact, wise ones. I want to encourage my friend to keep this motion on the order paper and to keep bringing it up, because I think more members need to express themselves. We should express ourselves sensibly. Indeed, more information is being revealed today by the ministers of this cabinet than in previous Parliaments. I can say that from personal experience. So we are going in the right direction. As more ministers come in-


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired.
Pursuant to Standing Order 96(1), this item is dropped from the Order Paper.
November 20,1989



GOVERNMENT ORDERS

[Stage Direction]


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of motion of Mr. Wilson (Etobicoke Centre) that Bill C-28, an act to amend the Income Tax Act, the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements and Federal Post-Secondary Education and Health Contributions Act, the Old Age Security Act, the Public Utilities Income Ihx Transfer Act, the War Veterans Allowance Act and a related Act be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
Robert Daniel Nault: Madam Speaker, I rise today on behalf of senior citizens in my riding to debate the legislation before the House.
Bill C-28 will, in effect, put an end to Canada's most respected and envied social programs. In fact, the Canadian Seniors Network described the measures in the April budget more precisely. In its summer newsletter One Voice this organization said, "History will remember the clawback as the end of universality, not for its drop in the deficit bucket."
Senior citizens in Kenora-Rainy River have never been more disillusioned than with this Conservative government. This is not the government's first attempt to destroy universal social programs. In 1985, the Conservative government tried to deindex old age pensions even after the Prime Minister had solemnly pledged during the 1984 election campaign that, "social programs were a sacred trust never to be tampered with."
Senior citizens in this country believed the Prime Minister in 1984 but they soon realized how wrong they had been. The government will say it listened to the voice of senior citizens in 1985 and withdrew the deindexing proposal. In reality, the government backed down in the face of a public outcry by seniors right across Canada.
The Prime Minister continued to assure senior citizens since the 1985 coup attempt on old age pensions that his government would preserve and protect social programs. During the 1988 general election the Prime Minister,
Government Orders
standing on the stage with his own mother, repeated his pledge.
Senior citizens in Kenora-Rainy River no longer believe anything this government says. They know that as soon as one promise is made, another is broken. My constituents know that this Conservative government has a hidden agenda when it comes to universal programs. One of the government's own members admitted as much in an article which appeared in The Ottawa Citizen on September 23. The chairman of the House of Commons finance committee said that his government's real agenda was to do away with universal social programs.
The clawback provisions for old age security benefits and family allowances are a definite and real threat to Canada's social programs. There is widespread opposition to the clawback measure. The government says that everyone must help to reduce the deficit. Many respected Canadians and senior organizations say otherwise.
Allow me to quote from a few sources. Don MacGilli-vray said in The Ottawa Citizen September 14, "The policy pretends to continue universality but in fact cancels it."
Hugh Winsor of The Globe and Mail said on May 5, "If, as Mr. Mulroney subsequently admitted, tampering with the indexation was wrong in 1985, attempting the same thing with the threshold levels is wrong in 1989.
Leonard Shifrin said in an article published in The Ottawa Citizen on May 4 that the finance minister proceeded to undermine the universality of family allowances and old age pensions.
A report from the National Council of Welfare states, "A social program that delivers benefits to everyone and then collects them all back from some recipients is not universal."
The President of the Canadian Council of Retirees, Bill Corns, said in a Toronto Star interview on May 7, "This is the start of the end of universality and an introduction of a means test."
So there you have it. Everyone who looks at the clawback provisions believes that this government is putting an end to universal social programs. If the clawback provision goes through, what is there to stop this government from attacking other universal programs? We have already seen changes to the unemploy-

November 20, 1989
Government Orders
ment insurance system which threatens universality. What's next? Medicare? Canada Pension? Who knows?
Within 10 years close to one million Canadian families who currently receive family allowances or old age security pensions will begin to lose their benefits due to the partial indexing of the 50 per cent threshold. It is estimated that by the year 2000 the threshold will fall to the equivalent of $35,000 in today's dollars. By the time the baby boom generation reaches retirement most will have to repay their benefits under the clawback provision.
Furthermore, once Canadians accept the principle of the clawback provision as part of our system, there is nothing to stop the government from setting the threshold as it sees fit.
Canadians do not support the clawback provision and they will never accept it. Canadians are prepared to share the burden of deficit reduction. Flowever, they are not prepared to carry the burden alone.
My constituents want to see responsible government spending. They do not tolerate the millions of dollars spent to promote the goods and services tax. My constituents believe, as I do, that universal social programs are a right of citizenship. As the Right Elon. Leader of the Opposition stated to this House on October 11, it is part of the social contract in return for a lifetime of contribution to our community.
Reducing the deficit on the backs of senior citizens is unfair and it is downright criminal. I myself have a large seniors population in my riding, senior citizens make up 18 per cent of the population of Kenora-Rainy River. I have been inundated with calls and letters opposing this measure. Senior citizens are telling me that they are living in fear for their future. They see their incomes reduced as a result of higher taxes. Not only is the government taking away what they have spent their lives working for, it is imposing a 9 per cent tax on goods and services. Senior citizens are having to live on a tighter budget because of reduced buying power.
Senior citizens in Kenora-Rainy River are worried that further erosion of their benefits and increased taxes will mean that the rest of their lives will be spent in
poverty. Many of them remember the depression years and wonder if they will have to relive that time in 1989.
The clawback provision is also extremely discriminatory. It attacks one income families like no other measure. A family with two incomes, each earning less than $50,000 will not have to repay any family allowance benefits. However, a single income family with two children earning $56,000 a year will see its family allowance benefits clawed back. Where is the fairness in this? I think the clawback provision will have the most devastating effect on single parent families earning over $50,000 per year. That sounds like a lot of money but when you have children and are on your own, I do not think that is a whole lot of money in today's world. There are more expenses in a single parent family than in a two parent families.
I was speaking with a constituent of mine over the weekend who is a single parent with two children. One child is in grade two and the other child is a preschooler. My constituent has a net income of $54,000 per year. That sounds like a lot of money. Her job requires that she attend meetings in the evening and on occasion she must travel on weekends. My constituent pays for child care services during the day for her preschooler and babysitting fees in addition for her grade two child after school. On top of that she must pay additional babysitting fees in the evenings when she has meetings and on weekends when she must travel. She is faced with higher transportation costs as a result of driving her children around.
Given that she is a single parent, she must also take time off work when there are functions at the school or when her children are sick. The family allowance benefits she receives every month have helped her to defray some of these costs. They at least cover some of the gas expenses for her car. Why should she have her benefits clawed back? She is already paying taxes on the family allowance benefits she receives through the income tax system. My constituents looks at the clawback provision and she worries about her family's future.
She has worked extremely hard to provide her young children with a good family life. She is dedicated to providing her family with a secure future. Why should my constituent be discriminated against because she is a
November 20, 1989

single parent? Why should she be penalized for working hard at providing her children with a financially secure environment?
The goods and services tax will further erode her income. She told me that the clawback of her family allowance benefits, combined with the goods and services tax and higher personal income taxes, will mean a net reduction of some 6 per cent in her income. She does not see these measures as a fair distribution of the burden, nor.do we on this side of the House. These measures discriminate against seniors and against families.
The government must withdraw the clawback provisions of old age security benefits and family allowances. Our Canadian senior citizens and families must be treated equally and fairly. The universality of our social programs must be preserved as a sacred trust. I ask the members opposite to consider that before they put this very discriminatory legislation into law.


Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to participate in tonight's marathon session. I was assuming I was going to start nine minutes from now but my neighbour to the west surprised me.
I want to start by reflecting on events that led up to all of us being here. As I look at the clock I think back to what I was doing this time 365 days ago. I was in the final poll on election night working to pull out the voters to make sure their votes counted, getting them to the ballot box. I say that in terms of reflecting on why we are here tonight under the imposition of closure, why we are debating a piece of legislation that we believe fundamentally changes this country and the manner in which it is operated.
I want to take you back in time to March 7, 1984 when the then-to-be Prime Minister said, and this was recorded in a CP wire story, "Our position is simple and straightforward. We are in favour of universality of social programs and it shall not be touched."
Then after four years of majority government, on the election trail once again the Prime Minister, in Summer-side, an interesting location in which to make pronouncement about the future, told senior citizens this:
Government Orders
Let me say a special word to the senior citizens. In the future Canada will be doing more, not less, for all of you. As long as I am Prime Minister of Canada social benefits, especially those for the elderly, will be improved, not diminished, by our government which is committed to social justice and fairness to Canadians.
Here we are a year to the date of the eve of the election. A year ago at eight o'clock the polls closed, returned the Conservatives with less of a majority, but a majority albeit. And what has happened to the promises? Tonight is a prime example. We are debating a bill that eliminates universality for our old age pensions and for our family allowances. How does it do that? It does it by clawing back those universal benefits at a certain threshold; in terms of the old age security at $50,000.
You may ask what is wrong with that. Two things. First of all, the whole point of universality is the minimization of the bureaucracy required to administer such a scheme. It means that every Canadian who reaches that magic age qualifies. It is much easier, much more efficient, and much more cost effective, dare I use that phrase, to have everybody on the list rather than establishing some sort of means test, whether it is tied into the income tax system or through specific applications or what have you. It is much more efficient in terms of the cost of delivering that service.
I do not have the figures with me, but I can give you the ranges of an answer to an order paper question provided to me by the Conservative government in, I believe, 1985 or 1986. I asked what was the cost of delivering those income support programs. I was amazed to find that the most efficient income support program, the cheapest per hundred dollars to get a hundred dollar cheque into the hands of a Canadian citizen, was old age security, including the income supplement. It was down around 32 cents per $100. Family allowance was not too far away from that. But then we get into the real heavy ones, the ones that this government likes to attack, such as unemployment insurance, with all of its checks and balances. It was up around $8 or $9 per $100 to deliver.
When I checked with the local welfare officials of the city of Thunder Bay, it was $13 per $100 to deliver that service. Workers Compensation in Ontario was around $18.
Just from the aspect of efficiency, let alone the humanity involved, it makes much more sense to have a universal program than one that is selective.

November 20, 1989
There is another reason, and that is why we pride ourselves as a nation on treating all of our people, as much as possible, in the same way. By providing every senior with the full benefit of his or her pension, or every family with the full benefit of the family allowance, we are making a statement to the world. We are saying that we care about our citizens. We as a society are prepared to assist those who have less than we do. That is extremely important. It is also important that we recognize the value of those programs. Yes, there are people, both seniors and families who "don't need the extra money".
Old age security and family allowance are already part of the income tax system. If you make more money, you pay more money back into the system, and that is only fair. So what is happening to seniors in this case, in terms of the clawback, is double taxation. The same thing for families. It is not as if they are getting a free ride. It is not as if they are getting the full benefit of the income support. They are paying their fair share based on their ability to pay. That is the way it should be.
Let us go back to the promises made by this government time and time again. Before the election, government members used words like "sacred trust" and "supportive universality", all those very nice phrases that brought warmth to the heart. They were all lies. There was clearly no intention whatsoever of fulfilling them. The Minister of Finance, a few days before the election a year ago, said that all our promises are spending commitments. We have money to pay for it. Lo and behold, all of a sudden we do not have any money to pay for then. We do not have money for VIA Rail. Where is the child care program that was promised for the day after they got re-elected? We will bring in a child care program, they said.
Well, it is a year and no child care program. That is the kind of government we have in power in Canada these days, a government that has no qualms whatsoever of saying one thing to people before the election and not only just not doing it after the election, but doing the opposite. The attack on universality, the attack on VIA Rail, the lack of child care policies, the attack on unemployment insurance, the attack on post-secondary education, where again the Prime Minister promised
Government Orders
that we would do better than ever before. What do we find? We find cuts, reductions of transfer payments to the provinces that can least afford to lose the money.
Perhaps it is okay for me to be from Ontario and say, "We're okay. We can afford it." But in some of the prairie provinces, and specifically the Atlantic provinces, the only hope is the human resource and access to higher education so that they can go on to build a better life for all of us. But no, this government is cutting funding in that area as well.
That is not why the Conservatives were elected to govern this country. People believed them when they said they had enough money to live up to their commitments, that the deficit was no longer a problem, that they had it managed, it was under control. I have to wonder how it can be under control on the eve of November 20, 1988, and then two days later, after the dust settles, it is chaos, it is a major crisis, that we need to reconsider everything that we have committed ourselves to. They never did use the word "promise", maybe because people have a great suspicion about promises. Maybe they do not think that promises will be kept. But when the finance minister, supported by the Prime Minister, says that these are commitments, we have the money in the bank to pay for these, people say, "Maybe this time they are going to live up to it, maybe they really mean what they say".
We have seen over the last year that there was never any intention to live up to those commitments, that this government had a very specific agenda. As the current Minister for International Trade once said, "If we told you what we were going to do, you would never elect us, you would never vote for us". For all of his failings, the hon. minister is a very honest man. He tells it like it is. When we said, "Look what he is saying, you had better listen to him", people said, "Oh, no, no, no, he doesn't know what he is talking about." The government said, "No, he doesn't know what he is talking about. We are going to live up to our commitments".
The commitments have not been lived up to. The people of Canada have been sold out. They gave their vote to a particular party but were really robbed of it because they expected something in exchange. They certainly did not get what they expected. That is very unfortunate because that taints all of us.
November 20, 1989

In this House we are partisans. Whether it is between the Conservatives and the New Democrats or the New Democrats and the Liberals, we pick at each other because that is the nature of our parliamentary system. But those kind of lies fundamentally undermine the political parties and the system in this country because people will look at us and say, "Well, if we can't trust them how are we going to trust you folks? What makes you say that you will be any different?" My answer of course is, "Try us, and if you don't like us then you can boot us out too", which I hope the people of Canada will do to the hon. members opposite. It seems that the government cannot be straightforward with the people of Canada and this really bothers me.
Let me return for about five minutes, if my clock reads correctly-as you know, Madam Speaker, I have had some disputes with the clock in this House over time, but never in terms of five-minute spans and not with you but with one of the gentlemen who sits in that chair, has knees like mine, but was able to play football a lot better than I was.
In terms of the clawback itself, the Minister of Finance says it will have a minimal effect on Canadian individuals and families. He may believe that. For example, he claims that only 4.3 per cent of seniors will be paying back part or all of their pensions, with 54,000 individuals paying back all of their OAS and 74,000 paying back a part of it. On family allowances, he claims that only 14 per cent of families will be affected; 368,000 of them mind you, paying back all of their family allowance and
167,000	paying back a part of it.
The important thing to note, though, is that that is for this year. That figure is going to go up rapidly year by year so that more and more retirees will end up repayng their pensions and more and more famlies will repay all of their family allowances.
Here is how it works. The income level at which the clawback starts will move upwards according to the same deindexing formula that exists in the tax system, i.e., inflation minus 3 per cent. This means that if you assume an inflation rate of 4.5 per cent, which I think is about where we are at right now, the income limit will move up by only 1.5 per cent a year. A worker earning $40,000 a
Government Orders
year and watching his or her income rise with inflation will be earning enough to put his income over the clawback level for family allowances of $56,309 by 1997.
When we think about that, that still seems like a lot of money. But I can tell you that when I was earning $20,000 at Parks and Rec a number of years ago, having started at $6,000 a few years before, $20,000 was quite a significant sum of money. So we have to recognize what inflation does and what wage increases do over time. Ultimately, hundreds of thousands of people will be affected by the clawback. People who are working now expecting to retire in 25 years will be included and they will have a healthy level of income according to 1989 dollars but it will be eaten away so that more and more Canadians will be caught by this big claw.
It will come to a point where more people will not get it than people who will get it. That is one of the other reasons why we fundamentally oppose the concept of the clawback, because of its impact on the social services program, the income support programs of this country.


Blaine Allen Thacker: How many budgets will there be by then?


Iain Francis Angus: My hon. friend asks how many budgets. Well, perhaps he would like to make another promise. Am I hearing him suggest that the government will reinstate this at the next budget, or promise at the next election to reinstate it and become the defenders by saying, we have money now, we found some extra cash and we can afford this again?
You do not tamper with the income support programs. There are other things you can do. You can lower interest rates, save a billion and a half dollars for every point. You could increase employment. Every 1 per cent employment increase leads to a $2 billion influx into the federal treasury.


Blaine Allen Thacker: How do you do that?


Iain Francis Angus: You work at it. You do not leave it to the private sector, you do not leave it to the Americans. They are just going to buy up our companies and move them into the states like they are doing now.
The first thing we do is to defeat the Conservative government and put in a government that cares about people.

November 20, 1989
Government Orders


Mr. Guy H. Arseneault (Restigouche - Chaleur):: Madam Speaker, I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to join the debate on Bill C-28.
Still, Madam Speaker, I can hardly say I am pleased to take part in a debate on a legislative measure which strikes at the basic principle of the universality of Canada's social programs.
Besides, the government is going after elderly people and families when it launches such an attack against old age pensions and family allowances. Only a callous government would so mistreat seniors and Canadian families.
Madam Speaker, you will certainly ask me how the government goes about attacking all these people. Well, let me explain. This bill includes 59 amendments to the Income Tax Act, 59 amendments which signal the demise of social programs of which Canadians are so proud.
The principle of universality was adopted so that all Canadians would be treated the same way and to create such a feeling of belonging to the community as would make it possible for all Canadians to share the riches of their country and be entitled to certain benefits.
This Bill marks the end of all that. No more universality, no more social justice, no more equity in Canada. This is the beginning of the end for this government.
Yes, Madam Speaker, the beginning of the end for this government which in 1986 began to levy a special income surtax which it described as being temporary. Well, surtaxes are still with us. They went up, from 3 to 5 per cent. Talk about nerve, Madam Speaker.
As to the family allowances and old age pensions clawback provisions contained in this bill, they only confirm the fact that the government has gone too far and driven one more nail into its own coffin. The Prime Minister told us in 1984 that social programs were a sacred trust which was untouchable. He repeated the same thing in 1988. Now this legislative measure tells us that the Prime Minister did not keep his word and that he is heartless. The Prime Minister and his heartless
government have given us umpteen examples of their insensitivity towards Canadians. They once assured us that VIA Rail passenger transport services were extremely important and that they would be maintained at any cost. Yet not so long ago we learned that VIA services would be cut by one half.
Madam Speaker, the government's unemployment insurance reform is a sure sign of its insensitivity: henceforth Canadian workers will simply have to accept shorter benefit periods and pay for training programs.
Canadians in a number of communities will also have to accept the fact that they no longer have access to their own post offices.
Madam Speaker, the new tax on goods and services, the deplorable condition of infrastructures throughout the country, the reduction of funds earmarked for regional development-I will not mention them all-are as many concrete examples of the heartlessness of this government.
Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister told us on many occasions that social programs were a sacred trust, but what he says and what he does are two different things.
The obvious danger when one begins to tamper with the principle of universality of social programs is that the whole thing hangs in the balance. When they reduce the rates to the minimum, they give themselves the power to reduce them even further. Then it becomes difficult to know who is entitled to benefits, where to draw the line, and who will be in a position to decide which of our fellow citizens most need assistance.

Bill C-28 shows us that the government does not care about seniors. It does not care about Canada's social net. It does not care about the needs of the regions and it does not care about students. This bill puts an end to universality.
The National Council of Welfare in the annual report which it tabled last month claimed that this clawback puts an end to universality. It strongly urged the government to abandon its clawback proposals.
The National Council of Welfare is a citizens' advisory group appointed by cabinet to advise the government on
November 20, 1989

matters of social policy. The council's annual report strongly decries the government for its harsh policies.
This National Council of Welfare has claimed that the move away from universal benefits is the most significant change in social policy in a generation and that the Minister of Finance announced this change in the last budget speech with no prior consultation.
The Council further reported that the federal government had publicly rejected the idea of a clawback or surtax on old age pensions as late as January 1985 on the grounds that it would seriously disrupt the retirement income system. The government is now changing the rules of the game without obtaining the consent of Canadian seniors. Does the government not understand that these people have already paid for their old age pensions through a lifetime of hard work and paying taxes?
In the case of family allowances, the National Council of Welfare made it very clear when it said that the clawback discriminates against one-earner families because it is based on individual net income. For instance, a one-earner family with two children and a net income of $56,000 would lose all its family allowance benefits. On the other hand, a family with two incomes where one spouse earns $45,000 and the other $35,000 would escape the clawback despite the fact that they are making a total of $80,000.
Is that what you would call fair? Is that what Canadians have come to expect from their government? Will the rich keep getting richer and the poor sink further and further below the poverty line? As long as this government is in power, the answer is clear. This is a government that does not care for this country and its traditions. It is deliberately undermining the social fabric of the Canadian federation. How much longer will families and seniors have to put up with this type of government?
The National Council of Welfare does not stand alone in its criticism of this legislation. The Senior Citizens' Federation has also claimed that the clawback is biased, grossly inequitable and that it seriously undermines the principle of universality.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, the President of the Seniors' Federation, Mr. Les Batterson said with respect to this policy: "We view this proposal as a serious breach
Government Orders
of faith by our government, an insidious effort to undercut the social security programs that you have on numerous occasions stated are a sacred trust".
Mr. Batterson also added later in his letter: "We are also aware that we had previous deficits as serious as the present one and the government of the day did not tax back pensions to which Canadians had every reason to believe they had the genuine right."
The present government has often claimed that the deficit imposes an unfair burden on future generations; that the deficit indeed is larger than what some economists believe. Indeed, it has cut many programs which were vital to the future of this country in its efforts to reduce this deficit. With this mean-spirited legislation, it is now taxing back the pension benefits of those who worked hard to build this country, and it is reducing family allowances, all in the name of reducing the deficit.
However, despite the Prime Minister's constant rhetoric about the need for budgetary restraint and the downsizing of government, Treasury Board estimates show that his own Privy Council Office budget will jump almost $5 million. It will go up to $59.1 million in the next fiscal year and its staff will increase from 579 to 591.
What is sauce for the goose should also be sauce for the gander. How can the Prime Minister preach budgetary restraint to everyone while increasing his own budget? Moreover, how can the Prime Minister justify attacking the families and seniors of this country in order to achieve his aims?
To all intents and purposes Bill C-28 spells the end for universality of social programs. The Canadian Council on Social Development has said that the government is eroding the fundamental principle of universality which requires the collective responsibility of caring for children and seniors. It is doing so by withdrawing family allowance benefits from approximately 368,000 families and by eliminating old age benefits from 54,000 seniors. Furthermore, it will be reducing the amount of these benefits for many other families and seniors.
What the Conservative government is doing to this country is unimaginable. Over the next five years the clawback of family allowances will withdraw $1.68 billion from family budgets. This means that $500 million a year will be withheld from these families. That is outrageous.

November 20, 1989
Government Orders
These families cannot afford this kind of loss or reduction in their incomes.
In conclusion, I would like to say that every organization representing families and seniors in this country has said that the government is eliminating universality. If the government had been really honest, it would during the last election campaign have told everyone that it would end universality, that it would gut VIA Rail and that it would cut unemployment insurance benefits. If this government had had the courage to clearly spell out its intentions before the Canadian people it would not be standing where it is today. The Canadian people would not have elected a government which knew that it would be bringing down these Draconian policies.
Finally, a government which claims that the deficit imposes an unfair burden on future generations should ask itself whether the imposition of substandard education and health services, dilapidated transportation and communication infrastructure which will inevitably result in this fixation with the deficit does not impose an unfair burden on future generations.


Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina-Lumsden):: Madam Speaker, I rise with more than mixed feelings. The definition of "mixed feelings" is watching your banker go over a cliff in your new car.
I want to say that the basic principle of universality is that it is universal-there are no ifs, ands, or buts, no qualifications, no hestitations. There used to be measures in the Criminal Code, I do not know if they are still there or not, concerning perverts and perversion. If there ever was a perversion of the principle of universality, this is it. You cannot have it both ways. It is either universal and people get it as a matter of right or you snoop into all their private affairs, their incomes and so forth and withhold some or all of it because in the view of the government of the day, no matter what political stripe, that is more than they need or more than they should get.
There is a basic flat in all of this, and I will repeat myself, it is either universal or it is not. If the government wanted to be completely honest, it would say that universality should be scrapped or severely amended so that anyone getting more than so much does not get it or
not all of it. No, it does not have the courage of its convictions to do that.
All my working life I think I have tried hard to make my contribution to my country in the various occupations I have been in, on the railroad, working for my party, as a member of Parliament, working for some farmers, that sort of thing. I have paid my taxes. During the late 1940s, the 1950s and the 1960s, I believe even into the early 1970s, when you made out your income tax there was an item stating "Old Age Security Fund". I believe, certainly back in the 1950s and 1960s it was 3 per cent. It varied from around 2 per cent, 3 per cent or 4 per cent. I paid for the dam thing.
Madam Speaker, this is a confession. I am going to put in my application this month for my old age pension. I do not look like I should be doing it. I do not act like it. I did not know whether to laugh or cry when I was making out the application.
I spent all these years earning my old age security pension. It is not all that much. It might come to $4,000 a year. I am not sure. But I spent all my working life earning it, and my fellow Canadians who could not earn it were also entitled to it. My fellow Canadians who did not need it were entitled to it and got it because it was universal, pure and simple.
I will never forget a fellow that I fought against-and I fought against his party for a lot of years-Louis St. Laurent. At that time we had not reduced the retirement age to 65, it was at 70. Mr. St. Laurent was Prime Minister of Canada. He had a sort of semi-public ceremony at which the press were present to receive his first old age pension cheque to emphasize the universal principle of old age assistance pensions. Whether or not you needed it, it was universal.
I also will never forget when my honoured colleague, Stanley Knowles, reached the age of 65. That is a long time ago, but then I have been here a fair while. Arthur Laing from British Columbia was the Minister of Public Works. We had a party for Stanley downstairs in Room 112 North. Arthur presented him with his first old age security pension cheque. He guaranteed him that the Government of Canada, no matter of what political stripe, would ever consider that a conflict of interest- after all the years of fighting Stanley did for pensioners.
November 20, 1989

Before I got the opportunity to speak in this debate, I made it a point to read the letter that Mackenzie King sent to J. S. Woodsworth in, I think it was, 1924 or 1926, somewhere in there. It was a minority Parliament. In the letter he guaranteed that the government would bring in the first old age pension and unemployment insurance. Reading Canadian history and listening to old timers in my party, there were only two of them left, Woodsworth and A. A. Heaps, Woodsworth got up and said: "Mr. Speaker, I welcome this. On behalf of my group we will support this measure." It was $20 a month at age 70 with a means test. A. A. Heaps got up and said: "Mr. Speaker,
I support my leader. He's the leader and I'm the group."
The long history of the efforts of people in this country enabled us to arrive at just where we are now, people of all political persuasions, of every kind of group you could think of in this nation. We finally got to it.
Let me give you an example, Madam Speaker. I refer to someone who gets a company pension after 25, 35, 45 or whatever number of years of work of, say, $45,000 or $50,000 a year to which they contributed tens of thousands of dollars, but had been allowed to deduct the contributions from their income tax. When they drew the pension, they would have to pay income tax on it. It was the same with the Canada Pension, which I think is a good deal. It could still use some improving, but it is a good deal, especially for the younger people.
If you add the two together you are looking at $52,000, $54,000 or $55,000 a year gross pension from employment pension and Canada Pension. I have done some calculating. A person in that category will pay somewhere between $15,000 and $17,000 income tax on those two pensions, plus a clawback of some or all of their old age pension.
I suppose people like us from the NDP are not noted for supporting the wealthy. I suspect we have some reputation, depending on your point of view whether it is good or bad. You pay on a basic, fundamental principle based on ability to pay. Nobody is complaining about what you will pay on your company pension or your Canada Pension. That is perfectly proper. But on something that is supposed to be universal, to tax back some
Government Orders
or all of it from people who, for all of their working lives, or even if they weren't working got it as a matter of fundamental right as a Canadian citizen, a basic right which has been established since the 1920s, brings me back to the whole question of perversion.
If someone is making $75,000, 100,000 or $1 million a year, I do not care what the amount, you get them to pay their share through some other way, but old age security and the family allowance are inviolable. I repeat, they are either universal or they are not. The government had better make up its mind and say: "We are no longer going to have universal pensions". I know there are some who say, both in this House and outside: "No use giving them the universal pensions, they do not need it". That immediately denies the principle of universality.
The other thing is something that is going to affect me and many hon. members of this House when we are no longer here, either because we get defeated or retire, but we will leave that aside. We cannot say that we are suffering. But for tens of thousands of people earning the amounts I mentioned earlier, they will be lucky if they net $30,000 a year. One is not going to live very high off the hog on that, not in this day and age. That is only about $6,000 or $7,000 above the poverty level. The government wants to start a clawback on old age pensions or family allowances when these people's net pay is around the $30,000 mark. This flies in the face of any kind of reason and decency. For my hon. friend who is sitting there and not paying attention, I want to say it even flies in the face of Christian decency.
The other thing that is scary and worrisome is this. What is to prevent this government or a succeeding government of the same or a different political stripe from saying: "Well, we think the $50,000 is too high, let us make it $40,000, and apply that to both the Old Age Security pension and family allowances"? What is to prevent any government, now or later, once the principle of universality is betrayed and perverted from saying: "Well, if your income is over a certain amount, then you have to pay half of your own hospital bills and doctor bills"? What is to prevent the government if your income is over $50,000, or whatever amount is set by the government of the day, from saying: "Your kid is going to university and your income is over that amount, you're

November 20, 1989
Government Orders
going to pay half, three-quarters or all of the cost of that university education"? This flies in the face of any kind of decent reasoning.
There are other ways for the government to recover more than what it loses in income taxes or clawbacks out of the old age pension. There are many ways to do it. I can make a few suggestions. We keep getting asked by the Minister of Finance: "What is your alternative?". How about a 10 per cent tax on deferred corporation taxes? That will bring in nearly $4 billion a year, and it is nearly four points below the current interest rate.
How about closing some loopholes in income tax, both for individuals and for corporations, which are totally out of date compared to when they were brought out? How about restoring the corporate tax rate to what it was in 1984? That is worth $4 billion to $5 billion a year. I have not noticed corporations passing their production and their goods on to us consumers at lower prices. All that has happened is that they kept the money. That is all that has happened.
I recall a famous occasion in the 1950s when the government of that day decided to take the 10 per cent sales tax off drugs. There was great fanfare as that was going to mean lower drug prices. It did not mean lower prices; it meant higher prices. The drug companies kept the money. They did not reduce their prices a nickel.
I return to my main argument. The government has to decide and tell the people of Canada that it is no longer a universal program. Don't give me this nonsense about we are going to send everybody a cheque and then tax some or all of it back. That is the perverted part of it. It then becomes not universal.
I do not understand. I guess all political parties are guilty of this: The longer they are in, the harder they work at losing. Far be it from me to advise Conservatives how to stay in power. This is another one of those idiotic, unreasoning, nonsensical attempts by the government to pay the country's bills. I am not objecting to that. There is no one in the NDP caucus objecting to us making extraordinary efforts to pay our bills, debts, and our current deficit. No problem. That is not the argument. The argument is: how do you go about collecting the
money and how do you go about paying off and reducing the debt and the deficit?
I want to remind my hon. friends that at the end of the Second World War the national debt or the annual deficit translated into 1989 dollars was almost double what it is now, and we paid it off. We had relatively full employment. We did not have nearly so many tax loopholes, and we paid it off. We did nothing more than learn some lessons from our own experience in our own nation, that what we did before we could do again even better. There were other ways of doing it. By the way, not a nickel of the national debt at the end of the Second World War came from outside of Canada. We did the whole thing ourselves, and we paid off that deficit and that debt. By 1955 it was paid.
We do not have to claw back on the backs of old age pensioners and families with children, no matter what is their income. We must keep it universal and collect it some other way from those with higher incomes. Do not mess around. Do not try to destroy something that people of all political faiths since the 1920s have supported and agreed to. It is the only decent, civilized thing to do. It is for the government to say: "All right, we will withdraw this one. We will bring in some other measures to get the same amount of money". In that event we would likely support it.


Mr. Fred J. Mifflin (Bonavista-IVinity-Conception):: Madam Speaker, I must say I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak tonight on this bill. I have heard many speeches in the House today on the subject of Bill C-28. There certainly seems to be a general theme, and the theme seems to concern all the speakers with about the same amount of amplitude.
We all know that Bill C-28 makes 59 different amendments to the Income Tax Act, implementing many of the budget provisions. Now it is not possible, of course, to speak on all these. There are some that concern me more than others.
I want to set a scenario which is perhaps a slightly different approach than some of the previous speakers have taken this evening. I do this with cognizance of the fact that aspects of the clawback are of concern to seniors as are the deindexation factor and the misrepresentation, if I can call it that. However, it is important to set the the stage by mentioning some of the things that
November 20, 1989

are going on in my riding right now against which people judge these 59 changes.
I have a situation now in which the telephone virtually has not stopped ringing in my riding. I just took some calls a few moments ago when I was talking with my constituency office. Literally the phone is just ringing off the hook. People who are listening to the speeches in the House of Commons tonight and watching them on television are concerned about these changes in the Income Ikx Act. They are concerned about many of the things that we have talked about here. It is so important to understand what their basic concerns are at this point in time, and to understand that I have to tell the House about my riding.
If not the largest fishing riding in Canada, my riding is certainly one of the largest where 85 per cent of the employment comes from the fishing industry. A month before Christmas, and we are now concerned, literally, that people have bread on their table and a cup of tea to drink.
I am referring to the emergency response job development program recently announced by the Minister of Employment and Immigration. I cannot tell you the number of people who will not qualify under that program although they have been employed in the fishing industry all their working lives, 15 to 20 years. Because of the criteria that has been set up it is not possible for them to qualify to get unemployment insurance under the job development programs. Because of the stringencies in the requirements and the inability right now of the bureaucracy to review those people they cannot fall directly under the criteria.
It is all very well to talk about the income tax changes and about all the difficulties we are going to have with clawbacks, deindexation and family allowances, but it is against the backdrop of people who will not have any money in their pockets to buy Christmas presents for their children, to make a Christmas cake, or to feed themselves when Christmas day comes. That is not a very nice thought as we talk about those issues in the House today.
While I feel it is incumbent upon me as a member for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception to talk about Bill C-28, my major concern today and for this week is to get some kind of redress against the stringent criteria that has been set up and the lack of review process that has not been going on, although the Minister of Employment
Government Orders
and Immigration in fact stated in her press release that it would go on.
Let me talk just a little bit about the clawback. The clawback does a number of things, but what it does more than anything else is remove the rug from under the faith that Canadians have in what their politicians say and what their politicians from all sides of the House promise them during election time.
The right hon. Leader of the Opposition and several members here in the House tonight reminded us of a lady by the name of Solange Denis who was so concerned about deindexation and a promise that was made which was not being kept that she became, if not a heroine, somebody who represented the concerns of the seniors in Canada.
In my riding there are around 10,000 senior citizens, all of whom either watched that or heard about it. They believe that what she did was so responsible and so representative of their feelings that even as I was campaigning last fall and I mentioned her name people remembered who she was. They remembered that television clip of that lady standing in front of the House of Commons and making a statement to her Prime Minister that she was being let down.
Common sense prevailed and deindexation was, we thought, forgotten about. The Prime Minister of the day said that universality was something that they would not have to worry about. They were going to make sure that these programs were universal, but our finance minister announced the clawback mechanism in his April 1989 budget which effectively ends universality.
The family allowance program and the old age security is paid to everyone now. Everyone receives the benefit regardless of income. Clawback, however, will recover the full amount of the benefit from those earning a certain income through a higher income tax rate. I refer now to clause 48 of Bill C-28 which implements the clawback on family allowance and old age security pensions. The amount of the repayment is equal to 15 per cent of the taxpayers' net income over $50,000.
The Minister of Finance introduced the measure as a deficit reduction device, but the amount to be recovered by the clawback is relatively insignificant when compared to the massive national debt. In fact somebody worked out that the same amount of money that is going to be realized by the clawback could be generated by raising the rate of the top income tax bracket by only 1 per cent,

November 20,1989
Government Orders
thereby transferring what benefit this would have to the deficit to high-income earners.
Many view the mechanism as discriminatory since it taxes pensioners and families at a higher rate than others earning the same income. Mr. Speaker, a buck is a buck is a buck. Why should people with families and people drawing old age security pensions be penalized more so than somebody else in a different age bracket or somebody without a family?
They do not understand why and, quite frankly, I cannot explain it to them, particularly since there was a promise made of universality and that these programs would be a sacred trust. I did not want to use that word because I think it is overused, but I have to use it to emphasize the promise that was made to Canadians.
Of greater significance and concern is that over the years more and more pensioners and families will start repaying these benefits. People have put together their savings, they have worked out their RRSPs, and they have worked out their investment programs. While $50,000 may seem like a lot of income for a senior citizen, many of the people in my riding-and I can assure you that there are those who do have that amount from a combination of their pension and their investments-have proceeded on the basis that they would be receiving this income and have projected their whole life after retirement on this assumption. Now they are told that they are going to have to rework the whole system. They are going to have to redo the whole thing. Their whole plan of financing will have to be reworked. The whole business will have to be redone. In other words, they are not getting the income that they had expected or that they had hoped to get.
Partial indexation is responsible. The threshold is now $50,000, but it has been calculated that by the year 2000 it will have fallen to the equivalent of $35,000 in today's dollars. That is 10 years from now. By the time the baby boom generation enters retirement, most of them will have to repay their old age security benefits through the clawback.
Is that fair? I do not think it is fair. I know that many of my colleagues do not think that is fair. I know that other members who are not my political colleagues but whom I have come to know veiy closely in the last year or so do not believe it is fair. I would suggest that there are many people on the other side of the House who do not believe it is fair either, although I have not heard too many of those this evening. I believe they will have to explain to their senior citizen population and to those who are drawing the family allowance as to why they think it is fair. It is going to be a difficult thing to explain.
In the meantime, once we have accepted the principle of clawback as part of our system, governments of the day are free to set the threshold at any they wish. The principle has how been established. It is $50,000 this year, and we know what will happen by the year 2000 if nothing is changed. But next year, if the government decides that more money is needed to address the budget or for another reason, the threshold could be changed to $45,000, to $40,000, or to $30,000. Who knows? I have not even heard any promises that this threshold will not be breached.
There are also widespread fears that the clawback is the thin edge of the wedge, a wedge that will destroy our much envied universal social programs. This country has been very proud of the way it has treated its senior citizens, certainly over my lifetime.
I know that seniors have been very proud of that. They have spoken to me about it. I know it has been a source of security and pride to senior citizens who have travelled outside the country and compared their lot with seniors in other countries. They have been able to say: "My government is proud of me and I am proud of it because it has been able to provide this universal service to me and it has been able to provide it in an unfettered manner with no strings attached". That is all gone.
History will remember the clawback as the end of universality, and not for what it has done for the deficit. My colleagues and I have been concerned that the government has not held any real public hearings on this issue. We have heard about the goods and services tax. We have heard about legislative committees on Bill C-21 and other legislative committees, but there has not been very much discussion about this issue. There has been a
November 20, 1989

decision. It has been capped at $50,000 with a 3 per cent limit on deindexing or indexing or whatever you want to call it. It does not look very good for the future as far as seniors are concerned.
Again, I do not know how to say this any more eloquently or with any more colour than I believe that senior citizens have and should have a very special place in all our hearts. Let us face it, if it were not for them a lot of us would not be here today. I would suggest most of us would not be here today. However there is a general feeling that when you reach a certain magic age something magic happens.
That may be the case, but in my riding there are many senior citizens who continue to make a contribution and to do things that they did before they reached the magic age. They do not look at themselves as much different from you and I or anybody in this House. They think they are average people who need to have average chances, who need to have the average opportunity to take advantage of all the programs that are in existence. They do not understand why they have to be made special by having money taken away from them more so than any other segment of society. I cannot go home and explain that to them, and I do not think anybody in this House can.
There is another area that concerns me and that is the income surtax on individual incomes. It has been raised from 3 per cent to 5 per cent and to 8 per cent for high income earners. Clause 47 of this bill raises the surtax on personal incomes from 3 per cent to 5 per cent. It also raises the surtax to 8 per cent for Canadians whose tax payable is more than $15,000. The minister made the proposal that personal income surtaxes would be a permanent feature of the income tax system. Essentially, what the minister said he was going to do is not what is being done. Therefore we have universality which is not being done and then we have the surtax increments which are not being done. What else is not being done?
Since 1984 this government has increased taxes 31 times. There are 59 clauses in this particular bill now. Canadians have not received the lower income taxes promised. In 1984 and 1985 the federal government collected $29 billion in income taxes from Canadians. This year the government expects to collect over $50
Government Orders
billion in income tax. That is more than 72 per cent in five years. That is a big percentage increase.
The clawback of family allowance will take $1,686 billion out of the family budget in the next five years. That is around $500 million a year by 1991. There must be a better way to look after our deficit financing than hitting the pocketbooks of those individuals who can least afford it, those individuals who having achieved the status of senior citizen should not have it happen to them.
Perhaps I can take you back to the scenario I set earlier this evening, Mr. Speaker, to those people who could not spend all their time in the fishery because of a bad year in 1988. They are being penalized this year because they cannot get the right number of stamps, the right number of weeks to qualify for the emergency response job development program.
Next year, because of the quirk in circumstances unless the Minister of Employment and Immigration does something about it, they will have to work for 20 weeks to qualify. If they cannot find three or six weeks of work in one year, they are not likely to find twenty weeks in the next year.
This is the circumstance in which I find myself as the member for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception. It is the unfortunate position that one has to get up and speak on this, one has to be perforce negative while I tend to be positive. I think you know, Mr. Speaker, that I like to be positive. It is very hard to be positive on Bill C-28 in any or all of its features.
If I could somehow wave a magic wand and cause Bill C-28 to go away, if I could wave a magic wand and have the Minister of Employment and Immigration allow the review to be conducted for those people who cannot get the job development strategy and get the right number of weeks this year, or if I could get all the bureaucrats in her department to carry out a review for these unfortunate people who are on the phone to my office and to me tonight as I speak, I would do so. However I do not know where the magic wands are. I was not issued with one when I became a member of Parliament. I am still looking for it. I am still looking for it. If I had one, I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that tonight I would take my magic wand and I would wave Bill C-28 away. I would wave on the review of those people who cannot get their proper review done. In the same wave of that wand I would restore the universality that has been promised to

November 20, 1989
Government Orders
our senior citizens, the people whom we should be spending a lot of time thinking about and working for.


Lynn Hunter: Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight on the eve of the anniversary of last year's election on November 21. Today is November 20, and I rise to speak on a bill which is very indicative of the kind of bill that this government has brought in since that election victory. This bill is an omnibus bill dealing with a lot of matters related to the changes in acts affected by the spring budget.
It speaks to the kind of deception this government perpetrated on the Canadian public in last year's election campaign. That is why I bring it to your attention on this date, the eve of the anniversary of the election.
This bill deals with the amending of the Income 'fax Act, including the clawback of family allowances and old age security pensions. It deals with the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements and Federal Post-Secondary Education and Health Contributions Act. It deals with the Old Age Security Act. It deals with the Public Utilities Income Tax Transfer Act. It deals with the amendments to many of those acts.
Basically it allows for the opportunity to highlight the record of this government in all of these areas. We can speak to the contrast of what government members said during the election campaign and what they have actually done since they were elected. This is the government of deception.
The clawback of family allowances and old age security pensions on incomes of over $50,000 which the government introduced in its May budget and presented in this bill is a major step toward the Americanization of our social programs and the end of universality. This is exactly what Conservatives said they were not going to do. They said that we should not be worried about the trade deal, that it was only a trade deal and we could tear it up if we did not think it was a good deal.
We in the opposition spoke out strongly against the trade deal seeing it in its insidious nature as affecting our social programs. Here it is a year later. The government has invoked closure on this bill to do that, to really erode the universality of our social programs.
The Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister have tried to deny this, but the hon. member for Mississauga South was more honest. In a letter written to an
Edmonton man he said: "We have decided to eliminate universality. While the clawback may be unfair and sneaky, it is there." That is the nature of this government, unfair and sneaky in plain words but very descriptive.
For the first portion of my speech tonight I am going to focus on the effects of post-secondary education. I come from the province of British Columbia where we now have our premier in the light of recent events in eastern Europe trotting off to Europe and saying that he wants to get East German skilled labour and bring them back to British Columbia.
Are there not enough British Columbians already quite capable of taking the trades training that will be able to give them the kind of jobs that Mr. Vander Zalm is seeking for them? Federal transfer payments to post-secondary education are being eroded and the Social Credit government in British Columbia with the short-sighted vision of Mr. Vander Zalm thinks it has to bring in immigrant labour from overseas to fill the jobs we have in British Columbia.
Post-secondary education across Canada is being eroded by these cuts to this program under this Bill C-28. Now we spend something like $13,000 on average per student, while in the United States the average expenditure per student is $20,000. This is quite a difference. The Prime Minister promised to make education a high priority with reforms that will generate excellence in education from coast to coast. That was from the Progressive Conservative general meeting in August of this year. At the same time his government's latest budget reflected his real commitment to education as one of the priorities for its second mandate. These transfer payment cuts are going to have a devastating effect across Canada, but particularly in British Columbia where the Social Credit government has the shortsightedness not to put in the kind of funds that are necessary.
I now want to talk about some of the fundamental questions that should be asked when considering this type of legislation. Why should an individual be entitled to receive $100,000 in capital gains tax free but lose the $4,000 he or she will get in Old Age Security simply because it was paid as the universal social benefit? I am pointing out that if you get $100,000 through capital gains you are not taxed on it. But if you get it as part of a
November 20, 1989

pension you will have to pay $4,000. It is an erosion of the universality of our social programs.
The government members chided New Democrats for looking after the wealthy by voicing our concerns on this bill. What we are talking about is the fundamental injustice of this bill. Mr. Blenkam said it was unfair and sneaky. Those are the words that we will have to keep in mind in the final hours of this debate.
The family allowance and the old age security are already taxed in Canada. Why should a special tax be levied on children and the elderly? If the intention is to raise money from the rich why not do it through a more progressive tax system? I know that is the kind of thinking that is somewhat offensive to this government in its current bid to get the GST pushed through. Why not raise marginal rates at the top of the income tax bracket to 32 per cent instead of taxing back family allowances and Old Age Security? Either method would raise about $600 million in 1991. Why not restore the 1987 top rate to 34 per cent and raise $2 billion? The highest income group in Canada has its marginal tax rate cut from 43 per cent to 34 per cent in 1981 and to 29 per cent in 1987.
For middle-income earners the marginal tax rate has remained almost constant in spite of so-called tax reform. We on this side realize that the government must gain revenue especially in light of the trade deal when $13 billion in tariffs was lost through this government's signing of the trade deal. We realize that there have to be taxes. We are just questioning whether or not they should be coming from the same people, the low and middle-income earners, families and old-age pensioners. What will the unique identity of Canada mean in a few years when our social programs exist to serve only those in need. Won't our social programs be just like those in the US, leaner and meaner?
I had the privilege of travelling with the external affairs committee last week in New York and Washington. I saw on the streets of New York and in the city of Washington evidence of a leaner, meaner social program. There were beggars in the streets with tin cups. These are not just cartoon characters, this is reality.
Government Orders
Up here it is reality as well. This situation will only get worse under this government. How long will the population continue the maintenance of social progress from which they have been effectively excluded as beneficiaries? What we are concerned about here is the kind of erosion of public consent to participate in these programs. If it is only to be the low income earners who are the beneficiaries, why should the middle income earners contribute to them? We have a voluntary compliance system of taxation in our country. So far this government's policy, in this budget, through Bill C-28, and with its goods and services tax proposed legislation, is eroding that. What we are going to see are taxpayers very seriously trying avoidance schemes. This will have a real impact on the attitude of those who are recipients of social programs.
Social programs have been paid for. Old age pensioners have paid for this. They have been taxed on their income. Now they are having it clawed back under this bill. Will need be redefined downwards as it has been in Britain, or in the U.S., as it already has been in our unemployment insurance and welfare programs?
If the essence of universality is destroyed through the back door, what is to protect medicare from the same attack? We see the insidious nature of this government, the kind of deception in what it promised last November 20, and what it is doing this November 20. It is like night and day. I think this also speaks to a real lack of trust if this government is allowed to get away with the lies it has told Canadians on this and other issues. What effect will it have on the cynicism Canadians already feel toward politicians of all stripes?
I think that will have implications on our whole political system. I do not want to dramatize this overly, but it is a concern. It is the kind of cynicism that is everywhere throughout this country and it does not necessarily relate to whether it is a member of Parliament or the alderperson or the member of the legislature who is doing a good job. That, of course, has an impact, but the people do not trust politicians. One wonders why. But contrast what was said last November 20 and see where we are today. We are putting forth all the things that the government said it was not going to do.
There is no question that this clawback puts an end to universality. The National Council on Welfare which is a federal government advisory group is saying there is no

November 20, 1989
Government Orders
question but that the clawback puts an end to universality. This report was made to government entitled "The 1989 Budget and Social Policy" and states: "A social program that delivers benefits to everyone and then collects them all back from some recipients is not universal". I know that sometimes it is a difficult concept for some of the members opposite to understand when they say that it does not have an effect on universality. But when you give to some and take it away from some, that is an effect on universality.
The clawbacks are designed to save the federal government about $500 million a year. The savings would then be used to reduce the deficit rather than increase the benefits for low-income parents and seniors.
The National Council on Welfare has taken a page out of the New Democratic books and would prefer to see the government raise taxes for upper income people generally rather than having the heaviest burden on upper income parents and upper income seniors. Alternatives to clawbacks that are outlined in the report would save the government $2 billion a year, rather than $500 million.
I think we should also point out that this is a government that gives a lot of lip service in support of the family. While it gets a lot of Brownie points for those nice words, this bill erodes the whole concept of the family.
In the case of parents, the clawback discriminates against one-earner families because it is based on individual net income. A one-earner family with two children and a net income of $56,000 would lose all of its family allowance benefits. A two-earner couple where one spouse earns $45,000 and the other $35,000 would escape the clawback despite their combined income of $80,000.
Now, as I said, this government does give a lot of lip service to the support of families and about the way children should be raised, that women should stay home and look after their children rather than going out into the workforce. Well, here is a real slap in the face, because it is penalizing families which do that very thing. That kind of inconsistency is a bit galling to say the least.
I would like also to talk about the complexity of this bill regarding the child benefit system. After the clawback there will be four types of families receiving family allowance: Those keeping all of the family allowance because they are too poor to owe income tax; those families who keep part of their family allowance because they pay regular income tax on their benefits; those who keep part of their family allowance because they pay regular income tax and the clawback on their benefits and those who pay all of their family allowance back because of the clawback. This is a real distinction and we are talking about universality. It is a joke.
The clawback will erode the principle of horizontal equity. Removing family allowance from families that are better off will put them at greater disadvantage, vis-a-vis, childless couples and singles who have the same income but no child rearing expenses. Once again, this government gives a lot of lip service to the support of the family, but that is all it is, lip service. Its real motivations were veiy apparent in Bill C-28.
As members of an opposition party we have not only a right, but a duty and an obligation to oppose legislation that we believe is wrong-headed. We also have a duty and an obligation to propose alternatives.
As I said earlier, there is a recognition, even by New Democrats, that the deficit is a problem. We think it is an over stated problem, but if there are ways in which we can help advise these government members on how to address this problem, we are happy to try to contribute to that.
I believe the deficit has been over-sold to Canadians due to the Conservative ideology and the free trade agreement.


John Horton McDermid: The NDP doesn't give a damn about deficits, or debts or anything else.


Lynn Hunter: Lowering the deficit should be a goal of a much broader economic strategy not the only goal. That sort of linear thinking of the government members is apparent by this type of legislation. We have to think of a broader economic strategy. The government member opposite is eager to hear of our alternatives, so I am sure he will be attentive. By proposing alternatives I do so in the spirit of this House. I hope that the government will take some of these suggestions and incorporate them. I have not fallen to the cynicism of some of my constitu-
November 20, 1989

ents, that we are all here just to pick fights with one another. I think that we are here to contribute.
Canadians deserve a federal budget that responds to our real economic needs such as spreading the near full employment of southern Ontario to our regions. Ultimately, a focus on jobs and fairness will bring down the deficit. I think that should be the real focus of this government, a full employment program and a fair and simpler tax system. Then we would not have the erosion of the universality of our social programs as in this bill.


Don Boudria: Madam Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate tonight, and I may add that tomorrow is the anniversary of the Tory Government's re-election. It was a sad day last year, when the Tory Government came to power for the second time. I am sure you remember that at the time, the Tory Government laughed at the Opposition parties with their various programs and said that Canada could not afford the kind of government being proposed by opposition members and the opposition parties. However, the Tories claimed they had all the funds that were necessary to continue to administer this government. That is what they said. They also said their commitments were not mere campaign promises but were backed with the necessary funds to implement them.
A year ago, it was the day before the election, November 20, 1988, and today it is November 20, 1989. One year later, suddenly the government no longer seems to have the funds it had last year. And to rely on the party's-I beg your pardon, the government's-coffers- I get the words "party" and "government" mixed up, because the Tories have a tendency to confuse the meaning of the two words. So in the light of those facts, Madam Speaker, I am sure you will excuse me for making this mistake, but it is typical of the government opposite, and I am sure that you, as an impartial person, will understand. I am sure you understand what I have to say in this respect.
In any case, one year later, the Tories across the way no longer have any money. No money at all. They have to cut here, they have to cut there, they have to raise taxes for Canadians. None of this was mentioned.
Government Orders
The Tories say they need the money so badly and they are so broke that they have to invoke closure and make members sit during part of the night to get those funds right away. Not bad, for a government that less than a year ago had all the funds it needed to administer this country!
Even if we agreed with the Tories a year ago, we can now conclude that what they offered Canadians was poor government, because all of a sudden they no longer have the funds they claimed to have.

But the sad reality is that the government across the way was not telling Canadians the truth a year ago, and it continues not to tell the truth to the people of Canada. Now, a year ago it was claiming, as I said previously, that it had all the money necessary to administer its own campaign commitments. You see, Madam Speaker, campaign commitments are slightly different from campaign promises. Campaign commitments were the ones made by Tories and campaign promises were the ones made by the opposition during the campaign. The Conservatives identified those differences at that time. They further added that all the funds necessary to administer the programs which they were proposing were completely inside the government's budgetary envelopes and that they were already provided for by the Estimates and so on.


Dorothy I. Dobbie: I am spellbound.


Don Boudria: And I say that to the hon. member across the way. I invite her to pay attention to this because we might ask her questions later. The hon. member will not remember the people last year who were forced to listen to this.


John Horton McDermid: That is the same line I heard you say in the provincial House.


Don Boudria: And I hear the minister from Brampton across the way. He reminds me of the fact that I used to sit in the Ontario Legislature at the time that he was Claude Bennett's side kick.
I remember when he used to do that for a living, and now Claude Bennett is no longer in public office-he resigned before he was defeated, which is exactly what would have happened to him. I say to the minister that

November 20, 1989
Government Orders
he had better listen closely. He and his colleagues should continue to try to administer the Federal Business Development Bank, and listen attentively to what we are saying.
As I was saying before I was provoked, the family allowance is taxable. Thirty per cent of family allowance benefits are already paid back to the government through the progressive income tax system. The government is claiming that we need in addition to this a clawback provision, to snatch back the funds which the taxpayers of Canada have been receiving. It says not to worry, it only applies to rich people right now, only those earning $50,000 a year and so on. It says all those people are rich and can afford to give their money back to the Conservatives. Personally, if I were rich, which I am not, the last people I would want to give my money to are the people across the way. That is another issue and we can discuss it at another time.
The point is that this $50,000 threshold is only partially indexed-hardly at all, as a matter of fact-and will erode to such an extent over the next decade that many people who are considered not to be wealthy at all will then fall into that group of people who will see their pension clawed back by the Conservatives in the unlikely event that the Conservative party will still be in power at the time. I say extremely unlikely, because as we all know the Conservatives will be turfed out of office by then.
The other unfairness is that the proposal would put a special tax on families with children and on seniors, a tax that does not apply to anyone else. One has to wonder why the government wants to attack seniors and families. Is it not bad enough that it has tried to attack everyone with the GST proposal? It had 80 per cent of Canadians displeased with the GST. Some Conservative members looked at this and said to themselves that this was not good enough. They said: "What we should do is try to get unanimity". Do you know how they went about that? They decided to make the other 20 per cent angry, the 20 per cent of the people who are still supporting the GST. Do you know what they did? They put out a trial balloon about taxing existing homes. They sure have unanimity. Now everyone is angry at the Tories, even the few people who previously supported the GST proposal.
Returning to Bill C-28, in which the government has successfully found another way to get a lot of Canadians angry with it, it has invoked a procedure which is most unfair. Let me describe the scenario. For a senior citizen with $70,000 in income, the principle of fairness would suggest that it should not matter whether you get your income from a government pension, the stock market or elsewhere. A $70,000 income should be taxed the same way regardless of from where it comes. After all, a buck is a buck. Why should it be taxed differently if people get money from a pension, stocks, bonds, or anywhere else?
The minister sits in cabinet responsible for many government programs. Why would he, being the reasonable person he no doubt is, want to agree with such a program? I understand the minister from Brampton is agreeing with that, but not our friend from Montreal who is listening to this.
The government clawback provision would single out people who receive family allowances and old age pension cheques for a special tax. Why do the Conservatives across the way want to tax people who receive pensions any more than anyone else? Is it not bad enough that they are taxing everyone, that they would want a special tax grab directly aimed at people getting a pension? Why would they want to do that, other than finding another way to get unanimity, getting 100 per cent of Canadians mad at them again? They are bound to succeed one more time.
They have managed to do it with the GST. It took some creative thinking in those last two weeks to get the 20 per cent of Canadians who still liked the GST upset, but now they have succeeded in doing that. One hundred per cent of Canadians are mad. The Conservatives are going to do the same thing with this clawback provision. They had many Canadians mad at them for their income tax proposals. Now the few people that were not too upset are going to be upset with the implementation of this bill.
That is why we in the Official Opposition have stood for Canadians. We have contested these measures. We have indicated to the people of Canada that we do not like this bill and that we are not going to vote for it. I say to the members across, just in case the Tory members across think for instance that this is merely a partisan remark that I am making, as unlikely as that could be, to

November 20, 1989

read from One Voice Seniors Network Canada Incorporated, which is a national organization representing senior citizens across this country.
This is not the member for Glengarry-Prescott- Russell or someone who may perhaps be thought of being partisan by those people across the way, but what One Voice said: "If we want to maintain true universality we shouldn't tax benefits through the back door. That penalizes people who receive benefits, specifically pensioners and families, and destroys the universal nature of benefit. Meanwhile other taxpayers at the same income level are left unscathed even though they may be more able to pay."


Dorothy I. Dobbie: They are not getting welfare. That is the difference.


Don Boudria: Madam Speaker, I am glad that the member across has said that. I do hope that Hansard has properly registered what we just heard. The member across has just stated that senior citizens' pensions are welfare. That is what we have now heard. She has said those people are not receiving welfare, insinuating that the ones who are receiving old age security pensions are receiving welfare. Well, for me as a Liberal, that kind of thinking is wrong. There is no way that senior citizens should apologize to the member across the way and beg to get money from this government. Senior citizens should not have to do that, and they will not do that, so long as we in the Liberal party can stand here and defend their interests.
I say to the member across the way that she should apologize to the senior citizens of Canada for insinuating that old age security benefits are a form of welfare. For me they are not. They are a richly deserved universal pension which we have consistently stood for in the Liberal party and implemented a number of years ago. We will continue to do that.
Let me get back to what some Canadians had to say about this issue of clawback which is a form of deindexation. We have here in hand from The Ottawa Citizen a story of September 14 by Mark Kennedy in which he interviewed the Prime Minister. I know it is unfair to quote the Prime Minister using his own words, but I will do it any way. I know it is very, very difficult for the members across the way. The National Council on
Government Orders
Welfare issued a report in which it criticized the Tories for the clawback provisions of Bill C-28. The National Council on Welfare is a government body, of course. I am sure the member across the way knows this or she should. It stated:
There is no question that the clawback puts an end to universality.
A social program that delivers benefits to everyone and then
collects them all back from some recipients is not universal.
That goes really to the heart of what the member was saying a while ago, assessing or qualifying or describing old age security benefits as being a form of welfare. We do not think that old age security pensions are welfare, but the member across gave us a different view of that and now the Prime Minister says through this interview here, and I quote: "'We don't accept that view at all,". That is what he told reporters. "It is an opinion like many others but no more than that.'"
The National Council of Welfare, a government organization, there to advise the government on social issues, is considered by the Prime Minister as having an opinion that is an opinion like many others but no more. In other words the Conservatives give little if any credence to what is said by this national body, describing its opinion as no more or no less than the opinion of anyone else. They do not listen to the opinion of anyone else, so that means that they give absolutely no regard to what the government's own National Council on Welfare says.
I have some difficulty in understanding what the government is trying to do here. Conservative members say they want to lower the deficit. They say they are trying to make ends meet, yet they go on wasting and squandering money the way they have been since 1984 with all kinds of schemes that have been questioned in this House, and I am not going to repeat today's Question Period or Question Periods of other days here. We all know what they consisted of. At the same time they claw back pensions of senior citizens, questioning again the universality of such pensions, describing pensions as being welfare programs when all of us including the Prime Minister called them universal programs that were sacred trusts. Now, today, they are being described by some as being welfare programs.
Mr. Les Batterson, the president of Senior Citizens Federation said to the Prime Minister on June 23, 1989:

November 20, 1989
Government Orders
-our position is that the tax-back is age biased, grossly inequitable and has serious implications with regards to universality.


John Horton McDermid: Who said that?


Don Boudria: Mr. Les Batterson, president of Senior Citizens Federation said that to the Prime Minister on June 23, 1989. He said this in a letter, and of course the Prime Minister has the original. Maybe the minister can get someone to read it to him. Then we will understand.
The Coalition of Quebec Seniors, in a letter to the Minister of Finance of May 24, said:
-as the clawback begins to affect increasing numbers of individuals there can be no doubt that the net effect will be a gradual reduction in the principle of universality.
We consider further, that a special tax which is only directed at seniors, is discrimination on the basis of age, unfair, and contrary to the Charter of Rights.
That would make an interesting Charter case. Anyway, it says further:
Your proposal creates a steeper tax rate for seniors than for others
at similar income levels. Seniors who with great difficulty, have
succeeded over the years, in saving for their retirement, are being
penalized.
Those are the words of the Coalition of Quebec Seniors in a letter to the Minister of Finance of May 24,
1989.
{Translation}
Madam Speaker, I think or I hope I have persuaded Tory Members opposite to change their minds and withdraw this bill. They still have a chance, and it is still a few minutes or should I say hours until a vote is taken, and the ministers opposite could call an emergency meeting behind the curtains and withdraw Bill C-28. We would give them our unqualified support for withdrawing the bill. However, if the Tory Government, if the Tory ministers refuse, all I can say is that Canadians will remember when the next election comes around.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to participate in this debate on Bill C-28, legislation which flows from the Conservative budget tabled earlier this year.
This bill deals with a number of issues of concern to all Canadians. It amends the Income 'lax Act and includes
provisions, which I will be coming back to in a minute, respecting the clawback of family allowances and old age security pensions and a capital tax on large corporations. It cuts the federal-provincial fiscal arrangements and federal post-secondary education and health contributions. It deals with the Old Age Security Act. It touches the Public Utilities Income Ihx Transfer Act and as well it amends a number of other acts flowing from the budget.
Because the time is limited, I want to focus on two or three aspects of this proposed legislation. I want to first deal briefly with the cut-backs in federal-provincial transfers for health and post-secondary education because this amounts to a very serious erosion in EPF funding. We saw just three years ago in 1986 another round of cuts in EPF funding. What this will mean for Canada's poorest provinces is devastating indeed. In fact, the four Atlantic provinces alone will lose $189 million over the next four years while the four western provinces, including my province of British Columbia, will lose some $633 million.
What we are heading for is in many ways a two-tier-system of the delivery of services in this country, a two tier health care system with one quality of health care in the rich provinces and second or third rate services in the poorer provinces. Those are the words of the Canadian Medical Association.
These cuts come on top of other cuts as well, including unemployment insurance and regional development cuts. Post-secondary education is being particularly hard hit at a time when we should be putting more funding into post-secondary education. Right now we spend something in the order of $13,000 on average per student while the United States spends an average of some $20,000 per student. We are falling further and further behind in this fundamental area of support for post-secondary education.
The Prime Minister on the one hand has said he would make education a high priority. He promised in a speech in August 1989 "reforms that will generate excellence in education from coast to coast". Instead of bringing forward meaningful reform in post-secondary education, the Prime Minister is cutting back on funding to the provinces for post-secondary education.
November 20, 1989

We have seen the effects of this across Canada, including in my constituency. I just recently was at Douglas College, a college which serves the lower mainland of British Columbia and has a very important role to play in the delivery of post-secondary education in the province of British Columbia. It is suffering under the impact of devastating financial cut-backs and at this same time, the federal government is proposing to cut back further.
I mentioned the promise the Prime Minister made to improve the level of support for post-secondary education. The same Prime Minister has made other promises which are broken in a very fundamental way in this Bill C-28. On March 7, 1984, the Prime Minister said this: "Our position is simple and straightforward. We are in favour of universality in social programs and it shall not be touched". What happened to that fundamental promise made to the people of Canada in March 1984? What happened to the promise made in October 1988 during the last federal election campaign?
My colleague from Saanich-Gulf Islands noted that this evening we are on the eve of the first anniversary of this government. This is an appropriate time for us to be looking back on the promises made during that election campaign which culminated in the election of this government one year ago tomorrow.
One of the promises made was a promise made to Canadian seniors and it was made by the Prime Minister in Summerside, Prince Edward Island. Of course, the people of Summerside have other concerns these days about the promises and commitments made by this government, but this was a solemn promise made to Canadian seniors. The Prime Minister said this:
Let me say a special word to the senior citizens. In the future, Canada will be doing more, not less, for all of you. As long as I am Prime Minister of Canada, social benefits, especially those for the elderly, will be improved, not diminished, by our government which is committed to social justice and fairness for Canadians.
Well, what happened to that promise? That promise has been broken by the Prime Minister and by the government he leads.
One of the things that I have found as I travelled across this land and in speaking with people in my constituency is a degree of disillusionment and cynicism
Government Orders
about the whole political process. A part of that is because of the extent to which political leaders, the Prime Minister in this case, are prepared to cast into the wastepaper basket promises that they have made during the election campaign.
I mentioned some of the concerns that are raised in this area of pensions and the clawback of pensions, but this is not the first time we have seen an attack on the senior citizens of this country. We all remember back in 1985 when this Conservative government attempted to deindex old age pensions.

We remember very well the role the opposition played in forcing the government to withdraw its bill. I remember very clearly the outstanding role played by the former Member Jean-Claude Malepart, and it was quite fitting that his magnificent contribution to the fight against deindexing was mentioned today.

Indeed, it is appropriate that we acknowledge today the contribution made in particular by the late member for Laurier-Ste. Marie, Jean-Claude Malepart, in this struggle. We all know where he would be in the House today and where he has been with respect to this attack on old age pensions.
That was the first hint that we had in 1985 when the government tried to cut back on old age pensions, tried to deindex old age pensions and was forced to step back in the face of overwhelming opposition from Canadians.
We got another hint of the true attitude of Conservatives to senior citizens in the words of the member for Mississauga South who chairs the Finance Committee. This is a senior Conservative. He has been a member of this Parliament since 1979. What did he have to say about seniors?
This is the attitude of a senior member of that Conservative caucus, the chair of the finance committee. When Conservatives expressed their anger and then-outrage about the GST, he said: "Well, don't worry about that, older people don't wear out their clothing, they don't wear out their furniture and they don't run around and all of that costs dough". That from the Conservative chair of the finance committee.

November 20,1989
Government Orders
Where were all of his Conservative colleagues? They were probably shrinking back in horror at the words of their Conservative colleague, but where were the members from British Columbia, from Alberta and from across this country? Where were they standing up for seniors and telling their colleague, the member for Mississauga South, that this was an insult?


Mr. Blaikie:: They were silent.


Svend Johannes Robinson: As my colleague from Winnipeg Trans-cona has said, they were silent, not a word. That is the attitude of this government. Fortunately, the member for Mississauga South had the honesty to voice that attitude. It is rare that that happens. But that in fact is the attitude of this government.
There are other concerns as well and the member for Brampton-Georgetown has expressed some views on this bill. He supported this bill which would erode the quality of life for senior citizens in this country and if he wants to stand up and defend that, he is certainly entitled to do so.
What we have seen is a clawback provision which over time is going to hit more and more seniors. In fact, the fundamental element of the clawback proposal is that it is only partially indexed to the amount of inflation which is over 3 per cent.
We all know that one of the impacts of the Conservative goods and services tax will be a significant rise in the level of inflation. What we will see over the course of time is more and more families will become subject to this clawback because their incomes will rise faster than the amount of the clawback income threshold.
This clawback, of course, has other weaknesses as well. The fact is that it is a breach of trust with senior citizens of this land because for many years they paid in, in good faith, assuming that one day, having paid into the program, they would in fact receive the pensions to which they are entitled. It was from 1952 to 1971 that seniors in this country paid a special surtax on income that was earmarked for old age pensions.
I remember a senior citizen, an elderly gentleman from Stratford Gardens in North Burnaby, who came to my constituency office and said: "Svend, I'm sure I remember back in the 1950s and the 1960s, when each year when it came time to pay my income tax, having to
pay a special surtax for my old age pension. Now, they want to take it away". Well, so much for the Prime Minister's sacred trust. So much for the Prime Minister's promise to the senior citizens of this land.
We are aware as well of the fact that this government has said that it wants to reduce the deficit. Reducing the deficit on the backs of Canada's seniors is not only wrong, but it is fundamentally immoral.


Dorothy I. Dobbie: You're immoral. You're misrepresenting.


Svend Johannes Robinson: In fact, the Canadian Seniors Network-one of the hon. members for Winnipeg suggested it misrepresented the facts. She can rise in her place and take issue. What they have said is that this partial indexation will mean that by the year 2000, the threshold which is now $50,000 will have fallen to the equivalent of $35,000 in today's dollars. Thirty-five thousand dollars is a significant drop and certainly that will affect hundreds of thousands of Canadian families and Canadian seniors.
The Canadian Seniors Network has pointed out as well that if this government were looking seriously at tax reform, it could raise the rate of the top income tax bracket by 1 per cent and generate exactly the same amount as it is by clawing back old age pensions. That would be a much more just and equitable way of raising these funds.
A government which purports to be concerned about a fairer tax system is doing nothing whatsoever to deal with the appalling problem of child poverty in this country. We learned in a report just this week that a survey was done by the Canadian Association of Food Banks showing that some 400,000 Canadians, almost half of them children, are lining up for food hand-outs at soup kitchens, churches and drop-in centres.
What is this government doing to deal with the problem of poverty, particularly among children in this country? What does Bill C-28 which is now before the House and which represents this government's attempt at tax reform do for the poor and the children in this country who are living in poverty? In fact, 151,000 children every month depend on food banks for their food in this affluent country of ours. There is something profoundly wrong which is not in any way being addressed by this legislation now being debated under the hammer of closure this evening.
November 20, 1989

This legislation will do nothing whatsoever to reduce the disparities between the wealthy and the poor. In fact, in 1984 the top 10 per cent of the population in Canada held more than half of the country's wealth. The top 20 per cent held close to 70 per cent of all the wealth and the bottom 20 per cent had less than nothing. In fact, they owed more than they owned.
Surely any government that believes in social justice would recognize that we have a fundamental task here to redistribute wealth, to ensure that no one in this land is dependent on food banks for survival.


Dorothy I. Dobbie: Communism doesn't work. They're tearing down the Berlin Wall.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Instead of moving in that direction of redistribution of wealth and income, what this government is doing is breaking the promise that it made to senior citizens, to the children of this country and to families and clawing back those pensions and those family allowances. We in this party say that that is wrong and that that is a betrayal of the promises that this government has made.

Madam Speaker, there are other ways to find the money needed for social programs in Canada. My colleague, the Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville, pointed out that more than 90,000 companies made $27 billion in profit in 1987 without paying a cent of income tax.
Madam Speaker, instead of asking for money from Canada's seniors, who have already contributed for a long time to their retirement pension, why not collect taxes from these companies that paid nothing?
Madam Speaker, our present tax system is unfair and when businesses do not pay, ordinary citizens pay, and pay dearly.
[English\
In fact, that is what this legislation is all about. It is about transferring the burden of taxation to seniors, transferring the burden of taxation on to those who are least able to bear it.
There are other aspects of this legislation as well, but in closing, I want to emphasize what the National Council of Welfare, an advisory committee to the government, has said about the clawback provisions of this
Government Orders
legislation. It said that the move away from universal benefits is the most significant change in social policy in a generation, yet it was announced by the Minister of Finance in the budget speech with no prior consultation. A budget is no place to alter the very foundation of Canada's social programs.
That is really what this is all about. It is a fundamental change in the nature of our society. The free trade agreement was part of that. The goods and services tax is very much a part of that. It is a change toward a meaner, harsher Canada, an Americanization of this land. That is what we are seeing in the erosion of our social programs. That is what we are seeing in the erosion of our health care plan in this country. That is what we are seeing in the cut-backs in unemployment insurance and that is what we are seeing today in Bill C-28.
It is for that reason that we as New Democrats reject this clawback proposal to cut back on cost-shared programs and health care and post-secondary education and it is for that reason that in the next federal election the people of Canada will resoundingly reject a government which has betrayed the promises that were made to them and which has broken its faith with the people of this land.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Madam Speaker, I was interested when my colleague from Burnaby- Kingsway was speaking that the hon. member for Winnipeg South had much to say from her seat. For those who may not have been able to hear what she was saying, when the Hon. Member for Burnaby-Kingsway was denouncing the clawback provision and talking about the whole idea of redistributing wealth, the Member for Winnipeg South was saying:, "Communism doesn't work, don't you know that?"
Apart from noticing that she is a worthy successor to the political tradition established on that side of Winnipeg which regards everything slightly to the left of Genghis Khan as communism, I wonder if the seniors of this country would be interested in knowing that the hon. member for Winnipeg South thinks that they are advocating communism because they believe in the redistribution of wealth or because they believe in universality with respect to social programs and in this case with respect to pensions. It seems to me that is something that the pensioners of Manitoba and other places would like to know more about, how the member for Winnipeg South equates these ideas which have been part and parcel of a political consensus for some time, a consen-

November 20, 1989
Government Orders
sus which the Conservative Party wants to break now with this budget, is communism.
All those Canadians who supported universality and redistribution of wealth have been communists in the eyes of the member for Winnipeg South and they did not even know it, but they will be interested to know that. I am told that the Prime Minister himself said that. We are talking more about a parrot than someone with an independent thought.
What we are talking about tonight is a departure from the principle of social policy. If the Conservative government wants to establish a reason why it ought to be abandoned, it ought to do so with a little more intellectual and philosohical weight than simply branding it as a form of communism. One of the things that has distinguished Canadian social policy over the years has been the element of universality.
We have said as a country and as a society that there are certain things we want to do because we are a certain kind of community. The people receive because they are citizens. Families will receive a certain amount of support per child because they are families, not because they are poor families or rich families or middle-income families but because they are families. People who are over 65 years of age will receive a certain amount of support because they fall into that category, not as an act of charity but because this is something which Canadians as a community have decided to do for all Canadians who fall into a certain category. The same is true of health care and education. All these things are a way of looking at society.
The Member for Winnipeg South is still yapping from her seat. She had an opportunity to get up when the member for Burnaby-Kingsway sat down and no Liberal rose. She did not rise, perhaps because she has been instructed by her caucus or her whip not to speak for fear of embarrassing the government and bringing more shame down upon its head. If she wants to speak, she is welcome to get up after I have finished.
The principle of universality is a principle that we in the New Democratic Party hold very dear. We do that along with a great many other Canadians. What this government is doing through the clawback is establishing, and they know this, though government members are being clandestine about it, a conceptual watershed in social policy. Once this bill goes through they will have effectively, without really having a debate about it, established that it is okay to deuniversalize programs.
They are hoping to take advantage of the natural reaction of a great many people of what could it hurt to take back some money from people who have a net income of over $50,000. They are hoping that most Canadians will not see that this is the thin edge of the wedge.
In fact, most Canadians have seen that. They realize what is going on and they know that if this principle of universality can be breached for people who have a net income of over $50,000, it is only a matter of time before others can be next. I think that is why there is widespread opposition to this particular measure.


Dorothy I. Dobbie: Do you think people earning $100,000 should get this?


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: I think that people earning $100,000 should be taxed fairly and progressively and heavily. I do not see why pensioners who are earning over $50,000 net should be singled out in the way that this budget does and be asked to give back part of their old age security. If the government opposite wants to raise money from people who are making $100,000 then let it tax people who are making $100,000, but let it not tax the old age security which these people receive from the government. There are plenty of ways to get that money back.
We have always said tax it back, but tax it back as part of the progressive income tax system, don't tax it back in a way that violates the very way we think about Canadian society and social programs. That is the agenda here, it is not the money. It is a paltry sum in the big picture that the Conservatives are raising through this clawback. What they want to do is to score a victory with respect to how we think about social programs so that other social programs can follow, particularly medicare. Because, in this same bill-


Dorothy I. Dobbie: Oh, oh.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: She is still yapping.
November 20,1989


Mr. Rodriguez:: She hasn't got anything to yap about.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: As a former Conservative leader once said, you can always tell when you throw a stone into a pack of dogs if you have hit something because you can hear them yelping. I can understand why the members opposite are a little sensitive about this because they remember how angry the general public were, and pensioners in particular, when they tried to deindex the old age pension in the early part of their government in 1985. The fact of the matter is-


Dorothy I. Dobbie: You're going to give this to people earning over $100,000 just because of 1985?


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Madam Speaker, are we going to have some order in the House or is she just going to be able to go on and on like this without ever having the courage to seek the floor?
What I wanted to say is that if the government wants to raise money, as all governments do, there are plenty of ways in which it could raise this money without, at the same time, changing the way in which we think about social policy in this country. The government could tax that money back from old age pensioners who are making more than $50,000 through the progressive income tax system, as I have said. And the same with families who are making $50,000 net. The government could have a minimum corporate tax; it could shut more of the loopholes in the tax system; it could respond to some of the suggestions that have been made recently about devising taxes which would have the parallel effect of encouraging people to do things which are environmentally friendly, the eco-tax or whatever it has been called from time to time. There are many ways in which the government could have been a little creative. The government has been creative, it has been creative according to the Conservative mind. Because, what is the government trying to create?
Since 1984 the government has been trying to create a context in which all the things which it fought against for decades can be dismantled in the course of its two terms of government. All the time it is sort of bouncing from scandal to scandal and scam to scam, step by step it has been dismantling the Canada that was created up to and including 1984. That is what the government got into power to do. Unfortunately, I believe Canadians thought that no one would really contemplate doing these sorts
Government Orders
of things. And now Canadians are seeing that this is exactly what the government is about.
Bill C-28 also deals with a reduction in Established Programs Financing. This brings us to the whole question of health care and post-secondary education, but tonight I would particularly like to talk about health care. I remember in the early 1980s there were a lot of debates about EPF and about federal-provincial fiscal arrangements. What has happened since then? Despite all the protests of the Conservatives when they were in opposition about cutbacks in EPF funding, this is the second unilateral cutback in Established Programs Financing that we have seen from the Progressive Conservative Government.
You will remember these are the same people who always talked about the evils of unilateral federal action when it came to federal-provincial relations in the early 1980s. These are the people who made a political career out of denouncing unilateral federal actions when it came to federal-provincial relations and federal-provincial programs. Yet this is the second unilateral cutback in Established Programs Financing that we have seen. Between the federal government and the provinces when medicare was created is being slowly destroyed and more and more of the burden is being put on to the provinces with respect to health care. It is already an onerous burden for even the richer provinces, but particularly the ones that are not rich. It cannot go on like this. Sooner or later something is going to give. We will have a two-tier health care system in the regional sense, that is health care systems in the richer provinces which are far superior to the ones in the poorer provinces. Somewhere down the road, unless the pressure is taken off the health care system, unless more funding is provided in the spirit of the original 50-50 cost sharing arrangement, there will be pressure for a two tier health care system in some of the have-not provinces, of that line, to get to the head of that queue, to get to the head of that waiting list. And do you know what? That is not something the Conservatives will regret because they never liked medicare in the first place.
Then they will say, "You see, there is a need for a private system. There is a need for people who can afford to pay will take the heat off the public system". That will be the beginning of the end of universality in medicare. But it will be easier to do because they will have already established that it is okay to do away with universality in family allowances and old age pensions. So when somebody says, "But this is doing away with universality and that's a sacred principle, is it not, at least the Prime Minister said so", they will say, "Well, it may have been at one point but don't you remember the

November 20, 1989
Government Orders
budget of 1989 when we did away with universality in family allowances and old age pensions? That principle of universality was done away with a long time ago." If we can establish that it is okay to make a difference between rich Canadians and other Canadians with respect to support for families and old age pensions, then we can establish that principle in other areas.
We hear the protestations coming from the other side in the same way that we heard them during the debate just a year ago in the federal election of 1988. We said that UI would be changed in order to make it more like the American system. They said, "You are being silly", just as the hon. member from Brampton is now saying I am being silly. But what did they do after they said we were silly? They came forward with legislation to make our unemployment insurance system more like the American system. Many other things that we said at that time for which we were accused of being silly have come to pass. Now they accuse us of being silly one more time.
Well, I hope they are right. I hope that we will be able to look back some day and say we were wrong in our anticipation that that was going to be the case. But we have not been wrong. Those things which we have pointed to as part of the general trend, as part of a general over-all agenda on the part of this government are all falling into place and they do not have the courage to admit it. Why? Because if they went to the Canadian people and said what they actually wanted to do to this country, if they said how they actually wanted to change it, they would not have won the election. They would not get the support. The Minister of International Trade said that a couple of years ago.
The only member who recently, as far as I can remember, has been honest about the true meaning of the free trade agreement has been the hon. member from Mississauga South who, as usual, is one of the few Conservatives that you do not have to worry about stabbing you in the back. The hon. member from Mississauga South is always running straight at you with a spear so you know exactly where he is coming from. He
has in the past, and during the election, been very forthright.
I cannot quote him without being unparliamentary on what the free trade agreement means for the opponents of the Conservative party. It means, for that those of us who have imagined a Canada in which universal programs would not only be maintained but enhanced, for those of us who have imagined a Canada in which we would have more control over our own economic destiny and the ability to determine the future of our own country, that we are finished. That is the polite way of putting what the hon. member for Mississauga South said to me at one point. The free trade agreement will become the context in which all the things that the Conservatives do not have the courage to do directly they will be able to do indirectly. They know that.
I do not blame them for sitting over there smiling like a bunch of Cheshire cats because they know that, unless the Canadian people wake up and in 1992 throw this group out of office, that will be the last chance for the country. Last chance, 1992, because in the second term they will proceed to complete, as far as they can, the agenda which they had in mind all along. It is only at the end of their second term that Canadians will have one last chance to say that this is not what we intended in 1984 when we were so sick of the Liberals and we wanted to vote the Conservatives in. This is not what they intended.


Fred J. Mifflin: You don't really mean that, do you?


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: I am asked whether I really mean that. People were sick of the Liberals in 1984, and part of the problem was that they had not got over it by 1988, it was that bad.
The fact of the matter is that it is, if you like, a sort of parliamentary and political crime to have to debate universality in the context of an omnibus budget bill, because this is a major philosophical divide that we are crossing, that Parliament is being asked to cross with the instrument of closure at our heads.
I regret very much that debates on these sorts of things do not get the kind of attention, if you like, that they may have at one point because what we are talking about here
November 20, 1989

is the very nature of the country. I think it is one of the things that has made our country a better place to live. I think there are a lot of people on the other side of the House who do not know what they are doing. I do not mean that in the sense that they are stupid, although that would apply in some cases, I mean it in the sense that they do not really know what the long-term consequences are of playing and tampering with these values that are held so widely in Canada.
We are the kind of country that we all value-at least I assume they value-because we have had a different notion of community and a different notion of social policy than our neighbours to the south. They are moving us off in this new direction which takes us closer and closer to the way things are organized in the United States of America. It is a regrettable piece of legislation indeed.


John Horton McDermid: What a lot of crap.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: It is not a lot of crap, as the hon. member for Brampton has so profoundly responded to my criticisms. It happens to be a view that is held by the Canadian Council on Social Development, the National Council on Welfare, the Canadian Council of Churches, the Canadian labour movement, you name it.


John Horton McDermid: You name a socialist group and they say it.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Oh, these are all socialists groups. Some of them are funded by the government, oddly enough.
He is a little more progressive than the hon. member for Winnipeg South. She thinks that everyone who disagrees with her is a communist. The hon. member for Brampton thinks that everyone who disagrees with him is part of the socialist conspiracy. There is a conspiracy of people in this country who care about the way things are done in terms of social programs and who care about the principle of universality and they are the people that this government should be listening to instead of their own paranoid fantasies about their critics.
Mr. Jack Shields (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister
for International Trade): Madam Speaker, I found it very difficult to join this debate because I think the debate has degenerated into a name calling and silly type of argument that we are hearing from the other side.
Government Orders
I would like to remind the House that we are not debating universality today. We are debating a bill, and we are debating efforts by this government to create an economic situation in Canada that will allow us to keep all those social programs that we on this side of the House value as much as do members on the other side of the House. I want to remind the House that when we took office in 1984 the government of that day was borrowing $16 billion to run programs. It was actually borrowing $16 billion to run programs that the government had in place.
The government had to borrow because the revenues it was receiving under the taxing system, revenues to the federal government, were $16 billion short of what it needed to run the programs. Revenues today exceed $9 billion over expenditures. Madam Speaker, add the $16 billion to the $9 billion and you will see that we have turned that around. We have had a $25 billion turnaround, something that the members on the opposite side of the House do not want to recognize and do not want to understand.
They talk about unilateral cutbacks. I heard my hon. friend talk about the unilateral way that this government is moving with cutbacks. I want to remind that member that this government has cut program spending to where the increase is below the level of inflation at 3.6 per cent. That compares with the provincial government program spending increases going up, for some of them as high as 16 per cent, but on an average of 6.5 per cent.
What we are doing-


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: You are transferring the burden to them.


Jack Wendele Shields: Madam Speaker, the hon. member does not like to hear these kind of figures so he is going to interject, and I understand that. He spoke about health care. Again I would like to remind everyone in this House and the people of Canada that health care is not universally free to every individual in Canada. Anyone who is drawing a salary is paying their health care premiums. Those who can afford it are paying more, those who cannot afford it do not pay a premium. We all understand that. We still consider that a universal program. We all subscribe to that and we all work very hard. We pride ourselves on having one of the best health care systems in the world. Those that can afford it pay a higher premium for the health care benefits that

November 20, 1989
Government Orders
they receive and those who cannot afford it do not pay a health care premium. We all understand that.
We all know that we have today an accumulated debt of $350 billion. That is made up of $200 billion of a debt that we inherited, an accumulated debt, and $150 billion in interest. We are attempting, through very difficult times, to create an economic climate in Canada that will allow us to preserve the health care system, the old age pensions, and all of the rest. Let us look at the old age pension for a moment. I have talked to constituents of mine who are receiving the old age pension and when they recognize the difficulty we are in they, above all, the ones who I have talked to who are earning $50,000, $60,000, and $70,000 income in their retirement, are more than happy to return, under the tax system, that portion of their old age security or old age pension that they are receiving now. If we do not take action on the deficit and the debt, if we do not get that under control like we are supposed to be doing, their children and their grandchildren are going to have to carry the burden.
If you really analyse it and if members will honestly look at the situation, they will recognize who the real supporters and the real friends of the social programs that we have in this country are. There are people on this side of the House who are willing to take the very hard decisions that have to be taken, whether it is a goods and services tax or attempted are to bring the economic situation of Canada into line because of the misadminis-tration and the mismanagement of government by the previous administration, by the Liberals, and supported fully, supported 100 per cent, by the NDP sitting on their left. Every time a program was brought into place it was either at the instigation of the NDP or the Liberal government supported by the other party. These were programs that we in Canada could not afford. They are the ones who put us into this debt and we, as financially responsible members of Parliament and government, are attempting to put right what has been so wrong for so many years.
Let me go back to the comment that my friend made. He said that this government fought against unilateralism by the federal government. Yes we did, we certainly did. We fought against the unilateral decision made by this government to impose a national energy program on western Canada. You are darn right we fought against that. We fought against it because we said it was wrong to
steal revenue from other provinces, and we righted that. One of the first things we did when we took office was get rid of the National Energy Program and the Petroleum Gas Revenue Ihx.
What did we hear from the NDP? What did we hear from the Liberals? Well, I'll tell you, they didn't support it. They supported bringing in a National Energy Program and the NDP even went so far as having their energy critic getting up in this House and saying it did not go far enough. They said what you should be doing is nationalizing the largest one, nationalizing Imperial Oil. That was the statement that was made by the NDP, and they talk about unilateralism. It just boggles my mind to hear the garbage that has been coming from that side of the House.
I am not going to say any more. The only thing I would say in closing is that these initiatives have to be taken because this Government of Canada, the very foundation of this government, is going to crumble if we do not get our deficit under control. We have to do it and our only hope is that my hon. friends from the other side will recognize some of the very difficult times that this country is going through in the financial area and get behind us and help us determine the best way to go about putting this government in a position of financial security so that these social programs can remain in Canada and be the pride of Canadians and so all of us can walk out of here with our heads held high.


M. Douglas Young: Madam Speaker, in rising to speak in this debate it is interesting that we are continuing with an approach we have seen now for the last year or so in this House in the way the Government approaches problems in this country. We are discussing a bill that is described as an act to amend the Income Thx Act, the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements, and Federal Post-Secondary Education and Health Contributions Act, the Old Age Security Act, the Public Utilities Income Tax Transfer Act, the War Veterans Allowance Act and a related act.
In listening to my colleague opposite opening his address to the House I heard him say that we are not debating universality. My point is that government members remain consistent, say one thing and do the other, because in fact we are debating universality. The unfortunate thing is that we are debating it under the guise of income tax and other tax reform. It seems to me that the people of Canada understood the problem of the deficit and certainly now more than ever before in our history
November 20, 1989

understand the importance of the debt which this government has been able to double in five years from $170 billion to $350 billion. Those are things that Canadians understand, but I would think what they would appreciate from this government is for people to do what they say they are going to do. If we are talking about reforms to the Income Tax Act that are going to result in clawbacks, what we should be saying is that we are talking about changing the social fabric of this country, the social support systems, and be very candid about that.
I was amazed to hear my colleague opposite suggest that the Conservative government has gone through hard times in the last five years and has had to make difficult decisions. Canadians have heard from this government that the last five years have seen unparalleled growth in this country, have seen the economy improve on the basis of good management. So, how can the government say that everything is moving ahead in a very progressive way under Conservative management, and then say at the same time that we are in a position where we have to look very harshly at social programs because we cannot afford to pay for them.
That is the key, and I think that is a very good point. If you want to change social programs you can always trap people by putting them into an embarrassing position. In my view, if there is a group of people in this country who should never be embarrassed it is our senior citizens. The senior citizens that I speak to in this country are embarrassed because, by dint of hard work and through very careful management of their funds, some of them have accumulated some money, some of them have been able to develop a capacity to generate $50,000, $60,000 or $75,000 a year revenue. Some of us in this House may do that over the years.


Dorothy I. Dobbie: And you are saying that we should still give them old age security?


M. Douglas Young: Mr. Speaker, I have listened to the comments of people who are suggesting that there is something apparently wrong with having people making $75,000 or $100,000 a year and not paying their fair share of taxes. If that is the case what we should do is address the legislation that is particularly relevant. Let
Government Orders
us talk to the senior citizens of this country and ask if they are prepared to make all of these contributions and not be concerned about this chipping away of their security, because what is a threshold today that looks very high and perhaps only affects people with relatively high income could, in a very short of time, change significantly. If we want to do this to them I think we should be telling them directly. There is no one better organized in this country than senior citizens through their senior citizens clubs, through the New Horizons Program that this government supports which previous governments instituted.
Let us go and ask them. Let us not embarrass them by forcing people making over $50,000 a year to have to fight this battle. They have fought their battles in this country and they have paid their taxes over the years in this country, they do not deserve to be put in the very awkward position of trying to fight this legislation on the basis that somehow they appear to be trying to hang on to what people would describe as too much money.
I am not going to debate whether or not the government should change its approach to how it takes care of people of 60, 70, 80 and 90 years of age. But if you want to do something, all Canadians expect is to be told what you want to achieve. Do you want senior citizens to pay down the debt? Do you want senior citizens to reduce the deficit? Ask them. Tell them. Do not say it is because you have too much and we want to take some away from you.


Dorothy I. Dobbie: No, that is not what we are saying.


M. Douglas Young: What are you saying, then?


Dorothy I. Dobbie: What is being said is that what has been given to you is only deserved if you have an income that is less than what it takes to live on.


M. Douglas Young: The point that I am trying to make is that I believe that senior citizens should have the same rights as anyone else in this country. I do not want to in any way appear condescending to senior citizens, but I think that many of them for all kinds of reasons that every member of this House should understand, do not feel that they can fight these big battles any more. They

November 20, 1989
Government Orders
have spent their time in the trenches. If I am wrong, then senior citizens will tell me and will tell you, Mr. Speaker.


Dorothy I. Dobbie: And they do.


M. Douglas Young: I have been to Alberta and Manitoba and I have not had senior citizens saying: "My goodness I am glad that you have begun the process of eroding our security". I have not even heard people 50 and 55 years of age saying that.


John Horton McDermid: They have said: "We do not need it so tax it back".


M. Douglas Young: I am sure that what-


Dorothy I. Dobbie: I know what senior citizens in my riding are saying. I have talked to them.


M. Douglas Young: Listening to members opposite I am sure that what they are saying is accurate to one extent. Senior citizens are generous. They do understand their commitment to Canada. Some of them would say that they would pay down, that they would pay their share if they had a few extra dollars. However, I opened my comments by saying that you say one thing and you do another. Is there someone, Mr. Speaker, to your right saying that the debt will be reduced next year?


Jack Wendele Shields: The deficit will be, yes.


M. Douglas Young: Mr. Speaker, is there someone to your right saying that the deficit will be reduced next year?


Jack Wendele Shields: Yes.


M. Douglas Young: By how much?


Jack Wendele Shields: You will find out. Wait and see.


M. Douglas Young: Mr. Speaker, one thing is for sure. We have been told by members to your right that the goods and services tax will be a deficit reduction tool, but in the very same document it states that it is revenue neutral.


Mrs. Sparrow:: The 23.9 is revenue neutral.


M. Douglas Young: Mr. Speaker, the 23.9 is revenue neutral. The difficulty for Canadians-


Dorothy I. Dobbie: You are talking about old age security and whether people who earn over $50,000-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Brightwell):: I wonder if the member for Gloucester might wish to make a speech rather have a question and answer period.


M. Douglas Young: Mr. Speaker, I do not like to be rude to members opposite. It appears as though they have a number of things to say about this particular piece of legislation.
The difficulty that I have in listening to these comments-and I am listening to an hon. colleague from Alberta-is that they say that they are listening to people. Again, many of us are listening to what people are saying in Alberta. We do not even have to go out to Alberta to hear them because they are allowed to speak out in the presence of two members from your right, Mr. Speaker, in debate in the west on the goods and services tax, for example. Who are you listening to?
We are told, by members here apparently, that the population of Alberta must support the goods and services tax because members to your right support it, Mr. Speaker.


Dorothy I. Dobbie: What does that have to do with old age
security?


M. Douglas Young: It has to do with telling the truth. Who are you listening to? If you do not listen to people who do not like the goods and services tax, why would you be listening to senior citizens who do not like this approach to a clawback of what they have legitimately earned? Who are you going to listen to?


John Horton McDermid: We listen to everybody.


M. Douglas Young: The point is that they say they listen when in fact they do not. They say it will reduce the debt when in fact it will not. They say it will reduce the deficit when in fact it will not. They say the debt that this country is faced with was created by mismanagement of previous governments.


Jack Wendele Shields: It sure was.


M. Douglas Young: When this government came to power the people of Canada owed $170 billion.


John Horton McDermid: It was $200 billion.


M. Douglas Young: Today the people of Canada owe $350 billion.


Jack Wendele Shields: Interest on the debt.
November 20, 1989


M. Douglas Young: What we do not accept is that people who will not understand simple arithmetic are talking to people and saying: "We are listening to them". You have not listened to people who say you have to reduce the deficit. The deficit is still over $30 billion a year. You talk about it but you do not do anything about it.
What I do agree with is if you are going to do something, then tell the people exactly what you intend to do. If you are going to tell senior citizens in this country that they have too much money and you want to tax them back, then tell them that, but do not tell them that you are going to reduce the deficit with their money because you have not been able to do that in the last five years.


Herbert O. Sparrow: Nonsense.


M. Douglas Young: I listened to my hon. friend tell us that the income was now $16 billion more than what it was.


Jack Wendele Shields: You were not listening.


M. Douglas Young: In 1984 they were borrowing $16 billion to pay for programs.


Herbert O. Sparrow: That is you.


M. Douglas Young: That is right, our predecessors.
In 1989 there has been a $25 billion turnaround. That is what was said. The debt in 1984, when this $16 billion was being borrowed, was $170 billion.


John Horton McDermid: It was $200 billion.


M. Douglas Young: What we will do is give members opposite the benefit of the doubt and we will say $200 billion.
Now, in 1989, after five years of good management, the debt is $350 billion. This is the kind of turnaround this government likes. The Conservatives are managing things so well that they have nearly doubled the national debt even according to their own admission.
To continue on the same line, what has been stated is that we could not afford some of these programs. This was stated by my friend just moments ago in his speech to this House. I quote: "Some of the programs we could not afford".
Government Orders
What we should do when we discuss this bill, Mr. Speaker, is have hon. members to your right get up and tell us which programs they cannot afford. That is what we need to know. It is not a question of whether senior citizens have so much money that you want to claw it back from them. If there are programs we cannot afford, there is one thing the people of Canada would like to be able to have and that is a straight answer on what it is that this government cannot afford.
It was very nice to listen to people opposite and perhaps we will get some answers to some of the things we are discussing tonight.
The element of attitude involved in all this debate on the kinds of directions that Canada is taking is illustrated when we, for example, listen to people in this House say that senior citizens are telling members of the government that they want this kind of a tax measure passed.
Are they speaking for associations of senior citizens? Are they talking about senior citizens' clubs across this country in the provinces of Quebec, British Columbia and Atlantic Canada? Are they getting petitions from senior citizens saying: "Please start this process of eroding the security that we always felt was ours and that was a guarantee in Canadian society"? Who are they listening to?
Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that members to your right who have been here for more than six years have security.


Dorothy I. Dobbie: I have security.


M. Douglas Young: I listen to my friend say: "I have security". Is the hon. member comparing herself to a senior citizen now? There are different kinds of security. For many years in this country Canadians believed that they had security.
The Prime Minister of this country guaranteed Canadians security by saying that universality was a sacred trust.


Dorothy I. Dobbie: At $50,000 you are still secure.


M. Douglas Young: Is it a sacred trust at $50,000, $35,000 or $25,000? Or, did we miss part of that phrase: "It is a sacred trust but there is a threshold to my sacred trust".


Jack Wendele Shields: They are still getting it.

November 20, 1989
Government Orders


M. Douglas Young: They are still getting it, but he who giveth also taketh back.
We are going to have all kinds of opportunities to talk about the undertakings we have made to Canadians as legislators. We are going to have to decide when people are going to talk to Canadians-


Dorothy I. Dobbie: At $50,000 a year you still get $325 or so a month old age security, so let's get the facts straight.


M. Douglas Young: There is no question that the intervention being made by my colleague is part of the ploy whereby you can say to Canadians: "Come on, can you be serious about questioning people paying back their fair share when they receive over $50,000 or $60,000 or $70,000 a year?" That is the crack in the sacred trust. It is the beginning. Nobody thought that they would simply get rid of old age pensions, or get rid of family allowance, or cut back on post-secondary education. It is: How do you start the process? How do you begin to convince Canadians that you are not going to be able to live in this country under a set of social standards-


Herbert O. Sparrow: What we are doing is convincing them that they will be able to live in this country.


M. Douglas Young: I am looking forward to hearing those convincing arguments. I know the one argument that works in this House: a majority government defeats the opposition. That argument comes up whenever there is a vote.


Some Hon. Members:: Right.


M. Douglas Young: There is no question that my colleagues across the way are right. When you have a vote, you lose. There is no question about that when there is an elected democratic majority.
Perhaps there is another consideration, though. It is how the majority got to be the majority. What was said to get them there? Sacred trust gets you there. Breach of sacred trust can move you out of there.


Jack Wendele Shields: Just like wage and price controls.


M. Douglas Young: You know something, today-


Jack Wendele Shields: Do you remember that one?


M. Douglas Young: Yes, I do indeed.
Today, this very day, I heard the words again: "wage and price controls". Several months ago in this House I heard the words: "wage and price moderation".


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: So it's moderation now.


M. Douglas Young: The hon. House leader also heard the words: "wage and price moderation". This very day I had someone ask me "what do you think the chances are of the government introducing wage and price controls", all I could say was that I asked the question a couple of months ago-


Mr. Corbeil:: You should know. What did you do with them?


M. Douglas Young: Mr. Trudeau introduced wage and price controls-


Some Hon. Members:: After saying that he wouldn't.


M. Douglas Young: That is right. There is no question that governments have often said one thing and done another.
I want to tell you one thing, Madam Speaker. It is a very easy thing to say that we are going to point a finger at what was done 10 or 15 years ago and to say that because they did it you would do it also. My question tonight to my friends opposite is very simple. Are you going to do it? We know what the Liberals did 10 or 15 years ago. What are you cooking up? Wage and price moderation sounds a lot better.


John Horton McDermid: We are cooking up a country that will be able to operate soundly for decades to come. That is what we are doing.


M. Douglas Young: Madam Speaker, apparently we have the answer.
I want to say in closing that no matter what government says it or what political party says it, you keep saying one thing and doing another. One thing is going to happen to you is what has happened to governments before you that did the same thing.


John R. Rodriguez: Madam Speaker, I have a little problem here tonight. The member for Winnipeg South has departed the chamber. For the last hour or so she has been carrying on a heckling session with members on this side when they were speaking. One would think that if she had anything useful to say she would go on the record publicly and all the folks watching TV could hear what she is saying because it is forward into the past when she speaks. That is one comment I have. The other one is: I do not know for the life of me what it is that infects politicians once they become the government.


An Hon. Member:: And you never will!

November 20, 1989


John R. Rodriguez: I suppose that the late I. F. Stone was probably right when he said that government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed. He was right then, and as I watch it today it is true. I. F. Stone was right.
We saw examples of that. Liberals were running an election in 1974. They ran against Stanfield with wage and price controls. Once they became the government we got wage and price controls.
The Conservatives made a whole list of promises and commitments and as soon as they formed a government they broke every one of them. I do not know what it is. Maybe there are some microbes over there in the desks that crawl up their legs, up their ankles, up their knees, up the main part of their body right into their ears. It invades the brain.


John Horton McDermid: What is your excuse?


John R. Rodriguez: I have never been in the government so I cannot claim to have any microbes.
I hear the member for Brampton. It is fairly obvious that a cuckoo is resident in his head.


John Horton McDermid: I'd rather have a cuckoo than a woodpecker.


John R. Rodriguez: A woodpecker would have a heyday with a cuckoo.
On this question of the old age pensions, it is not surprising that they would have in clause 48 this clawback. They were never committed to pensions in the first place. Pensions were first introduced into the House of Commons in 1926.
I want to remind members of this House and the people who are watching that it was first of all $20 a month payable at age 70 and it was means tested. The Conservatives opposed it, Madam Speaker. They opposed a $20 a month old age pension payable at age 70, and it was means tested. What was the argument that the Tories used at the time? Can you guess the argument?


Ross Harvey: That it was not enough?
Government Orders


John R. Rodriguez: No, of course not. They said that paying 70 year olds $20 a month, not means tested, would make them lazy and would take away the initiative to work. Those are not my words. It is in Hansard. It is true. In fact, they should go back and look at the record. It got passed in the House and went to the Senate. The Conservatives in the other place defeated it and an election ensued in the course of things. Then the bill was brought back and eventually passed.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: You mean a Conservative Senate defeated it?


John R. Rodriguez: That is right. And you know how they are all for work over there. They have a commitment to that ethic of work over in the Senate.
I only use that example to sort of remind us as we are discussing this whole question of universality and the clawback that these are people who really have no role to play. Conservatives were opposed to any social program. They are. The record is clear.
On the other hand, in this particular bill-and I want to raise this question very, very seriously-it seems to me that there is a fundamental change in the direction of this country. The record is clear that this party, the New Democratic Party, and its predecessors, the CCF, really believed that in fact the vision of this country was one of collective responsibility; that in fact the reason we are social democrats was because we asked ourselves the question: "Are we our brothers and sisters keeper?"
The answer came back, yes, so it developed that we supported every move and oftentimes initiated moves to establish social justice. With social justice came in its practical application old age pensions, family allowances, unemployment insurance, health care and a whole host of other social programs.
Now what am I hearing today? I am hearing from the other side that that is no longer the case, that it is the triumphant individual. That is the philosophy that I hear from across the way. No longer is the question of collective responsibility what motivates our actions in this House, but rather it is the triumphant individual; it is me. We see that in this worship of the market-place. We see it in this whole question of their worshipping at the

November 20, 1989
Government Orders
altar of the market-place. They have liberated greed. It is in fact: "You have no limitations. You can do anything you want. As long as I am all right, Mac, I do not give a damn about anybody else." That is what it is.
I am not only suggesting but I am declaring; I am saying very clearly.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: She is back.


John R. Rodriguez: I see the member from Winnipeg South is back. I will say to her face what I said while she was away. I wish she would take the opportunity to get up and put her thoughts on the record so that all Canadians can not only hear her but can see her in the flesh to really realize that there is a body, an entity who is actually saying these things.
What I want to say is that this government is fundamentally changing the pattern of Canada, the face of Canada, the vision of Canada. That was never placed before the people of this country. As a matter of fact, a year ago, on October 17, 1988, the Prime Minister said: "As long as I am Prime Minister of Canada social benefits, especially those for the elderly, will be improved, not diminished by the government which is committed to social justice and fairness for all Canadians."
I remember in the campaign the Prime Minister had his poor mother up on the platform. He had his mother, his sister, everybody. There was his mother, and he said: "Would I do this to my mother?" Well, he just did. I want to say: "Hey, Mama, he just did it to you in clause 48 in Bill C-28. He did it."


Jack Wendele Shields: She does not earn $50,000.


John R. Rodriguez: I do not know what the Prime Minister's mother earns. I have no idea, but he did it. In fact, not only did he do it in setting these ceilings of $50,000. That is only for starters, because we are down the road. As a matter of fact, the seniors citizens' network of this country puts out a paper called One Voice, and I want to quote what it said:
In the meantime, once we have accepted the principle of the clawback as part of our system, governments of the day are free to set the threshold as they wish-$30,000, $20,000, etc.
There are widespread fears that the clawback is the "thin edge of the wedge", a wedge which will destroy Canada's much envied universal social benefits program.
Those are the words of the senior citizens of this country, the united senior citizens of this country; not an
isolated group in any one province. This is a national organization.
The Vanier Institute said that this destroys families, that it does nothing for family life. I wish all those people on the Tory benches who claim to be for life would only stop to ask themselves: "How do I practise my pro-life positions on the government side?" How do they practise it? Is it by cutting back all the social benefits that help the family, that support the family, that strengthen the family? Is it by chipping away at benefits for children? Is that how we show we love life? Is that how we show we are for children?
Michael Wilson said it, and we should never forget it. I am saying that social justice is not going to be meted out by the community. Michael Wilson said it is going to be meted out by the bloodless verdict of the market. That is what Michael Wilson said.


Jack Wendele Shields: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I know my hon. friend does not mean to do this in the heat of the argument, but he should not, as we all know, refer to an hon. member in this House by his name. He should either refer to him by his constituency or his portfolio if he is in cabinet. I think that hon. member knows that.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I am sure the hon. member for Nickel Belt is quite aware of that. The hon. member has the floor.


John R. Rodriguez: I was just going to say, Santa Clawback said that these decisions are not going to be meted out by the community, but they are going to be meted out by the bloodless verdict of the market, except it is the victims of these cutbacks that are going to shed a lot of blood. There is no bloodlessness about what they have in mind.
I wish that the Tories would just simply be honest to their Tory roots with respect to these social programs. I always said when I was in a campaign against a Liberal and a Tory that I have no respect for Liberals because they have no principles, but I have some respect for Conservatives because at least they have principles. I might not agree with them, but at least they have them. Since they have applauded me, now comes the question: Will they at least be honest? Can you be true to the principle of truthfulness and really say what you are about, which is to destroy universality? Isn't that what you are really after? The Prime Minister denies it, the member for Brampton denies it, the member for Athabasca denies it. Why don't they simply stand up and say:
November 20, 1989

"Yes, we don't believe in universality and we want to start this process of de-universalitizing the programs".
I say to the Conservatives, be honest! Be true to your principles. You believe in the triumphant individual. Why don't you simply say every person is responsible for his or her own pension program. Why don't you just say it? Why don't you say that there is no responsibility for a system that creates votes to redistribute that vote? Why don't you just say it?
Because, Madam Speaker, it is the truth. It is the truth and the one person who tells it like it is, is the one person I have any kind of respect for now on the Tory benches and that is-I can't say his name-Blenkie. Everybody knows Blenkie. Now I think he is euphemistically known as the member for Mississauga South.
He wrote to a gentleman who had written to him regarding the tax back for the old age pensions, and this is what he said:
"With respect to your clawback matter I understand your concern," Blenkam wrote in response to a letter of complaint filed by 61-year old William Daly.
"We have decided to eliminate universality and we do that in a sense by the clawback in both family allowance and the old age pension."
"As you know, it has been a Conservative philosophy for some time that distributions from the state ought to go essentially to those in need. While the clawback may be unfair and sneaky, it is there."
That is the one Conservative who tells the truth. God knows he tells it in a very colourful way.


An Hon. Member:: Where is he now?


John R. Rodriguez: Well, we all know he is cooking up another theft from the taxpayers called the grief and suffering tax. Madam Speaker, notice what has now crept into the lexicon: "that it will essentially go to those in need." As democratic socialists the system we fought for was a system that allowed people to maintain respect, that allowed people in their retiring years to live with some dignity. It wasn't the system that says, well, you have to apply and there will be a needs test and if you are really poor, we are going to give you charity. This is the philosophy of the triumphant individual. We are in an era of triumphalism. Let us not kid ourselves, Madam Speaker. This is what we are in and these are the
Government Orders
acolytes of triumphalism. They are the acolytes and here the Prime Minister denies that this is anti-universality.
With Pinocchio it was the nose. With this Prime Minister it is the chin. Somebody said you can always tell when the Prime Minister is not exactly telling the truth-he moves his lips. I wouldn't be so cruel, but the fact of the matter is why would he persist in saying that this is not a taking away of the universality principle when it is admitted at least by one honest Conservative that it is? At least let the Conservatives be honest. We can deal with something when it is out in the open. But to have this sparring over what they really mean is counterproductive.
So I say to members on the other side, let's go back to what we decided when we built this country with respect to social programs. Do not sit there like a bunch of sheep. Come forward, defy your Prime Minister, defy the Neanderthals in the front benches.


Mr. Mark Assad (Gatineau-La Lievre):: Madam Speaker, after listening to the various speakers, I really have the impression we are hearing a dialogue of the deaf. At the same time, it reminds me of a phrase used by the French to define politics. They say that politics is war in peace time, and if we listen to the debate in the House, it is clear this is a war of words.
If we consider what has happened in government during the last ten years, I think Canadians have reason to be disturbed. I repeat, the last ten years, because I am not blaming either party which was responsible for governing this country.
Nevertheless, when we consider the figures, and especially those covering the past five years, we see that in less than 20 years, a deficit that was quite minimal managed to go up to over $340 billion, and there were also the many tax increases we have had since then. Especially in recent years, we have had many new taxes that have put a real burden on taxpayers, especially those with an annual income between $25,000 and $50,000.
Madam Speaker, about two weeks ago, I met a number of businessmen, mostly in the tourism industry, in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto, and our discussions were remarkably similar. Everywhere, businessmen are saying that the tax burden has become a real problem, and they know there is a problem. Everybody says it is unfair and inequitable, but they cannot say exactly where

November 20,1989
Government Orders
the problem lies. But they do realize that the tax system is unfair and inequitable, and they are right.
The last time there was an attempt at tax reform in this country was 25 or 30 years ago. That was when the famous Carter Commission report was tabled here in the House but, unfortunately, it was never published. One of my Montreal colleagues mentioned the Carter Commission's famous turn of phrase: "A buck is a buck is a buck". Whether you get it from your pension fund or from investment, or by any other means, it should all be fairly taxed. If it isn't, obviously the money will have to come from another source.
We have seen the many taxes introduced during the past five years put the main tax burden on the middle class, while our financial elite has enjoyed unprecedented tax benefits. It doesn't take a university degree to realize there is something fundamentally wrong with our tax system.
We now have a government making a decision that is unprecedented in our history since we first had social programs. They tell us that when our annual income reaches $50,000, we no longer deserve to get any benefits from the State. And the fact that people made sacrifices to earn this money and invest it over the years doesn't count. It doesn't make sense! And that is why Canadians are sending petitions from all over the country. There is not a single member in this House who has not received petitions or letters from people who have been seriously affected by the way the Government has decided to tax them. The subject is on everybody lips. What does it take to convince the Government that we need sweeping tax reforms?
It doesn't take a university degree, as I said before. It takes some common sense to realize that things have reached the point that we are asking for a revolt.
The middle class is so busy trying to survive and raise a family that it cannot afford tax experts or tax lawyers to find all those tax loopholes. The only class that can afford these frills is the financial elite. If we look at the legislation passed by the House during the past 20 years, we have to say that the governments in power during that time were legislating for the benefit of the financial elite. And if anyone can prove the contrary, I will resign
my seat. It's true, and we all are aware of this. We don't have the political guts to put an end to this situation.


John Horton McDermid: Watch your blood pressure.


Mark Joseph Assad: Blood pressure or not, you are the first people who should realize the financial elite of this country have had the run of the country and you are just making it easier for them.


John Horton McDermid: Oh yeah!


Mark Joseph Assad: Yes. You cannot prove the opposite, you know very well.


An Hon. Member:: The way you left the country it's a disgrace.


Mark Joseph Assad: Disgrace. There is no disgrace, the facts are the facts. It is a disgrace the way you have been prolonging your lies and the double-talk you have given in this House.

Madam Speaker, I have just been interrupted by a member who doesn't know what he is talking about. He would have us believe that everything is beautiful, when we are looking at unprecedented deficits and very real problems. Do you think I am the only one who shows an interest in this matter and who is mad as hell? All we have to do is travel around the country as I did to realize that people have reached the end of their tether and that the only reason they do not revolt is probably because Canadians have never had a tendency to do so.
However, people do feel the burden, deep inside, and they are concerned. They are concerned when they see their elected representatives, like the Hon. Member who just left the House, who sits in the House as a Minister, turn away as though the problem did not exist. But the problem does exist and we will have to face up to that problem in the House pretty soon. The time will come when Canadians- It is quite true that they are getting petitions from all over the country and from all kinds of organizations that have had enough!
Like most Members here in the House, I represent the middle class, the backbone of our society. I am certainly not exaggerating when I tell you that they have reached
November 20, 1989

the end of their tether and want some justice in our tax system. They know and we know there are problems. It isn't easy, but we have to accept certain decisions, and the political will must be there. Let them have the courage to say they will introduce tax reform, genuine tax reform. And in fact, we could usefully embrace some of the principles defined by a man who was a hero in our history at the time of the Carter Commission.
It was recognized as a revolutionary document in several fields, one which demonstrated some basic principles, that regardless of income, whether from investments, capital gains, pensions, whatever, everything should be taxed. Even succession duties were removed. But many experts and economists say that such a tax is quite appropriate in a democratic country-it is another way of redistributing wealth. That is one of the principles. This document could be used as the basis for a real reform. But unfortunately neither your government nor the previous one implemented the main recommendations of the Carter Commission report, and that is what we must look at. I believe that my fellow citizens, like those whom I have met, who send letters on all sides of every issue, are telling us that we do indeed need a reform. They are quite interested in seeing a government live within its means.
But when they see the deficits and the taxes piling up, they realize there is a fundamental problem. They do not have to be great economists. How many of my colleagues here saw their parents during the depression years forced to make more sacrifices to avoid debt? They adjusted. And we have a long history which proves this ability to adjust. Now, can we believe for a moment that a national or other government can survive on the brink of bankruptcy, especially when the time comes to take such drastic action as cutting vital public programs? That would almost be admitting failure; it would almost mean bankruptcy. But what we must remember is that in this Chamber, we represent all classes of society and to a large extent the middle class which makes up most of the population. These people are saying that they can no longer bear the tax burden. So, our role is very simple. As all Members of the House know, and I am not the only one to say so, time will come when your own constituents will litterally knock at your door and tell you that changes are necessary, that a reform is imperative.
Government Orders
Otherwise, we will all suffer, and that is the fate awaiting us.
To conclude, Madam Speaker, I am sure that if every one of my colleagues here in the House took the time to ask their constituents-they do not have to do so since they receive letters-if every one of them was getting to the heart of the problem, they would see that most of the people are concerned and are counting on us to find at least a partial solution.


Mr. Neil Young (Beaches-Woodbine):: Madam Speaker, I only want to say a few words tonight on Bill C-28, which is an act to amend the Income Thx Act, the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements and Federal Post-Secondary Education and Health Contributions Act at this second reading debate.
I listened to some of the comments made by the last several speakers who had the floor. Quite frankly, many of the arguments, as the Hon. Member for Nickel Belt pointed out, go back to the time when old age pensions were first introduced in Canada, namely, that people should be self-sufficient. One of the arguments that I heard tonight was why should someone making $50,000 a year receive an old age pension?
I remember in 1985 when this government was proposing to deindex old age pensions, one of the arguments given then was why should bank managers and bank presidents receive old age pensions. That question has been answered both in the House in previous debates and by Canadian society generally. The reason why people should receive those universal social benefits is that they paid for them. That is the only basic argument; They paid for them.
If the government believes that because that individual received that social benefit, his or her income is too high, then there is another way to address that, namely, to bring in a fairer taxation system, not to attack a social benefit that is universally supported in this country and, indeed, can only exist if it is received on a universal basis. Unless society broadly supports that kind of program, it will fail. I think everybody is in general agreement with that.
Senior citizens have paid for those pensions. It is not something that governments give to senior citizens through the goodness of their heart that can be taken

November 20,1989
Government Orders
away at will. Senior citizens paid for the benefits they received. They paid for them through the income tax system in recent years. It is the same with family allowances. Both programs are already taxed when people receive them. Old age pensions are taxed as a part of income. Family allowances are taxed as a part of income. Why does the government feel it is necessary once again to go after senior citizens?
I remember in the last campaign I received a phone call from a very active senior in my community. I know she will not object to my using her name, Gerry Schwalm. Gerry called me the day after the Prime Minister was seen on national television with his mother assuring seniors in Canada that the opposition parties, the Liberals and the New Democrats were lying to them when we said that the first thing that would be attacked under free trade would be social programs. The Prime Minister pointed to his dear old mother and said: "Would I touch her pension?". Gerry Schwalm said to me: "That guy just scared me half to death. Every time I hear that guy saying that he won't do something to social programs, he is going to do it".
In 1984, this Prime Minister said: "Universal social programs are a sacred trust". It took him five months before he tried to rip them apart. On October 18, 1988, in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, another community that is going to appreciate this, the Prime Minister said: "Let me say a special word to the senior citizens. In the future in Canada we will be doing more not less for all of you. As long as I am the Prime Minister of Canada, social benefits, especially those for the elderly, will be improved not diminished by our government which is committed to social justice and fairness for our Canadians". Some social justice and some commitment!
Seniors in this country trusted this government when they elected it in 1984. By the time 1988 rolled around there were not too many senior citizens in this country who believed the government any more. I would think there would be even less today after seeing what this government is proposing to do to seniors once again in this piece of legislation.
Senior citizens are not stupid. They know that when the government is talking about clawing back pension benefits for those who earn in excess of $50,000 a year
today, next year is going to be a different figure, and the year after that is going to be a different figure.
This government has never believed in the pension system. Since I came here in 1980,1 could count on two hands the number of times that that government has tried to go after the pension systems in this country. In fact, just prior to the last election, the Minister of Finance tabled a White Paper on pension reform in the private sector prior to the election. There was such an outcry in this country from organized groups that the government withdrew the White Paper, but it is still sitting there. The government withdrew it because it knew it was going to hurt in the election campaign. However, the White Paper is still sitting there and I will put money on the fact that before we get to the next election we are going to see it again. The Tories are not happy, and they are not going to be satisfied with just going after the public sector, they are going to go after the private sector.
I would recommend to every member in this House, especially the ones who were not here between 1984 and 1988, to get a copy of that White Paper and read it because that is the next fight on pensions.
Now, I said that I was not going to speak too long and I do not intend to. However, I do want to read something and I am going to do it very slowly because I want the government to take heed of it. It is a letter written to The Globe and Mail in Toronto by a senior who was recalling some of the recent history on pension plans and, in particular, how the Old Age Security Act was funded. This letter states:
Between 1952 and 1971, all taxpayers paid surtaxes to provide for OAS.
Between 1952 and 1971, Canadians paid a surtax to provide the old age pension. It did not run out.
Beginning in 1972, the Trudeau government made the surtax invisible and raised the tax rate by some 3 percentage points, with the funds raised going to general accounts-and this remains unchanged. Therefore, all old age security recipients have contributed towards this pension plan; they continue to contribute even during retirement; and, lest it be overlooked, such pension payments are included as taxable income.
And that is what this writer calls "double taxation".
Senior citizens have paid and bought and are still paying for their old age pensions. It is not something that somebody is handing to them out of the goodness of their heart. They paid for them. It is much the same argument we are facing from some members on the other side, not all members, but from some members
November 20, 1989

who seem to truly believe that somehow or other seniors are getting charity when they receive OAS and that that charity can be given or taken away at will. They paid for it.
It is much the same argument as was used by that government during the last Parliament when it went after civil servants' pensions, civil servants who, numbers of years ago, agreed to have 1 per cent of their income go to pay for indexation of pensions and this government tried to take it away from them. They had paid for it.
It is much the same argument that we faced from this government when we had amendments to the Pension Benefits Standards Act around 1987 when we dealt with surpluses and private plans. Who do surpluses belong to? Do they belong to the employer or do they belong to the employee? My argument is that they belong to the employee. They are deferred wages. They were negotiated in collective agreements. Those pensions were given up as a part of the wage package in order to provide that individual with a decent pension on retirement. Those moneies belong to the individual. It is no less the case with old age pensioners. They paid for the pensions. They bought them. They belong to seniors.
This government has no right to come along with this kind of legislation and try to grab that money from them. Describing what is happening in this bill as a clawback is absolutely right. It is an apt description of what this government is trying to do, if it gets away with it. It is a clawback. It is like sticking a hand in a senior citizen's pocket and taking money right out of it. That is what this government is doing.
I think it is insidious. I feel it is offensive. It is something I will not support. I would hope that by the time we get into a vote on this that members of the government side who recognize that what is happening here is wrong and should not be allowed to happen will join with the opposition to defeat this.


Mr. Lyle Dean MacWilliam (Okanagan -Shuswap):: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise and have the opportunity to add my voice to the voice of the opposi-
Govemment Orders
tion against Bill C-28 and to add my voice on behalf of the residents in my riding of Okanagan-Shuswap.
This is a fairly substantial piece of legislation. There are about 59 amendments contained in this omnibus bill and certainly I will not be touching on all amendments. I would like to concentrate on a few of them. To begin with clause 47, which is the increased surtax, I think a lot of Canadians do not even realize that virtually every Canadian who pays taxes in this country also is paying a surtax.
People across this country, particularly those who live a long way from Ottawa, out on the west coast for example, feel that the role of the federal government is almost indistinguishable from the role of the provincial government. They are a little confused with what the responsibilities of each of them are. I tell you, Madam Speaker, that breaks down when it comes to tax matters, particularly income taxes. When it comes to tax matters, everyone knows that it is Ottawa's hand that is in their back pocket.
A surtax is defined as an additional or an excessive load or burden in addition to ordinary income tax. In 1986 a surtax was introduced by this federal government on federal income taxes and the rate at that time was established at 3 per cent. It does not apply only to upper-income Canadians. It is payable by virtually any Canadian who is paying federal income tax. They are also paying a surtax.
The government makes the argument for the fairness of imposing this tax by saying that it will ensure that the burden of deficit reduction falls most heavily on those who are best able to carry it. That statement was made in this House recently by the member for Wild Rose and is recorded in Hansard. Obviously since the surtax is payable by virtually anyone who has a taxable income and not just by the top few who can most afford to pay it, the burden does not fall upon only the shoulders of those who can most afford to pay it. The argument of using higher-income Canadians for deficit reduction is a fallacy. It is a sham. It is like this government is a sham in what it is trying to do with this legislation.
The finance minister said that when this surtax was introduced it would be a temporary measure. We have heard of temporary measures before. The income tax I believe was introduced after the First World War as a

November 20,1989
Government Orders
temporary measure and we still are dealing with it. Just like the surtax was introduced as a temporary measure in 1986, we are still facing it.
A goods and services tax was introduced in the April budget. The finance minister said that when such a tax would be introduced the surtax would be removed. Instead, the surtax is being increased to 4 per cent for 1989 and to 5 per cent for 1990. There is no removal of this surtax. We are getting hammered once again. More is being applied. The GST has been proposed. Where is the provision to get rid of this surtax? Where is the promise that the Minister of Finance made at that time? I think the government is following the axiom of why spoil a good election promise by actually doing something about it.
Moving on to clause 56, this clause implements changes to our federal transfer payments to the provinces for health costs and post-secondary education costs.
The budget that we saw introduced earlier this year outlined a decrease in these payments over the next four years. In that time period the four western provinces will lose $633 million. What is this going to do to health care and education in those provinces? To British Columbians it is going to mean that all too familiar theme that we experienced after the recession in the early 1980s, during the restraint era of the Bennett government, the years that we are still tiying to recover from. The news of decreased federal transfer payments is not good news for British Columbians, is not good news for the residents of Okanagan-Shuswap.
A good education for our children, which is insured by these federal transfer payments when it comes to post-secondaiy education, is not just an expense, it is an investment. It is an investment in the future of this country. It is certainly an investment in the future of our young people.
Being wealthy is not relative to intelligence. Our best and our brightest will not necessarily be among the ones who can afford the best schools. Adequate funding for post-secondary education today, as we all know, is crucial to the future of all Canadians. Reducing these
transfer payments jeopardizes that future, it jeopardizes the future of our young people.
In the past Canada has had an exemplary health system. Today I think we would all agree that that system is deteriorating because of inadequate funding and also a tendency of governments to blame the users. Yet health care in Canada is a right. We do not want the American system in which hospital admittance is determined by one's ability to pay, and certainly not by the degree of illness or injury.
Let us turn to clause 48, which is one that most members have been focusing on over the last little while, and that is on the family allowance and old age security clawback, what the government calls a benefit reduction tax.
In the debate on bill C-28, it has been pointed out a number of times in the House that from the 1950s to 1971 people paid about 4 per cent of their income into the Old Age Security pension. My colleague who spoke just prior to me this evening said they have paid for this benefit. They were investing in their future, in their twilight years when people put money into the Old Age Security program. It was a contributory program and people did not mind paying into it because they trusted the government, and they believed that when they reached retirement age that money would be there for them.
Today, this government proposes to tax back that pension. What was paid for by those contributors then and through the years is now being taken away from them. It is being snatched back. It is being literally ripped from their back pockets. That is why seniors right across this country have lost faith and trust in this government. They have seen once again that it never lives up to the commitments it makes.
The Okanagan-Shuswap in the interior of British Columbia is in large measure a retirement area because of the climate and the geography. We have a large percentage of people who are over the age of 65. The demographics in the riding indicate that more than 15 per cent of the population in my area are seniors. The changes that this government is about to make with these clawback provisions will seriously affect the financial future of seniors in those communities. A lot of these retired folk do not receive over $50,000 a year in income, so they are not going to be affected initially. At the same time they have expressed to me in no uncertain terms their fears of what this process has initiated.
November 20, 1989

They recognize that today when this government sets the clawback threshold at $50,000, tomorrow that threshold may be lowered. I submit that it will be lowered to $30,000, perhaps even lower. Although many of the seniors will not be impacted by these changes, what about tomorrow? They know from what they have seen that they cannot trust this government and they are worried about their financial security as this government tries to rip away the benefits that these people have paid for, trusting that they will be there when they finally retire.
The Old Age Security clawback is based on the formula of inflation minus 3 per cent. As we saw in 1985, seniors fully understand the consequences of deindexing pensions. They knew what the government was up to when it wanted to deindex the pensions from keeping up with the inflation rate. They caught members across the House in the act of trying to quietly claw back those provisions. They stopped them then and what the government has done in an insidious way is come back at the problem again through the back door. It is trying to claw back these pensions by capping them at a higher level. It is a mean spirited provision and it is no wonder that seniors across this country have lost trust and lost faith in this Prime Minister and this government.
The Minister of Finance says that only 4.3 per cent of senior Canadians currently receiving the Old Age Security benefits will be affected by the clawback. That is in
1990.	In 10 years it will be up to 8 per cent. In 20 years it will be up to 25 per cent if nothing else is done and we all know that we cannot trust that nothing else will be done.
A 30 year old in the workforce today earning an annual salaiy of $30,000 will see part of his or her Old Age Security benefits clawed back by the time they retire. We are part of an aging population in this country and that which is of concern to seniors today will be of concern to all of us tomorrow.
I want to move on to the section on family allowances and the clawback provision affecting this benefit. Whereas seniors would need to have a net income of about $79,000 before they would fully lose their old age security benefits, when you look at the threshold for the family allowances that threshold is much, much lower. We have to remind members on the other side of this House why mothers are paid a family allowance. It is in recognition of the very real costs associated with raising children. Our children are our future. The future of those children, I think, is the collective responsibility of all of us in
Government Orders
Canada. Anyone who has children knows the significant costs a family bears in raising those little ones from toddlers to adulthood.
Today the family allowance is only a token payment. It does not begin to cover the real costs. The payments fall far short of what it costs to bring up a child. To tax back this token payment amounts to robbery. It constitutes a total disregard for the families and the children and the future of those children in Canada.
In the initial year of the imposition of this clawback, the first year in which it comes into effect, 14 per cent of Canadian families who now receive family allowances will be affected. In 10 years that figure is expected to double simply because of the inflationary aspect of it. In previous speeches in this debate it has been said many times that the clawback funds from Old Age Security provisions and family allowances will be used.
We have heard the government members talk about it time and time again. The argument they give is that those benefits will be used to help those Canadians who really need it, a noble gesture by all means. When you think about it and analyse it, it is totally illogical.
It has been stated also that the imposition of the clawback is for the purposes of bringing down the debt. How are you going to use it to bring down the deficit while at the same time you are using it to funnel it to those people who really need it? It is a logical consistency. The government is guilty of doublespeak on this.
The money that is refunded by the clawback tax is not going to be used to increase the benefits to those seniors and to those families that really need it. On the other hand the government is saying it is going into deficit reduction. In fact, when you look at it, more money for more people will be collected with this tax over the next few years because these benefits are only partially indexed. More and more people will begin to qualify for that clawback provision.
Seniors in this country want to pay their fair share. They want to tiy to help in the difficult challenge we have of deficit reduction. Families in this country want to do the same thing, but the emphasis here is on the word "fair". How is it fair when one group is singled out and must pay extra taxes when somebody else who is receiving the same income does not pay those taxes at all? A senior with an income of over $50,000 is now going to be subject to a clawback of those very benefits that he paid for years down the road. Somebody under the age of 65 making exactly the same salary does not have to pay that

November 20, 1989
Government Orders
tax at all. Is that fair? I suggest to you it is not fair. It is that this is only the beginning. This is only the beginning not fair in the least.	of the end.
Not only is it not fair but I also submit that it smacks of age discrimination. A seniors group has pointed out that the amount that the government is trying to save by not paying these Old Age Security benefits, by clawing them back, could in fact be collected by raising the taxes of high income earners in our country-the well-to-do-by one percentage point. We could collect the same amount without having to touch the Old Age Security provisions.
Much has been said on the violation of the principle of universality with the erosion of these social programs. The Prime Minister and his broken promises and I repeat, his broken promises, have been quoted by almost every member who has attacked this legislation. The quotes are memorable because they are so incredible. Whether it is only 4.3 per cent of seniors as the Minister of Finance contends or whether it is only 14 per cent of families that are going to be subjected to this clawback, any one person treated differently simply means that the concept of universality which the Prime Minister called a sacred trust is gone.
The government argues that the programs are still universal, that everyone still receives a cheque, but a number of the recipients have to return those cheques. The numbers who will fall under this category as I stated before will steadily increase over the years.
There is no question that this is the beginning of the end of the enshrined concept of universality the Prime Minister holds apparently so dear to heart. These programs are no longer universal, but they are by the intent of this legislation now selective.
I want to turn to one final point and I think this is probably one of the most salient issues in my arguments tonight because I think that one of the most telling points that comes out of the debates and the comments that we have heard throughout this evening is that there is something very elementary lacking, and that is the lack of trust in this government as a result of what it has done over its two terms. It is an oft-repeated comment, whether it is on this bill or the goods and services tax,
People trusted what was said by the Conservatives and this government. When they promised not to touch the social programs they believed them. People trusted the Prime Minister when he said that social benefits especially to the elderly would be improved. It would not be diminished. Those are not my words, those are the words of the Prime Minister. The Canadian people trusted him when he said that and I submit that that trust has been abused. Its sole purpose was to win votes. That trust is gone. Canadians no longer trust this government. Universality is gone, trust is gone and I hope that soon enough this government will also be gone.


Alfonso Gagliano: Although it is getting late, Madam Speaker, I should like to deal briefly with this Bill, because we have just had a week off. Most of us, I think, spent it in our respective ridings. Madam Speaker, I am sure you too have constituents who are quite worried about the fact that the government is planning to raise new taxes. Canadians are complaining that they cannot make ends meet. This is the very first day we spend in the House. What are we dealing with? Taxes again. Taxes, whether sale taxes, income taxes, sale taxes on goods and services, all kinds of taxes.
As recently as this afternoon, because I had been unable to return all my calls, I tried to reach some of my callers from Ottawa. For instance, there was a lady who wanted to know if she could collect her child tax credit before filing her income tax return because she could no longer make ends meet.
Madam Speaker, it is easy for the Government, whatever its political stripes, to say that it must raise new taxes. It needs only introduce a new legislation. Can the old pensioner who does not have enough money seek more from the government? Can the worker who cannot balance his budget obtain a raise from his employer? I think the time has come for us to put a stop to this madness and behave responsibly. It is not the way to solve the problem. Madam Speaker, I realize that for the past five years, the government has insisted on the need to raise taxes to cut the deficit. But the deficit has not increased. As of March 31, 1984, according to the official statistics for the last complete fiscal year before this government came to power, the deficit amounted to $32 billion. But if we look at the Minister of Finances'
November 20, 1989

forecast for next year, we are still at $32 billion. After five years of an extraordinary economic performance, including 32 tax increases, the deficit still amounts to $32 billion, while the national debt will have tripled by the time this Government completes its second term. Thx increases, therefore, are definitely not the solution, and by the time the new tax is implemented in January 1991-

The GST will be imposed, a 9 per cent tax across the board, on everything. The government may try to tell Canadians that yes, you will pay 9 per cent on everything but the federal manufacturers' sales tax of 13.5 per cent will be removed. First of all, how is this going to happen. There is no way the government, if it is looking for control, is going to remove that 13.5 per cent.
Speaking of the 13.5 per cent, in 1984 when this government took office, the tax was only 9 per cent. In five years it increased it to 4.5 per cent. What guarantee do Canadians have that the new GST of 9 per cent will remain 9 per cent. Maybe in a few years it will be 20 per cent. Imagine 20 per cent or 9 per cent plus the provincial sales tax.
The government tells Canadians to look at the over 40 countries around the world that have GST or value-added tax.
But it forgets to tell Canadians that is the only tax, one sales tax. We have 11 sales taxes in this country. When you add all that together, Canadians cannot take it any more. It is very easy.
You do not have to be an economist or a genius to understand that Canadians cannot afford to pay tax any more. And what do we do? We take a week off. The major concern of our electors is stop increasing taxes. The first day that we come back, we have a bill and we have to stay late into the night because the government is in a rush and has to pass the bill because it needs the
Government Orders
money. Where will this money come from? It will come from the taxpayers.
The members on the other side might laugh, but I can assure them that in my riding and in many of my colleague's ridings, it is not a laughing matter. It is a very serious matter. Canadians are fed up. I would not be surprised if by the end of 1990 we will not have a tax revolt in this country because Canadians are fed up.
I do not want to take too much time of this House. I think if the Conservative members want to vote, I am sure that when the time comes Canadians will judge them. I want to make sure it is in the record that Canadians are fed up with tax increases and new taxes. I think it is time if the government wants to look seriously at the deficit problem and the debt problem, it should look elsewhere because in the past five years we have seen over 30 tax increases. After five good years of economic performance the annual deficit is at the same level as it was five years ago and the national debt is going to be tripled by the end of this term of the government.


Mr. John Brewin (Victoria):: Madam Speaker, I rise to participate in the second reading debate on Bill C-28, an act which has the effect of implementing the April budget of the government and in particular the provisions which will claw back, as the expression has come to be used, old age pensions and family allowances and which will cut back a number of important federal funding programs including the Federal Provincial Fiscal Arrangements, Federal Post-Secondary Education and Health Contributions Act.
We have heard a lot of anger in the House tonight. I share that anger and I know many of my constituents in Victoria share the anger at the government's approach on this particular bill and, more generally, the approach it is now clear it has been taking over the last year on a range of public policies for this country. This bill fits in the over-all program and agenda which the Conservative party is now foisting upon the people of Canada. That agenda started in December with the free trade legislation.


Mrs. Campbell:: (Vancouver Centre): Hurray.


John F. Brewin: We hear "hurray" from the member for Vancouver Centre. I am pleased to see the member for Vancouver Centre here tonight. I am looking forward to

November 20,1989
Government Orders
her rising in her place and challenging this legislation which is punitive to seniors, punitive to the poor, punitive to families in Canada, punitive to those who are trying to get an education in this country. So far we have heard silence from the Conservative members from British Columbia. I look forward to her intervention in this debate.
The clawback provisions of this bill are the Conservative's rebound from the political failure they met in 1984-85 when they tried more directly to end universality in old age pensions and in family allowances. They retained a small portion, even then, of their attack on universality because they allowed a certain amount of deindexing through the work of inflation. Now they have come upon a formula which has permitted them to destroy the principle of universality with relatively small outcry from the country as a whole. I believe the lack of response in the public is in part due to a defeatism brought on by the sense of loss that comes with the free trade agreement, a loss of the direction of this country, but also the sense that the Conservatives, with their majority, are driving through a reactionary and regressive agenda which is going to change the nature of this country over the next few years.
It took years, a fight led by parliamentarians such as J.S. Woodsworth and Stanley Knowles, to finally push the Government of Canada into introducing old age pensions in this country. Back in 1926, Mr. Woodsworth and his colleagues used the minority government situation to force a Liberal government to introduce old age pensions, but the old age pensions were then introduced with a means test. It then took over 20 years to finally persuade the Government of Canada to change that, and then it was not an act of generosity on the part of the Government and Parliament of Canada but because of the political threat from the CCF, as it then was, which had been pounding away at the issue on behalf of seniors that the means test was unfair and ungenerous.
Finally, the principle was established that as a right, Canadians were entitled to an old age pension. Rich, poor or middle income, irrespective of income, Canadians as Canadians were entitled to family allowances. These universal programs meant that we had a distinctive social network. They formed the base of our distinctive social network in this country which distinguished us from the country to the south.
Conservatives never did like universality. In fact, the member for Mississauga South who is the chairman of the Standing Committee on Finance and has this fall been regaling Canadians with a series of quotes, said in a letter to a Mr. Daley from Edmonton: "With respect to your clawback matter, I understand your concern. We have decided to eliminate universality". He went on: "As you know, it has been a Conservative philosophy for some time that distributions from the state ought to go essentially to those in need. While the clawback may be unfair and sneaky, it is there".
The Conservatives tried in an awkward and messy way in 1984 and 1985 to put their agenda into effect. Now they are doing it again with three full years before the election, greeting an electorate that is tired and worn down by the hypocrisy and reactionism of this government.
We are not going to allow this bill to pass without speaking out. The people of Victoria, and particularly the seniors of Victoria, have had it up to here with the broken promises of the government. This was the government, during the election last year in its attempt to defend free trade, which was forced to say, "This will not erode our social programs. Universality is a sacred trust". It did not take the government four months before it had broken that commitment to the seniors of this country and to the people of this country.
The Conservatives are, by this provision, changing the income tax law so that at a certain point, 100 per cent of income earned from old age pensions or family allowances will be taxed back. If you earn your money through dividends, salaries, capital gains or gifts, those are taxed, if at all, at a different rate. At a certain level, old age pensions are taxed 100 per cent.
This breaks faith with election commitments. The cynicism of the Canadian people continues to grow at the speed with which this government breaks its election commitments, but it breaks a long-standing commitment from this Parliament to the people of Canada who have tried to plan their futures as seniors on certain commitments coming from the Parliament of Canada. This government, instead of what we would say in the labour context of grandfathering the clause are in effect making a retroactive change. They are changing today the basic pensions which frugal, prudent Canadians over the years
November 20, 1989

have used as a base for planning their retirement income. I say that this change must not occur.
Let me deal with a couple of other aspects of this bill. The government has said that in this new free trade era, education is one of its major priorities. Yet this bill will have the effect of cutting back even further on federal support for basic education and for post-secondaiy education. This bill will permit the government to cut back on health care and on social assistance across Canada. It does so in the name of deficit cutting.
The seniors of Victoria, the people of Victoria, the people across this country, know that we cannot permit the deficit to continue, a deficit which has grown to mammoth proportions under this government. What we say should be the priorities in deficit cutting are not to be placed on the backs of the seniors or families or students or those involved in health care, the poor in this country, but instead we must attack the deficit in this way.
We must cut government waste. We must take a hard look at the $1 billion we are spending on maintaining troops in an outdated commitment in Europe. We must look at reducing interest rates. We must look at an eco-tax, at a wealth tax. We have to change the corporate tax rates in this country and we have to change the tax rates at the upper level.
This government has cut the tax rates at the upper levels. A simple increase to 34 per cent would add nearly $2 billion to the coffers of the government. That is what should be done instead of the kind of changes which are contemplated in this bill.
With the GST, with these clawback provisions, this government continues its agenda of eroding social programs, of creating two nations, a rich and a poor, of bringing us further into the same programs as our colleagues to the south of us have. We are now beginning to look more and more like the United States because of the agenda which this government is foisting on the Canadian people. I ask this House of Commons to defeat this bill when it comes to a vote later this evening.
Government Orders


Mr. Sid Parker (Kootenay East):: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak on Bill C-28, an act to amend the Income Tax Act. Specifically, I would like to speak to the clawback clauses in the bill.
If I may, Madam Speaker, I would like to go back a little to what is going on. As a member of Parliament from an opposition party, I have had a chance to watch the implementation of the Tory agenda. At times I have been at a loss to explain what the government is trying to accomplish.
During the past four months, the government has introduced the UI bill which will place the entire burden on working Canadians and small businesses. We have also seen cuts to regional development funding to econmically depressed areas of Canada. We have seen the government support the Bank of Canada's high interest rate policies which again hurts small business and working people, while at the same time making Canadian exports more expensive. Now we have the goods and services tax which takes income out of the hands of Canadians and increases the cost of goods and services to consumers and the operating cost to small business.
When the election was in full swing, there were some comments made by the Minister of Finance, who at that time called the Leader of the Liberal Party and the Leader of the New Democratic Party liars, and I would like to refer back to that if I may.


John Horton McDermid: The Prime Minister never said that.


Sidney James Parker: I said the Minister of Finance. In The Globe and Mail of October 31, he was quoted as saying, "Programs which are generally available such as medicare, pensions, old age security, aren't trade-distorting subsidies, and are not subject to trade laws".
The Leader of the Liberal Party in the debate Tuesday night said that he, the Prime Minister, has agreed to let the Americans have a say in the future of our social programs such as unemployment insurance and medicare. The Minister of Finance said, "I say to Mr. Turner, that is a lie". That is a quote from The Globe and Mail.
The comment was made by the Leader of the Liberal Party that our unemployment insurance programs were in jeopardy. The government has backed out of that

November 20, 1989
Government Orders
program and has now put it solely in the hands of the workers and the employers. The government does not contribute five cents so there is no subsidy and the Tories can say to their American friends that they are fulfilling our free trade agreement.
The New Democratic Party Leader said in the House of Commons that senior citizens want health and social programs maintained and enhanced for future generations. The trade agreement jeopardizes these programs, threatens to cut them as those in the United States, and the Minister of Finance said that is a lie too.
Here we have a piece of legislation that is going to for them over the years and are entitled to them. I want to say it is a sad day for me as the member of Parliament for Kootenay East to have to stand up here in this House and say to pensioners that this is what the government is doing to you.
I want to ask this question on behalf of the seniors in my riding who have come to me and asked what has this government got against the senior citizens. In the last Parliament the Tories brought in a drug patent law that changed the patent laws for drug distribution in Canada, and it has increased the cost of prescription drugs drastically. They tried to deindex old age pensions and through a strong fight by seniors' associations, we were able to stop them. Now they want to claw back our pension rights.
Another thing that they have done with regard to pensioners, and this has never been addressed, and it is another outright steal, is the changes to VIA Rail policy. Many of those seniors worked for the railways throughout the years, some 40 to 50 years service and have a pass on the railway. This government is going to take that away and those people who have paid for those passes through their working agreements are not even going to be able to travel on those trains.
What have you got against our seniors? That is what they are asking. I am proud to be a New Democrat and to look back at the history of Tommy Douglas and Stanley Knowles and many other people who have stood in this House, yes in opposition, and yes fighting for social democracy to bring about the kind of universal programs such as medicare, adequate pensions and universal
education programs. I think it is a sad day when we have to stand in this House and see our universal programs being tom away and deteriorated to this extent.
I say to the Conservative government, think about what you are doing. Listen to what the public is saying. Seniors are fed up, business people are fed up with your goods and services tax, the Chambers of Commerce are fed up. Every group across Canada is saying to you, "Listen to what we are saying because we are fed up. We are fed up with the tax grabs. We are fed up with what is going on and we want some people to start to listen to what we are saying and watch what we are doing".
I want to say that in any riding in British Columbia and in the neighbouring ridings in Alberta, the goods and services tax is one of the biggest items that the people are complaining about. It is a tax grab of the worst kind. When you start taking back from seniors and from young children through their family allowances-


Dorothy I. Dobbie: Seniors making $50,000 a year.


Sidney James Parker: The member who is from a riding in Winnipeg speaks of seniors with an income of $50,000. When you pay for something, you expect a return. When those people paid into those pension programs over the years, they expected a pension and if we want to look at a fair and equitable way, let us look at a fair taxation policy, a progressive taxation policy that will bring about some fairness.
The government has let us down. Whether it be pensions, drug prices, prescriptions, post-secondary education, whatever the programs are, the Conservative government has let us down. It cannot be trusted by the Canadian people and we as opposition members have to fight to let the public know exactly what is going on to ensure that we can keep these universal programs, and let us keep some social democracy in this country so that when the people are saying no to something, the government will start to listen.


Dorothy I. Dobbie: You don't represent the people. If you did, you would be in government and not in opposition.


Sidney James Parker: We have a debate going on. I must have hit a nerve over there. Or maybe some of the members are beginning to realize that they have a responsibility to the seniors and to the family allowance recipients in their
November 20, 1989

ridings who are saying that they want to retain these universal programs.
When the Minister of Finance calls the leaders of the opposition parties liars during an election campaign when they tried to bring out our concerns, I object to that. I object very strongly to it. I do not think there is room in our society for that kind of comment or that kind of remark.
I do not want to speak too much longer, but I do want to say on behalf of our seniors, for goodness sake, roll it back, turn it back, vote against this legislation, give our seniors what is rightfully theirs and do not claw back their pensions.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


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


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Call in the Members.


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


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: It being 11.30 p.m., this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to order made earlier this day.


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 11.30 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Tuesday, November 21,1989