1990-12-06

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Hon. Marcel Danis (Minister of State (Youth) and Minister of State (Fitness and Amateur Sport) and Deputy Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government responses to 26 petitions.
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CANADIAN NATO PARLIAMENTARY ASSOCIATION


Mr. Bob Hicks (Scarborough East):: Mr. Speaker, subject to Standing Order 34, I have the overwhelming pleasure and privilege to present to the House, in both official languages, the 20th report of the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association.


PRIVILEGES AND ELECTIONS-PRESENTATION OF TWENTY-FIRST REPORT OF STANDING COMMITTEE
Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the Twenty-First Report of the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections, in both official languages. This report concerns the procedures and practices relating to the conduct of Private Members' Business.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]


PETITIONS
Mr. Dave Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, I have a number of petitions which I wish to lay on the table, pursuant to Standing Order 36.
The petitions are signed by residents of the province of Ontario from places such as Ottawa, Markham, Toronto, and other communities throughout the province.
All the petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to exercise prudent judgment and withdraw the goods and services tax, particularly as it applies to the tax on magazines, books and newspapers. These petitioners, like other Canadians, are appalled at the fact that the Government of Canada would move forward with the goods and services tax which they believe to be very negative in view of the state of the economy at the present time.


Mr. Jack Whittaker (Okanagan -Similkameen-Merritt):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present a petition under Standing Order 36 which has been certified by the Clerk of Petitions. This is another in a series of petitions that I have had the pleasure of presenting for members of the public from across Canada against the goods and services tax.
The petitioners have not given up hope that the government will come to its senses and withdraw this unfair tax and bring in a tax system that is fair to all Canadians.


Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale -High Park):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I have additional petitions against the GST. These are from my home province of Saskatchewan. Others are from Ontario and Quebec. These petitions in addition to the thousands that I have already tabled in the House.

December 6, 1990
Routine Proceedings
The petitioners are asking the government not to put the GST on magazines, books and newspapers.
I table these as the senators are trying to kill the GST with 16 and 18-hour marathon speeches. All the senators are doing is reflecting-


Mr. Speaker:: I do have to remind the hon. member that he is to present his petition and not get into speeches.


Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, today I would like to table a petition along the lines of the many petitions that have been tabled with respect to the goods and services tax. Your petitioners strenuously object to taxing books. They maintain that the free distribution of printed matter constitutes the corner-stone of our democracy, culture and education. They claim that an educated and productive society will suffer as a result of this decision.
Therefore, your petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to recall the fundamental principles underlying the exemption of printed matter and ensure that the legislation and regulations contain an exemption for books. Like myself, these people maintain that taxing books means imposing ignorance.


Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, I also have a petition signed by a number of Canadians against the goods and services tax.
These people in their petition have called for Parliament to reject the current proposal for a goods and services tax. They call for a reform of the taxation system so that there is an effective minimum tax on wealthy individuals and corporations.
The petitioners also ask that the House of Commons ensure that, if and when there is a broad public consensus on a sales tax measure, that that be used to replace the manufacturers' sales tax and that this reform not be used as an opportunity for the government to impose a massive tax grab. They believe that this would cause an undue burden on ordinary Canadians through a regressive consumption tax and they call upon Parliament to have real tax reform.
I should point out that this petition is signed by a number of people from various parts of Ontario. Unfortunately, after the CBC cuts announced yesterday many of them will not realize that their petition was presented in the House of Commons, since they no longer have any local news coverage.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to present a petition in the House signed by numerous Canadians from the Ottawa area who are opposed to the goods and services tax insofar as it applies to the printed word and to books. They recite that uninhibited dissemination of the printed word is a corner-stone of democracy, culture, and education in our society and will be negatively affected by the goods and services tax.
These petitioners must rejoice in the valiant efforts of Liberal senators to save the country from this iniquitous tax.


Mrs. Pauline Browes (Scarborough Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present this petition today that concerns a serious health issue as it relates to allergic reactions to foods.
The petitioners are joined by the Allergy Information Association. These petitioners are from Scarborough, Brampton, and Ajax.
For the protection of the citizens of Canada, they are calling on the Parliament of Canada to enact legislation amending the food and drugs regulations in order to require manufacturers to list specific food ingredients and additives used in pre-packaged food. As well, they require restauranteurs and food retailers to provide to customers a list of all ingredients and additives in prepared foods.


Hon. Ralph Ferguson (Lambton-Middlesex):: Mr. Speaker, I am rising again to present petitions signed by over 600 residents of southwestern Ontario who are among the thousands of petitioners asking the government to ban MMT, an automotive fuel additive which was banned in the United States 12 years ago.
The U.S. subcommittee on health and the environment found that the manganese component of MMT is capable of serious neuro-toxic effects. Studies have
December 6, 1990

shown that manganese damages the human brain causing dementia and severe mental disorder.
Many of these petitions were signed at CJBK Radio, London, Ontario. These petitioners are asking the government to ban MMT and replace it with a non-hazardous octane enhancer such as ethanol.


Ms. Joy Langan (Mission-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, I rise, pursuant to Standing Order 36, to present two petitions today. The first is about literacy. The petitioners are from Ontario, as well as from my riding of Mission-Coquitlam.
Because 25 per cent of the Canadian adult population is illiterate, and in some regions illiteracy reaches and exceeds 40 per cent, the petitioners humbly pray that the government will consider undertaking a major national campaign against illiteracy and create community-based remedial and preventive illiteracy programs which respond to the needs of those individuals and groups involved.


Joy Langan: Mr. Speaker, the second petition that I wish to present is with regard to bank service charges. This petition, too, is from my riding of Mission-Coquitlam.
The petitioners ask the government to present legislation that would regulate and control bank service charges and provide consumer protection to banking Canadians, in view of the fact that, in the past five years, bank service charges have been increasing at an average rate of 19 per cent per year, five times the rate of inflation.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicted by an asterisk.)
Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Leader
of the Government in the House of Commons): Mr. Speaker, Question No. 398 will be answered today.
Routine Proceedings
Mr. Worthy: Do any Canadian airports with a yearly passenger volume of less than 75,000 persons have electronic baggage scanners and, if so, which ones?


Hon. Douglas Grinslade Lewis (Minister of Transport):: Yes; Stephenville, Yarmouth, Rouyn-Noranda, Val d'Or, Sarnia, Fort McMurray and Prince Rupert.


Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, if Question No. 387 could be made an order for return, this return would be tabled immediately.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House that Question No. 387 be deemed to have been made an Order for Return?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Mr. Nunziata: Since June 7, 1988, how many contracts, including amendments, has the Correctional Service of Canada awarded to former federal correctional employees and in each case (a) what was the date of the contract award (b) what was the purpose of the contract (c) what was the name of the individual and/or company awarded the contract (d) what was the amount of the contract (e) was the contract awarded with or without tender?
Return tabled.


Albert Glen Cooper: I ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand?


Mr. Speaker:: Shall the remaining questions stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.

December 6, 1990
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GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-84, an Act respecting the privatization of the national petroleum company of Canada, as reported without amendment from a legislative committee.

Mr. Speaker:: On the Order Paper there are 45 amendment motions at the report stage of Bill C-84, an Act respecting the privatization of the national petroleum company of Canada. They are in the names of the hon. members for Edmonton East, Nickel Belt, Essex- Windsor, Scarborough-Rouge River, and Ottawa- Vanier.

There are a number of duplicate motions in the names of members of the New Democratic Party. As the House knows, duplicate questions cannot be proposed for debate.
After consultation, the Chair wishes to announce that it will select, where they are otherwise in order, the motions standing in the name of the hon. member for Essex-Windsor rather than the motions set down by the hon. members for Nickel Belt or Edmonton East. I think hon. members understand the reason behind this.
Motion Nos. 2A, 14A and 19, are in order and will be grouped for debate but they will be voted on separately. Motion Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 31 and 32 are not selected since they are identical to Motion Nos. 2A, 4A, 6A, 8A, 12A, 14A and 32A, respectively.

Motion Nos. 4A, 6A, 8A, 12A and 23 are in order and will all be debated and voted on separately.

Motion Nos. 9, 10 and 10A, standing in the names of the hon. member for Edmonton East, the hon. member for Nickel Belt and the hon. member for Essex-Windsor are identical. They are also beyond the scope of the
bill and constitute an attempt to do indirectly what cannot be done directly. Hon. members are aware that this is not in accordance with parliamentary practice. Thus, it is not competent to introduce into the bill an oath of office which contains conditions foreign to the bill, since introducing these conditions would otherwise be out of order. I would refer hon. members to citation 773, paragraph (1) of Beauchesne's Fifth Edition, and I quote: "An amendment is out of order if it is irrelevant to the bill, [or[ beyond its scope-". The 21st edition of May's Parliamentary Practice makes the same point in almost the same words at page 491. These three motions will therefore not be selected for debate.

A motion quite similar to Motion No. 15 was debated and rejected by the legislative committee. After consideration I decided to let the House debate this motion. It will be debated and voted on separately.
Motion Nos. 16, 17 and 17A in the names of the hon. members for Edmonton East, Nickel Belt and Essex- Windsor go beyond the scope of the bill and therefore are out of order. As I pointed out before, this basic principle can be found in the fifth edition of Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms and in the 21st edition of Erskine May.
Motion Nos. 18 and 24 attempt to introduce provisions of the Official Languages Act into the bill. These provisions are also beyond the scope of this bill, so I must regretfully rule them out of order.
Motion Nos. 20 and 32A are in order and will be debated together, but they will be voted on separately.
Motion Nos. 21, 22, 22A, 25, 26, 26A, 27, 28, 28A, 29, 30 and 30A also standing in the name of the hon. member for Edmonton East, the hon. member for Nickel Belt and the hon. member for Essex-Windsor are all variations of an amendment that was debated and negatived in the legislative committee. They will not be selected for that reason.
As the explanatory note to section 5 of Standing Order 76 points out, the report stage "is not meant to be a reconsideration of the committee stage of the bill".

I advise hon. members that a recapitulation of this ruling is available at the table.
I know the hon. member for Churchill wishes to comment, and I of course will hear him. It may be of assistance to the Chair.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Mr. Speaker, it is always a difficult issue in getting up after a Speaker's ruling.
However, Sir, you in your wisdom have ruled a number of motions standing in the name of a number of our members, including the hon. member for Edmonton East, the hon. member for Nickel Belt and the hon. member for Essex-Windsor, out of order.
Some of these deal with environmental legislation. Others deal with an oath of office to be signed by members of the board of directors of the new Petro-Canada Corporation.
Mr. Speaker, you have also ruled out amendments which would have the effect of applying the provisions of the Official Languages Act in the bill. You have been quite correct in citing the citations and history in terms of the rulings that have been made in the past with regard to having new items brought in.
Normally, they have been ruled out of order. I would submit that that has not always been the case. I can point to Bill C-79 which was passed by this House last Friday.
At that time, in a report from committee, new amendments were introduced and, ironically, one of the new motions that was brought forward from the committee was on an oath to be sworn by the members of the Board of Internal Economy.
I refer to page 16060 of Hansard. At that time, I said:
-the House will be aware that in committee review of the legislation a new clause was added to the bill, which is an unusual procedure. Normally, it would not be allowed in this manner.
The House was made aware at that time that a new clause was being added that went beyond the scope of the bill.
What we are asking and what the hon. members in the New Democratic Party have done with their amendments here is to have a similar oath put in place for a company.
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I think we are talking about a ruling. If it was in order Friday to have a new clause requiring an oath for members of the board of directors of the House of Commons, if I may use that term with regard to the Board of Internal Economy, then certainly in terms of procedure it is just as in order today, four sitting days later, to have a similar oath put into a bill. Certainly in terms of procedure, it is in order today, less than four sitting days later, to have a similar oath put into a bill. We are not talking about private corporations versus public corporations, House of Commons, or outside the House of Commons. We are talking about procedure. If it is acceptable in one incident, it is certainly acceptable in this incident.
I would also point out that in terms of the Official Languages Act, this is a situation where the government is, by changing a corporation from public to private, basically saying that the Official Languages Act no longer applies. I am surprised that government members would allow the government to take that position. I do submit, Sir, that if we are going to allow new clauses in one bill, without the objection of the Chair, that should be the case for other bills as well.
If government members wish to defeat our amendments on the environment, on official languages, and on an oath for the board of directors, that is their privilege and right. But I do believe we should be allowed to make that presentation and to bring those amendments forward for debate and for a vote.


Mr. Speaker:: I thank the hon. member for Churchill for the intervention and also for his courtesy to the Chair in letting me know earlier this morning that he would want to make the point which he has made. He also understands, and he has indicated this to me, that the point he is making is not likely to result in a change in the ruling which the Chair has just given.
I wonder if I could take the House again into confidence with respect to these amendments. We have as much as possible been trying to have a process whereby the amendments would be the subject of very extensive discussion in some cases, certainly between the member who is filing the amendment and the table officers.
When there is sufficient notice, that is a very practical and useful practice, and I thank all hon. members for having co-operated as much as they have. Unhappily in

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this particular case there was very little notice for a lot of the amendments. I must tell the House that the table officers were working very late last night and also early this morning.
I anticipated there would perhaps be some discontent. I want to assure the hon. member for Churchill that earlier this morning I went over all these amendments and I could anticipate perhaps the hon. member's feelings. Without getting into it in great detail here because I do not want to set precedents where I am required after having given a ruling to then go into a great explanation about it, there are distinctions that can be drawn, and had to be drawn, between the quite accurate observations the hon. member for Churchill made with respect to Bill C-79 and the oath in that case and the oath in this particular bill.
If one examines the oath very carefully, it is not a simple oath. It is an oath with a very great deal of detail in it. It is those details which I felt clearly distinguished it from the oath in Bill C-79.
However, the hon. member has in a very concise way put forward his feelings on this matter. They have been heard. I hope that on other occasions there will be time for more discussion than there was in this case because there was obviously very little.
I thank the hon. member for his comments and also again his courtesy for giving the Chair notice that he wanted to make these points on the floor of the House.
The hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier seeks the floor. [Translation]


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I simply wish to make a comment, without wishing in any way to reflect on the Chair's ruling with respect to the amendments. I realize the clerks had their work cut out for them, considering the limited amount of time they had to examine the amendments, which in turn was largely due to the fact that the government called the bill so soon after the committee report was tabled in the House of Commons. It is not against parliamentary procedure, but it sometimes makes things very hectic.
Mr. Speaker, I was surprised to see in your ruling that amendment No. 24, standing in my name, whose purpose is to add to the bill a provision that would commit
Petro-Canada to serving Canadians in the official language of their choice-in the language of the customer-was ruled out of order. I am astonished, because we did the same thing with the bill to privatize Air Canada, and as you know, Air Canada is bound by the Official Languages Act and must comply with into provisions.
I am somewhat puzzled, now it seems we cannot do the same with Petro-Canada. Of course, I accept the Chair's ruling. However, Mr. Speaker, I would like to say and that Motion No. 23, which was ruled in order, is somewhat deficient in that the English and French versions do not read the same. I would therefore like to make the necessary corrections.

In English it says:
That Bill C-84 be amended by adding immediately line 44 at page
12 the following new clause:
"18. All undertakings and works constructed by Petro-Canada are, and each of them is declared to be, works or a work for the general advantage of Canada."

In French, Mr. Speaker, the same amendment reads as follows:
"18. Les ouvrages de Petro-Canada -
I think we should say: "Les ouvrages et les entreprises de Petro-Canada sont declares a l'avantage general du Canada".
Mr. Speaker, if this amendment, or should I say motion, is accepted, it will have the same effect as the one on official languages which you ruled out of order.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier indicated there may be a problem with the two versions-the English version and the French version. Perhaps this amendment could be discussed with the Table officers later this morning.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: down your ruling. I think the Clerk will inform you that he has the letter.


Mr. Speaker:: I want to thank the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier. Regarding the other point he raised, it is a very simple problem. His reasons for including the use of both official languages in the Petro-Canada Bill are good, and that is why I said it was regrettable that I could not accept this amendment. For the time being, perhaps the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier could have a discussion with the Clerk and the other officers.


Hon. John McDermid (Minister of State (Privatization and Regulatory Affairs)):: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if my friend was on a point of order or not when he was discussing the motion that was, by your ruling, taken out of the amendments to the bill. However, a lot of information was left hanging by the hon. member when he compared Air Canada with Petro-Canada.


An hon. member:: The Official Languages Act does apply.


John Horton McDermid: That is right, the Official Languages Act did apply to Air Canada because it is a national company and does come under the act. Petro-Canada, once privatized, comes under provincial jurisdiction, under provincial law.


An hon. member:: Order, he does not know what he is talking about.


John Horton McDermid: This morning the hon. member left a lot of things hanging in his point of order that should be clarified. Perhaps the hon. member can tell me where, in the debate that will be taking place this morning, we might be able to explain that to the public. The hon. member left things things hanging, and I think that needs explanation.


Mr. Speaker:: I thank the hon. minister for his intervention. I thought that I had made it clear that for procedural reasons there is a difference between a Crown corporation and what will become a privatized company. For that reason, procedurally I could not allow the amendment. I did say in my reasons "regrettably". There it is; it is a procedural thing. It is not for me to speculate on how the matter could be remedied. That is
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a matter for members and not a matter for the Chair to comment upon.
The appropriate thing to do now is to complete my ruling. I remind hon. members that there is a recapitulation at the table. I will now propose Motion Nos. 2A, 14A, and 19. to the House.


MEASURE TO ENACT
Mr. Steven Langdon (Essex-Windsor) moved:: Motion No. 2A
That Bill C-84 be amended in clause 9 by adding immediately after line 26 at page 3 the following:
"(a) provisions insuring that the positions of the Chairperson and
directors of Petro-Canada shall not be held by non-residents;'
Motion No. 14A
That Bill Bill C-84 be amended in clause 9
(a)	by striking out line 5 at page 4 and substituting the following therefor:
"than one per cent of the votes that";
(b)	by striking out line 17 at page 4 and substituting the following therefor:
"more than one per cent of the total".


Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough-Rouge River) moved:: Motion No. 19
That Bill C-84 be amended in clause 9
(a)	by adding immediately after line 49 at page 4 the following:
"(h) provisions prohibiting the direct or indirect ownership of
voting shares of Petro-Canada by a foreign government or any
agency thereof;"
(b)	by striking out lines 15 and 16 at page 8.


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, we have a whole set of amendments in front of us today, which I suspect we will spend considerable time in this House debating, because they deal with some of the critical weaknesses in the present bill respecting the privatization of Petro-Canada.
We had hoped to be able to persuade the government to accept a number of other important suggestions not included in the set of amendments before us. For instance, we stressed that in these days of environmental concern it was extremely important that Petro-Canada reflect the concerns and aspirations of many Canadians with respect to environmental matters. We have raised this question in committee and actually had a fairly positive response from the chairman of Petro-Canada, Mr. Wilfred Hopper. However, it has not been possible to persuade the government that some of these environ-

December 6, 1990
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mental considerations which we consider central to Petro-Canada's future should be permitted to be in front of us for debate.
Therefore we moved to a set of proposals which aimed to do a number of things. First, this company had been paid for by the people of Canada. In fact it had been paid for in significant part through a specific tax at the pumps which people paid, the Canadianization tax expressly and explicitly designed by the government of this country to establish a more Canadianized oil industry. We had hoped that this could be incorporated in the bill more effectively than is presently the case. The particular set of amendments in front of us at this stage is the set of amendments which attempts to do that in two ways.
First, with Motion No. 2A, we set out that the chairperson and members of the board of directors of Petro-Canada must be Canadian residents. I note that this is a very mild provision, because it does not even suggest that they must be Canadian citizens. It suggests instead that they must be Canadian residents. From our point of view, if the minister is prepared to put into the bill a limitation with respect to foreign ownership, a limitation which we think is not tight enough but nevertheless a limitation, it follows that there should also be as a principle, as a key point, that the directors and the chairperson of this important company, which will be Canadian by the minister's edict or by the government's edict, must also be Canadian residents. That is why we have moved that particular motion.
We have also moved Motion No. 14A, which would have the effect of changing the limit with respect to foreign ownership of Petro-Canada in the future from the 25 per cent the government is prepared to accept to 1 per cent of all shares.
Frankly, our concern in this case is that as the legislation presently stands it is possible for the bill to permit foreign firms to take effective control of Petro-Canada. With three foreign companies, for instance in a widely held share basis within this company, it would be possible for one such company to have 10 per cent; another, 10 per cent; and another, 5 per cent. Foreign companies would then control 25 per cent and would have effective control of Petro-Canada in a context in which the remaining 75 per cent of shares would be held widely by Canadians, with no concentration.


John Horton McDermid: That's not true.


Steven W. Langdon: The minister says that it is not true, but it is absolutely true.
Therefore we feel there must be a reduction in the 25 per cent limit. We appreciate the fact that the minister has included in the bill the 25 per cent limit, but we say, if he is serious about keeping this company Canadian-controlled, that limit has to be reduced from 25 per cent to 1 per cent.
With respect to the other motion which has been grouped for debate in this particular category, Motion No. 19, it would prohibit foreign governments or their agencies from owning Petro-Canada shares. This becomes especially significant, given the sellout permitted by the government of de Havilland to foreign government controlled companies from Italy and France. For instance, Aerospatiale of France and Alitalia of Italy will be able to control the future of an important aircraft company in this country. We do not think that makes sense. We will therefore as a party support Motion No. 19.
However, the basic point to keep in front of us on this whole set of amendments is the following, Mr. Speaker. Petro-Canada was created from the resources of the people of Canada. There is no earthly reason why we as a House of Commons should pass legislation which permits the control of this company to slip into the hands of foreign firms. For this reason we hope very much that the majority in this House will see fit to adopt the various motions that are grouped together for debate in this particular category.


Derek Vincent Lee: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak in favour of the amendment outlined by Motion No. 19.
This motion proposes that there be an explicit restriction on ownership of shares of the privatized Petro-Canada, or the semi-privatized Petro-Canada, as it goes through transition, a prohibition against ownership by a foreign government or an agency thereof.
The general purpose stated by the government in connection with this privatization is that common shares and ownership of Petro-Canada be placed in the hands of Canadians. In doing so, the government has also

permitted explicitly in the bill shares of Petro-Canada to be owned by non-Canadians, by non-residents.
The proposed limit is 25 per cent. There is also a limit of 10 per cent being held by any one individual. With reference to this specific motion, it means that a foreign government, or an agency thereof-a national oil company of another government-would be restricted to 10 per cent ownership of the privatized Petro-Canada. Why is that relevant? Why is that an issue for Canadians?
I want to point out that a few months ago a Crown corporation, Connaught Laboratories, was privatized and sold, and notwithstanding the close relationship that had existed between Connaught and the Government of Canada over the years and the great work that Connaught had done, it became necessary to accept a merger with a French corporation which was owned in part by the French government.
I found that to be a step backward for Canadians. If the thrust of what we are doing in terms of privatization includes a policy of Canadianization, and that policy was confirmed by the minister of energy when he appeared before the legislative committee on Bill C-84, then any procedure, any statute which provides or acquiesces in the ownership of shares by a foreign government runs completely contrary to that.
Let me place a hypothetical situation before the House. We might be looking at this type of problem here. I do not wish to cast aspersions on the Venezuelan state oil companies, but they may have an interest in marketing their petroleum products in Canada. They may deem it in their interest to acquire a 10 per cent interest in Petro-Canada. I suggest to the House that that ownership would influence Petro-Canada greatly in a marketing decision that would remove Canadian oil products from eastern Canada and replace them with Venezuelan oil products. That may be totally inconsistent with Canadian strategic energy planning. It may not be, it may be completely consistent. We do not know. What we do not want to have is a state oil company of another country influencing strategic energy decisionmaking here in Canada.
I suggest that the provisions of the bill, as they are constituted now, would permit or even invite this to happen. I would not be the first to stand and say that an
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interest in Petro-Canada is an automatically appealing investment for another state oil company, but you never know. Certainly in this world we never know. We do not know what is going to come up tomorrow.
We have placed millions and millions of dollars of taxpayers' money in Hiberia. Would it not be embarrassing to have another government that had a great interest in the energy sector pick up a piece of the Hibernia development? One is for sale. A few days after the passage by this House of the Hibernia legislation authorizing all of that money to be put into Hibernia, the other Canadian partner, the non-Petro-Canada partner, indicated publicly that it had a desire to sell.
Perhaps I do not have to comment strategically on why they waited until after the bill was passed in this House. The prospect of Hibernia being less than 50 per cent owned would have had an impact, I know, on the decision of all the members in this House. Let us hope that Hibernia is not the first test case for the absence of a prohibition on foreign government or foreign agency ownership of Petro-Canada shares.


Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg Transcona):: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have an opportunity to speak in the debate on the privatization of Petro-Canada, although not happy that we are having the debate in the first place. In my own view, the privatization of Petro-Canada is part of an over-all process by which the Conservative government is systematically dismantling the country.
I do not know that it actually realizes this. I like to think that it does not realize it. I like to think that it is a form of ideological naivety that is not malicious in its intent. However, I am sure that it is malicious in the boardrooms of some of the corporations which fund the Conservative Party, which give it direction and which take great delight in the fact that Petro-Canada and other Crown corporations have been and are to be privatized. Canada is to be left entirely open and vulnerable to the dictates of the marketplace, which is just an euphemism for being open and vulnerable to the dictates of the multinational corporations.
For many years Canadians were very concerned about the question of foreign ownership of various sectors in our country. They were concerned about foreign ownership in the energy sector, particularly in the oil and gas industry. One of the solutions that has long been

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advocated for that problem, particularly by my party, was a measure of public ownership in the energy industry.
We had the opportunity to make that happen in the minority Parliament of 1972-74, when in conjunction with the fact that we held the balance of power in Parliament and the fact that the world was experiencing the first oil shock of 1973, the common sense of having Canadians own a measure of their own oil and gas industry, through the instrument of a Crown corporation, appeared obvious to everyone. I say everyone, but obviously it did not. It was opposed at the time by the Conservative Party. They are now living out the opposition which they expressed at that time by moving to privatize Petro-Canada, precisely at a time in the world of energy politics in a global situation is similar to the context in which Petro-Canada was created in the first place. That is to say, the oil crisis of 1973.
Once again we are very sensitive to our dependence on oil and to the fact that a country without the ability to control its own energy resources may well find itself in a very difficult situation.
It is for these reasons that we moved a series of amendments, one of them having to do with the limit on foreign ownership in the bill the minister has put forward. On the question of the provision in the privatization bill which limits foreign ownership to 25 per cent of all shares, we moved that that be reduced to 1 per cent.
This is our way of saying that we feel 25 per cent is far too high a limit with respect to the provision for foreign ownership of this privatized Petro-Canada. We would, of course, prefer that it not be privatized in the first place. What we are engaged in here is a sort of last ditch argument for real Canadian control over this privatized Petro-Canada.
Ministers on the government side have been known to say, and I understand the minister for privatization has said this in the past, that he would prefer 100 per cent Canadian ownership. But the fact of the matter is, if foreign ownership is set, this 25 per cent, once achieved, it will be very hard to go back on.
What we are talking about here is whether we actually have the will as a country to control our own resources, to control our own economic destiny. Surely energy is a very crucial part of our economy. I think it was Tommy
Douglas who said any set of corporations or people who own all the energy resources of a particular country literally has its finger on the windpipe of that particular country.
That was the situation in which we found ourselves for years when all our energy resources were owned basically by the seven sisters of the multinational oil corporations. We are being sent all the way back to that period of time by this government and joyfully so, in its view. This is not something of which it seems to be particularly ashamed. It did not say it was doing this because it has to and it regrets it. It is all part of the kind of Canada that it wants.
I submit to the government, it is a Canada that Canadians do not want. There was no outcry. There was no public demand for the privatization of Petro-Canada, no particular reason to go ahead with this. In fact, I think one would find that there is overwhelming support for the notion of a publicly-owned oil and gas corporation.
One of the reasons I suspect support has declined somewhat, or at least the excitement about the notion of a publicly-owned oil and gas corporation has declined, is that Petro-Canada, since 1984, has been advised to act like any other oil company.
If Crown corporations are advised, in fact are required to act like any other business in that particular sector, sooner or later, of course, Canadians will not perceive any difference between the Crown corporation and its competitors. So at some point they will not be as upset as they might otherwise have been by the privatization of that particular Crown corporation.
As a strategy, I have to commend the government. It instructed the Crown corporation to act like any other company. Several years down the road Canadians will be at a point where they will not see any difference between that Crown corporation and other corporations in the same sector.
The notion of privatization does not set off the same public reaction as it did, for instance, in 1979 when the Conservatives suggested that they would privatize Petro-Canada. That became a major issue and, I think, one of
the major reasons for the downfall of the Conservative government at that time.
Why? Because in 1979, Petro-Canada was very new. At that time, there was still the hope that what we had was a Crown corporation that would develop into something entirely different and superior to the kinds of oil and gas companies that we had known in the past.
I am thinking of the hope that Petro-Canada would become an oil and gas company which would, unlike other oil and gas companies, not gouge the consumer at the first opportunity, that it would become a company through which we could determine what the real cost of oil and gas should be and what a fair price might be.
In 1979 there was still the hope that Petro-Canada might become exemplary in its dealings with its employees, native peoples in the north, and the environment. I can remember making speeches myself in the House in the early 1980s in which we called upon the Liberal government of that time to do more to make Petro-Canada into that exemplary oil and gas corporation that the NDP had in mind in the early 1970s when we called for its creation.
That did not happen, and things got worse after 1984 when a government hostile to the very existence of Petro-Canada took over the government of the country. It proceeded to have Petro-Canada operate in such a way that now, frankly, it is able to privatize it without much public ado.
I think these are the reasons. The other reason, of course, is that the country is pre-occupied with the GST, the Senate, the Bloc quebecois, Meech Lake, and everything else. As my comrade from Edmonton East says, if the government is busy hitting you over the head with a sledge hammer, sometimes you do not notice the knife that is being slipped into your back. The knife that is being slipped into our back is the privatization of Petro-Canada. Unfortunately, that goes along quite nicely with what we experienced yesterday with the gutting of the CBC.
I can see my colleague from the Bloc quebecois shaking his head. If one wanted to destroy the country, these guys over here are doing a better job of it than anything that my colleague from the Bloc quebecois would like to do. They are doing it by gutting the CBC, privatizing Petro-Canada, devastating VIA Rail, elimi-
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nating all kinds of postal services particularly in rural Canada-you name it, Mr. Speaker, all the things that have bound the country together. Pretty soon it will not be a big deal for the Bloc quebecois or anybody to advocate the dismemberment of Canada, because there will not be anything left that resembles the kind of Canada that many of us wanted to protect.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret the hon. member's time has expired. Debate.


Mr. Dave Worthy (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State (Privatization and Regulatory Affairs) and Minister of State (Finance)):: Mr. Speaker, I think it is interesting and I should comment as I start that there is a basic, fundamental philosophical difference between many of the members on the other side of the House and the government.
The whole world recognizes that, as country after country is working as hard as they can to become competitive on a global basis, we see these countries taking moves to privatize many of their industries. In so doing, they become more competitive.
From the other side of the House, we tend to hear that the government should, in fact, be getting into more industries, that we should be creating more Crown corporations, and that the government should, in fact, be playing a bigger role in running the country. Those are fundamentally opposite objectives and of course this government-and I believe this government with the support of the majority of Canadians- is attempting to become responsible economically. Part of this process will involve the proper privatization of many of the companies.
In so doing, obviously we have to get the best return possible for the taxpayers. Many people seem to forget that, in fact, the taxpayers out there fund everything the government spends or invests, or anything that the government loses money on. If the government makes money, the taxpayers benefit. So, it is critical that we get maximum return for our investment. In so doing, the minister and the government is seeing that the shares are going to be widely held and widely held by Canadians. There are not going to be more than 10 per cent of shares controlled by one group and no more than 25 per cent of the shares can be held by people who are not Canadian residents.

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In that light, I would like to address the three amendments that we are looking at right now. The first is the amendment to try to control the numbers of directors or the composition of the board of directors of PetroCan. The motion would indicate that none of the directors could be non-resident. On the surface this may seem to be attractive but, I think, quite unnecessary.
I would like to emphasize, first, that the company will be Canadian-controlled and that Canadians who own those shares will be able to control who the directors are. I would like to point out, as an example, that Imperial Oil which does not have this restriction has all Canadian directors. It did not require a piece of legislation to ensure that that would happen. The other point, of course, is that the CBCA ensures that a majority of the directors will, in fact, be Canadians.
From a practical point of view, if we have a Canadian-controlled company and these shareholders want to have somebody who is very competent on their board of directors who happens not to be a Canadian resident, it would be quite improper for us to try to impose that restriction on that board of directors.
The second amendment would reduce foreign ownership in Petro-Canada from the limit we set at 25 per cent to 1 per cent. We have had expert witness after expert witness indicate that, if it is going to try to realize the maximum return for our taxpayers, the government should put the fewest number of restrictions possible on the privatization of Air Canada. In fact, we have had some witnesses recommend that we increase or remove the 25 per cent limit. Others have said that, with the 25 per cent limit, they do not feel that there will any undue restriction on the market. But, obviously, to reduce it to 1 per cent is precluding so many shareholders or potential shareholders that we should be trying to encourage to invest in Petro-Canada if, in fact, we are going to get the best return for the taxpayer and the government wants to get that best return.
As to the last amendment which has been proposed, the hon. member indicated his arguments were based on many hypothetical situations. I would first point out that it has not happened to any of the other oil companies in Canada, large or small, where we have seen any undue control by foreign agents.
There would be some very practical and I think quite logical repercussions if we did try to impose this. Most of the investors we would be affecting are in fact pension funds from Canadians. For instance, Canadian National Railway, as a pension fund, invests in many other international companies' shares and other countries' shares. If we were to start to impose restrictions on ours, obviously we would expect some retaliation from these other nations. It is not something that, as a government, we should be entering into.
Another point that I would like to make is that Petro-Canada itself deals internationally with many other countries. Although in most cases other countries are not interested in investing in Petro-Canada, the mere fact that we would be trying to impose these restrictions would lead to us being perceived as attacking those countries and their ability to invest. It would be seen as a very negative thing.
For these reasons, I would recommend that members of the House not support these motions.


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, we listened stoically to the parliamentary secretary's intervention in the last few minutes and his brilliant commercial on behalf of Exxon, Shell, and the major multinationals which dominate the field of petroleum the world over.
He was somehow attempting to tell us that there is no role for the public and for the public interest in the field of petroleum. The wise thing to do, according to the Conservative theology, is to withdraw from the public interest. In that sense, the Tories are quite consistent. They are doing it with VIA, Air Canada, the CBC, and now effectively so with this bill and through this bill with Petro-Canada. We are told to leave it to the seven sisters, or the five now. Leave it to the private sector. They will take care of Canada's energetic future.
We also hear the parliamentary secretary suddenly defending the taxpayers' interest by way of this bill. That is rather amusing since he belongs to a party and a government that has doubled the national debt between 1984 and 1989, from some $165 billion to some $380 billion.
All of a sudden, it is the bottom line that counts after six years of mismanagement. This is the message that comes these days from the Tory government benches,
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including the dinosaur from Brampton who is otherwise known as the so-called Minister of State for Privatization and Regulatory Affairs. He is dismantling Canada and here he produces a bill which is the classic product of a dinosaur who never learns and who is about to die because the citizens of Brampton will only give him another couple of years. Then he is gone down the drain as all dinosaurs should go and deserve to go.
We hear now this fantastic concern for the public debt. At the end of 1990, all of sudden we have to cut in the interest of the public. What a shame! What a distortion if one looks at the performance of this government, from the time it was elected until very recently, in doubling that very same public debt. Canadians, however, will not be fooled.
In looking at this bill, in particular Motion Nos. 2A and 19, the parliamentary secretary of course feels that these go too far and that these are not measures that ought to be adopted. They sound perhaps too patriotic for this government. I do not blame him because he has to carry out orders on behalf of the dinosaurs over there. He is telling us to be careful, that we should not impose a Canadian presence on the board of Petro-Canada. This is something that you do not do. It is improper. It is not necessary because it is being done through other means, perhaps through an association of some sort, but not through the bill because it could backfire and be counter-productive.
It is really difficult to believe that the section we are examining now, section 9, goes on for six pages to identify provisions, mostly of a technical nature, without statements that relate to the environment, to sustainable development, and without a statement of mandate in general. Actually, it is a bill without a preamble which these days is quite unusual. This is an old fashioned type of bill in which it is not indicated overall in which direction you intend to go. That is usually what a preamble does in a bill. But this government does not trouble to indicate to the public the mandate or the general philosophy which the government intends to pursue. It probably would be too embarrassing to reveal to the public in a few lines what this bill is all about. That is perhaps the reason why we cannot find in the short introduction to the bill what it intends to produce.
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We thought that the amendments put forward by the hon. member for Essex-Windsor and the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River, whom I congratulate for their initiative, would have fallen on sensitive and receptive ears, particularly the two motions put forward this morning. The reason being that there has to be in an organization, which was launched and funded over the years, which performed a valuable service to the Canadian public, and established a presence which is so popular, as witnessed by the efficient operation of the Petro-Canada stations across the country, a sense of substantial Canadian ownership which would be made a part of this legislative measure.
We never would have thought we would hear an intervention of the kind that the parliamentary secretary made a moment ago in defending the importance of the private sector. The private sector would not be in danger at all if Petro-Canada were to continue under the present mandate. It would not be in danger if the mandate of Petro-Canada were to be expanded, which is unthinkable in the dinosauric mentality of the Tories across the aisle here today and for the past few years. It is inconceivable for them to even think in terms of the fact that Canada needs a long-term energy plan and within that plan to devise a bill of a different content that would fit within the general plan.
We are perhaps the only nation in the industrialized northern hemisphere which does not have an energy plan, policy or sense of direction, let alone the vaguest idea as to what we should be doing to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. The dinosaurs over there are not even trying to tackle that in their wildest mornings when they wake up with their foggy minds. In fact, they do not have minds. They are just creeping creatures, they have nothing in their brains except spinach, perhaps, at best. On the eve of 1991, we are debating this bill with its puny little sections which are really meaningless in terms of long term environmental and sustainable development and climate change. We are trying to tell this bunch of idiots that they are out of sync with the rest of the world. That's what they are because, Mr. Speaker, at every scientific conference that you attend throughout the world these days scientists are telling us: "Damn it, reduce your dependence on fossil fuels because there is a climate change danger at the door". And what does this government happily do? It just ignores it.

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It is very hard to take seriously a bill like this. When the government comes here and the dinosaur has his chance to speak, if he wants to get up in his seat today, if he has the courage to defend this bill, we will listen to him. We will be glad to hear the drivel he has to offer.
The fact is that we are not even dealing with the fringes of the issue as to what Petro-Canada should be all about. Actually Petro-Canada is being gradually, systematically phased out and with it also Petro-Canada International.
I challenge the minister to get up in this House today and confirm or give us assurance that eventually Petro-Canada International will not be wiped out as a longterm consequence of this bill. I challenge the minister to get up in this House and give us this assurance. He will not, Mr. Speaker, because he cannot give it and he knows it.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret the hon. member's time has expired. The hon. member for Prince George-Bulkley Valley.


Mr. Brian L. Gardiner (Prince George-Bulkley Valley):: Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to have an opportunity to speak at report stage to a couple of amendments to Bill C-84, the legislation introduced, as a previous speaker said, by the dinosaurs on the other side of this House, these right-wing zealots, these extremists across the way, who are doing their best to remake and destroy this country as we have come to know it. The list has been repeated on a couple of occasions in the last few days. Yesterday the CBC. Before that, VTA Rail and Canada Post, particularly in rural areas. I think what this government is trying to do is remake this country so we will never recognize it again and for that all Canadians, all taxpayers, are going to pay.
We have to take a look at what I think are three very reasonable amendments to this legislation to privatize Petro-Canada, three very reasonable recommendations. The first one is an amendment saying that the chairperson and members of the board of directors of Petro-Canada must be Canadian residents. What is the big deal? Why be afraid of an amendment like that? We could even have put in that they had to be Canadian citizens. We thought members opposite might come part way and
support an amendment like that. What are they doing? They are opposing that. What are they afraid of?
Second, under the amendments we are also suggesting that they change the limit of foreign ownership from 25 per cent being allowed by this government to 1 per cent, to make the message and the point that we think Canadians should own Petro-Canada. With that kind of arrangement I am suggesting to you, Mr. Speaker, Saddam Hussein could come in here after the embargo and start buying up Petro-Canada. That is how illogical this legislation is.
As an individual he could come in after the embargo and buy up 10 per cent of Petro-Canada. Who over there is an agent for Saddam Hussein? That is what I would like to know, Mr. Speaker.
The third amendment being proposed by the Liberal Party also is an attempt to prevent Saddam Hussein from buying up Petro-Canada. This amendment will deny foreign governments and their agents buying up parts of Petro-Canada. It is important for the government to hear this message so that we do not allow our oil company to fall into the hands of Saddam Hussein, Exxon, and that ilk. That is what the Tories across the way are really trying to do. They are the front shock troops for Saddam Hussein and the huge multinational oil corporations which are going to come in and buy up PetroCan.
What they are going to do is tell all Canadians who are patriotic to Canada, who are patriotic to their oil companies, to have one of these in their wallets, Mr. Speaker-Petro-Can credit cards.


An hon. member:: Not here.


Brian L. Gardiner: These guys are going to issue one to Saddam Hussein, and he is not going to have a credit limit on his credit card so he can come in and buy up our oil reserves. It is shocking what this government is doing. It should listen to some good sense and vote for these three amendments. Let's keep Petro-Canada a Canadian oil company. Let us be sure that Canadian taxpayers recognize and play a role in the energy development in our country.


Mr. John R. Rodriguez (Nickel Belt):: Surely, Mr. Speaker, you know that I would not miss an opportunity to have a few words on this issue. As a matter of fact, Sir, you will remember this well. It is like the wheel going full circle because we were here. We saw it all. We saw the
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creation of Petro-Canada in 1972. There was a minority government. Lo and behold we ended up with an energy crisis in 1973.
We had the big sisters in the oil industry telling us one day that we had enough reserves for the next 3,000 years. The next day we only had reserves for 10 years. And then the National Energy Board could not provide Canadians with the facts. It had no information about the reserves, and no other information about the way the oil industry operated in this country.
As the price for our support of a Liberal government, we forced upon them the establishment of a national energy company called Petro-Canada. We all remember that well. Liberals were not interested in establishing energy policy in this country. They were not interested in Canada having a window on the energy industry of this country. It was the New Democratic Party. We gave our support to that minority Liberal government and one of the prices was the establishment of Petro-Canada.
The government says that Petro-Canada should be privatized because it serves no public policy role. Can you believe that? In a resource that is so vital to the success of Canadian industry and to Canadians as a whole, this government says there is no public policy. This is a government of ideologues. We saw where the last government of ideologues-Margaret Thatcher's government-ended up.


John Horton McDermid: Are you speaking of ideologues?


John R. Rodriguez: That is right. The minister has pointed the finger at the NDP, but I want to tell you to look at what your government is doing. All it wants is some corporate agenda. All it wants to do is to run Canada as if if were running the Iron Ore Company of Canada. The last one out will put the lights out. That is not the way it is going to be.
If the minister thinks we are wrong, I wish his government would call an election tomorrow and see where it will end up. It will end up in the ash can of history and never again for the next 100 years will a Conservative government be elected in this country. Ever.


Steven W. Langdon: Ten seats. They'd get 10 seats.


John R. Rodriguez: Not even 10 seats.
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Steven W. Langdon: I am generous.


John R. Rodriguez: It is embarked on a corporate agenda. It does not care about people. All that matters is some sort of idea that it is an accounting book and that there is a philosophy that you can have competition. Not only competition within Canada, but it is now talking about global competition. If ever Petro-Canada could play a public policy role, it is now.
Second, the government says: "Oh, we have to do this because we need the cash".


John Horton McDermid: No, the government never said that.


John R. Rodriguez: Well, you said that. You said you need the cash. There is a thinking out there among Canadians that we sold off Air Canada, that we have sold off de Havilland, that we have sold off Canadair, and that we have sold off a whole host of Crown corporations. Do you know what Canadians think? Canadians really think that when these are sold a cheque is written by the purchaser, it is handed to the government and goes into the Treasury.
I want to say to Canadians who are watching that not one plug nickel has been collected from any of the Crown corporations this government has privatized. It has all gone back to the companies.


John Horton McDermid: That's not true.


John R. Rodriguez: Your minister says that it is not true. Show me the cheque. Where is it? Get it out of your pocket and show it to us. You did not put it in the Consolidated Revenue Fund. You put it into the consolidated revenue fund of the purchasers of de Havilland; you put into Boeing. That is who has it.
France has a very dynamic role in the financial institutions of France. The government itself owns the bank. In Italy, the government owns the airline industry which employs thousands upon thousands of workers. They are doing the research and development in airplane design and manufacturing. It is the same in France. They do it.
We have the spectacle or the possibility of de Havilland actually being nationalized by foreign countries. France and Italy might end up buying de Havilland. Do you want to tell me that these people are not ideologically bent? They are so ideologically bent that if they stood behind a corkscrew at noon they would not throw a

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shadow. They are motivated strictly by the board room and some cockamamie concept that you can run Canada as you run a corporation.
We have seen how they run a corporation. Let us look at how they run the CBC? Yesterday, CBC just simply announced lay-offs of people immediately. That is the way that the Incos and Falconbridges of this world run their companies in relationship to their workers. That is not the way a government should be run. It is run by these ideologues from the Stone Age.
The government has also said that it will reduce the deficit. Petro-Canada has been quite a profitable company. Now, after it has written down the value of Petro-Canada, it wants to sell it off.
Here is an example of a government that gives billions to private oil companies to develop Hibernia; $5 billion, $3 billion of which we will never see. Now it is handing money out to private corporations. This is a corporate welfare state. This government is handing out to corporate welfare bums a whole pile of money. The government is pretty tough on old age pensioners who have overpayments on their Old Age Supplement. It collects every dollar back and dime back. By the same token, it has all these corporate types lining up at the trough and it simply shells out the money.
In the case of Hibernia, not one litre of that oil will be refined in Canada. We have a refinery at Come-by-Chance. A previous government handed out to a corporate welfare character a whole pile of money to build that refinery at Come-by-Chance.


Steven W. Langdon: It was the Liberals.


John R. Rodriguez: Yes, it was the Liberals. I am talking about that other gang. What is the difference between them? Here we have quite a spectacle.
We remember when Petro-Canada bought Petrofina. We never did get the true story of that. When the Tories were in opposition they were demanding under access to information certain rules. When they became the government, the Auditor General demanded the information, and these guys were as forthcoming as a clam on giving the public the information.
Here we have the spectacle of Petro-Canada being used to pay top buck for a company that maybe was not worth that at the time. We have this gang now selling it off. This government is selling off the family jewels, all of those investments that the Canadian public has made. The Canadian public invested in building up Petro-Canada. It must have put in about $6.5 billion toward developing Petro-Canada and the government, having written down its value, will sell it off. It is an investment which the people of Canada have made in a national oil company with a role to play in the public interest.
The fact of the matter is the government says it needs the cash. This government knows that it does not receive one penny from all those companies that it has nationalized. It has misled Canadians to think that somehow or other by selling all this off the government is accruing billions of dollars which it can apply to the deficit.
The other question is whether it will reduce the deficit. Look at what it has nationalized so far. This company has made money for the people of Canada. What it wants to do is sell off something that is finally starting to return money to the people of Canada. I think it is a disgrace. It is too bad we cannot put this government out of its misery. I appeal to Tory backbenchers to get up on their hind legs and do to the present Prime Minister what the Tories at Westminster did to Margaret Thatcher.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret the hon. member's time has expired.


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, we do not have a quorum.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I will ask the Clerk Assistant to count the members present.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Call in the members.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: There being a quorum, not including the occupant of the chair, debate shall accordingly continue.


Mrs. Barbara Sparrow (Calgary Southwest):: Mr. Speaker, I have sat and listened to the members of the two opposition parties this morning. It is quite interesting what they are explaining with regard to the amendments they have put forth to Bill C-84. They talked about, in total, a national petroleum company that is government regulated, government involvement and government controlled.
I would just like to draw to the attention of my colleagues that I come from the province of Alberta. One of the most devastating things that happened to us was the National Energy Program which was passed through this House, with the co-operation of the NDP. It devastated our province in the latter part of 1980 and
And the count having been taken:
And the bells having rung:
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1981. I am not sure if too many people here today understand what happened when the PGRT was applied, which was a 16 per cent tax at the well head. There was absolutely no permissibility to have that reduced from one's income tax. We were double taxed to the point where there was between $60 million and $65 million taken out of our province over a period of four or five years. What we are describing today in regard to Bill C-84 is exactly the old National Energy Program. One of the reasons that I ran as a member of Parliament and came down here was to dismantle that program.
They talk about foreign ownership. They believe that the board of directors should be only Canadian residents. This should not be a prerequisite. We want the very best people, with the smartest brains, to be the directors. If one looks at the major oil and gas companies, the majority of the directors in our country are Canadian residents. However, if one goes back far enough to the time of Leduc, some of our friends from south of the border who came up from Tulsa, used their resources and helped bring onstream some of the major developments in the country.
I welcome foreign participation; there is no problem. We have limited ownership to the 25 per cent, and no one person can own more than 10 per cent. If we restrict the shares with too many items, we are not even going to be able to sell them in the marketplace, which is the reason for the bill.
The bill is to untie the strings of Petro-Canada and allow it to operate as a totally independent company that can go to the marketplace for equity. It has involvement in Hibernia, where there is a large commitment. It has involvement in the Beaufort, in Syncrude, and the OSLO project, which is still under review.
No matter where you go, it takes money to make money. This government has a major goal, and it happens to be deficit debt reduction.


An hon. member:: Oh.


Barbara Jane (Bobbie) Sparrow: Absolutely. No matter what you people say-and you are all socialists over there, absolutely
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every one of you-Petro-Canada is going to be operating as a private, independent company that can prove itself. It has an excellent board of directors today, with no problem whatsoever. It runs a very good company. Its findings have been excellent, but its main problem is its inability to access capital to fulfil its future objectives, future objectives that will bring onstream supplies of oil and gas for this country, supplies that we will need, supplies that even Ontario will need.
I could not help but hear my colleague from the New Democratic Party absolutely berating us for allowing Petro-Canada to be privatized. What did his premier do, in his province? He allowed British Gas to come in and take Consumers Gas, which is exactly the right way to do it. He agreed to Investment Canada's recommendation that foreign capital was going to help the province of Ontario.
What we need to do is agree that in order to help all Canadians, if you want to sell a barrel of oil or an mcf. of gas, you have to replace it. And, if you are going to replace it, you need capital to do the exploration, the development, and the production. That is exactly what we are going to give to Petro-Canada to allow it to be the best player.


Mr. Ron Fisher (Saskatoon-Dundum):: Mr. Speaker, what we have here is more smoke and mirrors. I think they set fire to all Petro-Canada reserves in the country, because I cannot see through this smoke, I will tell you.
We have had the member for Cariboo-Chilcotin telling us that this is a strictly ideological move on the part of the government. Then we had a member telling us that the only reason the government is doing this is to reduce the debt. I really am at a loss to know which it is. I suspect the truth is that it is neither.
What is really happening here, as with so many other things this government has done, is that it has taken anything in which the government has any kind of an interest and which is profitable and done the very best it could to transfer it from the general Canadian population into the hands of those who definitely do not need it. They already have more money than they could possibly figure out what to do with. I make that assumption purely on the basis that people other than people

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like myself are going to be buying those shares. Whether it is to be 25 per cent foreign owned or 75 per cent Canadian owned is rather irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that what it is doing is taking profitable Canadian-owned, publicly-owned institutions and giving them away to their rich friends so that their rich friends can become even more rich than they already are.
We have in this country at the present time the first made-in-Canada depression, recession I suppose is the word that they would use across the floor. I suggest that what we have in this country right now also is the first instance in world history where the scorched-earth policy has been applied to a nation's own population.
I can understand the Russians during the Second World War scorching the earth so that their enemies would not to have a food supply at a time when they were retreating. When I look at what has been happening to this country since this government was elected a mere six years ago, and how much devastation it has caused to the identity, to the entity, to that geographical, to that philosophical, to the description which the world knows as Canada, it is obvious that what we have is a scorched-earth policy. After it is through, after it has left office, there will be no possibility of anyone ever being able to identify anything as being Canadian again.
The free trade deal was certainly an example of the scorched-earth policy being put into effect. When we look at what happened to Bill C-21, when we look at the privatization of the airplane manufacturing companies, which we have already had reference to, it is obvious what is happening. Anything that has any kind of a Canadian identity is being destroyed for reasons other than debt reduction or that it is good for Canada.
That is something we keep hearing all the time. The government is doing these things because they are good for Canada. I guess the government must have a different vision of what Canada is than certainly I or the members of my party have. I have a hard time relating to a Canada that no longer has a sharing, caring unemployment insurance scheme. I have trouble with a Canada that no longer has a VIA Rail. I have trouble with a Canada that no longer has an identifiable publicly-owned airline such Air Canada. I have trouble with a Canada where with one of the major funding institutions in the country, the government has done the very best it can to diminish the well-being of Canadians. I am
referring to the medicare system and also the federal funding of post-secondary education.
What we have is a scorched-earth policy. What we are debating right now, the privatization of Petro-Canada, is nothing more or nothing less than that.
Mr. Speaker, when the history of this nation is written, I assure you that the name of the minister of privatization on December 6, 1990 will not appear in the history books for good reason. If I was doing what that minister is doing, I would not want it to appear there. I am sure there are very few historians who would even give what he is doing a passing glance. Yet we have the confession of the government that this is being done for ideological reasons.
Hopefully, this is some kind of an aberration in the history of this country, that we should have something as disastrous as this happening to a nation. I suggest, as one of the previous speakers said, this is probably going to be the last Progressive Conservative government, hopefully with any connotation of Conservative, in this country for the next 100 years.
Getting closer to the amendments themselves, the idea is to reduce foreign ownership to zero, 1 per cent actually. Margaret Thatcher in her conservative wisdom set the number in many instances at zero. So it really is not that outrageous for us to suggest that the foreign ownership level be reduced from 25 per cent to 1 per cent.
Let us talk about the country with which we have a free trade agreement, the good old U.S.A. The Americans are becoming tremendously concerned about the level of foreign ownership of their economy. The level of foreign ownership of the United States economy is somewhere between 4 per cent and 5 per cent.
Manufacturing in Canada has 50 per cent foreign ownership. In the resource industries we have a foreign ownership level of 70 per cent to 80 per cent. In the oil industry we have foreign ownership levels of somewhere around 45 per cent, and that is up from a level of 37 per cent when these scorched earthers assumed power in 1984.
We had a confession from the hon. member for Cariboo-Chilcotin that this is an ideological battle, and I think it is nothing more than that. I think we owe a
great deal of thanks to that member for having identified it as such.


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: Mr. Speaker, I rise today without some of the exuberance shown by other members on both sides of the House when speaking to this particular bill. I rise with the feeling of some depression, and I bring that depression with me, having just come back from a number of days in British Columbia. People in that province-and I have also seen this in Alberta, Newfoundland and other places in the country that I have been over the last little while-have a depressed feeling. It is not a depression in economic terms, although certainly the government has pushed us in that direction, it is an emotional depression where people are asking what is happening to our country.
During the last election, we were promised certain things. The government of the day talked about leading us into the economic future. But the feeling, which is reflected fairly accurately in the recent polls which show the government at an all-time low of 14 per cent, is here for a good reason.
People to whom I have spoken, life-time members until recently of the Conservative Party, have said they could not, and never would again, support the party into which they were essentially born and with which they have lived and fought for all these years, are now fighting with the party. I use the analogy of a family that has lost everything in a fire. They have worked their complete lives building up their assets and all of a sudden they see a total loss.
These people point out to me the problems with VIA Rail. They tell me our country is no longer the vision of the Conservative John A. Macdonald, of keeping this country together from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast. They see the breaking down of that under the government with the gutting of the VIA Rail lines and the privatization of Air Canada.
Yesterday, some of the worst fears of the people of Canada came about with the total devastation of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation by this government. That corporation was built over a period of time and has become what people from every region of Canada look upon as part of what keeps us together. It gives us the
Government Orders
opportunity in cross-Canada programs for the east coast to talk to the west coast to talk to northern Canadians.
We have seen over the past six years a whittling away by this government of that particular method of communication. But what do we have today? Once again, we are back to what is depressing the people that I speak to; Air Canada, VIA Rail, Canada Post, and now Petro-Canada.
People have looked on Petro-Canada as our opportunity to keep the foreign oil companies who seem to control us somewhat honest. It was pointed out in an earlier speech by one of the members of my party that what has happened over the last period of time is a program by this government to ensure that Petro-Canada is more and more like every other corporation, instead of that leader which people in Canada have looked for.
Over the past month or so, I have had hundreds of letters from people in my riding and from various other parts of Canada, copies of letters to the Prime Minister, and copies of letters to the minister of privatization, asking me to stand up and fight for Canada, to fight against the privatization of Petro-Canada, the last vestige of control we have as far as retailing or refining of oil is concerned.
It is interesting to look at history and see what happened, what the people in our history have said. Some of our recent history, I think, is worth looking at. The minister of privatization who has been so vocal in his heckling and what not this morning, said in this House on December 11, 1979, at page 2255 of Hansard:
-only eligible Canadians-eligible Canadians-should be permitted to own shares in Petro-Canada and only eligible Canadians-Canadians, I repeat-should be entitled to buy shares in the after-market. I have stated many times that the shares must go to and remain in Canadian hands.
That is the same minister who now brings forward a plan to turn over 25 per cent of Petro-Canada to anybody who wants it, to foreign interests. The particular amendments we are looking at, and that our party is pushing for, are to ensure that if this government is bent on privatizing this corporation, that the privatization remain minimal and the control of that corporation remain in Canadian hands, as the minister of privatization himself argued for in 1979.
But, Mr. Speaker, he is not the only one. The present Conservative House leader from Calgary stated on June 20,1978, "I was a founding member of the committee for


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[Stage Direction]
an independent Canada and I believe that far too much of our economy is owned by foreigners. I know why that is so. It is because the oil industry is owned primarily by foreigners".
What is the House leader doing? He is supporting a bill that will put that control back in the hands of the foreigners.
This bill cannot go forward without our amendments, but I would suggest on behalf of the people in my riding that this bill should not go forward at all, but should be withdrawn by this government for the sake of Canadian unity.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It being one o'clock, I do now leave the Chamber until two o'clock this day.
At 1 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

Mr. Joe McGuire (Egmont):: Mr. Speaker, oyster dealers in P.E.I. have encountered a problem trying to sell their oysters in the Quebec market. This problem arises because there are two different levels of inspections which are in effect in that province and which could be put into effect in any province.
If these oysters had come from the U.S., rather than a Canadian province, they would not have been subject to provincial inspection at all. However, because of interprovincial trade barriers, oyster dealers are faced with meeting different standards in different provinces.
The oysters in question passed federal inspection in P.E.I. before they left, passed federal inspection in Quebec after they arrived, but were rejected and returned by provincial inspectors. Our oyster dealers and fishermen are being badly hurt.
We have signed a free trade agreement with the U.S. We are considering joining free trade discussions with the U.S. and Mexico. Yet, within our own country, we are faced with restrictive trade practices which in instances such as the one involving oysters can actually discriminate against products from another part of our own country.
We need to put our own house in order before we get involved in another free trade deal, especially one which has the potential to be even more disastrous than the one the government has already gotten us into.


VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Mr. Dan Heap (Trinity-Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, today is the anniversary of the murder of 14 women at the Ecole polytechnique in Montreal. It is a day of mourning for all women and men of conscience for it reminds us all that misogyny, the blind hatred of women, can only end in tragedy.
This was not an isolated incident and the murderer was not acting at random. He and hundreds like him are the logical results of a society which too often degrades and dehumanizes women. In Ontario alone dozens of women have died over the last two years. Today we remember just a few of them by name: Annette Orrico, Valerie McKay, Sakina Pabani, Jane Cunningham, Heather Pelletier, Nancy Simansky, Gabriella Christian, and Monique Girard.
Today, we are reminded that mourning is not enough. We must all work for change.


TRAGEDY AT L'ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE
Mrs. Suzanne Duplessis (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Science):: Mr. Speaker, this is a very sad day, a reminder of a frightening drama that took the lives of 14 young women and future engineers. All these students had a brilliant career ahead of them, but only a few seconds is all that a distraught individual needed to destroy everything. The wound is still there a year later, and we realize that never will Quebecers and Canadians forget this terrible incident.
In the name of the Minister of Science and personally I want to extend again my deepest sympathy to the parents who had to learn to live again after losing their daughter. To the directors of the Ecole polytechnique and to all students I express my respect and admiration for managing to overcome such a trying experience.
December 6, 1990

I hope that everywhere in Canada and throughout the world we will never again witness such cruel and aberrant incidents.


HIVER EN NORD FESTIVAL
Mr. Jacques Vien (Laurentides):: A few days ago, Mr. Speaker, eastern Canada was blanketed under the winter's first snow fall. The people of my riding were rejoicing, for it marked the beginning of the new winter tourist season.
This winter Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts will celebrate the 50th anniversary of its festivities. This year's Hiver en Nord festival will be held from January 26 to February 24 next. This festival provides a number of activities for the whole family, regardless of age and personal preferences. This winter feast is organized by a group of very dynamic volunteers who will extend the warmest welcome to all visitors.
I invite all Canadians to come and celebrate Saint-Agathe's Hiver en Nord festival. The Laurentians are well known for spectacular scenery, unrivalled hospitality and proven enjoyment of Canadian winters in northern country.


BALTIC STATES
Jesse Philip Flis: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada, I would like to welcome the President of Lithuania who is with us in Ottawa today. My leader and members of our caucus met with the President this morning and were presented with a document of the Joint Session of the Baltic Supreme Councils addressed to the parliaments of the world.
In this document the Supreme Councils, reaffirming their nations' will to restore the complete independence of the three Baltic States and adhering to the fundamental principles of the Helsinki Final Act, appeal to the parliaments of the world to fully employ their influence in helping to assure that the Soviet Union end all threats and begin interstate negotiations with the States on the recognition of their independence.
We on this side of the House would like to urge the Government of Canada, in keeping with the spirit of the all-party resolution unanimously passed by the House last March, that full consideration be given to this document, as a member of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, to endorse the inclusion of the Baltic States on the future agenda of the executive bodies of the CSCE.
Once again, we would like to welcome President Landsbergis and wish him a successful and fruitful visit in Canada.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION
Mr. Jean-Luc Joncas (Matapedia-Matane):: Mr. Speaker, the CBC wants to restructure its operations, and the government wants to cut spending. I have no objections, but if it means closing down all television stations in Eastern Quebec, that is unacceptable and intolerable. It means depriving the people of my riding of their sole means of communicating with the rest of the country.
I therefore want to ask the President of the CBC and the Minister of Communications to review this decision, and to consider the geographical circumstances, the catastrophic state of the economy and the increasingly alarming demographics of this part of the country as grounds for excempting the Gaspe from these vicious cutbacks.
The people of the Gaspe are not asking for miracles. They want the right to be informed. Mr. Speaker, at this stage, a cut in the Senate budget would have been a much wiser decision.


NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE
Mr. Bob Kilger (Stormont-Dundas):: Mr. Speaker, I have some great news for hockey fans across Canada. We just learned a few minutes ago that the city of Ottawa has been awarded a National Hockey League franchise.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Robert (Bob) Kilger: I would like to congratulate Terrace Investments and everyone who backed the franchise bid.
I also want to commend the people who backed the application for the city of Elamilton. We hope that Hamilton will be included in the next round of expansion in the national hockey league.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


NATIONAL UNITY
Mr. Walter Van  De Walle@St. Albert: Mr. Speaker, Canadians want a united Canada. Working together we have been building a tolerant, democratic, peaceful, and prosperous country and we have made tremendous progress. Together Canadians must continue this task.
While some spread doom and gloom and promote disunity and discord, our Prime Minister has shown initiative and leadership with his creation of the Citizen's Forum and his invitation for all Canadians to be heard.
One group in Alberta speaking out loudly and clearly for Canadian unity is the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties. At its recent convention it resolved that to "support those leaders whose goals are to develop a constitution for all Canadians, for one nation, united by our land and spirit, respecting our country, our flag, our home, our Canada."
Canadians want a united Canada.


VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Mr. Rey Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, today marks a memorial of sorrow. One year ago, Canada witnessed the brutal massacre of 14 young women at the Ecole polytechnique in Montreal, a most terrifying example of violence against women.
Sexual assault, emotional abuse, battering, and murder of women continue to escalate. Battering of women is now a major public health problem. Indeed, women of all ages are scared, and rightly so. There is no sanctuary from the fear.
Is it not within our mandate to legislate for a secure future for Canadian women and to pass strict gun control laws? Let us support the call for a royal commission on violence against women.
As we mourn today those precious lives lost one year ago, please remember our Canadian obligation to keep Canadian women and all Canadians safe from harm and free of fear.


RIDING OF CHATEAUGUAY
Mr. Ricardo Lopez (Chateauguay):: Mr. Speaker, the riding of Chateauguay was severely affected by the Amerindian crisis last summer and, unfortunately, it is not over yet.
I want to ask the government to provide special economic assistance that will help the riding recover from the aftermath of these events.
I also want to ask the government to clarify the status of Indian land claims and give investors and the people of Chateauguay the assurance that these claims will not block the area's economic development, which badly needs a boost.


QUEBEC SOVEREIGNTY
Hon. Jean Lapierre (Shefford):: Mr. Speaker, today I rise in the House to pay tribute to a government that is helping us achieve sovereignty. The federal government is withdrawing from most areas that affect the lives of this country's citizens. It has cut postal services and railway transportation; it is making cutbacks at the CBC and privatizing Petro-Canada; it will shut off the Sarnia-Montreal pipe-line, cut back unemployment insurance and cut back regional development.
Mr. Speaker, in addition they cannot agree with the Government of Quebec on immigration. They cannot agree on occupational training, they cannot agree on regional development and they cannot agree on communications.
Mr. Speaker, initially, we said that sovereignty was desirable. Now, we realize it is necessary. And the evidence is mounting that the sooner it happens, the better.

December 6, 1990


VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Mr. Chris Axworthy (Saskatoon -Clark's Crossing):: Mr. Speaker, one year ago today 14 women lost their lives to one man's hate. Today we mourn, but we must also work for change. We must work to end the glorification of violence against women so that we can end the violence.
We will truly have made progress when we can no longer remember the murderer's name, but only the names of the women he killed. With that in mind, today we remember Genevieve Bergeron, Helene Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigeneault, Anne Marie Edward, Maud Haviemick, Barbara Maria Klucznik, Maryse Laganiere, Maryse Leclair, Anne Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michele Richard, Annie St-Ameault, and Annie Turcotte.
In their memory, members of the House are asked to support the establishment by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of 14 science scholarships in the names of the 14 who died at the Ecole polytechnique.


Mrs. Gabrielle Bertrand (Brome-Missisquoi):: Mr. Speaker, today we commemorate the tragic killings of 14 young women at the Ecole polytechnique. I would like to say that eliminating violence against women is one of this government's priorities, a commitment reflected in the Lake Louise declaration signed last May by the Hon. Mary Collins and her provincial counterparts. The declaration reads as follows:
"We, the Ministers Responsible for the Status of Women in Canada, are committed to achieving full equality for women in all aspects of life. As Canadians, we value the inherent worth and dignity of every individual and we expect all persons to treat one another with respect. Since violence and its threat are depriving many women of their ability to achieve equality, we declare that:
1.	Violence against women is a crime and punishable under the law.
2.	Women are entitled to live in a safe environment.
3.	Offenders must be held accountable for their behavior.
4.	The elimination of violence against women requires a response including prevention, public education, services and enforcement of the law.
5.	Every individual, community and government in Canada must do everything possible to help the women, children and families affected by violence; we must all work together to achieve a society free of violence."


CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION
Mr. Eugene Bellemare (Carleton-Gloucester):: Mr. Speaker, at a time when Canada begs for unity and leadership, once again Canadians have been dealt a mean blow by the Conservative government.
Cruel and harsh cuts to local CBC programming across Canada will eliminate whole stations. Local productions, such as Ottawa's Metro, are gone.

Francophones in the Toronto-Windsor corridor have lost their French station, in an area where local programming is important to their survival. Thanks to the Conservative government, from now on Francophones outside Quebec will have only one station which they will continue to share with West Quebec. CBOFT and its English-language counterpart, CBOT, will suffer cuts of over $4 million and lose 75 employees.
Is the government really trying to destroy the Canadian dialogue and promote the Americanization of our airways?



Mr. Felix Holtmann (Portage-Interlake):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the president of the CBC announced how the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation will be restructured and be able to operate within its federal budget combined with reduced commercial revenue.
There continues to be in excess of $1 billion of taxpayers' money flowing into the CBC every year. It is obvious to most intellectuals that the communications technology today allows continued coverage from coast to coast. It is also important to recognize that the private TV networks and independent stations after 50 years are

December 6, 1990
Oral Questions
providing considerable Canadian coverage by Canadians for Canadians, sometimes even better than the CBC.
I wish to announce to the House that I have instructed the clerk of the Standing Committee on Communications and Culture to invite the management of CBC to appear before the committee Tuesday next at 9 a.m. I suspect there may be some opposition members who may wish to attend.


VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Joy Langan: Mr. Speaker, today I rise in this House to mark the tragic anniversary of the murder of 14 women and to remind the House that violence against women happens everywhere, every day. The real tragedy of violence against women is that it is so commonplace. One woman in Canada is assaulted every six minutes.
Across the country, there are those who would like to deny the reality of violence against women. The Speaker of the legislature in Alberta refused to allow any remembrance of the event. He said it would not be an appropriate observation for the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. In Newfoundland, the male Status of Women Minister felt that the murders were an isolated incident which had nothing to do with women in Newfoundland. Today, an angry man called the Newfoundland Advisory Council on the Status of Women and told the woman who answered the phone that he wished there were more Marc Lepines. Violence affects every region of Canada.
Flags fly at half-mast in the Yukon today to mark the anniversary of the occurrence at the Ecole polytechnique, and the tragic deaths of 106 Canadian women who have died of family violence in the last 12 months.
In memory of women victims of violence everywhere, I urge all Canadians to first mourn and then work for change.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. Fernand Jourdenais (La Prairie):: Mr. Speaker, recently I read the following article in one of our papers: "Savings as a result of GST-A commitment to Canadians! More than 100 companies have agreed to let you
take advantage of their savings once the GST comes into force." And I believe that, Mr. Speaker!
This week, upon finishing a roll of paper, I found this bilingual coupon:
Message re goods and services tax.
On January 1,1991, we expect the federal manufacturers' sales tax to be abolished and replaced by a 7 per cent tax on goods and services (GST).
We take pleasure in announcing that Facelle Limited will reduce the price to distributors of all brand name consumer products on January 1,1991, to fully reflect the fact that the manufacturers' sales tax now in effect has been abolished. Facelle products will then be subject to the new GST. The transition should have no inflationary effect on the price of Facelle products.
Mr. Speaker, my message to the senators is: Stop fooling around and pass the GST-step on it!



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Herb Gray (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. A year ago today, a tragic event made a lasting impact on the Ecole polytechnique in Montreal and the entire country. In a matter of minutes, 14 women with a promising future lost their lives as a result of violence. Throughout the country we see a disturbing increase in violence against women. Considering these terrible and shocking facts, I want to ask the Prime Minister whether today he will announce the appointment of a royal commission on violence against women in this country.


Hon. Mary Collins (Associate Minister of National Defence and Minister responsible for Status of Women):: Mr. Speaker, I think all of us grieve and remember that event of a year ago today and we will, after Question Period, have an opportunity to express our concerns.
The suggestion that the Leader of the Opposition has made has been made to the government by a group of women's organizations in the last few days. I am looking forward to meeting with them and discussing it with them. I have also asked the special subcommittee dealing with violence against women to advise us as well on an appropriate mechanism, whether a royal commission or some other mechanism, that will enable us to move

forward as a government, as a society, to try to finally reduce and eliminate violence against women.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, all across this country, women's hopes are being blighted by their legitimate concern about their personal safety. I regret that the government has not seen fit to announce today the creation of a royal commission on violence against women, something my party strongly supports.
Will the Prime Minister at least make a commitment today that there will be no cuts in funding for those centres which provide vital support services for women? In fact, will he make a commitment today, not simply to maintain, but to substantially increase the funding for these centres that provide services that are so important, so vital, to the women of this countiy?


Mary Collins: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that the hon. member is aware that there are a variety of initiatives and programs through the federal government working on fighting against violence against women.
Among those, of course, is the family violence program. We have been reviewing that program and as the Prime Minister has indicated, we are looking forward to new and extensive initiatives over the coming months.
In addition, through my colleague the Secretary of State's women's programs, we will continue to fund the efforts of many women's organizations and women's groups throughout the country which are also involved as one of the partners in trying to deal with this very difficult issue. This is going to require the efforts of all levels of government, of men and women across society and of educators, teachers and families.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, I also address my second supplementary question to the Prime Minister. I hope he will get up and agree with me that the rights and aspirations of women are more than just another entry on a government balance sheet.
Oral Questions
If so, will he commit today to provide substantial funding for new programs that will help eliminate violence against the women of this country.


Mary Collins: Mr. Speaker, as I have indicated, and I know that this view is shared by hon. colleagues on all sides of the House, we all want to work toward that end objective.
There have been some 700 projects funded through the family violence program over the last few years. I look forward, as I know my colleagues do, to extension enhancements of those initiatives and those programs so that the federal government can play its role along with other partners in society to eliminate this tragic incidence in our society. If there was one way to eliminate it, I am sure we would all be able to do it quickly. There is not one way. It is multifaceted. It will require effort and understanding of the reasons why, and efforts on prevention, education and support for those women who are victims of violence.
I hope my colleague will join with us in working toward that goal of eliminating violence against women in Canadian society.


Ms. Mary Clancy (Halifax):: Mr. Speaker, one year ago we mourned a massacre and called for a royal commission into violence against women. Thousands of voices now echo that call.
Will the Prime Minister, in whose sole purview this is, offer dignity and legitimacy to the millions of Canadian women who spend part of every single day in fear, and announce the commencement of this royal commission immediately.


Mary Collins: Mr. Speaker, as I addressed my hon. colleague's leader, this proposal has been made to us in the last few days. I am looking forward to meeting with those who are suggesting a royal commission to discuss with them what its goals and objectives might be.
We are also looking forward to the report from the
committee upon which the hon. member sits as to its

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suggestions on an appropriate mechanism which would ensure that we move forward with initiatives. We will also continue to address the root causes and find whatever might be the most appropriate way to deal with this terrible scourge in Canadian society.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, I know and I appreciate the comments of the hon. Minister responsible for the Status of Women, but I repeat, I asked and I want to know the views of the Prime Minister in this matter.
In these days with the threat of guns, the threatened closure of women's centres, ruinous cuts to women's research and development, and over-all, a recession that we all know clearly aggravates domestic violence, can we expect the announcement of a royal commission from the Prime Minister? If we cannot expect a royal commission, what does the Prime Minister believe? What is he prepared to announce today to give hope to Canadian women? Is he prepared to say that all of the women who have died-not just those in Montreal, but all of the women who have died-have not died in vain?


Mary Collins: Mr. Speaker, I think my hon. colleague recognizes, as we all recognize in this House, that we have to continue our work toward full equality for women in all aspects of society. That is a challenge for all of us. It requires legislative measures. It also requires some fundamental changes in many of the attitudes that we have entrenched within our system for so many years.
We will be addressing all of these issues, and I know I speak not only on behalf of myself but for all of my colleagues and the Prime Minister, that we will seek new measures and new ways to achieve that fundamental goal of equality for women enabling Canadian women to live without fear.


Ms. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. With all due respect to the Minister responsible for the Status of Women, who I feel is trying very hard to work on behalf of women, I ask the Prime Minister a question today because I think Canadians would like to know what the Prime Minister's commitment is.
This is the one-year anniversary of the tragic killing of 14 women in Montreal. We all, men and women, grieve for those victims and for their families. We also grieve
for the one in ten women who are beaten by their partners, for the one in four women who are assaulted, or for the women, one of whom is raped every 17 minutes in Canada, and for women who experience sexual harassment in the workplace and on campuses. One year after this massacre in Montreal, there is still not a woman in this House of Commons, not a woman in this country who can walk in the streets of a city in Canada and not feel fear.
This is not a social issue, this is a political issue. Will the Prime Minister acknowledge that we have to begin addressing the real problem of violence against women by addressing the issues of unemployment, poverty and programs affecting women in our society?


Mary Collins: Mr. Speaker, I know that when the Leader of the NDP talks about those frightening statistics, she shares with all of us the grief that is felt by not only the families of the women who were killed at Ecole polytechnique but the families and friends of women who are victims of violence in this country. Part of understanding the issue is talking about it, admitting that it exists. It is important that all members in this House recognize the extent of this problem.
We do know that there are links between violence against women and other issues affecting women's economic and social status in this country. That is why this government will continue its effort to ensure that women are able not only to improve their economic status in this country by ensuring that we work toward full employment and a viable economy, but that we work on the other issues of concern to women as well, work to ensure language training for immigrant women, work on new programs dealing with family violence and work in a whole variety of ways so that women finally can achieve that full equality, not only in the House of Commons and legislatures across the country but throughout Canadian society.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is directed to the Prime Minister. In its last Budget, the government decided to cut funding for women's centres. Next March, many women's centres across Canada will again be affected, including 42 in
December 6, 1990

Quebec. The government must be aware of the fact that without women's centres, many battered women and victims of sexual assault will not know where to turn and have no one they can rely on. Will the Prime Minister change his policy and promise the women of Canada that these centres will receive permanent and adequate funding?


Mary Collins: Mr. Speaker, I, of course, am very much aware of the situation in five of the provinces with women's centres where federal funding helps to ensure their continued role, and where much of their role is to help support women who are victims of violence, or women trying to access various government services. That, indeed, is why the government continued its funding of government centres last year. Since that time my colleague, the Secretary of State, has had discussions with his provincial counterparts, the ministers responsible for the status of women. We have been in the discussions with them and are working toward a resolution of this matter which would ensure that women's centres continue to thrive and continue to provide support and services for women in all provinces and territories of the country.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is for the Prime Minister. I believe the women of Canada deserve to know from the Prime Minister where the government stands on behalf of women in this country. I appreciate the comments of the Minister responsible for the Status of Women.
There are many causes leading to violence against women in this society: structural, fundamental, political, social, and cultural. Will the Prime Minister commit today to the establishment of a royal commission on violence against women which will address all these issues, which will show his government's commitment to address these issues, and which will give a commitment to the women of Canada on this very sad anniversary?


Mary Collins: Once again, Mr. Speaker, I would like to say to the hon. member that in my portfolio as the Minister responsible for the Status of Women I have responsibility within this
Oral Questions
government to speak on behalf of the interests of women. I am very pleased that I have the support of my colleagues on these issues that are so fundamentally important to women.
As my hon. colleague has raised once again the issue of a royal commission and as I have responded earlier, we are looking forward to discussions about this proposal both from the women's organizations that have put it forward and from colleagues in the House who are examining the issue of violence against women.
I am sure that we will have in place mechanisms to ensure that we move forward with not only developing a greater understanding of the causes of violence against women but also reaching the solutions which will ensure over a period of time that women will be able to look forward to a brighter society and that violence can be reduced and ultimately eradicated from Canadian society.


Mrs. Shirley Maheu (Saint-Laurent-Cartierville):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister responsible for the Status of Women. Since in 1988 the federal government announced it would invest $40 million over four years in local initiative projects against family violence, could the Minister explain to the House why, in Quebec, 40 centres had to close their doors because of lack of funding?


Mary Collins: Mr. Speaker, as my hon. colleague knows, this government did continue its funding for women's centres in Quebec. It has, through the Family Violence Program, provided funding for some 700 projects across the country involving a variety of initiatives from prevention to education and to programs like the recently announced Canadian Teachers Federation curriculum program "Thumbs Down" to bring into our schools with our teachers the ability to educate our children more effectively on issues relating to violence in our society.
Those kinds of initiatives, along with initiatives from the Minister of State for Housing to provide capital funding for shelters for women who have been abused across the country, are evidence of this government's commitment.

Oral Questions
I work along with my provincial colleagues responsible for the status of women in our intent to ensure that we work jointly to reduce the incidence of violence and to work toward full equality for women in Canadian society.


Shirley Maheu: Mr. Speaker, that is all very well, but it has no connection at all with the subject of my question.
Considering the remarkable ease with which the government cut $1.6 million in funding for women centres, and considering it was forced to reinstate that funding, if only for one year, will the Minister give the House the assurance today that this funding will again be available next year and the year after?


Mary Collins: Mr. Speaker, I am glad my hon. colleague has recognized that the funding of women's centres has continued during this year in Quebec, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Yukon, the Territories, and Newfoundland.
As I indicated to her colleague earlier, the Secretary of State is having ongoing discussions with the ministers responsible for the status of women in each of those provinces to work toward appropriate sharing of responsibilities for the further continuation of financial support to those centres throughout Canada.


GUN CONTROL
Mr. Russell MacLellan (Cape Breton-The Sydneys):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Justice.
Strong, effective gun control legislation is an issue for women, but it is also an issue for the whole of society. As long as young women are killed by angry men with guns, this House must press for stricter gun control legislation.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: The minister had an opportunity to honour the victims of the Montreal massacre in a very constructive way by bringing forward quickly strong, effective gun control legislation. Instead she sidetracked her own bill.
Why, when Bill C-80 was introduced in June, did she wait until November to bring the matter before the House, a time when it became obvious that this bill would not pass in this session?


Hon. Kim Campbell (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I have made it very clear in this House that I would have preferred to have the package before the same kind of special committee during the summer. I have been working very closely with my colleagues on the issue since the bill was tabled.
As I have said before, I am absolutely committed to the fundamental principles that are contained in our gun control measures. I intend to see these changes made into law.
As the hon. member will know, this is a contentious issue. If I can quote his colleague from his party who sits on the special committee, he has expressed the view that the government's proposals for gun control stink. He said that in rural Canada we do not understand some of the difficulties that are taking place and what urban Canada is asking for. He also said that Bill C-80 would deny rural Canadians a long-standing right to hunt, shoot at targets in a gun club or merely collect weapons. That is in fact a misconstruction of what is in Bill C-80.
I am very concerned about violence. I am also concerned about democracy and think it is important that those who are affected by the legislation understand what is in it. That is why I am very pleased to see it before the committee.


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: Mr. Speaker, we must fight acts of anti-feminism such as the massacre the way we fight racism. We can never ignore the social context in which these murders took place.
As the first woman Minister of Justice, will she please honour the thousands of females who die as victims of violence and bring forward, in the event that Bill C-80 dies on the Order Paper, new, stricter gun control legislation by March 15?


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I have already made it very clear that I am committed to bringing forward such legislation. I hope that I will have the support of the hon. member and his colleague from Kenora-Rainy River.


Mr. Ian Waddell (Port Moody-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the same minister. Of course the minister did have the support of the previous member and this member on behalf of this party, and she withdrew her gun control legislation.
[Translation\
My question is again directed to the Minister of Justice. Tory members are proud of the fact they managed to kill the proposed gun control legislation. Young women at the Ecole polytechnique in Montreal are campaigning for much stricter legislation. Why didn't the minister listen to the women of Canada and the women of Montreal? Why did she prefer to listen to the Tory members?


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I did not withdraw my bill. It is still before the House, and I fully support the fundamental principles of the changes I proposed with respect to the control of firearms, and I intend to see to it that the necessary amendments are made to the Criminal Code.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is for the same minister.
Would the minister agree with me that women are not the gun owners, the hunters, or even the collectors? Although some of them are, by and large they are not. When it comes to statistics about guns, women are the victims of these guns. That is the problem.
In the spirit we are taking this House on this day, a day when we are reflecting on the first anniversary of this terrible incident, would the minister and the government commit themselves to bringing back before the House good gun control legislation, strong gun control legislation, well before this same time next year, the time when we will have the second anniversary of this terrible massacre?


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I have already presented to this House what I believe is good gun control legislation. I am looking forward to the constructive comments of the hon. member and other colleagues in
Oral Questions
this House on this proposal, because it is in fact the first time that the proposals of the government have been in a public forum.
I do not for one moment want to downplay the significance of firearms as it reflects violence with respect to women, but I think it is also important to understand that there is a difference between urban and rural outlets on this particular issue.
I have recently named my National Advisory Council on Firearms. The vice-chair people happen to be a man who is as former chief of police of Regina and an Olympic gold medalist in shooting competition who happens to be a woman.


VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Ms. Ethel Blondin (Western Arctic):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
Violence should have no place in the Canadian family or community, yet every week two women are violently murdered in Canada. One in ten women are abused, be it sexually, emotionally, or psychologically.
I want to ask my question of the Prime Minister, not the Minister of Justice, not the Minister responsible for the Status of Women, but the Prime Minister because he is a man.


Some hon. members:: Order.


Ethel Dorothy Blondin-Andrew: Mr. Speaker, will the Prime Minister of Canada give his assurance to all the women of Canada that his government will not cut funding for those badly needed services which battered and abused women depend on?


Mary Collins: Mr. Speaker, in response to the hon. member, I think she knows that there is a number of federal government programs that work toward support of women who are abused: from my colleague, the Minister of State for Housing, support for transition houses; the Minister of National Health and Welfare, through the family violence program, provides a great deal of support to organizations; and the Secretary of State. Of course the provinces play a very major role in providing support through social services with transition houses and other resources to help women who are victims of abuse.

Oral Questions
I can assure my colleague that my provincial ministers responsible for the status of women and I, at our meeting at Lake Louise, issued a declaration against violence on women. We are now in the process of developing a national strategy, a strategy that will take into account the need for prevention, for education, and for support to women and women's organizations to assist women who are victims of abuse.
I think all 10 provinces, the two territories, and the federal government have made that commitment. We will ensure that we follow through on it.


Ethel Dorothy Blondin-Andrew: Mr. Speaker, I really wish we had heard from the Prime Minister. The women of Canada would have liked to have heard from the Prime Minister.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Ethel Dorothy Blondin-Andrew: That would have expressed a real commitment from this government.


JUSTICE
Ethel Dorothy Blondin-Andrew: Mr. Speaker, all Canadians have come to know that in northern Canada there have been sentences frequently given for offences against women that have been too light. I ask the Minister of Justice, without prejudice and with fair-mindedness: Will she commit to a full review in the Northwest Territories of gender bias in the court system?


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to address that question because, as the hon. member may know, it has been raised a number of other times in this House.
There is a number of projects under way to address that problem, projects that have been initiated by the Canadian Judicial Centre, with support from the Government of Canada. In the spring of 1991 there will be a national conference on women and the justice system. One of the issues that it will address will be the question of women as they are treated in the courts. That will be an opportunity for us to bring together the results of a great deal of ongoing research.
One of the most important things about the conference is that members of the judiciary will be participating. It is important that these problems not simply be brought to the attention of the public, but that those who actually administer the law and sit in judgment understand and have their outlooks changed. I am deeply committed to that process and to encouraging it.


CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION
Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Mr. Speaker, the Canadian people find dramatic the cuts affecting the mandate of the CBC. It is so bad, hacking away like that at the CBC, that Jean Dufresne, of the Journal de Montreal, called it a political crime today. So, here is my question to the Prime Minister: Is he prepared to put at least a moratorium on the cuts at the CBC and to set up an inquiry on the new role announced for the CBC yesterday by its president, Mr. Veilleux.


Hon. Marcel Masse (Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, neither the CBC nor the government were happy to make such a major decision, but we felt it had to be done for the various reasons given yesterday. We could also come up with quotes from other people who approve of the government's move and think it was wise and called for under the circumstances.


Sheila Finestone: Mr. Speaker, the problem with the government is its vision and its sight, and it is not on Canada.
My question concerns the remarks made by the CBC president, who stated just a few hours ago that he had been in constant contact with the ministers and this government, that they were fully informed. Therefore, they knew the CBC had had cuts of up to 15 per cent in their budgets in real terms over the last five years.
Will the Prime Minister admit today that it is the cuts of his government that caused this dreadful shutdown at the CBC and such misery to so many people?


Marcel Masse: Mr. Speaker, it is clear that in the case of a corporation as important as the CBC, as for all the corporations that come under the Government of Canada in one way or another, major decisions affecting them are always made in consultation and in view of the overall objectives and means of the government.
This government has been making tremendous efforts since 1984 for the CBC as for all others sectors. It is clear, however, that the CBC, with nearly 30 percent of its budget coming from commercial income, especially in television, is affected by the whole market as are all other television networks.
The communications critic should take a look at the statement made yesterday by the president of the Canadian Broadcasters Association, who stated, and I quote in the language the statement was made, i.e. English:

"Everybody is hurting because the market is more and more fragmented. Inevitably, CBC was going to have to change", as we will.


STATUS OF WOMEN
Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister responsible for the Status of Women.
Today, the minister said that she has the support of her colleagues in advancing the cause of the status of women. Is it the minister who asked for cutbacks to womens' centres? Is it the minister who asked for cutbacks to womens' publications? Is it the minister who asked for cutbacks to the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women? Is it the minister who asked her colleagues to cut back on these programs?


Mary Collins: Mr. Speaker, I think my hon. colleague is aware of the difficult financial situation which this government finds itself in and its desire to reduce the deficit. Along with that, all departments of government obviously have had to provide some contribution to that.
Oral Questions
I have ensured that when we discuss any reductions which have to take place with all of my colleagues, they must not affect women adversely or differentially. As we proceed with our programs, we must ensure that our support for women throughout the government, both in our laws and in our programs, is full in all areas of the government's mandate.
I can assure the hon. member of the Prime Minister's commitment to that and to the commitment of all my colleagues.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker, for the Prime Minister. The women and men of Canada would like to hear that commitment from the Prime Minister himself. He speaks on many issues of concern to Canadians in this House.
Will the Prime Minister today give his commitment to fight violence against women by committing permanent funding for women's centres, and a royal commission on violence against women which will speak for the women of Canada? Will he do it now?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I respond simply because they are such serious questions. I am dismayed to hear the leader of the New Democratic Party refuse to accept as authoritative the voice of a woman speaking for the Government of Canada.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Martin Brian Mulroney: The distinguished minister responsible for the status of women has the complete support of all of her colleagues in the government. That is why this government was able to increase to three the number of women on the Supreme Court of Canada, to increase by 300 per cent the number of women serving as deputy ministers, to increase from two to 14, the number of women serving as ambassadors, to increase from 37 to-


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: What has that to do with women?


Martin Brian Mulroney: My hon. friend says, "What has that to do with women?", -to increase from 37 to 81, the number of women serving in the federal judiciary, to increase, since 1984, the amounts contributed to the protection of women and children against violence and


AIR TRANSPORT
Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport. There are rumours that public servants at Transport Canada in Ottawa are about to shorten working hours at the control tower at the Val-D'Or airport, which opens at 6.30 a.m. Does the minister intend to change the schedule of air traffic controllers at Val D'Or for the next twelve months just to save a few pennies, while every morning service quality and safety are diminished?


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, there are no plans to change business hours at Val d'Or Airport.
* *


CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION
Mr. Paul Martin (LaSalle-Emard):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. Yesterday, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation announced the sudden shutdown of three regional stations in Quebec, including one in the riding where he was born. The mayor of Matane said the federal government was antagonizing an entire region. My question is this: Flow can the Prime Minister justify abandoning his birthplace, his former riding? Plow can the Prime Minister justify abandoning eastern Quebec?


Marcel Masse: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to make it clear to the hon. member that the decisions he just described were made independently by the CBC, without partisan interference from the Prime Minister.
Second, I would like to quote from a newspaper article, a public, not a secret document, for the benefit of the hon. member from Elamilton. In Le Soleil, a newspaper that covers these regions-and I hope the hon. member is listening-an article on the editorial page
explains that although the decision made by the CBC was painful, it was very similar, at least as far as the French network was concerned, to what was recommended by the Caplan-Sauvageau Commission in 1986. Caplan-Sauvageau wanted to restrict the role of stations at Matane, Rimouski and Sept-iles to news coverage only and recommended concentrating French language services in Montreal, Quebec City, Moncton and Ottawa. The conclusions of this commission or this task force were reached after wide-ranging consultations and published three years ago, and the hon. member must have had time to read them.


Paul Edgar Philippe Martin: Mr. Speaker, my second question is again directed to the Prime Minister. It is really too bad he doesn't care about his region.
The CBC was the only network broadcasting local and regional programming in the Gaspe and on the North Shore. You want to quote people? So can I! The Mayor of Rimouski says their link with the rest of the country has been cut off. You want some more? Let me quote the Conservative Member for Matane, a member of your own caucus, who says that closing stations throughout an area that is already disadvantaged is unacceptable.
My question is this: Is the hon. member wrong? Is the mayor wrong? Are 500,000 viewers wrong? Could an entire region be wrong? Is the whole region out to lunch or is this government out to lunch?


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, any budgetary cutback is painful for the people or the individual affected. I have no doubt that the hon. member for Matane, like the hon. member from Calgary or Windsor, knew what he was talking about and did so with a great deal of sincerity. The fact is that the general public realizes we have an enormous fiscal problem, a legacy whose antecedents my hon. friend knows full well.
The CBC acted independently, which, and I refer to the facts mentioned by my hon. friend, is quite clear since the cutbacks were made in a region I know very well and which I represent. This is conclusive evidence that there was no political interference by the government and that Mr. Veilleux and his colleagues made their decisions in the national interest.


Mr. George S. Baker (Gander-Grand Falls):: Mr. Speaker, 1,100 dedicated, professional people have now found their jobs abruptly terminated. One might say exterminated, so vicious was the manner in which these lay-offs took place.
Is the Minister of Labour aware that employees were told to leave the premises immediately, that some crews who wanted to finish a little bit of editing, to finish their programs, free of charge, were told, "Don't touch a button. Get out".
Will the Minister of Labour investigate this callous and inhumane treatment on the part of the CBC?


Marcel Masse: Mr. Speaker, the CBC is very much aware of any legal implications there might be as result of decisions made by the corporation. I am convinced that these decisions were made after a thorough analysis. If for some reason, a member of Parliament or anyone affected by these cutbacks believes that the CBC erred in its handling of labour relations, there are all kinds of mechanisms for filing complaints, Mr. Speaker.


George Baker: Mr. Speaker, Newfoundland suffered far more than its fair share of this government's cuts. Two of the 11 stations being cut are in Newfoundland, 22.5 per cent of all CBC employees in Newfoundland were laid off.
Will the Minister of Communications tell me how the government can accept the claims of the president and the chairman of the CBC that "The mandate of the corporation can still be served", when in the same sweep they have cancelled regional programs like Land and Sea which won the Wilderness Award, which has 53 per cent of the viewing audience? Why axe these programs? Why not axe the chairman and the president of the CBC? That would be money well saved.


Marcel Masse: Mr. Speaker, the decisions made regarding the CBC were based on a number of principles. One of these was
Oral Questions
that there should be at least one regional bureau in each province where there were some. The lead writer of the Globe and Mail understood the intent of the decision when he wrote, and I quote:

-the CBC will be no less a national network than it is today. Regional news bureaus will still be in place across the countiy-
This is true from Vancouver to St. John's.


Mr. Lyle Dean MacWilliam (Okanagan-Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, in a meeting earlier today with the New Democratic Party caucus, the president of the CBC confirmed that the government has been kept fully apprised of the actions of the CBC every step of the way. He said that the political will was lacking to do anything about it. The government has obviously approved and encouraged these cuts, just like it took the broad-axe to VIA Rail.
In the Prime Minister's rush to dismantle and privatize yet another symbol of Canadian identity, has he considered that the resulting ten regional closures may, in fact, be a violation of the CRTC regulations, an abandonment of CBC's requirement for the provision of regional services in Canada?


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Marcel Masse: First of all, Mr. Speaker, I want to mention, as I said yesterday, that the President of the CBC would have gladly met the members, collectively or individually, and I think that the NDP member's statement confirms that.
Second, I agree with the President of the CBC who said that the corporation and the government consulted each other about their respective objectives and responsibilities.
Third, I would caution against taking for granted what the member just said when he quoted the President of the CBC.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY
Mr. Speaker:: I wish to draw to members' attention the presence in the gallery of Mr. Vytautas Landsbergis, President of the Republic of Lithuania.

December 6, 1990
Routine Proceedings


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: Pursuant to order made on Wednesday, December 5, 1990, the House will now revert to Statements by Ministers.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mary Collins: Mr. Speaker, it is with a deep sense of sadness that I rise today on behalf of the Government of Canada to remind the House that one year ago today, 14 young women were murdered at Ecole polytechnique in Montreal.
As we recall that tragedy, we remember those young women: Genevieve Bergeron, Nathalie Croteau, Anne Marie Edward, Maryse Laganiere, Anne Marie Lemay, Michele Richard, Annie Turcotte, Helene Colgan, Barbara Daigneault, Maud Haviernick, Maryse Leclair, Sonia Pelletier, Annie St-Arneault, and Barbara Klucz-nik Widajewicz.
That brutal act has left deep scars on the memories of Canadians. Nowhere is the pain and the loss felt more deeply than by the families and the loved ones of the women who were murdered.
[Translation}
Today, we offer our most heartfelt sympathy to the families and friends who lost a dear one in this tragedy.
I attended this morning with the members for Bouras-sa, Halifax and New-Westminster a ceremony at the Notre-Dame-de-Montreal Cathedral where, along with hundreds of men and women, we deplored this tragedy again.

Today is a day for commemoration and reflection on our loss. But it is also a time to consider how the spirit that enlivened those women has not been lost. Our initial shock at this senseless violence, our anger, and our anguish must now turn to a commitment to action.
I believe, as I know do all members of this House, that violence is unacceptable in our society. For any person to resort to such violence, wherever it may take place, is deplorable. As legislators and as a society, we must work together to convey the message that these actions will not and cannot be tolerated.
Throughout the past decades there have been many incidents of violent killings of innocent victims. Some were killed because of their colour, because of their religion, or simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, but the innocent victims struck down a year ago at Ecole polytechnique were killed because they were women. As we condemn their murderer, we must also better understand and deal with the attitudes which led to this tragedy and to all acts of violence against women.
To change attitudes one must start with the beginning, with our children. By working together, families and teachers, we must teach children that violence against women-indeed violence of any kind-is wrong, building a new set of attitudes among our children to take their place in a better society.
In co-operation with women's organizations, research organizations, educational institutions, and thousands of women and men across the country, we must continue to work for women's full partnerships in all spheres of endeavour, in all spheres of society. Let us work for a time when violence against women will be an historical fact, rather than a tragic reality.

Mr. Speaker, the members of this House were elected to put forward the aspirations of the Canadian people. Therefore, in memory of these 14 young women and all other victims of violence, we must work together to put an end to violence.

Let the House, by our actions in our laws and policies, and through the ideals to which we aspire, let us work together towards that ultimate goal, to eliminate violence against women and to eradicate violence against all innocent victims in Canadian society.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, the cold horror of the Montreal massacre remains with us all and will remain with us all, all our lives. Fourteen young lives snuffed out. Fourteen young women singled out for
December 6, 1990

death because they chose a non-traditional career, and because a disturbed and unhappy young man-himself a victim of domestic upheaval-decided that feminists were to blame for his failures.
In the year past, we have heard many pundits tell us that Marc Lepine was a psychotic killer and therefore there was no significance to the victims being women. The women of this House, the men of this House, and the women of Canada know differently. They know that those young engineering students were killed because of their gender and because there is a tragic sickness alive in our society that places every woman in jeopardy and causes every woman daily moments of fear.
The hazards are everywhere: poorly lit streets, deserted parking lots, empty office buildings, lonely apartment entrances, and on and on. Every woman driver knows the experience of unlocking her car and switching on the dome light to check the back seat before she gets in. Every woman who has spent a night alone in her house or apartment has had the jolting experience of an unexplained noise or a ringing doorbell after midnight. Every woman knows the worry over adequate security in her own home.
Since the Montreal massacre we have seen an increase, not a decrease, in violence against women. We have seen an increase in the domestic murder rate, an increase in sexual assaults in our cities and, most particularly and most frighteningly, on our university campuses.
We are all angry. We are all, as women, afraid. Attitudes must change, yes, but so must laws, so must judges, and so must legislators. Gun control, judicial response, programs for the abused and a royal commission on violence against women would be a start.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, I would like to quote from the award-winning article by Stevie Cameron which appeared in The Globe and Mail a year ago today and is reprinted today:
Fourteen of our bright and shining daughters won places in
engineering schools doing things we, their mothers, only dreamed of.
That we lost them has broken our hearts. What is worse is that we
are not surprised.
Routine Proceedings


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Ms. Dawn Black (New Westminster-Burnaby):: Mr. Speaker, in formulating this statement for today I faced a very difficult dilemma. Given the solemn nature of today's ceremony, do I soften my words to ensure that the House feels comfortable with what I say? Or, do I tell it like it is?
Well, I think the House would agree that I must tell it like it is.
The event we are commemorating today is just too horrific to feel comfortable about. It is not so much the Montreal massacre that parliamentarians need to be reminded of. That would lend itself to a feeling of comfort. The massacre is behind us and life has, indeed, gone on.
Rather, parliamentarians need to be reminded that the incident represented the most extreme form of sexism in our society. For if the massacre is over and done with, the aftermath of the massacre is not. There has been graffiti saying that the women deserved what they got, clubhouse skits ridiculing the massacre, banners proclaiming "no means yes", and, just two months ago in my own province of British Columbia, invitations to women university students to partake in campus frolics or to risk being raped and mutilated. All this, Mr. Speaker, not before, but in the wake of the massacre.
So what are we parliamentarians doing to stamp out hate for the sake of hate against women? Five among us attended a vigil this morning in Montreal. Others in the House may do that tonight. But to what end? To remember? Mr. Speaker, who could forget?
It is not enough for us simply to remember. Legislators have to act. We have to enact. That is precisely why last summer I introduced a bill calling on the House to declare December 6 a national day of remembrance and action on the issue of violence against women. All members, no matter what their political persuasions, surely can unite behind this initiative. Many of us have offered to unite behind other initiatives. Most recently, we offered to unite behind gun control.
We parliamentarians enjoy a privileged role in today's society. We have the power to improve the quality of life; in this case, to disprove the inherent inequality of over half of our population.

December 6, 1990
Business of the House
My caucus colleagues and I urge parliamentarians to spend the approaching minute of silence thinking about their mothers, their wives, their daughters, and their sisters. Let those thoughts inspire December 6 to become, not only the day Canada's legislators realized that we had sacrificed 14 promising minds to the barrel of a gun, but also the day that Canada's legislators resolved not to trade another promising mind for mindless promises.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Speaker:: I would ask hon. members to stand.
[Editor's Note: The House stood in silence.]
*I*	^


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, would the government House leader indicate to members of the House what the business of the House will be tomorrow and the remaining days of next week.


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, tomorrow I would like to call Bill C-93 dealing with the Bretton Woods agreement for second reading, as well as Bill C-71 dealing with the UN convention on contracts, to complete the final stages, and Bill C-82, Port Wardens Act which has to do with Quebec harbours.
Monday will be the last allotted day, an opposition day. Tuesday, at this point I probably will call Bill C-84, Petro-Canada, although there is a possibility of calling Bill C-74. We will engage in discussions in that regard.
At this point in time, I am unable to give any indications for Wednesday, but the usual discussions among House leaders will ococur over the next few days.


Mr. Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I might put a supplementary question to the government House leader. As he knows, my own House leader presented to him on behalf of the government a resolution dealing with the release of hostages in Iraq.
As we know, the news today indicated that the President of Iraq has submitted to the Iraqi National Assembly a request that they approve the release of all nationals.
It would seem to me very appropriate that the resolution that was put forward by my colleagues from the New Democratic Party, the Conservative Party and from my party, the Liberal Party-a tri-party level-would be very timely in terms of endorsing that kind of move and to transmit a message to the Iraqi Assembly that we would like to see that action take place forthwith.
I wonder if the House leader could give us some commitment of time, perhaps on Monday. I am sure it would not take away from the House time because I think there would be an all-party agreement on that resolution.


Harvie Andre: Certainly, Mr. Speaker, the Secretary of State for External Affairs, I know, has possession of a draft of the resolution. I understand it is just a question of looking at the language and assuring himself, along with his officials, that in fact it would be helpful.
Along with the hon. member, I certainly welcome the news from Iraq. I hope that it turns out to be true and that all hostages, Canadians included, will be home soon.
Any actions that could be contemplated by this House that would facilitate that, I can assure the hon. member will get as expeditious treatment as possible and the full co-operation from this side of the House.


Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, on the same point, I just want to indicate on behalf of my colleagues from the New Democratic party that we, too, fully support a resolution. Indeed, the member for Fundy Royal, the member for Winnipeg South Centre and myself did together draft a resolution.
There have been discussions. I hope that there will be an opportunity for this resolution to come before the House, particularly given the very encouraging news today that the Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein has agreed to the release of all foreign nationals, and, I might say, to the encouraging news from the Canadian perspective that the elderly Muslim couple, the Rustins, will be coming home tomorrow from Iraq.

Certainly, Mr. Speaker, I would hope that there would be an opportunity for this House to speak to this important matter very early in the coming week.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I wish to inform the House that because of ministerial statements, Government Orders will be extended 11 minutes. Therefore Private Members' Business will begin at 5.11 o'clock p.m. Orders of the Day.



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[Stage Direction]


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of Bill C-84, an act respecting the privatization of the national petroleum company of Canada, as reported (without amendment) from a legislative committee and Motion No. 2A (Mr. Langdon), Motion No. 14A (Mr. Langdon) and Motion No. 19 (Mr. Lee).
Mr. Lyle Kristiansen (Kootenay West-Revelstoke):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to engage in the debate on Bill C-84 now before us.
This is a bill which, described very simply, is an act respecting the privatization of the national petroleum company of Canada.
In looking through the bill, and I recognize that we are dealing particularly with Motion Nos. 2A, 14A and 19, -it is interesting to note that in the pages opposite the proposed legislation itself, there is not a single word of explanation, but simply the recommendation that His Excellency, the Governor General, recommends to the House of Commons: the appropriation of public revenues under the circumstances and for the manner and purposes set out in a measure entitled: "an act respecting the privatization of the national petroleum company of Canada."
There is no explanation. There is nothing other than our own experience-we have a wealth of experience with this government and its intent over the last number of years-setting out in layman's language exactly what
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the purpose and impact of the legislation as a whole or its various component parts are.
We have seen in the years since the election of this government in 1984 a series of actions, probably commencing with the emasculation of the Foreign Investment Review Agency, now called Investment Canada, so as to completely detooth it and render it absolutely ineffective to deal with the question of foreign ownership of our economy.
We have seen the systematic emasculation of VIA Rail, the rail transportation system in this country. It began under the previous Liberal administration and has proceeded under this government with ever increasing regularity and severity.
We have seen what surely is going to lead to almost the complete destruction of the Canada Post Corporation. The philosophy seems to be: Make its services unacceptable to the public; make the corporation behave in such a way that nobody has much use for it any more because it does not do its job effectively. It does not provide the services in the communities that demand them. Sooner or later, we will end up privatizing the whole of that as well.
We have seen the selling off of Air Canada. We have seen airline deregulation, and we can see the beginning of moves that are going to result in the isolation of one community after another outside of the major metropolitan areas.
We now hear of the open skies policy of the government, which again will serve to place many of our more isolated communities in jeopardy in terms of air service.
Just yesterday we had the announcement of the severe emasculation of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, tearing its roots out of many of the communities that make this country what it is, a nation not just of urban dwellers and of cities, but of people with close links to the resources and the land who have a feeling for what makes this country.
One thing after another, the government wants to destroy, sell off, deregulate or emasculate almost every agency in every institution that can hold this country together. What is behind it? What kind of blind faith, dogma, doctrine and ideology does this government have that is causing it to proceed on a course that can have no other final result than the disintegration of Canada? The Conservative Party obviously believes in the positive

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power of the private and unregulated marketplace, in free market forces to produce beneficial results, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
It is fine to have a philosophy; it is fine to have a principle to operate from but if it blinds you to the actual result of specific policies, that is simply blind dogma and doctrine which can lead down a path to our entire destruction as a nation. This country was built in spite of market forces and in spite of the marketplace. Nobody looking at a map and knowing the demographics of Canada could believe that this country was ever created because it made economic sense; it never has; it was an act of political will for social, political and philosophical reasons. A number of people from sea to sea decided that they wanted to build a nation in this half of the North American continent that was somewhat different in its priorities and principles from its neighbour to the south. It was built in spite of those market forces that tend to pull all the links north and south. If we give up yet another instrument that allows us to develop our own resources for our own use and profit as a people, then we are led to believe that this doctrine and this dogma are leading us down the path of disintegration and the government ought to know better.
There are three amendments currently before us. One is that the chairperson and members of the board of directors of the corporation must be Canadian residents. Surely, in this day and age, that is not too much to ask. It does not guarantee anything but at least it is a beginning.
Motion No. 14A would change the limit of foreign ownership from 25 per cent to 1 per cent of all shares. Now members opposite may say: "Well, that is unrealistic, given their purpose", but what is their purpose? Should the Canadian energy industry, or at least a significant part of it, serve the interests of Canadians or not? There is the principle of its development at stake.
Motion No. 19 prohibits foreign governments or their agencies from owning Petro-Canada shares. We have seen a number of examples, over the period of just the last few weeks of how other corporations which have been sold off by this government, now have applications for ownership or, in fact, have been sold to agencies of the German government, the French government, almost any government, except the Canadian government.
That has happened in the research and development area, airline industries, and a number of other areas.
Why do we have a country? What is next? Is it telephones tomorrow? We know about the hearings that are going to take place in a few short months, apparently having to do with introducing competition into the area of telephone services across the country. Where does that lead us? It will likely mean that rural Canada, once more, is going to pay the price for this government's dogma and doctrine.
As a social democrat, I have always believed that if it works, do it; if it could work better, change it, and if it does not work, scrap it. That is the nature of my philosophy as long as it is consistent with responsible government, belief in a democracy. It is not the kind of blind faith, blind doctrine and blind dogma that we see from the other side of the House. The most dangerous kind of politician is the one who believes in his own b.s. Those guys tend to do it; they are a danger to Canada. It is ending with this kind of legislation that we have before us and sooner or later somebody has to put a stop to them.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I have been listening for a few hours now to members of the opposition and I got a big charge out of the last speaker. His philosophy is: if it ain't workin' scrap it. If that were the case, they would have got rid of the post office a long time ago.
What has happened is this government came to power and put in people to run it. It is running much better now. Its efficiency rate has grown dramatically. The number of outlets in Canada has grown dramatically. Service is far better and it is making a profit.
I know members of the NDP hate that. It is a swear word to them. They plug their ears. Every time they hear the word profit, they say: "Oh, horrors". In any event, had we adopted the hon. member's philosophy of if it ain't working scrap it, I am afraid we would not have a national postal system today.
I have listened to the ideologues on the other side talking about Petro-Canada, our national oil company, and how important it is in the over-all scheme of things. I remind the House of a few facts. Petro-Canada is one of between 2,500 and 3,000 energy companies in Canada. I want that to be very clearly understood. It is not a monopoly on the industry. I know members of the NDP


would like it to be a monopoly on the industry. That is their philosophy: one oil company in the country. That is what they would like. It is responsible for 6 per cent of the upstream activity and about 19 per cent of the downstream activity. They should understand those facts as well.
They should also understand that it has a number of reserves in hand today that it wants to bring onstream. It is a very expensive proposition. This will allow Petro-Canada to obtain money in the capital markets, like the other companies do, to bring on its known reserves and to look for more energy in this country. This will allow this Canadian company to grow, prosper, create employment, and secure energy for Canada and for Canadians.
I hear members talking about the ideology of the Conservatives. I find that rather interesting when I take a look around the world today at the governments of all political stripes. Even the socialists, heaven bless them, are taking the lead in many areas. Communist countries and countries of all political stripes are realizing that governments cannot be all things to all people and are getting out of businesses. Mexico has privatized 260 companies over the last period of time. It is selling its telephone company now to the public. As a matter of fact, it is allowing 49 per cent foreign ownership in its telephone company.
In this legislation we have assured the people of Canada that this company will be controlled, directed, and managed by Canadians. Control over this company will be maintained by Canadians. These amendments today do absolutely nothing to improve the bill whatsoever.
For example, the Canadian Business Corporations Act, which Petro-Canada falls under, says that the majority of directors must be Canadian residents. It says that in there, and they are governed by that. This is already covered. We are assured that it will be controlled and directed by Canadians.
I tell hon. gentlemen across the way that sometimes it is to the advantage of a company to bring in directors offshore if they can provide good, sound, solid advice. Many Canadian companies do that.
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Northern Telecom is one of the finest examples of a Canadian company there is. It has R and D expenditures at 12 per cent of its sales. Its chief operating officer happens to be an American. He is resident in Canada, a very fine gentleman, and is very dedicated to this Canadian company. What they would do is prevent the company from getting some of the best talent available.
These particular amendments have been discussed at great length today. I am told that negotiations have taken place with the opposition, with the idea of reasonably debating the amendments that they have brought forward, because I believe they need to be debated in a reasonable and timely manner. But I understand that negotiations have taken place, so I am going to read this very carefully. I do not want to get caught like I did the last time. I give notice that an agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to an allocation of time to the report stage of Bill C-84, an act respecting the privatization of the national petroleum company of Canada, and, under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice of my intention to move a time allocation motion at the next sitting of the House for the purpose of allotting a specified number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at that stage of the bill, and at the third reading stage.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Essex-Windsor on a point of order.


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, it is fascinating to hear that. The minister has suggested that discussions have taken place, which, as I understand it, are a requisite for such a motion.
As the person who is responsible for this legislation on the part of our party, indeed no discussions have been communicated to me, which I would suggest means that this particular motion is simply out of order.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Any minister can move a motion. I see no problem with that.


Mr. MacDonald (Dartmouth):: Mr. Speaker, which motion are we debating? Could I just have some clarification? A motion was just put to the House.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It was just notice.
Debate is on Motion Nos. 2A, 14A, and 19.

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Ronald MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I have waited for some time to be able to contribute to the debate on this piece of legislation which, if passed, will have the effect of privatizing the national energy company of Canada, in effect, Petro-Canada.
Petro-Canada legislation was passed in days gone by because the government of the day felt that it was in the best interest of the Canadian public to have a window on the energy market. There used to be a feeling in this country that the resources of the nation belonged to the people of the nation, no matter where they lived. In certain areas such as energy supply and security of supply it was important that the government, through programs or departments or in this particular case through a Crown corporation, have some input and a window on that particular aspect of Canadian sovereignty.
Through the years Petro-Canada has played a very important role in energy development in this country. It started with a lot of criticism from members opposite. It came in at a time when the government of the day felt that it was important to do so. This country has been blessed with a great energy resource, oil and gas, particularly in our western provinces and off the Atlantic coast, although that is not as fully developed as we would like it to be. There was a responsibility of the government to ensure that the Canadian interest was paramount in the development of that particular resource. That was in keeping with the way we used to think about this country. Many of us on this side still think that way, that this country is here for all of us and that it is the job of government to manage, as best as it can, those resources to the benefit of all Canadians.
I want to speak to these three amendments, but I feel I have to give a bit of background. When the Minister of State for Privatization came in with this latest scheme to try to take away something that was uniquely Canadian called Petro-Canada, he met with a lot of criticism. I know that many editorial writers, such as Geoffrey Simpson and many at The Globe and Mail and other newspapers from coast to coast, including some of the western papers in places like Alberta, said that this government was proceeding with a plan of privatization of a very necessary Crown corporation, one whose history, I will agree, was very controversial, especially in parts of western Canada. Maybe some of that was for the
right reasons, but perhaps this was not the right time to pursue this particular policy.
If we go back to the late 1970s, particularly 1979, we see that the previous Conservative government, when the right hon. member for Yellowhead was Prime Minister, had a different position on the national energy corporation, PetroCan, every second week. Those Conservatives were going to do away with it during the campaign. Then they came into power and they were not going to do away with it. They were going to privatize it; then they were going to abolish it. They were going to restrict it; then they were going to restructure it because they did not know what in the name of goodness to do.
At one point the current Minister for International Trade, after he was elected to this House in a by-election, took a tour of the west. He was one of those people who thought it was absolutely crazy that we had a company called Petro-Canada in the energy industry.
Mr. Speaker, do you know what happened? It was like the conversion on the road to Damascus. He got back in this place, and he could not say enough good about Petro-Canada and the important role it was playing in ensuring energy self-sufficiency in this country. He loved it. He could not say enough about it.
The current Governor General, in his former capacity as minister in this House, flip-flopped a number of times. When he was a minister, when he had some responsibilities in this place, particularly to the energy sector, he did not quite know what he stood for at any point in time.
We see that members of the government have almost been obsessed with Petro-Canada. In the beginning they got into typical Tory rhetoric that, if it cannot be done efficiently in the private sector, the public sector has no right to participate. That is typical Tory philosophy. We have seen it, particularly so in the last few days while they go in like a demolition derby and break apart national institutions such as CBC. They have gutted VTA. I listened with interest to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Communications today saying something which I am sure the minister of energy or the minister of privatization could have just as easily said about this particular bill on Petro-Canada. He said: "We had to cut it to make it better". It is like saying that we
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have to kill you to cure you. That is basically what they are doing here.
The amendments that are before us right now dealing with Petro-Canada are important amendments. Canadians believe that our energy sector is one that has implications on our sovereignty. In the east coast of this country we have to rely on imported oil, gas, and crude oil even though this country is a net exporter of oil. Petro-Canada has played a major role in the development of Hibernia. It has played a major role in the Syncrude projects in western Canada. It has taken the leading edge because Petro-Canada's mandate was to look after the interests of Canadians, not to look after the interests of those in the corporate boardrooms in New York or over in some capital of Europe.
The amendments that we have before us are very important because of this crazy piece of legislation. I find it very difficult to listen to the minister of privatization at the best of times, but I tried very hard to listen to him because I figured that maybe there were some pearls of wisdom.
The only pearl of wisdom I could find was one that I had to sift through the sheets on: the reason it is going forward with the privatization of Petro-Canada at this point in time. When we have a major crisis in the Persian Gulf, when the very supply of crude oil to Atlantic Canada and other places is in question, and when Canadians once again are getting concerned about having a window in the energy sector so that they can direct and develop the energy sector, out of the blue the government, after many abortive attempts to do something with Petro-Canada-goodness knows what it wants to do; I am not sure-came in with a bill to privatize it.
One would have to come to the conclusion, after listening to the minister and watching what is happening across this country to Tory fortunes, that this bone was thrown out as a diversion for some caucus members, particularly the western caucus, who were getting their butts kicked solidly because of their support of this government's crazy GST, which has put them at 7 per cent in the polls. They will do anything for a diversion. I think this Petro-Canada privatization legislation at this point is such a diversion.
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The minister opposite laughs. I think it is a nervous laugh. I do not think it is a belly laugh. I have seen a lot of ministers on the other side of the House doing a lot of nervous laughs the last little while. Every time a piece of legislation comes in that the Canadian public does not want, they all get the giggles over there. They say: "Gee, isn't it funny? The opposition is getting up and telling us the truth. It is telling us that we are doing something again that the public doesn't want". It is like a siege mentality, particularly on this bill. They really believe that everybody in the country is wrong and they are right. If they just put their faith in Brian, at some point in time everything will come out fine and smelling like roses. That is what they believe over there. It is little wonder they get kind of giddy at times.
The proposed amendments which we are speaking to today are important. If this government is going to pursue this crazy policy at the very time the people of Canada are seeing the energy reserves and resources as a national resource that can affect our sovereignty as a nation, they are going too far with it.
These amendments simply try to point out some difficulties. The motion that has been put forward by my colleague from Scarborough-Rouge River, who has done a tremendous job, an absolutely phenomenal job of exposing this government for what it is and for what it is trying to do in the energy sector, shows that the government is bankrupt on policies. It does not have an national energy policy and wants to base everything on the marketplace. If it can be sold to the highest bidder it does not matter if it is a Canadian resource, just get rid of it. Get a few bucks in the coffers. If we cannot manage the economy, we cannot manage the government, we certainly need more money in the coffers. Forget about preserving and managing a national resource such as energy, oil and gas, for the benefit of everybody.
If the government wanted to do something perhaps it could have brought in some amendments to Petro-Canada to make sure that Petro-Canada was serving the interests of the consumers and the producers in western Canada.
The particular amendment, Motion No. 19, put forward by my colleague, who has piloted this legislation for us on this side of the House, the member for Scarborough-Rouge River who has done a great job, basically

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says that the effect of this would be to prevent the ownership of shares in Petro-Canada while the Government of Canada still has shares.
What he is clearly trying to do is keep the government from an embarrassing situation where it will probably have some banana republic somewhere in the nether-nether land come in and see what a great deal Petro-Canada is and they can actually get a handle on Canadian energy reserves and resources. We just do not want the government to have other people in the energy sector and across the world sitting down comparing this government to one of those small banana republics because in this case that banana republic and its administrators will look a heck of a lot better than this government would.


Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina-Lumsden):: Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by saying that over the last number of months I have never felt so depressed and distressed about the welfare and good order of my country and its survival, its independence and sovereignty and nationhood, as I have under this government, and I have been here under several governments.
I must say to be fair that the present Conservative government and the Prime Minister have accomplished some things. Their main one is that they have contributed more to anger and outrage, alienation, than any other government since Confederation if not before.
Mr. Speaker, you can make a list as long as your arm, whether it was the Crow rate, the at and east rates, the two-price system on grain, whether it was the post office, VIA Rail, Petro-Canada, or anything else they have privatized. All they have done is remove from our society and our country the kind of things that kept us together and working. Of course, the CBC yesterday was just as bad a tragedy.
I would not mind if it could not help it, if it did not know better. It is when the government works at it that I get angry and depressed.
Motion No. 2A states that the chairman and members of the board must be Canadian residents. Well, Sir, I would rather they had to be Canadian citizens, but residents if they qualify under the appropriate regulation I guess is better than nothing. So I will buy that.
Motion No. 14A changes the limit of foreign ownership from 25 per cent to 1 per cent. I will buy that, too. If we had to compromise somewhere in between that, well, let's talk it over.
I want to quote the present minister of privatization-I am sorry he had to step out for a minute-because in the late unlamented nine months of the Clark government in 1979, he took great pains to emphasize the Canadian ownership line.
On December 11, 1979, at page 2255 of Hansard he is quoted as saying:
-only eligible Canadians-eligible Canadians-should be permitted to own shares in Petro-Canada and only eligible Canadians-Canadians, I repeat-should be entitled to buy shares in the after-market. I have stated many times that the shares must go to and remain in Canadian hands.
I do not know what happened to him since then, because obviously he knew better in 1979. In fact, he was applauded when he made that statement in the House. I do not know what happened to him. He was not on the road to Damascus. He was on the road to Sodom and Gomorrah since then.
There is something else I want to point out. I hate to use these words. Anything that impinges upon and hurts, that cuts down Canadian independence, sovereignty and nationhood, that destroys many decades of traditional behaviour by Canadians to be something more than and different from other countries-particularly our neighbour to the south-is a betrayal. We have adopted and implemented measures and laws in Canada that are unique.
Some are the envy of many other countries. I will not go into a long list of them. Anybody who flies in the face of that-I am prepared to make changes in accordance with that history-I have to say and I do not want to but I will, I call that nothing more than traitorous behaviour. It is a betrayal even of the present Conservative members' forefathers in Parliament; Mr. Diefenbaker and Sir John A. will be rolling over. Maybe they are now, I have no way of knowing.
They sure as heck would not have stood for this. No way. I am not one noted for applauding Mrs. Thatcher, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain, but even in her privatizations, and there were a bunch of them, she

always kept a back-up provision so that if the privatized company misbehaved, she could correct it.
Of 10 companies she privatized, she kept what is called "a golden share", only one share. That one share allowed her and her government to over-rule any privatized corporation from doing something that in her view and in her government's view was not in the national interest. She kept that golden share for a good reason. History and experience in our country and that of the United Kingdom have shown that if you turn a private corporation-whether it is multinational or national-loose to operate on their own, without any checks and balances, they are going to do what is best for them in the first place. What is best for their country takes second place, if that high. In fact, it probably takes third place. They will put the interests of the shareholders in second place. The country in which they have the privilege-not the right-to do business, takes a lower priority.
I do not understand why the minister will not accept amendments. Maybe he will. I hope I am wrong, but I do not think he will do the things outlined in these three amendments.
The third amendment would prohibit a foreign government or an agency of a foreign government, be it a Crown corporation, board, or anything else, from owning any Petro-Canada shares. Surely that makes some sense, which the minister was heckling my colleague about.
It makes common sense, because you are either master in your own house, or you are not. If you are going to turn this over to anyone and everyone to do with as they please for the sake of making a buck, and to hell with the welfare and the good order of Canada and its people, then they have no business here. They lose their privileges. No corporation has the right to exploit resources and ignore the welfare and good order of my country.
I hope these amendments will pass and that we can get on to the other ones.


Mr. Howard Crosby (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, before I make some remarks on the proposed amendments to Bill C-84, respecting the privatization of Petro-Canada, I would like to bring to the attention of the House one matter because it is a day of commemorating tragedies.
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We have heard our colleagues in the House remark on the sad events which took place last year in Montreal on December 6.1 just want to remind the House of another very tragic event that took place in the city of Halifax 73 years ago on this same date, December 6. That was the Halifax explosion which resulted in the tragic loss of 1,600 lives and over 9,000 injuries. Over 20 per cent of the population of Halifax was directly affected by that tragic event.
Without detracting in any way from the remarks made on the tragic event in Montreal, I think it is well to record that again in the House and remind members of it. I hope 83 years from now we will again remember both events because they are sad days for all Canadians.
Mr. Speaker, may I now address Bill C-84 which before the House of Commons.
I would like to deal with the facts because we hear a great deal of rhetoric about national corporations like Petro-Canada, as we hear about Air Canada, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and so on, and it is now said without feeling, I hope. I respect the views of those who regard these organizations as national institutions which should be preserved at whatever cost. It is simply that I do not share that view.
I believe these are utilitarian organizations which perform a function and if we can perform the function in a way that saves taxpayers' money, that provides services, then we should look at those possibilities. That is, indeed, what we are doing with Bill C-84. We believe that Petro-Canada has served its function. It can continue as a utilitarian corporation providing services to Canada in another way.
For those reasons I want to deal with some facts, because when Petro-Canada was created, it was intended to give a window on the industry for reasons that occurred at that time. But let us look at some of the evolutionary aspects of Petro-Canada. When they took over Canadian Petrofina, what happened? Vast amounts of money were spent on that acquisition. They were never properly accounted for. We do not know who received the benefits of those extensive payments. We never did get a clear financial picture.
As the member well knows, the courts have made decisions on this subject. The files are closed. They are sealed. They are not available to Parliamentarians, nor to the Auditor General. So we do not know what really is

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the history of Petro-Canada. We do not know what chicanery took place among supporters of the Liberal Party who were shareholders of Petrofina and who were engaged in this exercise.
It is not as if Petro-Canada had a clean history among Canadians and in the business field. It might have been conceived in good faith, but it evolved into infamy. That is why I want to look at Petro-Canada, in terms of whether it has performed any function for the people of Canada. They may ask: "What has it done for Canadians?"
If one was to go to a Petro-Canada dealer, one would find that he enters into the same kind of contract with the corporation as any other commercial petroleum dealer does. He is required to buy tires, batteries, and accessories from the company at inflated prices.
I can tell you of a specific case, Mr. Speaker, where a Petro-Canada dealer was forced to buy window washing material at a price higher than it was available for at Zellers. As you know, Zellers makes the boast that it has the lowest prices, but it is a retail outfit. The Petro-Canada dealer could get a lower price at a commercial retail store than he could from Petro-Canada. Why? Because Petro-Canada was profiteering at the expense of its dealers. In that respect it is no different, in its operation and its management, from any other company. Members opposite know that the government, Liberal or Conservative, did not ever interfere in the day-to-day management of the company. It was left to function like any other petroleum corporation.
I assure you that if you go to a Petro-Canada station anywhere in Canada, you will pay the same price that you pay at other stations. You will get the same lack of guarantee, if you get repairs, and you will have the same kinds of arguments. Do not tell me, as a Canadian consumer, that Petro-Canada has done anything for me. It has functioned simply as a commercial corporation. The window that we thought was there is not there. Thus, the raison d'etre for Petro-Canada has been diminished, if not eliminated altogether.
Let me get on to some of the other rhetoric that we have heard in the House of Commons. There is a great fear of foreign takeovers. Every time the New Democratic Party members get upset about kind of a transaction, they bring in the myth, the bogey, of the foreigners who are going to come in and take over Canada. That makes an interesting point because a business writer for The Daily News of Halifax, one John McLeod, has made this point about our friends in the New Democratic Party. In an article today, December 6, 1990 he states, and I quote:
It's instructive to note the difference between New Democratic Party economic policy as espoused by an out-of-power federal leader, and the economic policy of the new NDP government in Ontario.
Let me tell you what has happened in Ontario, Mr. Speaker. Notwithstanding this great fear of foreign takeovers, and notwithstanding "Canada for Canadians", "Let us own all of our corporations", "Let us have restrictions on ownership", and "Let us make ownership available only to Canadians", what happens when the Ontario government under Premier Bob Rae gets its first test? It approves the sale of Consumer's Gas to British Gas, PLC. Why did it approve the sale of a Canadian corporation in the energy field to a foreign corporation? Because it was in the best interests of the people of Ontario, so it said.
All of the ideology that it spoke of in the House in this very debate, that went out of the window because it had to face the practical problem of: What are we going to do? We have a request from a foreign company, British Gas, to take over a Canadian company, Consumer's Gas, so what are we going to do? Are we going to decide it on ideology, like our federal friends do? No. No ideology for us. It is out the window. We are in government now. We have to decide it on the practicalities of the case and the practicalities of the case dictate that the right decision is to approve the sale. That is what Bob Rae did and I do not know what the New Democratic leader is going to say about it when they meet. They had better get together.
I hear they have a television set over there in the lobby to keep on eye on the legislature. The reason they have two television sets is because they know they are saying two different things in the two different places and they are trying to bring them together. The ideology they espouse in this Chamber clashes with the practical facts. It was right and proper to allow British Gas to take over Consumer's Gas. That is the decision the Ontario government made.
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The Financial Times has some advice for Bob Rae, as well as John McLeod. It is saying, "Listen, Mr. Bob Rae, listen Mr. New Democratic Party and Mrs. New Democratic Party, you will have to find a better way to preserve domestic control of strategic companies and sectors." There must be a better way. It has nothing to do with shareholdings. It has nothing to do with ownership. It has to do with legislative control. You can control corporations, as Bob Rae now knows, by legislation. You can make corporations do what is in the public interest by legislation. You do not have to worry about ownership.
We found out with Petro-Canada that it does not make a bit of difference. Petro-Canada explores where Petro-Canada wants to explore. Petro-Canada sells what Petro-Canada wants to sell. Petro-Canada charges what Petro-Canada wants to charge. It did not do us any good in the Parliament of Canada or across Canada to have this window in the industry. We might as well recognize it and let the commercial forces take control as they have in the past.
I hope the New Democratic members have learned a lesson from their friend, Bob Rae. I hope they will be practical. Ideology is nice, but let us face facts.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Before I recognize the hon. member for Comox-Albemi, it is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Haldimand- Norfolk-Supply Management; the hon. member for New Westminster-Burnaby-Status of Women; the hon. member for Saint-Henri-Westmount-Health.


Mr. Robert E. Skelly (Comox- Albemi):: Mr. Speaker, I suppose I feel very much like the previous New Democratic speaker and the member for Winnipeg- Transcona did in speaking on this privatization bill. Having seen what the Conservative government has done to the country and to its fundamental institutions over the last several years, a lot of people in the country have serious and grave doubts as to whether the country is going to continue to exist for much longer after the systematic attack that has been taken on the fundamental institutions of Canada.
Before I get into the actual detail of the amendments and the bill itself, I would like to talk a bit about the comments that have been made about ideology by the last few speakers on the Conservative side. It might be
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worth-while to recall to those speakers that the New Democratic Party has not nationalized a single corporation or set up a single corporation federally in the country.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, as the Tories admitted in the debate yesterday and in previous days, was set up by the R. B. Bennett Tory government back in the 1920s and 1930s. Canadian National Railways, back in 1923, was set up, I believe, by a Liberal government of the day. Air Canada was set up as one of the projects of C. D. Howe, a Liberal cabinet minister.
In looking at the provincial story, Mr. Speaker, you will recall as a member from Alberta, that the Pacific Western Airlines was at one time nationalized by Peter Lougheed, one of the great free enterprisers of Canada.
In my recollection of British Columbia history, B.C. Electric, which is an offshoot of the Power Corporation of Canada, was nationalized by W. A. C. Bennett and his Social Credit Party, the so-called free enterprise party of British Columbia, which was formed back in the early 1950s when the Liberals and the Tories jumped into bed with each other and nationalized the power company.
The simple fact is that Crown corporations are not set up on the basis of ideology. The vast majority of Crown corporations in Canada were set up because the government of the day, regardless of political stripe, recognized a need that was not being fulfilled by the private sector. It said that in the absence of investment by the private sector, the government has to take action in order to develop the country, move the country ahead, and achieve the kind of progress that we are looking for. As a result, those governments of those days-whether Conservative, Liberal, Social Credit, or even New Democrat-got involved in the nationalization or the establishment of Crown corporations.
We did the same thing in British Columbia when we were in government. We set up an insurance corporation. That insurance corporation in fact brought a financial centre to Vancouver based on hundreds of millions of dollars of premiums that in the past went to Zurich, New York, or Hartford, Connecticut. We repatriated that money to the benefit of British Columbians and it was the basis of a financial centre in Vancouver that has grown and thrived to this present day. It was done strictly on a pragmatic basis. It has nothing to do with ideology.

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I remember meeting with the minister of agriculture for Sweden, Mats Hellstrom, who is playing a role in the GATT talks in Brussels this very day. He advised me that when the democratic socialist government was in power in Sweden, it did not nationalize a single corporation and its policy was opposed to it. It preferred that the corporations operated in a tightly regulated free enterprise sector.
However, when the right-wing government took over from the social democrats, it nationalized some corporations that were held by a lot of its friends and financial supporters who had gone broke. They persuaded the right-wing government to take those corporations over and the taxpayers ended up bailing out those corporations.
In some cases, that is exactly what happened here in Canada. The government of the day recognized the need of some of its financial donors to have these corporations taken off their hands. After all, Canadian National was not nationalized. Its private operators bankrupted it and then the government was forced to take it over.
The same thing happened, as my colleague reminded me, in British Columbia with the B.C. rail system, the former Pacific Great Eastern Railway. When the railway sold off all the land grants that were given to it by the province and ran the railway into the ground because it started from nowhere and ended nowhere, the government of the day took over the Pacific Great Eastern Railway and completed it from terminus to terminus. Now it operates as one of the great railways of the country, performing a service to developing the central and northern part of British Columbia and shipping our lumber out into export markets. It was done strictly for pragmatic reasons in some cases, but also it was done by Liberal and Tory governments to bail out their bankrupt supporters and to use taxpayers' funds to take over these corporations.
I am more concerned right now about what this government is doing to our national institutions. I am concerned about the destruction of the post office as a community centre and as a means of communication that represents Canada in virtually every single community in every single riding in the country. There is the destruction of Canada's national airline, Air Canada, which was sold off by the Conservative government through a
privatization process and now Air Canada is in the process of selling off its assets, its share of an aircraft leasing corporation based in Ireland, selling off its aircraft, cutting down on its services, and cutting down on the communities that it serves in the country. It is now in the private sector and it does not have to have a commitment to the Canadian people and to each and every community in Canada.
The government has done the same thing with VIA Rail. Railways were the first things that brought the country together. When my family came from Ireland in 1819 to the country, they came as many Irish people did, to build the railways in the country that were the initial ties that bound the provinces and ultimately the country together. Now, this government has severed those ties. It has broken up the rail system and this major institution of Canada that brought the country together, and continues to hold the country together, is now in jeopardy as a result of what the Conservative government is doing.
I do not think the Conservative government is privatizing Petro-Canada because it is going to improve the corporation's operations. I think it is going to operate the same way as they have instructed it to operate now. If it is gouging people, it is going to continue to do so, but it is only doing so now because it has been instructed or permitted by the Conservative Party in government to do so, so that the people of Canada will lose their respect for the institution of a national petroleum company and refuse to support it.
Basically what they are doing is following their ideological bent. This is a new ideological bent. This is not the old Conservatism of John A. Macdonald, R. B. Borden, or Meighen, all of whom had as their goal and as their objective the progress of Canada and the progress of its institutions.
This is Conservatism that derives itself from the new-right Republicanism of the United States, a Republicanism exemplified by the presidency of Ronald Reagan. He talked about fighting the deficit, yet he ran the deficit of the United States higher than any other president, any other political party in history. He talked about privatization. He talked about deregulation and we know exactly what happened to the thrifts and the savings and loans institutions in the United States. Deregulation meant that every crook and gouger who
December 6, 1990

could get into the savings and loan industry could gouge money out of the savings of citizens in the United States, spend it on useless projects, and totally enrich themselves at the expense of the United States. That is precisely what this party and its friends in private business are doing.
They are draining the cup of Canada. They are draining the assets of government, and they are destroying the fundamental institutions of this country, and that is exactly the meaning of this bill.


Mr. Mike Breaugh (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, I want to speak briefly of the three amendments to Bill C-84. I spent some time this morning going through the work of the committee. First of all it struck me as odd that in the middle of an oil crisis the Government of Canada is selling off one of its assets.
It struck me even more strangely that in the deliberations before the committee, it was very anxious to sell off this company but it did not seem to have any idea how much money it would get for it.
I spent a fair amount of time in the Ontario legislature. There I became accustomed to a group of Tories who were extremely pragmatic people. They did not have an ideological bone in their body; whatever was good for Ontario at the moment they would do.
If you wanted to nationalize something and they thought that would be popular, that is precisely what they would do. Ideology had nothing to do with the way they made a government function. If it needed to be done, they would do it.
I notice that there is a lot of discussion in this Chamber about the Ontario legislature and things that are happening there these days. I was there for 15 years and I think I can relate to members a fairly good sense of what that place is all about. I heard a member somewhat shocked that the new government in Ontario allowed a business decision to be made.
Well, I think the government in Ontario is simply acknowledging that it might like to do a lot of things these days but the federal government has put the province of Ontario in a very bad recession. They do not have the money, frankly, to do a lot of the things they
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want so they made again a very pragmatic decision to allow for the takeover of Consumers Gas by British Gas.


Mr. Boyer:: You can blame the Liberals who were in power and left a $3 billion deficit.


Michael James Breaugh: There is an interjection here about the Liberals leaving a big debt. That is true. As I went through the committee deliberations on these amendments, one of the things that struck me was when you search for a reason for why this government is trying to privatize this particular corporation at the moment, one eludes you.
As you read through the deliberations in committee, it seems that a pretty comprehensive argument was being made that this would be a sensible corporation to retain, that there were things that could be done with Petro-Canada that would assist us in terms of making the environment of Canada a better place, and that we had concerns now about our own energy needs. I disregard totally the old cliche that you need a window on the industry because it seems that one of the faults of Petro-Canada is that that is about all it ever was-people standing at a window looking at the private sector at work.
There is a lot more potential that was there that should have been realized. One of the things that surprises me about these amendments that are before us now is that this appears to be the last little thread. Even Maggie Thatcher on her worst day when she was selling off the assets of the British government, at least had the common sense and the common decency to say that at least it ought to be retained in the hands of people from this country.
This government seems to reject that notion. I do not know why it would be so anxious to reject that. I am not certain at all why it would take a business decision at the moment. It appears to me, at least, to be a very bad business decision. In the middle of an energy crisis, it seems to me you would look at something like Petro-Canada as an asset, not a liability. It seems to be making money. That is my definition of a good business proposition.
As strange a notion as this is, there are those who believe in the world of corporate socialism. I am not one of them. Obviously the members opposite on the govern-

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ment side believe in that kind of socialism. They believe that all taxpayers in Canada ought to fund the corporate sector somehow.
If you look at the government's tax policies, it certainly does that. If you look at this particular bill, it seems to follow in the same vein. The government feels that somehow the people of Canada had an obligation to set up an oil company; to bear all of the costs, trials and tribulations it would take to get that set up, then at the point where that company might make some money, it ought to be sold off to the private sector. I do not understand that.
Petro-Canada seems to be a corporation that has developed a role for itself. It is certainly not the role that I would want it to play. I have a much higher set of expectations for it than the government does.
It seems to me that during the committee proceedings members from all three parties and people from Petro-Canada accepted the notion that we could do some very good things with this oil company, that this would give us an opportunity to develop things that are environmentally sound, to make our people more conscious of their energy use. It would make sure that we had a constant supply of energy. We certainly have gone to great pains all across the country to see that there is a network in place to do something for this corporation and for this country; that it would ensure our constant energy supply.
I do not know why the government would reject amendments such as these. It seems to me that they are minimal at best. It seems to me they simply address that this is a company which the people of Canada put a lot of money into. I do not think anyone has an accurate total of what the total taxpayer investment is in Petro-Canada, but it has to be huge.
It does seem that there is a vendetta here; that this current government still is chasing Pierre Elliott Trudeau around. It might gather up some sympathy from me on that, but it does seem to me that it has not used common sense. Here is an opportunity to retain a corporation with great potential that is beginning to do something useful, and it ought to try to retain it. I am not sure that it is their ideology. I am not sure that that is the right word. This is certainly Tories of a different stripe at work than the ones that I am used to.
The amendments that are before us are amendments that ought to be supported by all members. They are certainly minimal. They are amendments which attempt to keep some Canadian connection in Petro-Canada. It seems to me that this government, even in privatizing it, wants to do that.
I read the proceedings of the committee and I looked for the arguments that said why the government would not accept these amendments. To tell you the truth, I did not find them. Perhaps they are here. Perhaps during the remainder of this debate, one of the things the minister might do for us is instead of standing in his place and giving us a little diatribe about ideology, he could address the amendments that are before us and provide the House with some rationale as to why the government is not prepared to accept the amendments that are currently before the House.


John Horton McDermid: I did.


Michael James Breaugh: The minister is yelling across the House that he did. I followed the proceedings in committee and the debate in the Chamber this afternoon, and I have not heard that. There is at least an obligation on the part of the minister at some time during the course of the proceeding to intervene and provide us with a logical, rational explanation of what the government is up to. I do not believe we have heard that so far and I would appreciate it if the minister would do that before we finish up this particular part of the debate.
I want to conclude on this note. I have never been much of a fan of Petro-Canada, to tell you the truth. It has never done the things that I wanted it to do in my community. It has not exactly been a great asset. What it has been is an oil company, like any other oil company, charging the same amount of money, putting small operators out of business, tearing down service stations and putting up self-service gas stations. That is not exactly my version of what Petro-Canada should have done.
There were good arguments made during the course of the committee proceedings and good arguments here on these amendments which indicate to me that we ought to retain this. We ought at the very least to accept the amendments that are before us and see if we could take something, even if the government feels in its own heart of hearts that it does not belong there. They have it. It is
December 6, 1990

an asset, and it is beyond me why this government does not try to utilize that asset for the people of Canada.


Mr. Sid Parker (Kootenay East):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on the amendments to Bill C-84, an act respecting the privatization of the national petroleum company of Canada.
I am very pleased to see that the Minister of State for Privatization is in the House. Perhaps I could comment with regard to what the minister said in 1979.
The Conservative minority government at that time was in an election. It talked about privatizing Petro-Can-ada, and half way through the election campaign decided that the Canadian people did not want that, and so reversed its decision.
I will start off by stating what the late Tommy Douglas, New Democratic Party Leader, said in the House of Commons on November 15, 1978:
Every person who has looked at the situation knows that any
industry which controls the energy resources of a nation has its fingers
on the windpipe of that nation's economy.
Petro-Canada itself represents the clear choice, in his words:
- the choice in this country is whether or not we are going to develop the petroleum resources of Canada for the benefit of Canadian people, or whether we are going to continue to be the economic colony of which our vital energy resources are owned and controlled by foreign multinational corporations.
I am alarmed at what has happened this term in this House of Commons since I came back in 1988. We have seen the privatization minister involved with the privatization of Air Canada, VIA Rail cutbacks, Canada Post cutbacks in our small rural areas, shut-downs and signing contracts in other areas of Canada Post without legislation.
This is privatization without legislation of the worst kind where people cannot even discuss or work out the policies.
What we have is a government that is incompetent, one that has found itself in financial difficulty with its high interest rate policies and high Canadian dollar, and is finding itself in financial straits and starting to sell off its assets.
As a New Democrat, I find that very offensive, because not only has it put us deeper and deeper into debt but it is now selling off its assets at a whirlwind rate so that
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there will be nothing when other governments come and tiy to take over after it has left.
It is going to cause future governments some very serious problems with regard to the privatization that has taken place in trying to bring it all back.
Now, I would like to, if I may, quote what the Minister of State for Privatization said in 1979. Even the current privatization minister took great pains to emphasize the Canadian ownership line on December 11, 1979, and I quote:
-only eligible Canadians-eligible Canadians-should be permitted to own shares in Petro-Canada and only eligible Canadians-Canadians, I repeat-should be entitled-


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The hon. member is quoting me out of context. I have the page from Hansard here. I will pass it over to him. I want him to read the entire quote so that it makes abundant sense. He is misleading-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: That is not a point of order; it is a point of debate. The hon. member for Kootenay East has the floor on debate.


Sidney James Parker: Mr. Speaker, I can understand why the minister would be sensitive to my remarks. He wants 25 per cent to be sold to anyone and this amendment is calling for 1 per cent, so I am sure he minister would be very disturbed at this.
Let me continue to quote from Hansard of December 11, 1979, at page 2255:
- Canadians, I repeat-should be entitled to buy shares in the after-market. I have stated many times that the shares must go to and remain in Canadian hands.
This indeed is a reversal to what the minister was saying in 1979. It shows the rationale for the legislation that this government is bringing forth and putting before this House.
I want to commend both the New Democrats and the Liberals for bringing in amendments. We cannot stop the government from attempting to privatize, but surely to goodness we can protect the interests of Canadians to ensure that we are not going to be dominated by foreign capital and foreign investment coming in and taking over something as important as the energy of our country. We just cannot stand idly by. We must speak out against this. We must urge this government to support our amend-

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ments. We must also urge this government to start paying attention.
This government passed a bill for $1 billion of Canadian taxpayers' money to be invested in Petro-Canada, in the Hibernia oilfields. We asked at that time that refining be done in Canada if we were going to be spending that kind of money. The biggest and most profitable part of this industry would be in refining and, if Petro-Canada was able to do its job, it would enter into the refining process instead of letting it be done in the United States and having the Americans get all of the benefits of the large investments that were made.
We have a government that is determined to privatize. We have a government that is not listening to the people and to what their concerns are about where we are going. The last I heard, oil was selling on the market at somewhere around $30 to $33 a barrel and large profits are being made by the oil companies. This government decides it is time to sell off a portion of Petro-Canada. That is not acceptable to us.
If it is going to happen and if this government is determined to go ahead with the policy, then we are saying: accept our amendments and ensure that the Canadian people will be the shareholders and that 25 per cent of the ownership will not go outside Canadian hands. We are asking this government to reconsider and to support our amendments.
There is another amendment to the bill regarding the president and the officials of the company. It requests that they also be Canadians so that the top people of the industry will be making decisions in interest of Canadians because it is headed by Canadian people. Again we urge the government to support that amendment.
The government is not always correct when it drafts a bill. Surely it can admit there is some improvement it can bring about to upgrade a bill. Perhaps it could sometimes accept some of the good amendments that the opposition on the other side puts forward. I urge the government to consider not only the amendments but to reconsider the bill itself. I urge the Minister of State for Privatization to take a back seat on this one and withdraw Bill C-84.


Mr. Jim Karpoff (Surrey North):: Mr. Speaker, I am one of the people who has had a life-long fascination with the oil industry, having grown up in one of the
original oil patches in Alberta in the Black Diamond Timer Valley oilfield. I can remember, as a child growing up, that the whole discussion in that community focused on the development of our oil and gas industry in Canada. I lived there at the time the Leduc oilfield was discovered. The shift from the town was almost wholesale as it moved from the Timer Valley Black Diamond area to Leduc.
Even at that time people were concerned about who was controlling our industry, who was going to benefit from our industry. Would it be foreign oil companies? Would it be the average resident of Alberta? Would it be the Canadian public with reliable, cheap energy resources? Or, would it be turned over to the free enterprise international marketplace?
Unfortunately, over the years a far too great percentage of our petroleum industry has been controlled by foreign capital and foreign investment, where the profits have been taken out of the country and where the decisions being made are being made not in the interests of Canadians, but in the interests of the profits of a foreign company.
Of all times for Canada to be surrendering its only instrument in policy in the petroleum industry, now could not be a worse time. Right now we are in the middle of the gulf crisis, and the gulf crisis is about oil. Anyone who thinks it is about anything else other than the control of oil fields is sadly mistaken.
Last winter I had the opportunity to spend two weeks in the gulf area, in the United Arab Emirates, another one of the Arab countries much like Kuwait. It is an oil producing country wherein the oil productivity is only benefiting a very select group of people; not the average person and not the workers of which 80 per cent are imported, but the wealthy sheikh families.
This is basically what we have done in this country, only we call them corporations. We have let the large multinational corporations control and direct our oil industry, not for Canadians but for the benefit of themselves.
We have a piece of legislation before the House that is bad. It is wrong. It is fundamentally wrong, particularly at this point in time. We are trying to get the government to show some reason, some understanding, and accept some amendments that would at least make sure that,

even if it were privatized, it would still be in the control of Canadians.
We are suggesting two or three amendments. First, the people on the board of directors must at least be residents of Canada; not even Canadians but at least residents of Canada so that hopefully the decisions will continue to be made in Canada, not in the boardrooms of the United States.
Second, we are suggesting that we must reduce the percentage of permissible foreign ownership. Right now under the present set-up we could end up with the effective control of Petro-Canada being outside Canada. If you have three foreign owned blocks, two of them with 10 per cent and one with 5 per cent, 25 per cent controlled by three co-ordinated companies that were foreign, and the rest of the shares dispersed across the Canadian public, with a 25 per cent block you could control that company effectively. There are many corporations in this country that are effectively controlled by a 25 per cent block of shares.
We are willing to pass legislation that says we will let effective control be in the hands of foreign companies. That is shameful. It is a total bewilderment to me as to why the government would do this, particularly in light of the free trade agreement which says that once you establish a maximum that becomes the minimum base. We can never bring that percentage back down. It can only go up. It is very critical that we look not only to the immediate future but to the long term. We must be able to regain control of the petroleum industry and ensure that it is very minimal, that no more than 1 per cent is controlled outside of Canada.
One of the things the Conservatives talk about is that this privatization is a part of their great economic plan. Their great economic plan has led this country into a depression, an economic slump. It is very interesting to note that both free enterprise parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives, have in the last 10 years brought this country twice to its knees. In 10 years they have brought the country twice to its knees in the form of recessions.
Quite frankly we sometimes forget that is what the free market is all about. It is a manipulation of the economy. It is throwing the economy open to all the
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manipulations that take place without protecting individuals. We saw the results of it in this country when the Liberals brought us into a depression in 1981 and 1982. Now the Conservatives are doing it again.
This privatization is part of that. It is a blind privatization. Many of the industries in this country that have been government run and government sponsored have been some of the best businesses and industries. Particularly I look to British Columbia where the B.C. government had to take over B.C. hydro and it became a Crown corporation, a very effective Crown corporation.


An hon. member:: There are lots of good examples in British Columbia.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Yes, I have lots of examples from British Columbia of where the private companies could not run ferries economically, efficiently, or any other way. Finally the B.C. government had to take over Black Ball Ferries and form the B.C. Ferry Corporation, which is now being run on a very service oriented basis and is providing a vital link and service to the people in that province. It is one of the biggest ferry fleets in the world.
We have the whole insurance system in B.C. We have mentioned earlier that it was brought in as a Crown corporation and now provides the best, the most efficient, and the most effective automobile insurance in all North America. It also retains its earnings in British Columbia. It does not send its earnings to Hartford or Zurich or Allstate or wherever else they have their headquarters. It has all its offices in the province. It has all its assets in the province. It has been a vital economic boon to that province.
What we are going to lose with the privatization-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret the hon. member's time has expired.
Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The questions have to be put on Motion Nos. 2A, 14A and 19.1 will put the question first on Motion No. 2A. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.

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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), the recorded division on the proposed motion stands deferred.
The question is on Motion No. 14A. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), the recording division on the proposed motion stands deferred.
The question is on Motion No. 19. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), the recorded division on the proposed motion stands deferred.
Motion Nos. 4A, 6A, 8A, 12A, 15 and 23 will be debated and voted on separately.


Steven W. Langdon: Motion No. 4A
That Bill C-84 be amended in Clause 9 by adding immediately
after line 26 at page 3 the following:
"(a) provisions requiring that all unrefined hydrocarbon product produced by Petro-Canada be refined at a refinery located in Canada;".
He said: Mr. Speaker, this particular motion is to suggest yet again a way in which we can see to it in the future that Petro-Canada contributes more fully to the country than if simply left to marketplace dictates. A private company, which had not been paid for, whose creation had not been established by the people of Canada, could not be expected to simply follow a course which required refining of unrefined hydrocarbons products produced by Petro-Canada in this country.
This motion attempts to set out a requirement for Petro-Canada that all hydrocarbon products which are pumped out by Petro-Canada will have to be used for refining purposes within this country.
I think it is important that the contribution of this company to this country be constrained, that it be required in the future to be as great as possible to the people of Canada.
How do you do that? You do it through a number of mechanisms. You do it by some of the mechanisms which we have been debating about ownership, which I hope will ultimately be accepted by this House. You do it through suggestions on the important environmental role which Petro-Canada can play in the future. You also do it by emphasizing a Canada-based refining policy for this company. It is not, it seems to me, something that runs against the previously expressed views of the Conservative Party.
The minister of privatization got into an exchange with one of my colleagues about a quotation which he claimed had been wrongly quoted, taken out of context by my colleague, and indeed by a number of my other colleagues earlier today. In fact, what my colleague was quoting when he quoted the statement of the minister
December 6, 1990

was that Petro-Canada should be owned only by eligible Canadians.
What he was quoting was the minister's reference to a task force of the Conservative Party which had been established. It was a task force whose recommendations had been endorsed by the minister and other members of the Conservative Party. One would have thought, therefore, implemented at this stage by this government, it would be a Canada-first approach to Petro-Canada privatization.
In practice, however, that is not the approach which has been taken by this government. When my colleague, the member for Edmonton East, brought forward suggestions such as this within committee, these suggestions were rejected by the Conservative government majority within that committee.
It has been very clear that what we are talking about here is seeing to it that the Canadian resources which are produced and extracted by Petro-Canada create downstream jobs in this country; jobs in the refining industry, indeed jobs beyond the refining industry. Specifically, the jobs within the refining industry should be expanded by a commitment that Petro-Canada will see to it that all refining take place in a refinery located in Canada.
It is especially important at this stage because we are talking about a period in our country where the Conservative government, as it has done in the past when it has been in power, has led us into an economic slump.
We recall the period of John Diefenbaker's government when the Conservatives were last in power for a six-year period. At that stage it was successful, as usual, in reducing economic activities in this country, in leading us into an economic slump, in creating levels of significant unemployment through this country, and in exacerbating the economic inequalities among regions throughout this country. Now, once again, with this Conservative government that we now have back in power under the Prime Minister that we presently have, we see precisely the same devastation to our economic situation taking place in 1990 as took place under the Diefenbaker government in the early 1960s.
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It seems every generation or so, it is necessary for Canadians to elect a Conservative government, go through the devastation, the learning experience which is required to teach them that the Conservatives should be kept out of power for yet another generation. I am certain that this will be the case with respect to this government.
One of the reasons that it will be the case is that our unemployment rate is approaching 9 per cent. It is likely to go over 9 per cent this Friday. In the context where that is taking place this government is, nevertheless, not prepared to accept an amendment which creates jobs in Canada by seeing to it that downstream refining activity by Petro-Canada is a requirement of this legislation.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, it will come as no surprise to you that we cannot possibly support this amendment which has been proposed by the New Democratic Party. I am not sure if the hon. member was at committee at the time, but it was indicated very clearly by the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources that this amendment would be a direct violation of GATT.
As a matter of fact, the New Democratic Party is always talking about GATT and how important it is. It says that we should abide by GATT, we should not have a free trade agreement and we should deal with GATT. Yet, GATT said that this particular clause would be inconsistent with the GATT. That is the first reason why we would not bring it in.
The second reason we would not accept it is because we would be tying the hands of Petro-Canada. If they could not export oil they discovered but cannot use economically in its own facilities, sometimes heavy oils or whatever it may be, can be exported for refinery elsewhere.
The other problem is that he does not describe what refinery is. How far down the process does the New Democratic Party want this to go? There are many products that are made as feedstocks from petroleum products down the line, that are not made in this country, for example. Therefore, he would be tying the hands of the Canadian company. All the other Canadian companies could export but Petro-Canada could not. That is silly. That type of thing, I would assume, not being a lawyer, would not be allowed by the Supreme

Government Orders
Court of Canada. That is discrimination of one private company over all the other Canadian private companies. Let's face it, we cannot accept this particular amendment.
I am enjoying this debate so much that I would like to see it continue. Therefore, I move:
That the House continue to sit beyond the ordinary hour of
adjournment for the purpose of continuing consideration of report
stage of government Bill C-84, an act respecting the privatization of
the national petroleum company of Canada.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The House has heard the terms of the motion. Will those members who object to the motion please rise in their places.
And more than 15 members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: There are more than 15 members. Therefore, the motion is deemed to have been withdrawn.
Motion withdrawn.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: I was rising on a point of order, Mr. Speaker, but I think it has been answered. I wanted to find out about Private Members' Hour, but I gather it will go on after this. Is it at 5.11 p.m.?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Yes, at 5.11 p.m. The hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River has the floor on debate.


Derek Vincent Lee: Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak very briefly to this amendment proposed by the New Democratic Party, Motion No. 4A.
When there is a bill before the House and you sit in opposition and you want very much to see the bill not passed, you sometimes have difficulty participating in some of the debate surrounding the bill. You propose amendments in the hope of making the bill better, even though you do not like the general thrust of the bill. That is where I find myself today.
This particular amendment is pretty bold in its intent. I see the purpose, but I find that the amendment as it is drafted falls very far short of the standard of precision that is necessary for a statute here in this country.
The first thing I would note is that the amendment is very unclear and very unrefined in what it means by "an unrefined hydro-carbon product". One starts with the crude that is pumped from the ground, which may or may
not already have an additive to help bring it to the surface. Maybe that is unrefined-minus-one. In any event that additive must be taken out and this particular phrase "unrefined hydro-carbon product" does not make it clear whether one is free to deal with a semi-refined or semi-unrefined product. It really is not workable.
The second item is that the amendment as it is worded would require Petro-Canada to bring back to Canada all of the hydro-carbon product that it would pull out of the ground from anywhere in the world. Petro-Canada is participating in oil development plays all around the world, including southeast Asia. I hate to think it would have to build one of its own refineries just to deal with a level of production somewhere else in the world. It is not a good amendment from that point of view.
Another example, related to the same thing, is what does this require Petro-Canada to do with the product produced in Hibernia, where Petro-Canada is about a one-quarter partner? Does this require Petro-Canada's one-quarter share of the Hibernia product to be refined in Canada? Right now, that one-quarter share or its undivided interest in the whole production would be shipped to a refinery, I understand, in the United States. Given that the Newfoundland refinery at Come-By-Chance is not geared up and properly built to refine the crude product being pumped at Hibernia, I appreciate the thrust of this amendment. It is an attempt to make us have a fully, completely comprehensively, vertically-integrated oil company in Canada and it falls short of the mark of accuracy and precision that we should have here in the House.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I would just like to follow up on some of the things that the minister has been saying during the course of the afternoon with respect to this motion and also on his other comments. He has made general comments about the ideological nature of the debate, regardless of what amendment we happened to be debating at the time.
It seems to me that the minister labours under an illusion with respect to the nature of ideology. Ideology is a word for the general concepts out of which a particular political party or an individual works. One generally develops one's ideology out of an analysis of what will most readily achieve the goals a society, or a particular country, has set for itself. In that sense, ideology is not a bad word. It just means that there are
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differing ideologies and differing analyses about how we achieve these goals.
Ideology is only a bad word when it seems that people are no longer operating out of an analysis any more but out of a commitment to an analysis that may have been developed in a different situation but no longer applies to the current situation. On that basis, I would say that it is the government, and not the opposition, which is operating in the negative ideological sense.
As the minister himself has indicated, Petro-Canada is involved in only 6 per cent of the oil and gas activity in the country. If that is the case, why would the government be obsessed with getting rid of Petro-Canada unless it had an ideological commitment-in the negative sense of what it means to be ideological-to get rid of any and all forms of public ownership? If it is not ideological in that negative sense of being committed to a particular analysis, regardless of the fact that in this case public ownership is hardly massive in the oil industry in Canada, why would it not allow that Crown corporation to exist even as a form of strategic insurance so that should the day come when we wish we did have a publicly-owned oil corporation for strategic purposes in an energy vulnerable world, it would exist? Surely, this should have been the intelligent option for a government committed to privatization.
It could have kept an umbrella corporation called Petro-Canada and privatized elements of the activity of Petro-Canada. It could have kept that strategic capability by still having a form of Petro-Canada that it could activate and use in future if that sort of action was required on the part of the government. But the government did not do that. The reason it did not do that is because it is the government that is operating out of an ideology, in the negative sense of what it means to be ideological, not the opposition.
All we are suggesting here is that it makes good sense. It is practical to keep PetroCan as a possible future instrument of public policy. If the government wanted to put that instrument of public policy into a state of suspended animation for reasons of its own pursuant to how it perceives the current context, that would be up to the government. What it is doing here is writing off, for good, the possibility of that public policy instrument ever being revived. That is a very serious mistake, but typical
Private Members' Business
of the kinds of things that this government has done over the last six years.
Instead of making judgments and formulating policies which embody its will for the moment, it has done things such as signing the free trade agreement, privatizing Petro-Canada, and a variety of other things. It is implementing its view of the appropriate policy for the moment which proscribes forever various other options that other political parties, other governments, and other Canadians might want to take in the future. That is the most serious political crime committed by this government, the proscribing of future options.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It being 5.11 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.


PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS-BILLS   CRIMINAL CODE AND SUPREME COURT ACT MEASURE TO AMEND
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Tuesday, October 23, consideration of the motion of Mr. Domm that Bill C-210, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Supreme Court Act (habeas corpus) be read a second time and referred to a legislative committee.
Mr. Doug Fee (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by congratulating the hon. member for Peterborough for presenting his private members' bill, Bill C-210, to improve the extradition process. I have received comments from many people commending the hon. member for his perseverance on this issue and his over-all dedication to the cause of justice in Canada.
I regret the necessity to make amendments to our Extradition Act. As a Canadian, I am embarrassed that we have such a slow and cumbersome procedure, one that appears to allow foreign fugitives to languish in Canadian custody at Canadian expense, rather than face justice in their own country.

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Private Members' Business
Many members of that public have become discouraged, disillusioned, and even mad about what they see about a lengthy and expensive process that seems to deny justice, rather than expedite it. For this reason, these amendments have been applauded by the media and public alike.
The hon. member for Peterborough did a good job of explaining what the bill accomplishes and how it can shorten the time from initial requests to final decision by up to a year and a half.
There has now been close to a month elapsed and, very briefly, I would like to go into how the extradition process works right now. To begin with, when an individual who is suspected or convicted of a crime in another country crosses a border into Canada, and authorities of that country become aware that he is here, they would make an official request to Canadian authorities to extradite him. The Canadian authorities would then have to ask a judge of a county or superior court to issue a warrant to arrest that fugitive and place him in detention before surrendering. The judge would issue that warrant if the other nation's conviction of the fugitive is proven or if the offence he is accused of in the other nation is an offence in Canada.
At this point, the individual may apply for a writ of habeas corpus to another superior court judge to be removed from prison. That is, in effect, to block the extradition. The individual at that point would be questioning his liability for extradition. A judgment would be issued on that writ of habeas corpus which the individual can then appeal to the court of appeal of the province he or she happens to be in. In this appeal hearing, there is no production of evidence, no witnesses, and no cross examination, but simply discussion of the legal issues. Assuming the appeal is denied, in the present system the individual can then request permission to appeal that decision to the Supreme Court of Canada.
The case would then, assuming it is upheld again, be referred to the Minister of Justice who must wait at least 15 days from the expiration of the date of the final appeal before indicating his or her decision as to whether or not to surrender the fugitive to the other nation's authorities.
It goes on, because the individual can then attempt to challenge the decision of the minister to surrender or extradite him.
The second stage of recourse is much narrower in scope. The individual may apply to the Federal Court and then appeal to the Federal Court of Appeal. If unsuccessful, the individual can ask permission to appeal that judgment to the Supreme Court of Canada again. This is an extraordinary remedy.
I do not want to comment on the specifics of the Charles Ng case, but it is significant to recognize the desire of the Minister of Justice to expedite a final decision in this case, which has been dragging on in the Canadian courts for far too long.
The minister has referred the appeal of the minister's decision directly to the Supreme Court, thereby significantly shortening the second level of appeal.
In future cases, we do not want the minister to have to make direct referrals. We want to improve the system. Bill C-210 does that by removing two levels of appeals, one to the provincial court and the other to the Supreme Court.
The minister since our last debate in this House has made a response to the report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Solicitor General. Quoting from that, she has offered serious consideration and discussion leading to a new act or significant amendments to the present law.
I applaud her decision, but I do not feel they should preclude the interim improvements such as those proposed in this bill. The study will take some time. We have the opportunity for action and improvements now. Passing this bill will signal our resolve to improve the Extradition Act and help restore some waning confidence in our justice system.
The minister's study may well offer more substantial improvements, but if we can act on this bill we will show our determination to tighten the system and make our country with its legal system less appealing to foreign fugitives.
I do not see any reason at all why this House should not unanimously agree with the principle in this bill and get on with it. In fact, if the New Democratic Party had not filibustered last month when the bill was first
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introduced, it could have been off to committee and possibly even back here for third reading and approval today.
The principle in this bill has the support of tens of thousands of Canadians. From my own riding I presented thousands of signatures on petitions calling on the Government of Canada to do exactly what this bill proposes. These petitioners do not want Canada to become a haven for foreign fugitives from justice. I have not met or heard from a single Canadian who supports the status quo. These people want an indication that we are prepared to act, and act now.
It is important to keep in mind that the individuals affected by these amendments will still have the opportunity to appear before Canadian courts. They will still have due process available to them. An individual who is not a citizen of this country will still have their rights protected. They will still be entitled to have their cases heard and appealed.
This bill simply limits the number of those appeals and it will make Canada slightly less appealing as a haven for foreign fugitives.
I would also suggest that the average Canadian, and I include myself in this group, cannot comprehend why we have such a problem and why we allow it to continue. How can a non-Canadian charged, accused, or even convicted under the laws of another sovereign nation, tie up our legal system for five to six years.
Why are we willing to spend so much money and time to keep them from answering charges in their own country? I cannot answer, and I do not understand.
I am not a lawyer. However, my understanding of law has always been that the purpose of law is to establish order in society and to protect the values, safety and security of that society.
I would suggest that if the law goes too far in protecting the rights of the individual without requiring any responsibilities, there is a very real danger that the law is going to have the effect of destroying the very society that it sets out to protect.
That destruction starts when the members of society lose confidence in the law, begin to ridicule it and hold it up to contempt. This act and recent cases involving it are
Private Members' Business
one instance where to protect individual rights, we have allowed a situation where the law is attracting abuse and contempt. We cannot allow this to continue.
The present system takes too long. The chances of convicting a guilty person must reasonably decrease with the passage of time. It is wrong to allow someone to use the Canadian legal system to stall for time while witnesses' memories fade or witnesses move or die. Even more significant, while our system slowly moves, victims and victims' families wait for justice.
I am sure that we are all agreed that everyone is entitled to due process, but justice is not served by delaying resolution. The Canadian taxpayer is not served by allowing foreign fugitives to languish in Canadian jails at Canadian expense. Let us pass this bill.
Let us improve our system of extradition and show Canadians that we are reasonable; that we believe in and accept the need for due process; but also that we believe in the responsibility of the individual to answer for his or her actions and that we refuse to allow foreign fugitives to hide out in the Canadian judicial system. Let us approve this bill.


Derek Vincent Lee: Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to rise to speak to this private members' bill of the hon. member for Peterborough.
It deals with an area of law that a number of us in Parliament have been looking at very closely over the last year or two.
I recall in January of this year the former justice minister addressing the issue publicly as an item of very compelling public interest. On the one hand he had certain function quasi judicial to take care of which prevented him from speaking too much on the issue but, on the other hand, he had his public responsibilities here to the people of Canada and to us in the House of Commons.
Certain commitments were made at that time to address the area of the Extradition Act and the Fugitive Offenders Act. A few months later in the justice committee, the current justice minister and officials appeared and indicated that the matter was under study. We all know that the matter has been under study for a long time and it is still being studied and I, for one, cannot

December 6, 1990
Private Members' Business
figure out why approximately three statutes are taking so long to decipher and a solution so long to be generated.
The hon. member for Peterborough with this private member's bill has provided the House of Commons with an opportunity to address this problem area directly and concisely. I gather that if the bill is passed by members, it can go to either a legislative committee or the justice committee which would take a closer look at some of the administrative implications.
The way this area of law is structured now-it is not embarrassing to stand here because it is a public issue-if the public was truly aware of the duplications, the complications, the conflicts, the redundancies, the absurdities, in the four federal statutes that govern this area, people might be lined up at the front door here. I do not get a sense of good management here; I get a sense of terrible management and a lack of interest. I grant that there have been other public issues in the justice area, that have kept the justice minister busy like gun control, the Meech Lake Constitution process, the abortion issue and other very compelling national matters, but these provisions in the Extradition Act and the Fugitive Offenders Act, the Corrections Act, and the Immigration Act are starting to embarrass us and, as my friend, the hon. member for Red Deer, just mentioned, there are 25 or 30 million people in the state of California trying to figure out what 25 million people here in Canada are doing. They cannot figure out how someone who is a U.S. citizen can suddenly show up on our doorstep and camp out until we no longer have any use for him.
I have read the provisions of the Immigration Act which state very clearly that an individual who is incarcerated can be removed or deported, it is very simple, upon the expiration of the period of time which he must serve in an institution, and that is approximately two-thirds of one's sentence.
I do not want to mention the individual's name, there is not need to, it has been mentioned in the House, but why the immigration officials did not go to the penitentiary in which that convicted person was and have him dealt with at a deportation hearing the day after two-thirds of the sentence had passed, I do not know. Since that time we have been participating, along with him, in what has become a growth industry involving our legal aid system, our judicial system, up and down, back and
forth, to and from, the Supreme Court. This is costing us all money, not to mention the embarrassment. We do not seem to be able to move a body out of this country when it is obvious from our Immigration Act that we have the authority to do so. We just continue to sit back and do nothing.
We can remove an individual who has not committed a crime, but we cannot get rid of an individual who has committed a crime. This is an absurdity. I know in other parts of the world, if an individual of this type were to show up in another country and officials in that country were aware of it, that person would have a hearing. Depending on how the hearing turned out, the person would be taken to the airport and sent back home where he or she belongs.
People in this country are tired of providing safe haven to criminals. We do not mind being the haven to convention refugees under the United Nations Charter. We have done an admirable job and we are justifiably proud of what we have done. It has cost us dearly but we are happy to do that. But we are not happy to be a safe haven for criminals.
This particular bill gives us an opportunity, if I may use the term, on a fast-track basis, to take that narrow focus of extradition law, the focus of the difficulty we are having now, pass it at second reading, move it to a committee and then, hopefully, pass it into law and assist the justice officials and the Minister of Justice in completing this area of badly-needed homework.


Mr. Bob Horner (Mississauga West):: Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure for me to rise in the House today to support this private member's initiative from the member for Peterborough.
This is only one of a number of issues that the member for Peterborough has taken on and, believe me, he has great tenacity. I believe that something has to come of this bill. I would like to see the bill put to a vote today. I would like to see the bill referred to the justice committee. I do not see why we have to re-invent the wheel. We have already submitted a report with recommendations to the minister. I could read part of this report. Before I do that, I realize that I only have 10 minutes, and I would like to discuss the emotional issue of this. I heard my friend from Scarborough-Rouge River discussing 25 million people in California who cannot understand what
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25 million people in Canada are doing. He is absolutely right.
I know the Department of Justice is very concerned about extradition and the length of time that these things take. It is hard to talk about these things without referring to the cases of Mr. Ng and Mr. Kindler. What we are doing here in the House today may not affect those cases but may affect future cases which will come before this country and cause us to be a total embarrassment and a safe haven for fugitives all over the world. We know that people in prisons in the United States plan their escapes to Canada because they know they are not going to go back.
What has happened in the second week of November? Mr. Bruce McLaughlin, an assistant deputy minister in the Department of Justice, along with other government officials, went to Sacramento, California. They talked with people. They spoke with Paul Cummings, the District Attorney from San Francisco. They spoke with John Martin, the District Attorney from Calaveras County. They spoke with Mr. Eidelberger from the California State Attorney General's department, plus people on the Ng task force. There are people in the United States who want this man to go back and face a trial in that country. They are saying that if you are going to send him back with conditions that apply to your country and do not apply to ours and if you are going to send him back with conditions that the capital punishment situation can never come to pass, we do not want him. It is costing the taxpayers of this country $100,000 a year to keep that man here.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I am concerned that the Ng case is before the Supreme Court of Canada for decision right now. We are not supposed to be commenting on cases. As the member knows, this bill does not affect the Ng case at all. The Ng case is almost totally irrelevant to this bill.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I must suggest to the hon. member that if he would not mention the case that would be sufficient.


Robert Nesbitt Horner: Mr. Speaker, I hope that the intervention will not be taken off my time. I did mention that I realized that the provisions of this bill do not apply to the Ng case.
Private Members' Business
This afternoon representatives of Victims of Violence, a fine organization in this city, telephoned some of the victims. I have always in my political career, when I talked to someone, tried to put myself in their position. I would like members of this House to put themselves in the position of the people who have lost loved ones, who do not know where their loved ones are, who have no idea where the bodies are hidden. They spoke to different people. I will name a few. They spoke to Richard and Sharon O'Connor in California, and they said they support the California stand. They spoke to Virginia and David Nestle, and they support the California stand. They spoke to Dwight Lola of Stapley and Joy Ireland, and they support the California resolution. They spoke to Roger and Marlene Geraldton and family, and they support the California resolution. I could go on and on. This is a very emotional issue.
Let us get to the mechanics of the bill that were very well explained by my colleague from Red Deer. The NDP does not like this bill. I congratulate the Liberal Party for supporting us on this. What we have here is the current extradition process: the extradition hearing and it moves to a writ of habeas corpus. From there it goes to an appeal, a relevant provincial court appeal. From there it goes to appeal to the Supreme Court. Then it goes to the Minister of Justice for a decision. The minister's decision is appealed then to the Federal Court Trials Division. Then it is appealed to the Federal Court of Canada Appeals Division. Then it is appealed to the Supreme Court, and they start over again. This is absolutely ridiculous. It has to be fast-tracked in some way.
All we are asking to do is to remove two parts. The NDP says: "We don't want these parts removed because you must have an appeal to the relevant provincial court of appeal". However, what I am informed is that when you take away that appeal you have to put something in its place. You have to put in an appeal to a three-judge tribunal.
We are not asking for a big thing. We are asking for a small step to make Canada have some respect in its laws. We have submitted in the third report of the justice committee four recommendations to the minister. I could read from it: "The committee has considered aspects of the law and the process of extradition", and so

Private Members' Business
on. We go on with four recommendations. The NDP says: "We support these recommendations".
However, our recommendations were not accepted at this time by the minister. The minister stated her reasons. She goes on to say in the conclusion as well: "The recommendations raise broader issues which require thorough consideration". Fine, let us take one small step. Let us support this private member's initiative.
We all remember the times when private members did not have a say in this House. They did not have very much say at all. The McGrath commission changed that, and now we have private members' bills that pass. In the last Parliament we had five private members' bills of great significance that passed. In this Parliament I want to see one pass, and I want to see this one pass.
I know that the NDP caucus members have great deep feelings for these victims. I know that they feel as deeply as I do. However, they cannot take a stand against this bill in all good conscience and I can tell you why. I have in my possession a letter from the former justice critic of the New Democratic Party, the member for Burnaby- Kingsway. I would like to read this letter into the record. The letter is to George Bears, Director, Victims of Violence. It reads:
Dear Mr. Bears:
My colleague, Audrey McLaughlin, has passed your memo on to me expressing your concern about the lengthy process of extradition in the Charles Ng case.
I am sorry to mention the case, but it is in the letter. It continues:
I share your concern on this question. I believe that current provisions of the Extradition Act lead to inordinate delays in extradition. There are too many steps in the appeal process. The legal requirement that a fugitive who has been accused of an offence in Canada (not the extradition offence) or who has been convicted and sentenced for a crime in Canada, cannot be surrendered until after he or she has either been acquitted or has finished serving the sentence imposed by the Canadian court is unacceptable. Indeed, in contrast with this mandatory wording, the treaty with the United States provides that surrender in such a situation is discretionary.
This was from the justice critic of the New Democratic Party. In his last paragraph he writes:
In light of these weaknesses in the Act, I am preparing a Private Member's bill to respond to these concerns and to tighten the Act. I
will be pleased to send you a copy of my bill when it has been
drafted.
I have never seen it. I have checked. There is no such bill, but there is a bill from the member for Peterborough. I ask for the NDP to support this bill, put it to a vote, refer it to the justice committee, and let us get things done in this Parliament.


Derek Vincent Lee: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. In the ordinary course of the rotation in the House, I think it would have been a turn when a member from the Liberal caucus would have spoken. Having spoken with the hon. member for Peterborough and others, we feel that in the interest of attempting to expedite the process and not delay it we would defer at this time. Perhaps the Speaker would want to move to the next spot in rotation.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, let me reply to some of these points. We want to speed up the extradition process too. We think it is a flawed process. That is what the former critic said.
First of all, I want to point out that the Ng case does not affect this bill or this bill does not affect the Ng case. The Ng case is before the Supreme Court of Canada. It is going to decide. It has nothing to do right now with this bill. We are talking about the future.


Mr. Domm:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I hope that member of the New Democratic Party would respect the concerns spoken in this House earlier and try, whenever possible, not to refer to the Ng case.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Touche, touche. That is right, but this bill is dealing with the future. That is what we are dealing with, so let us deal with this bill.
The process needs streamlining. We all agree with that. There is a solution to that. The solution is the report of the justice committee, signed by the member for Mississauga West, who was the last speaker for the Conservatives. As the member said in his own speech, it was not accepted by the Minister of Justice. That was a three-stage procedure.
Now the member for Peterborough comes along and introduces a two-stage procedure. Does the member for Mississauga West really believe that the Minister of Justice is going to accept a two-stage procedure when she thought a three-stage procedure was too fast? Come on now, let us not have hypocrisy here. Come on, let us be honest with the Canadian people. Let us quit scoring
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cheap politics. This is cheap politics. The solution is in the justice committee report. We want a streamlined system. We want a legal system.
Let me tell you about the flaw in the bill. I will go through the procedure, as did the member who first spoke suggested. Right now there is an extradition hearing. There is an appeal by a writ of habeas corpus. That is not anywhere in our law. That is a common law right. Then there is an appeal from the habeas corpus. The reason there is an appeal from the habeas corpus is that the habeas corpus is heard by a judge at the same court level that hears extradition cases. It could even be the same judge. That is why there is an appeal from that. That is why, if this bill goes through, the courts are liable to declare the bill unconstitutional. The courts are liable to declare the bill as violating the charter of rights.
You ask me what is my authority for that. My authority is the legal opinion of the justice department of the federal government which states exactly that on page 6 of the report.


William Henry (Bill) Domm: It is different entirely.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: No, it is not different entirely. It is exactly on that. It makes sense too. It makes sense because how can you not restrict an appeal from a habeas corpus? If you start restricting that, you will be in some deep constitutional problems. What will happen-I won't mention the name Ng-and hopefully it will not happen is that if another fugitive comes here and gets a smart lawyer, the lawyer will go to court on this bill and delay it even further. If we pass this bill we will be in a bigger legal morass. We will be in deeper.
What we have to do is get smart. We have to put the onus on the Minister of Justice and follow the recommendations of the justice committee, which was a unanimous report that made legal sense. It streamlined the process.
Let me go back again in this process. Right now there is an extradition hearing, a writ of habeas corpus, an appeal from that, then an appeal to the Supreme Court, then a decision of the minister, and then there has been appeals. That was what Mr. Ng was doing, appealing that to the Federal Court and to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is going to make a decision soon and likely, whichever way it decides, that will eliminate about
Private Members' Business
three steps because that case will already be decided; the issue being: How does the charter of rights apply if you want to send someone out of the country where there is capital punishment in the other jurisdiction or there is harsh and unconscionable punishment? That will be decided. If we were smart, we would wait for the Supreme Court. The decision is pending now. We should wait for that decision. That will likely eliminate three parts of the procedure. Then what will we be left with? The member for Peterborough's bill, which will be an extradition hearing, a quick habeas corpus, and then out of the country. That is too fast, and it may be illegal and unconstitutional.
There are all kinds of future cases we may have on extradition. Remember Leonard Pelletier? He is now languishing in a jail in the States through trumped-up evidence, which legal scholars now agree was a pretty unfair hearing. We have to get a procedure that is streamlined but fair. My colleagues and I do not like what is going on with Mr. Ng and so on in those kinds of cases. We want to streamline the procedure, but we want it to be constitutional and legal.
I said there was hypocrisy. The government put up more speakers than the NDP. The Liberals have almost put up more speakers than the NDP, but we are getting blamed and they are putting up the speakers. The minister, who told me personally that she was against the bill, and the parliamentary secretary, who is against the bill but does not want to speak, will put it off to this committee and then prorogue Parliament. That will get the best of both worlds. They will claim to the victims of violence that they let it go through. Then they will claim to the justice department and the lawyers that it did not really go through. That is hypocrisy. The victims of violence are owed better by this government and by members of Parliament. We have to be honest and straightforward.
It is not easy to stand here and take the flak that is going around. I believe it is the truth, that this is a flawed bill, that it will get us into deeper legal morass, that there is a better way of doing it, and that the better way is the justice committee report itself which is legal, streamlined and the way to go.
If we were the government over there, in two months we would have a government bill and we would streamline this process. We would not engage in this hypocrisy.

Private Members' Business
I am surprised that the Liberals are falling for it, quite frankly.


Mr. Keyes:: Then the Liberals should be government.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Well, we will see. I just want to read what the committee said in its third report: "The committee believes that the Extradition Act can and must be streamlined by eliminating some of the steps available in the process, but this must be done in a manner consistent with Canada's international obligations and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms".
Right on, and here is what you do. You take that and you have an extradition hearing. You cannot stop a writ of habeas corpus. It is in English common law. It has been there forever. You have the writ of habeas corpus, and there has to be an appeal from that. You cannot stop that but you can have one appeal, not two appeals. You do not allow two appeals, you allow one appeal from that and then you have the minister's decision. The Ng case, when it is decided, will have dealt with most of the other points about sending them to the United States. When we have dealt with that, we will have a streamlined procedure which works.


Derek Vincent Lee: We'll do it in committee.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: The hon. member says, "We'll do it in committee". We cannot amend this bill in committee.


Derek Vincent Lee: Nonsense.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: It is not nonsense. You cannot add to a bill. I have just been in committee this afternoon trying to add to the young offenders bill and had all my amendments ruled out of order. You cannot add to a bill.
The way to do it is to have the government bring in a bill. This bill is going to die anyway because the House is going to prorogue. Let us be honest with the people, the victims of violence. Why do we not put our efforts into getting a government bill that works? Bring in a government bill that works early in the next session of Parliament. We will put up a speaker, and we will put that bill through. You know that-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member's time has expired.


Mr. David Kilgour (Edmonton Southeast):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to say, at the outset, speaking in favour of the bill, that the member who just spoke, the member for Port Moody-Coquitlam, I have known for a long time as a prosecuting counsel. I think we started the same week or month in Vancouver together down on Main Street. I want members on all sides of the House to know that I have high respect for his intellectual honesty, both as a lawyer and as a parliamentarian.
I am confident that he is speaking from the heart and from the head on this issue. He genuinely disagrees with the bill for reasons which he has just stated. In fact, he was kind enough to make available to me a copy of the justice department opinion which was tabled some time ago, and I understand fully the complaint and the concern which he is expressing.
I would remind the member that former Senator Eugene Forsey, in his memoirs, A Life on the Fringe, has made it clear-and I think all members should read that book, particularly the chapter where he talks about some of the legal opinions which came from the justice department in his career. The member for Port Moody- Coquitlam knows perfectly well that a lot of opinions coming from the justice department, and I speak as someone who used to work in that department, are full of holes and are rubbish. It depends, as he knows, on who has prepared the opinion. Maybe he knows who did the opinion but I don't. Perhaps he knows whether it is worth the powder to blow it to Hades.
If this bill goes ahead today, the legislative committee considering it will be able to call for legal opinions of all kinds, including, of course, the justice department. We will be able to amend the bill to take out any probable unconstitutionality in it. The member may think that is impossible but I submit that it is worth trying.
The situation is sufficiently serious that this is at least a step forward and, if it is unconstitutional, through you, Mr. Speaker, to the member, we can try to take out any possible problems with unconstitutionality under the Charter of Rights. I would urge the member and his colleagues not to talk the bill out at 6.10 p.m. today, which is in about 20 minutes.
I would like to pay my respects to the member for Peterborough, to all of the members who have taken part
December 6, 1990

in this issue, and to the about 100,000 people who have signed petitions in favour of the principle of this bill.
I also would point out, although it has now gone by the boards, that the member for Peterborough asked each party to speak for 10 minutes and not longer today and then, by unanimous consent, we could have a vote. As an independent member, I will not speak for the full 10 minutes. I would simply make a plea to members of the New Democratic Party, because I think all other members here are agreed to let the bill go to committee, not to filibuster the proposal and I would give them three reasons. Earlier today we heard eloquent tributes in this House to the women who were killed in the tragedy at Ecole polytechnique in Montreal exactly a year ago today. How is it consistent for us in the same afternoon not to try to push this bill into committee, at the same we are all very distressed about what has happened in Montreal, across the country, and probably in every one of our constituencies?
I gather we are not to mention the name of one of the accused. That again is the sort of mythology that goes forward. That is considered to be improper. I know the member for Burnaby-Coquitlam is aware that so many of the victims of these kinds of violence are women. How can we do something to light a small candle for these victims? Is it not better to push this bill into committee than to talk it out and say that we will bring in a better one next time?
I would point out to the members of the New Democratic Party that a recent New York Times article has estimated that there have been 250,000 homicides in the United States over the last 10 or 15 years. Would sending this bill to committee not speed up the day to come when people like the two people I am not to mention will find it harder to seek refuge in Canada, or sanctuary in Canada, than many have found it today?
Mr. Speaker, I might say as a former prosecutor of a number of homicide cases that there is now considerable dissymmetry between Canada and the United States, as I think the member for Scarborough-Rouge River pointed out. I recall a murder case in Alberta where the accused fled to California, her co-accused was tried in Fort McMurray. When she was found in California, as far as I can determine, the immigration authorities
Private Members' Business
simply put her on an airplane, told the RCMP in Vancouver when she would be landing, and she was arrested at the airport and brought back to Alberta for trial.
That may not be pretty, it may offend all of us who believe in the rule of law, but that is the kind of dissymmetry that operates now between our two countries on matters like this. Do any of the members think that if the unmentionable person had committed these alleged crimes in British Columbia that the authorities in California would have waited very long before they would have shipped him back to face trial in Vancouver?
Something is wildly out of whack, I put it to the member. If the bill is not perfect it is better than what we have now, and it is a step forward, I put it to them.
Mr. Speaker, I think my time is up. I would urge the three members of the New Democratic Party who have not yet spoken in this debate, but have the remaining time following the speaker from the government side, to think seriously and recognize, I believe-although I am not allowed to refer to people in the gallery-that there are thousands and thousands of concerned people in Canada who think this is a step forward, not a measure that might be unconstitutional. I would urge them to think very seriously of what they are doing before they talk this bill out in the next few minutes.


Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, I want to speak briefly to this bill and do so from the perspective of someone who is not a lawyer. I do not apologize for not being a lawyer-


Ethel Dorothy Blondin-Andrew: Thank God.


Don Boudria: My colleague behind me says "thank god I am not". I can reassure her that that is not the purpose of this intervention.
The reason I mention those words is because to the average constituent that each of us has, the fact that someone can be a convicted murderer, enter this country, be arrested and have more rights as it were-perhaps not technically, but in reality-because he or she was arrested as opposed to not being, is just a little beyond the comprehension, I would suspect, of a number of our constituents.
Frankly, it is beyond logic simply because, as some people have indicated in the past, if you catch someone at the border you just send them back. If you catch

December 6, 1990
Private Members' Business
someone in Canada who is here illegally, you send them away, Mr. Speaker.
But if they are arrested and put in jail, they seem to have means of appeal available to them that they would not otherwise have. That is very disturbing.
Some colleagues today are discussing whether or not this bill has a chance of being law. Others are mentioning that it does not really have a chance. Maybe we should talk it out instead, because if we do give this bill a chance, it might die in committee because the House will likely prorogue if the government gets some of the legislation that it is looking to get, namely, the government perhaps launching its goods and services tax bill and then proroguing Parliament.
Whether that will happen or not, Mr. Speaker, frankly I do not know. It might very well, but what do we have to lose by giving this bill a chance in committee. The bill could proceed to a committee. We could deal with the issue there, and if the bill is not satisfactory, perhaps we can amend it.
My colleague, the hon. member for Scarborough- Rouge River has mentioned that the bill, in his opinion, is fine the way it is. Witnesses will no doubt contribute. Members will contribute their knowledge. The justice department will give its advice and so on, once it reaches committee stage.
That being said, what if we arrive at a situation where we discover this bill does not do all those wonderful things that we expect. Incidentally, it does not dramatically change that many things. It might remove a few levels of appeal, but there are still a number of them left.
Even if we deem it at that point to be unacceptable, what on earth stops us from defeating the bill at report stage or at third reading? There is nothing at all that stops us from doing that later. That is only if the bill does not work at all and if this bill is worse than the present condition.
There is no proof that I have heard today or the other day that convinces me that we should absolutely talk this bill out to ensure that it is not discussed in committee in case it passes afterwards and in the unlikely event that it is worse than what we have now.
I have heard no such evidence. What I have heard from the vast majority of members of this House is that this bill is an improvement over what it is now. For those who do not think that it is an improvement, there is ample opportunity to make that case and to convince other members at committee and to act accordingly, of course, once the bill comes back to this House.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: I hesitate to interrupt my friend, but I just want to check with the Chair. I understand this will be a votable bill after so many hours of debate here.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: In another hour it would be.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I suppose our friend is technically correct. This bill is a votable bill, but it is not necessarily votable today.
Individuals could talk it out with, of course, the hope that by the time the bill comes up again in the House of Commons for debate, Parliament might have prorogued by then.
The issue of prorogation might come in again, but from an entirely different angle. There might be those who would like the bill to be talked out one more time in the hope that it will not come back up.
In any case, we will see a little later if the vote is permitted today. Of course, there are two means by which we could complete this bill today: first, we could, of course, extend the hours. That is certainly possible, and everyone could speak to his or her heart's content.
Second, the other way of doing it is simply for a member who would not wish for this bill to proceed to talk it past the hour of termination, which I believe is 6.14 p.m. or thereabouts today. Of course, that process will delay the bill until next time.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The member might be inadvertently misleading the House, but I understood this is a votable bill. The member is indicating that for some reason it may never come to a vote. It will come to a vote.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: That is not a point of order. It is debate. The hon. member has the floor.
December 6, 1990


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, if the member was not knowledgeable on procedure, those points of order would be almost excusable. But he is, of course, far more knowledgeable than that and his points of order are totally ridiculous.
He knows of course that the bill will be votable, but not necessarily today. I was just explaining how one could ensure that the bill was not votable today by either talking it out or using some other means, in the hope that Parliament will have prorogued before the next time it comes up. That is not today. Of course, we can vote on it today. In a few minutes from now, we will have that tool available to us.
The hon. member from Port Moody-Coquitlam a little earlier today said that this bill might not be amendable in committee. That depends. Under rule 773 of Beauchesne, even if his amendment which he says is required, is in fact required-and that is yet to be determined- it would be out of order only if it went beyond the scope of the present bill. I am not convinced that his amendment would bring the bill, as amended, beyond the scope of what it is already. That is to be determined.
In any case, I am not even convinced that the amendment is required. That is to be determined at parliamentary committee, as our colleague I am sure knows. He knows far better than some of the things he has been telling us.
Other members could perhaps convince us that they are not very knowledgeable. For this member to pretend that is just a bit much because we know him well. We know of course he is very clever and very knowledgeable, in terms of parliamentary procedure, the law, and everything else. Therefore, I do have some difficulty with some of the arguments that he is putting before us today in terms of the reasons why we should not proceed with a vote today on the bill and continue talking on it for some time to come.
The ideal situation for us today would be to terminate this debate prior to talking out the time- talking out the time for today, I want to add, so that I am not again interrupted on a point of order by our colleague from Port Moody-Coquitlam. Before that talking out time today, which I believe to be 6.11 p.m., we should vote on
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this bill. We should vote at that point before 6.11 p.m. this afternoon.
If some members do not want the bill to proceed to committee, they can vote against it. I happen to think it should go to committee. The people who have sent me here are fed up with seeing what we see now. The convicted murderers of other countries come here because this is a way that they can delay, or possibly evade altogether, trials or sentences that they would otherwise be subjected to in their own countries.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, I have sat here with a great deal of perplexity because I have found out that the Liberals and the Conservatives are accusing the New Democrats of talking the bill out, but then I find out that all of the discussion has been by Conservatives and Liberals.
The last time this came up the NDP got one speaker in two minutes. Today we are going to get one speaker and I guess I am going to get five or six minutes. If the members wanted it to proceed, why did the Conservatives put up two speakers again today? The Liberals put up two speakers, and an independent person, who cannot decide whether he is a Liberal or a Tory, spoke.
The issue of extradition is an emotional one. I want to make it very clear that the New Democratic Party supports the recommendations made by the committee. It was an all-party committee which reported unanimously. Many of the people who spoke today were on that committee.
The committee stated that it believes that the Extradition Act can and must be streamlined by eliminating some of the steps available in the process. But this must be done in a manner consistent with Canada's international obligation and Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It recommended a three-stage proposal.
What we cannot understand is why the minister simply has not brought forward a bill based on the committee's recommendation. It is the responsibility of the minister to bring forward legislation.
We are beginning to be perplexed about this new justice minister, particularly those of us from British Columbia, because we have seen her fumble every piece of legislation she has been responsible for. There was the abortion legislation which nobody likes; the gun control legislation which she basically had to withdraw by

Adjournment Debate
shuffling it off to a special committee; and now, her inability to draft proper legislation that will streamline the extradition procedures that will hold up in court.
It is very nice for people to pass a bill such as this, but the result may be that it would delay extradition. We have seen in Canada where flawed legislation simply goes before the court and delays and delays. All sorts of constitutional arguments come forward that delay the process for years.
If we are going to have proper extradition procedure, let us do it right. Let us make sure that we have legislation that will accomplish what we want, which is a speedy extradition procedure, streamlined and legal which will hold up in court and protect individual's rights. There are times when people come to Canada who are being extradited, where their rights have not been protected in other countries. We must guarantee that this kind of thing does not happen.
One of the things that is now happening, and it would be arguable, is that the legal opinions simply say that the bill would be unconstitutional and that we are then going to have litigation again.


Don Boudria: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps you would want to ask the House if we could get unanimous consent to proceed with the remainder of the time at second reading today so that we could have a vote today on this bill. In other words, that all five hours of this bill be dealt with today.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. members:: No.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I do not believe this is particularly in order and my friend is more of an expert than I am. But it seems to me we have a process for dealing with a bill. We deal with a bill for three hours, as I understand it. We have a vote at the end of that period. That is the procedure we see. We are quite prepared to have a vote at the end of that period.
We would prefer to push the Minister of Justice into a bill that really works. I think this is out of order, but I am waiting for a ruling from the Chair.


William Henry (Bill) Domm: A point of order, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Well, we only have a minute left before 6.11. The hon. member for Peterborough has the floor on a point of order.


William Henry (Bill) Domm: I do not wish to delay this matter, but by way of correction, we have three hours at second reading. We now have completed almost two. What is being asked is for the third hour that is before second reading vote take place now. Any member who wanted to speak could speak, and then we would refer it to committee. I turn it over to you, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam is right. So are the other members. The House can do anything it wants, if we get unanimous consent. We did not get unanimous consent. Therefore, we cannot do it.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I wanted to know if it was in order to do this. It seems to me we are changing the procedure. I have not had any experience of this procedure of ever being changed. I do not know if it is in order. You cannot get unanimous consent for certain things if they are already in the rules, it seems to me.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: We could agree not to see the clock and continue for another hour to complete the bill, but we did not get unanimous consent. Therefore, there is no sense in talking about something that is hypothetical. I heard a no.
It being 6.11 p.m., the time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired. Pursuant to Standing Order 96(3), the order is dropped to the bottom of the list of the order of precedence on the Order Paper.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
In accordance with Standing Order 38, a motion to adjourn the House is deemed to have been moved.

Mr. Bob Speller (Haldimand-Norfolk):: Mr. Speaker, I, and many others who value our Canadian agriculture industry, take strong objection to the answer of the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs to my question of November 22, 1990.
The minister took no time to refute recent editorials, consumer groups, and foreign governments which have been attacking supply management. He is leaving it to us

alone to set the record straight. Let's be truthful and get the facts straight.
Prior to the 1970s and the establishment of marketing boards in Canada, the dairy industry and prices of dairy products to consumers were continuously experiencing roller coaster highs and lows. Farmers could never rely on a stable income and the consumers' food budget was always fluctuating, creating financial instability for all concerned.
Economic policies based on the vicious laws of supply and demand are responsible for the surpluses and create the prices below the cost of production that we find in the United States and Europe. With no controls the market is flooded with surpluses and milk producers begin consistently to overproduce, creating huge stockpiles of butter, cheese, and non-fat dairy products.
Producers finally concluded that the only way for them to provide high quality products to consumers and achieve stability and a fair return for their labour and investment was to implement a production program to manage supply. Most importantly, our supply-managed system was implemented within international law, under Article XI of GATT.
Our dairy production is regulated to meet Canadian demand for dairy products, with adjustments for traditional imports and exports. Under supply management, the dairy industry produces a high quality product at a fair and reasonable price. Perhaps equally as important, Canada is now nearly self-sufficient in dairy products.
To say that dairy farmers are inefficient is a blatant lie. Since the introduction of supply management, milk yields have increased about 70 per cent in Canada, compared to 46 per cent in the U.S. and 31 per cent in New Zealand.
These groups continually talk about Canadian consumers being penalized by higher prices. Those who talk about the inefficiency of supply management neglect to mention that, while milk may be cheaper in the U.S. than in Canada, American milk is sold below the cost of production. U.S. producers are subsidized with tax dollars through surplus and herd buy-outs. The consumer pays in the end.
A popular conception by the media is that marketing boards and supply management systems are actually a form of subsidization. Supply management provides a
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fair return for producers from the marketplace without using huge amounts of taxpayers' dollars.
When supply management was first implemented under GATT, it was understood that subsidies were something that came out of the tax base.
Now the U.S. in particular is trying to argue that if consumers pay more than world price, that is a subsidy.
The GATT aggregate measure of support is a calculation used to qualify all government support programs for an industry and give these programs a monetary value. This calculation supposedly allows GATT to determine which support programs are trade distorting and which ones are not.
For the Canadian dairy industry, the AMS calculation considers both the domestic world price differential and the direct payment to producers. Such a calculation is misleading as the basis for 86 per cent of AMS calculation as it applies to the Canadian dairy industry is simply the difference between Canadian milk prices and world prices.
Such a calculation is irrelevant, and it is unfair because world prices reflect dumping by countries of the subsidized surplus production. The fact is that world prices are far below the actual production costs for most dairy producing countries.
The sensible marketing strategy these economic wizards appear to suggest is for our dairy farmers to produce huge surpluses below the cost of production. Yes, dairy producers and those who raise products under supply management in Canada have viable and successful operations, but does anyone ever stop to think of the huge investment they have had in their operations, or the 75-plus hours a week? They work milking cows twice a day like clockwork for 365 days a year.
It appears instead that these groups believe that dairy producers, and for that matter all farmers, do not deserve to earn a decent living for their families. Do they not have the right to a stable income? Do these groups expect them to accept a lower standard of living than other Canadians, living off the land?
Those agricultural sectors without supply management are continually plagued by boom and bust. Would these people like to have their salary go up and down like a yo-yo? The Department of Agriculture has predicted that farm incomes will fall by 25 per cent this year. What

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would these people do if their salaries were decreased by a quarter? How would they manage?
For that matter, how would we manage without a healthy food sector? On condemning supply management in our agricultural industry, these people all too often forget the importance of agriculture to our total economy.
recognize that supply management is a very important part of the Canadian long term agricultural policy.
I can assure everyone that the federal government is very committed to supply management, and that commitment is very firm. It is also clearly endorsed in our discussion paper Growing Together that we are all very familiar with.

For example, today there are some 35,000 dairy farmers in Canada. Each of these farmers supports two families; hence, there are some 70,000 farm families that depend on the dairy industry.
The supply management in Canada has been very highly successful in reducing market risk to producers, and I am sure the member agrees with that, preserving the family farm and ensuring that consumers have access to high quality food products at reasonable costs.
In addition, there are approximately 25,000 Canadians working in the dairy processing industry at nearly 400 plants located across this nation. The total number of people directly employed by the dairy industry is close to 100,000 Canadians, which represents approximately 14 per cent of the total aggregate business and employment.
Critics of supply management in agriculture forget that other sectors also have management of supply. Do you think General Motors or any other auto manufacturers produce an unlimited number of cars? What about subsidies and safety nets? If everything was based at world price and it is going to be considered a subsidy in agriculture, how long would it be before our social programs, old age pensions, CPP, OHIP, et cetera and other types of safety nets will also be considered as subsidies?
In conclusion, farmers are only asking for what other Canadians want, the right to earn a good living and support their families by hard work and struggling. We have built an agricultural industry that is envied the world over. We must not allow it to be destroyed.


Mr. Murray Cardiff (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister, President of the Privy Council and Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be able to respond to the member's concerns and the indication that they stand alone.
That is certainly not the case. This government has demonstrated many times how it supported supply managed sectors and the farm industry in this country. We
Since the introduction of supply management, price instability has become a thing of the past and Canadians have been assured of products of the highest quality and safety in the world, which are very important.
Price increases for supply managed products have generally been lower than for other foods and products. Over the last four years, the average increase in the Consumer Price Index for dairy products, turkey and eggs was less than 3 per cent. This compares favourably to that for all food at 3.9 per cent and for all items 4.4 per cent.
Canada's support for supply management is embodied in our position in the Uruguay round of multilateral trade talks in these negotiations. We all know that we tabled our position last March to clarify and strengthen article 11, and we know how important that is to the supply management sector.
The agrifood sector has a lot at stake in these talks, and we are hoping and working very diligently to make sure that we have a successful outcome to those negotiations and the GATT talks.
With regard to the dairy industry which we believe is the best in the world, this government has put in a five-year dairy policy that previous governments had failed to do. We have a poultry task force working with the farmers as well. But our position of maintaining supply management is firm and very well known.


STATUS OF WOMEN
Dawn Black: Mr. Speaker, I have stood in this place many times stating sobering statistics on violence against women, and here I am again tonight.
Tonight, let us forget the figures. Let us philosophize about a theme: the penalization of feminism. That is exactly what the Montreal massacre was about. It was about killing women who considered it natural to study a profession that interested them; women who did not realize that they would be physically punished for being feminists, unwitting feminists.
Like them, thousands of other Canadian women are punished for wanting self-sufficiency. Why did Chantal Daigle have to resort to wearing a disguise, sneaking out of the country and sleeping at a campground in order to access a medical service? Why, despite Supreme Court opinion, do Canadian women now face the possibility of being forced to reproduce by having to deal with doctors who could be branded criminals at someone else's whim? Why are women, who demand to exercise their own priorities, being in the words of a former chief justice, "profoundly interfered with"? Because these women are becoming too revealing. They are revealing their feminism. So, they seem to deserve punishment.
How bizarre it is that this government can criminalize a perfectly safe medical function and yet deliberately resist criminalizing the unwarranted possession of guns, whose prime function is to slaughter? One-third of these victims are women.
Why such blatant hypocrisy? Because, in each case women chose to choose, to practise feminism, something which unless punished enough, I suppose, might become a habit.
No wonder this government turns a blind eye to the lawmakers, interpreters, and enforcers who explain away violence against women by citing a number of things. They cite temporary loss of control, or work-related stress, or misunderstood signals from women, or my personal favourite, "She got what she asked for". Of course she did. She stood up for herself. She sought help. She fought back. She was a feminist. She was wrong. She had to be told.
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If feminism is so wrong in the eyes of this government, why bother reprimanding anti-feminists at all? Why bother giving three day sentences to confirmed wife batterers? I stand corrected. In some instances only a weekend sentence follows; the compassionate judge having made allowances for men who cannot miss their Friday night rituals. Mind you, I am not really complaining. Feminists have rituals, too. We have vigils. We call them vigils to help us remember those whom the judges forget.
Why even consider issuing demerit points, you know, the kind of demerit points that are issued to school yard bullies to university men who threaten their female colleagues with rape. Is it my mistake again, Mr. Speaker? In the University of B.C. case, none of the men has been officially sanctioned, nor are there signs of a formal inquiry in the works. Forgive me for suggesting that there should be. What can I say? Perhaps I want too much.
Why should we give so-called street women an economic break by allowing them to communicate the sale of their bodies in private? Or is once more my feminism leading me astray? To give credit where credit is due, this government has ensured that even those women who want out of prostitution will have problems finding decent work, thanks to their criminal records and a pitiful lack of reform programs.
The insults of women having to sneak around, sneak across the border for abortions; of prostitutes having to consider themselves outlaws except under the wink-wink, nudge-nudge circumstances; of women having to see their efforts undermined in a gun control bill whose very introduction came because of their efforts; of women having to get handcuffed to keep women's centres open; of women having to beg police officers to charge the accused, or plead with judges to sentence offenders adequately, and of women's votes being lured with hollow promises of a national child care program while domestic violence continues to dig the graves of Canadian women and children.
These realities contain two messages. First, that feminism has become such an integral part of the consciousness of Canadian women that it now threatens established power. If a threat cannot be destroyed, it must be disciplined. It must be punished.

December 6, 1990
Adjournment Debate
The second message is that under this government the early 1990s are echoing the early 1890s, when the Criminal Code made birth control, and advising about birth control, illegal, and when etiquette manuals proclaimed that "women who overtax their vital energies by intellectual strain are self-made invalids and must accept the penalties of their position."
Penalizing feminism, Mr. Speaker, will not make it go away. It will only make it stronger. Female enrolment in engineering programs across Canada is higher than ever. Feminist resolve to amplify voices until government stops punishing them is greater than ever. The ultimate goal is clearer than ever: to liberate men as much as to liberate women so that "feminism" can be uttered by both sexes without anticipation of penalty.
This feminist will now await her penalty: three minutes of watching the government apologize first and give select information to puff up a pathetic record on action on violence against women.
Mr. Speaker, the penalty hardly suits the crime.


Murray Cardiff: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the hon. member realizes and recognizes that it is difficult to respond to all of her concerns in three minutes on the very delicate and very sincere situation and the concerns she has raised.
The government and the judiciary are keenly aware of the problem of judicial attitudes to issues such as gender equality and child sexual assault which may result in the making of ill-considered remarks. This was one of the reasons why the federal Minister of Justice of the day, along with his provincial and territorial counterparts, and the Canadian Judicial Counsel, agreed to establish the Canadian Judicial Centre in 1987.
One of its core functions is to respond to the educational requirements of both the federally and provincially appointed judiciary in Canada by designing judicial educational services to meet the requirements of the Canadian Judiciary and Skills Training, continuing professional education and professional enrichment.
The centre has become a central forum for the development of educational programs on gender equality for all levels of judges in this country. The centre is jointly funded by the federal, provincial and territorial
governments. The commitment of the federal government to the work of the centre is demonstrated by the fact that the level of financial support to the centre has recently been doubled.
The Minister of Justice considers the centre to be an appropriate body to assist the judiciary in developing a better appreciation of issues such as equality of the sexes, child abuse, and family violence, issues in which it has thus far shown considerable interest and concern.
The Canadian Judicial Council in conjunction with the Canadian Judicial Centre provided a course on gender equality at its 1990 summer seminar for federally appointed judges. This course was mandatory for those attending the seminar and focused on gender issues in the court room and in the application of the law.
Furthermore, the training seminar is given to all newly appointed judges and includes mandatory sessions dealing with gender issues. The Minister of Justice has called a National Conference on Women and the Law to be held in late 1991.
Continuing traditional education is an effective way of impressing upon members of the judiciary the need for the courts to reflect the changes in societal attitudes to gender issues, including child and spousal assault, which have occurred over the past few years.
With the increasing enrolment of women in law schools and especially with the presence of more women judges at all levels of court, attitudes are changing. Judges and law makers are more aware of women's concerns and more responsive to them. Indeed, with 81 women currently holding federal judicial office, including three members of the Supreme Court of Canada, the courts of every province and all the federally constituted courts are to an increasing extent being exposed to the presence and the views of women.


Mr. David Berger (Saint-Henri-Westmount):: Mr. Speaker, everyone is familiar with the old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If one applies this adage to health care, I suppose one would say that preventing disease is better and less expensive than treating sick people. Yet as a society we spend billions on curing sick people and relatively little on preventing disease. This was the crux of the question which I raised in the House last Thursday and which I

had raised on previous occasions in June and earlier this fall.
The federal government spends $216 million on medical research, while it spends only $28 million on health care research which includes prevention of disease and health promotion. While the government spends relatively little on health care research, this is precisely the area that was cut by the Minister of National Health and Welfare in recent months.
In last year's budget, the minister was directed to reduce the expenditures of his department by $12 million. As was pointed out to me by one researcher, this amounts to 4-100ths of 1 per cent of the Department of National Health and Welfare's total budget of some $35 billion. As this researcher suggested to me, when one is asked to cut $12 million out of a budget of $35 billion or $40 billion, the largest budget of any department of the Government of Canada, surely there are ways that this could be done, surely there are ways that the pain could be spread around, rather than cutting the budget of the health care research program by some $4 million, which is what the minister chose to do.
The National Health Research and Development Program is the only funding source for applied health care research. It is the only funding source for areas of research such as cancer prevention, native health care, care for Alzheimer's sufferers, women's health care, health promotion, prevention of child sexual abuse, and prevention of family violence. Again I specify research into all these areas. Yet the minister reduced the budget of this program by $4 million and froze the budget for five years.
As a result of these cuts this fiscal year's competition was cancelled. In other words, no new projects will receive funding this year. And next year, when the competition is re-opened, the budget will be 13 per cent smaller.

To try and understand the impact of this cutback, Mr. Speaker, I recently spent some time meeting and listening to researchers involved in health care research. I met members of the interdisciplinary health research group at the Universite de Montreal. These people were doing research on emergency facilities. It is a known fact that crowded emergency wards are a problem that is very difficult to deal with. I met another researcher who is
Adjournment Debate
analysing decisive factors in the use of preventive services, such as the use of mammograms and Pap tests for cancer detection in women.
Mr. Speaker, many women do not take advantage of these tests. The point is to find out why and to convince them they should use these services.
Because of the cutbacks, these research projects have been postponed for one year, and researchers told me how negative the impact will be. Entire research teams will be lost because research assistants, doctorate-level students and programmers will decide to go on to something else, which means either working for the private sector or pursuing a career in medicine, which is more lucrative than research. Mr. Speaker, these cutbacks are also detrimental to the careers of researchers, since they are evaluated on productivity, the amounts of money they can raise and the number of articles they publish.

I spoke as well to a researcher from the University of Toronto who explained to me how two years ago many health care researchers underwent the difficult task of altering their areas of specialty to come into line with the government's stated priority at that time. The government sets up a program, people move into the field, they develop some expertise and then the government shuts off the funds. Research, this person told me, just does not work that way.
I am disappointed with the minister's reply to my question of why he chose to single out health care research for such harsh treatment. The minister said that this program is 55 per cent larger than it was in 1984.1 never said that he cut 100 per cent of the budget. I only asked him why he cut 13 per cent. That he has not explained.
I will conclude by saying that this sorry episode demonstrates two things: first, the need to restore the funding to this health care research program. I hope that somehow researchers in the field and members of Parliament can convince the minister to do so. Second, we have to give the national health research and development program an independent status similar to that of the other research councils so that cuts of this nature, which are very damaging to research, to health care in Canada and to the careers of researchers will not occur again.

December 6, 1990
Adjournment Debate


Murray Cardiff: Mr. Speaker, I just want to say at the outset, there is no doubt that the federal government is strongly committed to funding health and medical research in this country.
The National Health Research and Development Program of the Department of National Health and Welfare plays a major role in the over-all federal effort, but the NHRDP is not the only federal funding source for health and medical research in Canada. Others include the Medical Research Council, the networks of Centres of Excellence Program, payments under clause 31 of Bill C-22 and other federal departments. Additionally, an extra $5 million is being provided in federal funds over five years to ensure the funding of an additional network addressing research problems related to seniors entirely in the research area normally supported by the NHRDP.
Furthermore, on Friday, November 30, 1990, the Deputy Minister of the Department of National Health and Welfare announced a new $2.5 million joint program with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council to stimulate the creation of centres for health promotion research.
Since we came to office the NHRDP budget has increased by 55 per cent. It was this government that recognized the need for more research related to seniors, AIDS, alcohol and drugs, family violence and child sexual abuse. The number of projects and awards supported by the NHRDP has increased from 640 in 1985-86 to over 1,000 in 1989-90. Since April, over $8 million has been approved for new public health and health service research in addition to the $7 million study on Alzheimer's disease.
I would like to remind the hon. member since it may have escaped his notice that health services and public health research are alive and well in the Montreal area. As well, in the member's own riding $3 million, or more than 10 per cent of the current NHRDP budget is being spent this fiscal year.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: A motion to adjourn the House is deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at ten o'clock, pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.40 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Friday, December 7,1990