1990-06-14

Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of State and 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's response to 17 petitions.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



INTERPARLIAMENTARY DELEGATIONS


Mr. Bob Hicks (Scarborough East):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34, I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, the sixteenth report of the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



COMMITTEES OF THE HOUSE


Mr. Rob Nicholson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the report of the legislative committee on Bill C-54, an act to amend the Criminal Code (joinder of counts) with one amendment.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



SECOND REPORT OF LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE

Mr. Gabriel Desjardins (Temiscamingue):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the second report of the Standing Joint Committee on Official Languages.

In accordance with Standing Order 109, the Committee asked for a comprehensive response within 150 days.
I would ask you to grant me a few moments, Mr. Speaker, to explain the importance of the report we are tabling today. This report may be only five paragraphs long, but it is nonetheless very important.
During the past few months, the Committee on Official Languages has heard numerous witnesses ask the government to submit its regulations under the Official Languages Act, which was, after all, adopted two years ago.
Therefore, the report reflects all the requests made to us to ask the government to table its draft regulations as soon as possible so as to enhance the effectiveness of the Official Languages Act.



PLACE DU PORTAGE BUILDINGS DESIGNATIONS ACT


[Stage Direction]
Mr. Gilles Rocheleau (Hull-Aylmer) requests leave to introduce Bill C-315, entitled: "An Act to Change the Designations of the Buildings known as Place du Portage Phase I, II, III, and IV".
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it the pleasure of the House to allow the member to introduce the Bill?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Mr. Rocheleau:: Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to introduce in both official languages the Bill to change the designations of the buildings known as Place du Portage, Phase I, II, III and IV, in Hull. This Bill asks the Parliament of Canada to honour two persons who have made an invaluable contribution to the development of

June 14, 1990
Routine Proceedings
Canada, namely Mrs. Therese Casgrain and Mr. Jean Marchand.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read first time and ordered to be printed.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: When shall the Bill be read for the second time? At the next sitting of the House?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


PETITIONS
Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to present a petition on behalf of numerous residents of the province of Newfoundland who, at the request of the very distinguished member for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception, have signed a petition opposing the goods and services tax introduced by the mean-spirited government opposite.
These petitioners complain about the fact that they have already been taxed to the hilt by this government. They are opposed to this tax. They feel it will create an onerous burden on small business in particular, will result in manifest unfairness to the taxpayers of Canada and to the businesses that are obliged to pay the collection costs of this iniquitous tax, and they call upon Parliament to reject the goods and services tax.


Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, I too have a petition to present to the House dealing with this terrible imposition upon Canadians of the goods and services tax starting in January, 1991.
The petitioners would like to impress upon the House their strong objections to the imposition of a new tax that will increase the cost of living for all Canadians. It will be inflationary, cause unemployment, and probably higher
interest rates. I understand the Tories all know that, and if they know it, they should not be doing it.
The words of these petitioners are telling these great Tory members, who know all about the dire effects of this tax, not to proceed with this tax at this time.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. David Walker (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition on behalf of Mr. Yih-Sheh Leo, a Canadian citizen and taxpayer who has been put in prison in Taiwan.
Mr. Leo was arrested unlawfully and sentenced to 10 months imprisonment for exercising his right to return to his native land and is currently under indictment on sedition charges facing a minimum term of 10 years in prison.
There are over 200 petitioners from across Canada who call upon the Canadian government to take immediate and effective measures to secure Mr. Leo's release including, but not limited to, the following: issue a public statement expressing Canada's concern over a Canadian citizen's rights being violated; instruct the Canadian Embassy in Japan, or the High Commissioner's Office in Hong Kong, to send a representative to Taiwan; appoint a lawyer to handle the case; and request Canada's allies which have representatives in Taiwan to assist with this case.
This is a very serious case and the petitioners deserve to be heard by the government.
sjc


THE PROGRAM FOR OLDER WORKER ADJUSTMENT
Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard):: Mr. Speaker, in accordance with Standing Order 36, it is my pleasure to introduce a petition bearing 2,657 signatures, and asking the Government to alter the regulations governing the Program for Older Worker Adjustment. As you know, in the metropolitan area, people employed by companies with less than 100 employees are not covered by this program. This is discrimination considering that in Canada, 98 percent of companies are small businesses with less than 100 employees.
Therefore, I dare believe that the Government will listen to them. This is the second petition I am introducing in this regard, but we already have more than 5,000 signatures of persons who are asking that this regulation be amended immediately, Mr. Speaker.
June 14, 1990


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. Brian L. Gardiner (Prince George -Bulkley Valley):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour, under Standing Order 36, to present a petition on the goods and services tax.
These petitioners, primarily from communities in the province of Nova Scotia, are petitioning the Elouse to call on the government to reject the goods and services tax. I know that they will start petitioning the Senate as well, given that the Liberals in the Senate have already given second reading to the goods and services tax.


Mr. Lyle Dean MacWilliam (Okanagan -Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise under the provisions of Standing Order 36 to present a number of petitions against the government's regressive and Draconian goods and services tax measure.
Previously, I have submitted almost 15,000 signatures of residents in my riding opposed to the tax measure. These signatures, however, come from residents throughout Canada, virtually from Victoria to St. John's. There are about 13 petitions here with approximately 500 additional names for the government to consider in terms of Canadians who are opposed to this very regressive tax measure.


Mr. Jim Karpoff (Surrey North):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36,1 have the honour to present a number of petitions, some in both official languages, calling upon the government to abandon its idea of the GST.
The petitioners point out that this is an unfair tax that will hurt the average Canadian and they call upon the government to abandon it.


Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-St. Clair):: Mr. Speaker, I also have the honour of representing the sensible views of citizens of Windsor who have affixed their names to several petitions in the total number of 300. These 300 signatures constitute only a small part of the some 25,000 or 30,000 people in the Windsor-Essex County area who have voiced their protest about the introduction of the GST.
Routine Proceedings
Since they ask for Parliament to defeat the GST, it is therefore at this stage a specific request of the Liberals in the Senate to do their job and defeat the GST.


AIR-INDIA FLIGHT 182 CRASH
Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, five years ago this month, 329 innocent civilians, mostly Canadians, lost their lives as the result of a terrorist bomb explosion aboard Air India flight 182 from Montreal to London.
I have the honour today of presenting a petition which has been signed by over 400 British Columbia residents, including Mrs. Perviz Madon whose husband, Sam Ma-don, was killed in that crash.
The petitioners point out that extensive media research, prominently broadcast on television and radio, has shown that this crime was preventable, that there were many warnings, including a test explosion, and that Canadians have been clamouring for a public enquiry to ascertain the facts related to this disaster and to come up with recommendations that would prevent similar disasters.
Therefore, they call upon Parliament to give Canadians a commitment to hold a royal commission of inquiry into all facts surrounding the Air India disaster of 1985. We must ensure that justice is done in this case.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, I have a second petition which has been signed by hundreds of residents of a number of communities of British Columbia, including my own constituency of Burnaby-Kingsway. It is also signed by residents of a number of other parts of Canada, including St. John's East and other communities, who want to voice their anger and their outrage at the imposition of the federal Conservative goods and services tax.
They call upon Parliament to reject the current proposal for a goods and services tax and to ensure that there is real tax reform. They urge Parliament to cause the government to stop this proposal which will shift the tax burden on to ordinary Canadians through a regressive consumption tax instead of through real tax reform.
Presumably, in this call to Parliament, they are calling upon the Liberals in the Senate to do their job and defeat this heinous tax.

June 14, 1990
Routine Proceedings


Ms. Joy Langan (Mission-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition signed by residents of my constituency of Mission-Coquitlam, and residents of Mission, Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge, Port Coquitlam, Coquitlam, and other areas of the province who, even though the goods and services tax has passed this House, know it is not too late and are calling upon the government to see the light and withdraw this negative tax. In fact, they are petitioning that the government do that.


VETERANS AFFAIRS
Joy Langan: In addition, Mr. Speaker, I have another petition from residents of Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows, Port Coquitlam, and Mission who are seriously concerned about Canada's war veterans and their right to a secure and dignified retirement.
The petitioners are calling on the government to maintain the current level of services provided to veterans through the Veterans Independence Program and to ensure that there is no increase in charges to veterans for board and lodging in institutions for long-term care. It is my privilege to table this petition on their behalf.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. Ross Harvey (Edmonton East):: Well, the beat goes on, Mr. Speaker, and I have the duty and honour today to table a petition signed by 881 wise and far-sighted Edmontonians, some of whom, by the way, Mr. Speaker, reside in your riding, and all of whom are calling upon Parliament-Parliament, mind, Mr. Speaker-to reject the goods and services tax.
It is a simply message, one I commend to the government, and one I most strongly commend to the Liberal majority in the Senate which has it within its their power to kill the goods and services tax.


FOREIGN OVERFISHING
Hon. Roger C. Simmons (Burin -St. George's):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present a petition-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Burin-St. George's.


Roger Simmons: I think the excitement is because the NDP have found a reason to embrace the Senate all of a sudden.
I have much pleasure in presenting a petition on behalf of many Canadians, largely in the Toronto, Hamilton, Mississauga, Downsview, and Burlington areas of Ontario, almost all of whom were bom in Newfoundland and have since moved away, as they make clear in the petition.
The prayer of that petition is that the government would get after the foreigners who are raping our fish stocks. The prayer of the petition specifically is that the petitioners call upon Parliament to stop and correct the international economic injustice that the people of Atlantic Canada are forced to endure.
I have two petitions here which reflect that prayer. I have a number of others with similar wording which say the same thing. The petitions are signed by literally thousands of people in the southern Ontario area. I call upon the government to heed the prayer of those petitions and to do something to stop the overfishing while there is still time.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. Jack Whittaker (Okanagan -Similkameen-Merritt):: Mr. Speaker, the fight does go on.
It is my pleasure to rise, pursuant to Standing Order 36, to present a petition sent in from my riding, fresh off the press, against the goods and services tax. The petitioners have not given up hope that the government will rescind and back off from the goods and services tax and look at a tax system that is fairer to all Canadians.
I add my voice to those voices of the people in Penticton, Cawston, Keremeos, Princeton, and all throughout my riding and other points of British Columbia, who are massively and madly against this tax.


Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to table a petition in the House signed by hundreds of people who are protesting the fact that reading materials will be taxed under the GST.
The petitioners humbly pray and call upon the Parliament of Canada to reaffirm the historic principles embodied in the tax-free status for the printed word by
June 14, 1990

retaining the zero rate in the GST legislation and regulations.
I think, Mr. Speaker, you would agree that it is a very important issue and, with your permission, I want to table that petition on their behalf.


CHILDREN'S BILL OF RIGHTS
Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present a petition, pursuant to Standing Order 36, from a number of people from British Columbia who are concerned about the level of child poverty in Canada.
The petitioners point out that the number of children living in poverty has actually increased over the last number of years and are calling upon the Government of Canada to introduce a comprehensive bill of rights for children as a first step to eliminating child poverty in our country.


VIA RAIL
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, on another matter, it is my pleasure to present a petition on behalf of a number of employees of CP Rail from Kamloops who are asking the government to reconsider its regressive, backward, and silly decision to curtail VIA Rail service in the country.
The petitioners are asking the government, not only to restore the service, but actually to improve the service that we knew when we had the full VIA compliment. They are asking for new investment in a first rate passenger rail service in the country, such as any country the size of Canada ought to expect.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, lastly, I have the pleasure to present a petition on another topic, the goods and services tax, on behalf of petitioners from Kamloops. This brings the number almost to 21,000 people who have spoken out against the goods and services tax. The petitioners are simply asking the government to come to its senses and listen to the 80 per cent of Canadians who oppose this tax.
If this is a democracy, the government should pull the tax, or if my friends in the Liberal party were also listening in terms of democratic procedure, they would ask their colleagues in the Senate to stop it.
Government Orders


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Shall all questions stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Hon. Kim Campbell (for the Minister of Employment and Immigration) moved: that Bill C-77, an act to amend the Immigration Act, be now read a second time and referred to a legislative committee.


Mr. Bill Kempling (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, the amendment to the Immigration Act before the House today has a clear and definite purpose. It is designed to improve our ability to help those refugees and immigrants who require our assistance to settle here.
I would like to emphasize that refugees selected oversees are the main users of our transportation assistance and admissibility loan program.
These refugees are selected overseas in accordance with the government's annual refugee plan, or based on the sponsorship of private groups or family members in Canada. These are, understandably, the people most in need of our services.
Since it was first established in 1951, hundreds of thousands of people have used this fund to finance their medical examinations and transportation to Canada. Without this fund, many of them would never have been able to settle here and Canada would have been much poorer for losing their talents and genius.
The Transportation Loan Program has served us well in helping us meet our overall immigration objectives. It has improved our capacity to reunify families, helped us provide a safe haven for refugees, and eased the admis-

June 14, 1990
Government Orders
sion of people with the occupational and professional skills we need for Canada to prosper and grow.
We want to keep this program in place. We want it operating at peak efficiency. That is why we propose to amend Section 119(3) of the Immigration Act. Over the years, the maximum limit of funds allocated to finance this program has risen from an original $3 million, through $30 million, $60 million and finally in 1986 to $90 million. Few can deny that this money is well invested. Indeed, all past parliamentary reviews of this program have seen the wisdom of granting our request to continue its operation.
The Transportation Loan Program has never been a point of contention in the House. The beauty of this program is that, unlike many others, we get our money back. This is a loan program. The people who tap into the funds pay us back over a period of time and the repayment record is excellent. In recent days, however, so many people have turned to the program for assistance that the fund has been depleted. I would like to reiterate that the money is coming back to us, but the repayment rate, though consistent, is slow. The funds in the program are therefore not being replenished fast enough to meet the escalating demands. As of April 15, 1990 $88.9 million in loans were outstanding. This has left us with only $1.1 million before we reach our statutory limit.
The program's financial situation is such that we have had to curtail the loans being made through implementing a temporary priority approval system. Simply stated, the fact that the current limit is fixed by statute inhibits our ability to respond appropriately and rapidly to the needs of the people we serve. That is why we are asking that the limit be removed from the act and that it be set by regulation in the future. Doing so would enable the government to respond to increased demand for loans more quickly but just as openly.
I must emphasize that the Minister of Employment and Immigration will still have to report annually to the House on the number of loans made under the program and the amount of money remaining in the fund. Moreover, proposed changes to the limit would still be subject to the normal open regulatory process. In other words, while maintaining public review of proposed
changes to the funding limit, the amendments would give the government the necessary flexibility to quickly address the fluctuations in demand caused by the shifting ebb and flow of refugees and immigrants. We would not have to seek a legislative amendment each time there is a work load increase because of events such as those now taking place in eastern Europe.
As opposition critics and others will be aware, there are many approaching demands on these same funds. Canada agreed at a Geneva Convention in 1989 to help ease the refugee crisis in Southeast Asia by admitting 16,000 refugees over a three year period. Furthermore, the government is committed to sponsoring 13,000 convention refugees and designated class members in 1990. We have also indicated that there will be unlimited opportunities for private sponsorship of refugees selected abroad. We continue to encourage the private sponsorship of refugees and dependants and want to ensure through this program that such sponsorships are facilitated as quickly as possible.
The Transportation Loan Program has played a major role in helping refugees pay the cost of their medical examinations and travel to Canada. Without this program it is doubtful that Canada could have earned its enviable international reputation for the care and treatment of refugees.
It is also doubtful whether without this program Canada could meet its current international refugee commitments. If we are to live up to our commitments to the resettlement of refugees and the reunification of families, we need to ensure that Canada can respond quickly and effectively to the fluctuating international demands. That is what Bill C-77 is all about.
In conclusion, I commend it to the House and hope that speedy approval will allow us to get on with serving those people who most need our help.


Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be responding today to the bill tabled in the House, Bill C-77, on behalf of my colleagues of the national Liberal caucus.
First, the travel loans are a positive part of the over-all immigration program. In essence, those loans are available to landed immigrants, convention refugees and Canadian citizens who wish to help their family members

travel to Canada, and subsequently to their points of destination.
The positive element is that this legislation assists those who Canada has accepted, has allowed to come to Canada and has facilitated their reunification with family members coming from various parts of the globe. It helps those who perhaps do not have the financial means. By accepting a convention refugee, it helps the person who might be coming to this country with very little in his or her pocket.
Through the availability of these funds, a individual can obtain a loan from the Government of Canada to bring in his or her family and then repay the loan to the government's treasury. You have a win and win situation. There is the new landed immigrant having the ability to live his or her life with the family and therefore probably become and be a more successfully producing Canadian citizen. That is where the country wins. As well, the loans are ensured.
In 1986-some facts for Canadians watching this debate-after passage of the Immigration Act regarding the transportation loans, the funding was set and capped at $90 million. It has remained at that figure ever since. By September 1989, some 56,000 outstanding loans amounted to some $78 million. For the fiscal year 1988-89, 12,000 loans were made totalling $23 million.
In this bill-I concur with the general parameters of the bill-the loans would move from $90 million as stated in section 119(3) to $150 million, which is obviously a recognition of increased immigration and the demand for these kinds of loans.
The other aspect of this bill is that the minister would have greater flexibility to increase the levels, depending on the demand and without seeking amendments through Parliament. It would have the force of giving the ability to act to be set in regulations, rather than in amendments to the legislation.
I have another point I would like to make. I am hoping, because of greater flexibility through regulations and having a desire to increase the loans, the government will improve those programs. I am hoping that this kind of mindset will be applied to other programs and activities within the immigration program. We have seen cut-backs in the budget recently affecting many aspects of government life.
Government Orders
One hopes and one takes as positive that, if the government is willing to increase these loans, it might prove to be a signal that other services and programs within immigration, such as immigration settlement and integration programs will also see some additions in financial resources. Other services that could benefit are the adoption services, language training and skills training.
One matter which concerns me that I wish to discuss in the House today is that there is no stated minimum, that is, there is no minimum below which these loans will go. I suppose it may be difficult to put a low cap on them, but since the minister has the power to go through the regulations, maybe we would see the current level of funding maintained, if not increased, as opposed to going below a certain threshold. That would put difficulty on them.
The reason I raise this concern is because there was an article on May 11 in The Toronto Star where a spokesperson for the immigration department, speaking on behalf of the government I would assume, suggested that the government might have to restrict interest free transportation loans to refugees. He also stated that the government had decided to cut off loans to refugees sponsored by private organizations when in fact those government sponsors would not be affected. The spokesperson was a gentleman by the name of Mr. Gerry Maffree.
I am hoping that the concerns of May 11, 1990 gave rise to increasing the loans but that they would not indicate a desire that once the regulations are in the hands of the minister and her officials, that the loans are going to be refused and therefore make it more difficult for those individuals to be reunited with their families.
The second element that concerns me, and I think the parliamentary secretary alluded to it in part, is the fact that we are removing from Parliament or the legislation stream or from amendments of our legislation, and putting into the hands of the minister through regulations, the fact that she can determine what those loans will be. I believe there should be some accountability to Parliament, even though we are putting it into the regulations. There should be some pipeline for debate and discussion between the minister, her officials and members of Parliament.

June 14, 1990
Government Orders
Therefore, I have given notice to both the parliamentary secretary and the opposition critic for the New Democratic Party and the Clerk, that I will be moving an amendment at Committee of the Whole, that the minister and her officials will have to keep the Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration advised so that the committee would be able to review the situation.
I suggest that we need this amendment. I know the parliamentary secretary suggested that the minister must make an annual report anyway, and I agree with that fact, but the annual report, with all respect, is a booklet that documents the activities of the last year and is tabled in the House of Commons. What I would be looking for, since we are now moving the program into regulations, is the ability to go beyond what happened in the last year to an update of what is happening and more importantly, what are the needs of the coming year, in terms of the demands on the system.
I would also be looking for the direction of the thinking of the bureaucrats and the minister, so that the standing committee, made up of members of Parliament from all sides of the House, could offer some regular advice. That will not be happening because of what an annual report does. We want to know what may be occurring in the next 12 months. I think that is a very important distinction between ensuring that this comes to the standing committee, as opposed to simply the traditional annual report, which is contained in a very nice booklet and tabled in the House of Commons.
I will be moving that amendment and I would seek the approval of my colleagues on the other side and my colleagues in the New Democratic Party. I also indicated to the minister yesterday that I would be moving that amendment. At first blush she suggested she would able to consider that, hopefully with success, and I look forward to hearing from the parliamentary secretary.
The final point that I would like to address in this debate is the situation as it pertains to potential refugees and family-class members and applicants. We are talking about transportation loans that, at the end of the day, are there to allow families to re-unify. That is the raison d'etre of the transportation loans. What I would like to draw to the attention of the government is that while we
may be increasing the transportation loans, we should also be looking at the other side of the problem, namely, that decisions being made on refugee applicants or landed immigrants or family-class immigrants, are not being made quickly enough. We have a refugee backlog of some 125,000 people. We have a new determination system for refugees that is also experiencing a new backlog of some 20,000 to 30,000 people.
As well, what we are suggesting is this. It is fine and welcomed that we are increasing the loans to meet the demand, but there are people who have been waiting four, five and six years who have yet to be determined on their cases, let alone request a loan to have their families join them. That is the real essence of the problem. We have a refugee backlog that has to be cleaned up.
We, as Liberals, on this side of the House suggested an administrative review that would give the benefit of the doubt to those individuals who have met certain immigration criteria, such as having family in Canada, having a job in Canada, having one of the two official languages, having children born in this country who are indeed Canadians by birth, and showing that they have integrated into Canadian society.
Barring any security or health risks, we have advocated for years that the government accept those people into this country as a way of trying to give the new system an opportunity to survive. This way the system would not be crushed by the weight of this huge refugee backlog, which is the real core of the problem.
In terms of family reunification, these individuals are not getting a decision. They are not getting a determination, and therefore their families are abroad. Not only are they not united, but when we talk about refugee cases, the families abroad are in danger. Why? If you are a legitimate refugee in Canada and have been making statements on the record against a regime or against a particular group in another part of the world, obviously that is a source of embarrassment for that regime or for that government.
If it is a source of embarrassment, that government can, has and will put pressure, torture or use some other means that are not palatable, at least to our society, on those family members. Therefore, it is not only a case of not being reunited. It is a case that those families may be in real danger.
June 14, 1990

Today, while we are thinking about and moving in the positive direction of increasing our transportation loans, let us also stop to think that we should be increasing the speed and velocity of the decisions that have been in purgatory for four, five or six years in some cases.
Therefore, if we can take the spirit of these transportation loans which is in essence family reunification, if there are no security or health problems with these individuals and if they are clearly not flagrantly abusing our laws, what is the problem in accepting them and having them begin a life of normalcy, the same that you and I, Mr. Speaker, and my colleagues enjoy seven days a week, 52 weeks of the year in this beautiful country?
Because it is also available to those who wish to join families, not as refugees but as family class members, there is a great deal of frustration. We see it in our constituency offices where members cannot either successfully or quickly enough sponsor relatives from abroad.
There is a situation in India, for instance. We have a one consular operation in New Delhi. How long does it take for a constituent who is a Canadian to have an uncle, a nephew, or a niece from that part of the world come to join him or her? A year? Two years? Maybe three years or longer? We have had those cases.
As well, what I am suggesting is that on the family class basis, there is a frustration because, over-all, the percentage of family class immigration has gone down in recent years compared to being roughly 50 per cent of immigration. Therefore, if it is in the low thirties, that 20 per cent buffer is causing that frustration. Compounded on that is the time that is required for those individuals, particularly where we have not shifted resources quickly enough. One knows that there is a great deal of anguish and pain.
The message should also be very evident to the government of the day. We need to speed up those decisions; we need to give Canadians greater satisfaction, but not automatic satisfaction. I am not saying you simply have an absolute open door where there are no checks and balances. That is not what Canadians are asking for. That is not what any country should do.
Government Orders
We must have integrity in the system. We must protect our borders and our flanks. There is a legitimate need for continued immigration in this country. We have a dwindling birth rate and aging population. There are 70,000 people who leave our country every single year and do not return. Our economy in certain sectors still needs individuals that our schools are not producing. We still go to England to get our tool and die makers because we are not producing them in Canada. If you look at the relatively small population base for the size of our country, by the year 2000, unless we step things up or unless the birth rate goes up, we are going to be going backward in terms of population. That will have detrimental effects on the life and society as we know it.
Therefore, if those are facts of nation-building consequences

and they are-and if we know them today, then let us not deny our future by being complacent in the present. Let us be honest about our future challenges. Let us discuss with Canadians the needs of a positive immigration program. Let us begin to destroy the myths that embrace immigration. We know what those myths are. Let us be up front. If we do, there will be Canadians who will have greater understanding and awareness of our needs. There will be greater understanding and tolerance of new Canadians, and greater strength will be given to Canadians who have family with them in this great country.
At the time we are discussing these loans I suggest that the essence of it is to have families reunited. If we are supporting the unification of families, whether they be refugees or family class members, then we almost support a speedier determination for our refugee applicants, a speedier, more successful, more fair system for determination in sponsoring our applicants from abroad.
I take that signal from the government. I am indicating today that we will be supporting Bill C-77. We are hopeful that the government will support the amendment I will move at Committee of the Whole. We look forward to passage of this bill in this sitting on this day so that the minister can have an increased travel loans budget and have the flexibility to augment family reunification where it is required.

June 14, 1990
Government Orders


Mr. Dan Heap (Trinity-Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to support this bill in principle and to indicate that our party will be voting for the adoption of the bill and also to support the amendment that has been moved by the hon. member for York West.
While the bill is essentially what is needed and there is some urgency about it, there are certain unsatisfactory aspects to it, some of which have been pointed out by the hon. member for York West.
This is a bill to amend the Immigration Act from 1978 which has been amended several times already on this point in the section that provides for loans to immigrants, to help immigrants pay their transportation or to help them pay for their medical examination. It has been especially important for refugees. The normal case with most immigrants is that they are able to pay their way, and they prefer to, as most of us would, rather than to borrow. But many other people who are refugees and living in refugee camps do not have the means. Therefore, this provision has become very important during the past decade for making Canada's refugee acceptance policies workable. It does this by amending the present law in two ways.
First, it removes from Parliament the power to set a limit on the loan. Second, it delegates that power to the minister and the cabinet. It does this by amending Section 114, subsection (1) so it would now read:
"(u.l) prescribing the maximum amount of outstanding advances to the Minister under subsection 119(1);"
In other words, instead of setting the limit as it previously did in the act, it refers this to the minister. It further amends Section 119(3) to read:
"(3) The total amount of outstanding advances to the Minister under subsection (1) shall not at any time exceed the amount prescribed under paragraph 114(l)(u.l)".
The effect of that is to leave the matter with the cabinet. As has been pointed out by my colleague from York West, while we understand the rationale put forward by the government-and there is an element of truth in it-there is also more than the truth in that rationale. Therefore, we are somewhat dissatisfied with it.
The bill is very necessary, particularly for refugees who often do not have the means to pay their way. These are not the refugees who have found their way to Canada and claim, after they arrived in Canada, that they are
refugees, and are handled by our new refugee determination system under the refugee board chaired by Mr. Fairweather. These are the ones who are selected overseas by our immigration officers. When they are selected they are then, if necessary, and most of them do need it, offered the chance to borrow the money from this fund to pay for the medical examination and travel. After they come to Canada they are expected to repay the loan.
In the case of refugees, and any other immigrants to whom the loans have been made, the record has been startlingly good. There has been 98 per cent repayment of the loans at whatever interest the minister may have required with authorization of the cabinet. It is a very necessary humanitarian provision, otherwise many of these refugees after they have been selected simply could not come here. What is unsatisfactory about the manner in which this has been handled is that it was prompted by a crisis which the government allowed to run for half a year or more.
The government was aware that these loans were being taken up more quickly than before, as the member for Burlington said, because of events in eastern Europe. These events were not secret. They were published almost daily in The Globe and Mail. The minister and her staff were surely aware of them, and that the take up of the loans would for a while be faster than the rate of repayment, even though there is no dissatisfaction with the efforts of the refugees, or immigrants already here, in repaying their loans.
It seems it was a matter of some indifference to the minister and the cabinet during the first of these months, even though a year ago last June the government promised to take $5 million from this loan, according to what the member for Burlington has told us, to help in the special emergency in Southeast Asia, which was a good thing to do. But the government knew what it had done; at least I hope that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing. It knew that the loan fund was running low, but it waited until April of this year before taking any effective action.
In April of this year it notified all the sponsoring organizations of private sponsorships in Canada that as of the date of notification there would be no more loans until further notice.
June 14, 1990

Many national churches in Canada have master agreements by which many of their parishioners or congregations have sponsored refugees. The national organization has worked out the basic arrangements with the minister and the department so that a congregation which may not lack much experience in immigration and refugee procedures can undertake to sponsor one person or one family. This has happened in hundreds or thousands of cases across the country.
The agreement in these master agreements was that the government would provide the loan to bring the refugee or refugee family here. The sponsoring organization, the churches, and others would undertake full responsibility for the person's financial and other welfare for the first year after the refugee or the family arrived.
The churches and the other sponsoring organizations have kept their part of the arrangement, relying on the government to provide the funding for bringing the refugees here. The churches have committed their budgets to ensuring that the work will be done in Canada by local congregations. Members of congregation have committed their budgets to the same purpose, to the maintenance of the refugees after their arrival in Canada. Suddenly they are told that there are no more loans to bring in the refugees.
I am advised by the Interchurch Committee for Refugees that the agreement included under a clause of notice that either party may give notice of the discontinuation of this arrangement. Knowing at least since June of last year when it gave $5 million for the emergency in Southeast Asia, knowing that the people from eastern Europe were coming in faster and taking up the loans faster at the end of last year, and knowing that they were coming in still faster at the beginning of this year, the government gave no notice to the private sponsoring organizations, the churches, and others.
The government violated its obligation to give one-month's notice. If the churches had violated their obligation, we would be hearing loud complaints from certain people in the government. Certainly we would be hearing loud complaints from the member for Surrey-White Rock who, during the debate on Bill C-55, took every opportunity he could find to taunt the churches with not bringing in as many refugees as the government brought in. If the churches are so interested in refugees, he asked
Government Orders
in committee and in this House, why do they not sponsor more of them?
When the churches had a chance to answer him-and usually he said it where they did not have a chance to answer-they pointed out that a church group might undertake to sponsor 500 refugees in one year but through government red tape only got perhaps 250. It was not the churches' fault that the other 250 did not come; it was government red tape.
The government red tape is such that when the churches agree to sponsor a refugee, say from Africa, who has been declared by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees to be a genuine refugee, the churches say: "Yes, bring that man" or "bring that family". The government does not trust the United Nations High Commission for Refugees enough to take its word.
The Canadian government funds the UNHCR, and I must say that it funds it generously compared to some other countries. In that respect the Government of Canada is doing a good job. It is providing the money that is absolutely essential for maintaining the life and the future of 15 million refugees in the world, mostly countries located in Africa and Asia. For some strange reason, after funding the UNHCR and after having a member appointed by this government sitting regularly on the executive of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the government will not take its word that Mr. So-and-So or Mrs. So-and-So and their children are refugees. The government will delay, sometimes for months or even for years, a decision as to whether the sponsoring group in Canada should be permitted to bring that designated refugee to Canada.
We do not know very much of what goes on in the refugee camps when the Canadian consular officers visit the camps to select refugees. There are strong indications that in fact refugees from those camps are selected first for their supposed economic benefit to Canada. Are they tool and die makers? Are they nuclear physicists? Do they have some specialties that we think Canada might want?
Only secondly are they selected for their need, either because they are in danger of damage to their health by a long stay there or because there is some other danger. In some of the camps there is danger from marauding armies. Either the country they live in or the country next door have occasionally invaded those camps and

June 14, 1990
Government Orders
kidnapped refugees. So the delay is a danger to the refugee or the refugee family.
While our overseas officers are going through the camp to find out who would be the most useful people as immigrants to Canada and only secondarily looking at their refugee qualifications, the ones whom the United Nations High Commission has designated as the refugees most in need of being resettled are often told to wait and wait and wait and wait.
There is an extremely rigid medical standard used. The Mennonite Central Committee wrote to me several years ago concerning a very tragic case of a refugee family in the camp in Thailand. The family, after a wait, was finally selected and approved to come to Canada. The day they were to board the airplane the officials said: "No, this adult son cannot go with the rest because a recent x-ray shows he has a spot on his lung," apparently a touch of tuberculosis. The whole family stayed back. They would not go without him. The next year, when their turn came up again, this young man killed himself by hanging rather than run the risk of again presenting a barrier for the rest of his family coming as refugees.
If that had been an American refugee program, so I am advised by the Mennonite Central Committee, they would not have hesitated to bring him. They would have brought him to the United States and in a few months treated him for whatever tuberculosis infection he had. He and his family would then have been settled into the United States, but Canada has a much more fussy medical standard which has caused grief to many genuine and needy refugees.
There seems to be that attitude of neglect. We pride ourselves on being very favourable to refugees, but there are certain ways in which we are not. It is within that attitude of neglect that the government neglected for months and months to do anything about raising the loan limit to meet what the government knew well last year was the rising number of people coming from eastern Europe and using the loan arrangement. In order to meet the crisis at the end it said: "All the private sponsored refugees are cut off from loan possibilities".
I had a telex concerning two families in the Sudan being sponsored. There were three brothers: one was in Toronto, a Canadian citizen, and the other two were in the Sudan with their families. Eighteen people arrived at
the airport ready to go to Canada. They were told: "Come to the airport and board the plane". They got to the airport and were told: "No, your tickets have not been paid for". What a way to treat people.
If the government had given the one-month notice, those people would not have been brought to the airport and then told just to stay there. What would they do for a month? Camp at the airport? Go back to the refugee camp? They had made all their arrangements to come. That is the kind of thing that this government did in a fully unfeeling way so far as I can see.
Although it was the government that had created the crisis by failing to take action before today for increasing the loan limit, the government put the burden of the crisis on the families who were sponsored by the private organizations. After urging private organizations beginning with former Minister MacDonald at the time of the boat people when Canada invented-I think the first country in the world-private sponsorship of refugees, the government urged people to organize more sponsors. Throughout the 1980s the churches had been promoting sponsorships. There are staff people hired in Toronto by the United and Anglican churches with the sole obligation of helping congregations and other sponsoring groups to sponsor refugees under these government programs.
When the former Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment and Immigration, the member for Surrey-White Rock, taunted the churches with not bringing in enough refugees, the churches kept on not only sponsoring but increasing their efforts. The reward for that to the churches is to be told now: "Your refugees cannot have the loan because the government has goofed".
It is a very, very unfeeling and insensitive program. The government likes to be proud of its achievement, but it does not like to see what its administrative actions are doing to the people concerned.
This brings me to another matter which is going to collide with this program if it is not attended to. We know that there are 15 million refugees in the world, mostly in what we call the Third World countries. They are third because they are less important than the first world, which is western Europe and North America, and less important than the second world, which is eastern
June 14, 1990

Europe and the Soviet Union. For this purpose Australia and New Zealand are grouped with of course western Europe and North America. All the rest, all the nonwhite people, are considered to be Third World. This is where most of the refugees are now because of, primarily, civil wars and international wars fuelled by guns from the northern countries, not from those southern countries.
These people are congregated by the millions into the refugee camps of Latin America, Africa and Asia. This is where our officials go to select the refugees. They select the cream of the crop.
After the long delays that I have described and the added delay caused by the government's mishandling of the limit on the loan fund, refugees get to Canada and, in the public perception, are lumped together with those who came to make their claim in Canada.
I want to go back to the matter of the crisis of the loan fund. It is that crisis that the government has used to put the pressure on to say: "Look, we have only got a couple of more days or so of Parliament. We want to make sure that this crisis does not happen again, so leave it all to the minister". As my colleague from York West pointed out, this means that the minister can raise the loan limit, as well as reduce the loan limit. She could reduce it to zero if she so desired. I hope she will not.
There is very little way to become aware of this, unless a person becomes a hobby reader of The Canada Gazette and watches like a hawk everything that is published in it. I hope the minister would in fact report a major decision like this to the committee which deals with the matter, the Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration.
Therefore I support the member's amendment which is:
That Bill C-77 be amended in Clause 2 by adding immediately
after line 18 at page 1 the following:
"(3.1) The operation of subsections (1), (2) and (3) and any report made pursuant to subsection (4) shall be reviewed on a permanent basis by the Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration of the House of Commons".
That will not necessarily cure all the problems, but it will somewhat widen the area of responsibility.
Government Orders
Finally, I want to acknowledge that the minister was kind enough to send a draft of the regulation which she intends, and I understand Cabinet has agreed, to enact once this bill which is passed today gives her the authority.
I have here the copy of an amendment which is that Section 45 of the immigration regulations, 1978, be amended by adding thereto immediately after subsection (3) thereof the following subsection: "(4). For the purpose of Section 119 of the Act the total amount of outstanding advances out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund to the minister shall not at any time exceed $150 million".
That is a very substantial increase on $90 million. I believe it is warranted in the circumstances. I am very glad that the minister has given us a copy of that regulation as some assurance that the action put into effect will be taken immediately with the authority given by this bill.
However, I want to deal, as I said, with the problem that is colliding with the matter of the refugees we bring from overseas. That is to say the government's persistent delay in dealing with those who have come to Canada to claim refugee status.
It is not because the government is letting anybody and everybody come easily into Canada and claim refugee status. The government has been very firm about placing visa requirements on any country from which many people have come claiming refugee status.
It has been very firm about laying the burden on the airlines, that the airline officials and ticket agents must examine a person's papers and determine whether the person has valid papers and a valid visa for coming to Canada. Otherwise, the airline is subject to a financial penalty.
The officials of the department remarked with great satisfaction last year after the program started that there was a reduction in the number of people coming to Canada claiming refugee status. These methods that the government has used, some of them enacted three years ago in Bill C-55, have had some effect.
It is not easy for a genuine refugee to get to Canada to claim refugee status. If he has to pay $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 for a false visa-and apparently there is quite a trade in that-he has to find $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 which is not easy.

June 14, 1990
Government Orders
If he is found to be a true refugee, then under international law his use of a false visa is not to be held against him. That is part of the United Nations convention on the status of refugees. The United Nations convention does not find him the $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 to buy the false visa.
We have delays built into both the new system for refugee determination and the old system for dealing with the backlog. Most of the groups in Canada who sponsor refugees and who are concerned about the status of refugees in Canada belong to an umbrella group known as the Canadian Council for Refugees.
The Canadian Council for Refugees passed a resolution at its semi-annual conference which ended on June 2 of this year. I want to acquaint members of the House with this resolution. It is a resolution regarding the backlog clearance process. It states:
Whereas:
(1)	In December 1989, the Standing Committee of the House of Commons on Labour, Employment and Immigration issued a Report on the Backlog Clearance Process which found the process to be seriously flawed and predicted that, without major changes, it would take four to six years to clear the Backlog;
(2)	In May 1990, the Minister of Employment and Immigration delivered the Government's response to the Standing Committee's Report, a response which side-stepped all major issues raised in the report;
There are certainly some of us on the committee who agree heartily with the Canadian Council for Refugees that the minister's response did side-step the major issues we raised. She did not really convince us that her program will be finished in two years, as she has always insisted, even though she changed the date of starting.
The resolution further states:
(3)	By mid-April 1990, only 26,711 of over 85.000 Backlog cases were in process, and less than half of those had received a final answer on their eligibility to remain in Canada;
(4)	The artificially imposed temporary status of persons in the Backlog results in tremendous and undeserved anxiety and suffering due to lack of certainty about the future and prolonged separation from family, and is cruel and unusual treatment and a gross viola lion of fundamental human rights;
There arc families being broken, marriages broken because the husband is here and the wife and, perhaps,
children are over there. After a year, two, three or maybe four years they begin to lose faith that the husband is really trying to bring them here. He writes and tells them: "I am trying. I am waiting and waiting to get my landed status. I cannot do anything until I get my landed status". Sometimes they do not believe him. They think he has found a better arrangement here. So a family is broken up and children are perhaps left without their father because of the delays in this program.
To continue with the resolution. It states:
(5)	The Minister of Employment and Immigration's resolve to undertake this deliberate and calculated action against asylum seekers has exposed all asylum seekers in the Backlog to grievous harm; and
(6)	Allowing the unresolved situation of those in the Backlog to continue constitutes an abuse of human rights and is just cause for due concern regarding equitable treatment of asylum seekers under the laws of Canada;
I would add "under the laws of the United Nations".
The resolution is this. It is not a new idea, but one that is gaining support in Canada.
Be it resolved that the Executive of 1he Canadian Council for Refugees and its member agencies:
(1)	Express to the Minister of Employment and Immigration our disappointment in her flagrant disregard of the serious concerns raised in the Report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration which, if addressed, could have made a significant, positive impact on the processing of the Backlog.
Again, the minister took the full five months to respond to our report. I can understand why she did it, because I think she did not have a very good answer to give us. She gave us, perhaps, the best she thought she could, but certainly not the sort of answer we were looking for, let alone the answer the public is looking for.
(2)	Remind the Minister of Employment and Immigration of the Canadian Council for Refugees' previous calls for special measures to deal with the Backlog which would allow those in the Backlog to proceed immediately to landing, subject to admissibility criteria, and once again urgently request her to do the same in accordance with her discretionary powers and in accordance with Canada's domestic and international obligations with regard to human rights; and
(3)	Include in the aforementioned those asylum seekers who were in the country before May, 1986, but were not granted permission to stay in Canada under the Administrative Review Program, (ADR).

June 14, 1990
We can understand the sentiment the minister expresses. She has objected that it would not be right and it would not be wise to admit as landed immigrants to Canada people such as there are some in the backlog who had falsely claimed refugee status, perhaps even knowing it was false.
Therefore there is this long, dragged out process for sorting out which one stays, which one goes, this one stays, that one goes and so on. It is causing this hardship to the refugee claimants in the backlog. The CCR is mainly concerned in its resolution about sorting out who had a justifiable case and who did not. It is taking too long by the system the minister enacted a year and a half ago in her regulations.
There is a further problem. It is that the staff which is used to do that sorting out is badly needed somewhere else. There are 50 members of the Immigration and Refugee Board trained to examine the cases of refugee claimants who are being used not to examine the new refugee claimants who have come since January 1, 1989, but to examine cases in the old backlog. They do not do it alone; they do it in company with an adjudicator. An adjudicator is one of the most highly trained and most highly paid members of the immigration staff. There are other staff members used, such as case presenting officers, refugee officers, translators, clerks and so on.
It costs a lot to cause that much delay. The worst cost is that those adjudicators and those refugee board members are not available to work on the new system.
Of the 21,000 people who came to Canada last year, 1989, to claim refugee status and who were to be processed under the new system, less than half-about one-third-have had a decision. As of January, 1990, there were about 13,000 people who had come to Canada the year before to claim refugee status and who had not yet been told yes or no.
That was supposed to be the fast system. When the present minister and her predecessors argued for Bill C-55, the number one argument for it was that we must act quickly. There were two reasons given. They were two good reasons for acting quickly. One was that a genuine refugee claimant deserves justice quickly, deserves to be landed quickly, as the law would provide. The other is that Canada deserves to get rid of the phoneys quickly, as the law provides.
Government Orders
If, as the minister of the day predicted, those decisions were made within two or three months of a person's arrival in Canada, then there would be no refugee scams. There would be none of the racketeers telling people in Portugal, Brazil, Trinidad, India or anywhere else: "Give me $5,000 and I will get you into Canada. All you have to to do is say the word refugee. Even if they finally kick you out it will be in about three, four or five years and you will have earned a lot of money to take back home, after you have paid me". That is the kind of scam that developed once there was a long waiting period in the mid-1980s to get refugee status determined. Yet the government said that the most important thing we have to do with the new law is to make it fast.
The government has failed to do what it said was most important in the new law. Some 13,000 people who came to Canada in 1989 did not at year end have a decision. Some may have come the day before, some may have come many months before. The government itself predicted in the Estimates that by the end of 1990 the delay time would be about nine months. Presumably that was a cautious prediction. Presumably it could be more than nine months. But the government itself knows that the new system is not working the way the government intended it to work.
There is one reason above all others that accounts for it not working. The government is doing its work twice. The government has a system of double examination. First it examines the refugee claimant for what it calls a credible basis. Does he have any evidence upon which a refugee claim might be determined? If so, he goes to the full hearing of the refugee board; if not, he goes out. Ninety-six per cent of those who have come in and have got as far as that first hearing-some have not got there yet, after months-were judged to have that credible basis and were sent on to the refugee board.
The refugee board then has to do the same work all over again, with even more high priced staff, two refugee board members, each getting about $100,000 a year. The work is done twice. There is all the in-between work of scheduling, notifying the claimant, making sure that an interpreter, the presenting officer, and the board members are there, and so on. They also have to make sure that there is a room that they can use.

June 14, 1990
Government Orders
All that scheduling is part of the slowdown. It could be cleared with one stroke if the government would abolish that first step, the inquiry, at which sometimes several days are spent debating whether the person has any shred of evidence on which the board might find him a refugee.
They are supposed to find only that there is that possibility, but very often they go into detailed arguments. They try to find out the date the refugee left his home. If he said half a year ago and the date was two days earlier, they say he may not be telling the truth. They play judge and jury examining the details without remembering that their job is primarily to find if there seems to be a case that might be found valid. They try to do the board's work at the earliest stage.
The Canadian Council for Refugees has asked the government to close out that first stage, to use that staff and that money to speed up the process at the second stage, and also to meet Canada's international obligation for justice by having a review of the negative cases after the board hearing to make sure that the board may not have made, in some cases, a fatal mistake. They would not be reviewing 96 per cent of the cases because the board finds 75 per cent of the cases to be refugees. Of the remaining 25 per cent, some might have to be reviewed, but that would cost much less than doing 96 per cent of them twice.
Therefore, I am hoping that the minister will carefully consider what the Canadian Council for Refugees has said. Otherwise, the breakdown of the present refugee program will make this loan fund inoperative. It simply is not going to work if the whole refugee system gets bogged down by the government's insistence on trying to make an unworkable determination system work.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is the House ready for the question?


William James Kempling: Mr. Speaker, I think you will find that there is unanimous consent that we refer the bill to a Committee of the Whole at this time.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is that agreed?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and, by unanimous consent, the House went into committee thereon, Mr. Paproski in the Chair.
Steve Eugene Paproski: Order. House in Committee of the Whole on Bill C-77, an act to amend the Immigration Act.
Shall Clause 1 carry?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
Clause 1 agreed to.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Shall Clause 2 carry?
On Clause 2-Limitation


Sergio Marchi: Mr. Chairman, on Clause 21 would like to move, on behalf of the Liberal caucus, an amendment of which I gave notice to you and my colleagues earlier.
The purpose of the amendment that I will be moving is to try to have accountability through the Standing Committee of Labour, Employment and Immigration. Since we are moving the authority from legislation to regulations, I believe it is important for members, at least through the officials of the department or the minister, to have the ability to have discourse, be updated, review, and question.
The government may suggest that this amendment would be redundant because it would be covered in the Standing Orders. I suggest that this would give the principle of accountability maximum protection. Our Standing Orders can be changed or altered by a simple motion in the House, whereas if we attach this to the bill, any changes will have to be made through the normal legislative process of any bill.
It endorses the idea of some accountability and discussion with members of Parliament, rather than removing it completely. It protects it from any changes to the Standing Orders of the House through a simple motion. I think it is an honourable price to pay for the political green light and assurance that the opposition parties have given to the government today on this bill.
Therefore, I move:
That Bill C-77 be amended in Clause 2 by adding immediately
after line 18 at page 1 the following:
"(a) The Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration of the House of Commons shall be empowered to examine the use of advances made pursuant to this Act."
June 14, 1990


Steve Eugene Paproski: On debate, the hon. member for Trinity-Spadina.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the New Democratic Party I would support and, if it is appropriate, second the motion of Mr. Marchi.
I believe that during the eighties, and particularly during the tenure of this government since 1984, there has been progress toward recognizing the need for a wider exercise of responsibility in the standing and special committees of Parliament. This has been reflected in the McGrath reforms. Because of this, for example, the present Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration did a study of the backlog program to help focus attention on and get some clear definition of some of the problems that existed then, most of which still exist.
It would be very useful if the act made quite clear that the committee is also empowered to review and examine the use made of these moneys advanced and to ask from time to time that the minister and the officials report to the committee on those matters. It is not enough to wait until the Estimates at the end of each year. Too much water can go under the bridge, as has already been shown by the government in this very matter. We should have had a report last fall, or at least at the beginning of this year. Placing this into the act would remind the minister, the officials, and the committee that we have a duty to make sure that this loan fund is working the way the minister, the officials, and Parliament as a whole intended that it should.
Therefore, I would hope that no difficulty would be found with it by the government side.


William James Kempling: Mr. Chairman, we do not find too much fault with the thrust of the amendment that the hon. member has put forward.
The reality is that this is, first, covered by our Standing Orders and, second, covered by section 119(4) of the act. It would appear to be redundant. We do not find it an offensive amendment. It is a matter of having the same thing three times-in the act, the Standing Orders, and through an amendment. I just question whether it is wise to proceed in this manner when it is already taken care of in the statute.
Would the hon. member like to comment on that?
Government Orders


Sergio Marchi: Mr. Chairman, I was listening to the parliamentary secretary and I was also trying to listen to the parliamentary secretary to the government House Leader. They are suggesting that perhaps there is some redundancy here. A very quick reading the portion of the act that was indicated to me I thought suggested a review of the previous moneys expended.
The purpose of my amendment was to have a somewhat more elaborate process so that, either through an annual report or a report to the committee of the previous month's expenditures, we have a somewhat more elaborate assurance that the committee may, in fact, engage the minister and/or her officials in a discussion as to where things sit for the coming months and the coming fiscal year so that we can see where the demands are coming from. In that way, we will not simply have a review mirroring the reading of the situation because we are removing it from the legislative stream of things.
Therefore, the purpose of my amendment was to ensure that in the future the committee and its members have some degree of knowledge and say with the minister as to how these moneys will be changed or spent. Before, when there was need for an amendment, at least one had in advance the reasons for the amendment. One would know that they would want to increase from 150 to 200 because that is the number of people who had requested it. These are the numbers of applicants. There was a rationale behind it.
I believe that the existing portions of the act which I read very quickly would provide for more of an updating as to what has happened as opposed to what will happen or could happen in a given situation. At this stage I would still like to pursue the relevancy of the amendment I offered.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Chairman, I am looking at the section of the act as well as the amendment that has been proposed by the hon. member. I think I have a sense of what he is trying to accomplish. I am just not sure that his amendment would not, in fact, undermine a little bit of what he is trying to accomplish.
I want to read the specific section of the act. Section 119(4) reads:
The Minister shall, within six months following the commencement of each fiscal year or, if Parliament is not then sitting, within the first fifteen days next thereafter that either House of Parliament is sitting, cause to be laid before Parliament a report

June 14, 1990
Government Orders
setting out the total number and amount of loans made under
subseclion (1) during the preceding fiscal year.
Subsection 1, of course, describes exactly what we are after here.
There are a couple of key phrases in the subsection. The first is that this automatically happens on an annual basis. Every year this particular report is tabled in the House. As our Standing Orders provide, any report that is tabled in the House is then automatically referred to the specific standing committee.
That deals with several things. First, every year it is done. Second, it is automatically referred to the committee. Third, it has some specifics in terms of the details, which I believe are what the hon. member wants.
The hon. member's amendment reads as follows:
The Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and
Immigration of the House of Commons -
He specifies the specific committee but, of course, that is provided for by our Standing Orders.
- shall be empowered to examine -
They are automatically empowered to examine right now without any changes to the act.
-advances made pursuant to this act.
That is only more general wording which accomplishes exactly what I believe is taken care of by the act itself. The beauty of the wording in the act is that it is a little more specific and, therefore, if we were to end up with some kind of a court challenge or court intervention, of which we as legislators know we have to be so careful, the more specific wording would, I believe, have a better chance of surviving. This general wording may well leave us in a situation that is very much open to interpretation and problems.
Therefore, the principle of the hon. member's amendment is well understood, but I think he is in fact putting some redundancy into the act, and I think we should be very careful of doing that.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Chairman, I thank the hon. member for drawing to my attention, and perhaps to the hon. member for York West's attention, the section of the act to which he has been speaking.
There are two matters not provided for there. First, the report must be made within six months following the commencement of each fiscal year or, if Parliament is not then sitting, within the first 15 days next thereafter.
In other words, in 1990 that report will not be made until after the summer, six months after the beginning of the fiscal year. That does not do us any good for the present crisis.
Second, the report, as defined here, is only intended to deal with what is passed. Here are the number of loans, the number of dollars, the number of people and so on, without any projection toward the future. What we are concerned with and what I thought might be included in the general wording of the motion of the member for York West, is that the minister would report at whatever time of the year either the minister thought appropriate or the committee requested and would include, especially if requested, a projection.
For example, she might have reported in December of 1989 that there is a rise in the take-up of the loans and that it is going to approach the limit, or perhaps in February or March she might have reported that. That would have been very helpful in encouraging whatever action is needed by Parliament or the cabinet. It would at least support their action. It would also give notice to those in the public who have been materially concerned, those who are providing for refugees when they get here, those who are working at the selection of refugees overseas and who rely on the loan system as part of the support arrangements. Although the report, as provided for in the act, should be of some value, it does not catch an emergency like the one which occasioned Bill C-77.
I do not know whether it is possible to make any changes in the wording of the amendment now. I am not sure if there is any procedure by which we could do that. It seems to me that we and the minister's representatives are very close on this matter. We agree in principle. The problem, if any, would be in the actual wording. Certainly I do not want to cause a lawsuit. However, the present section does not provide for either recognizing an emergency that has begun or forecasting an emergency that there is good reason to foresee.
Some arrangement for flagging that would be very useful to prevent this kind of problem from happening again. I was told by the minister's office that it took six months to get this amendment through cabinet and it would only take three months to get a regulation through cabinet. That may be, but even three months can run us into an emergency the way things are
June 14, 1990

happening in eastern Europe and in other parts of the world.
I would hope that the act could be amended to provide a closer liaison between the minister and the standing committee.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to prolong this debate unnecessarily. I have just two quick comments.
First, the section of the act which exists at the moment does not restrict the minister from filing a report at any time. It does specify that at a minimum she would have to respond within six months following the commencement of each fiscal year. That is the minimum. If we were to specify that any other way, as I think the member is trying to do, we would probably end up limiting possibilities rather than increasing them.
Second, under the present Standing Orders, a committee has a right to examine any number of issues when the ministers are before it on the Estimates or whatever other issue. Therefore, I sincerely believe that this section of the act is the best way to accomplish what the hon. members are after. It does meet all of those goals.
As much as I would like to accommodate them by accepting this amendment, I think that we would be building redundancy into the act by putting in another clause that says the same thing. I believe that the existing wording is probably the better wording for all of our concerns.


Sergio Marchi: Mr. Chairman, I do not have any wish to prolong this either. Perhaps these will be my final comments.
With respect to the Standing Orders giving powers to committee, I repeat that those Standing Orders can be wiped out'by a motion, whereas this has greater legislative protection.
Second, with respect to section 119(4) of the Immigration Act, the key operative words, in my humble opinion, are that the report will only be on the preceding fiscal year. The operative words in my amendment would provide for the examination of the use of advances made pursuant to this act, which has a present, a past and a future application.
Government Orders
That is what we wish to strengthen. I do not simply wish to have a report from Parliament or a committee telling me what has happened. I am more concerned in having a debate in the committee with the minister about what is going to happen given the demands, the fiscal arrangements and the program.
I believe there is a difference between what I am proposing in the amendment and what is in the act. I believe, Mr. Chairman, that at the end of the day we will still want to advance this amendment.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Members have heard the terms of the amendment. Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the amendment?


Some hon. members:: On division.


Albert Glen Cooper: Negatived on division.
Amendment (Mr. Marchi) negatived.
Clause 2 agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Title agreed to.
Bill reported.
Hon. Gilles Loiselle (for the Minister of Employment and Immigration) moved: that the bill be concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Steve Eugene Paproski: When shall the bill be read the third time? By leave, now?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Gilles Loiselle: that the bill be read the third time and passed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It being one o'clock, I do now leave the chair until two o'clock this day.
At 1 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
June 14, 1990

Ms. Nicole Roy-Arcelin (Ahuntsic):: Mr. Speaker, since this is National Access Awareness Week, I would like to invite hon. members to urge all Canadians who are responsible for organizing special activities in their ridings to use a progress report.
A progress report helps communities to monitor change. By using the report, organizers will remember the purpose of National Access Awareness Week which is to enhance the economic and social integration of the disabled.
Mr. Speaker, I am sure this special week will be very successful in bringing the government closer to its goal of building a better and more just society for all Canadians.


WESTERN DIVERSIFICATION
Mr. Geoff Wilson (Swift Current -Maple Creek-As-siniboia):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday Impact Packaging broke sod for its $25 million wastepaper molding plant in Swift Current. The plant will use recycled paper to produce grocery trays which are biodegradable and fully recyclable.
Western Economic Diversification has made a $5,055,000 million repayable contribution to this project which will initially provide 85 new jobs. These are permanent jobs based on the leading edge of environmentally sound technology. Most important of all, these jobs are totally unrelated to agriculture and represent genuine diversification in an area so dependent on export wheat.
I join all residents of Swift Current and southwestern Saskatchewan in congratulating Impact Packaging and the three levels of government on this important initiative. New product, new market, new technology, new jobs in rural western Canada; that's what western diversification is all about.


NATIONAL LIBERAL TASK FORCE ON MUNICIPAL INFRASTRUCTURE
Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, after several months of touring towns and cities across Canada, the member for Nepean and myself, as co-chair of the National Liberal Task Force on Municipal Infrastructure, released a report yesterday, on behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada.
The facts are astonishing. Right now, 90 per cent of the raw sewage east of Ontario is being released into our rivers and waterways without proper treatment. In Newfoundland, over 80 per cent of the population do not have properly treated drinking water. We now learn that 10.3 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions come from automobile travel. We also know that travelling on roads which are in poor condition uses even more fuel and does more damage to our environment.
We call on the government to re-assume its responsibility for these environmental dangers and work with the municipalities and provinces to establish national criteria for infrastructure. Setting national criteria guidelines will ensure environmental protection and will provide uniform levels of service for all Canadians. This is a vital first step if we are going to halt further damage to our environment.


THE ECONOMY
Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, yesterday we learned that 334 more Canadian workers have lost their jobs because of this government's bungling of the economy.
Fruehauf Canada is closing its Brantford trailer plant in the face of intense competition from U.S. trucking firms; competition that Fruehauf's president says is rigged against us by our high dollar policy, our high interest policy, our high tax policy and other policies too despicably low to mention here.
Meanwhile, Canadian truckers, the natural market for Canadian-made trucks, are reeling from the deadly one-two punch of free trade and deregulation, unable to get even their most basic grievances addressed unless they blockade a bridge in the process.
June 14, 1990

To what extremes will these and other Canadian workers have to resort to next before this government acts to save their jobs and their futures.


BALTIC STATES
Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale -High Park):: Mr. Speaker, today, June 14, 1990, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are commemorating the forty-ninth anniversary of the deportation of their peoples to Siberia and the fiftieth anniversary of the illegal Soviet annexation of the Baltic States by flying their national flags at half mast.
On a more positive note, however, the three Baltic States met with Mr. Gorbachev yesterday in a promising move which clearly indicates a new dedication on behalf of all parties to reach a satisfactory settlement on the question of Baltic independence.
At the same time, the announcement that Moscow has agreed to partially lift the economic sanctions against Lithuania is to be applauded.
However, the Soviets have yet to act on the promise and it is our hope that their intentions lead to a complete lifting of the blockade. Even so, Soviet border authorities continue to prevent the delivery of medical supplies that are so urgently needed.
With this in mind, I call on the Secretary of State for External Affairs to appeal to the Soviet authorities to allow the shipments of medical goods and to offer support for the negotiations for full independence of the Baltic States.


MEECH LAKE ACCORD
Ms. Barbara Greene (Don Valley North):: Mr. Speaker, as a member for Metropolitan Toronto, I want to say that I cannot think of anything I voted for in this Parliament that has been popular in Toronto.
Toronto residents feel grossly overtaxed, unappreciated, and increasingly abandoned by senior governments as they face massive social and environmental problems.
But I support programs, to help other people and to help the regions, that are not popular in Toronto,
because I believe they are in the national interest. Under the British parliamentary system, we are elected not simply to represent our constituents but rather to deliberate and participate in formulating decisions that are in the long-term national interest.
I therefore urge all members of the provincial legislatures in New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and Manitoba to show confidence in Quebec and Canada by approving the Meech Lake Accord in the national interest.
Say "welcome" to Quebec and "yes" to Canada. Then let us all sit down and deal with other constitutional issues such as additional rights for aboriginal people, women, and minorities and of course Senate reform.


BALTIC STATES
Mr. David Kilgour (Edmonton Southeast):: Mr. Speaker, today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the terror brought down by Stalin upon Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. On this day the Soviet Union invaded, seized, and illegally incorporated all three Baltic States.
Hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children were deported to the desolate regions of the U.S.S.R. Many died on the way to the Gulag. Once there, they were subjected to inhumane living conditions, suffering under forced labour and daily hunger. In the end, as a result of these policies, fully one-third of the Baltic population perished.
The Baltic States and the restoration of their independence is one of the last crimes of World War II yet to be resolved. On this day I urge all members not only to remember this tragedy, but to actively participate in finding ways to correct this injustice.
With recent developments in Moscow there seems to be a glimmer of hope that a solution is on the way. I would join today with the Baltic peoples in Canada and across the world in their day of great sorrow and would also hope that we can proclaim it the Baltic Freedom Day.


VETERANS AFFAIRS
Mr. Pat Sobeski (Cambridge):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Veterans Affairs had good news for veterans and

June 14, 1990
S. ft 31
their dependants when he spoke to the Dominion Convention of the Royal Canadian Legion on Monday.
Veterans were told of the improvements to government plans once the appropriate legislation and regulations are in place. Here is a sample of the improvements they can look forward to: regulations will be changed so that spouses of deceased veterans will be provided with certain services under the Veterans Independence Program for a period of up to a year following the veteran's death.
Also, regulations will be changed to increase as of April 1, 1991, income protection for spouses of veterans who are under long-term care.
Legislation will also be introduced to pay interest on veterans' trust funds administered by Veterans Affairs.
Legislation will be introduced to set up a special trust fund for the benefit of needy veterans and their dependants using money left unclaimed on the death of a veteran.
The necessary regulations will be pre-gazetted in the next two weeks and I am sure members of all parties will co-operate as usual in seeing that the upcoming legislation favouring veterans gets speedy and sympathetic consideration.


NATIONAL ACCESS AWARENESS WEEK
Mr. Rey Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, today is the fifth day of Canada's third annual National Access Awareness Week.
It is a week of opportunity to celebrate the accomplishments of disabled Canadians, to assess the availability of services and facilities for them, and to plan improvements for the future.
It is also a week of opportunity for us to reaffirm our belief that they should have equal access to transportation, housing, employment, recreation, and education. It is a time for the private and public sectors to rededicate themselves to the continuing integration in society of all people with disabilities.
My wife and I were therefore extremely delighted when, earlier this week, we again visited the Shalom
Residence for disabled people in my constituency to witness firsthand how the residents live integrated with the rest of the community.
Disabled people have aspirations as noble as those of the able bodied. Equal access to basic needs for the disabled is both an aspiration and a basic right.


CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION
Mrs. Suzanne Duplessis (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State (Science)):: Mr. Speaker, last week, when the country was on the verge of breaking apart, we could watch what was happening live, on CBC News-world, the English news channel.
The difference between Francophones and Anglophones was more obvious than ever before, since the CBC French network only showed us tapes and only during scheduled news programs.
On behalf of all French Canadians in this country, I ask the CBC and the CRTC to be fair and to set up a French news network, and I ask the Minister of Communications to ensure this is done.
It is a matter of equity: there should not be two classes of Canadians.


Mr. Young (Gloucester):: Right on!


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


MOUVEMENT LES RETROUVAILLES
Mr. Mark Assad (Gatineau-La Lievre):: Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to offer special congratulations to the Mouvement les retrouvailles in Quebec.
This agency acts with warmth and compassion to help those who are looking for their parents. For the very first time I attended a ceremony in Gatineau yesterday evening, where a son was reunited with his mother, one of several cases that had a happy ending.
I would like to draw your attention to the work being done by Mr. and Mrs. de Repentigny and their committee who approach this important task with love and compassion. I want them to know that their work is appreciated and deserves our recognition.
June 14, 1990

Mr. Speaker, these are some of the unsung heroes of our society.


ABORTION
Ms. Dawn Black (New Westminster-Burnaby):: Mr. Speaker, this week a 20-year old Toronto woman bled to death from a self-induced abortion, using a coat hanger. Apparently, this was the first death from abortion in 20 years.
Also, a 16-year old girl in the Kitchener-Waterloo area recently had a back street abortion. Access to safe, medical abortions has already been diminished since Bill C-43 was passed in this Elouse.
Some doctors have stopped performing abortions because of this government's bill. Women are afraid they will not be able to obtain safe, medical abortions. I did not ask a question on this issue today because it is not a matter of gaining political Brownie points and saying to this government: "I told you so."
This issue is serious and it is preventable. I call on the Prime Minister and his cabinet to have the sense and compassion not to proclaim the bill. Please, we cannot afford another tragedy like this one. It is not too late to save other women from this horrible and unnecessary death.
sfc	4-


NATIONAL ACCESS AWARENESS WEEK
Mr. Jean-Guy Guilbault (Drummond):: Mr. Speaker, the week of June 10 to 16 has been declared National Access Awareness Week.
This is a special opportunity for individuals, voluteer organizations, businesses large and small and governments to promote the integration of Canada's 3.5 million disabled people.
Integration is much more than eliminating physical obstacles; it means changing attitudes and ways of doing things to enable everyone who has a handicap, whether visible or not, to participate in the life of their community-
Mr. Speaker, I am very aware of this issue because for many years, my mother has had to move about in a wheelchair.
I take this opportunity to point out the dedication of many volunteers and organizations in my riding such as the Office des personnes handicapees du Quebec, headquartered in Drummondville, the Drummondville Disabled Persons' Association and the Regional Handicapped Recreation Association of Central Quebec which will hold sports and games for disabled people in Drummondville October 5 to 8. Eight hundred participants from the province of Quebec are expected at this event, including champions Douglas Lyons and Andre Viger.
Mr. Speaker, let us help Canadians have access to equality.


BROCKVILLE
Mr. Jim Jordan (Leeds -Grenville):: Mr, Speaker, for the past several months the city of Brockville has been depicted as the place in Canada where the nightly pastime is to burn Quebec flags. This was alluded to again in this House as recently as yesterday.
For those interested in the truth, the incident which gained national attention was a one-time, isolated, very regrettable one, carried out in Brockville only because the city was hosting the Ontario government caucus last September and therefore providing a natural forum for a few people unknown to most Brockville residents, a forum for these strangers to assemble briefly and express themselves in a very unacceptable way.
In the hope that we could finally put the event to rest once and for all, let me tell all hon. members that Brockville is a city of immense goodwill. If they need further convincing, they should come to our annual goodwill festival known as Riverfest which runs from June 22 to July 1. They can come and draw their own conclusions as to the goodwill and sincerity of the people of Brockville and area.


CANADIAN AIR
Joy Langan: Mr. Speaker, 340 workers from Canadian Air in Richmond work in the Canadian reservations office. That office handles all

Oral Questions
calls from B.C. and also handles calls from the continental U.S.A. Those U.S. originating calls constitute 30 per cent of the workload in the reservations office, which amounts to about 90,000 calls a month.
On May 8,1990, Canadian Air announced its intention to open an office in Tampa, Florida and to hire 130 people to do the job in Tampa. The employer claims no one will be laid off. The workers do not believe it.
Is this movement of Canadian jobs to Tampa by Canadian Air the result of deregulation? Is it the result of free trade? Or, is it the result of a Canadian company chasing a buck at the expense of its workers?
Whatever the reason, the workers at Canadian Air believe those jobs should stay in Canada. They have mounted a campaign which my colleagues and I support that says to Canadian Air: "Don't Tampa with my job".



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD

['I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed Bill S-17, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, to which the concurrence of this House is desired.']
Hon. Herb Gray (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Deputy Prime Minister.
It has been reported today that the Minister for International Trade had a meeting in Montreal last Tuesday with the Mexican Minister of Trade. I ask the Deputy Prime Minister: Why did the Minister for International Trade have this meeting behind closed doors and exactly what was the purpose of this meeting?


Right Hon. Joe Clark (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition himself was for a long time a minister of the Crown. He knows it is not extraordinary for ministers to hold meetings behind closed doors-


An hon. member:: Just a normal secret meeting.


Charles Joseph Clark: Not for any government, if I may say so to the member for Vancouver Quadra.
There is a suggestion that this was a secret meeting. It was not secret at all. It was a normal meeting, suggested by the Mexicans who wanted to bring Canada up to date about their views on discussions they are having with the
United States in regard to the possibility of a trade agreement between the United States and Mexico.
We were pleased that during the discussion the Mexicans undertook to keep Canada fully advised and fully briefed on developments in those discussions between Mexico and the U.S. which may be of interest to Canada.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, the Secretary of State for External Affairs said that the meeting in question, which he admits was a secret meeting, was for the purpose of the Mexican Minister for International Trade informing our Minister for International Trade about the progress of talks between the United States and Mexico. I am sure the President of Mexico would be intrigued by this answer because yesterday in Mexico City he said that these talks were "to create the conditions for greater dialogue with the objective of establishing a free trade agreement with Canada".
I ask the Secretary of State for External Affairs or the Deputy Prime Minister: Is the government now involved in discussions with the objective of establishing a free trade agreement between Canada and Mexico? If so, why is the government doing this without first having wide consultations with Canadians on whether this should be done at all?
Should the government not first have open public hearings through the external affairs and trade committee of this House, bearing in mind the serious possible adverse impact of such an agreement on jobs and industry in this country?
Right Hon. Joe Clark (Secretary of State for External
Affairs): Mr. Speaker, the answer to the question is a categoric no. There are no discussions under way between Canada and Mexico with an eye to concluding a free trade agreement between Canada and Mexico, none.
What is happening is that there has been an agreement by the President of Mexico and the President of the United States to have their senior officials consider whether it is sensible for those two countries to enter into a trade agreement. Naturally an agreement of that kind may affect Canada's interests. Naturally Canada wants to know whether our interests are affected. When we have that kind of information we will come to a

decision in Canada as to what we want to do with those developments.
The Leader of the Opposition asks me if there will be consultation with Parliament, the provinces, and industry. Yes, there will be. As I have said in the House on several occasions-


Mr. Peterson:: When?


Charles Joseph Clark: I am asked by a Liberal member when. I think he was here the other day when I said that my colleague the Minister for International Trade would be appearing before the standing committee before the end of this month. He looks forward to the opportunity to discuss this matter with the committee.
[Translation \


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, could the Secretary of State for External Affairs clear up the contradiction between his explanation of the purpose of thse dicussions between the Minister for International Trade and his Mexican counterpart and the statement of the Mexican President who said the discussions are aimed at defining the conditions of a free trade agreement between Canada and Mexico. Why this contradiction?


Charles Joseph Clark: Of course, Mr. Speaker, I cannot speak for the President of Mexico, but I can certainly speak for Canada and for my colleague the Minister for International Trade. Canada is not discussing with either the Americans or the Mexicans concerning a free trade agreement involving the three countries, nor have we begun bilateral talks on a Canada-Mexico free trade deal. We are simply gathering information about the objectives of both Americans and Mexicans with respect to their own views on a potential treaty between the two countries.
Should such a treaty become reality it might have implications for Canada. Canada wants to be kept informed as to what these implications might be for this country. Then, in light of that information, Canada will make its own decisions after public consultations with Parliament, the provinces, and whatever Canadian industry might be involved.
Oral Questions



Mr. Russell MacLellan (Cape Breton-The Sydneys):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport.
In the agreement of purchase and sale when the government gave away Route Canada, the government insisted that CN include a clause that would require the new owners to use their best efforts to carry on business for at least three years. That is because the government did not want the company to come tumbling down before the 1988 election, and the government considered a large number of lay-offs to be politically embarrassing.
Why does the government not admit that it was never concerned about the workers of Route Canada? It only considered these workers who were losing their jobs and political futures as nothing more than an embarrassment.


Hon. Doug Lewis (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, I and everyone who understands anything about business reject completely out of hand the premise of my hon. friend's question.
I want to read from the letter from Canadian National to The Toronto Star. The only accurate way to get this on the record is to read it: "Our alternative"-this is CN-"to the sale was to close down CN Route and lay off all staff in 1985."
That is the alternative. It was losing $40 million to $50 million a year. That is the Liberal way of doing things. It could have continued to lose $40 million to $50 million. It could not get a Maislin-type loan, which was the Liberal-type way of doing things. The alternative was to sell it to Route Canada and give it an opportunity to try to make a go of it.
We acted in the best interests of the employees in all cases, in all the things we did subsequent to the agreement of purchase and sale being sold. I would think that in view of today's economy in the Atlantic provinces my hon. friend might have other things to ask about rather than something that is this old.


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Transport is saying that the best deal the government could get was to sell the

June 14, 1990
Oral Questions
company to three people who did not use any of their own money. They used the money from a mortgage on valuable properties which the government gave them. One of the three could not even get a credit card.
The hon. member is trying to tell us that no one in Canada could come up with a better deal than giving away that company to those three people. The government's treatment of the workers of Route Canada is intolerable.
When is the government going to compensate these workers and their families for the financial hardship which the government caused as a result of its negligence and callous disregard?


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, neither repetition nor shouting at the top of one's lungs gives any strength to allegations that do not have any foundation. My hon. friend knows that.
I will read from the letter again: "In the process, we negotiated special arrangements to help ease the impact on employees not required to operate the new company profitably. We have met every one of our commitments to employees, pensioners, customers and communities, including the payment of $23 million for separation and related costs of former CN Route employees".
I submit that no matter how many times my hon. friend repeats the allegations and no matter how loud he does it, he knows that CN did the best it could for the employees and for the people of Canada.
*	* M


Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday afternoon of this past week the Minister for International Trade said that no decision had been taken on further involvement in the U.S.-Mexico free trade talks. However, by Tuesday evening we discovered that the minister met with Mexico's trade minister.
The President of Mexico says that this was because he was seeking a free trade deal with Canada too. I have to ask the government why it was pretending that it had not decided on closer involvement with these talks when the Prime Minister discussed them with President Salinas
earlier this year, when President Bush phoned the Prime Minister this week, and now when the trade minister of Mexico came to this country.
Why do we have this incredible game of hide-and-go-seek that is trying to cover this up for the Canadian people?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I am absolutely certain it is not the intention of the hon. member, but there is no doubt that statements like his mislead the people of Canada. I know that that is not his intention, but there is no doubt at all that statements like this would mislead people to think that Canada is discussing with the United States or with Mexico the entry by Canada into a free trade agreement with those two countries. We are not.
The statements that were made by the Minister for International Trade, by myself, and by the Prime Minister, have been consistent on this question. I repeat them again to the hon. member and I call upon him to exercise his judgement as a member of Parliament not to try to create false fears in the country.
There has been a decision taken by the presidents of two other countries, Mexico and the United States, to determine whether it is in their interest to proceed with negotiation of a trade agreement. If they decide to do that, there may well be some implication on the interests of Canada. We, naturally, are keeping in touch with the Mexicans, we are keeping in touch with the Americans to see what it is they are discussing, whether it might have some implication for Canada, and if it does, we will then take decisions as to what Canada should do.


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, I simply note the facts as they have come out. If the facts suggest that the government is wrong, that is not my fault; that is the government's fault.
On Tuesday, yet another manufacturer, Fruehauf, said it was shutting its Brantford plant, cutting 334 jobs. As the company said, "Very simply, the playing field is not level".
Does the government not realize that Mexico's low wages, poor social benefits, slack environmental laws would tilt that playing field even more firmly against
June 14. 1990	COMMONS
Canada's interest? Will this government today commit itself against any free trade deal with Mexico?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, there are two things I want to say. The first is that we are not discussing a free trade arrangement with Mexico or a tripartite free trade arrangement in North America. We are not doing that. We are trying to gather information about discussions that might be going on and we will then come to a judgement.
As I have said in the House on several occasions, there will be an opportunity to discuss that in standing committee. There will be consultations with the provinces, with industry, and with labour unions, if the member thinks that would be productive, about any decisions that we might take.
The other point, Sir, that is very important to make is that the New Democratic Party prides itself on being a party that lakes a broad world view of events. It encourages us to be active in developing the Third World. Yet the hon. member now is pandering to anti-Mexico feelings here in the House of Commons. I think that is shameful.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Deputy Prime Minister regarding the free trade agreement. He will remember that during the discussions there was much concern about the intention of selling massive amounts of Canadian water to the United States.
Just a few shorts months ago, the Minister for International Trade said in Montreal that all the free trade agreement provides, for the record, is the elimination of tariffs on the export of bottled water, and he went on for quite some time to talk about Perrier and sparkling water, and so on.
The Deputy Prime Minister will know from reading the press today that three Canadian firms are offering to sell massive amounts of Canadian water to Santa Barbara, California.
Is the Deputy Prime Minister concerned, in the absence of a national water policy for which we have been waiting for many months, that this will not set a precedent? Does the Government of Canada support the selling of massive amounts of Canadian water to the United States?
Oral Questions


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I am a little surprised at the hon. member's currency because it is not that this story was in the papers today. The story was in the papers three or four days ago. He is remarkably late, given his usual source of the newspapers as his basis for comment in the House.
But on the substance of the matter, the hon. member knows that any proposal to export water must be consistent with the clear federal water policy that was established in 1987. That policy clearly states the government's opposition to large scale water exports by interbasin transfer.


FINANCE
M. Douglas Young: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance.
The bank rate in Canada went up again today. Last week, the Minister of Finance told Canadians that if the Meech Lake impasse was not resolved, interest rates would remain very high. This week, the Governor of the Bank of Canada tells us that even if Meech Lake is ratified, there will be no drop in interest rates.
I would like to ask the Minister of Finance this: Can we take the minister at his word, since he testified before the Standing Committee on Finance that if Meech Lake is passed, Canadians will finally see interest rates go down in this country?


Gilles Loiselle: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Gloucester for his question. This is a very important issue. Our monetary policy is aimed at creating the best possible environment for allowing interest rates to go down and stay down.
Obviously, in a market where capital can move freely, any element of instability makes investors stop and think, although we should not exaggerate the importance of certain factors either. However, at the present time, the main reason why interest rates remain high is because inflationary pressures continue to exist.
I can inform the hon. member for Gloucester, however, that we have some indication that inflation is starting to slow down. The pressure is starting to ease, and I am confident-indeed I hope for the sake of all Canadians- that we will soon be able to announce that our policy has

June 14, 1990
Oral Questions
been successful and will see interest rates go down on a more permanent basis.


M. Douglas Young: Mr. Speaker, since the Minister of State for Finance wants to make some announcements, perhaps the minister would be kind enough to explain to the House, in light of questions put now by the Chamber of Commerce, by the Trust Companies Association of Canada, by the Canadian Bankers Association, by the insurance industry, if the long-awaited financial institution reform legislation will be brought before this House in the very near future? Can he give us a date on that today?


Gilles Loiselle: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is to be commended for his interest in a sector that is indeed very important.
As a member of the Standing Committee on Finance, he is of course aware that my department, the Department of Finance, has tabled a rather impressive number of budget bills, so that we have taken up a considerable amount of the time of the House.
These bills involve changes that are extremely important and, in some cases, will update legislation that has been left untouched for 70 years. We are determined to table these bills as soon as possible, as soon as we can get them on the agenda of the House.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. Eugene Bellemare (Carleton -Gloucester):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs in regard to the appointment of Mr. Nickolas Murray, the present head of the Consumers Association of Canada, as chairman of the new GST monitoring agency.
Members and former presidents of the Consumers Association have denounced this appointment. How can Mr. Murray serve two masters? On the one hand, he serves as head of an independent consumer advocacy
group, and on the other hand, he will preside over the GST information office, a powerless gimmick which will make him a lap-dog rather than a watch-dog.
What is the government trying to do, pacify the public, muzzle the Consumers Association, or both?


Hon. Otto Jelinek (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, that question is as nonsensical today as it was yesterday. The hon. member knows that the new consumer information office is an independent body, arm's length to the minister and to the government.
The hon. member should know, and this is what I do not understand, that Mr. Murray has served and continues to serve the interests of all consumers, as the head of the Consumers Association of Canada. He will now continue to serve the consumers of Canada as the head of the new consumer information office.
I cannot, for the life of me, see any indication of a conflict of interest when a highly qualified individual, in the person of Nickolas Murray, who has the best interest of the consumers at heart, is asked to head an agency of this nature for the benefit of all consumers in Canada.


Eugène Bellemare: Mr. Speaker, the minister's reply is typical of the minister and his colleagues. My second question is directed to the same minister. Does he not believe that the only decent way out is to demand taht Mr. Murray resign, either from the consumers' association or from his position as head of the GST consumer information office, which in any case is just a public relations office for the governe-ment?


Otto John Jelinek: Mr. Speaker, if there was some potential benefit to Mr. Murray, or if there was some sort of a conflict of interest against the benefits of consumers in this country, then of course the appointment would not have taken place.
The fact is that the interests that Mr. Murray has in his heart, his soul, and in his mind are for the benefit of all consumers, whether in his capacity as head of the

June 14, 1990

Consumers Association of Canada, or in his new capacity as the head of the consumer information office.
I do not understand where the hon. member is coming from when he should be rejoicing, as the consumers are, that the government had the will, the right and the decency to appoint somebody with such an interest in consumers as Mr. Nickolas Murray.


BRITISH COLUMBIA FLOODING-EMERGENCY RELIEF
Lyle Dean MacWilliam: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the minister responsible for Emergency Preparedness.
The interior of British Columbia, including areas from Prince George to Oliver, has received extensive flood damage as a result of sustained heavy rains. Nine people are now confirmed or believed dead from flood waters and mud slides. Helicopter evacuation of stranded residents has been initiated and flash flood alerts have been issued.
The Okanagan Lake system is now 20 centimetres above full pool and is expected to rise another 16 to possibly 30 centimetres, depending on the weather.
My question to the minister is whether the minister has responded to a B.C. government request for emergency relief that was issued today under the federal government's Disaster Assistance Program?
Second, will the minister agree to provide immediate assistance on this very urgent matter?


Mr. Jean-Guy Hudon (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I think the House sympathizes with the people of British Columbia who are experiencing a disastrous situation at the present time. The minister responsible for disaster assistance is the Minister of National Defence. He has received a request for financial assistance from British Columbia, and I can confirm today that he will provide the financial assistance requested-in line with a policy that was developed a few years ago-in order to help British Columbia cope with these disastrous conditions.
Oral Questions


Lyle Dean MacWilliam: Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for the answer to the question.
I would like to add that the mountain snow packs in the interior of British Columbia are presently exceeding normal levels. In fact, we are now returning to the possibility of warm seasonal weather which has set the stage for even further wide-spread damage.
Can the minister assure the residents of British Columbia that the full resources of the federal Government of Canada, including the possible use of National Defence personnel, will be made available should the melting snow packs or continued heavy rains create an even greater potential for damage?


Jean-Guy Hudon: Mr. Speaker, the situation is being monitored very carefully through our National Defence information centre. I think that considering our present policy, the minister is always prepared to respond to any request to help people in need. Our response will depend on the findings of our information centre and, what is requested by the Government of British Columbia which will determine with residents the amount of assistance needed.


FISHERIES
Hon. William Rompkey (Labrador):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Acting Minister of Fisheries. The minister will know that the commercial salmon quota on the southern coast of Labrador has been reduced by 43 per cent this year. This comes at a time when there is a crisis in the groundfish industry and an ice blockade on the coast of Labrador.
My question is very simple. Why is it that the minister has reduced the salmon quota to Labrador fishermen, many of whom are members of the Labrador Metis Association, at this critical time? Will he now rescind this Draconian measure by his department and give back to Labrador fishermen their only means of earning a livelihood?

June 14, 1990
Oral Questions


Mr. Ross Reid (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Mr. Speaker, the simple answer to the question is that in the interest of conservation, the Minister of Fisheries, in consultation with user groups and the provincial government, each year puts in a management plan for a variety of fisheries. This year a quota was put in place for area 2, that my hon. friend talks about. I remind him that last year the allowance was 300 and the catch was 225. The quota for this year, respecting the need for conservation based both on catch results and scientific information, is 200. The difference between the catch and the quota is a little over 10 per cent.
Nobody would want to deny any fishermen fish if it were not in the long-term interest of those fishermen and particularly the people of Labrador.


Bill Rompkey: Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary will know that the user groups specifically asked for Labrador to be excluded from the conservation program. Indeed the government has made an allocation available to northern Labrador and not southern Labrador. The user groups are all for having an allocation for Labrador.
I want to ask the parliamentary secretary a supplementary question. If the government is not prepared to rescind this Draconian measure, will he now say that the government is prepared to make available to those fishermen an income support program during the ice blockade, as there is adequate precedent for by past governments? Is he prepared to say that the government is prepared to move on that question and at least allow the fishermen of Labrador some income support?


Hon. Marcel Danis (Minister of State (Youth), Minister of State (Fitness and Amateur Sport) and Deputy Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to say to the hon. member who mentioned the ice blockade in Labrador that this is not a unique occurrence. I may remind him that in 1988, fishermen on the Labrador coast were unable to start fishing until the end of June. So this is not exactly unique, but we are monitoring the situation.


MEAT EXPORTS
Hon. Ralph Ferguson (Lambton -Middlesex):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Agriculture.
According to industry sources, U.S. border inspection stations recently rejected 76 per cent of the meat from the province of Alberta slated that weekend for entering the United States, in spite of Canadian government quality approval.
The pork industry in Alberta claims that inspection harassment has increased significantly since the minister announced a pilot program with the U.S. on February 26 which he promised would eliminate this harassment.
When the minister met with the U.S. agriculture secretary on Monday, was he able to force the U.S. to back down on this import harassment which clearly contravenes both the free trade agreement and his own agreement with the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister, President of the Privy Council and Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, what is important is to remove the impediments and the harassment that has been going on. As a matter of fact, as a result of the arrangement that was made between the Secretary of Agriculture and the Government of Canada, that process is taking place.
Obviously, there is a requirement for a notification process to change the regulations required and that is occurring now. I was given the assurance that the U.S. administration is firm in removing those impediments to trade. My understanding is that the formal notice will be coming forth very shortly, after which time the formalized regulations will be able to come into place.


Ralph Ferguson: Mr. Speaker, on February 10, the minister informed a Toronto audience that he warned the U.S. Ambassador that, should the United States not stop harassing meat imports into the United States, Canada would be forced to take corresponding action.
June 14, 1990

In view of the fact that the U.S. has failed to comply with its earlier assurances, what is the minister going to do to retaliate?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I find that question rather strange when the Secretary of Agriculture has agreed to rectify the process, but the problem is that-


An hon. member:: It has gotten worse.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: It has not gotten worse. The Leader of the Opposition does not understand that.
What is taking place is that the regulatory process is being put in place. There has to be formal notice publicized in what is their equivalent of The Canada Gazette. That is being done. When that process is completed, we will be able to remove those impediments and certainly that will facilitate trade both ways. I am sure that is what the hon. member wants.


THE MIDDLE EAST
Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg Transcona):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Right Hon. Secretary of State for External Affairs and it concerns recent developments in the Middle East: the formation of a new hard-line government in Israel; Tuesday's tear gas attack by Israeli troops on a Swedish maternity clinic; and yesterday's statement by the new government in Israel that it would not negotiate with the PLO, thus making any real peace prospects almost impossible.
I wonder if the Secretary of State for External Affairs shares the view that what we have in the situation in the Middle East is a rapidly deteriorating situation, in a region of the world where nuclear and chemical warfare confrontations are not out of the question.
In that light, what action does the Government of Canada intend to take, either through its seat on the Security Council at the United Nations, or in other ways, to send the appropriate messages to Israel-and, for that matter, the United States-that there has to be move-
Oral Questions
ment instead of intransigence on the part of the Israeli government?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question, and I am sure all members of the House share his concern not simply about developments in the Middle East, but the evidence that there is no apparent break in the cycle of violence and all the implications that holds for the difficulty of moderates maintaining their position in that region.
There is a new government now formed in Israel. I will be in touch with their foreign minister directly. There had been a plan for a meeting between myself and his predecessor that was to have occurred this month. I hope that there can be a direct meeting between the new minister and myself as soon as possible.
With regard to the United States, I signed a letter yesterday to the U.S. Secretary of State urging him to persevere in discussions, including the maintenance of consultations between the Government of the United States and the PLO.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, one of the more immediate concerns that certainly the Palestinian community has is that ways be found to protect the Palestinians from the increasing level of violence being visited upon them by Israeli troops.
Has the minister considered, as I mentioned in my first question, using our position on the Security Council to influence the development of a UN peacekeeping force that would finally be acceptable to Israel to operate in the occupied territories to protect Palestinians? At the same time, would the Canadian government not consider enhancing its relations with the Palestine Liberation Organization as a way of indicating to the Israeli government that we feel these are the people who will finally have to be dealt with, whether the Israelis like it or not?
Right Hon. Joe Clark (Secretary of State for External
Affairs): Mr. Speaker, there are two or three questions there. The hon. member was careful in suggesting that any action by the United Nations would have to be something that was acceptable to Israel. We would certainly be prepared, as we have in the past, to try to apply our influence to achieve that kind of result.

June 14, 1990
Oral Questions
My understanding is that there has been, in fact, a willingness on the part of Israel to accept the visit of representatives of the Secretary General. We think that is an important step forward.
With regard to the question of the PLO and Canada's relations, the hon. member will know that the government has acted to increase the level of contact between Canada and the leadership of the PLO. We are trying to use that contact to encourage continued moderation by leadership of the PLO.


Mr. Greg Thompson (Carleton -Charlotte):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister for International Trade, but in his absence, I will put it to the Minister of External Affairs.
In my riding, the U.S. government has shut down the Port of Bridgewater, a port that we export a great deal through and that is creating a great deal of hardship on exporters in New Brunswick. It appears to be in violation of Annex 406-D of the free trade agreement.
What measures has the government taken and will it take to ensure the long-term viability of our exporters in New Brunswick, considering the hardship that the U.S. government has unilaterally placed on our exporters in the province? Does the minister have an answer and a suggestion for us?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member, not only for that question, but also for raising the issue a while ago with my colleague, the Minister for International Trade.
We are concerned about the pattern that appears to be developing. We have been in touch with U.S. Customs. It is our understanding that any action that might be taken would not be taken before very early in July. We are seeking formal meetings to discuss details of this practice. We are also seeking help from businesses and associations involved as to details that may help us make effective representations to the United States that would protect Canadian interests.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister.
Today in Montreal, the Green Coalition is boycotting government hearings on the so-called Green Plan. The coalition says that with time and money on their side, polluters and pals of the government control every discussion, and the government is trying to cover up its failure to act on environmental issues with high sounding words behind closed doors.
Could the Deputy Prime Minister tell the House whether the part-time Acting Minister of the Environment is prepared to open these hearings to the general public and let Canadians know what is going on?


Hon. Perrin Beatty (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, the Acting Minister of the Environment is in Montreal today participating in the consultations. The hon. member should appreciate that fact and should welcome it.
These consultations allow for a very broad public participation in the whole development of environmental legislation and policy in Canada. The degree of participation that has taken place across the country, with literally thousands of Canadians showing an interest to play a role in protecting their environment, is very heartening and something which encourages the Minister of the Environment. He certainly will be reporting to Canadians with regard to this.


Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is also addressed to the Deputy Prime Minister, rather than to the acting acting part-time Minister of the Environment.
Environmentalists told the government a year ago what was needed in the green print for Canada. The government has had its own Green Plan for months but it has been hiding it from Canadians. No wonder the coalition refuses to be part of thwarting the will of Canadians for action on the environment.
June 14, 1990

Will the Deputy Prime Minister tell us now what deals and trade-offs are being made behind closed doors?


Henry Perrin Beatty: Mr. Speaker, what we are seeing taking place is a process of consultation with Canadians. Between the time the Minister of Finance announced that consultations would take place and the present, we have had over 5,400 Canadians involved in consultations with the government with regard to the environment.
I take it from the hon. member that the Liberal Party of Canada opposes this sort of consultation with the people of Canada. For the government's part, it believes that Canadians have a right to be involved in determining policies relating to the very survival of this planet.


IMMIGRATION
Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the two ministers of immigration, I direct my question to the Deputy Prime Minister.
Recent reports indicate that the government is very hesitant about initiating deportation hearings against some business immigrants who have not honoured their end of the economic commitment which was the basis for their admission into Canada. I would ask the Deputy Prime Minister how the government can refuse to investigate such individuals when thousands of refugee family class or independent class applicants are scrutinized religiously and refused for the smallest of flaws? Why, in other words, the double standard, one for the rich and one for the not so rich.


Marcel Danis: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Minister of Employment and Immigration I will take notice of the hon. member's question, to which a reply will be forthcoming.
Oral Questions


Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, I thank the sports minister for answering on behalf of the immigration dossier.
I return again to the Deputy Prime Minister. Two years ago in the House in response to my question, the Minister of Immigration said, and I quote: "We apply the standards of the act to everyone and we will be especially enhancing the monitoring of the business immigrant program".
Thirty-two thousand business immigrants later, could the Deputy Prime Minister tell me if the government knows where these business immigrants are in Canada? Have they lived up to their economic commitment, and, precisely how many jobs have they created for our Canadian economy?


Marcel Danis: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his question. I can assure him that the Minister of Employment and Immigration will give him-

-and I am sure the member will be happy with her answer.
He *	*


GUN CONTROL
Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Justice.
The minister knows that hundreds of thousands of Canadians have signed petitions calling for more effective gun control in Canada, particularly with respect to military and paramilitary combat weapons, and that the Federation of Canadian Municipalities this month unanimously urged a ban on these weapons in civilian hands.
In view of the fact that the minister promised on May 10 of this year before the justice committee to table gun control legislation before the summer adjournment, why is she now backing off on this promise? Why is she now caving in to the vocal minority in this country who do not believe in any effective gun control legislation at all?

June 14, 1990
Privilege


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, as I advised the hon. member for Nolre-Dame-de-Grace yesterday, I am not backing off from the commitment and I am not giving in to any vocal minority. I certainly hope to be able to honour my commitment in this House.


PRIVILEGE
Mr. John R. Rodriguez (Nickel Belt):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today on a point of privilege for which I have given you proper notice at the first possible moment.
As you are well aware, my point of privilege deals with the actions of the chair of the Standing Committee on Consumer and Corporate Affairs, the hon. member for Halton-Peel.
I would like to inform the House that the basis of my question arises from a letter that the chair of the Standing Committee wrote to Mr. Terrence Larock, the Chief of Committee Reporting Services.
The letter states that the chair has informed the console operators before each committee that the microphones of only those members who are recognized are to be turned on.
In addition, the letter states and I quote: "In the case where the words of a member, not recognized by the chair, are picked up by another microphone, these words are not to be included in the evidence and there should not be any editorial note explaining that the member was not recognized or that the microphone was ordered shut".
It should also be pointed out that the chair states quite clearly that these are his instructions and not those of the committee.
I am aware that the Speaker does not have the power to intervene in the affairs of committees, nor is it proper for the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections to interfere with another committee. However, I would submit, Mr. Speaker, that my point of privilege arises not from any particular proceeding within the committee but rather arises from a decision taken by the member for Halton-Peel.
I would direct you, Mr. Speaker, to a decision taken by Speaker Lamoureux on December 10, 1968. The member for St. John's East at the time rose on a question of privilege charging that the second report of the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications omitted a resolution that had been approved by the committee. The speaker ruled that the omission did constitute a prima facie case of privilege. Speaker Lamoureux felt there may have been difficulty in looking into the affairs of a committee. But he concluded, "But that question is not what we are seized with at this time."
Mr. Speaker, I would put to you that today we are not seized with the question of what went on with the affairs of the standing committee but with the fact that the chair of the committee has interfered with the privileges of the members of the committee.
My question of privilege arises from the fact that the speaker or chair of the committee does not have any editorial licence on what may or may not have been said in committee or in the House.
Mr. Speaker, if I can direct you to a ruling by Speaker Jerome on July 19, 1977 with respect to a complaint of something said by a member who did not have the floor and which was recorded in Hansard. Speaker Jerome said at that time:
We do not permit hon. members to rise in their places the following day to say that the impression created by their words -is really not the impression they intended to create. We do not enjoy that right. The reporters must attempt to catch what they hear and report it in the way they see fit, and if an hon. member says that that somehow creates a mistaken impression, he is always given the courtesy, as the minister was, of being allowed to make an amplified explanation for the record. However, to attempt now to go back and rearrange the language as it was recorded is simply out of the question, whether it be attempted by way of order, a question of privilege, or anything else.
May I also direct you to a ruling by Speaker Francis on February 2, 1984 with respect to an exchange between the Leader of the Opposition and the Minister of National Health ands Welfare. Speaker Francis concluded that:
The chair certainly does not want to rule on what Hon. Members mean when they use certain words or phrases in the course of debate. All Hon. Members will agree with me that the Chair has no editing function.
Mr. Speaker, I would argue that the chair of a standing committee does not have the power to decide what may or may not be included in the official record of the committee's proceedings. As in the case of the House, the committees' reporters must try to pick up and record
June 14, 1990

whatever they can and that no one has the power to change what is on the record.
In fact, Mr. Speaker, if I were to put it in its basest terms, if for example the member for Halton-Peel had the floor and in the course of his debate I shouted: "The hon. member is a liar." I would never do that, but let us say I did. Mr. Speaker, the member cannot ask me to stand up and take it back because, in fact, it is not a part of the record. It is not recorded. I cannot take back what is not part of the record.
I am very concerned, Mr. Speaker, about actions of chairmen of committees. In this particular instance and in a previous instance with the chairman of the finance committee it seems to me that the chairmen of standing committees are going beyond what are even the powers of the Speakers of this House.
I cannot imagine that you, Mr. Speaker, would instruct the recording officers of this Chamber not to record those comments that come from members of this House when others have the floor.
Apart from the fact that Hansard will be so sanitized, it will be unexciting. Imagine Hansard bereft of "fuddle-duddle", or any of the more colourful asides that are included as part of the debates of the House.
Mr. Speaker, I think that the attempt by the member for Halton-Peel to direct the committees' reporters to censor the members of the committees constitutes a serious prima facie breach of privilege and I believe it should be referred to the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections.


Mr. Garth Turner (Halton -Peel):: Mr. Speaker, I have heard my friend's words. I understand his arguments, and I must rise to say that I think it is important that you, Sir, understand how this particular situation arose.
The member for Nickel Belt, a member of the Standing Committee on Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Government Operations is prone to some outbursts in committee. From to time the hon. member will make comments while another member has the floor.
The hon. member will sometimes question a witness during the time allotted to another member of the committee. Sometimes, in error, the console operator has opened the microphone of a member of the committee who does not have the floor and has not been recognized. Console operators, in general, do not do this
Privilege
but, from time to time, it does occur. We believe, in the committee, that the member who has the floor should be accorded the courtesy of retaining the floor and being the sole speaker.
It is similar to you maintaining order in this House. You have to do it through a certain set of rules. You recognize a member to have the floor and, while that member has the floor, you do not allow other members to have the floor at the same time. This is the same rule we apply in committee. As in the House, we do that by means of electronic control, that is, recording the member who has the floor and not opening the microphones for members who do not have the floor.
That is simply what this letter sought to clarify. The hon. member says that his privileges, as a member, have been infringed upon. I submit that he does not have the privilege of disrupting committee meetings, he does not have the privilege to question witnesses when he does not have the floor. He does not have the privilege to demand that his words be put on the record, when he has not been recognized. All members are recognized in turn and in order and he does not have that privilege. Therefore, I maintain, that because that privilege is not his, it has not been abrogated.


Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott -Russell):: Mr. Speaker, I want to make a few brief comments concerning the letter. I received a copy of it late this morning. The words that I find to be of particular interest to the Chair are the following: "It is to be considered as speaking off the record and the words are not to be recorded in the evidence".
As to whether or not someone's microphone should be turned on or off, I do have some sympathy perhaps with the proposition that those who are not recognized do not usually have a microphone available to them in order to get the electronic registering. That is, of course, a precedent established in this House.
However, I do not believe that Mr. Speaker has ever ruled that something that was said and duly recorded by the interjectionists or those other people who are charged here on the floor of the House to register those interjections, has ever not been recorded in the evidence, if it were deemed to be a part of what was stated in the House. From time to time, members will interject across the floor, and the interjection is not germane to

June 14, 1990
Privilege
the debate. In other words, they are not necessarily interjections pertinent to the remarks of the member who is speaking. In those instances, I believe that the staff does not always record them. Their judgment is utilized in order to record the interjections, when they are germane to the debate.
It has been stated earlier by my colleague, the hon. member for Nickel Belt, that the chair has no authority to editorialize or otherwise remove words that are said. Similarly, of course, the chair does not have any authority to make a decision that words, sentences or complete speeches of a member whose mike is not turned on cannot be recorded. That has to be decided again by the persons who are operating the console, recording the interjections, and so on, depending on where we are. I just want to draw your attention to Beauchesne's, Fifth Edition, citation 41, which reads:
The control of the House over its publications is absolute. For a number of years after Confederation the House made a formal claim each session "that the Votes and Proceedings of this House be printed, being first perused by Mr. Speaker-
The important point here, Mr. Speaker, is that if control over the publications of the House rests with the House itself, surely control over committee publications rests with the committee itself and not with the chairman of the committee.
Citation 43 of Beauchesne, in reference to the Debates of the House, reads:
Alterations in the Debates are traditionally limited to minor corrections of syntax and will often be made by the Member involved before printing.
That, of course, is generally what is done at the step which is referred to as the "blues". Citation 155 of Beauchesne's says:
The debates of the House of Commons are reported verbatim, recording correctly what was said by each Member of the House. Slight verbal alterations are allowed to be made by a Member in order to make his meaning more precise and accurate; however, he may not, by the insertion of words or phrases, effect material changes in the meaning of what he actually said in the House.
That was decided by Mr. Speaker, on April 7, 1933, at page 3855 of Hansard.
Mr. Speaker, Citation 155 of Beauchesne's further says:
(2) Corrections may be made to Hansard. If the correction is of a very important nature the Member shall rise in the House when Motions are called to explain his correction.
The implication is, again, that it is only the member himself or herself who can ask the House to make that correction. In other words, the Chair has no such authority himself or herself in the House. Given that, Citation 569 of Beauchesne's says:
(1) Committees are regarded as creatures of 1he House and are governed for the most part in their proceedings by the same rules which prevail in the House -
Mr. Speaker, I then contend that if the Speaker of the House has no authority to make that kind of judgment, therefore, the chairman of the committee similarly has no such authority either.
One final point under Standing Order 108(2). Committees, of course, are masters of their own business and that is generally true. Of course, there is one point that should be remembered and I invite the Speaker to ponder on the following: even though committees do have that authority, the committee itself, in this case, never took such a decision. Therefore, if the committee never took that decision to except itself from the rules of the House, therefore the rules of the House prevail. The rules of the House, as I mentioned earlier, would not be such that it would allow a Speaker to make that kind of determination.
In closing, I do not think that the chairman of the committee had the authority to make that decision. At the very least, the letter should be withdrawn at the earliest opportunity and failing that, I would be inclined to support my colleague for Nickel Belt and his suggestion that the issue be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure, Privilege and Private Members' Business.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, very briefly, I would like to make two points. One, it is quite clear that we are not dealing with a question of privilege and that the privileges of the member have not been infringed upon in any way.
What we are dealing with is a concern and a legitimate point of order about the procedure being employed in a committee. The hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell pointed out quite accurately that, just as
June 14, 1990

Your Honour here in the Chamber has effective control over the console in which mikes are recognized and so on, and is an absolutely essential feature to maintenance of order, so, too, must the chairman and the committee, and it is impossible to do without. Otherwise, without such authority in the Chair, there would be privileges of members abused on a continuous basis.
Clearly, a member who shouts and refuses to recognize or allow the person who is recognized by the Chair to proceed with their interrogation or statement is clearly, by that interjection, interfering with the privileges of that member to pursue with the committee that which he or she is trying to pursue. It is indeed essential for the protection of the privileges of members at committee that the chairman have that kind of authority.
In terms of what is appropriate to the record of a committee and in terms of the Hansard equivalent and so on, I think that is a legitimate question of order. I think that is a legitimate question that should be asked. As the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell said, the committees are masters of their own rules and, indeed, it would be an appropriate item for discussion at that particular committee as to what a committee might decide is appropriate. If a committee decided that heckles, gestures, yells, screams and other distractions are somehow contributing to a more accurate written record of the proceedings of the committee, then so be it. But if they, in their wisdom, decide that those sorts of things do not contribute to a proper reflection of proceedings at committee, then that too should be the decision of the committee.
Finally, I will end where I started. It is quite clear that we are not dealing with a question of privilege, under any definition of privilege that I have been able to find, but rather an argument over procedures used in committee.


Mr. Speaker:: I am going to interrupt the interventions because I have listened to this with some concern and have read the letter.
At this point I am going to ask the hon. member for Nickel Belt and others who are concerned about this to take it back to committee. Depending on what happens there, I may hear the matter further.
Privilege


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, this being Thursday, I would like to ask the government House leader if he has any idea what business we would be looking at in the next few days, starting with tomorrow?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, at this time on the parliamentary calendar it is frequently difficult to know what we will be doing half an hour from now, let alone for the next few days.
We will continue this afternoon with Bill C-58, dealing with young offenders.
It is my expectation that tomorrow we will have business arising out of a decision by the Senate. Apparently they have not taken the decision they were expected to take so we may have to come back on June 21 or June 22 to deal with that. We will discuss that later with members of the opposition.
If that should not come to pass for some reason which I cannot at this time contemplate, we might deal tomorrow with Bill C-72, the act to establish the Canadian Polar Commission and Bill C-68, the Yukon Quartz Mining Act.
On Monday, Mr. Nelson Mandela has been invited to address the House at 11 a.m. It would be my expectation to call for the commencement of debate on the main motion arising out of the constitutional discussions of last week. That will be subject to discussions we will have through the usual channels.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I will be seeking some further information this afternoon from the House leader. I think we should meet and discuss some of the issues before us. I know the Senate has S-17 dealing with the variable entrance requirements which the House may have to address tomorrow or Monday.
Bill C-28, which the minister alluded to, I am sure the Senate would see fit to report today if some of us asked, and we are asking right now for them to do so. We can get that for the House and settle the issue.


Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Mr. Speaker, I have two questions for the government.

June 14. 1990
Privilege
The government House leader indicated that we would continue with Bill C-58 this afternoon. In the event that that work is completed, could we have an indication from the government House leader as to whether we will proceed to other items of business or whether we will suspend?
Second, given the uncertainty of next week, do we now have an indication that it is possible the House will not adjourn in time for members of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition to travel to their convention as per a prior agreement?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry, I forgot to mention that after Bill C-58, it would be my intention to call Bill C-39, the offshore laws act, for which there is some urgency.
In terms of sittings next week, the last thing in the world that I would attempt to do is to deny members of the Loyal Opposition to go to that fine city of Calgary. It is the first time in my political experience in the House that I have seen Liberals willingly ready to spend money in my city, and I am not going to stand in the way of that happening.
However, we do have certain parliamentary responsibilities that we will be discussing in our usual manner. If satisfactory accommodations can be met, we can all enjoy whatever we choose to enjoy during that period.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, for clarification, the minister just said that he was going to call Bill C-39, which is an act to apply federal laws and provincial laws to off-shore areas commensurate with acts in consequence thereof. That act is at report stage with an amendment right now.
Did I hear the minister correctly that he intends to call this bill this afternoon after the Young Offenders Act?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, there appears to be some disagreement over my parliamentary secretary to whom I affectionately refer to as Henry Kissinger, the shuttle diplomat.
As one can understand as we go into the summer expiration season and so on, it would be useful that this act, in terms of enforcing Canadian environmental laws, be in place for proper regulation enforcement of commercial law in those sensitive areas.
Further to discussions we can have in a few moments, I am hopeful that we can get some agreement. That would facilitate us achieving the adjournment time that was alluded to by the hon. member for Thunder Bay-Atiko-kan.


Mr. Pat Nowlan (Annapolis Valley-Hants):: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I just want to clarify.
I think I heard the House leader correctly. Is there some certainty-to use a word that was used here quite a bit last week-that there is going to be a debate in this House on the companion resolution and/or the constitutional questions that were discussed in this city with such heat, fervour and importance for seven days last week before we get out of here? In this discussion, there will be House leaders.
After all, this was a pretty fundamental thing last week. I find it peculiar strains that the House of Commons is at the moment still mute as far as having a Commons debate on something that is so fundamental to the nation.


Harvie Andre: As I indicated, Mr. Speaker, it is my intention to call the main resolution next Monday.
The question as to when the various steps that were agreed to during the constitutional discussions are completed is subject to further discussion. Clearly, it is our expectation that every resolution that was agreed to last week will be fully debated and and adjudicated on or divided on in this House at the proper time.
There is no attempt to deny normal parliamentary rules of debate and discussion with regard to these issues.


POINT OF ORDER
Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order arising out of Question Period, which I had hoped to raise earlier when the minister was still here.
In response to my questions with respect to Canada's involvement in trade talks with Mexico, the Secretary of State for External Affairs suggested that I was pandering to anti-Mexican feeling. As I look at some of the prohibitions that are indicated with respect to debate in
June 14, 1990

Beauchesne, among other things, it suggests that one is not to impute motives different from those acknowledged to a member.
Mr. Speaker, I would ask if you could rule on whether the suggestion that I was pandering to anti-Mexican feeling-I must say that I take this personally as quite a strong insult, given my background and past involvement with Mexico-and on whether that is not imputing bad motives to another member.


Mr. Speaker:: I am sure that the hon. member's intervention will be brought to the attention of the minister. I am not going to make any more comment until I know that the minister has heard the hon. member's intervention.


MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed Bill S-17, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, to which the concurrence of this House is desired.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Wednesday, May 30, consideration of the motion of Ms. Campbell (Vancouver Centre) that Bill C-58, an act to amend the Young Offenders Act and the Criminal Code, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on this measure to amend the Young Offenders Act. Prior to dealing with some of the proposals in detail, I want to go back and take a look at some of the history of young offenders legislation in Canada.
Government Orders
When I first started out working in the social service field, my first experiences were working in juvenile court and juvenile detention centres. At that time we were dealing with the Juvenile Delinquency Act.
I went back to university and I wrote my masters thesis on the juvenile court, which at that time was comparable to a star chamber kangaroo court in the way that it dealt with young people. It failed to protect their legal rights. It failed to protect their social rights. It had tremendous powers to disrupt family lives, to sentence youth for petty, inane and nuisance crimes to long periods of incarceration.
The history in Canada of our treatment of juvenile offenders is not one of which we can be proud. The Young Offenders Act was in legal form a vast improvement. My concern is that some of the potential that should have been realized through the Young Offenders Act has not been realized simply because of the behaviour of this government in reneging on its promises to provide services.
Because of this, the resources for programs and services to juveniles that the government has been providing have been lacking. The government is now reverting to an age-old practice which says that rather than provide the resources and services we need we will try to increase the penalties.
Before we agree that this should be done in a mandatory manner, we should take a look at who are the youth in this country who are still subject to the Young Offenders Act.
Recently in the city of Edmonton school principals and teachers who dealt with young offenders documented that 60 per cent to 80 per cent of all kids coming before the juvenile authorities under the Young Offenders Act had severe learning disabilities. These youth were in need of special assistance because of their learning problems.
Many youth come from families that borderline on poverty or are impoverished. Grade 1 teachers could tell us of most of the youth who come before juvenile court that these are children who were going to get into difficulty because of learning disabilities, anti-social behaviour, and family disruption.
Yet we are unwilling to provide the resources to ensure that these children have the opportunity to grow up and be productive and useful members of our society.

June 14, 1990
Government Orders
We do not provide the remedial resources for learning disabilities in the school. Without that the youth grow up being unable to read and write. In our society being functionally illiterate means being condemned to poverty.
We do not provide counselling resources to help families. We do not provide resources to deal with the anti-social behaviour of children who have been identified as anti-social earlier in school. We do not provide resources to boys and girls clubs, to recreational organizations, or to preventive child welfare programs that are necessary.
In fact this government has taken two actions to reduce the availability of dollars for resources to solve problems that juveniles face. One was taken a year ago when the government began to limit the amount of dollars that it would make available under the Young Offenders Act to assist provinces in providing post-adjudication services. I will come back to that later.
This year the government again limited expenditures in Ontario, Alberta, and B.C. under the Canada Assistance Plan. Those are moneys that are used for preventive services. Those are the moneys that are used to fund family service organizations which provide counselling to families. Those are resources that are used to bring people up from below the poverty line, to try to provide them with an adequate standard of living.
Yet this government said: "We are going to curtail the expenditures. We are not going to invest in prevention. We are not going to invest in remedial measures or rehabilitation. We are simply going to go back and take a punitive approach to corrections, particularly juvenile corrections".
Another major group in this country that comes under the Young Offenders Act is that of aboriginal peoples. It is no coincidence that today a native person is holding up the progress, if it can be called progress, that has been made in resolving the constitutional crisis.
I have a great deal of sympathy for the Manitoba aboriginal person who is refusing to allow the constitutional resolution to go forward because, again, it neglects to address adequately the concerns of native people.
In the juvenile correctional system native people have been treated atrociously. I can remember, when in the
early 1980s I took over as a senior administrator in the downtown core of Vancouver, that some 80 per cent of all children under the care of the Superintendent of Child Welfare were native children. If we look at some of the submissions made by the National Association of Friendship Centres about its concerns with the Young Offenders Act, we see that it points out that in Manitoba 47 per cent of young men held on remand are native and 55 per cent of those held in secure custody are native men. It is even more shocking when we look at the treatment of native women-92 per cent of young women held on remand are native. In secure custody the figure is 87.5 per cent.
We have a system that discriminates against those who are socially disadvantaged, who are poor, who have learning disabilities, who are in need of services and not incarceration. They are in need of rehabilitation programs, not punishment.
If we look at the backgrounds of many people appearing before the young offenders court, we find that they are people society has betrayed the most. They are people who have been sexually abused. They are people who have been neglected. They are people who have been left in poverty by this very wealthy society. They are people who have been subject to all sorts of pressures and who have ended up becoming involved in drug abuse.
I hoped that when the government saw fit to amend the Young Offenders Act it would do so by saying: "We are really going to deal with the causes of juvenile delinquency, the causes of youth getting in trouble with the law; we are going to do it in a manner that is going to protect society in the best way we know how, not by incarcerating someone for three or five years because they are going to get out whether it is three years or five years".
We have got to bring in resources that prevent that child from becoming involved in illegal activity or to ensure that they are not going to. We have got to be able to provide them with services that deal with their learning disability and their lack of education and provides them with sufficient training so that they can go out and get a good paying job; not a $4 an hour job but a steady job that earns them a decent standard of living.
June 14, 1990

I have worked on the streets with juveniles. We are always shocked and amazed that particularly young girls are out prostituting themselves. I have sat down and talked to many of them. Many of them say: "I would like very much to be able to leave the street life. I would like to be able to leave the street life, but what skills do I have? I have a functional grade 2 education. I cannot read and write. I came from a home that was abusive, and I cannot go back there. I have tried to approach the child welfare authorities and they put me in a foster home that was not one bit better than the home I came from. The only way that I can earn any kind of a standard of living is in prostitution".
The problem is always of course that the pimps get involved, the hangers-on, and the girl does not even get the benefit of the money she earns.
We in Canada have to take a look at our growing problems around juveniles. Simply by saying that what we are going to do is make it easier for a judge to raise a youth from youth court to adult court is not going to solve the problem. It is not going to provide the preventive or rehabilitation services that are necessary.
The present legislation allows, where appropriate, for the youth to be raised to adult court. There is no need to make it easier. If it becomes easier, whenever a juvenile has committed a crime that becomes abhorrent in the eye of the public, as sure as anything there will be a push for that youth to be dealt with in adult court.
What we need instead is an increased range of resources within the juvenile court system. We need much better probation services. We need adequate counselling services for those youth who have been deemed to have committed an offence.
Kids who need psychiatric care are often held in secure custody simply because there is not adequate psychiatric care. Everyone thinks that by increasing the sentence the problem is solved. My experience with a fair number of penal institutions has been that for every year you put a person in a penal institution you are buying four or five more years of crime. The history of penal institutions in this country and every other country shows that that is the best way to make sure that you have a seasoned, hardened, life-long criminal.
Government Orders


Henry Perrin Beatty: The question is how you got out.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: You may think that is funny.
The whole system of corrections in Canada is designed to make hardened criminals. We start with the young offenders. It may be that the problems are not easy to solve, but I can assure this Elouse that simply by making it easier to place the child before the adult court and incarcerate him for longer periods of time will solve the problem.
One of the things that surprises me most is how the federal government has unilaterally started to say: "We are no longer going to share financially in programs that provide services to people". It has done it by simply saying that it is not going to provide the services for young offenders once the person's case has been adjudicated. It is not going to provide the services under the Canada Assistance Plan. The government is hoping that the provinces will step in and provide these resources.
The provinces are saying that they do not have the ability. So who suffers? We all suffer because what is happening in this country is that services are not provided. When those services are not provided, instead of a troubled child we end up with an adult criminal.
I cannot support this type of approach. We need a rational approach, one that will protect society and the youth.


Mr. Vic Althouse (Mackenzie):: Mr. Speaker, I will not take a great deal of time. I only have a few words to add to what my friend from Surrey North has already put on the record.
I think that there is some concern in rural communities, at least, and some misunderstanding, perhaps, of the intent of the Young Offenders Act.
Some of my constituents may greet as a step forward the move in this bill to extend the maximum penalty to five years less a day. They do so from two points of view.
Some simply think that there have to be harsher penalties. Others have some concern that if there is not such a mediating set of time, there will be more public pressure to try young offenders in the age group between 14 and 17 in the adult court for some of the more heinous crimes. This permits judges to have a little less

June 14, 1990
Government Orders
public pressure put on them, hopefully, to keep it within the youth court.
The government, however, is not resolving anything except a public relations problem with the amendments in this particular bill. It has not addressed the real problem, which is a problem of financing between federal and provincial jurisdictions, of the rehabilitation of young offenders. There is no mention or addressing of that very real problem. There are no amendments or changes in procedure which would permit a real evaluation of what the young offenders court is doing to our young people and why it is that the young offenders court seems to be so very much aimed at hitting young offenders who are native or Indian in ancestry.
A very high proportion of young offenders are of Indian ancestry. My friend from Surrey North has put the statistics on the record, particularly those concerning Manitoba, where 92.8 per cent of the young women held on remand are native-92.8 per cent. Forty-seven per cent of the young men are Indian.
When you get to the open custody unit, the units where they are supposed to be able to receive some assistance, we find that 87.5 per cent of the people in open custody are native girls and 55.5 per cent are native boys. When you get into the closed facilities you find that 100 per cent of the girls are native.
There is no excuse for that. As a population they make up less than 10 per cent of the population of Manitoba. I expect that if you did the same kind of study in Saskatchewan, my home province, you would find very similar results. Again, a population that makes up less than 10 per cent of the population populates the young offenders facilities on a far higher rate than can be explained away as normal.
I was quite disappointed that the government did not propose real amendments to the Young Offenders Act that would permit these kind of changes so that rehabilitation would be possible and so that young native offenders might have a better chance of being represented at their hearings.
It seems to me that the tendency is that more native youth are charged. They have a higher proportion of charges, but they also seem less likely to try to defend themselves in court. It is a system they do not understand. They do not have court workers, nor do they hire
counsel to give them advice. They generally are not only native but poor as well. Our legal system discriminates against those two classifications. To be poor, you have a better chance of ending up in the system. If you are native and poor you have an extremely high chance of being in the system, as these statistics point out.
There are a number of background problems that the government is choosing to ignore. It is hoping that this legislation will gloss them over simply by changing some of the more-discussed-in-the-press aspects of the Young Offenders Act and by stretching the three-year maximum that has existed for young offenders between 12 and 17 to five years less a day. It will perhaps make it a little easier to shift young offenders into adult court, a situation which exists now but which this bill seems to make easier.
Having raised concerns about the way the government has attacked this particular problem, I will end my remarks. I regret that the government chose to respond to some public outcries on a couple of very public cases where young offenders did in fact conduct fairly heinous murders and received a three year sentence which is the maximum. I regret that that created a flurry of pressure to have the government introduce these kind of amendments.
I wish it had spent more time to provide amendments which would have had a better long-term effect on the rehabilitation of young offenders who are very special cases in our system. They are not juvenile or adult. The court has a certain amount of discretion to check out the maturity of these individuals. I am not sure that these amendments make that any better.
I regret that the government did not spend more time in introducing more comprehensive reforms, particularly the type of reforms which would have permitted the kind of rehabilitation programs that are desperately needed at the provincial level where the Young Offenders Act applies.


Mr. Joe Comuzzi (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to be able to say a few words this afternoon on the bill to change certain clauses of the Young Offenders Act.
The reason I am interested in this particular bill is, before I became a member of Parliament, I was an acting Crown attorney for the district of Thunder Bay. In that
June 14, 1990

position I had many occasions to attend in court and act for the Crown with respect to young offenders court.
That was coupled with the fact that the community was getting terribly alarmed, as is the case in most communities when young offenders who have committed crimes that went against the feelings of the community were found guilty of the offence-after a long and arduous trial before a court of competent jurisdiction-and then received a penalty that the public and the community felt was not commensurate with the degree and the severity of the crime.
As we say, justice should always not only be done but should always appear to be done. In some instances in the application of the Young Offenders Act it always appeared in the mind of the public that the courts after due process were too lenient in the way they handled them.
I should say in defence of those Crown attorneys and judges who made those decisions that because of the legislation of the day, which this bill would change, their hands were bound by statute. Although they may personally have felt different, they were bound by the statute and had to comply with it. As a result they followed the statute and bore the brunt of the wrath of the community, with the community not knowing that they were bound in essence by statute.
From that perspective I would like to make a few comments on the Young Offenders Act and the changes proposed to it. I would be remiss in my duties as a member of Parliament if I did not bring these feelings forward.
Under the leadership of the then senior judge of the District of Thunder Bay, Judge Roy Mitchell, every three or four months we would perform all the court services in the remote areas of the northern part of the province of Ontario. We would charter an aircraft and fly up with the social worker, the judge, and the court reporter. Winter and summer, we would land at these reserves and conduct court in whatever facilities were available to us at the time, whether it was 40 degrees below zero or 40 above. The people always welcomed us when we visited.
The unfortunate part of these visits is that they were not done with enough consistency. It was no one's fault and just the system itself, but I always felt that in
Government Orders
bringing justice to the north, although we were trying to do what was procedurally correct, that we were not really fulfilling the substantive issues of the law that were so important. During these court sessions in the remote sections of the province, which is true grass roots justice, I got the feeling that we were not doing a proper job in the administration of justice, not only in the province I represented but in all the provinces. Did the people to whom we were administering these rules truly understand what was happening?
As an example, we would fly into a native settlement and walk a block or two, or a mile, to the courthouse. There were no vehicles to take us to the courthouses. We would proceed to go through the dockets of the day. We would first go through first Provincial Court Criminal Division and dispose of the docket, having availed those who were accused of crime of duty counsel who were with us that day. Through the great guidance of senior Judge Roy Mitchell, we gave the accused in remote areas every benefit available to them in law.
We would then adjourn the court and reconvene with the docket of Provincial Court Family Division and handle family matters with the same court set-up, but under a different jurisdiction. After we handled all the family matters, we would adjourn and most likely go into young offenders court and dispose of all of the offences that were before the court under the Young Offenders Act.
In one of my other roles in the community, I would be an acting judge of the Civil Division. We would travel to the remote areas of the province and handle all of the civil matters that came before us in the provincial jurisdictions. Although we were doing all this procedurally, I am still to this day not sure we were doing it substantively.
The legislation that is before us today is a step toward alleviating some of the concerns that the community has about the Young Offenders Act. I talked particularly about the presumption in the law that a judge in the Provincial Court Criminal Division could not send a case up to the ordinary court of the land unless there was some valid reason. I am not sure where this presumption arose, but the bench seemed to feel that they could not dispose of that case in that manner. If it was a charge under the Young Offenders Act and the person was under the proper age and so on, it had to be tried in that court.

June 14, 1990
Government Orders
This act sets the guidelines for a judge to make a determination based on certain criteria. The act goes some distance in setting out those criteria to allow the judge to make a determination as to whether a particular alleged crime can be heard in the young offenders court or, if it is of a serious enough nature, that it can transferred, under the criteria as set out in the statute, and tried in an adult court. On that basis, I think the legislation should be adopted.
Second, if the judge should decide that the alleged offence is one that should remain in the young offenders court, the penalty for that crime should be increased from three to five years. Only time will tell whether that is a satisfactory penalty, consistent with the degree or severity of the crime, that the community will accept.
I thought it was important, with my background, that I address those problems.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


An hon. member:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.

[Stage Direction]
The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-39, an act to apply federal laws and provincial laws to offshore areas and to amend certain acts in consequence thereof, as reported (with amendment) from a legislative committee.
Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I could obtain the unanimous consent of the House to allow me to put a very few amendments. Normally we would have had ample warning that the bill was coming forward today. We found out only when the business question was asked and we are still scrambling. In fact, I do not even have copies of the motions here to provide to the parliamentary secretary and the Liberal Party. Would there be
unanimous consent to allow me to move the motions? I trust the House will make the appropriate decisions with regard to their value.


Mr. Kaplan:: Mr. Speaker, I have not seen the motions either, but because of the rushed procedure by which we have reached this bill at this time, we ought to give unanimous consent to allow the motions to be put. However, that is not to be taken as approval of the motions by the opposition. We would like to see them. Unless we give our consent, we are not going to get the opportunity even to read them.


Rob Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, I have had discussions with the hon. member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan and it is acceptable to the government side that he put his motions.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Am I to understand that the hon. member will now put his motions? Does you have them?


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, I have a single copy. The Pages have taken out the originals to have copies made and we are just waiting for them. I should indicate as well that there is an understanding between the parliamentary secretary and myself-we have not had discussions with the Official Opposition-that we will more than likely wrap up report stage and third reading before five o'clock today. Could we just suspend for a minute or two until we get the copies so that members can have them in front of them, as well as there being copies at the table?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: While we are waiting for the motions, 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 Burin-St. Georges-Fisheries; the hon. member for Trinity-Spadina- Immigration; and the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands-New Horizon Program.


SITTING SUSPENDED
Rob Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, I suggest that we suspend the House until 4.15 p.m.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it agreed that the House stand suspended until 4.15 p.m.?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
The sitting of the House was suspended at 4.10 p.m.
June 14, 1990


SITTING RESUMED
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed at 4:24 p.m.
Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, let me start by thanking my colleagues in the House, the Clerks at the table and yourself for assisting me in moving to put these amendments to the House for consideration.
I move:
Motion No. 1
That Bill C-39 be amended in Clause 2 by adding immediately
after line 19 at page 3, the following:
"(3) The Governor in Council shall, in making regulations pursuant
to paragraphs 2(c) and (d), take into account:
(a)	the need to facilitate the creation of comprehensive and coherent management regimes for environment, wildlife and resource use in offshore areas;
(b)	any land, environment, wildlife or resource management regimes provided for in a land claims agreement which may pertain to a particular offshore area, or any adjacent offshore or land area; and
(c)	any use and occupancy of offshore areas by aboriginal peoples and any areas of overlapping use by several aboriginal peoples."
To provide a very brief explanation, this amendment and the third one which I will move if the second one passes, requires the federal government to take environmental and aboriginal interests and concerns into account before making regulations under their respective sections.
These are not great laws but they have important symbolic value. There is a principle of sustainability that policy at all levels in all areas must be considered in light of environmental needs.
We had excellent representations from the aboriginal peoples of northern Canada, the Grand Council of the Crees of Quebec and the Makivik Corporation, to name two, who are concerned that this law would inadvertently take away from them something that is of great concern and they ask for this kind of protection in the legislation.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, as we indicated earlier in discussion, this bill is being considered on very short, although legal, notice. The member of the Official Opposition, the member for Moncton, who has participated and has taken a great interest in
Government Orders
this bill, happens not to be in Ottawa today and I am speaking on his behalf.
This is an amendment that we think should be supported. It is an amendment that emphasizes policy considerations relating to the environment and the doctrine of sustainable development.
On behalf of the opposition I agree with this amendment.


Rob Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, I am not going to repeat all the arguments I made at committee concerning this issue, but one of the points I made was that the term "take into account" is very vague. I am not quite sure what it is this motion would ask the Governor in Council to do.
I understand that it is important to recognize the environmental dimension whenever we are talking about our offshore, but I will indicate to the House what I indicated in committee. The Canadian Environmental Protection Act which was passed by this government is far more effective, has more teeth and I think would be more effective to accomplish what the hon. member wants to accomplish.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. members:: Question.


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


Some hon. members:: On division.
Motion No. 1 (Mr. Angus) negatived.


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, I move:
Motion No. 2
That Bill C-39 be amended in Clause 5 by adding immediately
after line 44 at page 4, the following:
"(4) For greater certainty, the provisions of this section shall not be interpreted as limiting the application of the Canada Labour Code."


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, I would like to indicate, on behalf of the Official Opposition, that this is a clarification which we consider to be in the right direction and we are in favour of it.

Government Orders


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, it is customary that the member moving the motion explain briefly what the purpose of the motion is. I think we got a bit ahead of ourselves there.
There is some concern that under the provisions of this act the federal cabinet would be able to make an agreement with a provincial government to have the provincial labour laws apply to an offshore oil rig or any other item covered under this act. We are concerned that that may be done in order to avoid the more onerous provisions of the Canada Labour Code that may in fact be in place at the provincial level.
We want to make certain that the federal code shall apply and that there is no way that the cabinet could transfer jurisdiction to the provinces in order to provide a lesser requirement to employers in these situations.


Rob Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, I do not think this amendment is necessary. There is nothing in the bill now that would limit the application of the Canada Labour Code or any other federal legislation for that matter. As a result it is not necessary to have it in the bill.


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.


An hon. member:: On division.
Motion No. 2 (Mr. Angus) negatived.


Iain Francis Angus: Motion No. 3
That Bill C-39 be amended in Clause 12 by striking out line 16 at
page 8 and substituting the following therefor:
"least one hundred and twenty days before the proposed effective"
He said: Mr. Speaker, this amendment is very simple. It doubles the notice and consultation period provided
for under section 12 of the bill. Because of our belief in the potential for dramatic changes in the application of laws at the whim of cabinet, it is important to maximize the opportunity for people to find out and comment on regulations made under this act, particularly if the decision is to choose the lesser of onerous applications of either environmental laws or labour laws.


Rob Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, I do not share the fears of the hon. member. These regulations are not created, suggested, and implemented in a vacuum. Once they are proposed, we have a 60-day notice period in The Canada Gazette, which is the usual period of time. That would give anyone who may have an interest and was not informed up to that period of time adequate time to take into consideration the new regulations.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, not many Canadians read The Canada Gazette. It is of assistance to have these issues of policy and direction made part of the legislation, particularly legislation of such important symbolic value.
I urge government members to accept this amendment.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: On division.
Motion No. 3 (Mr. Angus) negatived.


Henry Perrin Beatty: that the bill be concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: When shall the bill be read a third time? By leave, now?


Some hon. members:: Now.


Henry Perrin Beatty: that the bill be read the third time and passed.


Rob Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, I will just make a few comments on this matter.
First I would like to thank members from all sides of the House who served on this committee. I would particularly like to point out the contributions of the hon. member for Red Deer.
June 14, 1990

The hon. member, as you will know, Mr. Speaker, coming from your home province, is not a lawyer but he has consistently taken an interest in bills in the justice area. He has made a very positive contribution because of his belief that we can change federal laws and make a positive contribution to people's lives in this country.
This is an example. I am very thankful to him, as I am to the hon. member for St. Catharines, the hon. member for Montmorency-Orleans, and all other hon. members.
There was some discussion at the committee level as to what effect this might have on aboriginal rights, treaties, and obligations of the federal and provincial governments. For the record, I would like to point out that clause 20 of the bill reads:
Nothing in this act shall be construed so as to abrogate or derogate
from any existing aboriginal or treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples
of Canada under section 35 of the Constitution Act, 19S2.
The responsibilities and rights of our aboriginal peoples are made very clear in the Constitution Act. I want to put that on the record to assure them that there is nothing in this bill which threatens their rights.
At second reading I was very pleased to set out and talk about many of the details of this bill. This is a positive step forward. It is consistent with international law, with the agreements that we as a nation have taken. It will clear up some of the ambiguities that exist in the offshore area of Canada and fill in some of the gaps. As a result, for all individuals who take an interest in and use Canada's offshore area, this piece of legislation will certainly be welcomed.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be here for third reading on behalf of my colleagues who participated in the work of the legislative committee, the hon. member for Moncton and the hon. member from a vast part of the Northwest Territories whose constituents probably more directly than any other Canadians are affected by the provisions of this bill.
It appears to be a very technical piece of legislation. It is full of technicalities. The bottom line is clear. It is a gesture made toward the increasingly important part of our country, the part that lies to the north, the part that is offshore, the part that is becoming significant because of scientific and technological possibilities and because
Government Orders
of the economic resources which are now close to being available to exploitation for the benefit of the people in the region and for the benefit of all Canada.
I could not help but stop, as I looked quickly through the bill, at clause 4 which provides:
For greater certainty, it is hereby declared that
(a) the internal waters and territorial sea (as defined in the act) form part of Canada;
It is a clear reminder to the international community that this territory and these waters are Canadian. They have been since the establishment of our country. We are prepared to exercise our responsibility and to assert a legislative regime as is being done in this legislation over that important part of our country.
I know that the bill has been brought forward before as Bill C-109 which because of prorogation never became law. I want to commend the Minister of Justice and the parliamentary secretary to the minister for the way in which the bill has been handled and for the fact that we are in the House today to give third reading to a very important piece of legislation.


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, I too want to start my comments by thanking my colleagues who assisted me in working on this bill in the legislative committee.
Because of conflicting committee work and because of conflicting riding responsibilities, I was not able to participate as fully as I had intended and would have liked. I thank my colleagues for supporting me in this regard. Once again I thank the parliamentary secretary, the justice critic for the Liberal Party, and the House for their facilitation in allowing me to move my amendments albeit unsuccessfully.
This is an important bill. There is no question. We will be supporting it on third reading because we believe it is important to do the things that we are doing in this legislation finally. We had hoped to see some additional improvements because as is our job we look for the holes, the gaps, and the questionable bits of wording that while not intended to allow certain things to occur could facilitate them. I hope I am wrong. I hope our fears about using this as a tool to transfer jurisdiction to a province or to undermine federal labour or environmental law do not come about. You can be assured that if it does we will be back in this House saying we told you so

June 14, 1990
Private Members' Business
and calling for the kind of amendments I put forward today.
The same thing applies in terms of the aboriginal peoples. At committee those witnesses who came before us had the section of the act pointed out to them that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice read into the record today. They did not feel that it went far enough. They felt it was still a question of whether or not they would be listened to in the event that there was a situation involving this act and lands to which they do not necessarily hold title, They do not necessarily have a specific land claim to which to point, but they are in the process of putting into legal framework their beliefs of traditional land use patterns, hunting patterns, and fishing patterns, et cetera.
I regret that the government did not choose to strengthen the bill. I do not think that we were trying to do anything that was not the government's intention, but we felt that it needed to be done in a slightly different way in order to provide that full protection for aboriginal peoples, the environment, and labour law.
Elaving said that, I will relinquish my place and proceed to taking the vote. As I say, we are voting in favour so there probably is no reason to do anything other than that.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed Bill C-75, an act for granting Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Public Service of Canada for the financial year ending March 31, 1991.


SITTING SUSPENDED
Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I believe what we will have to do is suspend until five o'clock, Private Members' Hour, because at
this point the players in that show are not here. Perhaps we could suspend until five o'clock and reconvene then.


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, just to make clear what happens for the rest of the day once Private Members' Business is over, I would assume we would then move to the adjournment debate and upon completion of the adjournment debate the sitting would be suspended as we have done in the past.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, that is agreed. In fact for those purposes I guess technically we would call it ten o'clock as soon as possible after the late show is finished.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I shall suspend the sitting until five o'clock.
The sitting of the House was suspended at 4.43 p.m.


SITTING RESUMED
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed at 5 p.m.
Madam Deputy Speaker:: It being five o'clock, the House will now proceed to consideration of Private Members' Business, as indicated on today's Order Paper.


PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS - MOTIONS   CHINESE IMMIGRATION ACT REIMBURSEMENT OF HEAD TAX
Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough -Rouge River) moved:: That, in the opinion of this House, the government should:
1)	reimburse to all claimants who establish their entitlement as of November 21,1988 the amount of the head tax imposed under the Chinese Immigration Act, 1885 (48-49 Victoria), as amended, together with an indemnity equal to six times the amount of the head tax paid;
2)	where a person entitled to reimbursement and the indemnity is deceased, pay these amounts to the heirs and successors of that person who establish the entitlement of the deceased; and
3)	acknowledge that the said statute was discriminatory against immigrants Of Chinese origin and contrary to the principles now adopted and reflected in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

June 14, 1990

He said: Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to have an opportunity today to rise in the House to address a motion asking this government to redress the wrongs associated with a statute that has been called the Chinese Immigration Act, sometimes called the Chinese Head Tax, and sometimes called the Chinese Exclusion Act.
I am asking the government to redress these wrongs on behalf of all Canadians, not just some of them, on behalf of those who paid the tax as well, and all of those just happen to be of Chinese origin.
Specifically, my motion calls upon the government to reimburse all of the payers of the tax and to acknowledge that the requirement to pay the tax was wrong and that it was discriminatory.
In particular, my motion calls for reimbursement of those individual payers who were alive on election day, November, 1988. That is the day that I was elected to the House of Commons. It was the day that others who spoke publicly or who wrote publicly on that issue were elected to the House. It was an issue that was dealt with and treated during the election campaign.
However, I have to point out that the specifics of reimbursement framed in my resolution are not of chief importance. What is important is that the government consult, that it negotiate and that it respond.
Who are the politicians who spoke to the issue? Who were those in our community who wrote about it, spoke about it and in fact made commitments? Most of the politicians are actually on record. Two of them that I have noted are the Prime Minister, and the former Leader of the Opposition. But there are others, many others, who include individuals and groups from a broad cross-section of Canadian society.
They include the Canadian Council of Churches, Mr. Georges Erasmus of the Assembly of First Nations, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National President of Rail Canada Traffic Controllers, the President of the Canadian Auto Workers, United Steel Workers Local 6, and the President of the Quebec Human Rights Association.
What exactly was the law that levied the tax? The first Chinese came to Canada in about 1858. About 20 years later in 1880 thousands of Chinese came to Canada to
Private Members' Business
build the railroad. We have plenty of pictures, books, documentaries. All of that is on record. These railroad builders were pioneers; they were our pioneers. Their national dream was our national dream; ours was theirs.
At one time their goals were characterized by the phrase the "Golden Mountain". I understand that is what they thought of Canada as being in those years before they got here, before they saw what Canada was really like. That is why they came. They came along with all of the other immigrants to Canada, my forefathers, to build the railroad and to build our country.
In about 1885 our railroad was completed and suddenly we did not need any more Chinese. We just did not need the Chinese labour, but we needed Europeans and Americans. I guess it was decided to levy a tax specifically on Chinese immigrants. Eventually, the amount of that tax reached $500 per person.
No other group or race was similarly taxed. In fact, history shows that we gave bonuses to immigrants from Europe and settlers from other places. The tax imposed on immigration was patently discriminatory and based on race.
In 1923 it appeared that the $500 per head tax just was not good enough. So the government, in its wisdom, decided to exclude all Chinese. In those days, the government did not seem to be able to distinguish between Chinese origin, Chinese language, Chinese race; it simply used the name "Chinese". The Chinese were excluded so much so that between 1923 and 1947 fewer than 50 "Chinese" were given papers for admission to Canada.
What was the impact of this law on the Chinese Canadian community, as it was then? In a nutshell, it was devastating in the end result.
In the initial instance, it took from the pocket of an immigrant an amount that would have been the equivalent of one or two year's wages, and I guess that was before there was income tax. That was a lot of money for an immigrant. It prevented an immigrant from purchasing land, setting up a business, building a home, creating a stake in his new country. Chinese Canadians of that era were basically prevented from settling into the economy because when they got here they had huge debts amounting to one or two year's wages. That is on the assumption that they did not have the $500 when they came.

June 14, 1990
Private Members' Business
It also occasioned a significant delay in reuniting a family, where that was possible.
But we know that in many, or even most cases, the family was never reunited. Individuals who came to Canada, virtually all male, if they wanted to visit their spouses over a 10 or 20 year period, had to leave and go back to China where they would stay for a short period and then come back to Canada. Many of those died alone in Canada.
It also prevented marriage of these Chinese immigrants. In those days, intermarriage was frowned upon and there simply were not enough females to permit the Chinese population here to marry in a circumstance that the society existing here would have permitted.
The result then is that hundreds, perhaps thousands of new Canadians were basically forced to spend the rest of their years alone in Canada. They lost contact with family, spouse, children. Those men came and built our country and when they had finished that we left them standing at the side of the road. I say thank God some of them lived long enough to collect the old age pension, but that is really not much of a consolation prize.
Why did we do it? I suppose I do not really know. I can only guess. I was not there. Maybe some of us are afraid to ask. I think we should ask, because that is how we can learn from history. But no matter what the reason, it was wrong, and we know it was wrong.
Some say that we should not waste time and the resources of the present to go back and redress the
wrongs of the past. If we really believe that, I ask the House why we are still prosecuting war crimes that took place between 1939 and 1945? Those acts did not even involve Canadians, for the most part, they did not take place on Canadian soil, and please keep in mind that the Chinese Exclusion Act was not repealed until 1947. Why also are we still redressing treaty and non-treaty rights of aboriginal Canadians? There are grievances involving acts that we did and did not do, omission and commission, 100 and 150 years ago in relation to native Canadians. We admit our responsibility for all of that. We are still dealing with it, maybe not quickly enough, but we are dealing with it.
I can accept that we do not have to go back and redress grievances that emanated from the Franco-Prussian War, or from the quasi-genocides that occurred when the Europeans first arrived in the New World 300, 400 years ago. But I do not think that is what we are dealing with here now. I do not accept that a living Canadian who has been wronged does not have the right to seek redress, or that his country does not have an obligation to respond to him or her.
Today, in the House, we have one of those thousands who paid the head tax, Mr. James Ng from Montreal. I heard him speak eloquently about the impact of that tax on his family and him. His father paid the tax, $500, and spent years repaying it. Some years before his father had gone back to China, fathered Mr. Ng, and came back to Canada. Ten years later, Mr. Ng set out, at 10 years of age, and came to Canada alone. He spent two weeks in a rather cold detention centre where his family was forced to pay another fifty bucks to get him released. He calls that "under the table" money.
Yet, Mr. Ng expresses a pride in his country. He feels badly about the misfortunes of the Chinese immigrants of the time, and Lord knows there have been many immigrants from many countries who had terrible times and suffering. But Mr. Ng is proud of Canada. He believes, nonetheless, that Canada must respond to the wrong that that tax represented.
I want to add a note of caution. I do not believe that the government should let this issue drag on. I do not believe it should give time and opportunity to those who live with intolerance and manifest it, to manifest their intolerance again. I believe the government should act quickly to address the grievance and provide a redress. If it is the right thing to do, then we must do it now.
I urge all members in the House to support this motion.


Mrs. Pauline Browes (Parliamentary Secretary to Secretary of State of Canada and Minister of State (Multiculturalism and Citizenship)):: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have an opportunity to participate in this very important debate today. I want to express to the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River, whose riding and my own are side by side, that we share many of the sentiments that have been expressed in terms of this motion today.
June 14, 1990

This motion refers to the head tax levied on immigrants from China at the turn of the century. This is indeed a very serious issue because it touches a number of important social questions that are of growing concern.
The member who introduced the motion and myself live in a community that is blessed with a strong and vibrant Chinese community. The city of Scarborough is quickly becoming a major social, commercial, and cultural centre for Chinese Canadians, and we are proud of it.
Canada has been blessed in many ways by the hard work of Chinese Canadians who literally built much of the country.
The historical treatment of Chinese immigrants is deplorable. That is why the Minister of State for Multi-culturalism and Citizenship has met with representatives of the Chinese Canadian community to listen to their concerns. Their proposal for redress is being given careful and thorough consideration. I can assure the member and all members of the Elouse that the minister is very conscious of the issue and that he has a personal commitment to issues that concern injustice and racial intolerance.
In just a few weeks we will join together in a celebration of Canada Day. July 1 is a time for all of us to celebrate our country and our shared national heritage. Canada is an international nation. We have built a strong and prosperous country on the foundation of freedom and independence.
The government is continuing to strengthen that foundation. Our record since 1984 is a testament to that commitment.
The Canadian Multiculturalism Act outlines in legislation a vision of Canada where justice, cultural diversity, equality, and national unity are interwoven into a social fabric. Multiculturalism will continue to thrive because the concept is enshrined in our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The employment equity legislation establishes strict objectives to enhance the participation of all communities, in the Public Service and companies that deal with the federal government.
Private Members' Business
We have dealt effectively with the redress issue for Japanese Canadians. I might add that the party of my colleague opposite who introduced this motion ignored that issue while it was in office. Out of that redress issue, we are in the process of establishing a Race Relations Foundation and the Canadian Heritage Languages Institute. We are creating a new department of multiculturalism and citizenship which I know my friend also supports. We created the first parliamentary Standing Committee on Multiculturalism.
These policies embrace all Canadians, whether of Chinese or any other heritage. Of course, shameful acts of the past, such as the Chinese head tax, were the result of ignorance and fear. Human nature is fearful of what is different. The way to combat ignorance is through education. The government's policies and programs are doing just that.
Through associations of educators, an understanding of multiculturalism and race relations is being integrated into school programs. As well, the government is working to improve the relations between police forces and the communities that they serve. There is cross-cultural awareness training for personnel and efforts to increase recruits from cultural minorities.
Eliminating racial discrimination requires sound research to develop effective responses. We must understand the causes of racism in order to eradicate it. To that end, as hon. members know, the government has tabled Bill C-63, the Race Relations Foundation Act, which will be established in metropolitan Toronto.
The foundation will serve as a major national resource to facilitate throughout Canada the development, the sharing, the application of knowledge, and the expertise that will help to eliminate racial discrimination. I want to report that today in committee we heard witnesses from the Japanese Canadians are this very issue.
As well, our Canadian Multiculturalism Act commits federal institutions to ensuring that government policies and programs respond to the needs of all Canadians. Federal institutions are building bridges to communities and delivering services in a manner that makes them accessible to everyone.
Along the same lines, the federal government is working with the provincial, territorial and municipal governments in a partnership to eliminate the blight of injustice and racial discrimination. Joint initiatives and

June 14, 1990
Private Members' Business
cost-sharing activities are addressing racism and promoting institutional change.
It is clear that the government is making every effort to address the human rights issue and to correct wrongs that have been done. We are anxious to have past injustices rectified. We need to recognize that this is a complex issue that happened several decades ago. The matter must be examined very carefully so that a fair and just resolution is arrived at.
The government is doing just that, not only with regard to the head tax levied on the Chinese immigrants, but with respect to the treatment of all groups as well. I am pleased to have had the opportunity to speak to this, Madam Speaker, and I thank you for that.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to have an opportunity to comment again on the matter of the Chinese head tax, a question that my party has raised a number of times over the last six years. The question is very lively in the riding of Trinity-Spadina where some of the head taxpayers and many of their descendants lived.
First, I wish to commend the member for Scarborough-Rouge River for his action in placing this motion before us. The motion has a good thrust and his defence of the motion was excellent and well spoken.
My party and I do not agree entirely with some of the details of the motion. We would rather the motion was more in line with the request of the Chinese Canadian National Council. It requested:
- that the government should acknowledge that the 1885 Act to restrict and regulate Chinese immigration into Canada which imposed a Chinese Head Thx and the 1923 Chinese Immigration Act which excluded Chinese immigration were discriminatory against immigrants of Chinese origin and contrary to the principles now adopted and reflected in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and that the government meet with Chinese Canadian National Council to negotiate appropriate individual and community compensation.
If I may at the end of my remarks, Madam Speaker, I would offer that motion in amendment in substitution for all the words following the first line where it states "The government should".
The member for Scarborough-Rouge River asked: "Why did we do it?" He says he was not there when it happened. Even I was not there when it happened, although I have whiter hair than he has. We can get some idea why it was done if we look at some of the records. We find that there was open racism reflecting greed of employers and fear and competitive envy of workers.
For example, the following was said in the House of Commons-the House that was here before this one was built-on May 12, 1882, as reported in Hansard, Volume 12, page 1477, and I quote:
In fact, there is such a want of white labour in British Columbia, that if you wish to have the railway finished within any reasonable time, there must be no step against Chinese labour-At present it is simply a question of alternatives-either you must have this labour or you cannot have the railway.
That was said by Sir John A. Macdonald, our first Prime Minister.
In the same speech he explained his view more generally, and I quote from the same page:
I share very much the feeling of the people of the United States, and the Australian colonies, against a Mongolian or Chinese population in our country as permanent settlers. I believe they would not be a wholesome element for this country. I believe that it is an alien race in every sense, that would not and could not be expected to assimilate with our Arian population -
Obviously, this was written long before Hitler gave the word Arian a very ominous meaning in our lifetime. I continue:
-and, therefore, if the temporary necessity had been overcome, and the railway constructed across the continent, with the means of sending the European settlers and labourers into British Columbia, then it would be quite right to join to a reasonable extent in preventing the permanent settlement in this country of Mongolian, Chinese or Japanese immigrants.
Then he makes the statement which I have already read:
At present it is simply a question of alternatives-either you must have this labour or you cannot have the railway.
There are other things that should be said about what happened in those days. One final remark from Hansard in 1885, Volume 2, page 1582. Although I do not have the attribution of the Speaker, perhaps he can be generally identified by his words: "The Conservative party stands
June 14, 1990

for a white Canada, the protection of white labour and the absolute exclusion of Asiatics".
As the previous speaker, the mover of the motion said, the condition of these workers was dreadful. They worked under very harsh conditions. They sometimes had to be suspended by a rope to drill holes in the rock face, and it was very difficult to find a European immigrant to do this job. Workers were given less than the rate of pay of Europeans. The company profited by about $5 million, which was a lot of money then, by using the Chinese workers rather than the British, American, German or French workers, whom they could not get.
I quote from a book called It is Only Fair! Redress for the Head Tax and Chinese Exclusion Act.
Accidents were frequent. Many died of exhaustion from hard work, harsh weather, and extremely poor living conditions. Others perished in rock explosions, were buried in collapsed tunnels, drowned in rivers after falling from unfinished bridges or died from scurvy with little medical attention.
- it is estimated that at least 600 Chinese died during this railroad construction. In 1891, the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of Victoria arranged for the collection of more than three hundred unidentified corpses from the Fraser and Thompson canyons and these were returned to China for burial.
That was the origin of both the head tax of the 1880s and also the Chinese Immigration Act, sometimes called the Chinese exclusion act of 1923.
Some of the people who have paid that tax are still with us. One of them, Mr. Mak Kue Lep, who was first to ask for reimbursement, came to his member of Parliament, the member for Vancouver East, and asked her to raise the question. That was six years ago. He died last year, so he will not ever collect the money that he paid, which he said-I think and we think-was unjustly required of him for entering Canada. He did not ask for interest. He asked only for the money back.
Times have changed. On August 16, 1984 the Progressive Conservative Party said that it supported the introduction of an all-party parliamentary resolution which would recognize the injustice and discrimination of the head tax and the Chinese immigration exclusion act.
Private Members' Business
The Leader of the Liberal Party said the same on October 20, as did the Leader of the New Democratic Party on October 31 of that year. This year, when speaking on March 19 in Toronto, the Minister of State (Housing) said that it is long overdue that the Chinese recognize redress for the Chinese head tax:
"I want to pledge to you tonight -that this government will go
forward with a redress policy for all Canadians and that redress for the
head tax will be part of the policy."
As the member for Scarborough-Rouge River has told us, we have the endorsement of not dozens, but hundreds of Canadians for this very just action.
The question is, what is this government waiting for? Is the government waiting to do this on the eve of the next election? It is an urgent matter. The President of the Chinese Canadian National Council told me today that his grandfather died last fall. His grandfather was another one who paid the head tax.
The people who paid the head tax are dying off. There may be only 1,000 of them left, and if this government does not act promptly, they will all be dead. That will be a second disgrace, equal almost to the first one, because now we cannot say that we do not know any better. Therefore, I move:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after
"should" and substituting therefor the following:
-acknowledge that the 1885 Act to Restrict and Regulate Chinese Immigration into Canada which imposed a Chinese Head Tax and the 1923 Chinese Immigration Act which excluded Chinese immigration were discriminatory against immigrants of Chinese origin and contrary to the principles now adopted and reflected in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and that the government meet with the Chinese Canadian National Council to negotiate appropriate individual and community compensation.
I have the motion here, Madam Speaker.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: As soon as the motion put by the hon. member and seconded by Mr. McCurdy reaches me, I will study it and come back to the House. It will take a minute. We will reserve on the admissibility of the amendment for the time being.


Mrs. Lise Bourgault (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Madam Speaker, I also welcome the opportunity to take part in the debate on the motion of the hon. member for Scarborough- Rouge River.

June 14, 1990
Private Members' Business
To illustrate the context of this debate, I would like to provide a short summary of the history of Canadians ol Chinese origin, including the discriminatory measures that caused so much suffering. I would like to give my colleagues a better understanding of the head tax and the Chinese Immigration Act, and of the impact they had on the Chinese community.
Madam Speaker, this particular part of our history is not something I am proud to bring to the attention of my colleagues and Canadians. Nevertheless, we must look at the facts, otherwise we would be remiss in our duty to Chinese Canadians, their ancestors and all Canadians.
Chinese immigrants first arrived in Canada from San Francisco in 1858, to take part in the Fraser River gold rush. The first Chinese community was founded in Barkerville, British Columbia. The Canadian Pacific Railway could not have been built without Chinese immigrants, who laboured under appalling conditions.
As soon as they arrived in Canada, the Chinese were subject to measures that had the effect of restricting their rights. For instance, in 1875 they lost the right to vote in British Columbia. Widespread anti-Chinese agitation led to the head tax, adopted by the Government of Canada in 1885.
The initial tax was $50 but anti-Chinese pressure became so great that the tax was raised twice, rising to $500 in 1903, the equivalent of about two years' wages for the average Chinese worker.
Madam Speaker, quite frankly, the purpose of the tax was to stop Chinese immigration. The result was that in 1923, Chinese immigration had ceased, for all practical purposes, except for a few rare exceptions. July 1, 1923, became known as "Humiliation Day".
The impact of these measures on the lives and prosperity of the Chinese-Canadians was disastrous. This was a society bereft of women and children, a society of solitude and social and economic misery as a result of the problems experienced by Chinese workers when they tried to bring their wives and children to this country. According to the Canadian Encyclopaedia, in 1931, out of a total Chinese population of 46,519, only 3,648 were women.
Canadians of Chinese origin paid more than $23 million in head taxes between 1885 and 1923. Perhaps I
may give some idea of what this meant. According to Peter S. Li, who studied the history of Chinese-Canadians between 1905 and 1914, in 1911 the government collected $13,800,000 in head taxes, the equivalent of 14 per cent of the defence budget at the time. An impressive amount indeed!
Madam Speaker, today, despite the difficulties in the past, there are nearly 400,000 Chinese Canadians in this country. Through their participation in various trades, their voluntary and community associations, their businesses, their famous Chinese restaurants-Madam Speaker, I have a few in my riding as you do, and we go there every week-their neighbourhoods and their immense culture, Chinese Canadians contribute to the rich mosaic of the Canadian family.
To be a Canadian means to belong to a multicultural family, and we have made this diversity a matter of pride and a matter of sharing. To ensure that racism does not take root as a result of these differences, this diversity is recognized as a fundamental characteristic of our society and a major consideration in the decision-making process of the federal government and its intitutions.
As a government, our position is clear. The very existence of racism and racial discrimination is the antithesis of our laws and our ideals. Furthermore, such attitudes are incompatible with the kind of country Canadians want to build for themselves, and must be rooted out for good.
Madam Speaker, the government is giving special consideration to representations made by groups of Chinese Canadians. The situation was not generally known to Canadians until recent years. Nevertheless, we should not be rushed into hasty decisions that might have unforeseen consequences. We must put the situation of Chinese Canadians into the general context of our cultural groups in Canada, a number of which have suffered the cruel ravages of racism.
Madam Speaker, today Canada has become a model as far as human rights are concerned. Unfortunately, some of our ancestors did not have the same social conscience that is now common among Canadian men and women. Some of our ancestors had exaggerated fears about immigrants, and we recognize the fact that these fears produced some very unhealthy situations for Chinese Canadians.
June 14, 1990

It is up to today's generation to determine how to recognize the wrongs done to victims of past racism, in a spirit of sympathy and consultation.
Despite all our good will, we cannot rewrite history. However, the government will continue to examine this question, determine the facts and pursue its consultations with Chinese Canadians.
The government will never again allow policies of the kind that made Chinese Canadians suffer be adopted in this country.
That is this government's firm commitment to Canadians, a commitment that forms the basis for our considerations on this very important question.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Before recognizing the next speaker, I would like to rule on the amendment that was presented by the hon. member for Trinity-Spadina.
Unfortunately, I will have to rule it out of order. The hon. member may want to look at citation 437 of Beauchesne's fifth edition. I can understand the good intentions of the proposition, but it does raise a new question. It could be considered a distinct motion after proper notice. It is not acceptable as an amendment to the motion now before the House.


Mac Harb: Madam Speaker, first I would like to congratulate the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River on the leadership role he has taken on this issue in the House.
I raised the issue some time ago, right after the 1988 election with the minister of multiculturalism and citizenship. At that time, he told me that discussions would start taking place with the representatives of the Chinese community. It is approximately two years since he said that, and discussions still have not taken place as they should.
There is communication back and forth between the office of the minister and representatives of the Chinese community, but we have yet to see some sort of action plan put in place.
I am very discouraged by what I heard this afternoon from a member of the Canadian-Chinese community who happens to be one of the people who arrived in Canada in 1923. Among other things he indicated that besides paying $500 to enter Canada, he had to pay $50 in
Private Members' Business
order to get quicker entry, even though after paying the $50 he was held for approximately two weeks eating plain bread with sugar at noon, having two actual meals throughout the day, and sleeping on beds without proper mattresses. It is quite discouraging.
When a reporter asked him about his feeling for Canada, he was almost in tears and was saying: "I love Canada, I love Canada. All I want before I die is to see some sort of recognition of the fact that what had happened in the 1900s and thereafter was wrong. The government should admit that".
I have in my hand copies of articles which are quite encouraging. There is a statement made on behalf of the Prime Minister or by the Prime Minister himself wherein he said that his government was considering extending the principle of compensating victims of government heavy-handedness during World War II-Italian, Ukrainian Canadians, and others-as it compensated Japanese Canadians who were held in internment camps. That is very encouraging. I congratulate government members because they are talking about dealing with the issue.
Around the same time the Minister of State for Housing clearly indicated in Toronto to members of the Chinese community that he too would like to see the federal government move fairly quickly on the issue.
Here we have two members of the government saying that we have to move fairly quickly. I think personally that it is time we acted on it. Members of the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party and the NDP have already called on the government for action. It is time for the government to set up an all-party committee in order to address the issue, not only the issue of the Chinese community but also the issue of the Italian community, the Ukrainian community, and all those who feel that they were subjected to some mishap during World War II, thereafter or before.
It is fairly urgent when it comes to the Chinese Canadian community because many of its people who were hit personally by the head tax are dying. We cannot wait any longer for some kind of action.
Again I congratulate the hon. member.


David Kilgour: Madam Speaker, I also congratulate the member for Scarborough-Rouge River on this motion and would like to speak in favour of it.

June 14, 1990
Private Members' Business
I realize that time is important and is passing. Perhaps I may do what an author is not supposed to do and quote from my own book on the subject. I would like to quote from Western Canadians in Confederation. In part it indicates that Western Canada in 1986 had approximately 170,000 persons of solely Chinese origin and about 22,000 more of partly Chinese descent. Seven in ten single origin Chinese western Canadians live in British Columbia, and fully 100,000 of these reside in the Vancouver area. A little less than half of all Canadians of single Chinese origin live in the four western provinces, Yukon, and Northwest Territories. The book continues:
Chinese Canadians born outside Canada have come from many countries. The 1981 census shows that in this group 24 per cent were born in Taiwan; 23 per cent in China; 9 per cent in Vietnam; 4 per cent in Malaysia or Singapore; and 34 per cent elsewhere, primarily Hong Kong. Eighty-seven per cent of those born outside Canada entered Canada during the 1965-81 period and in recent years approximately 13,000 have entered Canada, many from Hong Kong, as entrepreneurs. The unemployment rate for both Chinese men and women was at the time of the 1981 census less than that for Canadian men and women as a whole. Considerably more Chinese Canadians (28 per cent) than all Canadians (16 per cent) have some university education.
Western Canadians of Chinese origin are part of the huge Diaspora of more than eight million "overseas Chinese" who have prospered from South Asia to the Caribbean. As late as the sixteenth century, China had the highest standard of living on earth. During the eighteenth century, its population more than doubled, reaching 430 million by 1850. When Europeans forcibly opened China's markets in the 19th century, its cottage cloth industry was all but destroyed by machine-made foreign cloth. A migration of young men became necessary to help feed their closely-knit families who were left at home.
The first of these men from China came to British Columbia in 1858, lured by the Fraser River gold rush, and by 1860 approximately 4,000 of them lived in the lower mainland of the colony. Some mined, others sold vegetables or wood, or operated restaurants and laundries.
The legal equality in the workplace of those who stayed after the gold rush was removed by the B.C. provincial legislature in 1878 when it unanimously resolved that persons of origin in China could no longer be hired on provincial public works-a rule which astonishingly remained in effect until after World War II. The franchise was denied them in 1872.
Nonetheless, as many as 17,000 Chinese came to B.C. between 1881 and 1884 to assume a Herculean part in the completion of the Canadian Pacific rail line between the Fraser Canyon and Vancouver. As the project neared completion, the B.C. provincial government encouraged them to leave the region through such
measures as a $10 head tax on all Chinese, banning the removal of dead bodies back to China, denying Chinese the right to buy provincial Crown land, and prohibiting further immigration from China. Prime Minister Macdonald's government in Ottawa played its part by imposing $50 head tax on all Chinese entering Canada after 1886.
That was to its shame. The book continues:
In 1900, Prime Minister Laurier raised the head tax to $ 100, and in 1904 to $500. In 1923, the government of Mackenzie King barred all Chinese immigration, and it did not begin again until the legislation was finally repealed in 1947.
The combination of legislated and other discrimination against the Chinese in British Columbia and better opportunities to establish small businesses elsewhere in Canada, by 1921 had caused an estimated 40 per cent of the 40,000 Chinese then resident in Canada to move eastward, some as far as Newfoundland. Virtually every prairie town soon had a Chinese restaurant and laundry.
Sadly, Madam Speaker, the books continues:
The three prairie legislatures proved not immune to anti-Chinese propaganda seeping over the mountains. The Saskatchewan assembly disenfranchised Chinese as early as 1908, which meant in practice that they could not vote in federal elections either or join professions whose associations required members to be registered voters. The prairie fever-
I could call it a plague:
-here reached a sufficiently high temperature that the Saskatchewan and Manitoba governments, even before British Columbia's, barred Chinese restaurants from hiring white women out of a preposterous fear that they would be introduced to opium and sold into white slavery.
Between 1924 and 1946, only eight Chinese immigrants entered Canadabecause of Mackenzie King's Chinese exclusion law of 1923. Many of the Chinese men already resident in Canada thus aged without families in Canada.
A minute ago we heard Mr. Yee's family story, the president of CCNC. There are all kinds of tragic stories of this type. It continues:
Ironically, events of World War II helped the Canadian Chinese cause because white Canadian sympathy for China grew markedly as a result of the Japanese aggression there. As the historians Jin Tan and Patricia Roy point out, "(During the war,) racial prejudice became unfashionable." The Vancouver Parks Board, for example, repealed its rule that Chinese persons could swim at a public pool only during a specified two-hour period once weekly. The legislature of Saskatchewan restored the franchise in 1944 and in 1945 British Columbia enfranchised everyone who had served in either World War, including the Chinese but not the Japanese. The public on the coast generally welcomed the repeal of Ottawa's Chinese Immigration Act in 1947.
June 14, 1990

I could go on, but I think I should point out in support of this matter that a large number of western Canadians of Chinese origin are entrepreneurs and professionals. A majority of them work in sales, services, and other white collar work. Most of them think of themselves as Canadians first and Chinese second. But-and this is important-alone among all cultural groups in Canada they know that their families were forced to pay an entry fee and were effectively barred from immigration from 1923 to 1947. It goes on:
Attitudes have finally changed throughout Canada and institutionalized racism is gone. No longer do whites expect them or anyone to be "assimilated." They can now preserve and celebrate their cultural identity and remain both Canadian and Chinese in whatever proportion they choose.
I hope it follows from what I have just said that this is a motion that deserves to be passed, not to be talked out today by government members.
I would point out to the parliamentary secretary who spoke a few minutes ago that the recent budget, I understand, gives either $12 million or $14 million to Canadian businessmen to learn Pacific Rim languages. The same budget cuts, I think it is $4 million, from heritage language programs across Canada, every penny of those programs.
In other words there is money for things that it wants, but there does not seem to be money from this government until the next election for causes which are just and have been a canker on the Canadian soul for many years.
I would hope that the government members will not get up one after another now and attempt to talk this excellent motion out.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Bob Porter (Medicine Hat):: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to respond to my hon. colleague's motion with respect to the head tax levied on immigrants from China from the period 1885 to 1923.
The head tax of 1885 and the subsequent Chinese Immigration Act of 1923 were, in their times, culminations of the prevalent fear of Chinese immigrants. The range of racist and discriminatory measures to which the Chinese historically were subjected in this country is astonishing to this generation.
Private Members' Business
We live in another era. My hon. colleagues have underscored the fact that the government measures encouraged the growth and development of a spirit of respect and equality. Canada was an original signator on the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, of the United Nations international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination, as well as the enactment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and its equality provisions.
Canadians of all cultural backgrounds benefit from a positive framework to combat racial discrimination. For example, we have the Canadian Multiculturalism Act and the employment equity legislation, including measures with respect to the representation of visible minorities in the Public Service.
My hon. colleagues have spoken of other programs and educational efforts that the government has undertaken to remove the stain of racism from all sectors of Canadian society; in education, the media, the workplace, business, health and social services, and public administration at all levels of government. The government's tabling of Bill C-63 which establishes the Canadian Race Relations Foundation demonstrates its commitment to the elimination of racism.
All these measures ensure a characteristic of our society that is so evident and of which we are so proud. Canada is a multicultural country and Canadians of Chinese origin or ancestry are an important part of this multicultural identity.
In 1947, the Chinese Immigration Act was finally repealed. By 1967, remaining vestiges of immigration discrimination against the Chinese were finally and completely removed. These landmarks did not occur by accident. They resulted from the struggle and determination of generations of Chinese Canadians and, eventually, from the majority of Canadians who could no longer condone such discrimination.
This struggle began almost from the very beginning of the Chinese community in Canada when Chinese Canadians, as was mentioned earlier, helped to build the national railway, under the most appalling conditions. Chinese Canadians were building the country during the early years of Confederation. They remain at the task today, joined with other Canadians in the process of building Canada.

June 14, 1990
Adjournment Debate
My hon. colleagues have referred to the various forms of discrimination to which Chinese Canadians were subjected. Yet, these Canadians fought back. They fought for their rights and for the welcome they deserved in their new land. Their struggle was carried out with patience, dignity, and persistence.
In 1922, in British Columbia, the Chinese Benevolent Association, led a year-long school boycott to protest against the policies of white supremacists in the Victoria school board. It ended when the board finally re-admitted Chinese pupils into the public schools. This incident was similar to many other measures that Chinese Canadians undertook to defend themselves. For example, in 1881, Chinese railway workers protested when a labour contractor tried to take a higher commission from their wages.
In 1916, the Chinese Labour Association was formed in British Columbia. The organization was tested in 1919 when local shingle mill owners attempted to roll back wages. The workers formed the Shingle Workers Association, struck for 40 days, and preserved their wage levels. Even in this instance, organized labour in Canada, 70 years ago, was discriminatory. The Trades and Labour Congress of Canada regularly passed anti-Chinese resolutions up until the 1920s, but Chinese Canadian workers eventually improved their conditions.
A significant role was played in protecting Chinese Canadians from racism by the Chinese Benevolent Association, formed in 1884, after the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Unfortunately I will have to interrupt the hon. member. The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired.
Pursuant to Standing Order 96(1) the order is dropped from the Order Paper.
I understand there were discussions earlier and there was unanimous consent to call it ten o'clock at this time. Is that still agreeable?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Roger Simmons: Madam Speaker, my general subject today will come as no surprise to you-it is fish, just as you thought. My particular subject has to do with the people in many parts of rural Newfoundland who are being pulverized because of the current situation in the fishery.
I gave notice some time ago that I was dissatisfied with an answer given to me by my friend from St. John's West, the Minister for International Trade, who was on that day speaking for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans who was away from the House on government business.
As you will know, Madam Speaker, under our procedures if we are not satisfied with an answer we can rise at this particular time. I rise because I am very dissatisfied with the answer the minister from St. John's West gave me that day.
First, let us note what day it was he gave that answer. It was February 13, four months and one day ago. I was asking before that and I have asked since that, but with respect to today's proceeding, four full months ago in this Chamber I asked my fellow Newfoundlander from St. John's West if he would come to the aid of those people in those small communities who are trying to protect a way of life, to hold on, to cling onto a lifestyle. They are trying, in the more immediate, to find enough money to put groceries on the table. Their fisherfolk, both men and women, are going out in the boats from places on the Port au Port Peninsula along the southwest coast in Fortune Bay and Placentia Bay, from communities like Garnish, Francois, Harbour le Cou, Petites, McCallum and many others along that coast.
These people, over the years, have gone out fishing and come back with a full boatload, a bumper load, as we say. These same people have been going out these past few months and not catching enough fish to pay for the cost of preparing to go out-the cost of the bait, of operating the motor, of the gasoline; let alone finding enough profit in that undertaking to buy the groceries,
June 14, 1990

let alone getting enough return on that day's work to pay for the loan on that boat from the Fisheries Loan Board or the local bank.
That is my subject, Madam Speaker. As you know, that has been my subject for some time in this House and I am sure it will come as no surprise to you that it will continue to be my subject until we get the attention of this government.
It is true, and I would be the first one to acknowledge this-indeed I thank the minister publicly-that after many months of preaching to the minister and his colleagues, the government did respond with a program which will somewhat help the people in the so-called offshore communities, the fishermen, the plant workers and the industrial base in communities such as Gaultois and Grand Bank.
At the time I asked that question four months ago and up until now the minister has not responded to the desperate plea of those people in those communities. That is a subject that I addressed earlier today in this House. I asked the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans a question on this subject only yesterday.
The question is simple, and the solution is very simple, too. The question is: What are you going to do to help those people who through no fault of their own have no income? Others have depleted the stocks. The foreign overfishing has depleted the stocks. The French fishing in 3PS have depleted the stocks.
Those people cannot catch the fish twice. They cannot catch the fish that has already been caught by someone else.
They are caught in that period. Should they abandon their communities, their way of life, their loved ones, their neighbours, their homes, their property and pack their suitcases and go to Fort McMurray or Cambridge, Ontario, or Toronto? No, that is not the solution.
The solution is right under our noses. The solution is to help these people bridge the gap financially from prosperous times, which they have known until a year or so ago, to more prosperous times. The government does tell us it is going to have the stocks rebuilt in three, four
Adjournment Debate
or five years' time. So let us keep those people there in a community where they can do what they know best, where their skills are related to the fishery.
In order to do that what we need, and what we do not yet have from this government, is a fisheries aid package to help the people in Piccadilly, Lourdes and the other places on the Port au Port Peninsula, on the southwest coast, in Fortune Bay, in Placentia Bay. These are people who are hurting today, whose pain and suffering could be eased if the minister with a stroke of a pen would exercise a bit of humanity instead of giving me those cheap partisan answers that he has been giving in the last day or two in particular. That is beneath him.
He would be equal to the task if tomorrow he rose in this House and said: "I recognize the plight of those people and I am prepared on behalf of the Government of Canada to do something about it". Let him be a man. Let him come to the aid of those people now while there is still time.


William James Kempling: Madam Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to expand upon the reply given the hon. member by the Minister for International Trade on behalf of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.
The government is fully aware of conditions throughout the Atlantic fishery. The 1989-90 winter fishery in NAFO division 3PS off the south coast of Newfoundland has experienced a catch failure. Landings data reveal that catches are only 50 per cent of the 1985-87 average for the area. Officials of the Departments of Fisheries and Oceans and Employment and Immigration are currently developing appropriate measures to assist the area plant workers in fisheries affected by the catch failures.
The federal government is deeply committed to the people of Atlantic Canada. The government is concerned both about the short term and long term conditions affecting the fishing industry. In most Atlantic fisheries, far more people depend on fishing activity than can earn a reasonable living from it. We recognize that there is a need to diversify local economies beyond the fishing industry and have evaluated other adjustment measures that will help produce excess capacity and

June 14, 1990
Adjournment Debate
improve fishery economic viability in existing communities.
Since January, the government has announced a $584 million assistance program to Atlantic fisheries. This is comprised of a short term adjustment package with a commitment to spend up to $130 million to assist employees in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland who are laid off because of a decline in the northern cod stocks, an additional $28 million to improve surveillance and a $426 million Fisheries Adjustment Program for Atlantic Canada that will implement a long term strategy for the fishing industry. That is the one that was announced on May 7.
These special programs will be in addition to the ongoing federal programs to assist in workforce adjustment, attracting other enterprises to Atlantic Canada in the pursuit of alternative employment opportunities.
In particular I would like to draw the member's attention to the Industrial Adjustment Service. This includes many programs to assist workforce adjustment in Atlantic fishing communities. Other measures include income support through unemployment insurance, training services, assistance in relocation, funding for community initiatives and assistance for workers 55 years of age or older.
The government has repeatedly demonstrated its concern with the fish stocks, industry conditions and the situation of individual fishermen and plant workers in Atlantic Canada.
Every year since 1985 the government has implemented special response measures specifically targeted to assist fishermen and plant workers affected by catch failures. The government has shown and continues to show compassion to individuals adversely affected by the conditions in the industry.
I might say, Madam Speaker, that if the hon. member could speak to his friends in the other place and have them pass Bill C-21 and put it into law that many of the complaints that he is making would be taken care of.


IMMIGRATION
Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Madam Speaker, on March 7, 1990, I asked the Minister of Employment
and Immigration to take action to stop the backlog of refugee claimants from destroying the refugee determination system, that is, by eliminating the old backlog.
My question was as follows:
I would ask the minister whether, in view of the hardship visited on people for some years now, including the members of her own immigration staff, and in view of this added delay for which she is responsible through that guideline, she will direct her staff to prepare a speedy system for landing all persons in that backlog according to the basic criteria of health and security.
The minister of course declined but without addressing the problem of delay which I had raised.
I want now to point out that we face a new sort of impasse. There is the old backlog which was 85,000 people. There is a new backlog in the new system. The old and new backlogs together total more than the original.
Of the old backlog by April, which is the latest figures available to me, there were still about 70,000 cases to be heard. Of the new backlog, in only 15 months since January 1, 1989, there were 18,000 cases waiting to be heard. In other words, the total new backlog is 88,000 cases-3,000 more than it was a year and a half ago.
One source of this trouble is the system of double hearings in the new refugee determination system. There is the hearing for a credible basis. That is to say when it is decided whether the claimant has some evidence upon which the board at a later hearing might find a legitimate claim. Then there is the full board hearing.
The very effective screening outside the country, of which the department staff are very proud, is preventing most would-be claimants from even getting to Canada to claim refugee status. We find that over 95 per cent of those who enter this credible basis test are found positively to have one and are sent on to the next stage.
At the next stage, 75 per cent are found to be refugees. So the great majority of the claimants who are dealt with are examined twice. I think that this was not the original intent of this law, but it is the effect of this law.
The delays are growing very seriously. In the estimates for this department, it was projected that the delay between the making of a claim and having a final decision by the end will be of this year nine months. This
June 14, 1990

was the system which was put forward by the government primarily on the claim that it would be fast. It said it would be fast and fair. There are some arguments about the fairness, and I will come back to that, but there can be no argument that it is not fast, as the government first said it would be.
The fact is that most of those who have had decisions so far have been accepted. With that of course I do not quarrel, since in the cases that I have heard of they deserved it. But the delay that is caused by this double system is causing great harm to refugee claimants. Justice delayed is justice denied. It is causing the breakdown of families. The wife and children are often separated and do not know why they are not being brought to join the husband and father. It is also destroying the new system. The backlog is greater than it was a year and a half ago, even if it is now divided into two categories.
Therefore the Canadian Council for Refugees, at its meeting on June 2, proposed that the minister amend the law in order to deal with this problem. It proposed that the minister amend the Immigration Act to delete the requirement for an initial prescreening hearing for refugee claimants, that she amend the Immigration Act to incorporate a full appeal as a right, and that the resources for the initial prescreening hearing stage be immediately reallocated to the appeal and the full hearing stage.
In other words, instead of spending the money on some very high-priced help, as well as some middle-priced help, to do the job twice-once at the preliminary hearing where 95 per cent are sent forward and once at the full hearing where 75 per cent are found to be refugees-do it once. Cut out that first prescreening, that first inquiry and use the funds and the staff from that.
The board member could be used to speed up the work at the second stage. Since only one-quarter at the second stage are being refused, there would still be money left over to give a decent appeal in accordance with international legal practice and in accordance with general Canadian practice.
Adjournment Debate
These refugee claimants are being discriminated against by being denied the right of an appeal in a life-threatening case which would be available even to a convicted murderer under Canadian legal practice.
Therefore, I urge the minister to consider seriously the proposal of the Canadian Council for Refugees.


William James Kempling: Madam Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to expand upon the reply given by the Minister of Employment and Immigration to the hon. member for Trinity-Spadina on March 7, 1990.
The suggestion made by the hon. member to land all persons in the backlog according to the basic criteria of health and security is in fact a general amnesty. The hon. Minister of Employment and Immigration has said that "an amnesty-would be an especially inappropriate response to a court decision which addresses itself to the application of rule of law and the requirement of fairness. Declaring an amnesty would subvert the very notion of the rule of law, and be patently unfair to the thousands of refugees who legitimately need Canada's protection". Such action would also send a clear message to bogus refugee claimants that they can come to Canada illegally and sooner or later they will be granted permanent residence.
As the hon. member is aware, in its report on the backlog clearance which was tabled on December 19, 1989, the Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration stated:
The committee recognizes the purposes of the various aspects of the program announced by the minister. Case-by-case processing means that all individuals are treated in the same manner and dealt with fairly. Adopting the credible basis test sends a message that Canada will be generous to those who need our protection, yet firm with those who do not qualify. Humanitarian and compassionate criteria protect those who might otherwise be placed in danger. The committee accepts and supports these general goals.
The Minister of Employment and Immigration acted quickly and responded to Mr. Justice Jerome's decision by providing new guidelines for administering the humanitarian and compassionate reviews of refugee claimants. Procedures were developed to ensure that everyone in the backlog, including those who were refused prior to this court decision, has the opportunity

June 14, 1990
Adjournment Debate
for a full assessment of humanitarian and compassionate considerations.
Therefore, the problem has been resolved. The backlog clearance system is continuing to operate.


NEW HORIZONS PROGRAM
Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Madam Speaker, I am rising concerning the question of the New Horizons program, a program for seniors in Canada which has obtained a very significant recognition by seniors' groups as a worth-while and innovative program whereby funds are made available to seniors and seniors' organizations to fund newsletters, publications, facilities that are being constructed, and so on.
The comments I have received about this program for many years always have been positive. Certainly, since I became a member of Parliament and became even more aware of their existence, seniors' organizations in my riding and elsewhere in Canada have praised this as a very worth-while effort.
The budget for the program is modest. I believe the figure for this year is only $15 million. The Minister of State for Seniors is veiy fond of pointing out in her answers to questions on the subject that that program has been maintained. In fact, if you bear inflation in mind, it has been whittled down, but I will leave that aside. I congratulate the government for not having reduced the expenditure. It cut almost everything else, but it has not cut this one. I am delighted that that is so.
What it has done is in a way worse. Four million dollars out of the $15 million has been frozen at the present time while the government undertakes a review of the effectiveness of the program. Every seniors group says the program is great, but the government still feels that after a few years in service it has to be reviewed in case it is not effective. So it is holding back $4 million. I do not know whether the $4 million is to pay for the firm that is going to do the review for the government, whether the government is doing an internal review or what. I do not have any details on that. I do not understand why the $4 million has to be frozen.
So I asked about this on June 1.1 put a question in the House during Question Period. The Minister of State for Housing was not here, neither was the Minister of National Health and Welfare or the President of the Treasury Board so, in the circumstances, I directed the question to the Acting Minister of Finance. However, he did not answer. I got an answer from the Minister of State (Youth), Minister of State (Fitness and Amateur Sport) and Deputy Leader of the Government in the House of Commons.
This very distinguished and capable minister appeared not to have grasped the facts in relation to the seniors program. Given his youth, his enthusiasm for fitness and amateur sports and his heavy duties as deputy leader of the government in the House, I was not entirely surprised. He suggested that there had been no change and that the money was flowing the way it normally did.
Some of us knew otherwise. Certainly seniors groups have experienced other answers than that. I was a bit surprised at the answer so I returned to the issue on Wednesday, June 6. By that time the Minister of State for Seniors had reappeared. However, I got exceedingly vague answers from her on this. She would not admit that there was a freeze although in fact she had done so in committee. I quoted from the committee proceedings of a few weeks before. It was all pretty vague.
It appears that, in spite of my questions, I was not getting any answers as to what was being done with this $4 million. I asked on June 1 and I asked again today. I hope that the parliamentary secretary, who I know is sitting here anxiously with a prepared answer which is probably full of facts, figures and everything else, is going to tell me everything I want to know.
But the question I asked then was:
Will the minister tell us when the review will be completed? When
will the frozen funds be released? When will the review's findings be
made public, or will they be made public?
They are all quite simple questions, but not one of them was answered by the minister on either June 1, when I first asked the question, or on June 6, when the Minister of State for Seniors as here.
On June 1,1 got an answer that was incorrect. On June 6,1 got an evasive, fumbling answer that simply said what a great program it was. I agree. I do not see a need for review. I do not know why the funds need to be frozen. The funds are frozen in different amounts in different provinces. In some provinces there is no freeze on their allocation. In other provinces there is a freeze on 25 per
June 14, 1990

cent of the allocation and in others it is less than 25 per cent. There is no rhyme or reason to this. The money should be available to the groups which have applied for it and need it.
It is a sensible program. It has worked very well. I submit there is no need for review. I would like to know from the parliamentary secretary, since this is an opportunity for more detailed answers on his part, who is undertaking the review and, if it is done by a private consortium or company, at what cost to the taxpayer. How much of the $4 million is actually going to be expended in reviewing the program?
In addition, would the parliamentary secretary let us know when the review will be completed, when the report will be made public, if it is to be made public, and when the freeze will be lifted on the funds that are currently being held by the government in order to facilitate this review.
I again urge the minister, through the parliamentary secretary, of course, Madam Speaker, to move with despatch on this matter, provide us with answers and get this money out because it is such a worth-while program. The money is very well spent and it will be of considerable benefit and advantage to the groups which have applied for the funding.


Mr. Benno Friesen (Parliamentary Secretary to Solicitor General of Canada)):: Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. The only point in his remarks that disappointed me was when he stated that there was no need for a review.
Putting his fine legal mind to it, I am sure he can understand that after a program has been in existence for about 18 years and has never had a review, under normal circumstances a review would be in order, even though we might think everything is going well. I hate to disappoint the hon. member because I think he wants me to announce some kind of iniquitous and inequitable disparity in the programs, but I am not going to do that.
I would hope that what he wants are at least two criteria fulfilled: one, that these programs give us value for money; and two, that there be an equitable distribution. I think that is the point of the question that he
Adjournment Debate
raised. As I said, the program has not been reviewed for 18 years and it is time that that took place.
I want to assure him, as he has already indicated, that the $15 million allocated to the program is intact for the 1991 year. It is intact. It is the same as last year. We can quibble about the cost-of-living increase and so forth but that is there. The important thing is that thousands of senior citizens across Canada are benefiting from this program and we applaud it.
The fact is also that the applications for the program are filled out unevenly. They do not draw on the programs evenly across Canada. Let me give an example. There are two seniors programs, one is the New Horizons program and the other one is the Seniors Independence Program that was brought into effect in 1988 by this government.
In Quebec, the people under-utilize the Seniors Independence program but they subscribe and could easily over-subscribe to the New Horizons Program. Both of these programs are a benefit to the seniors in the province and I think the member would accept that. However, the fact is that the New Horizons Program has some attraction to their community needs and they like it.
The Quebec population is about 24.4 per cent of the population of Canada and of the two programs they will receive between 20 and 25 per cent of the total funds available. I think that the member might at least admit that this is equitable distribution of funds, and I see he nods his head that that is true. At the same time, if we can tailor the programs to meet their needs, that is fair, and I think he would accept that.
British Columbia, my province, has 11 to 12 per cent of the total population of Canada and 13 per cent of the seniors population. British Columbia will receive 13 per cent of the total funds available. It so happens that in my own community, the city of White Rock, the population is 35 per cent over age 65.1 can tell the member that as popular as the New Horizons Program is, and as good as it is, and as many needs as it meets across Canada, there are a number of seniors in that community who disagree with the program and who feel that the tax dollars could be better spent in some other way.

June 14, 1990
Adjournment Debate
I want to assure the member that there is no subtle scheme to whittle away at this program. As I said before, and he has agreed, the funds are intact. The government spends three times as much in the way of programs for seniors now than before the seniors initiative was announced.
The seniors initiative, announced in February, 1988 set in motion the Seniors Independence Program, an increase to the New Elorizons program, and a number of other activities.
The member asked when will the review be done. I do not think that a date can be set on when the study will be
done. However, I can tell the member that the seniors of this country are going to get full value for their dollar. The program is not going to be eroded and it will be equitably distributed across Canada.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at ten o'clock a.m, pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.30 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
>